"Nevertheless, on 16 December 1941, Frank was still hopeful."
does anybody else think that this is a ludicrous stretch to interpret the text of the 16 December 1941 meeting in this way?
Michael, try again, this time factoring in the SS planning process, including both the documented meetings and the testified developments prior to December 1941.
I notice you continue to dodge my challenge to come up with a coherent timeline. I will remind you every time you make a post on this subject that you have done so.
Decision to kill Polish Jews: Mid-March 1942?
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michael mills
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- Location: Sydney, Australia
This thread is about the decision-making process leading to a decision to kill off the major part of the Jews penned up in the Generalgouvernement.
Inserting into that process events that relate to other parts of German Government policy concerning the solution of the Jewish Question will nor help our understanding, but will distort it.
For example, a discussion between Hitler and Himmler in December 1941 on the looming partisan problem in the occupied Soviet territories and whether the Jewish population of those territories should be wiped out as real or potential partisan supporters does not really have any bearing on the decision-making process in regard to the treatment of the Jews vegetating in the ghettos in the Generalgouvernement.
It would be perfectly possible for Hitler and Himmler to reach agreement on a need to exterminate the "Bolshevik" Jews of the occupied Soviet territories as a security threat linked to the ongoing war against the undefeated Soviet forces, while not making any decision at all about what to do with the Jews in the Generalgouvernement.
Nor is the creation of a killing centre at Chelmno in Reichsgau Wartheland, staffed by a commando seconded from the Sipo headquarters at Posen, directly relevant to the decision-making process concerning the Jews of the Generalgouvernement. Chelmno was the result of an initiative by Reishstatthalter Greiser, as is revealed by Greiser's letter to Himmler of the end of May 1942, and had the specific purpose of deloivering "Sonderbehandlung" to 100,000 Jews of Wartheland, ie about one-third of the Jews remaining there. Greiser had applied to Himmler and Heydrich for authorisation for that Sonderbehandlung, had received it, and had been referred to the HSSPF for Wartheland, Koppe, who then seconded some of his men under Herbert Lange, who had formerly been involved in "euthanasia" (but not in T4), to carry out the action.
The background to the establishment of the Chelmno killing centre suggests that it was a regional action, limited to the Warthegau region, and was more in the nature of a cull than a total extermination. There is no necessary relationship between it and later developments in the Generalgouvernement or any later extermination actions (except to the extent that it may have served as a precedent).
The actual documented evidence for planning by the RSHA in relation to the solution of the Jewish Problem throughout 1941 is fairly sketchy, and what there is suggests a plan for a mass deportation into occupied Soviet territory, with holding and labour camps foreseen in a number of localities, such as Mogilev or the White Sea area. There are no real indications that mass killing had been definitively adopted as part of that planning, apart from isolated suggestions, such as that by Höppner to Eichmann in July of that year (which related only to the Warthegau, and was only a suggestion).
Inserting into that process events that relate to other parts of German Government policy concerning the solution of the Jewish Question will nor help our understanding, but will distort it.
For example, a discussion between Hitler and Himmler in December 1941 on the looming partisan problem in the occupied Soviet territories and whether the Jewish population of those territories should be wiped out as real or potential partisan supporters does not really have any bearing on the decision-making process in regard to the treatment of the Jews vegetating in the ghettos in the Generalgouvernement.
It would be perfectly possible for Hitler and Himmler to reach agreement on a need to exterminate the "Bolshevik" Jews of the occupied Soviet territories as a security threat linked to the ongoing war against the undefeated Soviet forces, while not making any decision at all about what to do with the Jews in the Generalgouvernement.
Nor is the creation of a killing centre at Chelmno in Reichsgau Wartheland, staffed by a commando seconded from the Sipo headquarters at Posen, directly relevant to the decision-making process concerning the Jews of the Generalgouvernement. Chelmno was the result of an initiative by Reishstatthalter Greiser, as is revealed by Greiser's letter to Himmler of the end of May 1942, and had the specific purpose of deloivering "Sonderbehandlung" to 100,000 Jews of Wartheland, ie about one-third of the Jews remaining there. Greiser had applied to Himmler and Heydrich for authorisation for that Sonderbehandlung, had received it, and had been referred to the HSSPF for Wartheland, Koppe, who then seconded some of his men under Herbert Lange, who had formerly been involved in "euthanasia" (but not in T4), to carry out the action.
The background to the establishment of the Chelmno killing centre suggests that it was a regional action, limited to the Warthegau region, and was more in the nature of a cull than a total extermination. There is no necessary relationship between it and later developments in the Generalgouvernement or any later extermination actions (except to the extent that it may have served as a precedent).
The actual documented evidence for planning by the RSHA in relation to the solution of the Jewish Problem throughout 1941 is fairly sketchy, and what there is suggests a plan for a mass deportation into occupied Soviet territory, with holding and labour camps foreseen in a number of localities, such as Mogilev or the White Sea area. There are no real indications that mass killing had been definitively adopted as part of that planning, apart from isolated suggestions, such as that by Höppner to Eichmann in July of that year (which related only to the Warthegau, and was only a suggestion).
Michael, you cannot isolate developments in one region from another entirely. Regional differences do not mean that there were entirely separate, unrelated, unheard-of developments.
Thus, the fact that the Jews of the Warthegau began to be murdered *locally* from December 1941 decreases the likelihood that there were plans to transport the Jews of the Generalgouvernement elsewhere in their entirety, either for killing or for labour, even without direct knowledge being demonstrable. Why, if resettlement was the supposed solution for the majority, would an isolated group be treated differently by killing them? Why were the Warthegau Jews so much more dangerous than the Generalgouvernement Jews? The evidence suggests rather that the early start to the killing of primarily the unfit began first in the Warthegau, of all the western Polish territories, because the means were available, whereas this was not yet the case in the Generalgouvernement, and was only just becoming the case in Ostoberschlesien.
Himmler and the SS operated as a multi-regional organisation and it can be demonstrated that the local authorities knew damn well what was transpiring in their regions.
Moreover, the Warthegau was not an isolated instance. The 'cull', as you so callously put it, had already been completed in the Generalkommissariat Litauen using Sipo and collaborator personnel only. A significant number were left alive for precisely the same reasons, labour purposes. Similarly, the Jews in the military zone of occupation in the Soviet Union had been more or less completely wiped out by the end of 1941, in the cases of Army Group Centre and South involving numbers running into six figures. Ditto in Serbia, where the smaller Jewish community had lost all its males by the end of 1941. All these actions were known to Himmler, authorised by him in most cases (Serbia was initiated by the Wehrmacht), and steered by him during visits.
The simple fact is that deportation and resettlement as solutions for the Jews of the Generalgouvernement were entirely blocked off as possibilities by the German defeat before Moscow, as had already become apparent during October 1941.
Thus, the fact that the Jews of the Warthegau began to be murdered *locally* from December 1941 decreases the likelihood that there were plans to transport the Jews of the Generalgouvernement elsewhere in their entirety, either for killing or for labour, even without direct knowledge being demonstrable. Why, if resettlement was the supposed solution for the majority, would an isolated group be treated differently by killing them? Why were the Warthegau Jews so much more dangerous than the Generalgouvernement Jews? The evidence suggests rather that the early start to the killing of primarily the unfit began first in the Warthegau, of all the western Polish territories, because the means were available, whereas this was not yet the case in the Generalgouvernement, and was only just becoming the case in Ostoberschlesien.
Himmler and the SS operated as a multi-regional organisation and it can be demonstrated that the local authorities knew damn well what was transpiring in their regions.
Moreover, the Warthegau was not an isolated instance. The 'cull', as you so callously put it, had already been completed in the Generalkommissariat Litauen using Sipo and collaborator personnel only. A significant number were left alive for precisely the same reasons, labour purposes. Similarly, the Jews in the military zone of occupation in the Soviet Union had been more or less completely wiped out by the end of 1941, in the cases of Army Group Centre and South involving numbers running into six figures. Ditto in Serbia, where the smaller Jewish community had lost all its males by the end of 1941. All these actions were known to Himmler, authorised by him in most cases (Serbia was initiated by the Wehrmacht), and steered by him during visits.
The simple fact is that deportation and resettlement as solutions for the Jews of the Generalgouvernement were entirely blocked off as possibilities by the German defeat before Moscow, as had already become apparent during October 1941.
Uum, Boby. Belzec was not converted into an extermination camp, it was a new camp, although it was situated near the Otto line camps, which were used in 1940. The extermination camp also used some of the same facilities (the locomotive shed) as the forced labor camps, but the construction of the extermination camp was begun in November 1941. Don't go flogging Mills' dead horses.About the date when Belzec was converted into an extermination center, there is interesting info:
Also, although your March 1942 information may be interesting, it bears no relation to the question of when it was decided to use Belzec as the site of an extermination camp.
Ok, thanks earldor.Also, although your March 1942 information may be interesting, it bears no relation to the question of when it was decided to use Belzec as the site of an extermination camp.
Perhaps the decision was taken in October 1941, but only to for the jews unfit for work around Zamosc, and connected to te germanization plan of Globocnik for this region.
Do you agree?
Regards
I read itBoby, go away and read at least the Bogdan Musial article via Yad Vashem website
Longerich
http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.com/e ... /pl236.asp2.8 The fact that the killing-capacity of Belzec was still limited (it was to be considerably expanded early the following year), and that the construction of the remaining extermination camps in the Generalgouvernement only started early in 1942, indicates that, in autumn 1941 Globocnik had not as yet received the order to prepare for the killing of all Jews in the Generalgouvernement. His assignment thus presumably extended to the district of Lublin, and possibly also the district of Galicia.
Is Longerich wrong?
Longerich didn't include Sobibor in his calculations, which in the event however only dealt with largely the Lublin district.
Musial and Browning take a different position to Longerich. Others, e.g. Gerlach, would conclude that the entire process would be a slower time-frame than was eventually the case.
Most likely, however, it is because Globocnik was in charge of the Lublin district SS, and situated the first two camps in this district. However, Musial presents convincing evidence that this was done with the knowledge and cooperation of the civil administration including Hans Frank. Thus the Lublin district would be targeted first.
Incidentally, since there is no evidence that Treblinka was even under construction in March 1942, but only began to be built in late April, the Goebbels quote with the 60%/40% split can refer only to Belzec and Sobibor, with Auschwitz as an outside possibility.
It is possible to conceive of a situation in which Auschwitz was perhaps to play a larger role for *Polish* Jews, while the West European Jews who were eventually sent there were to be deported further to the east, as was the case with the Reich Jews from Central Europe. I tend to agree with Michael Thad Allen regarding the early evidence of planning of gas chambers at Auschwitz; quite separate from the new crematoria, he says there is evidence as early as January-February that the 1942 Bunkers are being prepared. In the natural scheme of things, it would make perfect sense to build up Auschwitz to deal with the Distrikt Krakau and Ostoberschlesien, the former had just over 200,000 Jews ar the start of 1942. But this is just speculation.
Still, there is a noticeable geographic shift in the camps being planned or conceived during the course of the winter of 1941/42.
I will demonstrate:
1941 - under construction/ evidence of planning
Chelmno
Auschwitz
Sobibor
Belzec
Mogilev
? Riga
with Mogilev and Riga to take in Reich and perhaps West European Jews
1942 - late spring/early summer
Chelmno - same
Auschwitz - now to take in West European Jews
Belzec
Sobibor
Treblinka now under construction
Mogilev fell away, replaced by Maly Trostinets, received Reich Jews
Riga > labour camp, eventually a pure concentration camp in 1943
The major change is the addition of Treblinka as a site, and the falling-away of the eastern territories.
One thing to remember is that it is only in March 1942 that Globocnik is relieved of his position as chief of the SS- und Polizeistuetzpunkte. He is visibly involved in the construction of the Mogilev planned site, which seizes up because a) the place remains under military administration which was unexpected, as of early November 1941 everyone still thought the Reichskommissariat Ostland would expand further to its planned size, b) the transport crisis, c) Bach-Zelewski reports sick in January 1942.
Some of the heads of the Stuetzpunkte are those later placed in charge of constructing death-camps, e.g. Thomalla. In my view, it is possible that Globocnik was to assume a larger role in the extermination planning, that was eventually restricted and localised; but it is also to be remembered that the Aktion Reinhard camps over the course of 1942-3 received large numbers of nationalities other than Polish Jews, so that one can see a vestigial trace of what his role might have been had death camps been located on Soviet soil.
I also think that the inquiry discovered by Dieter Pohl and Wendy Lower, made shortly before Wannsee in January 1942, whether districts in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine could accomodate ghettos for German Jews should be seen in this context. That is to say, these were *not* labour camps but were ghettos. The order thus has nothing to do with the simultaneous planning for DG IV, especially when the generally aged condition of German Jews is taken into account; Theresienstadt had not even been put onto the agenda by this time, and it was not until well into the spring of 1942 that a rough sorting by age was carried out of the many tens of thousands of German and Austrian deportees. The ghettos would have been no different to the 'transit ghettos' that emerged in the Lublin district, such as Izbica, or the Riga ghetto, which was filling up nicely through to January 1942 with a contingent that was decimated in March 1942 by mass shootings. German policy towards Reich Jews, however, developed its lethality slower than with other nationalities, there was still a degree of uncertainty which is why conferences such as Wannsee had to be called, and why the first large-scale killings of Reich Jews other than the 'isolated incidents' of Kovno and Riga in December 1941, do not take place until March 1942 (Riga), spring 1942 (direct shipments to AR camps) and July 1942 (Minsk ghetto).
Deportation planning ran approximately 3 months ahead of death camp planning, and up to 6 months ahead of death camp operation. The first signs of active warning orders for deportations are in July 1941 (concentrate German Jews near railheads in anticipation), the execution order for deportation comes through in October 1941. The first signs of death camp planning in the Generalgouvernement or elsewhere come in October 1941; and with the exception of Chelmno, which was easily improvised, the first operations start in March 1942.
The third factor is labour planning. This determined that only a percentage of Polish Jews deemed unfit for work would be sent to death-camps, a percentage which was altered in the later spring of 1942 for the reasons that Christian Gerlach argues. The remaining Polish Jews, whether in the Warthegau or Generalgouvernement, would continue to work where they were confined in ghettos and labour camps. Labour was scarcely a consideration at all for Reich Jews; the few tens of thousands of armaments workers were simply exempted in October 1941 from the first wave of deportations. Only in January 1942 is there an indication that Himmler planned to utilise other European Jews (Westerners, Slovaks) as labour inside the KZ system or inside a forced-labour camp system.
In my view, in 1941, the intention to deport was synonymous with being written off as sooner or later dead through exhaustion/starvation; that is to say, the Germans when planning the deportations of West European and Reich Jews did not conceive of them surviving in the medium term (years); thus the references in the Wannsee protocol to finishing off the remainder. The Germans thought first of getting rid of the West and Central European Jews, second about utilising some for labour, third about accelerating the demise of the rest through executions and death camps. By contrast, they knew by the end of 1941 that deportation was no solution at all for the mass of Polish Jews.
Musial and Browning take a different position to Longerich. Others, e.g. Gerlach, would conclude that the entire process would be a slower time-frame than was eventually the case.
Most likely, however, it is because Globocnik was in charge of the Lublin district SS, and situated the first two camps in this district. However, Musial presents convincing evidence that this was done with the knowledge and cooperation of the civil administration including Hans Frank. Thus the Lublin district would be targeted first.
Incidentally, since there is no evidence that Treblinka was even under construction in March 1942, but only began to be built in late April, the Goebbels quote with the 60%/40% split can refer only to Belzec and Sobibor, with Auschwitz as an outside possibility.
It is possible to conceive of a situation in which Auschwitz was perhaps to play a larger role for *Polish* Jews, while the West European Jews who were eventually sent there were to be deported further to the east, as was the case with the Reich Jews from Central Europe. I tend to agree with Michael Thad Allen regarding the early evidence of planning of gas chambers at Auschwitz; quite separate from the new crematoria, he says there is evidence as early as January-February that the 1942 Bunkers are being prepared. In the natural scheme of things, it would make perfect sense to build up Auschwitz to deal with the Distrikt Krakau and Ostoberschlesien, the former had just over 200,000 Jews ar the start of 1942. But this is just speculation.
Still, there is a noticeable geographic shift in the camps being planned or conceived during the course of the winter of 1941/42.
I will demonstrate:
1941 - under construction/ evidence of planning
Chelmno
Auschwitz
Sobibor
Belzec
Mogilev
? Riga
with Mogilev and Riga to take in Reich and perhaps West European Jews
1942 - late spring/early summer
Chelmno - same
Auschwitz - now to take in West European Jews
Belzec
Sobibor
Treblinka now under construction
Mogilev fell away, replaced by Maly Trostinets, received Reich Jews
Riga > labour camp, eventually a pure concentration camp in 1943
The major change is the addition of Treblinka as a site, and the falling-away of the eastern territories.
One thing to remember is that it is only in March 1942 that Globocnik is relieved of his position as chief of the SS- und Polizeistuetzpunkte. He is visibly involved in the construction of the Mogilev planned site, which seizes up because a) the place remains under military administration which was unexpected, as of early November 1941 everyone still thought the Reichskommissariat Ostland would expand further to its planned size, b) the transport crisis, c) Bach-Zelewski reports sick in January 1942.
Some of the heads of the Stuetzpunkte are those later placed in charge of constructing death-camps, e.g. Thomalla. In my view, it is possible that Globocnik was to assume a larger role in the extermination planning, that was eventually restricted and localised; but it is also to be remembered that the Aktion Reinhard camps over the course of 1942-3 received large numbers of nationalities other than Polish Jews, so that one can see a vestigial trace of what his role might have been had death camps been located on Soviet soil.
I also think that the inquiry discovered by Dieter Pohl and Wendy Lower, made shortly before Wannsee in January 1942, whether districts in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine could accomodate ghettos for German Jews should be seen in this context. That is to say, these were *not* labour camps but were ghettos. The order thus has nothing to do with the simultaneous planning for DG IV, especially when the generally aged condition of German Jews is taken into account; Theresienstadt had not even been put onto the agenda by this time, and it was not until well into the spring of 1942 that a rough sorting by age was carried out of the many tens of thousands of German and Austrian deportees. The ghettos would have been no different to the 'transit ghettos' that emerged in the Lublin district, such as Izbica, or the Riga ghetto, which was filling up nicely through to January 1942 with a contingent that was decimated in March 1942 by mass shootings. German policy towards Reich Jews, however, developed its lethality slower than with other nationalities, there was still a degree of uncertainty which is why conferences such as Wannsee had to be called, and why the first large-scale killings of Reich Jews other than the 'isolated incidents' of Kovno and Riga in December 1941, do not take place until March 1942 (Riga), spring 1942 (direct shipments to AR camps) and July 1942 (Minsk ghetto).
Deportation planning ran approximately 3 months ahead of death camp planning, and up to 6 months ahead of death camp operation. The first signs of active warning orders for deportations are in July 1941 (concentrate German Jews near railheads in anticipation), the execution order for deportation comes through in October 1941. The first signs of death camp planning in the Generalgouvernement or elsewhere come in October 1941; and with the exception of Chelmno, which was easily improvised, the first operations start in March 1942.
The third factor is labour planning. This determined that only a percentage of Polish Jews deemed unfit for work would be sent to death-camps, a percentage which was altered in the later spring of 1942 for the reasons that Christian Gerlach argues. The remaining Polish Jews, whether in the Warthegau or Generalgouvernement, would continue to work where they were confined in ghettos and labour camps. Labour was scarcely a consideration at all for Reich Jews; the few tens of thousands of armaments workers were simply exempted in October 1941 from the first wave of deportations. Only in January 1942 is there an indication that Himmler planned to utilise other European Jews (Westerners, Slovaks) as labour inside the KZ system or inside a forced-labour camp system.
In my view, in 1941, the intention to deport was synonymous with being written off as sooner or later dead through exhaustion/starvation; that is to say, the Germans when planning the deportations of West European and Reich Jews did not conceive of them surviving in the medium term (years); thus the references in the Wannsee protocol to finishing off the remainder. The Germans thought first of getting rid of the West and Central European Jews, second about utilising some for labour, third about accelerating the demise of the rest through executions and death camps. By contrast, they knew by the end of 1941 that deportation was no solution at all for the mass of Polish Jews.
Two things to add
firstly, Michael Mills is setting up a false contrast between the two Goebbels diary entries, since the first evidently relates to a *Europe wide* RSHA document and the second only to the Generalgouvernement. Therefore, to make sense of the first document automatically tips the discussion onto the wider arena of German planning as a whole.
second, there is always a time-lag between intention and execution; quite simply, it is too short to telescope everything into March 1942, or even into January 20 - March 27.
firstly, Michael Mills is setting up a false contrast between the two Goebbels diary entries, since the first evidently relates to a *Europe wide* RSHA document and the second only to the Generalgouvernement. Therefore, to make sense of the first document automatically tips the discussion onto the wider arena of German planning as a whole.
second, there is always a time-lag between intention and execution; quite simply, it is too short to telescope everything into March 1942, or even into January 20 - March 27.
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michael mills
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Nick Terry has overlooked a number of things.
In the first place, the improvised killing centre at Chelmno resulted from a specific request made by Greiser to Himmler and Heydrich for permission to kill 100,000 of the approximately 300,000 Jews in Reichsgau Wartheland. That is why it started more or less on its own, quite a bit earlier than other camps. It was a local initiative.
It is possible that Greiser's request was related to the deportation of german Jews to the Lodz Ghetto, which he had initially opposed on the grounds of overcrowding. In other words, he was given permission to kill off a certain quota of Polish Jews in order to make room for incoming German Jews.
A similar procedure was followed in the Minsk Ghetto in early November 1941, where some thousands of local Jews were shot in order to create space for an equal number of German Jews who started to arrive at that time.
It is noteworthy that both at Lodz and at Minsk, the German Jews deported there were initially exempted from the extermination measures applied to the locals. The Jews deported to Lodz were not dragged off to Chelmno until May 1942 (some seven months after their arrival) and the Jews deported to Minsk not until the "four-days massacre" at the end of July 1942 (so far as I recall - correct me if I am mistaken). Eventually both groups of deported German Jews were almost completely exterminated.
It may be that the decision to commence killing the unfit Jews of the Generalgouvernement was linked to the commencement of deportation of German and Slovak Jews into that area, which commenced in March 1942. Again, the rationale was the same as in the cases of Lodz and Minsk; Jews could not be allowed to occupy more space thatn they already did, therefore putting Jews into exisiting ghettos meant taking an equivalent number out.
Another thing that Nick Terry has overlooked is the anomalous experience of the 20,000 German Jews deported to Riga. After the slaughter of the first transport to arrive on 30 November 1941, which was an excess of zeal on the part of Jeckeln, for which he was reprimanded, none of the arriving transports was subjected to any exterminatory action; all the transportees were taken into the Riga Ghetto or Jungfernhof concentration camp. Some were used to construct the Salaspils camp, but were not housed there subsequently; they were taken into the ghetto or Jungfernhof.
There were two "culls" of the older, unfit German Jews, one in February (about 2000) and the other in March (about 3000, the so-called Dünamünde-Aktion). Thereafter there were no further shootings of the German Jews in the Riga Ghetto, Jungfernhof and other camps.
The Riga Ghetto was closed in 1945, and a certain number of women and children was shipped to Auschwitz. An unusually high proportion of the 20,000 transported to Riga survived to be repatriated to camps in Germany in the middle of 1944.
Thus, throughout the period from the end of 1941 to the middle of 1944, no attempt was made to exterminate the German Jews deported to Riga, except for the two "culls" which affected a minority of the total number. The reason why that was so has never been explained, but the course of events in that locality is not compatible with any plan to site an extermination centre in Riga for killing German Jews deported there. The fact that Jeckeln was reprimanded for his slaughter of the first transport from Berlin demonstrates that german Jews were not being sent to Riga for the purpose of exterminating them there. Somehow the wave of extermination that overwhelmed German Jews deported to other localities such as Minsk, Lodz, Piaski etc passed by the ones sitting in Riga.
(With regard to German Jews deported to places in Distrikt Lublin such as Piaski, the last signs of life from them were seen in mid-1943, indicating that many of them were preserved alive until quite late. That is an indication of the incremental process of the destruction, with different groups of Jews being progressively caught up in it.)
A comment with regard to the gas-chambers of Birkenau. It is quite possible that plans for the conversion of peasant houses into Bunkers I and II were being made in Janaury/February 1942, but the intended victim group is not certain. Homicidal gassing with Zyklon-B had been introduced for the purpose of eliminating selected groups of dangerous Soviet POWs, and was totally unrelated to any policy in relation to Jews. The further use of Zyklon-B for homicidal purposes, as planned near the beginning of 1942, might likewise have been unrelated to an anti-Jewish program, but might have been driven by the program of "euthanasing" concentration-camp prisoners too sick to be used for labour.
In the first place, the improvised killing centre at Chelmno resulted from a specific request made by Greiser to Himmler and Heydrich for permission to kill 100,000 of the approximately 300,000 Jews in Reichsgau Wartheland. That is why it started more or less on its own, quite a bit earlier than other camps. It was a local initiative.
It is possible that Greiser's request was related to the deportation of german Jews to the Lodz Ghetto, which he had initially opposed on the grounds of overcrowding. In other words, he was given permission to kill off a certain quota of Polish Jews in order to make room for incoming German Jews.
A similar procedure was followed in the Minsk Ghetto in early November 1941, where some thousands of local Jews were shot in order to create space for an equal number of German Jews who started to arrive at that time.
It is noteworthy that both at Lodz and at Minsk, the German Jews deported there were initially exempted from the extermination measures applied to the locals. The Jews deported to Lodz were not dragged off to Chelmno until May 1942 (some seven months after their arrival) and the Jews deported to Minsk not until the "four-days massacre" at the end of July 1942 (so far as I recall - correct me if I am mistaken). Eventually both groups of deported German Jews were almost completely exterminated.
It may be that the decision to commence killing the unfit Jews of the Generalgouvernement was linked to the commencement of deportation of German and Slovak Jews into that area, which commenced in March 1942. Again, the rationale was the same as in the cases of Lodz and Minsk; Jews could not be allowed to occupy more space thatn they already did, therefore putting Jews into exisiting ghettos meant taking an equivalent number out.
Another thing that Nick Terry has overlooked is the anomalous experience of the 20,000 German Jews deported to Riga. After the slaughter of the first transport to arrive on 30 November 1941, which was an excess of zeal on the part of Jeckeln, for which he was reprimanded, none of the arriving transports was subjected to any exterminatory action; all the transportees were taken into the Riga Ghetto or Jungfernhof concentration camp. Some were used to construct the Salaspils camp, but were not housed there subsequently; they were taken into the ghetto or Jungfernhof.
There were two "culls" of the older, unfit German Jews, one in February (about 2000) and the other in March (about 3000, the so-called Dünamünde-Aktion). Thereafter there were no further shootings of the German Jews in the Riga Ghetto, Jungfernhof and other camps.
The Riga Ghetto was closed in 1945, and a certain number of women and children was shipped to Auschwitz. An unusually high proportion of the 20,000 transported to Riga survived to be repatriated to camps in Germany in the middle of 1944.
Thus, throughout the period from the end of 1941 to the middle of 1944, no attempt was made to exterminate the German Jews deported to Riga, except for the two "culls" which affected a minority of the total number. The reason why that was so has never been explained, but the course of events in that locality is not compatible with any plan to site an extermination centre in Riga for killing German Jews deported there. The fact that Jeckeln was reprimanded for his slaughter of the first transport from Berlin demonstrates that german Jews were not being sent to Riga for the purpose of exterminating them there. Somehow the wave of extermination that overwhelmed German Jews deported to other localities such as Minsk, Lodz, Piaski etc passed by the ones sitting in Riga.
(With regard to German Jews deported to places in Distrikt Lublin such as Piaski, the last signs of life from them were seen in mid-1943, indicating that many of them were preserved alive until quite late. That is an indication of the incremental process of the destruction, with different groups of Jews being progressively caught up in it.)
A comment with regard to the gas-chambers of Birkenau. It is quite possible that plans for the conversion of peasant houses into Bunkers I and II were being made in Janaury/February 1942, but the intended victim group is not certain. Homicidal gassing with Zyklon-B had been introduced for the purpose of eliminating selected groups of dangerous Soviet POWs, and was totally unrelated to any policy in relation to Jews. The further use of Zyklon-B for homicidal purposes, as planned near the beginning of 1942, might likewise have been unrelated to an anti-Jewish program, but might have been driven by the program of "euthanasing" concentration-camp prisoners too sick to be used for labour.
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David Thompson
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Michael -- You wrote:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 866#774866
What is the source of your information?
As I pointed out in an earlier thread, this statement is apparently contradicted by Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, University of California Press, Berkeley: 1984, p. 44n:An unusually high proportion of the 20,000 transported to Riga survived to be repatriated to camps in Germany in the middle of 1944.
Of the 26,564 German Jews deported to Riga and Kovno, 3 percent survived.
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 866#774866
What is the source of your information?
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michael mills
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Would you be so kind as to provide a link for this article please.Boby, go away and read at least the Bogdan Musial article via Yad Vashem website
I searched for Musial on the Yad Vashem site, but only got a very short abstract of the article published in Yad Vashem Studies.
All I could find was this:
Is the full article (ie not just his conclusion, but the data on which he bases it) available anywhere?The Origins of “Operation Reinhard”: The Decision-Making Process for the Mass Murder of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement
Researchers still disagree on how the decision-making process regarding the murder of European Jews took place during WWII. New research shows that it was a complex and gradual process and that the crucial decisions were taken in the summer and fall of 1941.
In this article the author focuses on the following question – when exactly was the decision taken to kill the 2.5 million Jews of the Generalgouvernement (GG)? The author concludes that the order was given in the first half of October 1941, based on the initiative of Odilo Globocnick, SS- und Polizeiführer of the Lublin District. Globocnik’s initiative was closely connected to his plan to Germanize first the Lublin district and then the entire GG. The final decision on the murder was taken by Hitler, as soon as Himmler submitted Globocnik’s proposal to him.
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michael mills
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The source of my information is the book by Ezergailis, "The Holocaust in Latvia: The Missing Centre".What is the source of your information?
Ezergailis gives figures for the number of German Jewish deportees in Latvia at various dates until their final repatriation in mid-1944. Although these show a steady attrition, they do not indicate episodes of mass extermination, and demonstrate an unusually high survival rate until the deportees were returned to Germany by ship.
Fleming's figure of a 3% survival rate probably indicates survival until the end of the war. As I wrote, the German Jews held in the Riga region were repatriated to camps in Germany in mid-1944. A large number must have died in those camps between mid-1944 and the end of the war, eg on death-marches etc.
The point I was making is that the survival rate of the German Jews deported to Riga was unusually high between the time of their deportation (December 1941 - January 1942) and their return to Germany by ship (July 1944). That indicates that they were not subjected to mass extermination while in Latvia, unlike say the German Jews deported to Minsk, who nearly all perished at that locality.
Bogdan Musial; The origins of "Operation Reinhard"
http://yad-vashem.org.il/odot_pdf/Micro ... 203222.pdf [249 Kb]
http://yad-vashem.org.il/odot_pdf/Micro ... 203222.pdf [249 Kb]
Michael is dodging again. He now offers a new tack, namely that the arrival of Reich Jews at a certain location triggered the murder of the local Jewish populations. This does indeed help explain the ultra-local decision to massacre 7,000 Belorussian Jews in the Minsk ghetto, but does not accout for the wiping out of more than three times this number in the strip of Eastern Belorussia (old Soviet territory) under civil administration at the same time. One could just as easily ask why the Minsk Jews were to be spared the fate of their compatriots in Slutsk. One could also just as easily ask whether the Minsk Jews would not have been massacred 1-2 weeks later regardless.
Similarly, the arrival of Reich Jews in Lodz does not explain why for nearly the first month of its existence, it was the *outlying* ghettos that were annihilated in Chelmno. This in my view is the most damning evidence against Mills' pure assertion.
The same applies of course to Riga. Jews in the surrounding Latvian towns were being wiped out before and after the arrival of German Jews at the end of November 1941. The fuss caused by the realisation that war veterans and other privileged Jews had been included on the transports and shot, causing angst to Lohse just as similar cases did to Kube in Minsk, certainly converted the procedure from one of extermination on arrival to decimation inside the Riga ghetto and camp complexes, however very few survived, and there were proportionately not that many more survivors by the start of 1943 in the Riga ghetto than there were in the Minsk ghetto, bearing in mind three times the numbers had been sent to Riga as to Minsk.
I stressed earlier that German policy towards German Jews was always somewhat more cautious than towards Jews of other nationalities. Deportation was synomymous with being written off as people (expropriated, deprived of citizenship, in effect legally dead) and the Jews were not expected to survive in the medium term. Of 20,000 Reich Jews sent to Riga only 800 survived the war; it is also untrue that 'large numbers' came back west in 1944 with the evacuation of KL Riga, since as of August 1943, there were only 3,000 inmates in that camp complex. The majority who returned in 1944 were Lithuanians (sent north in autumn 1943), Latvians and most especially Hungarians, of whom a large labour contingent were deported in June 1944 for a brief sojourn in the Baltic KZs.
So, now to Mills' latest wheeze, namely that the arrival of Reich Jews in the Lublin district may have 'triggered' the decimation of the Generalgouvernement Jews. He has of course forgotten about the arrival of the Slovaks, which reminds us of a few things
1. that a goodly part of the deportations from outside to the Lublin district were aimed at Majdanek, in order to build up the camp much in the same way as was Birkenau in the spring of 1942. Therefore, one should subtract several tens of thousands from the 'overburden' since they were intended for a specific labour purpose.
2. that many transports were soon enough sent to Sobibor direct from both the Reich and Slovakia.
3. that the total number of Reich and Slovak Jews sent to the Lublin district up to mid-1942 was around 80,000, along with some few thousands deported to the Warsaw ghetto.
4. By contrast, the Jewish population of the Lublin district was about a quarter of a million.
5. The number of Polish Jews murdered in Belzec and Sobibor was approximately 160,000 between March and June 1942, i.e. in the corresponding period to the arrival of the 80,000 foreign Jews.
6. A great many transports of Reich and Slovak Jews were sent to share ghettos and were left *undisturbed*, Polish, Slovak, German or Austrian Jews alive, until the autumn of 1942. Those deported to Izbica and Piaski were very often distributed to other ghettos in the Lublin district.
All of this, of course, ignores the question of timing and planning. There is simply no mention in the surviving documents from March 1942 that the imminent/just beginning arrival of foreign Jews was going to provoke a crisis in the district which would have to be solved by the mass murder of the local Jewish population.
Indeed, the first murders at Belzec began on *March 2*. By the time that Goebbels wrote his diary entry of March 27, approximately 27,000 Jews from both the Lublin and Galizien districts had been murdered at Belzec.
By contrast, the first transport to arrive from the Reich arrived *March 11*, nine days after the start of the murders at Belzec.
This begs two questions
1) when did the RSHA decide to deport Reich Jews to the Lublin district?
2) when did Belzec first emerge as a potential killing site
the answers are, Belzec emerged as a potential killing site in October 1941, whereas the earliest that a decision to deport Reich Jews to the Lublin district can be dated is after Wannsee, around January 31 1942. This was at a time when German planners were still trying to coordinate the geographical pattern of deportation destinations, still mentioning distant locations in the Soviet Union. So the Lublin deportations were intended for only a *part* of the Reich Jews.
In a similar vein, we also find that Heydrich and Eichmann visited Minsk in *March* 1942 to coordinate the deportation of a further tranche of Reich Jews, which can be seen as the completion of the 1941 quota of 25,000 but which also indicates that the RSHA was carefully organising the distribution of Reich and Western Jews to a variety of sites across the depth of occupied Eastern Europe. Indeed, the RSHA managed to coordinate the destruction of the 1942 transports to Minsk without recourse to any outside authority such as the local SSPF or the WVHA, because Maly Trostinets was an SD camp.
By contrast, the RSHA was less involved in the deportations of Polish Jews from the Generalgouvernement, which was an (H)SSPF task.
In short, I don't think there is very much evidence for any of Michael Mills' contentions.
Similarly, the arrival of Reich Jews in Lodz does not explain why for nearly the first month of its existence, it was the *outlying* ghettos that were annihilated in Chelmno. This in my view is the most damning evidence against Mills' pure assertion.
The same applies of course to Riga. Jews in the surrounding Latvian towns were being wiped out before and after the arrival of German Jews at the end of November 1941. The fuss caused by the realisation that war veterans and other privileged Jews had been included on the transports and shot, causing angst to Lohse just as similar cases did to Kube in Minsk, certainly converted the procedure from one of extermination on arrival to decimation inside the Riga ghetto and camp complexes, however very few survived, and there were proportionately not that many more survivors by the start of 1943 in the Riga ghetto than there were in the Minsk ghetto, bearing in mind three times the numbers had been sent to Riga as to Minsk.
I stressed earlier that German policy towards German Jews was always somewhat more cautious than towards Jews of other nationalities. Deportation was synomymous with being written off as people (expropriated, deprived of citizenship, in effect legally dead) and the Jews were not expected to survive in the medium term. Of 20,000 Reich Jews sent to Riga only 800 survived the war; it is also untrue that 'large numbers' came back west in 1944 with the evacuation of KL Riga, since as of August 1943, there were only 3,000 inmates in that camp complex. The majority who returned in 1944 were Lithuanians (sent north in autumn 1943), Latvians and most especially Hungarians, of whom a large labour contingent were deported in June 1944 for a brief sojourn in the Baltic KZs.
So, now to Mills' latest wheeze, namely that the arrival of Reich Jews in the Lublin district may have 'triggered' the decimation of the Generalgouvernement Jews. He has of course forgotten about the arrival of the Slovaks, which reminds us of a few things
1. that a goodly part of the deportations from outside to the Lublin district were aimed at Majdanek, in order to build up the camp much in the same way as was Birkenau in the spring of 1942. Therefore, one should subtract several tens of thousands from the 'overburden' since they were intended for a specific labour purpose.
2. that many transports were soon enough sent to Sobibor direct from both the Reich and Slovakia.
3. that the total number of Reich and Slovak Jews sent to the Lublin district up to mid-1942 was around 80,000, along with some few thousands deported to the Warsaw ghetto.
4. By contrast, the Jewish population of the Lublin district was about a quarter of a million.
5. The number of Polish Jews murdered in Belzec and Sobibor was approximately 160,000 between March and June 1942, i.e. in the corresponding period to the arrival of the 80,000 foreign Jews.
6. A great many transports of Reich and Slovak Jews were sent to share ghettos and were left *undisturbed*, Polish, Slovak, German or Austrian Jews alive, until the autumn of 1942. Those deported to Izbica and Piaski were very often distributed to other ghettos in the Lublin district.
All of this, of course, ignores the question of timing and planning. There is simply no mention in the surviving documents from March 1942 that the imminent/just beginning arrival of foreign Jews was going to provoke a crisis in the district which would have to be solved by the mass murder of the local Jewish population.
Indeed, the first murders at Belzec began on *March 2*. By the time that Goebbels wrote his diary entry of March 27, approximately 27,000 Jews from both the Lublin and Galizien districts had been murdered at Belzec.
By contrast, the first transport to arrive from the Reich arrived *March 11*, nine days after the start of the murders at Belzec.
This begs two questions
1) when did the RSHA decide to deport Reich Jews to the Lublin district?
2) when did Belzec first emerge as a potential killing site
the answers are, Belzec emerged as a potential killing site in October 1941, whereas the earliest that a decision to deport Reich Jews to the Lublin district can be dated is after Wannsee, around January 31 1942. This was at a time when German planners were still trying to coordinate the geographical pattern of deportation destinations, still mentioning distant locations in the Soviet Union. So the Lublin deportations were intended for only a *part* of the Reich Jews.
In a similar vein, we also find that Heydrich and Eichmann visited Minsk in *March* 1942 to coordinate the deportation of a further tranche of Reich Jews, which can be seen as the completion of the 1941 quota of 25,000 but which also indicates that the RSHA was carefully organising the distribution of Reich and Western Jews to a variety of sites across the depth of occupied Eastern Europe. Indeed, the RSHA managed to coordinate the destruction of the 1942 transports to Minsk without recourse to any outside authority such as the local SSPF or the WVHA, because Maly Trostinets was an SD camp.
By contrast, the RSHA was less involved in the deportations of Polish Jews from the Generalgouvernement, which was an (H)SSPF task.
In short, I don't think there is very much evidence for any of Michael Mills' contentions.