Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has described Himmler's Auschwitz decree as the end of the "planned, systematic and total extermination of the Jews." Many historians previously believed that Himmler ordered the Birkenau murder apparatus destroyed to hide evidence of Nazi crimes in advance of the approaching Soviet Red Army, even though the Germans left behind more than 7,000 inmates when they evacuated the camp two months later. In 1974, Bauer took issue with this theory at the first Yad Vashem Institute symposium on rescue operations. "There are those who claim that the order was the result of the advance of the Soviets and Americans, etc," Bauer told the gathering, "but it can also be assumed that the advance of these forces might have led to exactly the opposite result, ie. it could have hastened the extermination process." For the first time, Wallace's book presents evidence linking Himmler's decree to these secret negotiations after the author discovered documents housed in an Orthodox Jewish archive at New York's Yeshiva University linking Himmler's orders to the Musy negotiations. Among these documents is a cable sent by the Sternbuchs through the Polish diplomatic code to the Vaad ha-Hatzalah in New York on November 20, 1944 detailing Musy's negotiations with Himmler. The cable informed the "Vaad" that Musy had received a ""promise to cease extermination in concentration camps"." On November 22, the Sternbuchs sent another cable revealing that the Papal nuncio in Switzerland had "received a promise that the slaughters will cease." Three days later, Himmler ordered the destruction of the Auschwitz extermination apparatus. The book also documents a dramatic battle during the final months of the war between Himmler, still seeking a separate peace with the western Allies, and Adolf Hitler, who wanted to take "every last Jew down with the Reich." Abetted by western intelligence officials, the Sternbuchs and Musy engineered a massive deception which saw Himmler countermand orders from Hitler to dynamite the concentration camps and to agree to allow officials from the International Red Cross into the camps to deliver food and medical supplies on the condition that they agree to remain in the camps for the duration of the war. During the final weeks of the war, these negotiations also resulted in an extraordinary meeting between a Swedish representative of the World Jewish Congress, Norbert Masur, and Himmler, deep inside Germany on the night of Hitler's birthday, April 20/21,1945. After leaving this meeting, Himmler met with the head of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Folke Bernadotte, and offered a German surrender on the western front.