ORIGINAL VERSION DELIVERED TO THE POPE, CHURCHILL & FDR
Here, in PDF format, is a version of the original Vrba-Wetzler Report as it was supplied to the War Refugee Board. It was entitled “Testimony of Two Escapees from Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camps at Oswiecim, Poland.”
The Vrba Wetzler Report Received in Washington DC.pdf
Seven months after the findings of the Vrba-Wetzler Report reached the War Refugee Board of the U.S. government in April of 1944, a bald-faced lie appeared in the third paragraph of the government’s official release of that report on Sunday, November 26, 1944:
“The War Refugee Board is engaged in a desperate effort to save as many as possible of Hitler’s intended victims.”
No individual is listed as the author of the aforementioned sentence, quite likely because there remained a paper trail to substantiate an accusation that, in fact, the United States of America had clearly decided NOT to act upon the irrefutable reportage attributed to “two young Slovakian Jews who escaped in April, 1944.”
It has taken almost a lifetime since the full text of the Vrba-Wetzler Report was officially and anonymously accepted by the Executive Office of the President, War Refugee Board, for that aforementioned italicized boast of righteous intentions and actions by the United States to be challenged by historians–and this website.
As is now made clear by the Desk Murderer section, it was chiefly John J. McCloy—acting on behalf of 76-year-old Republican Party politician and WRB member Henry L. Stimson, who served as Secretary of War (1940–1945) under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman—who went out of his way to ensure the United States did not interfere with Hitler’s slaughter of Jews, facilitating millions of murders as a result.
Below is a link to the New York Times coverage of the report. Most of the coverage appears on an interior page festooned with fashion ads. Only a tiny portion of the New York Times coverage appears on the bottom of the front page.
The Report New York Times coverage
Although Vrba and Wetzler are not named in the report, they did identify some of the Slovakian prisoners they knew who were being detained, along with their places of origin. Most of those mentioned were fellow Slovakians. Here are, two examples/excerpts for Maco Winkler and Rozsi Fuerst.
“When we reached the hill, we suddenly saw the very large camp of Maidenek, surrounded by a barbed wire fence three meters high. As soon as I entered the gate of the camp, I saw Maco Winkler, who is from Nagyszombat (Trnava). He warned me that all my parcels and clothes would be taken away. Slovak Jews who had arrived earlier surrounded us. They were dressed in rags of prisoners’ uniforms, had shaven heads, were barefoot or in wooden clogs, and many had swollen legs. They begged for food or other small items. We distributed almost anything we had, since we knew that anything we kept would be taken away anyhow.”
About 500 elderly Czechs died during the six months’ quarantine period. Of the whole group, the only ones left alive were eleven sets of twins taken to Auschwitz for biological experiments. When we left Birkenau these children were still alive. Rozsi Fuerst, a girl from Sered, was among those executed.
Ladislau Braun – Nagyszombat (Trnava)
Gross – Verbo (Vrbové)
Viktor Mordarki — The head of the hospital was Victor Mordarki, No. 3550, a Polish political.
Zucker and Wilhelm Sonnenschein – East SlovakiaMatthias Kelin – East Slovakia
Meilech Laufer – East Slovakia
Jozef Zelmanovics – Snina
Adolf Kahan – Pozsony
Walter Reichmann – Sucany
Esther Kahan – Pozsony
Torres and Leon Blum
Dr Mandel Zoltan – Eperjes
Holz
Nikolaus Engel – Zsolna
Chaim Katz – Snina
Ludwig Katz – Zsolna
Avri Burger – pozsony-Poprad
Nikolaus Steiner – Vag- Beszterce
Gerog Fried – Trencsen
Buchwald, Josef Rosenwasser -East Slovakia
Julius Neumann – Bartfa
Alexander Wertheimer – Verbo
Michael Wertheimer – Verbo
Bela Blau – Zsolna
Alexander Weisz – Nagyszombat (Trnava)
Franz Wagner – Nagyszombat
Oskar Steiner – Nagyszombat
Desider Wetzler – Nagyszombat
Aladar Spitzer – Nagyszombat
Bela Weisz – Nagyszombat
Fredy Hirsch – Prag
Furst Rozsi – Szered
Laufer Ruzenko – Prag
Hugo Langsfeld – Prag
Walter Spitzer – Nemsova
Josef Neumann – Snina
Luis Eisenstadter – Korompa
Josef Zelmanovics
Luis Solmann – Kezsmark
Chaim Ketz – Snina
Ernst Rosim – Zsolna
Dr Andreas Muller – Podolinec
Walter Spitzer – Nemsova
Next: VERSION TWO