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Many authors claim that the Allies had maps, plans, and detailed descriptions of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps that would have enabled them to locate and bomb the gas chamber and crematoria installations there in the summer or fall of 1944.(1) During that time the Allies received two maps of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps along with appeals for the destruction of the gas chamber and crematoria installations.
The concentration camps were not bombed. The reasons for the Allied decision not to bomb are well documented and will not be discussed here.(2) This article is solely concerned with an examination and analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau maps to determine whether they could have been used to locate the camps and the gas chamber/crematoria installations.
Background--Escape of Vrba and Wetzler
On 7 April 1944, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, two young prisoners, succeeded in a daring escape from the Birkenau concentration camp, and arrived at Zilina, Slovakia on 25 April. They had held important positions at the camp, which had allowed them to collect exact information on the activities there. At Zilina on 25 and 26 April they reported to the members of a Slovak Jewish Working Group (a semiunderground group led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel) which had traveled from Bratislava, Slovakia, to hear their account.(3) A detailed report from these two eyewitnesses was compiled in Slovak and German that confirmed that Auschwitz-Birkenau was an extermination center. The German original of the Vrba-Wetzler report contained a map of the camps. The report was translated into several languages and sent out by underground courier to Budapest, Istanbul, Geneva, and to the Papal charge d'affaires for transmission to the Vatican. A second report, based on the accounts of Czeslaw Mordiwicz and Almost Rosin, who escaped from Auschwitz on 27 May 1944, was also sent out from Bratislava. Both of these reports were delivered to the representative of the Czech government-in-exile, Jaromir Kopecky, around 19-20 June 1944. A third account by an unnamed Polish major, later identified as Jerzy Tabeau, who had escaped on 19 November 1943, rounded out the full report. The complete version, including the map, was received by Roswell McClelland, representative of the U.S. War Refugee Board (WRB) at Bern, Switzerland, sometime before 24 June....