Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

  planned to bring the ‘Final Solution’ to its conclusion in the General Government

  and in the Reichskommissariat Ostland. Moreover, immediately after the issuing

  of the order on 21 June, the Security Police in Latvia began to withdraw the

  workers who were, in their view, not important to the war effort, from individual

  firms.

  The Kaiserwald concentration camp, which had been built near Riga on

  Himmler’s instructions, was to achieve a capacity of 2,000 inmates at the most;

  in fact it was to act as a transit camp. Here labour columns were assembled which

  were marched to the individual firms where they were lodged in primitive

  accommodation, known as ‘barracks’, near the production facilities. 53 In these camps and in Kaiserwald continual selections of those unfit for work took place;

  on 28 April 1944 the children were removed from all the camps and murdered. 54

  The Riga ghetto was, by contrast, dissolved. As in the Kaiserwald camp and in

  the ‘barracks’ only Jews who were actually in the ‘work programme’ were sup-

  posed to live there. On 2 November the Security Police drove together the children

  and the sick in the ghetto and deported them to Auschwitz. 55 After that the ghetto was gradually cleared once and for all. The two other large ghettos remaining in

  the Baltic, the ghettos of Kaunas and Vilnius (Vilna), were removed in September

  1943.

  The Kaunas (Kovno) ghetto was turned into a concentration camp (‘KZ

  Kauen’) on 15 September. By this point many of the ghetto-dwellers were already

  living in work camps outside the ghetto, which were now subordinated to the

  concentration camp. A total of 2,800 Jews were deported to Estonia and deployed

  as forced labourers; those ‘unfit for work’ were murdered. On 27 March 1944

  prisoners who were not used as slave labour, 1,800 children, and elderly people

  were murdered. 56

  In the spring of 1943 the smaller ghettos in the district of Vilnius were dissolved,

  and the bulk of the inhabitants murdered, the smaller part interned in the Vilnius

  ghetto, and in June and July the same thing happened to the labour camps in this

  area. 57 In August and September the remaining 20,000 or so inhabitants of the ghetto were herded together; most of them were dispatched to Estonian and

  Latvian concentration camps, while around 4,000 people were deported to

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  Sobibor or murdered in the mass execution centre at Ponary. After the final

  liquidation of the ghetto at the end of September 2,500 Jews were left in labour

  camps in Vilna. 58 The Vaivara concentration camp in Estonia was set up on 15 September 1943 in direct connection with the action against the ghettos of

  Vilnius and Kaunas. It served as a transit camp for the Jews deported from the

  ghettos of Vilnius and Kaunas as well as from the Reich, Theresienstadt, Poland,

  and Hungary. Some 20,000 people passed through this camp and were distributed

  around smaller labour camps. 59

  While the examples of Slutsk and Glebokie make it clear that in 1943 the Jewish

  population of White Russia continued its resistance against the policy of exter-

  mination, conditions in the Baltic were rather different. Here, after the major

  ghetto actions in 1941, in which the majority of the Jewish population had already

  been murdered, resistance groups formed in various ghettos beginning in early

  1942. However, the fact that a long phase of relative calm began, one which was to

  last until 1943 during which as a rule no ‘actions’ occurred, in the final analysis

  produced a negative effect on resistance activities. The high percentage of Jews

  employed ‘productively’ fed the illusion that the Germans were at least leaving

  those Jews ‘fit for work’ and their relatives alive.

  In Kaunas a Communist and a Zionist underground group combined forces in

  the summer of 1943; the underground activities were covered up by the chairman

  of the Jewish council, Elkes. The focus of the work of the underground lay in

  reinforcing the resistance of the ghetto-dwellers through cultural and educational

  activities. Several hundred resistance fighters finally managed to flee the ghetto in

  small groups and join the partisans in the forests. No attempt at an uprising in the

  ghetto was undertaken. 60

  In Vilnius the FPO resistance group founded early in 1942 prepared for an

  armed uprising. However, their activities were considerably frustrated by the

  chairman of the Jewish council, Jacob Gens, for fear of reprisals against the

  ghetto-dwellers. When the ghetto was cleared in several ‘actions’ in August and

  September 1943, the FPO did not, as planned, manage to light the initial spark for a

  general uprising through armed resistance. The surviving resistance fighters

  continued the struggle in the forests. 61 There were also underground movements in the ghettos of the Lithuanian towns of Schaulen and Svencian, but they did not

  attempt an uprising. 62

  In Lithuania in 1943–4 a total of around 1,150 ghetto-dwellers fled to the forests

  as participants in resistance groups and a further 650 did so independently. This

  meant that a total of 4.5 per cent of the ghetto population managed to escape

  extermination through flight. 63

  In the Latvian capital of Riga, an underground organization with several

  hundred members formed early in 1942. In October 1942 the attempt to bring a

  group of resistance fighters out of the ghetto failed; the secret organization was

  eliminated by the occupying forces. 64

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  Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

  Continuation of the Deportations

  German Reich

  After Hitler’s decision in September 1942 to replace those Jews still working in

  armaments production, the preparations for a sudden (schlagartig) deportation of

  this group began in late 1942. In view of the large-scale recruitment of foreign

  workers planned for early 1943, the replacement of Jewish skilled workers did not

  seem to pose an insuperable problem. 65

  The ‘withdrawal of all Jews still engaged in the work process’ began on

  27 February 1943. In Berlin alone, the SS Bodyguard units (Leibstandarte) arrested

  some 7,000 people in their workplaces or homes; a few days later they were

  deported to Auschwitz. 66 At this point there were no plans to deport Jews living in ‘mixed marriages’; they were also arrested, but they were released to go home.

  In Berlin, however, hundreds of men from this group were held in two buildings

  belonging to the Jewish community, presumably to have staff available to replace

  the deported employees. Remarkably, there was a spontaneous public protest by

  the families of these men, who stood for days outside the building on Rosen-

  strasse. But the fact that the Gestapo finally released the men held in Rosenstrasse

  was not the result of this protest; at this point there had been no plans to deport

  them in any case. 67

  After this surge in deportations (between early January and mid-March 1943 a

  total of sixteen transport trains, most of them carrying 1,000 people each, had

  gone to Auschwitz68), 31,897 people of Jewish origin still lived in the Reich, more than 18,515 of them in Berlin. Of the Jews living in the Reich 17,517 were free of the

  obligation to wear t
he yellow star. 69 From then on the deportations continued only on a smaller scale. 70

  The major deportations to Theresienstadt in the summer of 1942 were followed

  by numerous smaller transports. From November 1942 until mid-1943 there were

  almost 100 of these, each one usually carrying 50 or 100 people. The only special

  train to Theresienstadt, involving more than 1,200 people, left Berlin on 17 March

  1943. 71

  In December 1943 the RSHA ordered the ‘change of residence’ to Theresien-

  stadt of certain groups hitherto spared deportation. This was to start at the

  beginning of the year and particularly affected were the Jewish spouses of mixed

  marriages that no longer existed, and who—because of the existence of children

  who were not deemed to be Jewish—had been free of the obligation to wear the

  yellow star. 72 In 1943, ten transports had gone from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, each carrying more than 1,000, but in some cases far more than 2,000 people. 73

  During the whole of 1944 further smaller deportations left the Reich

  for Auschwitz. In particular, during that year further large transports left

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  387

  Theresienstadt for Auschwitz: three carrying 2,500 people in May, and a further

  eleven in September and October, with between 1,500 and 2,500 people. 74

  In January 1945, in one last action, the RSHA planned to deport those Jews still

  ‘on work deployment’ to Theresienstadt, but also the elderly, the sick, and

  children hitherto excluded from the deportations. But because of military devel-

  opments this plan could not be carried out across the whole of the Reich. 75

  Netherlands

  In the Netherlands, 76 from which 38,000 people had been deported by the end of 1942, the deportations resumed in January 1943, after a one-month ‘Christmas

  break’. As a rule, one train per week travelled to Auschwitz from the collection

  camp of Westerbork. In the middle of January a second camp was opened at

  Vught. In March, when the murder of the Jews from Thessaloniki began in

  Auschwitz, the Dutch transports went to Sobibor extermination camp, where

  almost all deportees were murdered immediately on their arrival. In May, pre-

  sumably in connection with the general radicalization of Judenpolitik after the

  Warsaw ghetto uprising, the RSHA ordered that the number of those to be

  deported from the Netherlands be raised forthwith: between 18 May and 20 July,

  almost 18,000 people were deported to Sobibor, including children from the

  Vught labour camp, accompanied by their mothers. Of the 34,313 people

  who came to Sobibor from the Netherlands by 20 July, only 19 would survive.

  After a five-week break the deportations resumed on 24 August at weekly inter-

  vals—with interruptions in September/October and between November and

  January—primarily to Auschwitz. From September 1944 some transports also

  went to Theresienstadt and some to the ‘delivery camp’ (Auslieferungslager) of

  Bergen-Belsen. It was only in the spring of 1944 that the pace of the deportations

  slowed. However, on 3 September 1944, another 1,019 people were deported to

  Auschwitz; the last deportation from the Netherlands, to Bergen-Belsen, was

  carried out on 13 September. 77 Overall, 107,000 Jews living in the Netherlands were deported; around 102,000 of those died.

  Belgium

  From the end of 1942 the RSHA and the German department of the Foreign

  Ministry urged that Jews of Belgian citizenship, who had so far been spared,

  should now be deported. In December 1942 Luther requested that the Brussels

  office of the Foreign Ministry, ‘in association with the military commander,

  consider the possibility of extending the measures already taken to all the Jews

  in Belgium, and round them up in the collection camps until they could be

  transported . . . A thorough cleansing of Belgium of the Jews must occur sooner

  388

  Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

  or later at all costs.’ The deportation of Belgian Jews should begin as soon as

  possible. 78

  The director of the Foreign Ministry office in Brussels, Werner von Bargen,

  confirmed in January 1943 that after the deportation of all foreign Jews it was also

  planned to ‘get rid of’ some 4,000 Jews with Belgian citizenship ‘at the same time’;

  however, because of a shortage of rolling stock no deportations were possible. And

  the capacity of the single camp, Mechelen, was not enough to intern all the

  country’s Jews there. 79 It was not until 29 June that the Gestapo office in Brussels informed Mechelen camp that because of an order from Himmler, ‘Jews of Belgian

  citizenship must now be included in the deportation actions without delay’. 80

  On 3 and 4 September large numbers of Belgian Jews were arrested in a raid in

  Brussels and Antwerp. On 20 September 1943 the first transport train carrying

  only Belgian Jews left the country. 81 In 1943 a total of six deportations occurred, involving almost 6,000 people. In 1944 there were four further transports with

  over 2,300 people. 82 All trains went to Auschwitz.

  However, these deportations did not go completely smoothly. One of the trains,

  the twentieth RSHA transport from Belgium, was the target of a unique rescue

  action. On 19 April 1943, the day the ghetto uprising in Warsaw began, three

  members of the Belgian resistance stopped the train and freed seventeen prisoners

  from a wagon. More than 200 other deportees managed to jump off the train as it

  continued on its journey, and found refuge with Belgian citizens. 83

  The number of Jews deported from Belgium and murdered is estimated at

  around 28,500, which is to say that about 32 per cent of the pre-war Jewish

  population had been killed. 84 Around 1,000 of these were Belgian nationals. 85

  In spite of this shockingly high death toll, the Jews in Belgium had better

  chances of survival than those in the neighbouring Netherlands, where about

  102,000, or 73 per cent of the entire Jewish population of around 140,000 people

  were murdered. In Belgium as many as 25,000 Jews, or almost 50 per cent of the

  Jews resident in Belgium, managed to survive in the underground. There are a

  variety of reasons for their superior chances of survival. On the one hand, in

  Belgium the SS played a relatively small part in the military administration; the

  military was primarily concerned with the security situation, and set in motion the

  anti-Jewish measures preceding the deportations at a relatively slow pace.

  In Belgium—unlike the Netherlands—the government apparatus was not actively

  involved in the persecution of the Jews, and the subordinate administrative

  organizations carried out the German instructions relatively carelessly. Not least

  for that reason, it proved impossible to construct a system of arrest and deport-

  ation in Belgium similar to that in the Netherlands. Instead, attempts were made

  to arrest the Jews in raids, a process that prompted panic and encouraged flight

  into illegality. One final significant factor in the survival of the Jews was that, by

  virtue of the fact that the large majority of them were not integrated into Belgian

  society, they had maintained a healthy suspicion of the adminsitrative measures

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  preceding the deportations. Last of all, the Jews in Belgium benefited from the fact

  that there was a stronger national resistance movement than there was in the

  Netherlands, and that there were more specifically Jewish resistance organizations

  working closely with the general resistance movement. 86

  Croatia

  The deportations also continued in the zone of Croatia occupied by the Wehr-

  macht: in May 1943, some 2,000 people were deported to Auschwitz in two further

  transports. 87 If the deportations of August 1943 are included, more than 7,000 Jews were deported from the German-occupied zone of Croatia to Auschwitz.

  In the spring of 1944 Himmler ordered Hans Helm, the police attaché in

  Belgrade, to ‘sort out the Jewish question in Croatia as quickly as possible’.

  Himmler’s order documents the determination on the part of the Germans to

  track down small groups of Jews, even in the most remote corner of their

  occupied territory and in what was a very critical phase of the war, and murder

  them. However, Helm had to report that a few hundred Jews still lived in

  Croatia, but they were claimed for urgent work by the Ustasha state, or shielded

  against persecution by Ustasha functionaries. 88 Thousands of Jews had escaped to the Italian-occupied zone, and most of them were able to escape the German

  occupation there even after the collapse of Italy—we will explore this in greater

  detail below. 89 Many Croatian Jews had also escaped the German occupation zone to join Tito’s Partisans. Overall, however, only around 7,000 of the

  originally 30,000–40,000-strong Jewish minority were to survive the Holocaust

  in Croatia. 90

  Intensified Efforts to Deport Jews from Third-Party

  States within the German Sphere of Influence in 1943

  In 1943 the Foreign Ministry continued its efforts to include in the deportations

  the Jews from occupied, allied but also neutral states, who lived outside their

  native lands, but within the German sphere of influence. While the Swiss had

  agreed early in 1943 to the German proposal that Jews of Swiss citizenship be

  requested to return to Switzerland, 91 on 22 January the Foreign Ministry also turned to the governments of Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, and Sweden,