Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations

The Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations was the first formal statement to the world about the Holocaust, issued on December 17, 1942, by the American and British governments on behalf of the Allies of World War II.The name "United Nations" for the World War II allies was suggested by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers." British Prime Minister Winston Churchill accepted it, noting that the phrase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35). In it, they describe the ongoing events of the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe.

The statement was read to the British House of Commons in a floor speech by Foreign secretary Anthony Eden, and published on the front page of the New York Times and many other newspapers. It was made in response to a 16-page note addressed to the Allied governments on December 10 by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Polish government-in-exile, Count Edward Raczynski, titled The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland and his official Radzinski's Note addressed to western governments.

The Members then stood in silence, an honor usually reserved for the death of a Monarch.Hansard; JEWS (GERMAN BARBARITIES), United Nations Declaration, HC Deb 17 December 1942 vol 385 cc2082-7 (online)

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See also

Punishment for War Crimes Bibliography of the Holocaust § Primary Sources

References