Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

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Carlus
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Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#1

Post by Carlus » 04 Oct 2020, 11:34

Hi
I have a particular question. I would like to begin a research on the Nazi mass Graves in Poland (within modern day boundaries) during the Aktion Reinhardt. I'm interested in focusing on Polish ghettos and communities that suffered mass shootings during the ghettos clearances and were either killed in extermination camps or in the sorroundings by fire mass executions.
Since now, I found these communities were affected by heavy cold blood killings:

° Bialystok: 2.000 about killed in June-July 1941,after the outbreak of German Soviet war

° Lublin: 2.500 circa killed in Krepiec forest and inside the ghettos in April 1942.

° Tarnów up to 9 or 10.000 murdered on the spot in the first Aktion of June 1942

°Warsaw big action of July August 1942, with (someone says) even tens of thousands people killed on the streets

° The horrific Aktion Erntefest of course in November 1943 with the killings of all the 42.000 Jewish prisoners.

Do you know some other sites or notorious "holocaust by bullets" episode in Polish territory I miss? May you eventually suggest me some good source, online website or book where can be found similar infos? I only know "Yahad in unum. org"

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wm
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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#2

Post by wm » 05 Oct 2020, 01:16

The modus-operandi was that during the deportations (to death camps) Jews too troublesome to transport (i.e., the old, the sick) were executed on the spot.
Earlier mass executions design to terrorize, to pacify ghettos were carried out.
In the Eastern Borderlands, the Jews usually were executed on the spot because the death camps were too far away.

So really the massacres were everywhere.


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Carlus
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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#3

Post by Carlus » 05 Oct 2020, 12:00

Thanks for your answer. I knew btw the ghetto clearances meant the immediate killings of the unable inhabitants. But in several cases Germans acted such heavy massacres that had nothing to envoy to the ones made in the Ussr or in Eastern borderlands. Even though the Death camps were very closer to the ghettos.
I'm searching for those episodes.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#4

Post by hucks216 » 05 Oct 2020, 13:16

I'd imagine such actions would be covered in the 2 volume 'The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust' and also in Volume 2 of the USHMM Encyclopedia series. Luckily, USHMM have published their first two volumes as free PDF downloads.
https://www.ushmm.org/research/publicat ... ps-ghettos

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#5

Post by history1 » 06 Oct 2020, 15:25

I fear you need to learn at first that the perpetrators where not only Germans, right the contrary. In the extermination camps of the Aktion Reinhard they were only a tiny part of the staff (eg 20-25), while the killings, forsing people into gas chambers, etc. was done by Trawniki men.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#6

Post by wm » 06 Oct 2020, 16:46

The Ukrainians were hired labor - sons of illiterate peasants, people who literally knew nothing.

But those who gave orders - they knew more, some were doctors of philosophy, no?
Who cares what the poor, people from dregs of society did.
But the highly educated that failed - that's an entirely different story.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#7

Post by Carlus » 06 Oct 2020, 22:42

history1 wrote:
06 Oct 2020, 15:25
I fear you need to learn at first that the perpetrators where not only Germans, right the contrary. In the extermination camps of the Aktion Reinhard they were only a tiny part of the staff (eg 20-25), while the killings, forsing people into gas chambers, etc. was done by Trawniki men.
First: the point of my question was the killings on spot, not the deportations to Death Camps

Second: Trawniki men were also involved on roundups and shootings (and it appears they were very brutal) but despite their higher number in places like Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec, Germans were second to none for cruelty. Many survivors accounts indeed outlined the bloody sadism of German (or Austrian) SS personnel like Kurt Franz and Gustav Wagner, to mention the most notorious. The fact they were a tiny part of the staff does not mean they were less active.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#8

Post by Carlus » 06 Oct 2020, 22:48

hucks216 wrote:
05 Oct 2020, 13:16
I'd imagine such actions would be covered in the 2 volume 'The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust' and also in Volume 2 of the USHMM Encyclopedia series. Luckily, USHMM have published their first two volumes as free PDF downloads.
https://www.ushmm.org/research/publicat ... ps-ghettos
Thank you, I already downloaded the USHMM volumes, unfortunately the Yad Vashem ones are not available 😔😔

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#9

Post by history1 » 07 Oct 2020, 09:01

wm wrote:
06 Oct 2020, 16:46
The Ukrainians were hired labor - sons of illiterate peasants, people who literally knew nothing.
Ukrainians? You´re kidding, wm. Trawniki men were not only Ukrainians but Lithuanians, Soviet POW, Poles, etc...
WE don´t need to discuss them as we both know that they had many benefits compared to the locals or even their victims. When they got killed their families got cared for by the Nazi German authorities, even widos pensions paid.
wm wrote:
06 Oct 2020, 16:46
But those who gave orders - they knew more, some were doctors of philosophy, no?
Who cares what the poor, people from dregs of society did.
But the highly educated that failed - that's an entirely different story.
I doubt that for their victim it made any difference. A Polish Jew being murdered by an German academic is not different than a Polish Jew murdered by Trawniki men during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or a Polish Jew murdered by Polish partisans. The result is always the same, a murdered human being.
Or do you try to tell us that a farmer/peasant doesn´t see/recognise that it´s wrong to murder innocent children, women and old people?

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#10

Post by history1 » 07 Oct 2020, 09:19

Carlus wrote:
06 Oct 2020, 22:42
history1 wrote:
06 Oct 2020, 15:25
I fear you need to learn at first that the perpetrators where not only Germans, right the contrary. In the extermination camps of the Aktion Reinhard they were only a tiny part of the staff (eg 20-25), while the killings, forsing people into gas chambers, etc. was done by Trawniki men.
First: the point of my question was the killings on spot, not the deportations to Death Camps
Why do you state then the following?
[...] I would like to begin a research on the Nazi mass Graves in Poland (within modern day boundaries) during the Aktion Reinhardt. I'm interested in focusing on Polish ghettos and communities that suffered mass shootings during the ghettos clearances and were either killed in extermination camps [...]
Carlus wrote:
06 Oct 2020, 22:42

Second: Trawniki men were also involved on roundups and shootings (and it appears they were very brutal) but despite their higher number in places like Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec, Germans were second to none for cruelty. Many survivors accounts indeed outlined the bloody sadism of German (or Austrian) SS personnel like Kurt Franz and Gustav Wagner, to mention the most notorious. The fact they were a tiny part of the staff does not mean they were less active.
ROFL! Survivor accounts! One need to know something about the facts and the reality and not only to listen/read a few survivor accounts! The Holocaust survivor Nissen Mangel tells even nowadays that he´s the youngest person surviving Auschwitz II while he was a young teenager when he arrived there. Only fools and illiterate people to believe this guy. Another one whose daughter I met by chance told her that he had to clean the crematoriums oven from Treblinka as ten year old boy - in 1939! Another one, a Jew from Vienna, told in a USHMM interview that he had to hide from German bombs in the subway of Paris- in Sept 1939! And the USHMM didn´t correct this nonsene, shame on them! So don´t come to me and tell me about survivor testimonies.

But you´re right, the Germans stationed there were not less involved as they were those giving orders. And as you do mention Austrian SS: The number of Austrian SS men within the Auschwitz complex is a tiny friction, ethnic Germans from Poland, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, etc.. did rank straight behind the Germans from the Altreich (original Germany)n in numbers.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#11

Post by wm » 07 Oct 2020, 14:51

Any examples of Poles among Trawniki men? You won't find any.
They were recruited from Soviet POWs by Karl Streibel, who only took Ukrainians and Balts.

Not to mention Poles weren't drafted into the Red Army (only Soviet citizens were), the Poles "served" in Siberia and Kazakhstan.
The Ukrainians dominated among the Trawniki men for the simple reason there were millions of them among the POWs - and a tiny number of Balts.

In all testimonies the Ukrainians are usually mentioned, the Lithuanians rarely, and frequently, it's Lithuanians and Germans together. The reason was the Germans trusted Lithuanians (much) more.

The Trawniki men were recruited under the threat of death and were treated harshly. They were mere tools used by the real perpetrators.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#12

Post by history1 » 07 Oct 2020, 17:18

wm wrote:
07 Oct 2020, 14:51
Any examples of Poles among Trawniki men? You won't find any.
[...]
The Trawniki men were recruited under the threat of death and were treated harshly. They were mere tools used by the real perpetrators.
Ask Angelika Benz, the author of "Handlanger der SS - Die Rolle der Trawniki-Männer im Holocaust = The henchmen of the SS - The role of the Trawniki-men in the Holcoaust", she sure can help you.
https://metropol-verlag.de/produkt/hand ... lika-benz/
Neither were they recruited under the threat of death but eg. Soviet POW lured with benefits like more food for the starving Soviet POW was sure appealing, during the actions the possibility to steal from the poor Jews, etc..
No need to discus this further, it´s already a reptition from the informations of another thread dealing with them.

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#13

Post by wm » 01 Nov 2020, 15:58

You mean as in starving to death?

Stealing from Jews were forbidden, it happened but many fools who did it incompetently paid with their lives for it.

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Carlus
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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#14

Post by Carlus » 06 Apr 2021, 07:22

Does anyone have any information about this specific SS unit in the Krakow district: Waffen SS Bataillon Debiza?
I found some references barely in a couple of books, namely M. Cüppers "Wegbereiter der Shoah" and to a lesser extent in W. Curilla' "Die Ordnungspolizei in Polen"

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Re: Nazi mass executions in Poland 1942-1943

#15

Post by GregSingh » 06 Apr 2021, 11:59

Does anyone have any information about this specific SS unit in the Krakow district: Waffen SS Bataillon Debiza?
Well, are you familiar with basic info?
Batalion SS Dębica

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