The Holocaust

by Martin Gilbert

  2 Recalled by Zivia Lubetkin: Eichmann Trial, 2 May 1961, session 25.

  3 Stefan Krakowski, Biuletyn, Warsaw, op. cit., number 62, 1967.

  4 Testimony of Zivia Lubetkin: Eichmann Trial, 2 May 1961, session 25.

  5 These were Brigadier Jurgen Stroop’s figures: Gutman, Jews of Warsaw, op. cit., page 375.

  6 Gutman, Jews of Warsaw, op. cit., pages 375–6. Stroop reports 380 Jews caught in the bunkers on the first day.

  7 Testimony of Yitzhak Zuckerman: Eichmann Trial, 3 May 1961, session 25.

  8 Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, op. cit., pages 57–8.

  9 Rubin, op. cit., page 453.

  10 Leon Najberg, diary entry for 20 April 1943: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Archive (New York), document provided by Dr Lucjan Dobroszycki, translated by Mira Marody.

  11 Alexander Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, op. cit., page 146.

  12 Leon Najberg, op. cit.

  13 Anielewicz letter: Meed, On Both Sides of the Wall, op. cit., pages 194–5.

  14 Najberg diary, 25 April 1943, op. cit.

  15 B. Mark (editor), The Report of Jurgen Stroop, Warsaw 1958, page 55, teletype message of 26 April 1943.

  16 Donat, Holocaust Kingdom, page 159.

  17 Meed, op. cit., pages 180–1.

  18 Borzykowski, op. cit., page 66.

  19 Lubetkin, op. cit., pages 202–3.

  20 Bartoszewski, Warsaw Death Ring, op. cit., page 179.

  21 Lubetkin, op. cit., page 293.

  22 Ignacy Schwarzbart, diary, 19 May 1943, London: Schwarzbart papers, Yad Vashem archive.

  23 Hadassa Talmon, testimony: Lossin, op. cit., page 377.

  24 Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, op. cit., page 77.

  25 Information from Dr Krakowski of Yad Vashem.

  26 Zivia Lubetkin, ‘Last Days of the Warsaw Ghetto’, Commentary, New York, May 1947.

  27 Testimony of Zivia Lubetkin: Eichmann Trial, 2 May 1961, session 25.

  28 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., pages 292–3.

  29 Mark, op. cit., pages 105–7, teletype message of 24 May 1943.

  30 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., page 288.

  31 Zygielbojm letter: Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, op. cit., page 363.

  32 Mark, op. cit., page 104, teletype message of 16 May 1943.

  33 Najberg diary, 19 May 1943, op. cit.

  34 Arie (Leon) Najberg, The Last Ones (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv 1958: Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, op. cit., page 399.

  35 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, op. cit., page 400.

  29. ‘THE CRASHING FIRES OF HELL’

  1 Hirsh Glik, discussion and poem: Rubin, op. cit., pages 453–5.

  2 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., page 300.

  3 Recollections of Lena Berg: Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, op. cit., page 299.

  4 Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, op. cit., pages 108–9.

  5 Testimony of Yisrael Gutman: Eichmann Trial, 2 June 1961, session 63.

  6 ‘Children lured to death with sugar’: Jewish Chronicle, 9 November 1979.

  7 Testimony of David Wdowinski: Eichmann Trial, 6 June 1961, session 67.

  8 Sloan, op. cit., pages 345–6.

  9 It was at Trawniki that the Germans trained the Ukrainian S.S. guards for Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec.

  10 Meed, On Both Sides of the Wall, op. cit., pages 210–11.

  11 Krakowski, The War of the Doomed, op. cit., page 33.

  12 Testimony of Zeew Jungsztajn (Ze’ev Yungstein), born in March 1934 in Zelechow, south-east of Warsaw: Yad Vashem archive, M-1/E, 1251/1209.

  13 Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe, op. cit., pages 422–3.

  14 Falstein, Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians in Poland, op. cit., pages 327–8.

  15 Shalom Kohn (Stanislaw Kon), ‘The Treblinka Revolt’: Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, op. cit., pages 225–6.

  16 Testimony of Kalman Feigman: Krakowski, The War of the Doomed, op. cit., page 240.

  17 Testimony of Samuel Rajzman, ‘Punishment of War Criminals’, op. cit.

  18 Krakowski, The War of the Doomed, op. cit., page 240.

  19 ‘Convoi XX du 19 avril 1943’: Klarsfeld and Steinberg, Memorial de la Deportation, op. cit.

  20 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction, op. cit., pages 316–17.

  21 Ainsztein, op. cit., page 848.

  22 Gusta Draenger’s diary, Pamietnik Justyny, was published in Cracow in 1945. An important extract was published in Dawidowicz, A Holocaust Reader, op. cit., pages 340–7.

  23 Account taken down by Dr Olga Bamicz from six survivors of Sobibor: Yad Vashem archive, O3/2952, page 62.

  24 Testimony of Dov Freiberg: Eichmann Trial, 5 June 1961, session 64.

  25 Material on the Riga Ghetto: Yad Vashem archive.

  26 Testimony of Aaron Wald: Friedman, Roads to Extinction, op. cit., page 327.

  27 Telegram No. 2678, 28 April 1943: ibid., page 328.

  28 Ibid., pages 327–8.

  29 Testimony of Eliezer Karstatt, Eichmann Trial, 5 May 1961, session 29.

  30 International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NG-2757.

  31 Robert Attal, ‘Tunis, Tunisia’: Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 15, columns 1447–1448.

  32 Tom Bower, ‘Rauff: the Great Escape’: The Times, 16 May 1984.

  33 Jack (Idel) Kagan recollections: in conversation with the author, London.

  34 Levin, ‘The Small Communities’, op. cit., page 137.

  35 ‘Report on the Extermination of Jews in the Galicia District’, 20 June 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document L-018.

  36 Ainsztein, op. cit., pages 444–5.

  37 Testimony of Colonel D. S. Zilberman: Yad Vashem archive.

  38 Letter of 13 May 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-2003.

  39 Letter of 19 May 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-5789.

  40 Randolph L. Braham, The Politics of Genocide: the Holocaust in Hungary, New York 1981, volume 1, page 252, note 70.

  41 ‘The Mengele Case—a Summary’, document no. 50/4, JS 340/68, Office of the Public Prosecutor, Regional Court of Frankfurton-Main, in connection with the Regional Court’s Order of Arrest dated 19 January 1981. See Ernie Mayer, ‘The Case against Josef Mengele’, Jerusalem Post International Edition, week ending 9 February 1985, page 11.

  42 Testimony of Dr Azriel Ne’eman, reported in the Jerusalem Post International Edition, week ending 16 February 1985.

  43 Testimony of Dr Ella Lingens: Jerusalem Post International Edition, week ending 16 February 1985.

  44 General Government, ‘Working Session, 31st May 1943’: Hans Frank Diary, op. cit., entry for 31 May 1943.

  45 Harris, Tyranny on Trial, op. cit., pages 362–3.

  46 Testimony of Tadeusz Seweryn: Bartoszewski and Lewin, Righteous among Nations, op. cit., page 607.

  47 Meed, op. cit., page 205.

  48 Lodz Chronicle, 21 May 1943: Dobroszycki, op. cit., page 340.

  49 Trunk, Judenrat, op. cit., page 403.

  50 International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg: document NO-065.

  51 Doctor Albert Menasche, number 124,454, Birkenau (Auschwitz II), Memoirs of an Eye-Witness: How 72,000 Greek Jews Perished, New York 1947.

  52 See Fania Fenelon (with Marcelle Routier), The Musicians of Auschwitz, London 1977.

  53 Letter of 15 June 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-1242.

  54 ‘Jaworzno’: Obozy hitlerowskie, op. cit., page 371, Camp Listing number 3296.

  55 Letter of 16 June 1943 (in reply to a request of 1 June 1943): International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-011 (the request being document NO-010).

  56 Letter of 21 June 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-087.

  57 Notes of 15 and 26 October 1944: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg
, document NO-091.

  58 Leon Weliczker Wells, The Janowska Road, New York 1970, pages 141–2.

  59 Friedman, Roads to Extinction, op. cit., page 363.

  60 Lodz Chronicle, 12 June 1943: Dobroszycki, op. cit., page 345.

  61 Cholawski, ‘The Judenrat in Minsk’, op. cit., page 128.

  62 Henry Wasserman, ‘Ostrava’ (‘Moravska Ostrava’, ‘Maehrisch-Ostrau’): Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem 1972, volume 12, column 1512.

  63 Leopold Trepper, The Great Game: the Story of the Red Orchestra, London 1977, Appendix 1, pages 419–21, with facsimile.

  64 Ania Goldman, in conversation with the author, Czestochowa.

  65 Leon Weliczker Wells, op. cit., page 253, note 1.

  66 Testimony of Halina Preston (nee Wind): Yad Vashem archives.

  67 Gerta Hollaender, ‘Marvellously I Escaped Death: a Chapter of a Diary’: Czortkow memorial book, op. cit.

  68 Bartoszewski and Lewin, op. cit., page 470.

  69 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., pages 278–9.

  70 Krakowski, The War of the Doomed, op. cit., page 222.

  71 Yitzhak Arad, ‘The “Final Solution” in Lithuania in the Light of German Documentation’, Yad Vashem Studies, XI, Jerusalem 1976, page 261.

  72 Bartoszewski and Lewin, op. cit., page 609.

  73 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., page 305.

  74 Circular No. 33/43g, ‘Treatment of the Jewish Question’, Führer Headquarters, 11 July 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-2710. The phrase ‘future overall solution’ was rendered in German as Gesamtlösung.

  75 Letters of 16 July 1943 and 20 December 1943: Leuner, When Compassion Was a Crime, op. cit., page 107.

  76 Letter of 20 December 1943: ibid., page 107.

  30. ‘TO PERISH, BUT WITH HONOUR’

  1 The Kalish Book, op. cit., pages 315–16.

  2 Testimony of Abba Kovner: Eichmann Trial, 4 May 1961, session 27.

  3 Friedman, Roads to Extinction, op. cit., page 376.

  4 Testimony of Abba Kovner: Eichmann Trial, 4 May 1961, session 27.

  5 Friedman, Roads to Extinction, op. cit., page 377.

  6 Recollection of Leah Leibowitz (Klompul), in conversation with the author, Johannesburg.

  7 Recollection of Leah Leibowitz, ibid.

  8 Tatiana Berenstein and Adam Rutkowski, ‘The Concentration Camp for Jews in Warsaw’, Biuletyn, Warsaw, op. cit., number 62, 1967, pages 3–22.

  9 Bartoszewski, Warsaw Death Ring, op. cit., page 190.

  10 Klarsfeld, Memorial to the Jews Deported from France, op. cit., page 648.

  11 Arad, Ghetto in Flames, op. cit., pages 397–9.

  12 ‘Report from Salonica’, Bulletin, London, op. cit., February 1945.

  13 Friedmann, Roads to Extinction, op. cit., page 311.

  14 Lubetkin, Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., page 331.

  15 ‘An Escape from Treblinka’: Eliezer Task, The Community of Semiatych.

  16 Testimony of Izak Helfing, recorded in 1945: Yad Vashem archive, M-1/518/460.

  17 Testimony of Samuel Rajzman: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, op. cit., pages 124–5.

  18 Testimony of Kalman Teigmann: Eichmann Trial, 6 June 1961, session 66.

  19 Testimony of Samuel Rajzman, op. cit.

  20 Zabecki, Wspomnienia, op. cit., page 126.

  21 Poland: the Communities of Lodz and its Region, op. cit., entry for Konin.

  22 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, op. cit., page 300.

  23 Arad, Ghetto in Flames, op. cit., pages 404–5.

  24 Bartoszewski, op. cit., page 191. The women were executed on 26 August 1943, the men on 27 August 1943.

  25 Solomon H. Steckoll, The Alderney Death Camp, London 1982, pages 72, 93.

  26 Goldin, 7 December 1943; Perlestein, 22 December 1943; Becker, 30 December 1943: Alfred Herzka, letter to the author, 14 August 1980.

  27 Information in the diary of Oliver Harvey, entry for 6 August 1943: John Harvey (editor), The War Diaries of Oliver Harvey, London 1978.

  28 Bertha Shachovsky (Sokolskaya): letter to the author, Moscow, 14 April 1984.

  29 Testimony of Abraham Karasick: Eichmann Trial, 4 May 1961, session 28.

  30 Josef Polak, ‘The camp’: Terezin, Prague 1965, pages 33–4.

  31 On 7 October 1943: Czech, ‘Kalendarium’, op. cit., entry for 7 October 1943.

  32 Samuel Pisar, Of Blood and Hope, London 1980, pages 40–1.

  33 Testimony of Abraham Karasick: Eichmann Trial, 4 May 1961, session 28.

  34 Mieczyslaw Chodzko, ‘Wspomnienia treblinkarza’ (‘Reminiscences of a Treblinka prisoner’), Biuletyn, Warsaw, op. cit., number 27, 1958, pages 122–4: Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Eastern Europe, op. cit., pages 741–2.

  35 Zabecki, typescript, op. cit., pages 134–5.

  36 Bertha Shachovsky (Sokolskaya): letter to the author, Moscow, 15 April 1984.

  37 Pisar, op. cit., page 55.

  38 Weliczker Wells, The Janowska Road, op. cit., pages 189–90.

  39 Falstein, Martyrdom of Jewish Physicians, op. cit., page 311.

  40 Stefan Krakowski, ‘Partyzancki oficer wywiadu’ (‘The Partisan Intelligence Officer’), Nasz Glos, number 30 (220), Warsaw, 8 October 1966.

  41 Meed, On Both Sides, op. cit., pages 294–303.

  42 Harold Werner, testimony: Yad Vashem archive. After the war, Harold Werner settled in the United States.

  43 Krakowski, The War of the Doomed, op. cit., page 233.

  44 Glos Warszawy, No. 67 (76), 26 October 1943: Ber Mark, Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, New York 1975, document 77, page 182. The five thousand Jews deported from Tarnow in the first week of September 1943 were sent to Birkenau together with three and a half thousand Jews from Przemysl and three thousand from Bochnia: all three towns being on the Auschwitz—Tarnow—Lvov railway.

  45 Proclamation of 1 September 1943: Arad, Gutman and Margaliot, Documents on the Holocaust, op. cit., document number 209, pages 459–60.

  46 Trunk, Judenrat, op. cit., page 403.

  47 Abba Kovner, op. cit.: after the war, Kovner married Vitka Kempner. They live in Israel.

  48 The Kalish Book, op. cit., pages 315–16.

  49 Friedman, Roads to Extinction, op. cit., pages 377–8: Trunk, op. cit., page 470.

  50 Arad, Ghetto in Flames, op. cit., pages 429–35 and 470.

  51 Jakub Poznanski, Pamietnik z getta lodzkiego (Memoirs from the Lodz Ghetto), Lodz 1960, page 102: Lodz Chronicle, Dobroszycki, op. cit., page xxi, note 34.

  52 Jack (Idel) Kagan: conversation with the author, London, 21 May 1984.

  53 Lodz Chronicle, 6 September 1943: Dobroszycki, op. cit., page 379.

  54 Edelbaum, Growing Up in the Holocaust, op. cit., page 65.

  55 Ibid., page 66.

  56 Lodz Chronicle, 13 September 1943: Dobroszycki, op. cit., page 381.

  57 Edelbaum, op. cit., page 67.

  31. ‘A PAGE OF GLORY… NEVER TO BE WRITTEN’

  1 Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, op. cit., page 482.

  2 Report of an eye-witness: Bulletin, London, op. cit., February 1945.

  3 Ainsztein, op. cit., pages 704–6.

  4 Affidavit of Paul Blobel, 18 June 1947: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document NO-3947.

  5 Ainsztein, op. cit., pages 691–6.

  6 Leni Yahil, The Rescue of Danish Jewry, Philadelphia 1969.

  7 Czech, ‘Kalendarium’, op. cit., entry for 3 October 1943.

  8 Himmler speech, 4 October 1943: International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document PS-1919.

  9 ‘Transport Dn/a’, 5 October 1943: Lederer, Ghetto Theresienstadt, op. cit., page 228.

  10 Czech, ‘Kalendarium’, op. cit., entry for 8 October 1943.

  11 Julien Hirshaut, Jewish Martyrs of Pawiak, New York 1982, pages 164–5.

  12 Testimony of Colonel
D. S. Zilberman: Yad Vashem archive.

  13 Testimony of Moshe Bejsky: Eichmann Trial, 1 May 1961, session 21.

  14 Testimony of Yaakov Biskowitz: Eichmann Trial, 5 June 1961, session 65.

  15 Alexander Aronovitch Pechersky, letter to the author, Rostov-on-Don, 16 December 1980.

  16 Adam Rutkowski, ‘Ruch oporu w hitlerowskim obozie stracen Sobibor’ (‘The Resistance Movement in the Hitlerite Extermination Camp of Sobibor’), Biuletyn, Warsaw, op. cit., numbers 65–6, 1968; Ainsztein, op. cit., page 761.

  17 Testimony of Alexander Pechersky: Novitch, Sobibor, Martyrdom and Revolt, op. cit., pages 93–5.

  18 Testimony of Biskowitz: Eichmann Trial, 5 June 1961, session 65.

  19 Adam Rutkowski, ‘Resistance Movement in the Death Camp of Sobibor’, Biuletyn, Warsaw, op. cit., numbers 65–66, 1968.

  20 Novitch, Spiritual Resistance, op. cit., page 146.

  21 Ainsztein, op. cit., page 483.

  22 Idem.

  23 ‘Operations Diary of a Jewish Partisan Unit in Rudniki Forest, 1943–1944’: Arad, Gutman and Margaliot, Documents on the Holocaust, op. cit., document 211, pages 463–70.

  24 Ainsztein, op. cit., page 795.

  25 Report of Jerzy Tabau (‘The Polish Major’s Report’): International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, document L-022.

  26 Ainsztein, op. cit., page 795.

  27 Report of Jerzy Tabau, op. cit.

  28 Ainsztein, op. cit., page 796.

  29 Deposition of Stanislaw Jankowski: Bezwinska and Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, op. cit., pages 55–6.

  30 Report of Jerzy Tabau, op. cit.

  31 Menasche, Birkenau (Auschwitz II), Memoirs of an Eye-witness, op. cit.

  32 Lena Berg, recollections: Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom, op. cit., page 306.

  33 Giuliana Donati, ‘Deportazione degli Ebrei dall’Italia’, Elenco cronologico dei convogli, Milan, March 1975.

  34 Friedman, Road to Extinction, op. cit., pages 415–16.

  35 Ibid., page 418.

  36 Michaelis, Mussolini and the Jews, op. cit., pages 364–5 and 369.

  37 Donati, op. cit.

  38 Information provided by Miriam Novitch.

  39 Helena Manaster, ‘An episode from the story of a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust’, letter to Marianne Sachs, November 1983.

  40 Helena Manaster, letter to Elie Wiesel, May 1983.

  41 Diary entry for 26 October 1943: Leon Weliczker Wells, The Janowska Road, op. cit., page 206.