THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS THIRD EDITION VOLUME I I I RAUL· HELBERG Tale L 'nivcrsitv Tress \rnv Haven and London Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a generous donation from Eric Marder. Copyright © 1961, 1985, 2003 by Raul Hilberg. All rights reserved. First edition published 1961 by Quadrangle Books, Chicago. Revised edition published 1985 by Holmes and Meier, New York and London. Third edition published 2003 by Yale University Press, New Haven and London. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Designed by Mary Valencia. Set in Galliard type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hilberg, Raul, 1926- The destruction of the European Jews / Raul Hilberg. — 3rd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-300-09557-9 (set: alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-300-09592-0 (vol. 3 : alk. paper) 1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945). 2. Germany—Politics and government—1933-1945. I. Title. D804.3 .H548 2002 940.53'18 —dc21 2002066369 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Tiie paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. 10 9 8 7 6 C O N T E N T S VOLUME I PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION ix PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION xi PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xv 1 PRECEDENTS 1 2 ANTECEDENTS 29 3 THE STRUCTURE OF DESTRUCTION 49 4 DEFINITION BY DECREE 61 5 EXPROPRIATION 79 Dismissals 81 Aryanizations 92 Property Taxes 132 Blocked Money 137 Forced Labor and Wage Regulations 143 Special Income Taxes 147 Starvation Measures 148 6 CONCENTRATION 155 The Reich-Protektorat Area 155 Poland 188 The Expulsions 206 G hetto Formation 216 Ghetto Maintenance 236 Confiscations 242 Labor Exploitation 251 Food Controls 263 Sickness and Death in the Ghettos 271 7 MOBILE KELLING OPERATIONS 275 Preparations 276 The First Sweep 295 Strategy 297 Cooperation with the Mobile Killing Units 305 The Killing Operations and Their Repercussions 327 The Killing of the Prisoners of War 346 The Intermediary Stage 353 The Second Sweep 382 CONTENTS VOLUME n 8 DEPORTATIONS 409 Central Agencies of Deportation 424 The Reich-Protektorat Area 433 The Uprooting Process 434 Special Problem 1 : Mischlinge and Jews in Mixed Marriages 434 Special Problem 2 : The Theresienstadt Jews 447 Special Problem 3: The Deferred Jews 457 Special Problem 4: The Incarcerated Jews 467 Seizure and Transport 472 Confiscations 490 Poland 501 Preparations 503 The Conduct of the Deportations 509 Economic Consequences 550 The Semicircular Arc 571 The North 583 Norway 584 Denmark 589 The West 599 The Netherlands 600 Luxembourg 632 Belgium 635 France 645 Italy 703 The Balkans 723 Military Area “Southeast’' 724 Serbia 725 Greece 738 Satellites par Excellence 755 Croatia 756 Slovakia 766 The Opportunistic Satellites 792 Bulgaria 793 Romania 808 Hungary 853 CONTENTS VOLUME m 9 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS 921 Origins of the Killing Centers 921 Organization, Personnel, and Maintenance 960 Labor Utilization 983 Medical Experiments 1002 Confiscations 1013 Killing Operations 1027 Concealment 1027 The “Conveyor Belt” 1033 Erasure 1042 Liquidation of the Killing Centers and the End of the Destruction Process 1045 10 REFLECTIONS 1059 The Perpetrators 1059 The Destructive Expansion 1060 The Obstacles 1075 Administrative Problems 1075 Psychological Problems 1080 The Victims 1104 The Neighbors 1119 11 CONSEQUENCES 1127 The Trials 1142 Rescue 1194 Salvage 1241 12 IMPLICATIONS 1289 APPENDIX A GERMAN RANKS 1297 APPENDIX B STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD 1301 APPENDIX C NOTATION ON SOURCES 1323 INDEX 1333 CONTENTS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE EUROPEAN JEWS X _ Kaunas R ilC H S K O M M IS S A R IA T ..Minsk I✓ O S T L A N D Bialystok \ 0 ,s PosenQ Kulmhof (Poznan) (Cheimno) „ • z’ Warsaw \ ------------- --- ■- w Kalisch I O O t I Litzmannstadt Sobibór i (Lodz) * Radom · \ R ilC H S K O M M IS S A R IA T Breslau 4 Lublin9 \ (Majdanek) G E N E R A L G O U V E R N E M E N T U K R A IN E Katowice^ Betzec· Auschwitz Krakow # (Oswiçcim) Lvov > ■-·— K. S L O V A K IA \ ___ ; *x.i O vn Bratislava » Vienna , s m m I \ / • * v-■ · x V. H U N G A R Y v R O M A N IA r» Budapest > I---------1--------1------------------ 1------------------1----------------- 1 0 50 100 200 300 400 Miles Map 7 The Killing Centers C H A P T E R N I N E KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS The most secret operations of the destruction process were carried out in six camps located in Poland in an area stretching from the incorporated areas to the Bug. These camps were the collecting points tor thousands of transports converging from all directions. In three years the incoming traffic reached a total of close to three million Jews. As the transports turned hack empty, their passengers disappeared inside. 921 The killing centers worked quickly and efficiently. A man would step oft a train in the morning, and in the evening his corpse would be burned and his clothes packed away for shipment to Germany. Such an operation was the product of a great deal of planning, for the death camp was an intricate mechanism in which a whole army of specialists played their parts. Viewed superficially, this smoothly functioning apparatus is deceptively simple, but upon closer examination the operations of the killing center resemble in several respects the complex mass-production methods of a modern plant. It will therefore be necessary to explore, step by step, what made possible the final result. A salient fact about the killing center operations is that, unlike the earlier phases of the destruction process, they were unprecedented. Never before in history had people been killed on an assembly-line basis.1 The killing center as such had no prototype, no administrative ancestor. This is explained by the fact that it was a composite institution that consisted of two parts: the camp proper and the killing installations in the camp. Each of these two components had its own administrative history. Neither was entirely novel. As separate establishments, both the concentration camp and the gas chamber had been in existence for some time. The great innovation was effected when the two devices were fused. An examination of the death camp should therefore begin with its two basic components and how they were put together. The German concentration camp wis born and grew amid violent disputes and struggles between Nazi factions. Even in the earliest days of the Nazi regime, the importance of the concentration camp was fully recognized. Whoever gained possession of this weapon would wield a great deal of power. In Prussia, Interior Minister (and later Prime Minister) Goring made his bid. He decided to round up the Communists. This was not an incarceration of convicted criminals but an arrest of a potentially dangerous group. “The prisons were not available for this purpose”;2 hence Goring established concentration camps, which he put under the control of his Gestapo (then, Ministerialrat Diels). Almost simultaneously, rival camps appeared on the scene. One was set up at Stettin by Gauleiter Karpenstein, another was established at Breslau by SA leader Heines, a third was erected near Berlin by SA leader Ernst. Goring moved with all his might against these “unauthorized camps.” Karpenstein lost his post, Ernst lost his life. 1. The phrase was used by a camp doctor, Friedrich Entress, in his affidavit of April 14,1947, NO-2368. 2. Testimony by Goring, International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major Hi?;· Criminals (Nuremberg, 1947), IX, 257. 922 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS But a more powerful competitor emerged. In Munich the police president, Himmler, organized his own Gestapo, and near the town of Dachau he set up a concentration camp which he placed under the command of SS-Obertuhrer Eicke.3 Soon Himmler’s Gestapo covered the non-Prussian Lander, and in the spring of 1934 Himmler obtained through Hitler’s graces the Prussian Gestapo (becoming its “deputy chief’). Along with Goring’s Gestapo, Himmler captured the Prussian concentration camps. Henceforth all camps were under his control.4 Eicke, the first Dachau commander, now became the Inspector for Concentration Camps. His Totcnkopfrerbdnde (Death Head Units) became the guards. Thus the camps were severed from the Gestapo, which retained in the administration of each camp only one foothold: the political division, with jurisdiction over executions and releases. After the outbreak of war, Eicke and most of his Totenkopfverbande moved into the field (he was killed in Russia), and his deputy', the later Brigadefiihrer Glucks, took over the inspectorate. Eicke’s departure marks the midpoint in the development of the concentration camps. Up to the outbreak of war the camps held three types of prisoners:5 1. Political prisoners a. Communists (systematic roundup) b. Active Social Democrats c. Jehovah’s Witnesses d. Clergymen who made undesirable speeches or otherwise manifested opposition e. People who made remarks against the regime and were sent to camps as an example to others f. Purged Nazis, especially SA men 2. So-called asocials, consisting primarily of habitual criminals and sex offenders 3. Jews sent to camps in Einzelaktionen After 1939 the camps were flooded with millions of people, including Jewish deportees, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, members of the French resistance movements, and so on. 3. See orders by Eicke, October 1, 1933, PS-778. 4. Camps for foreign laborers and prisoner-of-war camps were outside of Himmler’s sphere. However, in October 1944 Himmler tk over the PW camps in the rear. 5. By October 1943, 110,000 German prisoners, including 40,000 “political criminals” and 70,000 “asocials,” had been sent to the concentration camps. Himmler speech before Militarbcfehlshaber, October 14, 1943, E-70. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS The inspectorate could not keep up with this influx. Therefore, from 1940 on the Higher SS and Police Leaders established camps of their own, specifically the transit camps in the west and the labor camps in Poland. During the last stage of the destruction process, the Higher SS and Police Leaders also put up killing centers. At this point an office stepped in to centralize and unify the concentration camp network: the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office, the organization of Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl. In a process that took several years, Pohl finally emerged as the dominant power in the camp apparatus. His organization incorporated the inspectorate and enveloped almost completely the camps of the Higher SS and Police Leaders. Pohl entered the concentration camp picture from an oblique angle. He was not a camp commander, nor was he a Higher SS and Police Leader. In World War I he had been a naval paymaster, and in the early days of the SS he had served in the Verwaltungsamt (Administrative Office) of the SS-Main Office. (The Verwaltungsamt dealt with financial and administrative questions for the SS.) On February 1, 1934, Pohl took over the Verwaltungsamt, and by 1936 he had expanded its activities. It was now concerned also with construction matters, including the construction of SS installations in concentration camps. The Verwaltungsamt was therefore reorganized to become the Amt Haushalt und Bauten (Budget and Construction Office) — the first major step toward overall control. In 1940 Pohl broke loose from the SS-Main Office and established his own main office: the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten. At the same time he set up a chain of SS enterprises in labor and concentration camps. This business venture could not be placed under the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten, which was nominally a state agency financed entirely with Reich funds. Therefore, Pohl organized another main office, the Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft (VWHA) or Main Office Administration and Economy. This was Pohl’s second step. The double organization, which was analogous to Heydrich’s apparatus before the merger of the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei (Gestapo and Kripo) and the Sicherheitshauptamt (SD) into the RSHA, is shown in Table 9-1. On February 1, 1942, Pohl followed Heydrich’s example and combined his two main offices into a single organization: the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office, or Wirtschafts- Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA). One month after this consolidation, Pohl took his third major step. To ensure better labor utilization in the camps and to make possible the unhampered growth of his SS enterprises, he swallowed the inspectorate. The WVHA was now fully engaged in the concentration camp business. From Table 9-2 it may be seen that Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten (I and II) became Amtsgruppen A, B, and C, that the inspectorate w as trans-KXLLING CENTER OPERATIONS TABLE 9-1 ORGANIZATION OF THE HAUSHALT UNO BAUTEN AND VWHA VERWAL1TJNG UND HAUSHALT UND BAUTEN WIRTSCHAFT Office I Office II Office III Budget Construction Administration and Economy (SS enterprises) Obfi I for nor Gruf. Pohl Gruf Pohl 1-1 II-A III-A Salaries Waffen-SS OStubaf. Prietzel HSrufi Sesemann Stafi Dr. Salpeter III-A/1 German Earth and Stone Works (Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke— DEST) Stubafi Mummenthey 1-2 II-B III-B Legal Special Tasks HStuf. Fncke UStuf. Geber Obf Möckel 1-3 II-C III-C Uniforms and Concentration Clothes Camps and Police Stubal. Weggel HSrufi List OStubaf Maurer III-C/3 German Equipment Works (Deutsche Ausrüstungs- werke— DAW) HStuf. Niemann 1-4 II-D III-D Ix>dgings OStubaf. Koberlein HStuf Dr. Flir Stubafi Vogel 1-5 II-E III-S Allocation of Personnel Special Tasks Inmate Labor Stubafi Klein HStuf Burbock 1-6 Food HStuf Fichtinger ( Continued) TABLE 9-1 CONTINUED VERWALTUNG UND HAUSHALT UND BAUTEN WIRTSCHAFT I-H Personnel UStuf. Lange I-K Transportation UStuf. Leitner Note: Organization charts of Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten and Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft, 1941, in NO-620. The early history of the Pohl organization is based on his affidavit of March 18, 1947, NO-2574. formed into Amtsgruppe D, and that the VWHA (III) emerged as Amts-gnippe W.6 With the inspectorate’s incorporation into the Pohl machine, the administration of the concentration camps acquired an economic accent. The exploitation of the inmate labor supply, which had motivated Pohl to undertake this consolidation, now became the very reason for the existence of concentration camps. This factor brought into the lulling center operations the same dilemma that had already surfaced in the mobile killing operations and the deportations, namely the need for labor versus the “Final Solution.” This time the quandary was entirely an internal SS affair. (The growth of the Pohl organization from 1929 to March 1942 is summarized in Table 9-3.) The consolidation process did not stop with the incorporation of the inspectorate, for Pohl also bit into the camps of the Higher SS and Police Leaders. He annexed some camps outright, controlled others by installing regional officials responsible to the WVHA (the SS economists [SS-Wirtschafter]),7 and invaded the killing centers in the Generalgouvernement by acquiring control over the entire camp confiscation machinery in the territory. Concentration camps had become the principal factor in the power structure of Pohl. He in turn had emerged as the dominant figure in the sea of concentration camps.8 6. See organization charts in documents NO-52 and NO-111. 7. Order by Pohl, July 23, 1942, NO-2128. Pohl to Himmler, July 27, 1942. NO-2128. SS economists were installed in Riga, Mogilev, Kiev, Krakow, Belgrade, and Oslo, later also in Hungary. 8. See the essay bv Martin Broszat, “The Concentration Camps 1933-45," in 926 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS While Pohl tightened his hold over the camps, the camps absorbed ever larger numbers of inmates. The following figures indicate the growth of the increasingly important army of slaves in concentration camp enclosures: September 1939: 21,4009 10 11 April 19,1943: over 160,000"' August 1, 1944: 524,286" The compilations do not include the camps of the Higher SS and Police Leaders, nor do they show the millions of deaths. To keep up with the influx of victims, the camp network had to be extended. In 1939 there were six relatively small camps.12 In 1944 Pohl sent Himmler a map that showed 20 full-fledged concentration camps (Konzentrationslajjer or KL) and 165 satellite labor camps grouped in clusters around the big KLs. (Again the camps of the Higher SS and Police Leaders were not included.)13 14 Himmler received the report with great satisfaction, remarking that “just such examples show how our business has grown [Gerade an solchen Beispielen kann man sehen, me unsere Dinjjegewacbsen sind]' u Pohl’s empire was thus characterized by a threefold growth: the jurisdictional expansion, the increase in the number of camp slaves, and the extension of the camp network. The six killing centers appeared in 1941-42, at a time of the greatest multiplication and expansion of concentration camp facilities. During this burst of activity, the constoiction and operation of the killing centers could proceed smoothly and unobtrusively. The death camps operated with gas. There were three types of gassing installations, for the administrative evolution of the gas method had proceeded in three different channels. One development took place in the Technical Referat of the RSHA. This office produced the gas van. We have already observed the use of the van in Russia and Serbia. In both of these territories the vans were auxiliary devices used for the killing of women and children only. But there was to be one more application. In 1941 Gauleiter Greiser of the Wartheland obtained Himmler’s per-Hclnuit Krausnick, Hans Ruchhcim, Martin Broszat, and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, The Anatomy of the SS State (New York, 1968), pp. 397-504. 9. Pohl to Himmler, April 30, 1942, R-129. 10. Pohl to OStubaf. Brandt, April 19, 1942, Himmler Files, Folder 67. 11. WVHA D-IV (signed Stubaf. Burger) to YVVHA-B (Gruf. Lörner), August 15, 1944, NO-399. 12. Pohl to Himmler, April 30, 1942, R-129. 13. Pohl to Himmler, April 5, 1944, NO-20. 14. Himmler to Pohl, April 22, 1944, NO-20. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 927 TABLE 9-2 ORGANIZATION OF THE WVHA Chief, WVHA OGruf. Pohl Deputy (Brif. Frank) Gruf. Georg Lörner Chief, Amtsgruppe A Troop administration (Frank) Brif. Fanslau Amt A-I Budget Obf. Hans Lörner Amt A-I I Finance (OStubaf. Eggert) HStuf. Melmer Amt A-III Law Obf. Salpeter Amt A-I V Auditing Staf. Vogt Amt A-V Personnel Brif. Fanslau Chief, Amtsgruppe B Troop economy Gruf. Georg Lörner Deputy (Staf. Prietzel) Obf. Tschentscher Food inspector, Waften-SS Staf. Prof. Schenk Amt B-I Food (not including concentration camps) Obf. Tschentscher Amt B-II Clothes (including inmates) OStubaf. Lechler Amt B-III Lodgings Staf. Köberlein (Amt B-IV: transferred to B-II, March 3,1942) Raw materials OStubaf. Weggel Amt B-V Transport and weapons Staf. Scheide Chief, Amtsgruppe C Construction Gruf. Dr. Ing. Kammler Deputy (Stubaf. Basching) OStubaf. Schleif Amt C-I General construction matters (including concentration camps) OStubaf. Rail AmtC-II Special construction OStubaf. Kiefer AmtC-III Technical Stubaf. Floto Amt C-IV Artistic Stubaf. Schneider Amt C-V Central inspection (Lenzer) OStubaf. Noell AmtC-VI Financial Staf. Eirenschmalz Chief, Amtsgruppe D Concentration camps Brif. Glücks Deputy OStubaf. I àebehcnschel TABLE 9-2 CONTINUED Amt D-I Central office (Liebehenschel) OStubaf. Höss Amt D-II Labor allocation Staf. Maurer Amt D-III Sanitation Staf. Dr. Lolling Amt D-IV Administration (Kaindl) Stubaf. Burger Chief, Amtsgruppe W Economic enterprises OGruf. Pohl German Economic Enterprises, Inc. First manager OGruf. Pohl Second manager Gruf. Lörncr Obf. Baier Chief, W Staff AmtVV-I German Eardi and Stone Works (DEST) - Reich OSrubaf. Mummen the y AmtW-II DEST — East Stubaf. Dr. Bobermin AmtW-IlI Food enterprises HStuf. Rabeneck AmrW-IV Wood products (HSmf. Dr. May) HStuf. (including DAW) Opperbeck Amt YV-V Agricultural OStubaf. Vogel Amt VV-VI Textiles and leather OStubaf. Lechler Amt YV-V1I Books and pictures (including Nordland Publishing Company and Deutscher Bilderdienst) Stubaf. Mischke Amt YV-V1II Special tasks (monuments, etc.) Obf. Dr. Salpeter mission to kill 100,000 Jews in his Gau.* 15 Three vans were thereupon brought into the woods of Kulmhof (Chelmno), the area was closed off, and the first killing center came into being.16 The construction of another type of gassing apparatus was pursued in the Führer Chancellery, Hider’s personal office. For some time, thought 15. Greiser to Himmler, May 1, 1942, NO-246. 16. Judge Wladyslaw Bednarz (Lodz), “Extermination Camp at Chelmno,” Central Commission tor Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland (Warsaw, 1946-47), vol. l,pp. 107-17. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS TABLE 9-3 POHL ORGANIZATION, 1929-42 POHL PARTY BUDGET, YEAR REICH BUDGET PROFITS, LOANS, ETC. 1929 SS-Hauptamt (Verwaltungsamt) 1936 SS-Hauptamt (Amt Haushalt und Bauten) Hauptamt Haushalt 1940 Inspectorate und Bauten Hauptamt Verwaltung und Wirtschaft March 1942 WVHA (A, B, C, D, and W) had been given in Germany to doctrines about the quality of life, from the simple idea that a dying person may be helped to die ( Sterbehilfe) to the notion that life not worth living may be unworthy of life. This move from concern for the individual to a preoccupation with society was accomplished by representing retarded or malfunctioning persons, especially those with problems perceived to be congenital, as sick or harmful cells in the healthy corpus of the nation. The title of one monograph, published after the shock of World War I, could in fact be read as suggesting their destruction. It was called The Release for Annihilation of Life without Value [Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens].17 The last three words of the German phrase were to grace official correspondence during the Nazi years. Not until after the outbreak of World War II, however, did Hitler sign an order (predated September 1, 1939) empowering the chief of the Führer Chancellery, Reichsleiter Bouhler, and his own personal physi­ 17. The authors were Karl Binding, a lawyer, and Alfred Hoche, a psychiatrist. (Sec 2d ed., Leipzig, 1922.) On further evolution of this thinking, sec Stephen L Chorovcr, From Genesis to Genocide (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), p. 78 If. KILLING CENTBR OPERATIONS cian. Dr. Brandt, “to widen the authority of individual doctors with a view to enabling them, after the most critical examination in the realm of human knowledge, to administer to incurably sick persons a mercy death.”18 The intention was to apply this directive only to Germans with mental afflictions,19 but eventually the program encompassed the following operations.20 1. Throughout the war, the killing, upon determination of physicians’ panels, of about 5,000 infants and children who were mongoloid, hydrocephalic, microcephalic, lame, spastic, or malformed. The children were removed from unsuspecting parents and from custodial institutions to specially organized pediatric units ( Kinderfachabteilungen) in some thirty asylums and hospitals, where doctors administered luminal tablets, occasionally with added injections of morphine-scopolamine, to induce pneumonia, coma, and death. 2. During 1940 and the first eight months of 1941, the annihilation of 70,000 adults in euthanasia stations equipped with gas chambers and bottled, chemically pure carbon monoxide gas. The victims, selected from lists screened by psychiatrists, were in the main institutionalized — senile persons, feebleminded persons, epileptics, sufferers from Huntington’s chorea and some other neurological disorders, — individuals who had been treated at institutions tor at least five years, — criminally insane persons, especially those involved in moral crimes. The euthanasia stations, which did not have resident patients, were Grafencck (after it was closed: Hadamar) Brandenburg (after it was closed: Bernburg) 18. Order by Hicier, September 1, 1939, PS-630. 19. Affidavit bv Dr. Konrad Morgen, July 19, 1946, SS(A)-67. Morgen was an SS officer whose assignment was the investigation of SS corruption. From this vantage point he gained insight into the killing phase of the destruction process. 20. For detailed descriptions, see Klaus Dorner, “Nationalsozialismus und Ec-bensvernichmng,” Vierteljahrshejte fur Zeitjjeschicbte 15 (1967): 121-52; Lothar Gruchmann, “Eurhanasie und Justiz im Drittcn Reich,” ibid., 20 (1972): 235-79; H. G. Adler, Der wrwaltetc Mensch (Tubingen, 1974), pp. 234-39; Florian Zehet-hofer, “Das F.uthanasieproblem im Dritten Reich am Beispicl Schloss Hartheim 1938-1945,” Oberiisterreicbisches Heimatblatt 32 (1978): 46-62. Ernst Klee, “£«- thanasie" ini NS-Staat (Frankfurt am Main, 1985); Klee, ed., Dokumente zur “Eu- thanasie" (Frankfurt, 1985); and Robert Jav Lifton, The Nazi Doctors (New York, 1986), pp. 21-144. For the shring of the Pomeranian patients and the gassing of the East Prussian patients, see Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1995), pp. 136-40, and Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance (Cambridge, England, 1994), pp. 130-32. In addition, 12,850 Polish psychiatric patients were killed between 1939 and 1944. Burleigh, Death, pp. 132-33. An undated, unsigned numerical summary of operations in the euthanasia stations to September 1, 1941, is in T 1021, Roll 18. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 931 Sonnenstein Hartheim 3. The shooting of more than 3,000 mental patients from Pomeranian mental hospitals in a forest of the newly occupied Polish corridor. 4. From September 1941 to the end of the war, the practice of so-called “wild euthanasia" in various asylums. Physicians and nurses weeded out thousands of incapable or annoying patients by killing them with a hunger diet and overdoses of luminal or related drugs. 5. From the middle of 1941 to the winter of 1944-45, the pruning of concentration camp inmates too weak or bothersome to be kept alive and the killing of these people, upon superficial psychiatric evaluation, in euthanasia stations under code 14 f 13. The administrative implementation of this psychiatric holocaust was in the hands of Bouhlefs Führer Chancellery. The man actually in charge of the program was a subordinate of Bouhler, Reichsamtsleiter Brack.21 For the technical aspects of the project, the Reichsamtsleiter obtained the services of Kriminalkommissar Wirth, chief of the Criminal Police office in Stuttgart and an expert in tracking down criminals.22 “Euthanasia” was a conceptual as well as technological and administrative préfiguration of the “Final Solution” in the death camps. In the summer of 1941, when the physical destruction of the Jews was in the offing for the whole of the European continent, Himmler consulted with the Chief Physician of the SS {Reichsarzt-SS und Polizei), Gruppenführer Dr. Grawitz, on the best way to undertake the mass-killing operation. Grawitz advised the use of gas chambers.23 On October 10, 1941, at a “final solution” conference of the RSHA, Heydrich alluded to Hitler’s desire to free the Reich of Jews, if at all possible, by the end of the year. In that connection, the RSHA chief discussed the impending deportations to Lodz, and mentioned Riga and Minsk. He even considered the possibility of shipping Jews to concentration camps set up for Communists by Einsatzgruppen B and C in operational areas.24 The Ostland, emerging as the center of gravity in this 21. For rhe organization and personnel of this office, sec Friedlandcr, The Origins of Nazi Genocide. 22. Affidavit by Morgen, July 13, 1946, SS(A)-65. The chief psychiatric examiner for asylums was an SS physician, Prof. Werner Hcydc. Each euthanasia station had its own medical director. The term “psychiatric holocaust” was coined by Peter Roger Brcggin, “The Psychiatric Holocaust," Penthouse, January 1979, pp. 81-84, 216. The stations were called “killing centers” by Leo Alexander, “Medical Science under Dictatorship,” Nap England Journal of Medicine 24 ( 1949): 39-47. Alexander's designation is used here to describe the camps in which the gassings of rhe Jews took place. 23. Affidavit by Morgen, July 13, 1946, SS(A)-65. 24. Israel Police 1193. 932 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS scheme, served to crystallize the idea of what was to be done to Reich deportees on their arrival. By the end of the month the race expert ( Sonderdezement fur Rassenpolitik) in Bräutigams office in the East Ministry', Amtsgerichrsrat Wetzel, drafted a letter in which he stated that Brack was prepared to introduce his gassing apparatus in the East. Brack had offered to send his chemical expert, Dr. Kallmeyer, to Riga, and Eichmann had referred to Riga and Minsk in expressing agreement with the idea. “All things considered,” wrote Wetzel, “one need have no reservation about doing away with those Jews who are unable to work, with the Brackian devices [Nach Sachlage, bestehen keine Bedenken wenn diejenigen Juden, die nicht arbeitsfähig sind, mit den Brackschen Hilfsmitteln beseitigt werden ] ”25 There were, however, some second thoughts about directing a continuing flow of transports to the icy regions of the occupied USSR.26 Dr. Kallmeyer, told to wait in Berlin because of the cold in the east, spent Christmas at home.27 The scene of the action had already been shifted to the Generalgouvernement. Under primitive conditions, three camps were built by Amt Haushalt und Bauten (after the reorganization of March 1942, the WVHA-C) and its regional machinery at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. The sites were chosen with a view to seclusion and access to railroad lines. In the planning there was some improvisation and much economizing; labor and material w ere procured locally at minimum cost. Belzec, in the district of Lublin, was the prototype. Its construction, according to Polish w itnesses, w'as begun as early as November 1941. A locksmith who worked in the camp while it was being built provides the following chronology:28 25. Draft memorandum by Wetzel for Lohse and Rosenberg, October 25, 1941, NO-365. In Jerusalem, Eichmann declared that he had not discussed gas chambers with Werzel. Eichmann trial transcript, June 23, 1961, sess. 78, p. Rl; July 17, 1961, sess. 98, p. Bbl. 26. When Generalgouverneur Frank was in Berlin (middle of December 1941), he was told that “nothing could be done with the Jew's in the Ostland.” Frank in GG conference, December 16, 1941, Frank Diary, PS-2233. 27. Helmut Kallmeyer (in Havana) to Dr. Stahnner (attorney), June 18, 1960, Oberhäuser (Belzec) case, Landgericht München I, 1 Js 278/60, vol. 5, pp. 974-75. All volume numbers pertaining to the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka cases refer to the collection in the Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverzwaltungen in Ludwigsburg, 8 AR-Z 252/59. 28. Statement by Stanislaw Kozak, October 14, 1945, Belzec case, vol. 6, pp. 1129-33. Hie November 1, 1941, date is mentioned also by Eustachy Ukrainski (principal of grade school in the town of Belzec), October 11, 1945, Belzec case, vol. 6, pp. 1117-20. The presence of eastern collaborators at the end of 1941 is confirmed by Ludw ig Obalek (mayor of Belzec) in his statement of October 10, 1945, Belzec case, vol. 6, pp. 1112-14. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 933 October 1941 SS men approach Polish administration in town of Belzec with demand for twenty workers. The Germans select the site. November 1,1941 Polish workers begin construction of three barracks: a waiting hall leading tit rough a walkway to an anteroom, leading to a third building that had a corridor with three doors to three compartments, each of which had floor piping and an exit door. All six doors (entry and exit) in these three compartments were encased in thick rubber and opened to the outside. November-December 1941 A contingent of about seventy black- uniformed eastern collaborators (Soviet prisoners of war released from captivity) lay narrow-gauge rail, dig pits, and erect a fence. December 22, 1941 Polish workers are discharged. January-February 1942 Watchtowers are built. The Germans at the Belzec site who had requisitioned the Polish work force were members of an SS construction Kommando.29 The work was supervised by a “master from Katowice” an unidentified German with some knowledge of Polish who was in possession of building plans. When one of the Poles asked about the purpose of the project, the German only smiled.30 Sometime before Christmas, the construction chief (.Bauleiter) showed the blueprints to an SS noncommissioned officer (Oberhauser) who was stationed in the area and who was going to be a functionary in the administration of the death camps. The drawings were plans of gassing installations (Verjjasungsanlqgen). By that time the construction of the buildings was substantially finished,31 and shordy thereafter the chemist Dr. Kallmeyer arrived from Berlin.32 Sobibor, also in the Lublin District, was built, evidently more quickly, 29. Statements by Josef Oberhauser, February 26 and September 15,1960, Belzec case, vol. 4, pp. 656-60, and vol. 6, pp. 1036-40. 30. Statement by Kozak, and statement by Edward Ferens (also a locksmith), March 20,1946, Belzec case, vol. 6, pp. 1222-23. 31. Statement by Oberhauser, December 12, 1960, Belzec case, vol. 9, pp. 1678-93. 32. Kallmeyer to Stahmcr, June 18, 1960, Belzec case, vol. 5, pp. 974-75. In the letter Kallmeyer asserts that he was not needed. 934 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS in March and April of 1942. Superv ision of the construction was in the hands of Obersturmführer (later Hauptsturmführer) Thomalla, a master mason regularly assigned to the SS-Zentralbauleitung Lublin/Bauleitung Zamosc.33 Thomalla had some professional help from Baurat Moser, employed by the Kreishauptmann of Chelm (Ansel), in whose territory Sobibor was located.34 To speed the work, Jewish labor from the surrounding region was employed extensively during the construction phase.33 At Treblinka (within the Warsaw District), where euthanasia physician Dr. Eberl was in charge, the Zentralbauleitung of the district, together with two contractors, the firm Schönbrunn of Licgnitz and the Warsaw concern Schmidt und Münstermann (builders of the Warsaw Ghetto wall), were readying the camp.36 Labor for construction was drawn from the Warsaw Ghetto.37 Dr. Eberl also availed himself of the resources of the ghetto for supplies, including switches, nails, cables, and wallpaper.38 Again, the Jews were to be the unwitting contributors to their own destruction. 33. Statement bv Georg Michalscn (Globocnik’s Aussiedlungsstab), September 4, 1961, Sobibor case, Hagen, 45 Js 27/61, vol. 4, pp. 723-25. See also Richard Thomalla’s personnel record in the Berlin Document Center. 34. Statement bv Landrat Dr. Werner Ansel, June 15, 1960, Sobibor case, vol. 3, p. 416. Moser is mentioned also by Sobibor commander Franz Stangl, June 26, 1967, Treblinka case, Düsseldorf, 8 Js 10904/59, vol. 13, pp. 3712-22. 35. Statement by Jan Stetaniuk (a non-Jcwish worker at Sobibor), February 26, 1966, Sobibor case, vol. 13, pp. 2694-95. The gassing apparatus was tried our in the presence of an unnamed chemist. See Adalbert Rückcrl, NS-Vemichtuttgslapfer (Munich, 1977), pp. 165-66. RückerPs book contains texts of German Federal Republic court judgments and selected testimony about all three of the Generalgouvernement camps as well as Kulmhof. For entries about the three camps, see encyclopedia by Glmvna Komisja Radania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce, Obozy bitlerowskie na ziemiacbpolskicb 1939-1945 (Warsaw, 1979), pp. 93-95, 459-61, 524-28. See also I no Arndt and Wolfgang SchefHer, “Organisierter Massenmord an Juden in nationalsozialistischen Vernichtungslagern,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 24 (1976): 105-35. 36. Indictment of Kurt Franz, enclosed by prosecutor Hühnerschulte to Landgericht in Düsseldorf, January 29, 1963, through the courtesy of the Israel police. 37. See entries by Czerniakdw (chairman of Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council) in his diary (January 17; February 4 and 20; March 10,27, and 29; April 9 and 18; May 23; and June 1, 1942), in Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Staron, and Josef Kemiisz, eds., The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czemiakow (New York, 1979), pp. 316, 322, 328, 333, 338, 339, 341, 344, 358, 361. A labor camp (Treblinka I) was already in existence not tar trom the site. Jewish labor from the Warsaw Ghetto was sent to Treblinka I, and its inmates, Poles as well as Jews, could be utilized for construction. Treblinka I, under Hauptsturmführer van Eupen, was nor administratively joined to the death camp. 38. Eberl to Kommissar of Jewish district (Auerswald), June 26, 1942, facsimile in Jüdisches Historisches Institut Warschau, Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord (Berlin, 1961), p. 304. Eberl to Kommissar, July 7, 1942, facsimile in Alexander Donat, ed., The Death Camp Treblinka (New York, 1979), p. 255. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 935 Even while the three camps were being erected, transports with Jewish deportees from the Krakow District, the Reich, and the Protektorat were arriving in the Hrubieszow-Zamosc area. The director of the Population and Welfare Subdivision of the Interior Division in the Gouverneur’s office of Lublin (Turk) was instructed by the Generalgouvernement Interior Main Division (Siebert) to assist Globocnik in making room for the Jews pouring into the district. Turk’s deputy (Reuter) thereupon had a conversation with Globocnik’s expert in Jewish “resettlement” affairs, Hauptsturmführer Höfte. The Hauptsturmfuhrer made a few remarkable statements: A camp was being built at Belzec, near the Generalgouvernement border in subdistrict (Kreis) Zamosc. Where on the D^blin-Trawniki line could 60,000 Jews be unloaded in the meantime? Höfte was ready to receive four or five transports daily at Belzec. “These Jews would cross the border and would never return to the Generalgouvernement [Diese Juden kämen über die Grenze und würden nie mehr ins Generalgouvernement zurückkommen]?39 The discussion, on the afternoon of March 16, 1942, was held a few days before the opening of Belzec. During the following month Sobibor was finished, and in July, Treblinka. The terrain of each camp was only a few hundred yards in length and width. The layout was similar in all three camps. There were barracks for guard personnel, an area where the Jews were unloaded, an undressing station, and an S-shaped walkway, called the Schlauch (hose), two or three yards wide that was bordered by high barbed-wire fences covered with ivy. The Schlauch was traversed by the naked victims on their way to the gassing facilities. The entire arrangement was designed to convince the Jews that they were in a transit camp, where they would be required to clean themselves on the way to the “east.” The gas chambers, disguised as showers, were not larger than medium-sized rooms, but during gassings they were filled to capacity. At the beginning, no camp had more than three of these chambers. The gas first used at Belzec was bottled, either the same preparation of carbon monoxide that had been shipped to the euthanasia stations or possibly hydrogen cyanide.40 Later, Belzec is reported to have been equipped with a diesel motor; Treblinka is said to have had one from the start; and Sobibor began with a heavy, eight-cylinder, 200+ horsepower, water-cooled Russian gasoline engine that released a mixture of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide into the gas 39. Memorandum by Reuter, March 17, 1942, in Jüdisches Historisches Institut, Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord, pp. 269-70. 40. Bottled gas (Flaschengas) is mentioned by Oberhäuser (Obersturmführer at Belzec). See text of his statement in Rückerl, NS-Vemichtungslager, pp. 136-37. The court judgment in the Oberhäuser case identifies the gas as cyanide (Zyklon B). Ihid, p. 133. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS chambers.41 No crematoria were installed; the bodies were burned in mass graves. The limited capacity of the camps troubled SS and Police Leader Globocnik; he did not wish to get “stuck.”42 During the summer of 1942 there was congestion of railway traffic in the Generalgouvernement, and the line to Sobibór was under repair. At Belzec operations were reduced and interrupted, and at Sobibór the stoppage was prolonged. But Treblinka received transports to the point of overflow, and mounds of unburned bodies in various stages of decay confronted new arrivals of deportees.43 Between July and September an expansion was undertaken in the three camps. Massive structures, of stone in Belzec and brick in Treblinka, containing at least six gas chambers in each camp, replaced the old facilities. In the new gas buildings the chambers were aligned on both sides of a corridor, and at Treblinka the engine room was situated at its far end. The front wall of the Treblinka gas house, underneath the gable, was decorated with a Star of David. At the entrance hung a heavy, dark curtain taken from a synagogue and still bearing the Hebrew words “This is the gate through which the righteous pass.”44 The Generalgouvernement was the location also of a regular concentration camp of the WVHA, where Jewish transports were received from time to time. In German correspondence the camp was referred to as Lublin, whereas its common name after the war was Majdanek. Up to 41. Ibui., pp. 133, 203, 165-66. Eugcn Kogon or al., Nationalsozialistiscbe Massen- totungen (lurch Giftgas (Frankfurt am Main, 1986), pp. 154, 163, 158-59. The Sobibor engine is described by Untcrscharfuhrcr Erich Fuchs in Massentbtuttgen, pp. 158-59. Fuchs helped install the engine and tried it out on a contingent of 30-40 Jewish women. 42. Brack to Himmler, June 23, 1942, NO-205. 43. Riickcrl, NS-Vemichtungslager, pp. 208-9. 44. Ibid., p. 204. Information about the number and size of gas chambers in each camp rests not on documentation but on recollection of witnesses. There is agreement that the new chambers were larger than the old (the capacity for simultaneous gassing in Belzec during the summer of 1942 was estimated at 1,500). Counts of gas chambers are given in the following ranges: Belzec 3, then 6 Sobibor 3, then 4, 5, or 6 Treblinka 3, then 6 or 10 It is likely that each facility was designed from the same basic plan; hence three is probably the initial capacity, and six the subsequent one. German defendants in lreblinka trial of 1965 (Franz et al.) indicated six chambers there after expansion. Ibid. A Jewish survivor, who was a carpenter at Treblinka, states that there were ten gas chambers. Jankicl Wiernik, “A Year in Treblinka,” in Donat, Treblinka, pp. 147-88, at p. 161. For a sketch drawn by Wiernik, see Filip Friedman, This Was Osmecim (Guidon, 1946), pp. 81-84; and Glowna Komisja, Obozy, p. 526. Sec, however, two different sketches, in Donat, Treblinka, pp. 318-19; and Stem, May 17, 1970, p. 170. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 937 October 1942, the camp had facilities for men only. It had been built ■ to hold prisoners of war (among them Jewish soldiers of the Polish army,) under SS jurisdiction. Even during these early days, however, several thousand Jews, including men, women, and children, were brought into the camp from nearby localities. In September-October 1942, three small gas chambers, placed into a U-shaped building, were opened. Two of them were constructed for the interchangeable use of bottled carbon monoxide or hydrogen cyanide gas, the third for cyanide only. The area in front of the building was called Rosengarten and Rosenfeld (rose garden and rose field). No roses adorned the camp —rather, the SS managers associated the facility with a typical name of Jewish victims. The gassing phase, which resulted in about 500 to 600 deaths per week over a period of a year, came to an end with the decision to wipe out the entire Jewish inmate population in one blow.45 After the Lublin camp acquired administrative control of the Trawniki and Poniatowa labor camps, mass shootings took place at all three sites in the beginning of November 1943.46 While Kulmhof in the Wartheland was being set up with gas vans and a network of gas-chamber camps was established in the Generalgouvernement, a third development came to fruition in the incorporated territory of Upper Silesia. There, in the corner below the convergence of the Vistula and Sola rivers, the Polish army had maintained an artillery base encircled by stagnant fish ponds which permeated the compound with dampness, mist, and mud.47 After the Polish collapse, the German army 45. For a history of the Lublin camp, see Jozef Marszalek, Majdanek (Hamburg, 1982), particularly pp. 24-44, 135-52; judgment of Landgericht Düsseldorf, April 27,1979, in the matter of Ernst Schmidt, 8 Ks 1/75; affidavit by Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppcrt (Director, Technical Division, Lublin camp from September 1942), August 6, 1945, NO-1903; and Glowna Komisja, Obozy, pp. 302-12. On deliveries of Zyklon to the camp in 1943, see affidavit by Alfred Zaun (bookkeeper with Tesch und Stabcnow, suppliers), October 18,1947, Nl-11937, and facsimiles of correspondence between Lublin camp and Tesch und Stabcnow during June-July 1943, in Glowna Komisja, Obozy, appendix, items 18, 140, and 141. The gas was routinely used in camps also for fumigation. 46. According to Ruppcrt, about 17,000 Jews were shot in Lublin in November 1943. Franz Pantli, an SS man in the camp, estimates 12,000. Affidavit by Franz Pantli, May 24,1945, NO-1903. Obersturmführer Offcrmann cited 15,000 killed in Lublin, another 15,000 in Poniatowa, and 10,000 in Trawniki. Jüdisches Historisches Institut, Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord, pp. 366-67n. Sec also Marszalek, Majdanek, p. 138. 47. Jan Sehn, “Concentration and Extermination Camp at Oswiycim,” Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Polatui (Warsaw, 1946-47), vol. 1, pp. 27-29. Certificate of the New Construction Directorate ( Neubauleitung) in Birkenau, October 21, 1941, noting heavy clay soil and frequent rain, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for the Preservation of Historical Documentary Collections, Moscow), Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 4L KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS quartered a company of construction troops in this facility. At the beginning of 1940 the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, making a surv ey of the area, decided that with proper sanitary and structural improvements the buildings might be used as a quarantine center.48 A few months later the SS moved in.49 Another concentration camp was born. Its name was Auschwitz. Its commander, a Nazi from the earliest days of the movement who had come up in the concentration camp world with experience in Dachau and Sachsenhausen, was Rudolf Höss. The first inmates were Poles and the first distinct purpose of the camp was their local exploitation for economic purposes of the SS, including agriculture in the vicinity of the camp enclosure. To this end, the SS made a considerable effort to extend its influence into the surrounding territory. The land between the two rivers was consequently declared a “zone of interest” (Interessengebiet), and all the Polish peasants in the local villages were evicted. The aim was to establish a Gutsbezirk of the Waften-SS, a district owned by the SS, and conferences to this end were held over a period of two years. The complicated land-transfer process, comprising land of the Polish state, municipal property', ecclesiastical property, as well as property' belonging to Germans, could not be mastered, and on March 3, 1943, the Oberpräsident of Upper Silesia, Bracht, issued a decree establishing, in lieu of a Gutsbezirk, the administrative district (Amtsbezirk) of Auschwitz.50 Höss also became the chief executive of this Amtsbezirk.51 48. Obf. Glücks to Himmler, copies to Pohl and Hevdrich, February 21, 1940, NO-34. 49. Heeresamr Gleiwitz to IdS Breslau, April 27, 1940, and IdS to Höss, May 31, 1940, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center tor Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 55. No payment was made by the SS to the army for the camp. The owner was simply the Reich. Report by the Chief of the Zentralbauleitung in Auschwitz (Osruf. Jorhann), June 22, 1944, ibid., Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 38. The goal was 10,000 prisoners. Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten II c 5 to Neubauleitung Auschwitz, August 3, 1940, ibid., Roll 36, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 265. 50. Bodenamt Schlesien in Karrowirz (signed Kusche) to Director of Zentralbo-denamt beim Reichsfiihrer-SS/RKfdFdV (Gruf. Freiherr von Holzschuher), May 22, 1940, PS-1352. Brif. Lörner to Finance Ministry, October 1, 1941, NG-5545. Pohl to Finance Ministry, November 7, 1942, PS-1643. Records of conferences, November 3 and December 17-18, 1942, under the chairmanship of Oberfinanzpräsident Dr. Casdorf of the Finance Ministry, PS-1643. Full power signed bv Casdorf in agreement with the chief of the Main Trusteeship Office East (Winkler), January 12, 1943, PS-1643. Ministerialrat Hoffmann (Interior Ministry) to Regierungspräsident in Kattowitz, January 22, 1943, PS-1643. Order by Bracht establishing the Amtsbezirk of Auschwitz with derailed description of the area, Mav 31, 1943, PS-1643. Map in U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 34, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 26. 51. Kommandantur Order (signed Höss), March 2, 1942, in which Höss refers to himself as Amtskommissar, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 939 This maneuvering for control was accompanied by plans for building in the area. A decision of the I. G. Farben Company to build a plant at Auschwitz led to an order by the SS construction chief Kammler to erect barracks for 18,000 inmates by the end of 1941J52 A branch of Auschwitz was founded outside the interest zone. It was called the Buna camp, descriptive of the synthetic rubber (Buna) that was to be produced there. Later it was also named Monowitz. Now there was a shortage of labor, and when Hoss made an agreement with the local Landrat for the seizure of Poles and Ethnic Germans who had refused work in the free market, the civilian prosecutor protested against this encroachment of his prerogatives.53 The invasion of the Soviet Union stirred Himmler into action. From the overflow of prisoners of war he wanted his share. The army agreed, and two sites were hurriedly styled SS prisoner-of-war camps: the Lublin camp (Majdanek) and Birkenau. The latter was a virtually empty expanse, about two miles from the main Auschwitz camp. Although Birkenau was “partially swampy,” it was thought that 125,000 prisoners could be held there.54 Such masses of men, however, did not materialize. Some 10,000 were marched from a nearby prisoner-of-war camp at Lamsdorf. Hoss had been told that they were the cream of the crop for hard labor, but by February 1942, almost all of them were already dead.55 In the midst of this ferment, a new development was introduced into Auschwitz: the final solution of the Jewish question. Hoss recalled that in the summer of 1941 he was summoned to Berlin by Heinrich Himmler himself. In a few spare words, Himmler told him of Hitler’s decision to annihilate the Jews. One of the factors in the choice of Auschwitz, said Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 32. 52. Kammler to Zentralbaulcitung, June 27,1941, ibid., Roll 54, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 215. 53. Weekly report by I. G. Farben (Auschwitz) engineer Faust, covering August 17-23,1941, NI-15254. 54. Bauleitung Explanatory' Report, October 30,1941, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center lor Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 35, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 233. Kammler to Bauleitung, November 1, 1941, ibid. HStuf. Bischof!' (Zentralbaulcitung) to Rüstungskommando Weimar, November 12, 1941, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 314. Consrnrction Certificate by Ncubauleirung, November 18, 1941, ibid., Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 41. 55. Rudolf Höss, Kommandant in Auschwitz (Munich, 1978), pp. 105-6. Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Ausdmntz-Rukenau ¡959- 1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989), particularly pp. 160, 166, 170, 177. Most of the prisoners had arrived in October. 940 KILLING CBNTBR OPERATIONS Himmler, was its location near railways. The details of this assignment would be brought to Hoss bv Eichmann. Having placed this burden on the shoulders of Hoss, Himmler added: “We, the SS, must carry out this order. If it is not carried out now, then the Jews will later on destroy the German people.’'*6 During the following weeks, Eichmann came to Auschwitz, and Hoss attended a conference in Eichmann’s office about railroads and arrangements for trains.56 57 One of the details to be resolved was the mode of killing. The solution to that problem was serendipitous. Auschwitz served as one of the concentration camps to which the Gestapo brought selected Soviet prisoners of war and Communist functionaries for “liquidation.” One day, when Hoss was away on business, his deputy, Fritzsch, locked some of the prisoners into a cellar and killed them with hydrogen cyanide, a gas in stock for fumigation. The experiment was repeated when Hoss returned. The building (or “block” as it was called in Auschwitz), numbered 11, had to be aired out for two days, and the next gassing was therefore planned for a somewhat larger number of Russians in the cremator)'. Holes were made in the earth and in the concrete roof over the crematory's morgue. After the cyanide was introduced into the room, some of the Russians shouted, “Gas!” and tried to break down the door, but the bolts did not give way. Hoss observed the corpses and listened to the explanations of the camp physician. The victims, he was assured, had not suffered in agon)'. He concluded that death from the gas was bloodless and that its use would spare his men a great psychological burden.58 56. Höss, Kommandant, pp. 157, 180-81. See also his testimony in International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals (Nuremberg, 1947-49), vol. 11, p. 398. Hoss does not recall the precise date of the meeting with Himmler, although in one of his statements, which is also his most confused, he mentions June. See his affidavit of March 14, 1946, NO-1210. Given the development of the final solution, June is unlikely. July may also be ruled out. Richard Breitman, reviewing Himmler’s traveling, specifies July 13-15 as the only time that month when Himmler was in Berlin. See his Architect ofCenocide (New York, 1991), p. 295. Danuta Czech suggests that in July Hoss was absent from Auschwitz on the 29th. See her Kalendarium, entry for July 29, 1941, pp. 106-7. 57. Hövs, Kommandant, pp. 157-59. Dating the meetings with Eichmann is difficult. See Christopher Browning, FatefiilMonths (New York, 1985), pp. 22-28. 58. Höss, Kommandant, pp. 127, 159. Czech, Kalctidarium, pp. 115-18. On the basis of witness testimony, Czech proposes September 3 as the date of the gassing in Block 11. Franciszek Piper also chscs September 3-5. See his article, “Gas Chambers and Crematoria,” in Yisracl Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, cds., Tlx Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bloomington, Ind., 1994), pp. 158-59. Soviet prisoners sent to Auschwitz before October were communists and Jews selected, not for labor, but killing. No precise date has been advanced for the second gassing in Auschwitz. The mortuary now became the first gas chamber. It was in operation, with an interruption for repair of the smokestack, for a year. Since the size of the chamber and the capacity of the two ovens were not sufficient for the task at hand, Hoss looked for a new location to carry out additional gassings. Accompanied by Eichmann, he found two small farmhouses in Birkenau that seemed suitable. Work was begun to fill in their windows. The interior walls were removed and special airtight doors installed. The two gas buildings were placed in operation during 1942, the smaller one in March, the larger in June. They were called Bunker I and II.59 Himmler visited the camp on July 17 and 18, 1942, with Gauleiter Bracht and the Higher SS and Police Leader of Upper Silesia, Schmauser. He watched a procedure from the unloading of the living to die removal of the dead at Bunker II. At that time he made no comment. Later, he sat in Hoss’s office and said that Eichmann’s transports would rise from month to month, that Jews incapable of work were to be annihilated ruthlessly and that the Gypsies too were to be killed.60 The bodies of the people gassed in the two bunkers were buried in mass graves. A survivor reports that in the summer of 1942 the corpses swelled, and a “black, evil-smelling mass oozed out and polluted the ground water in the vicinity.”61 From the end of summer to November 1942, the accumulated decomposing bodies infested with maggots had to be uncovered and burned.62 In the meantime the entire camp was in ferment. Auschwitz was continually under construction. Most of the work was planned and supervised by the SS-Zentralbauleitung Auschwitz, an organization of barely one hundred, including engineers, architects, technicians, and other personnel.63 The Zentralbauleitung was responsible for erecting all the SS installations and two plant halls that were to be used by the Krupp company. In addition, I. G. Farben had a construction commission for its 59. Jcan-Claudc Prcssac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (Auschwitz, 1989), pp. 123-82, and (for information about the original Krematorium) his Les crématoires d’Auschwitz (Paris, 1993), pp. 16-20. On the bunkers see also the affidavit by Friedrich Entrcss, April 14,1947, NO-2368. The gassing of Jews in the Krematorium began on February 15, 1942, in Bunker I on March 20, 1942, and in Bunker II on June 30,1942. Czech, Kalendarium, pp. 174-75,186-87,238-39. 60. Höss, Kommandant, pp. 161,184. 61. Filip Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz (New York, 1979), pp. 50-51. 62. Höss, Kommandant, p. 161. 63. See the Zcntralbaulcitung’s figure of 98 for the second quarter of 1943,1’.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 46. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS buildings,64 and the construction office of the Auschwitz railway station laid tracks and set up its equipment.6* The Zentralbauleitung was not capable of carrying out its task by itself. The SS company Deutsche Ausrustungswerke (DAW) could undertake only simple carpentry. Consequently, about two hundred private firms were engaged, many for construction in the camp, the others as suppliers of materials to Auschwitz. Most of the companies were in Upper Silesia and their volume of business was small, but several of them were in Diis-seldorf, Cologne, or Vienna, and a few had branches in several cities.66 Almost all the firms had to wrestle with multiple problems caused by wartime conditions: the allocation of material, which was a concern of the Speer ministry; the availability of freight cars for shipment, which was determined by the Reichsbahn; and the assignment of labor for Auschwitz projects, which was subject to the control of labor offices. In these matters the Zentralbauleitung attempted to support applications in order to expedite the process,67 but only the labor shortage could be alleviated on the spot by drawing on the inmate population. As of December 22, 1942, for example, the construction firms employed 905 of their own workers and 2,076 prisoners in the camp, while the Zentralbauleitung used an additional 5,751 inmates.68 The search for professional and 64. See Tabic 9-15. In November 1941, the Zentralbauleitung was an amalgamation of a Neubaulcitung in the main camp and a Sondcrbauleitung zur Errichtung eines Kriegsgefangenenlagers (a "special construction directorate for the erection of a prisoner of war camp”). Generally, a Neubauleitung was created in a new concentration camp. The Sonderbauleitung was formed October 1, 1941, for Birkenau. 65. See the partially reconstructed figures of Reichsbahndirektion Oppeln for Auschwitz and other localities in the area of the Direktion. Verkehrsmuseum Nuremberg Archive, Folder mm. 66. For firms participating in the construction of the Auschwitz complex, see the files of the Zentralbauleitung in the U.S. Flolocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), passim. 67. For allocations of material, see, for example, Himmler’s Personal Staff/Raw Materials Office (Rohstoffamt) to Zentralbauleitung, May 11,1944, regarding Speer Ministry’s authorization to AEG/Kattowitz for relay station, ibid., Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 38, and correspondence affecting other firms in ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 307. For railroad freight embargo and priority problems, see 1943 correspondence in Folder 307, and with specific reference to crematorv construction, Eng. Prüfer (Topf firm) to Zentralbauleitung, January 29, 1943, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 313. For approval of the Labor Office in Kattowitz (Katowice), see Wilhelm Kermel Kattowitz Elektrotechnisches Installationsgeschäft, September 8, 1942, seeking the help of the Zentralbauleitung, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 307. 68. Compilation of the Zentralbauleitung for December 22, 1942, ibid., Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 57. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 943 skilled labor was a special effort early on, when Auschwitz tried to find qualified engineers and architects among German inmates of other concentration camps.69 The Auschwitz construction projects were begun with the laying of streets, the importation of electricity, and the digging for water.70 Then came hundreds of barracks, particularly in Birkenau. Most of these structures were prefabricated horse stables assembled on bare earth without floors, and used for inmate housing and latrines.71 Temporary guard towers (without hygienic amenities) were to be replaced in April 1943 by 16 large, 45 medium, and 42 small structures.72 Throughout these activities, tons of barbed wire were strung and electrified.73 It was in the course of all this construction that a new kind of edifice made its appearance. Four massive buildings containing gas chambers and crematoria were erected in Birkenau. They were to be the answer to Himmler’s admonition that more and more transports would arrive in Auschwitz. While under construction they were designated Bauwerke (Building Projects) 30, 30a, 30b, and 30c, and this numeration indicates that they were planned, not all four at one time, but in sequence.74 Bauwerk 30, the first in the set, was to become Krematorium II: the second Krematorium of Auschwitz. It was put on the drawing board in late 1941 when there was still an expectation of the large-scale delivery of Soviet prisoners of war.75 At that moment the Zentralbauleitung envisaged five ovens with three retorts each. After the flow of Soviet prisoners had stopped, the design was scaled back to two morgues in the cellar and only two furnaces on ground level. By February 27, 1942, however, the Jewish transports were in the offing. That day, Oberfiihrer 69. Baulcirung to Kommandantur Auschwitz, November 12,1941, ibid., Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 54. 70. See the proposed budget of the Zentralbauleitung, January 9, 1942, referring to budget proposal of October 20,1941, ibid., Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 24. 71. Bischoff to Kammlcr, January 27, 1943, and Zentralbauleitung audit report, February' 2, 1943, ibid., Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 28. 72. Notation by Untcrsturmfiihrcr Dejaco (Zentralbauleitung), December 4, 1942, ibid., Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 26. Hoss to WVHA-D, April 12, 1943, ibid., Roll 36, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 260. Bischoff to Kammler, April 27, 1943, ibid., Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 28. 73. Special Order (Sonderbefchl) by Hoss, November 10, 1940, ibid.. Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 32. Baulcitung to Fesrungspionierstab 12 (Fortification Engineers Staff 12 of the army), November 28, 1941, asking for 7 metric tons of barbed wire for Birkenau, ibid., Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 55. Work card, Zcntralbauleirung, July 10, 1943, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 316. 74. See construction correspondence in ibid.. Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folders 306-14. Contractors were sometimes confused by these designations. 75. Bischoff to Riisrungskommando Weimar, referring to the Russians, November 12, 1941, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 314. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Kammler visited the camp and decided that the five furnaces should be installed/6 Some time later several changes were made in the plans for the building. A chute for corpses was deleted and a staircase inserted. One of the morgues in the basement was turned into an undressing room. For the other the planners added a separate drainage system as well as ventilation—the transformation into a gas chamber.77 While these modifications were projected in a succession of drawings, a third Krematorium, identical to the final version of the second, was planned. This structure, 30a, was to become Krematorium III.78 Finally, two more Bauwerke, 30b and 30c, were added. These buildings, which were Krematoria IV and V, did not have a cellar. Their gas chambers were on the surface, and as an economy measure each Krematorium was to have a double furnace with two smokestacks.79 The double ovens had been ordered bv the SS Construction Inspectorate in the area of the Higher SS and Police Leader Russia Center von dem Bach for Mogilev on the Dnepr Riv er, but they were diverted from that destination to Auschwitz.80 76. As of October 22, 1941, the Krematorium was to have five ovens, each with three retorts. See the letter of the Bauleitung to the Topf firm on that day, with specification of time limits for delivery7 of plans and parts. Facsimile of an original copy (Abschrift) without signature in Prcssac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation, p. 187. A brief letter outlining a plan for substituting 150,000 Jews for the missing Soviet prisoners was sent bv Himmler to Glücks on January7 25, 1942, NO-500. Lacking exact word, the Zentralbauleitung placed an order orally for only two ovens on February7 12, 1942. Bischoffto Topf, March 2, 1942, facsimile in Prcssac, Ausdmntz: Technique and Operation, p. 191. After Kammlcrs visit on February7 27, 1942, the oral order was rescinded and the original one was reinstated. BischofPs letter of March 5, 1942, ibid. See also Bischoft'to WVHA-C III (Stubaf. Wirtz), March 30, 1942, U.S. Hokxaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 313. Prcssac assumes from the blueprints that Krematorium II was at first intended for the main camp. See his discussion and facsimiles of drawings in his two bex^ks. 77. See the blueprints in Prcssac with his analyses, Auschuntz^: Technique and Operation, pp. 183-84, 267-329 (particularly 284-303), 355-78, and his Les crématoires dAuscbmtz, pp. 46-86 ( passim), with blueprints and photographs on glossy pages. See also his article (with Robcrt-Jan van Pelt), “Machinery of Mass Murder,1" in Gutman and Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, pp. 199-201. 78. See photographs of Krematorium III under construction and completed in Prcssac, Auschwttz: Technique afui Operation, pp. 333, 336-37, 339, and 342. 79. See facsimiles of drawings, ibid., pp. 392-403. The earliest of these drawings, by a prisoner, is dated August 14, 1942. 80. Memorandum by UStuf. FLrtl (Zentralbauleitung), August 21, 1942, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 313. Liquidation post (in Poznan) of SS Construction Group Russia Center to Zentralbauleitung, August 11, 1944, and other correspondence in the same folder. Prüfer (Topf firm) to Zcnrral-baulcitung, July 7, 1943, in Prcssac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operatioti, pp. 382-83. ORIGINS OF THE KELLING CENTERS 945 The hydrogen cyanide, solidified in pellets, was to be shaken into the cellars of Krematoria II and III through shafts, and into the surface chambers of Krematoria IV and V through side walls. In the gas chambers, the pellets would pass immediately into the gaseous stage. Thus an altogether more efficient system, which guaranteed much more rapid processing than in other camps, had been devised in Auschwitz. There was one drawback. The construction of these elaborate buildings required much more time than the erection of their counterparts in the Generalgouvernement killing centers of Sobibor and Treblinka. The following are the time spans in Auschwitz from start to finish:81 Numeration Date of start of Date of transfer from of completed construction Zentralbauleitung to camp Krematoria administration (Standort- verwaltung) II July 2,1942 March 31,1943 III September 14,1942 June 26,1943 IV October 9,1942 March 22,1943 V November 20,1942 April 4,1943 More than a dozen firms were contractors on the sites of the four Krematoria,82 for crematory-gas chamber design and the supply of ovens: J. A. Topf und Söhne, Erfurt for erection of the buildings: HUTA Hoch- und Tiefbau, Breslau, branch Kattowitz Hermann Hirt Nachf., Beuthen W. Riedel und Sohn, Bielitz VEDAG Vereinigte Dachpappen A. G., Breslau for drainage: Continentale Wasserwerksgesellschaft, Berlin Tiefbauunternehmung “TRITON,” Kattowitz for roofs: Baugeschäft Konrad Segnitz, Beuthen Industrie-Bau A. G., Bielitz 81. Start of construction dates in timetable of Zentralbauleitung, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 34, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 210. Completion dates in Zcntralbauleitung file, facsimile in Jadwiga Bczwinska, câ., Amidst a Nightmare of Crime (Auschwitz, 1973), p. 55. 82. Prcssac, Les crématoires d’Auschwitz, pp. 140-42, and documents of the Zentralbauleitung in U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Fond 502, passim. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS for smokestacks: Robert Koehler, Myslowitz for plumbing: Karl Falck, Gleiwitz for ventilation: Josef Kluge, Alt Gleiwitz for electrical current: AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitatsgesellschaft), branch Kattowitz Much of the work was plagued by shortages of products, delays in the completion of installations, and poor quality of workmanship. On January 29, 1943, for example, the AEG bluntly told the Zentralbauleitung that the company was unable to obtain the best components for the supply of electricity in time, that equipment would have to be cannibalized from other projects, and that this compromise would curtail simultaneous incineration and “special treatment” in Krematorium II.83 A stoppage in the allocation of freight cars, in turn, delayed the installation of ventilation equipment through the concrete ceiling of the “special cellar” ( Sonderkcllcr) of the Krematorium.84 The Zentralbauleitung complained to the SS company Deutsche Ausriistungswerke on January 13, 1943, that carpentry work had not been completed and that doors for one of the units, “which was urgently needed for the implementation of special measures [welches zur Dttrchfiihrung tier Sondermassnahmen dringend bendttjjt wird]" were not finished.85 On March 31, another note was sent about a door that was to have a peephole, with a reminder that this order was specially urgent.86 After the Krematoria had been placed into operation, repairs were needed, particularly of the chimney in Krematorium II. On this occasion there was an argument between Engineer Priifer of Topf, who was responsible for the plans, and the firm Koehler, which carried them out. In the fact-finding attempt, even the senior German inmate supervisor had to be consulted.87 Finally, the two double ovens 83. Memorandum signed by engineer Tomitschck of AEG and Unterscharführer Swoboda of the Zentralbauleitung, January 29, 1943, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 26. 84. Memorandum by UStuf. Wolter (Zentralbauleitung), November 27, 1942, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 313. 85. Zentralbauleitung to DAW, January 13, 1943, NO-4466. 86. Zentralbauleitung to DAW, March 31, 1943, NO-4465. 87. Memorandum by UStuf. Kirschncck (Zentralbauleitung) on discussion with Topf representative Priifer and Ing. Koehler, September 14, 1943, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 501, Opis 1, Folder 26. The inmate, Obcrkapo August Brück, had arrived from Buchenwald. Czech, Kalendarium, p. 43In. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 947 diverted from Mogilev to Krematoria IV and V did not function very well.88 There was a reason for the feverish attempts to ready the buildings and to use them even with faulty parts. Throughout 1942, Auschwitz had received barely 175,000 Jews. The Generalgouvernement camps had swallowed more than eight times as many. The burial pits in Birkenau and in the Generalgouvernement were filling up or they were already full. In the first few months of 1943, more Jews were arriving in Auschwitz, but additional tens of thousands, from Macedonia, Thrace, France, and the Netherlands, were directed on longer routes to Treblinka and Sobibor, where no industry was located and no selection of the fittest could be conducted. Consequendy, Auschwitz was becoming the center of attention. Auschwitz had to come into its own. The status of Auschwitz as a focal point was underscored in a report by BischofF to Kammler on January 27, 1943. Referring specifically to die “implementation of the special action [Durchführung der Sonderaktion]” in Birkenau, BischofF noted an intervention by Hider himself: “Pursuant to a Führer order the completion of construction in the camp is to be carried out on a specially accelerated basis [ Durch einen Führerbefehl ist der Aufbau des Lagers besonders beschleunigt durchzuführen] .”89 Two days later BischofF wrote encouragingly to Kammler that after die commitment of all available manpower and in spite of tremendous difficulties ( unsagbare Schwierigkeiten), Krematorium II was now ready but for minor construction details {bauliche Kleinigkeiten).90 For an overview of the completed installations, see Table 9-4. If the construction of the gas chambers was a drawn-out affair, the laying of railway tracks for transports coming to Birkenau took even longer. The Auschwitz station, as part of the Upper Silesian network, was under the jurisdiction of Reichsbahndirektion in Oppeln. This Direktion, which had various offices also in Katowice and Sosnowiec, was headed until October 14,1942, by Präsident Pirath, who retired on that day, and then by Präsident Geitmann, an engineer. On frequent occasions, the SS Zentralbauleitung had direct dealings not only with functionaries of the Auschwitz station but with officials of the Reichsbahndirektion responsible for construction, operations, and traffic. Trains arriving in Auschwitz carried building supplies and raw materials for production, as well as prisoners. As early as the spring of 1942, when the prisoners were still unloaded at the railway station, the Zentral-88. Prcssac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation, pp. 386-90. 89. BischofF to Kammler, January 27, 1943, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 28. 90. Zentralbauleitung to Kammler, January 29, 1943, NO-4473. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS TABLE 9-4 GASSING AND KREMATORIUM INSTALLATIONS AT AUSCHWITZ (OLD NUMBERS IN PARENTHESES) Auschwitz Main Camp (Krematorium I) Converted gas chamber, with crematory, used February-December 1942. Birkenau Bunker I Two small gas chambers, barracks for undressing, adjacent grave, used March 1942 to spring 1943. Bunker II Four small gas chambers, barracks for undressing, adjacent grave; used June 1942 to spring 1943, and reconstituted spring 1944 into Facility V for use on a stand-by basis during the day, with undressing in grove and pits for cremation. Krematorium (II) I Subterranean gas chamber divided December 1943 into two chambers; five furnaces, each with three retorts; used March 1943 to November 1944. Krematorium (III) II Subterranean gas chamber divided December 1943 into two chambers; five furnaces, each with three retorts; used June 1943 to November 1944. Krematorium (IV) III Surface gas chamber; double furnace with eight retorts. From March 1943. Repeated malfunctions. Destroyed by inmates on October 7, 1944. Krematorium (V) IV Surface gas chamber; double furnace with eight retorts. Supplemental pits dug in 1944. April 1943 to November 1944. Note: Franciszek Piper, “Gas Chambers and Crematoria” and Jean-Claude Pressac (with Robcrt-Jan van Pelt), “The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz,” in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Bercnb.ium, cd*.. Anatomy ofthcAuscbmtz Death Camp (Bloomington, lnd., 1994), pp. 157-245. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CBNTBKS 949 bauleitung began to consider the laying of a spur to Birkenau.91 Already then, Oppeln had warned the Zentralbauleitung of a possibility that trains might be barred (Annahmesperre).91 The construction project, however, was not so simple. Under a law of 1892, any tracks, including those owned by official agencies, were defined as “private” if they were not open to general traffic.93 The SS, therefore, had to have a budget, allocations of rails and ties, agreements with the Reichsbahn, and permission of the Regierungspräsident before it could proceed. By the beginning of 1943, the Zentralbauleitung unloaded thirty cars a day for construction materials alone.94 Höss had negotiated with the Reichsbahn for the use of an outside spur that had been put down by the railways themselves tor their own construction projects.95 The SS, however, wanted arriving transports to halt before the new gas chambers inside Birkenau. Tracks were to be laid through the guard building at the entrance, with gates that could be locked.96 On March 19, 1943, Höss explained to Oberreichsbahnrat Stabler that the tracks were needed “urgently,” now that notification had been received of a heavier flow of transports.97 The provisional ramp had to be moved when the Reichsbahn was expanding its construction, and the SS had some anxiety that congestion might limit its unloading capacity to five transports a day.98 Nevertheless, there were more complications and interim solutions.99 91. Zentralbaulcitung to Rcichsbahndirektion (RBD) Oppeln/Dezemat 47, July 30, 1942, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 32, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 186. 92. Reichsbahn Operations Office (Betriebsamt) Kattowitz 4 (signed Reichsbahnrat Mannl) to Zentralbaulcitung, and RBD Oppeln to Zentralbaulcitung, Mav 1942, ibid. 93. See the correspondence of 1943, the approval of March 6,1944, by the office of the Regierungspräsident in Kattowitz (signed Scholz), and RBD Oppeln to Standortvcrwaltung of Auschwitz, February' 5,1944, ibid. 94. Bischoff to Höss, April 7, 1943, ibid. A single prefabricated barracks was carried by five cars. Army Construction Office/Barracks (Hecresbauamt/Barracken) to Zentralbaulcitung, February' 18, 1943, ibid., Roll 35, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 236. 95. Memorandum by Zentralbaulcitung, January' 18, 1943, ibid., Roll 32, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 184. Bischoff to WVHA C-III, May 4, 1943, ibid.. Folder 186. 96. Bischoff to WVHA C-III, May 4, 1943, ibid., Folder 186. 97. Höss to Stabler, April 19,1943, and Bischoff repeating the call for urgency in a letter to the Regierungspräsident, September 11, 1943, ibid. 98. Discussion between Oberrcichsbahnrat Stäblcr, Oberreichsbahnrat Doll (Dezernat 32), Reichsbahnrat Sander, Amtmann Löw, and Bischoff Untersturmführer Jänisch, and Unterscharführer Dr. Kuchendorf (Zentralbaulcitung), March 27, 1943, ibid. 99. Sec the note of a meeting between Möckcl, Bischoff and Jänisch, with Oberreichsbahnrat Fehling and two of his assistants, July 12, 1943, ibid, Roll 20, Fond KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Finally, the construction of the spur was started in early 1944, when a contractor, the firm Richard Reckmann of Cottbus, was engaged for the undertaking.* 100 On April 19, 1944, the railway station of Auschwitz approved the use of the newlv built tracks for locomotives of the Reichsbahn.101 Barely one month later, the Hungarian transports began to roll in, and for the next half-year the camp was to receive more Jews than had arrived during the preceding two years. Construction was one-half of the problem faced by the SS. The gas supply was the other half. Hydrogen cyanide, or Zyklon, was a powerful lethal agent —a deadly dose was 1 milligram per kilogram of body weight. Packed in containers, the Zyklon was put to use simply by opening the canister and pouring the pellets into the chamber; the solid material would then sublimate. The Zyklon had only one drawback: within three months it deteriorated in the container and thus could not be stockpiled.102 Since Auschwitz was a receiving station, always on call, it was necessary to have a dependable gas supply. The SS did not manufacture Zyklon, so die gas had to be procured from private firms. The enterprises that furnished it were part of the chemical industry. They specialized in the “combating of vermin” ( Schdd- linjisbekampfunji) by means of poison gases. Zyklon was one of eight products manufactured by these firms,103 * which undertook large-scale fumigations of buildings, barracks, and ships; disinfected clothes in specially constructed gas chambers (Entlausunjjsanlapjen); and deloused human beings, protected by gas masks.11)4 In short, this industry used very powerful gases to exterminate rodents and inseas in enclosed spaces. That it should now have become involved in an operation to kill oft'Jews by the hundreds of thousands is no mere accident. In German propaganda, Jews had frequently been portrayed as inseas. Frank and Himmler had stated repeatedly that the Jews were parasites who had to be extermi­ 501, Opis 1, Folder 26, and other correspondence in ibid., Roll 32, Fond 510, Opis 1, Folder 186. 100. Zcntralbaulcitung to Standortvcrwaltung, February 10, 1944, ibid., Roll 32 Fond 501, Opis 1, Folder 186. 101. Railway station to Zcntralbauleitung, April 19, 1944, ibid. Road crossings, heavily used, were a remaining problem, because warning signs and beams were still missing. Memorandum by Bauleirung, May 30, 1944, ibid. 102. Characteristics of Zyklon described in undated report by Health Institute of Protektorat: “Directive for Utilization of Zyklon for Extermination of Vermin” ( Un- lleziefmrrtilqunjj), NI-9912. For the toxic properties of the gas, sec also Steven I. Raskin, “Zvklon B,” in Walter Laqueur, cd., The Holocaust Encyclopedia (New Haven, 2001), pp. 716-19. 103. Lectures bv Dr. Gerhard Peters and Heinrich Sossenheimcr (gas experts), Fcbruarv 27, 1942, NI-9098. 104 .Ibid. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 951 nated like vermin, and with the introduction of Zyklon into Auschwitz that thought had been translated into reality. The operations of the extermination industry' were determined by three systems: the shareholding channels, the lines of production and sales, and the mechanisms of allocations to users. The company that developed the gas method of combating vermin was the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH (German Vermin-combating Corporation), abbreviated DEG ESCH.105 The firm was owned by three corporations, and itself controlled two retailers (see Table 9-5). The capital investment figures shown in the table are no indication of the volume of business and profits. The DEGESCH profit in 1942 was 760,368 Reichsmark. From its HELI holdings alone, the DEGESCH received 76,500 Reichsmark; from TESTA, 36,500 Reichsmark. In 1943, after the TESTA shares were sold, the DEGESCH made 580,999 Reichsmark, of which 102,000 Reichsmark were netted from the HELI investment.106 Every year from 1938 through 1943, excepting only 1940 and 1941, I. G. Farben received a DEGESCH dividend of 85,000 Reichsmark (200 percent). In 1940 and 1941 the I. G. made a profit of 42,500 Reichsmark (100 percent).107 The reasons for these outsized profits were threefold: a comparatively low overhead (DEGESCH had fewer than fifty employees), ever increasing demands of the war economy,108 and, most important, a monopoly. The Zyklon was produced by two companies: the Dessauer Werke and the Kaliwerke at Kolin. An I. G. Farben plant (at Uerdingen) produced the stabilizer for the Zyklon.109 Distribution of the gas was controlled by DEGESCH, which in 1929 divided the world market with an American corporation, Cyanamid.110 However, DEGESCH did not sell Zyklon directly to users. Two other firms handled the retailing: HELI and TESTA. The territory of these two corporations was divided by a line drawn from Cuxhaven through Öbisfelde to Plauen. The area northeast of that line, including Auschwitz, belonged to Tesch und Stabenow.111 (Schematically, the production and marketing of Zyklon is presented in Table 9-6.) 105. For the history' of that corporation, see lectures by Peters and Sossenheimer (both DEGESCH officials), February 27,1942, NI-9098. 106. Affidavit by Paul H. Hacni, July 29,1947, NI-9150. 107. Hearings before subcommittee of Committee on Military Affairs, U.S. Senate, 79th Cong., 1st sess., Exhibits 31-40, NI-9774. 108. For statistics of sales and construction of gas chambers, see DEGESC H business reports for 1942 and 1944, NI-9093. 109. Affidavit by Karl Amend (DEGESCH Prokurist), November 3, 1947, NI-12217. 110. Lectures by Peters and Sossenheimer, February 27, 1942, NI-9098. 111. Contract between DEGESCH and TESTA, June 27, 1942, Nl-11393. TESTA bought Zyklon from DEGESCH at RM 5.28 per kg. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS TABLE 9-5 SHAREHOLDINGS IN THE EXTERMINATION INDUSTRY Deutsche Gold- und Silber-Scheideanstalt I. G. Farben (DEGUSSA) Goldschmidt RM 42,500 RM 42,500 RM 15,000 (42.5 percent) (42.5 percent) (15 percent) Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH (DEGESCH) (Chairman of Verwaltungsausschuss: Generalkonsul Wilhelm R. Mann of I. G. Farben) RM 25,000 (51 percent) (to 1942) Heerdt und Lingler GmbH RM 1,375 (HELI) (27.5 percent) / (to 1942) / 7 RM 1,375 / (27.5 percent) / "x / \/ Tesch und Stabenow, Internationale Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung mbH (TESTA) Dr. Bruno Tesch, sole owner from 1942 * 37 Note: Contract between DEGESCH, DEGUSSA, I. G. Farben, and Goldschmidt, 1936-37, NI-6363. Affidavits by Paul H. Haeni (prosecution staff) based on analysis of documents, July 27,1947, and October 28,1947, NI-9150 and NI-12073. The Zyklon B Case, Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, vol. 1 (London, 1947), p. 94. The Verwaltungsausschuss (administrative committee) of the DEGESCH had the powers of an Aufiichtsrat (board of directors). TABLE 9-6 PRODUCTION AND MARKETING OF ZYKLON Dessauer Werke fur Kaliwerke A. G. I. G. Farben, Zucker und Kolin Uerdingen Chemische Industrie (near Prague) (production of Dessau stabilizer) DEGESCH Dr. Gerhard Friedrich Peters, managing director HEU TESTA (southwest) (northeast) Dr. Gerhard Peters, Dr. Bruno Tesch managing director The territorial division between HELI and TESTA gave to HELI mostly private customers and to TESTA mainly the governmental sector, including the Wehrmacht and the SS. On the whole, neither firm sought to invade the territory of the other, but on occasion Dr. Tesch supplied Dachau via Berlin.112 Allocation of the product to purchasers was the third factor in the workings of the industry. In a war, one cannot simply buy and sell. Each user has to show why he needs the supplies, and upon submission of such evidence, certain quantities are allocated to him. In other words, the territorial monopoly tells him where he has to buy, and the allocation system determines how much he can get. The central allocation authority was a committee in the Speer ministry. The committee divided the supply among export, private firms, and the armed forces. The Armed Forces Main Sanitation Park fixed the needs of the Wehrmacht and the SS,113 and the Waffen-SS Central Sanitation Depot was in turn responsible for allocations to SS offices and concentration camps.114 The working of this apparatus is illustrated in Table 9-7, which indicates the distributions of Zyklon to various users. 112. Affidavit by Peters, October 16, 1947, NI-9113. 113. « 114. Testimony by Joachim Mrugowski, Case No. 1, tr. pp. 5403-4. KILLING CBNTBR OPERATIONS TESTA sold Zyklon in different concentrations. Invoices presented to municipal or industrial clients for fumigations of buildings were printed with columns headed C, D, E, and F, each denoting a category of potency and price. As explained in a letter to the Ostland, strength E was required for the eradication of specially resistant vermin, such as cockroaches, or for gassings in wooden barracks. The “normal” preparation, D, was used to exterminate lice, mice, or rats in large, well-built structures containing furniture.115 Human organisms in gas chambers were killed with Zyklon B.116 The amounts required by Auschwitz were not large, but they were noticeable. At various times sizable portions of these deliveries were used for gassing people.117 The camp administration itself did not buy the gas. The purchaser was Obcrsturmftihrer Gerstein, Chief Disinfection Officer in the Office of the Hygienic Chief of the Waffen-SS (Mrugowski).118 As a rule, all orders passed through the hands of TESTA, DEGESCH, and Dessau. From the Dessau Works, which produced the gas, shipments were sent directly to the Auschwitz Extermination and Fumigation Division (Abttilting Entmsung undEntseuchung).119 Notification generally came from Amtsgruppe D, which authorized the Auschwitz administration to dispatch a truck to Dessau “to pick up materials for the Jewish resettlement [Abholung von Materialien fur die Judenumsiedlung].”120 Deliveries to SS installations for fumigation purposes were made every six months or so, but Auschwitz required a 115. Reichskommissar Osrland/Hcalth Division to Rcichskommissar/Trusteeship, February 28, 1942, enclosing explanations of Zyklon prices from Wcinbacher (TESTA) to Dr. Ferdinand (Health Division), February 21, 1942, and service order for fumigation of empty ghetto buildings in Riga, March 2, 1942, T 459, Roll 3. 116. Hoss, Kommandant, p. 159. The same preparation was used for the dclous-ing of clothes. Ibid. Most documents relating to shipments of the gas to camps simply state Zyklon. See, however, 1944 correspondence with B designation in documents NI-9909 and NI-9913. 117. Testimony of Dr. Charles Sigismund Bendcl (Jewish survivor) at trial of Bruno Tesch, tr. pp. 28-31, Nl-11953. Heinrich Schuster, former Austrian intelligence agent imprisoned in Auschwitz, estimated the annual consumption of Zyklon for fumigations of barracks and freight cars at 1,700 kilograms (3,750 lbs.). Affidavit by Schuster, October 13, 1947, NIT 1862. Hoss estimated that only 13 lbs. (in six one-kilogram cans) were needed for the gassing of 1,500 people. See his affidavit of May 20, 1946, NI-03. 118. Gerstein account of DEGESCH, Nl-7278. Affidavit by Hoss, May 17, 1946, NI-34. 119. Dessau to DEGESCH, April 11, 1944, NI-9913. The man in charge of gas storage in Auschwitz was OSchaf. Klehr. Affidavit bv Perry Broad (SS man), December 14, 1945, Nl-11397. 120. Licbehenschel to Auschwitz, October 2, 1942, NO-2362. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 955 TABLE 9-7 DISTRIBUTION OF ZYKLON Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production Special Committee Chemical Products Working Committee Space-Fumigation and Counter-Epidemics Composition of working committee: Dr. Gerhard Peters (DEGESCH), chairman; Generalarzt Prof. Dr. Rose (Robert Koch Institute); Ober-medizinalrat Dr. Christiansen (Interior Ministry); a representative of Generalarzt Dr. Schreiber (OKW) — generally Dr. Finger or Dr. Wieser Armed Forces Main Export Private firms Sanitation Park 1943 1944 1943 1944 1943 1944 1201. none 1201. 1501. 701. 901. Central Sanitation Depot of the Armed SS 1943 1944 501. 751. Auschwitz 1942 1943 7.51. 121. Note: Affidavit by Peters, October 16,1947, NI-9113. Figures given by Peters do not entirely agree with sales figures in DEGESCH business report for 1944, April 23,1946, NI-9093. The Auschwitz figures are for 1942 and 1943 (not 1943 and 1944) and refer to actual deliveries. Affidavit by Alfred Zaun (TESTA bookkeeper), October 18,1947, NI-11937. Tons are metric tons. shipment every six weeks because Zyklon deteriorated easily and a supply had to be on hand at all times. To discerning eyes that frequency was noticeable too.121 The delivery system worked dependably until March 1944, when the Dessau Zyklon plant was bombed and heavily damaged.122 The sudden curtailment of the supply came at a time when the SS was making preparations to send 750,000 Jews to Auschwitz, the only killing center still in existence. A crisis developed. On April 5,1944, a Mrugowski representative wrote to DEGESCH requesting immediate shipment of 5 metric 121. Interrogation of Hoss, May 14, 1946, NI-36. 122. DEGESCH business report for 1944, April 23, 1946, NI-9093. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS tons of Zyklon B without odor ingredient. The shipment had already been approved by the Armed Forces Main Sanitation Park and was “urgently needed” (dringendst benötigt) by the Waffen-SS.123 124 125 A week later, Dr. Evers of Armed Forces Sanitation himself ordered about 6,000 lbs. and had them shipped to Auschwitz. TESTA hurriedly inquired who was to be billed.124 A DEGESCH official became worried that the production of Zyklon without odor ingredients would endanger the firm’s monopoly.125 The High Command of the Navv protested that it urgently needed Zyklon for the fumigation of ships.126 The SS in the meantime began to be concerned over the possibility that it had received the Zyklon too early. On May 24, the disinfection officer, Obersturmführer Gerstein, wrote a letter to Dr. Peters inquiring how long the shipment would last. When would it deteriorate? So far, it had not been used at all. “On the other hand, under certain circumstances large quantities — that is to say, actually the entire quantity — might have to be used all at once [Andereseits werden erhebliche Mengen — d.h. eigentlich die ganzen vem>ahrtcn Mengen — unter Umständen plötzlich benötigt] ,”127 The SS did not have to wait too long. By end of May transports were rolling into Auschwitz, and on August 6 the Referat für Schädlingsbekämpfung der Waffen-SS und Polizei in Auschwitz (Anti-vermin Office of the SS and Police in Auschwitz) asked for more Zyklon.128 The supply was kept up to the very end. The SS did not run out of gas. The gas-killing method had evolved through three separate channels, each more advanced than the previous one: first the carbon monoxide gas vans, then the carbon monoxide gas chambers, and finally the hydrogen cyanide (or Zyklon) combination units. The advantages of Zyklon as a lethal gas became known. Even while Höss was still building his gas chambers in 1942, a distinguished visitor from Lublin, Brigadeführer Globocnik, visited Auschwitz in order to learn of the new method.129 The Höss discovery posed an immediate threat to his Generalgouvernement rival, Kriminalkommissar Wirth. This rivalry' came to a head one day in August 1942 when Eichmann’s deputy', Günther, and the chief disinfection officer, Kurt Gerstein, arrived in Belzec. They had about 200 pounds of Zyklon with them and were 123. Brcmcnburg to Peters, April 5,1944, NI-9909. 124. Dessau to DEGESCH, April 11, 1944, NI-9913. TESTA to DEGESCH, April 11, 1944, NI-9096. DEGESCH to TESTA, April 13, 1944, NI-9096. 125. Dr. Heinrich to Amend, June 21, 1944, NJ-12110. 126. OKM (signed Dr. Klebe) to DEGESCH, August 16, 1944, NI-10185. 127. Gerstein to Peters, May 24, 1944, NI-9908. 128. Communication from Auschwitz to DEGESCH, enclosed in letter from DEGESCH to TESTA for booking, August 14, 1944, N1-9095. 129. Interrogation of Höss, May 14, 1946, NI-36. ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS 957 TABLE 9-8 THE “FINAL SOLUTION” IN THE DEATH CAMPS PRINCIPAL TIME SPANS OF MAIN GEOGRAPHIC SYSTEMATIC NUMBER CAMP ORIGINS OF VICTIMS KILLINGS KILLED Kulmhof Warthcland December 1941 to over 150,000 Reich, via Lodz September 1942 and Junc-July 1944 Belzec Galicia March-Dcccmbcr 1942 434,508 Krakow District Lublin District (including Reich deportees) Sobibór Lublin District April-June 1942 over 150,000 Netherlands and Slovakia October 1942 to Reich-Protektorat October 1943 Vilna and Minsk France Trcblinka Warsaw District July 1942 to up to 800,000 Radom District October 1943 Bialystok District Lublin District Maccdonia-Thracc Reich Theresienstadt Lublin Lublin District September 1942 to over 50,000 Warsaw District September 1943 Slovakia and Protektorat November 1943 Bialystok District France Auschwitz up to Hungary February 1942 to 1, 000,000 Poland November 1944 Incorporated areas Bialystok District Warthcland Upper Silesia East Prussia TABLE 9-8 CONTINUED PRINCIPAL TIME SPANS OF MAIN GEOGRAPHIC SYSTEMATIC NUMBER CAMP ORIGINS OF VICTIMS KILLINGS KILLED Generalgouvernement Remnant ghettos and labor camps France Netherlands Greece Theresienstadt Slovakia Belgium Reich-Protektorat (direct) Italy Croatia Norway Note: The column on geographic breakdowns is arranged to indicate, for each camp, the Jewish victims by place of origin from the largest number to the smallest in descending order. For arrivals of transports in Auschwitz, see Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Ausclmitz-Birkenau 1939-1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989). For Auschwitz statistics, see Franciszek Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz (Oswi^cim, 1993). Piper, on p. 202 of his study, estimates the number of non-Jews who died in Auschwitz at ca. 120,000, of which 60 percent were Poles. The precise final figure for Belzec is listed in a report by Stubaf. Höfle of Globocnik’s staff to Ostubaf. Heim (Office of the BdS in Krakow), Januarv 11,1943. Facsimile of the message as intercepted and decrypted by the Code and Cypher School in Britain, Public Records Office GPDD 355a, in Peter Wine and Stephen Tyas,uA New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during'Einsatz Reinhardt’ 1942 " Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15 (2001): 458-86. Also listed in die decrypt are figures of Einsatz Reinhardt, as of December 31, 1942, for the other Generalgouvernement camps, but additions in 1943 mast be estimated. In Table 9-8, the numbers of Jews killed are rounded, in the case of Auschwitz to the nearest 100,000, and for Treblinka, Sobibör, Kulmhof, and Lublin to the nearest 50,000. about to convert the carbon monoxide chambers to the hydrogen cyanide method. The unwelcome guests stayed to watch a gassing that took an especially long time (over three hours) because the diesel engine had failed. To Wirth’s great embarrassment and mortification, Gerstein timed the operation with a stopwatch. Facing the greatest crisis of his career, Wirth dropped his pride and asked Gerstein “not to propose any other ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS type ot gas chamber in Berlin.” Gerstein obliged, ordering the Zyklon to be buried on the pretext that it had spoiled.130 Hoss and Wirth were henceforth enemies. The Auschwitz commander, even after the war, spoke proudly of his “improvements.”131 Conversely, Wirth looked down on Hoss as a latecomer and called him his “untalented pupil.”132 Thus there had arisen a class of “founders” and “originators” in mass-death devices, and among these architects of the killing centers there was fierce competition and rivalry. A recapitulation of the “Final Solution” in the death camps is contained in Table 9-8. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE The administrative structure of the camps was shaped in large measure by their evolution and functions. Kulmhof, a pure killing center, was the most uncomplicated. Its gas vans had been furnished by the RSHA and its personnel had been a Kommando of Higher SS and Police Leader Koppe for special purposes, including euthanasia of East Prussian mental patients, long before Kulmhof was established.1 The core of the Kommando, ten to fifteen men, had been drawn from the Gestapo in Poznan and Lodz, whose service in Kulmhof (at least at the beginning) was on rotation.2 The Kommando was named for its first commander, Hauptsturmfuhrer Lange, and for a while it kept that designation, even after another Hauptsturmfiihrer, Bothmann, was placed in charge in March or April 1942. When the camp was broken up in 1943, the entire eighty-five-man Sonderkommando was to be assigned as a group to SS Division Prinz Eugen.3 The Kommando reappeared when the camp was reopened in 1944. Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were run by Kriminalkommissar Wirth, who had been employed in the euthanasia operations of the Führer Chan-130. Statement by Gerstein, April 26,1945, PS-1553. 131. Affidavit by Höss, April 5, 1946, PS-3868. 132. Affidavit by Dr. Konrad Morgen, July 19,1946, SS(A)-67. 1. Indictment of Wilhelm Koppe in Bonn, 1964, 8 Js 52/60. In 1940 the Kommando, using a van, killed 1,558 East Prussian and 250 to 300 Polish patients at Soldau. Indictment, pp. 174-91, including correspondence of Koppe to Sporrenberg, October 18, 1940, and Redicss to Wolff, November 7, 1940, on pp. 188-89. See also T 175, Roll 60. 2. Indictment of Koppe, pp. 194-95; Adalbert Rückerl, NS -1 cm ichtu wslajicr (Munich, 1977), pp. 262-64. 3. Brandt to Kaltenbrunncr, March 29, 1943, and later correspondence, T 1 ~5, Roll 60. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS TABLE 9-9 LINES OF AUTHORITY TO WIRTH Reichsleiter Philip Bouhler Reichsamtsleiter Viktor Brack Brigadefiihrer Globocnik Kriminalkommissar Wirth (Deputy: Hauptsturmflihrer Hering) cellerv. Brack sent him to Lublin around Christmas of 1941.4 In his new position he was still tied by a strong thread to the Führer Chancellery, but he reported also to Globocnik, as shown in Table 9-9.5 Almost all of Wirth’s German personnel had euthanasia experience. In the Reich that program had required a staff of about 400 to 500 people: SS doctors, nurses, drivers, clerks, photographers, and others.6 By late summer of 1941, when gassings of mentally defective persons had been stopped by an oral order of Hitler and only the more limited operation of thinning out the inmate population of the concentration camps was being continued, many of these functionaries and attendants were no longer needed. Soon, however, an opportunity arose for their continued employment in gassings. About one hundred men (no female nurses) were assigned to Wirth in the Generalgouvernement.7 While they were in Poland, the majoriw of them remained on the payroll of the Führer Chancellery.8 Their activities, however, were going to be altered not only in locale, but also in scale. Himmler is quoted as having said that what he expected of them now was “superhuman-inhuman” {er mute ihnen Übermenschlich-4. Brack ro Himmler, June 23, 1942, NO-205. Statement by Josef Oberhäuser, December 12, 1962, Belzec case, 1 Js 278/60, vol. 9, pp. 1678-93. 5. Interrogation of H. G. Wied (SS corruption expert), Julv 21, 1945, YIVO G-215. 6. Dieter Alters (Führer Chancellery) lists 400 people. Gitta Sereny, Into That Darktuss (New York, 1974), p. 84. Arnold Oels (Personnel Chief of Gemeinnützige Stiftung für Anstaltspflege in Führer Chancellery) indicates a roster of 500. See his statement of May 23, 1961, in Belzec case, vol. 7, pp. 1305-7. 7. Globocnik mentioned ninety-two men from the Führer Chancellery' on his staff for the Aktion. Globocnik to von Herft, October 27, 1943, in Berlin Document Center, reproduced by Rückert, NS-VtmicbtutujsLiffer, pp. 117-19. 8. Statement by Robert Lorenr (Payroll Chief, Gemeinnützige Stiftung), Mav 4, 1961, Belzec case, vol. 7, pp. 1258-61. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE Unmenschliches zu).9 They came to their tasks, singly and in groups, bv various routes.10 Thirty-five to forty were sent to Treblinka, thirty to Belzec, and the remainder to Sobibor.11 The commanders (in succession) were the following:12 Belzec Sturmbannführer Wirth Hauptsturmführer Hering Sobibor Obersturmführer Thomalla Obersturmführer Stangl Obersturmführer Reichleitner Treblinka Obersturmführer Eberl Obersturmführer Schemmerl Obersturmführer Stangl Untersturmführer Franz On August 1,1942, Wirth was appointed inspector of the three camps.13 Only Thomalla, who was in charge of Sobibor during the construction stage, had been stationed in the Lublin District before 1941;14 the others were members of the euthanasia group. Several (Eberl, Stangl, and Reichleitner) were Austrians, a circumstance that may be explained by Globocnik’s Austrian background.15 Eberl, a physician who had been in 9. Affidavit by Morgen, July 13, 1946, SS(A)-65. The remark, said to have been made to the Kommando itself, has not been confirmed by any of its surviving members. Wirth and most other original officers were dead or missing by 1945. One euthanasia man, Franz Suchomcl, states that when he wavered, two Führer Chancellery officials (Blankenburg and Ocls) told him that he could go cither to Poland or to a hero’s death in a military unit. Statement by Franz Suchomcl, October 24-25,1960, in Treblinka case, 8Js 10904/59, vol. 7, pp. 1403-26. 10. For most, there was a hiatus between euthanasia and die Generalgouvernement assignment. Several of them were sent during that interval to the occupied USSR to care for wounded or frostbitten German soldiers, but were soon recalled. Sec details in numerous statements in the volumes of the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka cases at Ludwigsburg. See also Scrcny, Darkness, pp. 78-90, and Rückerl, NS-Vemichtuttgslager, pp. 72-75, 121-22. 11. On Treblinka, sec Rückerl, ibid., p. 206. The Belzec figure is from the encyclopedia by Glowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polscc, Obozy bit- lerowskie na ziemiacbpolskich 1939-1945 (Warsaw, 1979), pp. 93-95. Twenty-five to thirty appears to have been the German strength at Sobibor. Sec statements in Sobibor case, 45 Js 27/61, vol. 3, pp. 520-26,559-80. 12. Compiled mainly from Riickcrl, NS-Vemichtunpslager. 13. Ibid., p. 134. 14. Personnel record in Berlin Document Center. Sec also Rückerl, NS-Vemicbt- unffslager, pp. 72-73. 15. Rückerl, ibid., pp. 179, 295. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS charge of the euthanasia stations at Brandenburg and Bernburg, was probably the best educated.16 Quite a few of the officers and men had been brought up in fairly stable homes. The fathers of these individuals had been workers, clerks, or low-ranking functionaries, and they themselves had been trained for such modest occupations.17 Their wartime status, on the other hand, was not so stable. When Globocnik attempted to secure promotions for some of the commanders and subordinates, he generated a good deal of correspondence in the SS Personnel Main Office, where notes were written to the effect that neither Reichleitner nor Stangl had proper Order Police ranks, that Reichleitner, as a mere Kri-minalsekretär, did not merit the rank of Obersturmführer, and that Hering was nor a member of the Waffen-SS.18 As practitioners, the members of the Treblinka-Belzec-Sobibor team were hardened men by the time they arrived. Stangl, like several of his colleagues a Catholic, relates that in his euthanasia days he had visited an asylum for severely retarded children under the care of nuns. The Mother Superior pointed to what looked like a five-year-old boy in a basket and asked Stangl whether he had an idea of how old the child might be. Stangl could not guess the age. He was then told that the boy was sixteen. The psychiatrists, while screening candidates for gassings, had rejected the patient, and now the nun asked Stangl: “How could they not accept him?” A priest standing near her nodded in agreement. The incident apparently made a strong impression on Stangl.19 In the death camps the dehumanization of die victims in the eyes of their captors became manifest in a variety of ways. In essence the SS thought of the arriving Jews as having forfeited their lives from the moment they stepped off' the train. They staged mock marriages and other amusements with the expectation that in a very short time these objects of their play would be gassed. At Trcblinka they organized an inmate orchestra that played a camp song composed by the Jewish conductor with words by Untersturmführer Franz emphasizing work, fate, and obedience.20 Their psychology' is epitomized in the story of a dog, Barry', about whom a West German court wrote several pages. Barry was a very' 16. EbciTs personnel record at the Berlin Document Center contains only his parts· pavbk. He joined the parts· in 1931 at the age of tsvenry-onc. 17. Riickerl, NS-Vcmichtutufslatfcr, p. 296. The generalization is based on the records of tsventy-seven men investigated by West German judicial authorities. 18. Correspondence in personnel record of Christian Wirth, Berlin Document Center. Hering was placed before an SS and Police court in 1944, but svas exonerated of irregularities. He had burned down two villages near Belzec and shot forty-six people. See Hcring’s personnel record in the Berlin Document Center. 19. Screny, Darkness, pp. 57-58. 20. Riickerl, NS-Vcmtchtutipslaqer, p. 213. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL·, AND MAINTENANCE 963 large Saint Bernard who appeared first in Sobibor and then in Treblinka. He had been trained to maul inmates upon the command, “Man, grab that dog! [Mensch, fasst den Hund!]' 2' The guards in the Generalgouvernement camps numbered several hundred.22 They were Ukrainians in black uniforms equipped with rifles, carbines, and leather whips. As graduates of Globocnik’s training camp at Trawniki, they were drawn from the same pool that supplied guards for ghettos and, in 1943, combatants for the Warsaw Ghetto battle.23 In contrast to Kulmhof, Betzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, the WVHA camps in Lublin and Auschwitz were elaborate. Their basic administrative organization was that of the standard prewar concentration camps in Germany. The three most important officials in these camps were the commander, who had overall responsibility in the compound, the Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer, who was in charge of inmate control, and a chief of administration, who attended to financial matters, procurement, and so on. In Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen, the camp commander was a Standartenführer (colonel), the Schutzhaftlagerflihrer an Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel), and the administrative chief a Sturmbannführer (major). Besides these top officials, there was a deputy Schutzhaft-lagerfiihrer, an adjutant, a camp engineer, a camp doctor, and so on.24 This hierarchy is revealed in the structure of Lublin as follows:25 21. Barry, like many of the human perpetrators, had a peaceful life after 1943. When he became old and ill in 1947, he was subjected to euthanasia. Ibid., pp. 188, 234-39. The dog is mentioned also in a number of surv ivors’ accounts. 22. Estimates of strength per camp vary, but the average appears to have been three platoons (a platoon consisted of thirty' men). Sec statements by former German personnel in Belzcc case, vol. 7, pp. 1254-58, 1311-31, 1409-35; and in Sobibor case, vol. 3, pp. 520-26. Sec also Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager, pp. 122-23,207. 23. Members of Ukrainian, White Russian, and Baltic nationalities were eligible for automatic release from prisoner-of-war camps. See directive of OKW, September 8, 1941, in Herbert Michaelis and Ernst Schracplcr, cds., Ursachen und Folgen (Berlin, 1958-1977), vol. 17, pp. 333-37. Released prisoners as well as local residents were recruited as auxiliary police. Sec Himmler order, July 25, 1941, T 454, Roll 100, and Werner Brockdorff, Kollaboration oder Widerstand (Wels, 1968), pp. 218-19. A Ukrainian Red Army truck driver, Feodor Fedorenko, captured in 1941 and kept in a prisoner-of-war camp at Chelm, where the death rare was extraordinarily high, was then trained at Trawniki, posted to the Lublin Ghetto, and, in September 1942, detailed to Treblinka. U.S. v. Fedorenko, 455 F. Supp. 893 (1978). In all, about 2,000 men were trained in Trawniki. Statement by Karl Streibcl (Commander ofTrawniki Training Camp), September 4,1969, in Treblinka Case, vol. 19a, p. 5030. Strcibel visited Treblinka at the end of 1942. 24. Budget for Waftcn-SS and concentration camps for fiscal vear 1939 (signed Obcrfiihrer Frank), July 17, 1939, NG-4456. 25. Mainly from an affidavit by Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppcrt (chief of technical division at Lublin), August 6, 1945, NO-1903. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Commander (in succession): Stat. Koch OStubaf. Koegel Stubaf. Florstedt OStubaf. Weiss OStubaf Liebehenschel Schutzhaftlagerftihrer (in succession): HStuf Hackmann OStuf. Thumann Administration: HStuf. Worster Commander of guard forces (in succession): Stubaf. Langleist HStuf. Melzer Similarly, Auschwitz was organized in the following way: Commander: OStubaf. Höss Administration: (Burger) OStubaf. Möckel Zentralbauleitung: Stubaf Bischoff Guards: Stubaf Hartjenstein Chief physician: HStuf Wirths Political division: UStuf. Grabner Rapportfiihrer (inmate count): OSchaf. Palitzsch Crematoria: OSchaf. Moll In November 1943 Höss was replaced by Obersturmbannführer Liebehenschel, and the camp was simultaneously broken into three parts (see Table 9-10). Auschwitz I was the Stammlager (old camp); Auschwitz II, in the Birkenau Woods, was the killing center; Auschwitz III, also called Monowitz, was the industrial camp. Liebehenschel (with his headquarters) remained in overall control and had to be consulted by the commanders of Auschwitz II and III in all important questions. But they in turn had direct access to Amtsgruppe D, and the guard forces were placed under their direct command.26 Höss returned to Auschwitz for a crucial period in 1944 as the senior post commander ( Standortältester). As in the case of the Generalgouvernement camps, the administrative 26. Orders by Licbchcnschcl, November 11 and 22, 1943, in Ccntralna Zvdows-ka Komisja Historyczna w Polsce, Dokumenty i materiah do dziejow okupaeji niemeckiej ip Polsce, 3 vols. (Warsaw, Lodz, and Krakow, 1946), vol. 1, pp. 76-77. Unsigned chart, undated, NO-1966. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL·, AND MAINTENANCE TABLE 9-10 THE ORGANIZATION OF AUSCHWITZ, NOVEMBER 1943 Liebehenschel (Höss: May 8-July 29,1944, thereafter Baer) Auschwitz I Auschwitz II Auschwitz III Commander: Stubaf. Hartjenstein HStuf. Schwarz OStubaf. Liebehenschel (HStuf. Kramer) (HStuf. Baer) Men’s camp: Schutzhaftlagerflihrer: UStuf. Schwarzhuber OStuf. Hofmann Women’s camp : UStuf. Hössler core was much smaller than the guard force.27 At Lublin and Auschwitz, commanders and administrators had served in concentration camps before the war, but men with such experience were relatively few.28 They were the kind of people whose oudook on life was completely identified with SS ideology and who were capable of carrying out any task assigned to them by the Reichsfuhrer-SS. One of these men —to cite the most prominent example—was Hoss. Bom in 1900, Hoss had had a modestly good education (six Gymnasium classes). He was brought up in a very strict Catholic home, and his father intended him to become a priest. “I had to pray and go to church endlessly, do penance over the slightest misdeed,” Hoss recalled. During the First World War he volunteered for service at the age of fifteen and fought with the Turkish Sixth Army at Baghdad, at Kut-el-Amara, and in Palestine. Wounded three times and a victim of malaria, he received the Iron Cross First Class and the Iron Crescent. From 1919 to 1921 he fought in the Free Corps in the Baltic area, Silesia, and the Ruhr. While French occupation forces were in the Ruhr, a German terrorist, Leo Schlageter, was betrayed to the French by a schoolteacher, Walter Kadow. Hoss murdered the schoolteacher. In consequence of this act, he was sentenced to ten years in prison (serving five). Already somewhat distinguished, he joined the SS in 1933 without 27. The ratio between administrators and guards in Auschwitz was approximately 1:6 (500 to 3,000). Affidavit by Hoss, March 20,1946, D-749-B. 28. The total administrative force listed in the budget of the Watfcn-SS and concentration camps for fiscal year 1939 was 953, including 62 officers, 791 enlisted men, and 100 women. Budget, signed by Obf. Frank, July 17, 1939, NG-4456. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS any rank. From 1934 on he served in concentration camps, rising in the hierarchy until he became commander of Auschwitz and an Obersturmbannführer. SS-Gruppenftihrer von Herff found him to be soldierly, a good commander, a good farmer, quiet and simple, practical and sure of himself. In HcrtFs words, “He does not push himself forward but lets his actions speak for him.” Compared to the intellectuals in the Einsatzgruppen and the paymasters in the WVHA, the man was almost made for his job. In one respect he had become a bit more bourgeois. While commanding an enterrpise in which a million people were killed, Höss did not personally commit another murder.29 30 Höss was the ideal SS man, perfectly suited for his work, and apparently so was Sturmbannführer Richard Baer, who began his career at Dachau in 1933, was wounded on the eastern front, and returned to concentration camps, becoming commander of Auschwitz I in May 1 9 4 4 ao After a while, however, the hard core of men like Höss and Baer was supplemented by officials from the WVHA and its depots, and by other personnel with administrative backgrounds. These reinforcements were not exactly camp enthusiasts. Many took their assignments indifferently and even apathetically. When Möckel, an experienced WVHA official, was ordered to take over the administration office in Auschwitz, he declared that he did not like to go to a concentration camp and “especially not to Auschwitz.” Nevertheless, Brigadefiihrer Fanslau, the WVHA personnel chief, sent him there.31 The administrative personnel of the concentration camps were consequendy a mixture of old-type SS men identified with the “movement” and a number of bureaucrats specialized in finance and general administration. The expansion of the camp network necessitated more guards. Up to 1939, guard forces w ere drawn from the Totenkopfstandarten (Death Head Regiments). After the outbreak of war, most of these men went to the front. The continuation of the war and the uninterrupted grow th of the camps resulted in more turnovers and die need for even more manpower.32 Ultimately, the numbers were in the tens of thou-29. The account of Höss’s life is based on his personnel record, NO-2142, his affidavit ot March 14, 1946, and his autobiography, Konimandant in Auschwitz (Munich, 1978). The quoted statement about his youth is from G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York, 1947), p. 269. 30. Werner Emenputsch, “Der Kommandant fehlt auf der Anklagebank,’’ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 13, 1963, p. 8. Baerdicd in 1963. 31. Affidavit by Karl Möckel, July 21, 1947, NO-4514. 32. See a list of officers in the concentration camps, with biographies abbreviated from SS personnel records, compiled by French L. MacLcan, 'Die Camp Men (Atglen, Pa., 1999). For the numbers of these officers rotated from or to SS divisions, see pp. 278-85. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE 967 sands.33 Auschwitz itself had four guard companies in April 194134 and seven in November 1941.35 By November 1943, its complement was divided as follows:36 Auschwitz I (Main Camp) 2d Staff Company, 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th Companies Auschwitz II (Birkenau) 1st Staff Company, 6th, 7th, and 8th Companies, plus Guard-Dog Company (Hundestaffel) Auschwitz III (Monowitz) 5th Company and Guard Company uBuna” The Zentralbauleitung in Auschwitz planned a kennel building in Birkenau for 250 guard dogs,37 and a special kitchen, also for the dogs.38 33. The statistics indicating Waffen-SS men in the WVHA camps are as follows: Number of Personnel in: All WVHA Auschwitz Camps alone May 1940 ca 65" March 1942 ca 15,000'' 1,800 1943 25-30,000“' December 1943 ca 3,500 April 1945 30-35,000' Cumulative, March 1942-April 1945 ca 45,000" Cumulative, May 1940-January 1945 ca 7,000* * Affidavit by Hoss, March 20,1946, D-749-B. b Affidavit by August Harbaum (Stubaf., Chief of WVHA A-V-4), March 19, 1946, D-750. 1 Auschwitz administration (HStuf. Wagner) to WVHA D-IV, March 25, 1942, NO-2146. * Affidavit by Pohl, March 19,1947, NO-2571. Affidavit by Hoss, March 20,1946, D-749-B. 7 Affidavit by Harbaum, March 19,1946, D-750. -* Ibid. Cumulative figures include rotations. h Affidavit by Hoss, March 20,1946. D-749-B. 34. File of the Fiihrungshauptamt (Jiittncr), containing composition of the Armed SS, including the Totenkopfsturmbann companies in the camps, as of April 22,1941. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 48.004 (Military' Historical Institute, Prague), Roll 6. The Totenkopfsturmbann was the generic designation of guard forces stationed in the concentration camps. It no longer had any connection with Totenkopf personnel withdrawn from the camps and serving in the SS Totenkopf Division. 35. Order by the Auschwitz Kommandantur (signed Hoss), November 19,1941, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 32. 36. Order (Standortbcfehl) by Liebehcnschel, November 22, 1943, iltid., Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 38. 37. Zentralbauleirung cost estimate, April 16, 1943, and recapitulation (with drawing of kennel center, signed Bischoff), March 11,1943, ibid.. Roll 34, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 227. 38. Zentralbauleirung (Bischoff) to WVHA-C I, March 20, 1943, ibtd.. Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 28. 968 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Replacements were not always Reich Germans. The Lublin camp employed a Lithuanian battalion.39 Ethnic Germans made up an increasing percentage of the personnel in Auschwitz.40 One of the Auschwitz company commanders, Hauptsturmfiihrer Alfred Schemmel, was a former clergyman and teacher from Transylvania.41 The physician Fritz Klein, another Transylvanian, came to Auschwitz after three years in the Romanian army.4-1 Auschwitz also had officers who were in no sense the fittest SS leaders. Untersturmführer Hans Mehrbach owed his Auschwitz assignment to the fact that he was suffering from paralysis of the heart muscles.43 Hauptsturmfiihrer Kurt Otto was at Auschwitz after having stepped in a drunken state on a mine. His marital life was such that Glücks thought him unstable {labil) and suffering from a mental defect {ßeistigen Defekt). Early in 1943 Otto shot his mistress and killed himself.44 The concentration camps exerted a certain influence upon the guards and administrators, an effect produced by the enormous distance between the SS men and inmates. Because of this distance, many members of the camp personnel lost their perspective and fell into patterns of behavior that could no longer be reconciled with conduct desired or prescribed by Nazi policy. The immediate danger of such lapses in conduct was their threat to the overall efficiency of the concentration camp, but beyond this narrow consideration there were fears far wider in scope, which we shall presently consider. The personnel problem arose in two different forms: sadism and corruption. The former was posed primarily by the guards, the latter chiefly by the old officials of the camps. With regard to sadism, it must be kept in 39. The 2d Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft Battalion, consisting of 14 officers and 352 enlisted men, and equipped with 350 rifles, 13 submachine guns, and 27 light machine guns, is listed as the guard force in the strength report ( Stärkenaclnveisuntf) of the Schurzmannschalten, July 1, 1942, German Federal Archives, R 19/266. The battalion was dissolved in early 1943. Hans Joachim Neufeld, Jürgen Huck, and Georg Tessin, Zur Geschichte der Ordnunßspoltzei (Koblenz, 1957), pt. 2, p. 101. The 252d Schurzmannschatt Battalion (Lithuanian) is mentioned as departing from the camp in July 1943. Krüger to Himmler, copy to SS and Police Leader Krakow (Oberführer Schemer), July 7, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 94. 40. Frgänzungsamt der Waffen-SS/Dienststelle SS Oberabschnitt Donau (signed OStuf. Hier/.) to SS-Haupramr/F.rgänzungsamt, October 22, 1941, NO-3372. Auschwirz strength reports, December 1944, T 175, Roll 575, and T 580, Roll 321. 4L Personnel Record in Berlin Document Center. Schemmel served in Auschwitz from July 1942 to August 1944 and was reduced in rank to Obersturmführer in March 1944. 42. Testimony by Klein in Raymond Phillips, ed.. Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty- Four Others (The Reisen Trial) (Ix>ndon, 1949), pp. 183-88. 43. Affidavit by Mehrbach, February' 24, 1947, NO-2192. 44. Glücks to Brandt, February 4 and 11, 1943, and OStubaf. Reich (Perso-nalhaupramt) to RF Fcldkommandostcllc, February 4, 1943, T 175, Roll 33. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE mind that the bureaucracy was concerned not so much with the suffering ot the victims as with the contamination of the perpetrators. Thus the SS paid no attention whatsoever to the host of indirect tortures that it had built into the camp routine: hunger, exposure to freezing weather, overwork, filth, and utter lack of privacy. All this suffering was a consequence of the very nature of SS camp maintenance and operations. It was simply no problem. Beyond these built-in tortures there was a category of pain which was administered for the achievement of specific aims: punishment for infractions of discipline; medical experiments on live human beings; and above all the gassing of the Jewish victims. These operations and the suffering they caused were considered necessary. They were therefore subjected only to an overall control mechanism which consisted of directives and procedures designed to hold to a minimum the possibilities of individual action by participating SS personnel. In short, the perpetration of that suffering had to be impersonal. A third category of torture was more problematic. Many times, for instance, inmates had to perform exhausting calisthenics for a guard or had to pick up a cap or some other object while an SS man playfully shot them with a bullet from his rifle. This kind of exercise was called Sport machen (“to make sport”). Essentially it was regarded as a way in which the guards relieved their boredom, and while not exacdy encouraged in official directives, little was done to stop this practice. The whole problem of sadism was therefore narrowed to a special kind of activity: the so-called excesses. In general, an “excess” involved a massive orgy or a sexual aberration. Among survivors, certain persons acquired a reputation for such sadistic behavior. An example might be Irma Grese, a woman guard in Auschwitz who sought out well-formed Jewish women and cut their breasts open with a whip. Her victims were then brought to a woman inmate doctor who performed a painful operation on them while Irma Grese watched, cheeks flushed, swaying rhythmically and foaming at the mouth.45 So far as we know, the camp administration never interfered with Grese’s doings. Another Auschwitz personality, Oberscharfuhrer Moll, who was in charge of the crematoria, is mentioned quite often in surv ivors’ literature. Moll was a recent widower when he arrived from Oranienburg in 1941. The clothes of his deceased wife were still in Germany and now he was all alone.46 He did not lack diversions, however. Among other things, Moll 45. Gisclla Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz (New York, 1948), pp. 61-62. 46. OSchaf. Moll to Kommandannir Auschwitz, Iune 16, 1941, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Record Group 11.001 (Center tor Documentary Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 35, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 243. 970 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS is said to have selected from a newly arrived transport twenty of the most beautiful women. He stood them up in a row, stark naked, and practiced shooting at them. Some of the women were hit in several places before they died.47 Although Auschwitz was to become the subject of a special Nazi investigation, these particular incidents appear to have been overlooked. There was no concerted effort to curb sadism. Such an effort would have been difficult in any case. The only prescribed remedy would have rendered the offending guards into “asociáis” (sex criminals). However, the problem was recognized. For one thing, the camp administration established a number of brothels.48 Another measure was to charge inmates instead of guards with the performance of disciplinary action, including the beating of prisoners. That substitution (to be discussed in connection with the inmate hierarchy) had far-reaching effects on the inmates. As a last resort, there w as the possibility of getting rid of personnel who were overdoing things, but that remedy seems to have been applied only very rarely. On one occasion, when SS men and German political prisoners tossed ninety Jewish women from a third-floor window into a courtyard below', the SS men were transferred to another post.49 Sadism, then, wfas regarded — insofar as it was conceived of at all — as a menace to the health of the 50,000 guards who circulated through the camps. The other problem, corruption, was seen as a threat to the entire Nazi system. This practice was taken much more seriously and called for much stronger and concerted countermeasures. As early as 1941, Nebe’s corruption specialists (RSHA-V) and an SS and Police court began to pay attention to this vital issue. The corruption investigations were an extremely touchy matter because they came to the core of a dilemma that w as very' acute, particularly among the old Nazis. A man could not be an idealist and at the same time stuff' his pockets, make love to Jewish women, or engage in drunken orgies. That wras why’ Himmler, who regarded the SS as an organization sanctified by its mission to safeguard die future of the German nation for hundreds of years, could not tolerate such “lapses” by his SS men. The corruption officers therefore had a very' firm basis upon which to proceed, but they had to be careful lest someone be implicated w’ho had too much power. 47. Filip Friedman, This WasOsuHecim (London, 1946), p. 69. 48. Ukrainian guards could secure the services of Polish women for two Reichsmark (one mark to be paid to the prostitute, the other to be deposited into a special account). Glücks to camp commanders, December 15,1943, NO-1545. The brothel did not, ot course, close off the outlets for sadistic behavior. 49. F.lla Lingcns-Reiner, Prisoners of hear (London, 1948), p. 40. The author was a German prisoner in Auschwitz. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE 971 In 1941, SS and Police Court XXII in Kassel started an investigation directed against Koch, the Buchenwald commander. The proceedings failed, and Pohl congratulated Koch in writing. In this letter, which was to become notorious in SS circles, Pohl said in effect that he would step in shieldingly '■'whenever an unemployed lawyer should stretch out his hangman’s hands again to grasp the white body of Koch [wenn wieder einmal ein arbeitsloser Jurist seine Henkershände nach dem weissen Körper Koch’s ausstrecken wolle].”50 But the court did not let loose. After Koch had taken over the killing center of Lublin, two corruption officers from the RSHA (Hauptsturmflihrer Dr. Morgen and Kriminalkommissar Hauptsturmführer Wied) trailed him to the Generalgouvernement.51 On August 20,1942, he was toppled from his post.52 While Koch was being held for trial, the investigation started in earnest. In Buchenwald a Hauptscharfuhrer, Koehler, was arrested as a material witness. A few days after his arrest, he was found dead in his cell, apparently poisoned. The investigating official, Dr. Morgen, was furious. Suspecting the camp doctor (Dr. Hoven) of the murder, Morgen ordered that samples of the chemical found in the dead man’s stomach be administered to four Soviet prisoners of war. The four men died in the presence of several witnesses, including Morgen, corruption officer Wehner, and Hoven’s colleague Dr. Schuler (alias Ding). Armed with this proof, Morgen arrested Hoven.53 Koch himself could not escape from the net. He was tried, sentenced to death, and executed.54 The vise also closed upon Koch’s immediate subordinate, the Lublin Schutzhaftlagerfuhrer Hackmann. Condemned to death, Hackmann was later put into a punishment unit.55 Having bitten into the Lublin camp, the corruption officers suffered a reverse. They discovered that all potential Jewish witnesses there had been killed. Deciding to investigate this matter also, the SS and Police court was confronted with the mass murder of all the remaining Jewish 50. Affidavit by Dr. Werner Paulmann, July 11, 1946, SS-64. Paulmann was Second Judge and later chief of the SS and Police court in Kassel. 51. Affidavit by Paulmann, July 11,1946, SS-64. Interrogation of Wied, Julv 21, 1945, G-215. 52. Pohl to chief of SS Personnel Main Office (OGruf. Schmitt), July 28, 1942, NO-1994. OStubaf. Brandt to Pohl, August 23, 1942, NO-1994. Transfer order by Fanslau, sending Kocgcl to take Koch’s place as commander of Lublin, August 24, 1942, NO-4334. At the same time the commander of Flosscnbiirg, OStubaf. Künstler, was removed from his post because offcasts and drunkenness,” and the commander of Dachau, OStubaf. Piorkowski, was removed for more serious offenses to stand trial. Brandt to Pohl, August 23,1942, NO-1994. 53. Testimony by Eugen Kogon, Case No. 1, tr. pp. 1183-84. 54. Affidavit by Paulmann, July 11,1946, SS-64. 55. Affidavit by Dr. Erwin Schuler, July 20,1945, NO-258. 972 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS inmates at Lublin.56 Resistance increased in other camps, too, as the old guard fought for its life. Thus in Sachsenhausen the corruption commission was “thrown out bodily” (jjewaltsam heransgesetzt).57 SS and Police Court XXII in Kassel now constituted itself into the “SS and Police Court for Special Purposes.” Preparations were made to capture the greatest prize of all: Obersturmbannfulirer Hoss of Auschwitz. A special commission (chief, Hauptsturmfiihrer Drescher) was installed in the camp, and an informer in the person of Hauptscharfiihrer Gerhard Palitzsch gave information about Hoss. The commander, he said, was responsible for the pregnancy of an inmate, Eleonore Hodys, born in 1903 in Vienna. After considerable difficulties, corruption officers interrogated Hodvs.58 But the Auschwitz campaign was doomed to failure. The suction mechanism of the camp began to work. Open threats were sent to the SS and Police court.59 In the camp itself, Hauptscharfiihrer Palitzsch was discovered with a Jewish woman and thrown into a coal bunker.60 Hoss had won. The savage attack by the SS and Police court had claimed its victims, but the camp structure as a whole withstood the attack, protected by the almighty hand of Pohl, who stood ready to shield and defend his commanders in their hour of crisis. The personnel in camps were heavily outnumbered by inmates. This disparity invites the question why a killing center should have had Jewish prisoners at all, why any of them should have been left alive. The answer is that they had to be retained at least for camp maintenance and operations, including the reception of deportees and burning of corpses. In Kulmhof and the Generalgouvernement camps, where the processing of victims was the main activity, work parties were relatively few. Auschwitz, however, needed additional labor for construction and private industry. For that reason, the Auschwitz administrators had to make some provision in their planning for rudimentary shelter, subsistence food, and minimal medical care. Not required was adequate space and sustenance to guarantee the survival of every inmate who was given a task. It is significant that “accounting for the life of an inmate” (even a German inmate) was defined as 56. Affidavit bv Paulmann, Julv 11, 1946, SS-64. 57. Und. 58. Affidavit by Gerhard Wicbcck, February 28, 1947, NO-2330. Wiebcck, a subordinate of Morgen, questioned the woman in October 1944. 59. "Von Auschwitz wurde dem Gericht ganz offen gedroht." Affidavit bv Paulmann, July 11, 1946, SS-64. 60. Jan Sehn (judge, Krakow), “Concentration and Extermination Camp at Oswiycim,” Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland (Warsaw, 1946-47), vol. 1, p. 82. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE 973 a complete and accurate report of his death (name, birth date, nationality, etc.).61 When a Jew died, no special report had to be made; a death list sufficed.62 Whether an individual Jew lived or died did not matter. There only had to be a sufficient number of inmates to take care of work requirements, and if the supply was more than sufficient, the SS could weed out the Jewish inmate population by sending the excess number to the gas chamber. The inmate count was therefore subject to great fluctuation. Depending on the arrival of new transports or a selection of victims to be put to death, the camp population could be doubled or halved within a short time.63 Obviously, expenditures of money for the upkeep of inmates were extremely low. Living quarters were about as primitive as could be imagined. Lublin, for example, in the fall of 1942 had five blocks with a total of twenty-two barracks. The barracks were partially unfinished. Some had no windows. Others had cardboard roofs. None had water. Provisional latrines (fill-in type) spread odors throughout the habitat.64 During an Auschwitz construction conference on June 16, 1944 (Pohl, Maurer, Hoss, Bischoff, Baer, and Wirths participating, among others), the '■‘completion” ( Ausbau) of barracks in Camp II was still a subject of discussion. In this connection, it was pointed out that the installation of washing and toilet facilities was necessary only in every third or fourth barrack.65 The overcrowding in the barracks was a constant plague for the inmates; there was simply no limit to the number of people who could be put into a hut. Inmates slept without blankets or pillows on so-called Pritschen, wooden planks joined together. On October 4, 1944, the administrative division of Auschwitz II wrote to the central administration 61. Glucks to camp commanders, November 21, 1942, NO-1543. 62. Ibid. WVHA D 1-1 (signed Licbchcnschcl) to camp commanders, July 15, 1943, NO-1246. Memorandum by Hoss (WVHA D-I), undated, NO-1553. 63. KL Auschwitz/administration (HSruf. Wagner) reported to WVHA D-IV on March 25, 1942, that it expected an inmate increase from 11,000 to 27,000 in the next few days; NO-2146. On October 17,1944, the women’s camp in Auschwitz II had 29,925 inmates. On November 25,1944, the number was 14,271. Frauen-Lager LK Au II/Abt. Ilia (Birkcnau) strength reports, October 18 and November 26, 1944, Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 1, p. 118. Auschwitz as a whole had 11,000 inmates in March 1942. Wagner to WVHA D-IV, March 25, 1942, NO-2146. The number was 87,000 in December 1943, 67,000 in April 1944, and (counting possibly 30,000 unregistered inmates) 135,000 in August 1944, before falling again. Danuta Czech, Kakndarium der Ereuinissc mi Konzentrationslaqer Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945 (Reinbck, 1989), pp. 688, 750, 860. Lublin dropped from 20,000-25,000 in September 1942, to 6,000 in December 1943. Affidavit by Ruppert, August 6, 1945, NO-1903. Interrogation ofW’ied, July 21, 1945, G-215. 64. Affidavit by Ruppert, August 6, 1945, NO-1903. 65. Summary of Auschwitz conference, June 17, 1944, NO-2359. KILLING CBNTER OPERATIONS tor 230 new Pritschen. Instead of having been used by five inmates, as regulations prescribed, each of the Pritschen had held up to fifteen inmates. Because of this weight, the upper layer of the Pritschen had broken apart, and all the inmates had fallen on top of the people lying on the middle layer. The second layer had thereupon collapsed, and everybody had crashed through the lowest layer.66 The result was a twisted mass of bodies and splinters. In the matter of clothes the situation was even worse. Jews arriving in camps were deprived of all their belongings, including their clothes. Up to the beginning of 1943, prisoners’ clothing was issued to all inmates. Estimates of requirements were sent by Amtsgruppe D to Amt B-II, which had to bargain with the civilian sector (Speer and the Economy Ministry) for allocations.67 No thought in this planning was given to shoes or boots. One company, the Schuh- und Lederfabrik A. G. Chelmek, received an order for the production of 250,000 pairs of galoshes for inmates.68 As shortages increased, the supply of prisoners’ clothing was choked oft'. On February 26, 1943, it was therefore ordered that laborers were to get ordinary clothes (properly marked), with remaining supplies of the striped variety to be given only to work parties moving about outside the camp compounds.69 Since any clothes that could be dignified by the word were generally picked out for distribution to needy Germans (a complicated confiscation process to be described later), the Jewish inmates usually received only rags. Such things as toilet articles, handkerchiefs, and paper (including toilet paper) were not issued at all. During 1944, conditions were such that thousands of people had to go around without any clothes whatsoever.70 The third plague was the lack of food. The administrative basis for food allocation in the camps was the ration system worked out by the Food and Agriculture Ministry, complete with discriminatory rations for Jews.71 Each camp administration obtained the supplies from the food depots of the Waften-SS (Standartenfiihrer Tschentscher) and in the open 66. Komni.ind.inrur KJ. Au II/Verw. ro Zcntralvcnv. Au, Ocrot>cr4, 1944, Doku- metity i materiahy vol. 1, pp. 95-96. 67. Affidavit by Georg Lorner, December 1, 1945, NO-54. 68. Trustee tor the Schuh- und Lederfabrik Chelmek to Zentralbauleirung Auschwitz, February 18, 1943, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center tor Documentary Collections, Moscow), Roll 35, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 236. 69. Liebehenschel to camp commanders, WVHA D-II, and VWHA D-III, February 26, 1943, NO-1530. 70. Hungarian Jewish women in Auschwitz were particularly affected. Friedman, Oswiecim, pp. 67-68. 71. Inspectorate to camp commanders, October 13, 1941, NO-1536. Decree by Food Ministry (signed Dr. Moritz), August 6, 1944, NG-455. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL·, AND MAINTENANCE 975 market.72 What happened to the food after it was sent to the camp was the administration’s own business. The basic diet of Jewish inmates was watery turnip soup drunk from pots,73 supplemented by an evening meal of sawdust bread with some margarine, “smelly marmalade,” or “putrid sausage.”74 Between the two meals inmates attempted to lap a few drops of polluted water from a faucet in a wash barrack.75 The living conditions in the killing centers produced sickness and epidemics including dysentery, typhus, and skin diseases of all kinds. Sanitation measures were almost nil. The Auschwitz grounds were not suitable for canalization; hence fill-in latrines were the only facilities available. Water was not purified. Soap and articles for cleansing were very scarce. Rats ran loose in the barracks. Only occasionally was a block fumigated with Zyklon. Hospitals were barracks, and inmate doctors worked with few medicines and few instruments. When the sickrooms became overcrowded, the SS doctor made an inspection and dispatched the worst cases to the gas chamber.76 The prisoners tried to survive, and they worked out a few compensatory mechanisms. Food was stolen and traded in the black market.77 Inmate doctors worked frantically and tirelessly, but the tide of death was too great. Up to the end of 1942, Lublin had received 26,258 registered 72. Affidavit by Wilhelm Max Burger, May 14, 1947, NO-3255. Burger was administrative chief of Auschwitz before Mockcl. 73. The soup was the midday meal. “There were pieces of wood, potato peeling and unrecognizable substances swimming in it.” Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz, pp. 38-41. The soup meal was issued in cans that weighed about 120 pounds. They had only two handles and no cover. Before it was distributed into the pots, the scalding brew had to be carried under the blows of SS men from the kitchen to the block. Report by a Dc Gaullist, August 20,1946, NO-1960. 74. Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz, p. 36. 75. Ibid., p. 32. For an expert discussion of the medical aspects of nutrition in the camps, sec Dr. Elic A. Cohen, Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp (New York, 1953), pp. 51-58. The author was a survivor of Auschwitz. 76. On diseases and sick treatment, sec Cohen, Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp, pp. 58-81. 77. A few Auschwitz black market prices (in Reichsmark) were as follow One cigarette 6-7 1 lb bread 150 1 lb margarine 100 1 lb butter 200 1 lb fat 280-320 1 lb meat 400-480 Report by a De Gaullist, August 20, 1946, NO-1960. Most often there was only barter trade. An old man in Auschwitz traded a sack of diamonds he had smuggled in for three raw potatoes, which he ate at once. Perl, I Was a Doctor in Ausclnvitz., pp. 114-15. Women sometimes lent their bodies to German or Polish political prisoners in order to eat. Ibid., pp. 76, 78-79. 976 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Jewish inmates. A total of 4,568 had been transferred; 14,348 had died. Auschwitz had obtained 5,849 registered Jewish inmates up to the same date; 4,436 had died.78 In July 1943 Auschwitz was short of inmates for its industrial requirements, and a commission was sent to Lublin to take some prisoners from there. Of 3,800 people set aside for Auschwitz, a preliminar)' check revealed only 30 percent fit for work. The Auschwitz commission was so indignant that the Lublin administration scraped up everyone whom it could call fit for work “with a good conscience.” After a second examination, a Lublin doctor, Untersturmflihrer Dr. Rindflcisch, admitted that Lublin inmates could not really be classified as employable.'9 Fifteen hundred inmates were finally chosen. When they arrived, five women were already dead, forty-nine were dying, and most others had skin eruptions or were suffering from “exhaustion” ( Km~persclnvachc).80 Whatever other talents the camp officials may have had, keeping prisoners alive was not one of them, even if on rare occasions that became necessary. Thev did provide orchestral music professionally played by inmates in the yard.81 To the SS, maintaining the inmates was not as essential as keeping them in check. On occasion there was overconfidence and laxity in matters of securin', but in SS circles the requirement of keeping an iron grip on the inmate population did not have to be spelled out. It was clearly understood. A rigid system of restraints was instituted, which took the form of internal controls, physical obstacles, and the use of guards. Basic in the idea of an internal control mechanism was the assumption that the individual prisoner would not resist. He would obey an order even if it were against his interests. When confronted with a choice between action and inertia, he would be paralyzed. He would reason that nothing is ever certain, not even death in Auschwitz.82 The primar)' threat of resistance was consequently not the reasoning of the individual, for he was helpless in spite of it and because of it, but the establishment of an organization that would pit itself against the concentration camp. Internal controls sought to prevent the formation of any such resistance movement. Camp commanders were ordered to be vigilant at all times, lest one 78. Report by Korherr, March 27, 1943, NO-5194. 79. Report bv an Auschwitz USruf., Julv 6, 1943, Dokumenty i materiab, vol. 1, pp. 138-40. 80. Statidortarzt (camp doctor) Auschwitz to Kommandantur Auschwitz, July 8, 1943, ibid. 81. Fania Fcnclon, Playing for Time (New York, 1977), p. 46. The author was an inmate in the women’s orchestra, conducted by violinist Alma Rosé. A larger, men’s orchestra is mentioned only rarely in survivor literature. Ibid., p. 209; Filip Miillcr, Eyewitness Auschwitz (New York, 1979), pp. 47, 58, 100. 82. See Cohen, Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp, pp. 115-210. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE day they be surprised by “major unpleasant events.”83 The commanders were to keep track of things by making use of inmate spies,84 and resistance was frustrated further by the institution of an inmate bureaucracy and inmate privileges. The distribution of power and privilege among the inmates was determined in the first instance by the racial hierarchy. Even in a concentration camp a German was still a German; a Pole was a Pole; a Jew, a Jew. This stratification could not be broken by the inmates; the racial hierarchy was as rigid as any bureaucratic hierarchy had ever been. No combining, no delegation of power, no mutiny was possible here. The inmate bureaucracy was divided into two parts: one in charge of quarters, the other in charge of work parties. In quarters, the hierarchy was Lageraltester (highest in camp), Blockdltester (in charge of block), and Stubendienst (in charge of barracks). In work parties, it was Oberkapo, Kapo, and Vorarbeiter. In Auschwitz and Lublin the top echelons of the inmate bureaucracy were filled by German prisoners.85 Thus there was an inmate leadership, but it was responsible, and often responsive, to camp command. German prisoners were not only in the most important positions of the inmate bureaucracy but they also enjoyed the most extensive privileges within the framework of concentration camp life, such as the right to receive packages, supplementary food rations, less overcrowding in barracks, and bed linen in camp hospitals.86 Far less privileged and much worse off were Poles, Czechs, and other Slavs.87 On the bottom were the Jews. Between the Jewish and the German inmates there was an unbridgeable gulf. The Germans were entitled to live; they had at least a minimum of privileges to make a fight for life. The Jews were doomed. It is characteristic that the Jews in Auschwitz were hoping that an air raid might destroy the killing installations,88 while the Germans were consoled by the thought “that the Allied airmen knew and avoided the camp.”89 Perhaps the extreme example of the crushing force that separated Germans from Jews is an incident told by Dr. Ella Lingens-Reiner, who had 83. Glücks to camp commanders, March 31,1944, NO-1554. 84. Ibid. 85. Schn, “Oswiycim,” German Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, pp. 38-39. Irene Schw arz, in Leo W. Schwarz, cd., The Root and the Bough (New York and Toronto, 1949), pp. 193-96. Affidavit by Ruppcrt, August 6, 1945, NO-1903. 86. Lingens-Reiner, Prisoners of Fear, pp. 52,56, 100. 87. Ibid., pp. 44,49. 88. Olga Lcngycl, Five Chimneys (Chicago and New York, 1947), pp. 123, 155-56. The author was a Jewish inmate. 89. Lingens-Reiner, Prisoners of Fear, p. 36. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS been sent to Auschwitz because she had hidden some Jews in her apartment in Vienna (Judcnbegiinstigung). In Auschwitz she took under her protection a young Jewish woman from Prague, Gretl Stutz. One day Stutz was brought into the hospital hut with typhus, one patient among 700. As Dr. Lingens-Rciner gave her an injection, a voice protested from the German corner: “Of course, you give something to the Jewess, and let us Germans die like dogs. You’re a nice example of a German prisoner!” Thereupon she did not visit her friend again. Gretl Stutz was transferred to another ward and after a few days she succumbed, deserted, to her sickness.90 Another internal control measure was marking. In the concentration camp too, the Jewish inmate had to wear the six-pointed Star of David. In Auschwitz, his registration number was tattooed on his arm.91 Still another precaution was taken in the form of daily roll calls, which sometimes lasted for hours. The roll calls kept track of all prisoners and prevented hiding within the camp. The prisoners were not dismissed until everyone was accounted for, dead or alive.92 As a last means the Germans also resorted to reprisal, usually a public hanging. They thus sought to frustrate the formation of an internal resistance movement by a system of spies, inmate bureaucracies, inmate privileges, marking, roll calls, and reprisals. However, preventive measures did not stop with these devices. In February 1943 Himmler became worried that air raids on the concentration camps might occasion mass breaks. To prevent any such occurrence he ordered that each camp be divided into blocks, 4,000 inmates per block, each block to be fenced in with barbed wire. Every camp was to be surrounded by a high wall, and barbed wire was to be strung on both sides of the wall. The interior passageway between wire and wall was to be patrolled by dogs; the outer passageway was to be mined, just in case a bomb tore a hole in the wall. In the vicinity of the camp, dogs trained to tear a man apart ( zerreissen) were to roam at night.93 Searchlights were mounted on poles of the wire fence, and the interior wire was electrically charged. Inmates who tired of life had only to lean on this wire to end their misery. The third element of inmate control was die guard force. In spite of all internal measures and the construction of contraptions, diere had to be an armed body of men to deal with the eventuality of “major unpleasant events.” Yet, the death camps, in which almost three million people were killed, were rather thinly guarded. All in all, about 4,000 men may have 90. Ibid., pp. 83-84. 91. Lcngycl, Five Chimneys, p. 106. Cohen, Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp, pp. 26-28. 92. Lcngycl, Five Chimneys, pp. 37-40. 93. Himmler to Pohl and Glucks, February 8, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL·, AND MAINTENANCE manned the killing centers at any one time. In Auschwitz there were up to 3,000 guards; Lublin had a Schutzmannschaft battalion. A small company of German Order Police was stationed in Kulmhof. Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor had one company each of Ukrainians. In the WVHA camps the guards were equipped with small arms, including machine guns mounted on observation towers.94 At night they trained searchlights on the camp grounds. Obtaining these guards, even though their number was small for the size of the task, was no easy problem, and the acquisition of their armament proved to be an even greater difficulty. Since the guard forces were not first-rate units, the SS men in charge of weapons supply did not consider it necessary to furnish them with first-class arms. The distribution of weapons and munitions in the entire Waffen-SS was handled by the SS-Fiihrungshauptamt, the main office concerned with purely military matters. In the WVHA, Amt B-V, under Standartenführer Scheide, handled weapons and munitions for the WVHA camps. Whenever the WVHA had requests for weapons, Scheide submitted the requests to the Führungshauptamt. Very often, however, he was turned down, was offered Italian rifles without ammunition, and so on. Amtsgruppe D obtained only about 15,000 rifles and 30 machine guns for all its camps. This, of course, was not enough, so it made use of its business connections to procure weapons independently. Companies making use of camp labor, particularly the Steyr armaments firm, were approachable in such matters. Scheide protested to Glücks against this gunrunning ( Waffenschieberei), whereupon Glücks replied that he would take his weapons wherever he could get them. In the matter of trucks the situation was the same. The trucks were usually obtained when firms made available the necessary transport to get laborers, then somehow forgot to ask for the return of the vehicles.95 Thus, by hook and crook, the guards, the weapons, and the transport were assembled. But Pohl was still worried. There were many doomed people in the camps. In a report to Himmler dated April 5, 1944, Pohl outlined the preparations he had made for die eventuality of a mass break from Auschwitz. The count of Auschwitz inmates was then 67,000. From this number, Pohl deducted 18,000 sick inmates and 15,000 in work parties who could be “done away with” ( abgesetzt), “so that practically one has to count 34,000 inmates.” At that time he had 2,950 guards. From the Higher SS and Police Leader in the area, Obergruppenführer Schmauser, he procured another police company of 130 men as a standby force. At the start of a mass break, a defense line in the interior of the camp 94. Pohl to Himmler, April 5, 1944, NO-21. 95. Affidavit by Rudolf Hermann Karl Scheide, January 16, 1947, NO-1568. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS would be manned by all the guards. In addition, Schmauser had made an agreement with the Deputy Commander, VIII Corps (functionally commander of the former Wehrkreis VIII in Silesia), General der Kavallerie von Koch-Erpach, in pursuance of which the Wehrmacht was to man an outer defense line. Furthermore, the air force had promised to furnish 1,000 men if the breakout did not coincide with an air raid. Finally, the Kripo-Leitstelle in Katowice was prepared to undertake a major search (Grosffhhndunjj) to capture anyone who got through.96 97 There was no mass break from Auschwitz. Only a few inmates managed to run the triple gauntlet of informers, wires, and guards, and most of them were brought back. Sometimes the corpse of an escaped prisoner was propped up on a chair with a sign reading, “I am here again [Ich bin mcdtr da]'*r Only a handful made good their escape. In two of the smaller camps, Trcblinka and Sobibor, the unexpected happened. Unlike Auschwitz, which had a very large inmate population, Treblinka kept only a few work parties (all Jews) for maintenance and other purposes. The inmate-guard ratio in Auschwitz during 1943-44 ranged from about 20:1 to 35:1. In Treblinka, for about 700 inmates within the square-mile enclosure, there was no possibility of hiding, no opportunity to elude eventual death. In 1943, when the frequency of transports was declining, every prisoner had to ask himself when his time would come. The breakout plan at Treblinka was simple. A locksmith made a duplicate kev to the arsenal, and a former captain of the Polish army. Dr. Julian Chorazvcki, worked out the escape plan. He was killed just before the coup was to have taken place, but several others, two of diem former officers of the Czechoslovak army, continued die preparations. On August 2, 1943, a very warm dav when a part of the guard force had left to bathe in the Bug River, twenty' hand grenades, twenty' rifles, and several revolvers were secretly removed from the arsenal. The revolt was to begin just before sundown to give those who could reach the countryside the cover of darkness. It was launched at 3:45 p.m. The guards were rushed, the barracks, garages, and warehouses were set on fire. Shots were exchanged for about half an hour, as large areas of the camp, but not the gas chambers, were burning. About 150 to 200 men got out, to be hunted down one by one. Perhaps sixty' or seventy survived.98 Among the guards, 96. Pohl to Himmler, April 5, 1944, NO-21. 97. RudolfVbra and Alan Bcsric, / Cannot Forgive (New York, 1964), p. 204. Irina Bundzewicz, “Kostck,” Hcffe von Auschwitz 11 (1970): 149-82, on p. 182. The practice originated at Dachau. Hoss, Kommandant, p. 87. 98. Samuel Rajzman, “Uprising in Treblinka,” Hearings before the House Committee mi Foreign Affairs, 79th Cong., 1st sess., on H. J. Res. 93 (punishment of war criminals), March 25-26,1945, pp. 120-25. Yankcl Wiemik in Schwarz, The Root and the ORGANIZATION, PERSONNEL, AND MAINTENANCE two Ukrainians were killed, but there were no German casualties.'^ The I camp continued to operate, and in the course of that very month more transports arrived from Bialvstok.99 100 The Sobibor revolt, by some 300 inmates, was an almost exact duplication of the Treblinka break. The battle took place in the late afternoon of October 14, 1943. It was organized by a young Soviet officer, Alexander Pechersky, who had been incarcerated in the Minsk Ghetto and who had arrived in Sobibor with a transport from that ghetto in September. Observing the terrain and the manner in which the camp was guarded, Pechersky noted such details as the passing of five rounds of ammunition to each guard. On the day of the break some of the Germans were lured into barracks and assaulted with axes and clubs. One German sounded the alarm. Seizing weapons, the Jews rushed to the barbed wire and, under fire from elevated guard posts, broke through, creating a path through exploding mines. Two hundred were killed. In the compound, nine SS men, including deputy commander Untersturmführer Niemann, and two Ethnic Germans lay dead. That night, reinforcements from the army and the Schutzpolizei were stationed at the perimeter, and a Kommando, dispatched by the KdS from Chelm, combed through the barracks even while Jews trapped inside were still shooting. Of those who broke out, more than fifty were shot by the pursuers and fort)' or fifty were still alive at the end of the war.101 Bough, pp. 119-21. Both Rajzman and Wiernik were in this break. Sec also other accounts in Alexander Donat, cd., The Death Camp Treblinka (New York, 1979), and recollections recorded by Scrcny, Into That Darkness, pp. 210-50. Donat published a list of survivors on pp. 284-91. For an analysis of the Treblinka revolt, see Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka (Bloomington, Ind., 1987), pp. 270-98. 99. Statements by Franz Rum, October 12-13, 1960, and Franz Suchomcl, October 24-25,1960. Treblinka case, pp. 1311-33 and 1403-6. 100. Scrcny, Into That Darkness, p. 249. Reichsbahndircktion Königsbcrg/33 to stations from Bialvstok to Treblinka, August 17, 1943, Zentrale Stelle der Landes-justizvcrwaltungen in Ludwigsburg, Polen 162, film 6, frame 194. 101. KdO Lublin/Ia to BdO Generalgouvernement, October 15,16,20, 25, and 31, 1943. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center of Documentary Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 82, Fond 1323, Opis 2, Folder 339. Situation report, Wehrkreiskommando Gencralgouvcmemcnt/Ia, for October 11-20, 1943, dated October 23, 1943, facsimile in Stanislaw Wronski and Maria Zwolakowa, cds., Polacy Zydzi 1939-1945 (Warsaw, 1971), p. 214. Grenzpolizeikommissariat Cholm of KdS Lublin (signed Ustuf. Benda), March 17, 1944, recommending badges for himself and six others, facsimile in Miriam Novirch, ed., Sobibor (New York, 1980), pp. 166-67. Account by Pechersky, ibtd., pp. 89-99. Statement by Franz Wolf (German cadre at Sobibor), June 14, 1962, Sobibor trial before a Hagen court, 45 Js 27/61, vol. 7, pp. 1326-71. Statement by Hans Wagner (Commander of army’s Sichcrungsbattailon 689 stationed at Chelm, October 21, 1960, Sobibor case, vol. 3, pp. 559-80. From the statements of Wolf and Wagner, it KILLING CBNTBR OPERATIONS LABOR UTILIZATION The primary reason for keeping up an inmate population was labor utilization, although the use of Jews for construction projects, maintenance, or industry was merely an intermediär}' step to be followed by killing. As in the case of the mobile killing operations in the East, the Jews were to be granted only a respite, or, in the ponderous words of Pohl, “Employable Jews who are migrating to the East will have to interrupt their journey and work in war industry [Die fiir die Ostwandemng bestimmten arbeitsfähigen Juden werden also ihre Reise unterbrechen und Rüstungsarbeiten leisten müssen]' ' Unlike the respite granted to the Jews in the occupied eastern territories, the postponement of killings in the camps was occasioned and desired entirely by the SS. Those among the doomed Jews who were strong enough to do some work were to donate their remaining lives to the end that the SS might develop an industrial base and exercise economic power. “Major economic tasks will be faced by the concentration camps in the next few weeks,” wrote Himmler to Glücks on January 25,1942, as he requested him to prepare for the reception of“ 100,000 male Jews and up to 50,000 Jewesses.”2 The one circumstance that enabled die SS to undertake any major tasks at all was its supply of labor at a time when that supply began to grow short in Europe. It is one of the ironies of the destruction process that the labor gap that the SS now proposed to till had been created in the first place by the removal of a sizable working force in the name of the “final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.” In fact, the SS had a little trouble fulfilling its promise, for the camp officials were poor caretakers of the manpower in their custody. The newly arrived transports were handled in an extremely careless manner. At times of labor shortages in Auschwitz, the camp doctor would often send almost an entire transport to the gas chamber. Such happenings infuriated the authorities in charge of camp labor allocation, WVHA D-II Chief Standartenführer Maurer and his assistant, Sommer. Two instances may be cited. On January' 27, 1943, Sommer informed Höss that 5,000 Jews from Theresienstadt were being sent to Auschwitz. He requested that the appears that of twenty-nine Germans posted at Sobibor in October 1943, twelve were on furlough. Wagner asserts that troops were committed to the perimeter upon explicit telephonic orders ot General Moser (Oberfeldkommandant) and Wchrkrcis-befehlshabcr Haenickc. See also descriptions of the revolt in the Sobibor trial judgment at Hagen ( 1966), 11 Ks 1/64, repnxluced by Riickerl in NS-Vcmichtutufslaqer, pp. 194-97, and by Arad, Relzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, pp. 299-348. 1. Pohl to Himmler, September 16, 1942, NI-15392. 2. Himmler to Glücks, January 25, 1942, NO-500. LABOR UTILIZATION prospective workers among them be selected “carefully” {sorgfältig zu erfassen) because they were needed by the construction department at Auschwitz and by the I. G. Farben Works there. After some delay, Schwarz sent the following statistical reply. Out of 5,022 Theresienstadt Jews, 4,092 had been gassed {gesondert untergebracht). The men had been t(x> “frail” {gebrechlich); the women were mostly children.3 On March 3,1943, Maurer announced that transports of skilled Jewish workers were beginning to roll from Berlin. He reminded Höss that these workers had been employed in war industry; they were consequentl)' employable in the camp. The I. G. Farben Company was to fill its needs from these transports. To make sure that the selections would be made more carefully this time, Maurer suggested that the trains be unloaded “not in the usual place” (at the crematorium) but, more suitably (: zweckmässigerweise), near the I. G. Farben plant.4 Two days later, Obersturmführer Schwarz made his reply, adopting a gruff tone. A total of 1,750 Jews had arrived from Berlin; 632 were men, the rest women and children. The average age of men selected for work was between fifty and sixty. Of the 1,118 women and children, 918 had to be subjected to “special treatment” (SB). “If the transports from Berlin continue to have so many women and children as well as old Jews,” he wrote, “I don’t promise myself much in the matter of labor allocation.” The following four transports did not fare much better (2,398 killed, 1,689 saved for industry).5 While the camp administration was woefully inefficient in making selections, it was, as already noted, even more lethargic and incapable in its task of keeping prisoners alive. The camp labor supply was like water in a barrel with a big hole in the bottom. Transports had to come continuously. If the flow stopped for any reason, the camp labor supply would run dangerously low, as it did in July 1943, when the Auschwitz administration scurried to Lublin in order to borrow some inmates. But in spite of this system, a labor supply was gradually built up.6 3. Sommer to Kommandant Auschwitz, January 27,1943, Dokumenty i materiah, vol. 1, pp. 115-17. Schwarz to WVHA D-II, February 20,1943, ibid. 4. Maurer to Höss, March 3,1943, ibid., p. 108. 5. Schwarz to WVHA D-II, March 5, 1943, ibid., pp. 108-10, 117. Schwarz to WVHA D-II, March 8,1943, ibid. Schwarz to WVHA-D, March 15,1943, ibid. 6. The following statistics are a compilation of WVHA camp reports showing registered arrivals and departures during the period of Junc-Novembcr 1942. Since the totals were calculated by adding the figures furnished by the individual camps, intercamp transfers show up in the arrivals and departures: Arrivals totaled 136,780, including 109,861 new arrivals (“deliveries”) and 26,919 transfers. “Departures” were 112,434, broken down inro4,711 discharges, 27,846 transfers, 70,610 deaths, and 9,267 executions. These figures show a net gain of 24,346 in six months. Alarmed, (.¡lucks sent the 984 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Not all inmates were available for industrial purposes. In the spring of 1943 the 160,000 prisoners of the WVHA camps were allocated as follows:7 Camp maintenance: 15 percent Industry': 63 percent Unable to work: 22 percent As a matter of fact, the percentages are misleading. They were given by Himmler to Speer. More accurately, the breakdown would look like this: Camp maintenance: 15 percent WVHA-C (construction) YWHA-W (SS enterprises) ’ 63 percent Private employers Unable to work: 22 percent In this column the first three were SS employers, and only the fourth represented war industry', strictly speaking. Economically' and administratively the four employer groups were not in identical positions. The camp administration did not have to apply for allocation and did not have to pay tor labor. Kammler, the SS industries, and the private plants obtained labor by applying for it in Maurers office (D-II). The camp administrators and Kammler did not have to pay for their workers. The SS industries and private firms made payments to the Reich (see Table 9-11). All employed inmates were organized in work parties (Kommandos) and were placed under the supervision of inmates (Oberkapos, Kapos, and Vorarbeiter). There were two types of maintenance Kommandos, reflecting the dual purpose of the killing center: those engaged in ordinary' maintenance tasks (kitchen personnel, sick-bay attendants, latrine cleaners, electricians, plumbers, etc.) and those involved in the killing operations (the Tmnsportkommandos, which cleaned up the freight cars after unloading; the Kommandos in the Effektenkammn; which sorted valuables; and, most important, the SoncUrkotnmandos, which worked in the crematoria).8 Besides the camp itself, there were two other SS employers: Amtsgruppe C and the SS industries. statistics ro the camp dextors, pointing our that “with such a large death rate the number of inmates can never be brought up ro the figure ordered by the Reichsfiihrer-SSr and directing the doctors to pay closer attention to food distribution and working conditions. WVHA D-III (signed Glucks) to camp commanders, December 28, 1942, PS-2171. 7. Himmler to Speer, June 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. The percentages refer ro March 31, 1943. In the beginning of 1945 (470,000 inmates), the percentages were approximately 9, 74, and 17. Affidavit by Pohl, May 21, 1947, NO-2570. 8. For breakdowns with statistics, sec report by KL Auschwitz II on labor alloca-LABOR UTILIZATION 985 The chief of Amtsgruppe C, Kammler, was the builder of concentration t camps and concentration camp installations. In Auschwitz alone, during ; 1942 and 1943, he used an average of about 8,000 inmates per day.9 In the labor camps set up by Himmler during the deportation of the Polish Jews, the SS industries produced such items as brushes, baskets, and wooden shoes. Their contribution to the war effort in the concentration camps was of the same order. Because of its limited financial resources (capital investment, RM 32,000,000), the SS combine had to confine itself to production that did not require great capital outlays and that was suited to exploitation of slave labor. Table 9-12 is a brief outline of the SS industry network in the killing centers. The SS industries enjoyed excellent relations with the camp administrators and the SS and Police Leaders. In an atmosphere of cooperation and good will, they grew to a respectable size. For example, Sturmbannführer Mummenthey (DEST) reported that the gravel works in Treblinka were doing well. The fact that Treblinka was not under the jurisdiction of Amtsgruppe D was no disadvantage.10 The DAW in Lublin obtained a loan of 71,000 zloty from Brigadefuhrer Globocnik, and the camp commander (Koch) agreed to feed the DAW employees for the sum total of 0.30 Reichsmark per person per day.11 In Auschwitz the DAW received the patronizing attention of Höss. From the Bauleitung it acquired two workshops and orders for doors and windows to be fitted into the gas chambers.12 In such ways the SS enterprises were soon able to take on several thousand inmate laborers. A special enterprise was ordered by Himmler for Sobibor. This camp was set aside for the disassembly of captured ammunition in order to salvage the metals and explosives. The enterprise was not going to be incorporated into the WVHA industry network, inasmuch as it was designated to work for the SS-Fiihrungshauptamt exclusively.13 In the end, the projected plant was dropped altogether. tion, May 11, 1944, Dokumenty i materiaiy, vol. 1, pp. 100-105. Sec also Samuel Rajzman, “Uprising in Treblinka,” Hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, 79rh Cong., 1st scss., on H. J. Res. 93 (punishment of war criminals), March 25-26, 1945, pp. 120-25. Kommandos had different names in different camps. They were also organized somewhat differently in every camp. 9. Jan Schn, “Concentration and Extermination Camp at Oswiycim,” Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Polatui (Warsaw, 1946-1947), vol. l,pp. 30-31. 10. Mummenthey to Pohl, June 28, 1943, NO-1031. He referred to Treblinka I. 11. Report by HStuf. May (W-IV), June 11, 1942, NO-1216. 1 2. Ibid. 13. Himmler to WVHA, Fiihrungshauptamt, Higher SS and Police I cadets GG, Osrland, Ukraine, Russia Center, SS and Police leader Lublin, and Chief of AntiPartisan Units, July 5, 1943, NO-482. 986 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS TABLE 9-11 CAMP LABOR ADMINISTRATION ALLOCATION PAYMENT FOR BY MAURER INMATES Camp Administration Amtsgruppe C X Amtsgruppe D X X Private Industry X X TABLE 9-12 SS INDUSTRY IN THE KILLING CENTERS OFFICE ENTERPRISE MANAGER ESTABLISHMENTS WVHAW-I Earth and stones OStubaf. Gravel works in (DEST) Mummen the}' Auschwitz and Treblinka I (also granite works in Mauthausen, diamond cutting in Herzogenbusch ) VVVHA W-II Cement OStubaf. Cement works in Bobermin Lublin WVHA W-III Food products HSruf. Auschwitz, Rabeneck Lublin WVHA YV-IV Wood products HStuf. Auschwitz, (DAW) Opperbeck Lublin Note: Organization chart of SS industries, September 30, 1944, NO-2116. Wage chart of SS industries, April 1,1944, NO-653. The granite works in Mauthausen utilized the 1,000 Dutch lew s w ho w ere deported there in 1941, and Dutch Jews w ere also employed at Herzogenbusch. Most of the SS plants w ere in ordinary labor and concentration camps, not show n above. Treblinka 1 w as the labor camp. The Jewish inmates working for their SS employers did not last long. The SS insisted on great tempo. Potatoes had to be unloaded at a run,14 and wheelbarrows filled with gravel had to be pushed up steep slopes at a trot.IS For those who could not keep up, there was only quick death. 14. Schn, “Oswiycim” German Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, p. 53. 15. War Refugee Board, “Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Polish major's report, p. 12. LABOR UTILIZATION 987 Unlike the SS, private firms moved into the concentration camps with large capital and made them a factor in war production. For a long time the SS attempted to lure industry' into the camps. As early as 1935,1. G. Farben officials visited Dachau,16 but the invitation did not turn out to be successful. While camp labor was certainly cheap (in the beginning the price was one Reichsmark per inmate per day), its employment was coupled with drawbacks. To begin with, a plant had to be built within a camp, or the camp had to be extended to cover the plant. There had to be enough labor in the camp to justify the construction of a work hall or building. Key labor and, to some extent, skilled labor had to be brought in by the firm. Even if all these requirements were met, the concentration camp routine was not attuned to promote labor efficiency, and for a long time Himmler was unable to find any clients. The SS obtained its first major customer only after the disadvantages of camp operation were outweighed by a few special inducements. The first company to move in on a big scale was I. G. Farben.17 The I. G. was not merely a leading industrial company but a large bureaucratic apparatus and a noticeable element of the destructive machine. At first it participated in the dismissals of Jewish employees and the spread of Aryanizations. Now it was to play a major role in the expansion and operation of Auschwitz. Its decision making in the course of this fateful involvement was embedded in an elaborate managerial structure. In the conventional scheme, stockholders elected the Aufsichtsrat, which in turn elected the Vorstand, and these elective offices were the focal points of power. In the I. G., the Aufsichtsrat and Vorstand were mere outer trappings. Membership in these bodies without a position in a committee, a plant combination, or the central administration meant little. The nominal head of the company, Vorstand chairman Hermann Schmitz, held no bureaucratic position. He appears to have been a virtual rubber stamp. The Vorstand (eighty-four members to 1937, twenty-seven after 1937) was an unwieldy body with perfunctory' activities. It accepted all policy recommendations presented for its approval. The still larger and even more perfunctory Aufsichtsrat met three or four times a year to receive reports from the Vorstand.18 There is no need to discuss the stockholders. The organization of I. G. Farben was bewilderingly complex. In a 16. Affidavit by Hbss, May 17,1946, NI-34. 17. For the role of I. G. Farben, sec Peter Haves, Industry and Ideology (Cambridge, England, 1987), and Bemd C. Wagner, I Cl Auschwitz (Munich, 2000). 18. Affidavit by Dr. Fritz Ter Mecr, April 29, 1947, NI-5184. Affidavit bv Dr. August von Knierim, April 15, 1947, NI-6173. Ter Meer's position w ill lx* show n below ; von Knierim was legal chief. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS simplified and abbreviated picture, the hierarchy can be divided into three parts: the top echelon, the plants, and the central services. The top echelon, or policy-making part of the organization, was not one office with one man at its head. In a Führer state, the I. G. had no Führer. Instead, it had three separate centers of direction: the Krauch office, the TEA, and the KA. Krauch was not even a part of the I. G. He was a high I. G. Farben official until 1940 only. Then he became General Plenipotentiary' tor Special Questions of Chemical Production in the Office of the Four-Year Plan without relinquishing his I. G. Farben salary'.19 From his new office, Krauch guided the expansion of the entire chemical industry. The TEA ( Technischer Ausschuss, or Technical Committee), headed by Dr. Fritz Ter Meer, concerned itself with production: scientific questions, raw material, production methods, plant expansion, and so on. The TEA was at the apex of a large number of commissions that dealt with individual problems:20 TEA-------------- — TEKO Dr. Fritz Ter Meer, chairman (Technical Dr. Ernst A. Struss, secretary Commission) Several dozen commissions Five dealing with specialized engineering production questions commissions The KA {Kanfrncinniscber Aussebuss, or Commercial Committee), under Dr. Georg von Schnitzler, dealt with commercial problems: marketing, sales, prices, taxes, and so on. It was placed over the sales combines (see Table 9-13). The top policy-making echelon thus consisted of a triumvirate: Krauch (expansion), Ter Meer (production), and Schnitzler (marketing and financial aspects). The second part of the I. G. Farben machinery' was its plant organization. We have said that the I. G. was a true industrial empire. It had more plants (fitty'-six) than Pohl had concentration camps, and its production spanned the entire chemical field. The plants were arranged into three divisions ( Sparten), according to production specialization, and into work combines ( Bctriebsjjemeinschaften), grouped territorially'. Table 9-14 shows the divisions, work combines, main plants, and a few of the other plants to which we shall have to refer. The third component ol the I. G. consisted of the central service departments, divided into the Berlin and Frankfurt offices. “I. G. Berlin,” 19. Interrogation of Dr. Ernst A. Struss, April 26, 1947, Nl-11109. 20. Affidavit by 1er Meer, April 29, 1947, NI-5184. LABOR UTILIZATION 989 TABLE 9-13 KA MACHINERY KA PROKO Dr. Georg von Schnitzler (Propaganda Commission) Sales combines Sales combines Sales combines Division I Division II Division III (nitrogen and (chemicals, (films and gasoline) dyes, nylon) light metals, pharmaceuticals) Stickstoff Syndicate Bayer Note: Affidavit by Dr. Günther Frank-Fahle, June 10,1947, NI-5169. Affiant was a member of the KA. headed by Dr. Max Ilgner, took care of such diverse but important matters as personnel, protocol, legal problems, press, export, and political economy.21 Frankfurt was the headquarters of commercial services, including the central bookkeeping and central insurance departments, the customer index, and so on.22 The I. G. hierarchy—committees, plants, and central administration — was a headless colossus, running like an autonomous machine that someone had once set into motion and that drove on relendessly to keep producing and expanding. In this context, the I. G.’s presence in Auschwitz can be traced not to a desire to kill Jews or to work them to death but to a complicated manufacturing problem: the production of synthetic rubber (Buna). Before the war the I. G. built two Buna plants: Buna I at Schkopau in 1936 and Buna II at Hüls in 1938.23 On November 2,1940,1. G. Farben officials met with Unterstaatssekretär von Hanneken of the Economy Ministry and decided to step up the production of synthetic rubber.24 Accordingly, it was decided to build Buna III at Ludwigshafen. The 21. For chart, see affidavit by Ilgner, April 30,1947, NI-6544. 22. Affidavit by Frank-Fahle, June 10,1947, NI-5169. 23. Affidavit by Struss, July 6, 1947, NI-10029. 24. The goal was 150,000 metric tons. Memorandum by Ter Meer, February 10, 1941, NI-11112. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Ludwigshafen plant did not suffice to bring production to the required level, and the planners consequently considered two alternatives: enlarging the Hiils plant from 40,000 metric tons to 60,000 metric tons or construction of another plant with a capacity of 25,000 metric tons. The new plant could be constructed in Norway or at Auschwitz. From the beginning, the Economy Ministry pushed the Auschwitz sire. There was at that time a great interest in making the incorporated territories a part of Germany, not only administratively but also econom-icallv and demographically. On December 11, 1940, an inducement was ottered to that end in the form of a decree which tendered tax exemptions to companies building plants in the incorporated areas.25 On February 6, 1941, the final decisions were made. Three conferences were held on that day. In one meeting Ministerialdirigent Mulert of the Economy Ministry vetoed Norway. In another Ministerialrat Romer promised, subject to the approval of the price commissar, that the saving of 60,000,000 Reichsmark which could be made by expanding Buna II in preference to the construction of the new plant was partially going to be covered by maintaining rubber prices at their current high level. In the third conference Ter Mecr and the deputy chief of the main plant at Ludwigshafen, Dr. Otto Ambros, candidly talked over with Krauch the advantages and disadvantages of Auschwitz. Ambros brought out the facts that Auschwitz had good water, coal, and lime supplies. Communications were also adequate. Disadvantages were the lack of skilled labor in the area and the disinclination of German workers to live there.26 These remaining difficulties were soon removed. Krauch suggested to Goring that Himmler give a helping hand, and on February 26, 1941, Himmler ordered that the town of Auschwitz be cleared entirely of the civilian population to make room for the I. G. construction workers. Poles could remain if employable by the I. G. In addition, all available skilled labor in the Auschwitz camp was at the disposal of the new enterprise.27 On March 19 and April 24,1941, the TEA decided upon the details of Auschwitz production. There were to be two plants: a synthetic rubber plant (Buna IV) and an acetic acid plant. The TEA suggestions were accepted by the Vorstand on April 25, 1941.281. G. Auschwitz was on the map (see Table 9-15). 25. RGBII, 1505. 26. Memoranda by Ter Meer, summarizing all rhree conferences, February 10, 1941, NI-1 111 1-3. 27. Goring to I^ibor Ministry, February 18, 1941, NG-1587. Krauch office (signed Wirth) to 1. G. Farben, March 4, 1941, enclosing Himmler order of February 16, 1941, NI-11086. 28. Summary of 25th Vorstand meeting, April 25, 1941, NI-8078. LABOR UTILIZATION Division I Division II Division III Dr. Christian Schneider Dr. Fritz Ter Meer Dr. Fritz Gajewski Nitrogen and gasoline Chemicals, dyes, light metals, pharmaceuticals Films and nylon Dr. Biitefisch Work Combine Work Combine Work Combine Work Combine Upper Rhine Main Lower Rhine Central Germany Dr. Wurster Dr. Lautenschläger Dr. Kühne Dr. Bürgin LEUNA" OPPAU1 LUDWIGSHAFEN1 HÖCHST LEVERKUSEN BITTEREELD1 WOLFEN FILM" Dr. von Staden Dr. Müller- Dr. Wurster Dr. Lautenschläger Dr. Haberland Dr. Bürgin Dr. Gajewski Cunradi Deputy, Deputy, Jähne Deputy, Dr. Deputy, Dr. Ambros Brüggemann Dr. Kleine AUSCHWITZ HEYDEBRECK BUNA I UERDINGEN Dr. Dürrfcld Dr. Sönsken (SCHKOPAU) Dr. Haberland Division 1, Dr. Wulff Dr. Braus BUNA II (HÜLS) Dr. Hoffmann BUNA III (LUDWIGSHAFEN) Niemann BUNA IV (AUSCHWITZ) Dr. Dürrfeld Division II, Dr. Eisfeld DYHERNFURTH Palm TABLE 9-15 THE I. G. AUSCHWITZ ADMINISTRATION Chief, construction commission: Ing. Max Faust Chief, I. G. Auschwitz: Personnel chief: Dr. Walter Dürrfeld Dr. Martin Rossbach Housing: Paul Reinhold Chief, Chief, Division I Division II (acetic acid) (synthetic rubber) Dr. Karl Braus Dr. Kurt Eisfeld The investment in Auschwitz was initially over RM 500,000,000, ultimately over RM 700,000,000.29 The central I. G. construction department at Ludwigshafen (Ing. Camill Santo) established a branch at Auschwitz (under Ing. Max Faust) analogous to the SS setup (Kammler-Bischoff).30 About 170 contractors were put to work.31 The plant was set up, roads were built, barracks were constructed for the inmates, barbed wire was strung for “factory pacification” ( Fabrikeinfriedunjj) ,32 and, after the town of Auschwitz was flooded with I. G. personnel, two company villages were built.33 To make sure that I. G. Auschwitz would have all the necessary building materials, Krauch patronizingly ordered that Buna enjoy first priority (Dringlichkeitsstufe I) until completion.34 Spreading 29. Interrogation of Struss, April 16, 1947, NI-11109. 30. Affidavit by Santo, November 21, 1947, Diirrfcld-882. Affidavit by Gustav Murr (Deputy of Faust), November 3,1947, Diirrfcld-853. In 1942 the Speer ministry formed an Amt fur Riistungsausbau (Office for Expansion of War Plants), which henceforth supervised a good part of the construction work. Affidavit by Murr, November 3, 1947, Diirrfcld-853. 31. Affidavit by Murr, November 3, 1947, Diirrfcld-853. Affidavit by Faust, December 11, 1947, Diirrfcld-961. 32. I. G. Auschwitz to Technical Commission (TEKO) requesting credits, November 28, 1942, and November 13,1944, NI-9110. 33. On housing shortage, see report by Faust for August 17-23, 1941, NI-15254. The two company villages were at Dwoiy. Affidavit by Murr, November 3, 194“, Diirrfeld-853. 34. Korncr and SrefHcr to Speer and Milch, June 27, 1943, NOKW-307. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS out, I. G. Auschwitz acquired its coal base, the Fiirstengrube and Janinagrube. Both mines were filled with Jewish inmates.35 From the start there was complete cooperation between the I. G. and the SS. The two organizations complemented each other in Auschwitz. While the I. G. built the barracks, the SS supplied the “furnishings” (bunks).36 The SS provided the guards, and the I. G. added its Wcrkschutz (“factory police”).37 The I. G. requested punishments for inmates who violated its rules, and the SS administered the punishments.38 The SS fed the inmates with a standard Auschwitz diet, and the I. G. added some “Buna soup” to ensure work output.39 Social relations were also friendly. Even’ once in a while Hoss would invite Dr. and Mrs. Diirrfeld or Dr. and Mrs. Eisfeld to his home near the camp.40 But the I. G. involvement went even further than administrative cooperation and friendly social relations. The I. G. adopted in its factory the methods and the mentality of the SS. Far from enjoying any protection because of their employment in Buna, the inmates were worked to death. Even during the construction stage the I. G. foremen adopted the SS “work tempo,” as in trotting with cement.41 One day in 1944 a large group of arriving inmates were greeted with a speech in which they were told that they were now in the concentration camp of the I. G. Farbenindustrie. They had come not in order to live there but to “perish in concrete.” This welcoming speech referred, according to a survivor, to an I. G. Farben practice of throwing the corpses of inmates into ditches that had been dug for cables. Like the ancient children of Israel, these corpses were then covered as concrete was poured over them.42 How completely the SS mentality had taken hold even of I. G. Farben directors is illustrated by the following story. One day, two Buna inmates. Dr. Raymond van den Straaten and Dr. Fritz Lohner-Beda, were going 35. Affidavit by Giinther Falkenhahn (Fiirstengrube), September 30, 1947, Nl-12010. Memorandum by Braus, February 2, 1942, NI-12014. Report bv I. G. Frankfurt/Bookkeeping, September 28, 1944, NI-12015.1. G. Auschwitz to Falkenhahn, Diirrfeld, Sobel (Fiirstengrube), and Kroger (Janinagrube), July 28, 1943, NI-12019. 36. 1. G. Auschwitz/Hauptgruppe 2 to Technical Commission (TEKO) requesting credits for barracks expansion, November 28, 1942, NI-9110. Affidavit bv Rudolf Damming (I. G. architect), June 17, 1948, Diirrfeld-102. 37. Interrogation of Diirrfeld, February 24, 1947, NI-11046, pp. 30-33. 38. For typical punishment reports, see documents NI-11000 to NI-11038 and NI-11040 to NI-11045. 39. Affidavit by Faust, January 16, 1948, Diirrfeld-478. 40. Affidavit by Hoss, May 17, 1946, NI-34. 41. Affidavit by Ervin Schulhof (ex-inmate), June 21, 1947, NI-7967. 42. Affidavit by Dr. Nikolae Nyiszli, October 8, 1947, NI-11710. Affiant, a physician, was a survivor of Auschwitz III. LABOR UTILIZATION about their work when a party of visiting I. G. Farben dignitaries passed by. One of the directors pointed to Dr. Löhner-Beda and said to his SS companion, ‘‘This Jewish swine could work a little faster [Diese Judensau könnte auch rascherarbeiten].” Another director then chanced the remark, “If they can't work, let them perish in the gas chamber [ Wenn die nicht mehr arbeiten können, sollen sie in der Gaskammer verrecken].” After the inspection was over, Dr. Löhner-Beda was pulled out of the work parts' and was beaten and kicked until, a dying man, he was left in the arms of his inmate friend, to end his life in I. G. Auschwitz.43 About 35,000 inmates passed through Buna. At least 25,000 died.44 The life expectancy of a Jewish inmate at I. G. Auschwitz was three or tour months,45 while in the outlying coal mines it was about one month.46 The I. G., like the SS, had forgotten how to keep its inmates alive. The SS was in turn peculiarly influenced by its first customer. In the WVHA, imaginations were aroused, ambitions were fired, plans were made. Specifically, the WVHA had two goals in mind. First the I. G. Farben camp (Auschwitz III) was to be expanded to accommodate more industry. Next the SS began to think in terms of taking over whole sections of German industry and turning these plants into a giant network of concentration camps. On September 15, 1942, a major move was made toward the realization of these plans. Reichsminister Speer and four of his top men —Staatsrat Dr. Schieber (honorary SS-Brigadefiihrer), Dipl. Ing. Saur, Ministerialrat Steffen, and Ministerialrat Dr. Briese —met in conference with Pohl and Kammler. Two items were on the agenda: 43. Affidavit by van den Straatcn, July 18, 1947, NI-9109. Affiant docs not identify the I. G. Farben officials who made the remarks but mentions that he saw five visitors: Dürrfcld, Ambros, Bütefisch, Krauch, and Ter Meer. 44. The 35,000 figure is given in an affidavit by Schulhof, June 21, 1947, NI-7967. The average number of inmates utilized by the I. G. was about 10,000, according to Höss. Sec his affidavit of May 17, 1946, NI-34. Ten thousand is the maximum figure according to Schulhof. In January 1944, the number of inmates working in I. G. Auschwitz was 5,300. Pohl to Krancfuss (deputy of Krauch), January 15, 1944, NO-1905. The records of the “hospital” in Auschwitz III show 15,684 entries between June 7, 1943, and June 19, 1944 (not counting 23 illegible entries). The entries cover 8,244 persons, some having been delivered to the hut more than once. Eighty-three percent of the sick inmates (about 6,800) were Jews; 632 Jews died in the hospital hut; 1,336 were sent to Birkenau (Auschwitz II) to be gassed. Affidavit by Karl Hacsclcr (analyst for the defense), April 7, 1948, Diirrfcld-1441. 45. Affidavit by Prof. Bcrthold Epstein, March 3, 1947, Nl-5847. Affiant was a hospital orderly at Buna. 46. Affidavit by Dr. Erich Orlik, June 18, 1947, NI-7966. Affiant w as an inmate doctor in the Janina mine. KILLING CBNTBR OPERATIONS enlargement of the Auschwitz camp in consequence of the “eastern migration" and “taking over complete armament tasks of major proportions bv the concentration camps." There was no difficulty on the first point. Speer approved the acquisition of building materials (in the amount of RM 13,700,000) to construct 300 barracks with room for 132,000 inmates at Auschwitz. With regard to the second item, Polil announced that henceforth the SS would not be concerned with “small stuff” ( Klcckerkram) anymore. They were going to take over a plant only if they could fill it with 5,000 or 10,000 or even 15,000 inmates. They agreed with Speer that such a plant could not be built in a concentration camp. As Speer had correctly pointed out, the plant had to lie on the “green grass." The SS men would therefore propose that certain establishments not working at full capacity because of the labor shortage be emptied out. The labor force in these plants would fill out other plants. The empty factories, however, would be surrounded with electric wire and filled with inmates, to be run as SS armament plants ( SS-Rüstungsbetriebe). Of course, the WVHA did not have so many inmates at its disposal. The RSHA would therefore lend a helping hand by taking Jews out of the free economy and sending them into concentration camps. Speer agreed that one could use 50,000 Jews in short order. Saur could name the plants. Pohl did not trust Saur very much, and to make sure that the program would really get under way, he ordered his manpower expert, Obersturmbannführer Maurer (WVHA D-II), to move into the office of Speer’s manpower expert, Staatsrat Schieber. That, thought Pohl, would do the trick.47 These dreams did not quite materialize. No plants were handed over. In December 1942, Himmler wrote to Müller that only Auschwitz needed labor, and Müller was therefore instructed to send 15,000 Jews to Auschwitz during the next month.48 In April of the following year came a blow from which the SS never recovered. It meant that Himmler could never establish the industrial empire that he had hoped to achieve with the use of doomed Jewry. Speer had made an inspection trip to Mauthausen and had come to the conclusion that the SS was undertaking constructions which were “extravagant" {grosszügig). In a sharply written letter to Himmler —of the kind that the Reichsführer very seldom received — he pointed out that he needed tanks, mineral oil, and submarines very quickly. “Dear Comrade Himmler, as I see this development, you will not be able to get done with 47. Report on conference by Pohl to Himmler, September 16, 1942, NI-15392. 48. Himmler to Müller, December 17, 1942, Himmler Files, Folder 67. LABOR UTILIZATION your plans this year, simply because you will never get the necessary' building materials.” Therefore, advised Speer, it would be necessary to proceed along totally different lines. From now on one would have to apply the principle of Primitivbauweise (“primitive construction”); that is, the inmates working with practically no tools and no expensive materials would have to accomplish the greatest possible results by labor alone. All allocations of materials for construction would have to be reviewed.49 This letter meant that Speer was backing out of point one of the agreement, with all that that implied for point two. Pohl was incensed. Writing to Himmler’s personal Referent, Obersturmbannführer Brandt, he voiced the opinion that Speer’s letter was “actually a pretty strong piece [eigentlich ein recht starkes Stück]” but since he had forgotten the art of being astonished, he merely wished to point out that Speer had already given preliminary approval for the construction in the camps and certainly could have consulted Schieber about labor utilization. Finally, Pohl came to the most vexing point. He had been accused by implication of treating inmates too mildly, of not driving out of them their last ounce of strength. Did Speer realize, he asked, how many deaths there were in the concentration camps? Did he realize the tremendous rise in mortality' that “primitive methods” would occasion?50 While Pohl was deeply mortified, Himmler was on the defensive too. Painstakingly he counted up the 2,200 metric tons of steel that had been made available for Auschwitz, broke down the inmate labor supply in percentages to show that 67 percent were working in armaments, and pointed out that the type of construction work going on now fully satisfied the label Primitivbauweise.51 Appeased, Speer replied in a more friendly tone that his ideas about primitive construction had already been recognized ( Verständnis entgegengebracht), but in the next sentence confounded Himmler by pointing out a remaining difficulty. The inmates were dropping dead too fast, particularly in Auschwitz. Something would have to be done to remove at least the worst conditions.52 The SS was now pretty much restricted to Auschwitz. In this killing center, however, several big firms joined I. G. Farben. On March 5,1943, the Krupp fuse plant in Essen was bombed out,53 and by March 17 plans were laid to move the remaining machinery to Auschwitz. At the same time, an enterprising Krupp official, Hölkeskamp, grabbed 500 Jew ish workers from two Berlin firms, Krone-Presswerk and Graetz. These Jews were promptly deported to Auschwitz and made available to Krupp through 49. Speer to Himmler, April 5, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. 50. Pohl to Brandt, April 19, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. 51. Himmler to Speer, June, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. 52. Speer to Himmler, June 10, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. 53. Affidavit bv Finch Luthal (Krupp employee), September 24, 194", NI-116~4. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS the courtesy of Obersturmführer Sommer of WVHA D-II.54 But then the industrialists had concerns about the retention of their labor. Thus a representative of the Special Committee Munitions asked the following question during a Krupp conference in Auschwitz: What if political or police necessities resulted in a ‘■‘withdrawal” of trained inmates or, for that matter, all inmates? Hauptsturmführer Schwarz immediately assured him that such an outcome was unlikely.55 By the time fuse production was to get under way,56 another firm, the “Union” Metallindustrie, which had had to retreat from Ukraine, took over the plant.57 Besides Krupp, the ubiquitous Hermann Goring Works (coal mines), Siemens-Schuckert, and a number of other firms drew upon the inmate resources of Auschwitz III, setting up satellite camps for miles around.58 The average number of inmates used by these firms was about 40,000.59 With so many new patrons competing for Auschwitz labor, the SS did not forget its original customer. In 1943 Pohl, Glücks, Frank, and Maurer came to visit the Buna works and promised the I. G. Farben representatives that I. G. Auschwitz would enjoy priority over other firms in the allocation of inmates.60 But early in 1944 the situation became tight. Pohl wrote to Krauch's deputy Kranefuss that he could not furnish any more laborers. After all, the chemical industry had already gotten more than its fair share.61 Though the price of a skilled inmate had risen from about 1.5 Reichsmark in 1941 to 5 Reichsmark in 1944,62 labor had become so scarce that a stria and complicated system of allocation had to be worked out. Each firm had to make its request in triplicate forms to the Speer Ministry (Major von den Osten). The forms were checked with labor offices to present double requests for inmates and free labor, and, if everything was found to be in order, Sauckel would be consulted to 54. Memorandum by Hölkeskamp, March 17, 1943, NI-2911. 55. Memorandum by USruf. Kirschncck of the Xcnrralbaulcitung, August 23, 1943, about a meeting attended by Weinhold (Krupp plant director). Colonel Wartenberg and Captain Schwartz of Armament Inspectorate Vlllb, and Director Wielan of Special Committee Munitions, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 26. In various documents Kirschneck is spelled also Kirschnek. 56. For specifications, see OKH/Chicf of the Replacement Armv/Wa Chef Ing Stab IVa to Friedrich Krupp A. G./Auschwitz Works, attention Dr. Janssen, September 22, 1943, Nl-10650. 57. Krupp memorandum (signed Müller), September 20, 1943, NI-12329. Armament Inspectorate Vlllb Katowice (signed Oberst Hüter), report for Julv-Scptcmber, 1943, Wi/ID 1.224. 58. Affidavit by Höss, May 17, 1946, NI-34. 59. Ibid. The figure includes manv non-Jews. 60. Ibid. 61. Pohl to Kranefuss, January 15, 1944, NO-1905. 62. Affidavit by Höss, March 12, 1947, NI-4434. LABOR UTILIZATION determine whether the allocation was justified. Only after this test had ’ been passed could the requests be sent on to Maurer.6* In the summer of 1944, when about 425,000 Jews arrived in Auschwitz from Hungary, the SS once again had hopes for big business. On March 1, Speer and Milch had formed the Jagerstab (Pursuit Planes Staff), a coordinating committee that had the job of building aircraft factories in huge bunkers. The following were some of the chief personalities:63 64 Speer, chairman Milch, cochairman Saur, Speer’s deputy Dorsch (Organisation Todt), in charge of construction Schlempp, deputy of Dorsch Kammler, special construction Schmelter (Ministerialdirigent, Central Division Labor Allocation, Speer ministry), labor procurement For its building projects the Jagerstab needed about a quarter of a million construction workers.65 The experts took one look at the labor supply and decided that Jews would have to be employed. On April 6 and 7, 1944, Saur talked about the problem to Hitler personally, with the result that Hitler consented as a last resort to die utilization of 100,000 Hungarian Jews who were shordy expected in Auschwitz.66 Before long, however, an old and familiar obstacle emerged. The Hungarian transports had relatively few young men, for the Hungarian army had been drafting Jews into labor battalions that were being retained in Hungary. On May 24, 1944, Pohl wrote to Himmler that the first transports seemed to indicate that about half of the physically capable arrivals were women. Could these women, asked Pohl, be employed in the construction program of the Organisation Todt?67 The reply came quickly: 63. Ministry for Armaments and War Production (Speer) to chairmen of armament commissions, directors of main committees, industrial rings and pnxluc-tion committees, Rcichsvcreinigung Eiscn, Sauckcl, and WVHA, October 9, 1944, NI-638. 64. Affidavit by Fritz Schmelter, December 9,1946, NOKW-372. Interrogation of Schmelter, November 15, 1946, NOKW-319. Affidavit bv Xaver Dorsch, December 28, 1946, NOKW-447. Interrogation of Milch, October 14, 1946, NOKW-420. Interrogation of Milch, November 8, 1946, NOKW-421. Summary of Air Ministry conference, March 31,1944, NOKW-417. Summary'of Jagerstab meeting, March 24, 1944, NOKW-162. 65. Minutes of Jagerstab meeting, May 25,1944, NOKW-349. 66. Summary by Saur of discussions with Hitler, April 9, 1944, R-124. Speer Ministry' to Jagerstab, April 17, 1944, PS-1584-III. Interrogation of Albert Speer, October 18, 1945, PS-3720. 67. Pohl to Himmler, May 24, 1944, NO-30. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS “My dear Pohl! Of course, the Jewish women are to be employed. One will have to worry only about good nourishment. Here the important thing is a supply of raw vegetables. So don’t forget to import plenty of garlic from Hungary.”68 Speer's labor expert, Schmelter, did not find the situation so funny. “Until now,” he said in the Jägerstab meeting of May 26, “two transports have arrived in the SS camp Auschwitz. What was offered for the pursuit plane constructions were children, women, and old men with whom very little can be done. If the next transports do not contain some men in the proper age group,” he warned, “the whole Aktion will fall through.”69 On June 9, Schmelter announced that he could get 10,000 to 20,000 “Hungarian Jewesses.” Was anyone interested? “Excellent!” replied Saur, “what I experienced at Siemens once with the Jewesses doing electromechanical installations was unique.”70 There were, however, very few takers, even for the reduced figure of 20,000, since the problems of guarding and quartering were almost insurmountable. The I. G., Himmler’s most loyal customer, now turned him down.71 Krupp picked out 520 Jewish women to perform heavy labor in its Essen plant, although a personnel expert had voiced the opinion that the victims were “fine, soft-boned creatures” who were not suitable for the work.72 In August 1944, the construction company Polcnsky & Zöllner, which had a project at a Dachau satellite, Waldlager V at Ampfing, to build secure installations for aircraft production, received more than a thousand Jewish men to perform such tasks as carrying sacks of cement to the machines mixing concrete. In October, however, the company decided that the pace of the work was too slow and that the Jewish Kapos did not push the inmates hard enough. It asked for Aryan Kapos and the SS took care of the matter.73 68. Himmler ro Pohl, May 27, 1944, NO-30. 69. Minurcs of Jagerstab meeting. May 26, 1944, NOKW-336. 70. Minutes of Jägerstab meeting, June 9, 1944, NG-1593. 71. YVarnecke (I. G. Farben/Leverkusen) to Guenrer (Reich office for economic construction), June 2, 1944, NI-8969. Summary of I. G. Leverkusen technical conference (Haberland presiding), July 10, 1944, NI-5765. 72. On Krupp employment, see: Affidavit by AdolfTrockel, September 24, 1947, NI-11676. Affidavit by Johannes Maria Dolhaine, September 18, 1947, NI-11675. Affidavit by Walter Holkeskamp, September 15, 1947, NI-11679. Affidavit by Günther Hoppe, October 8, 1945, NI-5787. Affidavit by Hans Kupkc, September 19, 1945, NI-6811. Interrogation of Dr. Wilhelm Jäger, June 6, 1946, NI-5823. Memorandum by Wilshaus (Krupp Essen Werkschur/), August 28,1944, NI-15364. Air raid report by Hoppe (camp commander, Jewish women’s compound), December 12, 1944, NI-5785. Affidavit by Anneliese Trockcl, Mav 28, 1947, NI-8947. 73. Organisation T«xlt, Einsatzgruppe Deutschland VI/Oberbauleirung Weingut I to various firms, August 16, 1944; Obcrbauleitung (signed Griesinger) to LABOS. UTILIZATION 1001 At the end of the war, an entirely different problem arose. Some of the firms that had no compunction about the use of slave labor in 1944 did not want to be caught by Allied armies with this work, force on company premises. Such was the case of the Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik, which had asked Obergruppenführer Hofmann, Higher SS and Police Leader in the area of Armeekommando V, to intercede with Pohl for an allocation of Jewish inmates. Seven hundred Jewish women were sent to the plant. In March 1945, the director of the company telephoned Hofmann with the urgent plea to take the women off his hands because American troops were closing in. This time Hofmann replied that it was none of his business and that he could do nothing.74 The Jews were not returnable. MEDICAL· EXPERIMENTS There was another and more sinister utilization of doomed Jews, namely the medical experiments. Numerically, the use of inmates for experiments did not approach the dimensions of industrial exploitation, but psychologically the experiments pose a significant problem. The experiments may be divided into two broad categories. The first comprised medical research that would be considered usual and normal, except for the utilization of unwilling subjects, Versuchspersonen, as they were called. The second was more complex and far-reaching, because it was conducted neither with ordinary methods nor with ordinary aims. Both classes of experiments were the product of a single administrative machine, the structure of which is shown in abbreviated form in Table 9-16. An experiment was initiated when someone conceived of the possibility of using inmates to try out a serum, to test a hypothesis, or to solve some other problem. For instance, the chief of the Air Force Medical Service was interested in altitude experiments and the revival of half-frozen pilots shot down over the Atlantic.* 1 Stabsarzt Dr. Dohmen of the Army Medical Service wanted to do research on jaundice. So far he had injected healthy animals with virus from jaundiced humans, but now he wanted to reverse the process and inject humans with virus from diseased animals.2 The “Bayer” research laboratories of I. G. Farben wanted to test Concentration Camps I and II of the Mühldorf complex, September 27, 1944; and Polcnsky & Zöllner to Hauptscharfiihrer Ebcrl, October 20, 1944, with Fberl's handwritten notation, T 580, Roll 321. Concentration Camp II was Waldlager V. 74. Affidavit by Otto Hofmann, November 30, 1945, NO-2412. 1. Hippkc to Wolff', March 6,1943, NO-262. 2. Grawitz to Himmler, June 1,1943, NO-10. 1002 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS TABLE 9-16 THE MEDICAL MACHINE OF DESTRUCTION Plenipotentiary (later Reichskommissar) for Hygiene and Health: Dr. Karl Brandt Chief, Armed Forces Medical Sendee Reichsärzteführer Staatssekretär for Health Generaloberstabsarzt (party sector) (Interior Ministry) Dr. Siegfried Handloscr Dr. Leonardo Conti Dr. Leonardo Conti Deputy Dr. Kurt Blome Bsicbsarzt Chief, Armv Chief, Air Force SS und Polizei: President, Reich Plenipotentiary Division IV Medical Service Medical Service Gruppenführer Robert Koch Institute for Insane Asylums Health Generaloberstabsarzt Generaloberstabsarzt Dr. Grawitz for Contagious Diseases (Heil- und Ministerialdirektor Dr. Handloser Dr. Erich Hippke Dr. Gildemeister Pflegeanstalten): Dr. Cropp M inisterialdirigent Dr. Linden IV C Heredity and Race Generalarzt Chief, Waffen-SS Chief, Chief, Ministerialdirigent Dr. Schreiber Medical Semce: Hygienic Institute: hospitals: Dr. Linden Gruppenführer Oberführer Brigadeflihrer Dr. Genzken Mrugowsky Dr. Gebhardt a preparation against typhus. The product existed in two forms, tablet and granulated, and it seemed that some patients were throwing up the tablets. The I. G. researchers approached a “friendly insane asylum” to make experiments, then found themselves in an embarrassing position because the inmates were unable to tell whether the preparation was less obnoxious in granulated than in tablet form. The 1. G. thereupon remembered that one of its researchers was now an Obersturmführer in Auschwitz and asked him to help out.3 Most interested parties did not adopt the informal route that I. G. Farben had chosen in this case, but submitted their requests to Reichsarzt SS and Polizei Grawitz, or to Himmler directly. From the beginning Himmler personally took a great interest in these matters. Experiments fascinated him, and if he became convinced that the research was of “tremendous importance,” he would go out of his way to facilitate the administrative arrangements. This patronizing interest prompted Himmler to order in 1943 that no experiments were to be started without his express approval.4 In 1944 die procedure became more elaborate. Henceforth proposals were to be submitted to Grawitz, who was to transmit them to Himmler with attached advisory opinions to Gebhardt, Glücks, and Nebe.5 Gebhardt’s opinion was medical, while Glücks and Nebe advised on the important question of choosing the victims. As a rule, doctors asked for permission to use “habitual criminals”6 or inmates who had been “condemned to death.”7 This formulation was the result of the doctor’s attempt to make a compromise with his conscience. A criminal or a man condemned to death, it was reasoned, was certainly not entitled to more favorable treatment than German soldiers risking their lives and dying of wounds. However, in the consideration of the request the SS often added its own notion of criminality, with the consequence that the final choice fell upon “race-defiling Jewish habitual criminals” (rassenschänderische Beruftverbrecher-Juden) or perhaps “Jewish criminals of the Polish resistance movement who have been condemned to death.”8 On one occasion the selection of victims became a subject of discussion from a “racial viewpoint.” The experiment under consideration was the 3. “Bayer” Research Division II (signed König) to Dr. Mertens in the division, January 19, 1943, NI-12242. Dr. Weber and Dr. König to OSruf. Dr. Vetter in Auschwitz, January 27, 1943, NI-11417. 4. Pohl to OStubaf. Brandt, August 16, 1943, NO-1610. 5. Order by Himmler, May 15, 1944, NO-919. 6. Rascher to Himmler, May 15, 1941, PS-1602. 7. For instance, Dohmcn. See Grawitz to Himmler, June 1, 1943, NO-10. 8. See Himmler’s authorization for the Dohmen experiments in his letter to Grawitz, with copy to Pohl, June 16, 1943, NO-11. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS conversion of seawater to make it potable. Glucks proposed the utilization of Jews, and Nebc countered with “'asocial Gypsy Mischlinge” (Gypsy affairs were under Nebe’s jurisdiction), while Grawitz suggested that for racial reasons Gypsies were not suitable for seawater experiments.9 Himmler was interested not only in the initiation of the experiments. He followed their progress, studied the findings, and occasionally suggested some improvements. Above all, he was the guardian angel of the doctors, always ready to assume “full responsibility” for their doings and to deal severely with their critics. The SS and the participating doctors were ever watchful for undercurrents of disapproval in the medical profession. In May 1943, Professor Handloser, chief medical officer of the Wehrmacht, called the fourth conference of consulting physicians to the armed forces. During the conference Gebhardt rose to introduce the featured speaker. The lecture was to deal with the transplantation of human bones, and the findings were based on actual experimentation (removal of bones from Polish women in Ravensbriick). “I carry,” said Gebhardt, “the full human, surgical, and political responsibility for these experiments.” The introduction finished, Dr. Fritz Ernst Fischer mounted the rostrum and with the help of charts explained the operations he had performed. His lecture was followed by a discussion. No criticism was raised.10 11 Once, during the Rascher experiments for the air force, an eruption did take place. Rascher, an air force Stabsarzt (captain), was a man who enjoyed Himmler’s friendship and patronage. (On being informed that Rascher’s mistress was pregnant for the second time, Himmler sent her fresh fruit to make sure that mother and child would be well.) Rascher’s involvement began one day when he w as attending an air force course that dealt with altitude problems and pilots’ stamina. Upon the instructor’s chance remark that no experiments had ever been carried out with human beings, Rascher conceived of the idea of using some “habitual criminals” for this purpose. He communicated his proposal to Himmler1 1 and received the permission of Generaloberstabsarzt Hippke to perform the experiments. After a while, insinuations and criticisms bv other air force doctors began to make the rounds. One man, Professor Holzlohner, even made remarks about Himmler’s person w'hile visiting the experimental site at Dachau. Rascher made a strong complaint to Himmler, and the 9. Grawitz to Himmler, June 28, 1944, NO-179. 10. Affidavit bv Fischer, November 21, 1945, Conspiracy and Aiyircsswu, VIII, 635-42. 11. Rascher to Himmler, May 15, 1941, PS-1602. In this letter Rascher thanked Himmler for the fruit. MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS 1005 Reichsfuhrer-SS replied that he too would classify people who rejected 1 the use of human beings for experiments, at a time when German soldiers 1 were dying, as traitors of the second and first degree ( Hoch- und Ijindcs-rerrdter).12 To Generalfeldmarschall Milch, Himmler wrote in the same-vein, omitting references to treason but emphasizing that he would not be deterred by these “Christian” circles. Rascher, said Himmler, could be transferred to the SS, and the problem of conscience would be solved. The air force would still have the benefit of all findings by Dr. Rascher.1 * A few months later, Hippke wrote a letter to Wolff accepting the arrangement but taking the opportunity of correcting a few false impressions. First of all, nobody had objected to these experiments. Hippke had “immediately agreed” to them. The difficulty lay in another sphere: it was all a question of vanity. Everyone wanted to be the one to come out with new research discoveries. But if Rascher wished to create his own research institute in the Waffen-SS, Hippke would have no objection and would bid him good riddance.14 These were all physicians who made use of human guinea pigs. But some went one step further, carrying out experiments that were no longer characterized by any desire to help patients. These experiments had an altogether different direction, for they were identified with Nazi aims. In these activities one may glimpse an attempt to widen the destruction process. The medical technicians who became involved in this research were not merely engaged in tinkering with inmates; they were trying to discover a means by which Germany could rule Europe forever. One day in October 1941, a retired army doctor, Adolf Pokorny, sat down to write a letter to Himmler. To avoid the possibility that a subordinate might open the letter and read its contents, it was sent to Himmler by a messenger, Professor Hohn. In his letter Pokorny pointed out that he had read an article in a medical journal by a certain Dr. Madaus of the biological institute at Radebeul-Dresden. The article dealt with the effect of injecting the extract of a South American plant, Caladium sejjuinum, into mice and rats: the animals were sterilized. While reading this article, Pokorny had thought of the ‘Tremendous importance” of this drug “in the present struggle of our people.” It should be possible, continued Pokorny, to produce in short order a preparation that would lead to the sterilization of people without their knowledge. In this connection he dropped a hint that Germany had three million Soviet prisoners of war, and in conclusion he made a few urgent suggestions: Madaus to publish no more articles, the plant to be produced in hothouses, chemical analysis 12. Himmler to Rascher, October 24, 1942, PS-1609. 13. Himmler ro Milch, November 13, 1942, PS-1617. 14. Hippke ro Wollf, March 6, 1943, NO-262. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS to determine whether an extract could be synthesized, and “immediate experiments on human beings.”15 A few months later, Himmler ordered Pohl to öfter Dr. Madaus possibilities of doing research.16 Himmler was actually quite impatient, and in September 1942, Pohl, Lolling (medical chief, WVHA D-III), and Madaus agreed to transfer the work to the concentration camps.17 While these preparations were being made, someone else took note of the Madaus article. On August 24, 1942, the Deputy Gauleiter of Lower Austria, SS-Obertlihrer Gerland, also addressed a letter to Himmler. Impressing upon Himmler the “tremendous importance” of the Madaus discovery, he requested that the Gau expert on racial questions, Dr. Fehringer, be permitted to conduct experiments — in collaboration with the Pharmacological Institute of the Medical Faculty of Vienna University— in a Gypsy camp at Lackenbach.18 Himmlers reply (through Obersturmbannführer Brandt) was friendly. The matter was already under investigation, but there were difficulties because the plant was not available in sufficient quantity; if Dr. Fehringer had a supply on hand, the Reichsfiihrer-SS would be very glad to hear about it.19 The obstacles proved insurmountable, and scientific reinforcements were called up. In November 1942, Dr. Miiller-Cunradi, director of the I. G. Farben laboratory at Ludwigshafen, sent one of his biochemists, Dr. Tauboeck, to the Madaus Institute. Tauboeck and Madaus had a discussion about the matter. The whole investigation had started when Madaus had read in the literature that a Brazilian tribe was using Caladium seguinum to sterilize its enemies. The natives accomplished the sterilization by shooting arrows at the enemy (that is, by intramuscular injection), and the victim was usually unaware of his fate. But Germany did not have the climate for growing this plant, and the feat could not be repeated.20 15. Pokorny to Himmler, October 1941, NO-35. 16. Himmler to Pohl, March 10, 1942, NO-36. Adjutant of Himmler (signed OStuf. Fischer) to RSHA 1V-B-4, attention Srubaf. Günther, July 4, 1942, NO-50. 17. Pohl to Rudolf Brandt, September 7, 1942, NO-41. Affidav it by Rudolf Brandt, October 19, 1946, NO-440. 18. Gerland to Himmler, August 24, 1942, NO-39. 19. Brandt to Gerland, August 29, 1942, NO-40. 20. Affidavit by Dr. Karl Tauboeck, June 18, 1947, NO-3963. Apart from this difficulty, there were others. 'Hie efleet o iCaladtum seguinum upon reproduction is the same as overdoses ol nicotine, morphine, or just plain hunger. Apparently no one had informed Himmler that many of Madaus’s rats had died from poisoning. Affidavit by Dr. Friedrich Jung, undated, Pokornv-30. On Madaus (who died in February' 1942) and the ramifications of his experiment, see also Andrea Kamphuis, “Son-nenhut in Buchenwald: Alternativ-medizinische Forschungsprojekte und Menschenversuche im ‘Dritten Reich,”’ Skeptiker 14 (2001): 52-64. MEDICAL· EXPERIMENTS 1007 The Madaus method was not the only attempt to reconcile the short-range needs of the war with the long-range policy of destruction. The idea that after intensive labor utilization during the emergency subject peoples would be allowed to die a natural death, without a chance to replenish themselves, was a recurring thought in Nazi medical circles. Thus in May 1941, Himmler became interested in "nonsurgical sterilization of inferior women.” The author of this idea was Professor Carl Clauberg, chief physician of the women’s clinic in Knappschaft Hospital and St. Hedwig Hospital at Königshütte, Upper Silesia. Clauberg proposed that an irritant be introduced into the uterus by means of a syringe. This procedure became known as the "Clauberg method.” Three doctors were lined up to assist Clauberg in making experiments (Standartenführer Prof, von Wolff, Berlin; Sturmbannführer Prof. Erhardt, Graz, University Women’s Clinic; and Hauptsturmführer Dr. Günther F. K. Schultze, Greifswald University Women’s Clinic).21 But there was one administrative obstacle. Himmler wanted Clauberg to work in the large women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück, but Clauberg did not wish to move there with his cumbersome equipment, and in spite of Grawitz’s urgings that, because of the "tremendous significance” of these experiments, inmates should be made available at Königshütte,22 all plans collapsed at this point. One year later, Clauberg had a “scientific discussion” with a Himmler assistant, Obersturmbannführer Arlt. In the course of the conversation Clauberg brought up his now vastly expanded plans for experiments. Arlt pointed out that in such matters Himmler was the right man. Clauberg thereupon wrote to Himmler requesting permission to set up his apparatus in Auschwitz and to perform experiments there with a view to perfecting mass sterilization methods for "unworthy women” (fortpflanzungsunwürdige Frauen) as well as producing fertility in “worthy women.”23 His letter produced results. On July 7, 1942, Himmler, Gebhardt, Glücks, and Clauberg met in conference and decided to start experiments in Auschwitz. The aim of the experiments was, first of all, the discovery of means by which a victim could be sterilized without becoming aware of what was being done to her. The experiments were to be performed in “major dimensions” upon Jewish women in the camp. Second, it was agreed to call upon a foremost X-ray specialist, Professor Holfelder, to find out whether X-ray castration of men was feasible. In conclusion, Himmler warned all those present 21. Grawitz to Himmler, May 30, 1941, NO-214. 22. Grawitz to Himmler, May 29, 1941, NO-1639. 23. Clauberg to Himmler, May 30, 1942, NO-211. KILLING CBNTBR OPERATIONS that these were most secret matters and that anyone drawn into the work had to be pledged to secrecy'.24 Three days later Himmler’s Secretary Brandt sent a letter to Clauberg with a few additional requirements and suggestions. Himmler wanted to know how fast 1,000 Jewish women could be sterilized. “The Jewesses themselves should know nothing.” The results of the experiments were to be checked bv taking X-ray pictures and studying them for any changes. Clauberg could also make a “practical test,” such as locking a “Jewess and a Jew” into a room for a certain period of time and waiting for the effects.25 One more vear passed while Clauberg worked busily in Block 10 of Auschwitz I, the experimental block. To fool the victims, he told the women before injecting the irritant fluid that they were undergoing artificial insemination.26 Clauberg liked his work and wanted to show off. When Pohl visited Auschwitz one day, Clauberg approached the Obergruppenflihrer at dinner and invited him to witness a few experiments. Pohl declined.27 In June 1943, Clauberg sent his first report to Himmler. The method was “almost perfected” {sogut me fertig ausgearbeitet), although he still had to devise a few “improvements” ( Verfeinerungen). At the moment it was effective in “usual” cases. Furthermore, he could assure the Reichsfiihrer-SS that the sterilization could be performed imperceptibly in the course of a normal gynecological examination. With ten assistants, a doctor could sterilize 1,000 women in one day.28 Clauberg did not specify how secrecy' could be maintained in the mass sterilization procedure. He plodded on, and on July 5,1944, the camp command sent an urgent message to the SS Construction Inspectorate Silesia for barbed wire to be strung on 47 concrete piles, to enclose the space set aside for 2,000-3,000 female prisoners behind Clauberg’s building.29 While Clauberg went on to “perfect” his method, there was still a third attempt to work out such a program: the X-ray experiments. As early as 24. Memorandum bv Brandt, July 1942, NO-216. See also his memorandum dated July 11, 1942, NO-215. 25. Brandt to Clauberg, copies to Pohl, OStubaf. Koegel (Ravensbriick), and Srubaf. Gunther (RSHA IV-B-4), July 10, 1942, NO-213. Koegel and Giinther received copies because Himmler was still attempting to persuade Clauberg to sterilize the "Jewesses” in Ravensbriick. 26. Affidavit by Jeanne lngred Salomon, October 9, 1946, NO-810. Affiant, a survivor, was a victim of experimentation. 27. Affidavit by Pohl, July 14, 1946, NO-65. 28. Clauberg to Himmler, June 7, 1943, NO-212. 29. The Standortalreste of Auschwitz to SS Construction Inspectorate Silesia (Bischoff ), July 5, 1944, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 38. MEDICAL· EXPERIMENTS March 1941, Himmler and the Führer Chancellery (Bouhler and Brack) | had discussed sterilization problems, and in the course of these discussions Brack wrote a letter to Himmler in which he gave his expert opinion on the subject. This letter bordered on fantasy. It started as a sober account of the possibilities of X rays in the field of sterilization and castration. Preliminary investigations by medical experts of the chancellery', wrote Brack, had indicated that small doses of X rays achieved only temporary sterilization; large doses caused burns. Having come to this conclusion, Brack ignored it completely and continued with the following scheme. The persons to be “processed” (die abzufertigen Personen) would step up to a counter to be asked some questions or to fill out forms. Thus occupied, the unsuspecting candidate for sterilization would face the window for two or three minutes while the official sitting behind the counter would throw a switch that would release X rays through two tubes pointing at the victim. With twenty such counters (costing 20,000 to 30,000 Reichsmark apiece), 3,000 to 4,000 persons could be sterilized daily.30 The proposal was not immediately followed up, but Brack brought it up again in June 1942 in connection with the installation of the gassing apparatus in the Generalgouvernement camps. It seemed to Brack that among the ten million Jews who were doomed to die, there were at least two or three million who were needed desperately in the war effort. Of course they could be utilized only if they were sterilized. Since the usual surgical sterilization was too slow and expensive, he wished to remind Himmler that already a year before he had pointed out the advantages of X rays. The fact that the victims would become aware of their sterilization after a few months was a trifling consideration at this stage of the game. In conclusion, Brack stated that his chief, Reichsleiter Bouhler, was ready to furnish all the necessary doctors and other personnel to carry out the program.31 This time Himmler replied that he should like to have the X-ray method tried out in an experimental series in at least one camp.32 The experiments were carried out in Auschwitz by Dr. Horst Schumann, on women and men. As Schumann moved into Auschwitz, competition in the experimental blocks was shifted into high gear.33 The chief 30. Brack to Himmler, March 28,1941, NO-203. Brack testified after the war that this letter was deliberate nonsense. See his testimony in Case No. 1, tr. pp. 7484-93. 31. Brack to Himmler, June 23, 1942, NO-205. 32. Himmler to Brack, copies to Pohl and Grawitz, August 11, 1942, NO-206. Also, acceptance of Himmler’s offer by Brack’s deputy' Blankenburg, August 14, 1942, NO-207. 33. See Clauberg letter to OStubaf. Brandt, August 6, 1943, NO-210, in w hich Clauberg complained that in his absence one of his X-ray machines had been used bv other gentlemen. Though he did not mind this procedure, he did need the second machine to perform his “positive” experiments (increase of fertility), etc. KILLING CBNTBR OPERATIONS camp doctor, Wirths, who was primarily interested in precancerous conditions of the cervix, started his own experimental series involving operations on teenage w omen and mothers in their thirties.34 A Jewish inmate gynecologist, Dr. Samuel, was impressed into these experiments.35 36 Another camp doctor, Mengele, confined his studies to twins, for it was his ambition to multiply the German nation.30 All these experiments, which consumed many hundreds of victims, led to nothing. Not one of the rivals succeeded. One day Brack’s deputy, Blankenburg, admitted failure of the experiments conducted on men. The X rays were less reliable and less speedy than operative castration.37 In other words, it had taken three years to find out what was known at the beginning. Although the sterilization experiments were infused with dilettantism and plain deception, they were a significant episode in European history. The sheer conception of these explorations was a threat to anyone who might have been branded as “inferior.” Already the fate of Mischlinge of the first degree hung in the balance w hile the Interior Ministry w aited for the perfection of mass sterilization techniques. In consequence of the failure of these experiments, a development was arrested that had spelled in dim outlines the doom of large sections of the population of Europe. This, then, marks the difference betw een the ordinary experiments and the mass sterilization attempts. If an inmate died in the course of a procedure that was designed for a conventional result, the experimenter had killed a human being. The physician w ho tampered w ith sterilization, how ever, w as potentially an architect of mass destruction. And that was not the end. The Nazi hierarchy also promoted a few researchers who wanted to fortify their destructive aim with an unassailable scientific reason. In the search for such a rationale, these doctors regressed from medical discovery and, redirecting their steps to a dead end, destroyed their science. How' did this research emerge? The extreme Nazis view'ed the destruc­ 34. Trial of Hbss, Ijiw Reports ofWar Criminals (London, 1947), VII, 14-16, 25-26. Jan Selin, “Concentration and Extermination Camp at Oswiycim,” Central Commission tor Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Genua» Crimes in Poland (Warsaw, 1946-47), vol. I, p. 23. Affidavit by Dr. Jan KJempfner, Julv 27, 1946, NI-311. Klemptner was an inmate physician. Affidavit bv Jeanne Salomon, October 9, 1946, NO-810. Salomon stated that her uterus was “dismembered.” 35. Affidavit by Klemptner, July 27, 1946, NI-311. Deposition bv Adelaide de Jong (undated), in Raymond Phillips, cd.. Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty-Four Others (The Belsen Trial) (London, 1949), p. 668. De Jong was sterilized bv Dr. Samuel. 36. Gisella Perl, I Was a Doctor in Ausclmntz (New York, 1948), pp. 125-27. 37. Rlankenburg to Himmler, April 29, 1944, NO-208. Schumann actually produced X-ray cancer. Affidavit by Dr. Robert Levy (survivor), November 19, 1946, NO-884. For descriptions of Clauberg, Schumann, Wirths, and Mengele, see Robert Jay Litton, 7 be Nazi Doctors (New York, 1986). MEDICAL· EXPERIMENTS 1011 tion process as a race struggle. To them the anti-Jewish measures were a defensive battle of the “Nordic racial substance” against the creeping onslaught of an “inferior racial mixture.” This rationalization had its difficulties. Many officials failed to see any intrinsic connection between physical characteristics and Weltanschauung. Ideologists in the party and the SS were therefore hard put to prove their theory. It is not surprising that in their quest for substantiation they resorted to experiments. Here are two of them. In the spring of 1942 an attempt was made to show that Gypsies had different blood from Germans. Two doctors, Professor Werner Fischer and Stabsarzt (Captain) Dr. Horneck, both of whom had acquired experience while working on black prisoners of war, received permission to perform experiments on Gypsies in Sachsenhausen. Horneck dropped out because he was sent to the eastern front, and Fischer started out on forty Gypsies. At Himmler’s request he promised to widen his research by exploring Jewish blood also.38 Another approach was tried by Ahnenerbe, an organization formed by the SS in 1939 to investigate “the sphere, spirit, deed, and heritage of the Nordic Indo-Germanic race.”39 The president of the organization was Himmler; its business manager was Standartenführer Sievers; and one of its researchers was Hauptsturmführer Prof. Hirt, director of anatomy in the Reich University at Strasbourg. At the beginning of 1942, Hirt lay in the clinic, his lungs bleeding and his blood circulation gravely impaired. From his sickbed he sent die following report to Himmler: All nations and races had been studied by examination of skull collections; only in the case of the Jews were there too few skulls to permit scientific conclusions. The war in the east offered an opportunity to correct this situation. “In the Jewish-Bolshevist commissars, who embody a repulsive but characteristic subhumanity, we have the possibility of obtaining a plastic source for study [ein greifbar wissenschaftliches Dokument] if we secure their skulls.” The commissars, proposed Hirt, had best be handed over to the Field Police alive. A doctor would then take down vital statistics, kill the Jews, carefully remove the head, and so on.40 Brandt replied that Himmler was very interested in this project but that first Hirt’s health had to be restored. Perhaps a little fresh fruit would help.41 38. OSrubaf. Brandt to Grawitz, June 9, 1942, NO-410. Grawitz to Himmler, July 20, 1942, NO-411. 39. See charter of the institute, signed by Himmler, January 1, 1939, NO-659. 40. Sievers to Srubaf. Dr. Brandt, February 9, 1942, enclosing report by Hut, NO-85. 41. Brandt to Sievers, February’ 27, 1942, NO-90. 1012 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS After a few months, Hirt recovered sufficiently to do his work. In view of the scarcity of “Jewish-Bolshevist commissars,” Ahnenerbe declared itself ready to accept 150 Jews from Auschwitz.42 An Ahnenerbe official, Hauptsturmffihrer Dr. Bruno Beger, was sent to the camp; 115 persons—including 79 Jewish men, 30 Jewish women, 4 Central Asians, and 2 Poles — were quarantined, and arrangements were made with Eichmann to have them transferred to Natzweiler, where they were gassed.43 The bodies were brought to Strasbourg and preserved for race studies.44 There, in the anatomical laboratory of the university, the utmost that German doctors were capable of ran its course. CONFISCATIONS The remaining two killing center operations comprised the confiscation of property and the killings themselves. The utilization of inmates for labor and experiments was an interruption of the process, an introduction of intermediary7 procedures for economic and other extrinsic purposes. Only the expropriations and killings were organic in an administrative sense. They' were the only two operations that were implemented in all six death camps and that embraced all but a few Jewish deportees. The confiscation of personal belongings was a catchall affair. Everything the Jew s had managed to keep, everything they had succeeded in hiding, was collected in the killing centers. Property that the satellite states had been forced to relinquish in order that the deportees could start life anew in the “East” now also fell into the bag. Everything was collected and turned into profit. But the salvage of that property' w'as a precise, well-planned operation. A preliminary' step toward systematic salvage w'as taken in the spring of 1941. In April of that year the RSHA informed the inspectorate that returning to relatives and dependents the personal belongings taken from Jew's in concentration camps w'as “out of the question.” The property' w'as subject to confiscation through the normal channels (that is, the Regierungspräsidenten).1 Tliis procedure, it must be remembered, applied 42. Sicvcrs ro Brandr, November 2, 1942, NO-86. 43. OStubaf Brandt ro Fachmann, November 6, 1942, NO-116. Staf. Sievers to F.iehmann, copies to HSrut. Beger, Prof. Hirt, and OStubaf. Brandr, June 21, 1943, NO-87. Affidavit by Dr. l.con Felix Boutbien, October 30, 1946, NO-532. Affidavit by Ferdinand Holl, November 3,1946, NO-590. Boutbien and Holl were inmates of Nar/.weiler. 44. Staf. Sievers to Staf. Brandt, September 5, 1944, NO-88. 1. I.icbehcnschcl to camp commanders. May 5, 1941, enclosing letter by RSHA ll-A-5 (signed Dr. Nockcmann) to inspectorate, dated April 3, 1941, NO-1235. CONFISCATIONS 1013 to all camps before the start of mass deportations. After the establishment of the killing centers the collection, sorting, and distribution of the vast number of personal belongings became a major problem that could no longer be handled on an ad hoc basis. Accordingly, special administrative machinery was set up for the purpose of carrying out these expropriations. Under the new arrangements, collection was handled by the individual camps, but the inventory and disposal of the items became much more complicated. Jurisdiction over sorting and distribution of the Kulmhof haul was centralized under an organization that was outside SS and Police control: the Ghetto Administration of Lodz. Kulmhof was strictly a local enterprise, set up by Gauleiter Greiser for the Jews in his Gau. As previously pointed out, Greiser conferred on the Gettoverwaltung of Litzmannstadt (Lodz) the plenary power to confiscate the belongings of all Jews deported in the Warthegau.2 This power extended not only to abandoned property in the ghettos but also to the belongings that the deportees took along to the Kulmhof camp. Amtsleiter Biebow of the Gettoverwaltung therefore established a central inventory station at Pabianice (eight miles southeast of Lodz), which he placed under the direction of one of his Abteilungsleiter, Seifert, and which sorted all the belongings hauled from the abandoned Warthegau ghettos and the Kulmhof camp by a fleet of sixteen trucks.3 The Kulmhof confiscations were consequendy “receipts” flowing to the Gettoverwaltung. With one exception (furs), the inventory and ultimate realization of the property was entirely in Biebow’s domain. In Auschwitz the administrative chief (Burger, later Möckel) took care not only of collection but also of sorting, inventory, and packing. For die distribution of the items, however, he was dependent on the directives of WVHA Amtsgruppe A (Gruppenführer Frank). In the Generalgouvernement the SS and Police Leader of Lublin, Globocnik, ever mindful of new opportunities to stretch out his jurisdiction in Jewish matters, instructed his men to draw up a Zentralkartei (central register) of all the properties collected in his camps. Sturmbannführer Wippern was put in charge of all the hardware (jewelry', foreign currency, etc.), and Hauptsturmführer Höfle, who had played an active role in the commencement of deportations to newly established Belzec, took over the sorting of clothes, shoes, and so on.4 From all four camps, 2. Memorandum by Biebow, April 20, 1942, Dokument)/ i material·/, vol. 2, pp. 118-19. 3. Seifert to Biebow, May 7, 1942, ibid., vol. 1, pp. 25-26. Oberbürgermeister Litzmannstadt (signed Luchtcrhandt) to Landeswirtschaftsamt Posen, attention Re-gicrungsrat Gerlich, May 27, 1942, ibid., vol. 3, pp. 233-34. Gerlieh to Gettoverwaltung, August 28, 1942, ibid., p. 235. 4. Globocnik to Wippern and Höfle, July 15, 1942, ibid., vol. 2, p. 183. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS including Trcblinka, properties were sent to the stockrooms in Lublin.5 This whole operation became the last phase of Aktion Reinhardt. Globocnik had hardly established his organization when pressure was put on the SS and Police Leader in Warsaw and on Globocnik himself to distribute some of the accumulating goods. On April 25, 1942, Gruppenführer Grawitz, the Reichsarzt SS und Polizei, sent a letter of inquiry to Oberführer Wigand, then SS and Police Leader in Warsaw. “It has come to my attention,” wrote Grawitz, “that deposits of old gold of Jewish origin are kept by the SS and Police Leaders Warsaw and Lublin.” He could use the gold for dental work.6 Wigand replied by requesting Grawitz to obtain a Himmler directive, and a long correspondence ensued.7 On August 12, 1942, Brandt informed Krüger that Himmler had vested Pohl with responsibility for the distribution ( Weiterleitung) of all Jewish valuables to the “competent agencies” of the Reich.8 In notifying Pohl of the order, Brandt pointed out that Himmler expected the Economy Ministry' to accord to the SS “magnanimous treatment” (grosszügige Behandlung) of any requests for gold and silver.9 About this time (on August 11,1942) Globocnik asked for permission to “pinch off” (ahzweigen) 2,000,000 zloty from the “Jewish evacuation” (Judenumsiedlung) to finance schools for German resettlers in the district. This procedure, Globocnik explained, had already been applied in the matter of clothes.10 Brandt wrote directly to Gruppenführer Greifelt, Start'Director of the Reichskommissar for the Strengthening of German-dom, telling him that Himmler wished Greifelt to finance the project himself. The money collected in the Judenumsiedlung would be delivered to the Reichsbank without deduction of even one penny. “In this manner, it will be much easier to get the required funds through normal channels from the Finance Ministry'” concluded Brandt.11 5. Affidavit by Georg Lbmer, February 4, 1947, NO-1911. Von Sammcm-Frankenegg ro Himmler’s Personal Start, July 9, 1942, NO-3163. 6. Grawitz to Wigand, April 25, 1942, NO-3166. 7. Wigand to Grawitz, May 8, 1942, NO-3166. Grawitz to OSrubat. Brandt, May 16, 1942, NO-3166. OSrubat. Brandt ro Wigand, May 23, 1942, NO-3165. Himmler’s Personal Start to SS and Police Leader Warsaw, Julv 3, 1942, NO-3164. Von Sammem-Frankenegg to Personal Start, July 7,1942, NO-3163. Von Sammern-Frankenegg to Personal Start’, July 9, 1942, informing Himmler that the gold had already been transferred to Globocnik, NO-3163. 8. Brandt to Higher SS and Police Ixaders in eastern territories, August 12, 1942, NO-3192. 9. Brandt ro Pohl, August 12, 1942, NO-3192. Also Brandt to Grawitz, August 14, 1942, NO-3191. 10. Brit’. Globocnik to Himmler, August 11, 1942, Himmler Files, Folder 94. 11. OSrubat’. Brandt ro Grut’. Greifelt, August 14, 1942, Himmler Files, Folder 94. CONFISCATIONS 1015 Jurisdiction to dispose of valuables as well as currency in all the Gcneralgouvernement camps was vested in Pohl. This power was to manifest itself in directives from Amtsgruppe A of the WVHA to the Auschwitz administration and to Lublin.12 WVHA-A Mockel Globocnik (Special Staff G of the WVHA) Ausc hwitz Lublin Belzec Sobibor Treblinka Kulmhof alone remained outside the apparatus: Gettoverwaltunjy Litzmannstadt Camp Pabianice Kulmhof One should note how the system actually worked. In essence, the confiscations were a catchall operation, but they were also a model of conservation. Everything was collected, and nothing was wasted. How was it possible to be so thorough? The answer lies in the assembly line, a method that was foolproof. Inmate work parties picked up the luggage left in the freight cars of the transports and on the platform. Other inmate Kommandos collected clothes and valuables in the dressing rooms. Women’s hair was cut off in the barber shops near the gas chambers. Gold teeth were extracted from the mouths of the corpses, and the human fat escaping from the burning bodies was poured back into the flames to speed the cremations. Thus the two organic processes of the death camp, confiscations and killings, were fused and synchronized into a single procedure that guaranteed the absolute success of both operations. 12. In spite of the centralization, requests for special distributions continued to be sent to Lublin. On September 19, 1942, the Gestapo chief in Vienna requested, on behalf of Kaltcnbrunncr, clothes for Germanized Poles and prisoners. Huber to SS and Police Leader Lublin — “Reinhardt,” September 19,1942, Dokumenty i matcriah, vol. 2, p. 190. In November SS and Police Court VI in Krakow asked for a gilt ( Uberlassutiq) of carpets, glasses, civilian clothes, etc., from the “Jewish estate” (Juden- nachlass). SS and Police Court VI to SS Srandortvcrwaltung Lublin, November 10, 1942, ibid., pp. 192-93. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS A corollary' to the thoroughness of the collections was the care with which the inventory was conducted. Every item of foreign currency was counted. Watches were sorted, and valuable ones repaired. Unusable clothes and rags were weighed. Receipts were passed back and forth, and everything was accounted for. All this was done in accordance with Himmler’s wish for “painstaking exactness” (die¿¡rosste Genauigkeit). “We cannot be accurate enough.”13 However, there was one problem that threatened to defeat the thoroughness of the confiscations and the “painstaking accuracy” of the inventory. German personnel were tempted to help themselves to some of the property. Something had to be done about diat. Seifert, the Gettoverwaltung’s chief in Pabianice, requested that his men receive the same bonus (15 Reichsmark per day) for “hazardous” duty' that personnel in Kulmhof were receiving. Like the Kulmhof personnel, Seifert reasoned, his men were exposed to dangers of “infection” (lnfektionsgef&hren).14 The police company in Pabianice was also given the opportunity' to buy items they desired.15 Globocnik reported to Himmler at the conclusion of Aktion Rcinhard that only' “the decency and honesty” of his men had guaranteed a complete delivery' of the assets to the Reich,16 but in Treblinka SS men as well as Ukrainian guards had helped themselves to jewelry' and money, and some of the Polish inhabitants in the vicinity' of the camp had shared in the bounty', buying coins, watches, and clothes for irresistible prices from the Ukrainians.17 The Auschwitz commander, Liebehenschel, tried to stem the thefts. On November 16, 1943, he issued an order in which he said that all the belongings of the inmates, whether clothes, valuables, food, or other objects, were state property' and that the state alone could decide about their utilization. “Whoever touches state property',” the order continued, “brands himself a criminal and excludes himself automatically from the ranks of the SS.”18 Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the confiscations was the dis-13. Himmler to Kruger and Pohl, January IS, 1943, NO-1257. 14. Seilert to Ribbe, May 29, 1942, Dokumenty i material, vol. 1, p. 27. Flic Gcttovcrwalrung granted only 6 Reichsmark. Bicbow to Gcttovcrvvalrung personnel otficc, June 20, 1942, ibid., vol. 2, p. 75. 15. Second Police Company (ghetto) to Gcttovenvalrung, July 27, 1942, ibid., pp. 140-42. 16. Undated reports by Globocnik to Himmler, PS-4024. 17. On lrcblinka corruption, see Arad, Relzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, pp. 161-64. 18. Jan Selin, "Concentration and Extermination Camp at Oswiycim,” Central Commission tor Investigation ot German Crimes in Poland, German Grimes in Polatid (Warsaw, 1946-1947) vol. 1, p. 43. According to ex-inmates, large quantities ot jewelry, watches, and money were stolen bv guards. Affidavit by Werner Krumpe, September 23, 1945, NO-1933. CONFISCATIONS 1017 tribution of the property. In the case of the Gettoverwaltung, the problem was to sell, since the Gettoverwaltung did not give anything away. Only furs were an exception; by order of Himmler they were sent to the SS clothing plant in Ravensbrück for ultimate wear by his Waffen-SS.19 For the rest, the Gettoverwaltung could rely upon the Greiser directive and upon the fact that it was a Reich agency, attached to the Oberbürgermeister of Lodz for ordinary administrative purposes and responsible to the Main Trusteeship Office East in confiscation matters. This did not mean that anv funds were passed upward. The Gettoverwaltung ran a close balance sheet and could use all the money it received. For Biebow’s customers, the purchase of such items posed a few dilemmas. For example, in August 1942 a relief organization in Poznan (the NSV) asked for 3,000 suits, 1,000 items of women’s apparel, and some underwear and bedsheets. The stuff was urgently needed for resettlers. The NSV requested a low price offer.20 A couple of months later the items were delivered, and the bill was sent to the NSV.21 The deal was closed. But on January 16,1943, the Gettoverwaltung received a complaint. The first shipment of 1,500 suits had been sent in unopened crates to local offices of the relief organization. Upon opening the cases, relief officials discovered with dismay that the shipment in no way compared with samples viewed at Kulmhof. Many of the suits were not suits at all but unmatched coats and pants. Worse, a large part of the clothes were badly spotted with dirt and bloodstains (“Eingrosser Teil der Bekleidungsstücke ist stark befleckt und teilweise auch mit Schmutz und Blu flecken durchsetzt”). In Poznan, several dozen items still had the Jewish star attached to them. Since most of the workers unpacking the crates were Poles, there was danger that the resettlers would find out about the origin of the things, thereby plunging the Winter Relief into “discredit.”22 The Getto Verwaltung replied laconically six weeks later, acknowledging return of2,750 suits and 1,000 dresses. The stains were not blood but rust; they could not be removed. Therefore a bill would be made out only 19. Koppe to OSrubaf. Brandt, August 28, 1942, NO-3190. The SS reserve hospital in Sicradz asked for a few items because the makeshift furnishings of the new hospital were a “catastrophe.” Biebow to Meyer (division for administration of goods), September 7, 1942, Dokumenty i matenaty, vol. 2, p. 138. 20. Gauleitung Wartheland/Amt für Volkswohlfahrt Posen/Organisation to Oberbürgermeister Litzmannstadt, August 12, 1942, Dokumenty i materiah, vol. 2, pp. 156-57. 21. Gcttoverwalrung to Gaulcitung Wartheland/NSV—Kreis Lir/mannstadr-land, November 28, 1942, ibid., p. 166. 22. Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes/Der Gaubeauftragre Wartheland to Gettoverwaltung, January 16, 1943, ibid., pp. 168-70. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS for 250 suits and the underwear.-3 This reply brought forth another letter from Winter Relief stating that the welfare organization could not resign itself to the loss of the suits. If the rust spots could not be removed, then at least the Jewish stars should have been severed from the clothes.23 24 So much for the Gettoverwaltung’s business deals. The WVHA strategy was more complex. Himmler insisted that the property belonged to die Reich and that straight business deals with customers were out of the question. But this did not mean that the Jewish belongings could not be used in a wav to further SS interests. First, the WVHA gave away large quantities of “state property” to groups of people who regularly enjoyed SS generosity, namely SS men (particularly wounded or decorated soldiers), families of SS men, and Ethnic Germans. Second, and more important, was the use of deliveries to state agencies as levers to obtain “magnanimous treatment” from them. These WVHA tactics deserve to be described in more detail. On September 7, 1942, Pohl wrote to Himmler that he intended to give a large number of women’s coats, children’s clothes, gloves, raincoats, stockings, and so on, to the Race and Resettlement Main Office (RuSHA) for presentation as Christmas gifts to families of SS men. The items derived from the Dutch Sonderaktion.25 Barely tw o weeks later, Brigadefuhrer August Frank, chief of WVHA-A, issued a basic allocation directive to Auschwitz and Lublin which turned the SS into a veritable Salvation Army and at the same time provided for considerable leverage against Economy Minister Funk. To make sure that everything was properly camouflaged, Frank ordered at the outset that the Jew'ish property be referred to henceforth as “goods originating from theft, receipt of stolen goods, and hoarded goods.” The disposal was as follow's: a. Cash money in Reichsbank notes was to be delivered to the WVHA account in the Reichsbank. b. Foreign currency, rare metals, jewelry, precious and semiprecious stones, pearls, gold from teeth, and scrap gold were to be delivered to the WVHA for transmission to the Reichsbank. c. Watches, clocks, fountain pens, mechanical pencils, razors, pocketknives, scissors, flashlights, wallets, and purses were to be sent to WVHA repair shops to be delivered from there to post exchanges for sale to troops. 23. Getrovenvalrung to Gau Plenipotentiary Wintcrhillswerk, April 3, 1943, ibid., p. 177. 24. Gau Plenipotentiary to Gettoverwalrung, April 22, 1943, ibid., pp. 179-80. 25. Pohl to Himmler, September 7, 1942, NO-1258. CONFISCATIONS 1019 d. Men’s underwear and clothing were to be handed over to the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (VOMI), the welfare organization for Ethnic Germans. e. Women’s underwear and clothing were to be sold to the VOMI, except for pure silk underwear (men’s or women’s), which was to be sent directly to the Economy Ministry. f. Featherbeds, quilts, blankets, umbrellas, baby carriages, handbags, leather belts, shopping bags, pipes, sunglasses, mirrors, suitcases, and cloth were to be delivered to the VOMI, the question of payment to be decided later. g. Linen (bedsheets, pillows, towels, tablecloths, etc.) was to be sold to the VOMI. h. Spectacles and glasses without frames were to be delivered to the medical Referat (D-III). i. Valuable furs were to be sent to the WVHA; ordinary furs were to be reported to Referat B-II and delivered to the SS clothing plant at Ravensbrück. k. Low-value and useless items were to be delivered to the Economy Ministry for sale by weight.26 One item not mentioned in the directive was human hair. The collection of hair had already been ordered on August 6,1942. It was to be put to use in manufacturing felt footwear for U-boat personnel and Reichsbahn employees.27 Very briefly, the directives from the WVHA may be reduced to the following: Gifts through Deliveries to state Economy Textiles VOMI Ministry Hardware WVHA Reichsbank 26. Frank to Chief, Standortverwaltung Lublin and Chief, Administration Auschwitz (6 copies), September 26,1942, NO-724. 27. Glücks to camp commanders, August 6, 1942, USSR-511. Inmates recall the use of blood. Dr. Perl states that she witnessed the bleeding of 700 young Jewish women in Auschwitz. Race theory had evidendy been ignored in order to pnxure the plasma. The extraction of the blood was not carried out in modest quantities or with elementary safeguards. The women were lying on the ground, faint, “and deep rivers of blood were flowing around their bodies.” Gisclla Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz- (New York, 1948), pp. 73-75. Blood extractions from women are mentioned also by an inmate nurse. Deposition by Renee Erman (undated), in Raymond Phillips, cd., Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty-Four Others (The Belsen Thai) (London, 1949), pp. 661-62. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS The gifts were distributions that did not flow through state agencies. The deliveries to the Economy Ministry and to the Reichsbank were used for the purpose of obtaining special benefits tor the SS. Let us see how both aims were accomplished. First we shall look at the distribution of the soft items, then at the hardware. Before distribution, clothes had to be searched for sewn-in valuables and contrary to Kulmhof practice, the Jewish star had to be removed. This was a strict order from Frank.28 The best textile items were reserved for distribution to Volksdeutsche. According to a Himmler order of October 14, 1942, over 200,000 Ethnic Germans in Transnistria, the Ukraine, and the Generalgouvernement were to be supplied with suits, dresses, coats, hats, blankets, underwear, and utensils. The items had to be delivered by Christmas.29 On February 6, 1943, Polil reported on the textile Aktion. Apologetically he pointed out that a very large percentage of the clothes in the Auschwitz and Lublin depots consisted of rags. The transportation of the gifts to the East was meeting with difficulties because the Reichsbahn had closed traffic to the Ukraine ( Tmnsportsperre). However, the Economy Ministry was negotiating with the Transport Ministry for allocation of freight cars, since it was in the greatest interest of the economy to make maximum utilization of old clothes. Up to the time of the report, the following quantities had been delivered:30 VOMI Freight Cars Men's clothes Women’s clothes 211 Children’s clothes Underwear, etc. Economy Ministry Men’s clothes Women’s clothes 34 Women's silk underwear Rags 400 28. Frank directive, September 26, 1942, NO-724. 29. Himmler to Pohl and VOMI Chief OGruf. Lorenz, copies to OGruf. Priitzmann and Obf. Hoftmeyer, October 14, 1942, NO-5395. 30. Pohl to Himmler, February 6, 1943, NO-1257. The figures represented a mere beginning. See later report by Globocnik stating that he alone had sent out 2,900 freight cars with textile materials, while enough clothes to fill still another 1,000 cars were still in stock. Glotxxnik to Himmler, undated, probably autumn 1943, PS-4024. The huge quantities of suits and dresses in the killing centers were supplemented by clothes and utensils accumulating in the transit camps. These camps were integrated in the distribution system. Affidavit bv Dr. Konrad Morgen, October 5, 1947, NO-5440. Morgen saw clothing stores in Herzogenbusch (Vught), Holland. From this camp alone several freight cars w ere sent to the VOMI. CONFISCATIONS 1021 Bed feathers 130 Women’s hair (3 metric tons) 1 Other salvage 5 Total 781 In general, then, what was not good enough for the Volksdeutsche was sent to the Economy Ministry. (Silk was of course an exception; the war effort had a priority on silk material.) Shipments set aside for the ministry went to private firms to be worked over for one purpose or another.31 For the contribution that the WVHA made to the conservation program by delivering the rags and old clothes, Pohl naturally demanded certain favors. Accordingly, he had a “nice conversation” (freundliches Gespräch) with Economy Minister Funk, in the course of which he requested priorities for textiles to be made into SS uniforms, “on account of the delivery of the old clothes of the dead Jews.”32 While the great bulk of the textiles went to the VOMI and to the Economy Ministry, some of the clothes were distributed in the concentration camps for inmates. (Prisoners’ uniforms, it may be recalled, had become scarce.) In the summer of 1943, shipments of clothes from Auschwitz and Lublin arrived at Dachau. Before handing them out to inmates, SS officers waded through the “mountains of clothes” looking for valuables and picking out the more attractive pieces of apparel.33 The clothes given to the inmates were “state property.” A former inmate, Dr. Perl, tells of an incident in Auschwitz which affected a Jewish singer who, in conformity with common practice, had torn strips from her slip to use in lieu of unavailable handkerchiefs and tissues. One day, a guard accosted her, jerked up her dress, and discovered that only the shoulder straps remained. “You revolutionary swine! You thief! Where is the camp chemise!1”34 he shouted at the woman, beating her unmercifully. The biggest gift item in the durable-goods category consisted of watches. On May 13,1943, Frank could already make a report about die “realization of Jewish stolen goods” (Verwertung des jüdischen Hehler- und Diebesgutes) in which he mentioned receipt of 94,000 men’s watches, 33,000 women’s watches, 25,000 fountain pens, and other items. He had 31. Affidavit by Georg Lorner (WVHA-B), Februar)’ 4, 1947, NO-1911. A Strasbourg firm, Strassburg GmbH, applied to the Berlin officer of the Dresdner Bank for 200,000-300,000 Reichsmark in credits. Upon investigation, it was discovered that the firm was handling bloodstained clothes (blutdurchtrixnkt) with holes in them. The credit was refused. Affidavit bv Werner von Richter (Dresdner Bank, Berlin), May 3, 1948, NI-15646. 32. Affidavit by Pohl, July 15, 1946, PS-4045. 33. Affidavit by Karl Adam Roeder, February' 20, 1947, NO-2122. Affiant was an inmate of Dachau. 34. Perl,/ Was a Doctor in Ausclmitz, pp. 101-2. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS already sent 1,500 watches to three SS divisions (Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, and Totenkopfdivision) and proposed sending 1,000 watches to each division in the Waffen-SS, plus 6,000 watches to the U-boat command (a favored service arm). In addition, he was distributing scissors to the DAW, Lebensborn, camp doctors, and camp barbershops.35 Four months later, Hildebrandt of the RuSHA put in a claim for “larger quantities” (grossere Mengen) of watches and fountain pens. He wanted to distribute gifts to wounded SS men during Christmas of 1943. “Many a wounded man,” he said, “who does not own a watch or fountain pen will enjoy such a gift.”36 We need not go into the subsequent correspondence, in the course of which such weighty decisions were made as to whether the SS and Police Division should get 500 or 700 watches, the delivery of 15,000 women’s watches to Ethnic Germans, the distribution of 3,000 clocks (500 to concentration camps, 2,500 to bombed-out Berliners), and the allocation of especially valuable watches for exceptionally brave soldiers of new divisions.37 Most of the valuables, including money, jewelry', gold watches, and dental gold, were duly delivered at the Reichsbank. The Reichsbank was Germany’s central bank; its president was Economy Minister Funk. There were two vice-presidents: Emil Puhl, a long-time employee of the bank, and Kurt Lange, who hailed from the Economy Ministry and was the ministry’s expert in monetary', stock, exchange, and insurance matters.38 Below the vice-presidents were th c Reichsbankdirektoren, each in charge of some aspect of the bank’s operation (i.e., securities, foreign exchange). Connected with or operating in conjunction with the Reichsbank were several other organizations: 39 35. Gruf. Frank to Himmler, Mav 13, 1943, NO-2003. 36. OGruf. Hildebrandt to Himmler, August 18, 1943, NO-2752. 37. Sec the following correspondence: Gruf. Frank to OSnibaf. Brandt, September 2, 1943, NO-275 L Polil to Brandt, November 6, 1943, NO-2753. Brandt to Pohl, December 3, 1943, NO-2754. WVHA D-II to WVHA-A and Auschwirz administration, January 24,1944, NO-4468. Pohl to Himmler, Julv4,1944, NO-2755. Pohl to Himmler, July 29, 1944, NO-2756. Himmler to Pohl, August 13, 1944, NO-2749. 38. Die two vice-presidents had the rank of Staatssekretär. Funk to Lammers, March 11, 1941, NI-14457. 39. 'Die following were members of the Autsichrsrat of the Golddiskonrbank: Vizepräsident Puhl, Reichsbankdirckror Wilhelm, Reichsbankdirektor Krcr/.schmann, Ministerialdirigent Bavrhoffcr (Finance Ministry ), Staatssekretär Dr. Landfried (Economy Ministry). Affidavit by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm, January 23, 1948, Nl-14462. The Rcichshauptkasse (“Main Treasury”) was attached to the Reichsbank: the Auditing Office and the Mint were agencies of the Finance Ministry. Chart by Frick, PS-2905. The Municipal Pawnshop of Berlin was under the citv treasurer. Memorandum by Kropp (Hauptkasse), March 31, 1944, PS-3947. CONFISCATIONS 1023 The Golddiskontbank The Reichshauptkasse (Main Treasury') The Rzichsrechn u tiqshof (Auditing Office) The Preussische Staatsmunze (Mint) The Berlin Pfandleihanstalt (Pawnshop) The disposal of the items to the Reichsbank rested on an agreement between Funk and Himmler that was concluded in the summer of 1942.40 The matter was then discussed by Funk, Puhl, Pohl, and a number of other officials at lunch in the Reichsbank building.41 The arrangement for the actual receipt of the items was worked out by Reichsbankrat Thoms of the Reichsbank Precious Metals Division and Brigadefuhrer Frank.42 The deliveries were made by the chief of WVHA A-II (finance and payroll), Hauptsturmflihrer Melmer.43 There were a total of seventy-six or seventy-seven shipments, each filling a truck.44 Although Melmer wore civilian clothes by arrangement, he was accompanied by a few uniformed SS guards; hence the deliveries did not remain a secret for very' long.45 In the storerooms the articles were emptied onto tables and sorted. About twenty-five to thirty people passed through these rooms every' day.46 The objects themselves were sometimes stamped ‘Auschwitz” and “Lublin,” and the large quantity of dental gold was noticed.47 When Pohl visited the Reichsbank, he was conducted to the premises by Puhl, who remarked, “Your things are here too [Ihre Sacben sind auch darunter].”48 The problem of what to do with the accumulating deliveries was brought up by Puhl one day in a Reichsbankdinktoren meeting. The vice-president announced that the Reichsbank was going to realize the gold and jewelry of the SS. Reichsbankdirektor Wilhelm, chief of foreign currency and currency control, protested that “die Reichsbank is not a dealer in second-hand goods.”49 Wilhelm, no friend of the SS, was consequently left out of the picture.50 The channeling of the property from the storerooms was finally' as 40. Affidavit by Puhl, May 3,1946, PS-3944. 41. Affidavit by Pohl, July 15, 1946, PS-4045. Affidavit by Wilhelm, Januarv 23, 1948, NI-14462.' 42. Statement by Thoms, May 8,1946, PS-3951. 43. Ibid. 44. Testimony by Thoms, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XIII, 604-5,615. 45. Statement by Thoms, May 8, 1946, PS-3951. 46. Testimony by Thoms, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XIII, 603. 47. Statement by Thoms, May 8, 1946, PS-3951. 48. Draft affidavit by Pohl, undated, NI-15307. 49. Affidavit by Wilhelm, January 23, 1948, NI-14462. 50. He speaks of his “generally known aversion for these people " Ibui. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS follows. Coin was retained by the Precious Metals Division (Thoms).51 Stocks, bonds, and bankbooks were transferred to the Securities Division.52 The gold teeth were sent to the Prussian State Mint for melting.53 Jewelry was delivered to the Berlin Pawnshop, where it was handled by Amtsrat Wieser.54 The proceeds from the disposal of the metals and papers were deposited in the Treasury'. There they were credited to the Finance Ministry' on a special account designated “Max Heiliger.”55 From time to time the account was drawn upon by the Finance Ministry'’s old expert in Jew ish matters, Dr. Maedel, w'ho booked the withdrawals in the budget (Chapter XVIII, title 7, paragraph 3).56 The realization of the Jewish valuables did not proceed as efficiently as the procedure described above might seem to indicate. Principally, three obstacles had to be faced. In the first place, it was difficult to get rid of certain items. For example, the Securities Division was stuck with unendorsed papers that had been made payable to holders,57 and the pawnshop complained that most of the jew'elry and watches it had received were of low value because they were old-fashioned or damaged in transit.58 Another difficulty was the lack of time. In the course of the processing, a number of bottlenecks developed. Just before the German collapse, 207 containers filled with gold, currency, and other valuables were sent to salt mines, where the entire shipment remained until discovered by American troops.59 The third limitation was the price the SS asked for its deliveries. Although not “one penny'” was to be deducted, Wippern and Mockel were authorized to w ithhold sufficient amounts to defray expenses connected with the Aktion itself.60 Gold was handed over subject to the condition that three kilograms be made available if needed by the SS for bribery' or 51. Statement by Thoms, May 8, 1946, PS-3951. 52. Ibid. 53. Main Treasury (signed Thoms) to Prussian State Mint, December 24, 1944, NI-15534. Testimony by Thoms, Inal of the Major War Criminals, XIII, 612. 54. Pohl to Finance Ministry, July 24, 1944, NG-4096. 55. Ibid; Ministerialdirektor Gossel (Finance Ministry) to Reichrechnungsdirek-tor (Chief Auditor) Patzer, September 7, 1944, NG-4U94. 56. Patzer to Gossel, November 16, 1944, NG-4097. 57. Affidavit by Thoms, May 8, 1946, PS-3951. 58. Pfandleihanstalt to Hauptkasse, September 14, 1943, NT 13818. 59. Affidavit by Albert Thoms, May 26, 1948, NI-15533. For an itemized account of the valuables found in salt mine at Merkers, see report by F. J. Roberts, chief, claims section, foreign exchange depository of Office of American Military Government, Januaiy 30, 1947, NI-15647. 60. Pohl to main offices, Higher SS and Police Leaders, SS economists, WVH A-B, YWHA-D, WVH A A-IV, Gruf. Sporrenbcrg (Globocnik's successor), Stubaf. Wippern, and OStubaf. Mockel, December 9, 1943, NO-4566. CONFISCATIONS 1025 Allocation Gcttovcrwaltung L6dz Camps Kulmhof Auschwitz I Collection Gettoverwaltung Camp Administration Camp Pabianicc (Burger) Möckel Sorting Seifert Distribution , / / i / /„ ___ —/ Economy Auschwitz Wartheland Ravensbrück RuSHA VOMI Camps Ministry Camp Clothes s Clothes Clothes Clothes Clothes Adm. -- 1 Linen --- 1 --- 1 Blankets 1 --- | I I 1 1 Intermediary 1 1 1 I 1 I channels 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I 1 | 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Ethnic 1 Germans 1 1 1 in 1 Ethnic I Families GG I Final German 1 of and 1 utilization resettle™ Waffen SS SS men Russia Inmates Hard items Soft items WVHA-A Generalgouvernement Camps Special Staff G (Aktion Rrinhardt) Globocnik intelligence.61 Most important of all, the Reichsbank and the Golddiskontbank had to establish a fund from which the SS could borrow money to finance its various activities. This loan, known as the Reinhardt fund, infused the SS industries with new life. The SS combine owed RM 6,831,279.54 to the SS Savings Bank Association and RM 1,000,000 to the German Red Cross. These debts could now be repaid. In addition, some money was plowed into capital expansion.62 After the conclusion of these arrangements, the disapproving Reichsbankdirektor, Wilhelm, took the occasion to “warn” Puhl against visiting the concentration camps in connection with the credits.63 The last belongings of the victims were not the riches of which Himmler spoke, but they were collected assiduously and channeled with much deliberation to a large number of ultimate users. The organization of this scheme appears in Table 9-17. KILLING OPERATIONS The camps entrusted with the implementation of the Final Solution had three concerns. One was maintaining secrecy. Another was efficiency. The third was erasing the traces of the killing. All three of these efforts were integral components of the operation, built into the administrative procedures followed in the camps day by day. CONCEALMENT Hiding the operation from all outsiders was a continuous problem. Precautions had to be taken before the victims arrived, while they went through the processing, and after they were dead. At no point could any disclosure be permitted and at no time could the camp management afford to be caught off guard. From the moment gassing installations were planned, SS officers with responsibilities for the undertaking in Berlin and in the camps themselves were living in a constant state of nervousness over the possibility of untoward discoveries by unauthorized persons. That is why speed itself became important. As Viktor Brack of the Führer Chancellery noted in a letter to Himmler: “You yourself, Rcichsfuhrcr, said to me some time ago that for reasons of concealment alone we have to work as quicklv as possible.”1 61. Himmler to Sraf. Baumert, June 25, 1944, NO-2208. 62. Memorandum by WVHA-YV, May 26, 1943, NO-2190. DWB (SS industry network) to (Sruf. Frank and HStuf. Melmer, June 7, 1943, NO-554. 63. Affidavit by Wilhelm, January 23, 1948, Nl-14462. 1. Obf. Braek to Himmler, June 23, 1942, NO-205. KILLING OPERATIONS 1027 A standard concealment measure was verbal camouflage. The most important and possibly the most misleading term used for the killing centers collectively was the “East.” This phrase was employed again and again during the deportations. For camps, there were a variety of headings. When Soviet prisoners of war were awaited in the Lublin camp and in newly established Birkenau at the end of 1941, the two sites were named Kriegsgefangenenlager (PW camps), but later both received the generic label Konzentrationslager (concentration camps), Birkenau as part of Auschwitz, and by November 1943, nominally independent, as KL Au II.2 Sobibor was appropriately called a Durchgangslager (transit camp). Since it was located near the Bug, on the border of the occupied eastern territories, the designation fitted the myth of the “eastern migration.” When Himmler proposed one day that the camp be designated a Konzentrationslager, Pohl opposed the change.3 4 In Auschwitz, the architect Erd of the Zentralbauleitung referred to a project of constructing barracks that were to hold the belongings of gassed Jews as “Effects Barracks for Special Treatment 3 Pieces” ( Effekten-barocke für Sonderbehandlung 3 Stück). 4 He called the underground gas chambers “special cellars” ( Sonderkeller) and the surface chambers “bath houses for special actions” (Badeanstalten fur Sonderaktionen) .5 Inasmuch as blueprints of a gas building could be revealing even without explicit labeling of its purpose, the chief of the Zentralbauleitung, Bischoff, ordered such plans to be kept under special surveillance.6 In addition, photographing inside the Auschwitz camp was prohibited.7 In the much smaller camp of Belzec the diesel engine was located in a shack called the “Hackenholt Foundation.” (Unterscharführer Hackenholt was the operator of the diesel.)8 The primary term for the killing operation itself was the same that had been employed for the killings in Russia — Sonderbehandlung (special treatment). In addition, there was some terminology more appropriate to the killing center operations, such 2. Norbert Frei et al., cds., Standort- und Kommandaturbefehle des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz 1940-1945 (Munich, 2000), pp. 76n, 366-68. 3. Himmler to Pohl, July 5, 1943, NO-482. Pohl to Himmler, Julv 15, 1943, NO-482. 4. Memorandum by Erd, June 30, 1942, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 35, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 236. 5. Memoranda by Ertl, November 27 and August 21, 1942, ibid., Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 313. 6. Order by Bischoff, May 5, 1943, ibid., Roll 21, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 39. 7. Kommandantur order (signed Höss), February 2, 1943, ibid.. Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 32. 8. Affidavit by Gcrsrein, April 26,1945, PS-1553. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS as durchgeschleusst (dragged through) or gesondert untergebracht (separately quartered). Next to verbal camouflage it was most important to close the mouths of die inner circle; hence all camp personnel, especially top personnel, were sworn to silence. Höss made such a promise to Himmler before he started his task. He observed complete secrecy, not speaking to any outsider about his work. Only once did he break his word: “At the end of 1942,” relates Höss, “my wife’s curiosity was aroused by remarks made by the Gauleiter of Upper Silesia, Bracht, regarding happenings in the camp. She asked me whether this was die truth, and I admitted that it was. That was the only breach of the promise I had given to the Reichsführer.”9 A Treblinka guard, Unterscharführer Hirtreiter, once spent a furlough with his girlfriend, Frieda Jörg, in Germany. The woman knew of Hirtreiter’s past experiences with “euthanasia” operations at the asylum of Hadamar. Full of curiosity, she asked him, “What are you doing in Poland now? Bumping people off, eh? [ Was macht ihr denn in Polen? Gelt, ihr legt da Menschen um?]" Hirtreiter did not reply.10 11 Not all the participants could keep the burden of their knowledge to themselves. In 1943 the Auschwitz administration asked the Security and Order Police in the west not to confront Jews with “disturbing remarks about the place and nature of their future utilization” or “resistance-provoking indications or speculations about their intended quarters” (“irgend welche beunruhigende Eröffnungen über den Ort und die Art ihrer bevorstehenden Verwendung” or “irgend welche besonderen Widerstand auslösende Andeutungen bezw. Vermutungen über die Art ihrer Unterbringung”)." Instances are also recorded indicating that guards sometimes trumpeted out the news to newly arrived victims even in the killing centers.12 When Obersturmführer Gerstein, the gas expert, completed his 9. Testimony by Hbss, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XI, 396-411. Auschwitz guards had to sign statements that they would not talk about the "Jewish evacuation" even to SS comrades. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 04 (Records ot Nazi Concentration Camps 1939-1945/Auschwitz), Rolls 1 and 2. 10. "Ein Wachmann von Treblinka” Frankfurter Zeittmg, November 11, 1950, P-3. 11. RvSHA IV-B-4 (signed Giinrhcr) to Knochen, Zoepf, and Ehlers in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, with copy to BdS in Metz, April 29, 1943, Israel Police 1208. Noteworthy is the fact that Auschwirz-Rirkcnau was not kept secret as a destination. The UGIF’s Israclowicz wrote to a woman on September 2, 1942, that her husband had been deported to Auschwitz in Upper Silesia and that it was a work camp. On February 12, 1943, the Bulletin de l'Union Générale des Israélites en France stared that it had on hand correspondence from Jews deported to the "'w ork camp" Birkenau. Cynthia J. Haft, Fbe Bargain and the Bridle (Chicago, 1983), pp. 38, 61-62. 12. Julius Ganszer, a survivor, tells of his reception in Auschwitz after he had been KILLING OPERATIONS 1029 tour of the Generalgouvernement camps in the late summer of 1942, he spilled the whole secret on the Warsavv-Berlin express to a fellow passenger, Swedish diplomat Baron von Otter.13 The baron reported the existence of the killing centers to Stockholm, but the Swedish government did not disseminate the information to the world.14 Closely related to the oath of silence was the control of visitors. Occasionally high officials of the Reich or of the party would arrive for “inspections.” The concentration camp administration was especially touchy about these visits. On November 3,1943, Gliicks ordered that the guests were not to be shown the brothels and the crematoria; neither was there to be any talk about these installations.15 In case anyone did happen to notice the smoking chimneys, he was given the standard explanation that the crematorium was burning corpses that resulted from epidemics.16 There were welcome and unwelcome visitors. Following a visit bv Justice Minister Thierack to Auschwitz on January 8, 1943, Hóss sent him an album of photographs with a little note in which he expressed the hope that the Reichsminister would “enjoy them” (“w der Hoffnung, Ihnen damit£fUichzeiti£j eine Freude bereitetzu haberi”).17 Unwelcome were primarily unannounced visitors. Frank, the Generalgouverneur of Poland, was extremely anxious to get details about killing centers. Once, he got a report “that there was something going on near Belzec”; he went there the next day. Globocnik showed him how Jews were working on an enormous ditch. When Frank asked what would happen to the Jews, he got the standard answer: they would be sent farther east. Frank made another attempt. He expressed to Himmler the wish to pay a visit to Lublin, and Himmler urged him not to go there. Finally, Frank tried to spring a surprise visit to Auschwitz. His car was stopped and diverted given prison clothes and after a number was tattooed on his arm. A guard said: “You are only numbers. A shot, and the number is gone. Don’t try to escape; the only way to get out of here is by the chimney.” Filip Friedman, This Was Osmecim (London, 1946), p. 26. For an identical experience by Dr. Bernard Lauber, see Case No. 4, tr. pp. 282-97. 13. Statement bv Gcrstein, May 4, 1945, in Vierteljahrshejte fur ZeitjjcschichteX (1953): 192. 14. Comment bv Hans Rothfels, citing letter from Swedish Foreign Ministry to Centre dc Documentation Juive Contemporainc, November 10, 1949. Ibui. , p. 181. 15. Glucks to camp commanders, November 10, 1943, NO-1541. See also correspondence about hiding “special buildings” in NO-1242 and NO-4463. 16. Affidavit by Wilhelm StefHcr, January' 28,1948, NI-13953. Srctfiei w as Ministerialrat in charge of raw materials in the Office of the Four-Year Plan. He visited Auschwitz with a part)' that included Krauch and Korner. Affidavit bv Dr. Karl Riihmer, February 7, 1947, NO-1931. Riihmcr, a Snrbaf. in WHYA W-Y, was a fishery expert. 17. Hoss to Thierack, March 4, 1943, NG-645. KELLING CENTER OPERATIONS with the explanation that there was an epidemic in the camp. Later Frank complained to Hitler about his frustrated visit. Hitler is said to have replied: “'You can very well imagine that there are executions going on of insurgents. Apart from that I do not know anything. Why don’t you speak to Heinrich Himmler about it?” And so, Frank was back where he started.18 Although the entrances to the camps could be watched, the back door was frequently open, even in the secluded killing centers of the Gencralgouvernement. A German noncommissioned officer heard a great deal about Belzec in the Deutsches Haus of Rawa Ruska and in the Ratskeller of neighboring Chelm. On his way to Chelm one day, at the Rawa Ruska railway station, he saw a deportation train. He asked a railway policeman where the Jews had come from. They were probably the last ones from Lvov, the policeman explained. And how far were they going? To Belzec. And then? Poison {Gift). When his own train came, he shared a compartment with the wife of a railway policeman. Her husband, on duty on the train, joined them. The woman was going to point out Belzec on the way. “Now it comes \Jetzt kommt cs schon].” A strong sweetish smell greeted them. “They are stinking already [Die stinkenja schon],” said the woman. “Oh nonsense, that is the gas [Ach Quatsch, das istja das G«y] ” her husband explained.19 Auschwitz, with its great industrial activity, had a constant stream of incoming and outgoing corporate officials, engineers, construction men, and other personnel, all excellent carriers of gossip to die farthest corners of the Reich.20 There were also a large number of Germans living in the Auschwitz area who were perpetually aware of the killing center. One railroad man, observing the fences and guard posts of Auschwitz I on one side of the tracks and of Auschwitz II on the other, concluded that he was in the midst of it all {mitten drin).21 Another railroad functionary noticed that his apartment was filled with a sweetish odor, and the windows were covered with a bluish film.22 Even those at more distant points could see 18. Testimony by Frank, Trial of tbc Major War Criminals, XII, 17-19. 19. Diary of Wilhelm Comities, August 31, 1942, Vicrteljabrsbefteflir '/xitctcscbicbte 7 (1959): 333-36. See also report of a Belgian deportee at Rawa Ruska, October 18, 1942, Yad Vashcm, M 7/2-2. 20. Affidavit by Ernst A. Struss (I. G. Farben), April 17, 1947, NI-6645. Struss visited Auschwitz in January 1942 and again in May 1943. 21. Testimony by Willy Hilsc, December 9, 1964, Case Novak, 1416/61, Landesgericht Vienna, vol. 13, pp. 248-57. See also statement by Ulrich Brand, June 23, 1967, Staatsanwaltschaft Diisseldort, Case Ganzenmiiller, vol. XVI, p. 161 insert (Hiille) at pp. 7-10. 22. Testimony by Adolf Johann Barthelmass, December 2,1964, Case Novak, vol. 13, pp. 281-89. Barthlmass lived in Babiee. In the cits’ of Auschwitz itself there was a count on December 17, 1939, of 12,545 inhabitants, almost cquallv divided between KILLING OPERATIONS physical indications of killing operations. From the Katowice direction the fires of Auschwitz were visible from a distance of twelve miles.·23 24 25 Inevitably, these German residents talked about annihilation and cremation,24 and some of them became regular sources of news for colleagues in the Reich.25 The powerful rumor network did not reach German listeners alone. The news of the killing centers was carried to the populations of several countries in the form of a story that out of the fat of corpses the Germans were making soap. To this day the origin of the soap-making rumor has not been traced, but one clue is probably the postwar testimony of the SS investigator Dr. Konrad Morgen, who at one time was quite active in Poland. One of Morgen’s subjects of special interest was Brigadefiihrer Dirlewanger. It must be stressed that Dirlewanger had nothing to do with the killing centers. He was the commander of a notorious unit of SS unreliables, which in 1941 was stationed in the Generalgouvernement. What did this man do? According to Morgen, Dirlewanger had arrested people illegally and arbitrarily, and as for his female prisoners — young Jewesses —he did the following against them: He called together a small circle of friends consisting of members of a Wehrmacht supply unit. Then he made so-called scientific experiments, which involved stripping the victims of their clothes. Then they [the victims] were given an injection of strychnine. Dirlewanger looked on, smoking a cigarette, as did his friends, and they saw how these girls were dying. Immediately after that the corpses were cut into small pieces, mixed with horsemeat, and boiled into soap. I would like to state here, emphatically, that here we were only concerned with a suspicion, although a very urgent one. We had witnesses’ testimony concerning these incidents, and the Security Police in Lublin had made certain investigations. . . .26 On July 29, 1942, the chief of the Ethnic Germans in Slovakia, Karmasin, had written a letter to Himmler in which he described the “reset-Jews and Poles. By October 10,1943, the count was 27,813, comprising the remaining Poles, some 6,000 Reich Germans, as well as Polish and foreign newcomers. Sybille Steinbachcr, “Musterstadt”Auschwitz (Munich, 2000), pp. 159,244-45. 23. Testimony by Bartclmäss, December 2, 1964, Case Novak, vol. 13, pp. 281-89. Affidavit by Heinrich Schuster (Austrian inmate), October 13,1947, NI-11862. 24. Statement by Wilhelm Fehling, June 8, 1967. Case Ganzenmüller, vol. XVI, p. 161, insert, pp. 18-23. A Christian member of the Belgian resistance, Victor Martin, entrusted with a mission to find out what was happening to the Jews, trawled to Upper Silesia and was able to obtain detailed information in conversations with German workers. Sec Martin’s undated report at Yad Vashcm, document 02/300. 25. Affidavit by Dr. Gustav Küpper (I. G. Farben), June 10, 1947, Nl-8919. 26. Testimony by Morgen, Case No. 11, tr. pp. 4075-76. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS dement” of 700 “asocial” Ethnic Germans. One ot the difficulties, wrote Karmasin, was the spreading of the rumor (furthered by the clergy) that the “resettlers” would be “boiled into soap” (class die Aussiedler “zur Seife verkoebt werden").17 In October 1942 the Propaganda Division in the Lublin District reported the rumor circulating in the city that now it was the turn of the Poles to be used, like the Jews, for “soap production” (Die Polen komrnen jetzt jjenau me die Juden zur Seifenproduktion dran).2H In the Genereddircktion der Ostbahn, railroad officials talking about gassings would say jokingly ( itvnisch) that another distribution of soap was in the offing.27 28 29 The SS and Police could not arrest the spread of rumors, which persisted long after die war.30 Still less could German agencies deal with reasoned deductions and predictions. Killing centers could be hidden, but the disappearance of major communities was noticed in Brussels and Vienna, Warsaw and Budapest. How, then, did the few thousand guards in the death camps handle the millions of arrivals? How did the Germans kill their victims? THE “CONVEYOR BELT” The killing operation was a combination of physical layout and psychological technique. Camp officials covered every step from the train platform to the gas chambers with a series of precise orders. A show of force impressed upon the victims the seriousness of unruliness or recalcitrance, even as misleading explanations reassured them in their new, ominous 27. Karmasin to Himmler, July 29, 1942, NO-1660. 28. GG Main Division Propaganda, consolidated weekly reports from district propaganda divisions, report by Lublin division, October 3, 1942, Occ E 2-2. 29. Statement by Christian Johann Liebhduser, August 28, 1961, Case Ganzenmiiller, vol. V, pp. 154-59. 30. The soap rumor appears to have been the most persistent. According to Friedman ( Oswiecim, p. 64), the Polish population actually bovcotted soap because of the belief that human ingredients had been used in its manufacture. A document by Prof. R. Spanner, director, Anatomical Institute of the Medical Academy, Danzig, February 15, 1944, USSR-196, contains a recipe for soap-making from fat remains (Seifenherstellunji aus Fettresten) with recommendations for the removal of odors. The document does not specify human fat. However, on May 5, 1945, the new (Polish) mayor of Danzig, Kotus-Jankowski, testified before a session of the National Council: “In the Danzig Institute of Hygiene we discovered a soap factor)' in which human bodies from the Stutthof Camp near Danzig were used. VVe found 350 bodies there, Poles and Soviet prisoners. We found a cauldron with the remains of boiled human flesh, a box of prepared human bones, and baskets of hands and feet and human skin, with the fat removed.” Quoted bv Friedman, Oswiecim, p. 64. The soap rumor w as perpetuated even after the w ar. Cakes of soap, allegedly made w ith the fat of dead Jew s, have been preserved in Israel and by the YIVO Institute in New' York. KILLING OPERATIONS surroundings. Although there were breakdowns and mishaps in this system, it was perfected to a degree that justified its characterization by an SS doctor as a conveyor belt {am laufenden Band).31 The initial action in the predetermined sequence was notification of the camp that a transport was arriving.32 Notice was followed by a mobilization of guards and inmates who were going to be involved in the processing.33 Everyone knew what would happen and what he had to do. From the moment the doors of a train were opened, all but a few of the deportees had only two hours to live.34 The arriving Jews, on the other hand, were unprepared for a death camp. Rumors and intimations that had reached them were simply not absorbed. These forewarnings were rejected because they were not sufficiently complete, or precise, or convincing. When, in May 1942, a group of deportees was being marched from Zolkiewka to the Krasnystaw station (where a train was to take them to Sobibor), Polish inhabitants called out to the column: “Hey, Zydzi, idziecie na spalenie! [Hey Jews, you are going to burn!].”35 A survivor of that transport recalls: ‘The meaning of these words escaped us. We had heard of the death camp of Belzec, but we didn’t believe it.”36 A sophisticated Viennese physician who was in a cattle car remembers that another deportee noticed a sign in a railway station and called out “Auschwitz!” The physician saw the outlines of an “immense camp” stretched out in the dawn and he heard the shouts and whistles of command. “We did not know their meaning,” he says. In the evening, he inquired where a friend had been sent and was told by one of the old prisoners that he could see him “there.” A hand pointed to the chimney, but the new inmate could not understand the gesture until the truth was explained to him in “plain words.”37 Another physician, from Holland, reports: I refused to . . . leave any room for the thought of the gassing of the Jews, of which I could surely not have pretended ignorance. As early as 1942 I had heard rumors about the gassing of the Polish Jews. . . . Nobody had ever heard, however, when these gassings took place, and 31. Affidavit by Friedrich Entrcss, April 14,1947, NO-2368. 32. See Novak to Höss, copy to Liebchcnschcl, January' 23, 1943, on arrival of three Da trains from Theresienstadt, Case Novak, vol. 17, p. 295. 33. Adalbert Rückcrl, NS - Vem ichtu tujslaqer (Munich, 1977), pp. 135, 138 (Reliée), p. 181 (Sobibor), p. 217 (Trcblinka). 34. Ibid., p. 226. 35. Itzhak Lichtman, “From Zolkiewka to Sobibor,” in Miriam Novitch, Sobibor (New York, 1980), pp. 80-85. 36. Ibid. 37. Victor Frankl, From Death Camp to Existentialism (Boston, 1949), pp. 6-1 2. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS it was definitely not known that people were gassed immediately upon arrival.38 The great majority of the deportees could not grasp the situation so long as they did not know the details of the killing operation, the when and the how. Those who came with premonitions and forebodings were usually unable to think of a way out. On a Warsaw transport to Treblinka in August 1942, a young deportee heard the words, “Jews, we’re done for!” The old men in the car began to say the prayer for the dead.39 Another young man, stepping off a train in Treblinka, saw mounds of clothing and said to his wife that this was the end (Das ist das Ende).40 Cognition was thus converted to fatalism more readily than to escape or resistance. The German administrators, however, were determined not to take chances, lest some impetuous resister in the crowd create a dangerous confrontation. They were going to move swiftly while reinforcing Jewish illusions to the last possible moment. To this end they set a pattern of procedures that was virtually the same in every camp, save only for those variations that stemmed from the different layouts and installations in each enclosure. The ramps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were too short to accommodate lengthy trains. At each of these camps, transports were backed into the compound to be unloaded a few cars at a time.41 On the Belzec ramp the arriving Jews were received with the music and singing of a ten-man inmate orchestra.42 Kulmhof was reachable only by road or narrow-gauge railway. Initially, deportees were brought from the immediate vicinity on trucks. Trains from the Lodz Ghetto halted at Warthbrücken (Kolo),43 where the 38. F.lie Cohen, Human Behavior in the Concentration Camp (New York, 1953), p. 119. 39. Abraham Krzcpicki, “Eighteen Days in Treblinka,” in Alexander Donat, ed. 'Ihe Death Camp Treblinka (New York, 1979), pp. 77-145, at p. 79. Krzcpicki escaped to the Warsaw Ghetto, where he recorded his experiences from December 1942 to January 1943. During the Warsaw Ghetto battle, he was wounded and abandoned in a burning building. His account was found after the war. 40. Ruckerl, NS-Vcrmchtiinpslaqcr, p. 218. 41. Ibid., pp. 138, 166-67, 217. On Treblinka, see derailed statement bv David Milgrom in Bratislava, August 30, 1943, enclosed by U.S. Vice-Consul Melbourne (Istanbul) to Secretary of State, January 13, 1944, National Archives Record Group 226/OSS 58603. Milgrom had escaped. 42. Statement by Stefan Kirsz (Polish locomotive helper), October 15, 1945, Belzec case, 1 Js 278/60, vol. 6, pp. 1147-49. 43. Deutsche Reichsbahn/Verkehrsamr in Lodz to Gestapo in Lodz, Mav 19, 1942, Jüdisches Historisches Institut Warschau, Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord (Berlin, 1961), pp. 280-81. KILLING OPERATIONS 1035 victims were sometimes kept overnight in the local synagogue and from which they were taken by truck to Kulmhof. Later a more complicated logistic procedure was instituted to avoid public display of the deported Jews in Warthbriicken. The victims were loaded on a narrow-gauge train and kept overnight in a mill at Zawacki. They were then driven to Kulmhof in trucks.44 At Auschwitz the ramp was first located between the old camp and Birkenau. Those who were directed to the Auschwitz I gas chamber “streamed” through the gate. When Birkenau was opened, long columns ran through a gauntlet several hundred yards long to one of the crematoria.45 Not until the spring of 1944 was the spur built in Birkenau. On the new ramp, trains were unloaded a short distance from the gas chambers.46 The cars, emptied of the living and the dead, were moved to a fumigation installation. One hot day, a loadmaster opened up a car and was jolted when a blackened corpse tumbled out. The car was filled with bodies that camp personnel had neglected to remove.47 Following the unloading of the trains, there was a twofold selection procedure. The old, infirm, and sometimes small children were separated on the platform. At Belzec sick people were placed face down near a pit to be shot.48 At Sobibór, where trucks picked up the aged and the infants, guards would occasionally try to toss the babies from a considerable distance into the vehicle.49 At Treblinka those unable to walk were taken to a pit near the infirmary for shooting.50 From the first Auschwitz ramp, trucks would remove the old and the infirm to the gas chambers.51 The camps also selected strong persons for labor. In the Generalgouvernement camps or Kulmhof, very few individuals were needed as work crews, and among those chosen women were but a handful.52 Asked about the children, a former member of the SS establishment in 44. Rückerl, NS-Vemichtungslager, pp. 268-69, 277, 285. A photograph of what appears to be a two-tiered narrow-gauge train being loaded with Jews is on page 284 of Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord. 45. Filip Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz (New York, 1979), pp. 173 (map), 31,69. 46. Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Ksmzentratumslager Auschwitz- Birkenau 1939-1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989), map on p. 27. 47. Testimony by Adolf Johann Bartclmäss, December 2, 1964, Case Nov ak, Landesgericht Vienna 1416/61, vol. 13, pp. 281-89, and his statement of April 11, 1967, Case Novak, vol. 16, p. 338. Interrogation of Willy Hilse, ca. 1964, Case Novak, vol. 12, p. 605, and his testimony, Case Novak, vol. 13, pp. 248-57. Roth were railroad men at Auschwitz. 48. Rückerl, NS-Vemichtungslager, pp. 14-41. 49. Ibid., pp. 171, 191-92!" 50. Ibid., p. 219. 51. Affidavit by Enrress, April 14, 1947, NO-2368. 52. Kr/epicki, “Eighteen Days,” in Donat, Treblinka, p. 117. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS Treblinka declared at his trial that “saving children in Treblinka was impossible [Kinder in Treblinka zu retten war unmößlich\?Si Labor requirements at Auschwitz were greater, and at the Birkenau platform SS doctors (Mengele, König, Thilo, or Klein) would choose employable Jews for the industrial machine. Selections were not very thorough, however. The victims were paraded in front of the physician, who would then make spot decisions by pointing to the right for work or to the left for the gas chamber.53 54 Men and women were separated for undressing in barracks. An impression was being created that clothes were to be reclaimed after showers.55 At Sobibor, one of the SS men, dressed in a white coat, would issue elaborate instructions about folding the garments, sometimes adding remarks about a Jewish state that the deportees were going to build in the Ukraine.56 At Kulmhof the victims were told that they would be sent for labor to Germany, and in Belzec a specially chosen SS man made similar quieting speeches.57 In all three of the Generalgouvernement camps, there were special counters for the deposit of valuables.58 The hair of the women was shorn,59 and the procession was formed, men first. In Sobibor, groups of fifty to one hundred were marched through the “hose” by an SS man walking in front and four or five Ukrainians following at the rear of the column.60 At Belzec, screaming women were prodded with whips and bayonets.61 The Jews arriving in Treblinka, states Höss, almost always knew that they were going to die.62 Sometimes they could see 53. Ruckerl, A\S- Vcrmchtunfislaqcr, p. 223. 54. Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys (Chicago and New York, 1947), p. 10. Testimony by Auerbach (Jewish survivor), Case No. 11, tr. pp. 2512-14. Sehn, "Oswiycim," Herman Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, pp. 41, 77-78. See also photographs, taken by SS photographers at Auschwitz, of arrival procedure in Peter Heilman, The Ausclnvitz Album (New York, 1981). 55. Ruckerl, NS-Vemichtunqslaqer, pp. 135, 167, 202, 218-19. 56. Ibid., p. 167. 57. Ibid., p. 269. Statement by Karl Schluch (Belzec cadre), November 10, 1961, Belzec case, vol. 8, pp. 1503-25. 58. Ruckerl, NS-Vemichtungslager, pp. 135, 139, 167,219. 59. Ibid., pp. 135, 222-23. At Belzec the naked women who had their hair cut were beaten on the head and in the face. Statement by Rudolf Reder made shortly after the war in Poland, Belzec case, vol. 1, pp. 28-31. Reder was one of only two survivors of Belzec known to have been alive in 1945. The other, Chaim Hirszman, w'as killed in March 1946 before he could complete his testimony before the Jewish Historical Commission in Lublin. See Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust (New York, 1985), pp. 302, 304-5, 817. 60. Ruckerl, NS-Vemichtutipslaffer, pp. 182, 135. 61. Postwar statement by Reder, Belzec case, vol. 2, pp. 258-87. 62. Affidavit by Hdss, April 5, 1946, PS-3868. KILLING OPERATIONS 1037 mountains of corpses, partially decomposed.63 Some suffered nervous shock, laughing and crying alternately.64 To rush the procedure, the women at Treblinka were told that the water in the showers was cling down.65 The victims would then be forced to walk or run naked though the “hose” with their hands raised.66 During the winter of 1942-43, however, the undressed people might have had to stand outdoors for hours to wait their turn.67 There they could hear the cries of those who had preceded them into the gas chambers.68 The Auschwitz procedure evolved in stages. In April 1942, Slovak Jews were gassed in Krematorium I, apparently with their clothes on.69 Later, deportees from nearby Sosnowiec were told to undress in the yard. The victims, faced by the peremptory order to remove their clothes, men in front of women and women in front of men, became apprehensive. The SS men, shouting at them, then drove the naked men, women, and children into the gas chamber.70 During the third stage, in 1942, the abuse was replaced by politeness, and the speechmaking by Aumeier, Grabner, and Hössler began. The victims were now told to undress for their showers, before the soup that would be served afterward became cold.71 For added security, gassings would be scheduled for a time before daybreak, when the camp inmates were still sleeping, or for the night hours, after the curfew had gone into effect.72 At Birkenau, illusion was the rule. It was not always simple or possible, inasmuch as at least some of the deportees had observed the sign Auschwitz as the train passed through the railway yards,73 or had seen flames belching from the chimneys, or had smelled the strange, sickening odor of crematoria.74 Most of them, however, like a group from Salonika, were fimneled through the undressing rooms, were told to hang their clothes on hooks and remember the number, and promised food after the shower 63. Rückerl, NS-Vemichtungslager, pp. 208-9. 64. Samuel Rajzman in Hearings, House Foreign Affairs Committee, 79th Cong., 1st scss., on H.R. 93, March 22-26,1945, pp. 121-25. 65. Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager, p. 223. 66. Ibid., pp. 224-25. Jankcl Wiernik, “One Year in Treblinka,” in Donat, Treblinka, pp. 147-88, atp. 163. 67. Wiernik, Ibid., p. 163. 68. Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager, p. 226. Statement by Milgrom, August 30, 1943, in National Archives Record Group 226/OSS 58603. 69. Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, pp. 11-13. 70. Ibid., pp. 31-35. 71. Ibid., pp. 35-39. 72. Ibid., p. 39. 73. Elie Wiesel, Night (New York, 1969), p. 36. Interrogation of Hilse, Case Novak, vol. 12, p. 605. According to Hilse, transports passed through the station. The freight yards, consisting of forty-four parallel tracks, were two miles long. 74. Lcngyel, Five Chimneys, p. 22. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS and work after the food. The unsuspecting Greek Jews, clutching soap and towels, rushed into the gas chambers.75 Nothing was allowed to disturb this precarious synchronization. When a Jewish inmate revealed to newly arrived people what was in store for them, he was cremated alive.76 Only in the case of victims who were brought in from nearby ghettos in Upper Silesia (Sosnowiec and Bydzin) and who had had intimations of Auschwitz was speed alone essential. These people were told to undress quickly in their “own best interest.”77 Once there was a major incident in front of an Auschwitz gas chamber. A transport that had come in from Belsen revolted. The incident occurred when two-thirds of the arrivals had already been shoved into the gas chamber. The remainder of the transport, still in the dressing room, had become suspicious. When three or four SS men entered to hasten the undressing, fighting broke out. The light cables were torn down, the SS men were overpowered, one of them was stabbed, and all of them were deprived of their weapons. As the room was plunged into complete darkness, wild shooting started between die guard at the exit door and the prisoners inside. When Hoss arrived at the scene, he ordered the doors to be shut. Half an hour passed. Then, accompanied by a guard, Hoss stepped into the dressing room, carrying a flashlight and pushing the prisoners into one corner. From there they were taken out singly into another room and shot.78 Selections were carried out not only on die platform, in order to pick out deportees who would be able to work, but also within the camp, to eliminate inmates too sick or too weak to work any longer. The usual occasion for the choosing of victims was the roll call, where everybody was present;79 another place was the hospital;80 and sometimes selections 75. Müller, Eyewitness AuscImHtz, pp. 80-81. 76. Ibid., p. 80. 77. Ibid., pp. 69-71. 78. Affidavit by Höss, March 14, 1946, NO-1210. The incident is described in greater detail by Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, pp. 83-89. Müller credits a seductive, strikingly good-looking Jewish woman with riveting the attention of two SS men. She struck one with a shoe, drew his pistol, and shot the other (Schillinger). Other details, including the date (October 23, 1943), are in Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse, pp. 636-38. Tadeusz Borowski, a Polish inmate, describes the incident in a story, “The Death of Schillinger,“ This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (New York, 1976), pp. 143-46. In this version, the SS man, mortally wounded, was carried to a car and, groaning, was heard to say: “O Gott, mein Gott, was bob' ich getan, dass ich so leiden muss? |God, oh God, what have I done that I have to sutler like this? ].” 79. Ijengvel, Fiw Chimneys, p. 4Ü. Gisella Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschmtz. (New York, 1948gp. 103. 80. F.lla Lingens-Reiner, Prisoners of Fear (London, 1948), pp. 64-65,82-83, 85. Perl, / Was a Doctor in Auschwitz, pp. 55,94, 108-9. KILLING OPERATIONS were carried out block by block.81 One former inmate, recalling such targeting, says: “I tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible, not too erect, yet not slouching; not too smart, yet not sloppy; not too proud, yet not too servile, for I knew that those who were different died in Auschwitz, while the anonymous, the faceless ones, survived.”82 A young intellectual from Italy, who was in an Auschwitz hospital because of a swollen foot, was told by a gentile Polish inmate: “Dm Jude, kaputt. Du schnell Krematorium fertig [You Jew, finished. You soon ready for crematorium].”83 In Treblinka, to have been bruised in the face was considered a calamity. The wounded man, “stamped” (gestempelt), was a candidate for selection at the next roll call.84 In Auschwitz the victims would try every subterfuge to escape. They tried to hide. Occasionally they tried to argue. A nineteen-year-old girl asked the Auschwitz women’s camp commander, Hössler, to excuse her. He replied, “You have lived long enough. Come, my child, come.”85 Driven with whips between cordons of Kapos and guards, the naked people who had been picked out were loaded on trucks and driven to the gas chamber or to a condemned block. In the fall of 1944, 2,000 Jewish women were packed into Block 25, which had room for 500. They were kept there for ten days. Soup cauldrons were pushed through a gap in the door by the fire guard. At the end of ten days, 700 were dead. The rest were gassed.86 Gassing would begin with a command. At Treblinka a German would shout to a Ukrainian guard: “Ivan, water!” This was a signal to start the motor.87 The procedure was not necessarily fast. With no room to move in the small chambers, the victims stood for thirty or forty minutes before they died. According to one Treblinka survivor, people were sometimes kept in the chambers all night without the motor being turned on.88 At Belzec, where Oberscharführer Hackenholt was in charge of the motor, a German visitor, Professor Pfannenstiel, wanted to know what was going 81. Perl, Ibid., pp. 128-30. 82. Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestie, I Cannot Forgive (New York, 1964), p. 140. Vrba, anonymous but not average, escaped from the camp. 83. Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (New York, 1961), p. 44. 84. Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager, p. 230. 85. Testimony by Helene Klein in Raymond Phillips, cd., Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty-Four Others (the Belsen Trial), (London, 1949), pp. 127-30. The witness herself was given this answer by Hössler, but she managed to hide. A survivor. Dr. Bertold Epstein, once witnessed a selection of children in which the decisive criterion w as height. The children marched up to a pole at the height of 130 centimeters (ca. 4 feet, 3 inches). Those who did not make it were gassed. Friedman, Oswiecim, p. 72. 86. Lingcns-Reincr, Prisoners of Fear, pp. 85-86. 87. Rückerl, NS-Vemicbtungslager, p. 224. 88. Wicmik, “One Year,” in Donat, Treblinka, p. 164. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS on inside. He is said to have put his ear to the wall and, listening, to have remarked: “Just like in a synagogue.”89 At Kulmhof, the doors to the van were closed by Polish workers. One was inadvertently locked in with the Jews and raged in despair to get out. The Germans decided that it would not be prudent to open the door for him.90 When the Auschwitz victims filed into the gas chamber, they discovered that the imitation showers did not work.91 Outside, a central switch was pulled to turn off the lights,92 and a Red Cross car drove up with the Zyklon.93 An SS man, wearing a gas mask fitted with a special filter, lifted the glass shutter over the lattice and emptied one can after another into the gas chamber. Although the lethal dose was one miligram per kilogram of body weight and the effect was supposed to be rapid, dampness could retard the speed with which the gas was spreading.94 Untersturmführer Grabner, political officer of the camp, stood ready with stopwatch in hand.95 As the first pellets sublimated on the floor of the chamber, the victims began to scream. To escape from the rising gas, the stronger knocked down the weaker, stepping on prostrate victims in order to prolong their own lives by reaching gas-free layers of air. The agony lasted for about two minutes, and as the shrieking subsided, the dying people slumped over. Within fifteen minutes (sometimes five), everyone in the gas chamber was dead. The gas was now allowed to escape, and after about half an hour, die door was opened. The bodies were found in tower-like heaps, some in sitting or half-sitting positions, children and older people at the bottom. Where the gas had been introduced, there was an empty area from which the victims had backed awav, and pressed against the door were the bodies of men who in terror had tried to break out. The corpses were pink in color, with green spots. Some had foam on the lips, others bled through 89. Statement by Gersrein, April 26, 1945, PS-1553. Pfanncnsriel confirms that he was in Befzec with Gersrein, bur denies having made the remark. Statements by Dr. Wilhelm Ptannensriel, June 6, 1950, and November 9, 1952, Befzec case, vol. 1, pp. 41-44, 135-41. German personnel stationed at Befzec would sometimes look through the peephole. Statement by Schluch, November 10, 1961, Befzec case, vol. 8, pp. 1503-25. Ptannensriel points out in his statement of November 9, 1952, that when he tried to look he could nor see much, because the Jews had beaten on the glass. 90. Rucked, NS-Vemichtun^slatfer, pp. 270-71. 91. Schn, “Oswiycim,” German Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, p. 85. 92. Affidavit bv Dr. Nikolae Nviszli (survivor), October 8, 1947, Nl-11710. 93. Ibid. Affidavit bv Dr. Charles Sigismund Bendel (survivor). October 21, 1945, NI-11390. 94. Hbss, ¡Commandant, p. 171. Muller, EycuntnessAuschwitz, p. 116. 95. Affidavit bv Perrv Broad (SS man working under Grabner), December 14, 1945, Nl-11397. KILLING OPERATIONS the nose. Excrement and urine covered some of the bodies, and in some pregnant women the birth process had started. The Jewish work parties (Sonderkomrnandos), wearing gas masks, dragged out the bodies near the door to clear a path and hosed down the dead, at the same time soaking the pockets of poison gas remaining between the bodies. Then the Sonderkommandos had to pry the corpses apart.96 In all the camps bodily cavities were searched for hidden valuables, and gold teeth were extracted from the mouths of the dead. In Krematorium II (new number) at Birkenau, the fillings and gold teeth, sometimes attached to jaws, were cleaned in hydrochloric acid, to be melted into bars in the main camp.97 At Auschwitz the hair of die women was cut off after they were dead. It was washed in ammonium chloride before being packed.98 The bodies could then be cremated. ERASURE There were three methods of body disposal: burial, cremation in ovens, and burning in the open. In 1942 corpses were buried in mass graves in Kulmhof, the Generalgouvernement camps, and Birkenau. Before long this mode of dealing with the dead gave rise to second thoughts. In Birkenau, near the huts that constituted the first gas chambers on the site, the summer sun took its effect. The earth’s crust broke open, and at first the bodies were covered with gasoline and later on with methanol, to be burned day and night over a period of two months.99 At Sobibor during the same summer, the graves heaved in the heat, the fluid from die corpses attracted insects, and foul odors filled the camp.100 Moreover, the many hundreds of thousands already buried posed a psychological problem. Ministerialrat Dr. Linden, sterilization expert in the Interior Ministry, is quoted by an SS man as having remarked on a visit to the Lublin District that a future generation might not understand these matters.101 The same consideration had prompted the Gestapo chief Müller to order Standartenführer Blobel, commander of Einsatzkommando 4a, to destroy the mass graves in the eastern occupied territories.102 Blobel and his 96. Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, pp. 116-18. Affidavit by Nyiszli, October 8, 1947, NI-11710. Affidavit by Broad, December 14, 1945, NI-11397. Affidavit by Höss, April 5, 1946, PS-3868. Schn, “Oswiycim,” German Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, pp. 85-87. 97. Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, pp. 68,95, 100,176. 98. Ibid., pp. 65,95,100. 99. Ibid., p. 49. Rudolf Höss, Kommandant in Auschwitz (Munich, 1963), p. 161. 100. Rückcrl, ΛΓΛ- Vernichtungslager, p. 173. 101. Statement by Gerstcin, May 4, 1945, Vierteljahrshefic fur Zeitgeschichte 1 (1953): 189. Also affidavit by Gerstcin, April 25, 1945, PS-1553. 102. Affidavit by Blobel, June 18, 1947, NO-3947. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS “Kommando 1005” also moved into Kulmhof to investigate what could be done with the graves there. He constructed funeral pyres and primitive ovens, and even tried explosives. In addition to these devices, Kulmhof had a bone-crushing machine (Knochenmuhk). On July 16, 1942, the deputy chief of the Gettoverwaltung, Ribbe, sent a letter to “Eldest of the Jews” Rumkowski requesting a canvass of the Lodz Ghetto for a bone crusher, “whether manually operated or motor driven.” He added openly, “The Sondcrkommando Kulmhof is interested in this crusher.”103 104 The ghetto apparently had no such machine, for a few months later Biebow sent to the Lodz Gestapo the papers concerning the purchase of a mill from the firm Schriever and Company in Hamburg. Biebow asked the Gestapo to keep the sales record. “For certain reasons” he himself did not wish to keep it.105 When Hoss visited Kulmhof, Blobel promised the Auschwitz commander that he would send him a mill “for solid substances.”106 Hoss, however, preferred to destroy his bone material with hammers.107 By 1942-43 exhumations were in progress at all of the killing centers. In Kulmhof Jewish work parties opened the mass graves and dragged the corpses into newly dug pits and into a primitive oven.108 In Belzec the process was begun in the late fall of 1942 within a firing area of the camp capable of destroying 2,000 bodies per day. A second, somewhat smaller firing position was started a month later, and the two were used concurrently, day and night, until March 1943.109 Excavators appeared in Sobibor and Treblinka, where the corpses (moved by narrow-gauge railway in Sobibor, and dragged in Treblinka) were stacked and burned on firing grids built with old railway tracks.110 Kulmhof, the Warthegau camp, stopped gassings after the deportations of 1942, though it reopened briefly in 1944. Belzec, with 434,508 dead, shut down its chambers at the end of 1942. Treblinka, overflowing with bodies, went on through the summer of 1943, and Sobibor continued with interruptions until the tall of 1943. Thereafter, the full burden of the “final solution” was assumed by Birkenau and its crematoria. Until the arriv al of the transports from Hungary, beginning in mid-Mav 103. Affidavit by Hoss, January 11, 1947, NO-4498-B. 104. Riblx· to Rumkowski, July 26, 1942, Dokumenty i materinh, vol. 3, p. 279. 105. Biebow to Fuchs, March 1, 1943, ibid. 106. Report by USrut. lXjaco (Auschwitz administration) on trip to Kulmhof, September 17, 1942, NO-4467. 107. Artidavit by Hoss, March 14, 1946, NO-1210. 108. Ruckcrl, ,\'.S 1 'n~nulituiu)slnqrr, pp. 273-74. 109. Ibid., pp. 142-43. 110. Ibid., pp. 173,205-6. See also statement bv Kurt Becker (Ostbahn, Warsaw), October 15, 1968, Case Ganzcnmiiller, vol. XVII, pp. 119-24. KILLING OPERATIONS 1944, the task was not a special problem. The prospective inflow, how­ ever, brought major changes. As of May 11, 1944, the crematoria crews (Sonderkommandos) numbered 217.m On August 29, 1944, 874 men were employed in two shifts, labeled simply “day” and “night.”111 112 The theoretical daily capacity of the four Birkenau crematoria was somewhat over 4,400,113 but with breakdowns and slowdowns the practical limit was almost always lower. During May and June the Hungarian Jews alone were gassed at a rate of almost 10,000 a day, and sometimes equal numbers may have been reached when the Lódz transports arrived in the second half of August. Anticipating these developments, the Auschwitz specialist in charge of body disposal, HauptscharfLihrcr Moll — a man described as a sadist with indefatigable energy114 —directed the digging of eight or nine pits more than forty yards in length, eight yards wide, and six feet deep.115 On the bottom of the pits the human fat was collected and poured back into the fire with buckets to hasten the cremations.116 Survivors report that children were sometimes tossed alive into the inferno.117 The rotten remains were cleaned up once in a while with flame throwers.118 Although the corpses burned slowly during rain or misty weather,119 the pits were found to be the cheapest and most efficient method of body disposal. In August 1944, when an overflow of corpses had to be burned on some days, the open pits broke the bottleneck.120 Thus the capacity for destruction was approaching the point of being unlimited. Simple as this system was, it took years to work out in constant application of administrative techniques. It took millennia in the development of Western culture. 111. Auschwitz II inmate labor allocation for May 11, 1944, Dokumenty i mate- rtaly, vol. 1, pp. 100-105. 112. Statistics in Czech, Kalendarium, p. 865. 113. Bischofl' to Kammler, June 28, 1943, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 41, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 314. The capacities of the individual Krematoria were given as: I 340, II and III 1,440 each, and IV and V 768 each. 114. Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, p. 125. 115. Ibid., pp. 125-33. 116. Affidavit by Höss, March 14,1946, NO-1210. 117. Friedman, Oswiecim, p. 72. Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschuntz, pp. 50, 91. Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, p. 142. 118. Affidavit by Werner Krumme (political prisoner), September 23, 1945, NO-1933. 119. Five to six hours. Affidavit by Höss, March 14,1946, NO-1210. 120. Sehn, “Oswiçcim,” German Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, p. 89. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS AND THE END OF THE DESTRUCTION PROCESS Although the killing centers were employed almost constantly, their existence was comparatively short. The first camp to be liquidated was Kulmhof. The Sonderkommando of Higher SS and Police Leader Koppe (Kommando Hauptsturmftihrer Bothmann) ceased its work there at the end of March 1943* and went to Croatia.1 2 In February 1944, Greiser proposed Bothmann s recall in order to “reduce” the Lodz Ghetto,3 but Kulmhof had only a brief revival during June-July of that year.4 The camp was finally liquidated on January 17-18, 1945. The Jewish burial Kommando was shot, and the buildings were set afire.5 In the Generalgouvernement the Bug camps (Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec) were evacuated in the fall of 1943. The Wirth Kommando, which had constructed these camps, was ordered to destroy them without leaving a trace.6 At Treblinka a farm was built, and a Ukrainian was invited to run it for income.7 Pine trees were planted at Belzec, but a Polish postwar investigator found the terrain dug up, with hands, bones, and flesh exposed where the local population had been searching lor valuables.8 Wirth and his men were transferred as a unit to the Istrian peninsula in Italy to defend roads against partisans. There Wirth met his death in the spring of 1944 from a bullet in his back,9 and Reichleitner (of Sobibor) was killed on patrol.10 Lublin was evacuated more hurriedly. At the end of July 1944, a Red Army salient overtook the camp, and with it huge stores of Aktion Reinhardt. 11 The discoveries made by the Soviets in Lublin were immediately 1. Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadr ro Gesrapo Lirzmannsradr, August 4, 1943, Dokumenty i materiah, vol. 3, pp. 281-82. Gestapo Lirzmannstadt to Oberbürgermeister there, August 14, 1943, ibid. 2. Brandt to Jiittncr, March 29, 1943, T 175, Roll 60. 3. Greiser to Pohl, February 14, 1944, NO-519. 4. Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Vemichtunfjslaffer (Munich, 1977), pp. 292-93. 5. Judge Wladyslaw Bednarz (Lodz), “Extermination Camp at ('helmno,” Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland, vol. 1, p. 121. Two Jews survived. 6. Affidavit by Dr. Konrad Morgen, July 19, 1946, SS(A)-67. 7. Girta Serenv, Into That Darkness (New York, 1974), pp. 249-50. 8. Rückerl, NS-Vemichtnn/jslaejer, pp. 143-45, citing text of Polish report. 9. Affidavit by Morgen, July 19, 1946, SS(A)-67. Whether partisans or some of Wirth’s ow n men killed him is not clear. See Serenv, Darkness, p. 262, and Rückerl, NS-Vemichtunffslajfer, p. 46. 10. Serenv, Darkness, p. 261. 11. Eyewitness report by Christian Science Monitor correspondent Alexander Werth, September 1, 1944, reproduced in Jewish Black Book Committee, The Black Rook (New York, 1946), pp. 379-81. The Aktion Reinhardt pileup in Lublin had already been reported by Globocnik to Himmler at the end of 1943, PS-4024. LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS 1045 publicized in the world press, to the great consternation of Gencral-gouvemeur Frank. The frightened Frank immediately accused Koppe, the former Higher SS and Police Leader in the Wartheland, who had replaced Krüger in the Generalgouvernement. “Now we know” Frank said, “you cannot deny that.” Koppe replied that he knew absolutely nothing about these things and that apparently it was a matter between Heinrich Himmler and the camp authorities. “But already in 1941” said Frank, “I heard of such plans, and I spoke about them.” Well then, the Higher SS and Police Leader replied, that was Frank’s business, and he, Koppe, could not be expected to worry about it.12 In 1944, only one camp was still operating at full capacity—Auschwitz. From May through October the reduction of most of the remaining Jewish population clusters was in progress. During this period nearly 600,000 Jews were brought into the killing center. With Romania and Bulgaria already out of reach, transport breaking down, Jewish laborers desperately needed in war industry, and the Jews in mixed marriages exempt, the destruction process was nearing its conclusion. By November 1944, Himmler decided that for practical purposes the Jewish question had been solved. On the twenty-fifth of that month he ordered the dismantling of the killing installations.13 That day, Auschwitz I and II were merged into the concentration camp Auschwitz, and Auschwitz III became the concentration camp Monowitz.14 I. G. Farben had already made preparations for a departure. From April 4, 1944, the industrial area was repeatedly photographed by the Allied Mediterranean Air Force, and on August 20, September 13, December 18, and again on December 26, Monowitz was systematically bombed.15 During the summer the front was stabilized at the Vistula. 12. Testimony by Frank, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XII, 198. See also summary of discussion between Frank, Biihlcr, and Koppc, September 15, 1944, Frank Diary, PS-2233. According to this conference summary, Frank remarked that the world press was defaming Germany on account of Majdanck (Lublin). Biihlcr put in that nothing was known about this matter in the administration of the Gene-ralgouvcrnemcnt, that these camps had been established by the Higher SS and Police Leader, had been under his jurisdiction, etc. Biihlcr regarded a discussion of this topic in a meeting of main division chiefs as “inopportune.” Frank agreed and repeated that the responsibility for these camps belonged entirely to the Higher SS and Police-Leader, etc. It is not quite clear whether Frank’s testimony refers to this very discussion or whether the subject was brought up twice. 13. Affidavit by Kurt Bcchcr, March 8,1946, PS-3762. 14. Czech, Kalendarium, p. 933. 15. See reports of Mediterranean Allied Photo Reconnaissance Wing, National Archives Record Group 18 (15th Air Force) and Target Intelligence Information, Oswiycim, Poland, National Archives Record Group 243, U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey. Bombing flights consisted of 49 to 127 aircraft. KI1/LING CENTER OPERATIONS However, the Red Army was across the river at two points, Opa tow and Baranów, and this was enough ground for Dr. Diirrteld, the I. G. Auschwitz chief, to make his evacuation plans.16 Among the inmates there was restlessness. A resistance organization had finally been set up in Auschwitz. It had links with the resistance movement outside the camp, including the London-oriented Poles and Communists. Once, in March 1944, the idea of burning down the crematoria had surfaced among the Jewish crews assigned to the removal and burning of bodies. The occasion was the imminent gassing of a large number of Czech Jews from Theresienstadt, who had been kept for six months in the so-called family camp inside Birkenau. The Jewish Sonderkommando wanted the Jews in the family camp to set fire to their barracks, while a revolt would take place in the crematoria, but the families could not be convinced that their lives were about to be extinguished until they were in the changing room, confronted by armed SS men and dogs. There, dropping all pretense, an Oberscharfiihrer told them to step into the gas chamber. The Sonderkommando, which watched it all happen, renewed its plans several months later, but now the resistance organization in the camp urged a postponement. Finally, by October there was no doubt in the minds of the cremation workers that they themselves were going to be killed, but the resistance organization insisted that rebellion be avoided at all costs. At this point, it became clear that the needs of the Jewish inmates diverged sharply from the interests of the non-Jews. The Jewish victims saw little chance for survival in continued acquiescence, whereas the Gentiles, fearing the effect of German reprisals and looking toward deliverance through the Red Army, had too much to lose in an uprising. On the afternoon of October 7, 1944, a desperate Sonderkommando, armed with explosives, three stolen hand grenades, and insulated pliers for cutting the barbed wire, made their attempt alone. Four hundred and fifty inmates and three SS men died in the battle, and Krematorium III was set on fire.17 The SS quickly discovered that four women in the “Union” plant had furnished the Sonderkommando with 16. Report by Dürrfeld, February 7, 1945, NI-11956. 17. Filip Müller, Eyenntncss Ausdnvitz (New York, 1979), pp. 101-15, 124-25, 128-29, 144-48, 152-60. See also account by Salmcn Lewental, written in Auschwitz on October 10, 1944, in Jadwiga Bezwinska, ed.. Amidst a Nightmare of Crime (Auschwitz Museum, 1973), pp. 125-78, particularly p. 154 ft'. Lewental, a Jewish inmate of Auschwitz from December 1942, was a member of the Jewish Sonderkommando. Facsimile of first part of Standortbefehl, October 12, 1944, listing three dead SS men by name, in Be/wmska, A midst a Niqhtniare of'C 'n»u\ p. 66. As of October 3, 1944, the Sonderkommandos contained 661 men. Facsimile of German figures of inmate allocations in Bezwinska, A midst a Nightmare of Crime, p. 165. LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS 1047 explosives to do the job. The women were publicly hanged by Camp Commander Hössler.18 What the Jews could not accomplish with their meager resources the camp administration was to undertake itself. The remaining crematoria were cleaned out by Jewish work details. A young woman recalled that while cleaning the ovens, she got bones and ashes in her hair, her mouth, and her nostrils. Another party had to clean out eighteen-inch deposits of fat in the chimneys.19 The Zentralbauleitung, which had supervised the construction of the crematories, was to be in charge of their demolition.20 But Auschwitz still existed, still held on to tens of thousands of inmates, and for two months the camp awaited the Soviet offensive. During November, Soviet reinforcements were observed moving into the Baranöw bridgehead. On January 12,1945, Soviet armored columns moved out of Baranöw. The general offensive had begun. By January' 16 the Soviets had reached the I. G. Farben calcium mines at Kressendorf, and on the evening of the same day Soviet planes attacked the camp. During the next day, German officials scurried out of the city of Katowice. That same night the rumble of artillery fire was heard in Auschwitz itself. On the evening of January 17, the last roll call was taken. The count was 31,894 in Auschwitz (including Birkenau) and 35,118 in Monowitz, including outlying satellite camps.21 That day the evacuation of the inmates was decided upon. As orders, changed every few hours, were received, those capable of walking thirty miles were separated from those who could walk only to the Auschwitz railroad station and those who could not walk at all.22 Hospitalized inmates tried to decide whether to leave as ordered or to remain, taking the chance of being killed by the SS at the last moment.23 For the next two days, 58,000 prisoners were moved out, all but a few on foot, in freezing weather. On January' 20, Obergruppenführer Schmauser issued instructions to liquidate the inmates who were left behind. An SS detachment shot 200 Jewish women and then blew up the buildings that had housed Krematoria I and II.24 18. Affidavit by Israel Mayer Mandelbaum (survivor), October 26,1945, NI-8187. 19. Irene Schwarz (survivor) in Leo W. Schwarz, ed., The Root and the Rough (New York and Toronto, 1949), pp. 193-96. 20. Summary' of discussion by Baer, Bischoff, Jothann, and Oberscharführer Hatzinger, December 4, 1944, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis I, Folder 29. 21. Czech, Kalendarium, pp. 966-68. Of 15,317 men in Auschwitz and Birkenau, II, 102 were Jews. There is no breakdown of women and of Monowirz prisoners in the Kalendarium. 22. Ibid., p. 968. 23. Elic Wiesel, Night (New York, 1969), pp. 90-93. 24. Czech, Kalendarium, 979,981. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS The Germans themselves now prepared to leave. As records were destroyed in the SS medical block on January 17, Dr. Mengele seized his research notes on twins to carry them personally to Berlin.2S Two days later, the German self-defense units (the Volkssturm) melted away, and Soviet planes appeared again, this time starting large fires. By the 20th, I. G. Farbcn destroyed its records. The next day, as Soviet artillery was shelling Auschwitz, the camp officials were on their way.26 Three Soviet divisions, spearheaded by the 100th of the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front, were advancing on Auschwitz.27 The killing center was now on the front line. From the Wehrmacht it had originally been acquired, and to the Wehrmacht it was now returned. A cordon of German troops still ringed the camp, and Security Police detachments roamed in the compound, still killing prisoners. On January 23 the SS set fire to barracks full of clothing in the “Canada” section. At 1 a. m. of the 27th, the SS blew up the last crematorium (new number IV), which had been kept for the disposal of bodies until the last moment. In midafternoon of that dav, in the course of half an hour, Soviet troops took Auschwitz and Birkenau.28 When the Soviets moved in, twenty-nine of thirty-five storerooms had been burned down. In six of the remaining ones, the liberators found part of the camp’s legacy: 368,820 men’s suits, 836,255 women’s coats and dresses, 5,525 pairs of women’s shoes, 13,964 carpets, large quantities of children’s clothes, toothbrushes, false teeth, pots and pans. In abandoned railway cars hundreds of thousands of additional items of apparel were discovered, and in the tannery the Soviet investigation commission found seven tons of hair.29 More than 7,000 inmates, still alive, greeted their liberators, while hundreds lay dead where they had dropped.30 With the killing centers gone, ex-Auschwitz inmates, Hungarian deportees, and prisoners from disbanded labor camps were dumped into concentration camps in the Reich. (See Table 9-18.) From Auschwitz and its outlying satellites they were loaded on trains and dispersed to Gross Rosen, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbriick, Buchenwald, Dora Mittelbau, 25. Ibid., p. 97. 26. Report by Diirrteld, February 7, 1945, NIT 1956. 27. Czech, Kalendarium, pp. 993-94. The divisions listed bv Czech were the 100th, 148th (60th Army), and 322nd (28rh Armv) of the First Ukrainian Front (Army Group). See also the remarks bv General Vassily Petrenko, who was an officer in the 100th Division at the rime, in Brewster Chamberlin and Marcia Feldman, eds., Tbe Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps (Washington, D.C., 1987), pp. 181 — 83, 188, 189. 28. Czech, Kalendarium, pp. 994-95. 29. Undated report by Soviet F.xtraordinarv State Commission on Auschwitz (Shvernik, Trainin, the Metropolitan Nikolai, Lvssenko, and Burdenko), USSR-8. 30. Czech, Kalendarium, pp. 972-78. LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS TABLE 9-18 THE PRINCIPAL LAST CAMPS PRINCIPAL ORIGINS OF LIBERATION OF JEWISH INMATES MAIN CAMP Plaszow Krakow remnant ghetto January 15,1945 Generalgouvernement by Red Army labor camps G ross-Rosen Inmates retained in labor camps Februar\r 13,1945 of Organisation Schmelt (some subcamps on Auschwitz May 8-9,1945) Plaszow by Red Army Sachsenhausen Slovakia April 22,1945 Auschwitz by Red Army Ravensbrück Auschwitz April 30,1945 by Red Army Stutthof Baltic camps (Estonian, May 9,1945 Salaspils, and Kaunas, by Red Army comprising also Vilna remnant) Auschwitz Buchenwald Generalgouvernement April 11,1945 labor camps by U.S. Army Auschwitz Gross-Rosen Dachau Auschwitz April 29,1945 Warsaw Ghetto ruins camp by U.S. Army Stutthof Hungarian labor men Mauthausen Auschwitz May 5,1945 G ross-Rosen by U.S. Army Hungarian labor men Bergen-Belsen Netherlands April 15,1945 Hungary by British army Auschwitz Sachsenhausen Ravensbrück Flossenbiirg, Mauthausen, and Bergen-Bclsen. For many Gross Rosen was a hub From which they were sent on to the other camps, and the trips could last From a Few days to as long as two weeks.31 On some of the trains the prisoners were jammed into roofless, low-sided railroad cars, in which they ate snow’ and From which they threw out corpses.32 Buchenwald had been a major receiving point For some time: between May 1944 and March 1945, over 20,000 Jews poured into the camp.33 The influx resulted in a new labor supply For war industry.34 As Soviet Forces pushed through western Hungary, the commander of' Mauthausen, near Linz (Austria), received orders to take in thousands oF Jews who had been building the Sud-Ostwall (Southeast Defense Line). These laborers, guarded by the Volkssturm, w ere moved on Foot From the Hungarian border through the Alps, where the Gendarmerie took over for the remaining segment to Mauthausen. A survivor recalls that in the Alpine town of' Eisenerz a crowd emerging From a movie threw stones at the marchers and that deportees were shot in die town. Others, moving over the Prebichl, a nearby mountain, on April 7 and 8, were commanded by guards to run downhill. As they ran, fire was opened on them From behind bushes and trees. Many finally arrived at Mauthausen without shoes, clad in rags, and Full office.35 Attempts were made to distribute a maximum number of the new Jewish arrivals to outlying subcamps. Under Sachsenhausen, such satellites were Lieberose and Schwarzheide.36 In the Dachau network, the 31 .Ibid. 32. Elmer Luchterhand, “The Gondola-Car Transports,” International Journal of Social Psychiatry 13 (1966-67): 28-32. 33. Compiled from Allied report, “The Numerical Expansion of the Concentration Camp Buchenwald During the Years 1937-1945,” PS-2171. 34. Buchenwald labor statistics (apparently incomplete chart), February 24, 1945, NO-1974. For a statistical recapitulation of the Jew s in Bucheiwvald during 1944 and 1945, w hich is somewhat incomplete as well, see Harr)' Stein, Judcn in Buchenwald (Buchenwald, 1992), pp. 133-35. Jewish deaths in 1944 were about 2,000. In February 1945, they were 3,009 men and 7 women, and in March 2,673 men. Stein estimates the toll for 1945 at 7,000, not counting those who died in evacuations at the end. 35. Statement by Benedykt Friedman in Haifa, June 19, 1962, w'ith enclosure containing survivors’ reports, Yad Vashcm Oral History, document 1243/120. Affidavit by Hans Marsalek (political prisoner), April 8, 1946, PS-3870. Marsalek interrogated the Mauthausen commander, Franz Ziereis, before the latter’s death from wounds, during the night of May 22-23, 1945. The number of Jew s arriving in the Mauthausen complex from the Siidostw'all is estimated to have been more than 20,000. Gisela Rabirsch, “Das KL Mauthausen,” in Institur fur Zcitgeschichte, Stu- dien zur Geschichtcder Konzentrationslager (Stuttgart, 1970), pp. 50-92, at pp. 80-82, 87-89. 36. See statements by former inmates in U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Ar-LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS main offshoots for Jews were the Kaufering and Mühldorf complexes.37 In Mauthausen a tent camp was erected and from there Jews were tunneled to Gunskirchen, which was newly established, and to Ebensce. The tent camp and Gunskirchen, which did not make use of labor, offered only starvation, disease, and death.38 From the remnant ghettos and camps in the Baltic area, evacuated in 1944, Jews arrived at the Stutthof concentration camp, a mile from the Baltic coast east of the Vistula River. Like Auschwitz, Stutthof was divided into men’s and women’s compounds. Most of the inmates were women, and most of the women were Jewish. When the Soviet offensive of January 1945 came to a halt a few miles south of Stutthof, the majority of the prisoners were moved to the interior. About 3,000 women were shot on the shore or thrown from ice into the water. Not until the resumption of the Soviet advance in April did the remaining inmates face evacuation. On April 27, three barges were loaded at Hela under Soviet chives Record Group 11.001 (Center for Historical Documentary Collections, Moscow), Roll 94, Fond 1525, Opis 1, Folder 340, vol. 1. 37. Edith Raim, Die Dachauer KZ-Aussenlgger Käufering und Mühldorf (Landsberg, 1992). On Kaufering, see also data of the International Tracing Service in Martin Weinmann, ed., Das Nationalsozialistische Lagersystem (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), pp. 195,554-58. Mühldorf documents arc in T 580, Roll 321. As of April 24, 1945, the total number of Jews in Dachau was 22,938. Facsimile of camp count showing net decrease of 838 to April 25, in Barbara Distel and Ruth Jakusch, cds., Concentration Camp Dachau 1933-1945 (Dachau, 1978), pp. 214-15. 38. The Mauthausen statistics of registered Jewish prisoners from May 1944 through May 4, 1945, but excluding Gunskirchen from April 27 (the day it became independent), arc as follows: Jewish inmates on December 31,1943 2 Transferred to Mauthausen (most from Auschwitz), 1944 13,826 Died in Mauthausen, 1944 3,437 Transferred, mainly to Auschwitz, 1944 858 Transferred to Mauthausen (most from Auschwitz), 1945 9,116 Died in Mauthausen, 1945 8,168 In Mauthausen, March 11,1945 15,529 Unregistered footmarchcrs ca. 20,000 In Gunskirchen, April 26, 1945 17,560 Transferred to Gunskirchen, April 28, 1945 3,108 In Mauthausen (including Ebensce), April 30,1945 8,800 Hans Marsalck, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen (Vienna, 1980), pp. 146, 282-84. Gunskirchen was established on March 12, 1945. The Gunskirchen figure for April 26 is in Weinmann, Das Nationalsozialistische Iggersystem, p. 378. Ebensce, established in 1944 and remaining a satellite of Mauthausen to the end, received 8,078 Jewish inmates, of whom 3,110 died by May 4, 1945. Florian Freund, Arbeitslager Zement (Vienna, 1989), pp. 161-64. The Ebensce figures are included in the Mauthausen totals. The Gunskirchen dead from April 27 and those of the postliberation period for Mauthausen arc in the thousands. 1052 KELLING CENTER OPERATIONS bombers. One, with sick inmates, was directed to Kiel, and two arrived in the early morning hours of May 3 at Neustadt, twenty miles north of Lübeck. As the victims waded ashore during the day, they were shot at by SS men and naval personnel, while German officers photographed the scene from gardens in their homes.39 The old, established camps did not have enough room lor the influx of new inmates, and hence one camp was greatly expanded to take in the overflow. This was Bergen-Belsen, at Celle, near Hannover in the northwestern part of Germany. Bergen-Belsen was originally a Wehrmacht camp for wounded prisoners of war. In the fall of 1943, Pohl acquired half the grounds in order to set up an internment camp there. He needed a place from which foreign nationals could be repatriated — in the words of a Foreign Office official, a camp that would not give rise to “atrocity propaganda” ( Greuelpropaffanda) .40 While Bergen-Belsen thus started out as a model camp, it could not afford an inspection by a foreign government even in its early days. Instead of calling the camp an Intemierutigs-la/jt'r, a legal brain had therefore designated it as anAufentbaltslager, which means a camp where people stay.41 Toward the end of 1944, Pohl took over the second half of the camp. This transfer was simple, because the Wehrmacht prisoner-of-war chief by that time was Obergruppenführer Berger of the SS Main Office.42 Some of the old Auschwitz officials now moved into Bergen-Belsen. Hauptsturmfiihrer Kramer, former Birkenau (Auschwitz II) commander, got the top post. Dr. Fritz Klein, an Auschwitz camp doctor, became chief camp doctor of Bergen-Belsen.43 Kramer immediately introduced the Auschwitz routine, including the lengthy roll calls.44 In Theresienstadt, Obersturmführer Rahm was involved in a last attempt to resume the destruction process. At the end of February 1945, several inmate engineers and eighty working inmates were sent to a 39. Report by Olga M. Pickholz-Barnitsch, 1963, based on survivors’ accounts and recollections of a German ship captain, Rudolf Striicker, Yad Vashem Oral History, document 736/54 B. The Stutthof victims were on the Adler and Russard. There were other concentration camp ships with Neuengamme evacuees in Neustadt harbor. See also detailed account by Liuba Daniel, November 1956, Yad Vashem Oral History 2568/74. Mrs. Daniel had been transported to Stutthof front Kaunas. 40. Von Thadden to Eichntann, July 24,1943, NG-5050. The letter dealt with the Spanish Jews in Salonika who were later sent to Bergen-Belsen. 41. 'file term Aufenthaltslaqer Renjcn-Rdsen appears in the distribution list of a Liebehenschel order dated November 10, 1943, NO-1541. 42. The history of Bergen-Belsen is described in an affidavit by former Oberst Fritz Mauer, February 13, 1947, NO-1980. 43. Testimony by Kramer and Klein, United Nations War Crimes Commission, Ijtw Reports oflrtals of War Criminals (London, 1947), vol. 2, pp. 39-41. 44. Testimony by Anita Lasker (survivor), ibid. , pp. 21 -22. LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS nearby eighteenth-century fortress with instructions to seal off apertures · and tear down cells for the purpose of making up a hermetically scaled > “vegetable warehouse.” As rumors and unrest spread through the camp, Rahm, shouting at the Jewish technical department to keep everyone < quiet, suddenly broke off the project.45 By February and March the front lines began to disintegrate. More and more soldiers surrendered, major cities were given up, labor camps and . concentration camps had to be evacuated. From east and west, transports ; with forced laborers and camp inmates were rolling inward. Some of the railway cars were shunted to side rails and abandoned to Allied > bombers.46 In Bergen-Belsen the camp administration broke down. As tens of thousands of new inmates were dumped into the camp (in the single 1 week of April 4-13, 1945, the number was 28,000),47 the food supply l was shut off, roll calls were stopped, and the starving inmates were left to · their own devices. Typhus and diarrhea raged unchecked, corpses rotted * in barracks and on dung heaps. Rats attacked living inmates, and bodies ", of the dead were eaten by starving prisoners.48 In the meantime Himmler, who had long despaired of victory, made some of the biggest concessions of his life. He permitted several thousand i inmates to go to Switzerland and Sweden. He allowed Red Cross trucks i to distribute food to some of the camps.49 Finally, he ordered that the evacuation of threatened concentration camps be stopped and that they ! be handed over to the Allies intact.50 During a conversation with an i 45. Testimony by AdolfEngclstcin,Eichmann trial transcript, May 18,1961,scss. 1 45, pp. Qq 1, Vv 1, Ww 1. The witness, an engineer, was one of the inmates assigned to the project. On the plan to poison Dachau inmates who were not nationals of the I Western Powers, see interrogation of Bcrtus Gcrdes (Gaustabsamtsleiter in Upper * Bavaria), November 20,1945, PS-3462. 46. Gisclla Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz (New York, 1948), p. 166. 47. Testimony by Kramer, Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals, vol. 2, p. 40. 48. Perl, I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz, pp. 166-67. The author was also in Bcrgcn-Bclscn. For an overview of the testimony see Raymond Phillips, ed., Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty-Four Others (The Belsen Trial) (London, 1949). Statistics pertaining to the camp are recapitulated by Ebcrhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen (Hannover, 1962). ‘. Kolb cites the following counts of Bergen-Belsen dead: 1944 2,048 March 1-April 6,1945 22,081 April 19-June 20, 1945 13,944 The overall toll was probably around 53,000 people, a majorin' of them Jews. At the end of June, the surviving Jews may have numbered about 25,000. See Jon Bridgman, The End of the Holocaust (Portland, Ore., 1990), pp. 33-60. 49. Executive Director, War Refugee Board, Final Report, September 15, 1945, pp. 34,40,43,45, 59. 50. Testimony by Hoss, Trial of the Major War Criminals, vol. XI, p. 40'. KILLING CBNTER OPERATIONS International Red Cross representative in Prague on April 6, 1945, Eichmann stated that he did not “entirely agree” with the “humane methods” favored at that moment by Himmler, but that naturally he would follow Himmler’s orders blindly.Rl After Buchenwald was captured bv the American army, Hitler heard that its liberated prisoners were plundering Weimar. Incensed, he overruled Himmler’s order for surrendering concentration camps.51 52 On April 24, 1945, the General Secretary of the International Red Cross, Dr. Hans Bachmann, visited Kaltenbrunner in Innsbruck. The chief of the RSHA invited him to send foodstuff's to Jews and offered to liberate a few Jews who w ere Allied nationals. After the conference, at dinner, Kaltenbrunner directed the conversation to politics and attempted to give a lengthy explanation of the character of Nationalist Socialist Weltanschauung,53 Bv the end of April the front was dissolving. Prospective war criminals looked east and west and saw Allied armies coming from both directions. The end was staring them in the face. Some committed suicide. Some gave up. Some went into hiding. In Munich on April 30,1945, as American troops were moving into the city, the former chief of Amtsgruppe A of the WVHA, August Frank, walked into the office of the police president and obtained a false identification card. He was caught anyway.54 In Austria, Globocnik was arrested and killed himself.55 From Oranienburg, the WVFLA headquarters, a motorcade of SS officials and their families set out for Ravensbrück and from there to Flensburg. Obersturmbannführer Höss was among them. In Flensburg he sought out Himmler, who advised him to cross into Denmark as a Wehrmacht officer. Höss managed to obtain false papers from Kapitän zur See Luth — he was now Franz Lang, Bootsmaat (Sailor). But not for long. He too was caught.56 Himmler himself wandered about Germany, a lone, hunted figure. He was recognized and arrested, whereupon he swallowed poison. Even as the armies were fighting their final battle, Eichmann called his 51. Icxt ot the summary ot the conversation, prepared on April 24, 1945, in Jean-Claude Favez, Das Internationale Rote Kreuz und das Drittc Reich (Zurich, 1989), pp. 499-500.1 he International Red Cross representative was Otto Ix'liner. 52. Testimony by Hbss, Trial of the Major War C.riminals, XI, p. 407. 53. Affidavit by Rachmann, April 11, 1946, Kaltenbrunner-5. For other discussions between International Red Cross officials and Kaltcnbrunner, see: Affidavit bv International Red Cross President Carl Burcldiardr, April 17, 1946, Kaltenbrunner-3; and affidavit by International Red Cross delegate Dr. Hans F. A. Mever, April 11, 1946, Kaltenbrunner-4. 54. Affidavit by Frank, March 19, 1946, NO-1211. 55. Interrogation of VVicd, July 21, 1945,0-215. 56. Affidavit by Hbss, March 14, 1946, NO-1210. LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS 1055 men together to tell them that the end was near. While Zoepf was “whimpering like a child ” Eichmann said that the feeling of having killed five million enemies of the state had given him so much satisfaction that he would jump laughingly into the grave.57 But Eichmann did not jump, and after spending months in American captivity, unrecognized, he fled and disappeared without a trace. He was seized fifteen years later by Israeli agents in Argentina.58 On the Italian-Swiss frontier, just before the collapse, the German Ambassador to Italy, Rudolf Rahn, was unable to cross into Switzerland. As he stood in the snow, he thought about the Jews: “Are we now going to share the fate of this unfortunate nation? Will we be dispersed in all directions, to give of our tenacity and ability to the welfare of other nations, only to provoke their resistance? Shall Germans too be fated to be at home in every place and welcome in none?”59 In the Protektorat, still held by German troops, the last commander of Theresienstadt, Rahm, received the last report from the chief of the Jewish “Self-administration” ( Selbstverwaltung), Rabbi Murmelstein, on May 5, 1945. In his memorandum on that report, which dealt with a variety of topics including statistics of typhus, Murmelstein noted that the Obersturmführer had promised him 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of Zyklon.60 On the same day, the rabbi, drawing the “right political consequences at the right moment [im richtigen Moment die richtigen Konsequenzen] I,” tendered his resignation to a representative of the International Red Cross.61 Rahm himself quit that evening.62 Meanwhile, as Soviet spearheads closed in on Berlin, the director of the Generalbetriebsleitung Ost (Präsident Ernst Emrich) called his staff together in a bunker on April 23 to advise everyone to go home.63 When 57. Testimony by Eichmann, Eichmann trial transcript, July 7, 1961, sess. 88, p. HI. Affidavit by Wisliceny, November 29, 1945, Conspiracy and Aggression, VIII, 610. Wisliceny places the incident in February, Eichmann in April. Wisliceny quotes Eichmann as having said “Jews” whereas Eichmann states that he said “enemies of the State.” Five million was, however, Eichmann’s best recollection of total Jewish dead. Sec his testimony, Eichmann trial transcript, July 20,1961, sess. 105, p. LI 1. 58. “Israelis Confirm Kidnapping Nazi,” The New York Times, June 7,1960, pp. 1 - 2. 59. Rudolf Rahn, Ruheloses Leben (Düsseldorf, 1949), pp. 292-93. 60. Text of Murmclstcin memorandum in H. G. Adler, Die verheimlichte IValtrheit (Tübingen, 1958), pp. 140-41. 61. Murmclstcin to Dunant, May 5,1945, ibid., pp. 142-44. 62. H. G. Adler, Theresienstadt (Tübingen, 1961), pp. 216-18. The Soviets arrived on May 9. 63. Statement by Philipp Mangold, Sartcr Collection, Nuremberg Verkchrs-archiv, Folder aa. KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS the offices of the Generalbetriebsleitung were overrun by the Soviets, Reichsbahnoberinspektor Bruno Klemm, who had presided over many a conference on Jewish transports, was captured. Last seen by a colleague interned with him in Poznan, he has since been missing.64 In his own bunker, the supreme architect of the destruction of the Jews, Adolf Hitler, dictated a political testament during the early morning hours of April 29,1945. In this legacy he said:65 It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted the war in 1939. It was desired and instigated exclusively by those international statesmen who were either of Jewish descent or worked for Jewish interests. I have made too many offers for the control and limitation of armaments, which posterity' will not for all time be able to disregard, for the responsibility' for the outbreak of this war to be laid on me. I have further never wished that after the first fatal world war a second against England, or even America, should break out. Centuries will pass away, but out of die ruins of our towns and monuments the hatred against those finally responsible, whom we have to thank for everything, international Jewry' and its helpers, will grow. . . . I also made it quite plain that if the nations of Europe were once more to be regarded as mere chattel to be bought and sold by these international conspirators in money and finance, then that race, Jewry', which is the real criminal of this murderous struggle, will be saddled with the responsibility'. Furthermore, I left no one in doubt that this time not only would millions of children of Europe’s Aryan peoples die of hunger, not only would millions of grown men suffer death, and not only would hundreds of thousands of women and children be burned and bombed to death in the cities, but that the real criminal would also have to atone for his guilt, even if by more humane means. After six y’ears of war, which in spite of all setbacks will go down one day in history' as the most glorious and valiant demonstration of a nation’s life purpose, I cannot forsake the city' which is the capital of this Reich. As the forces are too small to make any further stand against the enemy attack at this place and our resistance is gradually being weakened by men who are as deluded as they are lacking in initiative, I should like, by remaining in this town, to share my fate with those, the millions of others, who have also taken it upon themselves to do so. Moreover, I do not wish to fall into die hands of an enemy who 64. Statement by Gerhard Reelirz, April 26, 1967. I judge rich t in Düsseldorf, Case Ganzenmiiller, 8 Js 430/67, vol. XIV, pp. 84-90. Statement bv Fritz Tier, April 21, 1967, Case Ganzenmiiller, vol. XIV, pp. 77-83. 65. Political testament by Hitler, April 29, 1945, PS-3569. LIQUIDATION OF THE KILLING CENTERS 1057 I requires a new spectacle organized by the Jews for the amusement of their hysterical masses. I have decided therefore to remain in Berlin and there of my own free will to choose death at the moment when I believe the position of the Führer and Chancellor itself can no longer be held. REFLECTIONS THE PERPETRATORS he Germans killed five million Jews. The onslaught did nor come from the void; it was brought into being because it had meaning to its perpetrators. It was not a narrow strategy tor the attainment of some ulterior goal, but an undertaking for its own sake, an event experienced as Erlcbnis, lived and lived through by its participants. The German bureaucrats who contributed their skills to the destruction of the Jews all shared in this experience, some in the technical work of drafting a decree or dispatching a train, others starkly at the door of a gas chamber. Thev could sense the enormity of the operation from its smallest 1059 fragments. At every stage they displayed a striking pathfinding ability in the absence of directives, a congruity of activities without jurisdictional guidelines, a fundamental comprehension of the task even when there were no explicit communications. One has the feeling that when Reinhard Heydrich and the ministerial Staatssekretäre met on the morning of January' 20, 1942, to discuss the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe,” they understood each other.1 In retrospect it may be possible to view the entire design as a mosaic of small pieces, each commonplace and lusterless by itself. Yet this progression of everyday activities, these file notes, memoranda, and telegrams, embedded in habit, routine, and tradition, were fashioned into a massive destruction process. Ordinary men were to perform extraordinary tasks. A phalanx of functionaries in public offices and private enterprises was reaching for the ultimate. With every escalation there were also barriers. Economic problems exacted their cost. Contemplative thought troubled the mind. Yet the destruction of the Jews was not disrupted. Continuity is one of its crucial characteristics. At the threshold of the killing phase, the flow of administrative measures was unchecked. Technological and moral obstacles were overcome. The unprecedented march of men, women, and children into the gas chambers was begun. How was the deed accomplished? THE DESTRUCTIVE EXPANSION The German destructive effort evolved on several planes. One development was the alignment of organizations in a destructive machine. Another was the evolution of procedures for the accomplishment of destructive acts. A third was the crystallization of the process of destruction. And fourth, multiple processes were set in motion against other victims in the German power sphere. Basic was the immersion in destructive activity of the bureaucratic apparatus as such. As the process unfolded, its requirements became more complex and its fulfillment involved an ever larger number of agencies, party offices, business enterprises, and military commands. The destruction of the Jews was a total process, comparable in its diversity to a modern war, a mobilization, or a national reconstruction. An administrative process of such range cannot be carried out by a single agency, even if it is a trained and specialized body like the Gestapo 1. Summary of “Final Solution” conference, January 20, 1942, NG-2568. Testimony bv Adolf Eichmann, Eichmann trial, English transcript, sess. 78, June 23, 1961, pp. ZI, Aal, Bbl; sess. 79, June 26, 1961, pp. Aal, Bl, Cl; sess. 106, July 24, 1961, p. II; sess. 107, July 24, 1961, pp. El, FI. or a commissariat for Jewish affairs, for when a process cuts into every phase of human life, it must ultimately feed upon the resources of the entire organized community. That is why one finds among the perpetrators the highly diff erentiated technicians of the armament inspectorates, the remote officials of the Postal Ministry', and —in the all-important operation of furnishing records for determination of descent —the membership of an aloof and withdrawn Christian clergy. The machinery of destruction, then, was structurally no different from organized German society as a whole; the difference was only one of function. The machinery of destruction was the organized community in one of its special roles. Established agencies rely on existing procedures. In his daily work the bureaucrat made use of tried techniques and tested formulas with which he was familiar and which he knew to be acceptable to his superiors, colleagues, and subordinates. The usual practices were applied also in unusual situations. The Finance Ministry' went through condemnation proceedings to set up the Auschwitz complex,2 and the German railroads billed the Security' Police for the transport of the Jews, calculating the one-way fare for each deportee by the track kilometer.3 Swiff operations precipitated greater complications and necessitated more elaborate adjustments. In the course of the roundup of the Warsaw Jews during the summer of 1942, the ghetto inhabitants left behind their unpaid gas and electricity bills, and as a consequence the German offices responsible for public utilities and finance in the city had to marshal all their expertise to restore an administrative equilibrium.4 Although the apparatus strove to maintain the customary mode of operation to deal with a variety of problems, there was a tendency within the bureaucratic structure to erase old established boundaries of administrative freedom when they inhibited an acceptance of new challenges or an exploitation of new opportunities. The process of destruction w as in its very nature limitless. That is why power became more open-ended, why latitudes were widened and capabilities increased. Over time it be­ 2. Records of conferences of November 3 and December 17-18 under the chairmanship of Obcrfinanzprasidcnt Dr. Casdorf of the Finance Ministry, PS-1643, and other correspondence in the same document. 3. Fachmann to Transport Ministry, February 20, 1941, Landgericht in Düsseldorf, Case Ganzcnmiillcr, 8 Js 430/67, special vol. 4, pt. 4, p. 105. Transport Ministry K 1/16 to Rcichsbahndirekrioncn in Karlsruhe, Cologne, Münster, Saarbrücken, copies to Haupts erkehrsdirektionen in Brussels and Paris, Plenipotentiary in Utrecht, and Amtsrar Stange, July 14, 1942, Case Ganzenmüller, special vol. 4, part 3, p. 56. 4. Dürrfeld (Dezernat 3 of German city administration in Warsaw) to SS and Police lx'ad er von Sammcm, August 10, 1942, and memorandum bv Kunze (Dezernat 4), August 13, 1942, Zentrale Stelle der Landesjusrizverwalningcn, Ludwigsburg, Akten Auerswald, Polen 365d, pp. 275-77. came easier to write an ordinance regulating the conduct of victims or to take action against them direcdy. In the realm of public regulation, fewer basic laws were being promulgated, and “implementary decrees” were less and less germane to the laws to which they referred.5 An ordinance did not even have to appear in a legal gazette. In December 1938, Heinrich Himmler, omitting the customary submission of rules to an official register, “provisionally” placed directly in the newspapers a regulation withdrawing driver’s licenses from Jews. When the legality of Himmler’s action was challenged in court, the Reichsgericht upheld his method on the ground that a proclamation issued “under the eyes of the Highest Reich Authorities” without generating their protest was law.6 The rise of government by announcement was accompanied by a greater permissiveness in the making of internal decisions. Orders were specific commands, but at the same time they could contain broad authorizations. What was mandatory was also a mandate. When Goring permitted Heydrich to inaugurate the “Final Solution,” the “charge” was a vast delegation of power.7 Not surprisingly, written directives would give way to oral ones. Hitler himself may never have signed an order to kill the Jews. On the other hand, there are records of his utterances in the form of comments, questions, or “wishes.” What he actually meant, or whether he really meant it, might have been a matter of tone as well as of language. When he spoke “coldly” and in a “low voice” about “horrifying” decisions “also at the dinner table,” then his audience knew that he was “serious.”8 Oral orders were given at every level. Hoss was told to build his death camp at Auschwitz in a conversation with Himmler.9 Stangl received instructions about Sobibor from Globocnik on a park bench in Lublin.10 5. See in particular the discussion by Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich (Düsseldorf, 1972), pp. 110-11,241-46. 6. The episode is related by Adam „Judenpolitik, pp. 213, 224. See also correspondence in T 459, rolls 21 and 22, on an announcement by the Gebietskommissar in Riga prohibiting contacts between Jews and non-Jews on penalty of imprisonment. Landrat Sommerlattc in the office of the Gcncralkommissar contended that the Gebietskommissar lacked all power to make such threats and that courts could not enforce them. Sec Sommcrlattc’s letter of April 30,1942, T 459, Roll 21. 7. Goring to Heydrich, July 31, 1941, PS-710. The order was solicited by Heydrich and its text was drafted by Eichmann. Adolf Eichmann, Ich, Adolf Eichmann (Leoni am Starnberger Sec, 1980), p. 479. 8. Affidavit by Albert Speer, June 15,1977, facsimile in Arthur Suzman and Denis Diamond, Six Million Did Die (Johannesburg, 1977), pp. 109-12. 9. Testimony by Höss, International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals (Nuremberg, 1947), XI, 398. 10. Gitta Screny, Into That Darkness (New York, 1974), pp. 101-4. A railroad man in Krakow, responsible for scheduling death trains, recalls that he was told by his immediate superior to run the transports whenever they were requested by the SS.11 In essence, then, there was an atrophy of laws and a corresponding multiplication of measures for which the sources of authority were more and more ethereal. Valves were being opened for a decision flow. The experienced functionary was coming into his own. A middle-ranking bureaucrat, no less than his highest superior, was aware of currents and possibilities. In small ways as well as large, he recognized what was ripe lor the time. Most often it was he who initiated action. Thousands of proposals were introduced in memoranda, presented at conferences, and discussed in letters. The subject matter ranged from dissolution of mixed marriages12 13 to the deportation of the Jews of Liechtenstein12 or the construction of some “quick-working” device for the annihilation of Jewish women and children at Lodz and the surrounding tow ns of the Warthegau.14 At times it was assumed that the moment had come, even if there was no definite word from above. Hans Globke wrote anti-Jewish provisions in a decree on personal names in December 1932, before there was a Nazi regime or a Führer.15 The Trusteeship Office in Warsaw' began to seize Jewish real property “in expectation” of a “lawful regulation,” meanwhile performing the “indispensable” preparatory work.16 Not always, however, was such spontaneity welcome at central offices in Berlin. When the Security Police in die Netherlands sought to induce sterilizations by holding out the prospect of immunity from deportation to couples in mixed marriage who could prove their inability to have children, Eichmann’s deputy, Günther, expressed his disapproval because no such scheme had been worked out for the Jews in Germany itself. The Reich, said Günther, had to be a model in such matters.17 11. Statement by Erich Richter, June 11, 1969, Case Ganzenmüller, vol. 19, pp. 5-12. 12. Summary of conference of March 6, 1942, NG-2586-H. 13. Suhr (RSHA) to Rademachcr (Foreign Office), Februar)’ 17, 1942, Israel Police 1188. 14. Hoppncr (Office of Higher SS and Police Leader in Warthegau) to Fachmann, Julv 16, 1941, in Biuletyti Glowttej Komisji Radania Zbrodni Hitlerowskicb u> Police 12 (1960): 27P-29F. 15. Globke (Prussian Interior Ministry) to Regierungspräsidenten and other regional officials, December 23, 1932, Central Archives of the German Democratic Republic, through the courtesy of Ambassador Stefan Heymann. 16. Trusteeship Office in Warsaw, monthly report for October 1940, November 8, 1940, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 814. 17. Werner (Office of Security Police Commander in Netherlands) to Harster (Commander) and Zocpf (Jewish Affairs in same office), Mav 6, 1943, Israel Police 1356. THE PERPETRATORS Eichmann himself once exceeded a guideline, seizing Hungarian Jews in the Reich by mistake. Commenting about his act in an Israel court, he said: “Humanly, this is possible and understandable.”18 In the final analysis, laws or decrees were not regarded as ultimate sources of power but only as an expression of will. In this view a particular decree might not have provided for all that had to be done; on occasion it might even have interfered with the task at hand. If an ordinance was regarded as not limiting, if it was thought to be only an example of the kind of actions that might be taken, an official might proceed outside its boundaries, legislating on a parallel plane. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service provided that Jewish civil servants were to be dismissed. Analogously, or “sinngemäss,” Jewish fellowship holders at the University of Freiburg were deprived of their stipends.19 If instructions frustrated action, they could even be disregarded altogether. An example is a directive, issued in the Generalgouvernement, to pay Jewish workers in the “free” market 80 percent of the wages received by Poles. The problem in several localities was that Jewish laborers had not been paid by their employers in the first place, inasmuch as the Jewish councils were expected to provide compensation out of their own funds. In the Pulawy District the German army, not wishing to start payments, prompdy dismissed its Jews,20 but in Czestochowa the German City Kommissar wrote the following in his official report: “I assume that also these instructions may be lost locally and I have acted accordingly.”21 The machinery of destruction, moving on a track of self-assertion, engaged in its multipronged operation in an ever more complicated network of interlocking decisions. One might well ask: What determined the basic order of this process? What accounted for the sequence of involvement? What explains the succession of steps? The bureaucracy had no master plan, no fundamental blueprint, no clear-cut view of its actions. How then was the process steered? How did it take on Gestalt? A destruction process has an inherent pattern. There is only one way in which a scattered group can effectively be destroyed. Three steps are organic to the operation: 18. Eichmann trial, scss. 97, July 14,1961, p. PI. 19. Decree by rector (Martin Heidegger), Freiburger Studentenzettutui, November 3, 1933, p. 6, as reprinted in Guido Schncebcrgcr, Nachlese zu Heidegger (Bern, 1962), p. 137. 20. Monthly report for August 1940 by Kreishauptmann in Pulawy (signed Brandt), September 10,1940, Yad Vashcm microfilm JM 814. 21. Monthly report by Stadthauptmann in Czystochowa, September 14, 1940, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 814. Definition Concentration (or seizure) I Annihilation This is the invariant structure of the basic process, for no group can be killed without a concentration or seizure of the victims, and no victims can be segregated before the perpetrator knows who belongs to the group. There are additional steps in a modern destructive undertaking. These measures are required not for the annihilation of the victim but for the preserv ation of the economy. Basically, they are all expropriations. In the destruction of the Jews, expropriator)' decrees were introduced after every' organic step. Dismissals and Aryanizations came after the definition, exploitation and starvation measures followed concentration, and the confiscation of personal belongings was incidental to the killing operation. In its completed form a destruction process in a modern society will thus be structured as shown in this chart: Definition 1 Dismissals of employees and expropriations of business firms I Concentration 1 Exploitation of labor and starvation measures I Annihilation i Confiscation of personal eff ects The sequence of steps in a destruction process is thus determined. If there is an attempt to inflict maximum injury upon a group of people, it is therefore inevitable that a bureaucracy', no matter how decentralized its apparatus or how unplanned its activities, should push its victims through these stages. The destruction of the Jews was not an isolated event. It was embedded in an environment of actions against a variety of groups. Just like the anti-Jcwish measures, these operations were not designed for the obliteration of scx'ial practices, traditions, or institutions, but for deprivations of property1 or space and, in some cases, for the infliction of death. In this wider destruction, one can spot numerous decrees that were characteristic of the anti-Jcwish process, such as definition-writing, special taxes, marking, or movement restrictions. Insofar as killing was directed at non-THB PERPETRATORS 1065 Jews, die deed was carried out before and during the annihilation of the Jews, by the same means and often by the same personnel. Three broad categories of individuals were embraced in these destructive activities: (1) persons who were afflicted with diseases or disabilities, (2) those who were deemed threatening or dangerous by reason of their behavior, and (3) those who were members of targeted nationalities. The majority of the health-impaired victims were living in mental asylums. The euthanasia program, which claimed the lives of approximately 100,000 German adults and children, is the most conspicuous of the actions against institutionalized people. Essentially the wards were thinned out, and the decisive criterion for selection was the degree of the inmate’s impairment. It is in this operation that the gas chamber was first employed.22 In eastern regions, mainly on occupied Polish soil, German and Polish patients were gassed in prototype vans.23 Later, the Einsatzgruppen emptied out mental hospitals in the occupied USSR, shooting many thousands of Russians and Ukrainians.24 Some of these facilities were subsequendy used for German wounded. To be sure, there were problems, since the euthanasia victims were relatives of ordinary families. In addition, the operation caused fears about the possible inclusion of old people. In the Reich, these anxieties manifested themselves in private queries and, on one occasion, in a public sermon by Catholic Bishop Graf von Galen.25 In Poltava, Ukraine, Sonderkommando 4b displayed its sensitivity in these matters by making an “agreement” with the chief physician at the local showcase asylum to remove 565 incurable inmates for “liquidation” under the pretext of transferring them to an even better institution in Kharkov, and to release the 300 least disabled to their families.26 Mentally deficient children in Germany were starved to death in hunger wards. In Shumachi, Russia, a German army doctor decided that sixteen retarded Russian and Jewish children with eczema should be shot by the Security Police.27 Gauleiter Greiser of the Warthegau wanted to use the experienced (eingearbeiteten) members of the Sonderkommando 22. See Ernst Klee, “Euthanasie”tm NS-Staat (Frankfurt am Main, 1983). 23. Götz Aly, “Endlösung” (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), pp. 114-26. 24. Angelikc Ebbinghaus and Gerd Prcisslcr, “Die Ermordung psychisch kranker Menschen in der Sowjetunion,” in Götz AJy et al., eds Aussonderung und Tod (Berlin, 1985), pp. 75-107. 25. Text of the sermon in large extract, August 3, 1941, in Herbert Michaelis and Emst Schraeplcr, eds.. Das Dritte Reich, 26 vols. (Berlin, 1958), vol. 19, pp. 516-18. 26. RSHAIV-A-1, Operational and Situation Report USSR No. 135 (60 copies), November 19, 1941, NO-2832. 27. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational and Situation Report USSR No. 148 (65 copies), December 19, 1941, NO-2824. Shumachi, southwest of Roslavl, is a small town. REFLECTIONS at Rulmhof to liberate his Gau from 35,000 tubercular Poles. The suggestion was passed on to Hitler. After months had passed without a decision, Greiser was deeply disappointed. Alter all, Hitler had told him that he could deal with the Jews as he pleased.28 The tubercular Poles were spared, but thoughts about widening the circle of victims did not pass. As late as November 16, 1944, officials of the Justice Ministry turned their attention to the subject of ugliness. The summary of that conference states:29 During various visits to the penitentiaries, prisoners have always been observed who —because of their bodily characteristics — hardly deserve the designation human; they look like miscarriages of hell. Such prisoners should be photographed. It is planned that they too shall be eliminated. Crime and punishment are irrelevant. Only such photographs should be submitted that clearly show the deformity. Unlike the passive institutionalized victims, who were killed quietly or in secret, those whose conduct was deemed to pose a threat to German society were dealt with publicly. Dangerous persons in this sense could be Communists or other political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, habitual criminals, “asociáis” or “work-shy” individuals, and German homosexual men. It is primarily for this agglomerate of people that die concentration camp was created. Actions based on national or ethnic criteria were a much larger undertaking. Here the problem was not one of making a sharp distinction between a population as a whole and a specific group to be singled out for death or incarceration. Rather it was a task of setting up a veritable hierarchy of nations within Germany and its occupied territories, involving not tens or hundreds of thousands of individuals but millions and tens of millions. Many distinctions were made among these peoples and many consequences flowed from these distinctions. The most favored group were the Ethnic Germans, that is to say, people outside of Germany who were culturally German. After the outbreak of war, Ethnic Germans were invited to “return” to Germany from Baltic and other areas not occupied by German troops. Later, they were privileged in German-occupied territories. More than a few of divided ancestry and a bare knowledge of German were offered revocable German citizenship.30 The next highest category was called “Germanic”: 28. Greiser to Himmler, May 1, 1942, NO-246, and Greiser to Himmler, November 21, 1942, NO-249. 29. Generalstaatsanwalt (chief prosecutor) in Bamberg to Generalstaatsamvalt Helm in Munich, November 29, 1944, enclosing summary of conference held under the chairmanship of Minisrerialdirektor Engerton November 16, 1944, NG-1546. 30. See Diemut Majer, “Fremdvolkische” itn Dritten Reich (Boppard am Rhein, THE PERPETRATORS 1067 Norwegian, Danish, Dutch, and Flemish people.* 31 For those nationalities, ultimate Germanization was a distant objective. A larger group, which was neither publicly complimented nor openlv derided, occupied a broad middle ranging from Czechs, Frenchmen, and Walloons to Greeks and Serbs. The lower status of this aggregate of nations, which included the Italians after September 1943, is revealed in such German practices as hostage taking and reprisals. In the concentration camps, French and Italian inmates could barely hold their own above the bottom layer.32 The bottom included most eastern Europeans. Yet even in that region there were gradations: Estonians above Latvians, Latvians above Lithuanians, and all three above Ukrainians. Soviet prisoners of war of Baltic and Ukrainian nationalities were eligible for release,33 and both Balts and Ukrainians were recruited in the police battalions with pay in Reichsmark.34 Ukrainians, however, were exposed to the same privations as Byelorussians, Russians, and Poles in other respects, notably seizures of their harvests and forced labor in Germany.35 The population of Ukrainian cities in particular suffered from starvation.36 1993), pp. 215-22. Revocable citizenship was granted to some three million people. Report by Himmler’s Stabshauptamt with data as of December 1942, in Rolf-Dictcr Midler, Hitlers Ostkneg und die deutsche Siedlungspolitik (Frankfurt am Main, 1991), pp. 200-204. 31. A telling indication of the high status of men belonging to these nationalities was access to German women. They were the only ones to have the privilege. Czech workers in Germany had to have permission to marry Germans. The Polish, Russian, Byelorussian, Ukrainian, and Baltic laborers were prohibited from having sexual intercourse w'ith Germans. Instructions of the Gestapo (Staatspolizcilcitstclle) in Dresden, November 16, 1942, in Jochen August et al., Herrenmensch und Arbeitsvölker (Berlin, 1986), pp. 136-38. Later, such relations were explicitly forbidden also to Armenian, Georgian, North-Caucasian, Kalmyk, Cossack, Turkcstani, and Tatar holders of “stateless passports.” RSHAIV-B circular to Security Police offices, July 25, 1944, Staatsarchiv Leipzig, Collection Polizeipräsident Leipzig V 4000. 32. Wolfgang Sofsky, Die Ordnung des Terrors (Frankfurt am Main, 1993), p. 150. 33. OKW directive of September 8, 1941, in Michaelis and Schraepler, cds., Das Dritte Reich, vol. 17, pp. 333-37. 34. Order by Dalucge, November 6, 1941, T 454, Roll 100. Balts also received supplemental pay (the Baltenzulage). Order by KdS/Ia in Lithuania, Lithuanian State Archives, Fond 659, Opis 1, Folder 1. 35. On forced labor in the Reich and differentiations among these laborers by nationality, see Ulrich Herbert, Fremdarbeiter (Berlin, 1986). For a single revealing document, note the instructions of the Staatspolizcilcitstclle Dresden, November 16, 1942, in August, Herrenmensch, pp. 136-38. Polish laborers were marked w ith a P. Decree of March 8, 1940, RGBl 1,555. Workers from the occupied USSR (including the Galician and Bialystok districts) wore a patch with the inscription Ost. Herbert, Fremdarbeiter, pp. 154-56. 36. See the mayor of Kiev to the German Stadrkommissar, December 1941, in J. I. REFLECTIONS The Poles were singled out in special ways. From the incorporated territories, which included lands that had belonged to Imperial Germany before 1919, a portion of the Polish inhabitants were expelled to the Generalgouvernement and much of their property was confiscated.37 After the expulsions were discontinued, the Poles who were left in the region remained in Nazi consciousness. An interministerial conference under the chairmanship of Staatssekretrar Conti of the Interior Ministry' entertained the following proposals: (1) no Pole to be allowed to marry' before the age of twenty-five, (2) no permission to be granted unless the marriage was financially sound, (3) a tax on illegitimate births, (4) sterilization following an illegitimate birth, (5) no tax exemptions for dependents, and (6) permission to submit to abortion to be granted upon application of the expectant mother.38 German plans for the Generalgouvernement were somewhat more vacuous, but in May 1943 an official of the Warsaw District administration, Gollert, permitted himself some thoughts about the future. He rejected plenary solutions, such as the Germanization of all fifteen million Poles in his area, or their total expulsion, or the “radical cure” of their “eradication,” a measure that he regarded as “unworthy” of a civilized nation. Instead he proposed in a “magnanimous” manner the Germanization of seven or eight million, plus the employment in manual labor of several million more, and the “unavoidable” application of radical measures against a remainder of two or three million Polish fanatics, asocials, and ailing or worthless people.39 At various times Ukrainians, Poles, Byelorussians, and Russians believed they would be killed. In the case of the Roma and Sinti, who are commonly referred to as Gypsies, that engulfment became a reality'. A small scattered people, the Gypsies had a language and customs but no religion of their own.40 They had been viewed with suspicion in Germany Kondufor et al., cds., Die Geschichte warnt (Kiev, 1986), p. 77, and Professor Siosnovy (Kharkov municipality) ro Dr. Martin of the German military' administration, September 28, 1942, Kharkov Oblast Archives, Fond 2982, Opis 4, Folder 390a. 37. See the statistics as of the end of 1942 in the report of Himmler's Srabshaupt-amt, in Miiller, Hitlers Ostkriqj, pp. 200-204. The figure of expulsions comprises 365,000 Poles from incorporated territories ro the Generalgouvernement, 295,000 persons from Alsace-Lorraine and Luxembourg to France, and 17,000 Slovenes to Serbia. 38. Reich Chancellery memorandum, Mav 27, 1941, NG-844. 39. lext in Susanne Heim and Görz Aly, eds., Bmilkerunflsstruktur und Massenmord (RcrWn, 1991), pp. 145-51. 40. Joachim S. Hohmann, Geschichte der Zujeunerverfolpung in Deutschlattd (Frankfurt, 1981), pp. 13-84. The origin of the Gypsies, now determined to be India, was the subject of treatises for hundreds of years. One seventeenth-century' writer, Johann Christof Wagenseil, wrote an essay to prove that “the very first Gypsies were Jews THE PERPETRATORS for some time, and in 1899 the Munich police began to track nomadic Gypsies in Bavaria. Fingerprinting of Gypsies was introduced by Bavaria in 1911, and in 1929 the Gypsy information office of the Munich police became the Central Office for Combatting Gypsies under the German Criminal Commission.41 During the Nazi period in the 1930s Gypsy families moving in caravans were concentrated in small urban camps,42 and by 1938 sizable groups were incarcerated in concentration camps, where they were categorized as “asocial.”43 On December 8,1938, Himmler issued a circular order for “combatting the Gypsy plague,” empowering the Criminal Police to identify, upon investigation by race experts, all Gypsies, Gypsy Mischlinge, and persons wandering about in a Gypsy-like manner.44 It turned out that of an estimated 30,000 persons with Gypsy ancestry in the Old Reich and Austria, fewer than 10 percent were pure Gypsies.45 who stemmed from Germany.” Sec his Der Meister-Singer Holdseligen Kunst (1697), introduction. In the eighteenth century they were linked to Jews, beggars, and vagabonds. Sec a contemporary German drawing in Wolfgang Ayass et al., Feinderklärung und Prävention (Berlin, 1988), p. 10. 41. Hans-Joachim Döring, Die Zigeuner im nationalsozialistischen Staat (Hamburg, 1964), pp. 25-31. Döring’s book was published in a scries of the Deutsche Kriminologische Gesellschaft, an organization concerned with criminology'. Two comprehensive studies of German actions against the Gypsies are Michael Zimmermann, Rassenutopie und Genozid—Die nationalsozialistische “Lösung der Zigeunerfrage ” (Hamburg, 1996) and Guenter Lcwy, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies (New York, 2000). 42. Michael Zimmermann, “Von der Diskriminierung zum ‘Familicnlagcr’ Auschwitz—Die Nationalsozialistische Zigcuncrvcrfolgung” Dachauer Hefte 5 (1994): 87-104, on pp. 90-94. 43. Ibid., p. 96. Döring, Die Zigeuner, pp. 50-58. Romani Rose and Walter Weiss, Sinti und Roma im Dritten Reich (Göttingen and Heidelberg, 1991), pp. 16, 28,40, 172. Sec also the categorization of the 371 Gypsies in Sachsenhausen as of November 10, 1938, in Nationale Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen Archive R 201, Mappe 3 (Gcfangcnen-Geld- und Effcktcnvcrwaltcr). On November 11, 1939, the RSHA ordered that Gypsy fortune teller women, who were considered dangerous to morale in wartime, be placed in concentration camps. Zimmermann, “Diskriminierung” Dachauer Hefte 5 (1994): 101. On June 18, 1940, Nebc informed his offices that Gypsies would no longer be released from concentration camps. Staatsarchiv Leipzig, Collection Polizeipräsident Leipzig S 2327. 44. Circular Decree by Himmler, December 8, 1938, Ministerialblatt des Retcbs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Innern, 1938, p. 2105. Investigations of ancestry and personal characteristics were conducted by the Rassenhygienische Forschungs-stclle of the Gesundheitsamt. H. Küppers, “Die Beschäftigung von Zigeunern’' Reichsarbeitsblatt, vol. 5, March 25, 1942, p. 177, reprinted in Die Juden frage (Vertrauliche Beilage), April 15,1942, pp. 30-31. 45. See the article by Robert Ritter (Chief of the Rassenhygienische Forschungs-srcllc), “Die Bestandaufnahme der Zigeuner und Zigeunermischlinge in Deutsch-REFLECTIONS The Criminal Police labeled diese individuals Z (Zigeuner). Gypsy Mischlinge of predominandy Gypsy origin were ZM + , and those with equal Gypsy and German “bloodshares” (such as offspring of half-Gypsies) ZM. Anyone descended from a pure Gypsy and a pure German became a ZM of the first degree. A quarter-Gypsy was classified as a ZM of the second degree. Gypsy ancestry of less than one-quarter resulted in the classification ZM —. Roving Germans received the letters NZ, for Nicht Zigeuner, or non-Gypsies.* 46 All pure Gypsies and Gypsy Mischlinge, except the ZM —, were subjected to special wage and tax regulations.47 In May 1940, about 2,800 Gypsies from a large region in western Germany were deported to the Generalgouvernement, lest they become a danger as spies in a war zone.48 Some deportees were employed in forced labor near the Bug.49 50 Many were assigned to dilapidated buildings that had once housed Jews.so Close to 8,000 Roma Gypsies lived in the Austrian Burgenland. Half of them were concentrated in a camp at Lackenbach, where typhus raged earlv in 1942.51 In November 1941, 5,000 Burgenland Gypsies, including 2,000 from Lackenbach, were transported to the Lodz Ghetto. There, 613 succumbed to typhus by January 1, 1942. Most of the remainder were gassed in Kulmhof shortly thereafter.52 land,” in Der öffentliche Gesundheitsdietist, vol. 6, February 5, 1941, pp. 477-89. On the Austrian Gypsies, see Selma Steinmerz, “Die Verfolgung der burgcnländischen Zigeuner,” with appended dixuments, in Tilman Ziilich, In Auschwitz vergast, bis heute verfolgt (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1979), pp. 112-30. 46. Circular Decree by Himmler, August 7, 1941, Ministerialblatt des Reichs- und Preussischen Ministeriums des Innern, 1941, p. 1443. 47. Küppers, “Beschäftigung,” Reichsarbeitsblatt, vol. 5, p. 177. Döring, Die Zigeuner, pp. 135-38. 48. Hcydrich letter to Kriminalpolizcileitstcllcn in Hamburg, Bremen, Hannover, Düsseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, and Stuttgart, April 27, 1940, and his directive to the same offices on the same date, T 175, Roll 413. Gypsies in mixed marriages, those with fathers or sons in the army, and a few other categories were exempt. Sec also correspondence. May 1940, of the Kriminalpolizcistellc Darmstadt, and railroad bills, ibid. The final count of 2,800 is taken from a compilation prepared by the Security Police for Mav 14-Novcmbcr 15, 1940, NO-5150. 49. Personnel record of Hermann Dolp, Berlin Document Center. 50. Ursula Korber, “Die Wiedergutmachung und die ‘Zigeuner,’ ” in Grirz Alv, cd., Feinderklarutg und Pmvetttton (Berlin, 1988), pp. 167-68, 172-73. Döring, Die Zigeuner, pp. 96-106. Philip Friedman, Roads to Kxtmctiim (New York, 1980), p. 385. 51. Steinmerz, “Die Verfolgung der burgenländischen Zigeuner,” in Zülich, In Auschuntz ingast, pp. 115-17. Zimmermann, Rassenutopie, pp. 225-26. 52. Antoni Galinski, “Nazi Camp for Gypsies in Lodz,” Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, International Scientific Session on Nazi Genocide in Poland, Warsaw, April 14-17, 1983. Mortality statistics in Lucjan Dobroszveki, The Chronicle of the Ijidz Ghetto, 1941-1944 (New Haven. 1984), entry THE PERPETRATORS 1071 In the Protektorat, the Czechoslovak government had already adopted a Vagrant Gypsies Act in 1927, and had given the itinerant Gypsies an identity card different from those assigned to Czech citizens.53 On October 10, 1941, Heydrich decided that the Gypsies of Bohemia and Moravia were to be “evacuated.” He was thinking of the Commander of Einsatzgruppe A, Stahlecker, as their prospective host,54 but they were not deported before 1943, in conjunction with the mass transports of Gypsies from Germany. In the meantime, the Czech Gypsies were to be concentrated in two camps, Lety in Bohemia and Hodonin in Moravia. In each, one barrack was to be set aside for men over fourteen, another for women over fourteen, and a third for children. Eventually, additional uninsulated barracks were added, and some of the inmates were left in their wagons, without the wheels and the horses.55 Toward the end of 1942, Himmler decided that the pure Sinte Gypsies of the Old Reich were to be allowed to stay, subject to existing restrictions. Also privileged were “good Mischlinge,” intermarried Gypsies, the families of soldiers still serving in the army, and Gypsies with permanent addresses and steady employment. Those remaining in the Reich, excepting only the pure Gypsies and the good Mischlinge, were to be sterilized. All the others, in the main Sinte Mischlinge and Roma, were to be deported to Auschwitz.56 The Mischlinge were ranked below the pure Gypsies, because it was thought that the German ancestors of these people came from the lowest strata of society. Eventually, 22,000-23,000 Gypsies from the Old Reich, Austria, the Protektorat, Poland, Belgium-Northern France, and the Netherlands ar­ for January 1-5, 1942, pp. 107-8. There was a request for 120 skilled metal workers needed in Poznan. Labor Office in Poznan to Gcttovcrwaltung in Lodz, November 22, 1941, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 0.7007*01 (Gypsies in Austria). 53. Karl Holomek, “Reflection in Society on the Genocide of the Roma,” in International Scientific Conference, The Holocaust Phenomenon (Prague-Tcrezin, October 6-8,1999), pp. 23-28. 54. Summary of conference, held on October 10,1941, under the chairmanship of Heydrich and attended by Karl Hermann Frank, Eichmann, and SS officers stationed in the Protektorat, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 48.005 (Stare Archives of Prague selected documents), Roll 3. The concentration process is described by Holomek, The Holocaust Phenomenon, pp. 25-27. 55. Sec the order of the Gcncralkommandant of the Non-Uniformed (Czech) Protektorat Police (Criminal Police), September 30, 1942, and other documents in U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 07.013*01 (Prague, Gypsies). 56. Döring, Die Zigeuner, pp. 153-55, and text (without appended forms) of RSHA V-A-2 circular to Kriminalpolizeileitstellen, January 29, 1943, pp. 214-18. See also the memoir of a Gypsy in hiding: Alfred Lessing, Mein D'ben im Versteck (Düsseldorf, 1993). 1072 REFLECTIONS rived in Birkenau, where a special section, the so-called Zigeunerlager, was reserved for them. They were to be kept as families in these barracks indefinitely. Two transports aggregating about 2,700 Gypsies from the Bialvstok District were gassed shortly after arrival because of suspicions of typhus. More than 3,000 were transferred to other camps. Of the remainder, all but 2,897 died. The last group was killed in a gas chamber on August 2, 1944, and in October of that year, 800 were returned from Buchenwald to be gassed as well.57 The Gvpsies of other occupied territories also became victims. In Serbia, hundreds of Gypsies were shot in 1941.58 In Poland, about 1,000 Gypsies in the Warsaw District were tunneled through the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka.59 A similar number were shot in the southern parts of the Generalgouvernement.60 In Byelorussia, Gypsies encountered by military patrols in the countryside were to be shot.61 On December 4, 1941, Reichskommissar Lohse of the Ostland decided that Gypsies wandering about {umherirrende) be treated like the Jews.62 Many hundreds of sedentary Gypsies and refugees from Riga were concentrated in camps within the Daugavpils District and shot at the end of 1941.63 In Estonia, 243 57. A rural of 20,943 were registered in the camp. See the name list in the two volumes, paged consecutively, of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Cultural Centre of German Sintis and Roma in Heidelberg, Memorial Book—The Gypsies at Auschwitz-Birkenau (Birkenau, 1993). Also, Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse tm Konzentrationslager Ausclnvitz Birkenau 1939-1945 (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989), entries from February 26, 1943, through October 10, 1944, passim. 58. RSHA1V-A-1, Operational and Situation Report USSR No. 108 (50 copies), October 9, 1941, NO-3156. Turner to Feld- und Kreiskommandanturen, October 26, 1941, NOKW-802. 59. Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Staron, and Josef Kermisz, eds., The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czemiaktm’ (New York, 1979), pp. 346-47, 351,364-68, 375. 60. Stanislaw Zabierowski, “Die Ausrottung der Zigeuner in Südostpolen,” and Cczary (ablonski, “Extermination of Jews and Gypsies in Western Counties of the Radom District, 1939-1945,” International Session, Warsaw, April 14-17, 1983. 61. Order by Generalmajor von Bechtolsheim, October 10, 1941, and his order of November 24, 1941, reiterating command to shoot Gypsies in the countryside, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.002 (Belarus Central State Archives), Roll 2, Fond 378, Opis 1, Folder 698. 62. Trampcdach to Generalkommissar in Riga, August 24, 1942, enclosing Lohsc's directive of December 4, 1941, Latvian Central State Archives, Fond 69, Opis la. Folder 2. Arrest order by KdO Knecht (I-itvia) of January 27, 1942, affecting Gypsies without domicile and employment, in his letter to the SS and Police Ixadcr, March 11, 1942, ibid., Fond 83, Opis 119, Folder 1. 63. Petition ot Janis Petrovs (a Gypsy) to the Gebietskommissar in Daugavpils, November 21, 1941, and Gcbicrskommissar in Daugavpils to Generalkommissar/ He, February 26, 1942, reporting “dissolution” of the camp in Ludza at the end of December by Security Police. German Federal Archives, R 92/522. THE PERPETRATORS 1073 were shot in October 1942.64 Army Group Center ordered that Gypsies I who could not prove a domicile for two years be handed over to the I Security' Police.65 Einsatzgruppe D systematically killed the Gypsies on I the Crimean peninsula.66 ' The governments of several countries took anti-Gypsy measures that were similar to the German model. Vichy France interned almost 3,000 nomadic Gypsies in camps.67 Croatia and Romania initiated drastic actions against Gypsies in much the way they had acted against Jews. In Croatia, many thousands of Gypsies outside the Moslem region of Bosnia were rounded up in June 1942 and sent to Jasenovac, where the large majority perished.68 In April 1941, over 200,000 Gypsies lived in Romania’s reduced territory'. From this population, 11,441 nomads, 13,176 who were deemed dangerous, and 69 former prison inmates, were sent between May and September 1942 to Transnistria, where almost all were eventually concentrated in the Golta, Berezovka, and Oceakov districts. With little food or medical attention, the deportees—who included old people and many children, as well as young men and women —were exposed to starvation and typhus, even as more children were born. Dur-64. Jaan Viik of Estonian Security' Police B IV (Political Police) to OStuf. Bcrgmann of Einsatzkommando la, Section IV A (Communism), October 30, 1942, mentioning shooting on October 27, 1942, of Gypsies in Harku; and indictment before and judgment of a court in the Estonian SSR, 1961, mentioning killing of Gypsies by Estonian Security Police in 1943, in Raul Kruus, People Be Watchful (Tallinn, 1962), pp. 102,106-8, 146,148. 65. Military Government Ordinances (Militarvcrwaltungsanordnungcn) by Army Group Center, OQu VII, document Hccrcsgruppc Mitte 75858, located in the Federal Records Center, Alexandria, Va., in postwar years. See also the virtually identical instructions of Fcldkommandantur 551 in Gomel (signed Lt. Col. Laub), November 1, 1941, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.005 (Belarus State Archives of Gomel Oblast), Roll 1, Fond 1318, Opis 1, Folder 1. Further, the instructions for turning over Jews and Gypsies to the Security Police by the 339th Division/Ic, November 2, 1941, German Federal Archives at Freiburg, RH 26-339/5; a report by Secret Field Police Group 719 to Security Division 213, October 25, 1942, on the shooting of two small Gypsy groups southeast of Kharkov, Zcntralc Stclle Ludwigsburg, UdSSR 245a, pp. 437-48, and a report by Security Division 454/Ic (signed Obcrleutnant Gottschalk), December 6, 1942, on incarcerating a group of Gypsies in a Jewish camp, NOKW-2856. 66. For Crimean killing, see RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 150, January' 2,1942, NO-2834; Report No. 178, March 9,1942, NO-3241; Report No. 184, March 23, 1942, NO-3235; Report No. 190, April 8, 1942, NO-3359. For Einsatzgruppe B, sec Report No. 195, April 24,1942, NO-3277. 67. Denis Peschanski, Les tsipanes en France, 1939-1946 (Paris, 1994). In one camp the Gypsies were given ca. 1,400 calorics a day. Ibid., p. 64. French Gvpsics were not deported. 68. Karola Fings, Cordula Lissncr, and Frank Sparing, “. . . einziges Ijmii in dem Judenfrgge und Zigeutierfrage¿felosf' (Cologne, no date, probably 1993), pp. 17-27. 1074 REFLECTIONS ing this banishment, Gypsy deaths were roughly proportional to those ot the Romanian Jews who had preceded them to Transnistria.69 In the end, however, the Jews retained their special place. The most encompassing solution was reserved for them, and the parole '■'’all Jews” defined the nature of the entire racial hierarchy. THE OBSTACLES A destructive development unparalleled in history had surfaced in Nazi Germany. The bureaucratic network of an entire nation was involved in these operations, and its capabilities were being expanded by an atmosphere facilitating initiatives in offices at ever)' level. Destruction was brought to its logical, final conclusion, and even as this fate overtook the Jews, a veritable target series was established to engulf yet other groups. The German bureaucracy, however, did not always move with unencumbered ease. From time to time barriers appeared on the horizon and caused momentary pauses. Most of these stoppages were occasioned by those ordinary difficulties encountered by every bureaucracy in every administrative operation: procurement difficulties, shortages, mixups, misunderstandings, and all the other annoyances of the daily bureaucratic process. But some of the hesitations and interruptions were the products of extraordinary administrative and psychological obstacles. These blocks were peculiar to the destruction process alone, and they must therefore receive special attention. Administrative Problems The destruction of the Jews was not a gainful operation. It imposed a strain upon the administrative machine and its facilities. In a wider sense, it became a burden that rested upon Germanv as a whole. One of the most striking facts about the German apparatus was the sparsencss of its personnel, particularly in those regions outside the Reich where most of the victims had to be destroyed. Moreover, that limited manpower was preoccupied with a bewildering variety of administrative undertakings. Upon close examination, the machinery of destruction turns out to have been a loose organization of part-timers. There were at 69. Radu Ioanid, I be Holocaust in Romania (Chicago, 2000), pp. 225-37.1 am also indebted to the Romanian historian Viorel Achim for facts and insights regarding the Gypsies ousted from Old Romania. There is little information, however, about Gypsy deportees from Bessarabia and the relatively few who were native in Transnistria. A Jewish survivor ot the Vapniarka camp reports that he brought food to a camp housing Roma halt a mile away in December 1942. The Gypsies were barefoot and starving. He heard later that almost all had died of typhus. Nathan Simon, “. . . auf alien Vienn werdet iltrbinauskricchen* (Berlin, 1994), p. 81. THE PERPETRATORS 1075 most a handful of bureaucrats who could devote all their time to anti- < Jewish activities. These were the “experts” on Jewish affairs in the ministries, the mobile killing units of the Reich Security Main Office, the commanders of the killing centers. But even an expert like Eichmann had two jobs: the deportation of Jews and the resettlement of Ethnic Germans. The mobile killing units had to shoot Jews, Gypsies, commissars, and partisans alike, while a camp commander like Höss was host to an industrial complex next to his gas chambers. In the totality of the administrative process, the destruction of the Jews presented itself as an additional task to a bureaucratic machine that was already straining to fulfill the requirements of the battlefronts. One need think only of the railroads, which served as the principal means for transporting troops, munitions, supplies, and raw materials. Every day, available rolling stock had to be allocated, and congested routes assigned for trains urgently requested by military and industrial users.70 Notwithstanding these priorities, no Jew was left alive for lack of transport to a killing center. The German bureaucracy was not deterred by problems, never resorting to pretense, like the Italians, or token measures, like the Hungarians, or procrastination, like the Bulgarians. German administrators were driven to accomplishment. Unlike their collaborators, German decision makers never contented themselves with the minimum. They always did the maximum. Indeed there were moments when an agency’s eagerness to participate in the decision making led to bureaucratic competition and rivalry. Such a contest was in the offing when Unterstaatssekretär Luther concluded an agreement with the Reich Security Main Office to preserve the Foreign Office’s power to negotiate with Axis satellites on Jewish matters.71 Again, within the SS itself, a jealous struggle was waged between two technocrats of destruction, Obersturmbannführer Höss and Kriminalkommissar Wirth, over the replacement of carbon monoxide with Zyklon B in the death camps.72 We have observed this bureaucratic warfare also in the attempt of the judiciary to conserve its jurisdiction in Jewish affairs. When that attempt was finally given up, Justice Minister Thierack wrote 70. See statement by Fritz Schclp (in charge of Reichsbahn traffic division), February' 16,1966, Case Ganzenmüller, vol. VI, pp. 139-42, and letter by Schclp to prosecutor Uchmann, July 14, 1967, vol. XVIII, p. 31, insert pp. 3-17. For an exhaustive treatment of Germany’s wartime railroads, see Eugen Kreidler, Die Eisenbahnen int Machtbereich der Achsenmächte während des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Göttingen, 1975). 71. Memorandum by Luther (Foreign Office Inland division), August 2, 1942, NG-2586-J. 72. Interrogation of Höss, May 14,1946, NI-36. Statement by Gerstein (disinfection officer, WVHA), April 26, 1945, PS-1553. 1076 REFLECTIONS to his friend Bormann: “I intend to turn over criminal jurisdiction against Poles, Russians, Jews, and Gypsies to the Reichsfiihrer-SS. In doing so, I base mvself on the principle that the administration of justice can make only a small contribution to the extermination of these peoples.”73 This letter reveals an almost melancholy tone. The judiciary had done its utmost; it was no longer needed. The bureaucrats did not spare themselves, nor could they spare the economv. Just how expensive was the destruction of the Jews? What were the effects of this cost? Table 10-1 reveals the economic aspects of the operations. An analysis of the table reveals two important trends: with the progress of the destruction process, gains declined and expenditures tended to increase. Looking at the table horizontally, one discovers that in the preliminary phase financial gains, public or private, far outweighed expenses but that in the killing phase receipts no longer balanced losses. The German confiscations during the second half of the process were largely confined to personal belongings. Within Germany itself most of the assets had already been taken. In occupied Polish and Soviet territories, the victims had few possessions from the start, while in the satellite countries, Jewish property abandoned by the deportees was claimed by collaborating governments. Costs, on the other hand, were more extensive. Only the visible outlays, particularly for deportations and killings, were comparatively small. Freight cars were used for transport. German personnel were employed sparingly, in both killing units and killing centers. The camps as a whole were constructed and maintained with thrift, notwithstanding Speer’s complaint that Himmler was using scarce building materials too extravagantly.74 The installations were erected with camp labor, and the inmates were housed in large barracks with no light and no modern toilet facilities. The investment in gas chambers and ovens was also modest. All of this economizing was possible because it did not jeopardize the process, either in scale or speed. Sheer savings, however, were not the decisive consideration. The paramount aim was the completion, in the fullest sense of the word, of the destruction process. A case in point was the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto ruins after the battle of April-May 1943. For this Himmler project the Finance Ministry received a bill in the amount of RM 150,000,000.75 Himmler felt that a park should obliterate the site of the ghetto, lest Warsaw's Poles fill the empty space and the city grow back to its prewar size. 73. Thicrack to Bormann, October 13, 1942, NG-558. 74. Speer to Himmler, April 5, 1943, Himmler Files, Folder 67. 75. On Warsaw Ghetto clearance operations and billing, see correspondence (1943-44), in Nuremberg documents NO-2503, NO-2517, NO-2205, NO-2504, NO-2515, and NG-5561. The project, not completed, was funded only in part. THE PERPETRATORS 1077 TABLE 10-1 THE ECONOMIC BALANCE SHEET RECEIPTS, GAINS, SAVINGS EXPENDITURES AND LOSSES PRELIMINARY PHASE Net profits to industry from pur­ Loss of markets abroad in consechase and liquidations of Jewish quence of buyers’ resistance and enterprises: ca. one-fourth to boycott one-half of value of Jewish busi­ Loss of scientific manpower ness property in Reich- because of emigration Protektorat area. These profits probably amounted to billions of Reichsmark. Tax on profits made in acquisitions of Jewish firms (during fiscal years 1942,1943,1944): 49.000. 000 Reichsmark Reich Flight Tax: 900,000,000 Reichsmark Reich Property Tax (fine): 1.127.000. 000 Reichsmark Wage differentials and other industry savings as result of employment of Jewish labor: probably in tens of millions Wage differentials, special income tax, and other wage savings accruing to Reich: probably in tens of millions Exactions from ghettos for Ger­ Direct expenditures for personnel man administration and walls and overhead (prior to killing phase) KILLING PHASE Confiscation under the 11 th Ordi- Direct expenditures for: nance (securities and bonds) : Personnel and overhead (in kill- 186,000,000 Reichsmark ing operations) Transport TABLE 10-1 CONTINUED RECEIPTS, GAINS, SAVINGS EXPENDITURES AND LOSSES KILLING PHASE Camp installations (in hundreds of millions) Confiscations under the 11th Or­ Extraordinary bill for razing of dinance (not including se­ Warsaw Ghetto: 150,000,000 curities and bonds): Reichsmark 592,000,000 Reichsmark Confiscations in German occupied Loss of unpaid rents and odier territories Jewish debts Exactions from Jewish commu­ Loss of Jewish labor nities in Reich by Gestapo for transports Gain of apartment space for rent Nutt: Arvanization differentials, Reich property tax, and confiscations under the 11th Ordinance are listed in a letter from Restverwaltunfi des chcmaliqen Rcicbsjinanzminis- tcriums to Allied Control Commission, November 14, 1946, NG-4904. The Reich Flight fax was extrapolated from figures of Jewish registered property and estimates of Jewish emigration. A more important assertion of total destruction was the forfeiture of the Jewish labor potential. Himmler never made any pretense that for him the destruction of the Jews had priority' even over armaments. When procurement officials objected to removals of Jewish workers, Himmler had only this reply: “The argument of war production, which nowadays in Germany is the favorite reason for opposing anything at all, I do not recognize in the first place.”"6 In the measured language of the Ministry for Eastern Occupied Territories, the priority of the destruction process was phrased as follows: “Economic questions should not be considered in the solution of the Jewish question.”77 The loss of Jewish labor was brought about by successive restrictions, dislocations, and deportations. From the beginning, Jew's were dismissed from jobs. In the East the Jewish population in its entirety w'as crowded 76. Himmler to UebellvxT, October 10, 1941, Himmler Files, Folder 94. 77. Rraungam (Ministry for Hasrcm Occupied Territories) to Reichskommissar of rheOstland, December 18, 1941, PS-3663. THE PERPETRATORS into ghettos. There the incarcerated communities were engaged in pro- I duction, but the ghetto was not an ideal place for major manufacturing. ! Its industry' was undercapitalized, its residents underemployed, its laborers undernourished. Once the killings were under way, the SS itself attempted to husband Jewish workers in its camps, but eventually that remnant was to disappear as well. Germany was at war. The economies of the occupied countries were harnessed to German needs. Foreign goods were demanded for the German market even as foreign workers were transported to German factories and farms. In the wake of these expanding requirements for output and in the face of the growing shortage of labor, a reservoir of Jewish manpower was sacrificed to the “Final Solution.” Of all the costs that were generated by' the destruction process, this relinquishment of an increasingly irreplaceable pool of labor was the greatest single expenditure.78 Psychological Problems The most important problems of the destruction process were not administrative but psychological. The sheer conceptualization of the drastic Final Solution was dependent on the ability of the perpetrators to cope with weighty psychological obstacles and impediments. The psychological blocks differed from the administrative difficulties in one important respect. An administrative problem could be solved and eliminated, but the psychological difficulties had to be dealt with continuously. They were held in check but never removed. Commanders in the field were ever watchful for symptoms of psychological disintegration. In the summer of 1941 Higher SS and Police Leader Russia Center von dem Bach shook Himmler with the remark: “Look at the eyes of the men of this Kommando, how deeply shaken they are. These men are finished [fertig] for the rest of their lives. What kind of followers are we training here? Either neurotics or savages [Entweder Nervenkranke oder Rohlinjje] !”79 Von dem Bach was not only an important participant in killing operations. He was also an acute observer. With this remark he pointed to the 78. In three years (1941-43) production in the Reich was ca. 400 billion Reichsmark, in occupied countries ca. 300 billion. About 260 billion of German output was war production; 90 billion was the comparable figure in occupied areas. Testimony by Economy Minister Funk, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XIII, 129-30. On European-wide labor recruitment, sec the summary of a conference held on January 4, 1944, and letter of German Labor Plenipotentiary' Sauckcl to Lammcrs on the following day, PS-1292. For specific data about foreign laborers in the Reich, sec Edward Homze, Foreign Labor in Nazi Germany (Princeton, N.J., 1967), and Ulrich Herbert, Fremdarbeiter (Berlin, 1985). 79. Von dem Bach in Aufbau (New York), August 23,1946, pp. 1 -2. REFLECTIONS basic psychological problem of the German bureaucracy, namely that the German administration had to make determined efforts to prevent the breakdown of its men into either “savages” or “neurotics.” This was essentially a dual task, one part disciplinan', the other moral. The disciplinan' problem was understood clearly. The bureaucrats were fullv aware of the dangers of plundering, torture, orgies, and atrocities. Such behavior was first of all wasteful from an administrative point of view , for the destruction process was an organized undertaking which had room only for organized tasks. Moreover, “excesses” attracted attention to aspects of the destruction process that had to remain secret. Such were the activities of Brigadefiihrer Dirlewanger, whose rumored attempts to make human soap drew' the attention of the public to the killing centers. Indeed, atrocities could bring the entire “noble” work into disrepute. What was wasteful administratively was dangerous psychologically. Loose behavior w'as an abuse of the machine, and a debauched administration could disintegrate. That was why the German administration had a certain preference for quick, blow-type {schlajjartijje) action. Maximum destructive effect was to be achieved w ith minimum destructive effort. The personnel of the machinery of destruction were not supposed to look to the right or to the left. They w'ere not allowed to have either personal motives or personal gains. An elaborate discipline was introduced into the machine of destruction. The first and most important rule of conduct of this discipline was the principle that all Jewish property belonged to the Reich. So far as Himmler was concerned, the enforcement of this rule was a success. In 1943 he told his Gruppenfiihrer: The riches which they [the Jews] owned we have taken from them. I have given strict orders, w'hich Obergruppenflihrer Pohl has carried out, that this wealth should naturally [selbstvcrstandlicb] be delivered to the Reich. We have taken nothing. Individuals w ho have transgressed are being punished in accordance w'ith an order which I gave in the beginning and which threatened that anyone who takes just one mark is a condemned man. A number of SS men, not many, have transgressed against that order, and they will be condemned to death mercilessly. We had the moral right vis-a-vis our people to annihilate [umzubrinjjen ] this people which wanted to annihilate us. But w'e have no right to take a single fur, a single w'atch, a single mark, a single cigarette, or anything whatever. We don't want in the end, just because we have exterminated a germ, to be infected by that germ and die from it. I will not stand by while a slight infection forms. Whenever such an infected spot appears, we will burn it out. But on the w hole we can say that we have fulfilled THE PERPETRATORS this heavy task with love for our people, and we have not been damaged in the innermost of our being, our soul, our character.80 There is, of course, considerable evidence that more than a few individuals ‘"transgressed” against die discipline of the destruction process. No estimate can be formed of the extent to which transport Kommandos, killing units, the ghetto and killing center personnel, and even Kom- ' mando 1005 (the grave-destruction Kommando) filled their pockets with the belongings of the dead. Moreover, Himmler’s rule dealt only with unauthorized takings by participating personnel in the field. It did not deal with authorized distributions to the participants. The essence of corruption is to reward people on the basis of their proximity to the loot, and in the course of the destruction process many distributions were made to the closest participants. Examples, which are bountiful, include the Finance Ministry’s appropriation of fine furniture during the deportations of Jews from Germany; the distribution of better apartments to civil servants; the cuts taken by the railways, SS and Police, and postal service in the allocation of the furniture of the Dutch, Belgian, and French Jews; the “gifts” of watches and “Christmas presents” to SS men and their families. The destruction process had its own built-in handout system. Only unauthorized taking was forbidden. The second way in which the Germans sought to avoid damage to “the soul” was in the prohibition of unauthorized killings. A sharp line was drawn between killings pursuant to order and killings induced by desire. In the former case a man was thought to have overcome the “weaknesses” of “Christian morality”;81 in the latter case he was overcome by his own baseness. That was why in the occupied USSR both the army and the civil administration sought to restrain their personnel from joining the shooting parties at the killing sites. Perhaps the best illustration of the official attitude is to be found in an advisory opinion by a judge on Himmler’s Personal Staff, Obersturmbannführer Bender. Bender dealt with procedure to be followed in the case of unauthorized killings of Jews by SS personnel. He concluded that if purely political motives prompted the killing, if the act was an expression of idealism, no punishment was necessary unless the maintenance of order required disciplinary action or prosecution. However, if selfish, sadistic, or sexual motives were found, punishment was to be imposed for murder or for manslaughter, in accordance with the facts.82 Sometimes, the locus of authority had to be underscored. That is what 80. Speech by Himmler at Gruppenführer meeting at Poznan, October 4, 1943 PS-1919. 81. See Himmler to Milch (Air Force), November 13, 1942, PS-1617. 82. Memorandum by Bender, October 22, 1942, NO-1744. 1082 REFLECTIONS happened in a case brought against a German civilian before a German military court in Proskurov. The defendant was a supervisor in a roadbuilding project employing forced Jewish labor. On one occasion he remarked that exhausted Jews could be “bumped oft?’ When he noticed two verv weak Jewish women regularly lying down by the road, he motioned to his Polish foreman to move the two women and to do with them “as one might wish.” The Pole then instructed a Lithuanian guard to shoot them. The court did not see in the defendant’s behavior any characteristic that under German law would warrant a determination of incitement to murder. It could find no lust or other base motive, no attempt to cover up a felony by killing witnesses, no means that were dangerous to bystanders, no cunning, and no cruelty. It found him guilty, however, of arrogation of power. He could have reported the women to the SS, who would have taken care of the problem. Instead he had acted alone. What he had said to the Pole was a sufficiently clear expression of intent that in the nature of the situation could not have been interpreted in any other way. Accordingly the defendant received a sentence of three months.83 The German disciplinary system is most discernible in the mode of the killing operation. At the conclusion of the destruction process, Hitler remarked in his testament that the Jewish “criminals” had “atoned” for their “guilt” by “humane means.”84 The “humaneness” of the destruction process was an important factor in its success. It must be emphasized, of course, that this “humaneness” was evolved not for the benefit of the victims but for the welfare of the perpetrators. Time and again, attempts were made to reduce opportunities for “excesses” and Sclmeinenien of all sorts. Much research was expended for the development of devices and methtxls that arrested propensities for uncontrolled behavior and at the same time lightened the crushing psychological burden on the killers. The construction of gas vans and gas chambers, the employment of Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Latvian auxiliaries to kill Jewish women and children, the use of Jews for the burial and burning of bodies — all these were efforts in the same direction. Efficiency was the real aim of all that “humaneness.” 83. I.inicnchef, Organisation Todr Russland Sud/Kinsatz Durchgangsstrassc IV to O T Hmsatzgruppc Russland Siid/Gruppcnsrab — Nebcnstellc Vinnitsa, April 3, 1943, enclosing the opinion of the military court of Feldkommandantur 183 in the case of Johann Mcisslcin, March 12, 1943, Military History Institute, Prague, File OT (F.Gr VII) Ic/1, Karton 1. The court considered two factors as mitigating: dragging the women to work could lower efficiency, and the sight of women resting by the road could have encouraged malingering among other Jews. Professor Konrad Kw'iet discovered rhis document and it is used here through his courtesy. The Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft Battalion 7 w as assigned to Vinnitsa. 84. Hitler’s political testament, April 29, 1945, PS-3569. THE PERPETRATORS 1083 So far as Himmler was concerned, his SS and Police had weathered the \ destruction process. In October 1943, when he addressed his top com- \ manders, he said to diem: j Most of you know what it means when 100 corpses lie there, or 500 lie there, or 1,000 lie there. To have gone through this and —apart from the exceptions caused by human weakness — to have remained decent, that has hardened us. That is a page of glory in our history never written and never to be written.85 However, the descent into savagery was not nearly so important a factor in die destruction process as the feeling of growing uneasiness that pervaded the bureaucracy from the lowest strata to the highest. That uneasiness was the product of moral scruples that were the lingering effect of two thousand years of Western morality and ethics. A Western bureaucracy had never before faced such a chasm between moral precepts and administrative action; an administrative machine had never been burdened with such a drastic task. In a sense the task of destroying the Jews put the German bureaucracy to a supreme test. The German technocrats solved also this problem and went on with their work. That they did not stop themselves has a special significance, because they were not specially chosen men. In their moral makeup they cannot be differentiated from the rest of the population. The German perpetrator was not a different kind of German. What may be said about his morality applies to Germany as a whole, if only because the very nature of administrative planning, of the jurisdictional structure, and of the budgetary system precluded the special selection or special training of personnel for the specific purposes of destruction. Any member of the Order Police could be a guard at a ghetto. Every lawyer of the Reich Security Main Office was presumed to be suitable for service in a mobile killing unit. Any functionary in an appropriate office of the railways and any chemist of I. G. Farben could readily be stationed in Auschwitz. In other words, all necessary operations were accomplished with whatever personnel were at hand. However one may wish to draw the line of active participation, the machinery of destruction was a remarkable cross-section of the German population. Every profession, every skill, and ever)' social status was represented in it. In a totalitarian state the formation of an opposition movement outside the bureaucracy is next to impossible, but if there is very serious opposition in the population, if there are insurmountable psychological obstacles to a course of action, such impediments reveal themselves within the bureaucratic apparatus. They emerged clearly in the Italian Fascist state. Again and again the Italian generals and 85. Himmler speech, October 4,1943, PS-1919. REFLECTIONS consuls, prefects and police inspectors, refused to cooperate in the deportations. The destruction process in Italy and the Italian-controlled areas was carried out against their unremitting opposition. No such objection is to be found in the German area. No obstruction stopped the German machine of destruction. No moral problem proved insurmountable. When all participating personnel were put to the test, there were very few lingerers and almost no deserters. The old moral order did not break through anywhere along the line. This is a phenomenon of the greatest magnitude. How did the German bureaucrat cope with his moral inhibitions? He did so in an inner struggle, recognizing the basic truth that he had a choice. He knew that at crucial junctures every individual makes decisions, and that every decision is individual. He knew this fact as he faced his own involvement and while he went on and on. At the same time he was not psychically unarmed. When he wrestled with himself, he had at his disposal the most complex psychological tools fashioned during centuries of cultural development. Fundamentally, this arsenal of defenses consisted of two parts: a mechanism of repressions and a system of rationalizations. First of all, the bureaucracy wanted to cloak its deeds, to conceal them not only from all outsiders but also from the censuring gaze of its own conscience. The repression proceeded through five stages. As one might expea, ever)' effort was made to hide the ultimate aim of the destruction process from Axis partners and from the Jews. Inquiries such as Hungarian Prime Minister Kallay put to the Foreign Office about the disappearance of European Jewry86 or questions that foreign journalists in Kiev asked army authorities about mass shootings87 could obviously not be answered. Rumors, which could spread like wildfire, had to be smothered. Radio communications from the field containing “exact numerical reports about executions” were to be replaced by courier messages.88 “Plastic” evidence, such as “souvenir” photographs of killings, the mass graves, and the wounded Jews who had risen from graves, had to be destroyed. In Theresienstadt, a film was made for foreign audiences, featuring workshops, lectures, and a concert, while hiding the starvation and deaths of the ghetto.89 86. Memorandum hv Luther, October 6, 1942, NG-5086. 87. Report by Colonel Stolze (Armed Forces Intelligence), October 23, 1941, NOKW-3147. (The report was signed by General Lahousen.) 88. Police Regiment Center to its battalions, September 16, 1941, Military History Institute, Prague, File SS-Police Regiment A-3-1-7/4, Karton 1. 89. Karel Margry, '“Theresienstadt’ (1944-1945): The Nazi Propaganda Film Depicting the Concentration Camp as Paradise,’’ Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 12 (1992): 145-62. THE PERPETRATORS Despite such attempts, the annihilation of the Jews was becoming an open secret. As early as October 1941, a Viennese enterprise referred to deportation as causing “'more or less quick and certain doom.”w In 1942 a Berlin firm refused to assign to the Finance Ministry the pensions of Jewish employees who had been “shoved off?’ The remittances were not a Jewish property right that the Reich could claim for itself; they were assistance payments intended for beneficiaries, and in one case at issue diere was no indication that the pensioner was “still alive.1"'" Much later a Viennese court, tied to legal presumptions and procedures, could not manage to be so insightful. In May 1944 the RSHA complained to the Justice Ministry that the Landgericht in Vienna was making too many inquiries to elicit the whereabouts of deported Jews for the purpose of rendering decisions in proceedings involving proof of descent (Abstamm-ungsverfabren). The Landgericht had been told repeatedly, said the complaint, that no information could be given about deportees, but the court had persisted in making inquiries. Quite apart from the fact that the “Jews” (that is, the persons seeking clarification of their status) had been given plenty of time to clear questions about their descent, these people were only trying to hide their ancestry in order to remove themselves from the effect of “Security Police measures” (sicherheitspolizeiliche Massnahmen). For these reasons, and because of more pressing war work, the Security Police could not furnish replies.90 91 92 Thus the first stage in the repression was to shut off the supply of information from all those who did not have to know it. Whoever did not participate was not supposed to know. The second stage was to make sure that whoever knew would participate. There was nothing so irksome as the realization that someone was watching over one’s shoulder, that someone would be free to talk and accuse because he was not himself involved. This fear was the origin of what Ixo Alexander has called the “blood kit,”93 the irresistible force that drew every official “observer” into the destruction process. The “blood kit” explains why so many office chiefs of the Reich Security Main Office were assigned to mobile killing units and why staff officers with killing 90. Army Weapons Office to Armed Forces Office, October 22, 1941, enclosing letter by Brunner Vcrzinkcrci/Briidcr Boblick (Vienna) to Dr. G. von Hirschfeld (Berlin), October 14, 1941, Wi/1D.415. Document formerly in Federal Records Center, Alexandria, Va. 91. Berliner Handels-Gesellschaft (legal division) to Economy Group Private Banking/Ccntral Association of German Banks and Bankers, Julv 20, 1942, T 83, Roll 97. 92. RSHA to Justice Ministry, May 3, 1944, NG-900. 93. Leo Alexander, “War Crimes and Their Motivation,” Journal of Criminal lauernd Criminology 39 (September-Octobcr 1948): 298-326. REFLECTIONS units were ordered to participate in the killing operations.94 The “blood kit" also explains why Unterstaatssekretar Luther of the Foreign Office’s Abtcilung Deutschland insisted that the Political Division countersign all instructions to embassies and legations for the deportation of Jews.95 Finally, the “blood kit" explains the significant words spoken by Generalgouverneur Frank at the conclusion of a police conference in Krakow: “We want to remember that we are, all of us assembled here, on Mr. Roosevelt's war-criminals list. I have the honor of occupying first place on that list. We are therefore, so to speak, accomplices in a world-historical sense."96 97 The third stage in the process of repression was the prohibition of criticism. Public protests by outsiders were extremely rare. The criticisms were expressed, if at all, in mutterings on the rumor circuit. It is sometimes hard even to distinguish between expressions of sensationalism and real criticism, for often the two were mixed. One example of such mixed reactions is to be found in the circulation of rumors in Germany about the mobile killing operations in Russia. The Party Chancellery, in confidential instructions to its regional machinery, attempted to combat these rumors. Most of the reports, the Chancellery stated, were “distorted" and “exaggerated." “It is conceivable,” the circular continued, “that not all of our people, especially people who have no conception of the Bolshevik terror, can understand sufficiently the necessity for these measures." In their very nature, “these problems," which were sometimes “very difficult,” could be solved “in the interest of the security of our people" only with “ruthless severity."9'’ In all of Germany no one pitted himself publicly against the policy of destruction, save for one Catholic priest, Bernhard Lichtenberg, who prayed for the Jews in open serv ices at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral in Berlin. He prayed not only for baptized Jews but for all the Jewish victims. While in custody he declared that the position of the National Socialist state on the Jewish question contradicted the Christian duty to love one’s neighbor. Tliis man, declared the court, was not going to learn better; were he to remain free, he might even call upon his congregation to be disobedient to the state. Herein, the court concluded, lay a danger that was not to be underestimated. It sentenced him to two years in prison. Upon his 94. Report by General Lahousen’s deputy. Colonel Stolze, October 23, 1941, NOKW-3114. In an affidavit of March 17, 1948, Lahouscn named Stolze as the author of the report. NOKW-3230. 95. Affidavit by Karl Klingenfuss (Luther’s office), November 7, 1947, NG-3569. 96. Frank Diary, January 25, 1943, PS-2233. 97. Partv Chancellery, Vertrauliche Informationen (for Gau and Kreis offices only), October 9, 1942, PL-49. THE PERPETRATORS release the police picked him up, and Lichtenberg died on the way to a concentration camp.98 Within the bureaucracy there were a few more examples of criticism, though again it was very seldom outspoken protest. Of course, it was permissible to criticize measures from the viewpoint of German welfare. Much discussion took place about the Mischlinge and Jews in mixed marriages, that is, persons against whom action could not be taken without hurting Germans. A voluminous correspondence dealt with the adverse effects of anti-Jewish measures on the war effort. It was also permissible to mention the harmful psychological effects of killings on the perpetrators, but a sharp line was drawn between such criticisms and the implication that the destruction process itself was intrinsically wrong. A director of the Reichsbank, Wilhelm, overstepped the line when he cautioned his chief, Puhl, not to visit concentration camps and when he announced his refusal to participate in the distribution of Jewish belongings with the words: “The Reichsbank is not a dealer in second-hand goods.”99 Generalkommissar Kube of White Russia violated the injunction against moral condemnations by making accusations against the Commander of Security Police in White Russia, Strauch. Kube implied that Jews, at least those who had come from Germany (“from our own cultural level”), were human beings and that Strauch and his killers were maniacs and sadists who had satisfied their sexual lust during shootings. Strauch did not take kindly to such criticism. In a complaint against Kube he wrote that “it was regrettable that we, in addition to having to perform this nasty job, were also made the target of mudslinging.”100 In the Interior Ministry the expert on Jewish affairs, Ministerialrat Lösener, was disturbed by reports of killings that had occurred in Riga. He began to put questions to his chief, Staatssekretär Stuckart, and requested a transfer. After a while, a colleague asked Lösener to stop pestering the Staatssekretär, for Stuckart’s position was difficult enough.101 In the Grodno area of the semi-incorporated Bialystok District, the local Landrat was confronted with two expressions of disapproval. When a German forester received an emergency assignment ( Notdienstverpflicht- ung) to assist police in the deportation of the Jews of Marcinkance, sorne-98. Text of judgment of the special court in Berlin, May 22, 1942, in Bernd Schimmlcr, Recht ohne Gerechtigkeit (Berlin, 1983), pp. 32-39. Legationsrat Dr. Haidlcn (Foreign Office, Political Division) via Erdmannsdorff and Wörmann to Weizsäcker (Staatssekretär of the Foreign Office), November 11, 1941, NG-4447. Günter Wciscnbom, Der lautlose Aufetand (Hamburg, 1953), pp. 52-55. 99. Affidavit by Wilhelm, January 23,1948, NI-14462. 100. Kube to Lohsc (Rcichskommissar of the Osrland), December 16, 1941, Occ E 3-36. File memorandum by Strauch, July 20,1943, NO-4317. 101. Affidavit by Lösener, Februar)' 24, 1948, NG-1944-A. REFLECTIONS thing happened. The Gendarmerie fired into the panic-stricken crowd, killing 130 people, mainly women and children. All the remaining Jews, about 300 of them, including many of the young men, escaped to the forest. During the breakout, in which an assistant forester was hurt, Forstmeister Lehmann deserted his post alter firing two shots with his pistol into the air. In the correspondence generated by this incident Lehmann pointed out that the Jews were going to allow themselves to be transported without resistance before the senseless shooting began, and that as a forest official it was not his job to “shoot Jews to death.” The Landrat of Grodno, irked, replied that Lehmann had been the only one to take a position against the assignment, and that notably the members of the forest administration had helped out selflessly whenever they were needed.102 If the Landrat had to be somewhat restrained in his exchanges with Lehmann, he could act more freely against Miss Dzinuda, a German employee in Skidel. He charged her with having “no understanding” of the Jewish action. “You have kept a Jewess to perform chores in your household,” he wrote, “and then you have tried to hold on to her.” He went on to say, “You have even cried, and in defiance of police prohibitions you have given her something to take along.” For all of that, Miss Dzinuda was to go back to the Reich immediately.103 On the highest level the following story was told by Gauleiter Schirach’s secretary'. While Schirach’s wife was staying in a hotel in Amsterdam, she watched a roundup of Jews at night. The Jewish women “screamed terribly.” Mrs. Schirach’s nerves were so much on edge that she decided to tell her husband about it. The Gauleiter advised her to tell the story' to Hitler himself, since the Führer would not tolerate such “abuses” {Misstände). During their next visit to Hitler, Mrs. Schirach told the story. Hitler listened “ungraciously” interrupting several times and telling her not to be so sentimental. Every one present found the exchange between 102. Lehmann ro Kreiskommissar of Grodno (fondrat von Ploctz), complaining about the Gendarmerie, November 2, 1942, and subsequent exchanges, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.004 (Belarus State Archives of Grodno Oblast), Roll 1, Fond 1, Opis 1, Folder 59. According to postwar surv ivor testimony, Lehmann was subsequently captured in a train derailment by Jewish partisans, identified by a Marcinkance escapee as a participant in the roundup, and put ro death immediately. See Christopher Browning, Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (New York, 2000), p. 166. 103. Plexrz ro Gertrud Dzinuda, November 14, 1942, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.004 (Belarus Stare Archives of Grodno Oblast), Roll 3, Fond 1, Opis 1, Folder 277. See also the copy of a letter by Captain Osrcmiann, commander of VV'aldlager V, a satellite in the Mühldorf complex of Dachau, who ordered the arrest of an unnamed German woman who had distributed fruit rev a marching column of Jewish inmates despite an explicit warning of the guard that her act was impermissible. Osrcmiann to Landrat in Mühldorf, August 30,1944, T 580, Roll 32. THE PERPETRATORS Hitler and Mrs. Schirach “very embarrassing” (ausserstpemlich). The conversation broke down, no one spoke, and Mr. and Mrs. Schirach left the room. The Schirachs departed the next day without saying good-bye.104 In its fourth stage the repressive mechanism eliminated the destruction process as a subject of social conversation. Among the closest participants, it was considered bad form to talk about the killings. This is what Himmler had to say on the subject in his speech of October 4,1943: I want to mention here very candidly a particularly difficult chapter. Among us it should be mentioned once, quite openly, but in public we will never talk about it. Just as little as we hesitated on June 30,1934, to do our duty and to put comrades who had transgressed [the brown-shirts] to the wall, so little have we talked about it and will ever talk about it. It was with us, thank God, an inborn gift of tactfulness, that wc have never conversed about this matter, never spoken about it. Every one of us was horrified, and yet every one of us knew that we would do it again if it were ordered and if it were necessary. I am referring to the evacuation of the Jews, to the extermination of the Jewish people.105 This then was the reason why that particular “page of glory” was never to be written. There are some things that can be done only so long as they are not discussed, for once they are discussed they can no longer be done. Among those who were not quite so close to the killing operations the sensations of the destructive process were irresistible. The rumor network was spread all over Axis Europe. One Foreign Office official stationed in Rome mentions that he discussed details of the killings with at least thirty of his colleagues.106 But the urge to talk was not so deep in men who were heavily involved in the destructive process. Hoss, the Auschwitz commander, says that he never spoke about his job even to his wife. She found out about what he was doing because of an inadvertent remark by a family friend, Gauleiter Bracht.107 The Treblinka guard Hirtreiter never spoke of his task at all.108 The fifth and final stage in the process of repression was to omit mention of “killings” or “killing installations” even in the secret correspondence in which such operations had to be reported. The reader of 104. Affidavit by Maria Hopkcn, January 19, 1946, Schirach-3. Affiant was not a witness but claims that the identical story was told tea her on separate occasions by Schirach and his wife. 105. Himmler speech, October 4, 1943, PS-1919. 106. Affidavit by Ulrich Dortenbach, May 13, 1947, NG-1535. 107. Testimony by Hoss, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XI, 396-411. 108. “Ein Wachmann von Treblinka,” ¥rankfurtcr Zatutui, November 11, 1950, P-3-REFLECTIONS these reports is immediately struck by their camouflaged vocabulary': Endlösung der Judenfrage (“final solution of the Jewish question”), Lösungsmöglichkeiten (“solution possibilities”), Sonderbehandlung or SB (“special treatment”), Evakuierung (“evacuation”), Aussiedlung (same), Umsiedlung (same), Spezialeinrichtungen (“special installations”), durchgeschleusst (“dragged through”), and many others. There is one report that contains a crude cover story'. In 1943 the Foreign Office inquired whether it would be possible to exchange 30,000 Baltic and White Russian Jews for Reich Germans in Allied countries. The Foreign Office representative in Riga replied that he had discussed the matter with the Security' Police commander in charge. The Commander of Security' Police had felt that the “interned” Jews could not be sent awav for “weighty Security' Police reasons.” As was known ( bekanntlich), a large number of Jews had been “done away with” in “spontaneous actions.” In some places these actions had resulted in “almost total extermination” {fast völlige Ausmerzung). A removal of the remaining Jews would therefore give rise to “anti-German atrocity' propaganda.”109 A particularly revealing example of disassociation may be found in a private letter written by a sergeant of the Rural Police to a police general. The sergeant, at the head of twenty-three German gendarmes and five hundred Ukrainian auxiliary' policemen, had killed masses of Jews in the Kamenets-Podolskv area. These are excerpts from his letter. Naturally we are cleaning up considerably', especially among the Jews. . . . I have a cozv apartment in a former children’s asylum. One bedroom and a living room with all of the accessories. Practically nothing is missing. Naturally, the wife and the children. You will understand me. Mv Dieter and the little Liese write often, after their fashion. One could weep sometimes. It is not gtxxl to be a friend of children as I was. I hope that the war, and with it the time of service in the East, s(X)n ends.110 The process of repression was continuous, but it was never completed. The killing of the Jews could not be hidden completely, either from the outside world or from the inner self. Therefore the bureaucracy' was not spared an open encounter with its conscience. It had to pit argument against argument and philosophy against philosophy. Laboriously, and with great effort, the bureaucracy' had to justify' its activities. The attempt to rationalize the deed was two-pronged. One line of contention was designed to show that all actions were countermeasures, 109. Windeckcr to Foreign Office, April 5, 1943, NG-2652. 110. Fritz Jacob to Rudolf Qucrner, May 5, 1942, NO-5654. THE PERPETRATORS that in essence they were defensive. This kind of explanation, furnished by an army of propagandists, was centered entirely on the Jews. The other approach, which was internal, offered reassurances to those who performed specific acts by virtue of their positions. Such words dealt only with the perpetrator himself. Yet, taken together, the two strategies were complementary, and each carried a set of exculpatory' themes. The open propaganda campaign was fashioned to portray the Jew as evil, and that message was formulated for long-range effect. The allegation was repeated often enough so that it could be stored in the mind and drawn upon according to need. Thus the statement “The Jew is evil,” taken from the storehouse, could be converted by a perpetrator into a complete rationalization: “I kill the Jew because the Jew is evil.” To understand the function of such formulations is to realize why they were being constructed until the very end of the war. Propaganda was needed to combat doubts and guilt feelings wherever they arose, whether inside or outside the bureaucracy, and whenever they surfaced, before or after an event. In fact, we find that in April 1943, after the deportations of the Jews from die Reich had largely been completed, the press was ordered to deal with the Jewish question continuously and without letup.111 In order to build up a storehouse, the propaganda had to be turned out on a large scale. “Research institutes” were formed,112 doctoral dissertations were written,113 and volumes of propaganda literature were printed by every' conceivable agency. Sometimes a scholarly investigation was conducted too assiduously. One economic study, rich in the common jargon but uncommonly balanced in content, appeared in Vienna with the notation “Not in the book trade.” The author had discovered that the zenith of Jewish financial power had been reached in 1913.114 On the other hand, the publication of more suitable literature could even lead to bureaucratic competition. Thus Unterstaatssekretär Luther of the Foreign Office had to assure Obergruppenführer Berger of the SS Main Office that the Foreign Office’s pamphlet Das russische Tor ist aufgestossen (Die Russian Gate Is Thrown Open) in no way competed with Berger’s masterpiece Der Untermensch (The Subhuman).115 111. Instructions by Reich Press Chief, April 29, 1943, NG-4705. 112. Notably the Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage in Frankfurt, under Dr. Klaus Schickcrt. Stcengracht to Rosenberg, January 22,1944, NG-1689. 113. Dr. Hans Praescnt, “Neuere deutsche Doktorarbeiten überdas Judcnnim,” Die Judenfrage, November 15, 1943, pp. 351-53. 114. Wolfgang Höfler, Untersuchungen über die Machtstellung der Juden w dtr Weltwirtschaft. Vol. 1, England und das Vomationalsozialistche Deutschland (Vienna, 1944). 115. Luther to Berger, June 22, 1942, NG-3304. REFLECTIONS What did all this propaganda accomplish? How was the Jew portrayed in this unending flow of leaflets and pamphlets, books, and speeches? How did the propaganda image of the Jew serve to justify the destruction process? First of all, the Germans drew a picture of an international Jewry ruling the world and plotting the destruction of Germany and German life. “If international-finance Jewry,” said Adolf Hitler in 1939, “inside and outside of Europe should succeed in plunging the nations into another world war, then the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and with it the victor)' of the Jews, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”116 In 1944 Himmler said to his commanders: “This was the most frightening order which an organization could receive, the order to solve the Jewish question,” but if the Jews had still been in the rear, the front line could not have been held, and if any of the commanders were moved to pit)’, thev had only to think of the bombing terror, “which after all is organized in the last analysis bv the Jews.”117 118 The theory of world Jewish rule and of the incessant Jewish plot against the German people penetrated into all offices. It became interwoven with foreign policy and sometimes led to preposterous results. Tims the conviction grew that foreign statesmen who were not very friendly tow ard Germany were Jews, part-Jews, married to Jew's, or somehow dominated by Jews. Streicher did not hesitate to state publicly1 18 that he had it on good Italian authority that the Pope had Jewish blood. Similarly, Staatssekretar Weizsiicker of the Foreign Office once questioned the British charge d’affaires about the percentage of “Aryan” bltxxl in Mr. Rublee, an American on a mission in behalf of refugees.119 Tli is type of reasoning was also applied in reverse. If a power was friend-Iv, it was believed to be free of Jew'ish rule. In March 1940, after Ribbentrop had succeeded in establishing friendly relations with Russia, he assured Mussolini and Ciano that Stalin had given up the idea of world revolution. The Soviet administration had been purged of Jew's. Even Kaganovich (the Jewish Politburo member) looked rather like a Georgian.120 116. Hitler speech, January' 30, 1939, German press. 117. Himmler speech, June 21, 1944, NG-4977. 118. Memorandum by Ribbcnrrop, November 18,1939, on the Italian protest in the Streicher affair. Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945, Ser. D, IV, 524-25. The pontiff in question was the “temperamental Pope,” Pius XI, not the “diplomatic Pope,” Pius XII. 119. Weizsäcker to Wörmann, trade and legal divisions, Referat Deutschland (Aschmann), November 7, 1938, NG-4686. The British diplomat replied that he didn’t think Rublee had any Jewish blood. 120. Summary of conference between Ribbcnrrop, Mussolini, and Ciano, May 10, 1940, PS-2835. THE PERPETRATORS The claim of Jewish world rule was to be established irrefutably in a show trial. Toward the end of 1941 the Propaganda Ministry, the Foreign Office, and the Justice Ministry laid plans for the trial of Herschel Grynzpan, the man who had assassinated a German embassy official (vom Rath) in Paris in 1938.121 The trial was to prove that Grynzpan’s deed was part of a “fundamental plan by international Jewry to drive the world into a war with National Socialist Germany,”122 but it was never held because the Justice Ministry in its eagerness had made the fatal mistake of adding homosexuality to the indictment. At the last moment it was feared that Grynzpan might reveal “the alleged homosexual relations of Gesandtschaftsrat vom Rath.” And so the whole scheme was dropped.123 When Germany began to lose the war in Stalingrad, the propaganda machine sought to make up in sheer volume of endless repetition for the “proof” it had failed to obtain in the ill-fated Grynzpan trial. The Jew was now the principal foe, the creator of capitalism and communism, the sinister force behind the entire Allied war effort, the organizer of the “terror raids,” and, finally, the all-powerful enemy capable of wiping Germany off the map. By February 5,1943, the press had to be cautioned not to “over-estimate the power of the Jews.”124 On the same day, however, the following instructions were issued: Stress: If we lose this war, we do not fall into the hands of some other states but will all be annihilated by world Jewry. Jewry firmly decided [fest entschlossen\ to exterminate all Germans. International law and international custom will be no protection against the Jewish will for total annihilation [totaler Vemichtunßsmlle derJuden].125 The idea of a Jewish conspiracy was also employed to justify specific operations. Thus the Foreign Office pressed for deportations from Axis countries on the ground that the Jews were a security risk.126 The Jews 121. Ministerialrat Diewerge (Propaganda Ministry') to Gesandter Dr. Krümmer (Foreign Office), December 22, 1941, NG-971. Krümmer to Foreign Office press division, January 2, 1942, NG-971. Summary of international conference, January 23, 1942, NG-973. Rjntelcn to Weizsäcker, April 5, 1942, NG-179. Krümmer via Luther to Weizsäcker, April 7, 1942, NG-179. Schlcgclbergcr to Goebbels, April 10,1942, NG-973. Memorandum by Diewerge, April 11,1942, NG-971. 122. Rintclen to Weizsäcker, quoting Ribbentrop’s views, April 2,1942, NG-179. 123. Summary' of Grynzpan conference, January 23, 1942, NG-973. Louis P. Lochncr, cd., The Goebbels Diaries (Garden City', N.Y., 1948), entries for February 11 and April 5,1942, pp. 78, 161. Grynzpan was kept “on ice.” In 1957 he was reported living quietly in Paris. Kurt R. Grossman, “Herschel Grucnspan lebt!” Aufinm (New York), May 10, 1957, pp. 1, 5-6. He was not found. 124. Zeitschriften Dienst (Propaganda Ministry), February 5,1943, NG-4715. 125. Deutscher Wochetulienst, February' 5, 1943, NG-4714. 126. Summary' of Mussolini-Ribbcntrop conference, held on February 25, 1943, REFLECTIONS were the spies, the enemy agents. They could not be permitted to stay in coastal areas because, in the event of Allied landings, they would attack the defending garrisons from the rear. The Jews were inciters of revolt; that was why they had to be deported from Slovakia in 1944. The Jews were the organizers of the partisan war, the ’■' middlemen” between the Red Army and die partisan field command; diat was why they could not be permitted to remain alive in partisan-threatened areas. The Jews were the saboteurs and assassins; that was why the army chose them as hostages in Russia, Serbia, and France.127 The Jews were plotting the destruction of Germany; and that was why they had to be destroyed. In Himmler’s words: “We had the moral right vis-ä-vis our people to annihilate this people which wanted to annihilate us.” In the minds of the perpetrators, therefore, this theory could turn the destruction process into a kind of preventive war. The Jews were portrayed not only as a world conspiracy but also as a criminal people. This is the definition of the Jews as furnished in instructions to the German press: Stress: In the case of the Jews there are not merely a few criminals (as in even' other people), but all of Jewry rose from criminal roots, and in its very nature it is criminal. The Jews are no people like other people, but a pseudo-people welded together by hereditary' criminality [eine zu einem Scheinvolk zusammetiqeschlossene Erbkriminalität]. . . . The annihilation of Jewry is no loss to humanity, but just as useful as capital punishment or protective custody against other criminals.128 129 And this is what Streicher had to say: “Look at the path which the Jewish people lias traversed for millennia: Everywhere murder; evervwhere mass murder!”120 A Nazi researcher, Helmut Schramm, collected all the legends of Jewish ritual murder.130 The book was an immediate success with Himmler. “Of the txx)k The Jewish Ritual Murders," he wrote to Kaltenbrunner, “I have ordered a large number. I am distributing it down to Standartenführer (SS colonel]. I am sending you several hundred copies so that you and dated Fcbniary 27, 1943, D-734. Vccscnmayer (German Minister in Hungary) via Ambassador Ritter to Ribbenrrop, July 6, 1944, NG-5684. 127. Military Commander in Armvansk to Army Rear Area Commander 533/ Quartermaster, in Simferopol, November 30, 1941, NOKW-1532. Staatsrat Turner (Serbia) to Higher SS and Poliee leader in Danzig, Hildcbrandt, October 17, 1941, NO-5810. Military Commander in France (von Stulpnagel) to High Command of the Army/Quartermaster General, December 5, 1941, NG-3571. 128. DrutsdnT Wochendienst, April 2, 1944, NG-4713. 129. Speech by Stretcher in Nuremberg, September 1939, M-4. 130. Helmut Schramm, Der judiscbe Ritualmoni — tine historische Untcrsudmnq (Berlin, 1943). THE PERPETRATORS can distribute them to your Einsatzkommandos, and above all to the men who are busy with the Jewish question.”131 The Jewish Ritual Murders was a collection of stories about alleged tortures of Christian children. Actually, hundreds of thousands of Jewish children were being killed in the destruction process. Perhaps that is why The Jewish Ritual Murders became so important. In fact, Himmler was so enthusiastic about the book that he ordered Kaltenbrunner to start investigations of “ritual murders” in Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria. He also suggested that Securin' Police people be put to work tracing British court records and police descriptions of missing children, “so that we can report in our radio broadcasts to England that in the town of XY a child is missing and that it is probably another case of Jewish ritual murder.”132 133 How the notion of Jewish criminality was applied in practice may be seen in the choice of some of the expressions in die reports of killing operations, such as the term execution (in German, hingerichtet, exekutiert, Vollzugstdtigkeit). In correspondence dealing with the administration of the personal belongings taken from dead Jews, the SS used the cover designation “utilization of the property of the Jewish thieves [Verwertung desjüdischen Hehler undDiebesgutes\Vxl1 A striking example of how the theory invaded German thinking is furnished in the format of portions of two reports by the army’s Secret Field Police in occupied Russia:134 Punishable offenses by members of the population Espionage 1 Theft of ammunition 1 Suspected Jews (Judenverdacht) 3 Punishable offenses by members of the population Moving about with arms ( Freischdrlerei) 11 Theft 2 Jews 2 In the culmination of this theory, to be a Jew was a punishable offense (strafbare Hand lung). Thus it was the function of the rationalization of criminality to turn the destruction process into a kind of judicial proceeding. 131. Himmler to Kaltenbrunner, May 19, 1943, NG-4589. 132. Ibid. 133. August Frank (WVHA) to Chief of Standortvcrwaltung Lublin and Chief of Administration Auschwitz, September 26, 1942, NO-724. 134. Secret Field Police Group 722 to 207th Securin' Division/lntelligence, February 23, 1943, NOKW-2210. Group 722 to 207th Securin' Division/lntelligence, March 25, 1943, NOKW-2158. The division was located in northern Russia and Estonia. REFLECTIONS A third rationalization that focused on the Jew was the conception of Jewry as a lower form of life. Generalgouverneur Frank was given to the use of such phrases as “Jews and lice.” In a speech delivered on December 19, 1940, he pointed out that relatives of military personnel surely were sympathizing with men stationed in Poland, a country “which is so full of lice and Jews.” But the situation was not so bad, he continued, though of course he could not rid the country of lice and Jews in a year.135 On July 19,1943, the chiefof the Generalgouvernement Health Division reported during a meeting that the typhus epidemic was subsiding. Frank remarked in this connection that the “removal” {Beseitigung) of the “Jewish element” had undoubtedly contributed to better health ( Gesundung) in Europe. He meant this not only in the literal sense but also politically: the reestablishment of sound living conditions {gesunder Lebensverhältnisse) on the European continent.136 In a similar vein, Foreign Office Press Chief Schmidt once declared during a visit to Slovakia, “The Jewish question is no question of humanity, and it is no question of religion; it is solelv a question of political hygiene [eine Frage der politischen Hygiene].”137 In the terminology of the killing operations, the conception of Jews as vermin is again quite noticeable. Dr. Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, called the pogroms conducted by the Lithuanians “selfcleansing actions” ( Selbstreinigungsaktionen). In another report we find the phrase “cleansing-of-Jews actions” {Judensäuberungsaktionen). Himmler spoke of “extermination” {Ausrottung). Many times the bureaucracy used the word Fntjudung. This expression, which was used not only in connection with killings but also with reference to Aryanization of property, means to rid something ofJen>s.liH One of the most frequently applied terms in this vocabulary was judenrein, which means clean of Jews. Finally, it should be noted that at the spur of the moment a German fumigation company, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schädlingsbekämpfung, was drawn into the killing operations by furnishing one of its lethal products for the gassing of a million Jews. Thus the destruction process was also turned into a “cleansing operation.” In addition to the formulations that were used to justify the whole undertaking as a war against “international Jewry',” as a judicial proceeding against “Jewish criminality,” or simply as a “hygienic” process against “Jewish vermin,” there were also rationalizations fashioned in order to 1 AS. Speech bv Frank to men of guard battalion, December 19, 1940, Frank Dian, PS-2233 136. Summary of Generalgouvernement health conference, July 9, 1943, Frank Diary, PS-2233. 137. ¡'Sonauzatntui (Belgrade), July 3, 1943, p. 3. 138. Compare Entlausung (ridding of lice) and Entwesung (ridding of vermin, or fumigation). THE PE&PBTRATOB.S 1097 enable the individual bureaucrat to justify his individual task in the destruction process. It must be kept in mind that most of the participants v did not fire rifles at Jewish children or pour gas into gas chambers. A g< >od I many, of course, also had to perform these very' “hard” tasks, but most of the administrators and most of the clerks did not see the final, drastic link in these measures of destruction. Most bureaucrats composed memoranda, drew up blueprints, signed correspondence, talked on the telephone, and participated in conferences. They could destroy a whole people by sitting at their desks. Except for inspection tours, which were not obligatory, they never had to see “100 bodies lie there, or 500, or 1,000.” However, these men were not naive. They realized the connection between their paperwork and the heaps of corpses in the East, and they also realized the shortcomings of arguments that placed all evil on the Jew and all good on the German. That was why they were compelled to defend their individual activities. Their justifications contain the implicit admission that the paperwork was to go on regardless of the actual plans of world Jewry and regardless of the actual behavior of the Jews who were about to be killed. The rationalizations focused on the perpetrators can be divided into five categories. The oldest, the simplest, and therefore the most effective device was the doctrine of superior orders. First and foremost there was discipline. First and foremost there was duty. No matter what objections there might be, orders were given to be obeyed. A clear order was like absolution. Armed with such an order, a perpetrator felt that he could pass his responsibility and his conscience upward. When Himmler addressed a killing party in Minsk, he told his men that they need not worry. Their conscience was in no way impaired, for they were soldiers who had to carry' out every order unconditionally.139 The reality was more complex. Even in the field it was sometimes possible to refuse participation in a shooting without suffering dire consequences, especially if the objection could be perceived as an expression of a psychological inability rather than an undisguised challenge. Once, when members of the 2d Lithuanian Schutzmannschaft Battalion who had just arrived in Byelorussia were ordered to shoot Jews in the town of Rudensk, a young man said that he could not kill the people. The Lithuanian company commander then suggested that all those who could not shoot step back. Fifteen or seventeen men accepted this offer and watched the shooting by their compatriots from a distance of 20 to 30 yards.140 In 139. Von dem Bach in Aufbau (New York) August 23, 1946, pp. 1-2. 140. Deposition of Martynus Kaciulis, August 16, 1982, in United Stares v. Jurgis, U.S. District Court in Tampa, C.A. No. 81-1013-CIV-T-H. The deponent was an eyewitness. The officer was 1st Lieutenant Kristaponis, Commander of 2d C ompany. The battalion commander was Major Impulevicius. REFLECTIONS the Lublin District, the commander of the 101st Reserve Police Battalion, Major Trapp, went further. Full of qualms himself, he invited the older men who could not shoot women and children to step out.141 142 143 In both cases the choice had been given to men without experience in such killing, and both of these units were involved in subsequent shooting with less hesitation.I4-As to those who occupied desks, flexibility was greater. Opportunities for evading instructions almost always increase as one ascends in the hierarchy. Even in Nazi Germany orders were disobeyed, and they were disobeyed even in Jewish matters. We have mentioned the statement of Reichsbankdirektor Wilhelm, who would not participate in the distribution of “second-hand goods.” Nothing happened to him. A member of the Reich Security Main Office, Sturmbannführer Hartl, simply refused to take over an Einsatzkommando in Russia. Nothing happened to this man either .i4i Even Generalkommissar Kube, who had actually frustrated a killing operation in Minsk and who had otherwise expressed himself in strong language, was only warned. The bureaucrat clung to his orders not so much because he feared his superior (with whom he was often on good terms) but because he shrank from his own conscience. The many requests for “authorization,” whether for permission to mark Jews with a star or to kill them, demonstrate the true nature of these orders. When they did not exist the bureaucrats had to invent them. The second rationalization was the administrator’s insistence that he did not act our of personal vindictiveness. In the mind of the bureaucrat, duty was an assigned path; it was his “fate.” The German bureaucrat made a sharp distinction between duty and personal feelings. He insisted that he did not “hate” Jews, and sometimes he even went out of his way to perform “good deeds” for Jewish friends and acquaintances. When the trials of war criminals started, there was hardly a defendant who could nor produce evidence that he had helped some half-Jewish physics professor, or that he had used his influence to permit a Jewish symphony conductor to conduct a little while longer, or that he had intervened on behalf of some couple in mixed marriage in connection with an apartment. While these courtesies were petty in comparison with the destructive conceptions that these men were implementing concurrently, the “good deeds” performed an important psychological function. They separated “duty” 141. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men (New York, 1992), notably pp. 1 -77, 191. 142. Bor other examples ot refusals, sec David Kirterman, “Those Who Said ‘No,’ ” ( ierman Studies Renew 11 (1988): 243-54. 143. Affidavit by Albert Hartl, October 9,1947, NO-5384. THE PERPETRATORS from personal feelings. They preserved a sense of '■‘'decency'.” The destroyer of the Jews was no ‘■‘■anti-Semite.” Staatssekretär Keppler of the Office of the Four-Year Plan was interrogated after the war as follows: question [by Dr. Kempner of the prosecuting staff]: Tell me, Mr. Keppler, why were you so terribly against the Jews? Did you know the Jews? answer: I had nothing against the Jews. question : I am asking for the reason. You were no friend of the Jews? answer: Jews came to me. Warburg invited me. Later Jews looked me up in the Reich Chancellery and asked me to join the board of directors of the Deutsche Bank. question: When were you supposed to join the board of directors? answer: I didn’t want to; it was in 1934, they wanted to give me a written assurance that I would be a director in half a year. If I had been such a hater of Jews, they would not have approached me. questi o n : But you transferred capital from Jews into Aryan hands. answer: Not often. I know the one case of Simson-Suhl. Also the Skoda-Wetzler Works in Vienna. But it turned out that was no Jewish enterprise. Keppler was then asked whether he had not favored the “disappearance” of the Jews from Germany. The Staatssekretär fell back on Warburg, with whom he had once had an “interesting discussion.” The interrogator broke in with the remark that “now we do not want to talk about anti-Semitism but about the final solution of the Jewish question.” In that connection, Keppler was asked whether he had heard of Lublin. The Staatssekretär admitted hesitandy that he had heard of Lublin and offered the explanation that he was “deeply touched by this matter [dass mich das furchtbar peinlich berührt].” What did Keppler do when he was touched like this? “It was very unpleasant for me, but after all it was not even in my sphere of jurisdiction.”144 Another defendant in a war crimes trial, the former commander in Norway, Generaloberst von Falkenhorst, offered the following explanations for his order to remove Jews from Soviet prisoner-of-war battalions in his area. Von Falkenhorst pointed out that, to begin with, there were no Jews among these prisoners, for the selection had already' taken place in Germany (i.e., the Jewish prisoners had already been shot as they were shutded through the Reich). The order was consequently “entirely super­ 144. Interrogation by Kcmpncr of Keppler, August 20,1947, NG-3041. REFLECTIONS fluous and might just as well not have been included. It was thoughtlessly included by the officer of my staff who was working on it, from the instructions sent to us, and I overlooked it.” The general then continued: For the rest it may be inferred from this that the Jewish question played as infamous a part in Norway as elsewhere, and that I and the Army w ere supposed to have been particularly anti-Semitic. Against this suspicion I can only adduce the following: First, that in Scandinavian countries there are only very few Jews. These few are hardly ever in evidence. The sum total in Norway was only about 350. [Actual figure, 2,000.] A negligible number among two or three million Norwegians. These [Jews] were collected by [Reichskommissar] Terboven and according to orders despatched to Germany by steamship. In this manner the Jewish problem in Norway was practically solved [i.e., by deportation to Auschw itz]. As regards myself, I made at this time an application to Terboven at the request of the Swedish Consul, General Westring, in Oslo, who did not much like visiting Terboven, for the release of a Jew' of Sw edish nationality and of his family w'ith permission to leave the country, gladly and, as a matter of course, fulfilling the Consul’s w'ish to facilitate the return of these people to Stockholm. If I had been a rabid anti-Semite I could, without further ado, have refused this request, for the matter did not concern me in the slightest. On the one hand, however, I wanted to help the Swedish Consul, and, on the other hand, I have nothing against the Jew's. I have read and heard their writings and compositions with interest, and their achievements in the field of science are worthy of the highest respect. I have met many fine and honorable people among them.,4S How' widespread the practice of “good deeds” must have been may be gauged from the following remark by Heinrich Himmler: “And then they come, our 80,000,000 good Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. It is clear, the others are swine [Schweitie], but this one is a first-class Jew'. Of all those who speak thus, no one has seen it, no one has gone through it.”14* But even if Himmler regarded these interventions as expressions of misplaced humanity, they w'ere necessary tools in the attempt to crystallize one of the important justifications for bureaucratic action — duty. Only after a man had done “everything humanly possible” could he devote himself to his destructive activity' in peace. The third justification was the rationalization that one’s ow'n activity was not criminal, that the next fellow’s action was the criminal act. The 145 146 145. Affidavit by von Falkcnhorst, July 6, 1946, in Trial of Nikolaus von Falkenlwrst (I^ondon, 1949), p. 25. 146. Speech by Himmler, October 4, 1943, PS-1919. THE PERPETRATORS 1101 Ministerialrat who was signing papers could console himself with the ^ thought that he did not do the shooting. But that was not enough. He ti had to be sure that if he were ordered to shoot, he would not follow I orders but would draw the line right then and there. ] The following exchange took place during a war crimes trial. A Foreign | Office official, Albrecht von Kessel, was asked by defense counsel (Dr. Becker) to explain the meaning of “Final Solution.” answer: This expression “final solution” was used with various meanings. In 1936 “final solution” meant merely that all Jews should leave Germany. And, of course, it was true that they were to be robbed; that wasn’t very nice, but it wasn’t criminal. judge maguire: Was that an accurate translation? dr. becker: I did not check on the translation. Please repeat die sentence. answer: I said it was not criminal; it was not nice, but it was not criminal. That is what I said. One didn’t want to take their life; one merely wanted to take money away from them. That was all.147 The most important characteristic of this dividing line was that it could be shifted when the need arose. To illustrate: Once there was a Protestant pastor by the name of Ernst Biberstein. After several years of ministering to his congregation, he moved into the Church Ministry. From that agency he came to another office which was also interested in church matters: the Reich Security Main Office. That agency assigned him to head a local Gestapo office. Finally he became the chief of Einsatzkommando 6 in southern Russia. As commander of the Kommando, Biberstein killed two or three thousand persons. These people, in his opinion, had forfeited the right to live under the rules of war. Asked if there were Jews among the victims, he replied: “It is very difficult to determine that. Also, I was told at that time that wherever there were Armenians, there were not so many Jews.”148 To Biberstein the moral dividing line was like the receding horizon. He walked toward it, but he could never reach it. Among the participants in the destruction process there were very' few who did not shift the line when they had to cross the threshold. One reason why the person of Generalkommissar Kube is so important is that he had a firm line beyond which he could not pass. The line was arbitrary, and very advanced. He sacrificed Russian Jews and fought desperately only for the German Jews in his area. But the line was fixed. It was not movable, it was not imaginary, it was not self-deceptive. The destruction process was autonomous, in that it could not be stopped internally. The 147. Testimony by Albrecht von Kessel, Case No. 11, tr. pp. 9514-15. 148. Interrogation of Biberstein, June 29, 1947, NO-4997. 1102 REFLECTIONS adjustable moral standard was one of the principal tools in the maintenance of this autonomy. There was a fourth rationalization that implicitly took cognizance of the fact that all shifting lines are unreal. It was built on a simple premise: No man alone can build a bridge and no man alone can destroy the Jews. The participant in the destruction process was always in company. Among his superiors he could always find those who were doing more than he; among his subordinates he could always find those who were ready to take his place. No matter where he kx>ked, he was one among thousands. His own importance was diminished, and he felt that he was replaceable, perhaps even dispensable. In such reflective moments, the perpetrator quieted his conscience with the thought that he was part of a tide and that there was very little a drop of water could do in such a wave. Ernst Göx, who served in the Order Police and who rode the trains to Auschwitz, was one of those who felt helpless. “I was always a socialist,” he said, “and my father belonged to the Socialist Part)' for fifty years. When we talked with each other — which was often — I always said that if there was still justice, things could not go on like that much longer.”149 When Werner von Tippelskirch, a Foreign Office official, was interrogated after the war, he pointed out that he had never protested against the killing of Jews in Russia because he had been “powerless.” His superiors, ErdmannsdorfF, Wormann, and Weizsäcker, had also been “powerless.” All of them had waited for a “change of regime.” Asked by Prosecutor Kempner whether it was right to wait for a change of regime “and in the meantime send thousands of people to their death,” von Tippelskirch replied, “A difficult question.”150 For Staatssekretär von Weizsäcker himself the question of what he could have done was circular. If he had had influence he would have stopped measures altogether. But the “if” presupposed a fairyland. In such a land he would not have had to use his influence.151 The fifth rationalization was the most sophisticated of all. It was also a last-ditch psychological defense, suited particularly to those who saw through the self-deception of superior orders, impersonal duty, the shifting moral standard, and the argument of powerlessness. It was a conclusion also for those whose drastic activity or high position placed them out of reach of orders, duty, moral dividing lines, and helplessness. It was the jungle theory. 149. Sratemcnr bv Gbx, April 6, 1972. I^andcsgericht, Vienna, Case Novak, file 1416/16, vol. 18,pp. 330-32. 150. Interrogation ofTippelskirch by Kempner, August 29, 1947, NG-2801. 1 5 1 . Note by Ernst von Weizsàcker in his diarv, following May 23, 1948, in Ixonidas E. Hill, Die Wetzsàtker-Paptere 1933-1950 (Vienna and Frankfurt am Main, 1974), p. 42S. THE PERPETRATORS Oswald Spengler once explained this postulate in the following words: “War is the primeval policy of all living things, and this to the extent that in the deepest sense combat and life are identical, for when the will to fight is extinguished, so is life itself?’152 Himmler remembered this idea when he addressed the mobile killing personnel at Minsk. He told them to look at nature. Wherever they would look, they would find combat. They would find it among animals and among plants. Whoever tired of the fight went under.153 154 From this philosophy Hitler himself drew strength in moments of meditation. Once, at the dinner table, when he thought about the destruction of the Jews, he remarked with stark simplicity: “One must not have mercy with people who are determined by fate to perish [Man durj'e kein Mitleid mit Leuten haben, denen das Schicksal bestimmt babe, zugrunde zu gehen]?^4 THE VICTIMS The Germans overcame their administrative and psychological obstacles. They surmounted the problems of the bureaucratic machine. But the internal technocratic and moral conflicts do not fully explain what happened. In a destruction process the perpetrators do not play the only role; the process is shaped by the victims too. It is the interaction of perpetrators and victims that is “fate.” One must therefore examine the reactions of the Jewish community and analyze the role of the Jews in their own destruction. When confronted by force, a group can react in one or more of five ways: by resistance, by an attempt to alleviate or nullify the threat (the undoing reaction), by evasion, by paralysis, or by compliance. These responses may be measured, each in turn. The reaction pattern of the Jews is characterized by almost complete lack of resistance. In marked contrast to German propaganda, the documentary evidence of Jewish resistance, overt or submerged, is very slight. On a European-wide scale the Jews had no resistance organization, no blueprint for armed action, no plan even for psychological warfare. They were completely unprepared. In the words of Anti-Partisan Chief and 152. Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Munich, 1923), vol. 1, pp. 545-46. 153. Von dem Bach in Auföau (New York) August 23,1946, pp. 1-2. 154. Henry Picker, cd., Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier 1941-W42 (Bonn, 1951), entry for April 2,1942, p. 227. The entries arc summaries by Pickerot “Hitler’s remarks at the dinner table.” 1104 REFLECTIONS Higher SS and Police Leader Russia Center von dem Bach, who observed Jews and killed them from 1941 to the end: Thus the misfortunate came about. ... I am the only living witness but I must say the truth. Contrary to the opinion ol the National Socialists that the Jews were a highly organized group, the appalling tact was that they had no organization whatsoever. The mass of the Jewish people were taken completely by surprise. They did not know at all what to do; they had no directives or slogans as to how they should act. That is the greatest lie of anti-Semitism because it gives the lie to the slogan that the Jews are conspiring to dominate the world and that they are so highly organized. In reality they had no organization of their own at all, not even an information service. If they had had some sort of organization, these people could have been sav ed by the millions; but instead they were taken completely by surprise. Never before has a people gone as unsuspectingly to its disaster. Nothing was prepared. Absolutely nothing. It was not so, as the anti-Semites say, that thev were friendly to the Soviets. That is the most appalling misconception of all. The Jews in the old Poland, who were never communistic in their sympathies, were, throughout the area of the Bug eastward, more afraid of Bolshevism than of the Nazis. This was insanity. They could have been sav ed. There were people among them who had much to lose, business people; they didn’t want to leave. In addition there was love of home and their experience with pogroms in Russia. After the first anti-Jevvish actions of the Germans, they thought now the wave was over and so they walked back to their undoing.1 The Jews were not oriented toward resistance. Even those who contemplated a resort to arms were given pause by the thought that for the limited success of a handful, the multitude would sutler the consequences.2 3 Outbreaks of resistance were consequently infrequent, and almost always they were local occurrences that transpired at the last moment. Measured in German casualties, Jewish armed opposition shrinks into insignificance. The most important engagement was fought in the Warsaw Ghetto (fourteen dead and eighty-five wounded on the German side, including collaborators).·' Following the breakout from the Sobi-1. Von dem Bach made this statement to Leo Alexander, who quoted it in his article “War Crimes and Their Motivation,” journal of Criminal Ijiw and Crimitwlwiy 39 (Scptcmbcr-October 1948): 298-326, at p. 315. 2. Diary of Hmmanucl Ringelblum (Warsaw), entry of June 17, 1942, in Tad Vashem Studies 7 (1968): 178. 3. Stroop (SS and Police Leader in Warsaw) to Krüger (Higher SS and Police Ijcadcr in Generalgouvernement), May 16, 1943, PS-1061. THE VICTIMS bor camp, there was a count of nine SS men killed, one missing, one wounded, and two Ethnic Germans killed.4 In Galicia sporadic resistance resulted in losses also to SS and Police Leader Katzmann (eight dead, twelve wounded).5 In addition, there were clashes between Jewish partisans and German forces in other parts of the East, and occasional acts of resistance by small groups and individuals in ghettos and killing centers. It is doubtful that the Germans and their collaborators lost more than a few hundred men, dead and wounded, in the course of the destruction process. The number of men who dropped out because of disease, nervous breakdowns, or court martial proceedings was probably greater. The Jewish resistance effort could not seriously impede or retard the progress of destructive operations. The Germans brushed that resistance aside as a minor obstacle, and in the totality of the destruction process it was of no consequence. The second reaction was an attempt to avert the full force of German measures. The most common means of pursuing this aim were written and oral appeals. By pleading with the oppressor, the Jews sought to transfer the struggle from a physical to an intellectual and moral plane. If only the fate of the Jews could be resolved with arguments rather than with physical resources and physical combat, so Jewry reasoned, there would be nothing to fear. A petition by Rabbi Kaplan to French Commissioner Xavier Vallat reflects this Jewish mentality. Among other things, the rabbi pointed out that a pagan or an atheist had the right to defame Judaism, but in the case of a Christian, did not such an attitude appear “spiritually illogical as well as ungrateful?” To prove his point, Kaplan supplied many learned quotations.6 The letter reads as though it were not written in the twentieth century. It is reminiscent of the time toward the close of the Middle Ages when Jewish rabbis used to dispute with representatives of the Church over the relative merits of the two religions. Yet, in various forms, some more eloquent than others, the Jews appealed and petitioned wherever and whenever the threat of concentration and deportation struck them: in the Reich, in Poland, in Russia, in France, in the Balkan countries, and in Hungary.7 Everywhere the Jews 4. Report of Order Police in Lublin District, October 15,1943, in Jüdisches Historisches Institut Warschau, Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord, 2d cd. (East Berlin, 1961), p. 565. 5. Katzmann (SS and Police Leader in Galicia) to Krüger, June 30,1943, L-18. 6. Kaplan to Vallat, July 31, 1941, American Jewish Year Book, 43 (1945-46): 113— 16. 7. An example of a petition by an individual is a letter by an elderly woman, Fanny Steiner, to the Mayor of Frankfurt. Kommission zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden, Dokumente zur Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden 1933-1945 (Frankfurt am Main, 1963), pp. 516-17. A letter on behalf of an individual is that of Isra-REFLECTIONS pitted words against rifles, dialectics against force, and almost everywhere they lost. Petitioning was an established tradition, familiar to every Jewish household, and in times of great upheaval many a common man composed his own appeal. Ghettoization curtailed this independent activity, as individual Jew s no longer had regular access to “supervisory authorities.” Families exposed to particular privations were now dependent on Jewish councils or other Jewish institutions for immediate relief. The councils in turn became the representatives of the community vis-a-vis the perpetrator. They carefully formulated statements and addressed them to appropriate offices. In satellite countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, the Jewish leadership would probe for weaknesses or sympathy at the highest levels of government; at that, the eventual outcomes of Jewish representations to these unstable rulers hinged on the evolving fortunes of war.* 8 In German-occupied Salonika, Rabbi Koretz “tearfully” asked Greek puppet officials to intercede with the German overlords, lest die 2,000-year-old community of that city be totally “liquidated.”9 His was a lost cause. In the ghettos of Poland, the Jew ish councils had few opportunities to approach any ranking administrator. The chairman of the Warsaw Jewish Council, Adam Czcrniakow, would make weekly rounds to see various German functionaries. He would outline his problems to them and occasionally he would ask them to transmit his requests to their superiors. At night he poured his frustrations into a diary.10 The ghetto councils in particular had to plead for what they needed, elowicz (liaison office of Union Generale des Israelites de France) to Security Police in Paris, Yad Vashem document O 9/5-la. The preoccupation of Jewish councils with appeals for categories of people or for an entire communin' is sometimes reflected in the records and correspondence of these councils. See also the discussion of “interventions” by Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe utider Nazi Occupation (New York, 1972), pp. 388-94. 8. Theodore Lavi (Loewenstein), “D, p. 40. 1110 REFLECTIONS property, publish German instructions, dig their own graves, and so on. A large component of the entire process depended on Jewish participation, from the simple acts of individuals to the organized activity in councils. Often the Jews were marshaled by the Germans directly. Word would come through ordinances, placards, or loudspeakers. In answer to summonses, lines would form or processions would march, almost without end. To some close observers of these scenes, the assembled crowds appeared to have lost all capacity for independent thought. Jewish resistance organizations attempting to reverse the mass inertia spoke the words: “Do not be led like sheep to slaughter.”20 Franz Stangl, who had commanded two death camps, was asked in a West German prison about his reaction to the Jewish victims. He said that only recently he had read a book about lemmings. It reminded him of Treblinka.21 Not all Jewish cooperation was purely reflexive observance of German instructions, nor was all of it the last act of emaciated, forsaken people. There was also an institutional compliance by Jew ish councils employing assistants and clerks, experts and specialists. During the concentration stage the councils conveyed German demands to the Jewish population and placed Jew ish resources into German hands, thereby increasing the leverage of the perpetrator in significant ways. The German administration did not have a special budget for destruction, and in the occupied countries it was not abundantly staffed. By and large, it did not finance ghetto walls, did not keep order in ghetto streets, and did not make up deportation lists. German supervisors turned to Jewish councils for information, money, labor, or police, and the councils provided them with these means every day of the week. The importance of this Jewish role was not overlooked by German control organs. On one occasion a German official emphatically urged that “the authority of the Jewish council be upheld and strengthened under all circumstances.”22 Members of the Jewish councils were genuine if not ahvays representative Jew ish leaders who strove to protect the Jew ish community from the most severe exactions and impositions and who tried to normalize Jewish 20. Proclamation of Jewish Battle Organization in Warsaw, January 27, 1943, Jüdisches Historisches Institut, Faschismus-Getto-Massenmord, p. 498; proclamation of United Anti-Fascist Organization in Rialystok, August 16, 1943, ibid., pp. 558-59. The phrase was the opening line of an appeal by the underground to the Jewish population in Vilna during the winter of 1941-42. Testimony by Abba Kovner, Fachmann trial transcript. May 4, 1961, scss. 27, pp. U1-U2. 21. C'utta Sercny, Into I bat Darkttess (New York, 1974), pp. 232-33. 22. Mohns (Deputy Chief of resettlement division, Warsaw District) to Leisr (Plenipotentiary for the Citv of Warsaw), January 11, 1941, Yad Vashem microfilm JM-1113. THE VICTIMS 1111 life under the most adverse conditions. Paradoxically, these very attributes were being exploited by the Germans against the Jewish victims. The fact that so many of the council members had roots in the Jewish community or had been identified from prewar days with its concerns gave them a dual status. They were officiating with the authorin' conferred upon them by the Germans but also with the authenticity they derived from Jewry. Day by day they were reliable agents in the eyes of the German perpetrators while still retaining the trust of Jews. The contradiction became sharper and sharper even as they kept on appealing, to the Germans for relief, to the Jews for acquiescence. Similarly, when the councils endeavored to obtain concessions, they made a subtle payment. Placing themselves into a situation of having to wait for German decisions, they increased not only their own subservience but also that of the entire community, which perforce was waiting as well. The councils could not subvert the continuing process of constriction and annihilation. The ghetto as a whole was a German creation. Everything that was designed to maintain its viability was simultaneously promoting a German goal. The Germans were consequently aided not only by Jewish enforcement agencies but also by the community’s factories, dispensaries, and soup kitchens. Jewish efficiency in allocating space or in distributing rations was an extension of German effectiveness, Jewish rigor in taxation or labor utilization was a reinforcement of German stringency, even Jewish incorruptibility could be a tool of German administration. In short, the Jewish councils were assisting the Germans with their good qualities as well as their bad, and the very best accomplishments of a Jewish bureaucracy were ultimately appropriated by the Germans for the all-consuming destruction process. Looking at the Jewish reaction pattern, one would see its two salient features as a posture of appeals alternating with compliance. What accounts for this combination? What factors gave rise to it? The Jews attempted to tame the Germans as one would try to tame a wild beast. They avoided “provocations” and complied instantly with decrees and orders. They hoped that somehow the German drive would spend itself. This hope was founded in a 2,000-year-old experience. In exile the Jews had always been a minority, always in danger, but they had learned that they could avert or survive destruction by placating and appeasing their enemies. Even in ancient Persia an appeal by Queen Esther was more effective than the mobilization of an army. Armed resistance in the lace of overwhelming force could end only in disaster. Thus over a period of centuries the Jews had learned that in order to survive they had to refrain from resistance. Time and again they were attacked. They endured the Crusades, the Cossack uprisings, and the 1112 REFLECTION S czarist persecution. There were many casualties in these times of stress, hut always the Jewish community emerged once again like a rock from a receding tidal wave. The Jews had never disappeared from the earth. After surv eying the damage, the survivors had always proclaimed in affirmation of their strategy the triumphant slogan, “The Jewish people lives [Am Israel Chat]' This experience was so ingrained in the Jewish consciousness as to achieve the force of law. The Jewish people could not be annihilated. Only in 1942, 1943, and 1944 did the Jewish leadership realize that, unlike the pogroms of past centuries, the modern machinelike destruction process would engulf European Jewry. But the realization came too late. A 2,000-year-old lesson could not be unlearned; the Jews could not make the switch. They were helpless. One should not suppose, however, that compliance was easy. If it was difficult for the Germans to kill, it was harder still tor the Jews to die. Compliance is a course of action that becomes increasingly drastic in a destruction process. It is one thing to comply with an order to register property but quite another to obey orders in front of a grave. The two actions an part of the same habit. The Jews who registered their property were also the ones who lined up to be killed. The Jews who lined up on a killing site were the ones who had registered their property. Yet these two activities are very different in their effects. Submission is altogether more burdensome in its last stages than in its beginning, for as one goes on, more and more is lost. Finally, in the supreme moment of crisis the primeval tendency' to resist aggression breaks to the surface. Resistance then becomes an obstacle to compliance, just as compliance is an obstacle to resistance. In the Jewish case the cooperation reaction was the stronger one until the end. European Jewry' consequently made every' effort to reinforce its traditional behavior, much as the German bureaucrats were buttressing their thrust into destruction. The Jews, like the Germans, developed psychic mechanisms for suppressing unbearable truths and for rationalizing extreme decisions. One is struck by the fact that the Germans repeatedly employed very' crude deceptions and ruses. The Jews were bluffed with “registrations" and “resettlements," with “baths" and “inhalations." At each stage of the destruction process the victims thought that they were going through the last stage. And so it appears that one of the most gigantic hoaxes in world history' was perpetrated on live million people noted for their intellect. But were these people really fooled or did they deliberately fool themselves? The Jews did not always have to be deceived, they were capable of deceiving themselves. Not evetyone discovered everything at once, for that would hardly have been possible. But neither could the discovery' of THE VICTIMS 1113 the “Final Solution” be avoided indefinitely by all. Even those who were sealed in their ghettos had to become conscious of a growing silence outside. The killings might have been secluded and shrouded in secrecy', but the disappearance of people could not be concealed. In the Warsaw Ghetto, the isolated Adam Czerniakow wrote down statistics of Jews deported from Lublin and other cities, and, as he did so, he could not ward off thoughts about the ominous implications of those occurrences.23 Yet rumors and reports seeping through ghetto walls did not reverse the momentum of Jewish actions. The Jewish leadership clung to the tenet that German orders could not be refused in the absence of clear evidence that the victims were facing an imminent death. Seldom did the councils ask themselves if they should go on without reliable indications that everyone would be safe. Sometimes, notably in Belgium24 25 and Slovakia,23 facts were gathered systematically and passed on to England or Switzerland. More often the news was not placed on the table, and inevitable conclusions were not drawn. Between growing doubts and unwanted revelations, the councils persevered in their course. In two instances council chairmen approached the Germans for information. In July 1942, Czerniakow repeatedly asked German Security Police officers if the deportations were going to start. He was assured that the rumors were untrue.26 The Viennese Elder, Lowenherz, walked into the Vienna Gestapo office to inquire whether the deportees were actually dead. He was told they were alive.27 In the Lodz Ghetto, where mass deportations began as early as January' 1942 and from which more than a fourth of the residents were removed by April of that year, an SS officer explained that the deportees were staying in a well-equipped camp, repairing roads and working in agriculture. The very next month, truckloads of clothing were unloaded in ghetto warehouses. Letters and identity cards fell out of the garments.28 No more had to be found out. After the subsequent deportation waves, 23. See Czcrniakow’s entries for March 18, April 1, April 29, May 3, July 8, July 16, and July 18, 1942. Hilbcrg, Staron, and Kcrmisz, eds., The Warsaw Diary, pp. 335-36, 339-40, 347-48, 349, 375-77, 381-82. 24. Report by Victor Martin (Christian member of the Belgian resistance) on Auschwitz, undated (winter 1942-43), in Yad Vashem document M 26/4. 25. Gisi Flcischmann (Bratislava) to Dr. A. Silbcrschein (Geneva), July 27, 1942, Yad Vashem document M 7/2-2 and subsequent letters in M/20. 26. See Czcmiakow’s diary from July 20, 1942. Hilbcrg, Staron, and Kcrmisz, eds., The Warsaw Diary, pp. 382-85. 27. Statement by Dr. Karl Ebncr (Vienna Gestapo), September 20, 1961, Case Novak, vol. 6, pp. 111-16. 28. Danuta D^browska and Lucjan Dobroszycki, eds., Kromka qctra lodzl'ieao (Lodz, 1965), vol. 1, pp. 457-58,619-20. REFLECTIONS the Jewish ghetto chroniclers would chart the mood of the remaining people by noting the fluctuating prices of a consumers’ product. The commodity was saccharin.29 In Lithuania the Jewish population was inundated by shootings from the very beginning. A detailed report of Einsatzkommando 3 reveals how in seventy-one localities the Jews were being decimated. Fourteen of these communities were struck more than once at intervals averaging a week.30 A residual fraction of Lithuanian Jewry clung to what was left. One surv ivor of the Kaunas Ghetto recalls that in its closing days the slogan of the victims was “life for an hour is also life \A sho qelebt is oich gelebt] ”31 Throughout Europe the Jewish communities strove for continuity'. They treated the sick who would not have time to recover, they fed the unemployed who would not work again, they educated the children who would not be allowed to grow up. For a middle-aged leadership there was no alternative. Younger people also were caught in the psychological web. The children, however, were least prone to fall into illusion. When in the Theresienstadt Ghetto a transport of children was tunneled into ordinary showers, they cried out: “No gas!”32 The Jewish repressive mechanism was largelv self-administered, and it could operate automatically, without any misleading statements or promises by German functionaries or their non-German auxiliaries. In the minutes of meetings held by the Vienna Jewish war invalids, we discover the same significant absence of direct references to death and killing centers that we have already noted in German correspondence. The Jewish documents abound with such roundabout expressions as “favored transport” (meaning Theresienstadt transport), “I see black,” “to tempt fate,” “final act of the drama,” etc.33 The direct word is lacking. The attempt to repress unbearable thoughts was characteristic not onlv of the ghetto community but of the killing center itself. In Auschwitz the inmates employed a special terminology of their own for killing operations. A crematorium was called a “bakery,” a man who could no longer work, and who was therefore destined for a gas chamber, was designated 29. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 460,466,483,488. 30. Report by Jäger (Commander of Kinsatzkommando 3), December 1, 1941. Zeutralc Stelle Eudwigsburg, UdSSR 108, tilm 3, pp. 27-28. 31. Samuel Gringauz, “'Die Ghetto as an Experiment in Jewish Social Organization,” Jewish Social Studies 11 (1949): 17. 32. H. G. Adler, Theresienstadt 1941-1945, 2d ed. (Tubingen, 1960), p. 154. The transport had arriv ed from Riatysrok. on August 24, 1943. 33. See the documents in the YIVO litsritute, folders Occ E 6a-10 and Occ E 6a-18. THE VICTIMS 1115 a “Moslem,” and the depot holding the belongings of the gassed was < named “Canada.”34 These, it must be emphasized, are not Nazi terms; they are expressions by the victims. They are the counterparts of the Nazi vocabulary and, like the German euphemisms, they were designed to blot out visions of death. There were junctures, of course, when the issue could not be evaded, when forgetting was no longer effective. In such moments of crisis the victims, like the perpetrators, resorted to rationalizations. The Jews, tcx>, had to justify their actions. There were two basic thought processes of this kind. The first was the characterization of compliance as a way of preserving lives. The Security Police in Lithuania orally informed the councils there that any propagation among Jews was undesirable, that pregnant Jewish women had to reckon with their “liquidation,” and that the Securin’ Police would not pursue Jews for abortion delicts.35 Subsequently, the council in Siauliai was asked three times whether any births had occurred in the ghetto, and each time it had replied in the negative. At one point, however, the council was confronted with twenty pregnancies. It decided to use persuasion and, if need be, threats to the women to submit to abortions. One woman was in her eighth month. The council concluded that in this case a doctor would induce premature birth and that a nurse would kill the child. The nurse would be told to proceed in such a way that she would not know the nature of her act.36 The death of one to save another was magnified in the rationalization that the sacrifice of the few would save the many. This psychology, which often served the Germans in their notably successful deportations of the Jews by stages, may be observed in the Vienna Jewish community, which made a deportation “agreement” with the Gestapo, with the “understanding” that six categories of Jews would not be deported.37 Again, the Warsaw Ghetto Jews argued in favor of cooperation and against resistance on the ground that the Germans would deport sixty thousand 34. On “bakery,” see Olga Lcngycl, Five Chimneys (Chicago and New York, 1947), p. 22. On “Moslem” (Muselmann), sec report by commander’s office, Auschwitz III, May 5,1944, NI-11019. On “Canada,” sec Judge Jan Schn, “Extermination Camp at Oswi^cim,” Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, German Crimes in Poland (Warsaw, 1946), vol. 1, p. 41. 35. Undated, unsigned report of Einsatzkommando 3 (December 1941-January 1942), Latvian Central State Archives, Fond 1026, Opis 1, Folder 3. 36. Minutes of council meeting of March 24, 1943, in Jewish Rlack Rook Committee, The Black Book (New York, 1946), pp. 331-33. A similar order, threatening incarceration in a concentration camp of pregnant Jew ish women, w as issued in Vienna. Viktor Frankl, Was nicht in meinen Büchern steht (Munich, 1995), pp. 65-66. The author, a physician, wrote about his w'ife, who had an abortion. 37. Memorandum by Kolisch, October 14, 1941, Occ E 6a-10. 1116 REFLECTIONS Jews but not hundreds of thousands.38 39 The bisection phenomenon occurred also in Salonika, where the Jewish leadership cooperated with the German deportation agencies upon the assurance that only “Communist” elements from the poor sections would be deported, while the “middle class” would be left alone.30 This fatal arithmetic was also applied in Vilna, where Judenrat chief Gens declared: “With a hundred victims I save a thousand people. With a thousand I save ten thousand.”40 In situations where compliance with death orders could no longer be rationalized as a life-saving measure, diere was still one more justification: the argument that with rigid, instantaneous compliance, unnecessary' suffering was eliminated, unnecessary' pain avoided, and necessary' torture reduced. The entire Jewish community', and particularly the leadership, now concentrated all its efforts in one direction —to make the ordeal bearable, to make death easy. This effort is reflected in the letter the Jewish Council in Budapest sent to the Hungarian Interior Minister on the eve of the deportations: “We emphatically declare that we do not seek this audience in order to lodge complaints about the merit of the measures adopted, but merely ask that they be carried out in a humane spirit.”41 Moritz Henschel, chief of the Berlin Jewish community' from 1940 to 1943, defended the assistance rendered by his administration to the Germans during the roundups in the following words: It could be asked: “How could you permit yourself to take part in this work in any' manner whatsoever?” We cannot really decide whether we acted for the best, but the idea which guided us was the following: if m do these things, then this will always be carried out in a better and gentler way than if others take it upon themselves — and this was correa. Direct transports by the Nazis were alway's done roughly — with terrible roughness.42 And this was Rabbi Leo Baeck, chief of the Reich Association of Jews in Germany: I made it a principle to accept no appointments from the Nazis and to do nothing which might help them. But later, when the question arose 38. See the material in Philip Friedman, ed.. Martyrs and Fighters (New York, 1954), pp. 193-95, 199. 39. ( axiI Roth, “The I-ast Days of Jewish Salónica,” Commentary, July 1955, p. 53. 40. Philip Friedman, “Two ‘Saviors’ Who Failed,” Commentary, December 1958, p. 487. 41. Eugene Lcvai, Black Rook on tlx Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry (Zurich and Vienna, 1948), p. 134. 42. Statement by Mortiz Henschel made before he died in Palestine in 1947 and introduced in the Eichmann trial transcript, May 11, 1961, scss. 37, p. Nnl. THE VICTIMS 1117 whether Jewish orderlies should help pick up Jews tor deportation, I took the position that it would be better for them to do it, because they could at least be more gentle and helpful than the Gestapo and make the ordeal easier. It was scarcely in our power to oppose the order effectively.43 When Baeck was in Theresienstadt, an engineer who had escaped from Auschwitz informed him about the gassings. Baeck decided not to pass on this information to anyone in the ghetto city because “living in the expectation of death by gassing would only be harder.”44 The supreme test of the compliance reaction came in front of the grave. Yet here, too, the Jews managed to console themselves. From one of the numerous German eyewitness reports comes the following typical passage: The father was holding the hand of a boy about ten years old and was speaking to him softly; the boy was fighting his tears. The father pointed to the sky, stroked his head, and seemed to explain something to him. ... I remember a girl, slim and with black hair, who passed close to me, pointed to herself, and said, “Twenty-three.” . . . The people, completely naked, went down some steps which were cut in the clay wall of the pit and clambered over the heads of the people lying there, to the place where the SS man directed them. Then they lay down in front of the dead or injured people; some caressed those who were still alive and spoke to them in a low voice. Then I heard a series of shots.45 The German annihilation of the European Jews was the world’s first completed destruction process. For the first time in the history of Western civilization the perpetrators had overcome all administrative and moral obstacles to a killing operation. For the first time, also, the Jewish victims, caught in the straitjacket of their history, plunged themselves physically and psychologically into catastrophe. The destruction of the Jews was thus no accident. When in the early days of 1933 the first civil servant wrote the first definition of “non-Aryan” into a civil service ordinance, the fate of European Jewry was sealed. 43. Leo Baeck in Eric H. Boehm, ed., We Sunnwd (New Haven, 1949), p. 288. 44. Ibid., pp. 292-93. 45. Affidavit by Hermann Friedrich Gracbc, November 10,1945, PS-2992. 1118 REFLECTIONS THE NEIGHBORS The Jews had many neighbors. During the catastrophe these onlookers tended to stand aside. Noninvolvement appeared to be their uppermost motive, at times, almost a doctrine. This solidified passivity was firmly rooted in a situational background and a calculated posture. In much of Europe before Hitler’s rise to power the relationships between Jews and Gentiles were largely limited to necessary interactions and transactions. The old legal barriers had almost disappeared, but a complex pattern of mutual isolation had remained in place. A major factor in this continuing divide was the nature of Jewry’s geographic distribution. The Jewish communities were spatially compact. Jews were living in cities to a far greater extent than non-Jews, and they were a relatively large component of urban populations. In Poland they constituted approximately 40 percent of all the inhabitants in cities of more than 10,000 people: roughly 33 percent in Warsaw, Lodz, and Lvov, 40 percent in Lublin and Radom, and nearly 50 percent in Bialystok and Grodno.1 Furthermore, a number of European cities had Jewish neighborhoods. Berlin, which was divided into twenty administrative districts, housed 70 percent of its Jewish population in five of them.2 3 Vienna was organized into twenty-five districts under the Nazi regime, and upon the outbreak of war about 46 percent of its Jews had their apartments in the II District.2 In Warsaw, three adjacent districts, which later became the heart of the ghetto, contained just over half of that city’s Jews.4 In Belgrade, nearly two-thirds of the Jews lived within a bend of the Danube River.5 Antwerp had a concentration of Jews within a single district in the vicinity of the central railroad station.6 In Rome, manv of the poorer Jews could be found in the area of the Old Ghetto.7 In Marseille, more than 60 percent 1. From 1931 census data in Hwarar Friesei, cd., Atlas of Modem Jewish History (New York, 1990), p. 93. 2. From June 1933 data, in Fsra Bennathan, “Die demographische und wirtschaftliche Struktur der luden, in Werner Mossc, ed., Entscheidungsjahr 7 932 (Tübingen, 1966), p. 92. 3. The number in the II District (Ixopoldstadt) was 45,653 for October 1, 1939, out of 99,353 Jews with idcnritication cards in the citv. About 13,000 foreign Jews did not hav e cards. Gerhard Bor/, Wohnungspolitik und Judendeportation in Wien 1938 Ins ¡943 (Vienna-Salzburg, 1975), pp. 73,169. 4. From 1938 dara, in Friesei, Atlas, p. 94. 5. From 1921 data, ibid ,, p. 100. 6. From 1936 data, as estimated by R. van Doorslacr, in Licvcn Sacrens, “Antwerp's l’re-war Attitude toward the Jews,” in Dan Michman, ed., Belgium and the Holocaust (Jerusalem, 1998), pp. 160-61. 7. Robert Katz, Black Sabbath (New York, 1969), pp. 173-98. These Jews were particularly vulnerable to quick arrest in October 1943. THE NEIGHBORS 1119 of the Jews were situated within a radius of a mile from the Old Port.8 In Paris, from which many Jews fled at the beginning of the occupation, about 52 percent of the remaining Jewish population lived in five of the ^ twenty arrondissements in 1940 and 1941.9 Added to this residential segmentation was a differentiation between i Jews and non-Jews in the economy. The Jews had urban occupations not only in the cities but also in small towns and villages. Within the cities, moreover, Jews and Gentiles engaged in different economic activities. In Poland more than half of the Jews were self-employed, and very few were in the police or municipal administrations.10 On the whole, places where Jews and non-Jews worked side by side were exceptions, as in the case of Jewish department stores in the West or state industrial plants in the Soviet Union. In some European cities, there was also a linguistic separation between Jews and non-Jews. The prime illustration is Salonika, which was part of the Ottoman Empire until the First Balkan War in 1912. The inhabitants in 1913 included 61,439 Jews, 45,867 Turks, 39,957 Greeks, and 10,626 others.11 After the Greek-Turkish population exchange in the 1920s, the Greeks were predominant and the Jewish minority still spoke Ladino, an offshoot of fifteenth-century Spanish, after a residence of four and a half centuries. In the spring of 1943, these Jews could not find refuge in the Greek community.12 A similarly complex history is presented by Riga, which was part of Imperial Russia until 1918, when—after a transition under German occupation — it became the capital of independent Latvia. Here too the Jews had been present for centuries, and here they also spoke their own language, Yiddish. As late as the 1930s Jewish children still attended Yiddish and Hebrew elementary schools.13 About 90 per­ 8. Donna F. Ryan, The Holocaust and the Jem cf Marseille (Urbana, III., 1996), pp. 16-18. A substantial portion were caught in identity checks and dragnets during 1943. Ibid., passim. 9. Data in Jacques Adler, The Jem ofParis and the Final Solution (New York, 1987), pp. 10, 12. Some 58 percent of the Parisian Jews targeted for the roundup of July 1942 resided in the same five districts. Sec the circular by Hennequin of the Municipal Police ofParis, July 13, 1942, with projected arrest figures, in Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auscbwitz 1942 (Paris, 1983), pp. 250-56. 10. See Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jem of Poland (Berlin, 1983), particularly statistical tables in appendix. 11. Sec the entry' for “Salonicco,” Enciclopedia italiana (1949). 12. Erika Kounio Amariglio, Front Thessaloniki to Auschnntz and Back (London, 2000), pp. 47-48. 13. Mendel Bobc, “Four Hundred Years of the Jews in Latvia,'" in Association of Latvian and Estonian Jews in Israel, The Jews in Latvia (Tel Aviv, 1971), pp. 21-77, and Z. Michaeli (Michclson), “Jewish Cultural Autonomy and the Jewish Sclux'l System,” in ibid., pp. 186-216. The language of the Jewish intelligentsia in Riga, REFLECTIONS cent of Riga’s Jews were shot within months after the arrival of the German army in 1941. A small remainder was bottled up in the ghetto. Again, in Warsaw and many other Polish cities, Yiddish was the primary language in Jewish homes, despite the progress of assimilation, which brought more and more Jewish children into Polish schools and a more perfect command of Polish. The life of the Jews amidst their neighbors was consequently marked by definable boundaries. Some were territorial. Others were marked in economic activities, which tended to be complementary between the two groups rather than integrated at a personal level. Still others were defined by the differences of religion, culture, social institutions, or language. In short, emancipation had not yet evolved into copious intermingling. Any amalgamations ranging from joint business activities to mixed marriages were still new' and in several regions sparse. Although the two communities had remained apart from one another, the population at large was aw'are of the Jewish dilemma from the onset of anti-Jewish legislation, and often enough this awareness increased even as existing contacts with Jews w'ere successivelv severed. In its very nature, the upheaval could not simply be overlooked. Boycotts, dismissals, Aryanizations, Jewish stars, and ghettos were highly visible steps, and the disappearance of Jews was conspicuous in itself. The rise of neutrality as the predominant reaction pattern was, therefore, not a matter of ignorance. Rather, it was the outcome of a strategy that for the large majorin' of people w'as the easiest to follow' and justify. It was a safe course, without the risks and costs of helping someone and w ithout the moral burden of siding with the perpetrator in face-to-face infliction of hurt. The static response w'as also steadv in that it w as not necessarily affected by the sight of Jewish endangerment or suffering. Although there w'ere critical junctures w’hen the conscience of a motionless spectator wras momentarily troubled or w'hen sentiments of disapproval or consternation were expressed in private letters, as was the case in a region of southern France,14 the failure to protest openly against arrests or to do something for an endangered victim could ahvays be rationalized. After all, one had to w’orrv about one’s family and take care of oneself first. The French Bishop of Nîmes, Jean Girbeau, had already written in October 1941 that, whereas in God's eyes there was neither Jew nor gentile, man could live with a “hierarchy of affections.”15 (erniup, and Bratislava was German. On Bratislava, see Yehuda Bauer, Retbinkinsi the Holocaust (New Haven, 2001 ), p. 172. 14. Robert Zarcrsky, Nîmes at War (University Park, Pa., 1995), pp. 107-12. The letters were written in the departement of Gard after the roundup of August 1942. 15. Ibid , p. 113. THE NEIGHBORS 1121 In practical terms, the sheer capacity for help was not boundless. Poland’s prewar apartment density was already about four per room. Under i German occupation, hunger quickly overtook Ukrainian cities. As the war went on, food and fuel were diminished in Poland and Greece and during the last winter in the Netherlands. Generally, that to which one was accustomed became increasingly scarce. In the occupied territories, moreover, the status of a nation in German eyes was particularly relevant when questions arose about opposing the Germans or assisting the Jews. Wherever die Germans were unrestrained in their reprisals, the prospective helpers had a problem. For Poles and Ukrainians die threat of severe retaliation was acute,16 and even Lithuanians could be killed for sheltering Jewish escapees.17 The major inhibitor, however, was sheer self-absorption, which was noticeable in most of the countries. Many a report by German military offices or the Security Police points to a mass of individuals preoccupied with personal affairs. Even while they suffered anxiety and trauma, they clung to a semblance of normal life. Children went to school and students sought degrees. The intellectuals of Paris could be found in their customary coffee houses. In that city Pablo Picasso went on painting, and Jean-Paul Sartre wrote his plays.18 Those with less lofty aspirations looked for escape in movies, sports, or alcohol. Everywhere, everyday routines were maintained, and if need be reconstituted. The quest was a necessity, pursued day after day. Immersed in their own existence, the neighbors of the Jews only had to glance at the Jewish community in its distress to reassure themselves that 16. See the texts of two decisions by special courts against Poles who harbored Jews, in Waclaw Biclawski and Czeslaw Pilichowski, Zbrodnie na Polakach dokonane przez bitlerowzow zapomoz udzielna Zydom (Warsaw, 1981), pp. XLI-XLV. In one case, dated June 23, 1943, the court in Piotrkow Trybunalski imposed the punishment of death on the farmer Wladyslaw Rutkowski and his wife, Gcnowefa Rutkowska, for harboring two Jews in December 1942, even though there was no evidence that the wife was present when the two fugitives, one of whom was known to her husband, had asked for refuge. The Jews managed to escape during a search of the house. The other case was decided by a court in Rzsezow on April 19, 1944. The defendant, a twcnty-fivc-year-old woman, Stanislawa Korzccka, had hidden her Jewish fiance in 1943. Although the court expressed understanding for her motivation, it concluded that the law allowed only the death penalty for her action. 17. Decision of a German court (Srandgcricht) in Biah'stok, September 20,1943, sentencing two Ethnic Lithuanians, Hipolit Jaskielcwicz and Maria Jaskielewicz, to death for sheltering Jews. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.004 (Belarus State Archives of Grodno Oblast), Roll 2, Fond 1, Opis 1, Folder 167, and addendum noting that the sentence was carried out on October 16, 1943, ibid. 18. See the photographs in Gilles Pcrrault and Pierre Azema, Parts under the Occupation (New York, 1989). 1122 REFLECTIONS they did not share the Jewish fate. That was the situation most of the time in most of Europe. Not being Jewish thus became a status in itself. It was an inescapable thought as well as a potent factor in any relations with Jews, and at times it was manifest in the stares of the onlookers when they saw the victims marched off under guard, be it in Poland, Hungary, or Corfu. A Jew who was transported in an open coal car from Auschwitz to Nordhausen in early 1945 recalls that in Germany “many people stood on the bridges, along the way, they saw us, they knew what was happening. No reaction, no human movement. We were alone, abandoned by the people to whom we had once belonged.”19 And the following observation was offered bv Aldo Coradello, a former Italian vice consul in Danzig, about a troupe of fifty Jews who looked like “skeletons” after they returned from a month of work in Königsberg to Stutthof: “Did not the population of Königsberg see these beings, barely alive as they went to the railwav station or their daily labor? Did the population of Königsberg only shrug and utter the repeated view that, when all is said and done, these were only foreign inmates or Jews, so that one was released from the duty to think about them and their fortunes?”20 Clearlv, all the prewar divisions between Jews and non-Jews were deepened as the non-Jewish neighbors turned their concerns inward for the sake of material and mental stability. It was at this point that the witnesses distanced themselves from the victims, so that physical proximity no longer signified personal closeness. What, then, was the extent of the help given to the Jews? If one asks what percentage of a Jewish communin' was saved, then it is Copenhagen that is the leader, inasmuch as more than 99 percent of its Jewish population survived. By the same reasoning, Warsaw is almost the exact opposite, having lost nearly 99 percent of its Jews. From a perspective that rakes into account only a German goal or a Jewish need, the problem cannot be put any other way. The results are bound to be assessed in a range of such fractions. If, however, the issue is the capacin' or willingness of a non-Jewish population to do something for the threatened Jews, the principal question must be framed in terms of a ratio between the potential saviors and the number of saved. In this equation, the size of a citys non-Jewish inhabitants should be placed on one side of the ledger, and the count of “illegal” survivors on the other. Once this simple calculation has been made, the results look very different. Only in Paris might the figure of those who survived illegally have constituted as much as 3 perW. Heinz Galinski in a 1987 broadcast, quoted by Gerhard Hoch, Von Auschwitz nach Holstein (Hamburg, 1990), pp. 79-80. 20. Undated notes by Aldo Coradello about the concentration camp Stutthof, in lüdisches Historisches Institut Warschau, Faschismus-(¡etto-Massenmord (East Berlin, 1961 ),pp. 465-66. THE NEIGHBORS 1123 cent of the non-Jewish majority.21 For both Copenhagen and Warsaw, as I well as Rome and Amsterdam, the number is approximately 1 percent. 1 For German cities it is lower still. In all of Bohemia and Moravia the Jews I who survived in hiding are reported to have been 424.22 | The assistance that was offered came in part from institutions specially chosen or created for this purpose by an underground, as in the Netherlands and Poland. Not surprisingly, much of the help was channeled to specific categories of victims. Favored were children who, if old enough, spoke the language of the hosts without inflections revealing Jewish origins, or whose presence, in the event of discovery, could be explained away most easily. Among the adults, part-Jews and long-time converts to Christianity had an advantage. In many places, there were exceptional individuals like Marion Pritchard, who sheltered small Jewish children and killed a Dutch policeman to forestall their arrest.23 There were also exceptional moments, when someone gave timely warning, as office secretaries did in Clermont-Ferrand.24 Finally, there were exceptional circumstances, particularly those attributable to a tie between people, as exemplified in the demonstration of German women in Berlin who reclaimed their Jewish husbands from custody in the Rosenstrasse.25 But what about the reverse of assistance? What may be discerned in that behavior? The opposite of the willingness to help and die attendant sacrifices of the rescuers was a readiness to profit from the misfortune of the Jews and, in the case of many young men, to join the perpetrators in 21. The population of Paris in September 1940 reached a low of 1,700,000 before rising again. Adler, The Jews of Paris, p. 6. In October 1940, 149,734 Jews were registered in the Seine departement, which includes Paris, and by early 1941, the flight of Jews southward reduced this number to 139,979. Serge Klarsfeld, Vichy- Auschmtz (Hamburg, 1989), p. 26. From May 1941, when arrests of Jews began for internment in camps, to July 1944, about 40,000 Jews were seized in Paris. Klarsfeld, ibid., pp. 25,31,35,101,287,305-17. During this period there was a further Jewish exodus, but of undetermined volume, from Paris. Some 30,000-40,000 Jews were still living openly in their apartments when the city was liberated. Adler, The Jews of Paris, p. 245, n. 7, and Klarsfeld, Vichy-Auschwttz, p. 306. That leaves a remainder of some tens of thousands in hiding. 22. H. G. Adler, Theresienstadt, 2nd cd. (Tubingen, 1960), p. 15. 23. Marion Pritchard, “It came to pass in those days,” Sh'ma, April 27, 1984, pp. 97-102. 24. John Sweets, Choices in Vichy France (Oxford, 1986), p. 132. 25. Sec Nathan Stolzfus, Resistance of the Heart (New York, 1996). Generally the non-Jewish husbands and wives remained steady partners in mixed marriages. See, however, the draft letter by the mayor of Mogilev (Fclicin) to the Feldkommandantur, March 19, 1942, about divorce petitions, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.006 (Belarus State Archives of Mogilev Oblast), Roll 1, Fond 259, Opis 1, Folder 22. 1124 REFLECTIONS the perpetration.26 The easiest way of taking advantage of the situation was to make use of opportunities resulting from dismissals or Aryanizations, or to acquire articles already confiscated, or to occupy an apartment after it had been vacated by deportees. Such indirect benefits were accepted on a large scale, even when — as happened in Berlin or Vienna, Bratislava or Sofia — the Jews were evicted precisely tor the relief of the housing shortage. Often enough, passive aggrandizement verged on an active form. A small but telling illustration is the story of a Jewish family in Sighet which entrusted cash and jewelry' to the wife of a Hungarian army officer. When the family ran out of money and dispatched a daughter to reclaim some of it, the Hungarian woman feigned ignorance, asking: “What money?”27 More open ways of taking were observed by officials who, in conquered territories, reported the ransacking of empty Jewish apartments or abandoned Jewish belongings by local neighbors in Radom, Lvov, Riga, Cer-naup, Salonika, and elsewhere. A Polish physician in the town of Szcze-brzeszyn noted in his diary' that peasants from the countryside, expecting an imminent roundup, had come with their wagons and waited all day for the moment they could start looting.28 Still more active were the volunteers who aligned themselves with the Germans. As a percentage of the population in their countries, they were most numerous in the Baltic region, where they were grouped into a stationary' and mobile Schutzmannschaft, and where they killed local Jews before going on to more killing, of Jews deported to the Baltic as well as Jews outside the area. In Paris, Rome, and other cities, militia and bands made arrests of Jews or guarded them, pending transport. Few were the areas without such collaborators. In the aggregate, the local by standers formed a human wall around the Jews entrapped in laws and ghettos. For the longest time the Jews hesitated before making an attempt to submerge or flee, to scatter themselves in the population at large. The line of guards was thin. The double ghetto of Grodno was guarded by the “larger part” of a police company.29 For 26. For rhe social composition of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian Schutzmannschaft, see Martin Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust (New York, 2000), pp. 60-77. 27. Hedi Fried, Fragments of a Life (Guidon, 1990), pp. 59, 60, 62. When personal possessions were handed to Christian acquaintances on the eve of deportations, the reaction of the recipients was sometimes complex. See an account of such farewells in Marburg bv John K. Dickinson, German and Jew (Chicago, 2001), pp. 293-309. 28. Jan Thomas Gross, “Two Memoirs from the Edge of Destruction,” in Robert Moses Shapiro, cd.. Holocaust Cljronicles (New York, 1999), pp. 226-27. Gross quotes from the diary of Dr. Zygmunt Klukowski, entry of April 13, 1942. 29. Report of Reserve Police Battalion 91 lor January 10 to February 9, 1942, THE NEIGHBORS 1125 the newly sealed Lodz Ghetto, with its 164,000 inhabitants, a daily contingent of about 200 policemen sufficed,30 and throughout the years of ^ the ghetto’s existence the German overseers did not have a list of its inhabitants.31 Almost everywhere the barriers were nevertheless great. Escape meant risk of denunciation or extortion. Anyone could be dangerous and help was uncertain. When the deportations engulfed the Jews of Galicia in the fall of 1942, the German Order Police noted that many Jews had fled from the ghettos of Drohobycz, Boryslaw, Sambor, and Stry on the eve of impending roundups. Jews of Stry were hiding in Polish and Ukrainian apartments. A week later, however, a significant number of escapees from the four ghettos, who apparently had found no refuge, were already returning, only to discover that they had stepped into the trap of the waiting police.32 In a Europe that included Germans and Lithuanians as well as Italians and Danes, there was a variety of nations, each with a diversity of people, but the dominant pattern in most of these regions was unmistakable. Jewry had been singled out, and once it was branded the line of separation was indelible. with reference to the deployment of 1st Company, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 53.004 (Belarus State Archives of Grodno Oblast), Roll 6, Fond 12, Opis 1, Folder 5. 30. Chief of the Order Police (signed von Bomhard), Situation Report Mav 31, 1940, T 501, Roll 37. 31. Report by Dr. Horn (WVHA accountant) to Pohl, January 24,1944, NO-519. 32. Reports by the commander of 5th Company, Police Regiment 24 (Captain Lcderer) to the Commander of Order Police in Galicia (Lt. Col. Soosrcn), October 19 and 25, 1942, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Record Group 11.001 (Center for Preservation of Documentary Collections, Moscow), Roll 82, Fond 1323, Opis 2, Folder 292b. Returnees, out of resources and facing starv ation, were not rare in Szczcbrzcszyn cither. Those who joined or formed bands, robbing the peasants, aroused the ire of the Polish population. Zygmunt Klukowski, Dtary from the Tears of Occupation, 1939-1944 (Urbana, III., 1993), entries of November 18, 20, 22, 1942, pp. 225-27. The American edition of the diary is somewhat abridged. 1126 REFLECTIONS C H A P T E R E L E V E N CONSEQUENCES he destruction of the European Jews was a major upheaval and its impact was felt in the first instance bv the Jewish communin', secondly bv Germany, and ultimately also by those outside the destructive arena who watched it come to pass. For the Jews, the consequences were pervasive. Physically, the dimensions of Jewish population, its distribution, and even its character underwent a permanent change. The statistics in Table 11-1 reveal in rough outline what happened: World Jewry lost one-third of its number. It declined from an all-time high of more than 16,000,000 people to about 11,000,000. The geographic concentration of the population loss altered the distribution of the Jews. Before the rise of the Nazi regime, the bulk of 1127 TABLE 11-1 THE JEWISH POPULATION LOSS, 1939-45 1939 1945 Austria 60,000 7,000 Belgium 65,000 40,000 Bulgaria 50,000 47,000 Czechoslovakia 315,000 44,000 Denmark 6,500 5,500 France 270,000 200,000 Germany 240,000 80,000 Greece 74,000 12,000 Hungary 400,000 200,000 Italy 50,000 33,000 Luxembourg 3,000 1,000 Netherlands 140,000 20,000 Norway 2,000 1,000 Poland 3,350,000 50,000 Romania 750,000 430,000 USSR 3,020,000 2,500,000 Estonia 4,500 Latvia 95,000 Lithuania 145,000 Yugoslavia 75,000 12,000 Note: The statistics for 1939 refer to prewar borders, and postwar frontiers have been used for 1945. The figure of80,000 for Germany includes 60,000 displaced persons. The estimate of2,500,000 for the USSR comprises about 300,000 refugees, deportees, and surv ivors from newly acquired territories. For other compilations, see Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jewry and Palestine (London, 1946), Cmd. 6808, pp. 58-59; Institute of Jewish Affairs, “Statistics of Jewish Casualties during Axis Domination” (mimeographed; New York, 1945); American Jewish Committee, American JcnHsh Tear Book (New York), 48 (1946-47): 606-9; 50 (1948-49): 697; 51 (1950): 246-47. Jewish population, wealth, and power was centered in Europe. When Germany was smashed, nearly half the world’s Jews were living in the United States, and most of the Jewish wealth was located there. In that country, too, were henceforth to be found many of the decisive voices in world Jewish affairs. Finally, the relatively large number of Jews in the Moslem world, who were inert and forgotten for centuries, have been drawn into the center of Jewish life. Their higher birthrates were an important factor in postwar Jewish population increases. Yet this commu-CONSBQUENCES nitv could not make up the loss. Fifty years after the end of the catastrophe, the Jews of the world, facing the end of their growth, numbered 13 million.1 Because the destruction of the Jews was accomplished in blood, the altered appearance of the Jewish community is its most striking consequence. Ironically, the catastrophe overtook a population that was already declining, not only in Western Europe and Germany, but even in Poland and the USSR. The falling Jewish birthrate, which in Germany was noted already at the beginning of the twentieth century,2 and the rising rate of intermarriages that accompanied this trend, continued without significant abatement in the United States and the Soviet Union after 1945.3 If the extent of the Jewish loss was felt immediately, the manner in which it occurred was to have disturbing effects over the years. The Jews were not prepared for the events of 1933 to 1945, and when that which was least expected became the overwhelming truth, it brought about a deep transformation in Jewish attitudes and thought. Throughout the Second World War the Jewish people adopted the Allied cause as their own. They shut out many thoughts of their disaster and helped achieve the final victory. The Allied powers, however, did not think of the Jews. The Allied nations who were at war with Germany did not come to the aid of Germany’s victims. The Jews of Europe had no allies. In its gravest hour Jewry stood alone, and the realization of that desertion came as a shock to Jewish leaders all over the world. In the United States the principal Jewish organizations had gotten together in 1943 to form the American Jewish Conference, which soon became a forum for manv disappointed voices. At the second session in New York, December 3-5, 1944, Dr. Joseph Tenenbaum of the American Jewish Congress made the following remarks: Let us not rely on others to defend our interests. When Japan was accused of using gas against the Chinese, there was a solemn warning by the President of the United States who threatened to retaliate with 1. U. C). Schmclz and Sergio DdlaPcrgola in American Jewish Tear Book, 1996, p. 437. 2. Helix A. Theilhaber, Der Unterpanp der deutschen Juden (Munich, 1911). 3. Fred Masarik and Alvin Chenkin, “United States National Jewish Population Study: A First Report," American Jewish Year Book 74 (1973): 264-306, particulary pp. 271, 293-98. On USSR, see Alec Novc and J. A. Newrh, “The Jewish Population: Demographic Trends and Occupational Patterns,” in Lionel Kochan, cd.. The Jem in Soviet Russia since 1Q17 (London, 1970), pp. 125-58, particularly pp. 143-45. See also Zvi Grilichcs, “Erosion in the Soviet Union,” Near East Report 17 (July 25, 1973): 118; Roberto Bachi, “Population Trends of World Jewry,” Institute ot'Gin-temporary Jewry, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1976. CONSEQUENCES 1129 gas warfare on the Japanese. Millions of Jews were suffocated in the 5 lethal gas chambers, but nobody even threatened the Germans with jj retaliation — there was no threat to gas their cities. Jews must stop I being the expendables among the nations.4 The third session of the Jewish Conference was permeated with the theme of disappointment. Speaker after speaker rose to explain that the Jews had been abandoned, forgotten, left alone, betrayed. Professor Hayim Fineman of the Labor Zionist bloc had this to say : In terms of comparative statistics, the number of Jews destroyed in what was Rider’s Europe totals twenty-two times the number of Americans who fell in batde. What renders the situation so horrifying is the fact that this tragedy was not unavoidable. Many of those who are dead might have been alive were it not for the refusal and delays by our own State Department, by the International Red Cross, the War Refugee Board, and other agencies to take immediate measures.5 From Germany a survivor, the president of the liberated Jews in the American zone, Dr. Zalman Grinberg, came to the conference to add the following remarks: Ladies and gendemen: I realize that we are living in a cynical world. I am aware of the fact that humanity is accustomed to brutality. [But] I myself would never have believed that the civilized world of the twentieth century could be so unmoved by the decimation of the Jewish people in Europe. I am forced to believe that it is only because these things happened to the Jewish people and not to another people.6 Thus in speech after speech, one may discern the theme that the Allied leaders had not merely been callous, but that they had reserved their callousness for the Jews. This accusation reflected a deep-seated anxiety in the Jewish ranks. It was the unverbalized fear that the Allies secretly approved of what the Germans had done and that, given the appropriate circumstances, they might even repeat the experiment.7 If there was a subtle problem in defining the relationship of Jewry with 4. Verbatim remarks by Tcnenbaum in Alexander S. Kohanski, cd.. The American Jewish Conference, Proceedings of the Second Session, December 3-5, 1944 (New York, 1945), p. 71. 5. Verbatim remarks by Fineman in Ruth Hershman, cd., The American Jewish Conference, Proceedings of the Third Session, February 17-19, 1946 (New York, 1946), p. 47. 6. Verbatim remarks by Grinberg, ibid., p. 148. 7. Note conjecture by Edwin M. Scars in his article “Was Hitler Right?” Jennsh Forum 24 (April-May 1951): 69, 71,87-90, and the scenario by the British novelist Frederick Raphael, Lindmann (New York, 1964), pp. 307-9. 1130 CONSEQUENCES the Allied countries in the wake of the wholesale abandonment of the victims to their fate, there were even greater difficulties in coming to grips with a Germany, now broken into pieces, which had caused the disaster in the first place. Everyone in the Jewish community knew the basic truth that what had happened was not merely an annihilation of five million people who coincidentally were Jews, but a killing of Jewry that had reached a total of five million. The living knew that the Jews of Europe were brought to death deliberately, that women, girls, and small children died like cattle. Unprecedented as that event may have been, there was no demand for mass revenge. Solitary figures such as Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, presidential advisor Bernard Baruch, or columnist Walter Winchell fought a losing battle against the emerging rapprochement,8 9 but they were alone. The prevailing pattern was based on the long-established maxim diat Jews, to be secure, could not act as though the “good will” of the countries in which they lived might be expended without limit. In 1945, Jewish organizations and public personalities strove to be representative of the societies of which they were a part. As Americans, they had to look at Germany through “American eyes,” rejecting any imputation of collective German guilt, emphasizing that there were good Germans and bad Germans,1' eschewing recitals of “Nazi horrors”10 or even explaining Nazism as a psychiatric phenomenon.11 In newly Communist Hungary, the Budapest Jewish community organ, Uj Elet, cautioned that in modern society there were no guilt)' nations, only guilty classes and ruling classes.12 The restraint that the Jewish community mustered toward Germany was replaced, at least among the Jews of the Western world, with acts of militancy on behalf of Israel. The reaction of displaced hostility is not 8. Sec Morgenthau's Germany Is Our Problem (New York and London, 1945). On Baruch, see his testimony before the Senate Military Affairs Committee in hearings on elimination of German resources for war, 79th Cong., lstsess., 1945,pt. l,pp. 1-28. Some organizations, too, were involved in reminding and warning activities. Chief among them was the Society for the Prevention of World War III. The Jew ish War Veterans, the American Jew ish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation league confined themselves on the whole to protesting the arrival of German artists, etc. 9. Joseph Dünner, “Appeal to Reason,"” Congress Weekly, January' 28, 1952, pp. 5-7. See also a depiction of good Jews and bad Jews by David Riesman, “The “Militant' Bight against Anti-Semitism," Commentary, January 1951, pp. 12-13. 10. Introduction bv Samuel Elowerman in Paul Massing, Rehearsal for Destruction (New York, 1949). 11. National Conference of Christians and Jews, Conference, spring 1949, p. 5, citing Dr. David Levy, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. 12. Editorial in Uj Elet (Budapest), October 20, 1949, as cited by Eugene Duschinskv, “Hungary,” in Peter Meyer et al., The Jews in the Soviet Satellites (Syracuse, N.Y., 1953), pp. 468-69. CONSEQUENCES 1131 uncommon in the annals of individual and mass behavior. Here it was I almost inevitable. Israel is Jewry’s great consolation. It is a vast “undoing” achievement, one of the greatest in history. Even while the Jews of Europe were being slaughtered, the delegates to the first session of the American Jewish Conference were turning their attention to the future-state. Their thoughts were expressed to some extent in a speech delivered by Dr. Israel Goldstein of the General Zionists during the rescue symposium: “For all our rivers of tears and oceans of blood, for our broken lives and devastated homes, for all our gutted synagogues and desecrated scrolls, tor all our slain youths and spoliated maidens, for all our agony and for all the martyrdom of these black years, we shall be consoled when in Eretz Israel, reestablished as a Jewish Commonwealth, land of our sunrise, and in every land where the dispersed of Israel dwell, the sun of freedom will rise,” etc., etc.13 From this came the great concentration of fury upon England and, to a lesser extent, the Arab countries after the war. In the years 1945 to 1949, England was Jewry’s primary enemy. The English, and the Arabs, moved into this position because, in seeking to frustrate the establishment of a Jewish homeland, they were reopening wounds that only Israel could heal. Significantly, the creation of the state of Israel resulted in the development of conditions under which Jews could express themselves in larger numbers and in much stronger terms as Germany’s enemies. For a while at least, Israel kept its distance from Germany. No diplomatic representatives were exchanged.14 Germans could not easily visit Israel, and use of the German language as well as the performance of German music were banned there.15 Within the Jewish community, questions arose at the outset about the reactions of the Jews in Western countries toward the victims destroyed in the gas chambers. Over the centuries the dispersion of the Jews had a functional utility: whenever some part of the Jewish community was under attack, it depended on help from the other Jews. In the period of the Nazi regime, this help did not come. Henceforth an insider could not 13. Alexander S. Kohanski, cd., The American Jewish Conference — Its Organization and Proceedings of the First Session, August 29 to September 2, 1943 (New York, 1944), pp. 80-81. 14. An Israeli mission was sent to West Germany for the purpose of selecting goods for shipment as reparations to Israel. Israel itself received no Gemían mission. The Israeli attitude toward Germany in international organizations was summarized by a study group of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and the United Nations (New York, 1956), pp. 176, 198. 15. “Israel Backs Ban on Use of the Gemían Language,” Ihe New York Tina's, January' 2, 1951, p. 4; “Israel Philharmonic Drops ‘Kulenspicgcl,'” ünd., December 9, 1952, p. 42. 1132 CONSEQUENCES reflect deeply about his fate without coming to the conclusion that the outsider had not done his all. “They were outside” wrote Dr. Rezso Kasztner, “we were inside. They were not immediately affected; we were the victims. They moralized, we feared death. They had sympathy for us and believed themselves to be powerless. We wanted to live and believed rescue had to be possible.”16 The Jewish catastrophe was attended by a twofold paralysis: the Jews inside could not break out, the Jews outside could not break in. With the passage of time, the response of the entire Jewish community to its massive loss became a pervasive problem. At the beginning there was little memorialization. No special observances were held, no major monuments were erected, and not many efforts were made to record the meaning of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Little by little, some documents were gathered and books were written, and after about two decades the annihilation of the Jews was given a name: Holocaust.17 In the United States these sparse beginnings became a veritable outpouring of activity by the second half of the 1970s. Television programs were presented, conferences held, prayers composed, and courses taught. By executive order, the President’s Commission on the Holocaust was established in 1978 and this advisory body was transformed by a law of Congress into the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, charged with creating a museum and drafting research and education programs.18 A major impetus for the surge of remembrance came from surv ivors, for whom the preservation and dissemination of knowledge about the event became a consuming interest. Encouraging those who wanted to tell were those who wanted to be told, especially members of a new generation, most of them born after the war. This development, to be sure, was accompanied by pronounced reservations in those segments of the Jewish community who felt that Holocaust preoccupations and studies were 16. Dr. Rezso Kasztner (Rudolf Kasrner). “Der Bericht des jüdischen Remings-komitees aus Budapest 1942-1945” (mimeographed), pp. 88-89. ln March 1957, Kästner was killed by assassins in Tel Aviv tor his activities in Budapest. Gershon Swet, "Rudolph Kästners Ermordung,” Aufbau (New York), March 22, 1957, pp. 1, 4. Criticism, let alone violence, directed at surviving leaders was rare. 17. See Gerd Korman, “ Die HokKaust in American Historical Writing,” Soaetas 2 (1972): 251-70, at 259-62. Several institutes devoted early attention to the subject, notably the Y1VO Institute in New York City, the Centre de Documentation Juive Conremporaine in Paris, and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The latter is an official memorial authorin'. See Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance (Yad Vashem) Law, 1953, Sefcr Ha-Cbukkini, No. 132, August 28, 1953, p. 144. 18. Executive Order 12093 ot November 1, 1978, Federal Register, vol. 43, p. 51377. Executive Order 12169 of October 26, 1979, Federal Register, vol. 44, p. 62277. Public Law 96-388, October 7, 1980,94 Stat 1549, 36 USC 1401-8. CONSEQUENCES 1133 replacing and sometimes obliterating the traditional focus on three thousand years of Jewish history.19 Under the surface of the memorialization projects, the Holocaust was invading the very core of Jewish consciousness, shaping and defining the post-Holocaust Jew. The old religious community, still existing with its rabbinate and synagogues, was being transformed into a community of fate in which a Jew is anyone who, had he lived in 1942, would have been eligible for death in a gas chamber. Yet, if the Nuremberg principle of descent could thus subsist in a nonreligious self-definition, it has also undermined the prewar assimilationist stance. The post-1945 Jew seldom became a political or social Marrano. He would not apologize for his existence, as Walther Rathenau had done when he called upon the Jews of Germany to remove dieir remaining peculiarities,20 and if he had half-Jewish children, he was not likely to consign them to the Christian faith for the sake of their worldly prospects or out of concern for their physical security.21 German reactions to the destruction process, once the deed was done, were scarcely less complex. In one sense they were the exact opposite of the Jewish tendency to derive an identification from the Holocaust —the German aim was disassociation. Of all the terms used in postwar years to describe the actions of the Nazi regime, the most telling is the all-encompassing reference to the “past” ( Vergangmheit).22 It encloses the occurrence, disconnecting it from the present. For several decades, reminders of a Jewish presence in Germany hardly ever emerged in view. The casual observer could easily assume that Jews had not lived in Germany for centuries. The land on which synagogues had once stood was acquired from the Jewish communities in Nazi times, and in the course of later construction it was visually Germanized. In Vienna, where shields proclaim the historic importance of many buildings, two small houses in which Jews had been concentrated prior to their deportation were unmarked. In Germany, Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly vandalized during the immediate postwar years.23 19. Robert Alter, “Deformations of the Holocaust,” Commentary, Februars· 1981, pp. 48-54. Jacob Ncusncr, Stranger at Home (Chicago, 1981), pp. 61-96, particularly p. 81. 20. Walther Rathenau, Zur Kritik der Zeit, 4rh cd. (Berlin, 1912), p. 220. 21. Masarik and Chcnkin, “United States National Jewish Population Study,” American Jewish Tear Book 74 (1973): 298. 22. The ubiquity of the term is illustrated by its use in the headlines of two articles in a single issue of Die Zeit, May 15, 1981 (overseas edition), pp. 6, 16. Note also the headline in Der Spiegel, Nr. 5, 1979, p. 17: “‘Holocaust:’ Die Vergangenheit kommt zurück.” 23. Jack Raymond, “Germans Defacing Jewish Cemeteries,” The \’nv York limes, 1134 CONSEQUENCES To be sure, the destruction of the Jews could not be blotted out entirely, and hence there were manifold reactions in print. Some of these words were exculpatory, from crude attempts to brand historical statements about the event a lie24 to the resurrection of old notions about Jewish world rule, criminality, and parasitism.25 In this manner, the deed was denied or justified, but in the main it was disowned. May 14, 1950, p. 6. See zkaAufbau (New York), June 30, 1950, p. 3; July 14, 1950, pp. 20, 22; September 1, 1950, p. 3; November 2, 1951, p. 32; May 2, 1954, p. 26. There were 1,700 Jewish cemeteries in West Germany. The leftover Jewish commu­ nin’ was not in a position to care for them. The Interior Ministry was prevailed upon to assume financial responsibility for the upkeep of the graveyards. However, the exercise of this responsibility required a new law, since the superv ision of “cultural” matters is normally a prerogative of the provinces. A report issued in 1956 stated that “this law is being prepared quietly in order to avoid unnecessary public debate.” Hans Wallenberg, Report on Democratic Institutions in Germany (New York, 1956), p. 52. Much later, the dead Jews appeared in jokes about Auschwitz and ashes. See Alan Dundes and Thomas Hauschild, “Auschwitz Jokes,” Western Folklore 42 (1983): 249-60. 24. “Wie viele Juden wurden wirklich ermordet? 6-Millioncn-Liigc endgültig zusammengebrochen,” Deutsche National-Zeitung und Soldaten-Zeitung, March 3, 1967, p. 1. 25. Jack Ravmond, “Bonn Delay Seen on Claim Payment,” The Nen> York Times, October 14, 1951, p. 29. In Austria field representatives of Jewry were believed to be lurking in everv American occupation office. When the U.S. High Commissioner in Vienna, Donnellv, refused at an Allied Control Council meeting to give unconditional approval to an Austrian amnesty measure for the benefit of wartime Nazis on the ground that the Austrian government was proposing to indemnity ex-Nazis before giving consideration to the victims of Nazism, the chairman of the People's Party and later Chancellor of Austria, Julius Raab, resorted to an attack upon “certain emigrants” in the office of the High Commissioner. John MacCormac, “Vienna Is Critical of U.S. Emigrants,'” the Neip York Times, June 8, 1952, p. 14. No such “emigrants” were serving in the High Commissioner’s office. “Hs geht schon w ieder los in Wien"Aufbau (New' York), June 13, 1952, p. 4; “Die Wiener Herze gegen CUS-Emigranten,’” ibid., June 20, 1952, p. 9. On allegations of ritual murders, see “Ritualmordschw indel in Memmingen,” ibid., April 1, 1949, p. 3; “Ritualmordschvvindel in München,” ibid., September 9, 1949, p. 7; S. Wiesenthal, “Tiroler Ritualmord-Märchen — und die Kirche ändert nichts daran,” ibid., May 11, 1950, p. 40; “Tiroler Rimalmord-Spiele — Neue Kontroverse um den Bischof Rusch,” ibid., June 1955, p. 5. On ritual murder legends in Hungary, see Ferenc Nagy, Use Struggle behind the Iron Curtain (New York, 1948), pp. 246-48; Eugene Dusch insky, “Hungary,” in Mever et al., The Jews in the Sinnet Satellites, pp. 419-20, 25. On charges of parasitism, see “Der Skandal von München: Antisemitismus wird erlaubt —Auf Juden w ird geschossen? Aufbau (New' York), August 19, 1949, pp. 1-2. The charge w as expressed also by the playwright Rainer Werner Fassbinder in “Der Müll, die Stadt und der T which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot bv the peoples whom they have outraged.”36 In this declaration the Jews are among the “French hostages”; they are a component part of the “people of Poland”; they are lost in the “territories of the Soviet Union.” The Western and Soviet governments alike were able to take from the Jews their special identity by the simple device of switching classifications. Thus the Jews of German nationality' became Germans, the Jews of Polish nationality were converted into Poles, the Jews of Hungarian nationality into Hungarians, and so on.37 Some of the most fantastic legal consequences flowed from this legalistic interplay. For example, in 1942 Home Secretary' Morrison replied to an inquiry' by a member of Parliament that Jews in England who were rendered stateless by German decree would still be treated as German nationals because the United Kingdom government did not recognize the competence of an enemy state in time of war to deprive its citizens of their nationality. In Berlin the Foreign Office legal expert Albrecht read about this development in a Transocean news report and wrote, “Good.”38 In 1944 British military authorities in Belgium interned about 2,000 Jews as “enemy aliens.” When Sidney Silverman, M.P., intervened with the Earl of Halifax in Washington, he was told that the measure was dictated by “military necessity.”39 In the Soviet Union prominent Jews about to be purged had to expect as a matter of course to be accused of “spying” for the Germans.40 Some 15,000 Hungarian Jewish forced laborers taken by 36. Statement by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, International Conference on Military Trials, pp. 11-12. 37. In the United States the Office of War Information (OWI) as a matter of policy refrained from mentioning Jews as a special group of victims. Verbatim statement bv Dr. Leon A. Kubowitsky (World Jewish Congress) in Kohanski, cd., American Jen’isb Conference, First Session, p. 119. The OWI was headed by Elmer Davis. The domestic branch was under Gardner Cowles, policy and development under Archibald Mac-Lcish, the overseas branch under Robert Sherwood. 38. Transocean report, dated July 31,1942, with notation by Albrecht, NG-2 111. 39. Dr. Maurice L. Pcrlzwcig (chairman, British section of World Jewish Congress) in Kohanski, cd American Jewish Conference, Second Session, p. 214. The treatment of denationalized Jews in British, South African, American, French, and Swiss courts is discussed by H. Lautcrpacht in “The Nationality' of Denationalized Persons," Jewish Tear Book of International Law, 1948, pp. 164-85. Article 44 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 on Civilian Persons in War states that a belligerent in its ow n territory' shall nor treat as enemy aliens “refugees who do not, in fact, enjov the protection of any government.” Department of State Publication 3938, 1950. 40. Sec, for example, the case of the Red Army generals in W. G. Krivitskv, In CONSBQUBNCBS the Red Army on the eastern front did not return home. They remained in captivity as “prisoners of war”41 The general inclination for obscuration was maintained over a period of decades. The Jewish fate was omitted from textbooks, encyclopedias, historiography, plays, and film.42 A major change in this posture was signaled bv President Carter in 1978 when he established a commission to memorialize the Holocaust. There was an element of rectification in this act, a reaching out for the millions of dead whose very identity as Jews had not been readily recognized when they were being subjected to destruction.43 But no sooner had the commission met when questions were raised by observers about memorializing only the Jewish victims. The Holocaust, it was argued, had struck a wide variety of groups, particularly the Slavs but also such concentration camp inmates as homosexuals.44 One critic finally characterized the insistence of the Jews on their special Stalin's Secret Service (New York and London, 1939), p. 212. The author was chief of Red Army intelligence in Western Europe. See also the case of Wiktor Alter and H. Ehrlich, Jewish Socialists from Poland shot in the USSR after organizing an international Jewish anti-Fascist committee on the ground that they had appealed to the Soviet armies “to conclude an immediate peace with Germany.” Bogomolov (Soviet Ambassador in London) to Rasziiiski (Polish Foreign Minister), March 31, 1943, in Government of Poland/Polish Embassy in London, Polisb-SmHet Relatiotis, 1918-1943, p. 180, and preceding correspondence on pp. 178-79. During the pe-ruxl 1940-41 the Soviets also practiced the deportation of unwanted Jews of German nationality to German or Gcrman-ng, and appealed directly to newly appointed Undersecretary of State Stettinius and to Congress for action.47 A decisive step was taken when Morgenthau made a “personal report” to Roosevelt on the State Depart-43. Waldman to Proskauer, May 19,1943, Archives of American Jewish Committee, EXO-29, Waldman files (Joint Emergency Committee). The Joint Emergency Committee existed until November 1943. 44. Mimeographed statement of withdrawal, October 27,1943, Archives of American Jewish Committee, EXO-29, Waldman files (American Jewish Conference). 45. Archives of American Jewish Committee, EXO-16, Proskauer files (Joint Emergency Committee). 46. Hull to Proskauer, no typed date, Archives of American Jewish Committee, EXO-16, Proskauer files (Joint Emergency Committee). The letter, an original, is stamped December 2, 1943. 47. Feingold, Politics of Rescue, pp. 221-22, 237-39. Zionist-Revisionist in orientation, the Bergson Committee, according to Feingold, “gave rescue priority.” Bergson appealed to Proskauer tor political support, bur was rebutted. See Rcrgson-Proskauer correspondence in Archives of American Jewish Committee, HXO-ltv Proskauer files (Joint Emergency Committee). 1210 CONSEQUENCES mcnt's conduct in the refugee question. Reacting to this intervention, Roosevelt established a War Refugee Board by executive order, dated January' 22, 1944, and named the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and War (Hull, Morgenthau, and Stimson) as its members. The executive director was John Pehle of the Treasury Department. The board maintained its own network of special representatives abroad.48 The rescue program had thus been centralized. A specific agency had been created for the task. The agency had centers for the receipt of information, means of communication, and powers of negotiation. Moreover, it could call upon private Jewish organizations for detailed knowledge, age-old experience, and —in the event of ransom possibilities —“quickly available funds.” The challenge came soon, for in the spring of 1944 Hungarian Jewry' was threatened with destruction. On March 19,1944, the Hungarian government was overthrown, and the line to Auschwitz was cleared. For the Germans there was no further barrier; for Jewry’ there was no more protection. Between the Jews and the gas chambers there remained only a series of predetermined bureaucratic steps. However, the activation of these steps required a certain amount of preparation, and the Germans did not have very much time. They were losing the war. Every' day the German position was becoming more difficult. The steady buildup of diis destructive operation was the work of an administrative machine in which the bolts were already beginning to loosen. Everything therefore depended on the ability of outside forces to recognize these weaknesses and to immobilize the machine before it could deliver its blow, but time was of the essence. There was now a great deal of information in the hands of the U.S. government. Reports had been obtained with descriptions of Warsaw, Rawa Ruska, Majdanek, and Treblinka.49 The most remarkable docu­ 48. lTic following is a list of the posts: United Kingdom: Josiah F.. DuBois, Jr., general counsel of the board, from the Treasury Department Turkey . Ira A. Hirschmann, department store executive Portugal: Dr. Robert C. Dexter, Unitarian Service Committee Sw eden: IverC. Olsen, Treasury Switzerland: Roswell McClelland, American Friends Service Committee Italy: l>eonard Ackerman, Treasury Another post was established in North Africa. Ibid., pp. 19-22; Executive Director, War Refugee Board (William O’Dwvcr), Final Summary Report (Washington, D.C., 1945), pp. 1-6. Morgenthau, “The Morgenthau Diaries,” Collier's, November 1, 1947. DuBois, Πte I'kvtl's Chemists, pp. 15, 31, 188, 198. 49. See statement by a medical student who escaped from Poland on April 15, 1943, dated in Geneva November 1, 1943, in National Archives Record Group 226, Office of Strategic Services (OSS) 95436; an International Red Cross Committee report of ghetto clearances in Galicia (including the December 1942 massacre in RESCUE 1211 ment, however, was about Auschwitz. The two-part report, prepared by a Polish source, was written on August 10 and 12, 1943, and received in London by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In the Washington headquarters of the OSS, it was passed by F. L. Belin to Dr. William Langer (Chief of the Research and Analysis Branch) with a note stating that the Polish source had asked that the subject be given publicity. Belin's cover letter was dated April 10, 1944, and was marked “'secret.” The report contained the following information. The number of prisoners at the moment of writing was 137,000. Up to September 1942, 468,000 nonregistered Jews had been gassed. Between September 1942 and the beginning of June 1943, the camp received approximately 60,000 Jews from Greece; 50,000 from Slovakia and the Protectorate; 60,000 from Holland, Belgium, and France; and 16,000 from Polish towns. At the beginning of August, 15,000 Jews arrived from Sosnowiec and B^dzin. Two percent of all of these people were still alive. On arrival, men were separated from women and taken by lorry to the gas chamber in Birkenau. The report added that before entering the gas chamber the condemned were bathed. There were three crematoria in Birkenau that could burn 10,000 people daily. Jewish girls were experimented on with artificial insemination and sterilization. In winter, prisoners worked in wooden shoes. Of more than 14,000 Gypsies, 90 percent had been gassed. Poles were arriving in large numbers; professionals among them had been executed, and women were subjected to sadism. “History,” said the report, “knows no parallel of such destruction of human life.” As many as 30,000 people had been gassed in a single day. The report went on to list names. The commanding officer was Obersturmbannfiihrer Hoss. Hauptsturmfiihrer Schwarz was “one of the most deadly enemies of Poland.” Hauptsturmfuhrer Aumeier was stated to be in charge of hangings and shootings. A woman warden, Mandel, was named as a personification of evil. The Political Department was under Untersturmfuhrer Grabner. Oberscharfiihrer Boger and several others were listed as torturers. Although the facts in the report had manifestly been gathered by the Polish underground in the camp itself, the OSS official, Belin, who transmitted the account to Langer, noted that he had been given no indication as to the reliability of the source. “This report,” he said, “is for your information and retention.”50 Rawa Ruska), September 25, 1943, OSS 61701; report on Majdanek shootings dated February 24, 1944, OSS 89494; statement by Treblinka escapee David Milgrom, August 30, 1943 (sent by Melbourne, the American Vice Consul in Istanbul, on January 13, 1944), OSS 58603. 50. National Archives Record Group 266, OSS 66059. Ferdinand Ltmmot Belin, a retired foreign service officer in OSS, had been ambassador to Poland in 1932-33. 1212 CONSEQUENCES Even as the OSS was filing away the most detailed portrayal of Auschwitz that had been brought to its attention, two young Slovak Jews, Rudolf Vrba (then Walter Rosenberg) and Alfred Wetzler, escaped from the camp and made long statements about their observations to the Jewish Council of Slovakia in ¿ilina. They had broken out on April 10, and walked at night until they arrived, with the help of Polish partisan sympathizers, at the Slov ak frontier. By April 25, they were received in ¿ilina, where their identity was verified by Jewish leaders from two-year-old deportation lists. The leaders then listened, horror-stricken, to the description of the camp. On the 27th a Slovak text was prepared. A German version was then completed in haste and delivered to Geza Boos, a dissident member of the Hungarian Foreign Office in Budapest. There the forty-page report was translated into Hungarian during the first week of May and distributed in carbon copies to local church dignitaries, Jewish leaders, and persons close to Horthy. The report was also brought, in summary and full detail, to Switzerland, where the representative of the Czechoslovak Government in Exile, Jaromir Kopecki, received it on or about June 10. After conferring with Jewish advisers, Kopecki passed it on to War Refugee Board representative Roswell McClelland, who dispatched it to the Executive Director, Pehle, on June 16. The Jewish youth group (Hechalutz) leader in Switzerland, Nathan Schwalb, complained to Kopecki on June 22, because he had been left out of the loop when Kopecki had not been able to find him. After all, the report from Slovakia had been addressed to Schwalb.51 linger, a professor of history at Harvard University, was subsequently also President of the American Historical Association. The report, originally compiled by a Polish woman agent in December 1943, was received by Polish General Stall Headquarters in I.ondon on )anuary 28, 1944, with her request that it be given publicity. The OSS was nor its only recipient. It was passed on in English translation to an American military attache on March 13, 1944, who transmitted a copy to War Department Military Intelligence on March 17, 1944. There it was filed under Europe-Africa/ Central Europe 2. Another copy was given to the U.S. member of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, Herbert Pell. See Major Langcnfeld (Polish General Staff, U>ndon) to Captain Paul M. Birkeland (U.S. Assistant Military Attache, London), enclosing report, March 13, 1944, and Birkeland to War Department Military Intelligence Division, noting a copy was given to Pell, March 17, 1944, in National Archives Record Group 165 (War Department General and Special Stalls), Box 3138, Poland 6950. The language and British spellings of the report in the OSS tile are duplicated in the War Department document, bur the typing is different. The attache report in the War Department bears the high reliability' raring of A-2. Highlights of the report, with conditions in the camp ascribed to December 1943, were broadcast from London by the Polish radio station “Swir” on March 16, 1944. KdS Lublin, “Spiegel der illegalen Polenpropaganda” No. 13, March 22, 1944, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 15.034 (KdS Lublin), Roll 6. 51. Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bcstic, / Cannot Forgive (New York, 1964), pp. 244-46. RBSCUB 1213 Yet another, inconspicuous, event occurred on April 4,1944: an Allied reconnaissance aircraft appeared over Auschwitz. The flight was the first of several photographic intelligence missions launched for the specific purpose of acquiring information about “Activity at I. G. Farbenindustrie/Synthetic Oil and Synthetic Rubber Works at Oswiecim.” From Allied air bases in Italy, Auschwitz had come within range, and as German industrialists were building plants in the eastern portions of the Greater Reich, American bombers of the 15th Air Force were going to strike at these new targets. The Auschwitz industries, according to interpretations of photographs, were partially still under construction, and the output of oil there had not yet risen to significant levels. Hence the building activity was being watched to determine the optimum time for a raid. All the photographs were accordingly centered on Auschwitz III (Monowitz). No one analyzed these pictures at the time to discover what was revealed in their corners: the gas chambers.* 52 The bombing of Auschwitz III, with Vrba, “Die missachtete Warnung” Vierteljahrshefte fur Zeitgeschichte 44 (1996): 1-24. Oskar Neumann (Chairman of the Jewish Council in Slovakia at the time), Im Schatten des Todes (Tel Aviv, 1956), pp. 178-81. John Conway, “Frühe Augcnzeugcnbc-richtc aus Auschwitz,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 27 (1979): 260-84. Sandor Szcncs and Frank Baron, Von Ungarn nach Auschwitz (Münster, 1994). Miroslav Karny, “The History of the Vrba and Wetzler Auschwitz Report” and Erich Kulka, “The Efforts of Jew'ish Fighters to Stop the Shoah in Auschwitz” in Dczidcr Toth, cd., The Tragedy of Slovak Jewry (Banka Bystrica, Slovakia, 1992), pp. 175-204,281 — 98. Memorandum by Richard Lichthcim (Geneva Representative of the Jewish Agency) on meeting with Kopccki and Schwalb, June 23, 1944, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Record Group 48.004 (Military Historical Institute, Prague), Roll 3, Fond 117 (Kopccky Papers). 52. See Interpretation Reports by Mediterranean Allied Photo Reconnaissance Wing of sorties flown by 60th Photo Reconnaissance Squadron on April 4,1944, and June 26,1944 (60 PR/288 and 60 PR/522), dated April 18,1944, and July 1,1944, respectively, and note reference in July 1 report to a sortie on May 31, 1944 (60 PR/462). National Archives Record Group 18, 15th Squ. Combat Mission, July 1, 1944. Sec also Target Information Sheet of July 18, 1944, including photograph of April 4 and noting that production of both oil and rubber was now in progress. The photograph of April 4 includes all of Monowitz and portions of Auschwitz I, but not Birkenau. Record Group 18, Army Air Forces, 15th Squ. Combat Mission, July 18, 1944. (Files are labeled 15th Squadron, although it did not take over photography of Auschwitz from the 60th Squadron until September.) The photographs of April 1944 to January 1945 were reexamined after more than thirty years by Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirier (both of the Central Intelligence Agency), using the latest available equipment and techniques. See their paper, “'Hie Holocaust Revisited: Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex,” ST-79/20001, February 1979, distributed by the National Technical Information Service, NTISUB/E/280-002. Sec also photograph of sortie 60 PR/522, June 26, 1944, showing gas chambers and train, Record Group 373 Con C 1172 exp 5022, and photo of sortie 60 PR/694, August 25, 1944, Record Group 373 Con F 536~ 1214 CONSEQUENCES 500-pound bombs, commenced in August and was repeated three times in September and December:53 Date Number of Bombers Bombs Dropped August 20,1944 127B-17’s 1,336 September 13, 1944 96B-24\s 943 December 18,1944 2 B-17’s and 47 B-24’s 436 December 26,1944 95 B-24’s 679 The four raids over Monowitz were all aimed at an oil refinery in an estimated area of 1,100 by 1,200 yards and at a rubber plant occupying an area of 1,800 by 1,200 yards. Several facilities were knocked out, but the Germans were able to repair roofs of buildings, and track damage was insufficient to choke traffic.54 Bombings conducted in formation at fairly high altitudes could not be expected to be highly accurate, and repeated attempts to destroy a target were not an uncommon occurrence. That w as the setting in which any proposal to disrupt the killing operations from the air w as going to be weighed by Allied governments. Spurred by the German invasion of Hungary' and the Vrba-Wctzler reports of gassings in Auschwitz, several Jewish groups in Bratislava and Budapest requested bombings of the gas chambers in Auschwitz and of the railway' lines leading to the death camp. The messages, transmitted to Jerusalem and Switzerland, reached the British and American governments during the second half of June. In Britain the suggestion to bomb Auschwitz was made by Chaim Wcizmann (President of the World Zionist Organization) and Moshe Shertok (head of the Political Department of the Jew'ish Agency in Palestine) in a meeting on June 30 with the exp 3185. In addition, sec Hrugiom, “Auschwitz-Birkenau — Why the World War II Photo Interpreters Failed to Identify' the Extermination Complex,” Military Intelligence, January-March 1983, pp. 50-55. 53. Target Information Sheet of July 18, 1944, report titled “Synthetic Oil Plant of I. G. Farben at Oswiccim near Krakow, Poland,” with “Summary I.G.F. Synthetic Rubber and Oil Plant, Oswiccim, Poland, Synthetic Oil Section,” as of January' 1945, all in Record Group 18, Army Air Forces, 15th Squ. Combat Mission, July 18, 1944. 54. Ibid. Also, Interpretation Reports of photographs taken by 60th Squadron on August 23, and 25, 1944 (60 PR/686 and 60 PR/694), Record Group 18, Army Air Forces, 15th Squ. Combat Mission, August 30, 1944. Further reports in Record Group 18, Army Air Forces, 15th Squ. Com bat Mission, September 13, 1944, and Record Group 18, 15th Squ. Combat Mission, December 26, 1944. Note also the report by SS Central Administration chief Mockcl of the Auschwitz camp to SS Construction Inspectorate Silesia, September 18,1944, about the September 13 raid, stating that the Rcichsbahn was able to repair damage to its railw'ay installations immediately, and that other damage was caused mostly to windows and some roofs. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives RG 11.001 (Center for Preservation of Historical lSocumentarv Collections, Moscow), Roll 20, Fond 502, Opis 1, Folder 28. RESCUE 1215 Parliamentary Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, G. H. Hall. They made the point without much emphasis.55 A week later, on July 6, the two Jewish representatives met with British Foreign Secretary Eden and, at the end of a long list of proposals, added a request for the bombing of the railway lines. Eden replied that he had already referred the gas-chamber bombing suggestion to the Air Ministry and that he would now supplement it by including the railways.56 An explanatory Jewish note of July 11 stated that bombing the death installations was “hardly likely to achieve the salvation of the victims to any appreciable extent,” but that it would constitute a message to the Germans.57 On August 13, Air Commodore Grant could not find Birkenau. Before anything could be undertaken, he wrote to V. Cavendish-Bentinck of the Joint Intelligence Committee, he would need some aerial photographs of the place.58 Finally, on September 1,1944, Richard Law, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, sent an official reply to Weizmann. As promised, said Law, Eden had immediately put the proposal to the Secretary of State for Air. The matter had received the most careful consideration of the Air Staff, but because of “the very great technical difficulties involved,” the Foreign Office had “no option but to refrain from pursuing the proposal in present circumstances.” Law said he realized that the decision was going to prove a “disappointment” to Weizmann, but, he added, “you may feel folly assured that the matter was most thoroughly investigated.”59 In the meantime, parallel requests had been received by the War Refugee Board in Washington.60 At the suggestion of Executive Director Pehle, the chairman, Morgenthau, sent a paraphrase of a cable, calling for the bombardment of railway junctions at Kashau (sic) and Pressov to the War Department, where Assistant Secretary McCloy passed it on to the Civil Affairs Division, which in turn handed the proposal to the Opera­ 55. The bombing request, part of several proposals for the rescue of the remaining Jews, is noted in the British record. Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, p. 309. It is not mentioned in Shertok’s report of the meeting to Jewish Agency chief Bcn-Gurion, June 30,1944, Weizmann Archives, Rehovoth, Israel. 56. Note of meeting by Weizmann and Shcrtok with Eden and Walker (Refugee Department), July 6,1944, Weizmann Archives. 57. Note of July 11,1944, Weizmann Archives. 58. Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, pp. 314-15. 59. Law to Weizmann, September 1,1944, Weizmann Archives. 60. Apparently they originated in Bratislava at the time when the deportations began. One of the requests was passed on to the War Refugee Board by Jacob Rosenheim (head of Aguda Israel World Organization, representing Orthodox Jews) on June 18, 1944, another a few days later by Ricgncr in Geneva. Martin Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies (New York, 1981), p. 236, and David S. Wyman, “Why Auschwitz Was Never Bombed,” Commentary, May 1978, pp. 37-46. 1216 CONSEQUENCES tions Division for action.61 The Operations Division felt that, inasmuch as McCloy had directed the request to the Civil Affairs Division, the reply should come from there. Operations considered that appropriate action on its part could consist of drafting the answer that the Civil Affairs Division might send to Secretary Morgenthau. The suggested phrasing, signed by Major General J. E. Hull (the Operations Division's group chief for theaters of war) on June 26, was that air strikes were “impracticable" for the reason that they would require “diversion of considerable air support essential for the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations."62 Pehle then received a cable from his representative in Switzerland (McClelland) containing another proposal for bombings of railway lines, and he promptly renewed his request on June 29.63 On July 3, 1944, McCloy s assistant, Colonel Harrison Gerhardt, wrote the following memorandum to McCloy: “I know you told me to 'kill' this but since those instructions, we have received the attached letter from Mr. Pehle. I suggest that the attached reply be sent." The suggested answer contained, almost word for word, the Operations Division's formulation.64 61. Major General J. H. Hilldring (Director, Civil Affairs Division) to Operations Division, June 23, 1944, enclosing paraphrase of cable, National Archives Record Group 163, War Department General and Special Staffs, OPD 383.7 (sec II). The paraphrase in the War Department files is not dated, but the same message with different wording in the files of the American Jewish Committee bears the date June 12, 1944, and is identified as having been transmitted bv representatives of Jewish organizations in Sw itzerland after they had approached the American and British legations in Berne with “no result.” Moses Jung to M. Gottschalk (both in American Jewish Committee), June 20, 1944, Archives of American Jewish Committee, KXO-29, Waldman files (Hungary). 62. Hull to Director, Cavil Affairs Division, copies to Commanding General/ Army Air Forces and sections in Operations, June 26, 1944, Record Group 163, War Department General and Special Staffs, OPD 383.7 (sec II). 63. Pehle to McClov, June 29, 1944, in National Record Group 107, Secretary of War/Asst. Sec. War, ASW 400.38 Jews. 64. Gerhardt to McCloy, July 3, 1944, with draft of McCloy reply to Pehle dated July 4, 1944, ibid. Following renew als of bombing requests, a more elaborate set of reasons for nor accepting the suggestion, including consideration of ranges and losses, was prepared by Hull. See Pehle to McCloy, November 8, 1944, transmitting eyew itness account of Auschw'itz, and Hull to McCloy, November 14, 1944, reciting difficulties, in National Archives Record Group 319, Armv Staff, ABC 383.6, November 8, 1944, Sec. 1A. See also Wyman, “Why Auschwitz Was Never Bombed,” Commentary, May 1978, pp. 37-46, letter by Herbert Loebcl, surv ivor of so-called Gypsy camp in Auschw'itz and experienced pilot, suggesting that a night raid would have been effective in view- of flames from crematoria, and letter by Milt Groban, navigator-bombadier in Auschwitz raid of August 20 and other raids on oil targets, including Ploic$ti, subsequently also staff operations officer, 15th Air Force, emphasizing improbability of hitting targets, attritional losses of bombers in raids, consequence of carpet bombing (dropping strings of bombs at intervals of 400 feet), and RESCUE 1217 Half a million Jews were killed in Auschwitz between May and November 1944. The decision not to bomb the gas chambers during that time was a product, in the first instance, of perceptual insufficiencies: the Jews lacked knowledge; the Allies, motivation. The Jewish proposals, presented in an uncoordinated manner at the last moment, either were incomplete or failed to provide specifics about the targets. The Allied replies, couched in the ready-made language of diplomatic or bureaucratic usage, were drafted without serious reflection or prolonged preoccupation in matters pertaining to the Jewish disaster.* 65 More fundamentally, bombing was an idea whose time had not come. Neither Jewish traditions nor Allied doctrines could make it an imperative. The Jewish leaders were not accustomed to thinking about rescue in terms of physical force, and Allied strategists could not conceive of force for the purpose of rescue.66 If any major part of the remaining Jewish community was to be saved, such action would have to be taken with nonphysical means. To this end some preparations had been made. The War Refugee Board and Jewish organizations had posted their representatives at the perimeter of the destruction arena. There the rescuers waited for openings, opportunities, and offers. Incredibly enough, an offer was to come. On April 6 and 7, at a time when the German momentum in Hungary was approaching its climax, the Armaments Ministry secured from Hitler himself an authorization to remove 100,000 of the expected Jewish deportees from Auschwitz to construction projects that were then being planned by the Pursuit Planes Staff. Two and a half weeks after this diversion had been authorized, Obersturmbannführer Eichmann called to his office in the Budapest Hotel Majestic a leader of the Jewish rescue com-thc possible psychological burden placed on those bombing the camp, Commentary, July 1978, pp. 7-11, with Wyman’s reply on pp. 11 -12. For a wide-ranging review of the problem, sec the essays and documents in Michael Ncufcld and Michael Berenbaum, eds., The Bombing of Auschwitz (New York, 2000). 65. Sec the comments by General Telford Taylor in “Why the World Did Not Listen” (his review of Walter Laqucufs The Terrible Secret), The New York Times Book Review, February 1, 1981, pp. 1, 18. Symptomatic were quotation marks placed around the words death camps and extermination in OSS documents processed in 1944. Record Group 226, OSS 61701 and OSS 80227. A Soviet commander, advancing upon Auschwitz in January' 1945, had been told that he might enter concentration camps, including Auschwitz, but what he saw there was beyond his imagination. Remarks by Lt. Gen. Petrenko in Brewster Chamberlain, ed., The Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945 (Washington, D.C., 1987), pp. 188-89. 66. The idea of bribing the Hungarian government with a promise of bombing immunity for Hungarian cities in exchange for Jewish safety from deportation did not arise. Allied bombers roared over Hungary' at will, killing Hungarians and lews alike. CONSEQUENCES mittce in Hungary; Joel Brand.67 Eichmann received Brand with words in the following vein: Do you know who I am? I have carried out the Aktionen in the Reich — in Poland — in Czechoslovakia. Now it is Hungary’s turn. I let you come here to talk business with you. Before that I investigated you —and your people. Those from the Joint and those from the Agency.68 And I have come to the conclusion that you still have resources. So I am ready to sell you —a million Jews. All of them I wouldn’t sell you. That much money and goods you don’t have. But a million — that will go. Goods for blood — blood for goods. You can gather up this million in countries which still have Jews. You can take it from Hungary. From Poland. From Austria. From Theresienstadt. From Auschwitz. From wherever you want. What do you want to save? Virile men? Grown women? Old people? Children? Sit down — and talk. Brand was a careful negotiator. How was he to get goods, he asked, that the Germans could not confiscate on their own? Eichmann had the answer. Brand was to go abroad. He was to negotiate directly with the Allies and bring back a concrete öfter. With these words Eichmann dismissed Brand, warning him in parting that the discussion was a Reich secret that no Hungarian was allowed to suspect. Sometime in the beginning of May, following the railway conference in Vienna that determined the routing of the transports, Eichmann called Brand again. “Do you want a million Jews?” If so, Brand was to leave immediately for Istanbul. He was to bring back an öfter to deliver trucks. “You deliver one truck for every' hundred Jews. That is not much.” The total would be 10,000 vehicles. The trucks had to be new and suitable for winter driving. “You can assure the Allies that these trucks will never be used in the West. They will be employed exclusively on the eastern front.” In addition, the Germans would be pleased if the Allies would throw in a few thousand tons of tea, coffee, soap, and other useful items. Cautiously Brand replied: “Mr. Obersturmbannführer, I personally can believe that you will keep your word, but I do not possess ten thousand trucks. The people with whom I must negotiate in Istanbul will demand guarantees. Nobody is going to deliver ten thousand trucks in 67. F.xcept as indicated otherwise, the entire account of the Brand mission is taken from Alexander Weissberg, Du Geschuhte iwi Joei Brand (Cologne-Bcrlin, 1956). On Brand's background, see also comments by Andreas Biss (an industrialist who tor a time had employed Brand), Der Stopp der Endlosutiß (Stuttgart, 1966), pp. 40-49. 68. Reference here is to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency for Palestine. RESCUE 1219 advance. What assurance can you offer that these million Jews will actually be freed?” Eichmann thereupon gave a decisive answer. “You think we are all crooks. You hold us for what vom are. Now I am going to pros e to you that I mist you more than you trust me. When you come back from Istanbul and tell me that the offer has been accepted, I will dissolve Auschwitz and move 10 percent of the promised million to the border. You take over the 100,000 Jews and deliver for them afterwards one thousand trucks. And then the deal will proceed step by step. For every hundred thousand Jews, a thousand trucks. You are getting away cheap.” Brand had to conceal his excitement. For the first time he saw a way out. If the verbal assurance could be given in time, the Jews could score a major breakthrough without delivering a single vehicle. To be sure, the Germans could change their conditions. So far they had made no concessions. But if Brand could return with a promise, the Germans could not kill so long as they wanted the trucks. Without blood, no merchandise.69 Eichmann’s initiative, according to his testimony in Jerusalem, had been influenced largely by the propensity of rival SS factions to negotiate with the Jews. He was going to confine the offer to freeing 100,000 Jews, but then thought that only a major gesture, involving a million, was going to have any impact. When Himmler approved the scheme, Eichmann was actually surprised. Himmler, believing that the Jews might make deliveries, was thinking about motorizing the 8th SS-Cavalry Division Florian Geyer and the 22d SS-Volunteer Cavalry Division Maria Theresia, both assigned to Hungary.70 The rescue committee now telegraphed to Istanbul that Brand would be arriving there. The answer came quickly: “Joel should come, Chaim will be there.” To the committee this could mean only that Chaim Weizmann himself would be on hand. On May 15 Brand saw Eichmann for the last time. It was the day on which the deportations began. Eichmann warned Brand to return quickly. If the offer came in time, Auschwitz would be “blown up” (dann spren0 e ich Auschwitz in die Lufi), and the deportees now leaving Hungary would be the first to be sent to the border.71 On the following day, Brand secured “full powers” from the Zentralrat der Ungarischen Juden; he also received a companion: a Jew who had 69. Brand did not know of the German plan to use up to 100,000 Jews for forced labor in any case. 70. Testimony by Eichmann, July 5,1961, Eichmann trial, sess. 86, pp. Ol, PI. 71. Eichmann at his trial denied having talked about destroying Auschwitz, since he had no jurisdiction to do so. His testimony, July 5, 1961, Eichmann trial, sess. 86, p.Rl. 1220 CONSEQUENCES served the Abwehr, Bandi Grosz. The two went to Vienna and, paying for their fare in dollars, left by special plane to Istanbul. When Brand landed at the Istanbul airport, he made a disturbing discover)'. The Jewish Agency had not processed an entry visa for him, and “Chaim” was not there. The man to whom Jerusalem had referred was not the agency’s chief executive, Chaim Weizmann, but the chief of its Istanbul Office, Chaim Barlasz, and that man was riding around in the city at the verv moment of the plane’s arrival to obtain a visa for Brand. Fortunately, Brand’s counterintelligence companion, Grosz, had many connections in Istanbul. After a few telephone calls by Grosz, the two men were allowed to move into a hotel. There the Jewish Agency representatives were waiting for the emissaries. Brand was angry' and excited. “Comrades, do you realize what is involved? . . . We have to negotiate. . . . With whom can I negotiate? Do you have the power to make agreements . . . ? Twelve thousand people are hauled away every' day . . . that is five hundred an hour. . . . Do they have to die because nobody from the Executive is here? ... I want to telegraph tomorrow that I have secured agreement. . . . Do you know what is involved, comrades? The Germans want to negotiate. The ground is burning under their feet. They feel the coming of the catastrophe. Eichmann has promised us an advance of a hundred thousand Jews. Do you know what this means? ... I insist, comrades, that a man come here whom all the world knows. The Germans are observing us. They will know at once that Weizmann is here or [Moshe] Shertok. Even if you cannot accomplish anything concrete with the Allies while I am here, I can go back and tell Eichmann that the Agency has accepted. Then Auschwitz can be blown up.” To the representatives of the Jewish Agency the matter was not so simple. They could not be sure, they said, that a telegram sent to Jerusalem would arrive there without mutilation. No one had enough influence to obtain a plane. No representative of the War Refugee Board was on the scene. Brand wanted to reach Steinhardt, the American Ambassador in Ankara. “Steinhardt,” he said, “is supposed to be a good Jew. And besides that, a good man.” But no plane seat could be bought for a trip to Ankara. The hours began to pass, then the days. Brand, still waiting for someone to arrive in Istanbul, gave the Jewish Agency representatives some important data. “I gave the comrades an accurate plan of the Auschwitz concentration camp. I demanded the bombing of the gas chambers and crematories insofar as this was technically possible. I demanded diversions and air strikes against the junctions on the railway lines which led to Auschwitz. I gave our comrades accurate information about places where parachute troops could land, and I gave them a list of documents and other things that the parachutists absolutely had to have to get RESCUE 1221 through. I named a number of addresses of reliable helpers on the roads to Budapest.” Brand had exhausted his mission, and it was exhausting him in turn. In repeated discussions with the Jewish Agency representatives he gained the distinct impression that they did not quite realize what was at stake. ’■‘They did not, as we did in Budapest, look daily at death.” As Brand waited for a reply, a number of unexpected things began to happen. For a few days he was in danger of deportation. The Turkish authorities had ordered his apprehension, together with Bandi Grosz, although the latter was a “director” of a Hungarian transport corporation engaged in discussion with the director of a Turkish state transport company. Why the deportation of Grosz? Already Brand suspected that the British were controlling the “main switch,” but he dismissed the thought. “I could not believe,” he states, “that England—this land which alone fought on while all other countries of Europe surrendered to despotism — that this England which we had admired as the inflexible fighter for freedom wanted simply to sacrifice us, the poorest and weakest of all the oppressed.” Soon, however, another curious situation arose. Moshe Shertok was unable to obtain a visa to Turkey. The agency decided to bring Brand to Aleppo in British-occupied Syria; there Shertok was to meet him. On June 5,1944, after fifteen fruitless days in Istanbul, Brand, widi a British visa in his German passport, boarded the Taurus express train. When the train passed through Ankara, a representative of the Jewish Revisionists (Irgun), accompanied by an Orthodox party man, got on to warn him that he was moving into a “trap.” Shertok had not obtained a visa because the British wanted to lure Brand into British-controlled territory, where they could arrest him. Britain was in this matter no “ally” (Die Engländer sind in dieser Frage nicht unsere Verbündeten). They did not want his mission to succeed. If he continued on his journey, he would never be able to return; he would be arrested. Brand was confused. The train was about to pull out, and he decided to stay on it. On June 7, 1944, he arrived in Aleppo. A porter entered the compartment and took off Brand’s luggage. Brand wanted to follow the porter, when an Englishman in civilian clothes blocked his way. “Mister Brand?” “Oh, yes.” “This way, please.” Before Brand knew what was happening, two plainclothcsmen had pushed him into a waiting jeep whose motor was already running. He tried to resist, but it was too late. Brand’s reports in Istanbul had been passed on to London and Washington. In the British capital, the Cabinet Committee on Refugees, which 1222 CONSEQUENCES included Foreign Secretary Eden and Colonial Secretary Oliver Stanley, met on May 31 and adopted a negative stance.72 73 Six days later, as Brand was boarding his train for Aleppo, the British Embassy in Washington sent a detailed aide-memoire to the Department of State. If the suggestion had come from the Gestapo, said the British note, it was a clear case of blackmail. Ten thousand lorries would strengthen the enemy. To leave-selections of persons for exchange in Hitler’s hands, without providing for Allied internees and prisoners, would lay governments open to serious protest. Wcizmann had been told of the proposal, but no comment had been made to him beyond a statement that the United States had been informed. Weizmann had merely observed that it looked like one more attempt to embarrass the Allies, but that he wanted to reflea on the affair.72 On June 6 Weizmann wrote to Eden, saying that the story had given him a “shock” and requesting a meeting with the Foreign Secretary'.74 Not until June 11 was Shertok permitted to interview Brand in Aleppo. Brand, answering questions for six hours in two sessions, said at one point that six million Jews were dead. In his notes Shertok wrote: “I must have looked a little incredulous, for he said: ‘Please believe me: they have killed six million Jews; there are only two million left alive.’ ”75 When the session was over, Shertok went into a huddle with the British representatives. Then he turned to Brand. “Dear Joel, I have to tell you something bitter now. You have to go south. The British demand it. I have done everything to change this decision, but it is a decision of the highest authorities. I could not alter it.” For a second Brand did not understand what had been said to hint. When he finally caught on, he screamed: “Do you know what you arc doing? That is simply murder! That is mass murder. If I don’t return our best people will be slaughtered! My wife! My mother! My children will be first! You have to let me go! I have come here under a flag of truce. I have brought you a message. You can accept or rejea, but you have no 72. Wasscrstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, pp. 249-53. One member feared that negotiations might “lead to an offer to unload an even greater number of Jews on our hands,” ibid., p. 252. 73. British Embassy to State Department, June 5, 1944, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1944,1, 1056-58. Undersecretary Hall of the Foreign Office had met with Weizmann on June 2. See Hall to Weizmann, June 5,1944, Weizmann Archives. In the State Department, the matter was in the hands of Undersecretary Stettinius, who consulted also with McCloy. Stettinius to McCloy, June 14,1944, thanking him without elaboration for his comments of June 10. National Archives Record Group 107, Assistant Secretary of War, 291.2 Jews. Through the courtesy of Mr. Mark Be ri beau. 74. Weizmann to Eden, June 6, 1944, Weizmann Archives. 75. Shertok’s “Preliminary Report," June 27, 1944, Weizmann Archives. RESCUE 1223 right to hold the messenger. ... I am here as the messenger of a million people condemned to death. . . . What do you want from us? What do you want from me?” Brand was brought to Cairo for exhaustive intelligence interrogations. Henceforth he was a prisoner. Shertok returned to Jerusalem, where he reported to the Jewish Agency on June 14 and, with David Ben-Gurion, to the British High Commissioner on the 15th. He wanted to fly to London, but needed air priority. On the 21st, the American Consul General in Jerusalem told him that War Refugee Board representative Ira Hirschmann, who had missed meeting with Brand in Turkey, was going to Cairo and wanted to see Shertok there also. Shertok now flew to Cairo, where Hirschmann had caught up with Brand. On the 23d, Shertok received his air priority, but delayed the trip for two days to settle some matters in Jerusalem. He arrived in London on the 27th and, with Weizmann, went to see Undersecretary Hall on the 30th and Foreign Minister Eden on July 6.76 At the July 6 meeting the two Jewish leaders reiterated their desire that “an intimation should be given to Germany that some appropriate body is ready to meet for discussing the rescue of the Jews.” Eden expressed his “profound sympathy,” but he had to act in unison with America and had to have the agreement of the Soviet Government. The Foreign Secretary “doubted” that ransom was a possible course. There could not be “anything that looked like negotiating with the enemy.”77 There were to be no negotiations, just as there was to be no bombing. Only parachutists were dropped, but these Jewish volunteers from Palestine were released over military targets, where most of them could die for England.78 By the beginning of July most of the Hungarian Jews were dead. The Jews of Budapest were waiting for their turn. They were saved at the last moment, when the Regent Horthy and die Sztojay government, wearied by the protests of neutral states and the Church and frightened by intercepted Anglo-American teletype messages containing among odier things the Jewish requests for target bombings of Hungarian government offices as well as the names of seventy prominent officials, decided to stop the operation in its tracks. Two days after the deportations had come to a 76. Ibid. See also Ira A. Hirschmann, Lifeline to a Promised Land (New York, 1946) , pp. 109-32. 77. See note of interview' with Eden, July 6, 1944, aide-memoire handed by Weizmann and Shertok to Eden during the meeting, and Shertok to Ben-Gurion and Nahum Goldmann, July 6, 1944, Weizmann Archives. 78. Marie Syrkin, Blessed Is the Match — 7 'he Story of Jewish Resistance (Philadelphia. 1947) , pp. 19-35. Michael R. D. Foot and James M. Langley, Ail 9 (Boston, 1980K pp, 179-81. Veesenmayer to Ritter, July 8, 1944, NG-5616. 1224 CONSBQUENCES halt outside the Hungarian capital, Prime Minister Churchill wrote the following letter to Eden: There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history' of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery' by nominally civilised men in the name of a great state and one of the leading races of Europe. It is quite clear that all concerned in this crime who may tall into our hands, including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out the butcheries, should be put to death after their association with the murders has been proved. . . . There should therefore, in my opinion, be no negotiations of any' kind on this subject. Declarations should be made in public, so that everyone connected with it will be hunted down and put to death.79 This letter reveals a great deal about the British Prime Minister’s thoughts. In these instructions Churchill was not immediately concerned with the safety' of the Jews; he was worried about the reputation of the German nation. The culprits had disgraced their race. The Jews continued to be gassed. Outside Hungary' the operation w as not over. The Jews were being deported from Italy, they w'ere shipped out from the islands of Greece, they were hauled out of the ghetto of Lodz, they were thinned out in Theresienstadt, they were moved out of the Polish labor camps. In the fall came the turn of the remaining Slovakian Jews. Once more, ransom negotiators were sent out from Germany. This time the associate president of the Zionist Organization in Hungary', Kastner, accompanied by Standartenführer Becher, arrived in Switzerland. They too were conferring with the w'rong party. On the opposite side stood the president of the Jewish community' in Switzerland, Salv Mayer. He disliked the negotiations and refused to promise the Germans anything.80 If Saly Mayer reflected upon his tactics after the war, his only' consolation must have been the circumstance that the SS and Police were determined to destroy the Slovak Jews in any case. The negotiators on the German side had not been the right party either. In Cairo, Joel Brand remained in custody. His mission had failed, and his wife and children in Budapest had almost paid the penalty' tor the failure. He was constantly afraid that they might still have to pay. But the British would not let him go. He was now invited to clubs and hotels, more as an object of curiosity' than a source of intelligence information. 79. Churchill to Eden, July 11, 1944, in Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War; vol. 6, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston, 1953), p. 693. 80. Dr. Rczsö Kasztner (Rudolf Kastner), “Der Bericht des jüdischen Rettungs-komitecs aus Budapest” (mimeographed, Library of Congress), pp. 91-99. RESCUE One day at the British-Egyptian Club, Brand was engaged in conversation by a man who did not introduce himself. The Englishman asked once more about the Eichmann offer and how many Jews were involved. Brand replied that the offer encompassed a million people. “But Mr. Brand,” the British host exclaimed, ‘"what shall I do with those million Jews? Where shall I put them?”81 There were no longer a million. The entire network of standby organizations had become a vast organization of bystanders. By the beginning of 1945, five million Jews were dead. There were no more gassings. Auschwitz had been abandoned. But tens of thousands of Jews were still to die. On October 15, 1944, Judge Proskauer of the American Jewish Committee telegraphed McCloy, urging that internees in concentration camps be recognized by the U.S. government as prisoners of war,82 but the Assistant Secretary of War expressed doubt that such a step was “legally justified” or that it would “really help” the people it was designed to assist.83 During the shadow months of the Nazi regime, Roswell McClelland of the War Refugee Board negotiated in Berne with Standartenführer Becher of the SS and Police for die amelioration of camp conditions. In the final weeks the International Red Cross also made itself felt. The Germans began to release thousands of Jews. The Allied armies found the remainder alive, dying, or dead in the camps.84 Many of the survivors had lost enough body weight to look like living corpses.85 Up to May 8, 1945, the Jewish masses could not be rescued from catastrophe; now the survivors had to be saved from its consequences. 81. Weissberg, Brand, pp. 214-15. A British Foreign Office official, Alec Randall, is reported as having made such a statement to Shcrtok on June 28. Shlomo Aronson, Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews (Cambridge, England, 2004), pp. 252-54. Aronson believes Brandt heard it from Shcrtok. Long afterward Eichmann said: “The plain fact was that there was no place on earth that would have been ready to accept the Jews, not even this one million.” Life, December 5,1960, p. 148. 82. Proskauer to McCloy, October 15, 1944, Archives of American Jewish Committee, EXO-16, Proskauer files (Joint Emergency Committee). 83. McCloy to Proskauer, October 17, 1944, Archives of American Jewish Committee, EXO-16, Proskauer files (Joint Emergency Committee). 84. Kasztner, “Bericht,” pp. 112-13. War Refuge Board, Final Report, pp. 34,43-45, 59. Jean-Claude Favcz, Das Internationale Rote Kreuz und das Dritte Reich (Zurich, 1989), pp. 468-506. 85. In one stratified sample of survivors studied by Leo Eitingcr in Israel, the percentage of Jewish camp survivors who had been found in a cadaverous state was nearly a third. L. Eitingcr, “Concentration Camp Survivors in Norway and Israel,” Israel Journal of Medical Sciences 1 (1965): 883-95, particularly p. 889. See also his “The Concentration Camp Syndrome and Its Late Sequelae,” in loci Dimsdalc, cd.. Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators (Washington, 1980), pp. 127-62. Eitingcr, a physician, was a Jewish deportee from Norway in Auschwitz. 1226 CONSEQUENCES On the conquered territory of the former German Reich, some tens ot thousands of Jews clustered around the liberated concentration camps: Bergen-Belsen in the British zone, the Dachau complex in the American zone, Mauthausen in Austria.86 Thousands of the worst cases among the camp survivors were taken to hospitals in Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. Thousands more began to trek back to Hungary and Poland in search of lost families. To the south and east, the broken Jewish remnant communities formed a belt of restlessness, extending from the Balkans through Poland to the depths of Russia. The Hungarian-Romanian area still contained half a million Jews. Many were dispersed, most were destitute, and all were insecure.87 In Poland the scattered survivors found possessions and homes in other hands. Not a few of these Polish Jews, emerging from labor camps and out of hiding, were greeted with the query: “Still alive?”88 These Jews, too, wanted to get out, but no door was opened to them. The United States still had its immigration quotas. (The total quotas allotted to all the people born in the eastern half of Europe could not exceed about 1,500 a month.) In Palestine the White Paper of 1939 had set a permissible immigration total of 75,000 Jews for a period of five years. When it was discovered in the autumn of 1943 that only 44,000 of these certificates had been used, the British government agreed to the utilization of the remaining 31,000 passes after 1944.89 By the end of 1945, no certificates were left. From January 1, 1946, therefore, the British Labor government, under the severest pressure, allowed the Palestinian migration to continue at the rate of 1,500 a month.90 In short, the United States and Palestine together offered the Jews accommodation at the trickling rate of a few thousand month after month. For the hundreds of thousands of uprooted survivors, the only prospect was a wait of years. In Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary many Jews chose not to wait; they decided to embark on their journey, even if in the meantime they could not travel more than halfway. From Poland the exodus began through Czechoslovakia to the American zone in Germany.91 From Hungary and Romania the Jews began to arrive in Austria.92 By November 86. Most of these camp inmates were Hungarian Jews. Other significant groups were deportees from Poland, Holland, Slovakia, and Lithuania. 87. Duschinsky, “Hungary,” in Meyer et al., The Jews in the Soinet Satellites, pp. 373-489; Nicolas Sylvain, “Rumania,” ibid., pp. 491-556. 88. VVeinryb, “Poland,” ilnd., p. 244. 89. Report of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry Regarding the Problems of European Jenny and Palestine (London, 1946), Cmd. 6808, pp. 65-66. 90. ¡hid. 91. VVeinryb, “Poland,” in Meyer, ct al.. The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, pp. 254-57. 92. Report of the Anglo-American Committee, 1946, Cmd. 6808, pp. 48-49. RESCUE 1227 1945 the flow was beginning to thicken, and thousands of refugees were spilling over into Italy.93 These infiltrations were only an introduction. Under a Soviet-Polish agreement, all Jews and Poles in Soviet Russia who had been Polish citizens before September 19, 1939, were permitted to return to Poland.94 Over 150,000 Jews in Soviet Asia were affected by that agreement. From their Uzbek, Turkmen, Tadzhik, and Kazakh exiles, the Jews now started to move westward to the new Polish frontier. Passing the gutted ghettos, they were sent on to the newly administered Polish territory' to the west, where they could come into possession of abandoned German lands and homes. But the migrants from the Asian USSR did not stop in the Pomeranian-Silesian region. Joining the survivors of Poland, they overflowed into the Western-occupied zones of Germany.95 The British authorities in Germany looked upon the influx of the Jews as a vast conspiracy to explode the immigration barriers to Palestine. Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan, who served as chief of displaced persons operations in Germany for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), declared in an interview before newsmen that a secret Jewish organization was behind the infiltration into Germany from the east, that these Jews were “well dressed, well fed, rosy cheeked,” and that they had “plenty of money.” “They certainly do not look like persecuted people,” he observed. Then, warning that the European Jews were “growing into a world force,” he confided that they were all planning to leave Europe.96 The sentiments expressed by this general guided the British in their actions. The Jewish Brigade was withdrawn from Austria, and the frontier controls were tightened.97 To the north, in Germany, the British denied admission to displaced persons camps in their zone to all persons who arrived there after June 30, 1946. The protests of Director General La Guardia of UNRRA to Prime Minister Attlee did not change the British decision in this matter.98 Toward the end of 1946 the British government decided to adopt a compulsory labor law for residents of the displaced persons camps in the British zone of Germany. The UNRRA 93. Transit to Italy was facilitated by the Jewish Brigade from Palestine, then stationed in the British zone of Austria, astride the route from Vienna to the Italian frontier. Ibid. 94. Weinryb, “Poland,” in Meyer ct al., The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, pp. 361-62. 95. Ibid., pp. 362, 366-68. 96. “UNRRA Aide Scents Jews’ Exodus Plot,” The Netv York Times, January 3, 1946, pp. 1, 3. 97. Report of Anglo-American Committee, 1946, Cmd. 6808, p. 48. 98. George Woodbridgc (Chief Historian of UNRRA), UNRRA —The History of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (New York, 1950), vol. 2, p. 512. 1228 CONSEQUENCES administration’s protest that the law contained no safeguard for Jews and other ex-inmates of German concentration camps was entirely in vain." Blocked by the British, the Jews poured into the American zones. From January to April 1946, the rate of entry' was 3,000 per month into the American zone of Germany and nearly 2,000 into American-occupied Austria, including the Vienna area.99 100 In April the Jewish displaced persons population in Western-occupied Germany was 3,000 in Berlin, 1,600 in the French zone, 15,600 in the British zone, and 54,000 in the American zone. The comparable figures for Austria were 1,000 in the British zone and 6,500 in the American zone.101 By the end of 1946 the number of displaced Jews in the Western zones of Germany and Austria had risen to about 204,000. The American area contained 183,600, or about 90 percent of them.102 The concentration of so many displaced persons in the American zones prompted Senator Conolly to express the opinion that the United States was “the biggest sucker in the world” and that in Germany the Americans were “accepting people from all the other zones and feeding them.”103 Senator Conolly’s remark indicated that, whereas the Palestine issue was dictating British actions, the cost of maintenance would become the chief problem in the American zones. Under Control Council Law No. 2, the care of displaced persons on German soil was a German responsibility'. From 1946 on, however, the United States guaranteed to the Germans a minimum standard of living. To make good that guarantee, the United States army was spending in Germany over $500,000,000 a year 99. Ibid., p. 520. 100. German sraristics from Jav B. Krane, chief, reports and analysis branch of UNRRA Central Headquarters for Germany, to Ira Hirschmann, special representative to the Director General of UNRRA, June 26, 1946. Typewritten carbon copy of the original letter in UNRRA Central Headquarters for Germany, Miscellaneous Documents, 1945-47, Columbia Uiw Library. For monthly statistics of arrivals and departures of Jews in the American-held territory' of Austria, from November 1945 to August 1949, see U.S. High Commissioner, Civil Affairs Austria—Statistical Annex, August 1949, p. 11. 101. Report of Atuilo-American Committee, 1946, Cmd. 6808, pp. 47-48. In Italy there were about 16,000. Ibid., p. 58. 102. Testimony by Assistant Secretary' of State John H. Hilldring, Hearings before Subcommittee on Immigration and Naturalization of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 80th Cong., lstsess., Junc-July 1947, pp. 124-25. The division between the two U.S. zones was: Germany, 152,803; Austria, 30,797. lTe Austrian figure is 6,200 higher than the one in the Statistical Annex of the High Commissioner’s report (August 1949, p. 11). Hilldring’s figure for the number of Jewish displaced persons in Italy on December 31, 1946, was 21,288. 103. Confidential report by George Meadcr, Chief Counsel, Special State Committee Investigating the National Defense Program, November 22, 1946, mimeographed, p. 8. The report was subsequently released. RESCUE 1229 under the budget heading “Government and Relief in Occupied Areas” (GARIOA). Insofar as the German economy did not supply the needs of the displaced persons (and it supplied in the main only fringe services of an administrative character), the clothing and feeding of these people had to be financed from GARIOA. And while non-Jewish displaced persons were leaving the American zone to go back to their homes, more and more Jews arrived on the scene.104 Searching for a solution to this problem, War Department officials thought of ridding themselves of 70 percent of their displaced person (DP) burden by closing the camps to all but persecutees. The plan failed when strong Catholic and Protestant groups protested to President Truman that the measure was an act of discrimination that would favor only the Jews.105 The military authorities then considered the less novel solution of reducing the standards of upkeep, for both shelter and food. The billeting problem was complicated by the arrivals of trainloads of German expellees from Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Although by an old military directive displaced persons were accorded priority over the German population in matters of housing,106 the practice was often quite different. Thus a group of 300 Jews who were living in houses at the DP center in Fiirth was ejected by military police in order to make room for a trainful of Germans who were waiting at a siding to move in.107 In June 1946 the Third Army directed its three divisions that under no circumstances were substandard accommodations to be provided for persecutees.108 Nevertheless, the great bulk of the Jews were forced to 104. At the end of the war Jews constituted a negligible percentage among millions of DPs. By the end of 1946,30 percent of all DPs in camps of the American zone were Jews. The yearly budget for DP maintenance in that zone was calculated at $109,000,000. For each DP the cost was as follows: food, $12 monthly ($13.20 for persecutees, including Jews); maintenance, $5 monthly; initial outfit of clothing, $49. Mcader report, p. 47. The cost of maintaining the Jews was thus in the neighborhood of $33,000,000 per year. Unlike Germany, Austria was a recipient of UNRRA aid, and from April 1 to December 1, 1946, UNRRA took responsibility for supplying the DPs. From January 1 to August 18, 1947, the American army bore the cost. The army, howev er, spent only $10 per month. Headquarters, United States Forces in Austria,/! Review of Military Government, September 1, 1947, p. 166. At that rate, the cost to the U.S. Army of supplying the Jewish DPs in Austria was approximately $2,500,000. 105. Kranc to Hirschmann, June 26, 1946, UNRRA Miscellaneous Documents. Mcader report, p. 43. 106. Louise W. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization (Dsndon, New York, and Toronto, 1956), p. 131, citing SHAEF memorandum of April 16, 1945. 107. Leo W. Schwarz, The Redeemers (New York, 1953), pp. 104-6. 108. Krane to Hirschmann, June 26, 1946, in UNRRA Miscellaneous Docu ments. 1230 CONSEQUENCES remain in the camps. Frequently these camps were overcrowded. Some lacked basic facilities tor heating, cooking, and washing. Family privacy could often be achieved only by partitioning the barracks with blankets swung across ropes.Im In a somewhat similar vein, the clothing goal was met bv a yearly issue of one complete set of clothes — sometimes a little “strange and worn.”109 110 The food allowance was fixed in calories, two-thirds of which came from bread and potatoes.111 The UNRRA’s historian, Woodbridge, states that “since the indigenous populations resented the giving of food to displaced persons,” and “since the military authorities frequently sympathized with the indigenous populations ... it required unremitting efforts by the UNRRA officials to keep their charges from starvation.”1 *- Unlike the British, the Americans did not require the Jewish DPs to pay for their upkeep bv donating their labor to the German economy.113 “It is understandable,” said Assistant Secretary of State Hilldring, that Jews “have no wish to work for or under the Germans.”114 Not all Americans, however, were so understanding. George Meader, the Chief Counsel of a special Senate committee investigating the defense program, compared the Jews with the Balts. In contrast to the industrious Balts, he said, the Jews “do not desire to work, but expect to be cared tor, and complain when things are not as well done as they think they should be. . . . It is very doubtful,” he added, “that any country' would desire these people as immigrants.”115 By April 1947 the War Department followed the British example by 109. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization, vol. 2, p. 583, pp. 218-19. Woodbridge, UNRRA, vol. 2, p. 503. 110. Woodbridge, UNRRA, vol. 2, p. 503. 111. Ibid., pp. 503-4. From October 1945 to August 1946 the number of calories for Jewish DPs in Germany dropped from 2,500 to 2,200 in the U.S. zone, and from 2,170 to 1,550 in the British zone. In the American zone of Austria, the drop was from 2,400 (U.S. Army) to 1,200 (UNRRA). Ibid., p. 503; Report of An/jlo-American Committee, 1946, Cmd. 6808, p. 49. The U.S. Army made additional allowance for persecuted persons (mostly Jews). In Germany that allowance was 200 calories (included in figures above). The British classified Jews bv “nationality.” 112. Woodbridge, UNRRA, vol. 2, p. 504. 113. Wages accruing from German employment could be paid only in Reichsmark, which had no foreign exchange value and could not even be used for purchasing in the rationed German market. The Americans could nor benefit either. DP income was subject to German taxation, and savings were headed for devaluation. 114. Testimony by Maj. Gen. Hilldring in hearings before Immigration Subcommittee, House Judiciary Committee, 80th Cong., 1st sess., Junc-July 1947, pp. 126-27. 115. Meader report, pp. 45, 52. RESCUE 1231 closing the gates to the camps. After April 21 no new arrivals were allowed refuge in them.116 It should be pointed out that the military authorities in all occupation zones undertook responsibility only for essential care and that on occasion there were lapses in the exercise even of this responsibility. To plug some of the gaps and to supply all the “supplementals” from additional food rations to schooling of children and training of adults, the resources of international organizations and private societies had to be brought into operation. Up to June 30,1947, the international agency concerning itself with refugee matters was UNRRA. Since UNRRA had been created for the relief and rehabilitation of Allied nations only, a question arose immediately whether Jews who were stateless or who carried the nationality of an enemy or ex-enemy state should receive any aid at all. The British government took the view that such Jews were not entitled to assistance. In a letter by Sir George Rendel to UNRRA’s displaced persons division, the British delegate declared: “The fact that Jews can, as a race, be identified by certain characteristics, and that political developments, and in particular the National Socialist racial doctrine, have given them peculiar problems of importance in international politics, are not sufficient reasons for treating ‘Jews’ as a separate national category.”117 The British objection was overcome by an American-sponsored resolution that extended UNRRA’s aid to all persons “who have been obliged to leave their country or place of origin or former residence or who have been deported therefrom, by action of the enemy, because of race, religion or activities in favor of the United Nations.”118 The type of assistance rendered by UNRRA was in the main a rounding out of essential care. Table 11-7 shows UNRRA’s responsibility bell 6. Headquarters, United States Forces in Austria, A Review of Military Government, September 1,1947, p. 165; Woodbridgc, UNRRA, vol. 2, p. 512. 117. Text of British memorandum in UNRRA Standing Technical Subcommittee on Displaced Persons for Europe, 9th meeting, August 11, 1944, TDP/E(44)38. Also, British draft resolution on UNRRA operations in enemy or ex-enemy areas, September 12,1944, UNRRA Council, 2d scss., document 32. 118. Council Resolution No. 57, 2d scss., September 1944, in Woodbridgc, UNRRA, vol. 1, p. 135. The wording of the resolution was such that aid could not easily be given to posthostility refugees. The UNRRA administration solved that problem by adopting the doctrine of “internal displacement”; that is, the “infiltrees" were covered because they were displaced from the moment they were forced to leas e their homes by the Germans. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 509-10. The British restriction with respect to “nationality'” would have deprived more than 20,000 Jews of UNRRA benefits. Sec chart of Jews receiving IRO assistance (by nationality), July 31, 1947, from Report of Special Subcommittee on Displaced Persons and the International Refugee Organization, House Foreign Affairs Committee, 80rh Cong., 1st scss., 1947, p. 8, in Holborn, The International Refugee Organization, p. 199. The IRO took over UNRRA’s function in refugee matters on July 1, 1947. 1232 CONSEQUENCES TABLE 11-7 UNRRA AID TO DISPLACED PERSONS SUPPLY OF ESSENTIAL SUPERVISION FOOD, FUEL, COUNTRY OF CAMPS AND CLOTHING 1 American zone All camps l Germany | $2,427,000 for food l British zone Most camps i Austria Less than half Complete for April- the camps December 1946 Italy A few camps Complete Note: YVoodbridge, UNRRA, vol. 2, pp. 491-92, 500 It. Compilations of camps under UNRRA supervision in Holborn, The International Refugee Organization, p. 236. On December 31, 1946, die division of the Jews in Austria was as follows: UNRRA camps 9,833 Military camps 20,213 Testimony by Hilldring, Immigration Subcommittee, House Judiciary Committee, 80th Cong., 1st sess., June-Julv 1947, p. 125. UNRRA had a $4-bilIion operation financed to the extent of 70 percent bv the United States. Expenditures for DPs were approx-imatelv $60,000,000. The Jewish share was about $15,000,000. See statistics in Woodbridge, UNRRA, vol. 3, pp. 423,428,500, 506. Germany was not entitled to UNRRA aid. Austria and Italy received $135,513,200 and $418,222,100, respectively. Ibid., p. 428. fore its liquidation. When the International Refugee Organization assumed UNRRA’s caretaking functions on July 1, 1947, it attempted to improve the accommodations, clothing, and food rations of the DPs.119 Nevertheless, the combined rate of military and international spending was only enough to guarantee to the survivors continued life, and it fell to Jewish organizations to invest substantial sums for the innumerable needs of a completely rootless community'.120 Between 1945 and 1948 a quarter of a million Jews had become DPs. 119. Holborn, The International Refugee Organization, pp. 218-38. Unlike UNRRA, rhe IRO was devoted entirely to refugees. Operating to the end of 1951, it spent $400,000,000. Expenditures, with overhead, for care of DPs were ca. $175,000,000. Care of Jewish DPs may have cost about $30,000,000. Ibid., pp. 124, 199-200,238. 120. The Jewish share of military-international spending probably exceeded $150,000,000. During the life of the IRO the principal Jewish relief organization (the Joint Distribution Committee) contributed about $26,000,000 to the upkeep of Jewish DPs. Ibid., pp. 148-49. The total Jewish contribution is considerably greater. RESCUE 1233 Germany had created these displaced Jews, but it took the whole world to prolong their displacement for years. The Jews were being dammed up: they were coming in a massive flow but could leave only in trickles. One of the small openings was an order by President Truman, dated December 22, 1945, that visas within the quota limits be distributed so far as possible to DPs of “all faiths, creeds and nationalities” in the American occupation zones.121 Most other openings were smaller still. The war-torn countries of Europe were largely closed, and the British Dominions were not anxious to receive masses of Jews. The Jews themselves were more and more resolved to move to their national home. In 1946 the authorized migration to Palestine was beginning to be supplemented by small, crowded ships attempting to crash the British blockade. Several thousand Jews were landed. Sixteen thousand were intercepted and interned on the island of Cyprus. One ship, the Exodus, was boarded, and its passengers were sent back to Germany. But in 1948 the British were ready to quit. When the Jewish state was established in Palestine on May 15, the logjam was finally broken. One month after the mass movement of Jews to Israel got under way, the United States, too, opened its doors. Special legislation was required for the large-scale admission of the stranded DPs, and a skeptical Congress had debated such legislation for a year. The lawmakers’ skepticism was reflected in the thinking of Texas Representative Gossett of the Immigration Subcommittee of the House. If the United States was going to follow humanitarian motives, he reasoned, why not admit Chinese, Indians, and all other suffering groups in unlimited numbers? Conversely, if economic considerations were going to be decisive, America could get better people than DPs. With regard to the Polish Jews, he was convinced of one thing: their rightful place was behind the Iron Curtain. “Somebody,” he said, “has to fight communism in those countries, and are not some of these people equipped to do that?” Told about the pogroms, he asked Secretary of State Marshall, “But the thing that puzzles me is why 121. See statement by Truman, December 22,1945, and his letter of the same dare to Secretaries of State and War, Attorney General, Surgeon General, and Director General of UNRRA, in The New York Times, December 23, 1945, p. 10. With respect to the provision of the immigration law requiring immigrants to pay their ow n fare, the President authorized admission of DPs whose fare was advanced by private welfare organizations. Ibid. British Labor Minister George Isaacs attempted to facilitate the entry of DPs from the British zones to England. He was unsuccessful. The British government wanted only young unmarried people, who could be pur up in barracks and who would nor complicate the housing situation. Testimony by Rabbi Philip S. Bernstein (adviser on Jewish DPs to General Clay), Immigration Subcommittee, House Judiciary Committee, 80th Cong., lsrscss., Junc-July 1947, p. 241. 1234 CONSBQUENCBS there would be any persecution of Jews in Poland when half of the Polish Government are Jews?”122 The final outcome of the doubts and opposition was the passage of a compromise bill at the end of a long legislative day at two o’clock in the morning. The act excluded (with certain exceptions) all DPs who had arrived in Germany, Austria, or Italy after December 22,1945. A total of 202,000 admissions were authorized for the period between July 1, 1948, and June 30,1950. The annual national origins quotas were lifted to the extent of allowing consular officials to draw upon 50 percent of a quota for a succeeding year. A minimum of 40 percent of all the available visas were allotted to Balts and a minimum of 30 percent were set aside for those of any nationality engaged in agricultural pursuits. Several occupational preferences without numerical specifications were established for DPs with professional or industrial qualifications, including clothing and garment workers.123 Apart from that provision, the Jews had only one advantage: their organizations were well prepared. They could employ major resources to speed the processing of the DPs and to provide assurances of support for the period of their integration. This preparation paid oft'. During the two-year period about 40,000 Jewish DPs were admitted to the United States.124 In the winter of 1949-50, hearings were resumed with a view to extending the Displaced Persons Act. The Jews were interested in three amendments: They wanted the removal of the cutoff date of December 22, 1945, in order that the later infiltrees could come into the United States; they asked that eligibility be granted to the Shanghai Jews; and they desired that agricultural and clothing workers be placed on an equal footing as preferential categories. The Jews were not the only petitioners. Polish, Greek, and Italian interests were working too. Above all, the German-American organizations were demanding major concessions. Though Senator Langer of North Dakota had secured one-half of the German-Austrian quotas from July 1948 to June 1950 for Ethnic German refugees, the German-Americans were decidedly not satisfied. Testifying before a subcommittee of the 122. Remarks by Gossett in Hearings of Immigration Subcommittee, House Judiciary Committee, 80rh Cong., 1st sess., Junc-July 1947, pp. 237, 511. 123. Displaced Persons Act, approved by the President on June 25, 1948,62 Stat. 1009. 124. Statement by Lewis Neikrug, Director General of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), cited in report of special subcommittee of House Judiciary Committee on Displaced Perstans in Europe and Their Resettlement in the United States, 81st Cong., 2d sess., January 20, 1950, pp. 76, 80-81. Also, Senate Report No. 1237, January 25,1950, United States Code Congressional Service, 81st Cong., 2d sess.. No. 5, pp. 1337-43. RESCUE 1235 Senate Judiciary Committee, Otto Hauser of American Relief for Germany, Inc., declared: “Thirty-three millions of German extraction demand the same rights under the immigration laws of the United States as are enjoyed by Americans of any other extraction.”12S Otto Durholz of the Committee for Christian Action in Central Europe argued that an exclusion of Ethnic Germans would be “racist.”126 J. H. Meyer of the Steuben Society assured the senators that the “co-racials” of the prospective immigrants in the United States were good, hard-working farmers.127 Congressman Celler then came to testify before the Senate Committee. As chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, his influence was considerable. Now he found himelf in a difficult position: he was a Jew. He had reason to suspect that Ethnic Germans had participated out of proportion to their numbers in the destruction of the Jews; yet he did not wish to jeopardize the extension of the act. Resigning himself to a horsetrading session, he said, “There are some good Volksdeutsche, there are some bad Volksdeutsche.”128 The Jews got their revisions. An additional 22,000 Jewish DPs were brought into the country. The German-American organizations secured authorization for the admission of an additional 54,744 Ethnic German refugees.129 In the final tally the 250,000 Jewish DPs found their homes in the following places:130 125. Testimony by Hauser, Hearings, Senate Judiciary Committcc/Subcom-mittec on Amendments to the Displaced Persons Act, 81st Cong., 1st and 2nd scss., March 25,1949 to March 16,1950, p. 187. 126. Testimony by Durholz, ibid., p. 77. 127. Testimony by Meyer, ibid., p. 161. 128. Testimony by Celler, ibid., pp. 192-93. 129. The cutoff'date was extended from December 22, 1945, to January 1, 1949, benefiting Jewish DPs and German expellees alike. A total of4,000 visas were authorized for DPs in China. Farm and clothing workers received preferences without specified numbers or percentages. The Gcrman-American organizations scored a number of successes. Only the first 7,000 Ethnic German immigrants were chargeable to the German-Austrian quotas; the remainder was taken off the quotas of the respective countries of birth. Since the IRO was paying for transportation of DPs only, the U.S. government transported the Ethnic German refugees. See Displaced Persons Act Amendment, approved June 16, 1950, 64 Stat. 219. A total of about 64,000 Jews arrived in the United States under the DP Act and its amendments from July 1948 to June 1952. During the same period, 53,448 Ethnic Germans were admitted to the country. Final Report of Displaced Persons Commission, The DP Story (Washington, D.C., 1952), pp. 248, 366. 130. For the period July 1, 1947, to December 31, 1951, statistics of Jewish DP movements totaling 231,548 may be found in Holborn, The International Rcfujitr Organization, p. 440. Adjustments for the two years preceding IRO operations are approximations. The IRO contributed, with overhead, more than $20,000,000 to the transportation of Jewish DPs. Jewish organizations covered the remaining costs. CONSEQUENCES Israel 142,000 United States 72,000 Canada 16,000 Belgium 8,000 France 2,000 Others 10,000 It is noteworthy that before the war the United States received more than twice as many refugees as Palestine. After the war, in spite of the Displaced Persons Act, this ratio was reversed. Nor was this all. In the Eastern countries the Jewish communities could no longer maintain themselves. The catastrophe had brought to Jewry rampant physical privation. In the immediate postwar years the principal American Jewish relief organization, the Joint Distribution Committee, gave aid to more than 300,000 Jews in Romania and Hungary alone.1 31 Tens of millions had to be spent to prevent disease, starvation, and death. The Romanian-Hungarian area in particular was affected by another plague — deportations. On September 1, 1949, a roundup struck the Transnistrian Jews. These people originallv hailed from the Bukovinian-Bessarabian region. They had been deported east when Romania expanded, and transported w est when the Romanian line receded. Many reached Old Romania and began to settle there. But the Bukovinian-Bessarabian provinces had become Soviet territory, and the hounded remnants of Transnistria w'ere claimed by the Soviet Union as its citizens. The)' disappeared by ship and rail behind the Soviet border.131 132 In February' 1952, Romanian police launched a drive to relieve the “overpopulation of Bucharest” by deporting from the city' a sizable number of former shop owners and other “unproductive” people. The deportees, who included many Jews, w ere sent to the Danubian-Black Sea canal construction project and to further destinations within the USSR.133 Shortly thereafter, Hungarian officials decided to solve their housing shortage in Budapest in an identical manner.134 The Jews behind the Iron Curtain thus found themselves in an impossible position. The Communist party' looked upon them as exponents of capitalistic cosmopolitanism. 131. Sylvain, “Rumania,” in Meyer, er al., The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, pp. 520-23, 543; Duschinsky, “Hungary',” ibid., pp. 407-8,434,464-66. 132. American Jewish Year Book 52 (1951): 351-52, from a report in the Jewish Daily Forward (New York), October 4, 1949. 133. Wolfgang Brctholz, “Tragödie in Rukaresr,” Aufbau (New York), April 18, 1952, pp. 1,12. Sylvain, “Rumania,” in Mover ct al., Tlte Jews in the Soviet Satellites, p. 550. 134. Duschinskv, “Hungary',” in Meyer et al., The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, pp. 471-82. RESCUE 1237 Within the population itself there was a tendency to identity them with Communist rule. The Jews in the Soviet satellites had no viable future, yet they could not simply move out. Mass emigration from Eastern Europe was easiest in non-Communist Greece and in the neighboring states of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. It was beset with obstacles, interruptions, and restrictions in the countries to the north, particularly in Romania and Hungary. It could not even begin in Russia. The obstructions were introduced because of economic considerations. The “necessary” Jews had to stay behind; the others had to leave at least some of their possessions. The emigrating Jews were subjected to heavy passport fees in Czechoslovakia.135 Passage had to be booked for an exorbitant price on government ships in Romania.136 Dollar ransoms were paid to get 3,000 Jews out of Hungary.137 In spite of all the impediments, the migration continued. The Hungarian revolt of 1956 occasioned the immediate departure of some 18,000 Jews, and a purge of Jews launched by the Polish government in 1967-68, following the Six-Day War in the Middle East, drove all but a handful of the 20,000 Jews, still living in Poland at that time, into exile. Emigration from the Soviet Union underwent freezes and thaws. Before 1971, the total migration was in the single thousands. By the end of 1981, it passed a quarter of a million. During the years 1982 to 1988, when the doors were almost shut again, emigration was not much more than 30,000. Then came the abandonment of restrictions and the breakup of the Soviet Union, which facilitated an outflow, from 1989 through 1999, of approximately 950,000. Accounting for the Jewish exodus from all of Eastern Europe and the natural decrease resulting from an aging population, the decline in this region was about 2,700,000. At the beginning of 2000, about 550,000 were left (see Table 11-8). In the center of Europe the Jews of Germany and Austria in the 1950s totaled 5 percent of the number who had lived there in 1933. Germany still had 25,000 Jews, Austria about 10,000. These Jews no longer constituted a viable community. They were composed of surv ivors in mixed marriages, old people from Theresienstadt, DPs who had not moved on, and returnees from prewar emigration. In 1950,13 percent of the Jews in Germany were under eighteen.138 The economy of the Jews in Germany 135. Meyer, “Czechoslovakia,” ibid., pp. 145-52; A. Nissim, “Falls Dr. F’ischl auftauchen sollte ,'nAuJbau (New York), May 11,1951, p. 7. 136. Sylvain, “Rumania,” in Mcvcr ct al., The Jem in the Simet Satellites. pp. 548-50. 137. “Last Jews to Quit Red Hungary' Sail,” The New York Times, November 18, 1953, p. 5. The price was $3,000,000. 138. American Jewish Year Book 52 (1951): 316. Thirty years later, the Jewish population of West Germany and Austria, with new immigrants from Faster» Fu-CONSEQUENCES was partly marginal, partly terminal. Roughly a third of them derived an income from business, professional fees, or employment. The business sector consisted of about 1,800 shopkeepers and 100 owners of small manufacturing plants. Most of these businessmen were DPs. The self-employed professionals also numbered about 100; most of them were lawyers. There were in the neighborhood of 3,000 employees, including wage earners in Jewish establishments and the personnel of the Jewish community machinery. The remaining Jews were dependent on pensions and indemnification payments, rent from restituted property, Jewish assistance, and government relief.139 For nearly forty vears, this West German community remained numerically stable, albeit with internal transformations. Emigration and the excess of deaths over births were compensated by small infusions of immigrants, some of them late returnees, others new arrivals from neighboring Czechoslovakia and countries farther distant. In 1989, 695 Soviet Jews arrived, a vanguard of much larger numbers. Faced with differences between the German Jews, who opted for this increase, and Israel, which opposed it, the German government decided to offer permanent status to tens of thousands of immigrants. They came in the following half-decade at a rate of several thousand annually. By 2000, the Jewish community in united Germany was reported to be 92,000, a doubling in ten years attributable mainly to the influx from the republics of the former Soviet Union.140 Spurred by this development was the building of new synagogues, some of them with single entrances and bulletproof glass.141 More so than anywhere else, the Jews of Western Europe have reestablished their normal mode of existence. But one problem is peculiar to this region. Thousands of children who had been sheltered in convents and homes had become Jewish orphans in Christian custody, and the return of these children to the Jewish community was a slow and drawn-out process. Some were not returned at all. “It would thus seem,” remarked a Jewish writer, “as if the Jewish people, after having lost 6 million souls through the savagery and sadism of Nazi paganism, will have to rope, was still about 35,000. American Jewish Yearbook 84 (1984): 205-11, 225. This Week in Germany, June 22, 1984, p. 5. West Germany's total membership in Jewish congregations in 1984 was 27,791, Austria’s about 7,500. 139. Kurt R. Grossman, “Die Wirtschaftslage der Juden in Deutschland,” Aufbau (New York), August 31,1956, pp. 25,37. For an earlier study, sec Jack Hain, Status of Jewish Workers and Employers in Post-War Germany, Office of U.S. Military Govern-mcnt/Manpower Division, Visiting Expert Scries No. 10, August 1949. 140. Sec the postwar volumes of the American Jewish Year Book through the year 2000. 141. Dagmar Aalund and David Wessel, “New Synagogues for Germany,” The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2000, pp. B1, B12. RESCUE 1239 SURVIVORS AND DP NEW RETURNEES, MIGRATION, MIGRATION, REMAINING, COUNTRY 1945-46 1945-48 1948-99 2000 Czechoslovakia 40,000 5,000 30,000 6,000 Poland 225,000 150,000 65,000 4,000 Romania 430,000 40,000 320,000 12,000 Hungary 200,000 25,000 90,000 52,000 Bulgaria 50,000 — 49,000 2,000 Yugoslavia 12,000 — 8,000 3,000 Greece 12,000 — 6,000 5,000 USSR 2,300,000 — 1,130,000 470,000 Note: Statistics in the main from volumes of the American Jewish YearBook 1945-2000. For Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the USSR, the figures com­ y prise also their successor states. Raw data of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union and successor states, which include non-Jewish family members, are adjusted in this table to include only the probable number of declared Jews. See Sergio DellaPergola in ibid. (1999), pp. 464-70. The census figure of January 1989 was 1,451,000. The estimate of about 470,000 Jews remaining in the former Soviet Union at the beginning of2000 reflects, in addition to emigration, a substantial natural decrease. The 200,000 survivors and returnees in Hungary include “Jews” under the wartime definition, whereas die figure of 1995 excludes converts or Christians of Jewish ancestrv. In the Hungarian census of 1946, only 144,000 persons identified themselves as Jew ish. Their median age was ca. 41, and in the age group 20-40, women outnumbered men 4:3. See Randolph Braham, The Politics of Gemcide (New York, 1981), pp. 1143-47. According to the American Jennsh Tear Book volume for 1947-48, 428,312 Jews were registered by the World Jewish Congress in Romania. This figure probably includes some double counting. The emigration stream to Israel from May 15, 1948, to die end of 1970, as reported in the Encyclopedia Judoka. vol. 9, pp. 535 and 541, comprised 229,779 persons. resign itself to the loss of another few thousand to the mercy of Christendom.”142 In 1983 one of these few thousand was named a cardinal.143 SALVAGE The hurt inflicted by Nazi Germany on the Jews of Europe defies measurement. One is forced to think about the suffering and dying of the victims, the impact of their deaths on those of who were closest to them, and the long-range effects of this catastrophe on Jewry as a whole. All this adds up to a vast, almost nonassessable loss. What, then, is to happen after such damage has been done? When ordinary' justice prevails, there is an expectation of compensation for every' wrong, and the bigger the injury', the greater will be the claim for payment. However, the postwar situation confronting the Jews was far from ordinary'. They were caught in the midst of a cold war, and neither side was dependent on their support. Much that the Jews wanted had to be gotten in Germany, and Germany itself was the battleground. In 1945 the demarcation line running through Germany split Europe in two. East and West carried out their separate policies in their respective areas. The Soviet policy' was directed toward maximum exploitation of the newly' conquered zone, and during this stage the Jews were not recognized as a special group with special problems of their own. When East Germany was graduated to junior satellite status, the Jews, with Moscow’s blessing, continued to be ignored. Now that the Soviets had had their meal, the Germans had to eat. For Jewry nothing was left except the principles of socialist equality'. The Western aim in Germany was wholly different from that of die Soviets. Though initially concerned with depriving Germany of its war industries and external assets, the Western coalition soon began to look upon the West German industrial complex as a potential bulwark against the Soviet Union. This consideration dictated the preservation and ultimately ev en the expansion of Germany’s productive capacity'. During the ensuing buildup the United States and England rendered great assis­ 142. Israel Cohen, Cmitemporary Jewry (London, 1950), pp. 263-64. See also Hildegard Ix'vel, “Return to Holland,” Congress Weekly, January 2, 1950, pp. 9-11. Three eases of conversion and kidnapping aroused publicity in Western Europe and America. The cases involved the Finalv brothers in France, Rebecca Melhado and Anneke H. Beckman in Holland. Anneke disappeared. See The New York Times Index and other papers, 1953-54. 143. Jean-Marie Lustiger, bom in Paris in 1926, taken in by a Catholic family in Orleans, and converted at the age of fifteen, was appointed Archbishop of Paris in 1981. The New York Times, February 3, 1981, p. A5. His elevation to cardinal followed two years later. Ibid., January 6, 1983, pp. Al, A10. SALVAGE 1241 tance to the Germans. At the same time, nothing was to be shipped out of Germany that was needed for German recovery. Insofar as there were any significant exports of the least essential items, the accruing foreign credits were to be used only for the most essential imports. The claimants outside Germany’s borders could thus be paid neither in goods nor in money. However, the Allied controls in their very nature were designed to guarantee an eventual German ability to make some payments abroad. Consequently the Allied authorities did not summarily dismiss the question of admitting claims advanced by the Jews. From the start the Jews had three objectives: they insisted on the restitution of all Aryanized and confiscated Jewish property, proper indemnification for survivors who had suffered damage and injury, and reparations for the rehabilitation of the displaced.1 In all these demands the Jews confined themselves to the needs of the victims who were still alive. For all those who had gone down with everything they had there was no further claim. Though European Jewry had for centuries been the fountainhead of all that mattered in Jewish life, the Jews of the world did not step forward now as its heirs in law. One might say that the Jewish organizations were reversing the inherent proportionality between infliction and adjustment: their claim was like a salvage operation in which recovery is inversely proportional to the depth of the loss. In a sense, the perpetrators were asked to pay for the incompleteness of their job. Yet even this bill was not paid in full.2 The Jews could expea their earliest success in the battle for restitution. However, this contest became at the very outset a struggle for two objectives: the return of property values to individual survivors and the recovery of assests that had no heirs. The first objeaive was much easier to achieve than the second. At that, the difficulties within the realm of individual restitution were already quite formidable. Some of these obstacles 1. Dr. Chaim Wcizmann (Jewish Agency for Palestine) to governments of United Kingdom, United States, USSR, and France, September 20,1945, in Government of Isracl/Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Documents Relating to the Agreement between the Government of Israel and the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany (Jerusalem, 1953), pp. 9-12. Statement of the American Jewish Conference on the German Peace Treaty, together with proposals lor inclusion in the treaty, approved by the interim committee, of the conference on January 22, 1947, and signed by Henry Monsky, chairman of the interim committee, and Louis Lipskv, chairman of the executive committee, in American Jewish Conference, Nazi Germany's War against the Jews (New York, 1947), pp. iii-xv. The conference proposals differed from those of the agency principally in their emphasis upon restitution and indemnification. While Weizmann demanded German contributions for resettlement in Palestine, the conference spoke only of “token” reparations. 2. In Jewish terminology the demands were “material claims.” The Germans called their payments “amends” ( Wiedergutmachuttg). 1242 CONSEQUENCES were the product of intrinsic factors; the others were the outcome of extraneous causes. The inherent limitations in the individual procedure were threefold. In the first place, the restoration of a property' right was feasible only to the extent that the object was identifiable; that is, it had to be something that could be spotted in the hands of a wrongful possessor. Little could be done, for example, to effect the return of movables that had long been in non-Jewish homes. Second, the restitution laws did not lend themselves to the re-creation of an asset that had disappeared, such as a liquidated business or a job that was no longer in existence. A third limitation was generally the repossession of something that had only been rented, such as an apartment. Clearly, these were natural limits. The very' idea of a restitution process did not encompass the solution of such problems. Hoyvcver, the Jeyvs yvere also confronted yvith complications that yvere not rooted in the administrative characteristics of the operation but yvere the result of outside forces. These factors, yvhich effectively blocked or impeded the return of tangible property', could be found primarily in Eastern Europe and in occupied Germany. Because of the communization of the East, the Jeyvs could no longer count on the permanent recovery' of agricultural land or industrial enterprises. In the former Axis states (Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary'), Jeyv-ish property' that had been acquired by the Germans yvas treated by the Soviets as a German asset; that is, it yvas noyv subject to Soviet acquisition as part of German reparations.3 The Czechoslovak government looked upon all Jeyvs yvho had held German or Hungarian nationality' in 1930 as enemy aliens who yvere not entitled to the receipt of their former belongings.4 On the whole, not much yvas returned to the Jews in the East. The meagerness of the results forced more and more Jeyvs to the edge of departure, and the ensuing emigration nullified much of yvhat had already been granted. In Germany the principal problem arose from the fact that most of the claimants were already outside the country'. These preyvar refugees did not 3. Sylvain, “Rumania,” in Meyer et al.. The Jews in the Soviet Satellites, p. 515. In Paris during the peace conference of June 1946, the Jewish organization had succeeded in inserting into the treaties with Romania and Hungary provisions for the restoration of property rights. The Bulgarian Jewish community' did nor desire the insertion of such a clause in the peace treaty w'irh Bulgaria. Israel Cohen, “Jewish Interests in the Peace Treaties,” Jewish Social Studies, 11 (1949): 111-12. The USSR was undeterred by these treaty provisions, although it was a party' to the treaties. The Soviet stand w ith regard to Aryanizcd property' in German hands was duplicated in Austria. See report of an incident in Soviet Vienna by the U.S. High Commissioner, Civil Affairs Austria, August 1949, pp. 54-55. 4. Mevcr, “Czechoslovakia,” in Meyer ct al., 77«· Jews in the Soviet Satellites, pp 78-84. SALVAGE 1243 merely want their property returned to them; they wanted to sell it and enjoy the proceeds. The goal was not to be attained without an uphill fight. The anchor of Jewish hopes lay in an ancient Western commitment : a Western system of law could not ipso facto recognize changes brought about by contracts that had not been freely negotiated. The United States in particular took that position from the beginning. In the earliest directive from the Joint Chiefs of Start', the U.S. zone commander was instructed to “impound and block” all “property which has been the subject of transfer under duress.”5 A long time elapsed, however, between the initial blocking of the “duress properties” and their ultimate restitution. The drafting of a restitution law was tackled toward the end of 1946, and the law was proclaimed on November 10, 1947.6 Its basic provisions, which in substance were duplicated in British and French legislation as well as by a joint enactment for the three Western sectors of Berlin, dealt with “identifiable property” (i.e., in the main, business firms and real estate).7 The holder of such property had to report it to 5. Par. 48r of Joint Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067/6, April 26, 1946, in Special Report of Military' Governor, Property Control in the U.S.-Occupied Area of Germany, 1945-1949, July 1949, pp. 46-47. Sec also American Military Government Law No. 52 (revised text, July 1945), ibid., p. 39. Further, Par 42 b of Control Council Proclamation No. 2 on “Certain Additional Requirements Imposed on Germany,” September 20,1945, ibid., p. 38. 6. American Military' Government Law No. 59 on Restitution of Identifiable Property, November 10,1947, together with implementary regulations. Ibid., pp. 72-83. During the drafting period the United States attempted two alternate approaches: (1) to bring about a four-power agreement on a restitution law for the whole of occupied Germany, and (2) to persuade the newly constituted German provincial governments to enact an acceptable measure in the U.S. zone. Both attempts failed. Ibid., pp. 40-41,44. The following laws were enacted in the other zones: French Decree No. 120, November 10, 1947, Amtsblatt des französischen Oberkommandos in Deutschland, 1947, p. 1219. British Law No. 59, May 12, 1949, Amtsblatt der Militärregierung Deutschland/Britisches Kontrolle!ebiet, 1949, p. 1196. West Berlin Ordinance BK/ 0(49) 180 (by the three Western powers jointly), July 26,1949, Verordnungsblattfiir Gross-Berlin, vol. 1, p. 221. In the Soviet zone the enactment of restitution laws was entrusted to German provincial authorities, which (except in the case of Thuringia) did not even admit claims from absentee owners. In 1953 East Berlin declared all unclaimed Jewish property in control of the state to be “people’s property.” “Ost-Bcrlin macht jüdisches Eigentum zu Volkseigentum,” Aufbau (New York), January 16, 1953, p. 1. 7. Generally speaking, three types of property' were not recoverable under the provisions of the law: (1) All tangible personal property the value of which did not exceed RM 1,000 at time of loss, (2) stock certificates, unless they represented ownership in a Jewish enterprise, and (3) discriminatory' taxes, including “fines,” emigration taxes, and the Sozialausgleichsabgabe. (In the case of real estate encumbered bv such taxation, the encumbrance devolved on the pcrsecutec.) CONSEQUENCES the occupation authorities, and the original owner had to file claim with them. Recovery could be effected by agreement between claimant and possessor or by an order from a German restitution agency from which appeal could be taken via German courts to an American board of review. Insofar as any asset was subject to restitution, the original transfer was deemed to be incomplete, and the claimant was given the option of finalizing the transaction or voiding it. In the first case the seller could treat the acquirer as a debtor and demand the difference between the original purchase price and fair market value, with interest. In the second case the entitled owner could view the holder as a trustee and recover the lost property together with accumulated profits by refunding the original purchase price plus costs of reasonable maintenance.8 Since most of the claimants were no longer living in Germany, one might expect that a great many of them would rather have chosen read}' money than the cumbersome route that — dirough refunding, repossession, and eventual sale — could theoretically lead to the same result. Even assuming, however, that the restitutor’s money was read}', an added factor had been introduced into the picture: the currency reform of 1948. Under that law, old Reichsmark were converted into new Deutsche Mark at rates as drastic as ten to one. Insofar as any judgment allowed the holder to discharge his obligation at that rate (and such was the decision of the American board of review),9 the simple path to restitution was virtually extinguished. Fortunately for the claimant, the 10:1 conversion was also applied to refunds paid to the Aryanizer.10 Yet this was no decisive change, for in that case the recoverable profits were decreased to 10 percent as well. If the profits had been large, so was their reduction; if they had been small, so 8. Management costs generally could not exceed 50 percent of net protits, and the restitutor was liable for profits that should have been made bur for his willful failure or neglect. Depreciation was subtracted from the refund; the costs of improvements were added to it. 9. Decision No. 147 by the U.S. Court of Restitution Appeals, reported by the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe. “Umstcllung des Anspruches auf Nachzahlung," Att/fraM (New York), February 22, 1952, p. 8. 10. Decision No. 15 by U.S. Court of Restitution Appeals, April 26, 1950, reported by Herman Muller of Federation of Central European Jews in “Wichtigc Enrschcidungdes amerikanischcn Ruckcrsratrungsberufungsgerichrs,” ibid., April 18, 1950, p. 22. Decision by Restitution Chamber of West Berlin Chancery Court (3 W. 1376/50), reported by Lvoncl J. Meyer in "Eine Entscheidung des Kammerge-richts," ibid., August 3, 1951, p. 6. Decision by British Board of Review (51/66), May 30,1951, reported by Federation of Central European Jews in “Riickgcwahr dcs Kaufprciscs,” ibid. SALVAGE 1245 were the chances for a future sale. In this intricate mechanism the oppor- 1 trinities to achieve a fast recovery in full were few.11 ' A claimant who finally received an amount in cash was confronted with still another difficulty: to exchange that money for the currency of the country where the proceeds were to be spent. At first this simple transaction was impossible. Only after a while did the Allied authorities permit the sale of blocked accounts to non-German investors,12 but such disposals entailed losses of about 40 percent.13 With the improvement of the German trade position, the permissible uses of the funds were increased, and the value of the Sperrmark rapidly began to approximate that of the Deutsche Mark itself. By the end of 1954 there was no longer a transfer problem.14 In the interval, those who could least afford to wait had been forced to take the greatest loss. For much of the Jewish property that had remained on European soil there were no living owners and no surviving heirs. Ordinarily, heirless property falls to the state, and, indeed, few of these assets were made available to the Jewish communities. In the East their restitution was almost negligible. Hungary turned over a few movables and several hundred buildings. Romania supplied the Federation of Jewish Communities with old furs and old valuables. Czechoslovakia handed over to the Jew-11. German industrial interests in the meantime fought for changes of the following order: (a) no restitution of property acquired before November 9, 1938; (b) admissibility of the plea of “good faith”; (c) conversion ratios favorable to the restitutor; (d) no interest payments on differentials; (e) no restitution of profits; (f) no liability for value diminution except in cases of gross neglect; (g) exclusive jurisdiction of German courts. The industrialists were basing their hopes on the supposed wearying of the British and French and on a decline of the “influence of Jewish circles in America.” Summary of meeting in the legal committee of the Industrial Associations/Commission for Restitution Questions, held on March 2, 1950, in Bonn, reprinted under the title “Ncues Attentat auf die Wiedcrgutmachung,” in Aufbau (New York), April 21,1950, pp. 1-2. The German attempt did not succeed. Jewish property “returned or compensated for” in the U.S. zone was estimated at DM 906,000,000 for the period to May 1954. The program was three-fourths completed by that time. See Margaret Rupli Woodward, “Germany Makes Amends,” Department of State Bulletin, 31 (July 26,1954): 128-29. 12. Initially, four types of investments were recognized: (a) the purchase of securities; (b) the acquisition of real estate, (c) construction and reconstruction; (d) credits and business participation. Advertisement for Sperrmark by Hamburg-Bremen Steamship Agency, Aufbau (New York), May 18,1951, p. 5 .Aufbau earned dozens of ads for German Sperrmark and Austrian Spcrrschillingc. 13. From mid-1951 to mid-1953, the Sperrmark rose from a low of 10 cents to roughly 14 cents. The Deutsche Mark on the free market rose from about 19 cents to 23 cents. 14. When Sperrmark were abolished in September of that year, the Deutsche Mark was traded for 23.5 cents. “Kcinc Sperrmark mehr,” Aufbau (New York), September 17,1954, p. 1. 1246 CONSEQUENCES ish community of Bohemia-Moravia the leftovers oi Theresienstadt, amounting to about 60,000,000 crowns, or $ 1,200,000.15 Outside of the Communist sphere, heirless-property laws were enacted during the first postwar years in Greece, Italy, and the Western zone of Trieste. In West Germany the Allies found two kinds of assets: remnants of valuables that the Germans had hauled in from the Polish killing centers, and capital investments that had once belonged to Jews deported from the Reich. So far as the valuables were concerned, the Allies promptly decided to sell this haul for non-German currency' and to turn over 90 percent of the receipts to Jewish relief organizations for rehabilitation.16 The sales were accomplished with due dispatch, but it was a small operation that netted only petty'cash.17 The disposal of the immovable property that the dead Jews of Germany had owned promised somewhat greater results, but they were not to be achieved so easily'. The Allies did recognize that the Jewish community in Germany was no longer large enough to make use of that property. Under the restitution laws, title to the assets was therefore granted to Jewish successor organizations for the benefit of surviving victims everywhere.18 There was no time, however, for the prolonged process of effecting recovery' ten-thousand-fold. Pressed by survivors’ needs, the organizations sold their claims to German provincial authorities for whatever the traffic could bear.19 Since the proceeds had to be used all over the world, the successor organizations were then faced with the transfer problem. Once 15. Cohen, Contemporary Jewry, pp. 259-60. 16. Paris Reparations Agreement, Pan 1, Article 8-B (so-called nonmonetary gold clause), January 14, 1946, US. Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 1655. Implementation agreement between the United States, Great Britain, France, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, June 14,1946, ibid., No. 1657. Report bv H. W. Emerson, director, Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, to Preparatory Commission of the International Refugee Organization, PREP/6, Geneva, February 13, 1947. Most of the gold was convened into bullion for sale to governments. Anistic items, including procelain, rugs, etc., were sold at auction in New York. IRO/Public Information Office/Monthly Digest No. 3, November 1947, pp. 7-8,26-27. 17. Early in 1949 the proceeds amounted to $2,171,874, and the final figure was expected to total ca. $3,500,000. IRO/General Council, 2d sess., report by the Director General on the activities of the organization from July 1, 1948, GC/60, March 22, 1949, pp. 79-87. 18. The Jewish Restitution Successor Organization in the American zone, the Jewish Trust Corporation in the British and French zones, and both organizations in West Berlin. 19. Claims amounting to about DM 150,000,000 in the American zone were thus reduced to less than half. Jack Raymond, “Jews’ Claims Cur to Aid Restitution,” The New York Times, February 13, 1951, p. 11. Raymond, “Restitution Pact Made in Bavaria, ibid., March 16, 1952, p. 12. “Erbloses jüdisches Eigentum in Berlin,” Aufbau (New York), January 6, 1956, p. 9. SALVAGE 1247 that obstacle had been overcome, a bitter struggle broke out over the right of refugee Jews from Germany to receive a special allocation.20 The restitution laws had been designed for the upper middle class. They covered the kind of property that was substanial enough to be preserved in identifiable form. For those who had never possessed such 20. Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck (president of the Council for the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Jews from Germany) to Monroe Goldwater (president, Jewish Restitution Successor Organization), March 24, 1954, Aufbau (New York), April 2, 1954, p. 2; Goldwater to Baeck, ibid., April 23, 1954, p. 7. The successor organizations were also engaged in two other operations : the recovery of community property and the collection of individual items on behalf of owners who had missed the deadline for tiling their claims. The Austrian restitution laws did not deal with hcirlcss property. The four occupying powers consequently inserted a provision into Article 26 of the Austrian State Treaty under which such assets were to be made available for the relief and rehabilitation of persecutees, with the qualification that Austria was not required to “make payments in foreign exchange or other transfers to foreign countries.” State Treaty for the Re-Establishment of an Independent and Democratic Austria, signed on May 15, 1955, and entered into force on July 27, 1955, U.S. Treaties and Other International Acts Series, No. 3298. After signing the treaty, the Austrian government agreed to relinquish its hold over the assets for the benefit of surviving victims resident in Austria. “Entschädigung in Österreich geregelt,’ '"Aufbau (New York), July 15, 1955, p. 1. Under the Paris reparations agreement, each signatory power was given title to German assets within its frontiers. The United States subsequently released the portion of its share that had belonged to Jews who had left no heirs. The portion, which was worth $3 million, was to be used for rehabilitation work within the United States. Amendment to the Trading with the Enemy Act, August 23, 1954, 68 Stat. 767. The recipient of the funds was the Jewish Restitution Successor Organization. “JRSO empfangt jüdisches erbloses Eigentum in U.S.A.” Außau (New York), January' 21,1955, p. 9. The Paris reparations agreement also provided that hcirlcss assets in neutral countries be made available to persecutees. However, in the implementation agreement between the United States, Great Britain, France, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, the two Eastern signatories declared that they had not given up their claim to the forthcoming inheritances, “which, according to the provisions of international law, belong to their respective states.” Sec Eli Ginzberg, “Reparation for non-Rcpatriablcs,” Department of State Bulletin 15 (July 14,1946): 56,76. Switzerland subsequently recognized Polish and Hungarian claims to hcirlcss property of Polish and Hungarian Jews and utilized such assets pursuant to agreements with Poland and Hungary to compensate Swiss owners of property nationalized in the two Communist countries. “Herrenloses Vermögen in der Schweiz,” Außau (New York), March 3, 1950, p. 10. Alan Cowell, “Swiss Used Victims’ Money for War Payments, Files Reveal,” The New York Times, October 24, 1996, pp. Al, A10. William Z. Slany ct al. (coordinated bv Stuart E. Eizenstat), U.S. and Allied Efforts to Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany during World War II (Washington, D.C.), Mav 199”, pp. 193-94,199-200,203-5. For texts of Swiss agreements from 1947 to 1973 with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary', Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, see the Hcar-1248 CONSEQUENCES assets, there was as yet no remedy. The masses of the poorer Jews who had lost their relatives, their health, their liberty, and their economic prospects could not make use of restitution laws. These Jews could be served only bv a money grant, and such payment had to be obtained out of the public funds of the country that was responsible for their misery: Germany. This was a much tougher proposition. The occupying power that promised to take the initiative in the matter was once more the United States. When the restitution law was drafted in the American zone, the U.S. military government adopted the view “that persons who [had] suffered personal damage or injury through National Socialist persecution should receive indemnification in German currency.”* 21 In the course of the following two years, the lengthy process of pressure and drafting got under way. The pressure came from Jewish organizations; the drafting was done by the German Lander governments in the American-occupied territory. Toward the end of this development the military grew weary, the State Department seemed dubious, and the British Foreign Office expressed its opposition. At the last moment the High Commissioner designate, John J. McCloy, cast his lot for the Jews. As a result, a general claims law went into effect for the U.S. zone.22 The design of the law was to allow every persecutee to file a claim if he resided in the U.S. zone on January' 1,1947, or if he had emigrated from there before that time. The eligible claimants thus comprised postwar displaced persons as well as prewar refugees. The losses for which a claimant was covered included the killing of relatives who had given support to the victim, damage to health, deprivation of freedom, confiscation or destruction of property' and capital, discriminatory' exaction of taxes, the impairment of professional or economic advancement, and the curtailment of insurance payments and pensions. Except for the property' losses, the law recognized injuries and damage without regard to the place where they had been inflicted, so long as they were the product of discriminatory' action by the German state.23 The American-sponsored general claims law served as a model for ing of the U.S. Congress, House Banking Committee, “The Disposition of Assets Deposited in Swiss Ranks bv Missing Nazi Victims,” 104th Cong., 2d sess., December 11, 1996, pp. 285-321. 21. Military Government Regulation 23 2050/Directive on U.S. Objectives and Basic Policy in Germany, July 15, 1947, in Office of Military Government, Property Control, November 1948, p. 21. 22. Jack Raymond, “McCloy, Reversing U.S. Position, Orders Payment to Nazis’ Victims,’’ The New York Times, August 10, 1949, pp. 1,14. 23. For a summary analysis, see Herman Muller, “Das Entschädigungsgesetz in der amerikanischen Zone,” Aufbau (New York), August 19, 1949, pp. 5-6; August 26, 1949, p. 11 ; September 2,1949, p. 16. SALVAGE 1249 similar legislation in the French zone and in West Berlin.24 The British, however, departed from the American principle. In their zone a victim was barred from filing a claim if he was no longer a resident at the time of the enactment of the legislation. In short, compensation was granted, with few exceptions, only to German persecutees.25 After a while difficulties developed in the American zone with respect to the administration of the law. The administrators were German provincial authorities, and in Bavaria that authority was used in attempts to subvert and disrupt the indemnification process. The first attempt was a Bavarian implementation decree that simply eliminated die refugees.26 With regard to the displaced persons, the Bavarians appeared to have another scheme. In the case of awards above $600, the law directed that one-half of the amount be paid in cash and that the rest fall due in 1954. The displaced persons who were in great need frequently sold the unpaid half of the claim for about 45 percent of nominal value. The promissory notes were collected by banks such as the Bayrische Staatsbank, the Hypotheken- und Wechselbank, the Gemeindebank, the Vereinsbank, and Seiler and Company. Reportedly these Bavarian banks had made an agreement with the Bavarian Staatssekretär for Finance, Dr. Richard Ringelmann, to resell the notes to the government for 62-65 percent of value in 1952.27 On March 9, 1951, the Bavarian administration pulled off a minor coup. The Jewish president of the Indemnification Office, Philip Auerbach (an Auschwitz survivor), was dismissed from his office and placed under arrest to face a variety of charges, including the fraudulent use of the title “Doctor,” the granting of credits without adequate guarantees, the deposit of private money as organization income in order to obtain a more favorable currency conversion rate, the receipt of kickbacks from a 24. In the French zone each province enacted its own law: Baden on January 10, 1950; Wiirttcmbcrg-Hohenzollern on February 14, 1950; and Rheinland-Pfalz on May 22, 1950. For an analysis of the laws, which were substantially alike, sec American Federation of Jews from Central Europe/Unitcd Restitution Otfice/Indemnitka-tion Section, “Entschädigungsgesetz in der französischen Zone,” ibid., June 23,1950, p. 5. A West Berlin city ordinance was adopted on October 26, 1950. Walter Braun, “Berlins Entschädigungsgesetz für Naziopfer,” ibid., November 24, 1950, p. 9; December 1, 1950, p. 8. 25. “Protest gegen ein böswilliges Gesetz,” ibid., August 24, 1951, p. 15. The law under criticism was the newly passed measure in Nordrhcinland-Wcstfalen. 26. For correspondence between the editor o (Aufbau (Manfred George), Bavarian Indemnification Commissioner Philip Auerbach (Jewish survivor), and the office of the High Commissioner, see Aufbau (New York), December 30,1949, pp. 2, 26; February 10,1950, pp. 1 -2. The decree, dared November 26, 1949, removed the eligibility of victims who had left Bavaria before January 1, 1947. 27. “Rings um den Fall Auerbach,” ibid., April 6, 1951, pp. 1 -2. CONSEQUENCES contractor charged with the renovation of a Jewish cemetery, and the processing of 111 claims of allegedly nonexistent persons. For weeks the Indemnification Office was closed while Munich police were looking for evidence. At the trial Auerbach admitted his use of the title “Doctor” (he had been called by that title for so long that he finally adopted it). The court itself freed him from the principal charge of making payments to “dead souls.” His conviction upon the remaining charges led to a sentence of two and a half years in prison and $643 in fines. Stunned, Auerbach on a sickbed protested his innocence. Then he took his life.28 29 The Jewish organizations were now prompted by a dual necessity to press for a West German indemnification law. They had to resolve the problem of inequality between the zones, and they had to have insurance against the Allied abdication of power. Only one measure could give the Jews both uniformity and continuation: an indemnification law enacted at the behest of the Allies by the new West German parliament. The organizational spokesmen made their views known to the State Department on September 27, 1951.2y During the following months the Western Allies conducted negotiations with the West German government for the replacement of the occupation regime with a contractual relationship. The Jewish request was inserted as one of the chapters in the proposed settlement. The Germans accepted the provision. They did not have their freedom yet, they needed good will, and they could not very well proceed with the indemnification of German persecutees, let alone with the pensioning of Nazi perpetrators, without also recognizing the Jewish claim.30 28. “SPD drängt auf Klärung der Massnahmen gegen das Entschädigungsamt,” Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), February 3-4, 1951, p. 2; “Bis jetzt 200 Fälschungen aufgedeckt,” ibid., Februar),' 5, 1951, p. 2; “Jewish Aides Guilty in Nazi Victim Fraud,” The New York Times, August 15, 1952, pp. 1, 3; Manfred George, “Exit Auerbach” Aufbau (New York), August 22, 1952, pp. 1-2; “Das grosse Echo auf Auerbachs Selbstmord,” ibid., August 29,1952, pp. 7-8. See also running accounts in these papers, 1951-52. 29. The conference was attended by the following officials: Department of State: Henry A. Byrode, Geoffrey Lewis, George Baker Congress (representing a refugee district): Jacob K. Javits American Federation of Jews from Central Europe: Rudolf Callmann, Hermann Muller, Alfred Prager Axis Victims Ix'ague: Bruno Weil, Fremont A. Higgins American Association of Former European Jurists: Julius B. Weigert “Mindestforderungen fur die Durchführung der Wiedergutmachung —Eine Konferenz im Department of State,” Aufbau (New York), October 5, 1951, p. 28. 30. See Chapter 4 of the Convention on the Settlement of Matters Arising out of the War and the Occupation, signed by the United States, Great Britain, France, and SALVAGE 1251 The Federal Indemnification Law was enacted on September 19,1953. Its basic framework was taken from the claims law in the American Zone. It superseded all the Lander laws. However, no victim could receive payment for the same thing twice, and the 730,000,000 Deutsche Mark that had already been paid out were no longer a charge against West Germany.31 Money was going to be appropriated by the federal government, but the law required the aggregate of the Lander to match these appropriations, each Land making its contribution in proportion to its population.32 That division of the burden was to make any revision in favor of the victims a difficult proposition politically.33 The following outline is designed to show how the law in its amended form categorized the eligible claimants and the losses for which a claim could be made.34 I. Eligible Claimants (generalcoverage) Residents of West Germany or West Berlin on December 31, 1952 (mostly German political persecutees). People who emigrated (or were deported) from an area that was German on December 31,1937 (mostly Jewish refugees). Nonrepatriable displaced persons who were housed in a camp in West Germany or West Berlin on January 1, 1947 (mostly Jewish survivors). Admissible Claims for Loss of Life caused by persecution, if claimant had been a wife or child of the deceased, or if claimant, as a dependent husband, parent, grand­ Germany on May 26,1952, U.S. Treaties and Other International Agreements VI, pt. 4, pp. 4474-76. The detailed outline of the proposed federal law was agreed upon in Protocol No. 1, signed by Chancellor Adenauer for Germany and Dr. Nahum Goldman for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, September 10, 1952, in Government of Israel, Documents Relating to the Agreement, pp. 152-57. 31. The figure of 730,000,000 Deutsche Mark is taken from “Wiedergutmachungs-Statistik 195 7? Aufbau (New York), April 18,1958, p. 17. 32. In the case of West Berlin the cost was to be borne by the federal government (60 percent), the nine Länder (25 percent), and the city itself (15 percent). 33. See an analysis of counteragitation from the Rheinland-Pfalz by Konrad Wille, “Es geht schon wieder los: Dunkle Machenschaften gegen Wiedergutmachung,” Aufbau (New York), February 21,1958, p. 17. 34. Indemnification Law, September 18, 1953, BGBl I, 1387. Second Law (amendment), August 10, 1955, BGBl I, 506. Third Law (amendment), June 29, 1956, BGBl I, 559. For text of the law as amended in 1956, see Bundesentschädigungsgesetz, with introduction by Dr. H. G. van Dam (Düsseldorf-Benrath, 1956). See also Final Law ( Schlussgesetz) of September 14, 1965, BGBl I, 1315. A c York Times, June 17, 1952, p. 3; Protocol No. 2 between West Germany and the Claims Conference, signed at Luxembourg on September 10, 1952, by Adenauer and Goldmann, in Government of Israel, Documents Relahtui to the Agreement, pp. 161-63. Under the agreement the Deutsche Mark accruing to the Claims Conference were paid to Israel, svhich was to make available the funds in the required currencies. During the first year of its opera­ tions, the Claims Conference spent $8,705,000 in fifteen countries. Of that amount, over $7,000,000 was spent for direct relief, $900,000 was allocated for “cultural reconstruction” (grants to scholars, with emphasis on catastrophe research), and $800,000 was given to the United Restitution Office, a legal agency that processed indemnification claims of eligible Jewish victims. “100,000 Naziopfer profitieren von den deutschen Reparationen,” Aufbau (New York), October 15, 1954, p. 17. 74. “Bonn and Israelis Push Claims Talks,” The New York Times, April 1, 1952, p. 13. SALVAGE 1267 figure of their own. The $1 billion, or DM 4,300,000,000, were scaled down to DM 3,000,000,000, or $715 million. The Germans then declared that because of their country’s current economic and financial position, diey could not even guarantee die payment of that sum.75 The complicating factor in the situation was a concurrent conference in London between thirty states (representing private holders of prewar German public bonds) and the West German government over the settlement of Germany’s external debts. The leader of the German delegation in London, Hermann J. Abs (Deutsche Bank), had agreed with Professor Böhm of The Hague delegation that no commitments were to be made until it was possible to assess Bonn’s total obligation.76 When the Israelis were confronted with this impasse, Israel’s Parliament voted to break oft the negotiations.77 Following the action by the Israelis, Böhm reworked his agreement with Abs in order to be able to resume the talks, but he found an unrelenting opponent in Finance Minister Schaffer. The theory that there was only one pot from which to pay had become a basic precondition in Bonn, and at that moment Germany’s foreign credit was considered more important than Germany’s moral debt. At a cabinet meeting in mid-May, Adenauer apparently sided with Schaffer. Böhm and Küster thereupon pulled an unexpected stunt: they resigned. In their statement of resignation these independent men charged their government with insincerity.78 Faced with the necessity of retrieving its position, die federal government now tried something else. Hermann Abs informally approached Israeli aides in London and suggested a downpayment of deliveries amounting to DM 1,000,000,000 (about $250 million) over a period of three years, the balance to be settled later. He was refused.79 The Germans then made their “binding offer” of $715 million.80 That offer was accepted. Under the terms of the agreement, the obligation was to be discharged in the course of the ten years following exchange of ratifications. The federal government was to deposit the money in the agreed installments at the Bank Deutscher Länder. An Israeli mission with diplomatic status 75. Statement by German delegation, April 5, 1952, in Government of Israel, Documents Relating to the Agreement, p. 82. 76. “Bonn-Jewish Talk at Crucial Stage,” The New York Tima, April 3,1952, p. 5. 77. Decision of the Knesset, May 6, 1952, in Government of Israel, Documents Relating to the Agreement, p. 90. 78. “Top Germans Quit in Israel Fund Lag,” The New York Times, Mav 20, 1952, PP· 1,11-79. “New Bonn Feeler to Israel Spurned,”/#«/., June 1, 1952, p. 9. 80. “Bonn, Jews Reach New Parley Basis,” ibid., June 11, 1952, p. 7. 1268 CONSEQUENCES was empowered to draw upon the account for the purchase of steel, machines, chemicals, and a variety of other capital goods.81 After the document had been signed, the Israelis awaited the approval of Bonn before doing anything. The German parliament was taking its time. A number of German industrialists were worried about the loss of the Arab market,82 while German shipping interests were protesting the absence of a stipulation extending some business to their flag.83 At last the approval came, over the opposition of a coalition of elements from the extreme left and extreme right wings.84 The Israel Cabinet then ratified the instalment without submitting it to the legislature tor another vote.85 The agreement was carried out in its entirety between 1953 and 1966. The principal categories of deliveries, expressed in percentages of the total value of the reparations, were as follows:86 81. Text of agreement (with exchange of letters) signed at Luxembourg on September 10, 1952, bv Sharett (Shertok) and Adenauer, in Government of Israel, Documents Relating to the Agreement, pp. 125-51. Certain items (such as oil) could be purchased with German-held balances in foreign markets, and special consideration was to lx· given by Israel to industries of West Berlin. No discrimination was to be exercised bv the federal government against Israel in the event of any restrictions upon exports, and no commodities obtained by Israel were to be reexported to anv third state. Clauses calling for renegotiation were included to provide for the pos-sibilitv of economic inability to pay, or of inflation. Israel agreed not to advance any further claim against West Germany, and, subsequent to the entry of the treaty into force, negotiations were begun in Rome between Israel, West Germany, and Australia for the return to the Palestine Germans of the money obtained by Israel from the sale of their assets. “Templer fordern Wiedergutmachung von Israel,”/! ufbau (New York), January 22, 1954, p. 17. Of interest, too, was Israel’s immediate offer to release ca. $15,000,000 in bank deposits belonging to Arab refugees. “Israel Will Free Arabs’ Bank Funds,” The New York Times, October 10, 1952, pp. 1,3. 82. The Bonn government offered the Arabs $95,000,000 in credits, bur Cairo wanted ten rimes as much. M. S. Handler, “Bundesrar in Bonn Gets Israeli Pact,” The Nar York limes, February 14, 1953, p. 3. The Free Democrats suggested that the reparations be administered by the United Nations and that a part of the funds be diverted for Arab refugees. “German-Arab Plan Drawn,” ibid., November 14, 1952, p. 8. For a while, some of the industrialists were also talking about a “vendors’ strike,” i.c., a refusal to make deliveries to Israel. “Israel Will Press Bonn on Payments,” ibid., January 6, 1953, p. 12. 83. “Vertrag Bonn-Tcl Aviv vor deni deutschen Parlament,” Aufbau (New York), February 27, 1953, p. 1. Israel’s government thereupon lifted the ban on German shipping in its (sorts. “Die Israel-Regierung hebt den Boykott dcr deutschen Flagge aut;’ ibid., March 6, 1953, p. 1. 84. For an analysis of the vote in the Bundestag (lower house), see Kurt R. Grossmann, “Rarifiziert!” ibid., March 27, 1953, pp. 1-2. 85. Dana Adams Schmidt, “Tel Aviv Ratifies Reparations Pact,” The New York Times, March 23, 1953, p. 12. Ratifications were exchanged on March 27, 1953, in New York. 86. For the history· of the agreement and its implementation, sec Nicholas Balab-SALVAGB 1269 Oil (purchased in the United Kingdom) 29.1 Ships 17.0 Iron and steel for construction 11.3 Machinery (cranes, pumps, etc. ) 9.2 Electrical products (generators, etc.) 6.5 Chemicals 4.7 Railway equipment, pipes, etc. 3.8 Other items, including textiles, leather, timber, special­ ized vehicles, optical instruments, coin presses, and agricultural products 11.0 Services, including obligations assumed by West Ger­ many for indemnification of German owners of prop­ erty sequestered in Israel and transferred to Israel 7.4 For the West German economy, whose output was rising steadily, the burden of the payments was declining correspondingly. They amounted to 0.22 percent of the West German gross national product in 1954, and to 0.06 percent by 1963. The compensation program as a whole —reparations, indemnifications, and official restitution — represented a shrinking share of national output. The combined total of external payments under the three headings was 0.84 percent of gross national product in 1961, and 0.30 percent in 1966.* 87 For this price Germany was at peace with itself. This aspect of the settlement was to produce some unexpected psychological repercussions. After a while it became clear that the Germans were engaging in strange behavior: they were praising the Jews. In countless articles and editorials, in mass demonstrations at Bergen-Belsen, in vast and silent attendance at the performance of a play whose simple lines were taken from the diary of a dead Jewish girl, Germans were paying homage to the massacred Jews and to living Jewry everywhere. The contrast between this spectacle and all that had preceded it was so strong that observers were struck by something uncanny in the demonstration.88 It seemed almost as though the Germans were deifying the slain. The West German decision to make peace with Israel placed the East Germans in an awkward position. At one point, in fact, an East German spokesman, caught at a press conference in West Germany, found himself kins, West German Reparations to Israel (New Brunswick, N.J., 1971). Sec derailed discussion of deliveries, ibid., pp. 155-88. 87. Ibid., pp. 192-93. 88. Sec Alfred Werner, “Germany’s New Flagellants,” American Scholar, Spnng 1958, pp. 169-78. Sec also William S. Schlamm, Die Grenzen des Wunden (Zurich, 1959), pp. 62-73, particularly pp. 63-65. CONSEQUENCES speaking about the possibility of negotiations with Israel.89 To be sure, this willingness was soon withdrawn. At the end of 1953, Albert Norden of the East German government declared before a press gathering in Soviet-controlled territory that Israel had no right to reparations, since it was a military base of the United States and not the legal successor of millions of Jewish victims of Nazi tyranny. In the event of a peace conference, East Germany was not going to recognize West Germany’s commitment.90 For the Jewish community the satisfaction of its claims meant the abandonment of a host of reservations that it had hitherto retained in its dealings with Germany. Outside Israel the channels of trade were cleared almost immediately;91 in Israel itself restrictions were thrown aside one by one. Even while negotiations were still in progress, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Chamber of Commerce was faced with the question of what to do with member firms who were assuming the representation of German companies in violation of the boycott.92 In 1953 the Israeli government lifted its ban on the registration of German patents and trademarks.93 A few years later, German travel bureaus were booking tourists for visits to Israel, and a five-man German industrial delegation left for Israel to examine the opportunities for investments there.94 In 1957 West German Foreign Minister Heinrich von Brentano, in answer to a question whether any power had been approached to bring about an establishment of Gcrman-Israeli diplomatic relations declared: No steps have been taken to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in the near future. When we arrive at such a decision, there will be no need for a third power as an intermediary. Our relations with Israel are so unequivocal and good that, in my opinion, only direct talks between Israel and the Federal Republic will be required in order to put them 89. “Israelis Welcome East German Bid,” The Nav Tork Times, September 22, 1952, p. 5. The speaker was East German Agriculture Minister Goldenbaum. 90. “Ostdeutschland lehnt offiziell Wiedergutmachung ab? Aufbau (New York), January 1, 1955, p. 11. 91. See the comment on the spur of German diamond exports, “Diamond Industry in Germany Grows,” The New Tork Times, February 21, 1952, p. 43. On the interesting development in which Jewish public relations experts were enlisted in the drive for recovery of German assets in the United Stares, sec William Harlan Hale and Charles Clift, “Enemv Assets —The $500,000,000 Question,” Reporter, June 14, 1956, pp. 8-15. 92. “Um die Vertretung deutscher Firmen in Israel,” Aufbau (New York), April 25, 1952, p. 8. 93. “Wieder deutsche Patente in Israel,” ibid., June 26, 1953, p. 31. 94. Kurt R. Grossmann, “Deutsch-israelische Annäherung wächst,” ibid., June 21 1957, p. 1. SALVAGE 1271 on a formal basis as soon as both of us shall consider the moment appropriate.95 After many years of normalization Germany made additional payments to fill several gaps in the provisions for restitution, indemnification, and reparations. The distributor of these supplementary contributions was the Claims Conference. The first of the new agreements between Germany and the Conference, which was made in 1980, resulted in the establishment of a hardship fund for emigrants from Soviet Bloc countries who had missed the deadlines extended to 1965 by the Indemnification Law. The fund was augmented by the German government from time to time, and the Claims Conference dispensed a total of DM 1,001,000,000 through 1999. Awards were one-time grants of DM 5,000 each. The approved claimants numbered 202,271. A second fund financed by the German government was created by the Claims Conference pursuant to Article 2 of the Implementation Agreement to the German Unification Treaty of October 3, 1990. Applicants were eligible to receive benefits if they fulfilled one of the following conditions: • six months in a camp • eighteen months in a ghetto • eighteen months in hiding under die age of eighteen and separated from the parents • six months of incarceration, in Austria or on the Hungarian-Austrian border, in special camps for Jews • six months in the Bor copper mines • six months in a Hungarian labor battalion on the Ukrainian front. They were not eligible if any of the following conditions applied to diem: • they were not persecutees as defined in the Indemnification Law • at the time of persecution they were citizens of a country that did not turn Communist after the war • they still resided in a former Communist country' • they had already received compensation of DM 35,000 • they were not needy. (In the United States, persons were over the limit if they were single and had an income of more than $16,000, or married with an income of more than $21,000, not counting, as of January 1,1999, the Social Security income of those who were at least seventy years old.) 95. Neivs from the German Embassy (Washington, D.C.), June 24, 1957, p. 3. Ambassadors were exchanged in 1965. Vogel, Deutschlands U tyy, pp. 175-94. CONSEQUENCES For the years 1993 through 1999 die German government committed DM 1,167,000,000 for the Article 2 Fund, as it was called, and for the years 2000 through 2003 another DM 1,360,000,000 were added. Payments to beneficiaries were fixed at DM 500 a month. As of December 31, 1999, the Claims Conference had approved 48,948 claims. In January 1998, the Claims Conference reached an agreement with the German government for a third fund, allowing victims residing in the territories of the former Communist Bloc counties of Central Europe and Eastern Europe, including the areas of the former Soviet Union, to obtain compensation for the first time. The commitment of the German government, for the period of four years from January 1, 1999, amounted to DM 200,000,000. The eligibility requirements with respect to wartime experiences were the same as for the Article 2 Fund. Considering that the Jewish population of Hungary was still about 52,000, and that several thousand other Jews were living in adjacent areas that had been part of Greater Hungary during the war, the stipulations of eligibility with regard to Hungary w ere of major importance. Payments to beneficiaries were to be DM 250 a month. As of May 31, 2000, the Claims Conference had approved 13,479 claims. The Claims Conference also took over Jewish properties that had been sold under duress or confiscated in East Germany during the Nazi regime, and that had not been reclaimed by its former owners by December 31, 1992. These assets were sold by the Claims Conference Restitution Successor Organization, and compensation was collected for properties that could not be restituted. By 1999, the proceeds of these operations exceeded one billion Deutsche Mark. Allocations were made mainly for social programs and other projects in thirty countries.96 All told, these improvements, hedged as they were, provided some relief, particularly for those who were poor and who had received very little or nothing at all. Yet closure was not achieved. The loss had not been “made good again.” Much chagrin was buried in the Jewish community while Israel w'as still endangered and for as long as the Cold War was not over. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union could all restraints be abandoned. With newly developed economic and political power, Jew s found the words they had never voiced before, and they revealed their anger in vehement statements. An outburst of claims descended upon companies and governments in several countries for having enriched themselves with Jewish assets and the value of forced Jewish labor. Now w'as the time to collect all that was owed with interest. 96. Claims Conference, Annttal Report 1999 with 2000 Highlights, pp. 17-22, 27. The figure of DM 1,167,000,000 for the initial injection into the Article 2 Fund is computed from other data in the report. SALVAGE 1273 In 1992 the following Jewish organizations created a World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO): Agudath Israel World Organization (Orthodox Jews), the American Gathering/Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, B’nai B’rith International, the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Jewish Agency for Israel, the World Jewish Congress, and the World Zionist Organization.97 The first major targets of this coalition were the Swiss banks that held Jewish accounts dating from the Second World War or before. Under Swiss law, these accounts had not escheated to the Swiss government, and there were known cases of heirs who did not have enough precise information to claim any money. The principal spokesman for this group was Edgar M. Bronfman, President of the World Jewish Congress and the WJRO. Bronfman, a member of the family that built Seagram Ltd., a whisky enterprise, had become accustomed to voicing Jewish concerns during the 1980s. When Bronfman arrived in Switzerland on September 12, 1995, to meet with the Swiss Bankers Association, he was left standing with his delegation in a spare room before Georg Krayer, president of the association, came in to inform him that searches had uncovered accounts aggregating 32,000,000 Swiss Francs. Bronfman considered this amount “a bribe.” He demanded a procedure to find all of the accounts.98 The Senate Committee on Banking of the United States Congress held hearings about the Swiss banks on April 23, 1996. On that occasion, Bronfman introduced himself in the following words: I hope it will not sound presumptuous, Mr. Chairman, but I speak to you today on behalf of the Jewish people. With reverence, I also speak on behalf of the 6 million, those who cannot speak for themselves. He emphasized that he was not going to discuss numbers, whether $32 million (sic) “or as may be closer to the truth, several billion.” The Swiss banks, he said, had lost their integrity, and an audit would have to be conducted that was not controlled by them.99 Bronfman had his way. An “Independent Committee of Eminent Persons” was established on May 2, 1996, by the World Jewish Restitution 97. The list is appended to a statement by Edgar M. Bronfman in Hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, “Swiss Banks and the Status of Assets of Holocaust Survivors or Heirs,” 104th Cong., 2d scss., April 23, 1996, p. 42. 98. Edgar M. Bronfman, Good Spirits (New York, 1998), pp. 241-42. 99. Statement by Bronfman in Hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, “Swiss Banks and the Status of Assets of Holocaust Survivors or Heirs,“ 104th C one,,. 2d scss., April 23, 1996, pp. 40-42. 1274 CONSEQUENCES Organization in concert with the World Jewish Congress on the one side, and the Swiss Bankers Association on the other. The committee chose as its chairperson the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Paul Volcker, who was qualified by his experience and who was neither Swiss nor Jewish. The budget of the committee was to be funded by the Swiss Bankers Association.100 By November 1996, the committee had engaged six major accounting firms,101 which employed some 650 auditors. This was a labor of years, which cost the banks SFr 310,000,000, or roughly $200 million.102 There was no letup of pressure on the Swiss. Statements were issued. Congressional hearings were conducted, and mass mailings were sent out. In the Executive Branch of the United States government, Stuart Eizenstat, who was made the Department of State’s Special Envoy for Property Claims in Central and Eastern Europe early in 1995, continued this activity for the next five years while serving successively as Undersecretary of Commerce tor International Trade, Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs, and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury.103 Reacting in October 1996, the Swiss government appointed Thomas Borer, a deputy secretary general of the Swiss Foreign Ministry, as chair of a task force to cope with the emerging crisis. In February 1997 the Swiss banks established a humanitarian fund to assist needy victims. The three major banks, Credit Suisse, the Swiss Bank Corporation, and the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) pledged SFr 100,000,000, smaller institu­ 100. Memorandum of Understanding between the World Jewish Restitution Organization and the World Jewish Congress (representing also the Jewish Agency and allied organizations) for the Jewish side, and the Swiss Bankers Association, May 2, 1996. lfic understanding w as signed bv Bronfman, Avraham Burg (State of Israel), /.vi Barak (also of Israel), Israel Singer (General Secretary, World Jewish Congress), and the Swiss negotiators Georg Kraycr, Joseph Ackcrmann, and Hans J. Baer (| Bar |, Chairman of Bank Julius Baer |Bar], a major private bank in Jew ish hands). Bronfman and Kraycr did not )oin the committee. Singer and Baer became alternate members. Text in House of Representatives Committee on Banking, “ l'he Disposition of Assets Deposited in Swiss Banks by Missing Nazi Victims,” 104th Cong., 2d scss., lX'ccmbcr 11, 1996, pp. 190-93. Testimony by Volcker in ibid., pp. 40, 42. 101. Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (Volcker committee) memorandum of Nov ember 19, 1996, in ibid., p. 195. 102. Independent C ommirrcc of Eminent Persons, Report on Dormant Accounts of Victims of Nazi Persecution in Swiss Ranks (Berne, 1999), pp. 4, 5, 53-54. The Swi.ss Bankers Association contributed a small part of this total. The bulk was incurred by the individual banks. Their indirect costs (administrative assistance in the searches) are nor included. 103. See his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, April 23, 1996, and before various committees through 2000. During the Carter administration, Eizcn-srat was an official in the White House dealing with Jewish matters. SALVAGB 1275 tions SFr 80,000,000, and the National Bank of Switzerland another SFr 100,000,000 to the fund.104 Even as the Swiss tried to defuse the situation, they faced a new challenge when a private lawyer, Edward D. Fagan, followed by other lawyers, launched class-action suits against Swiss banks in United States courts. These attorneys wanted much more than the kind of sums deposited in the humanitarian fund, and they could bring the actions to courts at home, because the banks conducted substantial business activities in the United States. The lawyers, however, had to face the possibility that not enough money would be found in the accounts to justify demands for billions of dollars. For this contingency they included in their claims the recovery of the gain that the banks had derived from German deposits of looted Jewish assets, as well as the recapture of the profit that the banks had made from such German deposits as were attributable to the use of Jewish slave labor.105 The appearance of the lawyers created questions for the World Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Had these lawyers seized the initiative? Would the organizations lose control? Who would speak for the Jews now? There was only one solution to the problem. As Israel Singer of the World Jewish Congress put it in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee: “We have all agreed to act in partnership with the class-action lawyers, because the majority of these people that we are associated with are working pro bono in this case.”106 104. Sec the advertisement of the Swiss Bankers Association in The New York Times, October 14,1997, p. A15. The fund was placed under a board chaired by Rolf Bloch, a chocolate entrepreneur who headed the Swiss Jewish Community. Statement by Bloch in Hearing before the House Banking Committee, uThc Eizcnstat Report and Related Issues,” 105th Cong., 2d sess., June 25, 1997, pp. 262-65. For an extensive chronology' to the beginning of 1999, sec Luzi Stamm, Der Kniefall der Schweiz (Zofingcn, Switzerland, 1999), pp. 235-52. 105. Richard Capone and Robert O’Brien (both American officers of Swiss Banks), “What’s Right with the Swiss Banks’ Offer,” The New York Times, June 30, 1999, Op-Ed page. 106. Testimony by Israel Singer in Hearing before the Senate Banking Committee, “Current Developments in Holocaust Assets Restitution,” 105th Cong., 2d sess., July 22, 1998, p. 17. When the cases were consolidated in a federal district court in New York, two of the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs were Burt Ncubornc and Michael Hausfeld. On Ncubornc, a professor at New York University Law School, see Andy Newman, “Lawyer Has Voice in Many Rights Cases,” Tlje Neu’ York Times, February 10,2000, p. A28. On Hausfeld, a partner in a law firm, see Paul M. Barrett, “Why Americans Look to the Courts to Cure the Nation’s Social Ills,” TJ>e Wall Street Journal, January 4,2000, pp. A1, A10. On Edward Fagan, who started his own small firm in 1994, see Barry Meier, “Lawyer in Holocaust Case Faces I.itanv of Complaints,” The New York Times, September 8, 2000, pp. Al, A24. Fagan wished ro be paid for his services. 1276 CONSEQUENCES With this arrangement in place, the plaintiffs could count on the support not only of Jewish organizational representatives but also of those public officials in state and federal positions who could easily be mobilized for the cause. The difficulties facing the banks became manifest when Credit Suisse and UBS, two of the largest, prepared to merge. Both institutions had branches and subsidiaries in the State of New York, and the Acting Superintendent of Banks of New York State, Elizabeth McCall, was in a position to frustrate their plans. In light of this obstacle, the banks indicated that they would make a substantial offer, and on the strength of this “sea change in their attitude,” they received approval.107 The offer was $600 million, including the $70 million the three major banks had already contributed to the humanitarian fund. The sum was immediately condemned by Avraham Burg, an Israeli member of the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons, as “humiliating,”108 and by Burt Ncu-borne, one of the lead lawyers for the claimants, as “insulting.” Neuborne explained that 90 percent of the amount constituted interest, reducing the amount to $60 million in 1945 dollars.109 For Roger Witten, a lawyer for the Swiss banks, the issue was different. “We believe that there is no legitimate regulatory objection to the merger,” he said, “and we wanted to make sure that we were free from efforts to use that process to extort a result on another front.”110 On July 22, 1998, Eizenstat, who had attempted to act as a “facilitator” in the negotiations, testified before the Senate Banking Committee that “There is a perception among many Swiss which is close to becoming hardened into an irreversible conviction that no matter what or how much they do, it will never be enough to satisfy their critics.” In the same testimony, Eizenstat opposed sanctions by state and local officials. They would reinforce Swiss inflexibility', he said, and counter the American interest in an open financial market.111 A lawyer for the plaintiffs disagreed. The Sw'iss banks, he testified, needed some “prodding.”112 On the same day, the Comptroller of the State of New York, H. Carl McCall, made his own statement before the committee. Thanking Edgar 107. David S. Sanger, “Swiss Banks Said ro Offer Holocaust Payment,” The New York Times, June 5, 1998, p. A9. 108. Sanger, “Swiss Ranks Make Offer on Nazi Loot,” ibid., June 20, 1998, p. A4. 109. Burt Neuborne, “Totaling the Sum of Swiss Guilt,” ibid., June 24, 1998, Op-Ed page. 110. Sanger, “How Gold Deal Eluded Mediator,” ibid., July 12, 1998, p. 6. 111. Testimony by Eizenstat in Hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, “C urrent Developments in Holocaust Assets Restitution,” 105th Cong., 2d scss July 22, 1998, pp. 10,12. 112. Testimony by Hausfcld, ibid., p. 54. SALVAGE 1277 Bronfman and the World Jewish Congress “for bringing this issue to my attention ” he pointed out that he had worked on the matter for two years. In December 1997 he had joined New York City Comptroller Alan Hevesi in a moratorium against sanctions, but by the beginning of July 1998, it was clear to him that no progress had been made. He and Hevesi had therefore announced a series of four graduated sanctions, beginning on September 1, 1998. The last step, on July 1, 1999, would be the consideration of a divestment by the state’s $107 billion pension fund of its business with all Swiss firms. He appreciated the position of the State Department, but found that sanctions imposed by state and local governments against South Africa had been instrumental in dismantling apartheid. His statement was followed by that of Steven Newman, First Deputy Comptroller of the City of New York, announcing the same schedule of city sanctions. Newman noted that the city pension fund of $84 billion included ownership of $735 million in stock of Swiss companies, of which $137.6 million were stock in Swiss banks.113 A threatened dumping of all Swiss shares was a broadening of pressure, encompassing also the major Swiss pharmaceutical companies, and five days after the Senate Hearing, on July 27,1998, the Jewish lawyers, whose claims had been consolidated in a single proceeding before a federal district court in Brooklyn, demanded $1.5 billion. The banks rejected this amount as fantasy. The federal judge, Edward R. Korman, thereupon invited the deadlocked parties to convene in a Brooklyn seafood restaurant on August 10. Following dinner that evening Korman proposed that the parties accept one of two options: $ 1.05 billion, plus any sum above this amount — if justified by findings of the Volcker committee — up to $450 million, or a total of $1.25 billion. The defendants, completely surprised, realized for the first time where the judge stood, and they had to weigh the risk of hostile publicity and boycotts. The plaintiffs in turn had to consider that a much larger award was improbable. In the end, the $1.25 billion figure was accepted bv both.114 113. Statements by McCall and Newman, ibid., pp. 70-75. McCall, an elected official and an African American, became a candidate for the Democratic nomination lor governor of New York in 2001. Richard Pcrcz-Pcna, “A Pair of Contrasting Rivals Start Bids for Governor Early,” The New York Times, Februarv 1, 2001, pp. RI, R2. Hevesi became a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Mavor of New York City in 2001. Adam Nagourncv, “Hevesi Counters Quiet Image,” Ihe Xew York Times, April 23, 2001, pp. Bl, B3. 114. Daniel Ammann and Erik Nolmans, “Showdow n ini Eischresraurant,” harts 1278 CONSBQUENCES More than five months passed before a settlement agreement was signed bv the opposing parties on January 26, 1999. The following classes of claimants were established: 1. depositors who were victims or targets of Nazi persecution, and who opened accounts before May 9,1945, and their heirs and successors (the “Deposit” class), 2. owners or part-owners of accounts that were cloaked under another name or that were Aryanized or confiscated under the auspices of the Nazi regime, and their heirs (the “Looted Assets” class), 3. slave laborers who “actually or allegedly” performed labor for companies or entities that deposited the revenues or proceeds of that labor, and the heirs of the laborers, 4. slave laborers who “actually or allegedly” performed labor for companies based in Switzerland or their affiliates elsewhere, and the heirs of the laborers, and 5. refugees seeking to avoid Nazi persecution who were denied entry into Switzerland, or after having been given entry' were deported or mistreated, and their heirs.115 Judge Korman dien appointed an experienced lawyer, Judah Gribetz, as Master of the Court to develop a plan for the distribution of the money to the various classes. For this purpose, Gribetz awaited the findings of the Volcker committee. They were published in December 1999, but without a hard figure. In a process of elimination, the examiners had concentrated on four categories of accounts, as shown in Table 11 -9. The estimated book values were then converted into current values by adding back fees that had been deducted, subtracting interest that had been paid, and multiplying the new numbers by ten to include cumulative interest equal to that of longterm Swiss bonds. In this calculation, die total for categories I and II was believed to be a maximum of SFr 411,000,000, or close to $260 million at the 1999 rate of exchange. Category III was not computed, because the sample of 11 percent contained deposited securities that had a much higher average value than the more representative accounts of I and II. In category IV relatively few accounts were believed to have belonged to (Zurich), August 20, 1998, pp. 22-24. The report is based mainly on an interview with a lawyer tor the banks, Peter VVidmer. The meeting lasted more than six hours. 115. Text of the Settlement Agreement, signed by Joseph T. McLaughlin for Credit Suisse, Robert C Dmcrstcin for UBS A.G., Michael Hausteld, Robert Swift, and Melvin I. Weiss for the plaintiffs, and Israel Singer and Avraham Burg for the World Jewish Restitution Organization, January 26, 1999. In Re Holocaust Victims Assets Litigation, United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, CV-96-4849. The agreement covered other listed Swiss banks. 8ALVAGB 1279 TOTAL NUMBER OF CATEGORY ACCOUNTS I Exact or near-exact matches of 3,191 names with other records II Unmatched accounts, but inactive 7,280 or identified by banks as belonging to victims III Matches for 14,716 of the 30,692 accounts, but all 30,692 closed by persons unknown and lacking evidence of inactivity IV Unmatched accounts, but possibly 12,723 relevant PERCENTAGE OF ACCOUNTS AVERAGE ESTIMATED WITH AN BOOK BOOK VALUE INDICATED VALUE IN OF ENTIRE BOOK VALUE SFR CATEGORY IN SFR 70 3,027 9,659,157 80 3,008 21,898,240 11 20,101 not estimated 98 330 4,195,246 victims.116 When Volcker testified before the House Banking Committee in February 2000, he mentioned a figure of 25,000 accounts in all as having the highest probability of relevance. Asked by Committee Chairman James Leach how “the math” would work for these 25,000, Volcker declined to make an estimate of their aggregate value and contented himself with the conclusion that the agreed $1.25 billion were more than sufficient to satisfy all plausible claimants in the deposit class.117 “Probable” relevance suggested that some of the highlighted accounts would turn out not to be Holocaust-related. An offset could be supposed because some banks had not been searched or because the victims had entrusted their money to nominal Swiss holders. There was, however, no ready adjustment for die simple fact that the Volcker committee had labeled the 30,692 accounts in Category III, including the 14,716 that were “matched,” as “closed, unknown by whom.” They had existed, but they were no more. The simplest surmise was that a large portion of them must have been emptied out by their owners after the war. The people who could do just that were prewar refugees from the Reich-Protektorat area, as well as wartime residents of France, Hungary, or Romania who had never been deported —two groups whose numbers in this context must have been significant. With such statistics and complications Gribetz had to propose his allocations. He considered that the settlement agreement had to be interpreted as bestowing priority on deposit accounts. Accordingly he recommended and the judge agreed that $800 million be set aside for valid claimants (in the main, heirs) to these deposits. For the contingency that this reserve would not be exhausted after justifiable disbursements, the way was left open to reallocate the balance to the other claimant classes.118 116. Independent Q>mmirtee of'Eminent Persons, Report on Dormant Accounts of Victims ohen, “Nazi Slave Labor Talks Halt over Payments” The New York Tunes, November 4, 1999, p. A12. Edmund Andrews, “Germans to Set Up 5.1 Billion Fund tor Nazi Slaves,” ibid., December 15, 1999, pp. Al, A7. Andrews, “German Parliament Backs Fund for Nazis’ Slave Workers,” ibid., Julv 7, 2000, p. A8. 136. Testimony by Otto, Graf Lambsdortf, who was a former German Economy Minister and who was appointed in August 1999 as the German Government Special Representative for the Foundation, in the Hearing before the House Banking Com* mittee, “Restitution of Holocaust Assets,” 106th Cong., 2d sess., February 9, 10, 2000, pp. 11-16. 137. Testimony by Eizenstat in Hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Legacies of the Holocaust” 106th Cong., 2d sess., April 5, 2000, pp. 13-16, 20-22. The distribution agreement was concluded on March 24. 138. The Austrian document number of the signed law is BGBL/GS/2000808/ 1/74. For expenditure, the law established a “conciliation fund” to which private enterprises were expected to contribute. Payments were fixed at S 105,000 for slave laborers, S 35,000 for forced laborers in industry and public works, and S 20,000 for those employed in agriculture and serv ice. SALVAGE 1287 January 16-17, 2001, in Washington, D.C., for additional Austrian indemnification of its own prewar citizens and residents. Two Austrian laws were thereupon passed, one to pay $150 million ($7,000 per recipient) for broken apartment and commercial leases as well as household goods, the other making available $210 million for liquidated enterprises and business property, bank accounts, and insurance policies, but not for losses that had already been sufficiently indemnified. In these legislative Austrian enactments, the obligated payments are actually denominated in dollars, and the payout of the $210 million is explicitly predicated on the cessation of all suits against Austria and Austrian companies by June 30, 2001.139 Germany and Austria alike were seeking only Rechtssicherheit, or “legal peace,” and throughout this process their only question was: When will it end? Is this all? Nothing was overlooked. Museums had to search their collections for looted art. Jewish community property was reclaimed in former Communist countries.140 Finally the momentum engulfed five Israeli banks and the State of Israel itself.141 Midway through this offensive, Israel Singer of the World Jewish Congress glimpsed victory. In testimony before the House Banking Committee he attributed the success of the effort to the committee, the work of Eizenstat, “and the shrill voices coming out of New York, frequently my own.”142 139. Materials of the Austrian parliament respecting the $150,000,000 Law, 350/A-XXI GP, including text and explanations, and the $210,000,000 Law, 476-XXI GP, through the courtesy of Martin Weiss, Austrian Press and Information Service in Washington, D.C. 140. Sec the testimony by Eizenstat in the hearing of the House Banking Committee, “Heirless Property Issues of the Holocaust,” 105th Cong., 2d scss., August 6, 1998, pp. 4-22; various statements in the House Banking Committee Hearing, “World War II Assets of Holocaust Victims,” 106th Cong., 1st scss., September 12, 1999; and testimony by Eizenstat in the Hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Legacies of the Holocaust,” 106th Cong., 2d scss., April 5, 2000, pp. 13-37. In the United States itself, the Congress passed the Holocaust Victims Redress Act of February 13, 1998, covering principally hcirless assets and art objects nor previously restituted. Public Law 105-158,112 Stat. 15. Sec also the findings and the detailed staff' report of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States, Plunder and Restitution (Washington, D.C., December 2000). The chairman of the commission was Edgar Bronfman. In an appendix to the findings there is a list of commissions in twenty-four countries, and a list of another twenty-two countries conducting assets research, pp. 53-54. 141. “Report of the Knesset Inquiry Committee on the Location and Restinirion of Assets (in Israel) of Victims of the Holocaust,” Jerusalem, December 2004. 142. Testimony by Singer in the Hearing before the House Banking Committee, “The Eizenstat Report and Related Issues,” 105th Cong., 1st sess., June 25, 1997, p. 90. CONSEQUENCES C H A P T E R T W E L V E IMPLICATIONS The destruction of the Jews ended in 1945, but while the perpetration was over the phenomenon remained. The postwar world was cognizant of what had happened and it was conscious of a need to create mechanisms in the form of treaties, laws, and public actions that would at the very least place all nations on record as recognizing the possibility of a recurrence and doing something to confront this danger. The watchword of the newly liberated concentration camp inmates was “never again.” They had in mind primarily a revived Nazi Germany or a European imitator learning from the Germans just as the Nazi regime had used the precedents accumulated since the Middle Ages. For governments the task was broader. They had to make sure that the Jewish fate 1289 would not befall any people anywhere at the hands of any power on earth. That challenge called at the outset for unambiguous wording with binding force and an unceasing determination to act on the basis of what had been resolved. In the international arena, the principal instrument for the prevention of another “final solution” was the Genocide Convention. The word “genocide” itself was coined by Raphael Lemkin in a book published while the war was still in progress.1 The convention was directed at persons who commit acts with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Under its terms, each member state that may be the scene of these acts is obligated to try such persons for their offense. Should there be no trial, or should a government itself have been involved, any contracting party may submit the case to the International Court of Justice.2 At first glance, the text reads as though all the signatory states regarded themselves as potential perpetrators. Yet no country would admit that its own government might destroy a minority group. That possibility was ascribed only to other countries. The United States, for example, attempted to insert a provision against the destruction of “economic groups,” and the Soviet Union proposed the inclusion in the preamble of a declaration that “genocide is organically bound up with fascism-nazism and other similar race ‘theories’”3 For a long time the United States did not even ratify the treaty, because fear was expressed that, under Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, the convention as “supreme law of the land” would be invoked by minority groups to strike down various discriminatory laws and actions of various state and local jurisdictions.4 The Soviets 1. Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, D.C., 1944), pp. 79-95. 2. Text of the convention, adopted by the General Assembly, December 9, 1948, and opened for signature and ratification or accession in U.N. Press Release PGA/ 100, pp. 12-16. Much later the United Nations developed an “international humanitarian law” for acts falling short of genocide, such as “ethnic cleansing,” and established a tribunal to try individuals accused of violations of this law in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The jurisdictional basis of these proceedings was derived from a provision in the United Nations Charter empowering the organization to determine and act upon “threats to international security.” See the text of Securin’ Council Resolution 827 of March 23,1993,23 I.L.M. 1203 (1993). 3. U.S. amendment of October 4, 1948, U.N. Doc. A/C.6/273. Soviet amendment of November 18, 1948, U.N. Doc. A/C.6/273. Neither amendment was adopted. 4. Sec the testimony by George A. Finch (American Bar Association) in Hearing before Subcommittee of Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the Genocide Convention, 81st Cong., 2d sess., January 23 to February 9, 1950, p. 217. See also replies and explanations by Adrian Fisher (Legal Adviser, Department of Stare), tl’id., pp. 263-64. IMPLICATION 8 accepted the convention only with the reservation that they would not be answerable tor their actions to the International Court.5 The Genocide Convention did not prohibit the kind of verbal assault on a group of victims that in Europe had preceded physical measures ot destruction. During the drafting of the convention, the Soviet delegate had invited ¿ill the prospective High Contracting Parties to enact the “necessary legislative measures” which would outlaw “all forms of public propaganda (press, radio, cinema, etc.) aimed at inciting racial, national or religious enmities.”6 The American delegate expressed fears that such legislation would infringe on the freedom of the press.7 Speech in the United States was sacred. The United States government in particular would not tolerate any international regulation of its internal affairs, be it in die realm of discriminatory practices or in advocacy of discrimination. Moreover, the demolition of prescribed inequalities was not a national passion. Yet even before World War II the New World was faced with the irreconcilability of its claims of equal treatment with the facts of discrimination.8 Now a catalyst was introduced into the picture. In the words of President Truman, “Hitler’s persecution of the Jews did much to awaken Americans to the dangerous extremes to which prejudice can be carried if allowed to control government actions.”9 With uncommon perception, the president saw that the retention in mid-century of discriminatory barriers signified the maintenance of a springboard, and the preservation of a target, for destruction. To remove this possibility, the goal had to be the full integration of all minorities into American society. Inherently the path to absorption is the exact reverse of the destruction process that the Germans had brought to perfection. The same steps must be traversed, but in the opposite direction (see Table 12-1). The problem is that absorption is slower than destruction and more difficult to achieve. In the course of the 5. Text of Soviet reservation \n American Journal of International Law 45, suppl., pp. 11-14. 6. Proposed amendment by the USSR, October 9, 1948, U.N. Doc. A/C.6/ 215/Rev. 1. The Russians had the support of France. The amendment was rejected. Prejudice in the USSR against Jews did nor vanish. Opinion polls conducted there during 1988-1994 showed significant percentages of anti-Semitic answers to questions about Jews. See Robert J. Brvm, The Jem of Moscow, Kiev, and Minsk (New York, 1994), pp. 46-47, and his “Russian Attitudes Towards Jews: An Update,” Hast European Jewish Affairs 26 (1996): 55-64. 7. Summary of remarks by John Maktos in General Assemblv/Legal Committee, Official Records, October-December 1948, pp. 213-14, 224-26. Maktos was supported by Great Britain. Compare with the decision bv the U.S. Supreme Court in Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 US 1 (1949). 8. See Gunnar Myrdal , An American Dilemma (New York, 1944), vol. 1, pp. xli-lv. 9. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs (Garden City, N.Y., 1956), vol. 2, p. 184. IMPLICATIONS 1291 American experiment shortcuts were attempted, which lengthened the task and hindered its success. The dismantling of restrictions became an object of measures by all levels of government. Federal action was designed to eliminate the involvement in discrimination by the government itself: thus the Congressional legislation to guarantee to all people the right to vote, the executive order for the desegregation of the armed forces, the executive orders requiring companies under contract with the government to refrain from discrimination in employment, and a Supreme Court decision that no court of any state may enforce a clause of a contract that prohibits the purchaser of the house from reselling the property to a member of a minority group. On state and local levels, laws were aimed primarily at discrimination in the private sector. The most significant were the fair employment practices acts (or prohibitions of discrimination in private employment), laws against exclusions in private schools, laws forbidding restrictions in the renting of apartments, and public accommodation laws which make criminal the refusal to serve customers in hotels, restaurants, and the like, because of race or creed. The prohibitory measures were subsequently supplemented by the federal government with more elaborate mandatory schemes, notably the busing of black (African-American) children to integrate the schools, the redrawing of congressional distrias to facilitate the election of African-Americans to the House of Representatives, and affirmative action rules (including goals, time tables, set-asides, and preferences) to benefit designated minorities in employment and business aaivities. Inevitably, however, these particular laws and regulations emphasized group identity and, for better or worse, perpetuated a differentiation of status and treatment on the basis of race. Added to the commitments under international arrangements and to the safeguards of domestic laws were the diplomatic and legislative fallback measures establishing rights of escape and asylum. Thus the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:10 Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own. . . . Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. 10. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly on December 10, 1948. U.N. Press Release PGA/100, pt. 4, pp. 11-16. The United Nations established a Commission on Human Rights under the hconomic and Social Council. This commission had a subcommission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. 1292 IMPLICATIONS TABLE 12-1 THE ABSORPTION AND DESTRUCTION PROCESSES Emancipation from slaver)' Definition Déconcentration Dismissals and expropriations Diversification of economic activity Concentration Abolition of group identity Forced labor and food controls Annihi ation Prevention of birth Infliction of death Marriage and birth regulations Sterilizations Indirect methods Physical separation Exposure Direct methods of sexes Starvation |----------------------------------------- 1 Local Mobile Central killing killing killing operations operations operations Opening the exit doors of the Soviet Union took decades,11 and providing for asylum in the laws of the United States and Western European countries was a similarly slow undertaking.12 In the end the whole network of precautions, which was the work of the developed world, underwent tests in countries that had not even been independent in the immediate postwar years. These eruptions, like the destruction of the Jews, were unexpected, and they caught Europeans and Americans unprepared. In the aftermath of decolonization, some mass deaths were judged to be the fallout of civil wars. In Cambodia, it was difficult to separate an “’auto-genocide” of a regime killing its own people on a “class” basis from the simultaneous slaughter by that Com-11. On the politics of Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union, see Henry Kissinger, Tears of Upheaval (Boston, 1982), pp. 249-55, 430, 463, 469, 986-98, 1022, 1030, and Robert G. Kaufman, Henry M. Jackson (Seattle, 2000), pp. 268-83, 401-2. 12. On U.S. provisions to permit entry of pcrsccutces, sec Public Law 87-510 of June 28, 1962, 76 Stat. 121, and its extension to Indochina refugees in Public Law 94-23 of May 23, 1975,89 Stat. 87. IMPLICATIONS 1293 munist government of minorities, principally Vietnamese. The United States, having just pulled out of the Vietnam conflict and having tied its hands by a legislative resolution to refrain from further interventions in the area, stood by. The Soviet Union, too far from the scene, protested impotendy. Finally, the Vietnamese Communists invaded Cambodia as liberators and put a stop to the massacres.13 But die purest genocide was ignited in Rwanda, a landlocked country situated in the heart of Africa, on April 7,1994. Here, the defiance of the carefully crafted postwar dicta was unambiguous. Rwanda was a German colony until World War I and a Belgian mandate under the League of Nations, which was continued as a trusteeship under the United Nations until 1962, when independence was achieved. Its area of slighdy more than 10,000 square miles and its population of more than seven million almost matched Belgium’s statistics. The people, like those of Belgium, were largely Catholic, and they were divided, like the Belgians, into two distinct groups, the Tutsi and Hutu. One looked like Nilotic East Africans, the other like Central African Bantu, but individual members of the two communities could not always be told apart by their appearance, and intermarriages were increasing. Under Belgian rule in the 1930s, a registration system was introduced under which everyone was given one or another identity. For the offspring of a mixed union the father’s affiliation was used automatically. Unlike the Flemish and Walloon Belgians, the Tutsi and Hutu had not managed to live in complete harmony, even though they spoke a common language, Kinyarwanda, and lived intermingled as neighbors. The Tutsi, possibly 14 percent of the population, were historically dominant in economic and social spheres, but the country as a whole, with its high birth rate and low life expectancy, was poor. Yet the majority were literate, and there was a radio for every dozen people. An efficient bureaucracy had been built, with prefects and burgomasters, and the registrations were kept locally up-to-date. Tension and violence between Hutu and Tutsi gripped independent Rwanda, and by 1993 the Hutu-dominated government took some ominous steps. Since its army of some 7,000, including presidential guards and gendarmerie, could not afford to purchase a stock of weapons for a much-expanded force, it doubled its imports of machetes. Two Hutu militias, consisting of the youth wings of two political parties, were mobilized: the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi. Lest they be confused 13. For a short analysis of the Cambodian disaster, see Kenneth Quinn, “Explaining the Terror,” in Karl D. Jackson, cd., Rendezvous with Death (Princeton, 1989), pp. 215-40. Vietnam’s counteraction took place between December 25, 1978, and January 7,1979. IMPLICATIONS with any Tutsi, they wore identifying colors, blue-yellow garb and black-vellow-red kerchiefs, respectively. When they moved to targeted communities they were also adorned with a distinctive leaf indicating the plant growing in their place of origin. The preparations came to the attention of Canadian General Dallaire, who commanded 2,500 United Nations peacekeepers charged with maintaining a truce between armed Hutu and Tutsi factions. In January 1994 he was told by an informant that the Tutsi in the capital, Kigali, would be registered, that a Belgian contingent of the United Nations forces would be attacked to induce its departure, and that masses of Tutsi could be killed. When the violence was unleashed, Dallaire requested reinforcements to take preventive action, but he was instructed by United Nations headquarters in New York to remain impartial and to act beyond his mandate only to assure the evacuation of foreigners.14 The onslaught on the Tutsi began on April 7, 1994, a day after the Rwandan president and the president of adjacent Burundi were killed in a plane crash. Shootings of Tutsi commenced in the region of the capital, Kigali. Within days the operation covered large parts of the country. Distances were small enough and the military and militia sufficiently mobile to move from place to place, but much reliance was placed on local Hutu who were summoned to pitch in, and on literate “intellectuals” to check passes of people on the roads. Ruses were employed to lure Tutsi into traps : assurances of transportation to safety, guarantees of sanctuary in churches, promises of protection from foreign peacekeeping units in the vicinity. Internally, primitive euphemisms were quickly developed: the Tutsi were “invenzi” (cockroaches), killing was “work,” and the machetes were “tools.” Two possible obstacles faced the killing machine. Peacekeepers nearby could intervene, and armed Tutsi refugees joined by Hutu dissidents in a Rwandan Patriotic Front occupied a strip about ten miles deep below the northern border. The European countries and the United States, however, were reluctant to use force, if only because they had no tolerance for casualties in their own ranks. After ten Belgians were killed, the 400 Belgian peacekeepers left, and by April 25 a total of 2,000 of Dallaire’s troops had been withdrawn.15 The units of the Rwandan Patriotic Front began to move almost imme-14. Samantha Power, "A Problem from Hell” (New York, 2002), pp. 343-53. 15. Ibid , pp. 366-69. For the text of the Securin’ Council Resolution 912 of April 21, 1994, authorizing a reduction in strength of the Mission Force, see United Nations Blue Book Scries, vol. X, The United Nations and Rwanda, ¡993-1996 (New York, 1996), pp. 268-69. The resolution was based on the Special Report 470 of the United Nations Secretary General outlining three alternatives, April 20, 1994, in Und., pp. 262-65. IMPLICATIONS diately, but their primary objective of seizing control dictated movements into regions sparsely inhabited by Tutsi. They reasoned that the slaughter of the victims was so rapid in any case that large-scale rescue was not possible. The Tutsi captured Kigali on July 4, and completed their advance by August 21,1994. They had won a complete victory, shooting more than a few Hutu along the way, but the Tutsi dead surpassed 500,000. In raw numbers the Tutsi in Rwanda at the beginning of April might only have been about a tenth of the Jews successively caught in the German vise, yet in percentage terms the Tutsi loss was just as heavy as the Jewish toll of five million.16 The disaster of the Tutsi took place in full view of the world. No global crisis overshadowed this event. No lack of aircraft or manpower hampered countervailing action. The challenge was posed and not met. Legal specialists in the Department of State of the United States opposed even the use of the word “genocide” with reference to Rwanda, lest its utterance be construed as an obligation to do something. On April 30 President William Clinton referred in a public radio message only to the “horrors of civil war and mass killings in Rwanda” in the course of the preceding three weeks,17 and on May 17 the United Nations Security Council followed in a unanimous resolution to condemn the “killing of civilians,” and to decide that it would “remain actively seized of the matter.”18 History had repeated itself. 16. A comprehensive account of the Hutu operation, from which most of the information in the preceding pages is taken, was written by Alison Dcs Forges, based on research by eight collaborators, and published by Human Rights Watch and the Federation Internationale des ligucs dcs droits dc l’hommc, Leave None to Tell the Tale (New York and Paris, 1999). See also Alain Dcstcxhe, Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1994,1995), and Arthur Jay Klinghoft’cr, The International Dimension of Genocide in Rwanda (New York, 1998). For the rate of killing and the feasibility of foreign intervention, sec Alan J. Kuperman, “Rwanda in Retrospect," Foreign Affairs 79 (2000): 94-118. The historical background of the outbreak is analyzed by Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers—Colonialism, Nativ- ism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton, 2001). 17. Text of the president’s radio message, April 30, 1994, in Department of State, Dispatch, May 2, 1994, p. 250. 18. TcxrofU.N. Security Council Resolution 918 of May 17,1994, in '¡'he United Nations and Rwanda, pp. 282-84. In this resolution the Security Council authorized an increase of the Mission Force to 5,500 men. They were not quickly deploved, and as of May 31, government forces still held the western half of the country. See the map in ibid., p. 298. IMPLICATIONS A P P E N D I X A GERMAN RANKS 1297 TABLEA-I CIVIL SERVICE RANKS ADMINISTRATIVE RANK UNIT Reichsminister Reichsministerium Staatssekretär—StS. Unterstaatssekretär—UStS. Abteilung Ministerialdirektor—MinDir. Ministerialdirigent — MinDirig. Unterabteilung or Amt or Amtsgruppe Ministerialrat—MinRat. Referat Oberregierungsrat—ORR. Regierungsrat—RR. Botschaftsrat (Foreign Office) — BR. Gesandtschaftsrat (Foreign Office) — GR. Legationsrat (Foreign Office) — LR. Amtsrat—AR. Note: See Arnold Brecht, The Art and Technique of Administration in German Ministries (Cambridge, 1940), pp. 171-85. The Referent (level of Referat) was usually an expert. Most first drafts of decrees were prepared by Referenten. Ibid., pp. 179 — 82. For complete classifications by salary, see the following decrees: December 16,1927, RGBl I, 349; March 19,1937, RGBl 1,342; March 30,1943, RGBl 1,189. 1298 APPENDIX A TABLE A-2 SS AND ARMY RANKS SS GERMAN ARMY U.S. ARMY Reichsführer—RF-SS GeneralfeldmarschalJ — General of the army Gfm. Obcrst-G ruppenführer Generaloberst — General — Obs tG ruf. Genobst. Obergruppenführer — General der Infanterie, Lieutenant general OG ruf. Artillerie, etc. — Gen. d. Inf Gruppenführer — Gruf. Generalleutnant—Glt. Major general Brigadeführer — Brif. Generalmajor— Brigadier general Gcnmaj. Oberführer—Obf. Standartenführer — Staf. Oberst — Obst. Colonel Obersturmbannführer — Oberstleutnant — Obstlt. Lieutenant colonel OStubaf. Sturmbannführer — Major—Maj. Major Stubaf. Hauptsturmführer— Hauptmann-Hptm. Captain HSruf. Obersturmführer — Oberleutnant — Olt. First lieutenant OStuf Untersturmführer — Leutnant — Lt. Second lieutenant USruf. GERMAN RANKS 1299 A P P E N D I X B STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD On November 26, 1945, a former Sturmbannfiihrer in the Security Service, Dr. Wilhelm Hbttl, signed an affidavit in which he described a conversation with Adolf Eichmann in Budapest at the end of August 1944. On the occasion, according to Hbttl, Eichmann had told him that six million Jews had been killed, four million of them in camps and two million in other wavs, particularly in the course of shootings during the campaign against the USSR.1 The International 1. Affidavit by Wilhelm Hbttl, November 26, 1945, PS-2738. 1301 Military Tribunal, in its judgment of September 30, 1946, cited the six million figure, attributing it to Eichmann without mention of Hottl.2 Eichmann may well have indicated six million,3 but at the meeting of his officers at the end of the war he had remarked that he would laughingly jump into his grave for the deaths of five million victims,4 and in 1961, at his trial in Jerusalem, he repeated the lower number.5 During his service in the Reich Security Main Office, Eichmann had collected numerous reports with statistics that could be added.6 After the war, Jewish organizations made their own calculations, but in a totally different manner. The principal method of these agencies was the subtraction of postwar data (including registrations) from prewar census figures or estimates. In a mimeographed unpublished compilation prepared in June 1945 by the Institute of Jewish Affairs in New York City, the death toll was 5,659,600 to 5,673,100, including 1,250,000 within the August 1939 boundaries of the USSR. The Soviet share was based on the assumption that originally there had been 2,100,000 Jewish inhabitants in that portion of the old territory which was to be occupied by the Germans, that Soviet authorities had evacuated half of the urban residents but a smaller percentage of the village population from this region, and that there was a residue of 30,000 survivors.7 A year later, Jakob Leszczynski of the World Jewish Congress came out with an overall total of5,978,000 dead, including 1,500,000 Soviet Jews within the August 1939 frontiers.8 To this day, most of the published estimates have hovered between five and six million. Moreover, the methods of calculating the results have remained essentially the same. The numbers are extrapolated from the available, sometimes fragmentary reports of German agencies, satellite 2. Judgment, International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXII, 496. 3. The same number was given in June 1944 by a Jewish emissary', Joel Brand, who had been sent out by Eichmann from Hungary' for ransom negotiations with the Allies, to the Jewish Agency’s Moshe Shcrtok. “Preliminary' Report” by Moshc Shcrtok, June 27,1944, Wcizmann Archives, Rchovoth, Israel. 4. Affidavit by Dieter Wisliccny, November 29, 1945, in Office of United States Council for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, VIII, p. 610. 5. Testimony by Eichmann, July 7 and 20, 1961, Eichmann trial, English transcript, Session 88, p. Η 1, and Session 105, pp. LI 1, Mm 1. See also Eichmann’s memoirs, Ich, Adolf Eichmann (Leoni am Starnbcrgcr Sec, 1980), pp. 460-61,472-76. 6. Testimony by Eichmann, July 6, 1961, Session 87, p. Y 1. 7. Institute of Jewish Affairs, “Statistics of Jewish Casualties during Axis Domination,” August 1945, in the library of the Institute. 8. Jakob Leszczynski, “Bilan dc Pcxtermination,”Congres JuifMondial (Brussels, Paris, Geneva, June 1946). 1302 APPENDIX B authorities, and Jewish councils, or they are refined from comparisons of prewar and postwar statistics. One must bear in mind, however, that the raw data are seldom self-explanatory, and that their interpretation often requires the use of voluminous background materials that have to be analyzed in turn. Assumptions may therefore be piled on assumptions, and margins of error may be wider than they seem. Under these circumstances, exactness is impossible. ADDING Any assessment based on additions must reflect the origins and meanings of the numbers found in wartime documents. The large majority of these figures stems from an actual count of die victims. By and large, the numbers fall into three categories: deaths as result of (1) privation, principally hunger and disease in ghettos, (2) shootings, and (3) deportations to death camps. This division corresponds to a broad jurisdictional segmentation in the bureaucracy itself. The statistics of privation were kept by Jewish councils and were reported to German supervisory organs that utilized the figures to decrease rations and space. There are tabulations indicating Jewish mortality in the Reich-Protektorat area, and detailed enumerations exist also for the ghettos of Warsaw and Lodz, but the data are sparse for other localities. Hence, privation is hard to measure. Among the major causes of death, it is the smallest category, but it is also the least firm. Shooting statistics were produced by SS and Police units, especially the Einsatzgruppen. At times, these formations seemed to justify their existence with numbers. The attention to detail is revealed in the field report by Einsatzkommando 3 with its breakdowns of shootings by date, locality, and type of victim.9 Einsatzgruppen situation reports were consolidated daily in the RSHA for distribution to privileged recipients. These long documents contain many statistics, but they are not nearly as detailed as the numbers which fill six pages in the progress report prepared by Einsatzkommando 3 in the field. Some of the cumulative figures in the daily consolidations are not specific about time spans, and sometimes they do not disclose whether credit was taken for the entire result of a joint operation with some other formation. When the shootings of other organizations, such as the Order Police deployed by a Higher SS and Police Leader, are acknowledged, the numbers arc often approximate. Aside from such variations in Einsatzgruppen reports, there are some 9. Report by Jäger (Einsatzkommando 3), December 1, 1941, Zentrale Stelle Ludwigsburg, UdSSR 108, film 3, pp. 27-38. STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD 1303 major gaps in the picture as a whole. The descriptions of shootings in 1942 and 1943 are less complete than those of 1941, and small-scale killings by army or SS units in the rear areas behind the Russian front, or by civil agencies, are generally underreported. The third set of statistics, dealing with deportations, is numerically the largest category. Again, one may recall that there was occasion for meticulous counting. In the western countries, the Reich-Protektorat area, and Slovakia, transports were planned with lists. In Belgium, France, and Italy, the rosters of names, made up in transit camps, have largely surv ived intact. For Macedonia and Thrace under Bulgarian domination and also for Hungary, there is more than one set of statistics, with slight differences between the reports. In Poland, the railway administration sometimes admonished its personnel to report the number of deportees by train, so that the Security Police could be billed accordingly. Occasionally, the documentation indicates not only the place of deportation, but also the point of arrival. The routes of some of the transports are discernible in reports of the railroads or guards of the Order Police. Stops in the ghettos of Lodz or Theresienstadt were recorded. Deported Jews shot in Minsk, Riga, or Kaunas were mentioned in the context of local killing operations. Treblinka was identified in Stroop’s report as the destination of 6,926 Jews caught in the course of the Warsaw Ghetto battle in 1943. It should be noted, however, that there was no systematic counting of arrivals by camp administrations. The deportees unloaded at Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor were hastily shoved into the gas chambers. Even in Auschwitz and Lublin only those Jews were registered who were to be kept alive for a while. The multitudes were gassed immediately. The keystone of all the German records is the recapitulation by the SS statistician Dr. Richard Korherr about the “final solution of the Jewish question.” The sixteen-page document, dated March 23, 1943, summarizes the situation as of December 31, 1942. A seven-page supplement, confined to deportation statistics, deals with the first three months of 1943.10 10. Cover letter by Korherr to Obersturmbannführer Brandt (Himmler’s adjutant), March 23, 1943, indicating transmission of report, NO-5195. Himmler to RSHA, April 9, 1943, confirming receipt of report, NO-5197. Brandt to Korherr, April 10,1943, passing on Himmler’s requests for changes in phraseology, NO-5196. Korherr to Brandt, April 19,1943, noting that the draft of a supplement, for inclusion in a shortened version intended for presentation to Hitler, had been sent to the RSHA, NO-5193. Cover letter by Korherr to Hauptsturmfuhrcr Meine (in Himmler's adjutant office), April 28, 1943, stating that he was returning the report with editing as requested in the letter of April 10, NO-5193. Text of the long report in NO-5194. In this report, edited pages were substituted for the original ones. The first page, unchanged, bears Himmler’s initial and date of receipt, March 27. Text of rhe supplc-APPENDIX B Not everything about the Korherr report, including even its entire purpose, is completely clear. From the fact that the end of the lethal year 1942 was chosen as a benchmark,11 one might surmise that it was intended as a progress report. But more was involved than a summation. By the end of 1942, Himmler was under attack from Albert Speer, Minister of War Production, and General Fromm, the Chief of the Replacement Army, who were increasingly concerned with the preservation of manpower. The “final solution” was threatening a reservoir of Jewish labor, and concentration camps were swallowing potential German soldiers. Speer and Fromm, evidently in collusion, approached Hitler himself to challenge the adequacy and veracity of roundup and arrest statistics offered by the Reich Security Main Office.12 The implication of die complaint, that the SS was refusing to disclose the extent of its inroads on human resources, presented Himmler with an odd dilemma. How could he portray die full range of his achievements to Adolf Hider, yet couch them in appropriate terms for “camouflage” ( Tamung)? For this task, he needed his professional statistician, Korherr, a man whose credentials could not be impugned. On January 18, 1943, Himmler instructed Korherr to compile the report,13 but then demanded deletions of references to “special treatment” ( Sonderbehatidlung) in the draft and ordered substitute phraseology that would tell a casual reader only the number of Jews w ho had been “dragged through” ( durcbgeschleusst) unnamed camps.14 Not surprisingly, most of Korherr’s statistics came from the RSHA. In his postwar statements, he was vague about meetings and discussions,15 but Eichmann distinctly recalled a “sullen” statistician in search of an mcnt with deportation data to March 31, 1943, in NO-5193. Since the long report and its supplement overlap in contents and language, they will be referred to here as “the Korherr report” without further distinctions between them. A summary, typed with special large lettering in Eichmann’s office for submission to Hitler, is not extant. Eichmann, Ich, p. 475. 11. Himmler had ordered the destruction of the Generalgouvernement Jews bv the end of the year. Himmler to Krüger, July 19, 1942, NO-5574. 12. Entry in diary of Gerhard Engel (army adjutant in Hitler's headquarters) of December 19, 1942, in Hildegard von Kotze, cd., Hecrcsaäjutant bei Hitler (Stuttgart, 1974), pp. 141-42. 13. Korherr to Rrandr, March 23, 1943, NO-5195. 14. Brandt to Korherr, April 10, 1943, NO-5196. 15. Statement by Korherr, July 13, 1951, Amtsgericht Regensburg, in Zentrale Stelle Ludwigsburg, 202 AR 72/60, pp. 207-21; his statement of May 26, 1962, for prosecution of I Landgericht Hamburg, 141 Js 573/60, Zentrale Stelle 202 AR 74/60, pp. 2214-17; and his statement of January 22, 1965, before prosecution in Regensburg, 9 Js 121/62, Zentrale Stelle 412 AR 536/61, pp. 49-52. STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD 1305 overall view. There were talks, says Eichmann, about camps and “naturally” about how many Jews the SS and Police Leader Globocnik had put to death (ums Leben gebracht hatte) in the Generalgouvernement and how many Jews the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen had killed under their own jurisdiction (in eigener Zuständigkeitgetötet hatten).16 Although Korherr consulted also with the WVHA about registered Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, Lublin, and other regular concentration camps, and with a Jewish functionary about data pertaining to the German Jews, he did not, according to his testimony, probe elsewhere. To be sure, it would have been difficult, if not unthinkable, to approach the Foreign Office or the Reichsbahn, let alone foreign governments involved with deportations. In fact, the Korherr report contains no references to Hungarian Jewish labor companies, Romanian shootings, or Croatian camps. Far less credible, however, is Korherr’s assertion that he did not even understand the figures in his report or that he did not realize that the Einsatzgruppen killed people. Throughout the postwar years, Korherr as a potential witness or defendant in West German court proceedings was a frightened man, and ignorance was his banner. No final summary was prepared in 1944 or 1945, although statistics of new deportations were assembled in Eichmann’s office.17 During the last six months of the war, at a time when footmarches began and shifts of inmates took place from one camp to another, the Nazi system broke down, and with it the counting. SUBTRACTING If the principal problem in the course of adding numbers is their incompleteness, the difficulty in the subtraction of postwar counts or estimates from prewar data is the need for adjusting the results. The first of these corrections must be made for changes in the boundaries, from those of 1938 to those of 1946, notably in the case of Poland and the USSR. A second involves causal factors. Thus, in the interval between the last prewar and the earliest postwar determinations of Jewish population in any given country or region, there were deficits not only due to the Holocaust but also because of war, migrations, or changes in birth and death rates. 16. Eichmann, Ich, pp. 474-75. Eichmann docs not mention Korherr by name. Korherr states that he had a deputy, Dr. Roderich Plate, and an administrative assistant trained in statistics, Hauprsrurmfiihrcr Hofmann. On Korherr and Plate, see also Gotz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, Die restlose Erfassunq (Berlin, 1984), pp. 32-35,60-61. Aly and Roth deal with registrations and counting as a tool of population policy under Nazism. One chapter is devoted to German acquisitions of data about Jews. 17. Testimony by Eichmann, July 6, 1961, Eichmann trial English transcript, session 87, p. Y 1. APPENDIX B The task, of calculating these components is magnified if—to cite the Soviet Union —the two relevant census figures are dated 1939 and 1959, or if there is no simple way to draw conceptional lines between normal deaths and the Holocaust or between the war and the Holocaust. The question of who was a Holocaust victim arises for deaths under privation, particularly if someone succumbed to conditions short of complete ghettoization, or died while in hiding or after flight. The Reich, for example, had a Jewish community after 1939 in which the average age was high, and in every area of Europe there were people old enough or ill enough to have had short life expectancies. Still, the Holocaust toll cannot be discounted for deaths that would have occurred in any case. Real hardships, nor hypothetical normalcy, faced the Jewish communities under German occupation, and particularly in conquered Poland normal deaths of Jews must be presumed to have become fewer and fewer. Quite different, however, is the attribution of cause to victims who died after flight or escape. In this case, the key is the motivation of the refugee. One and a half million Jews were on the move after Germany invaded the USSR on June 22,1941. Inasmuch as even larger numbers of non-Jewish inhabitants fled —or were evacuated — only to suiter higher than normal death rates in the interior of the Soviet Union, one would have to know how many Jews left their homes because they had feared a specifically Jewish fate under German rule. Theoretically, the question is not unanswerable. If a third of the Slavic residents and two-thirds of the Jewish population in a given city had fled or been moved, this difference would at least have to be analyzed. Some, though by no means all of the dead among the refugees, were Holocaust victims. Practically, however, such conclusions are not easily written in numbers. One figure, in the tens of thousands, which would not be revealed in a subtraction, is that of Christians who died in the Holocaust because they were considered Jews by the perpetrators. Many of these baptized people were in fact exempted by reason of a mixed marriage, but others were drawn into the vortex of destruction. Even in the Warsaw Ghetto, Christians were not altogether rare. RECAPITULATION In every computation, there are question marks. For some countries, including above all Poland and the USSR, one may at least seek some clarification by juxtaposing the results obtained from an addition with the findings from a subtraction. To be sure, such a cross-check entails yet another complication. The Germans and their allies referred in their reports to geographic areas that have no counterparts on the maps of 1938 STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD 1307 or 1946: the Protektorat, the Generalgouvernement, Transnistria, the f Ostland, or Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Slovakia and Croatia were also | creations de novo, and the military territories of Serbia and Salonika had | novel configurations as well. The conversion of figures, reported for such § entities, into numbers that are appropriate for recognizable countries | with familiar frontiers is a formidable undertaking. For Poland and the | USSR, which together account for more than 70 percent of the dead, i some special comment is necessary. j \ POLAND On the map of Nazi Europe, Poland did not exist. To reconstruct it with prewar frontiers from German administrative regions, one must examine (1) the incorporated territories (including Upper Silesia, Lodz, areas attached to East Prussia, and Bialystok), (2) the Generalgouvernement, comprising five districts named Krakow, Warsaw, Radom, Lublin, and Galicia, and (3), northeastern regions that became part of the Reichskommissariat Osdand (Vilna and Polish White Russia) and part of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine (Volhynia). Each of these three sectors presents its problems. For the incorporated territories and the Generalgouvernement, the most complete statistic may be found in Korherr’s report. In the following two equations, all the numbers are taken from his tables. The figures in the first three columns represent estimates or counts. The two figures in the last column are, as he states, derivative. Estimated Number Remaining of Jews Population Excess of before on Deaths and German December 31, Count of Emigration Takeover 1942 “Evacuations” over Births Incorporated Territories 790,000 - (233,210 + 222,117) = 334,673 Generalgouvernement 2,000,000 - (297,914 + 1,274,166) = 427,920 All these numbers need interpretation. The starting populations, despite the rounding to 790,000 for the incorporated territories and to 2,000,000 for the Generalgouvernement, are remarkably similar to figures that would be obtained from a straight projection of 1931 Polish census data.18 18. The boundaries of the sixteen voivodships of prewar Poland did not correspond to those of the administrative divisions created bv the Germans, blit local data APPENDIX B The 297,914 Jews stated as remaining in the Generalgouvernement on December 31, 1942, include a figure of 50,000 for Warsaw, which is too low.19 The “evacuation” counts of 222,117 and 1,274,166, respectively, undoubtedly incorporate some non-Polish Jews temporarily quartered in ghettos. Thus, there were twenty thousand Jews from the Old Reich, Vienna, Prague, and Luxembourg in the Lodz Ghetto, and other thousands from the Reich and Slovakia in the Generalgouvernement. Korherr provides enough statistics for the following breakdown of the “evacuation” figures: From the Incorporated Territories 222,117 From the Warthegau (Lodz and environs) “dragged through” the camps of the Warthegau (meaning Kulmhof) 145,301 From the Bialystok District (meaning deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka) 46,591 From Upper Silesia and regions attached to East Prussia (meaning deportations to Auschwitz and Treblinka) 30,225 From the Generalgouvernement 1,274,000 “Dragged through” the Generalgouvernement camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka and Lublin) Supplementing these totals are partial data tor 1943 and 1944. The Lodz Ghetto, which according to Korherr still had 87,180 inhabitants at the end of 1942, was wiped out when its remaining inhabitants were deported to Kulmhof and Auschwitz during June-August 1944. The ghetto of Warsaw, where 63,000 Jews were still alive in September 1942, was emptied after more deportations in January and the battle of April-May 1943, leaving only scattered groups in hiding. In Galicia, the SS and Police ot the Polish census could be used to estimate the initial size of the Jewish population in any newly fashioned district. Korherr did nor furnish such numbers for the prewar Polish portions of the Reichskommissariate. 19. See also Generalgouvernement meetings of March 26 and July 9, 1943, on “summary” census of Generalgouvernement population in Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer, eds.. Das Diensttapcbuch des deutschen (lencralßtnti’cmeurs in Polen, 1V39-IQ45 (Stuttgart, 1975), pp. 636 and 700. An overall figure for the Generalgouvernement ot 14,741,000 was cited in March. At the second meeting in Julv, Oberregierungsrat Dr. Josef Gor/., deputy chief of the Generalgouvernement statistical office, provided a breakdown that included 203,000 Jews. Nor included were tens of thousands of unregistered Jews (many in hiding) who did not draw rations. 'Die census was taken on March 1, 1943. Korherr to Brandt, March 27, 1943, T 175, Roll 67. STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD Leader Katzmann reported on June 30, 1943, that 21,156 Jews were left.20 Other documents about other localities tell a similar story. Korherr had no count for '■' emigration” and ‘■' excess mortality,” and he could not separate the two concepts when he calculated their combined totals as 334,673 for the incorporated territories and 427,920 for the Generalgouvernement. Compared with the starting populations, these figures are clearly disproportionate. Their ratio is not, as one might have expected, 2:5, but more nearly 4:5. The principal explanation for this apparent discrepancy may be found in flights and expulsions from the incorporated territories to the Generalgouvernement at the beginning of the German occupation. There is no close estimate for these movements, but the shift is almost certainly in the 50,000-100,000 range.21 The addition of 334,673 and 427,920, which is 762,593, may therefore be taken as an indication of a real deficit for the two regions as a whole, but not as the unqualified measure of deaths from privation. About 150,000 to 200,000 Jews fled from this area, particularly to the interior of the Soviet Union. Their number, which is the “emigration” in Korherr’s heading, must be subtracted.22 The third major region of Poland, about which Korherr provides no details, had a starting population of about 550,000 Jews. It was divided into several administrative compartments, listed here with the number of Jewish inhabitants crudely projected from 1931 census data: 20. Report by Katzmann, June 30,1943, L-18. In addition, a small number were in hiding. The military reported in September that 6,000 Jews were left in Lvov, and that the Jewish question in Galicia was "on the whole” (im grosse» und ganzen) finished. OFK 365 to Wchrkrciskommando GG, report for August 16 to September 15,1943, dated September 17,1943, Poland 75022/13. Document once located in Alexandria, Va. 21. Records of the statistical office of Lodz list 61,086 departures of Jews during January-May 1940, including 51,739 in January, February, and March. Yad Vashem O 6/79. Destinations are not indicated, but the first three months coincide with mass expulsions. Sec additional statistics in Wlodzimicrz Jastrzebski, “Nazi Deportations of Polish and Jewish Population from Territories Incorporated into the Third Reich,” paper for Main Commission for Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland/International Scientific Session on Nazi Genocide, Warsaw', April 14-17,1983. 22. Some additional adjustments arc necessary for war dead. Shootings in the Bialystok District and, during 1941, also in Galicia, w'erc probably placed under the “excess of deaths.” Births and normal deaths, if not completely balanced, mav constitute another complication. In view' of these problems, it may be tempting to calculate the privation deaths from the available Lodz and Warsaw Ghetto data alone. The two communities lost about 19 percent of their combined cumulative populations under ghettoization. For all of Poland (without war dead and those who escaped! that percentage would spell out a toll of nearly 600,000. Warsaw and 1 ,