Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews

by Peter Longerich

  55. Report of the Director of the Resettlement Department of the Governor of the district of Warsaw, Waldemar Schön, dated 20 Jan. 1941 in Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 108 ff.

  56. Paul Sauer, ed., Dokumente über die Verfolgung der jüdischen Bürger in Baden-

  Württemberg durch das NS-Regime (Stuttgart, 1965), ii, no. 409.

  57. See below, 165.

  58. See n. 157.

  59. Aly, ‘Final Solution’, 51 and 98.

  60. Steinbacher, ‘Musterstadt’ Auschwitz, 118 ff.

  61. The Einsatzgruppen had already begun to register Jews, establish councils of Jews,

  deploy forced labour, confiscate property, and organize emigration (Pohl, Lublin, 27;

  Krausnick, ‘Einsatzgruppen’, 71–2). In the phase of military administration the heads of

  the civilian authorities, who were subordinate to the high command of the army, had

  instituted the labelling of Jews, the expropriation of Jewish businesses and the confis-

  cation of raw materials (Pohl, Lublin, 28).

  62. Regulation on the labelling of Jews, male and female, in the General Government, 23 Nov.

  1939, Verordnungsblatt für das Generalgouvernement (VOGG), 61; Adam, Judenpolitik, 255.

  63. Regulation on the determination of the concept ‘Jew’ in the General Government,

  VOGG, 231; see Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jakobmeyer, 6 May 1940, 193.

  64. Regulation on the introduction of enforced labour for the Jewish population of the

  General Government, dated 26 Oct. 1939 (VOGG, 5 ff.).

  65. Pohl, Lublin, 72 ff.

  66. VOGG, 231–2.

  67. Regulation on the use of railways by Jews in the General Government, dated 26 Jan.

  1940 (VOGG, p. 45); see also Pohl, Lublin, 66–7.

  68. Pohl, Lublin, 66.

  69. Published in English translation in Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, Lodz Ghetto:

  Inside a Community under Siege (New York, 1989), 31–2.

  486

  Notes to pages 160–162

  70. Golczewski, ‘Polen’, 436.

  71. Ibid. (Piotrków in October 1939, Radomsko in December 1939).

  72. Pohl, Lublin, 68.

  73. On this see AGK, Bühler-Prozess, 66 (published in Faschismus, Berenstein et al., 108 ff.), report by Schön dated 20 Jan. 1941, district workshop in Warsaw, Bühler-Prozess, 35

  (published in Berenstein et al., Faschismus, 86), report by Schön dated 8 Apr. 1940.

  74. AGK, Bühler-Prozess, 94, General Governor to the district heads, 25 May 1940. On

  Cracow see also ed. Diensttagebuch, eds, Präg and Jakobmayer, entries for 12 Apr. 1940,

  22 May 1940, 10 June 1940, 15 July 1940, and 2 Aug. 1940, and Golczewski, ‘Polen’, 433 ff.

  75. Regulation of the Governor of the district of Cracow, Otto Wächter, on the establish-

  ment of a ghetto in Cracow, 3 Mar. 1941 (Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 118 ff.).

  76. Regulation on the establishment of Jewish Councils, 28 Nov. 1939 (VOGG, 72).

  77. The role of the Jewish councils as the agents of the German occupying powers, especially in the context of managing the ghettos, is the subject of intense historiographical debate, which cannot be explored in detail here. For an introduction to this topic see Gustavo

  Corni, Hitlers Ghettos: Voices from a Beleaguered Society 1939–1944 (New York, 2002),

  62 ff. and for further secondary literature on the ghettos see below, n. 129.

  78. See Browning, Origins, 151 ff.

  79. See Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 55 ff.

  80. Majer, Fremdvölkische, 507; Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 65–6.

  81. On the Madagascar Project see Adler, Verwaltete Mensch, 69 ff.; Magnus Brechtken,

  ‘Madagaskar für die Juden’: Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis (Munich, 1997)

  (which also has a comprehensive summary of the older literature); Christopher Brown-

  ing, The Final Solution and the German Foreign Office (New York and London, 1978),

  35–43; Hans Jansen, Madagaskar-Plan. Die beabsichtigte Deportation der europäische

  Juden nach Madagaskar (Munich 1997), esp. 320 ff.; Leoni Yahil, ‘Madascar- Phantom

  of a Solution for the Jewish Question’, in Bela Vago and George Mosse, eds, Jews and

  Non-Jews in Eastern Europe 1918–1945 (New York, 1974).

  82. By Streicher, Goering, and Rosenberg, for example; cf. the references in Brechtken,

  ‘Madagaskar’, 61.

  83. Brechtken, ‘Madagaskar’, 81 ff.

  84. Published in VfZ 5 (1957), 194–8 (with a short introduction by Krausnick). English

  translation in J. Noakes and G. Pridham, Nazism 1919–1945, vol. iii (Exeter, 1988), 324–6.

  In this memorandum Himmler went on to suggest that ‘racially valuable’ children

  should be taken away from their Polish parents; true, this was ‘cruel’ and ‘tragic’, but

  preferable to ‘extermination’; the note on Hitler’s reaction was made on 28 May 1940.

  85. According to Himmler’s handwritten note (28 May 1940) on the memorandum, Hitler

  had judged it ‘very good and correct’; he was to ‘deal with it . . . in complete secrecy’ and show it to Frank, ‘to tell him that the Führer thinks this is right’.

  86. PAA, Inland IIg 177, a short overview of the new and most urgent tasks, Dept. D III.

  The long version of the same day’s document that is preserved in Inland A/B 347/3 has

  the title ‘Thoughts on the Tasks and Duties of Dept. D III’.

  87. PAA, Inland IIg 177, Überblick, handschriftlich Notiz Rademachers v. 2 Aug. 1940.

  88. Ciano’s Diary 1939–1943, ed. Malcolm Muggeridge (London, 1947), 267; Paul Schmidt,

  Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne, 1923–1945. Erlebnisse des Chefdolmetchers im Auswär-

  tigen Amt mit den Staatsmännern Europas (Bonn, 1953), 494–5.

  Notes to pages 162–165

  487

  89. Gerhard Wagner, ed., Lagevorträge des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine vor Hitler

  1939–1945 (Munich, 1972), 106 ff.

  90. See below p. 165.

  91. PAA, Inland IIg/177, note by Luther dated 15 Aug. 1940; published in ADAP, series D,

  vol. 10, no. 345.

  92. Elke Fröhlich, ed. Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels. Teil I. Aufzeichnungen 1923–

  1941 Band 8. April–November 1940, bearbeitet von Jana Richter, 17 Aug. 1940, p. 276.

  (On a conversation with Hitler on the previous day): ‘Some time in the future we want

  to ship the Jews out to Madagascar. There they too can set up their own state.’ What is

  important here is that the sentence is part of a paragraph from a monologue in which

  Hitler pursues his vision of a large-scale ‘cleansing’ after the end of the war: criminals would have to be ‘deported to an island’, whilst ‘asocial elements’ would have to be

  ‘extirpated’.

  93. Akten der Reichsvereinigung, YV M 51/45, meeting on 25 June 1940; Adam Czerniaków, Im Warschauer Ghetto. Das Tagebuch von Adam Czerniaków 1939–1942 (Munich, 1986), 88.

  94. PAA, Inland IIg 177.

  95. ‘The Jewish Question in the Peace Treaties’ (PAA, Inland II g 177, published in ADAP, series D, vol. 10, 92 ff.).

  96. PAA, Inland IIg 177.

  97. Material in PAA, Inland IIg 177.

  98. BAB, R 113/1645, Results of the space planning survey of Madagascar, 21 Aug. 1940; see Brechtken, ‘Madagaskar’, 254 ff.

  99. In PAA, Inland IIg 177.

  100. Incorrectly referred to as ‘Oberbefehlsleiter Brake’.

  101. Which is Reitlinger’s ‘smoke-screen’ thesis. See Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solu-

  tion: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe (London and New York, 1961),

  77 ff., according to which the Foreign Ministry was concerned above all with find
ing

  arguments against emigration from the axis powers; Richard Breitman in The

  Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (London, 1991), 138 f. argues

  that the RSHA saw the Madagascar Plan as a more or less fantastic means of

  achieving their aim of gaining planning responsibility for a comprehensive deport-

  ation of all the Jews under German rule. Adam (Judenpolitik, 307 ff.), Browning

  (Resettlement, 19), Brechtken, and Jansen take the plan more or less seriously. Leni

  Yahil (Madagascar, 696) identifies the key problems of the Madagascar Plan when

  she calls it a ‘phantom’: it was a project that the National Socialists persisted with

  but without regard to the non-existent settlement possibilities on the island of

  Madagascar.

  102. See Peter Longerich, The Unwritten Order: Hitler’s Role in the Final Solution

  (Brunscombe Port, 2003), 185.

  103. See Brechtken, ‘Madagaskar’, 270 ff., which has full details and references; Henry

  Picker Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier (Stuttgart, 1976), 29 May 1942,

  p. 340 and 24 July 1942, p. 456; PAA, Inland IIg 177, Rademacher to Bielfeld, 10 Feb.

  1942 (on the end of the Project).

  104. It was originally planned to resume large-scale deportations on 5 May or 1 August; the officer responsible for Jewish matters in the Department of Interior Administration in

  the General Government, Heinrich Gottong, informed the District Governors on 6

  488

  Notes to pages 165–167

  Apr. 1940 that a plan was being worked on according to which 400,000 Jews would be

  taken to the General Government after 1 May 1940, with ‘the whole of the Jewish

  population [being] collected in one area’ later (Sign. 891, published in Faschismus, ed.

  Berenstein et al., 55). On 5 Apr. 1940 (Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jakobmeyer, 158)

  Frank referred his colleagues to the need ‘to receive 120,000 Poles from the Reich and

  35,000 Gypsies immediately and after 1 August 1940 about 450,000 Jews . . . and in

  addition there will be another 60,000 Poles from Soviet Russia’.

  105. Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jakobmeyer, 12 July 1940, p. 252.

  106. Note on a meeting at IV D 4, 9 July 1940 (Biuletyn, XII (1960), doc. 38). On 12 July Heydrich and Frank came to an agreement whereby the mass resettlement campaigns

  planned in December 1939 would no longer be carried out, with the ‘ongoing Volhy-

  nian campaign’ and the ‘Jewish evacuation campaign that will probably start this

  August’ (i.e. the deportation of the Jews from the integrated eastern territories) going

  ahead. Telex from Günther (RSHA) to Höppner (UWZ Poznan), 1 July 1940 (Biuletyn,

  XII, doc. 37).

  107. Madajczkyk, Okkupationspolitik, 186 ff.

  108. Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and Jakobmeyer, 30 May 1940, 209 ff.

  109. Report by the Director of the Resettlement Department to the Governor of the District of Warsaw, Waldemar Schön on the Warsaw Ghetto, 20 Jan. 1941; published in

  Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 110 ff.; cf. Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 67.

  110. By order of the District Governor, Ludwig Fischer, on 2 October, after Frank had sent a reminder Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 102 ff.; and Diensttagebuch, ed. Präg and

  Jakobmeyer, 12 Sept. 1940, p. 281.

  111. In October 1940 a ghetto was established in Minsk Marzowiecki near Warsaw, and

  another in Chelm in the district of Lublin; at the beginning of 1941 an order for

  resettlement was given within Otwock (in the district of Warsaw; cf. Golczewski,

  ‘Polen’, 436–7). On the (often fruitless) attempts at forming ghettos in the district of

  Lublin, see Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 67.

  112. Order of 13 Sept. 1940; Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 98 ff.

  113. In Czestochowa (District of Radom) in April 1941 a closed Ghetto was set up; the same happened in the city of Lublin in March and April 1941: Golczewski, ‘Polen’, 433 ff.;

  Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 85 ff.; Faschismus, ed. Berenstein et al., 124 ff. (Order for the Establishment of a Ghetto in Kielce, 31 Mar. 1941).

  114. Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 133 ff.; Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 87 (for the city of Lublin).

  115. Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 159 ff.

  116. See Christopher Browning, ‘Nazi Ghettoization: Policy in Poland 1939–1941’, in

  Browning, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge,

  1992), 28–56.

  117. Musial, Zivilverwaltung, 164 ff.

  118. Steinbacher, Auschwitz, 147 ff.

  119. Schön report (see n. 109). For further examples from other ghettos, see Corni, Hitler’s Ghettos, 119 ff.

  120. For general studies of the ghettos and the role of the Jewish councils see later footnotes and the following: Corni, Hitler’s Ghettos; L. Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in

  Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation (New York, 1972); Doron Kiesel et al., eds, ‘Wer

  Notes to pages 167–168

  489

  zum Leben,wer zum Tod’: Strategien jüdischen Überlebens im Ghetto (Frankfurt a. M.

  and New York, 1962). Of importance for the continuation of scholarly dialogue on the

  Jewish councils are above all the published proceedings of two conferences: the YIVO

  Colloquium of 1967 (Improvised Jewish Governing Bodies under Nazi Rule (New York,

  1972)) and the International Historical Conference in Yad Vashem of 1977 (Yisrael

  Gutman and Cynthia Haft, eds, Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe, 1933–1945

  (Jerusalem, 1979)). Further literature on the complex issue of the Jewish councils

  includes: Werner Bergmann, ‘The Jewish Council as an Intermediary System: Socio-

  logical Analysis of the Role of the Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe’, in Yehuda Bauer

  et al., eds, Remembering for the Future: Working Papers and Addenda (Oxford and New

  York, 1989), iii. 2830–50; Dan Michmann, ‘Judenräte und Judenvereinigungen unter

  nationalsozialistischer Herrschaft’, ZfG 46 (1998), 293–304. The most copious literature

  is on the two largest ghettos, Lodz and Warsaw, although these both represent

  exceptions in many respects. Most relevant for the period 1939 to 1941 are: Israel

  Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt, trans. Ina

  Friedman (Jerusalem and Bloomington, Ind., 1982); Ruta Sakowska, Menschen im

  Ghetto. Die jüdische Bevölkerung im besetzten Warschau 1939–1943 (Münster, 1999);

  Hanno Loewy and Gerhard Schoenberner, eds, Unser einziger Weg ist Arbeit. Das Getto

  in Lodz 1940–1944 (Frankfurt a. M. and Vienna, 1990). There is detailed documentation

  available for Warsaw (see n. 129) and Lodz: Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, Lodz

  Ghetto: Inside a Community under Siege (New York, 1989); Lucjan Dobroszycki, ed.,

  The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto 1941–1944 (New Haven and London, 1984); Peter

  Klein, Die Ghettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt 1940 his 1944: eine Dienststelle im Span-

  nungsfeld von Kommunalburokratie und staatlicher Verfolgungspolitik (Hamburg,

  2009). On diaries and journals see n. 129. Studies of the smaller and medium-sized

  ghettos are still a desideratum for research.

  121. On illness, disease and death in the ghettos see Corni, Ghettos, 194 ff.; on Warsaw see Charles G. Roland, Courage under Siege: Starvation, Disease and Death in the Warsaw

  Ghetto (New York, 1992).

  122. Hilberg, Destruction, 269.

  123. On ghetto society and everyday life, see Corni, Ghettos, pp. 168 ff.; and Trunk,

  Judenrat, 368 ff.

  12
4. See esp. Trunk, Judenrat, 115 ff. (public welfare) and 143 ff. (medical aid). On social self-help in the Warsaw ghetto, see Sakowska, Menschen im Ghetto, pp. 81 ff.; on medical

  care see Roland, Courage.

  125. On cultural and religious life, see Corni, Ghettos, 146 ff.; Trunk, Judenrat, 186 ff.; Sakowska, Menschen im Ghetto, 129 ff. (on Warsaw); Gila Flan, ‘Das kulturelle Leben

  im Getto Lodz’, in Kiesel et. al., eds, ‘Wer zum Leben ’, 77–96.

  126. On the topic of work see Corni, Ghettos, 227 ff. In Lodz the Chair of the Jewish council, Rumkowski, pursued a plan to make the ghettos productive from spring 1940 onwards,

  which bore fruit during 1941 (ibid. 238–9). In Warsaw ghetto inhabitants began to work

  in large numbers (both inside and in German firms outside the ghetto). Ghettos in

  autumn 1941 (ibid. 242–3; Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 74 ff.). Trunk (Judenrat, 78)

  adduces various examples from 1940 in which Jewish councils took the initiative in

  founding so-called ‘shops’.

  490

  Notes to page 169

  127. Pohl, ‘Lublin’, 88; Trunk, Judenrat, 400 ff., describes the shift to a work-survival strategy.

  128. On smuggling see Corni, Ghettos, 139 ff. In Warsaw in particular smuggling included

  the illegal ‘export’ of those goods produced in the ghetto that significantly exceeded the production quotas permitted by the Germans (Gutman, Jews of Warsaw, 75; see also

  Carol Battick, ‘Smuggling as a Form of Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto’, Journal of

  Holocaust Education 4/2 (1995), 199–204).

  129. For the Polish ghettos we now have a large number of published diaries and letters as well as contemporary records and transcripts that are based on contemporary records.

  For Lodz see Oskar Rosenfeld, Wozu noch Welt. Aufzeichnungen aus dem Ghetto Lodz,

  ed. Hanno Loewy (Frankfurt a. M., 1994); Hanno Loewy and Andrzej Bodek, ‘Les Vrais

  Riches’. Notizen am Rand: Ein Tagebuch aus dem Ghetto Lodz (Mai bis August 1944)

  (Leipzig, 1997); David Sierakowiak, The Diary of David Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks

  from the Lodz Ghetto, ed. Alan Adelson (New York and Oxford, 1996); Yosef Zelk-

  ovitsh, In those Terrible Days: Writings from the Lodz Ghetto, ed. Michal Unger, trans.

  Naftali Greenwood (Jerusalem, 2002). For Warsaw see: To Live with Honor and Die