Great Britian & the Holocaust: Jewish Agency Asks Britain to Bomb Death Camps

During 1944, Jewish organizations around the world stepped up their requests to the Allied governments that they bomb the death camps in Poland. Controversy swirled in the late summer as the U.S. War Deparment rejected a plea from the World Jewish Congress to bomb the Auschwitz rail lines.

In August 1944, the Jewish Agency for Palestine wrote to the British Foreign Office, enclosing plans and descriptions of both the Auschwitz and Treblinka death camps, in hopes that they would be used by the British to plan an attack on the camps.

Map of Auschwitz (above) Jewish Agency Letter (left) Key to Auschwitz Plans (right)

Sources: British National Archives