| Talkback | |
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Title: | # 20 Ian Whitten | |||
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| Name: | Nick Ferriman | | |||
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| City: | Bangkok | State: | Thailand | | |
| Dear Ian, If the USAF and the RAF had bombed the rail lines into the camps, what significant difference would it have made? If for example the railway lines for 15-20 miles around Auschwitz had all been bombed, it would have been quite simple to frog march the passengers the remaining distance to the camp. And if they had bombed all the other camps as well, the final result would have been much the same. The Germans would have been inconvenienced, but I doubt very much that it would have stopped the operation of the death camps. On top of that, railway lines are relatively easy to repair. Trying to rebuild factories and replacing precision-engineered machinery damaged by bombing is time consuming, skill intensive, and expensive. In comparison, relaying track is quite straightforward. I would imagine a team of 50-100 people could repair 500-1000m of lightly damaged track a day; and the camps were not short of manpower. I also think the military planners could not actually appreciate the enormity of what was going on. Yes, there were reports of the death camps, but that data has to be accepted, and then internalized, across the whole command and control system, before any systematic and determined action can be taken. In hindsight, they could have done more. Even today, having visited Auschwitz and Belsen, and knowing what happened there, it is easy to be blase about it. Only when I stop and give myself time to get emotionally involved does the horror of it all strike home. Empathy is also an emotion that is deliberately put on hold until a war is over. |
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