Why didn't FDR/Churchill bomb the rail lines leading to Auschwitz?

1 - Out of range of bombers, until mid-way through the war

2 - Not vital to defeat Nazi Germany, essentially a waste of resources. The bombers that could reach the area, where according to the military thought of the day, better utilized elsewhere in an effort to win the war quicker: bombing industry, later in direct support of ground troops, and even later in tackling the oil industry supporting the German war machine. Bombers were not invulnerable, attacking the rail lines in Poland would have resulted in the loss of bombers and air crew for no military benefit.

3 - Auschwitz was not the only death camp. Take out Auschwitz, there were others to take their place. Treblinka, for example, killed almost as many as Auschwitz.

4 - A waste of effort

4a - rails can be repaired pretty easily, not to mention it would require the mass destruction of much of Poland's railway system (see points 1, 2, and 3. Also note, that when the RAF and USSAF were ordered to support Operation Overlord they destroyed most of Northern France's infrastructure doing so - bridges, tracks, marshalling yards, and had fighters shooting up locomotives - and that took months) and if that happened:

4b - people can force marched to a camp if rails are destroyed

4c - The Holocaust started with the open air shooting of rounded up people

4d - After open air shootings, the Nazi regime experimented with mobile gas chambers

4e - If the death camps were only temporarily put of action, or transport to them disrupted, the regime would have found another way of doing what they wanted.

5 - I would imagine the political fallout of missing their target and hinting the camp (since Auschwitz was not just a death camp, but a collection of camps) would have been quite great and possibly even a propaganda coup for the Nazi regime. It would also level the charge of the Allies aiding in the genocide.

Alesha: As early as 1942, the Allies were aware of what the Nazi regime was up to, and released a statement at the end of that year confirming the Nazi's were in fact doing it.

For two reasons, first that accuracy would have been difficult (but not impossible, there were several raids that required better accuracy), the camps were well within range both RAF and USAAF have archive reconnaissance photographs of the camps and Birkenau was hit.

The second and most important reason was that bombing a railway line would have achieved nothing. It is not as if the prisoners would have been released or could escape just because a railway was interrupted. Bombing the camps (there were several all part of Auschwitz), would have achieved some confusion and probably killed some inmates - but that is all - no mass escapes, no miraculous rescue.

after 1940 there was no chance the allies could Bomb Auschwitz the Nazis Opened a British POW camp Inside Auschwitz these Pows were those captured at Dunkirk

there were Photo reconnaissance By Lancaster's and the death toll would Not warrant any Bombings

Standard Oil of new Jersey Used 82,000 slaves to run its Petrochemical Plant and at any Time there was 150,000 slaves working In auschwitz-Berkinau

While the Lancaster had a range of 2,500 miles and Dover to Auschwitz is only 1,856 miles you would have to fly the length of Belgium, and all across Germany and then two thirds of the way through Poland and then back.

It would have been suicide to even try. Raids on Germany at half that distance were harrowing and many boys didn't come back. To go four times that distance? Not likely. With the Aircraft of the day you would be flying in daylight. Across an entire enemy country. And they know where you are. And they have an entire air force to throw at you.

Remember, they had radio and telephones and could, and would, radio ahead. Once it was daylight and you weren't there yet? You were dead meat.

Well for starters, Auschwitz was one of hundreds of camps, subcamps etc. At most this would have been nothing more than a symbolic gesture. It would not have stopped the operation of the camps. The trains would have been temporarily redirected to another camp, tracks rebuilt and business as usual.

However, Auschwitz was well beyond the range of bombers.

Bombing a concentration camp is not going to stop the deaths of the inmates - the Germans could always just go back to shooting them or starving them to death. Winning the war as quickly as possible is the best way to save those lives. You have to put boots on the ground in order to finish the job. If U.S. and British pilots bombed the camp, you're not only going to kill the bad guys but the innocent inmates too. The Germans would use these deaths as propaganda by saying that it was an example Allied "barbarity" as to make it look like that the Allies done most of the killing of the inmates than the Germans.

First off they were unaware of what was going on until late in the war. Second Auschwitz was well out of range of any bomber they had in the inventory. Besides B-17 had a hard time hitting rail lines at 22,000 ft, if they hit anything it would be the rail yard of the nearby city. The Avro Lancaster may have had the range but wasn't equipped for daylight bombing and there was no way it was going to bomb a rail line in the middle of the night.

Railways were FAR too small a target for the bombers of the day. That's why they went after cities - and even then they often missed.

They were more concerned with destroying the German ability to manufacture war material.

They were WAY out of range of the bombers of that day.