1944

by Jay Winik

  CHAPTER 3

  South Carolina was hardly: Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It (Duell, Sloane and Pierce, 1946), 370; Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (Oxford University Press, 1979), 442.

  to rejuvenate themselves: This section closely tracks and benefits enormously from the small, original photographs of the Nazis, too often overlooked, that are lodged in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. They are a veritable treasure trove. Originally belonging to Karl Hoeker, an aide to Richard Baer, one of the commandants of Auschwitz, this album containing 116 photos is one of the great finds in studies on the Holocaust and of importance for understanding the mind-set of the Nazi high command at Auschwitz. This section also closely follows Jennifer Geddes, “Blueberries, Accordions, and Auschwitz,” in Culture (Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, 2008), 2–5.

  eight days of vacation: The photographs of these vacationing Nazis are chilling because they portray these Germans as loving, normal, people, as if they were our next-door neighbors.

  funeral in the snow: The German notations accompanying these photographs refer to the Allies who caused Nazis’ deaths as “terrorists.”

  Every day, they were awakened: For the horrific conditions at Auschwitz and the other camps, see Jan Karski, “Polish Death Camps,” Collier’s (October 14, 1944), 18–19, 60–61; Robert Abzug, America Views the Holocaust, 1933–1945: A Brief Documentary History (St. Martin’s, 1999); Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Indian University Press, 1998); Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan Van Pelt, Auschwitz (Norton, 2002); Christopher Browning, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp (Norton, 2011); Otto Friedrich, The Kingdom of Auschwitz, 1940–1945 (Harper Perennial, 1994); Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz (Chicago Review Press, 1995); Flip Mueller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers (Ivan R. Dee, 1999); Steve Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust: Documents in History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). Karski’s observations are particularly trenchant, because he was an eyewitness at one of the camps.

  the dreaded “cat”: The basis for this chapter is the remarkable memoir by Rudolf Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz (Barricade, 2002). For the sake of authenticity, I have sought to preserve his wording and voice. It was Vrba who called the whip used to lash prisoners the “cat.” See also Steinbacher, Auschwitz.

  “the way of Auschwitz”: Interview with Hans Munch, Moment Magazine, October, 1998.

  New Year’s celebration: For this New Year’s Eve festival at Auschwitz and the dinner menu, as well as the other entertainments and beautification efforts, see Steinbacher, Auschwitz, 73–75, also 42, on which I’ve extensively drawn.

  master potter Josiah Wedgwood: See Jay Winik, The Great Upheaval (Harper Perennial, 2008), especially 177.

  In Hitler’s . . . worldview: Kershaw, Hitler, 716–17. Of course like so many other Nazi prophecies this one proved to be false; it demonstrated the megalomania, delusions, and hubris of Hitler and the Nazi high command. They believed history would vindicate them. See also Michael Kimmelman, “50 Years After Trial Eichmann Secrets Live On,” New York Times, May 9, 2011.

  No man appeared less suited: For background see Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 14–17. Vrba was a remarkably intelligent man, despite his limited education.

  Ghettos sprang up: Ibid., 15.

  “neatness and order”: Ibid., 75.

  dream of escaping: Ibid., 121.

  became a courier: Ibid., 182–85.

  nibble on a piece of chocolate: Ibid., 137.

  “six months quarantine with special treatment”: Ibid., 189.

  a distorted fantasy: This section on the Jews from Theresienstadt closely follows Martin Gilbert’s harrowing account, Auschwitz and the Allies (Holt, 1981), 192–95, see also 178. On July 30, 1980, Vrba gave further information in a letter to Gilbert.

  to sing . . . Czechoslovak national anthem: See O. Kraus and E. Kulka, The Death Factory (Oxford University Press, 1966), 172–74; Erich Kulka, Utek z tabora smrti (Howard Fertig, 2013), 69–71; Yuri Suhl, They Fought Back: The Story of Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe (London, 1968), 244; Jadwiga Danuta, Amidst a Nightmare, 118–19. This twenty-one-page Yiddish manuscript (cited above), written in black ink, was discovered on the site of Crematorium III in 1952. The author is unknown and the final entry is dated November 26, 1944.

  “an army one million strong”: Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 207.

  the would-be escapees: Ibid., 210.

  “It was clear”: Ibid., 211.

  with salt and potatoes: Ibid., 214.

  Their bodies, mutilated: Ibid., 218.

  devised an audacious scheme: Ibid., 219–21.

  first known photographs of Auschwitz: tragically, the intelligence personnel didn’t realize the significance of the photographs. I have drawn heavily upon “Interpretation Report D:377A,” April 18, 1944, “Locality Oswiecim (Auschwitz): Synthetic Rubber and Synthetic Oil Plant,” United State Strategic Bombing Survey, Record Group 243; on the dramatic writeup in Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 190–91; and on Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 242.

  “They’re toying”: Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 242.

  “to tear a man”: On patrol dogs, see Himmler’s letter, February 8, 1943, in Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Harper Colophon, 1979), 584. They could also hear the chilling “monotonous sounds” of Jews being gassed and cremated.

  they were hiding right near: Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 245.

  housed in the Majdanek concentration camp: On this episode at Majdanek, see especially Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 201.

  humming in the sky: Ibid., 245–46. This dramatic episode of listening to the planes obviously plays into the debate about whether Auschwitz should have been bombed.

  “full report”: Ibid., 246. For this episode, see Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 196.

  They never looked back: See Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 247–48.

  CHAPTER 4

  depart for Hobcaw Barony: See Bernard Baruch, Baruch: The Public Years (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), 335–37; Lee Brockington, Plantation Between the Waters: A Brief History of Hobcaw Barony (History Press, 2006); Belle W. Baruch Foundation website; Mary Miller, Baroness of Hobcaw: The Life of Belle W. Baruch (University of South Carolina Press, 2010).

  the Secret Service detail was busy: Michael F. Reilly, Reilly of the White House (Simon & Schuster, 1947), 16. Also see A. Merriman Smith, Thank You, Mister President: A White House Notebook (Harper, 1946), 139. Roosevelt’s well-known fear of fire from his paralysis as well as from childhood experience.

  kept to a simple routine: FDRL video 135, a silent film of Roosevelt’s stay at Hobcaw Barony, may be seen on YouTube. This video shows Roosevelt’s attendants, the magnificent estate of Hobcaw, the American flag flapping in the wind, Fala galloping with a black cat, and near the end Roosevelt fishing from Bernard Baruch’s boat.

  “master raconteur”: From Doris Kearns Goodwin’s interview with Dr. Bruenn, in No Ordinary Time (Simon & Schuster, 1994). One can wonder whether McIntire was lax in not discussing more with Roosevelt. Roosevelt was surely content to hear as little as possible, but should McIntire have said more? It is of note that Dr. Hugh E. Evans points out that illness was not typically “discussed with patients.” He adds “presidential health matters were assumed to be private, rarely reported frankly or with clinical detail.” The Hidden Campaign: FDR’s Health in the 1944 Elections (M. E. Sharp, 2002), 61.

  “Attention! This is Auschwitz”: Rudolf Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz (Barricade, 2002), 248.

  Copies of the telegram: For the text of the telegram, see Erich Kulka, “Five Escapes from Auschwitz,” in Yuri Suhl, ed., They Fought Back: The Story of Jewish Resistance in Nazi Europe (Crown, 1968), 232. This paragraph closely follows Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (Holt, 1981), 196.

  told to shoot Jews: Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 250
.

  Suddenly, two children: Ibid., 248–51.

  Bielsko was exactly: Ibid., 251–54.

  en route to Slovakia: Ibid., 254–59.

  the British and the Americans as well: Roosevelt, of course, had considerable information about the impending slaughter, though not as detailed nor as authoritative as what Vrba and Wetzler could provide. Vrba and Wetzler had no way of knowing this. Ibid., 258–59. See also Vrba’s detailed letter in Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 203; more can be found in Kulka, “Five Escapes from Auschwitz,” 233.

  Oskar Krasnansky, a chemical engineer: Krasnansky was extremely impressed by Vrba’s and Wetzler’s extraordinary “memory” as he cross-examined them for two straight days on the specifics of Auschwitz. His note expressing his belief in the two escapees was first published by the War Refugee Board in Washington on November 26, 1944, as part of the overall official publication of the Vrba-Wetzler report. Yet to this very day, the details of how the Vrba-Wetzler memorandums got derailed remain clouded by the Nazis’ deceptiveness, the “blood for goods” proposal, and self-deception on the part of some prominent Jews. The story is worthy of a spy thriller. See, for instance, Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 262–65.

  His old love: For more on Lucy Mercer see Jean Edward Smith, FDR (Random House, 2008), 160–64; James MacGregor Burns with Susan Dunn, The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America (Grove, 2001), 155–56; Joseph P. Lash, Eleanor and Franklin: The Story of Their Relationship (Norton, 1971), 220; Elliott Roosevelt, An Untold Story: The Roosevelts of Hyde Park (Putnam, 1973); David D. Roosevelt, Grandmere: A Personal History of Eleanor Roosevelt (Warner, 2002), for example, 112.

  had his own scare: see Howard Bruenn, “Clinical Notes,” Annals of Internal Medicine, April 1970, 548. Nevertheless Merriman Smith observed that Roosevelt was “in good spirits.” See Smith, Thank You, 140–1. See also Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 500; Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (Harper, 1949), 371.

  Allied assault forces: Stephen Ambrose, D-Day (Pocket Books, 2002), 170. For a thorough treatment of the Slapton Sands episode, see Ken Small, The Forgotten Dead (Bloomsbury, 1988).

  “colored troops”: See Craig Smith, January 24, 2005, BBC printout on Slapton Sands; Small, Forgotten Dead, for example 44–48. Small’s account includes this description (48): “There were men shouting, screaming, praying and dying. . . . But the crying and yelling and screaming and praying had tapered off. The men were falling asleep, and letting go of the rafts—and dying.” See also Alex Kershaw, The Bedford Boys: One American Town’s Ultimate D-Day Sacrifice (Da Capo, 2003), 89, 90; Tom Sollosi, Valley Independent, June 3, 2004. Kershaw writes that some officers were so shocked by the “botch-up” at Slapton Sands that they began to question their role in Overlord.

  “the absence of toughness”: See Harry Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (Simon & Schuster, 1946), 531; Kershaw, Bedford Boys, 91. Kershaw notes (92) that secrecy about the disaster was imperative because if it became widely known it would alert the Germans to Overlord. See also Ralph Ingersoll, Top-Secret (Harcourt, Brace, 1946), 105. Over time, the bodies of all the intelligence officers were found; this was deemed a minor miracle.

  “The Bible says”: And rest of paragraph, see Rick Atkinson, The Day of Battle (Holt, 2007), 311.

  “brown as a berry”: New York Times, May 8, 1944. For “He is thin,” see Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 501–2; Hassett, Off the Record, 241.

  “let the world go hang”: See, for example, H. W. Brands, Traitor to His Class (Doubleday, 2008), 583.

  CHAPTER 5

  Roosevelt was sixty-two: Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (New York, Harper, 1949), 372.

  “We must constantly”: Morton Mintz, Washington Post, April 17, 1983.

  dispatched Joel Brand: For more on the tangled, mysterious episode known as the “Brand affair,” see Yehuda Bauer, Flight and Rescue (Magnes Press, 1981), 345. Also see Kai Bird, The Chairman (Simon & Schuster, 1992), 218. A young diplomat with the War Refugee Board, Ira Hirschmann, also wrote a detailed memo about the affair. For this, see especially Bird, 690, and Robert Rosen, Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust (Thunder’s Mouth, 2006), 392–94. In the beginning, Roosevelt enjoined Hirschmann to “keep talking.” While Hirschmann talked, FDR felt “these people [would] still have a chance to live.”

  “incredible Nazi black maneuver”: Eichmann smoothly told Brand, “I want goods for blood.” Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (Holt, 1981), 202. See also Bauer, Flight and Rescue, 144–49. Predictably, the whole affair eventually fell apart.

  last remnant of European Jewry: For a powerful account, see especially Elie Wiesel, Night (Hill and Wang, 1958), 3; Rudolf Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz (Barricade, 2002), 266; and Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, especially 182–210. The crematoriums were “littered with amorphous heads of corpses”: Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust (Franklin Watts, 2001), 344.

  headed into cattle cars: Primo Levi, the distinguished writer and Holocaust survivor, is particularly strong on this. See Survival in Auschwitz (Touchstone, 1996), especially 13–19. See also Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 40–55.

  hunted down: Bauer, History of the Holocaust, 344–45. See also Kershaw, Hitler, 760–65, 868.

  their finest clothes: Bauer, History of the Holocaust, 344. Wiesel, Night, for one, also documents the illusions many of the fearful Jews harbored.

  roundups were repeated: Bauer, History of the Holocaust, 344. Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, also underscores how the roundups continued.

  four thousand frightened children: BBC interviews with survivors. These transports were among the most poignant. Survivors remembered the children before they boarded the trains.

  Each train made its way: For conditions within cattle cars, see Levi, Survival, 17; Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 437.

  Few said a word: I have taken this directly from Levi, Survival, 17: I think Levi captures these tense moments as well as anyone. See also The Last Days, a documentary about five Hungarian Jews, directed by James Moll, executive producer Steven Spielberg.

  “Will there be playgrounds”: See, for instance, Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies; Levi, Survival, 18–19; Vrba, I Escaped from Auschwitz, 49; Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Holocaust: A History (Norton, 2002), especially 239–84.

  deaf ears: I’m basing this assessment on the interpretation of David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1944–1945 (New Press, 2007), 291.

  “I’ll see you”: Stephen Ambrose, D-Day: June 6, 1944 (Pocket Books, 2002), 166–69, quote from 168. I have drawn extensively on Ambrose for this paragraph; the English towns are from 116.

  Allied heavy bombers: See Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 190. For more on the Italian campaign see Carlo D’Este, Fateful Decision: Anzio and the Battle for Rome (Harper Perennial, 1992); see also John Keegan, ed., The Times Atlas of the Second World War (HarperCollins, 1989).

  “a disgraced president”: Rarely did Roosevelt indulge in such distraught thinking, but this was one such moment. See interview with Jay Winik in the documentary Pearl Harbor: 24 Hours After, History Channel, Anthony Giachinno, director, 2010; see also the American Experience PBS documentary FDR, David Grubin, director. For more, see Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time (Simon & Schuster, 1994), especially 506–7 on Roosevelt wishing to be in London.

  “Flash. Eisenhower headquarters announces”: New York Times, June 4, 1944.

  The weather, the waiting: Here I draw extensively on Goodwin, No Ordinary Time, 507; Ambrose, D-Day, 182–85; and American Heritage: New History of World War II, revised and updated by Stephen Ambrose (Penguin, 1997), 470–71. For more on the thoughts, concerns, and fears of the troops, see the magisterial Max Hastings, Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy (Vintage, 2006); see also D-Day: The Normandy Landings in the Words of Those Who Took Part, Jon E. Lewis, ed. (Magpie, 2010). There was a stark difference between the Germans’ and the Allies�
� forecasting. The Germans were impeded by the loss of their outlying weather stations, and this situation would contribute to their lack of preparedness. Whereas Captain Stagg predicted a “window” of reasonable weather after the poor conditions, on June 5, the Germans did not. This was a fatal error for them. See also Russell Weigley, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants (Indiana University Press, 1980); and Omar Bradley, A Soldier’s Story (Vintage, 1964). Stephen Ambrose, The Supreme Commander (Doubleday, 1970), is also quite good, and for the decision to initiate D-Day, I draw extensively on 414–18, which provides the most comprehensive treatment. An especially important resource is Captain Harry C. Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (Simon & Schuster, 1946). These sources, on which I draw heavily, are the basis for my scene about the decision to go and the beginning of D-Day. Hastings’s and Ambrose’s accounts are particularly strong and vivid, and were crucial to my vignettes in these pages.

  tremendous fleet of vessels: For these passages I have relied on (among other sources) James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom (Harcourt, 1970), 475–76. On Eisenhower’s decision to commence the Overlord invasion, see, for example, Mark Perry, Partners in Command (Penguin, 2007), 296–99. Some historians have Eisenhower saying, “Let’s go.” Perry gives the version, “We’ll go!” See also Ambrose, D-Day, 188–89; I follow Ambrose’s timing of the decision. Here, see Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (Holt, 2002), 525. “You know I’m a juggler”: This is one of Roosevelt’s most revealing statements.

  When the planes emerged: For these pages detailing casualties and mishaps; see in particular Ambrose: D-Day, 312–14; and MacGregor Burns, Soldier of Freedom, 476–77, on which I’ve drawn extensively. It was expected that the gliders would encounter problems and even crashes. Communication mishaps, however, such as those with battlefield radios, were not anticipated. Here of course is what the master strategist Carl von Clausewitz called the “fog of war.”