Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

The Kindertransports

Holocaust Research Project — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:30:00 GMT

A Jewish child resting enroot from Nazi Germany

The history of the Kindertransports is a poignant tale of rescue, separation, loss and integration following the persecution of the Jews in the Nazi Reich and countries annexed by the Germans during the latter part of 1938.

Following the Kristallnacht outrage against the Jews on the 9 November 1938 as a response to what was happening to the Jews in the Reich a debate was held in the House of Commons as a direct result of an appeal by the British Jewish Refugee Committee.

The British Government had just refused to allow 10,000 Jewish children to enter Palestine, but with the atrocities in Germany, there was a change of heart, best expressed by the words of British Foreign Minister Samuel Hoare, “Here is a chance of taking the young generation of a great people, here is a chance of mitigating to some extend the terrible suffering of their parents and their friends.”

The British Government agreed to permit an unspecified number of children under the age of 17 to enter the United Kingdom. The children were allowed to enter the British Isles on temporary travel documents, with the belief that the children would re-join their parents at a later date, when things returned to normal.

Two Austrian Jewish girls on thier way to Great Britain

However it was private citizens or organizations had to guarantee to pay for each child's care, education, and eventual emigration from Britain. In return for this guarantee, the British government agreed to allow unaccompanied refugee children to enter the country on temporary travel visas. It was understood at the time that when the “crisis was over,” the children would return to their families.

Parents or guardians could not accompany the children. The few infants included in the program were tended by other children on their transport. A £50 Sterling bond had to be posted for each child, “to assure their ultimate resettlement.”

A number of people and organisations rose to the immense challenge of organising the transports, Jews, Christians and Quakers worked together to get the children out of Germany and the annexed territories.

Lola Hahn with Chaim Weitzmann

The framework for the refugee operation was formed by Lola Hahn – Warburg several years earlier, Lord Baldwin, Rebecca Sieff, Sir Wyndham Deeds, Viscount Samuel, Rabbi Solomon Schoenfeld, who saved approximately 1,000 Orthodox children.

In addition Nicholas Winton rescued nearly 700 Jewish children in Prague, Professor Bentwich organiser of the Dutch escape routes and the Quaker leaders Bertha Bracey and Jean Hoare (cousin of Sir Samuel Hoare) who herself led a planeload of children out of Prague.

According to a scrapbook Winton kept, 664 children came to Great Britain on transports that he organized. In the research compiled for the documentary “The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton,” aired on Czech television in 2002, researchers identified five additional persons who entered Britain on a Winton-financed transport, bringing the official number to 669 children. The available information indicates that some children who were rescued have not yet been identified.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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

The attempted escape from the Auschwitz Death Camp!

Holocaust Research Project — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:37:00 GMT

Malka & Edek Galinski

Escape attempt from Auschwitz–Birkenau

Malka Zimetbaum

Malka Zimetbaum was the youngest of five children born to Pinkas Zimetbaum and his wife Chaya, in Brzesko, Poland on the 26 January 1918.

The family moved to Belgium and Malka was registered as living in the city of Antwerp on the 21 March 1928. Malka was a model pupil and she excelled in mathematics and languages. She had a command of Flemish, French, German, Polish and English.

As an adolescent Malka joined Hanoar Hatzioni, a Jewish youth organisation in Antwerp and from this time she now preferred to be called Mala. To support her father who had become blind, Mala took a job as a seamstress for Maison Lilian, a major Antwerp fashion house.

Subsequently she worked as a linguist-secretary in a small company in the diamond trade based in Antwerp. Two years after the German occupation of Belgium Mala was arrested on the 22 July 1942, at Antwerp Central Station, on her way back from Brussels, where she had been looking for a hiding place for her family and herself.

The Germans took Mala first to the notorious Fort Breendonk, then five days later she was transferred to Mechelen, where German authorities had turned the Dossin Barracks into a collection and deportation point for Jews. Mala worked in the registry.

On the 15 September 1942, the tenth deportation train left the Dossin Barracks destined for the East, on board were 1048 deportees, including Malka.

Dossin Barracks at Mechelen

After a nightmare journey lasting two days Mala was subjected to the normal selection at the Juden Rampe outside Birkenau. Mala was one of the 101 females considered fit for labour, whilst 717 were gassed immediately.

She was placed in the women’s camp at Birkenau and after undergoing the normal humiliations for new arrivals at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was tattooed on her forearm with the number 19880.

Housed in a wooden barrack, originally designed as a horse stable and because of her skill with languages, she was employed in the camp administration as a Lauferin, whose duties were as a messenger and interpreter.

According to a fellow prisoner, “These girls had to stand next to the guardhouse waiting for orders. Whenever Camp supervisor Mandel or overseer Margot Drechsler needed them they yelled “Lauferin, and the girl had to do as ordered on the double.”

A prisoner called Raya Kagan who knew Mala in Birkenau, described her as such:

“I had known Malka since the summer of 1942. At that time she became a Lauferin – a messenger between blocks and a liaison between the Blockfuerherstube, the Kapo and the prisoners.

Mala in 1941 Belgium

She was a young girl, of Polish origin, but she had been living in Belgium and arrived with the Belgian transport. She was very decent, she was known throughout the camp, since she helped everybody.

And her opportunities and the power, as it were, that she possessed were never wrongfully exploited by her, as was often done by the Kapo’s. She suffered like everybody else. However, she had better conditions – she was able to take a shower in Birkenau.”

Another Birkenau survivor Anna Palarczyk recalled after the war that:

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/auschescape.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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

Images of the Majdanek Death Camp!

Holocaust Research Project — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:36:00 GMT

Images from Madanek

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A crematorium at the Majdanek extermination camp 484 X 344 28 KB	A mass grave containing the bodies of 230 victims, uncovered in the Majdanek camp 702 X 483 84 KB	A mass grave uncovered at Majdanek 796 X 568 114 KB	A pile of ashes of cremated victims in the Majdanek camp 738 X 419 87 KB

A shower room in the gas chamber building of the Majdanek camp 789 X 519 117 KB	A Soviet soldier walks through a mound of victims' shoes piled outside a warehouse in Majdanek soon after the liberation 476 X 370 66 KB	A starved prisoner liberated from Majdanek 350 X 537 45 KB	A table used for examining corpses, next to the gas chamber in the Majdanek camp 776 X 506 76 KB

A view into one of the crema-ovens at Majdanek 640 X 453 61 KB	Aerial view of Majdanek 480 X 346 61 KB	Ashes at Majdanek that were used to fertilize the surrounding fields 793 X 508 127 KB	Bodies of a mother and child killed at Majdanek 438 X 583 97 KB

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

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

Death March From Auschwitz!

Holocaust Research Project — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 15:13:00 GMT

The Auschwitz – Birkenau and Sub-Camps

Evacuation and the Death Marches – January 1945

The Red Army advances towards Germany

17 January 1945

Units of the Red Army advance on the outlying areas of Krakow from the north and the northwest and surprise the German positions, which do not expect an attack from this flank.

The last official meeting of the General Governor Hans Frank takes place at 12.0 o’clock, barely two hours later Hans Frank leaves Krakow in the direction of Silesia.

On this day 178 female prisoners and two boys were transferred from the Plaszow concentration camp in Krakow to the women’s camp in Birkenau.

The male and female prisoners fall in for their last roll call. The number of prisoners incarcerated in the main camps and sub-camps are as follows:

Camp	Number of Prisoners	Male or Female
Babitz	159	Male
Budy	313	Male
Plawny	138	Male
Birkenau Production Area	204	Male
Auschwitz Men’s Camp	10,030	Male
Birkenau Men’s Camp	4473	Male
Auschwitz Women’s Camp	6196	Female
Birkenau Women’s Camp	10,381	Female

Total	31,894

Wilhelm Boger

In the wake of the decision to remove the prisoners from Auschwitz, Commandant Baer personally chooses the leaders of the evacuation columns from among the members of the guard companies and orders them to liquidate ruthlessly all prisoners who attempt to escape during the evacuation or drag their feet.

Among the SS guards who were chosen to lead the evacuation columns were the notorious SS- Oberscharfuhrer Wilhelm Boger, who was a feared member of the Politische – Abteilung, SS-Unterscharfuhrer Oswald Kaduk, Rapportfuhrer, who was also considered one of the more brutal members of the SS guards.

In the auxiliary camps that belong to Monowitz, formerly Auschwitz lll, are the following number of male prisoners:

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/auschdeathmarch.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
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Copyight Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

The Holocaust in Belgium - Breendonck

Holocaust Research Project — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:45:00 GMT

The Breendonck

Internment Camp in Belgium

German troops outside the main entrance to the Breendonck camp

The camp known as Breendonck was located in the village of Breendonk, about 20 km outside of Mechelen. Built in 1906 the fortress was erected near the junction of the Antwerp – Brussels and Mechelen – Dendermonde roads, as part of a chain of fortifications.

The fortress fell during the German invasion in 1914 and later it became the general Headquarters of the Belgian Army. In May 1940 Breendonck was briefly used as the General Headquarters of King Leopold III, leading the Belgian armed forces.

After Belgium's surrender to the Germans the fortress was transformed into an internment camp by the Nazis (primarily as a transit camp for transport to Auschwitz). It gained a grim reputation as a place of torture and interrogation of a wide variety of prisoners.

This fortress surrounded by a moat, consists of a building measuring 200 by 300 meters and can still be seen today, as a museum and memorial.The museum is only a part of the entire complex. There are different rooms with displays detailing the Nazi-occupation of Belgium, the SS rule at Breendonk, as well as to the post-war trials of the executors.

In the former showers and kitchen works of art can be seen that was made by the prisoners.

Sign outside the Breendonk transit camp warning that trespassers will be shot. Breendonk

Breendonck as an internment camp

At the end of August 1940 the Germans turned the fortress into a Polizeihaftlager and three weeks later, on 20 September the first group of detainees, numbering twenty persons, mostly “politicals” and Jews of foreign nationality, were brought to the camp.

The camp was under the control of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) and was run by SS men, with Wehrmacht personnel serving as guards. At the end of 1941 they were joined by Belgian SS men. Among the Belgian SS –men were Wijss, De Bodt, and Pellemans, who were renowned for their cruelty.

The physical conditions at Breendonk were among the worst in Western European camps. In addition, the camp commanders subjected the prisoners to terrible cruelty and violence.

Philip Schmitt

During the first year of the Occupation, the Jews made up half the total number of prisoners. From 1942 onwards and the creation of the internment camp at the Dossin barracks where the Jews were assembled before their departure towards the east and the extermination camps, most of the Jews disappeared from Breendonk, which gradually became a camp for political prisoners and members of the Resistance.

The first commandant of the camp was Sturmbannfuhrer Philip Schmitt, who was followed in 1943, by an Austrian Karl Schonwetter.

The officer in charge of forced labour was Untersturmfuhrer Artur Prauss, who had the reputation of being the most cruel person in the camp staff. The camp commandant came directly under the authority of the Security Police chief for Belgium and Northern France, Konstantin Canaris, and then of his successor Ernst Ehlers.

In the initial phase conditions in the camp were reasonably tolerable, and the Jewish prisoners were not separated from the non-Jews. But at the end of 1940 this changed, and the “Aryan” prisoners were put into separate living quarters, although both groups continued to work side by side.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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

The destruction of the Austrian Jews

Holocaust Research Project — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:32:00 GMT

Anschluss & Extermination

The fate of the Austrian Jews

History of Jews in Austria

Ancient Menorah from the time of the Roman Empire

Evidence found in the form of ancient artifacts demonstrates the presence of a Jewish community in Austria as early as the time of the Roman empire and corroborates the previous assumption that Jews settled in what later became Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia in the third century B.C.E.

It is believed that the flow of Jewish immigration in the region increased after the rebellion against the Roman occupation of Judea. Many Jews were sold as slaves and were shipped across the empire. Others emigrated of their own accord.

However documentary evidence points to the first true settlement of Jews in the 12th century. A charter of privileges was granted by Emperor Frederick II in 1238, giving the Jewish community extensive autonomy. But over the course of the following eight centuries this status was to change, and the commercial and political clout of the Jews in the Austrian Empire would rise and fall many times over

Frederick II

In 1420, the status of the Jewish community hit a low point when a Jewish person from Upper Austria was charged with the desecration of the sacramental bread. This led Albert the Fifth to order the imprisonment of all of the Jews in Austria. Two hundred and ten Jews were burnt alive in public and the rest were deported from Austria, leaving their homes and belongings behind.

Between 1848 and 1938, the Jewish Austrian population enjoyed a period of prosperity beginning with the start of regime of Franz Joseph I of Austria who bestowed on the Jewish population equality of rights saying, "the civil rights and the country’s policy is not contingent in the people’s religion".

Franz Joseph I

Jews took advantage of their new freedoms by establishing wool factories in Bohemia and Moravia, Silk factories in Hungary, as well as playing an important role in the building of steel mills and the railroads. In Vienna, Jews built the only factory that produced chocolate.

At the turn of the century some 300,000 Jews in Austria were scattered in 33 different settlements. Most of them; approximately 200,000, lived in the capital city of Vienna.

Vienna was also a center of Zionist thought and Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism, had studied at the University of Vienna. Many Viennese Jews were well-integrated into urban society and culture. Jews made up significant percentages of the city's doctors and lawyers, businessmen and bankers, artists and journalists.

The Days of the Republic

The end of the First World War brought the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire and the rise of Republic of Austria. Although many of the leading heads of the Social Democratic Party of Austria and especially the leaders of the Austro-Marxism were assimilated Jews, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the rise of ethnically defined nation states created an "identity crisis" for the Jews.

Jews in the Leopoldstadt section of Vienna

Most anti-Semites considered Jews to be biologically or racially alien, and this prejudice force many Jews to cling more tightly to their Jewish ethnicity as opposed to a national identity based on ethnic origin.

The Jewish population in Vienna declined dramatically during the years of the Austrian Republic (1918 -1938), yet their profile amongst the population in certain areas of the city increased. Mainly due to industrial, professional and economic factors. According to Jewish scholars at the time, 62 percent of all lawyers in Vienna were Jewish. 47 percent of physicians, and nearly 29 percent of all University professors were also Jewish.

When the Nazis took power in Austria in 1938 they estimated that 25 percent, some 36,000 business enterprises in Vienna were owned by Jews. Including some 60 percent of all those engaged in Finance or big industry.

Engelbert Dollfuss

After the takeover of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in the German Reich on 30 January 1933 a concerted effort to subjugate their smaller neighbor was undertaken by the Austrian Nazi parties which were subsequently outlawed in June of the same year.

However the ban did not stop terrorist activities from occurring and on 25 July 1934 an attempted a coup d'état resulted in the assassination of the Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss.

Although the coup failed, the assassination of Dollfuss was accompanied by Nazi uprisings in many regions in Austria, resulting in further deaths. In Carinthia a large contingent of northern German Nazis tried to grab power but were subdued by the patriotic Heimwehr units.

Similarly, the Nazi assassins in Vienna surrendered and were executed. Kurt Schuschnigg became the new chancellor of Austria

Anschluss

Kurt von Schuschnigg

On 12 February 1938 Adolf Hitler met the Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg at Berchtesgarden, in an attempt to force him to lift the ban on the Austrian National Socialists party and release all imprisoned members of the Nazi party and let them participate in the government.

Schuschnigg refused and took steps to prepare for the defense of Austria, however over the ensuing weeks realized that he was being undermined by his own cabinet ministers who conspired to have him removed from office. Schuschnigg retaliated by trying to gather support throughout Austria and inflame patriotism among the people.

On March 9th, 1938 he called a referendum for a "Independent Christian Austria" and to better his odds at winning the plebiscite, he had the the minimum voting age increased to 24 in order to exclude younger voters who largely sympathized with Nazi ideology.

The billboards urge Austrians to vote YES in the upcoming plebiscite on the German annexation of Austria. Vienna, Austria, April 1938

Hitler used this action as a pretext to to call the referendum a fraud and would not be recognized by Germany. Goebbels issued press reports that riots had broken out in Austria and that large parts of the Austrian population were calling for German troops to restore order.

An ultimatum was sent by Hitler demanding that Schuschnigg hand over all power to the Austrian National Socialists or face an invasion. Schuschnigg realizing that neither France nor England was willing to take steps to prevent the Nazi ultimatum, resigned as Chancellor that same evening.

President Wilhelm Miklas of Austria refused to appoint the Austrian Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart as chancellor. The German Nazi minister Hermann Göring ordered Seyss-Inquart to send a telegram requesting German military aid, but he refused, and the telegram was sent by a German agent in Vienna.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Treblinka Camp Restructure

Holocaust Research Project — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:25:00 GMT

Treblinka Death Camp

The Removal of Dr Eberl and the Re-Organisation of the Camp – August 1942

Odilo Globocnik

Odilo Globocnik, the SS Police Leader for Lublin, and head of Aktion Reinhard appointed Christian Wirth, the first commandant of Belzec death camp, as Inspector of the Aktion Reinhard death camps at the beginning of August 1942.

Wirth set up his temporary headquarters in two rooms of the Julius Schreck Kaserne on Pierackiego Street in Lublin, which also served as the staff headquarters for Odilo Globocnik, and the headquarters of Aktion Reinhard, whose administrative chief was Herman Julius Hofle.

As his adjutant Wirth took Josef Oberhauser, from Belzec, who was also given responsibility for the control of Ukrainian guard units responsible for security at various workshops in Lublin.

Wirth carried out an initial inspection of Treblinka death camp on the 19 August 1942 have been described by Josef Oberhhauser who accompanied him on this visit:

“In Treblinka everything was in a state of collapse. The camp was overstocked. Outside the camp, a train with deportees was unable to be unloaded as there was simply no more room.

Josef Oberhauser

Many corpses of Jews were lying Inside the camp, these corpses were already bloated. Particularly I can remember seeing many corpses in the vicinity of the fence. These people were shot from the guard towers.”

Christian Wirth and Josef Oberhauser went to Warsaw where they held a conference with Odilo Globocnik at the Bruhl Palace and two unidentified men in civilian clothes, who then travelled back with Globocnik, Wirth and Oberhauser to the death camp at Treblinka.

After inspecting the camp Globocnik decided that Dr Eberl should be relieved of his command and that Christian Wirth would remain in the camp to sort out the chaotic mess created by Dr Eberl.

Dr. Irmfried Eberl

Josef Oberhauser recalled:

“I heard them in Treblinka how Globocnik and Wirth summed up the following; Wirth would remain in Treblinka for the time being. Dr Eberl would be dismissed immediately. In his place Stangl would come to Treblinka from Sobibor as commander, Globocnik said in this conversation that if Dr Eberl were not his fellow countryman, he would arrest him and bring him before an SS and police court.

Globocnik said to the two civilians in uniform that all the transports from Warsaw to Treblinka had to be stopped. Wirth was ordered to enlarge the camp and to report when transports could be dealt with again. I then travelled back to Warsaw with Globocnik and the two gentlemen in civilian clothes. We were then in Warsaw for two or three days. I know that Eberl also showed up there about a day later.

I learned then in Warsaw that Dr Eberl would be sent back to Berlin, and everything would be further controlled from there by the Fuhrer Chancellery.”

Franz Stangl in an interview with Gitta Sereny in 1971 his arrival in Treblinka, during late August 1942:\

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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Carmelo Lisciotto Copyright 2008 H.E.A.R.T

Paul Beder - Lodz Ghetto survivor testimony

Holocaust Research Project — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:39:00 GMT

Summary of Examination of Paul Beder of Poland

Summary of Examination of Paul Beder of Poland, duly sworn states

I am 29 years of age, of Polish nationality, born at Lodz, Poland

My permanent address is Pomorska 101 Lodz, Poland

I am at present living at Giessen near Frankfurt on Main, Ebelstrasse 11

Inside the Lodz Ghetto

I was taken to the Lodz Ghetto in March 1940 because I am a Jew and had to live at Wolborska 25 until August 1944. I was then sent to Auschwitz for three weeks and from there to the Dora Concentration Camp near Nordhausen.

At the end of March 1945 I was transferred to Belsen where I was liberated by the British on 15^th April 1945.

On 31^st December 1945 I was taken to the Belsen Detention Cells where during an identification parade consisting of five men, I picked out the man referred to in my deposition as Seifert. He was in charge of the administration of the Ghetto at Lodz.

I was employed by the Food Office at the Ghetto and so often came into contact with Seifert. I know that he was largely responsible for the appalling conditions in the Ghetto and especially for the inadequate rations and feeding arrangements which must have been the direct cause of the death of many thousands of the Ghetto inmates.

Post war photo of the ruined Synagogue on Wolborska St. in Lodz

Between 1942 and 1944 when the Ghetto was finally dissolved many different transports of men, women and children were sent away for extermination. Since on such occasions I was always employed on loading the victims on to the lorries I saw Seifert take an active part in the selections.

The people had to come downstairs and line up in front of Seifert who made some stand to one side. These people were then loaded on to the lorries and never seen or heard again.

In September 1942 I was present when Seifert selected my four sisters Mala Beder, Regina Beder, Ibka Beder and Sala Beder and my brother Schimson Beder, all Polish Jews, outside Wolborska 25 to be taken away with a transport that left Lodz for extermination.

He also included an old friend of mine the Polish Jewess Friedman who lived at Wolborska 25, they were made to mount the waiting trucks together with many others who had been selected by Seifert and that was the last I ever saw or heard of them.

Hans Biebow purchases a book from a Jewish vendor in the Lodz ghetto

During the round up for this extermination transport in September 42, I was again employed on loading the people who had been selected on to the lorries. I naturally tried to make them as comfortable and so told them to sit as closely as possible.

Seifert supervised the loading and when he noticed what I was doing came up to me and said “Don’t make such a fuss with these creatures, just pile them on, one on top of the other and when the lorry is filled, get up and jump on their bodies in order to make room for some more.”

When I would not do so Seifert drew his pistol and threatened to shoot me for disobeying his order.

During the same round-up in September 1942, I remember on one occasion our lorries drew up outside the Hospital in the Drewnoska Strasse. Seifert was with us at the time and as we arrived there were a number of people in the streets nearby.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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

War crimes investigation of Hartheim - The Charles Dameron Report

Holocaust Research Project — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:37:00 GMT

Hartheim Euthanasia

War Crimes Investigation - The Charles H. Dameron Report

Picturesque view of Hartheim in 1940

When this team arrived in Hartheim, Austria and was directed to the address Hartheim 1, it found a large building which apparently, at least at one time, had been a castle.

It is referred to throughout the investigation as “Schloss Hartheim” and for the purposes of this report will, therefore, be designated as the “Castle.” The building is presently being used as an orphanage housing 70 young children and 10 Catholic nuns and has been so used since 12 January 1945. According to one witness the building is between 300 and 500 years old.

It was operated by the German Welfare Institute for the insane from 1903 to 1938.

In approximately May 1940 the building was taken over by the SS and a crematory was installed. The witness Ignaz Schuhmann, present Burgermeister in Hartheim, personally saw the materials brought in for such use.

At this time there was installed on the ground floor of the building a receiving room, photography room, a room in which to undress patients, a gas chamber, a mortuary, a room equipped with a cremating oven, and one room to be used for dissecting. This part of the building was concealed from view by the erection of a board wall around two sides of the courtyard in the centre of the building.

An electrical bone crushing machine was also part of the equipment and there is some evidence that there were two ovens instead of one in the crematory. The purpose of the renovation was to make the building suitable for disposing of weak-minded and insane people in the German Reich, in accordance with what was explained to the employees as a “Secret German Law which would be made public after the War.”

Door to the gas chamber at Hartheim Castle

Prominently exhibited in a framed plaque hanging on the wall near the main entrance to the castle was the printed admonition: “Whoever is not healthy and worthy in body and soul, is not permitted to immortalise his ailments in the body of his child.”

Immediately adjacent thereto was to be found a plaque with the further admonition: “Respect for great men must be impregnated upon the German youth as a holy inheritance.”

Of the documents which were left behind and found by this team in the castle, books on Euthanasia predominated. In short, the purpose of the establishment was to put to death by gassing such mentally weak and insane persons of Germany, as were directed by higher authority and to then cremate their bodies.

One of the witnesses was reluctant to use the word death in this connection and preferred to use the word “redeem.” Even in the report on the number of persons executed the execution of these idiots is referred to as “disinfection.”

The Crematorium belches forth smoke at Hartheim

The entire institution was operated under the direction of what was known as the “Foundation for Asylum Care,” Headquarters Berlin 35 Tiergatenstrasse 4. Most of the employees arrived in Hartheim during April and May 1940 and were either from the SS or SA or were employed by the former.

All of the employees interviewed from the director’s secretary to the scrub woman were required to sign an oath to keep secret anything they might see or hear in the establishment under penalty of death or confinement in a concentration camp.

The exact date on which operations began is not definitely known, but it is known that some victims arrived as early as May 1940. This date coincides with that found in the unidentified statistical report recovered from the premises.

In the beginning they were brought from insane asylum such as Linz-Niedernhart, Baumgartenberg, Gallneukirchen, Wien-Steinhof, Graz- Feldhof, Wiesengrund and others.

The victims were brought to the castle in Hartheim in large busses, the capacity of which has been estimated at between 50 and 90. The number of such busses which arrived each day has been variously estimated at 2-3, six.

The witness Ignaz Schuhmann stated that he has seen as many as 7 or 8 busses arrive in one day. The victims were always accompanied by male or female nurses depending upon their sex.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/dameron.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

The Belzec Death Camp Album

Holocaust Research Project — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:47:00 GMT

Belzec Death Camp Images

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2004 Memorial path - Belzec 508 X 383 40 KB	Aerial Map of Belzec 1 800 X 516 69 KB	Aerial Map of Belzec 2 566 X 488 95 KB	An SS man on the staff of the Belzec camp, posing in front of the flour mill used as an assembly place for Jews deported to the camp. 379 X 580 68 KB

Anna Imich killed at Belzec 98 X 129 4 KB	Artist Painting of SS at Belzec 308 X 195 21 KB	Artist Painting of the Belzec Camp 308 X 222 23 KB	Belzec gates 2000 388 X 284 40 KB

Belzec Kommandantur 648 X 427 62 KB	Belzec Memorial Ramp area under construction in 2004 508 X 383 35 KB	Belzec Pre 2004 Memorial 1 767 X 558 112 KB	Belzec Pre 2004 Memorial 2 745 X 558 117 KB

See the full image gallery here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/belzec/images/Belzec/index.html

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

Jewish Blood For Goods! - Joel Brand

Holocaust Research Project — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:12:00 GMT

Joel Brand

"Blood for Goods"

Joel brand

Joel Brand was born in Nasaud Transylvania in 1907, which was under Hungarian rule. Brand embraced Zionism after a spell in the radical leftist movement in Weimar Germany.

He returned to Transylvania after Hitler came to power but eventually settled in Budapest, where together with his wife, Hansi Hartmann- Brand, he operated a medium –sized glove manufacturing plant.

After the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 the Brands took an interest in refugee causes, and took an active part organising a variety of rescue and relief ventures.

When the Va’ada was established in January 1943 to aid refugees who had escaped from or were seeking to escape from Slovakia and Poland, Brand was chosen to head its Tiyyul (Trip) section, a border crossing operation, whose function was to smuggle Jews out of these countries.

After the German occupation of Hungary on the 19 March 1944, the Va’ada’s primary concern was the rescuing of Jews within Hungary. Brand was also engaged in the Re-Tiyyul (Return Trip) programme, which enabled a number of Polish and Slovak refugees to return to Slovakia where the situation of the remaining Jews was better, for the moment.

Adolf Eichmann

While the first contact and rescue negotiations with the SS were established through Fulop Freudiger, the Orthodox representative of the Jewish Council Zsido Tanacs, and continued later by Rezso Kastner, it was Brand whom Adolf Eichmann summoned on the 25 April 1944, to offer his “Blood for Goods” proposal.

Brand met Eichmann in the Majestic Hotel in Budapest. Eichmann greeted Brand with the following words:

“Do you know who I am?

I have carried out the Aktionen in the Reich – in Poland – in Czechoslovakia. Now it’s Hungary’s turn. I let you come here to talk business with you. Before that I investigated you – and your people.

Those from the Joint and those from the Agency, and I have come to the conclusion that you still have resources. So I am ready to sell you – a million Jews.

Hermann Krumey

All of them I wouldn’t sell you. That much money and goods you don’t have. But a million – that will go. Goods for blood – blood for goods. You can gather up the million in countries which still have Jews.

You can take it from Hungary, from Poland, from Austria, from Theresienstadt, from Auschwitz, from wherever, you want.

What do you want to save? Virile men? Grown women? Old people? Children? Sit down and talk.”

This proposal which had been approved by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuhrer SS, was to exchange one million Jews for certain goods, such as 10,000 trucks to be used on the Eastern front, or for civilian purposes.

The Jews could not remain in Hungary, as Himmler had promised to make Hungary Judenfrei (free of Jews), so those covered by this proposal would be permitted to go into any Allied-controlled part of the world, except Palestine, for the Nazis had promised the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al –Husseini, not to allow this.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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

Victor Brack and Nazi Euthanasia

Holocaust Research Project — Sat, 23 May 2009 15:29:00 GMT

Victor Brack

T4 - Euthanasia and Links to Mass Murder in the East

Viktor Brack 1940

Victor Brack was born in Haaren, Germany on the 9 November 1904 the son of a medical practitioner. After studying economics in Munich he became a fiend of Heinich Himmler and for a time he became a chauffeur for the future Reichsfuhrer-SS. Brack then became a member of the NSDAP and the SS in 1929.

Throughout his career in the Party he was quite active in high official circles. He entered upon full-time service in the Braune Haus, the Nazi headquarters at Munich, in the summer of 1932.

Brack was promoted to the rank of Sturmbannfuehrer in the SS in 1935, and in April 1936 to the rank of Obersturmbannfuehrer. In 1936 he was appointed head liaison officer with the Department of Health by Philip Bouhler, though he had little or no previous medical experience.

Subsequently he rose to become Bouhler’s deputy and Chief of Section II in the Fuhrer’s Chancellery with the rank of Oberdienstleiter. Between December 1939 and August 1941 Brack’s office, known as T-4, from its address at Tiergartenstrasse -4, was responsible during the so-called “Euthanasia Action.”

This programme was responsible for the murder of more than 50,000 Germans, this included the mentally sick, chronically sick and concentration camp prisoners deemed as “unfit for work,” politically undesirable elements and Jews and Gypsies. Brack himself personally interviewed and selected personnel for the euthanasia establishments, from those involved in cremating the corpses, to the cleaners.

Reichsgefetzblatt 1933

Later, because of the urgent need for laborers in Germany, it was decided not to kill Jews who were able to work but, as an alternative, to sterilize them. With this end in view Himmler instructed Brack to inquire of physicians who were engaged in the Euthanasia Program about the possibility of a method of sterilizing persons without the victim's knowledge.

Franz Stangl recalled in an interview with Gitta Sereny, who was about to report for duty in the euthanasia establishment Schloss Hartheim, near Linz:

“I reported to Tiergartenstrasse 4, I think to SS Oberfuhrer Brack who explained what my specific police duties would be.”

Letter from Himmler regarding sterilization by X-ray

In March 1941 he offered the services of his network of institutes to Heinrich Himmler for the purpose of sterilising 3-4000 Jews daily in x-ray clinics.

In August 1941 Karl Brandt telephoned Philip Bouhler to instruct him that on Hitler’s orders the euthanasia programme must be ceased. There was some unease about the murder of invalids and mentally ill Germans. In December 1940 Himmler had recommended to Brack that the euthanasia institute at Grafeneck activities should be suppressed, due to continuing unrest over the euthanasia programme.

Viktor Brack persuaded the Tobis film company to produce the film “Ich Klage an” – I accuse – the sentimental story of a professor who is put on trial for hastening the death of his young wife, an incurable invalid.

Later in 1941 Brack prepared to set up gassing facilities in Riga and Minsk to exterminate Jews, unsuitable for work. Subsequently, he was closely involved in the construction of the death camps in Poland and the installation of gas chambers, and the supply of personnel.

Dr Erhard Wetzel wrote from Rosenberg’s office on the 25 October 1941 to Reichskommissar Lohse in Riga:

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/brack.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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

Holocaust Denial & Revisionist Debunking

Holocaust Research Project — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:40:00 GMT

Essays & Editorials [home]

The Department of History, University of Northampton & The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

Holocaust Denial & Debunking

“What is it good for?” - “Absolutely Nothing!”

In nearly 40 years of holocaust research, I have never given more than a few seconds thought regarding Holocaust Denial.

"But is that wise?"

Up to now I thought so, what would be the point, of spending any substantial amount of precious time on debating with Holocaust Deniers, given the abundance of evidence available, ranging from films, photographs, eyewitness testimony, documents and admissions from those who took part in one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind.

Thanks to the internet, the Deniers have had priceless opportunities to speedily put forward their views, and this in turn has led to a number of websites, countering their views, and thus a cottage industry of sorts has grown up.

Visiting some of these sites one is struck by the enormous amount of wasted effort, both in terms of arguing with Deniers, who will never change their particular view, unless some “ultimate proof” is provided, and the Deniers spending their time, peddling their seemingly senseless viewpoints, happy to be engaged in ‘debate.’

In addition, those self proclaimed “Debunkers” of revisionist theories are in many ways no different than the Deniers themselves. Most are only seeking a conflict or debate to engage in, and debunking revisionism affords them some sort of “moral high ground” to do it from.

Clearly, a view could be formed that the “ultimate proof” has already been provided, but the Deniers choose not to believe it. And no matter what – the Deniers views are unlikely to change and does the world doesn’t really need “Noble-Debunkers” to keep the rest of us safe from such idiotic theories or treatises.

So in essence, debating the number of victims at Belzec and Sobibor death camps at length, the type of engine used at Treblinka to gas hundreds and thousands of innocent Jewish men, women and children, the true nature of deportations East - was it six million murdered or 8 million, what does all this effort achieve?

It is difficult to know why someone should choose to go down the Denier path, perhaps as a result of anti-Semitism, or seeking their fifteen minutes of fame through controversial outbursts, whilst ignoring the overwhelming evidence for the Holocaust, even just as a mechanism for spreading hate and intolerance- who can be sure.

With recent well publicised comments from Bishop Dr Richard Williamson, who in a Swedish television interview in January 2009 said:

Read the full editorial here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/essays&editorials/deniers&debunkers.html

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

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

The fate of the Jews of Bohemia & Moravia

Holocaust Research Project — Sun, 17 May 2009 13:09:00 GMT

The Jews of the Sudetenland

Bohemia & Moravia

1939 Map of Bohemia-Moravia

The Sudetenland is the German name used in the first half of the 20th century for the western portions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans. Located on the border with Germany and Austria it encompasses the areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia associated with Bohemia.

When Czechoslovakia was forced to accept the terms of the Munich Agreement on Sept 29th 1938, the region was relegated to German control between October 1 and October 10, 1938. The remaining parts of Czechoslovakia were subsequently invaded by Germany in March 1939, with a portion being annexed and the remainder turned into a satellite state, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Administration of the Protectorate was placed under the supervision of the Reichsprotektor, Konstantin von Neurath and shortly there after Hitler summoned Czechoslovak President Emil Hácha to Berlin and intimidated him into accepting the German occupation of the Czech rump state.

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano at the signing of the Munich Agreement.

Four days after the occupation, a huge German military parade was held on Wenceslas Square. A live report from a popular Czechoslovak Radio host Franta Kocourek from the balcony of the Hotel Sroubek described the confusion amongst the Czech populace at the time:

"! I would like to talk about one thing that has nothing to do with the military. From somewhere far away, a huge, black crow has flown into Prague. I have seen it spread its wings and sweep down the square over the searchlights and listening devices being paraded here by the German army. It must be surprised at the noise and all that is going on beneath it."

Emil Hacha

Hácha remained as technical head of state with the title of State President; German officials manned departments analogous to cabinet ministries, while small German control offices were established locally.

The population of the protectorate was mobilized for labour that would aid the German war effort, and special offices were organized to supervise the management of industries important to that effort.

Czechs were drafted to work in coal mines, the iron and steel industry, and armaments production; some young people were sent to Germany. Consumer goods production were largely directed toward supplying the German armed forces. The government and political system, reorganized by Hácha, continued in formal existence. Gestapo activities were directed mainly against Czech politicians and the intelligentsia.

At the close of 1938 elections in the Reichsgau Sudetenland. Polls showed that 97.32% of the adult population voted for NSDAP. Close to a half million ethnic Germans joined the Nazi Party roughly 17.34% of the entire German population in region, making the Sudetenland the most "pro-Nazi" region in the Third Reich.

German troops enter Prague in 1939

On the eve of the German occupation, 118,310 Jews lived in the region, centralized mostly in Prague. Immediately after the occupation, a wave of arrests began, mostly of refugees from Germany, Czech public figures, and Jews. Fascist organizations began harassing Jews: synagogues were burnt down and Jews were rounded up and attacked in the streets.

As early as November 3, 1938, the immediate expulsion of Czechs and Jews from the region became a daily occurrence and groups of Czech nationals were forced from the Sudetenland towards the Czech frontier. Some of these managed to escape to Prague or Brno, but all Jews were turned back by the Czech boarder guards.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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

Ivan the Terrible! The story of John Demjanjuk

Holocaust Research Project — Wed, 13 May 2009 22:11:00 GMT

Iwan (John) Demjanjuk

"Ivan the Terrible"

John Demjanjuk as a young man in the Ukraine

John Demjanjuk, was born Iwan Nikolayevich Demjanjuk on the 3 April 1920 in the Ukrainian village of Dubovi Makharintsi, Kozjatyn Region, Vinnitsa Oblast.

His fathers name was Nikolaj who had lost several fingers during the First World War and his mothers name was Olga, the family were very poor, and they were forced to live with relatives on a collective farm (kolkhoz) near Moscow. The great famine in the Ukraine during 1932-33 had a devastating impact on Iwan Demjanjuk, as he was to recall as he stood trial for his life during 1987.

Food was abundant but there was little work, so the family were forced to return to their village. When he was about seventeen Demjanjuk started work in a local Kolkhoz, he commenced using a plough, and progressed to an assistant to the tractor driver.

Germans guard prisoners in the Rovno camp for Soviet prisoners of war

Two years after joining the Communist Youth Organisation (Komsomol) he was drafted into the Red Army, where his aptitude for driving tractors was recognised. Demjanjuk was taken prisoner by the Germans at the battle of Kerch in the Crimea on the 18 May 1942. He spent a short time, a couple of weeks in a Prisoner of War camp at Rowno, before being sent to another Prisoner of War camp in Chelm in Poland.

At Chelm Demjanjuk was recruited into the SS to serve as a death camp guard, and between July and September 1942 Iwan Demjanjuk was trained to carry out these tasks. During his trial in Israel where he was falsely accused as being the Treblinka SS guard “Ivan the Terrible,” and his Trawniki Dienstausweis, was examined in close detail.

The card read that he was 1 metre 75cm tall, had grey eyes, and dark blond hair and a visible scar on his back. It also showed two postings, “L.G. Okzow on September 22 1942 and to Sobibor on March 27 1943.

The Dienstausweis bore three signatures, Karl Streibel, the Trawniki SS Commandant, Ernst Teufel the camps supply officer, and Demjanjuk’s. It also contained his camp identification number 1393. The training he received at Trawniki was aimed at instilling SS and military type discipline. The “Trawniki-manner” were assigned to platoons of 35 -40 men and companies of 120 men.

Demjanjuk Dienstausweis

(click text to enlarge)

Demjanjuk Dienstausweis (back)

(click text to enlarge)

A guard who had been trained at Trawniki, J.H. Engelhardt later stated that “you were taught there to shoot with a gun, machine gun and sub-machine gun and to throw grenades and all this in the German language.”

From the 22 September 1942 till early January 1943 Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Okzow country estate in the vicinity of Chelm. The estate which also had an alcohol distillery had Jewish workers, which required guarding.

From there he was transferred to the Lublin Concentration Camp ( Majdanek) and he was punished on the 18 January 1943, along with three other Trawniki-manner for leaving the camp without permission to buy onions. A disciplinary report signed by SS – Unterscharfuhrer Hermann Erlinger was found in an archive in Vilnius.

One of the other guards punished was Zaki Tuktarov (1730 – identification number) who admitted after the war he had served in Lublin (Majdanek).

From Lublin Demjanjuk returned to Trawniki and on the 26 March 1943 was despatched to with seventy –nine other guards to the Sobibor death camp.

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

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

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