Rethinking the Dilemma of Bombing Auschwitz: Support, Opposition, and Reservation - Zohar Segev

The deportation of Jews from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau began in May 1944. The extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, to which Hungarian Jews were deported, was located within the range of the Allies’ bomber aircraft. This led to demands being made to bomb the site. The fact that the extermination camp was not eventually bombed, along with the powerful and dramatic impact of the murder of Hungary’s Jews during the final stages of World War II, have turned the episode of the failure to bomb Auschwitz-Birkenau into a symbol of the powerlessness of the free world and of the Jewish leadership to rescue the Jews of Europe.

In the presentation I will present new approach and rethinking regarding documents in archives of American Jewish activists involved in the issue of the bombing of the camp, above all Leon Kubowitzki, who headed the World Jewish Congress’s Rescue Department in NYC. From the documents, we learn that leading figures in the Jewish and Zionist leadership requested the US administration not to bomb Auschwitz and sought to examine other forms of military action that could be employed against the camp.
Perusal of the studies devoted to the issue of the bombing of Auschwitz shows that while a number of scholars took note of this request, they present it as a peripheral initiative. Contrary to the commonly accepted belief among scholars, the course of action taken by US Jewish leaders was indeed a significant strategic political step designed to damage the capability of the extermination camp by means other than bombing it.

Zohar Segev is a professor of Jewish History at the University of Haifa. Prof. Segev has published books and many articles on American Jewish History including, The World Jewish Congress During the Holocaust: Between Activism and Restraint (De Gruyter, 2014). Prof. Segev Last Book: Immigration, Ideology, and Public Activity from an American Jewish Perspective: A Journey Across Three Continents [Brill 2022, 280p].

Prof. Segev was the NYPL – Fordham Research fellow (2020/2021) and will be the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies fellow 2024, 2025. Prof. Segev is the elected Dean of the Faculty of Humanities (October 2024)

Thursday, April 3, 2025 • 314 Royce Hall • 2 PM
Rethinking the Dilemma of Bombing Auschwitz: Support, Opposition, and Reservation
The 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies

Zohar Segev (University of Haifa)
Moderator: David N. Myers (UCLA)