Archive for March 2009
The Chelmno Death Camp!
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The death camp in the village of Chelmno in the Kolo County in central Poland became operational on 8 December 1941. The name given by the German occupation authorities to Chelmno was Kulmhof.
The entire Jewish population from the Warthegau was to be exterminated there by means of poisonous gases. The Wartheland, a territory incorporated into the Third Reich, included both the Wielkopolska and the Lodz Provinces.
The reasons for choosing the village of Chelmno as a site for an extermination camp included – its location by the road connecting the town of Kolo The town was called Warthbrücken during the occupation, an important regional centre, with a Jewish population of approximately 2300 people. Kolo station played an integral part in the history of Chelmno, as it was on the main line between Lodz and Poznan.
Deportees arrived fromLodz and other places in the Warthegau in closed cattle wagons. Here they were transferred to the narrow gauge railway for the trip to Powercie, and then by truck or foot onto Chelmno.
Another reason for choosing Chelmno was its proximity to a forest and to an abandoned palace on the edge of the village just 150 meters off the road.
Thus the access to the palace was convenient, and at the same time the distance from the road was far enough to avoid unwanted outsiders. The palace was renovated and adapted to receive the intended victims. The church near the palace was transformed into a point for the concentration of victims before they were directed into the camp. The granary and several other buildings were also part of the death camp.
The Ner River flowed by the church, although it was not very deep, it posed a serious obstacle for potential runaways and made it easier for the guards to isolate the camp.
The village of Powiercie, eight kilometres from Chelmno, is linked to Kolo by a narrow- gauge railway. Thus the Nazis could transport their victims by trucks, as well as by rail.
The palace in Chelmno was one of two extermination facilities. The second one was located in the clearings in the Rzuchow Forest, four kilometres from the palace. The bodies of the murdered Jews were buried in mass graves in three clearings, referred to as the Forest Camp (Waldlager) Later at this location the Germans built crematories in order to obliterate the evidence of their crimes.
For the purpose of mass killing specially adapted trucks were deployed. Such trucks had been previously used by the Einsatzgruppen, who carried out mass killings in Russia. The vehicles were reinforced to carry heavy loads and equipped with tightly sealed doors. The exhaust pipe was redirected to a vent in the middle of the truck, which would fill the rear compartment completely with gas. The camp at Chelmno had three such vehicles at its disposal.
In the beginning of November 1941 two groups of Nazis arrived in Chelmno, they formed the personnel of the Chelmno death camp. The first small group consisted of 15 people – members of the Sicherheitspolizei. These were SS-men earlier employed in the centre of mass extermination of the ill and handicapped in Dzialdowo, Warminsko- Mazurskie Province. About 25,000 people suffering from tuberculosis, mainly Poles were executed there as part of Hitler’s “Euthanasia Program” The other group consisted of about 100 people – members of the Schutzpolizei from the battalion stationed in Lodz.
Both groups formed the personnel of the camp called the “Sonderkommando Kulmhof”. SS- Haupsturmfuhrer Herbert Lange, the commander of the group of the Sicherheitspolizei, became the commandant of the camp. Because of this fact, the name “Sonderkommando Lange” often appears in some German documents. After a few months Lange was transferred from Chelmno and his post was filled by SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Bothmann, SS-Obersturmführer Herbert Otto became the second in command.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/chelmno.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
Preben Munch-Neilsen and the Rescue of the Danish Jews
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Preben Munch- Nielsen was born on 13 June 1926 in the fishing village of Snekkersten, Denmark. He was brought up by his grandmother, who was also responsible for raising five other grandchildren.
During his schooling he commuted daily to a school in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, approximately 25 miles south of Snekkersten.
Preben Munch Nielsen recalled his schooldays:
“There were very few Jews in my elementary school, but I didn’t think of them as Jews, we were all just Danes.”
On 9 April 1940 the Germans invaded Denmark and Preben recalled his early contact with the occupiers, and his rescue work:
“In April 1940 I arrived in Copenhagen, where I saw planes overhead and German officers in the street. I joined the resistance as a courier, but I became more involved in October 1943, when the Gestapo hunting down Danish Jews.”
In the spring of 1943, however, the situation changed. Inspired by the Allies’ progress in the war, the Danish people stepped up their resistance to the German occupation. Labour strikes and acts of sabotage intensified.
On August 28, 1943, the German military commander in Denmark declared a state of emergency
and commanded the Danish government to institute martial law. Acts of sabotage were to be punishable by death, the press was to be censored, and demonstrations were to be banned. The Danish government refused to accept these measures and resigned.
The presiding Nazi official, Werner Best, saw this as an opportunity to begin the deportation of the Danish Jews and the arrests were set to begin on October 2, but the efforts of Best were not to prove fruitful.
Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, a German official stationed in Denmark, leaked the news of the pending deportation to Danish leaders, who informed the Jewish community.
The people of Denmark, aided by members of the resistance, church leaders, students, policemen, physicians, ordinary citizens, spontaneously came together to thwart the arrest and deportation of the Danish Jews.
Preben Munch Nielsen, a high school student from Snekkersten, a fishing village north of Copenhagen, was among those who participated. The rescue work carried the death penalty but this did not deter the resolve of the rescue teams.
Preben’s first mission recalled:
A policeman came to his house and asked him to pick up several Jews at a nearby train station and escort them through the woods to the shore. They would be smuggled by boat across the sound to Sweden.
Preben completed the mission and joined the Friends of the Sound, a group of Danes based in Snekkersten that co-ordinated the secret crossings to Sweden, which was a neutral country, and the Swedish Government encouraged its citizens to welcome and harbour Jews.
The Friends of the Sound used the Snekkersten Inn as their headquarters, many Jews hid in the Inn, or in nearby
homes.
Read the full article here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/survivor/preben.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
