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The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Session 49, Part 4

June 11th, 2009

State Attorney Bach: How many Jews were transported in October 1942?

Witness Abeles: Some 60,000-65,000 Jews were transported in the first deportations.

Q. Do you know about a special transport on the Day of Atonement?

A. As a result of our various interventions with the help of Wisliceny, with the help of a Slovak senior official, the deportations were temporarily halted. It was therefore quiet until the autumn. According to what Wisliceny told us, he was subjected to great pressure by various persons, particularly engineer Karmasin, to continue with the deportations, and therefore in the autumn another two or three transports left, one of them on Yom Kippur.

Q. Did you sometimes receive mail from the deportees?

A. We would always receive several hundred postcards at once, which were sent to the UZ for distribution. They came from Auschwitz, Birkenau and the expulsion sites in Poland: Majdanek, Opole, Sobibor.

Q. What did these postcards say?

A. They all said almost the same thing: “We are working, we are well.”

Q. Did you yourself once receive such a postcard?

A. I once received a postcard from Majdanek from Dr. Lustig (he was a doctor who was deported in a transport of single people), and then from Eduard Blumenkranz, who was deported with his wife and small child. Neither returned.

Q. Do you remember that in 1942, 1943, an article appeared in the Grenzbote by a journalist called Fiala about the conditions of the deported Jews?

A. Fiala published an article on Auschwitz, in which he wrote that he had himself spoken to several deported Jews, and he listed names as well, people who could be identified, and he said that they were well, and he also published a photograph in the newspaper showing some Jewish girls in pretty white dresses and with white bandeaux. Some of these girls could also be identified.

Q. When did you first find out about the extermination in the extermination camps?

A. We were visited by German and Slovak businessmen who had transacted business with Poles and told us of the horrors and the hunger, and also brought letters for us, and said that, in return for very minor expenses, they were prepared to take with them jewellery, money and other items for the deportees. What they said proved in part to be true. They also brought back some of these things, because in the meanwhile the deportees had died. They told us that the people there were suffering dreadfully from hunger, had to sell their remaining possessions to the Poles for food, and that many had vanished, no one knew where to.

Q. Could you please tell the Court what was the plan known as the “Europe Plan”?

A. As part of the negotiations with Wisliceny, Rabbi Weissmandel and Andrej Steiner, who later conducted these negotiations, suggested to Wisliceny that in return for an enormous sum of money, the deportations be halted from all over Europe. At that time Wisliceny went to Germany, returned and said that in principle there was such a possibility, except for Poland. Poland was definitively lost to the Jews, but for an amount of two or three million dollars, payable in instalments and in goods, in monthly instalments – not in money but in goods – the matter could be negotiated.

Presiding Judge: When was that?

Witness Abeles: That was probably at the end of 1943.

State Attorney Bach: You said earlier that you were able to smuggle several hundred children to Hungary. What was the fate of these children?

Witness Abeles: When the deportations began in Hungary, the first to be seized were the stateless Jews, who could be identified. These children could easily be identified, because they were all legally registered. The parents were mainly still in Slovakia and offered everything to bring them back, because at that time there was relative quiet in Slovakia for persons who had protective identity papers.

No intervention, including even the personal intervention of the Slovak envoy in Budapest, was effective, since it was alleged that these children had to be deported in accordance with German orders.

Q. Did you yourself take steps in connection with the matter?

A. Yes, in the Slovak Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Q. And there you were told that the children had to be deported on the basis of the German order?

And now would you please tell the Court what was the fate of the Jews when the revolution broke out in Slovakia in the summer of 1944.

A. In August 1944 there was an uprising among the Slovak population. The result was that the country was occupied by the German army and the SS. Immediately all protective identity papers were declared invalid, and a wild hunting down of the Jews began. The whole of the Vyhne camp and many of our young people had joined the insurgents and fought against the Germans in the mountains. The uprising was put down, the people found in the mountains, the Jews, were shot on the spot, and hardly anyone survived from the entire Vyhne camp.

Q. Do you know how many of those who took part in the uprising perished?

A. I cannot say exactly, but it was a large number, because several times I had before me the list of those who died.

Q. What happened to the children and the women?

A. If they were found in the mountains, they were immediately butchered.

Q. What happened to the Jewish Central Office?

A. The Jewish Central Office was of course closed down, and the Jews – except for Mrs. Gisi Fleischmann and Dr. Kovacs – went into hiding. These two remained in their office, in  order to look after the interim supply arrangements for the Jews.

Q. What happened to the Sered camp?

A. The Sered camp was destroyed in the course of the uprising. After the uprising – after the uprising was put down – the Sered camp was set up as a concentration camp for all Jews and was a temporary camp prior to deportation.

Q. Who was the head of this concentration camp?

Alois Brunner (born April 8, 1912, reports of death contested) is an Austrian Nazi war criminal. Brunner was Adolf Eichmanns assistant.

Alois Brunner

A. I don’t know nor remember the names of the first commanders. Later on it was Hauptsturmfuehrer Alois Brunner.

Q. What happened to you?

A. I was in hiding in a cellar with a group of 22 persons. We stayed there until 1 January 1945, when we were given away by someone informing on us. Eight or ten German SS forced their way inside, brandishing their weapons, and immediately started maltreating us. We were sent to a temporary camp in Bratislava, to the ex-UZ central office, and from there, a few days later, we were sent to Sered.

Q. When did you first meet Alois Brunner?

A. I originally met him in the Pressburg camp – transit camp; there I proposed to him that in return for several million Swiss francs, the few – the very few – left in Slovakia be left alone. I said to him: “The Jews are in any case tired of Europe, after the War no one will remain here, he should just leave them here now until the end of the War.” Brunner said to me…

Q. Did he then introduce himself as Brunner?

A. “My name is Mueller,” he said. But I knew him. He said to me: “I like what you say very much, `tired of Europe,’ yes, this is a nice phrase. I like it, and you will go to Switzerland.”

Q. At that time, did he also want to find out something from you?

A. He wanted to find out from me the whereabouts of Dr. Kovacs who in the meanwhile had gone into hiding, and he said, “If you give me Kovacs’ address, you will be released immediately.” In addition, he also wanted to get from me the pass I had received from Hauptsturmfuehrer Gryson, so I could move about freely and obtain goods for the German Waffen-SS.

Q. For whom? Would you please explain to the Court what happened when Gryson came to you? On what occasion and for what purpose did Gryson come to see you?

A. At that time the negotiations were already underway in Hungary about buying off further deportations by providing supplies. Dr. Kasztner came to see us on numerous occasions with Gryson, who was an assistant of Becher’s and apparently a very benevolent person, and asked us for help. Rabbi Weissmandel naturally promised to help, and we got involved in this operation, but with very little success.

Q. Now, it was from Gryson that you had received this pass allowing you freedom of movement?

A. At that time Gryson drew up a list of people, amongst them also persons not involved in the work. We gave names at random of people who wanted such papers. He went to Budapest and brought back a considerable number of these papers from the Eastern Special Staff of the Waffen SS.

Q. When did you receive these papers?

A. Around 1944, in the main before the beginning of the Slovak uprising. At that time we were in fact – in principle – still able to help.

Q. Did Brunner want you to hand in these papers?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you give him these papers?

A. No. It was quite clear to me that he wanted them in order to harm Gryson or someone else.

Q. Did Brunner also talk to you about it being possible to  halt the transports in return for payment?

A. He said to me: “One cannot believe you Jews. Not a word of what you are saying is the truth. But we shall talk about this in Sered. Report to me as soon as you get to Sered.”

Q. Do you know anything about Brunner’s promise to the Red Cross representative, Dunant, about Jews of foreign nationality in Marianske?

A. There was a large number of Jews with foreign passports, who until then were of course protected. There were many South American states, and also passports of convenience. Dunant came to Bratislava as the representative of the Red Cross in Geneva. He negotiated with Brunner for these foreigners to be allowed to leave for Switzerland.

Brunner promised to allow this, subject to the condition that of course they would first have to be concentrated, in order to organize transport. Whereupon all of these people in hiding went voluntarily to an abandoned castle, Marianske, and from there they went to Auschwitz. Not one of these came back.

Q. You and your family were in Sered?

A. I went to Sered together with my elderly mother, my wife, and my two young children. I immediately reported to Brunner, but he refused to see me.

Q. Can you tell the Court what happened to your mother in Sered?

A. In Sered, before the transport left, Brunner carried out the selection, using a cane. The able-bodied men separately, the able-bodied women separately, old people and women with small children separately. Unlike the other old people, Brunner put my mother in the transport for able-bodied women, although my mother and my wife begged him…

My mother said, “But I am Dr. Abeles’ mother,” whereupon he said to her, “Even if you were the mother of the emperor of China, you are not going to Theresienstadt.” She went to Ravensbrueck, and shortly afterwards she died there.

Q. How old was your mother?

A. 78.

Q. Were you yourself present during this exchange?

A. I watched from some distance away.

Q. Do you know anything about what happened to Mrs. Gisi Fleischmann in 1944?

A. She was deported with a transport to Auschwitz. Later, after the War, others from the transport who survived told me that, immediately after the train reached Auschwitz, the call went out, “Gisi Fleischmann, Gisi Fleischmann.” She identified herself, waved “Farewell, Jewish children,” and after that no one ever heard anything more of her.

Q. What happened to Rabbi Weissmandel?

A. Rabbi Weissmandel was deported on another transport with his wife and eight children. On the urging of others in the carriage, he said he was prepared to jump out of the carriage if his youngest child would be handed down to him.

He did in fact jump, but in order to make it easier for him to escape, the others did not hand the child to him. He managed to reach Pressburg, and later he reached Switzerland on a transport with a Gestapo or SS escort which Dr. Kasztner organized for Jews in hiding in Pressburg.

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945.

Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945.

My wife and my young daughter were sent to Theresienstadt. I and my son, who was then fourteen years old, were sent as forced labourers to Sachsenhausen, and from there we went to a branch camp in Lichtenrade. When we were deported, we were 400 Jews; of this number, without gassing, just from labour and starvation, 200 died within a short time; of the 400, 200 survived.

Q. Do you perhaps know how many persons were deported from Slovakia still in 1944?

A. I cannot say, but I believe over 10,000.

Q. And you were liberated from Sachsenhausen?

A. I was saved from Sachsenhausen.

Presiding Judge: Dr. Servatius, do you have any questions for the witness?

Dr. Servatius: No, I have no questions for the witness.

DJudge Raveh: I do not know whether I understood you correctly, but when you spoke at the beginning of your testimony about the “relocation,” what did you mean by this?

Witness Abeles: Relocation was to be carried out under the motto of making “Bratislava free of Jews.” Jews were “relocated” or displaced to provincial towns; this was before the deportations – they were not allowed to continue living in Bratislava.

Q. How many Jews were sent in this way to the provincial towns?

A. Out of 20,000 Jews, some 7,000-8,000 Jews must have been “relocated.”

Q. And were these Jews also deported later?

A. They were the easiest to round up for deportation, because they had no protection whatsoever.

Q. What does “they had no protection” mean? What do you mean by that?

A. Jews who had a work permit were initially protected against deportation, but those who were “relocated” obviously could not have any work permits, and they lost their jobs.

Q. Was Wisliceny the person who initiated these resettlements?

A. I do not know; in any case, it happened during Wisliceny’s period in office.

Q. And he carried it out?

A. Yes.

Q. You testified about your conversation with an SS officer who told you that you would not have any time to think it over. What did you understand by that?

A. I understood that I would be killed.

Q. That is to say, you did not understand that it had anything to do with a transport or deportation?

A. Either on the spot – that did not require much there – or by deportation.

Q. You told us of this proposal – I do not know whether one can call it a proposal – about two to three million dollars, which Wisliceny made. Did you take it seriously?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you take any action?

A. We sent calls for help to the whole world. When we saw the first two live witnesses from Auschwitz, two Slovak youngsters who had escaped and who told us for the first time about gas chambers, about dogs, we – and in particular Rabbi Weissmandel – sent reports out to the whole world. And in fact they reached their destinations throughout the whole world. And we called for money.

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The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Session 38. Part 8

May 26th, 2009

State Attorney Bar-Or: Dr. Max Plaut begins:

“When I returned from London to Germany on official business at the end of June 1939, I was in the Gestapo Dienststelle in Hamburg, and I was interrogated by the Department for Jewish Affairs, as was usual in such cases.” (Apparently when he had been abroad.) “I sensed that there was quite a strong war psychosis. He plunged straight into the subject with me and said: ‘When war actually breaks out, the Jews will be the first victims. You will see miracles and wonders, for what happened in November 1938 was only a general rehearsal’.”

A little further on he says that Gestapo officials, who had good intelligence sources, and also party officials, had informed him that they were thinking of preparing concentration camps and special labour camps for all the Jews.

On page 2, roughly at the end of the first third of the page, he says that, in fact, the Jews were in his charge in all matters affecting their welfare, namely the Jews of Hamburg, Bremen, Luebeck, Mecklenburg, Oldenburg, Braunschweig, Schleswig-Holstein and the district of Hanover.

Similarly, he had to deal with those Polish Jews who had been transferred to concentration camps; of these he testifies that, at the end of 1943, only three still remained alive.

He refers to the early general regulations against the Jews; in particular he mentions that it was necessary to hand over all radio sets and their accessories owned by Jews. He states that this regulation came into force on the Day of Atonement. A little later he says that it soon no longer came as a surprise to him that Sabbath days, Festivals and Jewish Holidays were deliberately chosen for anti-Jewish operations by the State.

“With devilish wickedness the Nazis studied the Hebrew calendar. Thus it happened that we waited for or anticipated all the Jewish Holidays with feelings of concern (mit Beklemmung), and we breathed a sigh of relief when these passed with only minor chicanery (mit kleinlichen Schikanen voruebergegangen waren).

“Thus I remember that on the eve of Succot (the Festival of Tabernacles) 1940, we were summoned to the Gestapo. They told me that within two days we had to prepare special questionnaires to be signed by all the Jews, and this had to be done by the Jewish community office. When I asked that, in view of the impending Festivals, they should kindly extend the period for preparing the questionnaire by two additional days, I naturally received a negative reply.”

And now he quotes: “I am very sorry – this comes from above.” Thereafter the Gestapo official speaks to him in a very personal way (persoenlich wendend). “There, in Berlin, they think of everything, so that you should not catch cold in your booths (‘Succot‘).” “On this note, he ended the negotiations with me.”

Further on he says that, in Berlin, at Kantstrasse 158, in the office of the Reich Association of the Jews of Germany, a special department was hurriedly set up of statisticians, painters, graphic artists, and all kinds of people with special professions, upon whom were imposed the functions of special schools, according to orders which came from that omnipotent expert in the Gestapo, Eichmann, and his deputy, who held a rank equal to his, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Guenther.

After that he mentions Dr. Eppstein and Dr. Meyer, who took upon themselves the work of translating all the details required by Eichmann into a graphic and statistical presentation.

He quotes the decree of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler of 1940 issued to the Reich Association, according to which Jews were forbidden to walk in the streets of cities between the hours of eight in the evening and six in the morning. He recalls that it was not allowed to print such orders – the notice concerning them had to be circulated verbally.

At the top of page four he mentions that, in the first year of the War, an order was issued – I should like to emphasize this especially – which forbade the release of Jews from the prisons to which they were brought under court judgments, and that the Gestapo had orders that, when their criminal punishment had been served, these Jews were to be brought directly to concentration camps until the end of the War.

He continues: “In view of the fact that the treatment in penal institutions was, generally speaking, correct, we attempted to secure the longest possible sentences for Jews who were brought before the criminal courts, so as to save them from the concentration camps.” He refers to the general decree forbidding the emigration of Jews from Germany, which came into force with the entry of Germany into the war with Russia.

Later on he begins to describe the evacuation of the Jews from Stettin and speaks of how he himself went to Stettin in February 1940, in order to take care of what remained there. He came into contact with the trustee, a so-called “Treuhaender” who had been appointed by the Gestapo, and describes the negotiations with him over the rest of the property which remained in Stettin after the deportation of these Jews. He mentions, at the beginning of the last third of page five, that all Jewish property in Stettin was in the possession of the Gestapo. The Gestapo also controlled their apartments and the institutions and homes belonging to the community.

At the end of the page he begins to refer to postal communication which existed for some time between the Reichsvereinigung and these people, until, one day, the mail returned with the remark 205unbekannt verzogen (addressee moved to unknown destination). I am reading from the first section on page six.

He now describes the condition of the Jews in Friesland and Oldenburg, two northern districts in Germany, for which he was also responsible.

I quote from the last passage of page six:

“The dispatch to concentration camps was usually carried out by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, as proposed by the Gestapostelle (Gestapo office). This proposal, the Schutzhaftantrag – a proposal for imposing ‘protective custody’ – could be carried out by any Gestapo official. These proposals, as a rule, received a positive response.

When orders came from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to concentration camps, they usually bore the signature of Heydrich, and later on that of Dr. Kaltenbrunner. From the beginning of the War, the following camps were mainly taken into account for the delivery of Jews to concentration camps: Buchenwald (near Weimar), Dachau (near Munich), Mauthausen (near Linz), Neuengamme (near Hamburg), Sachsenhausen (near Oranienburg), and subsequently Auschwitz. Women were usually sent to a concentration for women at Ravensbruck, in the district of Mecklenburg.”

He states that the camp with the worst reputation was the camp at Mauthausen. Experience had proved that delivery to this camp meant certain death.

Judge Raveh: When Did Mr. Plaut record these remarks?

State Attorney Bar-Or: In 1953, in Tel Aviv – he dictated them to Mr. Ball-Kaduri.

He now speaks about the life of the Jewish communities. On page eight, he mentions Dr. Baeck and Dr. Eppstein, and their work in the Reich Association. On page nine, he refers to the ban issued by the Gestapo for the holding of “gottesdienstliche Veranstaltungen” – that is to say a ban on all prayers or any other ceremony that normally had to be observed in a synagogue; he adds that, nevertheless, they tried, and also successfully, to continue with regular prayer services in a limited way.

At the end of that chapter he talks about the liquidation of the property of the Jewish community councils, and the institutions, the charitable institutions, attached to them. He says that, ultimately, the property of all of them, as we have already seen in the copies of laws which I submitted to the Court yesterday, had to be handed over to the National Union.

He now quotes a letter from the Accused which apparently was typical. He says that the letterhead stated:

“Ministry of the Interior, Reichssicherheitshauptamt – By virtue of Regulation 10 of the Law of Reich Citizenship of 1935, I hereby decree the incorporation of the German Jewish Orphanage of Hamburg (this was the former name of this institution) into the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany, Berlin. Signed: Eichmann.”

He mentions that the district office in Hamburg, alone, had eventually collected property worth approximately 58 million Reichsmarks. He points out that this property was ultimately transferred to the “Bank of Hausheinz, Tecklenburg and Co.” in Berlin.

On page 11 he talks of the liquidation of the Jewish Kulturbund, of the liquidation of the cultural activities which had to be stopped. Here he mentions mainly the influence of the Ministry of Goebbels.

On page 12 he speaks of the private property of the Jews, as distinct from communal property. He relates that, in October 1940, all preparations were made by Gestapo offices for depriving the Jews completely of their property by means of Vermoegensausstellungen, (property statements). This was shown to the Court yesterday by Mrs. Henschel.

On page 13 he mentions the strict prohibition of contact between Jews and non-Jews in all public parks; the notice on all the benches “Zutritt fuer Juden und Hunde verboten” – entry forbidden to Jews and dogs.

Afterwards he refers to something which will be of interest to this Honourable Court. He says in the last third of page 13: “So as to make it possible at all to be in the fresh air, we helped ourselves in Hamburg by turning the cemeteries in Oldsdorf and Langenfelde into fields for games and sports for young and old.”

Presiding Judge: He does not say “cemeteries,” but vacant lots within the cemeteries.

State Attorney Bar-Or: Yes, your Honour, “graeberfreies Feld.” Perhaps now the Columbus operation on page 14 is of special importance. Let me perhaps sum up what happened there.

An order was received that all the mental patients who were in the personal care of Plaut, and also in the personal care of other Jews, had to be transferred to Jewish institutions. The Gestapo announced: “The reason is that we have to separate Aryan mental patients from Jewish mental patients.”

Ultimately an order came to prepare a transport of all the Jewish patients through the ColumbusTransportgesellschaft (a transport company) – hence the name “Operation Columbus” which was supposed to go to the Staatskrankenanstalt Cholm, to the government institute for the sick at Cholm.

When Dr. Plaut says that these patients are not in contact with Jewish institutions, the Gestapo men in Hamburg begin talking to him with an evidently bad conscience.

Eventually there had to be a transfer to the account of the Staatliche Krankenanstalt Cholm by the Preussische Staatsbank of the sums of money which were supposed to be paid for the maintenance of these patients in the East.

And finally, on page 16, the Court will notice that the death certificates start to arrive. And now something, which was bound to occur, happens. One of these patients, who was in the care of Dr. Plaut, managed to escape from the transport. But he, too, this patient who was alive, received his death certificate: “Died following an intestinal disease.”

Presiding Judge: Was all this in Sobibor?

State Attorney Bar-Or: In the vicinity, at any rate. We have said that it could be seen that this was the only place which was not obliged to report to the Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt on the transports that reached it. We want to deduce from this that there was nothing to maintain there, that there was no economic unit there which had to be maintained by the Amt of Pohl.

I shall proceed now to document No. 1561. This is a report from the newspaper Politiken, which appeared in Copenhagen on 17 February 1940, and which was sent to the Foreign Ministry. The copy of what appears here came from the files of the Foreign Ministry.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/666.

State Attorney Bar-Or: The heading is: “Germany expels Citizens.” The report comes from Stettin, on 16 February 1940. It states further that more than 1,300 people from Stettin and the environs were affected by this deportation, amongst them babies and aged people.

Presiding Judge: Was this published before the Germans entered Denmark?

State Attorney Bar-Or: Yes, of course. In reply to a question whether a place had been prepared for the reception of these people in Poland, an SS Scharfuehrer answered: “That is not important. They will be off-loaded on to an open field. You will have to see for yourselves where they will remain.” At the bottom of the page it says that, at  the transit point at Schneidemuehl, about twenty hours after they had set out from Stettin, they had to remove the first corpses from the train.

Later on it states that in diplomatic circles it was being said that President Roosevelt, through his Secretary of State Cordell Hull, had sent a report on the subject to the embassy in Berlin through Mr. Kirk, and it could be assumed that he would bring it to the notice of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop.

And now, Prosecution document No. 507, which is also connected with these events. Here there was a press conference, on 15 February 1940, and there an internal instruction had been given to the German authorities on what was to be discussed there. It says here “Instruction No. 347. In the foreign press it is being alleged that 1,000 German Jews have been expelled to the Generalgouvernement (the reference, of course, is to Poland). The news item is correct but must be handled confidentially.” (“Die Meldung stimmt, ist aber vertraulich zu behandeln.”)

Presiding Judge: What is this “Brammer materiell?”

State Attorney Bar-Or: This is material which was evidently discovered in Bram by the American authorities after the War, and submitted in this form at Nuremberg.

Presiding Judge: Where is Bram? Is it the name of a place?

State Attorney Bar-Or: It seems to me to be the name of a place. The document is NG 4698 of the Nuremberg Trial.

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/667.

State Attorney Bar-Or: And now to document No. 1172 of 17 February 1940. This document is signed by a man whose signature is very difficult to decipher.

It states here that the Referent (official in charge) in the Foreign Ministry dealing with the matter was Bielfeld, and that the “Sachbearbeiter” (official dealing with the matter) was Dr. Neuwirth. It states here that following a question to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt Regierungsrat Schellenberg was informed that: “It has been made known that the operation at Stettin must be regarded as an isolated measure (‘Einzelmassnahme‘). 1,000 Jews were deported, in order to create space for Baltic Germans returning to their homeland.”

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/668.

State Attorney Bar-Or: And now the Prosecution document No. 795.

Presiding Judge: Are all these from Wuerzburg?

State Attorney Bar-Or: No. We shall come to the Wuerzburg file in chronological order; when there is a deportation from Wuerzburg, we shall come to Wuerzburg. Between deportation and deportation, obviously time passes. At present we are still in the period before the first general deportation to the East. These were the first deportations that were not general. For example, the one from Stettin was, in truth, restricted to Stettin and Schneidemuehl.

The document is dated 28 March 1940. It is issued by Lammers, the Head of the Reich Chancellery, to Himmler. He informs him of a report that had come to Lammers secretly, and which describes the death march from Lublin, and speaks of many cases of death from the cold, and requests the intervention of Goering, in order to prevent the repetition of such deportations.

The Court will remember the evidence of Dr. Kratki who found these people of Stettin and the surroundings in a Jewish hospital in Lublin and spoke about conditions caused by the cold. Here we have a document which corresponds with this part of his evidence.

Presiding Judge: After he came from Nisko to Lublin?

State Attorney Bar-Or: When he came from Nisko to Lublin and began to work in the Jewish hospital in Lublin, he found these Jews in the condition in which they arrived.

This document, which I do not intend to read, gives a quite shocking picture of the manner in which these first deportations from Stettin and Schneidemuehl were carried out, deportations which eventually reached Lublin and the district. I shall read only a small part. Inter alia it says here:

“From Lublin, the men, women and children were forced to march on foot, in a temperature of 22 degrees below zero and on roads covered in snow, up to these villages. On these marches shocking scenes occurred.

Out of the 1,200 deported from Stettin, 72 people were left behind on the way during the course of the march, which lasted more than 14 hours. Amongst them were men and women up to 86 years old. The great majority of them suffered from frost-bite. Amongst them was a mother who held her little boy aged three in her arms; she tried to protect him from the frost with her clothes and was left behind lying in this position after superhuman efforts.

There was also the body of a boy about five years old which was found in a semi-frozen state. He bore on his neck a cardboard sign with the name ‘Renatta Alexander from Hammerstein in Pommern (Pomerania).’ It turned out that this boy was deported when on a visit to relatives in Stettin, while his parents still remained in Germany. They had to amputate this boy’s hands and feet in the hospital in Lublin. After the transport, the bodies on the roads were collected on sleds and brought to the Jewish cemeteries in Piaski and Lublin.”

And at the end:

“The Generalgouvernement of the occupied Polish areas, and the district representative, Governor Zerner, denied any responsibility for these occurrences and their results. General Fieldmarshal Goering received notification about these events.”

Presiding Judge: This will be Exhibit T/669.

State Attorney Bar-Or: It is interesting that this report, as it describes itself, was based on the finding of the mixed Polish-Jewish Aid Committee in the Generalgouvernement, which functioned in cooperation with the American organization of Quakers, and similarly with representatives of the Red Cross, and the district authorities of the Governor General of the occupied Polish area.

Judge Halevi: This is hard to understand. At first sight there seems to have been such a committee in the area, which acted in cooperation with the district authorities of the Generalgouvernement.

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The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Session 26. Part 6

May 13th, 2009

Attorney General: The following document is our No. 1108. This is a letter sent from the central sorting office in Vienna on 6 September 1943. Its contents – a summary of a letter in Hebrew of the Jewish underground in which there is an account of the extermination in Poland and means of rescue. The letter was intercepted by the German censorship and it appears in a German translation on the censorship form. The sender was S. Mandelblatt, from Turkey who wrote the letter to Dr. Pozner in Geneva, Switzerland.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/264.

Attorney General: Perhaps the Court would permit me to read some extracts from this letter?

Judge Halevi: Where is this from? Is this a letter of the Jews from Bendsburg?

Attorney General: This is from Bedzin. Here the connection between the Jewish underground and other countries emerges. Dr. Pozner was the Jewish Agency’s representative. They were bringing to the attention of the world that “they had established a network of agricultural training centres and strong youth movements, much stronger and better than in normal times. To our regret all possibility of regular work was stopped a year and a half ago. After the period when the ghettos were set up, the planned extermination began. It commenced in the Warthegau, the districts of Lodz and Posen. About 80,000 Jews were destroyed here by gas (officially this was called Aussiedlung).

In Lodz alone, a small and hermetically sealed group of about 40,000 Jews has remained, who will surely die of starvation and tuberculosis. At the moment we do not have any news from this area. The place of extermination is called Chelmno. In Lithuania they are carrying out the extermination of Jews by shooting, at Ponary; a total of 20,000 Jews are left in Vilna, Kovno and Shavli. For some months we have had no news from there also.”

Presiding Judge: This was the letter written in Hebrew?

Attorney General: This was the letter written in Hebrew, translated into German and brought to the attention of the censorship.

Presiding Judge: Despite that, some Hebrew words were retained here, with a German glossary.

Attorney General: That is correct.

Presiding Judge: What was the reason?

Attorney General: We can only guess the reason, but I do not know why. Either the German censorship did not know the meaning of these words, or it wanted to bring the original expression to the attention of those in charge. At the end of the letter is says: “F.d.R.d.A.” (“fuer die Richtigkeit der Ausfertigung” – (for the correctness of the rendering”), signed Gross, Oberstlieutenant (Lieutenant Colonel) and Head of Service.

Attached is a translation of the Hebrew terms “Als Anlage eine Uebersetzung der Hebraeischen Ausdruecke.”

Judge Halevi: Was this intended for the censorship? Was this an internal German matter?

Attorney General: Yes. The writer says that probably the area is already clean of Jews.

“We made plans to resist, to our regret without success. In the so-called “Government” (Warsaw, Lublin, Czenstochau, Cracow and the surroundings) there are, today, no more Jews. The extermination was carried out by gas at Bremblinki near Malkinia. This is a well-known place of extermination, not only for the Jews of Poland, but also for the Jews of Holland, Belgium and so on…

The finest chapter of the struggle was in Warsaw. We organized the defence (Zivia and Josef K. with the children). In the ghetto terrible battles took place. A pity that only several hundreds of our enemy (about 800) fell. The outcome was the destruction of all the Jews and the destruction of the ghetto. In the Government not a single Jewish settlement exists except for the three forced labour camps Trawniki, Poniatowa near Warsaw and Prokochin near Crakow) with a total of 35,000 persons.

Within a few weeks there will not be a trace of these either. In Warsaw there have remained – illegally amongst the non-Jews on the Aryan side – several thousand Jews, amongst them Zivia, Yitzhak, Geller, only one of the Yaari family (here follows a list of names).

Ukraine and Polesie are bereft of Jews. In Bialystok there have remained about 20,000 Jews, relatively under better conditions. In the district of Lublin, the murder was carried out by means of gassing in Belzec and Sobibor.

The last Jewish community which had been living under relatively good conditions was in Eastern Upper Silesia. About three weeks ago 7,000 Jews were removed from where they were and exterminated in Oszwiecin (Auschwitz).

They were put to death there by shooting and incineration. In the next few weeks this area too will be left without Jews. By the time you receive this letter, none of us will still be alive. Out of all the passports we received via Switzerland, only a small number of people were imprisoned – none of us was amongst them.”

And finally:

“Our hopes of meeting our homeland will not be realized, to our regret. We are writing these lines in great haste, since our messenger has no time. We no longer have the energy and the patience to write to you about everything which should be very important to do and, indeed, would be our own wish…with this the signatories acknowledge the receipt of 50,000 Reichsmarks.”

Amongst those signing is Frumka Plotnicka who was mentioned in this morning’s evidence.

Judge Halevi: This letter, which comes from a German source, was found after the War?

Attorney General: It passed through Germany. It went from Turkey to Switzerland, passed through Germany, and the German censorship seized it, and one may assume that it did not forward it to its destination. At all events it made a report about it internally, and in this way the letter has been left to us.

Judge Halevi: That means the letter was discovered?

Attorney General: The letter was discovered amongst German documents.

Judge Halevi: And it did not reach its destination?

Attorney General: According to our information it did not reach its destination.

Presiding Judge: Perhaps this can be ascertained from Dr. Pozner.

Attorney General: The next document is our No.1534. This time they sent a translation of a Hebrew letter which was intercepted, to SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann.

Presiding Judge: T/265.

Attorney General: The subject of the letter: The smuggling of Jews from Poland to Rumania. This was evidently Eichmann’s concern, for they bring to his attention the translation of a Hebrew letter sent from Rumania to Dr. Silberschein in Geneva. Again there is reference to the fact that they managed to establish contact with their comrades in Lvov, where 7,000 were Jews imprisoned. They mention the names of the youth movements – Gordonia and Maccabi.

There is reference to underground activities, to executions. Killinger of Bucharest writes the letter. He advises that he has already taken steps against means of smuggling, and in this matter he is collaborating with SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Richter. Richter was Eichmann’s representative in Bucharest.

Judge Halevi: In connection with the previous letter, who was Mandelblatt?

Attorney General: To the best of our knowledge, Mandelblatt was the liaison who used to collect information in Turkey and pass it on through various channels.

Judge Halevi: It follows from this that Mandelblatt received the original letter from the area of Nazi occupation and passed it on for further information. But it is now clear that Mandelblatt had already received it from the occupied area. Accordingly it is not important whether it reached Geneva or not. The important thing is that it reached Istanbul.

Attorney General: Yes, it reached Turkey.

The next document is our No. 1498. This is a notification sent out by Department IVB4. The signature cannot be identified exactly, it is apparently that of Mueller. The date is 17 September 1942. But the content is important. The Department informs the Chief of the Personal Staff of the Reichfuehrer SS in Berlin concerning the solution of the Jewish question in the Generalgouvernement, that “further to our telephonic intimation regarding the evacuation of the Jews presently employed as labourers in the Beskiden oil company, I have given orders to instruct the commander of the security police and the SD in Cracow to put into effect the evacuation of these Jews only to such an extent that it will be possible to find manpower to replace them.” We attach importance to this document, which amongst other things proves that instructions for evacuating or leaving persons in the area of the Generalgouvernement came from Department IVB4.

Presiding Judge: Who signed it?

Attorney General: Apparently Mueller, but as we shall prove to the Court, this is not of decisive significance. The question is: The signature is according to the addressee – SS Obergruppenfuehrer – General of the Waffen SS Wolff, Mueller had to sign. But the original document shows where it was drawn up, and this is the Department which drafted it and wrote it and placed it before Mueller for his signature, as the Court has already heard from the Accused’s statement and as will still be explained to us in the course of the trial.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/266.

Attorney General: The following document deals with Eichmann’s instructions concerning Jews possessing a foreign nationality, our No. 940. Eichmann writes on 18 February 1942 to the German Foreign Ministry:” Re – Treatment of Jews Possessing Foreign Nationality.” “As we have come to know, there are still living in the Warsaw Ghetto various Jews possessing foreign nationality.

“The order issued by the officer in charge of the Jewish residential area in Warsaw, which was addressed to them, to leave and take up residence outside it in the city region of Warsaw, has been complied with by only a few so far. Special circumstances render essential the severest isolation of the residents of the ghetto from the rest of the population. Accordingly the question now arises how, in this respect, to deal with the Jews having foreign nationality.

“Before I myself take additional steps in this matter, I shall be glad to receive your observations in the matter. At the same time the following arrangement seems to me the most desirable from the point of view of the Security Police: Jews possessing neutral nationality should be dealt with from now on exactly as Jews possessing the nationality of an enemy country, and Jews possessing the nationality of a country which is an ally of the German Reich – exactly as Jews who previously held Polish nationality.”

Presiding Judge: T/267.

Attorney General: The concluding part: “I shall be especially grateful for an early advice of your decision, in view of the fact that the necessary steps must be taken immediately.”

Judge Halevi: What was the fate of Jews of enemy countries? Does he distinguish here between two categories?

Attorney General: We shall see this presently. There is a whole literature on all this treatment, an entire correspondence. The Accused was requested to comment on this document on pages 3118-3129. A continuation of the discussion on foreign nationals in the Warsaw Ghetto can be found in our document No. 941. This is an internal minute of the German Foreign Ministry which states as follows:

“In a discussion concerning the treatment of Jews possessing foreign nationality (neutrals) who perhaps are still to be found in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann as representative of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, asked us to take note of the following state of affairs: At the beginning of January 1942, approximately, Jews who were nationals of one of the foreign countries (neutrals) were ordered by means of notices to depart from the ghetto and to cross over to reside in another zone of the City of Warsaw.”

The next extract:

“Because of the large number of residents (roughly 500,000) it is very difficult or almost impossible to determine whether Jews who possess nationality of foreign countries (neutrals) are still today hiding in the Warsaw Ghetto. Jews possessing the nationality of foreign countries who have not so far made use of the right to transfer from the ghetto, will accordingly be included in future in the police and security measures carried out for the defence and security and public order, for example for the prevention of disease in the Warsaw Ghetto.”

The date is 21 April 1942. We know today what were those police and security measures that were carried out in the interests of security and public order in the Warsaw Ghetto in those days.

Presiding Judge: Mr. Hausner, despite the great importance of this letter, I see that we are gradually returning to the former situation of readings from the documents.

Attorney General: Yes, Your Honour. I would permit myself to point out further that at the end of the letter Eichmann wanted a declaration of agreement on the part of the Foreign Minister regarding the purge operations of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Presiding Judge: On what page?

Attorney General: On page 2 of the original. The Court will find the Accused’s response on pages 3124-3129 of this document. The Court will also obtain proof from the statement that Eichmann was in the Warsaw Ghetto. He does not deny it.

An additional order regarding foreign nationals, including Warsaw, is in our document No. 942. I draw the Court’s attention especially to this document.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/269.

Are these two letters?

Attorney General: Here we have internal memoranda. Rademacher writes that the instructions must be formulated because once Eichmann has signed the memoranda, the Foreign Ministry would no longer be able to insert any amendments, consequently they had to check the order before they got Eichmann to sign.

Presiding Judge: What does this mean?

Attorney General: We are talking of orders. Eichmann himself turns to the Foreign Ministry and says:

“Let us come to an arrangement concerning the foreign nationals.” In Berlin discussions take place in the Foreign Ministry, and they say: “We must adopt a stand on these questions since this relates to foreign countries, and let us do this speedily, for once Eichmann publishes this order, the matter will be finished and we shall not be able to intervene any more.”

Presiding Judge: Was D3 the Foreign Ministry?

Attorney General: Yes. This was Rademacher. But not only that – Rademacher requests that Eichmann should sign the memorandum so that he should be bound by it. The Accused’s response to the document is on pages 3129-3134 of the statement.

A continuation of this matter of the Jews who were foreign nationals appears in our document No. 1086.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/270.

Attorney General: The Foreign Ministry stipulates that in regard to the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, relying on the conversation with Eichmann, they presume that the ghetto has already been purged of Jews possessing foreign nationality, and that the necessary police and security measures in regard to the ghetto could be extended to all residents of the ghetto, that is to say it was possible to destroy the last of the survivors.

Presiding Judge: Have we reached, with this, the end of some chapter or subchapter?

Attorney General: Concerning the foreign nationals I would like to submit one further document, and that is our document No. 9. This was already 8 February 1943 – a draft was prepared by Eichmann dealing with the question of the treatment of Jews possessing foreign nationality in all areas of German rule. The draft was sent to a number of departments and branches for the sake of securing their opinion.

The Court should please take note of the countries to whose nationals reference was made, matters of property, designating the Jews, appointment of trustees of property, the deportation, the directives for the technical implementation of the deportations to the East. And Eichmann adds: “I reserve to myself the right to issue further instructions at the appropriate time.” (“Weitere Anweisungen zur gegebenen Zeit behalte ich mir vor.”)

Presiding Judge: Where does this appear?

Attorney General: It is at the end of the letter. That is the end of this chapter.

Dr. Servatius: Where does it say so? This has been signed by Mueller. I also do not find the original. And it says there “i.V. in Vertretung” (on behalf of) and not “i. A. im Auftrag” (per pro).

Presiding Judge: Does it bear a signature at all?

Attorney General: No.

Presiding Judge: Does the Accused mention this in his statement?

Attorney General: To the best of my knowledge, no.

But the draft bears the mark IVB4b and above it says Obersturmfuehrer Eichmann, Regierungsrat Hunsche. This was passed on to the Foreign Ministry and bears the stamp of the Foreign Ministry and was received there. And this was a proposal for an overall final solution of the problems of the Jews possessing foreign nationality in the Protectorate, in the Generalgouvernement and the occupation area in the West and the East.

Presiding Judge: It is not signed? This is a draft?

Attorney General: It reached the Foreign Ministry. But I do not have a signature here.

Dr. Servatius: Your Honour, President of the Court – But in three places it says “i.V.” (On behalf of…) while it should have been “i.A.” (per pro), so that it should have been signed by Mueller.

Presiding Judge: Perhaps written by Mueller and signed by Eichmann? Would that be correct?

Dr. Servatius: No. The letter was from the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and there Mueller, as head of the branch, could sign only “i.V.” whereas Eichmann could sign only “i.A.”

Attorney General: But documents signed by Eichmann were also issued on paper on which was written “Chief of the Security Police and the SD.” Whether he signed “i.V.” or “i.A. we shall still elucidate. At any rate we maintain that this letter went out from his Department and bore his name.

Presiding Judge: If this is a matter of controversy, we shall still have an opportunity of clarifying it.

Judge Halevi: I should like to receive an explanation: how do you, Dr. Servatius, account for the fact that at the head of the letter it says “Obersturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, and Regierungsrat Hunsche” – two names?

Dr. Servatius: I, too, will have to clarify this.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/271.

Attorney General: Our document No. 1584 is very short. The Foreign Ministry brings to the notice of Eichmann the circulation of atrocity stories about the Warsaw Ghetto, by Jews of Switzerland.

Presiding Judge: his will be T/272.

We shall adjourn now. The Session will be resumed tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock.

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The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Session 20. Part 7

May 7th, 2009

Attorney General: In any case, the Court will see that we received this as what is called an NG; the Court will remember that this was one of the exhibits at Nuremberg, NO, 4892, one of the documents of the Prosecution and this was in the “Office of Chief Counsel.”

Presiding Judge: I can only see their thoroughness from the fact that the draft was not preserved and therefore they turned one copy of the letter into the “Konzept.”

Attorney General: At any rate, we shall submit plenty of documents from each country about the territorial principle. This will come up again in the Court proceedings.

Now, just to complete the picture, a memorandum from Luther about the solution of the Jewish Question dated 21 August 1942, a survey of the measures taken, the activities of the Embassies, the scope of the involvement of the Foreign  Ministry in the evacuation from the various countries, the pressure exerted on the satellite states, and, in conclusion I read from the last page:

“The planned deportations constitute a further step forward on the road to the comprehensive solution and they are very important in view of other countries (Hungary). The deportation to the area of the Generalgouvernement is a temporary measure. The Jews will be sent on to the occupied areas of the East as soon as the technical conditions will permit it.”

In the document itself the close cooperation with the Head Security Office is mentioned.

Presiding Judge: This is a memorandum by Luther?

Attorney General: Yes.

Presiding Judge: It is marked T/196.

Attorney General: And what does the German Minister of Justice do? This will become clear from the next two documents. Our document No. 501 is a note on a conversation with Himmler by Reichsjustizminister Thierack, the German Minister of Justice. Subject: “Handing over of anti-social elements from regular judical procedures to the Reichsfueherr SS for the purpose of extermination through work.” At the top it says: ‘Bericht des Reichsjustizministers Thierack ueber eine Besprechung mit Himmler am 18. September 1942‘ (Report by Reichsjustizminister of Justice Thierack on a conversation with Himmler on 18 September 1942).”

Judge Halevi: Are headings of this kind part of the document or did somebody else sum it up like that?

Attorney General: It is a summing up. It is not part of the original document. It is a summary for the Beweisstueck (document of proof) US 218 in Nuremberg. In the document itself, in paragraph 2, the Court will find “Handing over of anti-social elements from judical procedures to the Reichsfuehrer SS for extermination through work.”

“In accordance with the decision by the Reichsminister of Justice…there will be handed over: all security detainees, Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Ukrainians, Poles sentenced to over three years, Czechs and Germans sentenced to over eight years. To begin with the worst anti-social elements among the latter are to be handed over. In this connection I shall inform the Fuehrer through Reichsleiter Bormann…”

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/197.

Attorney General: The last document in this series, No. 454, is the letter from the German Nazi Minister of Justice to Bormann dated 13 October 1942. This is continuation of the previous document.

“Being motivated by the idea of freeing the German people from Poles, Russians, Jews and Gypsies and by the idea of freeing the areas in the East which have been incorporated in the Reich for settlement for the German nation, I intend to leave the criminal prosecution of Poles, Russians, Jews and Gypsies to the Reichsfuehrer SS. In doing so, I assume that the regular system of justice will contribute little to the extermination of persons belonging to these peoples.

There is no doubt that the courts now hand down severe sentences against those persons but this is not enough to contribute significantly to the implementation of the above-mentioned idea. Furthermore it makes no sense to preserve such persons for years in German prisons and penitentiaries, not even when their work potential is exploited for war purposes, as is largely the case today.

On the other hand, I believe that delivering up these people to the Police, which can then take its measures free from the legal conditions of criminal law and thus achieve much better results… as against this* {*”this” refers to two sentences not quoted which contain limiting conditions for Poles and Russians only.} the prosecutions of Jews and Gypsies can be carried out by the Police without these conditions.”

Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/198.

Attorney General: These are the documents we wanted to bring to the knowledge of the Court at this stage, in order to prove the plot for total annihilation. The means used will be proved for each region separately.

Attorney General: With the Court’s permission, I shall now call the first witness, Mrs. Ada Lichtman. The first testimonies are meant to prove the period of small-scale terror in the occupied areas in Poland.

Presiding Judge: [to witness] Do you speak Hebrew?

Witness Lichtman: Not too well, perhaps Yiddish would be better.

[The witness is sworn.]

Presiding Judge: What is your name?

Witness: Ada Lichtman.

Presiding Judge: And what is it in Yiddish?

Witness Lichtman: Ethel.

Attorney General: Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War you were living in the town of Wieliczka in Poland, is that correct?

Witness Lichtman: Yes. In Cracow and in Wieliczka. These places are near one another, it is a distance of 14 kilometres from Cracow. I was studying and working in Cracow.

Attorney General: Does the Court wish me to put the questions in Yiddish?

Presiding Judge: Perhaps, since it would be necessary to translate anyhow. But maybe this would be good for a direct contact with the witness, so she will understand directly.

Attorney General: I shall do as the Court orders.

Presiding Judge: Perhaps it should be right indeed to ask in Yiddish, for her to understand directly.

Attorney General: [Continues the examination of the witness in Yiddish.] Where were you when the Second World War broke out?

Witness Lichtman: In those days I was in Wieliczka.

Q. What happened in the first days after the Germans entered Wieliczka?

A. From the very first days the Germans were rounding up people for labour, especially men, they beat them up, they ordered them to clean up the marketplace, to pick up the trash with their hands.

Q. What men?

A. Jewish men. They ordered them to strip naked. And behind each man stood a German soldier with a bayonet on his rifle, and the Jewish men were forced to run with pails, and when a Jew stopped the bayonet would hit him in his back, so that almost all the men came home with blood running from them, and my father was one of them.

Q. Can you remember what happened in Wieliczka on the 12th of September 1939?

A. Yes. The soldiers stationed there at the beginning left the marketplace, and suddenly a large truck arrived. From that truck jumped out some eleven soldiers, in uniform, with steel helmets.

Q. What kind of uniforms?

A. Green uniforms.

Q. Do you know what kind of uniforms? German?

A. German. I saw the same uniforms later in the Sobibor Camp.

Q. Do you know what formation this was?

A. SS. The Germans went from one dwelling to another and took out the Jewish men from their homes, they did not select any particular age, from 14 up.

Q. And your father too?

A. And my father too. And all of them were lined up in the marketplace of Wieliczka. They were told to fold their hands behind their neck, and there was also, behind the truck, a passenger car with two officers.

Q. How many Jewish men were taken?

A. Thirty-two.

Q. And also Polish men?

A. Later on the way they caught men of the intelligentsia, a high school teacher, a priest, an officer. Four men.

Q. If you will answer my questions, Mrs. Lichtman, it will be easier. Did they take away the men in the truck?

A. Before that they wrote down the names and took pictures of all of them. And then they were marched to the marketplace with their hands on their necks and were forced to shout: “We are traitors to the people.”

Q. In what language?

A. In the German language.

Presiding Judge: Madam, you may sit if you wish.

Witness Lichtman: I can stand.

Attorney General: Did you see all this with your own eyes?

Witness Lichtman: Yes.

Q. What happened to them after that?

A. After that they loaded them onto the truck and drove away.

Q. And what did you do?

A. I with my – she is no longer alive, she was to be my sister-in-law – I ran after the truck. They took away from her four men, her father and brothers and a brother-in-law. I followed running up to the little wood, called Taszyce.

Q. What did you see there, in Taszyce?

A. There were all the Jews, whom they took, lying dead already.

Q. Your father?

A. My father was also dead, shot in many places. And all were spread out in rows of five, one after another. Five men, and another five. To a side were lying the Polish men.

Judge Halevi: The Poles were the same four Poles you have mentioned?

A. Yes.

Q. What did you do?

A. We ran back to town. But first I kissed my father. He was already cold, ice-cold although it was only one hour since they took them, because his blood had run out. We came back to town, and I went into town and asked for help in burying all those killed in the Jewish cemetery.

Q. Did you bury your father?

A. On the morrow, the next day.

Q. And thereafter they took you to work in Wieliczka?

A. Yes.

Q. What kind of work did you do?

A. Sweeping the streets. Mostly sweeping the streets in Wieliczka.

Q. How did you do this?

A. They chased us out of our homes, gave us a broom and without pails we gathered the garbage with our hands.

Q. You escaped to Cracow?

A. Yes.

Q. When was this?

A. A few weeks after the execution of my father.

Q. Can you remember what happened to the Jews in Cracow in November 1939?

A. Yes. Suddenly, one day in the morning they closed off the Jewish quarter. There were streets where mostly Jews lived. And German soldiers and officers burst brutally into every home. At first they were shouting at the men to get out of the rooms, they threw everything out of the cupboards, destroyed everything and beat people up.

Q. Did they shoot?

A. They took out a neighbour of ours, a pious man, and they placed a hen in his hand. He wore the clothes of a Hassid. They ordered him to dance and to sing prayers, just as people pray, and they were taking pictures. After that a German soldier told him to pose as if he were strangling Germans.

Presiding Judge: And this they photographed?

Witness Lichtman: They photographed every single thing. Many people were shot that time, many killed.

Attorney General: Who did all this?

Witness Lichtman: Uniformed soldiers, German soldiers.

Q. Did you have to wear anything as a distinguishing mark?

A Yes, we had to wear white armbands with a blue Star of David.

Q. Do you know anything about the Jews’ Council (Judenrat)?

A. Yes.

Q. What do you know?

A. Jews’ Councils were organized everywhere.

Q. After that you moved to Mielec? When?

A. That was in winter.

Q. What were you doing there?

A. I went to do forced labour there, I worked at land amelioration and in building a road to the railway.

Q. Can you remember what happened there at the synagogue?

A. They gathered Jewish men, mainly older men, from their homes. They drove them all together into the great synagogue of Mielec, and there almost all the Jews were slaughtered and shot, and those who jumped out of the windows were shot at the wall.

Q. The Jews who had beards, what did they do to them?

A. A motorcycle with a sidecar could sometimes come through and they used to catch Jews with beards, or they used to drag them out of their homes for shaving, and they used to shave off half their beards or the entire beard with bits of the flesh.

Q. In 1941 was there talk of rendering Mielec judenrein? What did the Jews do to avert the doom?

A. Jews were saying that a forced payment had been imposed on the Jews, and then it would be possible to stay in our homes.

Q. Did they let you stay in Mielec?

A. No.

Q. What did they do to you?

A. First we had to give up whatever we had, the jewellery, coffee and furs, and they said we could stay. Before dawn next day military units, black-clad and green-clad, surrounded us and chased us out of our homes into the marketplace and assembled us there. Those people unable to run out at once, those who were sick, were shot on the spot or in bed.

Then they lined us up, all those who remained, in the marketplace. After that they selected young men, they put them on one side and women and children and parents they put in a line, on both sides went soldiers with ropes, clad in black and in green, and we Jews all were in the middle.

That was how they drove us. Anyone who let anything drop they killed on the spot. With whips, with clubs, they were beating and shooting. This was how we went some distance from Mielec.

Outside the town there was a sort of factory of Polish airplanes called Berdychow. We arrived there at dusk, it was cold, snow, piled high. They crowded us all into the hangars, they didn’t let anyone go out. Anyone who went out for a physiological need they shot dead.

Judge Halevi: You were a young girl, I suppose?

Witness Lichtman: No, I was at that time over 20, married.  There, in the hangars, soldiers were going round and beating.

Attorney General: What kind of soldiers?

Witness Lichtman: Various, clad in yellow uniforms, in green and in black.

Q. In black also? From which formations?

A. I didn’t know the formations, until later. There were SDand SA and all of them were beating. Many people went out of their mind at that time. We paid with our rings and jewellery for a bit of snow, some frozen ice, to melt it for a crying child to drink. And when someone went out, even with permission, they shot him after he had gone part of the way.

Q. Later you were in a village called Dubinka? Right?

A. Yes. They made it judenrein, they chased us.

Q. They chased you?

A. On the way we were also in a camp.

Q. Can you remember what happened in Dubinka during the Jewish Holidays?

A. That was about Pentecost, they took all young men 18-22-25 years old, and led them into a wood just as into a battle. At that time the partisans were already active in  he woods. So they photographed how the Jews fight as partisans, they broke hands and heads of the youths, and later they killed them all. I was present at the burying of all these Jews. I saw the mutilated bodies of the youths.

Q. Can you remember what they did there to religious Jews?

A. I was living in a house and in front of our window there was a hill. On that hill they drove together some twenty religious Jews, clad in the clothes of the religious, long caftans, with prayershawls and prayer books in their hands.

They ordered all of them to sing religious songs and to pray, to raise their hands to God, and then some German officers came up and poured kerosene or petroleum over them and set them on fire with the prayershawls, everything.

Q. This you saw yourself?

A. Myself, because this was before our window. We, the others, weren’t allowed to leave our houses. We sat in our house and I saw everything.

Q. Can you remember the old Jew who was carrying his paralyzed grandson? Tell us what happened to that Jew.

A. In Dubinka my in-laws lived with a family by the name of Lat. He was a religious Jew, he wore a small round cap – a Polish one, it used to be called – these were small black caps with a visor which the religious wore.

Q. What happened?

A. He was bringing up a grandson because his daughter was studying. That grandchild was in a plaster cast. And when they made Dubinka judenrein they were driving us, they drove  us on a road to a camp at Chorbaszow. On the way they stopped the grandfather with the little child.

The grandfather had to carry to child because it was not able to walk. And they shot first the grandfather although the child was crying “me first.” But they first shot the grandfather and afterwards the child.

Q. What did they do to children who cried?

A. They shot them, too.

Q. What were the parents doing so the children should not cry?

A. The parents used to cover the mouths, to stop up the mouths of the children, that is what they could do.

Attorney General: With the permission of the Court, this will be all as to the part which we intended to put before the Court at this stage; but this witness is able to tell us about another chapter to which we do not have too many witnesses.

That part is the Camp at Sobibor. I should like to request the permission of the Court to recall this witness, as the need be, when we come to the chapter of the Camps. I should not like to mix several subjects.

Presiding Judge: Allright. Does Dr. Servatius have any questions to this witness?

Dr. Servatius: I have no questions.

Presiding Judge: Thank you, Mrs. Lichtman. You may have to come once more to give evidence on another subject. We shall adjourn now. Next Session on Monday, at nine o’clock in the morning.

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The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Sessions 6, 7, 8, Part Ten

May 2nd, 2009

The Camps

I have already spoken of the character and quality of the Nazi concentration camp as a medium to consolidate the dictatorship and to terrorize the opponent, so as to break him or to bring him round. There were hundreds of concentration, collection and transit camps in Germany and the occupied territories. Insofar as the Jews were concerned, all of them had a single aim: their utter destruction. And even if the Nazis had not introduced direct extermination methods, it would not have taken long for the ghetto and labour camp inmates to die of starvation, exhaustion and disease.

But the “Final Solution” was not to be kept waiting and extermination camps were therefore erected. In the other camps, such as Mauthausen,, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau, thousands and tens of thousands also perished as a result of the planned maintenance of a way of life which was bound to kill. In these camps too – as in Bergen-Belsen – Eichmann had control over all matters pertaining to Jews, and we shall submit evidence to prove it. In these opening remarks, however, I wish only to dwell on those special camps known as extermination camps, which were, from the very start, constructed to implement the “Final Solution,” and in which millions of Jews met their deaths.

In Hitler’s book Mein Kampf the idea of exterminating Jews by poison gas is already mentioned. He wrote that if twelve to fifteen thousand Jews had been poisoned during the First World War, a million Germans would have been saved. After the Einsatzgruppen murder operations by shooting had proved unsatisfactory, the idea was mooted, as I have already mentioned, to use gases against the Jews.

The first experiments were made by Globocnik in Poland, and Eichmann, who realized the effectiveness, adopted this process for the implementation of the “Final Solution.” This he confirmed to Dr. Wetzel of the Ministry for Occupied Territories, who presented a written report on this matter. Eichmann travelled personally to Globocnik, to inform him that his experiments would be adopted for use on a general scale in the area under his authority, as well as in other places, and sent him a man called Giinther, together with a poison gas expert.

Eichmann made a tour with Rudolf H6ss to select a suitable site for the erection of gas installations at Auschwitz, and also visited the Treblinka, and Chelmno extermination camps to examine their effectiveness. He was satisfied with the system which he considered preferable to shooting. He and his Section dealt with the obtaining of Blausaure gas, termed Zyklon B, composed of hydrogen cyanide. This gas was employed in a number of extermination camps. As late as the beginning of 1945, on the threshold of the end of War, Eichmann was still planning to wipe out all the Jews still alive at Theresienstadt in gas installations to be erected there on his initiative, as the others had then ceased to function.

On Eichmann rests the direct responsibility for the operations of these fearful camps set up for the implementation of the “Final Solution.” In a few of them a last effort was made to extort a work and labour force from the Jews before sending them to their destruction.

The Court will permit me to describe briefly what occurred in these places, all of which were set up by the SS, while the exterminations were conducted by the RSHA.

THE MAJDANEK CAMP, near Lublin, was established in 1941. At first, prisoners of war were detained here, but later Jews began to arrive from Czechoslovakia, France and Greece, and the camp grew. It contained separate units, called “fields.” In the spring of 1942, gas extermination installations were constructed, as well as two ovens to bum the bodies. In the summer of the same year, Polish Jews began to arrive in large numbers.

In the spring of 1943, the Jewish deportees from Warsaw arrived at Majdanek and immediately the killings were speeded up, reaching a climax in November when, in one day, 18,000 Jews were shot.

Conditions in the camps, even without taking into account the installations for direct execution, were so arranged that the prisoner was bound to perish, whether from hunger, disease or pure physical exhaustion. The food provided was about one-third of the necessary minimum. The clothing left the prisoner exposed to the mercies of the elements; the quarters were draughty huts each housing five hundred people or more, two to a mattress. The work in which the prisoners were employed until being killed was in itself a means of extermination, designed to destroy the body. The same purpose was pursued by cruelty and beating during work and the employment of men in labours having no possible utility.

No wonder the garments and mattresses of the prisoners were perpetually teeming with lice, bugs and insects. Tuberculosis and typhoid abounded. In Majdanek cure for typhus was execution by shooting.

The sick people would undergo selection: Anyone capable of running before the selection committee was spared for the time being. Those who stumbled were removed for immediate killing.

On rainy and stormy days the prisoners were deliberately ordered to cat in the open. During parades, the sick and the dying were instructed to lie in the mud and snow.

Jewish prisoners were brought in their tens of thousands to the gas chambers without even undergoing registration or selection. The women’s hair was shom; gold teeth extracted. Evidence was later found confirming that nine crates of gold and valuables were dispatched to the Reich from Majdanek. The death rate in the camp was frightful – some 180 people a day. Children died like flies.

The selection procedure at the Majdanek camp was as follows: males to the right; females to the left; children and old folk to the centre. Mothers who clung to their children were separated by the lash. You will hear the evidence of a woman who obstinately refused to let go of her baby. An SS man approached her, smashed the child’s head on the ground, and handed the woman the blood-soaked body with the words: “Now take your child.” There were cases when babies were tom apart by the bare hands before the very eyes of the mothers, who went out of their minds in horror.

In Majdanek there was only one place where the children were treated kindly: At the entrance to the gas chambers each one was handed a sweet.

To all intents and purposes, the prisoners were at the mercy of all SS men in the camp, who could kill or outrage them at will. Every Sunday a “run” was held. All the prisoners were obliged to run and anyone who lost a wooden shoe or stumbled was killed on the spot.

According to the estimate of the Polish Government committee, at least 200,000 Jews were destroyed at Majdenek.

THE TREBLINKA CAMP was set up in the Warsaw district in an isolated region close to a small Polish village; it was in existence during 1942-1943. Years after the Germans themselves had destroyed the camp in November 1943, domestic items, clothing and suitcases were still left scattered about the place. It was still possible to find in the area mounds of sand intermingled with human ashes and bones.

Here camouflage devices were employed on the threshold of the camp. A sham railway station was built with signboards indicating an imaginary restaurant, transit points to other stations, a waiting room, signals and the like. It was all so arranged that, from the outside, the illusion would be preserved that Treblinka was just another normal camp. But it was difficult to cling to this illusion for any length of time. Waiting at the station stood SS men and Ukrainian police, who would lash out at the arrivals with whips to get them to alight from the coaches. Dawdlers were
shot on the spot.

In the camp itself, a further attempt at camouflage was made. Sick people, invalids, old folk and children would be transferred to a hut adorned with the Red Cross and the sign “Lazarett” (Lazerette – hospital). Inside was a -waiting room” furnished with upholstered couches, with an exit to another place. Here a SS man stood, and as the person entered, would shoot him in the back of the neck and throw him into the pit. All these “arrangements” were made so that entering the gas chambers could proceed without undue interruption and without any interference from the “slower” victims. The bodies of those who had died en route in the wagons or had been killed on arrival, were all thrown into the Lazarette.

At the station the new arrivals were ordered to hand over all the money and valuables in their possession. The victims’ effects were sorted, repaired and sent to Germany. We know of 203 waggon-loads of clothing alone which were sent in this way.

Before the killing, the women’s hair would be clipped, and the remaining belongings of the candidates for execution were pillaged. The hair was placed in sacks and sent to Germany. The males were then ordered to undress and chased into the gas chambers to the accompaniment of beatings and blows from rifle butts. Thus they were herded inside naked, their hands above their heads, so that more people could be squeezed into the chamber. The hatch was then closed, the engine was switched on and the poison gas killed them.

Here, too, when the chamber doors were opened, the gold teeth were extracted once the gas fumes had dispersed, and the bodies flung into pits. Later on, installations were constructed to burn the bodies. There is one case of a man who was thrown into the death pit while still alive. He succeeded in escaping, but the farmers of whom he asked shelter handed him over to the camp command. He was brutally attacked by an SS man, Kurt Franz, who finally killed him by beating with a stick. This Franz had a big strong dog, who was trained at the call “Jude,” to pounce on a prisoner and bite him.

There was a case of a transport of Jews from Grodno who resisted entering the gas chambers. One of them even threw a grenade at the murderers’ Ukrainian assistants. Immediately, deadly fire was opened and the Jews were chased, fully clothed into the extermination chambers. It may be stated that at least 7,550 waggon-loads of Jews arrived at Treblinka, bringing to their deaths at least 750,000 people. It was here that hundreds of thousands of Warsaw Jews met their end, together with deportees from Radom, Czestochowa, Kielce and Bialystok, Jews from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and Greece. Old people from Theresienstadt were also sent to Treblinka for extermination.

Secret prepaations for an uprising were made in Treblinka. The ringleader was a physician, Dr. Chorazycki, on whom the Germans found a sum of money intended for the mutineers. The doctor knew what to expect and immediately swallowed poison. The murderers made strenuous efforts to revive him so that they might torture him to death. Franz forced open his mouth with a knife, poured water down his throat and began jumping on his stomach in his jackboots. But Dr. Chorazycki was already dead, and the SS butchers had only his corpse on which to pour out their venom.

Plans for the uprising nevertheless proceeded in secret. A number of prisoners joined forces, succeeded somehow in stealing a small amount of arms, and on 2 August 1943, attacked the guards, who included SS men and Ukrainians.

In spite of deadly fire, a number of people succeeded in breaking through a barbed wire fence and escaping. One of the mutineers was Rudolf Masaryk, apparently a nephew of the famous Tomd Masaryk, who out of his love for his Jewish wife, had followed her to the death camp. The mutineers set fire to a number of the camp installations, and in their flight to the forests they paused a moment to look back at the great slaughter-house going up in flames.

This incident marked the beginning of the dissolution of the camp, and in November 1943, its operations ceased entirely. The Germans ploughed over the area and settled Ukrainians on the site.

CHELMNO, in German Kulmhof, in the vicinity Lodz, was erected from the very outset solely as an extermination camp. At this place, people were not employed in any way or utilized for labour – they were slaughtered immediately. The SS commander would tell the new arrivals that they were being taken to work and that before their departure they would have to wash~ and hand over their garments for disinfection. They would be escorted to a buiding in which they undressed. On the walls were prominently place signs reading: “To The Doctor,” “To The Wash Room.”

The Jews would then be ordered to go out naked, or with nothing but a shirt on their bodies and enter grey vehicles marked “Sonderwagen,” each one of which held eighty to hundred people. These, they were told, would take them to the “washplace.” When the doors were closed, the engine was switched on and the victims killed by exhaust fumes. Once the screams had died down the vehicle moved off to the nearby forest where Jewish forced labourers, Waldkommando, would remove the bodies. After the teeth had been extracted and the rings removed, they would throw the bodies into prepaired pits. The Waldkommando worked with their legs in chains. They were put to death from time to time, and new forced labourers chosen from the transports.

The exterminations at Chelmno began at the end of 1941. Here too, within a few months, furnaces were built to bum the bodies. The ashes were removed and after the bones had been ground down, they were buried in pits or thrown into the river.

In April 1943, the extermination camp ceased operating and the furnaces were demolished. But in 1944 it became apparent that the work was not yet completed; the camp was re-established and new furnaces installed. Once again they operated in accordance with the well-worn procedure: death gas and the burning of the bodies. A number of months later, the business of slaughter was completed. The killers dismantled the camp, obliterated the evidence of their murders and set about executing the forced labourers, now called “Sonderkommando” who had been engaged in burning the bodies. A few of them resisted and two succeeded in escaping two of the only four survivors of this camp who were left alive to tell the world of its horrors.

According to a conservative estimate, some 340,000 Jews were exterminated at Chelmno. These were mainly from the Lodz area, Posen and Warsaw, in addition to Jews from Germany, Austria, France, Luxembourg and Holland who had passed through the Lodz Ghetto.

Here, too, the effects and clothing were looted. On 9 January 1943, the “German People’s Winter Aid Campaign” wrote to the German administration of the Lodz Ghetto complaining that a part of the clothing sent from Chelmno had not been adequately cleaned, and that the “Jewish Badge” had not been removed from one of the coats. Since the garments were intended for German settlers, so the communication stated, such neglect was not to be tolerated, as it brought discredit to the “Winter Aid Campaign”: “das Winterhiffiswerk damit in Miskredit komml.”

SOBIBOR was another extermination camp set up at the beginning of 1942 in the Lublin district. Here, as elsewhere, Polish investigators after the liberation uncovered mounds of ashes, bones and human fat. Here too, there were gas chambers and installations for burning the bodies.

You will hear evidence of how the barbarians brutally treated their victims. People who begged for a drink of water were taken to the public lavatories and smeared with faeces.

Here, too, you will hear of dogs set on people to tear them to pieces, of punitive parades when the unfortunate victims were ordered to pass between rows of whip-wielding SS men and Ukrainians.

Sobibor was a terminal for large transports and, according to the estimate of the Polish authorities, at least a quarter of a million Jews were exterminated there.

The men and women were stripped naked and led in single file in long rows to the gas chambers. As in other places, the old people and children were shot separately, so as not to get in the way of those marching to the gas chambers.

Sobibor was the grave of Jews from Poland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and France. Here, too, the familiar process of plundering the belongings, extracting the teeth and clipping the hair was repeated.

Sobibor was also the scene of an uprising. In October 1943, a few hundred prisoners escaped to the forests after a number of Jewish workers employed in the camp mutinied, succeeded in getting hold of arms and killed some of the SS men. Following the uprising, the camp was dismantled and the Germans planted a wood over the graves oftheir victims.

The extermination camp BELZEC, on the road between Lublin and Lvov, was set up in the winter of 1941. By the end of February 1942, the huts and installations were ready for operation. The Jews transported to this camp came from Lublin and district and from Eastern and Western Poland. It was here that Galician Jewry was done to death, in addition to many Jews from other countries.

When the trains arrived at Belzec, as at other camps, many of the deportees had died en route from thirst and exhaustion. Each transport comprised 10-60 railway carriages. I should like to quote a description of one such transport from Lvov, consisting of 6,700 people. The SS men and the Ukrainian assistants are already waiting at the station:

“The waggon doors open and the people, to the lashings of whips, are ordered to get out. The instructions are relayed over loudspeakers; everyone is ordered to hand over clothes and belongings, crutches and spectacles as well … All valuables and money are handed over at the window marked “Valuables.”…

The women and girls then go up to a barber who, with two cuts of the scissors, shears off their hair, which is placed in potato sacks… After this the march begins. To the right and left there are barbed wire fences, and at the rear scores of Ukrainians with rifles … men, women, girls, children, babies, one-legged people, all of them naked as the day they were bom, march together.

At the corner, before the entrance to the building, stands a smiling SS man who declares in an ingratiating voice: ‘No harm will befall you. All you have to do,’he says, ‘is to breathe in deeply. This strengthens the lungs; inhaling is necessary as a means of disinfection.’ He is asked what will happen to the women and replies that the men will, of course, have to work at road and housing constructions. The women, he says, will not have to work. They may, if they want, help in the kitchen or do housework …

For a number of men there still flickers a lingering hope, sufficient to make them march without resistance to the death charnbers. The majority know with certainty what is to be their fate. The horrible smell that pervades everywhere reveals the truth. Then they climb some small steps and behold the reality. Silent mothers hold babies to their breasts, naked; there are many children of all ages, naked. They hesitate, but nevertheless proceed towards the death chambers, most of them without a word, pushed by those behind, chased by the whips of the SS men. A woman of about 40 curses the chief of the murderers, exclaiming that the blood of her children will be on his head.

Wirth, an SS officer, himself strikes her in the face with five lashes of the whip and she disappears into the gas chamber. Many pray … The SS men squeeze people into the chambers. ‘Fill them up well,’ orders Wirth. The naked people stand on each others’ toes. About seven to eight hundred people in an area of some 2 5 square metres. The doors close. The remainder of the transport stands waiting, naked … In the winter, too, they stand waiting naked. The diesel engine is not functioning … 50 minutes pass by; 70 minutes. The people in the death chambers remain standing. Their weeping is heard.

Professor Dr. Pfannenstiel, SS Sturmbannffihrer, lecturer on hygiene at Marburg University, remarks: ‘Like in a synagogue’…Only after two hours and forty minutes does the diesel finally begin to work. 25 minutes pass by. Many have already died as can be seen through the small window. Twenty-eight minutes later a few are still alive. After 32 minutes all of them are dead … Jewish workers open the doors on the other side … The dead, having nowhere to fall, stand like pillars of basalt.

Even in death, families may be seen standing pressed together, clutching hands. It is only with difficulty that the bodies are separated in order to clear the place for the next load. The blue corpses, covered with sweat and urine … babies and bodies of children, are thrown out. But there is no time! Two dozen workers occupy themselves with the mouths of the dead, opening them with iron pegs: ‘With gold to the left – without gold to the right.’ Others search in the private parts of the bodies for gold and diamonds … Wirth displays a full preserves tin and exclaims, ‘Lift it up, and see how much gold there is’…”

This is how it was done in Bel2ec and in other places. At the entrance to the gas chambers were inscribed the words: ‘Washing And Inhalation Equipment.’

In 1943 the Germans stopped operations at Belzec and here again they began to cover the tracks of their crime. The bodies were first exhumed and burnt on bonfires. The Jewish survivors of the workers’ teams employed in covering the tracks were sent to Sobibor for extermination. The SS staff was sent to Yugoslavia to fight the partisans. At Beliec, the Nazi Moloch consumed more than 600,000 Jewish victims.

And now to the largest and most terrible of the extermination camps – AUSCHWITZ, the death factory for millions which will always be remembered in the annals of humanity as the symbol of horror and infamy.

Auschwitz, in Polish Oswiecim, is a small townlet to the west of Cracow. It is a small place, impoverished by nature, an area of swamps and sand dunes, mist and dampness, fever and putrid water. It was here that this camp was established, with the sure knowledge that it was to be a slaughter house. The SS guards were told that they must not even rinse their mouths with unboiled water. This enormous concentration camp contained 39 branches, including auxiliary camps, (Nebenlager), exterior camps (Aussenlager), work camps (Arbeitslager) and branch camps (Zweiglager).

At the end of 1941, Auschwitz had a capacity of 18,000 persons; in 1943, there was room for 30,000.

According to the confession of the first commander of the camp, Rudolf  Hoess, about two and a half million people were exterminated and a further half million died of disease, hunger and torture. Not only Jews were brought here.

There were many others whom the evil regime had resolved to afflict with forced labour and put to death. There were, for example, some thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies or opponents of the regime from other countries, amounting in all to some tens of thousands. But the Jews were brought here in their millions.

The camp and its branch, Birkenau, were surrounded by a high-tension electrified fence, four metres high. Anyone who touched it died. All along the fence were watchtowers containing SS men armed with machine guns. At night searchlights illuminated the camp interior.

The transports were of various kinds. Sometimes the Jews were taken directly to the giant extermination chambers. At other times, they were screened: those capable of work were placed in the slave camp and the others sent to their deaths. The workers were employed in the I.G. Farben factory, or manufactured hand-grenade parts in the Krupp armament works, known here as “Union.”

They worked in other enterprises as well, in mines, in the fields and in the forests. From those firms in which the workers were consigned for labour, the camp command used to receive six marks a day, the prisoners’ maintenance amounting to 30 pfennig. Before death, profit was made out of the sweat of Jewish toil. But labour promised life; so people tried to appear healthy, to stand upright, to swell out a lean breast, to raise their heads, to act as if there was nothing wrong with them. Otherwise, Doctor Mengele would point his finger to the left during the selection parade. To the left meant death. The fate of five hundred people was decided in these screenings, in about a quarter of an hour. Anyone classified as incapable of work was removed to a special place in expectation of death. If this was late in coming for a day or two, the guards did not trouble to feed the unfortunate victims.

In the registration cards of the Jewish prisoners which have been discovered, it was recorded who sent them to Auschwitz: Section IVB4 of the RSHA. And we shall yet hear evidence that with respect to the Jews in this camp Eichmann had complete control. The gas was delivered by a number of German firms. A few accounts have survived and we shall present them to the Court.

In appearance such an account looks like a normal bill of merchandise. Place of delivery: Auschwitz. Goods: 13 boxes of Zyklon B, containing 195 kilograms of cyanide gas. Cost: 975 marks. Six kilograms of this material were sufficient to exterminate 1,500 people. Every bill of this kind meant, therefore, a means of killing 42,500 persons.

Eichmann was in Auschwitz and saw what was being done there. He directed the operations and gave instructions which transports were to be sent to immediate extermination and which were to be kept for extermination later on; this was generally after the victims had written “soothing” postcards to Theresienstadt and other places. He also dealt with the tremendous pillage which continued right up to the gates of this hell. The plunder attained fantastic proportions. The looted diamonds were sold in Switzerland and, in Eichmann’s words, influenced the whole of the Swiss market for precious stones. According to one witness, the looted valuables alone were valued at a milliard marks.

The giant warehouses containing the effects of those sentenced to death, were given the name “Canada,”  perhaps a corruption of the words “keiner da” (no one here). Hundreds were employed in them. We shall submit to you a report on the delivery of these effects to Germany. During 47 days between 1December 1944 and 1January 1945, 99,922 sets of children’s clothing, 192,652 sets of women’s clothing and 22,269 sets of men’s clothing were dispatched. After Auschwitz fell to the Red Army, there were still hundreds of thousands of sets of clothing, tens of thousands of pairs of shoes, enormous piles of shaving brushes, artificial limbs and spectacles.

The killings in Auschwitz were carried out by every method: shooting, hanging and beating, but mainly in the massive gas chambers. Here, once again, we are confronted with the sign-boards: ” Wasch-und Desinfektionsraum” (Washing and Disinfection Room). The “shower” was a flow of poison gas which the SS introduced with their own hands. The death factory operated unceasingly. The extermination of 2,000 people lasted twenty-ive minutes, after which the bodies were taken to one of the five giant furnaces. When there was no room in the furnaces the bodies were burned in the open.

Here, too, hair was shorn, teeth extracted and rings removed. About forty people were employed to handle the teeth alone, and day by day kilograms of gold were melted down, at times as much as 12 kilograms a day. At first the victims’ ashes were buried in pits, but later they were thrown into the Vistula.

At Auschwitz, medical experiments were made on human beings as if they were guinea pigs. Parts of female sex organs were cut out, or limbs were subjected to X-rays until the unfortunate creatures writhed in pain prior to their death. Men were castrated; experiments were made on the influence of paraffin and petrol injections on human skin, and the effects of chemical substances on mental resistance. Associated with Auschwitz is a collection of skeletons found in Strasbourg by soldiers of the Allied Forces when they entered the city in 1944. We shall prove that in response to Eichmann’s order 150 Auschwitz prisoners were “supplied” for death in the Natzweiler Camp in Germany, so that their skeletons might be sent for anthropological research at the SS Institute of Race Research (Ahnenerbe), which had requested skulls of “Jewish Communist Commissars.” The letters have been preserved and we shall submit them to the Court.

The prisoners who were brought to the camp and who were not destined for immediate extermination would go through a quarantine process. Here the first selection of the prisoners was made – by starvation and torture. Sometimes they were held in quarantine for days and weeks. Thousands of people were held in horse stables; frequently there was not sufficient room in these stables and people were left in the open. When winter came, they were left in snow and mud. At parades the prisoners were commanded to stand from evening until noon the following day without moving. They had to sing at the command of the “Kapos” and to carry out frightful “physical exercises,” crawling, standing and rolling.

In the work camp the day would begin at 4.30 a.m. To the sound of the camp band the slaves would go out to work and return in the evening, exhausted, wounded and carrying their comrades who had been killed by the guards.

The methods of punishment at Auschwitz would not have shamed the most cruel barbarians in history. Beating on the naked body was a comparatively light punishment. Water was poured into people’s ears, fingernails extracted and prisoners starved until they went out of their minds. In the bunker of those sentenced for punishment by starvation a dead prisoner was found, bent over whom was a second prisoner, also dead, grasping the liver from the corpse of the first. He had died while tearing at the liver of a fellow human being. The Nazi contribution to European culture was the reintroduction of cannibalism.

Hunger reigned supreme in Auschwitz. The prisoners received only a third of their minimum food requirements; even after the War hundreds of survivors died from exhaustion and undernourishment.

The Germans tried to cover up their tracks, to wipe out the memory of the hell they had created. The burning of the bodies in crematoria began in 1942 under an order transmitted by Eichmann to the Auschwitz commander through Standartenfdhrer Blobel. Afterwards, as a prelude to the dismantling of the camp, they changed the names of the places, turned crematoria into air raid shelters, demolished furnaces, transformed execution sheds into sham clinics, burned documents and books.

In the confusion of the demolition, in early 1945, a hut was burned down, together with all the sick prisoners in it. Some of the insta1lations were blown up.

Other prisoners were evacuated in a dreadful route march to the West.

The Nazis believed that their crimes would not be revealed, that their secret would remain intact. But the secret of these atrocities has been laid bare, and we must fulfil the dying injunction of an anonymous poetess who wrote, before being put to death in Auschwitz:

“There is no more hope in the white skull Among the barbed wire, under the ruins, And our dust is scattered in the dust Out of the broken jars. Our army will go forth, skullbones and jawbones, And bone to bone, a merciless line, We, the hunted, the hunters, will cry out to you: The murdered demand justice at your hands!”

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