The Nuremberg Laws Chapter 6 ”The Purity of German Blood Is the Essential Condition for the Continued Existence of the German People.” the Nuremberg Laws

Holocaust The Nuremberg Laws Chapter 6 ”The purity of German blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the German people.” The Nuremberg Laws

Excerpt from one of the Nuremberg Laws

n the first period of Nazi rule, the persecution of German Nazi rallies Jews had almost no statutory support and happened spon- I taneously. Several laws that affected the Jewish community After 1933, the historical town of Nuremberg, noted for its were passed immediately in 1933, but their legal formulations beautiful architecture, became an almost mythical centre for the were not targeted at any particular group. They were directed Nazi Party and the leadership cult. The landing area for airships in general against the enemies of the new state system, rather (Zeppelinfeld) at the edge of the town was transformed into than exclusively against the Jews. There was no overtly racist a huge open-air arena where hundreds of thousands of Hitler legislation in the first two years of Nazi Germany. supporters got together every year in the middle of September Aggressive anti-Semitic propaganda, however, made for the Nazi Party rally. Long flag-waving processions and itself felt all the stronger, even finding its way into school uniformed corps formations paraded, and the new regime textbooks and children’s literature, in which Jews were de- celebrated its triumphs and initial successes. It was in picted as base shopkeepers, dealers from the Middle East Nuremberg that the trial of the leading war criminals was held and Mischlinge (mixed breeds) derived from various “ra after the end of the war. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) cial dregs”. In children’s books Jews were called “toadstools”. Extremely anti-Semitic feature films were made in the 1930s, such as The Eternal Jew (Der ewige Jude) and Jew Süss (Jude Süss). The official Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer waged a high- ly irrational anti-Jewish campaign which depicted German Jews as Marxists, shopkeepers and bloodthirsty beasts. Within the state and party system, however, there was growing anxiety and dissension about the approach to be taken against the Jews in individual cases and about the extent of persecution to be carried out. Many officials were even concerned about how Jews were to be identified, and about who was to be considered a Jew. There were calls for laws that would deal with all these questions and shed light on the situation. In the course of 1935, after a temporary lull from the summer of 1933, the situation once again came to a head. The- The most famous Nazi rallies re was another outbreak of street violence by Stormtroopers 1934 Victory of Faith  An original copy of one of the Nuremberg Laws. 1935 Triumph of the Will Signed into law by Adolf Hitler (Chancellor), Wilhelm Frick 1938 Rally of Greater Germany (Minister of the Interior), Franz Gürtner (Minister of Justice) and Rudolf Hess (Hitler’s representative in the Nazi Party).

34 35 Holocaust The Nuremberg Laws

The Reich Citizenship Law stipulated that only persons Jews and Mischlinge of “German or kindred blood” may be “Reich citizens” (Reichsbürger). It designated Jews “subjects of the state” Jews (full discrimination) – members of religious commu- (Staatangehörige) without Reich citizenship and deprived nities or persons with three or four Jewish grandparents. them of a whole range of civil rights, especially of a politi- First-degree Mischlinge (partial discrimination) – cal nature. In the period immediately following the adop- persons outside the religious community with two Jewish tion of this law (1935–1937), Jews were not yet deprived of grandparents. their assets or right of residency, nor were they marked out Second-degree Mischlinge (minimal discrimination) – in any way, but the “legal framework” for these subsequent persons outside the religious community with one Jewish measures was now in place. grandparent. This law also had an impact on Germans themsel- Note: Mischlinge with a Jewish spouse were considered to be ves. Henceforth, for example, they would have to prove full Jews. their racial background when applying for certain jobs or political posts. The First Decree to the Reich Citizen- ship Law was passed in November 1935; it defined Jews more closely, since not even Nazi anthropologists, despite all their efforts, had managed to unequivocally identify Jews solely on the basis of physiological features. Once  Der Stürmer (The Stormer). A vehemently anti-Semitic again, allegiance to the Jewish religious community be- newspaper published by the fanatic Nazi Julius Streicher. The bad came the key criteria. taste, pathological hatred and aggressiveness of this paper shocked According to the above law, a Jew is one who be- even many supporters of the Nazi regime. There was a brief longs to the Jewish religious community or one who is suspension in circulation during the Berlin Olympics in 1936. descended from at least three full grandparents. Spe- cial “privileges” were granted only to those Jews who and an intensification of the anti-Jewish campaign initiated had suffered serious injuries or had been decorated du- by Minister Goebbels. Hitler expressed dissatisfaction with ring the First World War. The latter were to receive more the “anarchic situation”, however, and even condemned “in- moderate treatment; during the Holocaust, for example, dividual actions” against the Jews. From then on, everything they were not deported to extermination camps. Never- was to be given a “legal framework”. A decision was soon theless, even they did not avoid persecution. In addi- taken to issue two new laws that would clearly define Jews tion to Jews, the regulation provided for a further two and their inferior legal status, thereby further isolation them categories: first and second-degree Mischlinge, i.e. half from the “Aryan population”. and quarter-Jews. In no way were these allowed to be Work immediately began on the preparation of the Reich members of Jewish religious communities, nor were they Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German allowed to be married to a Jew; otherwise, they were Blood and German Honour. Both legal norms were concei- considered to be full Jews. ved in the spirit of the most primitive racism. Their official an- First-degree Mischlinge were spared many discrimina- nouncement was planned by the Nazis for September 15, 1935. tory measures in the pre-war period; during the Holocaust, The laws became the main point of discussion at the NSDAP however, the Nazis planned to murder most of them, too. rally that was being held at the time in Nuremberg, hence they Towards the end of the war, the Nazis had even begun de-  Hermann Göring. Hitler‘s close associate and Reichstag became known as the “Nuremberg Laws”. porting them to ghettoes and camps. Second-degree Misch President at the time the Nuremberg Laws were introduced. He linge, by contrast, were to be integrated among Germans; was tried and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg War Trial. On  Ahnenpass. After 1935, every German had to obtain a certificate some of them were even conscripted into the Wehrmacht 15 October 1946 he committed suicide with poison shortly before of ancestry dating back as far as the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. (German armed forces). They were not allowed, however, the sentence was due to be carried out. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA)

36 37 Holocaust The Nuremberg Laws

to pursue certain careers or to hold political office that re- quired “completely pure descent”. The second law – the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour – prohibited all further marriages and extra-marital intercourse between Germans and Jews. Contravention of this law was to be punished harshly as a Rassenschande (”race defilement”). In subsequent years, people who broke this law – particularly German girls and women – were often pilloried in public; accompanied by SA guards, for example, they would have to walk through the town carrying a sign reading “I slept with a Jew”. Mixed marriages that were concluded before the adoption of this law were to remain legal. Only later was pressure exerted for spouses in mixed marriages to get divorced themselves; in extreme cases, non-Jewish partners also became the target of discrimination.

 The First Decree to the Reich Citizenship Law, 14 November 1935.  “Comparison.” German anthropologists, forensic surgeons and propagandists in the service of the Nazis tried to capture as  The Berlin Olympics of 1936. The anti-Semitic propaganda graphically as possible the alleged “mental difference”, evident at was temporarily suspended for the duration of the Olympics. first glance, between the noble “Nordic Man” and his opposite, the (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) repulsive “Jewish sub-human”.

 První prováděcí předpis k rasovým zákonům ze 14. listopadu 1935.

38 39 Holocaust Emigration Chapter 8 Expansion of the greater Germany Reich, 1938–1941 Emigration Germany in 1937 SWEDEN Annexed to Germany DENMARK Area under Nazi control 1938 Year of annexation Copenhagen BALTIC SEA Vilnius

Königsberg Minsk NORTH SEA ews began leaving Germany immediately after Hit- German Jews were taken care of at an official level by the Reich ler came to power in January 1933. By October 1941, at Deputation of German Jews, which was founded in September 1941 DISTRICT BIALYSTOK J least half of all German Jews had emigrated, i.e. about 1933 and became the precursor to the later Jewish Councils. Bialystok Hamburg 1939 360,000 of the half-million strong pre-war community. The period of assumed calm, however, did not last for long. Warsaw THE OCCUPIED In the first phase – till 1938 – Jews left to their own accord; In 1938 the standing of Jews once again sharply deterio- Berlin Poznan TERRITORIES OF THE it was only later that they were forced to emigrate. In the pre- rated. The Nazis began to enforce a new policy against the Lodz 1939 SOVIET UNION -war period, the Nazi authorities did nothing to prevent the Jews: forced emigration. At first, this was tested in occupied NETHERLANDS GERMANY GENERAL GOVERNMENT emigration of Jews, but neither did they help to organize their Austria, where they set up a special Central Office for Jewish emigration in any way. Direct expulsion of the Jewish mino- BELGIUM POLAND rity from German territory was not among the goals of the Cologne CZECH LANDS Krakow Lvov Nazi government at the time. A special agreement was even 1938 Prague concluded between the German government and the repre- Frankfurt 1941 1939 PROTECTORATE sentatives of Zionist organizations on August 25, 1933 – the OF BOHEMIA AND MORAVIA Haagava, which facilitated Jewish emigration from Germa- 1940 Vienna SLOVAKIA ny to Palestine, although this was without any real impact. Strasbourg Munich In the pre-war period, Germany was abandoned by Linz Budapest ROMANIA 1938 a number of important artists and scientists, not only of FRANCE Jewish descent (including Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, AUSTRIA HUNGARY Max Born, Erich Maria Remarque, Bertolt Brecht, Lion 1941 Feuchtwanger. They were declared to be “inferior” by the SWITZERLAND ITALY Nazi state. These people soon achieved success abroad, particularly in the USA, where they became part of the in- tellectual, scientific and social elite. The Nazis profited from the assets that were left behind, which either went directly to the state or were subject to high tax rates. After the adoption of the Nuremberg Laws, there was an apparent easing of the situation and the stream of emigrants even tapered off for a temporary period. The social interests of

 We don‘t want you! Many Jews were regarded as German patriots before 1933. In the end, however, they were forced to leave Germany as a result of SA brutality on the streets and bullying by the authorities. Some of them came to hate Germany. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA)

46 47 Holocaust Emigration

Emigration (on August 20, 1938). Adolf Eichmann, the head of the “Jewish department” affiliated with the RSHA (Reichs sicherheitshauptamt/Reich Security Main Office), was put in charge of this office. In the next two years the majority of Austrian Jews emigrated under the pressure from the Nazis, thereby saving their lives. Shortly afterwards, the Nazis founded a similar office in Berlin with jurisdiction over the whole of Germany. Jews were allowed to leave the German Reich in exchange for their assets. Jews in occupied Czechoslova- kia were also forced to emigrate. A central office for Jewish emigration was founded in Prague. One of the main migra- tion routes was by boat from Vienna along the River Danu- be, via the Black Sea, to the Mediterranean. The destination of the emigrants was the Port of Haifa, Palestine.  “To Palestine!” The desired destination for the majority of By October 1941, when emigration was banned, Jewish emigrants was Biblical Palestine – the “Promised Land”. 537,000 German, Austrian and Czechoslovak Jews – roughly two-thirds of their pre-war numbers – had moved  Emigration office in Berlin, 1939. (Bundesarchiv) abroad. Most emigrants intended to go overseas, particularly to Palestine, but many of them did not reach their

destinations. Many German-speaking Jews became stran-  Halitzim. A new Zionist youth movement developed in Europe ded in France or Holland, where they fell into the hands of between the wars with the aim of training its members as farmers the Nazis two years later. and relocating them to Palestine. Many of them actually made it to By the end of 1938, the vast majority of Jews in Nazi- Palestine at the end of the 1930s (pictured). They helped to found -governed German-speaking areas were interested in emi- the first kibbutzim. (Museum of Rishon Lezion) grating. Free and democratic countries, however, did not want to accept large numbers of Jewish emigrants. Switzer- countered international criticism by arguing that it could land, in particular, felt threatened by the wave of refugees not bear the brunt of the refugee problem alone. from Germany and tried to prevent further emigration. The U.S. president F. D. Roosevelt therefore suggested After Nazi Germany had begun making the passports of convening an international conference on Jewish emigra German Jews with the letter J, Switzerland introduced visa tion. Held in the French town of Évian in July 1938, the con- requirements for the holders of such passports. Switzerland ference was attended by 32 states but ended in a total fiasco. Emigration 1933–1941

Country Number of Jews/of which emigrated Period Central Offices for Emigration Germany 560,000/360,000 1933–1941 Berlin (January 21, 1939) 1933–1941 Berlín (21. 1. 1939) Austria 180,000/147,000 1938–1941 Vienna (August 20, 1938) 1938–1941 Vídeň (20. 8. 1938) Czechia 120,000/30,000 1939–1941 Prague (July 28, 1939) 1939–1941 Praha (28. 7. 1939)

48 49 Holocaust Emigration

Target countries The Dominican Republic was the only country with an PERSONAL TESTIMONY: Without food or water in the middle of the Danube open door policy for Jewish emigration. An obliging stan- Country/region Number of emigrants ce was also taken by China, which made Shanghai acce- Josef Hercz, a 23-year-old emigrant on board the the waves, was a greenish-brown colour. Floating on the surface France 100,000* ssible to Jewish emigrants. In general, overseas countries steamship Pentcho, summer 1940: of the water was duckweed and all kinds of waste – not only from Latin America 60,000 only slightly increased their immigration quotas for Jews. ”We were not allowed to land at any of the ports, or to continue ships, but also from the towns and villages along the river. We had on our voyage in any direction. Our unidentifiable vessel remained no option but to drink it. Otherwise we would have died of thirst. USA 60,000 The main attention focused on Palestine as the ancient Je- wish homeland and the target destination of Zionists, which stationary in the middle of the river, and the weeks went by and Incredibly, none of us fell sick from the water. Various ships sailed Great Britain 60,000 was administered at the time by Great Britain as its manda- by. Once again, our food supplies began to run low. In the end, we past us. I remember one day a cruise ship full of gleeful German Palestine 60,000 te territory. A special role was played by the Zionist Jewish did receive a little bit of something to eat from the Bulgarians. Our soldiers on board went past. They were on a sunbathing trip to the China 20,000 Agency for Palestine, which negotiated quotas for Jewish drinking water, however, was also running out. We had to draw Black Sea Coast. While the German soldiers were having fun, we were Switzerland 12,000 immigrants with the British and Palestinian governments. water straight from the River Danube with buckets and pans, and the stuck in the middle of the river, starving and dying of thirst, without * Note: In 1940, Jews found themselves in Nazi hands again. As Zionists wished to settle Palestine gradually, however, river was badly polluted in its lower course alongside the Bulgaria– a clue of what was going to become of us.” Josef Hercz is pictured even they were not overly in favour of mass emigration. Romania border. The foam that hit the side of the ship, along with second on the left. (The Czechs at Tobruk, F. Emmert, 2008) The story of the steamship Pentcho

In October 1940, a ship carrying refugees ran aground near the uninhabited Greek island of Kamilanisi. It had set sail from the Slovak city of Bratislava five months earlier and was bound for Palestine. On board were about 500 Jewish emigrants from Czechoslovakia. They were rescued from dying of thirst by an Italian warship and were later placed in refugee camps in Italy, where they were liberated by the Allies in 1943. The vast majority of the refugees survived the war. (The Czechs at Tobruk, F. Emmert, 2008)

From 1937, only three categories of Jews gained immigra- the Mediterranean Sea, seeking ports that were willing to tion visas to Palestine: accept them. Those on ships anchored outside ports were •• Businessmen with sufficient capital looked after by charity organizations. •• Chalutzim – specially trained farmers The emigration of Jews as organized and enforced by •• Those with relatives living in Palestine the Nazi authorities continued even after the outbreak of In 1939, due to the growing tensions between Palesti the Second World War (on September 1, 1939), albeit under nian Arabs and Jewish immigrants, the British government difficult conditions. Jewish emigrants in Western Europe further limited the number of available visas to Palestine. also found themselves in a precarious situation. Some of Already at this time, many Arabs saw the incoming Jews as them were even incarcerated as “citizens of enemy states” a threat and danger. Great Britain did not want to accept (particularly those from Germany) in French internment large numbers of Jews even on their island territories. camps, together with Germans and Italians, while the Bri- Other European countries took a similar stance towards tish government had others deported to Australia. The Na- the problem. As a consequence, the suffering of persecu- zis decided to put an end to emigration by 1941. A much ted Jews partly spread to territories outside of Nazi con- more tragic fate was in store for European Jews: incarcera- trol. Ships carrying emigrants spent long weeks crossing tion in ghettoes and deportation to extermination camps.

50 51 Holocaust The First Camps Chapter 9 The First Camps

azi concentration camps became the main symbol of human suffering during the Second World War. The N first of these camps was founded in Germany soon after the Nazis came to power in 1933. They were managed by the SA in the first two years, then by the SS. In the pre- -war period and at the beginning of the war, however, these camps were not yet being used for the annihilation of the Jews, or for mass murder. It was not until 1941 that they were transformed into factories of death. Until then, they served more as a means of deterrence against political opponents and as a place where inconvenient individuals could be liquidated without witnesses. Among the inmates at the time there was a predominance of German nationals, due largely to the fact that Nazi Germany had not occupied any other country until March 1938. Camp inmates were held usually without trial, solely on the basis of flimsy “legal measures” connected with the state of emergency (which lasted continuously from 1933–1945), for example, on the basis of confinement in “protective custody”. Political prisoners were treated with great brutality by the guards; many of them died in the camp as a result of the beatings and physical hardship, while others died shortly after being released. Inmates slept on wooden plank beds in low-storey barracks where they suffered from the cold and cramped living conditions. They were tormented by guards who inflicted frequent beatings and denied them

 SA guards. The concentration camps were originally guarded by SA members (the “Brownshirts”). The SS took control of the camps in 1934. (Bundesarchiv)

 Model. SS Reich Leader Heinrich Himmler and Hitler’s Nazi Party representative Rudolf Hess viewing a model of the Dachau concentration camp, 1936. (Bundesarchiv)

52 53 Holocaust The First Camps

 Camp block. Dachau was the first and longest running  Work in the ammunition factory. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) concentration camp. It was in operation between March 1933 and April 1945. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) many of the inmates were actually freed, but this was often conditional upon their leaving the country. food. The alleged camp “re-education” programme consisted The Nazis founded the first concentration camp in in hard manual labour. Exhausted inmates were also bullied March 1933 in the small town of Dachau, west of Munich. every day in endless drills and long roll-calls at the Appel- The decision to set up the camp was made by the then Po- platz, where they were repeatedly counted and given orders. lice Chief of Munich, Heinrich Himmler. In the following Initially, the conditions in the camps even shocked the years the entire concentration camp system fell under his members of the Gestapo (German secret state police), who- command as supreme SS commander; from 1941, he was se methods at the time were not as brutal as those used by the camp guards under the direct authority of the SS. The  Entrance gate. The Nazis did not try to conceal that Nazis never concealed the existence of concentration camps conditions behind the walls of the concentrations camps were from the German public or from the outside world. Accor- hard. A mere glimpse of the gate and fences was enough to evoke ding to Nazi propaganda, these camps served to “re-educa- fear among ordinary people. Arrival of new prisoners at Dachau, te” anti-state and anti-social elements. After a certain time, December 1933. (Bundesarchiv) The largest concentration camps in pre-war Germany

Site Opened Number of victims* Dachau 1933 35,000 Sachsenhausen 1936 100,000 Buchenwald 1937 55,000 Flossenbürg 1938 25,000 Neuengamme 1938 55,000 Ravensbrück 1939 60,000 *Note: The vast majority of victims died in the period after 1941.

54 55 Holocaust The First Camps

also in charge of all the extermination camps. Dachau became a symbol of Nazi brutality in the pre-war period. Himmler’s office turned it, along with the Sachsenhausen camp, into a “training centre”, where many of the later commanders and brutal guards at other concent ration and extermination camps were recruited and gained their first experience. The first com mandant of the camp, Theodor Eicke, “acquitted himself” so well during the first few months that he was appointed a year later to the post of inspector of all concentra-  Guards and prisoners. A regular day in the camp. (Bundesarchiv) example, a typhoid contagion that broke out at the begin tion camps in Germany. A total of ning of the war led to a high number of fatalities. six large camps were established in and arrested during the Night of Broken Glass. The majori- The year 1941 is considered to be a turning point in the the territory of Germany between ty of these were allowed to leave the camp after a few weeks, history of the concentration camps. In the shadow of the 1933 and 1938. but only on condition that they immediately left Germa- raging war, the camps were turned into factories of death. The Dachau camp held German ny. However, thousands of other Jews in custody at the end The Nazis began to prepare for the “Final Solution of the Je- Communists and Social Demo- of 1938, particularly those at Sachsenhausen, remained in- wish Question” and for the conquering of the “eastern land” crats who were arrested during the carcerated. inhabited by Slavs. Transports of Jews and, in particular, So- ware of repression that followed the The network of concentration camps quickly began to viet prisoners of war began heading for Dachau. Many of Reichstag Fire (February 27, 1933). expand after the occupation of Austria (1938) and the out- the inmates there fell victim to drastic medical experiments, Many Jews were also interned in break of the Second World War (1939). New camps were which were performed on them by SS “doctors”. Thousands the camp, but not as yet because of established, particularly in the occupied territories of Eas- of others were shot or killed by gassing in the castle of Har- their racial origin. They were soon tern Europe, the most infamous being Mauthausen (in theim, Upper Austria. Despite its cruel conditions, Dachau joined by homeless people, tramps, occupied Austria) and Auschwitz (in occupied Poland). was never an actual extermination camp. Until the end of homosexuals, Romas (Gypsies) Conditions in these new camps were even more primitive the war, it remained only a labour and concentration camp, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, whom and the guards even more brutal than in pre-war Germany. even though a gas chamber was installed there. the Nazis considered “anti-social” Non-German nationalities began to predominate among elements. These people were im- the inmates: in particular, Poles and Polish Jews, later joi- prisoned without having commi- ned by Soviet prisoners of war. Young SS-men – indoctri- ted specific crimes. Jews were sent nated in Nazi ideology and trained mostly at Dachau and to Dachau as a racial group for Sachsenhausen – had complete contempt for non-German the first time in November 1938. inmates as Jewish and Slavic “sub-humans”. Under the con- At the time, the camp held about ditions of war, consideration was no longer taken of the 10,000 Jews who had been beaten increasing death rate of inmates. In Sachsenhausen, for

 Letter. Sent by one of the prisoners  Gas chamber. This chamber was never used for its intended during the war to his wife in Krakow, purpose of mass extermination. “Death transports” were not occupied Poland. dispatched to Dachau.

56 57 Holocaust The Decision Heydrich‘s request for assistance Bormann relays order banning reference to the Final Solution Letter to Martin Luther at the Foreign Office, dated 26 February 1942. In it, the chief of the RSHA In a classified communiqué from 11 July 1943, Hitler’s personal secretary and head of the (Reich Main Security Office) refers to the minutes from the Wannsee Conference and to the approved Nazi Party Chancellery, Martin Bormann, orders other SS officials to refrain from publicly basic position regarding the practical execution of the “final solution of the Jewish question”, and mentioning the “final solution of the Jewish question”. He urges them to refer to “sending also requests organizational, technical and material assistance with the implementation. The letter the Jews away to work”. also proves the involvement of Hermann Göring, referred to here as “Reich Marshal”.

26 February 1942

Undersecretary of State Luther! Foreign Office

Dear fellow party member Luther!

Enclosed I am sending you the minutes of the proceedings that took place on Head of the Party Chancellery the 20th of January 1942. Since the basic position regarding the practical execution Führer Headquarters, 11 July 1943 of the final solution of the Jewish question has fortunately been set out by now, and as there is full agreement among all the interested parties, I would Circular No. 33/43 g. like to ask you, at the request of the Reich Marshal, to make one of your specialist Re: Treatment of the Jewish Question. staff members available for the necessary discussion of details with a view to On instructions from the Führer, completing the draft that shows the I have the following to communicate: organizational, technical and material prerequisites for the actual starting point In public discussion of the Jewish of work on the projected solutions. question, there must be no mention of a future total solution. I intend to schedule the first discussion along these lines for 10:30 a.m. on the It may, however, be mentioned that 6th of March 1942 at Kurfürstenstrasse the Jews will be assigned in groups 116, Berlin. I therefore ask you to arrange for useful work. for your specialist staff member to contact my functionary in charge there, (signed) M. Bormann SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann.

Heil Hitler! Yours (signed) Heydrich

68 69 Holocaust The Warsaw Ghetto Chapter 15 The Warsaw Ghetto

efore the Second World War, the capital of Poland was The General Government home to the largest Jewish community in the world B (more than 350,000 Jews were living in Warsaw in 1939). An administrative unit set up by Nazi Germany in the central and Together with Lodz and Vilnius, Warsaw was among the eastern parts of occupied Poland (including Warsaw) with its main Jewish cultural centres in Central and Eastern Europe. administrative centre in Krakow. It incorporated the territories After the swift military defeat of Poland at the beginning of of Greater Poland and Galicia, and – following the attack on the the autumn of 1939, the Polish capital was incorporated into Soviet Union – part of Western Ukraine. While the most western the General Government of the Occupied Territory of Poland. parts of Poland were directly attached to Germany, the General The Jews of Warsaw were about to experience the darkest Government was administered as the “occupied territory of former period in their centuries-old history. The Nazis immediately Poland”. On maps it was included in the Greater German Reich closed down and banned all Jewish organizations, replacing (as were the General District of Bialystok and the Protectorate them with a new Jewish council. The entire Jewish population of Bohemia and Moravia). Poles from German regions were to of Warsaw was registered in accordance with Nazi race laws. be relocated there. The territory was run by Governor General On October 12, 1940 the Jews of Warsaw were told that Hans Frank and the Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of a special “Jewish ghetto” in the old part of town was being German Nationhood, H. Himmler. The latter referred to the General established and that they would all have to move there im- Government as a “waste basket” for all the “ethnic dregs” of Europe. mediately. Jewish properties were confiscated and the Jews were driven into a designated part of the town. One month later, a high wall was built around the ghetto and all access During the winter of 1940–1941, the ghetto suffered points and roads were cut off from the rest of the town by ga- from overcrowding and from a lack of medical supplies, tes and checkpoints. No Jew was allowed to leave the ghetto. fuel and, in particular, food. The Nazis implemented a po- The living and hygienic conditions in the ghetto were licy of starving the Jewish population. appalling. The entire community of Warsaw Jews were The situation deteriorated even further during the next crammed into a small area of dilapidated streets with a pri- two winters. The Jews of Warsaw managed to survive two mitive water supply and sewage system. Before the war, and a half years under these catastrophic conditions and in Jews comprised a third of the population of Warsaw and complete isolation. The Jewish Council provided a degree occupied a portion of the city that was commensurate with of self-government but was not able to negotiate with the its size; now they were crammed together in a space that Nazis for better conditions. The death rate in the ghetto be- covered a mere two to three per cent of the total city area. gan to rise sharply, particularly in the course of 1941. Thou- sands of people died every month, often of starvation and  Armband worn by members of the Jewish Ghetto Police. common illnesses that went untreated. Many died on the streets. Photographs that were taken secretly in the ghetto  Entry. The Jewish Ghetto Police at the gate in Żelazna Street, show emaciated, poverty-stricken figures, similar to the li- Warsaw, in the summer of 1942. (Bundesarchiv) berated camp inmates from May 1945.

92 93 Holocaust The Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Uprising  A tram line went through the enclosed zone.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) and the Warsaw Uprising deportees on its own; consequently, Jews were dragged from (1944) were two separate events, despite being similar in the ghetto and put on deportation trains by SS-men, who  Children in the ghetto. many respects. Both uprisings were brutally suppressed by SS committed acts of extreme violence and brutality. Deporta divisions, and the parts of the city where they occurred were tions to extermination camps had a devastating impact on  Brutal raid. SS units shelled the ghetto houses block by block razed to the ground. The Polish population in Warsaw rose up the local population. Six months after the first deportations, and shot any inhabitant on sight. The few who were held captive in August 1944. Tens of thousands of civilians had perished by there were only 60,000 Jews left in the ghetto. The remainder were then sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. April and May the end of October of that year. In the end, the Nazi authorities were to be sent to extermination camps as soon as possible. 1943. (Bundesarchiv) gave prisoner of war status to the Polish fighters; unlike the The Nazis planned the final phase of the mass depor Jews, they were sent to prisoner of war camps. tation for January 1943. This time, however, the SS divisions clandestine Zionist organization Hashomer Hatzair (Heb- met with actual resistance. Those who were supposed to rew: The Young Guard). From the outset, the desperate report for deportation did not turn up. The SS-men who uprising did not have the slightest hope of success. The Je- Deportations to Treblinka and Auschwitz began in the stormed into the ghetto managed to drag away only a few wish defenders, however, decided not to give up without summer of 1942. Considering the proximity of the camps thousand people. Armed resistance broke out in the War- a fight. On May 16, SS General Jürgen Stroop announced and the atrocious experiences in the ghetto, the Jews of War- saw ghetto in January 1943. The initiative was taken by the end of the “grand operation” in the ghetto. Fighting saw probably suspected that they were being sent to their the Jewish Combat Organization, which had managed continued even after this date, however. The remaining po- deaths. The auxiliary Jewish police force, established by to procure a small amount of weapons. The resistance pulation were sent to Majdanek and Auschwitz; a few esca- the Jewish Council, was often not able to gather together was headed by Mordechaj Anielewicz, the leader of the ped from the ghetto through underground tunnels.

94 95 Holocaust Auschwitz Rudolf Höss (1900–1947)

Commandant of the camp. Active in Auschwitz from 1940 onwards, he was responsible for the brutal treatment and torture of the inmates and for the operation of the gas chambers. He did not escape justice. In March 1947 he was among the main defendants in the Auschwitz Trial. He was condemned to death and hanged in the Auschwitz camp.

 A perfect trap. Escape from the Auschwitz complex was almost impossible. Some prisoners managed to break out, but most of them were caught near the camp.

Sonderkommando

Jewish prisoners had to do the “dirty work”, such as clearing out the gas chambers and incinerating and burying the dead. A special team of inmates also helped the SS-men to undress other prisoners and to take them away to the gas chambers. Often, they would come across their friends and families during their work. Gold and silver tooth fillings had to be wrenched from the mouths of gas chamber victims; 25 beatings with a stick was the penalty for failing to do so. None of the members of the special squad were allowed to mingle with the other prisoners. Each prisoner worked until he was beaten to death or died of exhaustion.  A new transport. Jews from Hungary arrive in Auschwitz  Aerial photograph of Auschwitz II–Birkenau. Taken by a British pilot in 1944, this photograph shows (1944). (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) smoke rising from behind the gas chambers, perhaps where bodies of victims were being burned.

110 111 Holocaust Auschwitz Selection Mengele, Angel of Death

The word “selection” was given a tragic meaning in the Auschwitz weak, and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers. Joseph Mengele came to Auschwitz as a young physician in May 1943. His task camp. SS-men, riding whips in hand, waited on the ramp for The rest were sent “to work” in the various parts of the camp. was to establish the genetic cause for the birth of twins. Mengele soon began incoming transports of Jews and immediately divided them into Periodic selections were also conducted in the camp; those who his inhuman experiments, for which he selected mainly Roma children, usually groups according to age, sex and state of health. Children were failed the physical examination were sent to the gas chambers. identical twins. He committed acts of incredible cruelty: for example, he sewed cruelly snatched away from their mothers. The elderly, the ill, the the veins of two twins together, submerged prisoners into boiling vats of water so as to see how much heat the human body could endure before death, and injected chemicals into Roma children’s eyes. Many inmates died during these experiments; some were killed so that Mengele could immediately dissect them, while others were left to bleed to death. He was also obsessed with dwarfs, whom he also brutally tortured. Mengele – who symbolized the cruelty of Nazi doctors in concentration camps – was never apprehended and thus escaped earthly punishment. He drowned while swimming in Brazil in 1979.

PERSONAL TESTIMONY: An encounter with Dr. Mengele

Toman Brod, a 15-year-old prisoner in Auschwitz, 6 July 1944: ”It was a nice sunny day when Dr. Joseph Mengele visited our block. He was a handsome well-built man. He always wore an elegant uniform with white gloves. Nobody would have guessed that he was a mass murderer. He behaved politely, and he would often stroke children’s hair and ask them if they had enough food… It’s possible that he had come for some twins. One boy plucked up courage and walked up to Mengele: ‘We are a group of boys under sixteen, but we are healthy and strong and willing to work. Give us a chance.’ The camp doctor didn’t shoot him, but he actually held some kind of final selection. The children’s block was empty. Mengele was standing on the right with other SS-men and the camp typist. We knew what it meant when he said ‘Out!’ and the typist wrote down our number. We knew what was meant by ‘Go to the right / Go to the left.’ Holding their shoes in one hand and their clothes in the other, all the boys had to march in front of Mengele, who pointed to the left or right. This ‘nice doctor’ Mengele really saved my life, as he said I was capable of work. He selected about 90 boys. It took less than an hour – I hadn’t even time to say goodbye to my mother – and we were taken away to the adjacent  Experiments on prisoners in men’s block.” (Memory of the Nation/Post Bellum) Auschwitz. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA)

112 113 Holocaust The Concentration Camps Chapter 21 The Concentration Camps

he first concentration camps were established in the Conditions in the camps drastically deteriorated after territory of Germany immediately after the Nazis’ the invasion of Poland in the summer of 1939. At the very T coming to power in the first half of 1933. Despite the beginning of the war, there were outbreaks of famine and appalling conditions and the systematic abuse and beatings typhoid epidemics in some camps (e.g. Sachsenhausen), of prisoners, these camps were not intended for liquida- which claimed thousands of victims. Two years later – af- tion until the outbreak of war – some inmates were even ter the invasion of the Soviet Union and the launch of the released from these camps. Jews who were sent to these “Final Solution” at the end of 1941 and beginning of 1942 – camps in the pre-war period were mainly political priso- the concentration camps became places of the greatest hu- ners and were not there on account of their racial descent. man suffering during the Second World War. Large concentration camps were established primarily  Prisoners in Dachau. (Bundesarchiv) in the territory of the Greater German Reich and the Ge- neral Government – elsewhere there were smaller transit  Electric fences. A symbol of the concentration camps. (Photo and labour camps (with the exception of the Westerbork Archive VUA-VHA) camp in Holland and the Koldichevo camp in Belarus). The

130 131 Holocaust The Concentration Camps

 Majdanek.

 Electrocuted on barbed wires. In this photograph from 1942, it is not clear if the prisoners had attempted to escape or had committed suicide. The sight of dead bodies beneath the electric wires became a daily occurrence for the other prisoners. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA)

 Flossenbürg. This concentration camp, situated in Bavaria, was not intended solely for Jews and Soviet war prisoners. Many political prisoners of German nationality were also incarcerated there. The number of Jewish inmates increased shortly before the end of the war. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA)

 Prisoners in Buchenwald. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

132 133 Holocaust The Concentration Camps The marking of prisoners

Every prisoner was issued a serial number which was then tattooed on the wrist and sewn onto the left breast of the prison outfit. A badge shaped like a triangle was placed under the number. The colour of the badge denoted the category to which the prisoner belonged. A letter within the triangle signified the political prisoner’s nationality: for example, P stood for Polish, F for French, T for Czech, SU for Soviet Union. German nationality was not indicated. Jews wore the yellow star, instead of a triangle badge.

 Political prisoners  Criminals and saboteurs  Romas and “anti-social elements”  Homosexuals  Jehovah’s Witnesses  Emigrants  ”Anti-social elements” from Germany

Majdanek served both as concentration and extermination  Prisoner uniform. The red triangle badge with a letter B The largest concentration camps  Staff officers. Commandant Franz Ziereis (centre) with SS camps. Some camps were the destinations for particular indicates that it belonged to a Belgian political prisoner. staff at the Mauthausen concentration camp. (Bundesarchiv) groups, for example, German political prisoners were sent Site Year established Number of victims to Flossenbürg in Bavaria (although this camp was not in- camps, some of which he visited in person. Seeing the piti- Auschwitz 1940 260,000 large camps that were already in existence continually ex- tended only for them) and Ravensbrück was a camp for wo- ful camp inmates only served to confirm his hateful convic- Mauthausen 1938 120,000 panded and established their own branches, often tens of men and also held a large amount of children. Camps and tion that they were “Jewish and Slav sub-humans” without kilometers away. More than 15,000 sites across Germany camp sectors for women were under the supervision of fe- any shred of human dignity. Dachau 1933 35,000 and occupied Europe were used as camps during the war, male guards whose cruelty equaled that of the guards in the The prisoners suffered mainly from hunger and exhaus- Buchenwald 1937 55,000 becoming a fixed part of the German war machinery and men’s sectors. tion as a result of slave labour. They were put to work in Sachsenhausen 1939 100,000 a source of forced labour. The armament industry exploi- As a racial group, Jews were first sent to concentration quarries and munitions factories and dug underground Ravensbrück 1939 60,000 ted prisoners as slaves, and a large amount of manufactu- camps after the Night of Broken Glass in the autumn of tunnels. Most of them died during their first year of in- Flossenbürg 1938 25,000 ring facilities relied on slave labour from 1942 onwards. The 1938. As part of the “Final Solution”, most Jewish trans- carceration. They could be brutally beaten or murdered at Majdanek 1941 tens of thousands prisoners’ranks were continually expanded to include new ports went straight to extermination camps. Concentration any time. Executions were carried out in the camps, usually Bergen-Belsen 1943 tens of thousands Soviet prisoners of war and the persecuted inhabitants of camps were the final destination for only a small portion of by hanging or shooting, and almost always in front of the occupied countries. The only way out of the camps now these transports. Mauthausen, Sachsenhausen and Buchen other inmates. Cruel physical punishments were also in- Neuengamme 1938 55,000 was “through the chimney”, as the guards would tell the wald, in particular, became fixed points of the Nazi sys- flicted: usually, victims were beaten with a stick or hung Gross-Rosen 1940 40,000 new arrivals. tem for the “Final Solution” and held more Jewish prisoners with their hands twisted behind their backs around “a post”. Stutthof 1939 65,000 Concentration camps, ghettoes and extermination than other camps. Weak and ill inmates were wiped out straight away: by le- Note: These numbers are only estimates; the actual numbers may have camps are sometimes – erroneously – equated with one ano- The SS had jurisdiction over all concentration camps thal injection or gassing in the gas chambers. Many inmates been much higher. There are no precise statistics for the numbers of victims. ther, but these were in fact three separate categories of ge- throughout the war. Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the froze to death in tent camps. Others fell victim to inhuman nocidal facilities. Only Auschwitz – the largest camp – and SS, was responsible for the existence and operations of the “medical” experiments that were performed by SS doctors.

134 135 Holocaust Rescued Jews The children’s opera Brundibár Chapter 25

The children’s opera Brundibár, which was shown almost 60 times in the Theresienstadt ghetto – in Rescued Jews secret and in authorized productions – became symbolic of the silent resistance of Jewish artists during the Holocaust. The opera was written before the war by the Czech librettist Adolf Hoffmeister and the composer Hans Krása. The plot is about a group of children who, with the help of various animals (in he mass murder of Jews in the gas chambers assumed Transports to Switzerland the form of poster cut-outs), overcome the evil organ such hideous proportions in the first half of 1942 that grinder Brundibár, who had taken the money they T it became practically impossible for the Nazis to con- Several transports of Jews were sent to neutral Switzerland needed for their ill mother. The first rehearsals began ceal it from the outside world. Millions of people vanished from occupied Europe in 1944 and 1945. Transports from in Theresienstadt in the summer of 1943. At the from European towns, never to be seen or heard from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp reached the Swiss outset, the costumes and set pieces were makeshift, again. Every day, people living near Nazi camps saw trains border in August and December 1944. having been put together by the performers that arrived full of passengers and left completely empty. It The most famous transport to arrive in Switzerland themselves. The cast were continually alternated; the was clear that the camps could not hold so many prisoners. was the one dispatched from Theresienstadt on Februa- child actors were frequently deported to Auschwitz Reports about extermination camps, gas chambers and ry 5, 1945, which brought 1,200 Jews to safety. Himmler and replaced by others who had just arrived in death transports soon reached the Western Allies via resi- himself decided to release them, perhaps as a gesture to Theresienstadt. The opera was staged a year later for stance members. The outside world had found out about the Western Allies, with whom several Nazis wanted to the visit of the International Committee of the Red the mass murders in occupied Soviet territory earlier – in conclude peace in the spring of 1945. The Nazis probably Cross and was featured in the propaganda film The the summer of 1941. On December 17, 1942, the Western regarded Jewish survivors as “goods” that could be pro- Führer Gives the Jews a Town. At the time, the Nazis Allies and Soviet Union issued a declaration condemning vided to the Western Allies in exchange for an “alliance provided the actors with materials for new costumes the genocide that was taking place. They rowed that those against the Russians”. Only Jews that were in a good sta- and sets and allowed them to perform in a more responsible would be severely punished and warned that te of health were allowed on the train to Switzerland. For suitable building outside the ghetto. The opera’s final these crimes would not become statute-barred after the war. their journey they were given items that they had never song – of victory in the war, the defeat of the However, they probably did not realize the full extent of had in the ghetto – such as suitcases, chocolates and tin evil organ-grinder (symbolizing Hitler) and the the tragedy until the end of the war. They believed that the ned meat. This transport was also to serve the purposes prevailing of truth – became the prisoners’ anthem systematic extermination of the Jews did not differ signi- of Nazi propaganda. of the Theresienstadt ghetto. ficantly from the persecution of other population groups in occupied countries. The sole objective of the Western Winton’s children Allies was to win the war and thereby to assist all oppressed Culture in Theresienstadt groups. It remains an open question whether they could Among the Jews who were saved from the Holocaust were have done more against the extermination of the Jews bet those who, with the help of selfless individuals, managed to The Theresienstadt ghetto was one of the few places where the ghetto. In addition to prominent Jews, there were also a large ween 1942 and 1944. Some historians speculate about whe- emigrate from Nazi Germany before the war from coun- Nazis tolerated the cultural activities of prisoners. In the summer number of professional artists in the Theresienstadt ghetto. Artists ther bombing the death camps and the adjoining railways tries at risk. At the end of 1938 and beginning of 1939, for of 1944, the Nazis were able to make use of this for their deceitful were employed to draw posters for the Jewish self-government. could have slowed down the Nazi genocide, and about whe- example, Nicolas Winton rescued 664 Jewish Czechoslo- propaganda. Jewish inmates in Theresienstadt had their own puppet In their technical workshop, however, they secretly made sketches ther such bombing was even feasible. vak children by arranging for them to be looked after by theatre, string quartet and open-air cabaret. There was also a mixed that documented the true conditions in the ghetto. In 1944 these Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of Jews were saved foster families in Great Britain and by paying the train choir which, under the direction of Rafael Schächter, performed drawings fell into the hands of the Nazi command, which referred from the gas chambers. With the exception of initiatives fares from Prague to London. He was co-operating with several Mozart operas, including The Magic Flute. The staging of to them as “propaganda of horror” and sent the artists to the Small from neutral Sweden, however, these were mainly private the Honorary Consul of the British Committee for Re- operas and concerts obviously reflected the dire conditions of the Fortress, where they were promptly executed. rescue operations, of which only a few were financed by Je- fugees from Czechoslovakia. In reality, however, the Bri wish organization in the United States. tish authorities merely tolerated his activities rather than

150 151 Holocaust Rescued Jews PERSONAL TESTIMONY: Kraskowski Jews We didn‘t believe Benedykt Kraskowski (pictured on the far left, wearing a cap) carpentry workshop. He was murdered by Ukrainian nationalists that we were going to Switzerland was a Pole of German descent who protected Jews from the in 1944. His name appears on the list of the Righteous Among Bedriška Winklerová, a 13-year-old girl who survived German authorities during the war, employing them in his the Nations. Theresienstadt, 5 February 1945: ”Only intact families, none of whose members had been sent to Auschwitz, were selected for this transport. We received a call-up notice and had to go to the office of the SS Commandant Rahm, as they wanted to see what we looked like. I don’t know how my dad plucked up the courage, but he told Rahm that he didn’t want to leave. We didn’t know anything about the gas chambers. I’m not sure if my dad or my uncle knew anything about the East, but I certainly didn’t and my mum probably didn’t either. Perhaps my dad suspected something. Rahm decided: ‘You will go, Winkler.’ They said that we were going to Switzerland, but we didn’t believe them. It was not until we had crossed the border that we knew for sure that it was Switzerland.” (Memory of the Nation/Post Bellum)

 Oskar Schindler. (Jad Vashem)

providing assistance. Shy and modest in nature, Nicolas In 1938 Schindler contributed to espionage activities concentration camps or straight to the gas chambers. This Winton withdrew into obscurity after his heroic deeds and against democratic Czechoslovakia, for which he was is when the famous Schindler’s list was drawn up. 800 Je- lived a quiet life without any public acknowledgement. It arrested. In 1939 he became the owner of an enamelware wish men were sent directly to Brněnec. The women were was only many years later that his work was documented factory in occupied Krakow, where he soon made a for- sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler soon managed to “re and fully appreciated. tune. He employed Jews from the Krakow ghetto as sla- deem” them and to bring them to Brněnec where they ve labour. His factory soon gained a reputation as a place were reunited with their husbands. One Jewish deporta- Schindler’s Jews where Jews would be safe from the terror of the SS guards. tion train was sent to his factory (which at the time was When the Krakow ghetto was closed down (1943), Schind more of a refuge than a business); this transport had re- Some historians consider the most famous rescuer of ler continued to employ prisoners from the Plaszów la- mained stationary at the local station and the prisoners Jews, Oscar Schindler, to be a contradictory figure. He was bour camp, which was situated near his factory in Krakow. were at risk of freezing to death. At the end of the war he a member of the Nazi Party who worked for the Abwehr A year later, the camp and the factory were evacuated to procured weapons for the Jews under his protection and (German intelligence service) before the war and also had Brněnec (German Brinnlitz) in the Protectorate of Bohe- then proceeded to escape. He died in 1974 and was buried a reputation as a conniving opportunist. The fact remains, mia and Moravia. at the Mount Zion Catholic Cemetery in Jerusalem. He was however, that he saved more than 1,200 Jews during the war Schindler decided to bring his Jewish employees with the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured as one without regard to personal cost. him and, in so doing, to save them from being sent to of the Righteous Among the Nations.

152 153 Holocaust The End of the War Chapter 26 The End of the War

The Death Marches June 1943 they began to wipe out all traces of the mass mur der in the most easterly located camps, even though the ex- he imminent end to the war brought about increased termination programme was still in full force elsewhere. suffering and unimaginable deprivation for the Jews and They established a special unit known as Sonderkomman- T other prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. Most Jews do 1005, which exhumed mass graves in Belarus and East perished during the hurried evacuation of the concentration ern Poland and burnt the corpses. camps from Eastern Europe to camps in Germany and as As soon as Operation Reinhard ended, the largest exter- a result of the cutting of supplies to the overcrowded camps mination camps in Polish territory were closed down and in the last weeks of the war – after the gassing and exter- demolished. Most of them were razed to the ground by the mination programme (1941–1944) had been discontinued. Nazis. Gas chambers remained in operation for the longest Hundreds of thousands of prisoners of various nationalities time in Majdanek and, particularly, in Auschwitz. The Nazis perished alongside Jews at this time. Their fate was all the blew up the gas chambers in Auschwitz at the end of 1944, more tragic for the fact that so many of them died just befo- when the programme for the mass extermination of Jews re and even after the camps were liberated. by gassing was definitively ended. In January 1945 they or- The high death rates at the end of the war were not due dered the evacuation of the remaining 65,000 prisoners to to the collapse of the German economy and transport sys- the west. When the Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz on Ja- tem, however; they were the result of a deliberate policy. By nuary 27, 1945, they found an enormous camp that was al- evacuating and starving the camps or finding other ways to most empty. Only children and the most severely ill people murder the prisoners en masse, the Nazis tried to conceal had remained behind. the war crimes that they had committed earlier. Already in The Nazis managed to evacuate most of the large concentration camps in Polish territory before the arrival of the  Death march. One of the last places that evacuations trains Soviet army. Their evacuation was launched in the summer were dispatched to was Theresienstadt. This became the final of 1944, when the eastern and western front was first appro- destination for prisoners from camps in the German interior who aching the German borders. This was the first period of the had been evacuated in the course of March and April 1945. For death marches, during which hundreds of thousands of piti- many prisoners, this was their second time on a death march. As ful prisoners were forced to walk hundreds of kilometers on a result, the death toll was enormous. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) roads leading to the west, often without food, water or rest. Most of the prisoners on the worst marches did not survive.  Bergen-Belsen. A typhoid epidemic broke out in one of Those who collapsed through exhaustion were immediately the largest camps shortly before the end of the war. More than shot or beaten to death. Corpses were often dumped in dit- 45,000 prisoners died during the last three months before liberation. The ches alongside the roads. Not only camp inmates were for- photograph shows the deputy camp commander SS-Obersturmführer ced on these marches. In November 1944, for example, more Franz Hößler standing in front of a truck full of corpses. He was later than 75,000 local Jews were forcibly moved out of Hungary convicted of war crimes and executed. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) in a similarly brutal way. Many of them ended up in front of

158 159 Holocaust The End of the War

PERSONAL TESTIMONY: Entering the liberated camp Evidence of the cruel conditions of the last death marches is provided by the number of fatalities: of the 4,500 pri- Hugh Stewart, a British film editor, soners evacuated in April 1945 from the Buchenwald Bergen-Belsen, 19 April 1945: concentration camp, only 500 (i.e. about a seventh) rea- ”The first thing I remember were ched Theresienstadt alive. The others died on the way. groups of ragged dejected looking people behind barbed wire which had been broken down in most places. Liberated camps Blocks of one storey buildings appeared Having moved forward from the west, the allied forces li- to be the only accommodation but berated the partly evacuated concentration camps in the I did not enter any till later. Suddenly course of March and April 1945. While Soviet troops had I was conscious of the most appaling entered empty or demolished camps several weeks and stench: the wind was blowing into months earlier in Poland, the western allied soldiers came my face. I could not see what cause across far more grisly sights: the camps were littered with the stench although I began to notice the dead and the dying, with starving victims often half- odd dead bodies lying around and -crazed or infected with tuberculosis or typhus. nobody seemed to worry about it. As we went on further I saw group  Dachau. Rescued prisoners thank a U.S. soldier for liberating of about 20 bodies with their clothes them. (Photo Archive VUA-VHA) off – men, women and children – just dumped in a pile. Live prisoners were  Buchenwald. Liberated prisoners identify and accuse squatting or walking near them quite captured guards. unconcerned. (…) Every one was pale and haggard beyond belief. Most of the corpses appeared to have died from hunger. Their limbs were like my wrist and their skin looked like rubber stretched over skeleton.” (No. 5 Army Film and Photographic Unit, British Armed Forces) firing squads on the banks of the River Danube. Some rea- and north. For many prisoners, this was their second time ched Austria, where the Nazis sent them to the local concent- on a death march. The new wave of marches was even more ration camps. This event testified to the stubborn persistence drastic than the first. Prisoner convoys and the camps them- of the Nazis, and particularly of the SS organization, in conti- selves no longer received any supplies. Typhoid epidemics nuing the liquidation of European Jewry, even after the eva- and famine broke out in the overcrowded camps in Germa- cuation of the extermination camps and in the face of defeat. ny. Some prisoners were evacuated by rail. Evacuation trains In the last weeks of the war, the Nazis tried to eva- went aimlessly across Central Europe, often ending up on cuate camps in Western Germany which held as many as sidings where the prisoners were left to die of thirst, hunger 700,000 prisoners at the time. New death marches were and cold in locked freight cars. At the end of April and be- dispatched from Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Dachau, ginning of May 1945, Theresienstadt was one of the last pla- Flossenbürg and many other camps, this time to the east ces where evacuation trains arrived.

160 161