what year were European leaders aware Jews were being exterminated in camps

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 26 Aug 2005 12:55 PDT

Which European leaders do you mean?  Much of Europe was controlled by
Germany at the time.  Some other areas, such as Italy for most of the
war, were not fighting against Hitler.  Germany's primary European
opponent was Great Britain.

Accordingly, would an answer concerning Winston Churchill be sufficient?

If the truth were known some of them were most defintely aware of it
from the first moment it occurred.

tutuzdad-ga

Hitler was imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch in 1924 when he wrote
(and had better educated fellow Nazi's ghost write) Mein Kampf. Anyone
with a casual familiarity with Hitler had no question he said and
wrote what he thought. His anti-semitism, though extreme, was common
in Europe. The unfortunate intersection of technology with political
control made the Holocaust possible. The earliest industrial planning
in Germany dates to the early 1930's. Also, he began using eugenics on
the helpless by the mid 1930's. Any well informed person in Europe by
1936-37 had no doubt where the Nazi's were heading. Churchill wrote
and spoke about it frequently by then.

At least in 1944, there were testimonies, of two men who managed to
escape Auschwitz, and to publish a first hand report of what was being
done there.

The Vrba Wetzler Report
<http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/vrba-wetzler.shtml>

VRBA, Rudolf
<http://www.abcbookworld.com/?state=view_author&author_id=4770>

Rudolf Vrba
<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWvrba.htm>

Intelligence reports about what was happenning in the Concentration
Camps were available to the allies already in 1943. However, it is not
clear if this information was passed on to the leaders.

Eavesdropping on hell
<http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/08/eavesdropping-on-hell.html>

Perhaps, there was information even as early as 1941: 
"Between the first decode in mid July of 1941 and the codes changed
every day and so some days they broke the code and some days they
couldn't break the code. They couldn't break it more often than they
could break it, but they broke it enough between mid July and mid
September of 1941 to discern a pattern, because some of these reports
talk about 2200 Jews executed in such and such a village, 4400 Jews
executed in this city, I mean one report after another, so that the
pattern after a while became clear. In mid September of 1941, the
chief of the German Order police sent out a very interesting radio
warning that the commanders in the field should send ordinary
information and confidential information by radio, but that they
should not send top secret information by radio because there was a
danger that the enemy might intercept and decode, and he specifically
said do not send reports of execution totals by radio, send them by
courier instead."
(SOURCE: WHAT THE ALLIES KNEW,
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/november96/holocaust_11-20.html>)

However, "allies" is not "European leaders", though Churchill and
Stalin could be considered (the only) "European leaders" of the time
not under Nazi occupation/influence.

"what year were European leaders aware Jews were being exterminated in camps"

The timeline of unavoidable events in Europe:

1933-Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany; Reichstag fire in Berlin;
Enabling Law enacted granting Hitler dictatorial powers; Goering
becomes Prussian PM and Goebbels becomes Propaganda Minister; the fist
concentration camps are built by the Nazi regime inside Germany;
boycott of Jewish businesses begins;
labor unions dissolved; Nazi Party only official party.

1934-Night of the Long Knives when Nazi leaders out of favor are
killed; Hilter and Mussolini meet in Venice; the Chancellor of Austria
is assassinated and the Nazi's appt. replacement; German plebiscite
declares Hitler Furer; Churchill warns parliament of growing German
military menace;

1935-Nazi's repudiate Treaty of Versailles; claim Saarland as part of
Germany; compulsory military draft starts; Nuremberg Laws against Jews
enacted; eugenics laws used to imprison "undesireables" in
concentration camps.

1936-Germany builds Siegfried Line; German troops occupy Rhineland;
election gives Hitler 99% support; Hitler and Mussolini declare
"Rome-Berlin Axis"; Oswald Mosley, prominent British fascist organizes
anti-semitic marches in London; various diplomatic moves between
Germany-Italy-Austria to consolidate Hitler's power.

1937-Poland refuses to cede Danzig to Germany; Italy withdraws from
League of Nations; organized riots in Sudeten area of Czechoslovakia
as German members of czech Parliament resign, Czech leader dies;
concentration camps used for wider range of persons deemed unhealthy,
criminal; Lord Halifax visits Hitler and begins policy of appeasement.

1938-Hitler declares himself War Minister, Ribbentrop becomes Foreign
Minister; pogroms encouraged in Germany witnessed by many European and
N. American citizens; Sudenten Germans demand autonomy; German
military mobilizes on frontiers against Sudetenland and Austria;
France calls up military reserves; FDR sends cables encouraging Hitler
and Mussolini to settle European differences without war and recalls
US ambassador from Germany and Germany reciprocates; anti-Jewish laws
enacted in Italy; PM Chamberlain meets Hitler twice and is satisfied;
Germany grabs Sudetenland; Eden and other key leaders resign from
Chamberlains govt. and Churchill openly criticises them; Austria
invaded; construction of concentration camps expands beyond Germany
and various methods of mass killing experimented with.

1939-FDR asks Congress for $552 million for defense of Europe and
demands assurances from Hitler and Mussolini that they will not attack
31 named countries; Chamberlain and Halifax visit Rome; Germany grabs
Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia, threatens Poland, offers alliance to
England; Germany-Soviet non-aggression pact signed; England starts
call up for draft and signs defense treaty with Poland; WW II starts
as Germany invades Poland; England-France defense pact; British
expeditionary force sent to France; Hitler repeatedly offers peace
terms to England.

I think crystal night was the shock, that made people realise this.

www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERcrystal.htm

Kristalnacht was definitely a turning point in terms of the pogroms
and massacres of Jews beginning to take place. Badger 75's answer is
quite accurate. Only things i would add are these: Sachsenhausen
Konzentrationslager was the first camp built, the "model"  camp, in
1936-6 ; it was used fro jews, dissidents, homosexuals, jesuit priests
- and so on.
Kurt Tucholsky, a noted satirist and humorist, was doing his best to
alert the german public in the early 1930's - but his voice was
drowned out by rabid anti-communism  - fascism was seen as the lesser
of two evils, and things like hitler's men kampf were conveniently
ignored.
If I recall correctly from hitler and stalin: parallel lives (bullock)
, the US government was being urged by jewsih groups by 1943 to
intervene in the camps in eastern europe, and free polish groups in
the UK were also making it widely known to the allies.