ten by him, and letters from Tini Kleinmann, July 1941, DKK; notes by Fritz Kleinmann, DRG; also data from passenger and crew list, SS Siboney, March 27, 1941, PNY.
2. The passenger list records Irmgard Salomon as having blonde hair and blue eyes, which would be unusual but not at all unknown for a Jewish child; however, in this case it seems to be clerical laziness, as every passenger on the same page (mostly German and Hungarian Jews of all ages) is entered with the same dittoed physical description (fair, blonde, blue eyes) with only the heights varying.
Kurt remembers Irmgard and Karl being respectively two years younger and two years older than him. In fact Irmgard was eleven (the same age) and Karl fourteen (three years older), although the latter’s small size may have misled Kurt.
3. There is an account of such a departure from Vienna in Maier, Ruth Maier’s Diary, pp. 112–3. If Kurt’s train left in the evening, Tini and Herta would not have been allowed to accompany him to the station at all, due to the curfew; a non‑Jewish friend or relative would have had to accompany him.
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4. Passenger and crew list, SS Siboney, March 27, 1941, PNY. Kurt recalls that the ship docked at Ellis Island and remained there for about two hours, but the immi‑
grants did not go ashore. It appears that medical examinations were carried out aboard ship, and notes were added by the examiner to the ship’s passenger list.
5. Efforts have been made by the author, by Kurt himself, and by the One Thousand Children organization to trace Karl Kohn and Irmgard Salomon, but no informa‑
tion has yet been found about their subsequent lives.
6. Samuel Barnet was born in New York, November 27, 1890, and according to his 1942 draft card he was five feet four and a half inches tall, with gray hair and a
“dark” complexion (records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Num‑
ber 147: NARA).
7. United States census, 1940.
8. Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number M1509: NARA; genealogical note on Mollie Copeland Byer, www.wikitree.com/wiki/Byer‑16
(retrieved May 22, 2017).
9. United States census, 1940, NARA; Samuel Barnet draft card, 1942, records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147: NARA.
Chapter 8: Unworthy of Life
1. In all the accounts of this murder (Gustav Kleinmann’s diary; Emil Carlebach, Herbert Mindus in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 164, 171–2; Fein and Flanner, Rot-Weiss-Rot, p. 74) no mention is made of what triggered Abraham’s actions.
2. Herbert Mindus (in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 171–2) states that Hamber was in the construction detail and implies that the incident occurred on the SS
garage site. However, Mindus’s account was written four years later, whereas Gus‑
tav Kleinmann’s diary account is contemporary and probably more accurate, albeit less detailed; Gustav states that Hamber was in the haulage column (see also Fein and Flanner, Rot-Weiss-Rot, p. 74) and that the incident took place in an excavated part of the Wirtschaftsamt (economic affairs department). Some accounts (Stein, Buchenwald, p. 288) date the incident to late 1940; in fact it was spring 1941.
3. Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 317; Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 81–3; Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, pp. 77–9.
4. His registered name appears to have been Edmund (Stein, Buchenwald, p. 298), but everyone knew him as Eduard (e.g., Fritz Kleinmann in Doch der Hund, p. 81; Mindus in Buchenwald Report, p. 171).
5. Emil Carlebach in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 164.
6. Ibid.
7. Stein, Buchenwald, p. 298.
8. Ibid., p. 59.
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9. Otto Kipp in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 212.
10. Gustav is enigmatic on this point; he clearly uses the word Aktion, meaning a campaign or special operation (the Nazis themselves typically used this word as a euphemism for mass killings), implying that he had in mind some kind of concerted resistance among the haulage column, led by Eduard Hamber, which withered and died with the murders of the witnesses. However, his writing is extremely elliptical—probably because, while keeping a diary would probably be fatal for him if found out, the consequences would be even worse if it contained evidence of anti‑SS activities.
11. Personal record cards 1.1.5.3/6283389, 1.1.5.3/6283376, ITS. The record indicates four packages signed for during 1941—one each for Gustav and Fritz on May 3, one for Fritz on October 22, and one for Gustav on November 16. All contained items of clothing.
12. Gustav writes: Wir sind die Unzertrennlichen—“We are the inseparables.” There is no exact equivalent of the noun Unzertrennlichen in English. In German it is used for the bird species known in English as lovebirds, and is also the German title of the David Cronenberg film Dead Ringers.
13. Tini, letter to Kurt, July 15, 1941, DKK.
14. Order of May 14, 1941, quoted in Gold, Geschichte der Juden, pp. 106–7.
15. Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 443.
16. New Republic, quoted in Zucker, In Search, p. 178.
17. Friedman, No Haven, pp. 30, 246n.
18. Ibid., pp. 113–4.
19. Rabinovici, Eichmann’s Jews, p. 136.
20. Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 418.
21. Tini, letter to Kurt, August 5, 1941, DKK.
22. Tini, letter to Kurt, July 15, 1941, DKK.
23. Tini, letters to Kurt, July–August 1941, DKK.
24. William L. Shirer, quoted in Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 285.
25. Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 124–6; Wachsmann, KL, pp. 248–58; Cesarani, Final Solution, pp. 284–6.
26. SS‑Doctor Waldemar Hoven, quoted in Stein, Buchenwald, p. 124.
27. Gustav gives the date as August 1941; he is normally totally reliable on dates, but it seems that he described the events of spring and summer 1941 retrospectively—
probably at the end of the year—and his chronology and figures are sometimes unreliable for this period.
28. SS nurse Ferdinand Römhild, quoted in Stein, Buchenwald, p. 126.
29. Wachsmann, KL, p. 260.
30. Gustav Kleinmann’s diary says that this occurred on June 15. This is impossible, as war between Germany and the USSR did not begin until June 22. Clearly this 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 350
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is another instance of his misattributing the date of a 1941 event due to writing about it from memory (see note 27 above). Aside from the date, all the other details of his account are corroborated by multiple sources.
31. Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 121–4; Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 236ff; Wachsmann, KL, p. 258ff.
32. Stein, Buchenwald, p. 85; Wachsmann, KL, p. 277ff.
33. Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 121–3.
34. Gustav uses the word Justifizierungen, a euphemism sometimes used for judicial murder, for which there is no exact English equivalent—adjustment, judgment, or adjudication are near translations.
35. Fritz Kleinmann in Doch der Hund, p. 21n.
36. Wachsmann, KL, pp. 270–71. A similar effect had been observed among the Ein‑
satzgruppen death squads on the Eastern Front; shooting large numbers of victims at close range over a long period traumatized even hardened, dedicated SS men (Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 390). This was one of the reasons for the move toward using gas chambers in concentration camps, and forcing teams of prisoners—the Sonderkommandos—to handle the victims.
37. Stein, Buchenwald, p. 58–9; witness statements in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 71, 210, 230; Wachsmann, KL, p. 435.
38. Stein, Buchenwald, p. 58.
39. Ibid., pp. 200–203; Wachsmann, KL, p. 4
35.
40. Stein, Buchenwald, p. 200–3; Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 71ff.
41. Fritz Kleinmann, in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, pp. 79–80.
42. Tini sent Fritz one pair of socks in late October 1941, and Gustav a sweater in November (personal record cards 1.1.5.3/6283389, 1.1.5.3/6283376, ITS).
43. Völkischer Beobachter quoted in Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 421.
44. Rees, Holocaust, p. 231; Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 421ff; notes on acces‑
sion no. 2005.506.3, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, collections.
www.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn523540 (retrieved May 30, 2017).
45. Rabinovici, Eichmann’s Jews, pp. 110–1.
46. Tini Kleinmann, letter to Sam Barnet, July 19, 1941, DKK.
47. Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 83.
48. Rees, Holocaust, p. 231; Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 422ff.
49. Order from Heinrich Müller, RSHA, October 23, 1941, in Arad et al., Documents, pp. 153–4.
Chapter 9: A Thousand Kisses
1. Dror, “News,” p. 22. Arnold Frankfurter, born in 1881, died in 1942 in Buchen‑
wald on either February 14 (Czeike, Historisches Lexikon Wien, vol. 2, p. 357) or 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 351
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March 10 or 19 (Heimann‑Jelinek et al., Ordnung, p. 152). He married Gustav Kleinmann and Tini Rottenstein in Vienna on May 8, 1917 (Hecht, “Der König rief,” pp. 209–10).
2. Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 82.
3. Cesarani, Final Solution, pp. 445–9.
4. Stein, Buchenwald, p. 128.
5. Ibid., p. 146.
6. Hermann Einziger in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 189.
7. Gustav is specific that Greuel was the SS sergeant involved. Confusingly, he seems to say that this incident occurred on a “gravel transport from the crusher.” How‑
ever, it occurs within the context of his writing about transporting tree trunks from the forest. Presumably his team was doing both jobs alternately. The fact that some of Gustav’s men were not carrying anything on this occasion suggests that this occurred during log‑carrying rather than gravel transport (which would have been by wagon).
8. Robert Siewert and Josef Schappe in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 153, 160.
9. Fritz says that Leopold Moses went to Natzweiler in 1941 (in Gärtner and Klein‑
mann, Doch der Hund, p. 50). However, the newly established Natzweiler had only a small number of prisoners (transferred from Sachsenhausen) at that time; it began to receive large transports in spring 1942 (Jean‑Marc Dreyfus in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1B, p. 1007).
10. Fritz Kleinmann, in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 82. (Tini’s original letter, which Fritz never saw, was not preserved.)
11. Former Soviet territory under German rule was divided into Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. East of these zones was a larger area that was the rear of the German front line, which was not designated for “resettlement.”
12. This narrative is reconstructed from various sources. The instructions for deport‑
ees from the Altreich and Ostmark to the Ostland are outlined in Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 428; Browning, Origins, p. 381; memorandum in Arad, Documents, pp. 159–61. The instruction leaflet issued to transport supervisors through the IKG in Vienna is quoted in full in Gold, Geschichte, pp. 108–9. The viewpoint of a deportee is given in the testimony of Viennese survivor Wolf Seiler (deported May 6, 1942), document 854, DOW.
13. Transports of Jews to the Ostland began in November 1941; there were seven that month from various German cities, including one from Vienna (Alfred Gottwaldt,
“Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern” in Barton, Ermordet, p. 54).
The program was interrupted due to the logistical demands of the Wehrmacht, which was fighting to stabilize the front line and needed all the rail capacity avail‑
able. The transports resumed in May 1942; between then and October there were 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 352
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nine from Vienna, leaving weekly in late May and June (ibid.; see also Gottwaldt and Schulle, Die Judendeportation; Sagel‑Grande et al., Justiz, pp. 192–6).
14. Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 69; Buchenwald personal record card 1.1.5.3/6283376, ITS.
15. Bertha Rothenstein birth record, April 29, 1887, Geburtsbuch, IKA; Lehmann’s Adressbuch for Vienna for 1938, WLO; casualty reports, Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung, June 4, 1915, p. 6; K.u.k. Kriegsministerium, Verlustliste 209, p. 54.
16. How long Tini and Herta Kleinmann were held in the Sammellager (holding camp) in the Sperlschule isn’t known; some waited a week or more between arrest or notification and deportation. As Tini’s and Herta’s deportation serial numbers were quite high (see note 18), they were presumably notified quite late and would not have been held for long.
17. Loading could take over five hours (e.g., police report on transport Da 230, Octo‑
ber 1942, DOW).
18. The deportees are listed in the Gestapo departure list for Transport 26 (Da 206), June 9, 1942, 1.2.1.1/11203406, ITS; limited data also available in Erfassung der Österreichischen Holocaustopfer (Database of Austrian victims of the Holocaust), DOW and YVS.
19. Tini Rottenstein was born January 2, 1893, in the apartment building at Kleine Stadtgutgasse 6, near the Praterstern (Geburtsbuch 1893, IKA).
20. The Aspangbahnhof was demolished in 1976. A small square—Platz der Opfer der Deportation (Deportation Victims’ Square)—now stands on the site, along with a memorial to the thousands of deportees who left Vienna from the station.
21. The route is given in Alfred Gottwaldt, “Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnki‑
lometern” in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 48–51. Timings are estimated from the Vienna police report on transport Da 230, October 1942, DOW.
22. When the war began, the SS‑Totenkopfverbände (Death’s Head units) division was placed under the overall command of the Waffen‑SS. Veteran guard person‑
nel were sent to fight on the Eastern Front. They were replaced in the camps by new volunteers and conscripts. The Death’s Head insignia was worn on the caps of all SS men, but the SS‑TV wore it on their collar tabs also.
23. Sipo‑SD was the informal name of the combined units of the SS Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo, security police) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD, intelligence). The Sipo, which combined the Gestapo and the criminal police, was defunct by this time, having been absorbed into the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), but the term was still used for the combined police‑SD units operating in the eastern territories.
24. Testimony of survivor Wolf Seiler (deported May 6, 1942), document 854, DOW; testimony of Isaak Grünberg (deported October 5, 1942), quoted in Gottwaldt,
“Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern” in Barton, Ermordet, p. 49.
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25. Alfred Gottwaldt, “Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern” in Barton, Ermordet, p. 51.
26. The transport that left Vienna on Tuesday, June 9, is recorded as arriving at Minsk on either Saturday, June 13 or Monday, June 15; rail records indicate the former date, whereas a report by SS‑Lieutenant Arlt (June 16, 1942: file 136 M.38, YVP) indicates the latter. Holocaust deniers have taken this as casting doubt on the evidence for the massacres at Maly Trostinets. In fact it was due to industrial relations; as of May 1942, railroad workers in Minsk were not required to work weekends, and trains arriving on a Saturday were parked at Kojdanów station outside the city until Monday morning (Alfred Gottwaldt, “Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern” in Barton, Ermordet, p. 5
1).
27. Letter to Kurt, August 5, 1941, DKK.
28. Sources used here include secondary accounts (Sybil e Steinbacher, “Deportiert von Wien nach Minsk” in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 31–8; Sagel‑Grande et al., Justiz, pp.
192–6; Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, pp. 747–60; Petra Rentrop, “Maly Trostinez als Tatort der «Endlösung»” in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 57–71; Aarons, War Criminals Welcome, pp. 71–6), official reports (SS‑Lieutenant Arlt, June 16, 1942: file 136
M.38, YVP), and personal testimonies of survivors (Wolf Seiler, document 854, DOW; Isaak Grünberg, quoted in various preceding citations).
29. Petra Rentrop, “Maly Trostinez als Tatort der «Endlösung»” in Barton, Ermordet, p. 64.
30. Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 356ff.
31. Sybille Steinbacher, “Deportiert von Wien nach Minsk” in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 31–8; Sagel‑Grande et al., Justiz, pp. 192–6; Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, pp. 747–60; Petra Rentrop, “Maly Trostinez als Tatort der «Endlösung»” in Bar‑
ton, Ermordet, pp. 57–71. Maly Trostinets concentration camp is rarely men‑
tioned in general Holocaust histories; even the mammoth four‑volume United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos (ed.
Megargee) does not have an entry for it, just a few references in the entry for the Minsk ghetto (vol. 2B, pp. 1234, 1236). There are many variant spellings of the name in the literature—in modern Belarusian it is Mały Trościeniec; other variants include Trostenets; Trostinets; Trostinec; Trostenez; Trastsianiets; Trascianec. In German it is sometimes referred to as Klein Trostenez.
32. Sometimes the selection for the camp would be made here if it hadn’t already been done at the station (testimony of Wolf Seiler, document 854, DOW).
33. Sagel‑Grande et al., Justiz, p. 194.
34. Aarons, War Criminals, pp. 72–4.
35. Sagel‑Grande et al., Justiz, p. 194.
36. Aarons, War Criminals Welcome, pp. 72–4.
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37. Petra Rentrop, “Maly Trostinez als Tatort der «Endlösung»” in Barton, Ermordet, p. 65. There may in fact have been up to eight gas vans in Belarus, but only three or four appear to have been used at Maly Trostinets (Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, pp. 765–6).
The Stone Crusher Page 46
