The press would do that.

Think about when the world woke up to the concentration camps. It wasn’t until the war was over.

You know newspapers, letters, the radio, and movies existed back then, right? The press was around?

Two or three components, the military had press with them.

Also, exploiting war crimes by the enemy for propaganda reasons was very important for morale, so it was a high priority thing to have writers and camera people available to document things.

Regarding distribution, specifically the Germans put the info into weekly cinema productions, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Deutsche_Wochenschau But there was also radio and newspapers.

Ultimately it depended on either the military or reporters uncovering it and then reporting it.

Japan did establish Unit 731

Not sure how that was in that case.

edit:

I actually forgot something crucial: There was censorship. The military opened every single letter that came from or was sent to theaters of war. They would let things go through or censor them, depending on whether they deemed something either bad for political or military reasons.

So in many cases there was NO way to get specific news back home.

Will they had cameras and no real way to easily fake the photographs. It also didn't help the Nazis that they took meticulous records of their cruelty, that was probably a bad idea.

There's multiple sources mentioned, but the very brave Witold Pilecki actually infiltrated Auschwitz to get information out to the Polish resistance.

And then then broke out again.

… that was only heard from word of mouth or tabloids (newspapers).

I think your question is one of perception.

People trusted “tabloids” (newspapers) back then. They were respected institutions, generally. Public payed attention to investigative journalists, and that’s how stuff got out.

They read news. From newspapers. This was normal.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit or Twitter (X)

…And these kind of took over from sheer engagement, not necessarily reliability.

TBH, if someone on X told me the sky is blue, I’d still be skeptical. Hence I’m the opposite of you, I suppose: I find it wild that these artificial spaces have become the world’s de-facto news feed over professional journalism.

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