Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

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Bergen83
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Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#1

Post by Bergen83 » 23 Jun 2018, 02:39

"The Aktion Erntefest (German: Operation Harvest Festival) was a World War II mass shooting action carried out by the SS, the Order police, and the Ukrainian Sonderdienst formations in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. The operation aimed at extermination of Jews pressed into forced-labour at the camps of the Lublin reservation including Majdanek concentration camp and all its subcamps. It was closely linked with the liquidation of the ghetto in Lublin. Aktion Erntefest took place on November 3 and 4, 1943.On the orders of Christian Wirth and Jakob Sporrenberg, approximately 42,000–43,000 Polish Jews were killed simultaneously. Virtually the entire Jewish workforce was eliminated, thus concluding Operation Reinhard.

Operation Harvest Festival was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war. It surpassed the notorious massacre of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar outside Kiev by 10,000 victims. It was exceeded only by the 1941 Odessa massacre of more than 50,000 Jews in October 1941, committed by Romanian troops."


- from wikipedia

Now, i have tried to find some books on this event but to my surprise i cant find any . Only information i can find on the subject are some pages on various websites devoted to the holocaust in some way .

Are there any books on this ?

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Sergey Romanov
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Re: Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#2

Post by Sergey Romanov » 23 Jun 2018, 10:23

It is often handled in Majdanek-related books.

See the list of literature at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_Erntefest


steve248
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Re: Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#3

Post by steve248 » 24 Jun 2018, 12:21

You would have thought that the huge Aktion Erntefest might lead to a large number of books about it. Instead there are a few pages here and there in various works on Majdanek. A slim volume appeared a few years published by Stadt Münster (the Orpo historical section) and that is that.

3 years ago I applied for a 6 months scholarship at USHMM on the very topic of Aktion Erntefest, supported by several German historians, but in their wisdom they wanted young PhD students who might later teach (if they are lucky). So I have 4 or 5 arch files (Leitz files) which I will eventually make something of at some stage in the future.

USHMM's wisdom in this regard extends to a PhD student writing about detective fiction in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939. A very useful project that will contribute to holocaust history.

steve248
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Re: Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#4

Post by steve248 » 24 Jun 2018, 12:29

Published works on Aktion Erntefest:

Ainsztein, Reuben, Jewish Resistance in nazi-Occupied Europe (London: Paul Elek, 1974).
Ambach, Dieter and Thomas Köhler (eds.), Lublin-Majdanek. Das Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager im Spiegel von Zeugenaussagen, (Düsseldorf: Justizministerium des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Juristische Zeitgeschichte Band 12, 2003).
Black, Peter, “Die Trawniki-Männer und die ‘Aktion Reinhard,’ in ‘Aktion Reinhardt’ Der Völkermord an den Juden im Generalgouvernement 1941-1944, ed. Bogdan Musial (Osnabrück: Fibre Verlag, 2004).
Black, Peter, “Foot Soldiers of the Final Solution: The Trawniki Trainign Camp and Operation Reinhard,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 25, no. 1 (2011): 1-99.
Böhler, Jochen, “Totentanz.Die Ermittlungen zur ‘Aktion Erntefest,’ in Die Gestapo nach 1945, eds. Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Andrej Angrick (Darmstadt, WBG, 2009).
Browning, Christopher, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, (New York: HarperCollins, 1992).
Erpel, Simone, Im Gefolge der SS: Aufseherinnen des Frauen-KZ-Ravensbrück (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2007)
Grabitz. Helge/Scheffler, Wolfgang, Letzte Spüren. Ghetto Warschau, SS-Arbeistlager Trawniki, Aktion Erntefest, (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1988).
Hilberg, Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews, (New York & London: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 3 volumes.
Hoffmann, Jens, ‘Das kann man nicht erzählen.’ ‘Aktion 1005’ – Wie die Nazis die Spuren ihrer Massenmorde in Osteuropa beseitigten, (Hamburg: KVV konkret, 2008).
Stefan Klemp, ‘Aktion Erntefest’: Mit Musik in den Tod. Rekonstruktion eines Massenmords, (Stadt Münster: Fördervereins den Villa ten Hompel, 2013).
Kranz, Thomas, “Das KL-Lublin – zwischen Planung und Realisierung,” in Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Entwicklung und Struktur, eds. Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth and Christoph Dieckmann (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1998), Band I, 363-389.
Kuretsidis-Haider, Claudia and Irmgard Nöbauer, Winfried R.Garscha, Siegfried Sanwald, Andrzej Selerowicz (eds.), Das KZ Lublin-Majdanek und die Justiz. Strafverfolgung und verweigerte Gerechtigkeit: Polen, Deutschland und Österreich im Vergleich, (Graz, Austria: Clio Verlag, 2011).
Mailänder, Elissa, Female SS Guards and Worksday Violence. The Majdanek Concentration Camp, (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2015).
Musial, Bogdan, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement. Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939-1944 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1999).
Musial, Bogdan (ed.), ‘Aktion Reinhardt’. Der Völkermord an den Juden im General- gouvernement 1941-1944, (Osnabrück; Fibre Verlag, 2004.
Pohl, Dieter, Die nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien 1941-1944. Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechen, (Munich: Olderbourg Gruyter, 1997).
Pohl, Dieter, “Die großen Zwangsarbeitslager der SS- und Polizeiführer für Juden im Generalgouvernement 1942-1945,” in Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager. Entwicklung und Struktur, eds. Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth and Christoph Dieckmann (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1998), Band I, 415-438.
Schwindt, Barbara, Das Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager Majdanek. Funktionswandel im Kontext der ‘Endlösung’, (Würzburg: K&N Verlag, 2005).


The slim volume I mentioned in my earlier post, is the one by Stefan Klemp in my list here.

Bergen83
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Re: Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#5

Post by Bergen83 » 25 Jun 2018, 01:58

Thanks for the responses. I found something interesting though when searching for books to read on the subject. In "Concentration Camp Majdanek A Historical and Technical Study" by Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno they included some of Erich Mußfeldts testimony from his time in Polish captivity after the war. Heres an interesting excerpt :

""One day in late October 1943 the excavation of pits was begun behind Compounds V and VI, approximately 50 meters behind the structure of the new Crematorium. 300 inmates were put to this work; they dug without interruption for three days and nights, in two shifts of 150 each. In the course of these three days, three pits were excavated; they were more than two meters deep, zigzag-shaped, and each about 100 m long.

During these three days, special commandos from the concentration camp Auschwitz as well as SS and Police commandos from Cracow, Warsaw, Radom, Lwów and Lublin gathered in Majdanek. Otto Moll and Franz Hössler came from Auschwitz with 10 SS men. Altogether, some 100 SS men arrived from the cities I mentioned, and these SS men made up the Special Commando. On the fourth day-it may have been November 3-reveille was sounded at 5:00 a.m. Therefore I went to that part of the camp where I usually stayed. The entire camp was surrounded by the police; I would estimate that there were about 500 policemen. They stood guard with their weapons at the ready. They were armed with heavy and light submachine guns as well as with other automatic weapons...."

As you can see Mußfeldt claims Otto Moll was present at Aktion Erntefest. I had no idea there was Auschwitz personell present at what was in reality the closure of Operation Reinhardt. What i also find interesting is that even though Mußfeldt had been "working" at Auschwitz in 40/41 he didnt come back before after Erntefest. Does this not give room to speculate that Moll requested Mußfeldts presense at Birkenau as the gassings and more specifically the outdoor shootings at the crematoriums ,escalated in 43/44 ?




PS The rest of Mußfeldts testimony can be found here :
http://vho.org/GB/Books/ccm/10.html#ftnref580

steve248
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Re: Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#6

Post by steve248 » 25 Jun 2018, 10:03

Be careful when using Graf/Mattogno - they are holocaust revisionists.

Bergen83
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Re: Books on Operation Harvest Festival / Aktion Erntefest ?

#7

Post by Bergen83 » 25 Jun 2018, 13:06

steve248 wrote:Be careful when using Graf/Mattogno - they are holocaust revisionists.
Thank you. I had no idea

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