The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

by Jeremy Dronfield

  29 Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 121–4; Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 236ff; Wachsmann, KL, pp. 258ff. ‘Commando 99’ was a reference to the telephone number of the stables.

  30 Stein, Buchenwald, p. 85; Wachsmann, KL, pp. 277ff.

  31 Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 121–3.

  32 Gustav uses the word ‘Justifizierungen’, a euphemism sometimes used for judicial murder, for which there is no exact English equivalent – adjustment, judgement, or adjudication are near translations.

  33 Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 21n.

  34 Wachsmann, KL, pp. 270–71. A similar effect had been observed among the Einsatzgruppen 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 towards using gas chambers in concentration camps, and forcing teams of prisoners – the Sonderkommandos – to handle the victims.

  35 Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 58–9; witness statements in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 71, 210, 230; Wachsmann, KL, p. 435.

  36 Stein, Buchenwald, p. 58.

  37 Ibid., pp. 200–203; Wachsmann, KL, p. 435. The typhus serums with which they were injected were being developed jointly by the SS, the IG Farben chemical corporation and the Wehrmacht, with the aim of producing a vaccine for German troops serving in Eastern Europe, where typhus was endemic.

  38 Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, pp. 79–80.

  39 Völkischer Beobachter, quoted in Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 421.

  40 Rees, Holocaust, p. 231; Cesarani, Final Solution, pp. 421ff; notes on accession no. 2005.506.3, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn523540 (retrieved 30 May 2017).

  41 Rabinovici, Eichmann’s Jews, pp. 110–11.

  42 Tini Kleinmann, letter to Samuel Barnet, 19 July 1941, DKK.

  43 Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 83.

  44 Rees, Holocaust, p. 231; Cesarani, Final Solution, pp. 422ff.

  45 Order from Heinrich Müller, RSHA, 23 October 1941, in Arad et al., Documents, pp. 153–4.

  Chapter 9

  1 Michael Dror, ‘News from the Archives’, Yad Vashem Jerusalem 81 (2016), p. 22. Arnold Frankfurter died in Buchenwald on either 14 February (Felix Czeike, Historisches Lexikon Wien (1992–7), vol. 2, p. 357) or 10/19 March 1942 (Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, Lothar Höbling and Ingo Zechner, Ordnung muss sein: Das Archiv der Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde Wien (2007), p. 152). He married Gustav Kleinmann and Tini Rottenstein in Vienna on 8 May 1917 (Dieter J. Hecht, ‘ “Der König rief, und alle, alle kamen”: Jewish military chaplains on duty in the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I’, Jewish Culture and History 17/3 (2016), 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 Hermann Einziger in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 189.

  6 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’. However, it occurs within the context of his writing about transporting tree-trunks from the forest. Presumably his team were 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).

  7 Robert Siewert and Josef Schappe in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 153, 160.

  8 Fritz says that Leopold Moses went to Natzweiler in 1941 (Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 50). However, at that time Natzweiler had only a very small number of prisoners (transferred from Sachsenhausen); it began to receive large transports in spring 1942 (Jean-Marc Dreyfus in Geoffrey P. Megargee (ed.), The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945 (2009), vol. 1B, p. 1,007).

  9 Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 82. (Tini’s original letter, which Fritz never saw, was not preserved.)

  10 Former Soviet territory under German rule was divided into Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Beyond these regions was a still larger war zone at the rear of the German front line.

  11 The instructions for deportees from the Altreich and Ostmark to the Ostland are outlined in Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 428; Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution (2005), p. 381; and a memorandum in Arad et al., Documents, pp. 159–61. The instruction leaflet issued to transport supervisors in Vienna is quoted in full in Gold, Geschichte, pp. 108–9. The narrative of a deportee is given in the testimony of Viennese survivor Wolf Seiler (deported 6 May 1942), document 854, DOW.

  12 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 Waltraud Barton (ed.), Ermordet in Maly Trostinec: die österreichischen Opfer der Shoa in Weißrussland (2012), p. 54). The programme was interrupted due to the logistical demands of the Wehrmacht and resumed in May 1942; between then and October there were nine transports from Vienna, leaving weekly in late May and June (ibid.; see also Alfred Gottwaldt and Diana Schulle, Die «Judendeportationen» aus dem Deutschen Reich 1941–1945 (2005), pp. 230ff; Irene Sagel-Grande, H. H. Fuchs and C. F. Rüter, Justiz und NS-Verbrechen: Sammlung Deutscher Strafurteile wegen Nationalsozialistischer Tötungsverbrechen 1945–1966: Band XIX (1978), pp. 192–6).

  13 Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 69; Buchenwald prisoner record card 1.1.5.3/6283376, ITS.

  14 Bertha’s husband had been killed in the First World War, and she never remarried (Bertha Rottenstein birth record, 29 April 1887, Geburtsbuch, IKA; Lehmann’s Adressbuch for Vienna for 1938, WLO; casualty reports, Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung, 4 June 1915, p. 6; K.u.k. Kriegsministerium, Verlustliste Nr 209 ausgegeben am 13.7.1915 (1915), p. 54).

  15 How long Tini and Herta Kleinmann were held in the Sammellager (holding camp) isn’t known; some deportees waited a week or more, but as Tini’s and Herta’s deportation serial numbers were quite high (see note below), they were presumably notified quite late and would not have been held for long.

  16 Loading could take over five hours (e.g. police report on transport Da 230, October 1942, DOW).

  17 The deportees are listed in the Gestapo departure list for Transport 26 (Da 206), 9 June 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.

  18 Tini Rottenstein was born 2 January 1893 in the apartment building at Kleine Stadtgutgasse 6, near the Praterstern (Geburtsbuch 1893, IKA).

  19 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.

  20 The route is given in Alfred Gottwaldt, ‘Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern’ in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 48–51. Timings are estimated from the Vienna police report on transport Da 230, October 1942, DOW.

  21 When the war began, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (Death’s Head units) division was placed under the overall command of the Waffen-SS. Veteran guard personnel 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 only the SS-TV wore it on their collar tabs also.

  22 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.

  23 Testimony of survivor Wolf Seiler (deported 6 May 1942), document 854, DOW; testimony of Isaak Grünberg (deported 5 October 1942), quoted in Alfred Gottwaldt, ‘Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern’ in Barton, Ermordet, p. 49.

  24 Alfred Gottwaldt, ‘Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern’ in Barton, Ermordet, p. 51.

  25 The transport that left Vienna on Tuesday 9 June is recorded as arriving at Minsk on either Saturday 13 or Monday 15 June; rail records indicate the former date, whereas a report by SS-Lieutenant Arlt (16 June 1942: file 136 M.38, YVP) indicates the latter. Holocaust deniers have taken this discrepancy as casting doubt on the massacres at Maly Trostinets. In fact it was due to industrial relations; as of May 1942, railway 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. 51).

  26 Tini Kleinmann, letter to Kurt Kleinmann, 5 August 1941, DKK.

  27 Sources used here include secondary accounts (Sybille Steinbacher, ‘Deportiert von Wien nach Minsk’ in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 31–8; Sagel-Grande et al., Justiz, pp. 192–6; Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde: Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrußland 1941 bis 1944 (1999), pp. 747–60; Petra Rentrop, ‘Maly Trostinez als Tatort der «Endlösung»’ in Barton, Ermordet, pp. 57–71; Mark Aarons, War Criminals Welcome: Australia, a Sanctuary for Fugitive War Criminals Since 1945 (2001), pp. 71–6), official reports (SS-Lieutenant Arlt, 16 June 1942: file 136 M.38, YVP), and personal testimonies of survivors (Wolf Seiler, document 854, DOW; Isaak Grünberg, quoted in various preceding citations).

  28 Petra Rentrop, ‘Maly Trostinez als Tatort der «Endlösung»’ in Barton, Ermordet, p. 64.

  29 Cesarani, Final Solution, pp. 356ff.

  30 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 Barton, Ermordet, pp. 57–71. Maly Trostinets concentration camp is rarely mentioned 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. 1,234, 1,236). 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.

  31 Testimony of Wolf Seiler, document 854, DOW.

  32 Sagel-Grande et al., Justiz, p. 194.

  33 Aarons, War Criminals, pp. 72–4.

  34 Sagel-Grande et al., Justiz, p. 194.

  35 Aarons, War Criminals, pp. 72–4.

  36 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).

  37 Sagel-Grande et al., Justiz, pp. 194–5.

  38 SS-Lieutenant Arlt, 16 June 1942: file 136 M.38, YVP.

  39 Tini refers to this rowing outing and to her own childhood in her last letter to Kurt, 15 July 1941, DKK.

  40 Altogether, according to the Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (www.doew.at), about 9,000 Jews were deported from Vienna to Maly Trostinets. Only seventeen are known to have survived. The total numbers killed at Maly Trostinets are not known for certain, but it is estimated that over 200,000 German, Austrian and Belarusian Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were murdered there between 1941 and 1943, when the camp was shut down (Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (1986), p. 886 n. 38).

  Chapter 10

  1 An account of this incident given after the war by prisoner Hermann Einziger (in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 189) states that it occurred in April, and that the labour detail were carrying the logs to the camp by hand. However, Gustav’s diary (which returns to its usual chronological reliability in 1942) suggests that it was later in the year (mid to late summer) and that the logs were being loaded on to a wagon. Einziger says Friedmann was from Mannheim; Gustav says he was from Kassel. Neither offers any further details about him.

  2 The ban on Jews being admitted to the infirmary had been lifted at some point; the precise date isn’t known.

  3 Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 138–9; Ludwig Scheinbrunn in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, pp. 215–16.

  4 Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 36–7; Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 313.

  5 Order of 5 October 1942, quoted in Stein, Buchenwald, p. 128.

  6 Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 128–9.

  7 This was a full week after the drafting of the list on 8 October (Stefan Heymann in Hackett, Buchenwald Report, p. 342).

  8 Fritz doesn’t explain this in his memoir. The SS would not require such an affirmation, so it was perhaps for Siewert’s benefit, in case he was accused of being complicit or of forcing Fritz to go.

  9 Fritz (in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 86) says there were eighty men to a wagon; however, Commandant Pister had ordered a train from the railway company consisting of ten cattle/freight wagons and one passenger carriage for SS personnel (Stein, Buchenwald Report, pp. 128–9). Fritz gives the date of departure as 18 October and of arrival at Auschwitz as 20 October, out by one day.

  10 Gustav uses the stock expression ‘Himmelfahrtskommando’, which translates literally as ‘trip to Heaven mission’ and is the German equivalent of ‘suicide mission’ or ‘kamikaze order’.

  Chapter 11

  1 Men in Austria–Hungary were drafted into the army in the spring of the year in which they turned twenty-one, serving three years followed by ten years in the reserves (James Lucas, Fighting Troops of the Austro-Hungarian Army, 1868–1914 (1987), p. 22). Gustav Kleinmann turned twenty-one on 2 May 1912. The kaiserlich und königlich (k.u.k.) Armee (Imperial and Royal Army) was made up of troops from all over the empire.

  2 Lucas, Fighting Troops, pp. 25–6.

  3 The 12th Infantry Division was part of First Army’s support force, and was attached to X Corps for the advance.

  4 John R. Schindler, Fall of the Double Eagle: The Battle for Galicia and the Demise of Austria–Hungary (2015), p. 171. In 1914, the north and west of what is now Poland was part of the German Empire, and the south (comprising Galicia) belonged to Austria–Hungary. Central modern Poland (including Warsaw) was part of the Russian Empire. Thus Austria’s border with Russia was to the north and east.

  5 Ibid., pp. 172ff.

  6 Ibid., pp. 200–239.

  7 Alexander Watson, Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria–Hungary at War, 1914–1918 (2014), pp. 193–5.

  8 Ibid., pp. 200–201; Andrew Zalewski, Galician Portraits: In Search of Jewish Roots (2012), pp. 205–6.

  9 John Keegan, The First World War (1998), p. 192.

  10 Gemeinesames Zentralnachweisbureau, Nachrichten über Verwundete und Kranke Nr 190 ausgegeben am 6.1.1915 (1915), p. 24; Nr 203 ausgegeben am 11.1.1915 (1915), p. 25. The exact circumstances of Gustav’s wound are not known, other than that he was shot. The two reports cited indicate respectively that he was shot in the left lower leg (‘linken Unterschenkel’, 6 January, Biala) and left forearm (‘linken Unterarm’, 11 January, Oświęcim). Simultaneous wounds in the left arm and left leg sometimes happened when a soldier was kneeling to fire his rifle. Such wounds would probably have occurred during an attack or raid rather than in trenches.

  11 Robert Jan van Pelt and Debórah Dwork, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (1996), p. 59.

  12 Ibid.

  13 The report describing Gustav’s actions (Award application, 3 Feldkompanie, Infanterieregiment 56, 27 February 1915, BWM) indicates that this wa
s entirely on Gustav’s and Aleksiak’s own initiative, which suggests that their sergeant and/or platoon officer was absent, most likely killed in the assault.

  14 Austro-Hungarian Army report, 26 February 1915, Amtliche Kriegs-Depeschen, vol. 2 (Berlin: Nationaler Verlag, 1915): reproduced online at stahlgewitter.com/15_02_26.htm (retrieved 1 October 2017).

  15 Award application, 3 Feldkompanie, Infanterieregiment 56, 27 February 1915, BWM.

  16 Wiener Zeitung, 7 April 1915, pp. 5–6. Altogether, nineteen men of the 56th were awarded the Silver Medal for Bravery 1st Class (Silberne Tapferkeitsmedaille erster Klasse) while 97 received the 2nd Class.

  17 K.u.k. Kriegsministerium, Verlustliste Nr 244 ausgegeben am 21.8.1915 (1915), p. 21. The official list doesn’t specify how Gustav received this wound or where it was located (nor indeed which hospital he was in); he is merely listed as ‘verwundeten’. Family oral history says it was in the lung.

  18 This is the substance of speeches given by Rabbi Arnold Frankfurter at this time, including at weddings, as quoted by Hecht in ‘Der König rief’, pp. 212–13, which specifically mentions Gustav and Tini’s wedding.

  19 Watson, Ring of Steel, pp. 503–6.

  20 Grünberg was registered as a bricklayer’s apprentice on the Auschwitz intake (arrivals list, 19 October 1942, ABM).

  21 Prior to 1944, when a rail spur and loading ramp were constructed in the Birkenau camp, prisoners arriving at Auschwitz disembarked at a spur near Auschwitz I, and prior to that at the station in the town, and marched to the camps.

  22 Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle: 1939–1945 (1990), p. 255.

  23 There were 405 men on the transport list, but only 404 were admitted to Auschwitz (ibid., p. 255). Presumably one had died en route.