<P> The Nazis built the majority of their death camps in occupied Poland which had a Jewish population of 3.3 million . From 1942 on, the Polish government - in - exile provided the Allies with some of the earliest and most accurate accounts of the ongoing Holocaust of European Jews . Titled "The Mass Extermination of the Jews in German Occupied Poland", the report provided a detailed account of the conditions in the ghettos and their liquidation . Though its representatives, like the Foreign Minister Count Edward Raczyński and the courier of the Polish Underground movement, Jan Karski, called for action to stop it, they were unsuccessful . Most notably, Jan Karski met with British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden as well as US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, providing the earliest eye witness accounts of the Holocaust . Roosevelt heard him out however seemed disinterested, asking about the condition of Polish horses but not one question about the Jews . </P> <P> The report that the Polish Foreign Minister in - exile, Count Edward Raczynski sent on 10 December 1942, to all the Governments of the United Nations was the first official denunciation by any Government of the mass extermination and of the Nazi aim of total annihilation of the Jewish population . It was also the first official document singling out the sufferings of European Jews as Jews and not only as citizens of their respective countries of origin . The report of 10 December 1942 and the Polish Government's lobbying efforts triggered the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations of 17 December 1942 which made public and condemned the mass extermination of the Jews in Nazi - occupied Poland . The statement was read to 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 . Additionally BBC radio aired two broadcasts on the final solution during the war which were prepared by the Polish government - in - exile . This rhetoric, however, was not followed up by military action by Allied nations . During an interview with Hannah Rosen in 1995, Karski said about the failure to rescue most of the Jews from mass murder, "The Allies considered it impossible and too costly to rescue the Jews, because they didn't do it . The Jews were abandoned by all governments, church hierarchies and societies, but thousands of Jews survived because thousands of individuals in Poland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Holland helped to save Jews ." </P> <P> In the absence of international intervention, it fell upon individual Poles and local underground organisations to assist Jewish escapees . This was challenging as the Nazis issued the death penalty for anybody' hiding a Jew, feeding a Jew or selling food to a Jew,' which frightened many people out of helping Jewish escapees as well as created a fertile ground for blackmailers . Additionally the Nazis incentivised denunciations by rewarding the reporting of Jewish escapees with additional food rations . Nonetheless, many individuals did risk their lives to feed and house the over 300,000 survivors within Nazi occupied Poland . Most effective, was the underground organisation Żegota, the Council to Aid Jews, which although founded by Catholics, became a successful joint Catholic - Jewish operation with around 100 cells . Polish sociologist Tadeusz Piotrowski estimates that about 50,000 Jews who survived the war in Nazi - occupied Poland were aided by Żegota in various ways--food, supplies, smuggling, shelter, financial, legal, medical, child care, and help against blackmailers . </P> <P> Nonetheless, the Nazis decimated the Polish Jewry by 90%, killing 3 million people, half of all Jewish Holocaust deaths . Additionally the Nazis ethnically cleansed another 1.8 - 2 million Poles, bringing Poland's Holocaust death toll to around 4.8 - 5 million people . </P>

How did the world community respond to genocides after world war ii