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The book surveys the extent of allied knowledge regarding Auschwitz and other concentration camps during the Second World War. It reveals how Allies were aware of what was happening at camps much earlier than previously thought, and how propaganda and information agencies in the West controlled and prevented its dissemination.
List of contents
Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; 1. Introduction; 2. Censorship, self-censorship and the discursive environment; 3. The Polish government in exile in London; 4. Intelligence about Auschwitz: November 1940-February 1943; 5. British suppression of news of Auschwitz: March 1943-June/July 1944; 6. Reassessing the significance of the Vrba/Wetzler report; 7. Conclusion; Appendix 1. Information about Auschwitz to reach the West, November 1942-June 1944; Appendix 2. Archives and historians; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Michael Fleming is a graduate of the University of London and the University of Oxford. He completed his doctoral research at the University of Oxford, including a year affiliated to the University of Warsaw. He has since taught at Jesus College and Pembroke College, Oxford, and at the Academy of Humanities and Economics, Łódź. He has also been a visiting researcher at the Pułtusk School of Humanities and at the Institute of History, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. He is currently a professor at the Polish University Abroad, London, and conference secretary to the Institute for Polish Jewish Studies. In 2011, he was awarded the Aquila Polonica Prize. Fleming is the author of Communism, Nationalism and Ethnicity in Poland, 1944–1950 (2010) and many articles examining twentieth-century history.
Summary
The book surveys the extent of allied knowledge regarding Auschwitz and other concentration camps during the Second World War. It reveals how Allies were aware of what was happening at camps much earlier than previously thought, and how propaganda and information agencies in the West controlled and prevented its dissemination.
