To Taylor (17 August 1944)

49A Hornsey Lane Gardens, N.

Dear Taylor,

Karolyi suggested that I let you have some material on the ghastly affair of the Hungarian Jews.

A careful perusal of the enclosed cutting from the Times gives the gist of the story up to 20th July. It ends, as you {could}, with a reference to the Red Cross negotiations which open the second, no less disgusting phase. But for the Jewish interests suggested with these negotiations and the {circumstances} that the Berlin generals' putch happened to coincide with the publications of the Horthy-Göbbelsian blackmail, the matter would have attracted much more attention. As it, Macartney and Co. succeeded to quash the affair even after its publication in the Times, and other papers.

The gist of the Times account is of course, the attempt to drive a wedge between britain and the USSR. While in the case of the Katyn affair the corpses were already there, in this case Göbbels had to provide them first which he did not hesitate to do. Although nothing is known about the number of Jews actually murdered in the Oświęcim (Auschwitz) camp, 30 miles West of Cracow, there seems to be doubt about the very large number of Jews having been deported to that camp before the Red Cross compromise of 17th July.

As to this compromise. The Hungarian government agreed to [2/70]