On 10 December 1942, the Polish Government-in-Exile sent a diplomatic note to 26 Allied foreign ministers who signed the Declaration by United Nations warning the Allies and the West of the Holocaust in German-occupied Poland. The letter, known as Raczyński’s Note, was signed by Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Polish Government-in-Exile in London Edward Raczyński.
The nine-page diplomatic note, which followed the decision by members of the Polish government to form a government-in-exile in Paris after Nazi Germany’s 1939 invasion and occupation of Poland, called on Allied governments to condemn the crimes against humanity committed against Jews and to take active steps to prevent them. It also also outlined the historical background of the situation in Poland and the situation of Jews in occupied Poland at the time. In addition, it identified Treblinka, Bełżec and Sobibór by name as extermination camps, revealed the use of poison gas, and estimated that one in three Jews in Poland were already dead. The invasion came a little over a week after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union a non-aggression treaty known as the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, allowing Hitler to avoid a two-front war at that time, while Stalin was able to extend Soviet rule across eastern Poland, the Baltic states, and parts of Romania.
The diplomatic note read as follows:
The Polish Government — as the representatives of the legitimate authority on territories in which the Germans are carrying out the systematic extermination of Polish citizens and of citizens of Jewish origin of many other European countries — consider it their duty to address themselves to the Governments of the United Nations, in the confident belief that they will share their opinion as to the necessity not only of condemning the crimes committed by the Germans and punishing the criminals, but also of finding means offering the hope that Germany might be effectively restrained from continuing to apply her methods of mass extermination.
Although Raczynski’s Note contained extensive information on the Holocaust, its effect was unfortunately relatively limited, as many people outside German-occupied Europe found it difficult to believe the Germans were systematically exterminating Jews.
On 17 December 1942, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and nine Allied governments-in-exile released a “Declaration on Atrocities.” While the statement stopped short of promising an Allied rescue, it did condemn the “cold-blooded extermination” and vowed that the Allied forces would punish the war criminals who were responsible.
In January 1944—nearly 14 months after the Raczyński Note was sent—President Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board. While that body aimed to rescue European Jews from the Nazis, by that point millions had already fallen victim to Hitler’s plan.
Three million Polish Jews perished during the Holocaust, approximately 90% of the pre-war Jewish community, which had been the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world.
The diplomatic note came a little over four months after Gerhart M. Riegner, the World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, dictated a telegram, known as the Riegner Telegram, to American vice-consul Howard Elting, Jr. about Hitler’s plan to murder millions of European Jews.
