Hitler had to have been the greatest leader of this century. Now don’t get all mad and defensive before you read about the reason why I dare to make that statement. He wasn’t a drug lord like we have these days that deal with only certain kinds of druggies. He wasn’t a Middle East Dictator or even an African self elected Terrorist of his own people. He was a simple man who was a painter and yet was able to convince a nation of German people who were known for their beauty and intelligence to band with his insane ideas for his country and to follow him all across Europe doing the most horrific things to human kind. Why wasn’t he put in a straight jacket in the nearest mental ward?

 

Now new information has been revealed by a simple film student from New York University that major newspapers at the time practically ignored reporting that he was incinerating people and making their skin into lampshades. How could anyone ignore such horror? Yet, the New York Times and other major news publications that were even owned and operated by Jewish families failed to report the horrific news Why?

The Holocaust had to have been the most important series of events of the twentieth century. Yes, Hitler was a horrible thing. I refuse to even call him a person. That would humanize him. Yet he convinced perfectly normal, feeling, sensitive humans to follow him and to do his commands. This is no joking matter but I can’t even convince my kids to take their own trash out. How did he terrorize Jewish people, and people of the world to do his insanity? How could such horror not be questioned?

The author of the book, Buried by The Times by Laurel Leff wrote about the Holocaust and America’s most important newspaper. How a serious in-depth publication could turn into the three silly monkeys image of hear no evil, see no evil say no evil. For many in Europe their only hope for justice was to be found in America the place known for all people to live free without prejudice of any kind. Yet America during World War II did not report much on the concentration camps or any of the carnage.

Currently there is a 18 minute documentary that has premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is still being circulated to be seen everywhere. The college student is Emily Harrold who is the filmmaker and called her piece “Reporting On The Times.” She reveals that from 1939 to 1945 the New York Times published more than 23 Thousand front page articles about World War II . Only 26 articles were about the Holocaust. About 11,500 articles were buried in the newspaper and they were not about the inhumane acts of murder.

Larel Leff, the author, believes there were two main reasons why America did not report the Holocaust. One was that this was happening to a foreign minority group, a group that most Americans did not care very much about at the time and in the midst of a world war, it wasn’t as important as our boys dieing in the Pacific and in North Africa. However, the New York Times was the newspaper for the largest congregation of Jewish people in America and was owned and operated by Jewish people. The second reason was that the family was very concerned that The Times would not be considered a Jewish publication so they downplayed the reporting of the subject. How can anyone be that selfish to NOT stand up to what is just and right no matter what kind of people it involves , no less your own people? Hitler was much stronger than most people, even the influential people of the time.

The Boston Globe , The Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times also did not report much on the Holocaust. At the time the only news publications that did much reporting were liberal ones like The New Republic and The Nation that had a fair amount of coverage. Those papers did not reach out to enough people at the time. We take for granted how far we have come with news flashes coming to us on TV and on our phones instantly. In those days you had to go out and buy a newspaper.

So, should we say that ignorance is bliss? Can we say that Hitler wasn’t a great leader just that the world did not know the insanity he was doing to innocent families? I hope it all happened because many people did not even know about it. Franklyn D. Roosevelt and the State Department certainly knew what was going on yet even they downplayed the horror. Please do not let history repeat itself. A conspiracy of silence is wrong.