BOOKS
467
messages sent by police oH-i ce rs a ttached to the
Einsatzgruppen
in
Russ ia during the summe r of 1941 a nd based a t concentration a nd
extermina ti on camps be twee n the spring of 1942 a nd February 1943,
London was informed of the da il y ra te of killings in Russia a nd in
the camps. (The d a il y camp reports gave the number o f inma tes a t
the sta rt o f each previ ous day, the new a rrivals, the "depa rtures" by
a ny means, a nd the number of inma tes a t the e nd of the prev iou s
day.) But , wha tever the amount o f new informa ti on , the ma in prob–
lem rema ins one o f interpreta ti on .
The Terrible Secret
bears as subtitle
An Investigation into the Suppres–
sion
of
Iriformation about Hitler's "Final Solution.
"This can be unde rstood
in two ways: either as volunta ry suppress ion of informa tion , or as a n
inability to guess the mea nin g of the info rma ti on a nd hence its invol–
un tary suppress ion . The essentia l point made by Laqueur is tha t, in
fac t, little info rma tion was volunta ril y suppressed ("The re was no
delibera te a ttempt to stop the fl ow of informa tion on the mass kill–
ings, except for a whil e on the pa rt of o ffi cials in the Sta te Depa rt–
ment") a nd tha t the lack o f res ponse stemmed in pa rt from lack of
in te res t, in pa rt from di sbelief (among non-J ews a nd J ews a like).
"This disbelief," writes Laqueur , "can be expl a ined against the back–
ground o f An glo-Ameri can lack o f knowl ed ge o f European affa irs in
general a nd Naz ism in particul a r.. .. " And furth er : "The fac t that
milli ons were killed was more or less meaningless . . .. The sta ti stics
o f murder were e ithe r di sbeli eved or di smi ssed from consciousness.
. . . Thu s the news about the murder o f ma ny millions of J ews was
no t acce pted for a long time a nd eve n when it had been accepted the
full implications we re not unde rstood ...."
Walte r Laqueur's interpreta ti on is quite convincin g, b ut it gives
ri se to a maj o r dil emma. In the introdu cti on
to
hi s study, Laqueur
writes, "When a ll all owa nces have bee n made, when all miti gating
circumsta nces have bee n accorded , it is still true tha t few come out
o f the story unbl emi shed . . .. " There is a n obvious disc repa ncy
betwee n lack o f comprehe nsion , di sbeli ef, involunta ry suppress ion
o f info rmat ion because o f its a ppa rent "meanin gless ness" on the one
ha nd a nd , on the other , the mora l judgment implied in Laqueur's
sta tement. Thi s is a co ntradiction tha t Laqueur's study cannot
resolve, the dil emma o f our who le approach to the a ttitudes o f the
"onl ookers," a dil emma tha t has no real a nswer.
The di lemma becomes more ext reme as we a pproach the end of
the wa r.
It
seems ditti cult indeed to speak o f "di sbelie f" a nd "incom–
prehe nsion" as we reach mid-1 944 , the crucia l pa rt o f M a rtin
G ilbe rt's stor y. Both the Briti sh a nd the Ame ricans a re as ked
to
