The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945 (129 page)

56. Ibid., p. 405.

57. Ibid., pp. 392ff.

58. For a more nuanced view of Koretz’s role, see Minna Rozen, “Jews and Greeks Remember Their Past: The Political Career of Tsevi Koretz (1933–43),”
Jewish Social Studies
12, no. 1 (2005), pp. 111ff.

59. Ibid., p. 401.

60. Apostolou, “The Exception of Salonika,” pp. 181ff.

61. Ibid., p. 183.

62. Carpi, “Salonika During the Holocaust: A New Approach,” p. 271.

63. Ibid., p. 272.

64. Ingrid Krüger-Bulcke and Hans Georg Lehmann,
Aktien zur deutschen auswärtige Politik, 1918–1945, Ser. E, 1941–1945,
vol. 5 (Göttingen, 1978), pp. 731ff.

65. Mazower,
Salonica, City of Ghosts
, p. 407.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid., pp. 397–99.

68. Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton, eds.,
Archives of the Holocaust: An International Collection of Selected Documents
, 22 vols. (New York, 1993), vol. 20, doc. 7, pp. 17–18. The “Da” appellation (Da 152) was generally used for deportation trains; it was most probably an abbreviation for “
Durchgangaussiedler-[Zug]
” (“evacuees’ transit train”). See Götz Aly,
Im Tunnel: Das kurze Leben der Marion Samuel 1931–1943
(Frankfurt am Main, 2004), p. 137.

69. Raul Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews,
3 vols. (New Haven, Conn., 2003), vol. 2, pp. 424ff and particularly p. 429.

70. Quoted in Tatiana Berenstein, ed.,
Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord: Dokumentation über Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des zweiten Weltkrieges
(East Berlin, 1961), p. 321.

71. Adalbert Rückerl, ed.,
NS-Prozesse. Nach 25 Jahren Strafverfolgung: Möglichkeiten, Grenzen, Ergebnisse
(Karlsruhe, 1971), p. 114 (quoted in Yitzhak Arad,
Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps
(Bloomington, IN, 1987), p. 51).

72. Alfred C. Mierzejewski, “A Public Enterprise in the Service of Mass Murder: The Deutsche Reichsbahn and the Holocaust,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
15, no. 1 (Spring 2001), p. 36.

73. Ibid.

74. Nuremberg doc. PS-3688 (quoted in Arad,
Belzec
, p. 52).

75. Berenstein,
Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord
, p. 346.

76. Friedlander and Milton,
Archives of the Holocaust
, vol. 20, doc. 8. Incidentally the matter received its formal closure on May 26. On that day the Regierungspräsident in Düsseldorf informed the Gestapo that all the assets of Elsa Sara Frankenberg, Julius Israel Meier, and Augusta Sara Meier from Krefeld, who had committed suicide before their deportation to Izbica, had been credited to the Reich. The relevant ordinance was published in the
Deutsche Reichsanzeiger und Preussische Staatsanzeiger
no. 112 of May 15, 1942. Ibid., vol. 20, doc 10.

77. Quoted and translated in Arad,
Belzec
, p. 145.

78. Oskar Rosenfeld,
In the Beginning Was the Ghetto: Notebooks from Lódz
, ed. Hanno Loewy (Evanston, IL, 2002), pp. 11–12.

79. Primo Levi,
Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity
(New York, 1958; reprint, 1996), p. 18.

80. Ibid.

81. Ruth Kluger,
Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered
(New York, 2001), pp. 91–92.

82. Christopher R. Browning,
Collected Memories: Holocaust History and Postwar Testimony
(Madison, WI, 2003), p. 75.

83. Ibid., p. 76.

84. Ibid., pp. 76–77.

85. Ibid., pp. 78ff.

86. Ibid., p. 81.

87. Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds.,
Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union
(Jerusalem, 1981), pp. 287ff.

88. Ibid., p. 289–90.

89. For various aspects of these plans see Allen,
The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor and the Concentration Camps
, pp. 245ff.

90. Berenstein,
Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord
, pp. 354–55.

91. Ibid., p. 356.

92. Hans Frank,
Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945
, ed. Werner Präg and Wolfgang Jacobmeyer (Stuttgart, 1975), pp. 681–82.

93. Each category of stolen goods demanded the issuing and implementing of precise rulings, mostly issued by the Finance Ministry for customs’ use. See, among others, Michael MacQueen, “The Conversion of Looted Assets to Run the German War Machine,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
18, no. 1 (Spring 2004), p. 31.

94. Ibid., p. 30.

95. Ibid., p. 31.

96. For the Degussa involvement see now Peter Hayes,
From Cooperation to Complicity: Degussa in the Third Reich
(Cambridge, MA, 2004).

97. MacQueen, “The Conversion of Looted Assets to Run the German War Machine,” pp. 34ff.

98. Nuremberg doc. NO-724, quoted in Rückerl,
NS-Prozesse
, pp. 109–11.

99. For these details see Bertrand Perz and Thomas Sandkühler, “Auschwitz und die ‘Aktion Reinhard’ 1942–1945: Judenmord und Raubpraxis in neuer Sicht,”
Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft
5, no. 26 (1999), p. 291.

100. Note included in Nuremberg doc. NG-3058,
The Ministries Case
, pp. 201–4. Much of this booty must have found its way to the
Judenmärkte
(Jew markets) described in Frank Bajohr,
“Arisierung” in Hamburg: Die Verdrängung der jüdischen Unternehmer 1933–1945
(Hamburg, 1997), and particularly Bajohr, “The Beneficiaries of ‘Aryanization’: Hamburg as a Case Study,”
Yad Vashem Studies
26 (1998), pp. 198ff.

101. Filip Müller,
Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers
(Chicago, 1999), p. 12.

102. For these specific details see Götz Aly, “Arisierung: Enteignung: Was geschah mit den Besitztümern der ermodeten Juden Europas? Zur Ökonomie der Nazis,”
Die Zeit
47 (2002), p. 47.

103. Berenstein,
Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord
, pp. 421–22.

104. Tatiana Berenstein, ed.,
Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord: Dokumentation über Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des zweiten Weltkrieges
(East Berlin, 1961), pp. 412–13.

105. Joseph Walk, ed.,
Das Sonderrecht für die Juden im NS-Staat: Eine Sammlung der gesetzlichen Massnahmen und Richtlinien, Inhalt und Bedeutung
(Heidelberg, 1981), p. 399.

106. Perz and Sandkühler, “Auschwitz und die ‘Aktion Reinhard’ 1942–1945: Judenmord und Raubpraxis in neuer Sicht,” p. 292.

107. See Raul Hilberg, “Auschwitz,” in Laqueur and Baumel,
The Holocaust Encyclopedia
(New Haven, 2001), p. 37.

108. According to Wolfgang Sofsky’s computation, the gassing capacity of Bunker I was 800 persons, of Bunker II: 1,200 persons, of crematoriums II, III, IV, and V, 3,000 persons each. See Wolfgang Sofsky,
The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp
(Princeton, 1997), p. 263.

109. Allen,
The Business of Genocide
, p. 141.

110. Quoted in ibid. On Kammler see, moreover, Rainer Fröbe, “Hans Kammler, Technokrat der Vernichtung,” in
Die SS: Elite unter dem Totenkopf: 30 Lebensläufe,
ed. Ronald M. Smelser and Enrico Syring (Paderborn, 2000), pp. 305ff. and particularly pp. 310ff.

111. Quoted in Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, and Adalbert Rückerl, eds.,
Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas
(New Haven, 1993), pp. 157–58.

112. All the technical details about the functioning of the gas chamber in Crematorium II are taken from Jamie McCarthy, Daniel Keren, and Harry W. Mazal, “The Ruins of the Gas Chambers: A Forensic Investigation of Crematoriums at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
(2004), pp. 68ff.

113. Sybille Steinbacher,
Auschwitz: A History
(London, 2005), p. 99.

114. Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
, vol. 3, p. 946.

115. Levi,
Survival in Auschwitz
, pp. 19–20. Exactly 536 members of Levi’s transport were immediately gassed. See Myriam Anissimov,
Primo Levi: Tragedy of an Optimist
(Woodstock, NY, 2000), p. 105.

116. Kluger,
Still Alive
, p. 94.

117. Quoted in Hermann Langbein,
People in Auschwitz
(Chapel Hill, NC, 2004), pp. 65–66.

118. Kogon, Langbein, and Rückerl,
Nazi Mass Murder
, p. 133.

119. Robert Jay Lifton and Amy Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” in
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
, ed. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (Bloomington, 1994), p. 313. For an overview of the medical experiments in Auschwitz and in other camps, see, among a vast literature, Robert Jay Lifton,
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
(New York, 1986).

120. See for example Eugen Kogon,
Der SS-Staat: Das System der deutschen Konzentrationslager
(Frankfurt, 1964 [1946]), pp. 50–51, as well as almost all general studies about Auschwitz. Thus, see also Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum,
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
(Bloomington, 1994), pp. 20, 312, 398, and others.

121. Hilberg,
The Destruction of the European Jews
, vol. 3, p. 984.

122. Ibid.

123. The process has often been described, also in the diaries of the
Sonderkommando
members. Here, the indications are mainly taken from Gideon Greif,
Wir weinten tränenlos
….
Augenzeugenberichte der jüdischen “Sonderkommandos” in Auschwitz
(Cologne, 1995), pp. xxxivff.

124. This notorious diary is quoted here from Henry Friedlander, “Physicians as Killers in Nazi Germany: Hadamar, Treblinka, and Auschwitz,” in
Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany
, ed. Francis R. Nicosia and Jonathan Huener (New York, 2002), pp. 69–70.

125. Lifton and Hackett, “Nazi Doctors,” p. 310.

126. Kogon, Langbein, and Rückerl,
Nazi Mass Murder
, p. 154.

127. Quoted in Danuta Czech, “The Auschwitz Prisoner Administration,” in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum.
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
(Bloomington, 1994), p. 374. For the periodic liquidiation of members of the
Sonderkommando
see Greif,
Wir weinten tränenlos
, p. xxv.

128. The camp experience does not seem to have changed the violence of Polish anti-Semitism. Among a long list of examples, Langbein quotes a Polish woman inmate who declared that notwithstanding the horrible means utilized, the Jewish problem in Poland was being solved: “This may sound paradoxical,” she concluded, “but we owe this to Hitler.” See Langbein,
People in Auschwitz
, p. 75.

129. Yisrael Gutman, “Social Stratification in the Concentration Camps,” in
The Nazi Concentration Camps: Structure and Aims, the Image of the Prisoner, the Jews in the Camps
, ed. Yisrael Gutman and Avital Saf (Jerusalem, 1984), p. 172.

130. Quoted in Langbein,
People in Auschwitz
, pp. 78–79.

131. See Danuta Czech, “The Auschwitz Prisoner Administration” in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum,
Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp
(Bloomington, 1994), pp. 363ff.

132. Peter Hayes, “Auschwitz, Capital of the Holocaust,”
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
17, no. 2 (2003), p. 330.

133. Walter Manoschek, ed.,
“Es gibt nur eines für das Judentum—Vernichtung”: Das Judenbild in deutschen Soldatenbriefen 1939–1944
(Hamburg, 1997), p. 63.

134. For the total number of SS personnel see Steinbacher,
Auschwitz: A History
, p. 40.

135. See for example Norbert Frei et al., ed.,
Standort-und Kommandanturbefehle des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz 1940–1945
(Munich, 2000), p. 472.

136. See in particular Gabriele Knapp,
Das Frauenorchester in Auschwitz: Musikalische Zwangsarbeit und ihre Bewältigung
(Hamburg, 1996).

137. Steinbacher,
Auschwitz, a History
, p. 42.

138. Sybille Steinbacher,
“Musterstadt” Auschwitz: Germanisierungspolitik und Judenmord in Ostoberschlesien
(Munich, 2000), p. 247

139. Rudolf Höss,
Kommandant in Auschwitz: Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen
, ed. Martin Broszat (Stuttgart, 1958), p. 190.

140. Elizabeth Harvey,
Women and the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of Germanization
(New Haven, 2003), p. 216.

141. Ibid., p. 216–17.

142. Peter Longerich,
“Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!”: Die Deutschen und die Judenverfolgung 1933–1945
(München, 2006), p. 236–37.

143. Ibid., p. 237.

144. Quoted in Noakes and Pridham,
Nazism
, vol. 3, p. 614.

145. Hans Mommsen, “Der Widerstand gegen Hitler und die nationalsozialistische Jundenverfolgung,” in
Alternative zu Hitler: Studien zur Geschichte des deutschen Widerstandes
, (Munich, 2000), pp. 396ff.

146. Helmuth James von Moltke,
Letters to Freya: 1939–1945
, ed. Beate Ruhm von Oppen (New York, 1990), p. 252.

147. For the details and the quotations, see Wolfgang Gerlach,
And the Witnesses Were Silent: The Confessing Church and the Persecution of the Jews
, ed. Victoria Barnett (Lincoln, NE, 2000), pp. 210 and 212ff.

148. Ibid., p. 213.

149. Ibid.

150. For the text of the leaflet see Inge Scholl,
The White Rose: Munich, 1942–1943
(Middletown, CT, 1983), p. 78.

151. SD-Aussenstelle Detmold, 31.7.42, Staatsarchiv Detmold,
Preußische Regierung Minden.
I thank Dr. Sybille Steinbacher for examination of this document.