NG-4817 - resettlement in Transnistria and liquidation

[little grey rabbit]

I was reading recently Deborah Lipstadt excellent slim volume on the Eichmann trial (a good stocking-filler if you know a teenager interested in history), and my interest was piqued by some of the Rademacher correspondence

T/37(256) Letter from Eichmann to Foreign Ministry
complaining about the disorderly removal by Romanian
authorities of 10,000 Jews to the Ukraine, with another
60,000 to follow. Berlin, 14.4.42. Submitted during the
course of the trial and marked T/1013 (BO6-83; Vol. II, p.
865)

T/37(257) Letter from Rademacher to Eichmann, replying to
his letter of 14 April (T/1013); Berlin, 12.5.42. Also,
letter of similar contents and of same date to the Reich
Ministry for Occupied Areas, with handwritten annotation
that 28,000 Jews had already been dispatched to German
villages in Transnistria and had by now been liquidated.
Submitted during the course of the trial and marked T/1014
(NG-4817, Vol. II, p. 865)

It appears to have been quoted in Hilberg and elsewhere. Has anyone ever reproduced this document anywhere (unlikely I know). Or is it known the source of the Jews that were dispatched to German villages and how and by whom they were liquidated?

It is interesting to note that PS-910 (found in the Nuremberg Red Series, vol 3, page 645 of pdf) contains a document from the Generalgouvernement of 27 March 1942 which said, amongst other things, this:

c.
soon German peasant families from Transnistria should be settled in Zamose County. In order not to alarm the domestic population, particularly the peasant population, and hereby to impair the result of the harvest, those German peasant families should be placed only on the country estates and the big holdings. Insofar as peasants from Transnistria do not come into consider- ation, the transplanting of small but suitable landowners from the German parts near Petrikan (Pietrikow) into Zamose County should also be considered. As in that county already some villages exist the inhabitants of which are doubtlessly of German origin, that way a German bulwark could be created in Zamose County.

Its a nice tie in to show German peasants being relocated from Transnistria and Jewish families being moved into their empty villages. Although it doesn't explain the point of such a rigmarole if - according to handwritten annotations - you then go and massacre them.

[little grey rabbit]

I actually have found a copy, albeit not a great copy, of NG-4817




Bejamin Ferencz, in his "Less Than Slaves", page 101, has this

Franz Rademacher of the German Foreign Office sent a formal complaint against the Abschiebung, or dumping, of Romanian Jews across the Bug River. His handwritten file not two days later stated: '28000 Jews had been brought over into German villages, in the meanwhile they were liquidated' (Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert). The record was clear that all of the Jews trapped in that region were marked for death. The German army needed a railroad bridge to cross the Bug River. An attempt to build a bridge across the Dnieper had failed, as the foundation kept sliding into the rapids. Krupp received the order for the stell structure. Labor would be provided by the Jews. There were about 1,500 of them being guarded by the Romanian gendarmerie in an old Russian cavalry barrack across the river, in a village called Trichati.

My German, especially handwritten German, is terrible. I can read "Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert" can anyone provide the German for the first sentence?

I am just wondering if it was meant to indicate that the German settlements had been liquidated - since we know they were slated for resettlement and there seems little reason to bring Jews specifically there otherwise. Unless we have some good evidence of Volksdeutsche killing squads around April-May 1942

[Jonathan Harrison]

There were 134,000 ethnic Germans still in Transnistria in 1944:

http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/articles/m ... cksea.html

The 28,000 Jews were killed by Sonderkommando R due to fears that they would spread typhus to those Germans. Key docs include:

Complaint from Gk Nikolayev to Erich Koch stating that unburied Jewish bodies were a health risk (Funkspruch Gen. Komm. Nikolajew Opperman an der Reichkomm. Ukr. [Koch]. Rowno, 9.2.42. T120/3132/E510845.) See also T120/3132/E510844 and T120/3132/E510838.

The Rademacher doc is copied in the US as T120/3132/E510806.

The best on-line secondary source is this thesis:

https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/indexableconten ... LE&dl=true

[little grey rabbit]

You have sort of scatter gun approach to sources.

Since the radio message of Koch is 3 months before the memo of Rademacher and so its relevance is close to zero.

Worse if you actually read the parts of the memo available online
“

a large number of Jews, who are hardly being properly buried, are dying daily” on the opposite bank of the Bug. In Oppermann’s view, “this impossible situation will pose a great danger for the ethnic German villages in Transnistria and for the bordering area of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.”

It seems the fear is of epidemics and not related to killing squad activities at all, ie "dying daily" versus a quota is being killed daily (or whatever).

I wish you would be more careful. The Warthegau and Lublin areas were colonised by Volksdeutsche during this period and I presume they came from somewhere

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... _Karte.jpg

"Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert" - I guess it all depends on what the "sie" pronoun refers back to. It might help if we had the full German text.

Unless, of course, Mr Harrison has some direct evidence regarding mass killings in German villages in May 1942

[Jonathan Harrison]

Ethnic Germans were not evacuated until 1944:

"On February 3, 1944, the Staff of the Reichsfuehrer's SS in Odessa received notification that no plan for transport [away from the region; Tr.] for the Germans of Transnistria, about 134,000 in number, had yet been arranged."

"Having completed these steps on May 28, 1944, we were transported to a rural county seat of Jarocin in the Warthegau.

All in all, we had been on the road for 70 days, many of us having passed half of the 2,000 kilometers on foot. Many of our countrymen did not reach their designate destinations.

On June 5 we who were being resettled were met by representatives of surrounding communities and taken to various quarters. This date clearly marks the definitive end of existence of the German communities of the Black Sea region."

http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/articles/m ... cksea.html

[Jonathan Harrison]

"Unless, of course, Mr Harrison has some direct evidence regarding mass killings in German villages in May 1942"

""Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert" is of course very direct evidence, unless you want to infer that Rademacher was saying that the ethnic Germans had been shot rather than the Jews.

[little grey rabbit]

"Unless, of course, Mr Harrison has some direct evidence regarding mass killings in German villages in May 1942"

""Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert" is of course very direct evidence, unless you want to infer that Rademacher was saying that the ethnic Germans had been shot rather than the Jews.

Depends, do you have evidence that the Israeli army put Jewish settlers up against the wall in Gaza and machine-gunned them?

Ein dritter, palästinensischer, Staat harrt immer noch seiner Gründung. Das Westjordanland (in der jüdischen historischen Tradition – Judäa und Samaria), Ostjerusalem (einschließlich der historischen Altstadt mit den heiligen Stätten aller monotheistischen Religionen) und der Gaza-Streifen wechselten immer wieder die Hand: von 1948 bis 1967 unterstanden sie der Verwaltung Jordaniens und Ägyptens, seit 1967 werden sie von Israel kontrolliert. Der Gaza-Streifen wurde seit 2005, nach dem vollständigen Rückzug der israelischen Armee und der restlosen Liquidierung sämtlicher jüdischer Siedlungen, sich selbst überlassen. Die Folgen davon sind bestens bekannt: die religiösen Fanatiker der Hamas haben die Macht im Gaza-Streifen gewaltsam an sich gerissen, der Raketen-Beschuss des israelischen Staatsgebiets von Gaza aus hält unablässig an, es kommt zu Geiselnahmen etc. All dies führte zur israelischen Militäroperation „Gegossenes Blei“ (Januar 2009).

[Zionistische Organisation in Deutschland]

There is a well-understood meaning of liquidating settlements in German language - whether these settlements are full of Germans or Israelis - as opposed to liquidating individuals.

[sunbury2]

LGR, firstly, please explain this quote and the justification in using it?

Depends, do you have evidence that the Israeli army put Jewish settlers up against the wall in Gaza and machine-gunned them?

. Some wise man once said, scratch a holocaust denier, and find an anti-semite.

Next, you make an assertion

It seems the fear is of epidemics and not related to killing squad activities at all, ie "dying daily" versus a quota is being killed daily (or whatever).

You give no proof for this, why? Please provide the verifiable links to references to show an epidemic was in progress and not the far more believable pogrom. A translation of a single paragraph is not proof, where are the medical reports of the time?

And again the attack on Israel.

There is a well-understood meaning of liquidating settlements in German language - whether these settlements are full of Germans or Israelis - as opposed to liquidating individuals.

[steve248]

For the background to this document and including Rumania's continued attempts to shove Jews into Reichskommissariat Ukraine in 1942 and the murder of Jews in villages in Transnistria and Moldavia by ethnic Germans local forces controlled by Sonderkommando Russland (SS-Obf Horst Hoffmeyer) during 1941/1942 after the departure from the area of Einsatzgruppe D see the PhD of Eric Conrad Steinhart. My copy was taken from the web and I see Steinhart has published his work and available at amazon.com.

[uberjude]

If I understand LGR's use of the Gaza reference correctly, he is not saying that the doc is referring to the killing of German villagers, rather, in the same way that the Israeli army "liquidated Jewish settlements in Gaza" in 2005 by evacuating the settlers back into Israel, the Germans "liquidated" the German villages in Transnistria by evacuating the Germans elsewhere, i.e., closing down the villages as opposed to killing the inhabitants, which is why he said it depends on what the "sie" refers to. My German isn't good enough to answer that question, but I believe that was the point of his example.

[Bernaschek]

If I understand LGR's use of the Gaza reference correctly, he is not saying that the doc is referring to the killing of German villagers, rather, in the same way that the Israeli army "liquidated Jewish settlements in Gaza" in 2005 by evacuating the settlers back into Israel, the Germans "liquidated" the German villages in Transnistria by evacuating the Germans elsewhere, i.e., closing down the villages as opposed to killing the inhabitants, which is why he said it depends on what the "sie" refers to. My German isn't good enough to answer that question, but I believe that was the point of his example.

quite right;
so we do not have the original german text, if the translations/reproductions here are good, then the term "liquidation" here should refer to the 28.000 Jews and not the villages. A slightly different wording would normally be used, it the villages haa been liquitated, like different reflexive pronomina ("diese", "welche", but unlikely "sie")or an other slightly different construction.
as I'm not sure, if I express myself clearly : the formulation used would point to the killing of the jews referred to. Had the author meant, that the vilalges were liquitaded, it would have been rather bad german and a not suitable use of the language in an army/police report, in which ambiguities are not supposed to arrise

[little grey rabbit]

If I understand LGR's use of the Gaza reference correctly, he is not saying that the doc is referring to the killing of German villagers, rather, in the same way that the Israeli army "liquidated Jewish settlements in Gaza" in 2005 by evacuating the settlers back into Israel, the Germans "liquidated" the German villages in Transnistria by evacuating the Germans elsewhere, i.e., closing down the villages as opposed to killing the inhabitants, which is why he said it depends on what the "sie" refers to. My German isn't good enough to answer that question, but I believe that was the point of his example.

quite right;
so we do not have the original german text, if the translations/reproductions here are good, then the term "liquidation" here should refer to the 28.000 Jews and not the villages. A slightly different wording would normally be used, it the villages haa been liquitated, like different reflexive pronomina ("diese", "welche", but unlikely "sie")or an other slightly different construction.
as I'm not sure, if I express myself clearly : the formulation used would point to the killing of the jews referred to. Had the author meant, that the vilalges were liquitaded, it would have been rather bad german and a not suitable use of the language in an army/police report, in which ambiguities are not supposed to arrise

Thanks for your imput, Bernaschek. Just a couple of corrections:

1. The german text is available, I have posted it above, simply it is handwritten and I can't decipher it.
2. It is not an army/police report, rather a scrawled comment on the margin by a Foreign Office employee. Presumably it was written as an aide-de-memoire for people who already were familiar with the subject matter. Since we know for a fact that German villages WERE being resettled from Transnistria, the interpretation might be obvious to the expected audience of this scribble.
3. I am not sure what you mean by reflexive pronouns (mich, dich, sich) and wonder if perhaps you meant relative pronouns?. In anycase sie could have been used.

[michael mills]

My German, especially handwritten German, is terrible. I can read "Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert" can anyone provide the German for the first sentence?

"Nach Transnistrien wurden schon(?)...............................Juden in deutsche Dörfer gebracht. Inzwischen wurden sie liquidiert".