The Bermuda Conference was considered a cruel joke that was designed to convince the world that a solution to help Jews in World War II was viable. In fact, nothing happened. From left are delegates George Hall, Harold Dodds, Richard Law, Sol Bloom, and Osbert Peake. “It was a conflict of self-justification, a façade for inaction,” said Richard Law, British chairman of the delegation at the Bermuda conference. For more information, click here.
By: Phil Kohn. Dedicated to the memory of his father, GM3 Walter Kohn, U.S. Navy Armed Guard, USNR, and all men and women who have answered the country’s call in time of need. Phil can be contacted at ww2remembered@yahoo.com.
On March 19, the Bermuda Conference between the U.S. and the U.K. opens. The agenda is to discuss the plight of European Jews, and what to do for them. After 11 days of meetings, conference delegates come to no solid conclusions and offer no recommendations, other than that the war against the Nazis must be won.
The British Eighth Army on March 20 continues its attacks against the German and Italian defenders on the Mareth Line in southern Tunisia. From Tokyo, the Imperial Japanese Navy sends out orders to its submarine force: “Do not stop at the sinking of enemy ships and cargoes. At the same time, carry out the complete destruction of the crews of the enemy’s ships.” In essence: Leave no survivors. The first train of 19 that will carry Greek Jews to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz, in Poland, departs Thessaloniki. The removal of Greece’s Jews will be complete by mid-August.
In the Netherlands, German authorities on March 21 order the work week extended to 54 hours. In Berlin, Adolf Hitler visits an armory where he is to view captured Soviet weapons and equipment. He is accompanied by a retinue including Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz. The group is to be guided through the display by Col. Rudolf von Gersdorff, an intelligence officer in the Wehrmacht (German Army). Expecting the German leader to be with him for at least half an hour, von Gersdorff has two explosive devices in his pockets, timed to go off in ten minutes, hoping to assassinate Hitler via a suicide bombing. Der Führer, however, races through the exhibit in less than five minutes and leaves. Von Gersdorff goes into a bathroom, defuses the devices and hides them, manages to evade suspicion, and continues his military career undetected, rising to the rank of major general.
On March 22, the entire population of Khatyn, Belarus, is rounded up, herded into a barn and burned alive by German occupation forces. 149 people — including 75 children — are killed. The only survivors, all badly burned, were two boys, 7 and 12 years old, and the 56-year-old village blacksmith. (At least 5,295 Belarussian settlements, villages and towns are destroyed by the Germans during the war, with some or all of their inhabitants murdered — as punishment, the Germans state, for collaboration with anti-Nazi partisans. Altogether, some 2,230,000 Belarussians are killed during the three years of German occupation, roughly a quarter of the country’s population.) The Nazis begin ramping up operations at their extermination camps in Poland: the first of 4,000 French Jews are executed at Sobibór; the first of 7,100 Yugoslavian Jews, at Treblinka; and the first of 1,700 Romani (gypsies), at Auschwitz.
In Tunisia, Axis forces counterattack U.S. lines at El Guettar on March 23. The 10th Panzer Division attacks the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, and German tanks break through between the 3rd and 1st Battalions of the 1st Division, reaching a position about six miles to the rear of the 1st Battalion. Off Algiers, Algeria, the British troopship RMS Windsor Castle is sunk by a German Heinkel HE 111 bomber. Amazingly, only one crewman is killed, while 2,699 soldiers and 289 crewmen are rescued by escort ships. In Denmark, German occupation authorities permit parliamentary elections to be held; candidates of the Danish Nazi Party receive only slightly more than 3% of the votes.
In the U.S., Army Lt. Gen. John DeWitt, administrator of Japanese-American internment, issues regulations on March 24 mandating an 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for all persons of Japanese ancestry. The curfew, upon appeal, is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tanks of the U.S. II Corps defeat German and Italian elements of the Afrika Korps at El Guettar, Tunisia, on March 25. In the Netherlands, German authorities order all physicians to register; 97% of all the doctors in the country refuse to do so. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop warns Finland that the Third Reich will not tolerate the Nordic country’s withdrawal from its partnership with the Axis powers, nor any peace negotiations with the Allies.
