From getto to swamps? Lasting Nazi fake news about sending deported Jews to drain the Pripet Marshes

Abstract

ABSTRACT Beginning in October 1941, a rumour circulated in the occupied territories and in the press of the free world that Jews deported from the ghettos were being sent to the Pripet Marshes for land reclamation. In reality, this was fake news created by the Nazis to cover up the ongoing Holocaust. The false claims reached the West through the Jewish Telegraph Agency, which in turn relied on reports from the Swedish newspaper Social Demokraten and the Ukrainian-language Nazi newspaper Krakivs’ki Visti. The article analyzes the sources of these false claims and attempts to explain the reasons for their persistence; for not only did the belief that Jews were sent to the marshes rather than the death camps persist during the war, but the rumour is now being exploited by Holocaust deniers.