Editors at the New York Times first learned that 7,000 Jews from Baden and other western provinces of Germany had been sent to France not from the Times' three reporters in Berlin. Nor did the news come from the Times' three reporters in France. It came from Arthur Sulzberger's cousin.

By the summer of 1940, Fritz Sulzberger, who had sought Arthur's help in immigrating to America, had settled in Southbridge, a small town in Massachusetts, and was again practicing medicine. His wife and two children were with him, but he had left his 68-year-old mother, Bertha, in Karlsruhe in the province of Baden. In October 1940, Fritz read in another newspaper that all the Jews in Baden had been deported to France. “As my mother is living in Baden you can imagine how worried I am,” he wrote his cousin Arthur, whom he then asked to help obtain more information. Arthur responded that he was not sure he could help. “Some time ago, when we asked our office to make inquiries, we got word back that the government frowned on our using our bureau for any reason other than for legitimate news purposes,” he wrote Fritz. “However, I shall see what can be done. If we cannot reach your mother specifically it's possible that we can find out if the Baden story is true.”