The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (128 page)

237. For a detailed analysis see David Engel,
In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-Exile and the Jews, 1939–1942
(Chapel Hill, NC, 1987), pp. 180ff.

238. On this issue the Western Allies stood on the side of the Soviet Union, almost from the outset. The Soviet demands were explicitly accepted at the Tehran conference in November 1943 and reconfirmed at Yalta in February 1945. For a spirited defense of the Polish positions see, among numerous other studies, Norman Davies,
Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw
(London, 2003).

239. For this specific threat see Tuvia Friling,
Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership, and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust
(Madison, WI, 2005), vol. 1, p. 88.

240. On Kot’s negotiations in Palestine see Shabtai Teveth,
Ben-Gurion and the Holocaust
(New York, 1996), pp. 35ff.; see also David Engel, “Soviet Jewry in the Thinking of the Yishuv Leadership 1939–1943,” in
The Holocaust in the Soviet Union
ed. Lucjan Dobroszycki and Jeffrey S. Gurock, (Armonk, NY, 1993), pp. 111ff.

241. Friling,
Arrows in the Dark
; vol. 1, p. 64.

242. Porat,
The Blue and the Yellow Stars
, p. 259.

243. About Gerstein and his mission see Saul Friedländer,
Kurt Gerstein, The Ambiguity of Good
(New York, 1969) particularly pp. 100ff.

244. Ibid., pp. 109–10.

245. Ibid., pp. 117–19.

246. Ibid., pp. 122–26.

247. Ibid., pp. 128–29.

248. Ibid., p. vii.

249. For Vendel’s report see Jozef Lewandowski, “Early Swedish Information about the Nazis’ Mass Murder of the Jews,”
Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry
(2000), vol. 13, pp. 113ff.

250. The translation of Vendel’s report is based on Lewandowski’s translation as well as on that of Steven Kublik. Kublik is the first historian to have published Vendel’s report. See Steven Kublik,
The Stones Cry Out
(New York, 1987).

251. Lewandowski, “Early Swedish Information about the Nazis’ Mass Murder of the Jews,” p. 123.

252. For the Schulte mission and the Riegner telegram see mainly Gerhart M. Riegner,
Ne Jamais Désesperer: Soixante années au service du peuple juif et des droits de l’homme
(Paris, 1998), pp. 55ff; David S. Wyman,
The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945
(New York, 1998), pp. 42ff.; Martin Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies: How the Allies Responded to the News of Hitler’s Final Solution
(London, 1981), pp. 57ff. See also Walter Laqueur and Richard Breitman,
Breaking the Silence
(New York, 1986).

253. Jean-Claude Favez,
The Red Cross and the Holocaust
(Cambridge, U.K., 1999), pp. 39–41.

254. David S. Wyman,
The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945
(New York, 1998), p. 51.

255. Bernard Wasserstein,
Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1939–1945
(London, 1979), p. 172.

256. Either during the visit or in preparation for it, Roosevelt was handed a memorandum prepared by the World Jewish Congress that described the extermination in precise details and mentioned in particular Ozwiecim as one of the main killing centers. For early knowledge in London and Washington about the function of Auschwitz as a major extermination camp, see Barbara Rogers, “British Intelligence and the Holocaust,”
Journal of Holocaust Education
8, no. 1 (1999), pp. 89ff. and particularly 100.

257. Wyman,
The Abandonment of the Jews
, p. 72.

258. Wasserstein,
Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1939–1945
, p. 173.

259. Willi A. Boelcke, ed.,
Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg? Die geheimen Goebbels Konferenzen 1939–1943
(Herrsching, 1989), p. 313.

260. For Wise’s information, see Henry L. Feingold,
The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938–1945
(New Brunswick, NJ, 1970), p. 170. See, moreover, Heinrich Himmler,
Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42
, ed. Peter Witte et al. (Hamburg, 1999), p. 619, n. 43.

261. Heiber,
Reichsführer! Briefe an und von Himmler
, p. 169.

262. Friedländer,
Pius XII
, pp. 104ff. Strangely enough Bernardini’s report has not been included in the volumes of documents published by the Vatican.

263. Pierre Blet, Angelo Martini, and Burkhart Schneider, eds.,
Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale
(Vatican City, 1974), vol. 8, p. 453.

264. Ibid., p. 534 (quoted and translated in Zuccotti,
Under His Very Windows
, p. 102).

265. For most of the details, see Shimon Redlich, “Metropolitan Andrei Sheptys’kyi, Ukrainians and Jews During and After the Holocaust,” in
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
5, no. 1 (1990), pp. 39ff.

266. Blet, Martini, and Schneider,
Actes et documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la Seconde Guerre mondiale
(Vatican City, 1967), vol. 3, part 2, pp. 625 and 628. Excerpted and translated in Redlich, “Metropolitan Andrei Sheptys’kyi, Ukrainians and Jews During and After the Holocaust,” pp. 45–46.

267. Friedländer,
Pius XII
, pp. 121–22.

268. Cable from Tittman to Hull, 10/10/1942 in ibid., pp. 123–24.

269. John Cornwell,
Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
(New York, 1999), pp. 290–91.

270. Ibid. About Maglione’s answer, see also Friedländer,
Pius XII
, p. 125.

271. Friedländer,
Pius XII
, p. 131.

272. On these reactions, see Cornwell,
Hitler’s Pope
, p. 293.

273. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 6, p. 508.

274. For this anonymous report see Kulka/Jäckel,
Die Juden
, p. 511.

275. Martin Gilbert,
Auschwitz and the Allies
(New York, 1981), p. 105.

276. For this text, see Saul Friedländer, “History, Memory and the Historian: Dilemmas and Responsibilities,”
New German Critique
80 (Spring-Summer 2000), pp. 3–4.

Chapter Eight: March 1943–October 1943

1. Louise Jacobson and Nadia Kaluski-Jacobson,
Les Lettres de Louise Jacobson et de ses proches: Fresnes, Drancy, 1942–1943
(Paris, 1997), p. 141.

2. Ibid., pp. 41–42.

3. For a vivid description of the Battle of Kursk, see Michael Burleigh,
The Third Reich: A New History
(London, 2000), pp. 510–11.

4. For a good summary of these developments see Ian Kershaw,
Hitler, 1936–45: Nemesis
(New York, 2000), pp. 566ff. For a lively but obviously self-serving description of the intrigues that swirled at the highest reaches of the regime, particularly around the “Committee of Three” and other attempts at reorganization, see Albert Speer,
Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs
(New York, 1970), pp. 252ff.

5. For the translation of the speech excerpts and the reference to Körner’s verse, see Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds.,
Nazism, 1919–1945: A Documentary Reader
, vol. 4:
The German Home Front in World War II
(Exeter, UK, 1998), pp. 490ff.

6. Moses Flinker,
Young Moshe’s Diary: The Spiritual Torment of a Jewish Boy in Nazi Europe
, ed. Shaul Esh and Geoffrey Wigoder (Jerusalem, 1971), pp. 78–79.

7. Mihail Sebastian,
Journal, 1935–1944
(Chicago, 2000), p. 546.

8. Victor Klemperer,
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942–1945
(New York, 1999), p. 202.

9. Joseph Goebbels,
Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels: Sämtliche Fragmente
, ed. Elke Fröhlich (Munich, 1996), part 2, vol. 7, p. 287.

10. Adolf Hitler,
Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945: Kommentiert von einem deutschen Zeitgenossen
, ed. Max Domarus, 4 vols. (Leonberg, 1987–88), part 2, vol. 4, p. 2001.

11. Goebbels,
Tagebücher
, part 2, vol. 8, p. 119.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid., p. 235.

14. Ibid., p. 261.

15. Ibid., pp. 287ff.

16. Ibid.

17. Ibid., pp. 287–88.

18. Ibid., pp. 288ff and 90.

19. Quoted and translated in Noakes and Pridham, eds.,
Nazism
, vol. 4, p. 497.

20. Klemperer,
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942–1945
, pp. 230–31.

21. Ibid., p. 234.

22. Ibid., pp. 235–36.

23. Kulka and Jäckel,
Die Juden
, p. 517.

24. Ibid.

25. Klemperer,
I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1942–1945
, p. 304.

26. For ideological fanaticism in the RSHA, see mainly Michael Wildt,
Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des Reichssicherheitshauptamtes
(Hamburg, 2002), and Yaacov Lozowick,
Hitlers Bürokraten: Eichmann, seine willigen Vollstrecker und die Banalität des Bösen
(Zurich, 2000); for the WVHA main figures see in particular Michael Thad Allen,
The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor and the Concentration Camps
(Chapel Hill, NC, 2002).

27. All the details about these documents (which were declassified by the British Public Record Office in 2001) are taken from Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas, “A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during ‘Einsatz Reinhardt 1942,’”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
15, no. 3 (2001), pp. 468ff.

28. Ibid., p. 470.

29. Heinrich Himmler,
Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42
, ed. Peter Witte et al. (Hamburg, 1999), p. 513 n. 32.

30. Witte and Tyas, “A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during ‘Einsatz Reinhardt 1942,’” p. 476.

31. Helmut Heiber,
Reichsführer! Briefe an und von Himmler
(Munich, 1970), p. 183. Quoted and translated in Gerald Fleming,
Hitler and the Final Solution
(Berkeley, 1984), p. 136.

32. Fleming,
Hitler and the Final Solution
, p. 136.

33. Ibid., p. 137. See also Raul Hilberg, “Le bilan démographique du génocide,” in
L’Allemagne nazie et le génocide juif: Colloque de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)
, ed. École des hautes études en sciences sociales (Paris, 1985), pp. 265ff.

34. For the report and the estimate see the introduction to Wolfgang Benz, ed.,
Dimension des Völkermords: Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus
(Munich, 1991), p. 3.

35. For this argument see Hilberg, “Le bilan démographique du génocide,” p. 265.

36. Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
(New Haven, 1961), vol. 1, pp. 407–8.

37. Fleming,
Hitler and the Final Solution
, p. 138.

38. Nuremberg doc. 015-PS, U.S. Office of Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality and International Military Tribunal,
Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression
, 8 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1946), vol. 3, pp. 41–45.

39. Fleming,
Hitler and the Final Solution
, p. 139.

40. Ibid., p. 137.

41. Andreas Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner und Diplomaten bei Hitler: Vertrauliche Aufzeichnungen über Unterredungen mit Vertretern des Auslandes
(Frankfurt am Main, 1970), vol. 2, pp. 256–57.

42. Eugene Levai,
Black Book on the Martyrdom of Hungarian Jewry
(Zurich, 1948), p. 33.

43. Translated and excerpted in Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
, vol. 2, pp. 877–78.

44. The most detailed survey of the events in Bulgaria remains Frederick B. Chary,
The Bulgarian Jews and the Final Solution, 1940–1944
(Pittsburgh, 1972).

45. Ingrid Krüger-Bulcke and Hans George Lehmann, eds.,
Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, 1918–1945, Ser. E, 1941–1945
(Göttingen, 1978), vol. 5, p. 521.

46. Ibid., p. 538.

47. Livia Rothkirchen, “The Situation of the Jews in Slovakia between 1939 and 1945,”
Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung
7 (1998).

48. For Ludin’s report see Ingrid Krüger-Bulcke and Hans Georg Lehmann,
Aktien zur deutschen auswärtige Politik, 1918–1945, Ser. E, 1941–1945,
vol. 5 (Göttingen, 1978) pp. 581ff.

49. Hillgruber,
Staatsmänner
, vol. 2, p. 268. Hitler’s unbridled obsession with all aspects of the Jewish question took on yet another weird aspect when he corrected Tiso about Lord Rothermere; according to the Nazi leader, Rothermere was not a Jew but had a Jewish mistress, Princess Hohenlohe, born Richter from Vienna. Ibid., p. 268.

50.
Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals
, 15 vols., vol. 13
U.S. v. von Weizsaecker: The Ministries Case
. (Washington, DC, 1952), Nuremberg doc. Steengracht 64, pp. 300–301.

51. On the extermination of Croatian Jewry see mainly Menachem Shelach, ed.,
Yugoslavia
(Jerusalem: 1990), pp. 137ff [Hebrew].

52. For the exact date of Wisliceny’s and Brunner’s arrival in Salonika, see Daniel Carpi, “Salonika during the Holocaust: A New Approach,” in
The Last Ottoman Century and Beyond: The Jews in Turkey and the Balkans 1808–1945
, ed. Minna Rozen (Ramat-Aviv, 2002), p. 263n9.

53. Mark Mazower,
Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950
(New York, 2004), pp. 402 and 411.

54. For the role played by Simonides and Altenburg, see in particular Andrew Apostolou, “The Exception of Salonika: Bystanders and Collaborators in Northern Greece,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
14, no. 2 (Fall 2000), pp. 179ff.

55. Mazower,
Salonica, City of Ghosts
, pp. 392ff. and 411.