Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (66 page)

As has already been outlined, according to Eichmann’s own statements he

visited the camp while it was still under construction in late summer or autumn.

Given the advanced state of the building work that he describes, a date in the

winter would seem more likely. However, it is also possible that in his recollections

he was confusing this visit with a later visit to Treblinka, which was also under

construction at the time.
115
Some weeks after work began in Belzec. On 27 and 28

November 1941 a meeting of T4 specialists was held in Pirna (Saxony). There, as

one of the participants wrote beforehand to his wife, ‘future developments’ would

be discussed.
116

However, there was another reason why mid-October was a particularly

critical phase in Judenpolitik in the the district of Lublin. On 20 October 1941,

accompanied by Ribbentrop, Himmler met the Slovakian President, Joseph

Tiso, his Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Vojtech Tuka and the Slovak-

ian Interior Minister, Sano Mach, and made the head of the Slovakian state

the offer of deporting the Slovakian Jews to a particularly remote area of the

General Government.
117
There is much to suggest that this offer formed the 296

Final Solution on a European Scale, 1941

starting point for the construction of a second extermination camp in the

district of Lublin, Sobibor.
118
There are—unconfirmed—indications that the building of Sobibor was already being prepared in late 1941, but that the

beginning of construction was postponed until the spring of 1942
.119
When the deportation of the Slovakian Jews, first mooted in October 1941, began

in May 1942 it was in fact Jews from the district of Lublin who were first

murdered in Sobibor. But, from June onwards, the Slovakian Jews were included

as well.

There are also indications that in November 1941 the district physician in the

district of Galicia, Dorpheide, tried to have staff from the T4 organization made

available to him in Lvov, the district capital, to murder mentally ill people. This

might, however, have to do with the construction of another extermination camp

in the district of Galicia which was never realized.
120

The fact that Belzec’s capacity for murder was initially limited (the camp was to

be considerably extended in the spring), and that the construction of the other

extermination camps in the General Government began only in the spring of 1942,

indicates that, in the autumn of 1941, Globocnik had still received no orders to

make preparations for the murder of all the Jews in the General Government, but

that his assignment covered the district of Lublin, and perhaps already the district

of Galicia as well.
121

The further radicalization of the persecutory measures in the General Govern-

ment, particularly in the districts of Lublin and Galicia, had already been heralded

since the beginning of 1942. On 20 January 1942 the Department of Population and

Welfare of the government of the General Government called upon the relevant

district governors’ offices to provide detailed information about the existing

ghettos and their Jewish inhabitants.
122

In the district of Lublin compulsory identity cards were introduced for Jews

in early February, and in March the papers of those still required as workers

were marked accordingly.
123
From January 1942 the civil administration in the district of Galicia had planned the ‘resettlement’ of Jews unfit for work from

Lvov to the surrounding communities (Gemeinden) in the district. Early in

January the district (Kreis) leaders were ordered to have the Jewish councils

arrest any Jews who had immigrated illegally and ‘hand them over to the relevant

security office to be transported to camps for intensified, long-term forced

labour service’.
124
In practice, this meant ‘extermination through work’ in the SS forced labour camps.
125
The ‘action’ itself, which was originally to take place on 1 March, was then postponed to the period after 1 April.
126
It is unclear whether the planned ‘resettlement’ to the rural communities was a euphemism

for deportation to Belzec, or whether the plans were further radicalized in the

first months of 1942
.127
At any rate the Jewish council was ‘instructed to provide a list all those Jews and Jewish families who were not engaged in productive

labour’.
128

Autumn 1941: Deportation and Mass Murders

297

General Commissariat Ostland: The Mass Murders

in Kovno (Kaunas), Riga, and Minsk

From the beginning of October 1941 the Security Police in the territory of the

German-installed General Commissariat Ostland (incorporating the Baltic states

and Belarus) once again pursued the plan already set out in August 1941 for the

construction of a large concentration camp near Riga. The reason it now gave was the

need to accommodate the expected 25,000 Jews transported from the Reich.
129
This wish was authorized by the RSHA. In the further negotiations with the civil administration Franz Stahlecker, the BdS Eastland, referred expressly to a ‘wish’ of Hitler’s to set up a large concentration camp for Jews from the Reich and the Protectorate in the

area around Riga and Mitau.
130

However, Reichskommissar Hinrich Lohse, the head of the civil administration,

tried to prevent this project. As we have already seen, while Lohse was trying to

find an alternative, Wetzel, the Jewish expert of the Eastern Ministry, in his

notorious memorandumn of 25 October, offered to send him euthanasia staff to

build a gas chamber in Riga.
131

On 8 November, ignoring the Reich Commissar’s protests, Lange informed

Lohse about the imminent arrival of 50,000 Jews, 25,000 each for Riga and Minsk.

The first transport would arrive in Riga on 19 November. As the construction of

the planned concentration camp had not advanced in the meantime, the first five

Riga transports could be redirected to the ghetto in Kovno (Kaunas). There was

also, Lange wrote, a temporary possibility of accommodation in Jungfernhof

(Jumpravmuiza), in the grounds of a former airport.
132
The following day, Lohse’s political adviser, Friedrich Trampedach, wrote to the Eastern Ministry with a

request to stop these transports as ‘Jewish camps must be moved considerably

further to the East’.
133
The Eastern Ministry replied immediately that the camps in Riga and Minsk were only temporary measures: ‘Jews are going further East . . .

Hence no concerns.’
134

A short time before, another message from the Eastern Ministry had reached

Lohse’s office, in which the Reich Commissar had been asked to respond to

accusations from the RSHA that he had ‘prohibited the executions of Jews in

Libau’. On 7 November Lohse’s adviser Trampedach had also, in response to

complaints from Wehrmacht authorities, instructed the District Commissar of

Vilnius to prevent further shootings of Jewish skilled workers; in a file note he had

demanded ‘fundamental instructions’ on this matter. Moreover, early in Novem-

ber a complaint from District Commissar Kube concerning murder actions

carried out by the SS in Belarus had reached Lohse.
135
Thus, there were reasons enough for Lohse to request fundamental clarification about further action in the

‘Jewish question’.

298

Final Solution on a European Scale, 1941

Lohse reacted to these objections on 15 November. He made it clear to the

Eastern Ministry that he had banned the ‘arbitrary executions of Jews in Libau’

because ‘the manner of their execution had been unacceptable’. Lohse now

requested the Eastern Ministry for clarification about whether its position could

be understood as being ‘that all the Jews in the Ostland are to be liquidated’, and

whether this was to occur ‘without concern for age and sex and economic interests’

(e.g the Wehrmacht’s interest in ‘skilled workers in munitions factories’).
136

The reply from the Eastern Ministry reached Riga on 22 December: referring

to ‘oral discussions’ that had taken place in the meantime, it was stated that

‘economic concerns . . . should be fundamentally disregarded in dealing with

the problem’. All doubtful cases were to be resolved directly with the HSSPF.

Thereupon Lohse abandoned his protest.
137

This clear answer from the Eastern Ministry had come after Rosenberg had had

a conversation with Himmler lasting several hours, concerning Judenpolitik

amongst other things.
138
Three days later, at a press conference in the Eastern Ministry, Rosenberg had delivered his confidential declaration, already mentioned

above, in which he had spoken openly of the ‘biological extermination of the

whole of Jewry in Europe’, and stated that ‘they were to be forced over the Urals or

otherwise exterminated’.
139

The first transport to the Minsk ghetto left Hamburg on 8 November.
140
The previous day the German Security Police and auxiliaries had murdered some

12,000 inhabitants of the Minsk ghetto in a ‘large action’. The Jews from the

Reich were now placed in their accommodation. Protests against the deportations

came from various sources: the commanders of the Army Group Centre, Field-

Marshall von Bock, and the Wehrmacht Commander Ostland raised objections,

in particular because of the overstretched transport situation.
141
On 16 December, the Commissar General for White Russia, Wihelm Kube, advised Lohse against

further transports of Jews from the Reich, since he wanted to see ‘people who

come from our cultural background’ treated differently from the ‘indigenous,

animalistic hordes’.
142
The Minsk deportations were actually suspended after eight transports (the last one left Vienna on 28 November).

However, when the deportations to Riga began on 19 November, the construc-

tion of the concentration camp planned for the German Jews in the area of Riga

had not even begun.
143
The Jews transported from Germany were to build the camp themselves, in unimaginably primitive conditions in the middle of winter.
144

As in Lodz and in Minsk, the relevant offices in Riga were placed in an impossible

situation in November 1941 when they were called upon to accommodate 25,000

Jews in the shortest possible time; the officials on the ground responded to the

challenge with a radical, murderous solution.

The first five transports meant for Riga, from Frankfurt am Main, Munich,

Vienna, Breslau, and Berlin, with around 5,000 people, were redirected via

Kaunas. All the transportees were shot there immediately on arrival at Fort IX

Autumn 1941: Deportation and Mass Murders

299

by the murder units of Einsatzkommando 3
.145
And as in Minsk, in Riga the inhabitants of the ghetto fell victim to mass murder: between 29 November and

1 December around 4,000 Latvian Jews and between 8 and 9 December an

estimated over 20,000 further ghetto-dwellers were shot.
146
In his Soviet prison, HSSPF Friedrich Jeckeln, the man responsible for the murders, stated that he had

received the order to liquidate the ghetto directly from Himmler in November.

Himmler had also ordered him to kill ‘all Jews in the Ostland down to the last

man’.
147
During the first massacre, 1,000 Jews deported from Berlin were also shot in the early morning of 30 November, immediately on arrival.

After this mass murder, however, the shooting of Jews from the Reich was

temporarily suspended. This is borne out by an entry in Himmler’s telephone

diary for 30 November 1941 about a conversation with Heydrich: ‘Transport of

Jews from Berlin. No liquidation.’
148
However, by this time, the Berlin Jews had already been murdered. On 1 December Himmler sent a radio telegram to Jeckeln,

stating that ‘unauthorized acts and contraventions’ of the ‘guidelines issued by

myself or by the Reich Security Main Office on my behalf’ for how the ‘Jews

resettled to the Ostland territory’ were to be ‘treated’ would be ‘punished’. At

the same time he summoned Jeckeln to discuss the ‘Jewish question’ on 4

December.
149

From the way Himmler had phrased his 1 December telegram it becomes clear

that the murder of the 6,000 people from the Reich had neither been expressly

ordered nor explicitly forbidden; ‘guidelines’ were in place, but no precise instruc-

tions or orders. No general policy for the immediate murder of those deported to

the Eastern European ghettos existed, as is demonstrated by the fate of the

deportees to Lodz and Minsk, who were initially put in ghettos there. If we assume

that the RSHA or Himmler had issued such an explicit order to murder deportees

in Riga, and the Reichsführer SS had revoked it on 30 November, Jeckeln’s rebuke

fom Himmler would make no sense; in that case he would only have been acting

on orders. However, no express prohibition seems to have existed either; had it

done so, Himmler would have referred to such a prohibition in his telegram to

Jeckeln, and not referred in general terms to ‘guidelines’. It appears that it was not

envisaged from the start that the Jews deported from Central Europe would be