Chelmno Personnel

[Researcher]

Hi chrish,

Have Gielow trial in Lodz from 27.9.49 - 16.5.50 but I guess you should know best!

Was Bruno Israel a kapo?

regards
Reseacher

[Researcher]

Found this on the HolocaustResearchProject.org website

Bruno, Israel Oberwachtmeister Born in Lodz, to Lukiusz and Linda Koenig. Before the war he worked as a dyer in the “Leber & Lewandowski company. He signed the Volksliste in 1940 and started working for the Hilfspolizei in 1941. in 1943 he was drafted into the gendarmerie as Wachtmeister. In July or August 1944 he was transferred to SS- Sonderkommando Bothmann at Chelmno, where he took part in escorting transports to the Waldlager. He left Chelmno in January 1945 and went to Poznan with other members of the Sonderkommando.

Which is the family name - Bruno or Israel?

Researcher

[Violeta]

A good link about Chelmno:

http://www.muzeum.com.pl/en/chelmno.htm

[larryb]

does anyone know the dob and rank of any of these defendants?
-heinrich bock
-friedrich maderholz
-anton mehring
-wilhelm schulte
-alexander steinke

Cheers.
-larry

[sum]

The forest now

[Peter]

Are there any trial photos please ?

[ChristopherPerrien]

10'000 Jews were deported from Lodz to Chelmno and murdered between 16th to 29th January 1942. 34'000 were 'processed' between 22nd March to 2nd April 1942. 11'000 were deported and gassed between 4th to 15th May 1942, 16'000 between 5th to 12th September 1942

Are these figures attributed to using 3 gas-vans?

[Eddy Marz]

Hi Schmauser;
Just about the Chelmno arrival ramp pic you sent : I know this picture of course, but I've seen it many times credited as "Belzec" (which it obviously is not), but also as Maly Trostinec... Do we have safe data here ?

Regards
Eddy

[Max Williams]

Eddy,
This particular photo has been the subject of much discussion and has even appeared in a book produced by revisionists indicating several discrepancies in it's composition. Among other things, they point out that the official standing at left is out of proportion with the other people in the photo. Whether or not this is a fake photo I don't know, but one thing is for certain....it's certainly not Belzec as you say.
Max.

[Eddy Marz]

Thanks for the info, Max... I didn't know the picture had been the object of revisionist analysis. There's also a very famous picture (I have it somewhere) showing the back of what looks like a VolksWagen car with its exhaust connected by two rubber tubes to a brick wall. The picture has been around since the late 50's or early 60's and was often labeled as "Hackenholdt Foundation" (which again it is not). The picture - if it is genuine - could have been taken probably anywhere in the Cracow or Lublin area sub-camps, or even maybe in Germany around the euthanasia centers. I think a good many photos of that sort were put into circulation at a time when negationism was in full swing, and a great need was felt to provide evidence of the endlösung. I don't consider them as blatent fraud, but rather as a desperate "pious lie" destined to substantiate a tragedy for which relatively little 'material' evidence remains.

Eddy

[George_W]

Here is Walter Piller
from http://www.gfh.org.il/eng/

[Michael Miller]

I think a good many photos of that sort were put into circulation at a time when negationism was in full swing, and a great need was felt to provide evidence of the endlösung. I don't consider them as blatent fraud, but rather as a desperate "pious lie" destined to substantiate a tragedy for which relatively little 'material' evidence remains.

Pathetically desperate, I'd say. And in the long run, such ploys turned out to do far more harm than good. The denial crowd seizes on them like they're the "Holy Grail" (or "Grassy Knoll") of their "movement", thus giving themselves undue credence in their assertion that the "final solution" was THE--- er-- "Myth of the Twentieth Century".

~ Mike

[chrish]

Does anyone have info about promotions dates Che³mno-commander Bothmann? I also can't find his pary and SS number.

Lange Herbert
* 29.09.1909 Menzlin
+ 20.04.1945 Berlin (gef.)
NSDAP Nr: 1 159 563 (Eintritt: ??? )
SS Nr: 93 501 (Eintritt: 1.03.1933)
U’Stuf: 9.11.1938
O’Stuf: 20.04.1940
H’Stuf: 1.09.1941
Stub: 9.11.1944

Bothmann Hans
* 11.11.1911 Lohe (Süderdithmarschen)
+ 4.04.1946 Heide (Selbstmord)
NSDAP Nr: ??? (Eintritt: ? )
SS Nr: ??? (Eintritt: ? )
U’Stuf: ???
O’Stuf: ???
H’Stuf: ???

[Eddy Marz]

I entirely agree with you Mike. But there was no indication, at the time, that negationism would take on such dimension. The pictures were not intended, I think, to prove the reality of the place they were allegedly taken at, but more the reality of the event itself. And if in the longrun the pictures were accepted as fact, then all the better, because through them it was the actual event that was materialized. Anytime anyone openly questions Holocaust iconography, there's an immediate barrage of political correctness that manages to shed suspicion on even honest researchers. Eventually, this political correctness has evolved into a sort of diktat as to what is acceptable and what isn't in representation of the endlösung and not only in fictional works (films etc.) but actual historical evidence. I think this statement by Claude Lanzmann (director of "Shoah") leaves no doubt as to a clear appropriation of Holocaust related material :

"If I had stumbled on a real SS film - a secret film, because filming was strictly forbidden - that showed how 3000 Jewish men, women, and children were gassed in Auschwitz, not only would I not have shown it, I would have destroyed it" ('Why Spielberg has distorted the Truth', Gardian Weekly, 3 April 1994, p. 14).

I perfectly agree that if a film of that sort had been found, it would obviously be unadvisable to let it be viewed without some degree of control (researchers, scholars etc.), if only for the shocking nature of the document, but that Lanzmann could openly decide to destroy historical evidence - property of humanity - of a fact desperately in search of substantiation seems to me a very suspicious attitude. So finally, this whole revisionism business has created not only "schools", but also intolerance on both sides.

Cheers
Eddy

[ansata1976]

Chelmno Personnel

If anyone has any information regarding those SS who served at Chelmno, I would be thankful, As I don't have much info on these men.

Commandants
1.SS Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange (Killed in Action)
2.SS Hauptsturmführer Hans Bothmann (Committed Suicide)

Guards
SS Scharführer Heinrich Bock (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Walter Burmeister (13yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Walter Filer (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptscharführer Hermann Gielow (Executed by the Poles)
SS Hauptscharführer Wilhelm Gürlich (Fate Unknown)
SS Untersturmführer Alois Häfele (13yrs Imprisonment)
SS Unterscharführer Karl Heinl (7yrs Imprisonment)
SS Oberscharführer Wilhelm Heukelbach (13 ½yrs Imprisonment)
SS Scharführer Gustav Hüfing (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Fritz Ismer (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Bruno Israel (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Moyz Kerzer (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Oskar Kraus (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Erich Kretschmer (Fate Unknown)
SS Hauptscharführer Gustav Laabs (13yrs Imprisonment)
SS Wachmeister Wilhelm Lenz (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Kurt Möbius (8yrs Imprisonment)
SS Scharführer Rudolf Otto (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Walter Piller (Executed by the Poles)
SS Oberwachmeister Albert Plate (WIA by Soviets - Committed Suicide)
SS Sturmscharführer Albert Richter (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Johann Runge (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Franz Schalling (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Wilhelm Sefler (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Max Sommer (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Otto Stadie (7yrs Imprisonment)

Unknown SS
SS Wachmeister Bartel (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Belaff (Fate Unknown)
SS Wachmeister Blanch (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Bulmann (Fate Unknown)
SS Scharführer Bürstinge (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Daniel (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberscharführer Görlich (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Han (Fate Unknown)
SS Wachmeister Richert (Fate Unknown)
SS Wachmeister Ross (Fate Unknown)
SS Wachmeister Rubmiech (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Schmidt (Fate Unknown)
SS Oberwachmeister Schneider (Fate Unknown)
SS Wachmeister Shlipke (Fate Unknown)
SS Rottenführer Stark (Fate Unknown)
SS Unterscharführer Thiele (Fate Unknown)
SS Wachmeister Zimmermann (Fate Unknown)

~Regards Schmauser

I found

Erwin Bürstinger,SS-Hauptscharführer
16.02.1908 in Wels/Austria
Driver of a gas van in Chelmno
fate unknown