Organizational Structure
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Jules Schelvis His Journey and Arrival at to Sobibor Death Camp
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Jules Schelvis
Recounts his Journey and Arrival at to Sobibor Death Camp
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Jules Schelvis, his wife Rachel, whom he married on the 18 December 1941, were deported from Westerbork, transit camp in Holland to the Sobibor death camp in Poland on the 1st June 1943. Rachel’s family included as the head of the family, her father David Borzykowski who was born in Janow, Poland on the 13 February 1892 and the family home was at Nieuwe Kerkstraat 103, Amsterdam. Her mother Gitla was born in Czestochowa, Poland in 1895.
Other family members Chaja Stodel- Borzykowski who was born in Amsterdam 1921, Rachel Schelvs – Borzykowski, born on the 2 March 1923 and Herman Borzykowski who was born in Amsterdam in 1927. Only Jules Schelvis, survived, his wife and his wife’s family all were murdered in the gas chambers of Sobibor on the 4 June 1943, and he gave a detailed account of their journey and arrival in the death camp on that June day:
“The train, which departed from Westerbork on Tuesday 1 June, consisting of a long line of freight wagons, was carrying 3006 persons. There were sixty-two in my wagon, including my wife, and her family, plus one pram.
The journey took place under the most primitive conditions, lacking even basic provisions, such as straw to lie upon, or hooks to hang things from. Apart from two barrels, one filled with water, the others for our waste, the men from the Westerbork Orde Dienst (OD Order Service) had carried aboard a few bread parcels. The sick were wheeled towards the wagons on trolleys. And all of this ostensibly to send us to police-supervised labour camps in Germany, which is how it was put on all the relevant forms. The commandant and his helpers stood by, watching the operation’s progress.
I have no recollections of any officials, in their well-polished shiny boots, concerning themselves with us at all. We had been entrusted to the care of the Jewish Council. Once everyone had clambered aboard, the sliding doors were barred on the outside. With all our luggage, we were packed like a tin of sardines, wondering how long we could endure this. There was hardly any room to stretch one’s legs, and only one small, barred window, which was unglazed, to let some fresh air in.
We left around half past ten. Only then did we begin to realise that the journey was going to end in some mysterious place. Perhaps Auschwitz, we had heard about Auschwitz. What was certain, however, was that our stamina was going to be severely tested. The train stopped countless times en route in order to let regular and military transports pass.
Sometimes we stopped for hours on end for no discernable reason. Throughout the entire journey, the doors were never opened once. We had to relieve ourselves in the little barrel, which soon caused a foul and unbearable stench. Having depleted the water from our own water bottles by the very first evening, we were parched with thirst.
The journey lasted for three long agonizing days, filled with despair and bickering. We went right across Germany via Bremen, Wittenberge, Berlin and Breslau and into Poland. In the morning of Friday 4 June we finally stopped at Chelm, close to what had once been the Russian border.
The journey had made us so weary that we were no longer interested in where we would end up. Only one question remained how to get out of this foul –smelling overloaded cattle wagon, and get some fresh air into our lungs. That Friday morning at around ten, after a seventy- two hour journey, we finally stopped in the vicinity of a camp. It turned out to be Sobibor.
The Jews of the Banhofskommando were very heavy-handed getting us off the train onto the platform. They let on they were Jewish by speaking Yiddish, the language of the Eastern European Jews.
The SS men standing behind them were shouting “schneller, schneller,” faster –faster, and lashed out at people once they were lined up on the platform. Yet the first impression of the camp itself aroused no suspicion, because the barracks looked rather like little Tyrolean cottages, with their curtains and geraniums on the window sills.
But this was no time to dawdle. We made our way outside as quickly as possible. Rachel and I, and the rest of our family, fortunately had no difficulty in swiftly making our way onto the platform, which had been built up of sand and earth.
Behind us we could hear the agonised cries of those who could not get up quickly enough, as their legs had stiffened as a result of sitting in an awkward position for too long, severely affecting their circulation. But no one cared. One of the first things that occurred to me was how lucky we were to all be together, and that the secret of our destination would now finally be revealed. The events so far did not hold out much promise though, and we understood that this was only the beginning. |
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T
Memories of the Holocaust
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Men Record their Experiences of the Holocaust
Hugh Greene
Daily Telegraph correspondent in Berlin during 1938
“I was in Berlin at that time and saw some pretty revolting sights – the destruction of Jewish shops, Jews being arrested and led away, the police standing by while the gangs destroyed the shops and even groups of well-dressed women cheering.
Maybe those women had a hangover next morning, as they were intoxicated all right when this was taking place. I found it, you know, really utterly revolting. In fact to a German journalist who saw me on that day and asked me what I was doing there, I remember I just said very coldly, “I’m studying German culture.”
Sigmund Weltlinger
Member of the Berlin Jewish Council Sachsenhausen – Oranienburg 1938
“But when I came to Sachsenhausen – Oranienburg camp outside Berlin I was immediately taught different. We were all shoved together with clubs and blows and had to stand in even ranks to be counted. Because I had been a soldier I didn’t find that all very difficult but the others who didn’t fall in quickly were beaten immediately.
The most terrible thing was when somebody grabbed hold of a big, strong man and he said, ‘Don’t grab me.’ The guard said, ‘What I shouldn’t grab you?’ and he gave him a blow and this man was immediately over-powered by three SS people.
A block was brought and he was bound fast to it, and the camp commandant said he was sentenced to twenty-five lashes. Then a giant man came, an SS man with a huge ox-whip, and started to beat him. At first the man only groaned a bit but then he begged them to stop.
The commandant said, ‘What do you mean, stop? We’ll start all over again from the beginning.’ But after three more lashes the blood was spurting already and salt was rubbed in the wounds or pepper, I don’t know anymore.
The man was dragged away, unconscious or dead. We never saw him again.”
Dawid Sierakowiak Lodz Ghetto September 10 1939
“The first manifestation of the German presence: Jews are being seized to do digging. An elderly retired professor, a Christian who lives in no.11, warned me about going into town, a decent man. What should I do now?
Tomorrow is the first day of school; who knows what’s happening to our beloved school. My friends are all going to attend, just to see what’s going on. But I have to stay home. I must. My parents feel they don’t want to lose me yet. Oh, my beloved school. Curse the times I complained about getting up early or about tests. If only those times could return!”
Avraham Kochavi Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz survivor
“We ran out of food in the house and one day my mother, may her soul rest in peace, asked me to go down to the bakery and stand there the whole night in order to get a loaf of bread the next day.
I got up in the middle of the night and went down to get in the queue. When I arrived there were already masses of people standing in line. At dawn a Pole, who was volksdeutsche – ethnic German arrived with a rifle slung over his right shoulder, a band with a swastika on his left arm.
He was supposed to keep order so that everyone should receive bread. Among us there were children, non-Jews, Poles, running around. They dragged that same volksdeutsche over and pointed at each person saying, “That’s a Jew, that’s a Jew – Das Jude, das Jude, Jude” – so that these people would be taken out of the line and not get bread.
My turn came. I turned and saw that the boy was a friend with whom I played. I said to him in Polish, “What are you doing?” His answer was, “I am not your friend, you are a Jew, I don’t know you.”
That same German with the swastika band was standing before me. I saw that he was a neighbour of ours and I spoke to him in Polish. His answer was in German: “I don’t know Polish, I don’t know you.”
He forcefully took me out of the line where I was waiting for bread and slapped me.”
Dr Zygmunt Klukowski Forced Labour Conditions Szczebrzeszyn
23 July 1940
“The worst consists of digging ditches to drain the marshes. They have to work standing in water. They are really badly fed because their families can rarely afford to send them food.
They sleep in terrible barracks amidst filth – with a complete lack of space. The barracks are several kilometres from the places of work, and they have to walk this distance every day, and are continuously beaten. Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/men.html The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team www.HolocaustResearchProject.org Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009 |
Einsatzgruppen executions in Fort Vll and Fort lX
Einsatzgruppen AExecutions in Fort Vll and Fort lX
Kovno was surrounded by a series of forts built in Czarist times to protect the city from German invasion. Between the wars these forts were used as prisons for criminals serving long sentences. During the German occupation, 1941 – 1944, the forts were used as both prisons and execution sites, particularly of the Jews of Kovno.
Read more about Kovno [Here]
The Seventh and Ninth Forts were close to the Ghetto – in time they became widely known as symbols of mass murder, as did the Babi Yar ravine in Kiev, the Rumbuli forest near Riga and the ditches of Ponary near Vilna.
Report of a medical orderly:
About 150 m from my quarters there was a fort. Looking at the map I think it must have been Fort Vll, although up to now I had always thought that there was only one fort in Kovno. From our quarters my mates and I heard shots during the night. The next day and the days after that we went to investigate the matter, climbed on to the ramparts of the fort and saw a crowd of people below us guarded by armed SS or SD men.
The guards were all German – there were no Lithuanians. During one of these visits the technical inspector, whose name I do not remember, took these pictures with his camera. At that time we didn’t see any shootings during the day. We heard that these shootings took place at night. During the day the people – men, women and children – were brought from Kovno to this fort. If I remember correctly they were all Jews, at least they were the only ones that were talked about.
The bodies were thrown into a large crater that had a diameter of 15m and was, I should think, about 3-4 meters deep. Each layer of bodies was covered with chloride of lime. People used to say that the next group of Jews always had to throw the last lot to be shot into the crater and cover them with sand. I only went up to this crater once but couldn’t see any bodies because everything was covered with sand.
On one of my wanderings through the fort I lost my way as I was not sure where the entrances were. On this occasion a Jewish woman of about thirty ran across my path. She had been shot through both cheeks and the wounds had swollen up considerably. Seeing the red – cross on my armband she begged me for a bandage, which I wanted to give her.
I was just busy getting the pack of dressings I’d brought with me out of my jacket when an SS or SD guard with a rifle came up to me and told me to make myself scarce, saying that the Jewess had no further need of a pack of dressings. The Jewish woman was then pushed back by the uniformed German.
I was very shaken by this experience and told my colleagues about it – they were shaken too. It would have been pointless and dangerous for me to have disobeyed the SS man – they were very ruthless. He threatened to shoot me down if I didn’t get on my way. During my visits to the fort I estimate I saw at least 2,000 people of different ages, both male and female, who were all destined to be shot and indeed certainly were.
Following a round-up of Kovno’s Jews on 28 October 1941 in Democracy Square and selection by SS man Rauca, Jews were separated into two columns, left and right. Right was death, left was life, recalled Leon Bauminger. Thos Kovno Jews who were sent by Rauca to the right could still not believe that they really been marked out for death. “That morning in Democracy Square,” a Lithuanian doctor, Helen Kutorgene, noted in her diary, “nobody suspected that a bitter fate awaited them. They thought that they were being moved to other apartments.”
They were indeed taken not to the Ninth Fort but to the houses of the small ghetto. On the night of 29 October Dr Peretz has recalled, everyone sent to the small ghetto “was trying to find a better place, there was better order, because they thought they would stay there.”
Then, at four in the morning, all those in the small ghetto were ordered to assemble again. It was still dark. But with the dawn a rumour began, that prisoners had been digging “deep ditches” at the Ninth Fort, and by the time those who had been sent to the small ghetto were led away towards the fort, Helen Kutorgene noted in her diary, “it was already clear to everybody that this was death.”
Dr Kutorgene added that once the Jews whom Rauca had sent to the right realised where they were being sent:
“They broke out crying, wailing and screaming. Some tried to escape on the way there but they were shot dead. Many bodies remained in the fields. At the fort the condemned were stripped of their clothes and in groups of three hundred they were forced into ditches. First they threw in the children. The women were shot at the edge of the ditch, after that it was the turn of the men.
Many were covered while they were still alive. All the men doing the shooting were drunk. I was told all this by an acquaintance who heard it from a German soldier, an eye-witness, who wrote to his Catholic wife. “Yesterday I became convinced that there is no God. If there were, he would not allow such things to happen.”
The massacre had been carried out by German SS men and Lithuanian police. On return from the killing, one of the Lithuanians boasted – as a Jew Alter Galperin later recalled – “that he had dragged small Jewish children by the hair, stabbing them with the edge of his bayonet, and throwing them half alive into pits.” “The smallest children “he just threw into the pit alive, because to kill all of them first is too much work.”
One of the few survivors was a twelve year- old boy. It was only when he managed to return to the main ghetto on 30 October that those in the ghetto realised the full horror. Avraham Golub, an assistant in the Jewish Council later recalled how the boy, “covered in dirt and smeared with blood”, stumbled into the Council office.
Golub’s account continued:
He reported how everyone was forced to strip and made to march in groups of one hundred to the edge of freshly dug pits. The guards fired on each group as they stepped forward. Some were only wounded but they too fell into the deep pits and were covered with a layer of earth. The boy was with his mother, was covered by her, and so was not hit by the bullets. The boy and his mother were destined to be the second layer of bodies from the top of the grave.
His mother had embraced him and covered him. She bent forward and fell into the pit with him, so that he was not suffocated by the layer of earth poured on top. When it was dark, the boy slowly moved to the edge of the pit. With great effort he pushed away the bodies around him and crawled out. There he was able to see that the earth which covered the pit was moving, meaning that many others were still alive in the pit but were unable to save themselves. Under darkness he escaped back to the ghetto and was later smuggled out. No one knows if he is alive today.
A few women also managed to survive the massacre. “Some tried to escape from the transport, Aharon Peretz later recalled. I was asked to go to a neighbouring house, where there were women with “dum-dum” bullets in their bodies. The number of those murdered was recorded, once again, in the precise statistics of the Einsatzkommando:
Jews from the Greater Reich were also sent to Kovno but only a small percentage were admitted to the ghetto. Most of them went direct to the Ninth Fort where they were kept some days prior to being shot in the execution pits. A Lithuanian guard testified before the Russian State Commission of 1945 that there were two executions of 3,000 – 4,000 Reich Jews on 10 December and 14 December 1941.
A Kovno ghetto survivor testified that in January or February 1942, the Prague and Vienna Jews in the Ninth Fort rebelled before being shot. The Reich Jews, who began arriving in Kovno from Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf and Prague at the end of November 1941, numbered 15,000 according to this witness, but the portion admitted to the ghetto was determined by the number of native Kovno Jews who had been shot – apparently 5,000.
Dr Aahron Peretz was an eye-witness in Kovno, and he later recalled how, as the deportees were being led along the road which went past the ghetto to the Ninth Fort, they could be heard asking the guards, “Is the camp still far?” They had been told they were being sent to a work-camp. But Peretz added, “We know where the road led. It led to the Ninth Fort, to the prepared pits.”
But first the Jews from Germany were kept for three days in underground cellars with ice- covered walls, and without food or drink. Only then frozen and starving were they ordered to undress, taken to the pits and shot.
The killing of these deportees was recorded with the usual SS efficiency:
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/ninthseventhfort.html
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The Archaeological digs at the Belzec Deathcamp
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Archaeological Investigations at the Belzec Death Camps
A Review By Historians: Robin O’Neil, Salisbury and Michael Tregenza, Lublin. Acknowledgment to The Torun Team of archaeologists and the cartographer, Billy Rutherford. Published with the exclusive permission of the author www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
Introduction The investigation carried out at Bełżec by leading archaeologists was historically unique, as no similar investigations had been carried out at the other two designated pure death camps of Sobibór and Treblinka. The magnitude of what occurred in Bełżec has never been fully described in the historical literature until now. According to previous studies, which have always been inhibited by lack of eye-witness evidence, several hundred thousand Jews perished in Bełżec. The archaeological investigations confirm by overwhelming evidence that mass murder was committed here on an unprecedented scale and that there was a determined attempt to conceal the enormity of the crime. In this the Nazis failed. The material unearthed at Bełżec not only confirmed the crime but enabled, by scientific analysis, the historians to re-construct for the first time the probable layout of the camp in the first and second phases.
Previous Investigations The 1997 archaeological investigations at Bełżec were initiated by an agreement between the Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom (Rada Ochrony Pamieci Walk I Meczenstwa – ROPWiM) in Warsaw in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. How Bełżec was to be commemorated was the subject of a wide-ranging competition among artists who placed their suggestions before a selecting committee. The successful contributors were a team of architects and artists led by Marcin Roszczyk who intended: ‘To honour the earth that harboured the ashes of the victims’. It is within this definition that the archaeological investigations were commenced to examine the topography of the former camp and locate mass grave areas before the erection of a suitable memorial commemorating the victims murdered in Bełżec.
As a result of the work carried-out by the archaeological team from Toruń University, and an historical assessment of the findings by the author, a clearer picture emerged of how the camp was constructed, organised and functioned in both phases of its existence. Before looking at the most recent survey, some background to previous investigations may be helpful.
The first investigation 1945. Very shortly after the end of the war, several War Crimes Investigation Commissions were established in Poland by the Soviet-backed civil authorities. At all locations in Eastern Europe where Nazi atrocities had taken place, teams of specialist investigators descended to set up officially constituted boards of enquiry with powers to summon local people to attend and give evidence. On 10 October 1945, an Investigation Commission team lead by Judge Czesław Godzieszewski from the District Court in Zamosc entered Bełżec and commenced investigations. In addition to hearing oral testimony from many inhabitants of Bełżc village and its environs, the team of investigators carried out an on-site investigation at the camp. Nine pits were opened to confirm the existence of mass graves. The evidence found indicated that thousands of corpses had been cremated and any remaining bones crushed into small pieces. The human remains unearthed were re-interred in a specially built concrete crypt near the northeast corner of the camp. Within hours of this simple ceremony to commemorate the victims, local villagers ransacked the grave area looking for treasure. This desecration of mass graves by local inhabitants continues to this day: Immediately after completion of the 1998 excavations, overnight, the excavation sites were penetrated and damaged by searches for Jewish gold. Similar acts of malicious damage have been recorded at Sobibór and Treblinka.
The second investigation 1946. This was a continuation of the earlier investigation during which certain witnesses were re-interrogated. In view of the findings at Bełżec, the Investigation Commission published a report on 11 April 1946, which concluded that Bełżec was the second death camp to have been built or adapted by the Nazis for the specific purpose of murdering Jews. The report cites the first camp in which the mass murder took place was at Chełmno, which operated between December 1941 and early 1943. The Investigation Commission relied on the testimonies of eyewitness who had been employed in the construction of these camps, or who lived locally and had observed what was taking place.One of the Bełżc witnesses, Chaim Herszman (mentioned earlier), had escaped from the transport taking the last few members of Jewish ‘death brigade’ from Bełżec to Sobibór where they were shot. He testified before a Lublin Court on 19 March 1946 and was due to continue his testimony in court the following day, but was murdered either by Polish antisemites or because of his connections with the NKVD before he could do so.
The Investigation Commission drew attention to the systematic destruction of the ghettos and the ‘resettlement’ transports to the transit ghettos in Izbica and Piaski from towns within the Nazi-occupied territory of Poland then known as the General Government. The Commission further noted ‘resettlement’ transports from Western Europe to Bełżec, and the inclusion in these transports of Polish Christians who had been engaged either in anti-Nazi activities or accused of assisting or hiding Jews. The Commission concluded that 1,000-1,500 Polish Christians were murdered in Bełżec. The final part of the Report by the Bełżec Investigation Commission dealt with winding-down activities: cremations, destruction of evidence, dismantling of the gas chambers, removal of fences, ground being ploughed-up and planted with fir trees and lupines. The Commission verified from the evidence that a final inspection had been carried out at Bełżec by a special SS Commission to ensure that everything had been done to cover up the enormity of the crimes perpetrated in the name of Reinhardt.
The third investigation 1961 The Council declared that the former death camp at Bełżec should be commemorated as a place of remembrance. In order to preserve the site as a memorial, extensive excavations were carried out. Approximately six hectares were levelled and fenced off (a reduction in the actual size of the original camp area) and marked out as the memorial site. A monument was erected above the crypt where the human remains found in the first investigation in 1945 had been interred. Immediately behind the monument, four symbolic tombs cast in concrete were placed where the mass graves were believed (incorrectly) to be located. On the north side of the camp, six large urns intended for eternal flames were positioned on a series of elevated terraces. Over the years, further landscaping has been carried out on parts of the former camp area adjoining the timber yard.
The fourth investigation 1997-2000. The phases of this most recent investigation were directed by Professor Andrzej Kola, director of the Archaeological at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. The principal Investigating officers on site were: Dr Mieczysław Gora, Senior Curator of the Museum of Ethnology in Łódż, Poland, assisted by Dr Wojciech Szulta and Dr. Ryszard Każmierczak. Unemployed males from Bełżec village were engaged in all three investigations to assist with the labour-intensive drilling.
The most recent investigations
The methodology of all four investigations was similar: marking out the area to be examined to a fixed grid system at 5 m. intervals (knots). Exploratory boreholes to depth of 6 m were made, obtaining core samples of the geological strata.A total of 2,001 archaeological exploratory drillings were carried out and were instrumental in locating 33 mass graves of varying sizes.
From these exploratory drillings, many graves were found to contain naked bodies in wax-fat transformation (complete) and carbonized human remains and ashes were identified The investigating personnel were divided into three teams, each working at a table to record data as soil samples were withdrawn and examined. Using a map of the area to a scale of 1: 1,000, prepared by the District Cartographic Office in Zamosc, a Central Bench Mark (BM 2007) was utilized as the reference point from which the archaeologists worked. Positive data and negative findings were recorded before replacing the soil samples in the boreholes.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/modern/archreview.html The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team www.HolocaustResearchProject.org Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010 |
Nazi Einsatzgruppen Organizational Structure Gruppe C
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Read more about the Einsatzgruppen here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/index.html
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The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010
The Jewish Underground and Aharon Liebeskind
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Jewish Underground Leader
Aharon Liebeskind was born in Zabierzow, a village near Krakow in 1912, and he studied law at Krakow University. In 1938 he became secretary of the Akiva movement, which he had joined at the age of fourteen. In early 1939 he was appointed national secretary of Akiva and went to live in Warsaw, although he kept his home in Krakow as well, and continued to lead the movement there.
As well as the above commitments he also managed to complete his doctoral dissertation. His job kept him in Warsaw until the outbreak of the war. From the outset of the German occupation of Poland, Liebeskind was convinced that the Jews would not be able to live under the Nazis, and he did all he could to get the members of his movement out of Poland.
Liebeskind was a charismatic figure, much admired by his fellow members and followers. He did not accept an immigration certificate to Palestine for himself, so as not to abandon his family and followers during these dark times.
In December 1940 Liebeskind was put in charge of an agricultural and vocational training programme in the Krakow area, sponsored by the Jewish Self-Help Society, which had it’s headquarters in Krakow.
He utilised his position to promote the activities of the Jewish underground in the city, which he had founded and led. Using the society’s official stationery, he distributed leaflets and arranged money transfers to the members of the underground.
Liebeskind also arranged for the financing of the Kopaliny training farm, headed by Shimshon Draenger, which served as a cover for underground operations. His post enabled him to move around and thereby to maintain and strengthen contact with fellow members in various locations.
Having learned about the mass murder of Jews in the Chelmno killing center and the deportations from Cracow to the Belzec death camp in June 1942, the Jewish fighters decided to respond with armed resistance against the Nazis. Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/liebeskind.html The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010 |
Odilo Globocnik, Action Reinhard mass murderer!
Odilo Globocnik
“The Worst Man in the World”
Globocnik addressing troops in Trieste |
Odilo Globocnik was born in Trieste on 21 April 1904 he was the son of an Austrian Croat family of petty officials and a builder by profession.
He joined the Nazi Party in Carinthia Austria in 1930 and became a “radical” leader of its factory cells in the province. In 1933 Globocnik joined the SS and was appointed deputy district leader of the NSDAP in Austria.
He was imprisoned for over a year for a number of political offences, he may have even murdered the Jewish jeweller Futterweiss. Globocnik re-emerged as a key liaison man between Hitler and the Austrian National Socialists, he was appointed provincial Nazi chief of Carinthia in 1936, and subsequently he was promoted to Gauleiter of Vienna on 24 May 1938.
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But his decline was soon at; Globocnik was using an astonishing number of dirty tricks, particularly in financial matters.
Another was that he was an absolutely uncompromising person who was extremely successful in finding new opponents and enemies in the party ranks, mainly in the Catholic wing of the NSDAP.
A major factor was the fact that Hermann Göring (ReichsMarshall) endeavoured to have Globocnik removed from his high party office. On January 30, 1939, Globocnik was suspended as a Gauleiter and replaced by Josef Burckel.
Globocnik was pardoned by Himmler and appointed on 9 November 1939 as SS and Police Leader for the Lublin district in Poland. Globocnik was a brutal police commander who not only waged a terrible war on Polish Jewry, but who carried out drastic population expulsions in the Zamosc Lands, to germanise the Lublin area.
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He was chosen by Himmler as the central figure in Operation Reinhard – named after Reinhard Heydrich, no doubt because of his scandalous past record and well-known virulent anti-semitism.
Put in charge of a special company of SS men not subordinate to any higher authority and responsible only to Himmler, Globocnik founded three death camps as part of Aktion Reinhard, and one combined death camp and concentration camp Majdanek (Lublin).
Globocnik drew rich rewards from the slaughter of 1.7 million Jews whose property ranging from their houses and valuables down to the gold in their teeth was seized by the SS.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/globocknik.html
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010
Images of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Holocaust!
The Warsaw Ghetto Image Gallery
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
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| A barefoot woman in the Warsaw ghetto 298 X 448 37 KB |
A barrel – making factory at 22 Ciepla Street in the Warsaw ghetto. 786 X 571 94 KB |
A body on the street in the Warsaw ghetto 480 X 349 45 KB |
A bunker used by the Jewish resistance during the Warsaw ghetto uprising 626 X 450 76 KB |
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| A corpse in a coffin in the Warsaw ghetto 544 X 484 69 KB |
A corpse slides down a shoot into a mass grave in the Warsaw ghetto 326 X 448 48 KB |
A debris filled street in the Warsaw ghetto 640 X 421 61 KB |
A factory razed by the SS burns during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising 640 X 411 60 KB |
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| A German gun crew prepares to shell the ruins of a building during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising 640 X 407 68 KB |
A German soldier cuts a Jews beard in the ghetto 796 X 571 94 KB |
A group of children are gathered on a street corner in the Warsaw ghetto 666 X 450 76 KB |
A Jewish man and daughter in the Warsaw ghetto 663 X 461 65 KB |
See the entire gallery here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/warsawgal/index.html
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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2010
Men Record their Experiences of the Holocaust
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Hugh Greene
Daily Telegraph correspondent in Berlin during 1938
“I was in Berlin at that time and saw some pretty revolting sights – the destruction of Jewish shops, Jews being arrested and led away, the police standing by while the gangs destroyed the shops and even groups of well-dressed women cheering.
Maybe those women had a hangover next morning, as they were intoxicated all right when this was taking place. I found it, you know, really utterly revolting. In fact to a German journalist who saw me on that day and asked me what I was doing there, I remember I just said very coldly, “I’m studying German culture.”
Sigmund Weltlinger
Member of the Berlin Jewish Council
Sachsenhausen – Oranienburg 1938
“But when I came to Sachsenhausen – Oranienburg camp outside Berlin I was immediately taught different. We were all shoved together with clubs and blows and had to stand in even ranks to be counted. Because I had been a soldier I didn’t find that all very difficult but the others who didn’t fall in quickly were beaten immediately.
The most terrible thing was when somebody grabbed hold of a big, strong man and he said, ‘Don’t grab me.’ The guard said, ‘What I shouldn’t grab you?’ and he gave him a blow and this man was immediately over-powered by three SS people.
A block was brought and he was bound fast to it, and the camp commandant said he was sentenced to twenty-five lashes. Then a giant man came, an SS man with a huge ox-whip, and started to beat him. At first the man only groaned a bit but then he begged them to stop.
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The commandant said, ‘What do you mean, stop? We’ll start all over again from the beginning.’ But after three more lashes the blood was spurting already and salt was rubbed in the wounds or pepper, I don’t know anymore.
The man was dragged away, unconscious or dead. We never saw him again.”
Dawid Sierakowiak
Lodz Ghetto
September 10 1939
“The first manifestation of the German presence: Jews are being seized to do digging. An elderly retired professor, a Christian who lives in no.11, warned me about going into town, a decent man. What should I do now?
Tomorrow is the first day of school; who knows what’s happening to our beloved school. My friends are all going to attend, just to see what’s going on. But I have to stay home. I must. My parents feel they don’t want to lose me yet. Oh, my beloved school. Curse the times I complained about getting up early or about tests. If only those times could return!”
Avraham Kochavi
Lodz ghetto and Auschwitz survivor
“We ran out of food in the house and one day my mother, may her soul rest in peace, asked me to go down to the bakery and stand there the whole night in order to get a loaf of bread the next day.
I got up in the middle of the night and went down to get in the queue. When I arrived there were already masses of people standing in line. At dawn a Pole, who was volksdeutsche – ethnic German arrived with a rifle slung over his right shoulder, a band with a swastika on his left arm.
He was supposed to keep order so that everyone should receive bread. Among us there were children, non-Jews, Poles, running around. They dragged that same volksdeutsche over and pointed at each person saying, “That’s a Jew, that’s a Jew – Das Jude, das Jude, Jude” – so that these people would be taken out of the line and not get bread.
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My turn came. I turned and saw that the boy was a friend with whom I played. I said to him in Polish, “What are you doing?” His answer was, “I am not your friend, you are a Jew, I don’t know you.”
That same German with the swastika band was standing before me. I saw that he was a neighbour of ours and I spoke to him in Polish. His answer was in German: “I don’t know Polish, I don’t know you.”
He forcefully took me out of the line where I was waiting for bread and slapped me.”
Dr Zygmunt Klukowski
Forced Labour Conditions
Szczebrzeszyn
23 July 1940
“The worst consists of digging ditches to drain the marshes. They have to work standing in water. They are really badly fed because their families can rarely afford to send them food.
They sleep in terrible barracks amidst filth – with a complete lack of space. The barracks are several kilometres from the places of work, and they have to walk this distance every day, and are continuously beaten.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/men.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009
Profiting from the Holocaust!
Aktion Reinhard
Profiting from the Holocaust
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SS- Brigadefuhrer August Frank, one of the heads of the Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA) issued an order on the 26 September 1942 to the Aktion Reinhard headquarters in Lublin and to the commandant in Auschwitz, regarding the correct procedure for the treatment and distribution of Jewish possessions and valuables within the extermination camps.
Within the three death camps, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka the Germans established working commandos to sort and pack the possessions of the murdered Jews to the Reich, in accordance with August Frank’s orders.
Heinrich Unverhau who supervised the storage depot in the locomotive sheds at Belzec testified at his trial:
“SS Sturmbannfuhrer Hering accused me of being a saboteur because of the fact that during the sorting of the clothes that were sent for utilisation in Germany, a yellow Jewish star was found. Some money was also found there. These clothes belonged to Jews who were killed in Belzec.”
Top Secret 26 September 1942 To the Chief of the SS Garrison Administration Lublin Without taking into account the over all regulations which are expected to be issued during October, pertaining to the utilization of mobile and immobile property of the evacuated Jews, the following procedure has to be followed with regard to the property carried by them — property, which will in all orders in the future be called goods originating from thefts, receiving of stolen goods, and hoarded goods:
-August Frank SS Brigadefuehrer and Brigadier General of the Waffen SS |
Oskar Deigelmann a Reichsbahn official recalled a visit to Belzec:
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“As a controller I was responsible for ensuring the track was in good condition and in particular that the train ran smoothly. During a visit to the station at Belzec the supervisor, a Secretary or Senior Secretary from Thuringen, informed me that he was having a lot of problems with the SS, who were stationed near the wood.
Some time later I myself saw and had a word with a number of SS people in the waiting –room at Belzec. When I inquired, they told me that they were not members of the SS but they had merely been given these uniforms. As they described it, most of them came from lunatic asylums or nursing homes in the Reich, where they had been involved in the killing of the mentally ill.
I would like to say that one day the full significance of Belzec camp became clear to me when I saw mountains of clothes of all types behind our locomotive shed. There was also a large number of shoes there, as well as jewellery and other valuables.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/economics/profitingfromAR.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009
