Nazi Germany and the Jews, Volume 2: The Years of Extermination

by Saul Friedlander

  Himmler had no qualms in agreeing to postpone the deportation of Belgian Jewish nationals, as he knew that they represented barely 6 percent of the 57,000 Jews registered by the Security Police. On August 4, 1942, the first transport of foreign Jews left Malines (Mechelen, in Flemish) for Auschwitz. Yet the events in Belgium would, paradoxically, take a somewhat different course from those in neighboring Holland, for example.

  The beginning of the German onslaught caught both Jews and non-Jews by surprise, and it was during the first two months of the operation that one-third of Belgian Jewry was sent to its death. However, while approximately 15,000 Jews were deported until November 1942, the German roundups became rapidly less successful during the following months: Some further 10,000 Jews were deported before the liberation of the country. Approximately half the Jewish population survived the war.

  Despite strong prejudice against Jews and particularly against the vast number of foreign Jews, two factors led to a far higher rescue percentage in Belgium than in neighboring, relatively non-anti-Semitic Holland, home to a vast majority of native Dutch Jews: The spontaneous reaction of the population and the involvement of Belgian resistance organizations.

  There is no question that large-scale rescue operations initiated by “ordinary Belgians” took place at all levels of society. The issue that remains unresolved—and probably unresolvable—is the degree of influence of the Catholic Church and its institutions on this surge of compassion and charity. That Catholic institutions did hide Jews, particularly Jewish children, is well documented; whether these institutions, and mainly the rank-and-file Catholic population, responded to the encouragements and instructions of the church hierarchy or merely to their own feelings remains unclear, as does the degree of the memory of German brutality in World War I.96

  Active cooperation between a rapidly established Jewish underground (Comité de Défense des Juifs, or CDJ) and Belgian resistance organizations led to the hiding of about 25,000 Jews.97 This cooperation was facilitated by the fact that, from the outset, a significant number of foreign Jewish refugees were affiliated, one way or another, with the Belgian Communist Party or with left-wing Zionist organizations—particularly with the Communist organization for foreign workers, MOI (Main d’Oeuvre Immigrée, or “Immigrant Labor Organization”);98 the communists were highly influential moreover in the Belgian Resistance.

  IV

  While Jews were rapidly disappearing from the Reich, the “Jewish question” remained as present as ever not only in official propaganda but also in everyday life. In early December 1942, for example, as the issue was about to reach the courts, “Katag A.G.,” a textile firm in Bielefeld, decided to consult the Reich Justice Ministry. “Katag,” the firm’s petition read, “was ‘aryanized’ in the years 1937–38. The name “Katag,” an abbreviation for Katz & Michel Textil A.G., was changed in the course of the ‘aryanization’ insofar as we registered it as fantasy identification and added ‘A.G.’ [Aktien Gesellschaft], so that now the business registry in Bielefeld carries the name ‘Katag A.G.’ Recently, however, the German Labor Front objected to the identification of our company as ‘Katag’ because it still carries a syllable of the Jewish name Katz. We hold to the point of view that in the name ‘Katag A.G.’ the first two letters Ka cannot in any way be recognized as the components of a Jewish name.”…99

  There was no easy resolution to the problem; the Justice Ministry asked for the opinion of the Party Chancellery, and after much debate, on March 23, 1943, Bormann’s office reached a Solomonic decision, if one dare say: “Katag A.G.” would be allowed to keep its name temporarily for the duration of the war.100

  During the same fateful days of December 1942, the Reich Ministry of Education decided that Mischlinge of the second degree could, under certain conditions, enroll as students of medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy, but not veterinary medicine. The decision was based on the assumption that mixed breeds of the second degree did not have the slightest chance of finding employment as veterinarians on completion of their studies.101 In other words Mischlinge of the second degree could eventually take care of sick people, but no good German would wish them to attend to sick animals.

  Completing the deportations from Germany was, of course, only a matter of logistics and of time. As we previously saw, from the early summer of 1942 onward, probably as a consequence of the attempt by the “Baum group” to set fire to the “Soviet Paradise” exhibition, no Jewish laborers were to be kept in the Reich, even in war-essential jobs. A letter sent by Sauckel on November 26, 1942, to the heads of labor exchanges stated this in the clearest terms: “In agreement with the Chief of the Security Police and the Security Service, Jews still employed will now be evacuated from the territory of the Reich and replaced by Poles, who are being deported from the General Government…. Poles…if fit for labor, will be transported without their families to the Reich, particularly to Berlin; there they will be put at the disposal of the labor exchange offices to serve as replacements for Jews to be eliminated from armament factories. The Jews who will become available as a result of the employment of Polish labor will be deported at once. This will apply first to Jews engaged in unskilled labor since they can be exchanged most easily. The remaining so-called qualified Jewish laborers will be left in the industries until their Polish replacements become sufficiently familiar with the work process after a period of apprenticeship to be determined for each case individually. Loss of production in individual industries will thus be reduced to the absolute minimum.”102 As we shall see further on, this was the exact expression of Himmler’s policy as stated in a letter of October 1942 to the OKW.

  On February 27, 1943, the deportation of the “Jews employed in industry” (the Fabrikaktion) began. It had a double aim: to seize and deport all full Jews working in industry in the Old Reich and to expel any Jewish partners of mixed marriages from these workplaces.103 In fact the roundups included not only the Jewish laborers but also their families and, more generally, any full Jews still remaining anywhere in the Reich.104 In Berlin, where more than 10,000 Jewish forced laborers had still been employed, the operation lasted almost one full week. On March 1, the first transport departed for Auschwitz. Within a few days some 7,000 Jews were deported from the capital, and 10,948 from all over the Reich.105

  Some 1,500 to 2,000 Berlin Jews who had been seized but excluded from deportation (mainly mixed-marriage partners) were assembled in a building on 2-4 Rosenstrasse, for identification and work selection in remaining Jewish institutions (such as the one remaining Jewish hospital). Most of these internees were released by March 8.106 During these few days scores of spouses, other relatives, and friends did gather on the opposite sidewalk and at times called for the prisoners; they mainly waited for information or tried to get food parcels into the building. Such unusual gatherings certainly demanded a measure of courage, but they were relatively modest and completely nonaggressive. They did not bring about the release of the detainees, as deportation had not been planned at any time for these Jews. The event turned into legend, however: A demonstration of thousands of German women brought about the liberation of their Jewish husbands. It is an uplifting legend, yet a legend nonetheless.107

  The Fabrikaktion had been preceded, in late 1942, by the deportation of Jewish concentration camp inmates from camps in the Reich to camps in the East;108 on October 20, 1942, the Gemeindeaktion (the “community operation”) had led to the deportation of most of the staff of the Reichsvereinigung and of the Berlin community.109 Several transports followed at the end of 1942 and in early 1943. After the Fabrikaktion another transport carried half of the remaining Berlin Jewish hospital staff to Auschwitz;110 in May and June transports of bedridden patients followed from the Jewish hospital to Theresienstadt.111 In the meantime, however, 10,000 elderly inmates were deported from Theresienstadt to Treblinka. According to a report from Müller to Himmler, it would ease the overpopulation in the “ghetto.”…112

  Leo Baeck and other leaders of
the Reichsvereinigung were deported to Theresienstadt in January 1943, and in June the Reich association de facto ceased to exist. The one-thousand-year-old history of the Jews in Germany was coming to an end.

  Hertha Feiner was among the last employees of the Berlin community to be deported. She did not wait for the Gestapo in her apartment but, warned by neighbors, moved to the community building; there she was arrested on March 9, 1943. A non-Jewish acquaintance tried without success to have her released, as mother to two Mischling daughters. On March 12 she was put on the transport to Auschwitz. She poisoned herself in the train.113

  A few months earlier, it seemed that the Kleppers would be able to escape the worst. On December 5, 1942, the Swedish legation informed them that their daughter Renate had been granted a visa.114 Would Hanni be able to join her daughter? On the eighth Jochen Klepper was in the office of his protector, Interior Minister Frick. The minister, apparently quite distressed, informed Klepper that he couldn’t do a thing to facilitate the mother’s departure: “Such matters cannot be kept secret; the Führer hears of them and a terrible outburst takes place.”115 Frick arranged for Klepper to meet Eichmann. The head of IVB4 didn’t even promise that Reni would be allowed to leave; in any case the mother would not be authorized to follow.116 The next day, December 10, Eichmann definitively rejected Hanni’s departure. Jochen, Hanni, and Renerle did not hesitate: They would die together. That same night all three committed suicide.117

  V

  On June 18, 1942, Wehrmacht private HK wrote home from Brest-Litowsk: “In Bereza-Kartuska, where I stopped for lunch, 1,300 Jews had just been shot on the previous day. They had been brought to a pit outside of the town. Men, women and children had to undress completely and were then liquidated with a shot in the back of the neck. The clothes were disinfected and used again. I am convinced that if the war goes on much longer, the Jews will be turned into sausage and served to Russian war prisoners and to the Jewish specialized workers….”118

  That same day a meeting of district governors and SS commanders in the General Government reviewed the progress of the extermination: “Oberregierungsrat Engler: The Jewish question has been solved in the city of Lublin. What was the Jewish quarter has been evacuated…. SS and Police Leader Katzmann presented the security situation in the district of Galicia…. Jews have already been evacuated in rather large numbers…. In the next few weeks further Jews are to be resettled…. Amtschef Dr. Hummel reports on conditions in the Warsaw District…. He hopes that the city of Warsaw will be freed of the burden of Jews unable to work in a reasonable period of time…. To the question of State Secretary Dr. Bühler whether there was a chance of decreasing the ghetto population more quickly, State Secretary Krüger responded that a better overview would be possible in the course of August…. Deputy Amtschef Oswald spoke about the current situation in the Radom District: The Radom District had fallen behind in resettling the Jews…. This resettlement of the Jews now depended only on the problem of transport…. State Secretary Krüger indicated that as far as the police were concerned, the Jewish operation had been prepared down to the last detail and that implementation was only dependent on transport.”119

  In mid-July, Höfle arrived in Warsaw from Lublin with a group of “specialists.” SS units in the city would in due time be reinforced by Polish “police,” and by Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian auxiliaries. On July 20 Czerniaków, aware of widespread rumors about pending deportations, decided to get some information from his longtime German “interlocutors”: “In the morning at 7:30 at the Gestapo. I asked Mende how much truth there was in the rumors. He replied that he had heard nothing. I turned to Brandt; he also knew nothing.” And so it went. Czerniaków continued his tour of German officials and was repeatedly told that the rumors were Quatsch and Unsinn [utter nonsense]. “I ordered Lejkin [the acting Jewish police chief] to make the public announcement through the precinct police stations.” The chairman then proceeded to Auerswald to discuss the fate of children held in detention centers: “He [Auerswald] ordered me to write him a letter for their release, on condition that they be placed in reformatories and that a guarantee would be given that they would not escape…. It appears that about 2,000 children will qualify for reformatories.”120

  On July 21 several members of the council were arrested as hostages and so were other prominent Jews in the ghetto administration and beyond (Czerniaków’s wife was also on the list but managed to remain with him in his office).121 The next morning, July 22, the entrance to the council building was blocked by a few SS cars; the council members and the heads of all departments assembled in Czerniaków’s office, and Höfle arrived with a small retinue. Reich-Ranicki was called in to take down the minutes of the meeting in the conference room. The windows were wide open on that sunny day, and in the street the SS were playing Strauss waltzes on a portable phonograph.122

  Höfle announced that the deportations would start within a few hours, and, according to Reich-Ranicki, read out the German instructions, “awkwardly and with some difficulty,” as if he had hardly glanced at the text beforehand: “There was a strained silence in the room, made even more tense by the rattle of my typewriter, the clicking of the cameras of some SS officers, who kept taking pictures, and the gentle melody of the ‘Blue Danube Waltz’ wafting in from the street…. From time to time Höfle looked at me to make sure I was keeping up. Yes, I was keeping up all right…. The final section of the ‘Instructions and Tasks’ set out the penalties for those who attempted to evade or disrupt the resettlement measures! There was but one punishment and it was repeated at the end of each sentence like a refrain: ‘…will be shot.’” 123

  Czerniaków tried to negotiate some exemptions (he was particularly worried about the fate of many orphans) but received no assurances whatsoever. On the twenty-third, he noted in his diary: “In the morning at the Community. SS 1st Leut. [Lt.] Worthoff from the deportation staff came and we discussed several problems. He exempted the vocational school students from deportation. The husbands of working women as well. He told me to take up the matter of the orphans with Höfle. The same about craftsmen. When I asked for the number of days per week in which the operation would be carried on, the answer was seven days a week. Throughout the town a great rush to start new workshops. A sewing machine can save a life. It is 3 o’clock. So far 4,000 are ready to go. The orders are that there must be 9,000 [at the Umschlagplatz, the assembly square] by 4 o’clock.”124 In the afternoon of the twenty-third, as the Jewish police were unable to fill the quota, the auxiliary police units launched their own roundup without taking any exemptions into account. Czerniaków’s “negotiations” had been in vain.

  That same evening the SS called Czerniaków back from home; he was told that the next day 10,000 Jews had to be sent to the Umschlagplatz. The chairman returned to his office, closed the door, wrote one farewell note to the council informing it of the new German demands, another to his wife, and took poison.125 Kaplan, no friend of Czerniaków, noted on July 26: “The first victim of the deportation decree was the President, Adam Czerniaków, who committed suicide by poison in the Judenrat building…. There are those who earn immortality in a single hour. The President, Adam Czerniaków, earned his immortality in a single instant.”126

  On July 22 Treblinka had opened its gates. Every day thousands of terrified ghetto inhabitants were driven to the assembly point and from there, a freight train carried five thousand of them to Treblinka.127 At first most of the Jews of Warsaw did not know what fate awaited them. On July 30 Kaplan mentioned “expulsion” and “exile”: “The seventh day of the expulsion. Living funerals pass before the windows of my apartment—cattle trucks or coal wagons full of candidates for expulsion and exile, carrying small bundles under their arms…rosters promising 3 kgs of bread and 1 kg of marmalade drew many a famished Jew to the assembly square.”128

  On August 5 the deportations engulfed all institutions for children, including all orphanages. Since May of that year, Korczak had been k
eeping his “ghetto diary”—a record of thoughts, reminiscences, even dreams, more than actual events. Yet every line reflected, to varying degrees, the anxiety that the “old doctor” felt about the fate of his charges and that of the ghetto. His imprisonment by the Gestapo in the dreaded Pawiak jail, at the end of 1940 and in early 1941 (following his insistence on transporting potatoes for his orphanage during the transfer to the ghetto, his wearing a Polish officer’s uniform—he had been an officer in the Polish army, but such a display was of course forbidden—and his steady refusal to wear the mandatory armband with the Jewish star), left him shaken and ill. Vodka soothed his anxiety but not sufficiently to keep his mind off macabre ruminations, even when he joked.129 Thus sometime in late May or early June of 1942, he wrote:

  “All is fine, I say, and it’s my wish to be merry. An amusing reminiscence: Five decagrams of so-called smoked sausage now costs 1 zloty 20. It used to cost only 80 grosze (and bread a bit more). I said to a saleswoman: ‘Tell me, dear lady, isn’t that sausage by chance made of human flesh? It’s rather too cheap for horsemeat.’ And she replied: ‘How should I know? I wasn’t there when it was being made.’” Leaving his peculiar sense of humor at that, Korczak turned again to his single overwhelming concern: the orphans. “The day began with weighing the children,” he noted in the same entry. “The month of May has brought a marked decline [in their weight]. The previous months of this year were not too bad and even May is not yet alarming. But we still have two months or more before the harvest. No getting away from that. And the restrictions imposed by official regulations, new additional interpretations and overcrowding are expected to make the situation still worse.”130