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THE "FINAL
SOLUTION" GETS BURIED
New
York Times June 30, 1942, page 5. |
Spring
1942: Concentration camps at Auschwitz and Majdanek are activated
when the Ghettos in German-occupied Poland are filled. In June,
the New York Times publishes its first account of Hitler’s
"Final Solution to the Jewish Problem," but the story
is BURIED on page five, despite the fact that the paper calls
the executions "the greatest mass slaughter in history."
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Why
do newspapers bury the story?
During
World War II, a virulent anti-Semitism movement exists in
the United States. Some newspaper editors are openly anti-Semitic,
and support the Roosevelt administration’s policy of
restricting Jewish immigration. The New York Times
has a unique dilemma. Many historians and former New York
Times employees believe the paper’s editorial philosophy
on Jewish stories flows from the paper’s publisher, Arthur
Hayes Sulzberger, who is Jewish. Sulzberger is vocal in his
conviction that Jews should not be identified solely by their
religion.
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