en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrba%E2%80%93Wetzler_report
3 corrections found
As a result of the Swiss press coverage, details were published in The New York Times on 4 June 1944 while World War II was still in progress.
This date is too early for coverage caused by the Swiss publicity campaign. The Auschwitz Report only went public through Swiss media between June 18 and 22, 1944.
Full reasoning
The timing here does not work.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum dates the report's public emergence through Swiss media to June 18–22, 1944. It says the report "goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland" during that window, after George Mandel-Mantello received it and launched a press campaign.
The FDR Presidential Library likewise says that after Swiss press coverage of the report, details began appearing in American and British newspapers in June 1944. That means coverage resulting from the Swiss campaign must be after the Swiss campaign began—not on June 4, which is about two weeks earlier.
So the sentence is chronologically incorrect: Swiss press coverage in the second half of June 1944 could not have caused a New York Times story on June 4, 1944.
2 sources
- Auschwitz Report | Holocaust Encyclopedia
Between June 18 and 22, 1944, the Auschwitz Report ... goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland. ... Mandel-Mantello ... launched a worldwide press campaign condemning Nazi atrocities.
- Vrba-Wetzler Report - FDR Presidential Library & Museum
After Swiss press coverage of the report, some details began appearing in American and British newspapers in June 1944.
which were submitted together in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials as document no. 022-L, exhibit no. 294-USA.
The Nuremberg identifier is wrong. Harvard’s Nuremberg records list this evidence as L-22, U.S. Exhibit 294, not 022-L.
Full reasoning
The article transposes the Nuremberg document code.
Harvard Law School's Nuremberg Trials Project identifies the Auschwitz Protocols evidence code as L-22. Its document record states: "Evidence Code: L-22" and describes it as the War Refugee Board report German Extermination Camps - Auschwitz and Birkenau.
The trial transcript uses the same identifier when the evidence was offered: "I now offer in evidence the document identified by No. L-22, U. S. Exhibit 294."
So "document no. 022-L" is incorrect; the correct code is L-22.
2 sources
- Nuremberg - Document Viewer - Extract from a report on the extermination camps
Evidence Code: L-22 ... L-22: Copy of three reports of eyewitnesses on German Extermination Camps ... published in the United States by the War Refugee Board.
- Nuremberg - Transcript Viewer - Transcript for IMT: Trial of Major War Criminals
I now offer in evidence the document identified by No. L-22, U. S. Exhibit 294.
Historians studying the Holocaust today usually base their research on the German translation, which Allied forces also used when translating the report into English shortly after the end of the war.
The English translation existed during the war, not after it. Official sources say the U.S. government had English translations in October 1944 and the report was published in November 1944.
Full reasoning
The timing in this sentence is wrong.
The FDR Presidential Library states that the first English translations of the Auschwitz Protocols were received by the U.S. government in October 1944. The same page says the War Refugee Board then distributed the reports and that they were published nationwide on November 26, 1944.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's 1944 timeline likewise places the dissemination of the report in 1944, noting that Vrba and Wetzler's report was distributed worldwide in summer 1944 and that excerpts appeared in the international press that year.
World War II in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. So an English translation in October-November 1944 was months before the end of the war, not "shortly after" it.
2 sources
- Vrba-Wetzler Report - FDR Presidential Library & Museum
The first English translations of these reports, received by the US government in October 1944 ... they were published nationwide on November 26, 1944.
- 1944: Key Dates | Holocaust Encyclopedia
April 7, 1944: Vrba and Wetzler Escape Auschwitz ... Vrba and Wetzler's firsthand report is distributed worldwide in summer 1944. Excerpts of the report appear in the international press.