The New York Times devoted a good deal of space to the death of historian
Kenneth Libo. But what the Times did not mention in its April 5 obituary for
Libo was an accomplishment involving the Times: documenting how the Times and
the secular press in the US in general downplayed the Holocaust.
This,
Libo showed, was in contrast to the Jewish press which prominently and in detail
presented some of the same information about the Holocaust.
Libo did this
as curator of historical exhibits at the National Museum of American Jewish
History in 1987 in Philadelphia. He did the research for and assembled an
exhibit titled “A People in Print: Jewish Journalism in America.” A major focus:
how the Jewish press emphasized the Holocaust, “reported it on the front
page.”
But for the US secular press, explained Libo, “the New York Times
set the standard by putting this news not on the front page but on the back
page.”
Documenting the Times’ behavior, a wall at the exhibit contained
enlarged photocopies of articles from the Times about the Holocaust –the most
terrible stories, but given short shrift, relegated to back
pages.
Alongside these were enlarged photocopies from the Jewish press,
especially The Forward, about the same things, but well displayed and
extensively reported.
“The horror,” Libo told me, “is to find a
one-column headline on Page 16 of the Times saying, ‘One Million Jews Killed.’”
The exhibit was brought to the Jewish Museum in New York a year later, but this
time the photocopied articles from the Times which showed so effectively in
Philadelphia how the Times did not give proper attention to the horrific events
that occurred in Europe were eliminated. The Jewish Museum, said Libo, advised
him that its policy was to only exhibit originals of newspaper
articles.
Still, at the Jewish Museum, there was a narrative posted on
the wall which spoke of how “the Anglo-Jewish press, fearful of having the war
effort perceived as a Jewish issue, did not play as important a role as it could
have in informing the public” of the Holocaust. “Setting the tone for coverage
in the general press,” it continued, “the New York Times downplayed reports of
the planned destruction of Eastern European Jewry.”
Libo’s work on the
New York Times and the Holocaust was paralleled by Deborah Lipstadt, now
professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, in
her book Beyond Belief, the American Press and the coming of the Holocaust
1933-1945.
In it, she wrote: “Had the Times reacted with less equanimity
[to news of the Holocaust], it is possible that other American papers would have
followed suit.”
The New York Times obituary for Libo, who died March 29
in New York City from complications of an infection, stressed how “working for
Irving Howe in the 1960s and ’70s, [he] unearthed historical documentation that
informed and shaped World of Our Fathers, Mr. Howe’s landmark 1976 history of
the East European Jewish migration to America.”
It said, “Scholars
familiar with his archival work credit Mr. Libo with adding a level of emotional
detail, and a view of everyday life in the teeming tenements of the Lower East
Side of Manhattan, that the book might have lacked without his six years of
work.”
It also noted that he “lectured widely, taught literature and
history at Hunter College, and received a PhD in English literature from the
City University of New York.”
The writer is professor of journalism at
the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury and a board member of
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), the New York-based media watch group.
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