TODAY, NOVEMBER 1, COMPLETE 80 YEARS OF THE OFFICIAL BEGINNING OF THE DENIAL OF THE HOLOCAUST

THE DECLARATIION CONCERNING ATROCITIES OF NAZY GERMANY

The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom (Anthony Eden), the United States (Cordell Hull) and the Soviet Union (Vyacheslav Molotov) met in Moscow at the Moscow Conference of October 1943. In one of the documents that resulted from this meeting, the Declaration Concerning Atrocities, the Jews and the Holocaust were not even mentioned. Although the leaders were perfectly aware of the mass extermination of Jews, the Holocaust was treated as just another aspect of the German occupation and none of them saw it as a reason in itself to wage war on Nazi Germany! There was a tacit agreement not to even mention the selective killing, as if the Jews had not been the most harmed.

The “Jewish question” was not only a German or Soviet issue, but also in the Western Allied countries the presence of anti-Semitism obstructed the prosecution of war crimes. There seems to have been a concordance between the communist need to hide its policies of extermination, mainly in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus (today Belarus) and the Baltic countries, and the wave of anti-Semitism that swept, during the Nazi occupation, France, Belgium , Netherlands and Eastern European countries making them willing collaborators with the Nazis in the Final Solution, although nominally enemies of Germany. This distinction is important: there was a war between countries, but a tacit anti-Semitic alliance.

Moscow Declaration on Atrocities

by President Roosevelt, Mr. Winston Churchill and Marshal Stalin, issued on November 1, 1943

The United Kingdom, the United States and the Soviet Union have received from many quarters evidence of atrocities, massacres and cold-blooded mass executions which are being perpetrated by the Hitlerite forces in many of the countries they have overrun and from which they are now being steadily expelled. The brutalities of Hitlerite domination are no new thing and all people or territories in their grip have suffered from the worst form of Government by terror. What is new is that many of these territories are now being redeemed by the advancing armies of the liberating Powers and that, in their desperation, the recoiling Hitlerite Huns are redoubling their ruthless cruelties. This is now evidenced with particular clearness by the monstrous crimes of the Hitlerites on the territory of the Soviet Union which is being liberated from the Hitlerites and on French and Italian territory.

Accordingly the aforesaid three Allied Powers, speaking in the interests of the 32 United Nations, hereby solemnly declare and give full warning of their declaration as follows: At the time of the granting of any armistice to any Government which may be set up in Germany, those German officers and men and members of the Nazi party who have been responsible for or have taken a consenting part in the above atrocities, massacres and executions will be sent back to the countries in which their abominable deeds were done in order that they may be judged and punished according to the laws of these liberated countries and of the Free Governments which will be erected therein. Lists will be compiled in all possible detail from all these countries having regard especially to the invaded parts of the Soviet Union, to Poland and Czechoslovakia, to Yugoslavia and Greece including Crete and other islands, to Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Italy. Thus, Germans who take part in wholesale shootings of Italian officers or in the execution of French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages or of Cretan peasants, or who have shared in the slaughters inflicted on the people of Poland or in the territories of the Soviet Union which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged. Let those who have hitherto not imbued their hands with innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three Allied Powers will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to the accusers in order that justice may be done. The above declaration is without prejudice to the case of the major criminals whose offences have no particular geographical location and who will be punished by a joint decision of the Governments of the Allies.

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https://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/moscow.asp

© 2008 Lillian Goldman Law Library

127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06511

Introduction is mine