The Holocaust (129 page)

61
Letter of 18 December 1941: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-3666.

62
Report of 1 December 1941, Hilberg,
op. cit.
, pages 56–7.

63
During November 1941 the following executions are known: in Eastern Galicia, Boryslaw (800), Kamionka (500), Kolomyja (800), Przemyslany (400) and Lvov (several thousand); in Eastern Poland, Wolozyn (300), Mir (1,500), Swierzen Nowy (500) and Slonim (9,000, on November 14); in Volhynia, at least 18,000 in Rowne. Those murdered in December included, in Eastern Galicia, Horodenka (2,500), Zablotow (1,000), Zabia (500), Brezany (1,000); in the Vilna region, Nowogrodek (5,000 on December 6) and Jody (all 700 on December 16).

64
Jack (Idel) Kagan, in conversation with the author, London, 21 May 1984.

65
Letter of 19 November 1941: Eichmann Trial, 17 May 1961, session 43, document 1558.

66
Zdenek Lederer,
Ghetto Theresienstadt
, London 1953, pages 264–5.

67
Lederer,
op. cit.
, page 14.

68
Ibid.
, page 15.

69
International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, documents NO-426 and NO-429.

70
International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-630.

71
International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, affidavit by Dr Konrad Morgen, 19 July 1946 (Morgen was an SS officer who had investigated SS corruption). See Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction
of the European Jews
, New York 1961 (Harper Colophon edition, 1979, page 561).

72
Information provided by Dr Kazimierz Smolen, Auschwitz Museum and Archive.

73
Letter of 25 November 1941: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-3060.

74
Heydrich letter of 29 November 1941: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-709.

75
Testimony of Michael Podklebnik (Michal Podchlebnik): Wladyslaw Bednarz,
Das Vernichtungslager zu Chelmno am Ner
, Warsaw 1946, pages 39–45.

76
Testimony of Andrzej Miszczak, Kolo, 26 June 1946:
ibid.
, pages 46–53.

77
Testimony of Michael Podklebnik:
ibid.

15. THE ‘FINAL SOLUTION’

1
Mary Berg diary, 9 December 1941: Shneiderman,
op. cit.
, page 117.

2
The four thousand Jews sent to Chelmno on 13 December 1941 from Kowale Panskie came from sixteen nearby villages, among them Turek, Dobra, Uniejow, Wladislawow, Brudzew and Tuliszkow (for these locations, see Martin Gilbert,
Atlas of the Holocaust
, London 1982, map 95, page 82).

3
Ringelblum notes, 14 December 1941: Sloan,
op. cit.
, pages 239–40.

4
Klarsfeld,
Memorial to the Jews Deported from France, op. cit.
, pages 642–54. The other Warsaw-born Jews executed in Paris on 15 December 1941 were Szmuel Korenblum (born 1887), Nathan Fuks (1889), Israel Mardfeld (1898), Szama Knapajs (1901) and Israel Eszenbaum (1909).

5
Kaplan diary, 15 December 1941: Katsch,
op. cit.
, page 283.

6
Testimony of Avraham Aviel: Eichmann Trial, 5 May 1961, session 29.

7
Material relating to Yanis Lipke: Yad Vashem archive; information provided by Aba Taratuta, Leningrad.

8
Josef Katz,
One Who Came Back: the Diary of a Jewish Survivor
, New York 1973, page 19.

9
Chronicle, op. cit.
, page 96, entry for 17 December 1941.

10
Chronicle, op. cit.
, page 101, entry for 29–31 December 1941.

11
Chronicle, op. cit.
, page 125, entry for 14–30 January 1942.

12
Chronicle, op. cit.
, page 100, entry for 26–28 December 1941.

13
Dr Richard Bilski, ‘Mail into and out of the Lodz Ghetto’:
The Judaica Collector
, London, summer 1984, pp. 24–5.

14
Information and material provided by Ernest Stein, the son of Oskar and Paula Stein (born 1874 and 1880 respectively). Neither of them survived the war.

15
Governor Frank’s speech of 16 December 1941: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-2233. (Excerpts from the diary of Hans Frank, 25 October 1939–25 May 1945.)

16
Otto Bräutigam (Ostministerium) to Hinrich Lohse, 18 December 1941: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-3666: quoted in Levin,
The Holocaust, op. cit.
, pages 293–4.

17
Smoliar,
Resistance in Minsk, op. cit.
, pages 26–7.

18
Ainsztein,
Jewish Resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, op. cit.
, page 897, note 37.

19
Testimony of Michael Podklebnik: Eichmann Trial, 5 June 1961, session 65.

20
Ringelblum notes, January 1942: Sloan,
op. cit.
, page 246.

21
Ringelblum notes, January 1942:
ibid.
, page 248.

22
Ringelblum notes, January 1942:
ibid.
, page 250.

23
Ringelblum notes, January 1942:
ibid.
, page 251.

24
Ringelblum notes, mid-January 1942:
ibid.
, page 254.

25
Chaim Rumkowski, speech delivered on Sunday, 4 January 1942: Lodz Chronicle, 1–5 January 1942, Dobroszycki,
op. cit.
, pages 111–15.

26
Lodz Chronicle, 10–13 January 1942:
ibid.
, pages 119–21.

27
Quoted in Yisrael Gutman, ‘The Concept of Labour in Judenrat Policy’,
Patterns of Jewish Leadership, op. cit.
, pages 161 and 169.

28
Gutman,
ibid.
, page 169

29
Lederer,
Ghetto Theresienstadt, op. cit.
, page 208

30
Testimony of Liana Neumann: Eichmann Trial, 8 May 1961, session 30.

31
Falstein,
The Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland, op. cit.
, page 211.

32
Poland: the Communities of Lodz and its Region, op. cit.
, entry for Klodawa, pages 244–5.

33
Lodz Chronicle, 10–13 January 1942: Dobroszycki,
op. cit.
, page 121.

34
Lodz Chronicle, 14–31 January 1942:
ibid.
, page 125.

35
Lodz Chronicle, 14–31 January 1942:
ibid.
, page 127, and note 19.

36
Lodz Chronicle, 14–31 January 1942:
ibid.
, page 125, and note 15.

16. EYE-WITNESS TO MASS MURDER

1
Poland, the Communities of Lodz and its Region, op. cit.
, entry for Izbica Kujawska, pages 53–4.

2
Testimony of Yakov Grojanowski: Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.

3
Lodz Chronicle: Dobroszycki,
op. cit.
, page xxi, note 32.

4
Lodz Chronicle:
ibid.
, Introduction, page xxi.

17. 20 JANUARY 1942: THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE

1
Protocol of the Wannsee Conference: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg: document NG 2586 F (6).

2
Eichmann pre-trial interrogation, quoted in the Eichmann Trial, 20 June 1961, session 75.

3
Report of 9 January 1942: Archives of the Polish Government in Exile, London.

4
‘A Railroad Timetable’: Hilberg,
Documents of Destruction, op. cit.
, pages 106–11, document 16.

5
Franklin Watts (editor),
Voices of History 1942–43
, New York 1943, page 121; text as monitored by the Foreign Broadcast Monitoring Service, Federal Communications Commission, Washington D.C.

6
The figures for Jews murdered in those five camps would appear to be: Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1,000,000 up to May 1944 and 500,000 after May 1944 (total 1,500,000); Chelmno, 360,000, Sobibor, 250,000, Belzec, 600,000 and Treblinka, 840,000 (total 2,050,000).

7
Testimony of Andrzej Miszczak: Bednarz,
Das Vernichtungslager, op. cit
, pages 46–53.

8
Maria Rubinstein, in conversation with the author, Beersheba.

9
Affidavit of Dr Rudolf Kastner, 13 September 1945: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-2605.

10
Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews, op. cit.
, pages 520–1.

11
Yisrael Gutman,
The Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt
, Bloomington, Indiana, 1982, page 64.

12
Falstein,
The Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland, op. cit.
, page 359.

13
Letter received by Nochum Spivack from his brother in Russia: Shirley Resnick (editor),
Spivack Spirit
, January 1960. Of twenty-five members of the Spivack family in the Volhynia in 1940, only seven survived the war. One of those killed, Yankel Spivack, a soldier in the Red Army, was killed in action at the battle of Stalingrad.

14
Dora Litani, ‘The Destruction of the Jews of Odessa in the light of Rumanian Documents’,
op. cit.
, pages 135–54. Simon Frug, who had died in 1916 at the age of fifty-six, described himself as ‘a poet who wept all his life’. Among his best known poems was ‘The Goblet’, written in 1881 under the impact of the pogroms. Translated into Yiddish by I. L. Peretz as
Der Kos
, it was sung by Jews the world over. His Yiddish poem
Hot Rakhomones
, was written after the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. Recited and sung at mass meetings of protest, it bore the refrain: ‘Have pity! Give shrouds for the dead, and for the living—bread.’

15
Operational Situation Report, USSR, no. 156, 16 January 1942: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-3405.

16
Letter of 28 January 1942, to the Foreign Ministry, Berlin: Eichmann Trial, 17 May 1961, session 43, exhibit T.728.

17
Letter dated 31 January 1942: Eichmann Trial, 17 May 1961, session 43, document 1278, exhibit T.730.

18
Schneider,
Journey into Terror, op. cit.
, pages 42–3 and 54.

19
Danuta Czech, ‘Most Important Events in the History of the Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau’, Kazimierz Smolen (editor),
From the History of KL Auschwitz
, Oswiecim, 1967, page 191.

20
Protocol of the meeting of 6 March 1942: Eichmann Trial, 17 May 1961, session 43, document 119.

21
Letter and documents submitted 16 April 1958 by Dr E. Schaefer: Wiener Library archives.

22
After United States forces captured Oran on 10 November 1942, the camp at Hadjerat M’Guil was liberated. In Algiers, on 3 March 1944, four camp overseers, including two Germans, were sentenced to death for the murders.

23
Dr E. Shaefer,
op. cit.

18. ‘JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN’

1
48,662 from January 1941 to January 1942; 4,618 in February 1942: Gutman,
The Jews of Warsaw, op. cit.
, page 64.

2
Hugo Gryn, reviewing
Maladie de Famine
, Warsaw 1946:
Journal of the ’45 Aid Society
, no. 2, London, September 1976.

3
Mary Berg diary, 27 February 1942: Shneiderman,
op. cit.
, page 134.

4
Cholawski, ‘The Judenrat in Minsk’,
Patterns of Jewish Leadership, op. cit.
, page 129.

5
New Soviet Documents on Nazi Atrocities
, Soviet Embassy, London, 1942.

6
Report of 10 February 1942: Trunk,
Judenrat, op. cit.
, pages 407–8.

7
Trunk,
op. cit.
, page 442.

8
Report of 19 February 1942: Arad and others,
Documents on the Holocaust, op. cit.
, document 184, page 407.

9
The survivor was David Stoliar.

10
G. I. Vaneyev,
Black Sea Navy in the Great Patriotic War
, Moscow 1978: Zeev Ben Shlomo, ‘“Struma” was Torpedoed by Soviet Submarine’,
Jewish Chronicle
, 3 September 1982.

11
Lodz Chronicle, February 1942: Dobroszycki,
op. cit.
, page 128.

12
Smoliar,
Resistance in Minsk, op. cit.
, page 42.

13
Ainsztein,
Jewish Resistance in
Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, op. cit.
, page 474.

14
Trunk,
Judenrat, op. cit.
, page 417.

15
Ibid.
, page 440.

16
Account of the events of 4 and 5 March 1942 in Baranowicze;
Bulletin
, London, April 1945; Foreign Office papers, 371/51117.

17
Testimony of Dora Rosenboim: Yad Vashem archive.

18
Trunk,
op. cit.
, pages 439–40.

19
Testimony of Leon Weliczker Wells: Eichmann Trial, 1 May 1961, session 22.

20
Smoliar,
op. cit.
, page 43. 21 Article entitled ‘Heroes of Nowogrodek’ (in Polish):
Jutrznia
,

21
March 1942.

22
Harold (Hersh) Werner, in conversation with the author, Miami.

23
Harold Werner, typescript, ‘Episodes of a Member of the Jewish Partisan Resistance Group in Poland During World War II’, June 1981: Yad Vashem archive.

24
‘Transport Aa’: Lederer,
Ghetto Theresienstadt, op. cit.
, page 209.

25
Naftali Salsitz, ‘The Holocaust in Kolbuszowa’: I. M. Biderman (editor),
Kolbuszowa Memorial Book
, New York 1971.

26
Tatiana Berenstein,
Biuletyn, op. cit.
, Warsaw 1957, number 21.

27
Testimony of Chaim Hirszman, Lublin, 19 March 1946: archive of the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.

28
Testimony of Pola Hirszman, Lublin, 20 March 1946: archive of the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.