21 Kaplan diary, 13 December 1939: Katsch, op. cit., pages 85–6.
22 Decree of 11 December 1939: quoted in full in Shirer, Berlin Diary, op. cit., page 220, note 1.
23 SS Major Bischoff to the Mayor of Jarocin, 13 December 1939: Bartoszewski and Lewin, op. cit., page 625.
24 Kaplan diary, 16 December 1939: Katsch, op. cit., page 87.
25 Mary Berg diary, 18 December 1939: Shneiderman, op. cit., page
26 Hans Frank, diary entry for 19 December 1939: Hans Frank Diary, Warsaw 1961. The complete diary was submitted to the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, as document USSR-223.
27 The Jews included Elja Brajtman, Aron Fogelnest, Eliasz Nussenbaum, Jankiel and Uszer Rosenberg, Herszek and Lejbus Szajman and Mechel Tuchmacher.
28 Kaplan diary, 29 December 1939: Katsch, op. cit., page 93.
29 Kaplan diary, 31 December 1939: ibid., page 94.
30 Kaplan diary, 30 December 1939: ibid., pages 93–4.
31 Immediately after seeing the boat off from Vienna, Ehud Uberall (later Ehud Avriel) had gone to Palestine, a legal Palestine visa in his valid German passport: Ehud Avriel, Open the Gates! A Personal Story of ‘Illegal’ Immigration to Israel, London 1975, page 104.
32 Communication from Professor Bauer, 1 October 1978: diplomatic protests were made by the British Ambassador in Belgrade, Sir Ronald Campbell, on 29 January and 5 February 1940.
33 Avriel, op. cit., page 103.
34 Yitzhak Zuckerman, ‘25 Years after the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt’: Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, op. cit., page 25.
9. 1940: ‘A WAVE OF EVIL’
1 Ringelblum notes, January 1940: Sloan, op. cit., pages 7–8.
2 Ringelblum notes, 2 January 1940: ibid., page 11.
3 Ringelblum notes, 5 January 1940: ibid., pages 11–12.
4 Ringelblum notes, 6 January 1940: ibid., page 12.
5 Kaplan diary, 6 January 1940: Katsch, op. cit., pages 97–8.
6 Mary Berg diary, 10 January 1940: Schneiderman, op. cit., page 25.
7 Testimony of Avraham Buchman: Eichmann Trial, 2 June 1961, session 63.
8 Ringelblum notes, 6 March 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 25.
9 Testimonies of Arieh Helfgot, Nachum Perelman and Joseph Grosfeld, Yad Vashem archive: Krakowski, ‘Jewish Prisoners of War in the 1939 Campaign’, op. cit., pages 316–17.
10 ‘The History of the Jews of Wlodawa in the Time of the Nazi Occupation’, Yad Vashem archive: Krakowski, op. cit., pages 315–16.
11 Kaplan diary, 14 January 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 102.
12 Kaplan diary, 16 January 1940: ibid., page 103.
13 A list of the executed Jews, together with, where possible, their ages, professions and addresses, was put by Emanuel Ringelblum into his secret archive: it was discovered after the war, and published in full by Adam Rutkowski in the bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (henceforth referred to as Biuletyn, Warsaw), number 62, 1967, pages 68–75.
14 Kaplan diary, 24 January 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 107.
15 Zygmunt Klukowski, diary entry for 1 February 1940: Dziennik z lat okupacji Zamojszczyzny, Lublin 1959, page 99.
16 Kaplan diary, 4 February 1940: Katsch op. cit., page 116.
17 Kaplan diary, 5 February 1940: idem.
18 Ringelblum notes, 7 February 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 16.
19 Ringelblum notes, 12 February 1940: ibid., page 19.
20 Kermish, The Destruction of the Jewish Community of Piotrkow, op. cit., column 16.
21 Manchester Guardian, 19 February 1940.
22 Ringelblum notes, 21 February 1940: Sloan, op. cit., pages 21–2.
23 Ringelblum notes, 6 March 1940: ibid., page 24.
24 Kaplan diary, 4 March 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 129.
25 There is a detailed report on the forced labour camps in the Ringelblum archive. Early in 1941 Ringelblum organized the despatch of Jews from Warsaw to collect material about these camps. Their report listed forty-one camps, employing seventeen thousand Jews. At that time the largest of the camps was just to the south of the village of Belzec: YIVO journal, Bleter far geshichte, volume 2, New York, 1949, pages 242–72.
26 Kermish, op. cit., column 17.
27 Ringelblum notes, 7 February 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 16.
28 Stefan Krakowski, ‘Stutthof’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 15, column 464.
29 ‘The Sufferings of Jews in the Concentration Camp at Stutthof (near Danzig)’: Bulletin of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, March 1945, Foreign Office papers, 371/51116 (henceforth referred to as Bulletin, London).
30 Lucjan Dobroszycki (editor), The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto 1941–1944, New Haven 1984, page xxvii.
31 Ibid., page xxxix.
32 Eichmann Trial, document T.383, submitted to the court on 27 March 1961, session 4. The villages were Piaski, Glusk and Belzyce.
33 Letter from the Joint Polish—Jewish Aid Commission to the Reich Chancellery, dated 28 March 1941: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NG-2490, quoted in Levin, The Holocaust, op. cit., pages 182–3.
34 Testimony of Heinrich Grüber: Eichmann Trial, 16 May 1961, session 41. Grüber was later sent to Sachsenhausen.
35 Leon Pommers, conversation with the author, Jerusalem.
36 A. J. Sherman, Island Refuge: Britain and Refugees from the Third Reich, London 1973, pages 209–10.
37 Kurt Marcus, ‘Japan and the Jews’, Jerusalem Post, 2 April 1982 (Readers’ Letters).
38 Kaplan diary, 7 March 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 129.
10. WAR IN THE WEST: TERROR IN THE EAST
1 Ringelblum notes, 4 May 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 37.
2 Ringelblum notes, 9 May 1940: ibid., page 39.
3 Memorandum of 15 May 1940, submitted to Hitler on 20 May 1940: quoted in Philip Friedman, Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust, Philadelphia 1980, page 47.
4 Recollections of Rabbi Harry M. Jacobi, Jewish Chronicle, 29 September 1978; Harry Jacobi, in conversation with the author, London, 21 February 1985.
5 Kaplan diary, 18 May 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 154.
6 Sol Liptzin, ‘Weiss, Ernst, 1884–1940’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, volume 16, Jerusalem 1972, columns 412–13.
7 Kazimierz Smolen (editor), From the History of KL Auschwitz, Cracow 1967, volume 1, pages 2–3.
8 S. Krakowski, ‘Tarnow’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 15, column 821.
9 Archive of the Panstwowe Muzeum w Oswiecimiu (henceforth cited as Auschwitz Museum Archive).
10 Maria Feferman-Wasoff, typescript, ‘The Processed’, op. cit., page 26.
11 Klukowski diary, 17 July 1940: Dziennik, op. cit., pages 138–9.
12 Klukowski diary, 23 July 1940: ibid., pages 139–40.
13 S. Krakowski, ‘Radom’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 13, column 1501.
14 S. Krakowski, ‘Czestochowa’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 5, column 1212.
15 Ladislav Lipscher, Die Juden im Slowakischen Staat 1939–1945, Munich and Vienna 1980.
16 Cracow memorial books, Jerusalem 1959 and Haifa 1981.
17 Chaim Barlas, letter of 13 August 1940, from Ankara: Central Zionist Archive, Z.4/14,779.
18 Gershom Scholem, ‘Benjamin, Walter, 1892–1940’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 4, columns 530–1.
19 Testimony of Chief Rabbi Cohen of Bordeaux: Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate. The Nazi Programme for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe, New York 1954, 1979 edition, page 243.
20 Abitbol, Les Juifs d’Afrique du Nord sous Vichy, op. cit., page 44, note 49.
21 Emmanuel Bulz, Chief Rabbi of Luxembourg, ‘Luxembourg’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 11, column 591.
22 ‘Japanese “Wallenberg” Honoured at 85’: Jewish Chronicle, 25 January 1985. The occasion of this report was the award of a Righteous Gentile medal and c
ertificate to Sugihara by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. The ceremony was held in Tokyo.
23 Friedman, op. cit., pages 74–5.
24 Ringelblum notes, 6–9 September 1940: Sloan, op. cit., pages 46–8.
25 Ringelblum notes, 9 September 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 48.
26 Shirer diary, 24 September 1940: Berlin Diary, op. cit., page 408.
27 Robert Edwin Hersztein, The War that Hitler Won: the Most Infamous Propaganda Campaign in History, London 1979, pages 310–12.
28 Ringelblum notes, 6–9 September 1940: Sloan, op. cit., pages 47–48.
29 Klukowski diary, 1 October 1940: Dziennik, op. cit.
30 Klukowski diary, 17 October 1940: ibid.
31 Leo Laufer, recollections: Yad Vashem archive.
32 Ruth Rubin, Voices of a People. The Story of Yiddish Folksong, 2nd edition, New York 1973, page 429.
33 Ringelblum notes, 12 October 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 72.
34 Ringelblum notes, 13 October 1940: ibid., page 73.
35 Toshia Bialer, recollections, in Collier’s, New York, 20 February 1943, page 17: quoted in Levin, The Holocaust, op. cit., pages 207–8.
36 Kaplan diary, 22 October 1940: Katsch, op. cit., pages 212–13.
37 These camps were Gurs, Noé, Portet Saint Simon, Récébédou and Rivesaltes: Werner Nachman and Heinrich Freund, Sie Sind Nicht Vergessen, no date.
38 Gurs camp register, Gurs.
39 Testimony of Heinrich Grüber: Eichmann Trial, 16 May 1941, session 41.
40 Ringelblum notes, 23 October 1940: Sloan, op. cit., pages 77–8, and 79.
41 Kaplan diary, 24 October 1940: Katsch, op. cit., pages 213–14.
42 Kaplan diary, 8 November 1940 (Hebrew edition, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1966): Leni Yahil, ‘Jewish Resistance—an Examination of Active and Passive Forms of Jewish Survival in the Holocaust Period’, Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Jerusalem 1971 (Yad Vashem conference proceedings, 7–11 April 1968), page 40.
43 Quoted in Eksterminacja Zydow na Ziemiach Polskich podczas okupacji Hitlerowskiej (‘The Extermination of the Jews on Polish Soil at the Time of the German Occupation’), Warsaw 1957, page 55.
44 Isaac Kabeli, ‘The Resistance of the Greek Jews’, YIVO Annual of Jewish Science, volume 8, New York 1953, page 281. On 1 January 1941 the Governor-General of Salonica wrote to the President of the city’s Jewish community: ‘In the name of the Greek state, I congratulate you on the heroism displayed by the Jews on the field of battle.’
45 Mary Berg diary, 15 November 1940; Shneiderman, op. cit., page 38.
46 Alexander Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, New York 1965, page 27.
47 Ringelblum notes, 19 November 1940: Sloan, op. cit., pages 86–9.
48 Mary Berg diary, 20 November 1940: Shneiderman, op. cit., pages 38–9.
49 Kaplan diary, 21 December 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 234.
50 Mary Berg diary, 22 December 1940: Shneiderman, op. cit., pages 41–2.
51 Palestine Post, 26 November 1940 and subsequent issues.
52 Hersztein, op. cit., page 309.
53 Kaplan diary, 6 December 1940: Katsch, op. cit., page 232.
54 Ringelblum notes, 10 December 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 108.
55 Richard Lichtheim, Geneva, to Joseph Linton, London, 11 December 1940: Central Zionist Archives, Z4/14,901.
56 Minutes of R. T. E. Latham and T. M. Snow, London, 17 December 1940: Foreign Office papers, 371/35242.
57 Testimony of Heinrich Grüber: Eichmann Trial, 16 May 1961, session 41.
58 Ringelblum notes, 24 December 1940: Sloan, op. cit., page 115.
59 Donald Edgar, The Stalag Men, London 1982, page 55.
11. JANUARY–JUNE 1941: THE SPREADING NET
1 Mary Berg diary, 4 January 1941: Shneidermann, op. cit., page 45.
2 Ringelblum notes, 5 January 1941: Sloan, op. cit., page 120.
3 Mary Berg diary, 10 January 1941: Shneiderman, op. cit., page 46.
4 Hans Frank diary, 22 January 1941: op. cit., page 251.
5 Lodz Chronicle, 20 January 1941: Dobroszycki, op. cit., pages 12–13.
6 Lodz Chronicle, 29 January 1941: ibid., page 17.
7 J. Sandel, ‘Maurycy Trebacz’: Biuletyn, Warsaw, op. cit., number 2, 1951, pages 236–7.
8 Kaplan diary, 31 January 1941: Katsch, op. cit., page 239.
9 Testimony of Zivia Lubetkin: Eichmann Trial, 3 May 1961, session 25.
10 Photograph Album, Le Pogromme Legionnaire de Bucharest: Yad Vashem Photographic Collection, F.A. 37.
11 John Colville, diary entry for 2 February 1941: Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, volume 6, London 1983, pages 1004–5.
12 Theodor Lavi, ‘Rumania’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 14, column 400.
13 Address of 1 February 1941: Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman and Abraham Margaliot (editors), Documents on the Holocaust, Jerusalem 1981, page 237.
14 Information provided by Dr Lucjan Dobroszycki.
15 Recollections of Moshe Shklarek (later Bahir), ‘The Revolt’ in Miriam Novitch, Sobibor, Martyrdom and Revolt, Documents and Testimonies, New York 1980, pages 140–1.
16 Josef Fraenkel (editor), The Jews of Austria, Essays on their Life, History and Destruction, London 1967, page 513.
17 Quoted in Jacob Presser, The Destruction of the Dutch Jews, New York 1969, page 51.
18 Paul Tillard, Mauthausen, Paris 1945, pages 20–1.
19 Presser, op. cit., pages 50–4.
20 Ringelblum notes, 27 February 1941: Sloan, op. cit., pages 127–8.
21 Ringelblum notes, 28 February 1941: ibid., pages 130–2.
22 Recollections of a survivor of the Lodz ghetto, in conversation with the author, Montreal.
23 Testimony of Frieda Mazia: Eichmann Trial, 4 May 1961, session 27.
24 Friedman, Roads To Extinction, op. cit., pages 74–5.
25 Gertrude Zeisler, letter of 5 June 1941: Gerda Hoffer (editor), I Did Not Survive: Letters from the Kielce Ghetto, Jerusalem 1981, pages 4–5.
26 Ringelblum notes, 18 March 1941: Sloan, op. cit., page 138.
27 Kolnische Zeitung, 5 April 1941.
28 Order dated 12 April 1941: A. Eisenbach (editor), Dokumenty i Materialy, Getto Lodzkie, Warsaw, Lodz, Cracow 1946, pages 86–7.
29 Lodz Chronicle, 10–24 March 1941: Dobroszycki, op. cit., page 34.
30 Lodz Chronicle, 26 March 1941: ibid., page 37.
31 Information from Miriam Novitch, Kibbutz Lohamei Hagettaot, Israel.
32 Charles W. Steckel, Destruction and Survival, Los Angeles 1973, page 14.
33 Steckel, ibid., page 15.
34 Yad Vashem News, Jerusalem, June 1984, pages 11–12. On 29 January 1984 the state of Israel recognized Mustafa Hardaga as a ‘righteous among the nations’.
35 Ringelblum notes, 17 April 1941: Sloan, op. cit., pages 154–6.
36 Testimony of Yitzhak Zuckerman: Eichmann Trial, 3 May 1961, session 25.
37 After the war, Zuckerman married Zivia Lubetkin; they lived in Israel. The Polish spelling of his name was Cukierman.
38 Ringelblum notes, 11 May 1941: Sloan, op. cit., page 170.
39 Ringelblum notes, 11 May 1941: Sloan, op. cit., page 176.
40 Ringelblum notes, 11 May 1941: Sloan, op. cit., page 174.
41 Lodz Chronicle, 21 April 1941: Dobroszycki, op. cit., page 50.
42 Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews, New York 1981, pages 166–7.
43 ‘List of Jews Executed in France’: Serge Klarsfeld, Memorial to the Jews Deported from France, 1942–1944, New York 1983, pages 642–54.
44 Document submitted to the Eichmann Trial, 11 July 1961, session 92. The phrase used was: ‘Zweifellos kommende Endlösung’.
45 Marrus and Paxton, op. cit., page 167.
46 Ringelblum notes, 11 May 1941: Sloan, op. cit., page 173.
47 Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, op. cit., page 46.
48 Ringelblum notes, 11 May 1941: Sloan, op.
cit., page 177.
49 Krakowski, ‘Jewish Prisoners of War in the 1939 Campaign’, op. cit., page 318.
50 Zalman Grinberg diary, 21 June 1941: quoted in Grinberg’s speech of 27 May 1945, ‘Address Delivered by Dr Zalman Grinberg on the Occasion of a Liberation Celebration’, copy, Foreign Office papers, 371/55705.
51 Tash, The Community of Semiatych, op. cit.
12. ‘IT CANNOT HAPPEN!’
1 Testimony of Zivia Lubetkin: Eichmann Trial, 3 May 1961, session 25.
2 Stanislaw Adler, In the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940–1943, An Account of a Witness, Jerusalem 1982, page 325.
3 Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, op. cit., page 46.
4 Ibid., page 47.
5 Shalom Cholawski, Soldiers from the Ghetto, San Diego 1980, page 38.
6 Arieh Leon Bauminger, in conversation with the author, Jerusalem.
7 Interrogation report of a liberated prisoner on Alderney Island, June 1944: Solomon H. Steckoll, The Alderney Death Camp, London 1981, page 33.
8 Testimony of J. Dawidowicz, ‘Revenge—Recollections of a Partisan’, Folksshtime, Warsaw, July—August 1958: Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, London 1974, page 159.
9 Falstein, The Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland, op. cit., page 347.
10 ‘Sufferings of Kovno (Kaunas) Jewry’, letter of 26 May 1945: Bulletin, London, November 1945, copy in Foreign Office papers, 371/57625.
11 Maja Abramowicz (Zarch), typescript, pages 24–5.
12 The story of the mass murder of Russian prisoners-of-war in German hands is one of the least known atrocity stories of the Second World War: on a visit to Poland in 1981, the author was overwhelmed by the number of sites at which Russian prisoners-of-war had perished. These sites are listed (for the area of post-1945 Poland) in Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich 1939–45: Informator encyclopedyczny, Warsaw 1979.
13 Of a total of 5,700,000 Russian soldiers captured in the Second World War, 2,500,000 died in captivity. Of them, it is estimated that one million were shot by the Einsatzgruppen, and that the rest died from hunger, cold and disease, in camps where they were often denied even the rudiments of shelter and medical attention.
14 Cholawski, op. cit., page 39.
15 Szymon Datner, Walka i Zaglada Bialystockiego Ghetta, Lodz 1946, pages 10–14.
16 Jean Ancel, ‘Faleshty’ (Falesti), Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1971, volume 6, columns 1154–5.
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