Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

Survivors recounts the Treblinka Death Camp!

2012-05-07T19:37:40Z

New Page 1

Hershl Sperling

Personal Testimony of the Treblinka Death Camp

Hershl Sperling and his family lived in the Czestochowa ghetto on Wilsona Street near the ghetto wall.

What follows below is his account of the deportation and incarceration in the Treblinka death camp

Czestochowa Wartime Town Map showing Wilsona Street (click text to enlarge)

In September 1942, the deportation of the Jews of Czestochowa began. We had already sensed it coming weeks before. The town was surrounded by SS units. We are all woken from sleep before daybreak by the noise of wild shooting, vehicles and people screaming and wailing.

We look out into the street and see the SS men savagely bursting into people’s houses and driving the occupants out into the street with blows from their rifle-butts. We watch them arbitrarily dividing up people after a superficial glance at their work-permits; a very small minority of them is assigned to work, and the rest are transported away en masse.

Some kind of premonition tells us that this is the route to death, and we decide to hide in the bunker, which we had already prepared. Some elderly Jews join us and we lie together, hidden in the bunker, cut off from the world, and discus our dangerous situation. We don’t dare go out in daylight, but at night we creep out into the fields to find something to eat. There are cabbages, turnips, and other vegetables. We bring them back and cook them on an electric stove. At night when it is dark, we enter the houses of the deported Jews and search through the abandoned rooms.

Our bunker is discovered almost at the end of the period of deportations. Whether we were betrayed by someone, or whether it was purely chance, we don’t know. The commander of the deportations, Degenhardt makes a personal appearance and commands us all to leave the bunker. We all comply, because we know if we were discovered during a second search, it will be certain death. We are taken to Pszemiszlaver Street, where the last deportees are just being taken away.

Of the seven thousand Jews who are rounded up here, three hundred men and ten women are assigned to a work – detail in Czestochowa. The remainder are forced into a large factory yard. They are destined for the furnace in Treblinka.

On the day before the deportation one loaf is distributed to each person, for which they have to pay one zloty. This is a carefully worked out plan of the Germans. According to the number of zlotys they will know the number of people and can estimate how many wagons they will need, and how many people should be loaded into each wagon. At four o’clock in the morning the deportation began. Everyone has to assemble. Everyone has to take off their shoes, tie them together and hang them over their shoulders. Then begins, silent and barefoot, the march to annihilation. At the exit to the factory yard a box has been placed.

Hershl Sperling

Under threat of punishment by death, everybody has to throw all their valuables into it. Hardly anyone does it. As they marched on, however, their fear grows. They have second thoughts about it and from all sides valuables, foreign currency, money and so on are dropped by the wayside. The route of the death-march is littered with Jewish possessions.

When we arrive at the train, the SS shove eighty to hundred people into each of the wagons. The disinfectant calcium chloride is scattered liberally into every wagon. Each wagon receives three small loaves of bread and a little water. Then the doors are pushed shut, locked and sealed, Ukrainian and Lithuanian SS stand guard at the steps of each wagon. We are shut in like cattle, tightly crammed together. Only a tiny bit of air comes in through the one small wire-covered window, so that we can hardly breathe.

The calcium chloride hardly helps combat the unbearable smell, which gets worse all the time. Some women faint and others vomit. The natural functions also have to be performed in the wagon, which makes the situation even more terrible, and on top of everything else we are tormented by a dreadful thirst.

We become utterly desperate and keep begging the SS guards to bring us some water. They refuse for a long time but eventually they agree to give us some water, but only for money. We managed to collect a few thousand zloty and give them to the guards. The SS take the money, but no water appears. Thus in pain and torment, the journey drags on until we reach Warsaw. Then our train is shunted into a siding. It’s not until the following morning that we travel on to Malkinia, seven kilometres from Treblinka.

Here we see Poles working in the fields and try to communicate with them. We just want to find out what our fate is going to be. They, however, hardly lift their eyes from their work, and when they do, they just shout one word at us: “Death!”

We’re seized by terror. We can’t believe it. Our minds simply won’t take it in. Is there really and truly no escape for us? One of the Polish workers mentions burnings, another, shootings, and a third – gassings. Another tells of inhuman, unbelievable tortures. An unbearable state of tension mounts among us, which in some cases even leads to outbreaks of hysteria.

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

SS Statment on Chelmno

2012-04-09T16:36:56Z

Fritz Hensen

Report of My Activity by the SS Special Detachment in Kulmhof (Chelmno)

[photos added to enhance the text]

Rheinberg the 13.7.1945

SS and German workmen at Chelmno

Name: Fritz Hensen

Nationality: German

Date of Birth: 29.11.1920

Profession: Police File Sergeant

From 25.4.1940 to 2.7.1940 Police Training Battalion in Pohrlitz

2.7.1940 to March 1941 SS Police Division at Katscher Oberschl.

25.3.1941 to January 1945 Police administration in Litzmannstadt

From the Police administration I was assigned in July 1942 to December 1943 to the Gestapo and came to the SS special detachment in Kulmhof District Warthbrucken in Poland.

15.4 1945 I came into captivity to Hagen at the Police Quarters.

From the beginning of the war until my enlistment by the Police, labourer at the West Wall

Exact statement of your activity and occupation

Police file sergeant at Pohrlitz Niederdonau

Were you a member of the NSDAP?

Last Service Rank

Police File Sergeant

Report of my activity by the SS Special Detachment in Kulmhof

Read the full article here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/Hensentest.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

The Holocaust in the East!

2012-03-16T17:57:32Z

New Page 1

The Holocaust in the Soviet Union and Baltic States

Eyewitness Statements - 1941 -1943

Tadeusz Zaderecki a Polish writer who lived in Lvov recalled:

A Jewish woman is terrorized and beaten in Lvov

A rabble of drunken farmers flowed in from the countryside in Lvov. Something was about to happen and it was planned. The prisons that the Soviets left behind opened and dozens, hundreds of mutilated bodies of political prisoners were revealed.

Who carried out the murders? The Jews! The fact that the murdered included Jews made no difference to anyone. In front of the military prison, Zamarstinov, hundreds of Jews were removed from the nearby houses ,men,women, old people, youngsters,boys and girls,children, all naked, after their clothes and underwear had been plucked from them, bleeding, followed by blows and kicks into the prison courtyard.

The people were ordered to dig their own pits and trenches, into which they fell, after being shot. Some three hundred people were killed on that day, and several thousands more were injured, beaten, crippled.

Thus is the face of the first day of German rule in Lvov

Andreas Eberl a German soldier watched an Aktion in the Latvian town of Daugavpils:

We heard that they were executing Jews in the prison – we went to watch.

The executions didn’t take place inside the prison but nearby.

The trenches were two and a half meters wide and 40 to 50 long. I couldn’t work out the depth of the trench, since it contained the bodies of hundreds of Jews who had been shot earlier.

The condemned were forced to kneel on their knees on a dirt bank, with their faces towards the trench. The commandos shot them in the back of the neck. The distance between the shooter and the person being shot was about half a meter.

After being shot the people fell off the bank and into the trench. The commando unit consisted of ten men, half of them shot, while the other half stood behind them and changed places from time to time.

Vsevelod Klokov

Inside the pit, I could see a man of about sixty, obviously a Jew whose job it was to arrange the bodies in rows. When a row of corpses was completed, the man climbed out of the pit and sprinkled white stuff, probably chlorine, over the corpses.

For about an hour, I watched the executions along with my friends. During that time, some 150 Jews were shot. The number of soldiers watching was about 60 to 80.

The Jews who were shot and fell into the pit and continued to move were shot with a sub-machine gun by one of the commandos. Ammunition for recharging the weapons was laid on a table alongside some bottles of vodka, and from time to time, one of the commandos would come up and take a sip from the bottle.

Vsevelod Klokov interviewed on The World at War – historical TV series:

The occupiers were harsh, very harsh, especially in those areas where the partisans were active. In the Ukraine 511 villages were burnt down by the Nazis, before the population could escape.

In one village Pinsk near Kiev, which was totally raised to the ground, babies were thrown into the fire.

Anton Heidborn a soldier with Sonderkommano 4a that took part in the infamous massacre at Babi Yar, Kiew where 33,771 Jews were executed on the 29 and 30 September 1941:

The third day after the execution we were taken back to the execution area. On our arrival we saw a woman sitting by a bush who had apparently survived the execution unscathed.

The bodies of two Jewish judges, Wolf Kieper and Moshe Kagen, hanging on the gallows in Zhitomir

This woman was shot by the SD man who was accompanying us. I do not know his name. We also saw someone waving their hand from among the pile of bodies. I don’t know whether it was a man or a woman. I should think that this person was finished off by the SD man as well, though I did not actually see it.

The same day work began to cover up the piles of bodies. Civilians were used for this task. The ravine walls were also partly blown up. After that day I never returned to the execution area.

The next few days were spent smoothing out banknotes belonging to the Jews that had been shot. I estimate these must have totalled millions. I do not know what happened to the money. It was packed up in sacks and sent off somewhere.

Anton Lauer Police Reserve Battalion 9 made a statement regarding the use of gas vans:

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Story of Max Block Part 2 - Auschwitz!

2012-03-06T19:12:40Z

The story of Max Block (Part 2)

BORN DECEMBER 14 1889 IN BOCHUM EMIGRATED 1936 TO AMSTERDAM DEPORTED APRIL 21 1943 TO THERESIENSTADT MURDERED OCTOBER 14 1944 IN AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

Although Max Block did not survive the Holocaust, his story has. H.E.A.R.T has determined that this memoriam and its unedited text is well placed in our Survivors section.

Guest publication by Thomas Nowotny

(no grammatical corrections were made to the original text)

Continued from part 1

Auschwitz

On October 12th, 1944 Max Block is deported on the seventh autumn transport "Eq“ to Auschwitz, where he is murdered – probably on October 14th, shortly after selection. He had reached the age of 54 years.

List of Transportation Eq. Max Block carries number 1191, he is declared a worker. The little hook after his first transport number (250-XXIV/1) indicates that Max went on the transportation.

Few people were able to report about this transportation; one of them is Frank Bright (Brichta) from Berlin, who is forced to go to Auschwitz at the age of 16 years together with his mother:

We were on the list of transport “Eq”. [...] On 12 October 1944 we boarded a third class railway carriage, similar to that which had brought us from Prague to Theresienstadt 15 months ago. [...]

We sat on long wooden, slatted varnished, curved seats[...].

Decidedly more comfortable than the pitch dark cattle truck which normally entered and left the ghetto with frightened human freight. Why we were so privileged I don’t know. [...]

The simple answer, without recourse to any conspiracy theory, is that the Reichsbahn just happen to have this particular train available for one of their very many journeys to this particular destination. [...]

Although there was a large window there was nothing to see. We were into October and it gets dark early in those parts. There was the rhythmic clanging of steel wheels against the joints between the steel rails. We were on our way. [...]

Day dawned. We were passing through a dull, flat landscape. And then the train slowed down and all of a sudden we were in a large area defined by concrete posts, wire and wooded towers in the distance. [...]

The train came to a halt, the seal on the door was removed, we were ordered out. Others remember the shouting, screaming, threats, whips being brandished, snarling dogs. Nothing like that occurred at the arrival of our transport, there was no need to. [...]

In the melee of leaving the train and being put into one of the two columns I became separated from my mother. Anyway, my mother was in the column to the left of mine. [...] Her column went forward first, one at a time until one came across an SS-officer with several assistants either side of him. I couldn’t see exactly what was happening but some of us went to the left and some to the right. I had seen my mother go to the left.

The Gate at Auschwitz/Birkenau

It didn’t seem to take all that long for the left column of women to be processed and then it was our turn. I was, as I said, near the front and when it was my turn I walked forward until I got to the SS-officer in charge.

According to the accounts of others he would look at one, just for a second, the process was quite quick, and indicate with his finger where the person in front of him was to turn. I can’t remember any of that, I didn’t take that in.

I had seen my mother go to the left and so I simply turned left too. I was called back. Obviously the officer’s assistant had watched his finger and saw it point to the right even if I had not.

So I was called back and told to go to the right. [...] On the right I waited for further directions with the others who had also been told to turn right. There weren’t many of us. From records I now know that out of our transport of 1,500 who left the ghetto of Theresienstadt on 12 October 1944 only 78 survived. Of course, a few more may have survived this first selection and died, or were put to death, later but there were very few anyway. Say that there were 90 picked to work [...]“.33

Max Block is not among them; he is not registered as a prisoner but is sent to the left side, directly to the gas chamber. Max‘ age alone is a sufficient reason for this; selection was very rigorous in October 1944. 34 Just two weeks later, killings are stopped in Auschwitz gas chambers for ever.

The (Calendarium of events in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945):

Contains ten entries for October 14, 1944, including the following: „With a RSHA** transport, 1,500 Jewish men, women and children from Theresienstadt ghetto arrive. Young and healthy men and women are sent to the transit camp and the remaining people are killed in the gas chambers [...] 3,000 Jewish men, women and children are killed in the gas chambers of Crematorium

III. Among those killed people are Jews from Theresienstadt, selected at the ramp.“ 35

A view of the selection ramp at night (photo Thomas Nowotny (2008)

From a report by Jewish pathologist Miklós Nyiszli who had to work for the infamous SS doctor Mengele* from July to November 1944 in Crematorium I:

„It’s early in the morning. From the ramp, the long whistle of a railway engine is heard. I go to the window where I have a good sight of the ramp. A long train is standing there. [...] Lining up and selection takes hardly half an hour. The left group moves slowly. [...] After five to six minutes, the transport reaches the gate which opens widely. In the usual rows of five they take the turn to the yard. No one of the marchers will ever be able to report on what follows next. [...]

They move on, about 100 meters on a path lined up by green lawn, leading to a grey metal grid. Ten concrete steps lead to a subterranean hall. At the entrance a sign announces in German, French, Greek, Hungarian language that this was a bath and disinfection room. The unsuspecting calm themselves, even the doubtful.

Read the full article here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/maxblock2.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

The Story of Max Block

2012-02-15T20:38:41Z

The story of Max Block

(Part 1)

Guest publication by Thomas Nowotny

(no grammatical corrections were made to the original text)

Max Block 1939 in Amsterdam (Post card to his sister Herta, private collection)

Bochum

Max Block was born in Bochum on December 14th, 1889. He is the fourth of Bendix and Therese Block’s (née Mayer) twelve children.

Bendix Block owns a men’s wear store in the city centre (Obere Marktstraße). Occasionally the children have to help. Max‘ sister Herta remembers:

“Max, who often had to help too, liked playing jokes in a way the customers did not understand, but we children were having fun about it. For example, when offering a colour shirt he said: “You can wash it LAU” (lukewarm). He winked at us, as if he wanted to say:

“You can NOT wash it”, using the Hebrew word “LAU” (not). In fact you could wash the shirt quite normally. He was just making fun.“¹

Max successfully completes secondary school and becomes a merchant. After his father’s death, the family moves to Neustraße 18. Max Block is enlisted to fight in World War I.

The Block Family (undated, Max is 2nd from left)

Residential and commercial building of the Block family, Obere Marktstraße

(undated; Bochum City Archives)

Berlin

Max moves to Berlin in 1917, where he works as a banker. On March 31st, 1930 he marries Gertrud Hildegard Rosenthal (born April 15th, 1905 in Berlin). They don’t have any children. From 1931-36 they live in Bechstedter Weg 13 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf 2.

Max‘ niece Nora Walter, born in 1923, writes: „Max was my mother’s favorite brother and thus my favorite uncle. This was also because he could perform magic and spit through his tooth-gap! And something else impressed me deeply: In grandma’s glass cabinet there was a little Vaseline tin with a hole in its lid. Once Max showed me the tin and told me that it was in his pocket when he was a soldier. He was hit by a bullet which stuck to the Vaseline. ,If I didn’t have that tin with me, there would be no Uncle Max anymore’, he said with a serious expression.

Max and Nora Block

– But usually Max was rather cheerful, [...] and very good-natured.” Max has a good relationship with his mother. Nora Walter remembers: „I know from my mother that grandma liked travelling and made up her mind quickly. When her son Max from Berlin was visiting and asked her at nighttime: ‘Mother, will you accompany me to Berlin tomorrow?’, she would breath shortly and ask back: ‘Tomorrow? What time?’ A few minutes later she would accept.” 3

Max‘ sister Nora Block (later Platiel) becomes a lawyer. As a left-wing activist in the „Internationaler Sozialistischen Kampfbund“ (ISK), she is forced to flee from Germany to France in 1933 directly after the Nazis’ takeover of power. In 1934, her sister Herta also emigrates with her family to Paris; her husband Berthold Walter tries to establish a business there without success and decides to return to Germany. In Hamburg, he seeks to earn his living as a peddler; he is treated so cruel and humiliated so badly that he commits suicide in August 1935. His daughter Nora Walter reports:

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Thomas Blatt takes on Karl Frenzel

2012-01-26T17:53:59Z

New Page 1

Sobibor survivor Thomas Tovi Blatt confronts Death Camp Commandant Karl Frenzel (forced labour section) in 1983

Thomas Tovi Blatt (left) and Karl Frenzel meet in a hotel room in Hagen Germany in 1983

Thomas Blatt: Here you are drinking beer. With that smile on your face you could be anybody’s neighbour, anybody’s fellow sporting club member.

But you are not anybody. You are Karl Frenzel, the SS commandant. You ranked third in the chain of command at the extermination camp of Sobibor. You were the commandant of Lager 1. Do you remember me?

Karl Frenzel: Not exactly you were a small boy then

Thomas Blatt: I was fifteen years old. I survived because you made me your shoeshine boy. Besides me nobody survived; not my father, not my mother, not my brother, none of the two thousand Jews from my town, Izbica.

Karl Frenzel: That was terrible, just terrible………

Thomas Blatt: At least a quarter- million Jews were murdered at Sobibor. I survived why would you want to speak with me?

Karl Frenzel: I would like to apologise to you

Thomas Blatt: You want to apologise to me?

Karl Frenzel: I would like to apologise. Nothing can be done about the victims. What happened - happened. We can’t change anything about that. But I would like to extend my personal apologies to you.

Memorial stone at the former Sobibor death camp

I am not angry with you and the other witnesses, those who already testified and those who are still to come.

Thomas Blatt: You would like to apologise?

Karl Frenzel: I can only say it again in tears. Not only am I beside myself now, no back then too. I was greatly bothered by it all.

Thomas Blatt: But you didn’t prevent any of it from happening. You took part in it.

Karl Frenzel: You don’t know what went on inside of us. You don’t understand the circumstances in which we found ourselves.

Thomas Blatt: And we, and our circumstances?

Karl Frenzel: I spent sixteen and a half years in prison. I suffered a lot and I thought long about justice and injustice.

Thomas Blatt: Were you an anti-Semite or did you do these things because you were ordered to do them?

Karl Frenzel: I was no anti-Semite but we had to do our duty. For us this was a bad time.

Josef Cukerman

Thomas Blatt: Duty. That’s what it always comes down to, duty. Why did you club my father to the ground immediately upon arrival? Was that your duty too?

Karl Frenzel: I don’t remember.

Thomas Blatt: Do you remember Cukerman?

Karl Frenzel: Yes, he was the cook. At one time, five or eight kilograms of meat were missing. When we searched the kitchen, the meat was found. That’s why I beat him.

Thomas Blatt: And the son?

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

The Bankrupt state of Holocaust Denial and Debunking!

2012-01-05T15:46:59Z

New Page 1

Holocaust Denial & Debunking

A review of the bankrupt state of Revisionism, and the

insensibility of arguing with Holocaust deniers.

In May 2009 I concluded in my H.E.A.R.T editorial stating there is little value to be found in Holocaust Denial, and even less value in debating or debunking denial. That was a little over two years ago, so where are we now?

Casually glancing through any number of revisionist websites and forums, one can find an abundance of neo-David Irving acolytes and pseudo scholars, who dedicate their time to refuting the Holocaust narrative. This isn’t a new phenomenon; it’s been going on for well over three decades, however what we are seeing more recently are the smattering of these new denial-debunker forums, that on the surface appear designed to dispute revisionist ideas and philosophy, yet in practice emulate a pugilistic event more akin to naked mud-wrestling than to any scholarly debate.

Even more disturbing is the striking similarity between actual denial sites and these new debunking forums and blogs. After painting Holocaust deniers as modern day Nazi’s, the debunkers offer little in their behaviour that lends any contrast or credibility to their own moral standing versus that of the deniers, and it is often quite difficult to tell the difference, between the two.

At least one of these controversial debunker blogs maintains extremely low, if any professional standards at all, and in most cases the discussions are quite juvenile and often quite hostile in nature.

When you visit these sites you will notice the arguments are repetitive; those who deny the Holocaust are still demanding irrefutable proof, where even the slightest error, fragment of detail, date, time, location, spelling etc. is incorrect, is then pounced upon as the evidentiary “Holy Grail” that the Holocaust is a hoax perpetrated by a global Jewish conspiracy.

On the flip side you have the radical and often controversial revisionist debunkers who are obsessed with engaging in pointless debates, with no other purpose than to prove their own intellectual superiority, or at least what they deem to be a greater intellect than that of their opponent. Some of these debunker groups have gone to great lengths to trash the works and reputation of not only revisionists, but Holocaust memorial scholars as well.

Clearly it’s not the desire for a correct historical record that motivates the debunkers, any more than it is for their denier counterparts. Both groups have a belief structure or agenda that supersedes the factual narrative, for them it’s something far more duplicitous and corrupt, than simply setting the record straight.

Case in point; as early on as 2004 when I lead the Action Reinhard Camps Foundation, an applicant for membership, who unbeknownst to me at the time was a member of one of these perfidious debunker groups, and at the time was pressing ARC memberships to include a forum on the www.deathcamps.org website. This forum he explained would be constructed to debate with Holocaust deniers.

After careful consideration this proposal was rejected, as pointless.

The Holocaust happened and there is nothing to debate or dispute.

ARC members felt that the best answer to combat Holocaust Denial was to memorialize the victims and teach people about the perpetrators and the events that lead to the mass murder of millions.

I later went on to create the Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team with a broader focus that the events of Action Reinhard, but do I still feel the same way?

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Images of the Holocaust

2011-12-31T18:23:10Z

Images of the Holocaust at Klooga

www.holocaustresearchproject.org

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

[Next]

[Last]


Burial pit for corspes of the victims of the Klooga camp 400 X 607 72 KB	Estonia ,Klooga, 1944, Bodies in a barrack in the camp 637 X 440 76 KB	Half burned body at Klooga 207 X 328 32 KB	Klooga, Estonia, 1945, Bodies between logs 637 X 422 62 KB

Klooga, Estonia, A corpse beside a pile of burnt corpses, September 1944 637 X 438 112 KB	Klooga, Estonia, A woman's corpse which was prepared for burning by Commando 1005, 1944 637 X 417 69 KB	Klooga, Estonia, Corpses of prisoners after liberation 637 X 429 75 KB	Klooga, Estonia, Corpses of prisoners 637 X 445 87 KB

See the full image gallery here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/kloogagal/index.html

Letters to London - Life and Death in the Kovno Ghetto

2011-11-22T16:23:48Z

Dr Elchanan Elkes chairman of the Kovno Judenrat

Letters to London

1943 - the chairman writes to his children about life in the Kovno ghetto

Dr Elchanan Elkes of the Kovno Judenrat

My beloved son and daughter!

I am writing these lines, my dear children, in the vale of tears of Vilijampole, Kovno Ghetto, where we have been for over two years. We have now heard that in a few days our fate is to be sealed. The Ghetto is to be crushed and torn asunder.

Whether we are all to perish, or whether a few of us are to survive, is in God’s hands, we fear that only those capable of slave labour will live; the rest of probably are sentenced to death.

We are left, a few out of many. Out of the 35,000 Jews of Kovno, approximately 17,000 remain; out of a quarter of a million Jews in Lithuania (including the Vilna district), only 25,000 live plus 5,000 who, during the last few days, were deported to hard labour in Latvia, stripped of all their belongings. The rest were put to death in terrible ways by the followers of the greatest Haman of all time and all generations.

Some of those dear and close to us, too, are no longer with us. Your Aunt Hannah and Uncle Arieh were killed with 1,500 souls of the Ghetto on October 4, 1941. Uncle Zvi, who was lying in the hospital suffering from a broken leg, was saved by a miracle. All the patients, doctors, nurses, relatives, and visitors who happened to be there were burned to death, after soldiers had blocked all the doors and windows of the hospital and set fire to it. In the provinces, apart from Siauliai, no single Jew survives.

Your Uncle Dov and his son Shmuel were taken out and killed with the rest of the Kalvaria community during the first months of the war, that is about two years ago

Corpses of Jews reported to have been burned alive in the Kovno ghetto

Due to outer forces and inner circumstances, only our own Ghetto has managed to survive and live out its diaspora life for the past two years, in slavery, hard labour and deprivation – almost all our clothing, belongings, and books were taken from us by the authorities.

The last massacre, when 10,000 victims were killed at one time, took place on October 28, 1941. Our total community had to go through the “selection” by our rulers: life or death. I am the man who, with my own eyes, saw those about to die.

I was there early on the morning of October 29, in the camp that led to the slaughter at the Ninth Fort. With my own ears I heard the awe-inspiring and terrible symphony, the weeping and screaming of 10,000 people, old and young – a scream that tore at the heart of heaven. No ear had heard such cries through the ages and the generations.

With many of our martyrs, I challenged my creator; and with them, from a heart torn in agony, I cried; “Who is like you in the universe, my Lord!” In my effort to save people here and there, I was beaten by soldiers. Wounded and bleeding, I fainted, and was carried in the arms of friends to a place outside the camp. There, a small group of about thirty or forty survived – witnesses to the fire.

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Rawa Ruska

2011-11-07T21:04:25Z

New Page 1

Rawa Ruska

Pre war image of Rawa Ruska

Rawa Ruska is located in the Lwow distrit, formerly it was part of Poland, but today it is part of the Ukraine. The first Jews arrived with the founding of the town in 1624, in the 18th Century they were subjected to restrictions and to heavy taxes under the Austrians from 1772.

The town developed as a stop-over on the Lwow – Warsaw railway line, the Jewish population increased from 3,878 to 6,112 in 1910, Jewish trade centred on egg marketing abroad, but they were also prominent as furriers and hat -makers, a Jewish stoneware factory declined with the advent of porcelain utensils.In 1884 a fire destroyed 234 Jewish homes and a Baron Hirsch school was founded in 1892, reaching an enrolment of 200 within six years, following the First World War was reduced by about 1,000.

Devastating fires struck the community again in 1923 and 1932, during the inter-war years the Jewish fur trade developed considerably with markets throughout Poland. The Soviet annexation of Poland which lasted from September 1939 to June 1941curtailed Jewish communal and commercial life, with the German invasion of Russia, the Germans captured the town on the 28 June 1941.

As a foretaste of things to come the local Ukrainian militia immediately executed 100 Jews and the Germans instituted a regime of forced labour and extortion. A Judenrat was established in July 1941 and in the spring of 1942 they were concentrated into a crowded ghetto area.

Shortly thereafter Rawa Ruska, as the county town, was incorporated into the Generalgouvernement, within the Distrikt Galizien, under the control of SS-Brigadefuhrer Dr Wachter. At the beginning of the German occupation there were no anti-Jewish measures in the town, however in the surrounding smaller towns such as Niemirow, Magierow, Sokal and Kulikov, German soldiers together with Ukrainian nationalists organised anti-Jewish pogroms.

German soldiers at Rawa Ruska

As part of increasing anti-Jewish restrictions the Jews were forced to wear armbands marked with the Star of David, premises were marked with a Jewish Star of David and used by the Germans to perform forced labour.

In mid-July 1941 a Jewish Council known as a Judenrat was established with Wastenberg as the President. During this time there was no closed ghetto in Rawa Ruska, Jews were allowed to live anywhere in the town, as they could before the occupation, there were no Gestapo or SD premises in Rawa Ruska but a Krimminalpolizei (KRIPO) office was there. In August 1941 the Germans demanded monetary contributions from the Jews of Rawa Ruska, the advocate Dr Jozef Mandel opposed the Germans’ orders and refused to give them the Jews for forced labour and the money they demanded.

Members of the German Security Services (SD) from Sokal arrived in Rawa Ruska and arrested 15 members of the Jewish intelligentsia, as well as Dr Mandel. He was taken out of the town at night, as the Germans were concerned that the population might resist. As a hostage Dr Mandel was taken to Krakow where he was incarcerated in the notorious Montelupich prison, his niece Erna Weinberger, nee Hartel from Gorlice sent him a food parcel in August 1941. Dr Mandel died in Montelupich Prison from typhus circa December 1941.

Read more here: www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/rawaruska.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2011

Images from Westerbork

2011-10-24T12:56:48Z

Westerbork Transit Camp Images

www.holocaustresearchproject.org

[Next]

[Last]


A garden between camp barracks at Westerbork 640 X 454 60 KB	A Jewish woman sits at the assembly point for transport to Westerbork 637 X 452 71 KB	A transport from Westerbork 637 X 456 57 KB	A wedding in the camp at Westerbork 1941 637 X 448 50 KB

Amsterdam, Holland, 1943, Deportation to Westerbork camp. 470 X 328 31 KB	Arrival of Jews at the Westerbork transit camp. The Netherlands, 1942 480 X 314 51 KB	Barracks at Westerbork 448 X 280 25 KB	Bunks in the punishment barracks at Westerbork 637 X 395 86 KB

See the full image gallery here: www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/westerborkgal/index.html

Hans Frank on the record in 1945

2011-09-29T15:56:46Z

Untitled 1

Hans Frank

Conversation with an American Officer 4 and 5 August 1945

*The following conversations took place between Hans Frank and an American Army Officer on 4 and 5 August 1945

Hans Frank in captivity Nov. 24th, 1945

Frank; I was so stupid all these years. You know we are so guilty. Look here I saw the moving-pictures of those concentration camps and I saw how these people had been treated.

American Army Officer; Who organised all those concentration camps?

Frank; Always the same gang, Himmler, Heydrich and the whole rotten clique. No opposition was possible. For me it was a real torture all these years. And the Fuhrer degraded me and threw me out. In 1942 he simply chased me away.

I was then stripped of all my offices in the Party, because I always protested against these procedures. We could do nothing…. I was thrown into a cellar and beaten up. My papers were taken away from me in Augsburg. Well, we did it too, it’s bad everywhere. What bothers me most – (Weeps)

It’s a catastrophe such as the world has never yet seen…. In the beginning all was so different. You mustn’t judge National Socialism by those concentration camps. You have to go back to the Party program of 1920 ….. if Hitler had stepped before the entire German people and had announced: When I assume the power I will set up concentration camps and rule by sheer force. But he said; When I assume the power justice will prevail. I will set up new courts and install new judges.

At the time in my capacity as his legal advisor in Leipzig I induced him to take the oath of legality; “I shall strive to come to power by legal means and after the assumption of power I shall rule by legal means. So help me God.”

I have recalled that to his mind. But you know all that so much better than I…..

And then always those speeches of Churchill preaching hatred, the Fuhrer always spoke of peace, but Churchill’s everlasting hate-speeches against National Socialism, in turn, induced Hitler to make other speeches…..

The worst thing for me was the rise of Himmler…. If it hadn’t been for the outbreak of war and for the fact that I was sitting in Warsaw as Governor General, trying to straighten out the situation there, I wouldn’t be here at all today.

As a lawyer I understand very well that it is quite difficult to bring all these men to trial. I understand that world opinion clamours for it and I assume that many hundreds of trials are in the process of preparation. What you have here in Mondorf is from the judicial viewpoint the last supreme selection.

Hans Frank giving a speech praising an earlier speech by Adolf Hitler

You might well call it that and yet the original perpetrators who are connected with those atrocities are not amongst them. They are Globocnik and Kaltenbrunner and the SS leaders.

We all are worried about being extradited to Moscow, and then it would be all over. Should such an extradition be contemplated, I would ask as a favour to be questioned just once more by an American judge.

You see there are three viewpoints: The viewpoint of the enemy which sees quite understandably in Hitler and National Socialism the arch criminal who disturbed world peace etc. That is the viewpoint not only of the enemy, the Russians and Americans, but also of a majority of the German people.

That’s what many colleagues and ministers over in ASHCAN constantly forget. They are actually of the opinion that if they were released and returned to Germany, many people would say, “Thank God, you are back” I am convinced that the reverse would be the case. If today men like Streicher or Ley or any of those notorious fanatics were released they would be slain, the reason being, I think that it is too well known that they enriched themselves personally

American Army Officer; Where is your wife? Where were you arrested?

Frank; In Fischhausen on the Schliersee (Chiemsee) …. You know, I and my whole family are Catholics. I am a very devout Catholic. To me it’s a spiritual matter. I was brought up as a Catholic. I am very much upset.

Look here, I sat for five years at my reduced post over in Krakow, which was unbelievably difficult, what with the SS being granted special powers and carrying out all those dreadful atrocities. I had to put up a constant fight against those people to avert the worst. The fight against the resistance movement and the Jews. (Weeps).

Dr. Ludwig Fischer

I took care of the legal matters of the Party and defended Hitler and the Party members. Politically I was never active. I confined myself to the purely legal end.

American Army Officer; Who else was with you?

Frank; Dr Fischer and several others

American Army Officer; Is Dr Fischer still alive?

Frank; I believe so. Then there was Schwarz in charge of the Party administration centres. At the time he (?) issued a report against all the parties which did not stand on the grounds of the Constitution and which desired something different. So Schaub declared, “We renounce this Weimar Constitution, we desire a different regime,” and then there was the so-called “Law for the Protection of the Republic.”

Any speaker who made any statement against the Republic or against Weimar or against anyone was brought before the judge.

American Army Officer; But did you always win your trials?

Frank; We won most of the trials …. The Party was prohibited then and was dissolved, and the SA was dissolved; then there were different incidents during the elections for the diet. In short, this was this judicial activity.

American Army Officer; And that is why you never became a professor?

Frank; Otherwise I should be a full professor today. My conscience is quite clear even though I couldn’t put it through, when I say to myself that my aim was the constitutional state. I wanted the Fuhrer to do it properly. At least I prevented a good deal.

It would have been much worse if I hadn’t continually struggled at the time when I was still “Reichsleiter.” I was able to help so many persons. I was in the Party and I had a high position. I could make my influence felt and for this reason Himmler strove to throw me out of this position.

Hans Frank as Minister of Justice in 1933

And that it only succeeded in 1940 is significant. And then I was bruskly thrown out. One day the Fuhrer let it be known through Lammers. I held four important speeches publically before the students and professors at my universities, Heidleberg, Munich, Vienna and Berlin. I got up and said that Adolf Hitler hadn’t kept his word. Just imagine, I gave the four speeches in one week, otherwise they would have arrested me already. I was briefly being investigated.

American Army Officer; When was that?

Frank; That was in 1942 after the speech in Munich. I was investigated by the Gestapo and then the Fuhrer wrote me quite an indignant letter – how could I do such a thing? You are hereby degraded with prejudice as “Reichsleiter of the Party,” and since that time I have been quite an ordinary Party member.

In 1933 I became Minister of Justice in Bavaria. Then, because I spoke out against Roehm as Minister of Justice during the Roehm trial – that was the first time that Adolf Hitler had men shot without trial, and I protested against it.

I put myself in prison, in Stadelheim, just imagine the Bavarian Minister of Justice sitting in prison and I kept 200 persons from being shot. I sat in the prison and told my associates, “No one is to leave the prison.” I saved 200 SA leaders and the Fuhrer never forgave that.

The Fuhrer wanted to have 240 SA leaders shot at once, the SS platoons were there and I declared, “No I am still Minister of Justice, the prison is under my control.” And then they said, “We are fools and idiots. Why did we lock up the prisoners in a prison?”

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

The IMT Series (H.E.A.R.T Exclusive) "The beginning of the end"

2011-09-02T18:01:21Z

Untitled 1

International Military Tribunal Series

Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

What follows are a number of documents translated into English for the International Military Tribunal which tried the leading members of the Nazi Third Reich after the German surrender.

We have selected a cross section of documents and affidavits in relation to the Holocaust but this is only a fraction of the documents produced for the trial, but it hopefully gives the reader a clear insight into one of the worst chapters of human history.

The beginning of the end

PS 3363

Letter From Heydrich To The Chiefs Of All Einsatzgruppen Concerning The “Jewish Question In The Occupied Territories” 21 September 1939

The Chief of the Security Police

Reinhard Heydrich

PP(II) -288/39 Secret

Berlin 21 September 1939

Express Letter

To the Chiefs of All Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police

Re: The Jewish Question in the Occupied Territory

With reference to the conference which took place today in Berlin, I would like to point out once more that the total measures planned (i.e. the final aim) are to be kept strictly secret.

A distinction is to be made between,

1. The final aim (which will take some time), and

2. Sections of the carrying out of this aim (which can be carried out within a short space of time.)

The measures planned require the most thorough preparation both from the technical and the economic point of view.

It goes without saying that the tasks in this connection cannot be laid down in detail. The following instructions and directives simultaneously serve the purpose of urging the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen to practical considerations.

The first necessity for the attaining of the final aim is the concentration of the country Jews in the big towns. This is to be carried out immediately.

A distinction is to be made (1) between the territories of Danzig and West Prussia, Posen, Eastern Upper Silesia and (2) the remaining occupied territories. As far as possible the territories enumerated under (1) are to be cleared of Jews, but the very least to be aimed at is the formation of very few “concentration” towns.

In the territories mentioned under (2) as few “concentration” points as possible are to be established in order to facilitate later measures. Care must be taken that only such towns be chosen as concentration points as are either railroad junctions or at least lie on a railway.

It is laid down on principle that Jewish communities of less than 500 persons are to be dissolved and to be sent to the nearest “concentration” town.

This decree does not concern the territory of Einsatzgruppe 1 which, lying east of Krakow, is bordered by Polanico, Jaroslav, the new demarcation line and the former Slovak- Polish frontier. Within this territory only a temporary census of Jews need be taken. The rest is to be done by the Jewish Council of Elders dealt with below.

Jewish Council of Elders

1. In every Jewish community a Jewish Council of Elders is to be set up which, as far as possible, is to be formed from persons in authority and rabbis who have remained behind. Up to 24 male Jews (according to the size of the Jewish community) are to form the Council of Elders.

It is to be made fully responsible, within the meaning of the word, for the exact and punctual carrying out of all instructions issued or to be issued.

The Judenrat (counsel of Elders) in the Lodz Ghetto

2.In the event of the sabotaging of such instructions, the strictest measures are to be announced to the Council.

3.The Jewish Councils are to undertake a temporary census of the Jews – if possible arranged according to sex (ages (a) up to 16 years, (b) from 16 to 20 years, and (c) over) and according to the principal professions – in their localities, and to report thereon within the shortest possible period.

4.The Council of Elders are to be advised of the days fixed and the appointed times of the evacuation, the possibilities of evacuation, and finally the evacuation routes. They are then to be made personally responsible for evacuation of the Jews from the country. The reason for the concentrating of Jews in the towns is to be that Jews have to a very great extent participated in franc-tireur attacks and pillage.

5.The Councils of Elders in the “concentration” towns are to be made responsible for the suitable accommodation of the Jews from the country. The concentration of the Jews in the towns will probably, in the interests of general security, call for certain regulations in these towns, e.g. that certain quarters of the town be altogether forbidden to the Jews; that in the interests of economic necessity, they be forbidden to leave the Ghetto, forbidden to go out after a certain hour in the evening etc.

6.The Council of Elders is to be made responsible for the suitable feeding of the Jews during their transportation to the towns. No objections are to be made if the departing Jews take their movable possessions with them, as far as this is technically possible.

7.Jews who do not comply with the order to move to the towns are, in certain cases to be given a short respite. They are to be advised of the most strict punishment if they do not comply with this time limit.

III

All necessary measures are, on principle, always to be taken in the closest agreement and co-operation with the German civil administration and the competent local military authorities.

When carrying out this action care is to be taken that the economic security of the occupied territories suffers no damage.

The needs of the army are to be the first consideration, e.g. it will hardly be possible, to begin with, to avoid leaving behind Jewish traders here and there who, for lack of other possibilities, must definitely remain behind for the provisioning of the troops. In such cases, however, the speedy Aryanisation of these industries is to be aimed at, in agreement with the competent local German administrative authorities, and the migration of the Jews completed.

It goes without saying that Jewish branches of industry and trade which are vital to the life of the community, the war effort, or the Four Year Plan must be maintained in order to safeguard economic interest in the occupied territories. In such cases, also, the quickest possible Aryanisation is to be aimed at and the migration of the Jews completed.

Finally, the food question in the occupied territories is to be taken into consideration. For example, if possible, land belonging to Jewish settlers is to be farmed with their own by the neighbouring German or Polish peasants, in an official capacity, so that the gathering in of the harvest still in the fields or the continued cultivation can be safeguarded. With regard to this important question, contact is to be made with agricultural expert consultants of the chief of civil administration.

In all cases where the interests of the security police on one hand and the German civil administration on the other are not in agreement, the individual measures in question are to be reported to me as quickly as possible before their execution and my decision awaited.

The chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen will report to me continually regarding the following circumstances:

1.Census of Jews in their districts (if possible in the above –mentioned groups). The numbers are to be divided into Jews who will be migrating from the country and those who are already in the towns.

Einsatzgruppen forcing Jews to dig their own graves

2.Names of towns selected as “concentration” points.

3.The time limits set for the migration of the Jews to the towns.

4. Summary of all Jewish branches of industry and trade which are vital to the life of the community, the war effort, or the Four Year Plan.

If possible the following facts are to be established:

a. The type of undertaking (together with estimate of the possibility of the adaptation of the undertaking to one vital to the life of the community, the war effort, or the Four Year Plan)

b. Which of these undertakings it is most urgent to Aryanise (to avoid damage of any kind)? How is it proposed to effect the Aryanisation? Germans or Poles (this decision is dependent on the importance of the industry).

Read more here: www.holocaustresearchproject.org http: href?>">www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/begginning-of-the-end.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team