Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

Arrival to the Sobibor Death Camp!

2009-11-06T20:00:00Z

Recounts his Journey and Arrival at to Sobibor Death Camp Recounts his Journey and Arrival at to Sobibor Death Camp

Jules Schelvis & his wife Rachel in 1941

Jules Schelvis, his wife Rachel, whom he married on the 18 December 1941, were deported from Westerbork, transit camp in Holland to the Sobibor death camp in Poland on the 1^st June 1943. Rachel’s family included as the head of the family, her father David Borzykowski who was born in Janow, Poland on the 13 February 1892 and the family home was at Nieuwe Kerkstraat 103, Amsterdam. Her mother Gitla was born in Czestochowa, Poland in 1895.

Other family members Chaja Stodel- Borzykowski who was born in Amsterdam 1921, Rachel Schelvs – Borzykowski, born on the 2 March 1923 and Herman Borzykowski who was born in Amsterdam in 1927. Only Jules Schelvis, survived, his wife and his wife’s family all were murdered in the gas chambers of Sobibor on the 4 June 1943, and he gave a detailed account of their journey and arrival in the death camp on that June day:

“The train, which departed from Westerbork on Tuesday 1 June, consisting of a long line of freight wagons, was carrying 3006 persons. There were sixty-two in my wagon, including my wife, and her family, plus one pram.

The journey took place under the most primitive conditions, lacking even basic provisions, such as straw to lie upon, or hooks to hang things from. Apart from two barrels, one filled with water, the others for our waste, the men from the Westerbork Orde Dienst (OD Order Service) had carried aboard a few bread parcels.

The sick were wheeled towards the wagons on trolleys. And all of this ostensibly to send us to police-supervised labour camps in Germany, which is how it was put on all the relevant forms. The commandant and his helpers stood by, watching the operation’s progress.

Men from the messenger service of the Westerbork Orde Dienst

I have no recollections of any officials, in their well-polished shiny boots, concerning themselves with us at all. We had been entrusted to the care of the Jewish Council. Once everyone had clambered aboard, the sliding doors were barred on the outside. With all our luggage, we were packed like a tin of sardines, wondering how long we could endure this. There was hardly any room to stretch one’s legs, and only one small, barred window, which was unglazed, to let some fresh air in.

We left around half past ten. Only then did we begin to realise that the journey was going to end in some mysterious place. Perhaps Auschwitz, we had heard about Auschwitz. What was certain, however, was that our stamina was going to be severely tested. The train stopped countless times en route in order to let regular and military transports pass.

Sometimes we stopped for hours on end for no discernable reason. Throughout the entire journey, the doors were never opened once. We had to relieve ourselves in the little barrel, which soon caused a foul and unbearable stench. Having depleted the water from our own water bottles by the very first evening, we were parched with thirst.

The journey lasted for three long agonizing days, filled with despair and bickering. We went right across Germany via Bremen, Wittenberge, Berlin and Breslau and into Poland. In the morning of Friday 4 June we finally stopped at Chelm, close to what had once been the Russian border.

Rails leading into the Sobibor Deathcamp

The journey had made us so weary that we were no longer interested in where we would end up. Only one question remained how to get out of this foul –smelling overloaded cattle wagon, and get some fresh air into our lungs. That Friday morning at around ten, after a seventy- two hour journey, we finally stopped in the vicinity of a camp. It turned out to be Sobibor.

The Jews of the Banhofskommando were very heavy-handed getting us off the train onto the platform. They let on they were Jewish by speaking Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Jews.

The SS men standing behind them were shouting “schneller, schneller,” faster –faster, and lashed out at people once they were lined up on the platform. Yet the first impression of the camp itself aroused no suspicion, because the barracks looked rather like little Tyrolean cottages, with their curtains and geraniums on the window sills.

But this was no time to dawdle. We made our way outside as quickly as possible. Rachel and I, and the rest of our family, fortunately had no difficulty in swiftly making our way onto the platform, which had been built up of sand and earth.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/schelvisonsobibor.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

The Lodz Ghetto - Radogoszcz Police Prison

2009-10-31T14:32:00Z

Radogoszcz Police Prison

Lodz Ghetto

Pre-war view of the industrial district of Lodz

Before the Second World War Radogoszcz was one of the oldest villages and districts of Lodz. In the early 1930’s Samuel Abbe built the biggest, three storey factory building in the area near to the crossing of the Gen. J. Sowinskiego (modern name) and Zgierska streets. It was accompanied by a single-storey shop floor with a characteristic saw-blade roof and a building serving both administrative and living purposes.

In August 1939 the factory buildings were taken over by the Polish Army and after Lodz had fallen to the Nazis, the Germans took over the buildings as a German sub-unit, which were stationed there till mid-October 1939.

Subsequently the premises were turned into a relocation camp, several thousand people from Lodz and the immediate area were incarcerated there. At first the people were placed in the four –storey building and the adjoining shop-floor. By the end of 1939 most of them were taken to the General Gouvernment, as well as to the Krakow and Nowy Targ regions.

The remaining relocated detainees were moved to the shop –floor, while the main building now became a place of detention for prisoners from a transit camp in the Michal Glazer Radogoszcz factory in 55 Krakowska Street.

Thus, till the end of June 1940, both the transit and a relocation camps were located together. On the 1^st July 1940 the transit camp was transformed into the Extended Police Prison, and the last deportees were removed from there by the end of 1940.

Radogoszcz prison took on a more sinister role from the first days of November 1939, it was then that the Nazi authorities began to arrest members of the Lodz intelligentsia – such as teachers, local and state bureaucrats, social and political activists, and artists.

The gate and watchtower at Radogoszcz

Among the arrested were Polish citizens of German and Jewish origins. The arrests were a purposeful action aimed at depriving Polish society of its leaders. The arrests were made on the basis of proscriptive lists, and after a trial by a summary court, people were usually sentenced to death. They were executed immediately afterwards in the forests surrounding Lodz and the bodies were buried at the site of the murders.

From the 10 November 1939 until early January 1940 about 2,000 people, both men and women, were at some time interned in the camp, of which about 500 were “tried” by a summary court and shot to death.

The factory buildings were not adapted in any way to house people prior to the establishment of the camp, there was no kitchen in the buildings, just a pot from brewing coffee. There were no beds in the rooms. The living conditions were extremely oppressive. The whole camp was surrounded by a barbed wire topped wall in which the corners held watchtowers for the guards.

The prisoners did not succumb to starvation and disease thanks to the Polish Committee for Aiding Those Detained in the Radogoszcz Camp, established with the permission of the Gestapo. The members of Lodz factory –owner’s families, the Bidermans and the Keiserbrechts, among others, played a prominent role in the committee.

Inside the walls of Radogoszcz prison

At the end of December 1939, the prisoners were moved to the Abbe’s factory building, where necessary works had been done, financed by the Committee for Aiding. A kitchen and baths were prepared, and rooms were furnished with wooden bunk beds.

The last group of prisoners was placed here on the 5 January 1940 at 10.00 a.m. The Polish women remaining in the Glazer plant were set free the next day. A group of Jews might have been detained in the plant till mid-1940.

The Extended Police Prison (Erwetertes Polizeigefangnis) in the factory buildings of Samuel Abbe was the biggest prison in Lodz and the surrounding region during the Nazi occupation. It was for men only, and the prisoners were sent to other prisons, typically in Sieradz, Leczyca and Wielun, as well as to forced labour camps, first in Ostrow Wielkopolski, then in Sikawa in Lodz, and concentration camps – mostly Dachau, Mauthausen- Gusen and Gross Rosen.

Read more: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/Radogoszcz.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Victor Lews, his story of survival!

2009-10-25T16:06:00Z

What it took for one Jewish man to survive the Holocaust
The Story of Victor Lewis

[Published with the permission of Victor Lewis]

Victor Lewis circa 1936

I’m not a poet or a writer. But I have an important story to tell. My memories of the Nazi occupation of Poland and my experiences during the Holocaust gave me nightmares and interrupted my ability to sleep for many years after the war.

I wrote this account in memory of my dearest parents and siblings, most of whom perished in the Holocaust.

I also wrote this account for all to read, so that the experiences of my family during the Holocaust will never be forgotten. Now, it will be the job of our children, our grandchildren, our teachers, and historians to know the horrible story of the Holocaust, to pass it on to future generations - in the hope that it will never happen again!

-Victor Lewis
December 11, 2000

Victor Lewis (Leserkiewicz) was born in Krakow, Poland, in 1919 to a religious Jewish family. At the beginning of World War II, he had two parents, Abraham and Berta; two sisters, Lola and Greta; and two brothers, Leon (Leszek) and Jacob (Kubus). Lola left Krakow for Palestine years before the war broke out and was fortunate to have avoided the Nazi atrocities in Europe.

After a harrowing 6 years at the hands of the Nazis, both of Mr. Lewis’ parents, and his sister, Greta, had perished. Both of his brothers barely managed to survive, but his youngest brother, Jacob, died from food poisoning just a few days after being liberated from a concentration camp in Austria.

From the transport out of the Krakow ghetto that should have killed him, to the gruesome concentration camp at Plaszow, and finally, after five years of hardship - to the relative “safe haven” at Oscar Schindler’s ammunition factory in Brinnlitz, Czechoslovakia, this is a heroic account of intense hardships and harrowing near-death experiences that were required for Victor Lewis to survive the Holocaust.

Deportation from Krakow

Relocation of Jews into the Krakow Ghetto

A year and a half after the invasion of Poland by the Germans, the Nazis evacuated the Jews from my home town, Krakow, and resettled us in very cramped quarters in the most dilapidated part of the city. On March 13, 1941, my family of six people was forced to relocate from our comfortable 3-bedroom home at Retjana # 5 to a cramped one bedroom apartment at Targowa # 1, which we shared with several other families.

Life was difficult in the ghetto. Jews were routinely abused, assaulted, and even murdered by the Nazis, who patrolled the streets with pistols, rifles, and whips. We were prisoners at the hands of an abusive force that had prompted a world war, but we were totally unprepared for the obscene horrors and large-scale genocide that our captors were about to execute on us.

The date was October 28, 1942. The Nazis were about to implement their second deportation of Jews from the Krakow ghetto to the extermination camps. We were told that the ghetto would be liquidated, that we all were to be transported to labor camps, and that everybody had to go to Plac Zgody square with their most important belongings.

Fear could be seen on the faces of every Jew in the ghetto. Everyone felt that something horrible was about to happen. On my way to our family’s apartment, I met my parents, my sister Greta, and my brother Leszek inside the corridor of their building. My parents had come out of the bunker where they were hiding, and I wanted to warn them to stay inside.

They didn’t have any working papers (Arbeits-bescheinigungen), so I thought that their lives could be in danger. But, it was too late to tell them to go back into hiding. From all sides, the SS Gestapo appeared before us and pushed us into the street.

Leszek and I had working papers indicating that he was a toolmaker and I was an auto mechanic for the German SS. We thought that these papers would save us and our family from the deportation. We presented the papers to SS Obersturmfuhrer Martin Fellenz, {1} a Gestapo

officer who was in charge of the deportation.

On Mr. Lewis’ return to Krakow 43 years after the second liquidation of the ghetto, Plac Zgody was eerily quiet.

Fellenz ripped up our papers, began to beat us with his club, and ordered us to go with all of the other prisoners to Plac Zgody. At Plac Zgody, I noticed many familiar faces, including my girlfriend Regina’s mother, Ida, and her two sisters, Tosia and Gienia.

I wanted to talk to them but I was not permitted to do so. I had to sit on the ground and remain still. The Germans ordered us not to move an inch. To prove their point, they began to kill anyone who got up or moved around. At that point I decided that I had to escape, no matter what might be the consequences.

I told Leszek my plans, and he said he would try to escape, too. I told my parents and sister what I intended to do, and they told me to go ahead and run. Soon, we were ordered to line up, four in a row.

I told my family not to look for me if I tried to escape. Passing Wieliczka Street, I tried to run into a house, but I was unsuccessful. I was stopped by an SS guard and forced back onto the line. I was lucky that guard did not kill me right then and there for trying to escape.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/vlewis.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

The SS in France! Kurt Lischka

2009-10-17T14:11:00Z

Kurt Lischka

German Security Police - France

Kurt Lischka

Kurt Lischka was born in Breslau on the 16 August 1909, the son of a bank official, after studying law and political science in Breslau and Berlin, he was active in different district courts and worked in the Provincial Court of Appeal in Breslau.

Lischka joined the SS on the 1 June 1933, reaching the rank of SS Major five years later and being promoted to SS-Lieutenant –Colonel on the 20 April 1942. On the 1 September 1935 Lischka joined the Gestapo and in January 1940 became head of the Gestapo in Cologne.

Kurt Lischka's SS Fragebogen/Questionnaire

Lischka was transferred to France, he became Helmut Knochen’s deputy, in November 1940. Knochen was Commander of the Security Police in Occupied France from 1940 to 1944. He also served from the 15 January 1943 as Commander of the Security Police and SD in Paris, as well as chief of the department which oversaw the internment camps and which executed detainees.

Lischka’s forte was the “Jewish Question” in which he had specialised since 1938, when he took over the Referat IVB (Jewish Affairs) in the Gestapo. At the end of 1938 he had been appointed head of the Reich Centre for Jewish Emigration in Berlin, and, during the war, had been instrumental in planning and supervising the deportation and subsequent murder of 80,000 Jews in France and of other “undesirables” of the Third Reich.

Kurt Lischka's Service record

Lischka was arrested on the 10 December 1945 after going into hiding in Schleswig- Holstein. He was interned by the British and then by the French, before being handed over to the Czechs on the 2 May 1947 for his activities at the end of the war, when he was head of the Referat for the Bohemian Protectorate in the Reich Main Security Office.

Released and returned to the then West Germany on the 22 August 1950, Lischka lived un-touched in the Federal Republic even though a French court sentenced him in absentia to hard labour for life on 18 September 1950 for his wartime role in the “Final Solution” in occupied France.

Lischka worked for a time as a commercial employee and even became a judge in the Federal Republic, his life sentence awarded in France notwithstanding.

Lischka had been condemned 1950 in absence from a French military court to life imprisonment. Due to the 1955 closed transition agreement Lischka, like many other war criminals was protected against extradition, so did not stand trial in France.

Reconnaissance film of Kurt Lischka taken by Klarsfeld

Lischka stood charges on the so-called Harlan list, for a list of over 100 Germans formerly active in the occupied France, which was led by the Ludwigsburg War Crimes centre.

In 1971 he was discovered by Serge Klarsfeld a French/Jewish lawyer and Holocaust survivor together with his wife Beate, living on the Bergisch Gladbacher Road 554 in Cologne, West Germany.

They couple considered kidnapping him and transporting him back to France, and even took steps to do so. But they were arrested and both Serge and Beate were sentenced to two months in jail. In 1977 Lischka retired and was awarded a pension. Due to international protests, the sentence was suspended.

However, eventually the efforts of the, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld to bring Lischka to justice paid off. The abduction incident, and later activities by the Klarsfelds and by the descendants of Lischka's victims, resulted in a revision of the legal situation and Lischka was brought to trial in Cologne at the end of the 1970’s.

At article in the Jerusalem Post dated February 12, 1980 stated the following:

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/lischka.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Hans Frank speaks !

2009-10-11T09:48:00Z

Hans Frank

Speech to senior members of his administration

The Removal of the Jews from the General Government

Hans Frank (center) and his senior staff

16 December 1941

One way or another – I will tell you that, quite openly – we must finish off the Jews.

The Fuhrer put it into words once:

“Should united Jewry again succeed in setting off a World War: then the blood sacrifice shall not be made only by the peoples driven into war, but then the Jew of Europe will have met his end.”

I know that there is criticism of many of the measures now applied to the Jews in the Reich.

There are always deliberate attempts to speak again and again of cruelty, harshness, etc: this emerges from the reports on the popular mood.

I appeal to you: before now I continue speaking: first agree with me on a formula: we will have pity, on principle, only for the German people, and for nobody else in the world.

The others had no pity for us either. As an old National Socialist, I must also say that if the pack of Jews were to survive the war in Europe while we sacrifice the best of our blood for the preservation of Europe, then this war would still only be a partial success.

Hans Frank in Krakow

I will therefore, on principle, approach Jewish affairs in the expectation that the Jews will disappear. They must go. I have started negotiations for the purpose of having them pushed off to the East.

In January there will be a major conference on this question in Berlin to which I shall send State Secretary Dr Buhler. The conference is to be held in the office of SS Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich at the Reich Security Main Office.

A major Jewish migration will certainly begin. But what should be done with the Jews? Can you believe that they will be accommodated in settlements in the Ostland?

In Berlin we were told: why are you making all this trouble? We don’t want them either – not in Ostland or in the Reichskommisariat: liquidate them yourselves!

Gentlemen I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews wherever we find them and wherever it is at possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich, the views that were acceptable up to now cannot be applied to such gigantic, unique events.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/removal.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2000

Holocaust Trial Statements - Friedel Rau

2009-10-02T15:45:00Z

Voluntary Statement of Prisoner of War

Hauptsturmfuhrer Friedel Rau

[photos added to enhance the text]

Secret

Portrait of Hans-Adolf Pruetzmann from 1934

During the time that I belonged to the staff of the Senior SS and Police Officer for North Russia, SS Gruppenfuhrer Pruetzmann, in Riga, I overheard the following during conversations by Pruetzmann with others:

Riga

1. Kovno (Lithuania)

During the period from the capture of Kovno until 3 July 1941 about 1,500 people, mostly Jews, were shot by the Lithuanians. These shootings are alleged to have taken place as reprisals for the shooting in the prison by the Russians of about 2,000 Lithuanians.

It is said that very many Jews took part in this shooting by the Russians. Both shootings each took place on one day. Pruetzmann also stated that in this case the simplest way was to allow the population’s hatred of the Jews to take its free course.

This information about the shootings can be confirmed by Obersturmbannfuhrer Werner Fromm, head of the personnel office of the Senior SS and Police Officer (chief of staff) since he belonged to the staff in Kovno.

2. The Setting up of the Camp

In August or September 1941 I heard Pruetzmann discussing with some others the isolation of the Lithuanian Jews. He spoke of the setting up of two camps near Riga, each with a capacity for 20,000 people. The accommodation was to be arranged according to sexes, the children to be in the women’s camp.

Boys of 14 years and above were to be exceptions, who would remain together with their fathers. The separation of the sexes was to be carried out in order to prevent the bearing of further children. By the setting up of these camps the institution of ghettos in the towns would become superfluous.

The Riga Ghetto in 1942. Pruetzmann was responsible for setting up this ghetto.

This plan was not put into effect up to the time Pruetzmann was transferred to the post of Senior SS and Police Officer, South Russia, but by the end of Oct 1941 work had begun in Riga, if not earlier, on setting aside a part of the city as a ghetto.

Obersturmbannfuhrer Fromm also took part in this conversation.

3. Shootings done by the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei)

I learned from another conversation (also in August or September 1941) that on this day (I do not know the exact date) about 100 people, whether Jews or Lithuanians, or both, I do not know, had been shot by the Security Police.

The firing squad was said to consist of Lithuanians under the command of an officer of the Security Police. No name was mentioned. I also do not know by whom the order for this was given. The officer commanding the Security Police was at that time Brigadefuhrer Stahlecker. Pruetzmann also added that the Lithuanians were particularly suitable for a firing squad, since their hatred knew no bounds.

Bodies of Jews shot in Vinnitsa

4. Shooting in South Russia

After a discussion between the Senior SS and Police Officers (End September 1941) Central Russia, Obergruppenfuhrer von Dem Bach (formerly Bach –Zelewski), South Russia, Obergruppenfuhrer Jeckeln, and Pruetzmann, the latter said that Jeckeln had told him that there were no more Jews in South Russia, since various steps had been taken against the Jews there.

In this conversation mention was also made of the fact that the burial of large numbers of people was attended by great difficulties. Obersturmbannfuhrer Fromm was also present at this conversation with Pruetzmann. Who else took part in this discussion I can no longer say.

5. Kiev

(a) Arterial Road 4(Jewish Camp)

In spring 1942 Pruetzmann received instructions from the Reichsfuhrer SS to construct Arterial Road 4 in such a way that it would be open to traffic at all seasons. The Todt Organisation had declined to build this road, which they said was not possible owing to technical difficulties.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/rau.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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

Crimes in the Concentration Camps!

2009-09-27T14:47:00Z

A Collection of Statements to the War Crimes Team at Bergen–Belsen regarding War Crimes in Prisons and Concentration Camps

Renee Erman

Barbwire fence and guard tower at Drancy

In the Matter of War Crimes and Atrocities at Drancy Prison, Paris and Auschwitz

Deposition of Renee Erman (Female) late of 80 Rue des Menilmonatre, Paris, sworn before me Captain ALFRED JAMES FOX, General List, D.A.P.M . 86 Special Investigation Section, C. M. Police.

I am 31 years of age and was arrested in Paris in April 1943 by the Germans because I was a Jewess. I was then taken to Drancy Prison in Paris and on the 20^th July 1943 I went to Auschwitz. I was transferred to Belsen on the 25^th January 1945.

Whilst at Drancy Prison there was an SS man named Brunner in charge. This man was responsible for many deaths. In my presence I have seen him beat, kick and throw stones at prisoners for no apparent reason apart from the fact that they were Jews.

I know that two prisoners at whom this man threw stones died as a result of the injuries they received. I called at the Hospital on one occasion to see some friends and I was told by them that prisoners admitted the day before, suffering from head wounds inflicted by this man, were dead. I cannot state whether they were men or women who had died. It was not an unusual occurrence to see persons severely wounded by this man’s brutality.

On arriving at Auschwitz I worked as a nurse in the experimental laboratory in Block 10. I was present on many occasions when SS Doctor Weber experimented by taking blood from women for soldiers at the front. This process was often repeated until the person became very weak.

The entrance to Block 10 at Auschwitz

He also took blood from a woman of one blood group which he injected into a woman of a different blood group. This often caused very serious illness. In one case a woman died in the laboratory due to this operation. This doctor also carried out experiments in rheumatism and I know that one woman had 45 injections the Doctor measuring the change of her heart. This made her very ill.

Persons coming into Block 10 were always the fittest and sometimes up to 300 were in this block. They were kept whilst a course of experiments was carried out and then sent away. I should state that the camp in which this experimental block was situated was a men’s camp and women were only brought there for experimental purposes.

When they left this block they were sent to Birkenau where a selection was made to find those fit for work. Most of the people who left this experimental block were not in a fit condition for work. I have been told by friends that these sick people were always sent to Block 25 which meant that they subsequently went to the gas chamber.

I also knew a Dr Schumann who experimented on young Greek girls (virgins) for sterilisation. These girls were taken to another block where they were subjected to very strong X-rays which resulted in their sexual organs being dried up.

Nazi doctor Horst Schumann

These operations did in fact sterilise these girls and many of the weaker ones died as a result of them. Those that survived were brought back in batches of 10 and 12 for inspection. They were again operated on and the female sex organs removed which resulted in their deaths in 4 or 5 days.

I did not see the actual operations performed but I did see the results as it was my duty to dress the wounds of the women. The girls who had these operations carried out on them only came to block 10 after the operation, the operations having been carried out in a different block. I saw 4 Greek girls die as a result of operations by this Doctor.

There was also an SS Doctor Wirths. He used to experiment on women between the ages of 40 and 50 who were having their menopause, apparently looking for a kind of cancer, i.e. Fibrom.

He used to take part of the womb out for examination under the microscope. The women became very ill as a result of this. I did not see any of these operations carried out but heard of them from patients who had been experimented on and nurses who were present at the operations. These operations were carried out in Block 10 but not in my part of the Block. Similar operations were carried out by Doctor Samuel a prisoner.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/warcrimesinthecamps.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Aktion Reinhard Gas Chambers!

2009-09-20T13:05:00Z

The Gas Chambers at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka

Descriptions and Eyewitness Testimony

The intention of this article is to provide a brief description of all the gas chambers constructed at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka death camps constructed by the Nazis, as part of the Aktion Reinhard murder programme, during 1941 and 1942 in the General Government.

The Belzec Death Camp

Stanislaw Kozak

Stanislaw Kozak testified about the construction of the first gas chamber in Belzec on the 14 October 1945:

“We began work on 1 November 1941 with the building of barracks at the end of the siding. One barrack which stood right next to the siding – was 50 m long and 12.5m wide, it was a waiting room for the Jews.

The second barrack – 25m long and 12.5m wide – was for the Jews appointed to bathe in. Near this barracks we had built a third barracks which was 12m long and 8m wide.

This barrack was divided into 3 parts by wooden walls – each part being 4m wide and 8m long. The height of each section was 2m. The inner walls of this barracks were so constructed that we nailed planks to them and filled the empty space between with sand.

The interior walls of this barracks were covered with pasteboard and the floor and walls – to a height of 1.10m – were covered with zinc sheeting.

From the first barracks to the second barracks, about which I have already spoken, there led an alleyway 3m wide of barbed-wire fencing 3m high. From the second barracks a covered passage 2m wide, 2m high and about 10m long – led to the third barrack.

Through this passage one arrived at the corridor of the third barracks which led through three doors into the three parts of the barracks. Each part of this barrack on its N side a door – about 1.80m high and 1.10m wide.

Map of Belzec with details

(click text to enlarge)

These doors, as well as the ones in the corridor, were sealed with rubber. All the doors in this barrack opened outwards. The doors were very strong – constructed of planks 75mm thick and fastened from the outside by a wooden bar which fitted into 2 iron hooks.

In each of the three parts of this barrack there was fixed at a height of 10cm’s from the floor, a water pipe. The water pipe branched from each corner along the W wall of each part of this barrack to the middle of the wall and ended in an opening at a height of 1m from the floor.

These water pipes were joined to a main pipe at a junction under the floor. In each of the 3 parts of the above-mentioned barracks were placed stoves weighing 250 kilos. One must surmise that the water pipes were later connected to these stoves.

The stoves were 1.10m high, 55cm wide and 55cm long. Out of curiosity I glanced into the stove through the open door. I did not see any grate there. The interior of the stove was – so it seemed – lined with firebrick. I could not ascertain what the other stoves were like. The stove opening was oval, with a diameter of about 25cm, and about 50cm above the floor.

Along the N side of this barrack a 1m high ramp made of planks was erected and along this ramp a narrow gauge railway track was laid which led to the grave right in the NE corner which had been dug by the “Blacks.”

Schluch

SS-Unterscharfuhrer Schluch testified:

“I had to show the Jews the way to the gas chambers. I believe that when I showed the Jews the way they were convinced that they were really going to the baths.

After the Jews entered the gas chambers, the doors were closed by Hackenholt himself or by the Ukrainians subordinate to him. Then Hackenholt switched on the engine which supplied the gas.

Lorenz Hackenholt

After five or seven minutes – and this is only an estimate – someone looked through the small window into the gas chamber to verify whether all those inside were dead.

Only then were the outside doors opened and the gas chambers ventilated. After the ventilation of the gas chambers a Jewish working group under the command of their Kapo’s entered and removed the bodies from the chambers.

The Jews inside the gas chambers were densely packed. This is the reason that the corpses were not lying on the floor but were mixed up in disorder in all directions, some of them kneeling, according to the amount of space they had.

The corpses were besmirched with mud and urine or with spit. I could see that the lips and tips of the noses were a bluish colour. Some of them had their eyes closed, others’ eyes rolled. The bodies were dragged out of the gas chambers and inspected by a dentist, who removed finger-rings and gold teeth. After this procedure, the corpses were thrown into a big pit.

The old wooden gassing building had insufficient capacity to deal with forthcoming transports, and these were dismantled and in a more central location a more robust structure was constructed. The new gas chambers in Belzec were operational by the middle of July 1942:

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/argaschambers.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Alfred Wiener and the History of the Wiener Library

2009-09-13T23:52:00Z

Alfred Wiener

(The Wiener Library)

Alfred Wiener and the librarian Ilse Wolff circa 1960

Alfred Wiener was born in Potsdam, Germany on the 16 March 1885 and after attending grammar school in Bentschen, Poznan and then in Potsdam, he studied at the Universities of Berlin and Heidleberg, where he took his doctorate in Arab literature.

Following World War One, Wiener became the syndic and executive officer of the Centralverein, the largest Jewish organisation in Germany, which at its peak represented 300,000 people, over half the Jewish population in the country.

Its ideology was assimilation, emphasizing that Jews were national Germans entitled to full equality and differentiated only by religion. It offered legal protection to Jews, fought against the erosion of Jewish identity and the flood of anti-Semitic propaganda which was sweeping Germany in the 1920’s.

Wiener was particularly active in this struggle, regarding anti- Semitism as a test case of German democracy and constantly protesting against the indifference of the authorities, the silence of the press and public apathy.

Description by Alfred Wiener, of the leadership of the Centralverein of the position of Jews in Germany - June 1, 1933:

Between Heaven and Earth

...The great majority of German Jews remains firmly rooted in the soil of its German homeland, despite everything. There may be some who have been shaken in their feeling for the German Fatherland by the weight of recent events. They will overcome the shock, and if they do not overcome it then the roots which bound them to the German mother earth were never sufficiently strong.

First home in Amsterdam of the Jewish Central Information Office 1934

But according to the ruling of the laws and regulations directed against us only the "Aryans" now belong to the German people. What are we, then? Before the Law we are non-Germans without equal rights; to ourselves we are Germans with full rights. We reject it, to be a folk or national minority, perhaps like the Germans in Poland or the Poles in Germany, because we cannot deceive our own innermost [feelings].

We wish to be subject as Germans with equal rights to the new Government and not to some other creation, whether it is called League of Nations or anything else. As far as we are concerned that also closes the question of Geneva,** which at present occupies Jewish people everywhere.

Thus we are suspended between heaven and earth. We will have to fight with courage and strength in order to get back to earth, in the eyes of State and Law too...

Wiener’s brochure “Vor Pogromen?” published in 1919 warned of the consequences of the pseudo-scientific hate-mongering which was perverting German nationalism under the eyes of the authorities, and he attacked the leniency of the judiciary in the early days of Nazi subversion. Wiener’s appeals to the conservative middle classes fell on deaf ears and he was obliged to leave Germany in 1933, fleeing to Holland where he established the Jewish Central Information Office.

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

The Reinhard Heydrich Memorial Death Book

2009-09-06T12:28:00Z

My Honor is Loyalty

"The Reinhard Heydrich Memorial Death Book"

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team has faithfully translated this infamous Nazi text from the original versions printed in the German language. The purpose of this translation is for readers to understand the methods in which the Nazi propaganda machine would seek to justify its genocidal actions, and give praise to those who served the "infamous" mission of National Socialism

My Honour Is Loyalty

Reinhard Heydrich

7 · MARCH 1904 4 · JUNE 1942

The original cover to the Reinhard Heydrich memorial publication

Reinhard Heydrich's outstanding contribution to the National Socialist Movement is the Security Service! The Reich Leader Of The SS recognized Heydrich's special gifts and particular abilities very quickly, and the particularly difficult special sphere was assigned to him as early as 1931. This was truly the right man in the right job.

The National Socialist

Reinhard Heydrich

Only a perfect National Socialist, a man with great force of action, a man whose ability to grasp situations was as sure as it was clear, could do the duties assigned. Reinhard Heydrich distinguished substance from appearance, weakness from true corruption, with piercing intelligence and unerring instinct. His clear judgement and infallible instinct were particularly successful in detecting and pursuing enemies of the Party and the State.

Heydrich considered the enemies' every possible course of action in the shortest time imaginable; spread those possibilities out before the Reich Leader Of The SS as neatly ordered as a fan, and reported Mission Accomplished! Most often in record time!

Only someone who has had repeated occasion to observe the activity of the Reich Security Main Office on the spot can form a conception of how carefully and painstakingly Reinhard Heydrich worked, how extensively he laid the groundwork for all the work done in his office. Untiringly, and with almost unbelievable dedication, Reinhard Heydrich worked to perfect his tool.

Recognizing the magnitude of the overall task which lay before him, meant, at the same time, recognizing the magnitude of the work assigned to him personally! Seeing that The Fuhrer allowed himself not a moment to rest, he permitted himself neither complacent self satisfaction nor ordinary relaxation; instead, his creative spirit worked unceasingly. And yet, even in the midst of his most difficult tasks, Reinhard Heydrich remained a cheerful, dynamic optimist at all times.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/heydrichdeathbook.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

The Holocaust Recalled! - Women

2009-09-02T14:30:00Z

Women Record Their Accounts

of the Holocaust

Melita Maschmann

Bund Deutscher Madel Member

Melita Maschmann

“On the night of November 9 1938, the “Crystal Night” a shadow fell on our joy. Of the riots of that night I saw nothing. But in the morning I saw the wreckage of the little shops and restaurants in an alley near Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, where the inhabitants were Jews.

I was horrified at the violence that must have raged there. But didn’t we hear all the time that international Jewry was inciting the world against Germany? And now the Jews had had a frightful warning.

I expelled this episode from my mind as quickly as I could. It meant sorrow for innocent people – for what had these little men, whose little shops were destroyed, to do with international Jewish capitalism?

It was simpler not to dwell upon these things, but to plunge oneself quickly back into one’s own work.”

Emmy Bonhoeffer

Sister-in-law of German Resistance martyr Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Standing in line for vegetables or something like that I told my neighbour standing next to me that now they start to kill the Jews in the concentration camps and they even make soap out of them.

Post war photo of Emmy Bonhoeffer

And they said Frau Bonhoeffer, “if you don’t stop telling such horror stories you will end up in a concentration camp too and nobody of us can help you. It’s not true what you’re telling, you shouldn’t believe those things, you have them from the foreign broadcasts and they tell those things to make enemies for us.”

Going home I told that to my husband and he was not at all applauding to me and the very contrary he said, “My dear, sorry to say but you are absolutely idiotic what you are doing. Please understand the dictatorship is like a snake.

If you put a foot on its tail, as you do, it will bite you. You have to strike the head and you can’t do that, neither you or I can do that. The only single way is to convince the military who have the arms to do it, to convince them that they have to act, that they have to make a coup d’etat.”

Hertha Beese

Berlin Housewife and Social Democrat

In the flat underneath ours lived a Jewish family. The only reason they had not yet been persecuted and taken away was that the father was Italian and belonged to Mussolini’s party.

Household ID card for Jews in Berlin

But when we ourselves faced more and more difficulties the wife began to feel insecure and was scared that they might take her away despite the Italian connection and she therefore left.

So that there flat became empty and I begged that it should not be handed over to the landlord since we still hoped there would be a total collapse and we would be rid of our difficulties.

I looked after the empty flat and one night, it must have been around midnight, the doorbell rang. I opened and there stood in front of me a Jewish couple. This was how I began to help persecuted Jews. All of a sudden I had entered an invisible circle of people who smuggled Jews about.

As soon as one hiding place had been detected they were quickly passed on. They would always move about by night. I have never found out who it was who sent them to me in the first place. Some decent people

The problems started with the feeding of the Jewish people since they neither had food-rationing cards nor very often any money. So we in turn had to make use of friends who exchanged their smoking cards for the odd potato or bread, or a friend would come and leave a bit of food.

But all this was so illegal that names, sources or contacts had to remain unknown.”

Toshia Bialer

Warsaw eyewitness – Moving into the Warsaw Ghetto – October 1940

“Try to picture one-third of a large city’s population moving through the streets in an endless stream, pushing, wheeling, dragging all their belongings from every part of the city to one small section, crowding one another more and more as they converged.

No cars, no horses, no help of any sort was available to us by order of the occupying authorities. Pushcarts were about the only method of conveyance we had, and these were piled high with household goods, furnishing much amusement to the German onlookers who delighted in overturning the carts and seeing us scrambling for our effects. Many of the goods were confiscated arbitrarily without any explanation.

In the ghetto, as some of us had begun to call it, half ironically and in jest, there was appalling chaos. Thousands of people were rushing around at the last minute trying to find a place to stay.

Thousands of Jews moving into the Warsaw Ghetto

Everything was already filled up but still they kept coming and somehow more room was found. The narrow crooked streets of the most dilapidated section of Warsaw were crowded with pushcarts, their owners going from house to house asking the inevitable question: Have you room?

The sidewalks were covered with their belongings. Children wandered, lost and crying, parents ran hither and yon seeking them, their cries drowned in the tremendous hubbub of half a million uprooted people.”

Rita Boas- Koupmann

Dutch –Jewish Teenager survivor of Auschwitz – Birkenau

“I think the alarm started when Jewish people had their card with a “J” on it. That was the first time they marked you, you had your identity card you had to carry with you and what was special was the “J” in it and you were marked because anybody could ask for the card.”

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/women.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Chelmno Wachtmeister Testimony, Protocol of the Interrogation of Accused – Suspect

2009-08-27T22:40:00Z

Bruno Israel

Chelmno Wachtmeister - Testimony

Protocol of the Interrogation of Accused – Suspect

Deportation of Jews from the Brzeziny ghetto to the Chelmno Death Camp

On October 29 1945 in Lodz

Examining Judge of the third region of the District Court in Lodz - Wladyslaw Bednarz.

Assisted by Recording Clerk - In the presence of the parties -heard a defendant whose name is mentioned below.

The defendant is accused of committing a crime arising from Art. 1 of the PKWN decree (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego – Polish National Liberation Committee).

After being informed of the nature of the crime he is being charged with and of the right to refuse to answer the questions asked, the defendant testified the following:

The defendant claims to be not guilty of the crime.

Name	Bruno Israel
Military Service
Parents Names	Lukiusz and Linda Koenig
Address	Lodz, 30 Szkolna St
Place of Birth	Lodz
Citizenship	Volkdeutsch (blue list ) 75%
Nationality	German
Religion	Evangelist
Occupation	A Dyer
Education	Completed 3^rd grade of primary school
Marital Status	Married
Financial Status	-
Member of RKU	-
Orders and decorations	-
Criminal record	No criminal record

Before the war I worked as a dyer in the “Leber & Lewandowski” company. I signed the Volksliste in 1940 and started working for the Hilfspolizei in 1941.

In 1943 I was drafted into gendarmerie as Wachtmeister. Later, after being assigned to the Sonderkommando Kulmhof, I was promoted to the rank of Oberwachtmeister.

I would like to point out that all the gendarmes assigned to Kulmhof (Chelmno) were at least Oberwachtmeister’s. Only two gendarmes had the rank of Wachtmeister. I can recognise them in photographs number 8 and 9(files: sheet 155). I cannot recollect their names. Besides, there was Rottwachtmeister shown in photographs number 1 and 2 on card 122.

In July or August 1944, while I was doing service at the fourth police-station of the State Police, I was assigned to the Sonderkommando Kulmhof. As far as I can remember, 22 gendarmes were assigned at that time.

Among them were Arthur Sliwke and Hutner (I cannot remember his first name) from Leipzig. The gendarmes in the photographs on card number 155 had been assigned earlier to the Sonderkommando and were already in Kulmhof when I arrived.

Hauptscharfuhrer Burstinge

The commander of the Sonderkommando Kulmhof was Haupsturmfuhrer Johann Bothmann (tall, red-haired, aged 36, with a slightly freckled face). His deputy was Hauptscharfuhrer Piller (it seems to me that his first name was Willi). He was a member of the SD and wore a relevant stripe on his sleeve.

In addition, he had a “Prinz Eugen” stripe on his sleeve. He was a stout blond man, aged about 36-40. Others who belonged to the Sonderkommando Kulmhof were: Untersturmfuhrer Heffele (Hafele), I do not know his name, tall, aged about 50, very stout. He was the commanding officer of the Hauskommando. The commanding officer of the Waldkommado was Lenz.

Hauptscharfuhrer Johann Runge (shown in photograph number 14 on card number 156 of the files) was a supervisor of one of the crematoriums. He was marked by extreme cruelty and I saw him hitting Jews on their backs with an axe. Where he came from – I do not know.

Here the defendant was shown photograph number 15 on card number 155. The photograph shows Unterscharfuhrer Kretschmer, he also worked at the crematoriums. Hauptscharfuhrer Gustav Laabs was a driver of the so-called Sonderwagen, cars used for gassing Jews.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/trials/chelmnowachmeister.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Eichmann Photo Gallery

2009-08-22T02:09:00Z

The Eichmann Gallery

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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Abba Kovner Testifies at the Eichmann Trial 412 X 586 44 KB	Adof Berman gives testimony at the Eichmann Trial 389 X 533 34 KB	Alexander Arnon testifying at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in the District Court of Jerusalem in 1961. 412 X 585 31 KB	Asst Attorney General Gabriel Bach - District court of Jerusalem 416 X 568 53 KB

Beit Hei Am Courthouse where the Eichmann Trial was held 800 X 686 145 KB	Dr. Tibor Ferenc testifying at the trial of Adolf Eichmann in the District Court of Jerusalem. 422 X 583 66 KB	Eichmann after he was brought to Israel in 1961 428 X 600 46 KB	Eichmann as a gaucho in Argentina 300 X 421 42 KB

See the full Gallery Here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/eichgal/index.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009