The mass extermination of Jews in German occupied Poland

There was a rather odd supplement included in a recent issue of the 'Guardian', entitled 'THE WORLD KNEW' and published on behalf of the Polish ministry of Foreign Affairs. The supplement was about one Jan Karski, of whom I had not previously heard and who was one of those responsible, in late 1942, for telling the world about what was going on in Poland at that time. My first thought was that this was all a bit odd, given the rather mixed record of the non-Jewish Poles in this matter.

But the supplement highlighted the document illustrated, which I now find to be well known to Professor Google and whose Cultural Institute offers a good quality facsimile. He also draws my attention to the Polish Institute in Prince's Gate where I could no doubt be shown a copy of the actual document.

A document which says that a third of Poland's 3 million Jews had been killed by the Germans in the first three years of war but which, it seems, had little immediate effect on the conduct of the allies. We did not attempt to disrupt the killing, we did not attempt to bomb the railways which fed the camps - although I have no idea whether such attempts would have been possible or whether they would or could have achieved much. I suspect that they would not have achieved much but I also think that we should, nevertheless, have mounted something of a demonstration, a demonstration of knowledge and intent, which would have been better than doing nothing, particularly when one thinks of the bombing that was done - for example, not quite at random, of Caen and Würzburg - and of the difficulty of finding ordinary bombing targets by the end of the war.

Perhaps the best we can do now is to remember what was done, and what was not done, then.

The good news is that Karski at least went on to a long and successful life in the US.