Voices from the Holocaust

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Voices from the Holocaust Page 32

by Jon E. Lewis


  August Frank, ‘Spectacles and eyeglasses of every kind …’, reprinted from Holocaust Historical Documents, n.d.

  Lukianovska Friedhof, ‘It is impossible to live with this knowledge’, reprinted from http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/babiyar.html

  Kurt Gerstein, ‘Like basalt pillars the dead stand inside...’, http://www.deathcamps.org/belzec/gerstein.html

  Gisa, Kristallnacht: ‘everything devastated and destroyed’, The Wiener Library (http://wienerlibrary.co.uk)

  P. Gordon Walker, ‘A BBC Reporter Visits Belsen’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/holocaust

  Hermann Graebe, ‘SS Execution Squad in Action’, reprinted from witness statement, November 1945, International Military Tribunal, document PS-2992

  Hugo Gryn, ‘Arrival at Auschwitz’, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, quoted in Smith, Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust

  Berta Grynszpan, ‘A Postcard from Zbąszyń’, reprinted from Thalmann and Feinermann, Crystal Night. Translation copyright © 1974 Thames & Hudson

  Guardian Correspondent, ‘Kristallnacht: Shopwreckers in Berlin’, the Guardian, 10 November 1938. Copyright © Guardian Media 1938

  Sebastian Haffner, ‘The Brown Shirts Throw Out Jewish Judges’, reprinted from Haffner, Defying Hitler, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002. Copyright © 2000 Sarah Haffner and Oliver Pretzel. Copyright © 2000 Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH. Translation copyright © 2002 Oliver Pretzel

  Abel J. Herzberg, ‘A Day in the Life of a Prisoner’ and ‘Deaths, deaths, deaths’, reprinted from Herzberg, Between Two Streams, IB Tauris, 1997. Copyright © 1989 Estate of Abel J. Herzberg

  Reinhard Heydrich, ‘All Necessary Measures’, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  Heinrich Himmler, ‘A page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned’, reprinted from http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtmland Holocaust Historical Documents, n.d.

  Hermann Hoefle, ‘The Hoefle Telegram’, reprinted from Holocaust Historical Documents, n.d.

  Rudolf Hoess, ‘A Konzentrationslager is Built at Oświęcim’, ‘The Commandant of Auschwitzis Ordered to Construct a Mass Extermination Facility’ and ‘The Gas Trial’ reprinted from Hoess and Fitzgibbon, Commandant of Auschwitz. Copyright © 1951 WysawnictwoPrawnicze. English translation copyright © 1959 Weidenfeld& Nicolson

  Karl Jager, ‘Field Report’, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/jager.html

  Jewish Combat Organization, ‘For Your Freedom and Ours’, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  Jewish Society for Social Welfare, ‘Life Inside the Warsaw Ghetto’, III, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  Raya Kagan, ‘Mala Zimetbaum’, The Eichmann Trial Transcripts, http://www. nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/

  Fritz Katzmann, ‘The Jews tried to avoid evacuation by all possible means’, http://www1.yadvashem.org/ about_holocaust/documents/part2/doc159.html

  Gerda Weissman Klein, ‘Liberation: A Jewess Meets a Gl’, http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/phistories/phi_individuals_kurt_gerda_klein_uu.htm

  Ruth Kluger, ‘A Jewish Girl Risks a Visit to the Cinema’ and ‘Theresienstadt: The Children’s Quarters’, reprinted from Kluger, Landscapes of Memory. Copyright © 2001 Ruth Kluger

  Felix Landau, ‘Diary of an SS Executioner’, reprinted from Landau, Love Letters of a Nazi Murderer in Lemberg and Drohobycz, Inst. of Documentation in Israel for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, 1987

  Primo Levi, ‘The Great Selection in Auschwitz’, reprinted from Levi, Survival in Auschwitz. Copyright © 2007 Primo Levi

  Filip Müller, ‘Inside the Crematorium at Auschwitz’, reprinted from Müller, Eyewitness Auschwitz. Copyright © Filip Müller. Translation copyright © Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd

  Miklos Nyiszli, ‘A Girl Is Found Alive in the Gas-chamber’, reprinted from Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account, Seaver, 1986

  Peretz Opocznski, ‘Smuggling in the Warsaw Ghetto’, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  Chaim Prinzenthal, ‘On the Run’, reprinted from Dafni and Kleiman (eds), Final Letters from the Yad Vashem Archive, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991. Copyright © 1991 Weidenfeld & Nicolson

  Dina Pronicheva, ‘Escape from BabiYar’, reprinted from A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov), Babi Yar, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1970

  Otto Rasch, ‘Operational Situation Report from Einsatzgruppe C’, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  Rudolf Reder, ‘Now you’re going to the bath house’, quoted in Gilbert, The Holocaust

  Reuters Correspondent, ‘Kristallnacht: Synagogues Fired’, Guardian, 11 November 1938. Copyright © 1938 Guardian Media

  John Richards, ‘Kindertransport: ‘A Boy Leaves Vienna’, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive, quoted in Smith, Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust

  Charles Salt, ‘The Arrest of Irma Grese’, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive

  Ryvka Salt, ‘Parents Ordered to Give Up Their Children’, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive

  Moshe Shklarek, ‘Deportation, Plock’, quoted in Gilbert, Holocaust

  Dawid Sierakowiak, ‘Mass Arrests in Łódź’, reprinted from The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak, trans. Kamil Turowski. Copyright © 1998 Oxford University Press

  John Silberman, ‘It was bullying all down the line’ and ‘A Boy Leaves Berlin’, Imperial War Museum Sound Archive

  Leah Hammerstein Silverstein, ‘Pretending to be Aryan’, reprinted from http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/phistories/

  Kingsbury Smith, ‘Execution of Nazi War Criminals’, reprinted from Kinnaird (ed.), It Happened in 1946

  Jurgen Stroop, ‘The Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto’, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  Giuliana Tedeschi, ‘Punishment … and Kindness’ and ‘The Death March from Auschwitz’, II, reprinted from Tedeschi, There Is a Place on Earth. Copyright © 1992 Random House Inc.

  Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, ‘Auschwitz Observed’, reprinted from Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader

  David Wdowinski, ‘They [three German officers]’, reprinted from Gilbert, The Holocaust

  George Weidenfeld, ‘Litigious politics entered the classroom’ and ‘Departure: A Young Student Leaves Vienna’, from Weidenfeld, Remembering My Good Friends. Copyright © 1995 George Weidenfeld. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins

  Rabbi Wilde, ‘A Rabbi is Incarcerated in Buchenwald’, reprinted from Thalmann and Feinermann, Crystal Night. Translation copyright © 1974 Thames and Hudson

  Elie Wiesel, ‘Train Journey to Auschwitz’ and ‘The Liberation of Buchenwald: The Prisoner’s View’, reprinted from Wiesel, Night. Copyright © 1958 Elie Wiesel

  Andrzej Wojcik, ‘The cries and screams of the children could be heard’, http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/krepiec.html

  Karl Wolff, ‘Himmler Watches a Demonstration Shooting of Jews’, quoted in Gilbert, The Holocaust

  Franciszek Zabecki, ‘The Deputy Commandant Kicks a Baby to Death’, quoted in Gilbert, The Holocaust

  Natan Zelichower, ‘Life Inside the Warsaw Ghetto’, II, reprinted from Grynberg (ed.), Words to Outlive Us. Copyright © 1998 and 1993 Panstowe Wysawnictwo Naukowe. Translation copyright © 2002 Metropolitan Books

  Josef Zelkowicz, ‘Blood flows in the streets’, reprinted from Davidowicz, A Holocaust Reader

  Samuel Zylbersztejn, ‘The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising’, reprinted from Grynberg, Words to Outlive Us. Translation copyright © 2002 Metropolitan Books

  INDEX

  A

  air pressure experiments 60–1

  Aktion Reinhard 149–52, 187–8

  Anschluss 19

  armament factories 194, 195–6, 198, 208, 211, 217

  armbands 16, 40, 59, 204

  Arrow Cross 227

  Aryan prisoners at Auschwitz 219, 221, 223

  Auschwitz concentration camp 58, 123, 179

>   arrivals at 227–31

  Aryan prisoners 219, 221, 223

  Auschwitz Protocols, the 214–23

  confiscation of possessions 163–6

  crematoria 134–40, 218, 222–3, 231

  death marches from 244–7

  description of a starving inmate 235–6

  Dr Josef Mengele at 228

  Elie Wiesel’s train journey to 224–6

  escapee Mala Zimetbaum 233–5

  girl found alive in a gas chamber 231–3

  Orchestra at 254–5

  Polish girl’s speech of defiance 211–12

  Primo Levi describes ‘selection’ at 237–42

  reports from Rudolf Hoess 54–5, 63–5, 66–7

  security at 215–17

  see also Birkenau concentration camp; gassing; SS (Schutzstaffel)

  Austria 223, 245, 265, 271

  anti-Semitism 15–18, 19, 22, 56–8

  destruction of synagogues in 33–4

  emigration from 20–2

  autopsies at Dachau 60, 62

  Avriel, Ehud 20

  B

  Babi Yar massacre 93–5

  Bajler, Szlamek (Y. Grojanowski) 107–17

  Barbarossa, Operation 83–91, 92–3

  Babi Yar massacre 93–5

  and Lithuanian partisans 90–2, 98

  ‘self-purging’ operations 90–2

  Stanislawów massacre 95–7

  BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) 16

  Begin, Menachem 20

  Beilin, Aharon 235–6

  Belgian Jews 64, 220, 223, 233

  Belzec concentration camp 65, 149–52, 171, 173, 174–8, 187–8

  Bentschen, German-Polish border town 25–6

  Bergen-Belsen concentration camp 142, 148, 236, 243–4, 246, 250–6

  Bergman, Anna 213

  Berr, Hélène 141

  Bialystok ghetto 208–9, 221

  Birkenau concentration camp 54, 65, 211–12, 215, 217–19, 221–3, 229–30, 234–5, 240, 245, 246

  see also Auschwitz concentration camp

  Birkenwald concentration camp 220, 221, 222, 223

  see also Auschwitz concentration camp

  black-market in Galicia 204, 205

  Blaha, Franz 59

  Blockältester at Auschwitz 241, 242

  Bolshevism

  see Communism; Socialism

  Bormann, Martin 264

  Bretholz, Leo 185–7

  Britain

  the arrest of Irma Grese 256–7

  emigration to 20–3, 38–41

  the Hoefle Telegram 187

  the Kindertransport 38–43

  the liberation of Bergen-Belsen 250–6

  Brzezinki

  see Birkenau concentration camp Buchenwald concentration camp 19, 36–7, 73, 221, 248–9

  Buffum, David H. 29–33

  Bugemin liquidation 114

  Bühler, Dr Josef 132–3

  Bundists 188

  bunkers, ghetto 191, 195, 197, 199, 201, 207–8

  Burger, Wilhem 234

  businesses destroyed, Jewish 6, 19, 28–33, 50–1

  C

  cannibalism 256

  Catholics 16, 17

  censuses 49, 51

  Chelmno concentration camp (Kulmhof) 63, 65, 107–17

  Chiechanów ghetto 221

  children 54, 56–8, 152–3, 167, 168, 190

  anti-Semitism and schools 11, 12, 16–18

  death from starvation 69, 70

  deportation from Łodź 153–6, 159, 161

  George Weidenfeld 15–17

  John Silbermann 10–11

  the Kindertransport 38–43

  L’Entraide Temporaire 142

  mass executions in Krepiec forest 133–4

  of mixed blood 131, 132

  quarters at Theresienstadt ghetto 181–5

  taken from Zdunska Wola ghetto 170–1

  in Warsaw ghetto 118–19

  cinema restrictions 56–8

  civil servants 11, 14

  clothing 11, 35, 68, 164–5, 173, 175, 214–15, 216, 228–9

  Nazi 15, 16, 40, 134, 228

  Star of David emblems 19, 59, 112, 141–2, 166, 204

  cold-water experiments 61

  Cologne 26

  communism and communists 3–5, 10, 89, 90–1

  concentration camps 10, 19, 58

  Aktion Reinhard at Belzec 149–52

  arrivals from Plock ghetto 55–6

  grave digging at Chelmno 108–16

  the Hoefle telegram 187–8

  and Kristallnacht 32, 33, 35–7

  Kurt Gertstein’s report 171–80

  liberation from Buchenwald 248–50

  liberation of Belsen 251–6

  medical experiments 59–63

  Reinhard Heydrich’s communications 48–50, 51

  and Rudolf Hoess 54–5, 63–5, 66–7

  see also Auschwitz concentration camp; gassing, death by; ghettos, Jewish; Warsaw ghetto; individual camps by name

  confiscation of possessions 163–6, 175, 206–7, 210, 224

  Councils of Jewish Elders 49–50

  Cowles, Virginia 23

  crematoria at Auschwitz 134–40, 218, 222–3, 231

  criminals in concentration camps (Aryans) 219

  Croatia 129

  Cyclon B

  see Zyklon B

  Czech children 181, 185

  Czech Jews 62, 64, 228–9

  Czech resistance 149

  Czechoslovakia 245

  Czestochowa ghetto 56

  D

  Dachau concentration camp 10, 65, 219

  medical experiments at 59–63

  Daily Express 3–5

  Daily Herald 261–4

  death marches from Auschwitz 244–7

  Degesch company 65 Der Stürmer newspaper 10

  diary of Anne Frank 143–8

  diesel gassings 171, 174, 176–7

  Doenitz, Karl 263

  Drancy transit camp 142, 185

  Drohobycz executions 83–5

  Dubno executions 168

  Dutch Jews 64, 143–8, 220, 221, 223,

  236–7, 243–4

  dysentery 118, 119, 253

  Dzialdowo concentration camp 56

  Dzielna Prison 200, 201

  E

  economy, Jewish workforce and the German 50–2, 93, 132, 205

  Ehrlich, Zdenka 228–9

  Eichmann, Adolf 19, 20, 47–8, 63–4, 67, 123–33, 171, 227, 233

  Einsatzgruppen

  communication from Reinhard Heydrich 47–8

  Operation Barbarossa executions 83, 87–93, 95–106

  see also SS (Schutzstaffel)

  Einsatzkommando (EK) 83, 97–106

  elderly people

  dedicated ghettos 128, 131, 132

  deported from Łodź 153–4, 156, 158, 161

  emigration 19

  to Britain 20–3, 38–43

  the Kindertransport 38–43

  taxes 56, 125–6

  Enabling Act (1933) 6

  ‘Enigma’ code 187

  escapes

  from Auschwitz 216–17, 233–5

  Dina Pronicheva from the Babi Yar massacre 93–5

  Leo Bretholz from a train travelling to a camp 185–7

  Mala Zimetbaum 233–5

  Szlamek Bajler from Chelmno 116–17

  Estonia 92

  Etkind, Michael 59–63

  execution of Jews

  see Auschwitz concentration camp; Chelmno concentration camp; concentration camps; firing squads and shootings; gassing, death by; graves, mass

  executions of Nazi war criminals 264–72

  F

  Fagence, Maurice 261–4

  farm labour 51, 215

  films

  of ‘self-purging’ in Soviet Union 91

  in Warsaw ghetto 70–1

  Fink, John 244–6

  firing squads and shootings 64, 66, 72, 84–5, 86, 88, 223, 245

  Babi Yar
massacre 93–5

  at Belzec 150

  at Dubno, Volhynia 166–7

  lists of executions in Lithuania 98–106

  mass execution at Krepiec forest 133–4

  Stanislawów massacre 95–7

  Flossenburg concentration camp 246

  food 24, 25, 26, 35, 51, 62, 68–9, 109, 181, 183–4, 217, 224, 235–6, 242, 243, 244, 248, 249, 250, 253, 255

  smuggling and trading in Warsaw

  73–82

  France 27, 30, 129, 141–2, 185

  Frank, Anne 143–8

  Frank, August 163

  Frank, Hans 263, 265, 269

  Freemasons 17

  French Jews 64, 141–2, 218, 219, 220, 221, 223, 236–7

  Frick, Wilhelm 263, 265, 269, 270

  Friedhof, Lukianovska 95

  Fritzsch, Karl 66

  funerals, Jewish 71

  Funk, Walther 263

  G

  Galicia 95–7, 202–8

  Galinek, Edward 233

  gassing, death by 64–7, 85, 108–9, 110, 113–14, 123, 133, 171–2, 174–7, 218–24, 231–2, 242, 254, 268

  German army 83, 88–9, 91, 92, 205, 206, 219, 250, 251

  see also SS (Schutzstaffel)

  Gerstein, Kurt 171–80

  Gestapo 19–20, 22, 66, 72, 74, 108, 179, 255–6

  see also SS (Schutzstaffel)

  ghettos, Jewish 56, 58, 219, 221

  bunkers in 191, 195, 197, 199, 201, 207–8

  children taken from Zduńska Wola 170–1

  children’s quarters at Theresienstadt 181–5

  deportations from Łodź 153–63

  old-age ghettos 128, 131, 132

  performance of Verdi’s Requiem 213

  ‘Song of the Bialystok Ghetto’ 208–9

  the SP (Jewish police force) 72, 73, 158–60, 161–2

  Warsaw 53–4, 67–82, 107

  destruction of ghetto 193–201

  ghetto uprising 188–201

  smuggling and trading food 73–82

  Society for Social Welfare, Warsaw 117–20

  see also individual ghettos by name

  GIs, American 248

  Globocnik, Odilo 173–4

  Glücks, Richard 54

  Goebbels, Joseph 4, 6, 27, 179, 229

  Gordon Walker, P 250–6

  Göring (Goering), Hermann 4–5, 171, 261–2, 264–5, 266, 271

  Gradowski, Salmen 212

  Graebe, Hermann 166–9

  graves, mass 84–5, 94, 96–7, 108–9, 110–15, 134, 150, 168, 178, 252, 253

  Grese, Irma 256–7

  Grodno ghetto 221

 

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