Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

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Sergey Romanov
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Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#1

Post by Sergey Romanov » 11 Mar 2017, 04:05

I was intrigued by Michael Bornstein's Auschwitz survival story.

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/as-see ... 28923.html
https://newspapers.library.in.gov/cgi-b ... 203-01.1.3

He bears the number B-1148 and was one of the boys to appear in the Soviet liberation footage, showing his number. Danuta Czech's Kalendarium entry for 31.07.1944 has "about 3000" Jews arriving from Pionki, with men receiving numbers up to B-1147. Since Bornstein also came from Pionki, there is a small informational gap in Czech's book, possibly due to a lack of sources on a few numbers. Anyway, this piqued my curiosity: a "regular" Jewish 4 y.o. arriving in Auschwitz and not being gassed?

Note that Czech says that out of about 3000 arrived Jews 1964 were registered, the rest gassed. So if we follow Czech's assumption here it is hard to explain why Bornstein was not gassed.

However it turns out that her assumption was incorrect: according to Rudolfina Laub's 1945 testimony there was no selection performed on the transport from Pionki and the children were allowed to stay with the mothers: https://tinyurl.com/z57wmo3

She said that the regular Auschwitz inmates were astonished at this turn of events. Notably she, and some other survivors from that transport, do use the figure of "about 3000", a usual mistaken estimate. Which means that Czech cobbled her entry together from the hard data (the registration data) and the testimonial information (the "about 3000" figure; well, the "about" should have been a give-away). And assumed that there was a selection, with the "remaining Jews" gassed, whereas in reality, it seems, there was no remainder in this case.

So this explains why Bornstein was not gassed - seems like none of the Jewish children from that transport were gassed on arrival. The question then is why there was no selection. Survivors hypothesize that this had to do with the influence of Franz Brandt, the head of the Pionki factory. Though that is just speculation. I wonder if anyone here knows what the real reason might have been.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#2

Post by michael mills » 12 Mar 2017, 08:37

In 1944, large numbers of arriving Jews were held in Birkenau unregistered as so-called "Depot prisoners", awaiting transfer to other camps or places of forced labour. That was because by 1944 the pendulum had swung in favour of using the Jews as a disposable labour force, rather than killing them immediately.

For example, Speer was promised 100,000 of the Jews deported from Hungary for employment in the Jaeger Program, both for excavating the underground factories in which the jet fighters were to be built, and in the building of the aircraft themselves. In fact, Himmler had ordered that a total of 200,000 Jews be preserved for labour.

Thus, the experience of the Jews from Pionki in being held in the camp unregistered was not it any way unusual in July 1944. By that date there were already many tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being held as Depot Prisoners.


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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#3

Post by The Black Rabbit of Inlé » 14 Mar 2017, 00:40

Bornstein seemingly arrived on a transport from the Starachowice camps. Christopher Browning has stated that there were no on arrival selections for the prisoners transferred from the Starachowice camps in late July 1944:
Even within the realm of public memory, generally reliable witnesses whom I will cite frequently nonetheless provide obviously flawed and mistaken testimony on occasion. Most common in this regard are testimonies that incorporate iconic Holocaust tropes gained from post-war exposure to widespread representations in documentaries, movies, memoirs, and novels. My particular subject has a significant advantage in this regard. Since the Starachowice camps are so little known, memories of that experience remain relatively pristine and untouched by iconic tropes. This situation changes abruptly in some testimonies when the survivors end their accounts of Starachowice and relate their entry into Birkenau in the summer of 1944. One reason that there are a significant number of Starachowice survivors (including those who were children at the time) is that their transport—deemed a transfer of already-selected Jewish workers from another slave-labor camp rather than a cross section of Jewish population arriving from outside the camp system—entered Birkenau without the normal decimating selection on the ramp. Yet a number of testimonies nonetheless relate that the transport was subjected to selection on the ramp, with none other than the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele himself directing people to the right and the left. Both the memories of the majority concerning the very atypical entry into Birkenau (which could hardly have been invented and shared by so many if it had not happened) and the very survival of children who lived to testify because of that atypical entry provide convincing evidence that there was no such Mengele-led selection on the ramp immediately following arrival in Birkenau, the firmly held belief of other survivors notwithstanding.

- C. Browning, Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave-Labor Camp, 2011, pp.11-12.
Czech mentions there were many children in Birkenau at this point:

July 30
79 boys up to 14 years of age, among them many newborns, are located in Women's Camp B-Ia. 96 boys up to 14 years of age are housed in Men's Camp B-IId in Birkenau as prisoners.

A boy born in Birkenau receives No. 190655. The mother was sent to the camp from Vienna.

August 1
82 boys under 14 years of age are located in Women's Camp B-Ia in Birkenau, including newborns. 106 boys under 14 years of age live in Men's Camp B-IId in Birkenau. A total of 188 children are housed in both camps.

129 Jewish boys from the ghetto in Kaunas who were transferred from Dachau to Auschwitz in an RSHA transport receive Nos. B-2774—B-2902. The boys are between the ages of eight and 14 and left Kaunas with their parents. The mothers and sisters were retained in Stutthof. The fathers and older brothers were selected in Stettin and transferred to Dachau Concentration Camp. In a few days they were sent from there to Auschwitz. In Dachau the boys learned from the prisoners that Auschwitz is an extermination camp. Some youths succeeded in escaping during the transport. After their arrival in Auschwitz they are sent to Men's Quarantine Camp B-IIa.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#4

Post by Sergey Romanov » 14 Mar 2017, 09:30

The Black Rabbit of Inlé wrote:Bornstein seemingly arrived on a transport from the Starachowice camps.
I'm aware of the lack of selection for the Starachowice transports, but Bornstein arrived from Pionki.

Czech mentions there were many children in Birkenau at this point:

July 30
79 boys up to 14 years of age, among them many newborns, are located in Women's Camp B-Ia. 96 boys up to 14 years of age are housed in Men's Camp B-IId in Birkenau as prisoners.

A boy born in Birkenau receives No. 190655. The mother was sent to the camp from Vienna.

August 1
82 boys under 14 years of age are located in Women's Camp B-Ia in Birkenau, including newborns. 106 boys under 14 years of age live in Men's Camp B-IId in Birkenau. A total of 188 children are housed in both camps.
Not clear those are Jewish children.
129 Jewish boys from the ghetto in Kaunas who were transferred from Dachau to Auschwitz in an RSHA transport receive Nos. B-2774—B-2902. The boys are between the ages of eight and 14 and left Kaunas with their parents. The mothers and sisters were retained in Stutthof. The fathers and older brothers were selected in Stettin and transferred to Dachau Concentration Camp. In a few days they were sent from there to Auschwitz. In Dachau the boys learned from the prisoners that Auschwitz is an extermination camp. Some youths succeeded in escaping during the transport. After their arrival in Auschwitz they are sent to Men's Quarantine Camp B-IIa.
This is the day after. Apparently this was a period where the selections ceased to be regular. Interesting.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#5

Post by Sergey Romanov » 14 Mar 2017, 09:32

michael mills wrote:Thus, the experience of the Jews from Pionki in being held in the camp unregistered was not it any way unusual in July 1944. By that date there were already many tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews being held as Depot Prisoners.
They were registered though. So they were not depot prisoners.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#6

Post by The Black Rabbit of Inlé » 15 Mar 2017, 04:35

Thomas Irmer's entry for Glöwen [a subcamp of Sachsenhausen] in the USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos [1B:1311-4] provides many details of the type of forced labour the Jews who remained in Pionki until 1944 were involved in; an industry of critical importance to the German government.
In August 1944, around 300 Polish Jewish men and women were transported from the Pionki forced labor camp near Pionki in the direction of Glöwen. In Pionki, they worked as forced laborers for the largest explosives factory, which after the occupation of Poland had been taken over by the Westfälisch-Anhaltinische Sprengstoff AG (WASAG). Around 3,000 Jewish prisoners from Radom were held on the factory site as forced laborers. Many of them were held there after the evacuation of both Radom ghettos in August 1942.

When the Red Army pushed into the Radom area in July 1944, it was decided by the armaments factory and the Armaments Ministry’s Main Committee for Gunpowder and Explosives (Hauptausschuss Pulver und Sprengstoff) to relocate the gunpowder factory to Glöwen. Once the factory had been disassembled, the majority of the Jewish forced laborers were deported to Auschwitz. Raul Hilberg has pointed out that, as in Pionki other Jewish forced laborers in German occupation industries, such as Steyr-Daimler-Puch (SDP), or Hugo Schneider AG (HASAG), were pulled out and deported.

Around 300 Jewish forced laborers from Pionki, including 30 women, were transported in four rail cars via Tschenstochau (Czçstochowa) to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. They were to rebuild the factory in Glöwen. They were chosen largely because of their tradesmen’s skills, but some were arbitrarily chosen. Eventually, the SS transferred the women to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The men were first held in “quarantine” in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and only later were they taken to Glöwen.

[...]

Inside the [Glöwen] camp grounds, the concentration camp prisoners were divided into work groups. Some of the groups were supervised by German engineers who had previously been based in Pionki.

The male prisoners, dressed in inadequate clothing, basically did unloading work without tools. At first they had to unload the machines from Pionki and later machines from other firms. Some prisoners did carpentry and electrical installation work. In addition, work was to be done on extracting gunpowder.

The female prisoners also had to work on disassembling munitions and manufacturing detonators. The head and chief engineer of the DAG technical department, Heinrich Schindler, planned to produce 150 million detonators each month. However, the requisite production facilities were never finished. Instead, the women worked in a variety of work detachments, working in the fields, gardens, or small workshops such as a bakery in the area.

In September 1944, the “Special Gunpowder Committee” (Sonderausschuss Pulver) of the Main Committee, Gunpowder and Munitions (Hauptausschuss Pulver und Munition), which consisted of representatives of the munitions firms, called a meeting of the committee representatives in Glöwen. As a result, the Pionki factory facilities were divided between the munitions’ firms.

In October 1944, the DAG Berlin construction office, which had been relocated to the town of Glöwen, demanded an additional allocation of 15 accommodation barracks, as it was possible that the use of prisoners to manufacture detonators would be expanded.

On December 16, the SS administration in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp indicated to DAG that a withdrawal of prisoners from Glöwen was planned for January 15, 1945. This was objected to by the Army High Command (OKH), which wanted the prisoners to remain to work on transporting machines and goods and in production. A demand was also made that the male concentration camp prisoners, who were still formally part of the Pionki Gunpowder Factory, transfer to the DAG. The DAG wanted to continue to use the concentration camp prisoners in the production of detonators, which was supposed to begin in February 1945. Planning envisaged the use of prisoners in a DAG factory in Allendorf or in two other factories in Thüringen.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#7

Post by Sergey Romanov » 14 May 2017, 14:20

It would seem that yet another transport did not undergo an initial selection contrary to Czech's claim.

I'm talking about the 3.8.44 transport from Ostrowiec.

In YV online document archive we find:

1. Testimony of Henia Rubinstein, born in Poland, ***1938***, regarding her experiences in Bodzechow, Ostrowiec and Auschwitz

2. Testimony of Lejbusz Milsztajn regarding his experiences in Ostrowiec and Auschwitz ... the situation in the camp during its final period; liquidation of the camp and transfer to Auschwitz, early August 1944; arrival in Camp D without a selection

Other than that there are three girls appearing in a famous Soviet Au. liberation photo:

3. Miriam Ziegler (1935)

4. Ruth Muschkies Webber (1935) ( https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504422 confirms no selection at 1:15:..)

5. Paula Lebovics (1933)

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#8

Post by Sergey Romanov » 14 May 2017, 14:42

http://holocaust.umd.umich.edu/webber/section016.html

"You will get it later. And uh, again, our transport was left on the platform for a day, and I think a night. They didn't really know what to do with us. There was rumors, I don't know if it was true or not, but for what I remember at the time, that Mengele was sick and he couldn't make his selections. Later on I heard people say that it's because we had a certain letter that we came from a working camp so all the people on the transport were uh, of working ability so there were no selections needed to be done. How much truth there is to it, I really don't know. That's what I heard at the time."

This "letter" motif can be seen in other testimonies from similar transports.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#9

Post by Sergey Romanov » 14 May 2017, 14:49

Browning points out that that was a favorite explanation of the Starachowice survivors.


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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#11

Post by Sergey Romanov » 14 May 2017, 19:33

Well, what do you know, a Kielce transport of 2.8.44.

Czech: 547 selected, rest gassed.

However one of the survivors was Thomas Buergenthal, later an International Court of Justice judge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Buergenthal

In his memoir "Lucky Child" he describes the arrival in Auschwitz:

"Years later, when asked about Auschwitz and what it was like, I would reply that I was lucky to get into Auschwitz. This response would invariably produce a shocked look on the face of the person who had asked the question. But I really meant what I said. Most people who arrived at the Birkenau rail platform had to undergo a so-called selection. Here the children, the elderly, and the invalids were separated from the rest of the people in their transport and taken directly to the gas chambers. Our group was spared the selection process. The SS officers in charge must not have ordered it because they probably assumed, since our transport came from a labor camp, that children and others not able to work had already been eliminated in those camps. Had there been a selection, I would have been killed before ever making it into the camp. That is what I meant with my flippant remark about being lucky to get into Auschwitz."

His explanation also makes sense.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#12

Post by michael mills » 15 May 2017, 03:02

There was rumors, I don't know if it was true or not, but for what I remember at the time, that Mengele was sick and he couldn't make his selections
I doubt that this was a genuine rumour making the rounds at the time of this person's arrival at Auschwitz, since Mengele was by no means the only member of the camp staff who performed selections, and usually there would be more than one SS-man performing selections for each transport so as to speed up the process.

The idea that Mengele performed all the selections himself arose after the war, when Mengele became well known, and survivors of selections all wanted to have gone before the infamous "Angel of Death" rather than just some anonymous SS sergeant.

In any case, transportees who had just arrived at Auschwitz would not have known who Mengele was, and would have had no idea who was selecting them; Mengele was not famous outside Auschwitz during the war.

That this person has included this alleged rumour in his reminiscences is one example of how survivor testimonies became corrupted by things they learned after the war. The best-known example of such corruption is of course the claim made by several Treblinka survivors that John Demjanjuk had been one of the main guards at that camp, when the documentation provided by the Soviet Union showed that he had been stationed only at Sobibor and had not played a major role there.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#13

Post by Sergey Romanov » 15 May 2017, 08:00

That this person has included this alleged rumour in his reminiscences is one example of how survivor testimonies became corrupted by things they learned after the war.
Thanks for inventing the bicycle. You are also welcome to read Christopher Browning's writings on Starachowice where he deals with exactly this issue. Or Deborah Lipstadt: "Lots of survivors who arrived at Auschwitz will tell you they were examined by Mengele. Then you ask them the date of their arrival and you say, 'Well, Mengele wasn't in Auschwitz yet at that point.' There were lots of doctors ... they all become Mengele."

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#14

Post by Sergey Romanov » 16 Jun 2017, 10:58

One more example of such a child survivor is Tova Friedman aka Tola (also Paula?) Grossman. She arrived from Starachowice with the July 27 transport and was registered in the camp under no. A-27633.

The fact that she was given such a high number suggested to some lazy deniers that she must have been deported in late autumn rather than summer. But quick googling shows that quite a lot of numbers in the female series A-27600+ were given out to those who arrived in the period of May-July 1944 (whereas the nos. around A-27200 were given out to those arriving at the end of October-beginning of November).

This fact having been established, it would be interesting to learn exactly why these numbers were used "ahead of time". Any idea?
Last edited by Sergey Romanov on 16 Jun 2017, 22:38, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Michael Bornstein, Danuta Czech and the 31.7.44 transport to Auschwitz from Pionki

#15

Post by Sergey Romanov » 16 Jun 2017, 22:29

https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety. ... rcamp.html

"As the front began to approach the Radom area at the end of July 1944, the Blizyn sub-camp was evacuated. Records of the WVHA indicate that the armaments factory that employed prisoners from the Blizyn sub-camp began to transfer its equipment into the Reich by rail on 22 July 1944. The remaining Jewish prisoners, 1,614 males and 715 females were transported in cattle wagons to the Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp, where they arrived on 31 July 1944. The proportion of survivors from Blizyn was relatively high. Survivors mainly thank the commandant, Heller, for helping to maintain their health, that most survived the initial selection on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The first commandant of the Jewish forced labour camp in Blizyn, SS- Oberscharführer Paul Nell, was sentenced to death and executed by the Polish authorities after the war. SS- Oberscharführer Heller, who officially commanded the camp from February 1944 until its dissolution in July 1944, was captured and tried by the US authorities. However, after several Jewish survivors from Blizyn testified in his favour, he was acquitted and released. SS- Unterscharführer Gosberg, who deputized for Heller, was tried by the regional court in Wuppertal in 1961. He was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to 12 years in prison on 19 May 1961."

However:

https://www.google.com/culturalinstitut ... t/gQgHKRpK

"Lusia Kałuszyner (Perla Spinka), a Jewish girl from Poland, deported with her aunt Sala Spinka and her daughter Janeczka from a labour camp in Bliżyn on 31 July 1944. The Jews in this is particular transport did not undergo selection on the Birkenau ramp and so everyone, including the few children among the adults, was sent to the camp. Lusia was given prisoner no. A-15515. After one of the selections in the camp, Lusia’s aunt and cousin were sent to the gas chamber, but she was cared for by other female prisoners and thus survived until liberation. "

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