Jewish Troops and Jewish Victims: soldiers encounter the Holocaust

“An in-depth look at how The New York Times failed in its coverage of the fate of European Jews from 1939-1945. It examines how the decisions that were made at The Times ultimately resulted in the minimizing and misunderstanding of modern history's worst genocide. Laurel Leff, a veteran journalist and professor of journalism, recounts …. [the factors which] led The Times to consistently downplay news of the Holocaust. It recalls how news of Hitler's 'final solution' was hidden from readers and - because of the newspaper's influence on other media - from America at large”, most especially those young men who would eventually serve in the armed forces. [from publisher summary]

D804.19 .W49 2003

But it was not just the New York Times, or American journalists, that failed in their coverage of the Holocaust as it was happening. “..the heart of [this] book is its informative descriptions of British, Soviet, German, Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Ukrainian, French, Greek, and Hebrew journalism during the 1930s and then during WW II. …the contributions are real and informative, including… two essays devoted to British journalism …. coverage by The Times (of London: only up to 1942) and the London Jewish Chronicle…” [Choice 2003]

Allied soldiers from all nations were not well-served by their national press, but those armies which were most prominent in liberating Nazi concentration camps – American, British and Soviet – were often devastated by these encounters, having had no idea what they would find.

In the chapter by Jeffrey Shandler titled “The Testimony of Images: the Allied liberation of Nazi concentration camps in American newsreels”, the author notes the overwhelmingly powerful role that the documentation of the liberating armies played – newsreel film, stills from films & photographs as well as diaries, letters & memoirs –in creating initial and lasting images of the Holocaust for the Allied public at large.
Shandler singles out Gen Eisenhower for his foresight in insisting on official Army documentation of the camps as they were liberated:
“General Eisenhower, commander of the Allied forces in Europe, took the lead both in arranging these [direct encounters of Allied soldiers, journalists, and governmental representatives with the camps], and moreover in investing the act of witnessing the conditions of the camps with special moral significance. In communication to other military leaders, made within days of his first visits to the camps of Ohrdruf and Buchenwald (...12 and 13 April, 1945…), Eisenhower comments both on the enormity of what he had seen and on the importance of serving as an eyewitness to scenes that “beggar description.”