School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

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'Frightful crimes': British press responses to the Holocaust, 1944-45

Mosley, Paul David ( 2002-10)

This thesis investigates how the British press responded to the extermination of European Jewry in 1944 and 1945, well after the West first received reliable reports about the mass killings of Jews in the middle of 1942. Most historians have argued that the press was reluctant to publicise the mass murder of Europe’s Jews in 1942, and they contend that this subject was also neglected in the last two years of the war. But their claims have not been substantiated by a systematic press survey. This thesis provides a systematic analysis of the British press’s response to the Holocaust in 1944 and 1945. There were three crucial developments relating to the extermination of European Jewry in 1944 and 1945. With the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944 its Jewish population of approximately 800,000 faced extermination. Between May and July of the same year almost 400,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Poland where, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, most were exterminated. In April and May 1945 Allied forces began to uncover concentration camps in Germany into which many Jews (including many thousands from Hungary) had entered after being expelled from Polish extermination camps such as Auschwitz. As the German concentration camps were liberated, many Jews were found among the freed inmates.