Auschwitz (51 page)

Read Auschwitz Online

Authors: Laurence Rees

BOOK: Auschwitz
2.34Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
35
BBC interview.
36
BBC interview.
37
Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt,
Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present
(Norton 1996), 302.
38
KL Auschwitz as Seen by the SS
, 105.
39
Höss,
Commandant
, 150.
40
BBC interview.
Chapter 3: Factories of Death
1
Quoted in Ulrich Herbert, “The German Military Command in Paris and the Deportation of the French Jews,” in
National Socialist Extermination Policies
, 139. For a full discussion and analysis of this issue see the pioneering research contained in this article.
2
Wolodymyr Kosyk,
The Third Reich and Ukraine
(Peter Lang 1993), 621.
3
Timothy Patrick Mulligan,
The Politics of Illusion and Empire
(Praeger 1988), 139.
4
Quoted in Herbert, “The German Military Command,” 140.
5
Quoted in Herbert, “The German Military Command,” 142.
6
Figures taken from Susan Zuccotti
, The Holocaust, the French and the Jews
(Basic Books 1993), 89.
7
Quoted in Herbert, “The German Military Command,” 152. Recollection of meeting by Balz, head of the Justice Division.
8
Quoted in Serge Klarsfeld,
French Children of the Holocaust
(New York University Press 1996), 34.
9
Quoted in Zuccotti,
Holocaust
, 99.
10
Quoted in Zuccotti,
Holocaust
, 99.
11
Klarsfeld,
French Children
, 35.
12
BBC interview.
13
BBC interview.
14
Quoted in Klarsfeld,
French Children
, 45.
15
Quoted in Klarsfeld,
French Children
, 45.
16
Klarsfeld,
French Children
, 45.
17
BBC interview.
18
BBC interview.
19
BBC interview.
20
Aleksander Lasik, “Historical-Sociological Profile of the SS,” in Yisreal Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (eds.),
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
(Indiana University Press 1994), 278.
21
These figures are taken from Lasik, “Historical-Sociological Profile of the SS.”
22
Quoted in Frederick Cohen,
The Jews in the Channel Islands During the German Occupation 1940–1945
(Jersey Heritage Trust 2000) 26.
23
Quoted in Cohen,
Jews in the Channel Islands
, 34.
24
BBC interview.
25
Quoted in Cohen,
Jews in the Channel Islands
, 52.
26
For the complete list see Cohen,
Jews in the Channel Islands
, 59.
27
Cohen,
The Jews in the Channel Islands
.
28
Cohen,
The Jews in the Channel Islands
, 92.
29
BBC interview.
30
BBC interview.
31
“Muslim” (in German,
Musulmann
) was the slang name given to prisoners who were weak from starvation and believed not to be able to survive for long. It was thought to be derived from the bowed-over appearance of these people, as if they were Muslims praying.
32
For the controversy surrounding Jaster's death see Henryk Swiebocki, “Escapes from the Camp,” in
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 4:199, n.532.
33
Quoted in Yitzhak Arad,
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka
—
The Operation of the Reinhard Death Camps
(Indiana University Press 1987), 87.
34
Quoted in Arad,
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka
, 84.
35
BBC interview.
36
Figure quoted in Arad,
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka,
87.
37
The chronology that follows is based on Samuel Igiel's report in
I Remember Every Day—The Fates of the Jews of Przemyśl
(Remembrance and Reconciliation Inc., Ann Arbor 2002), 237–40.
38
BBC interview.
39
Höss,
Commandant
, 91.
40
Höss,
Commandant
, 136.
41
Public Record Office file ref. HW 16/10.
Chapter 4: Corruption
1
See
Yitzhak Arad,
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka
—
The Operation of the Reinhard Death Camps
(Indiana University Press 1987), 165.
2
Note that, as far as the Nazis were concerned, Poland no longer existed, however, therefore Warsaw was no longer its capital.
3
BBC interview.
4
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 1:103.
5
Irena Strzelecka and Piotr Setkiewicz, “The Construction, Expansion and Development of the Camp and Its Branches,”
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 1:104.
6
Franciszek Piper, “The Exploitation of Prisoner Labour
,”
in
Auschwitz 1940–45
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 2:136.
7
BBC interview.
8
BBC interview.
9
Rudolf Höss,
Commandant of Auschwitz
(Phoenix Press 2000), 96.
10
Quoted in Robert Jay Lifton,
The Nazi Doctors
(Basic Books 1986), 16. Response quoted in answer to question posed by the survivor-physician Dr. Ella Lingens-Reiner.
11
BBC interview.
12
Quoted in Irena Strzelecka, “Experiments,” in
Auschwitz 1940–1945
, 2:363.
13
BBC interview.
14
BBC interview.
15
Miklos, Nyiszli,
Auschwitz, A Doctor's Eyewitness Account
(Mayflower Books 1973), 53.
16
Aleksander Lasik, “The Organizational Structure of Auschwitz Camp,” in
Auschwitz 1940–1945
, 1:203.
17
BBC interview.
18
See the testimony of Konrad Morgen in Frankfurt am Main on March 8, 1962, and at the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, in Hermann Langbein,
Der
Auschwitz-Prozess: eine Dokumentation
(Neue Kritik, Frankfurt 1995), 143–45.
19
See the minutes of the interview of Eleonore Hodys by Konrad Morgen, autumn 1944, Institut fur Zeitgeschichte ZS 599.
20
For further details on the Morgen investigation and Höss's removal and alleged affair, see Jerzy Rawicz,
The Everyday Life of a Mass Murderer
(Dzien Powszedni Ludobějcy) (Czytelnik, Warsaw 1973).
21
Information from the pioneering research in the forthcoming Ph.D. thesis on this subject by Robert Sommer.
22
BBC interview.
23
BBC interview.
24
BBC interview. But see also Thomas Toivi Blatt,
From the Ashes of Sobibor
(Northwestern University Press 1997).
25
BBC interview.
26
Mussolini was removed from leadership of Italy by the Italian king in July 1943. He then was rescued by the Germans from imprisonment in September and placed at the head of a puppet regime. During this period of German occupation (unlike the situation under Mussolini's direct rule), Italian Jews were subject to deportation to Nazi death camps. Approximately 20 percent of Italian Jews perished during the war.
27
BBC interview.
28
BBC interview.
29
BBC interview.
30
Quoted in Michael Mogensen, “The Rescue of the Danish Jews,” in Mette Bastholm Jensen and Steven L.B. Jensen (eds.),
Denmark and the Holocaust
(Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Copenhagen 2003), 45.
31
Quoted in Mogensen, “Rescue,” 33.
See also
Leni Yahil,
The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of a Democracy
(The Jewish Publication Society of America 1969).
32
Quoted in Mogensen, ”Rescue,” 58.
Chapter 5: Frenzied Killing
1
Christian Gerlach and Goetz Aly,
Das letzte Kapitel
(“
The Last Chapter
”) (Fischer 2004).
2
SIME Report No.1, Interrogation of Joel Brand, June 16–30, 1944,
File no. SIME/P 7769, FO 371/42811; and Brand's testimony at the Eichmann trial, session no. 56, June 29, 1961.
3
See SIME Report No. 3, Interrogations of Bandi Grosz, June 6–22,
1944, File no. SIME/P 7755, TNA 371/42811, pp.42–43.
4
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 5:198.
5
BBC interview.
6
BBC interview.
7
BBC interview.
8
Quoted in Andrzej Strzelecki, “Utilization of the Victims' Corpses,” in
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 2:407.
9
Amidst a Nightmare of Crime: Manuscripts of Members of Sonderkommando
(Publications of State Museum at Oświęcim 1973), 119.
10
Amidst a Nightmare
, 119.
11
Amidst a Nightmare
, 182.
12
Amidst a Nightmare
, 185.
13
Amidst a Nightmare
, 181.
14
Miklos Nyiszli,
Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account
(Arcade 1993), 4.
15
Yehuda Bauer,
Jews for Sale?
(Yale University Press 1994), 180.
16
Bauer,
Jews for Sale
? 167.
17
BBC interview.
18
BBC interview.
19
See Yehuda Bauer's comments in
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust
(Macmillan, New York), 1:790.
20
BBC interview (from
Timewatch: Himmler, Hitler and the End of the Reich
, Jan. 19, 2000, Detlef Siebert, producer; Laurence Rees, executive producer).
21
“Gathering and Disseminating Evidence of the Crime,” in
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 4:307–15.
22
“Gathering and Disseminating Evidence,” 315.
23
See esp.
Richard Breitman,
What the British and Americans Knew
(Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1998), chap. 7 “Auschwitz Practically Decoded in Official Secrets—What the Nazis Planned.”
24
Quoted in
What the British and Americans Knew
, 120.
25
Quoted in Robert Jan van Pelt,
The Case for Auschwitz
(Indiana University Press 2002), 154.
26
Quoted in Martin Gilbert's essay “The Contemporary Case for the Feasibility of Bombing Auschwitz,” in Michael J. Neufeld and Michael Berenbaum (eds.),
Allies and the Holocaust in the Bombing of Auschwitz
(St. Martin's Press 2000), 66.
27
Quoted in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 67.
28
Quoted in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 68.
29
Quoted in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 70.
30
Quoted in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 73 (for a detailed analysis of the documents see Gilbert's full essay at 65–75).
31
Deborah E. Lipstadt, “The Failure to Rescue and Contemporary American Jewish Historiography of the Holocaust: Judging from a Distance,” in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 229.
32
James H. Kitchens III, “The Bombing of Auschwitz Re-examined,” in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 80–100.
33
Stuart G. Erdheim, “Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz-Birkenau?” in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 127–56.
34
Richard Levy, “The Bombing of Auschwitz Revisited: a Critical Analysis,” in Neufeld and Berenbaum (eds.),
The Bombing of Auschwitz
, 114.
35
Quoted in Martin Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
(Pimlico 2001, originally published 1981), 121.
36
Quoted in Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
, 127.
37
Quoted in Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
, 127.
38
Quoted in Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
, 139.
39
BBC interview.
40
BBC interview.
41
Auschwitz 1940–1945
, 5:217.
42
See the testimony of Kurt Becher, July 10, 1947, cited in Eichmann interrogations, TAE Vol. VIII, 2895–96.
Chapter 6: Liberation and Retribution
1
BBC interview.
2
Andrzej Strzelecki, “The Liquidation of the Camp,” in
Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Auschwitz State Museum 2000), 5:45.
3
Quoted in van Pelt,
The Case for Auschwitz
, 159. For an examination of the press treatment of Auschwitz post-liberation, see also 158–65.
4
van Pelt,
The Case for Auschwitz
, 164.
5
Encyclopedia of the Holocaust
(Macmillan, New York), 1:350; Yehuda Bauer, “The Death Marches, January–May 1945,”
Modern Judaism
(Feb. 1983), 1–21.
6
BBC interview.

Other books

Temporary Bride by Phyllis Halldorson
Halfway Hexed by Kimberly Frost
Refuge by N G Osborne
Francesca by Bertrice Small
An American Bulldog by Liz Stafford