Reporting on the Times: The New York Times and the Holocaust

Gr 9 Up—How or why did a preeminent newspaper such as the New York Times "bury" reports of Holocaust atrocities coming from Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, especially when its owner was Arthur Hays Sulzberger, a Jewish American? Anti-Semitism in America during the time paralleled that in Europe. Jewish Americans were keenly aware of the bias against them, and a powerhouse like Sulzberger was especially wary. Perhaps to insure the Times's reputation, or to protect his own, reports of ghettoization, mass killings, and the extermination of Jews were relegated to the interior pages with tiny headlines. Meanwhile, the State Department notoriously squelched attention to Jewish sufferings, and anti-Jewish radio broadcasts by Father Coughlin poisoned national airwaves. Interviewed Warsaw Ghetto survivor Estelle Laughlin asks, why did the civilized world ignore the evidence? This film presents an indictment without a clear accusation. If the Times had featured front-page headlines about the atrocities against Europeans Jews, would the public have cared? Would U.S. action have been more decisive? Would it have made a difference? Today's viewers understand the gravity of the Holocaust, but during World War II there were only dozens of critical stories, and European Jews were "a strange people in a distant land."