Gerhart Riegner, who first alerted the world to the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews, died Monday in Switzerland at the age of 90. Riegner was working for the World Jewish Congress in August 1942 when he sent a now-famous cable to England and the United States. “Received alarming report” that the Nazis are discussing a plan “according to which all Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Germany, numbering 3-1/2 to 4 million, should, after deportation and concentration in east, be exterminated,” the cable read. The State Department, however, said it would not pass on cables from private sources.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
