A new document on the deportation and murder of Jews during "Einsatz Reinhardt" 1942

Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Volumn 15, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 468-486

  Witte, Peter ^a   Tyas, Stephen ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 63849221567     PISSN: 87566583     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hgs/15.3.468     Document Type: Review

References (104)

1. Richard Breitman, Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew (London: The Penguin Press, 1999), pp. 236-45. The new British Labor government released to the Public Record Office in Kew the first tranche of Second World War decoded material - the German Police Decodes - in 1997. Many more volumes have followed. The Police Decodes are something of a misnomer, since they are not restricted to German Police radio messages, but cover radio transmissions from the whole range of SS and Police organizations, including the Waffen-SS. They also cover mundane subjects such as supplies of food and ammunition or personnel transfers between units, but also occasionally matters of serious historical importance. The latter is the case here. It should be noted that the decoded material was not always appreciated by British Intelligence; though transmitted on January 11, 1943, the messages were not decrypted and distributed until January 15, 1943.
2. Hermann Höfle: born June 19, 1911, Salzburg; trained as car mechanic; NSDAP and SS 1933; briefly imprisoned for political offenses in 1935; December 1939-August 1940 Selbstschlitzführer in Neu Sandez (District Cracow); September 1940-February 1944 Staff SSPF Lublin; fall 1940 camp leader of a Jewish forced labor camp ("Globocnik's Ditch" near Belzec); 1942-43 organized deportations in the District of Lublin and from Warsaw ghetto; March 1944 officer (Schutzhaftlagerführer) in the concentration camp Sachsenbausen; July 1944 with HSSPF Greece; on May 31, 1945, together with Globocnik and other staff officers traced to an alpine hut near Weissensee (Carinthia/Austria) and arrested by soldiers of the "C" Squadon, 4th. Queen's Own Hussars; eyewitness of Globocnik's suicide by cyanide at Schloss Paternion the same day; custody and escape from a US camp; arrested 1961; Höfle committed suicide August 21, 1962 in a Viennese prison before trial. BAB, BDC SSO Hermann Höfle; Dokumentationsarchiv' des Österreichischen Widerstands, file 11 545
3. Dieter Pohl, Von der "Judenpolitik" zum Judenmord. Distrikt Lublin des Generalgouvernements 1939-1944 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1993), pp. 183-84
4. a summary of Höfle's SS records is in Joseph Wulf, Das Dritte Reich und seine Vollstrecker (Frankfurt; Berlin; Wien: Ullstein, 1984), pp. 275-87.
5. Secrecy instructions by Höfle, July 18, 1942, Archivvum Państwowe w Lublinie (henceforth APL), GDL 893, fol. 575-76
6. printed in Józef Kermisz, ed., "Akcje" i "wysiedlenia. " Dokumenty i materialy do dziejów okupacji niemieckicj w polsce (Warsaw; Lodz; Cracow, 1946), vol. 2, pp. 40-41.
7. List of staff officers SSPF Lublin and working staff of the General SS in the district of Lublin, undated (between early fall 1942 and mid-1943), BAB, BDC, SSO Odilo Globocnik.
8. Franz Heim: born on Febnrary 13, 1907. Catholic at first, later gottgläubig (the official Nazi non-church religion). By profession a pharmacist, he joined NSDAP and SA in 1930, a year later the SS. From 1933 to 1934 unemployed, worked from 1935 for the SD. At the beginning of the war active in an Einsatzkammando in Poland. From the end of July to the end of August 1941 Deputy Commander of a "special tasks" (z. b. V. ) Einsatzkommando murdering Jews in former eastern territories of Poland. SS-Oberführer Schöngarth made him deputy in Cracow in September 1941, a position Heim held until the beginning of 1943, when he fell seriously ill. On March 1, 1943 promoted to SS-Standartenführer. Died of cancer February 19, 1944. BAB, BDC, SSO Franz Heim. The authors wish to thank Dieter Pohl for information.
9. Letter from Höfle's office clerk SS-Oberscharführer Franz Hoskowetz to the Commander of the Security Police and the SD Lublin, September 26, 1942; copying Archives of IfZ München, Fb 95/23
10. see also "Abteilg. Reinhart" in a letter from SSPF Lublin (Hoskowetz) to Section Population and Welfare Lublin, September 4, 1942
11. printed in Kermisz, Dokumenty i materialy, vol. 2, p. 39.
12. See Joseph Wulf, Vollstrecker, pp. 277-79, for a number of stunning examples.
13. The abbreviations may have been the reason why British Intelligence seems not to have recognized the significance of the document. The practice of using initial letters for the extermination camps was used in both Globocnik's staff and Eichmann's office: Globocnik's successor in Lublin, Jakob Sporrenburg, recalled that "Globocnik's men would talk about Camp 'S'"; Report on the interrogation of SS Gruppenfübrer Jakob Sporrenberg, London, February 25, 1946, PRO, WO 208/4673 166970, fol. 14. In an interrogation Dieter Wisliceny remembered that the extermination camps were marked only with their initial letters in Eichmann's office: "Q: What was Camp T?" "A: If I correctly recollect, that belonged to the complex Lublin system. I remember having beard the designation Camp T. " "Q: Was that also an annihilation camp?" "A: Yes, Sir. " Wisliceny recalled the Concentration Camp Lublin being marked M for Majdanek. See interrogation Dieter Wisliceny, Nuremberg, November 15, 1945, fols. 2-3
14. printed in John Mendelsohn, ed., The Holocaust (New York; London: Garland, 1982), vol. 8, pp. 72-73.
15. The authors considered but rejected the suggestion that "L" could refer to the murderous Janowska camp in Lwów (Lemberg).
16. See Dieter Pohl, "Die großen Zwangsarbeitslager der SS- und Polizeiführer für Juden im Generalgouvernement 1942-1945," in Ulrich Herbert, Karin Orth, and Christoph Dieckmann, Die nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslager (Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 1998), vol. 1, p. 427.
17. Józef Marszalek, Obozy pracy w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie w latach 1939-1915 (Lublin: Panstwowe Muzeum na Majdanki, 1998), p. 41.
18. Labor Office Warsaw to Section Work, Chief of District Warsaw, May 7, 1941, APL, GDL, sygn. 746, fol. 310.
19. See Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 383-89
20. Pohl, Distrikt Lublin, p. 136
21. Thomas Sandkühler, "Endlösung" in Galizien. Der Judenmord in Ostpolen und die Rettungsinitiativen von Berthold Beitz 1941-1944 (Bonn: J. H. W. Dietz, 1996), p. 590
22. Tadeusz Mencel, ed., Majdanek 1941-1944 (Lublin: Wydawnictwo Lubelski, 1991), p. 443.
23. Several hundred Jews were kept alive for a time, as they were needed for the exhumations and cremations.
24. Already in 1947 Szrojt guessed 600,000 victims of Belzec (Eugeniusz Szrojt, "Obóz zaglady w Belzcu," Biuletyn Glównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni niemieckich w Polsce (1947), p. 44.
25. Hilberg gave a sum total of 550,000 victims (Die Vernichtung der europäischen Juden (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1990), p. 1299.
26. Arad counted 414,000 from identified towns and townships, estimating 600,000 as the lowest possible number (Belzec, p. 127). Marszalek calculated 500,000 (Obozy pracy, p. 6). O'Neil based his calculation mainly on Martin Gilbert's partly outdated Atlas of the Holocaust, and assumed over 805,000 (Robin O'Neil, "Belzec the 'Forgotten' Death Camp," East European Jewish Affairs [EEJA] 28:2 [1998] pp. 49-62)
27. In a critique of O'Neil, Pohl and Witte summed up, from 480,000 to 540,000 (Dieter Pohl and Peter Witte, "The Number of Victims of Belzec Extermination Camp: A Faulty Reassessment," EEJA 31:1 [2001], p. 19).
28. Michael Tregenza guessed "possibly up to one million victims"; Michael Tregenza, "Belzec: Das vergessene Lager des Holocaust" in Ingrid Wojak and Peter Hayes, eds., "Arisierung" im Nationalsozialismus. Volksgemeinschaft, Raub und Gedächtnis. Jahrbuch 2000 (Frankfurt; New York: Campus Verlag, 2000), p. 242.
29. Wolfgang Scheffler, "Zur Zahl der in den Vernichtungslagern der 'Aktion Reinhard' ermordeten Juden" (historical expert opinion of July 3, 1973) in Helge Grabitz and Justizbehörde Hamburg, eds., Täter und Gehilfen des Endlösungswahns. Hamburger Verfahren wegen NS-Gewaltverbrechen 1946-1996 (Hamburg: Ergebnisse Verlag, 1999), p. 240.
30. Historical expert opinion by Wolfgang Scheffler for the first Sobibor Trial at Hagen (1965), excerpted in Adalbert Rückerl, ed., NS-Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmno (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1977), pp. 155-56. This does not necessarily mean that each number of a single deportation listed is correct per se. But it is a known phenomenon in statistics that minor individual mistakes often compensate each other so that the sum may be approximately correct. Arad calculated a minimum of 85,500 victims in 1942 (Belzec, pp. 390-91).
31. Arad, Belzec, pp. 127-28, 392-97. Scheffler's total sum of 926,507 until August 1943 is evidently too high (Scheffler, "Zur Zahl," p. 240).
32. Zugpaar is a German railroad term for one train (not two as the term might suggest) which returns from its destination to the station where it started.
33. Secret radio telegram Krüger to Himmler, December 5, 1942, BAB, NS 19/2655, fol. 69; printed in: Longericb, Ermordung, doc. 83, pp. 221-22
34. excerpted in English in: Arad, Belzec, p. 133.
35. Christian Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde. Die deutsche Wirtschafts- und Vernichtungspolitik in Weißrußland 1941 bis 1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 1999), p. 727, n. 1217.
36. Scheffler in Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager, p. 156
37. see also Grabitz, ed., Táter und Gehilfen des Endlö sungswahns, p. 232.
38. Arnold Hindls was selected in Sobibor for the forced labor camp Staw Nowosiolki, where the trip of about 600 people to Sobibor on foot or in horse-drawn carts started on December 20, 1942. According to this report, many Jews succeeded in escaping from the march at first; about half of these were eventually shot. Only twelve returned to Nowosiolki and went into hiding. See Hindls, Einer kehrte zurück: Bericht eines Deportierten. Veröffentlichung des Leo Baeck Instituts (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1965), pp. 58, 66-69. According to Sobibor survivor Zelda Metz, three men and sixteen young girls from this deportation were selected for work in the extermination camp.
39. See testimony of Zelda Metz, 1945, first publ. in Dokumenty Zbrodni i Meczenstwa (Craców, 1945)
40. quoted from Miriam Novitch, ed., Sobibor. Martyrdom and Revolt (New York: Holocaust Library, 1980), pp. 130-31. Another two survivors of Sobibor, Regina Zielinski and Esther Raab, also gave testimonies on this deportation at various German trials.
41. The question might arise if the identical figures transmitted by Höfle and a little later Korherr refer to total numbers killed or to the number killed plus the number subsequently selected for forced labor in smaller outside camps. For Belzec no such selections have ever been documented, and they seem highly unlikely. With reference to Sobibor, a number of selections from Dutch, French, and Belorussian transports to outside forced-labor camps such as Dorohucza, Trawniki, Old Airport Lublin, and the Concentration Camp Lublin (Majdanek) are reported for 1943, and thus need not be taken into account here. As for 1942, two selections in Sobibor for forced labor in Chelm district are well documented: 232 Jewish laborers out of 2,900 deportees (8%) on June 23, 1942, and 155 out of 2,000 deportees (7. 8%) on August 9, 1942. Both reports mention previous selections in Sobibor, in particular of Czech, Slovak, and German Jews. However, most of the Jews assigned to the forced labor camps in Chelm district were sent back to Sobibor and murdered there before the end of 1942. Thus the total number of victims would not have been reduced. The same may hold for Treblinka and the selections there for the forced labor camp Treblinka I next door. Hindls, Einer kehrte zurück, p. 32-37
42. Factual report of a Jew deported from Slovakia and returned, August 17, 1943 (original in German "Tatsachenbericht eines aus der Slovakei deportierten und zurückgekehrten Juden"), Moreshet Archives (Israel), D. 1. 1266. A rather unsuitable English translation is in Yad Vashem Archives, M-2/236; extract in Arad, pp. 140-41.
43. Historical expert opinion by Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Scheffler in the Düsseldorf "Majdanek Trial" (1980), p. 173 (unpublished); Józef Marszalek, Majdanek. Konzentrationslager Lublin (Warszawa: Interpress, 1984), p. 141. The authors wish to thank Dr Robert Kuwalek, Museum Majdanek, for generously sharing this and other information.
44. See in particular Dieter Pohl, Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien, 1941-1944. Organisation und Durchfürung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1996); this volume provides much information on the subject for East Galicia. A number of mass shootings which were counted as deportations to Belzec before are documented here
45. see also Sandkühler, "Endlösung" in Galizien.
46. Date given in Globocnik's letter to Himmler, November 4, 1943, p. 1, Bundesarchiv Berlin Lichterfelde (henceforth BAB), NS 19/2234, fol. 30; printed as PS-1024 in: Der Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher vor dem Internationalen Militärgerichtshof Nürnberg 14. November 1915-1. Oktober 1946, vol. 34, p. 68.
47. See also Globocnik's letter to von Herff, October 27, 1943, p. 2, BAB, BDC, SSO Odilo Globocnik: "Einsatz Reinhardt has been completely shut down. " The gassings in the General Government were stopped, the gas chambers completely destroyed. The killings of the Jews, the utilization of Jewish forced labor, and the plunder of their belongings went on, but were no longer Globocnik's responsibility.
48. Report "Economic Part of Aktion Reinhardt," annex 1 to Globocnik's letter (State Secret) to Himmler, January 5, 1943 [read: 1944], BAB, NS 19/2234, fol. 35
49. printed as PS-4024 in: Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbecher, vol. 34, p. 72.
50. Space does not allow a detailed discussion of the thesis by Bertrand Perz and Thomas Sandkühler that the Aktion may have also included the killing operations in Auschwitz from June 1942 ("Auschwitz und die 'Aktion Reinhard' 1942-45. Judenmord und Raubpraxis in neuer Sicht," Zeitgeschichte 5 (1999), p. 291.
51. Secrecy instructions by Höfle, July 18, 1942; see n. 3. See Jüdisches Historisches Institut Warschau, Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord. Dokumentation über Ausrottungund Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des zweiten Weltkrieges (Frankfurt: Röderberg, n. d. ), p. 300.
52. See also Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds., Documents of the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1981), p. 274.
53. Both editions chose the spelling "Reinhard," whereas the original secrecy instructions and Kermisz (above) both read "Reinhardt. "
54. Letter of Globocnik to SS Main Office and SS Gruppenführer von Herff, April 13, 1943, printed in Faschismus, Getto, Massenmord, pp. 301-02.
55. Radio telegram no. 52, Chef Amtsgruppe D, signed by Richard Glücks to KL Auschwitz, September 15, 1942; copy in Johannes Tuelrel, Inspektion der Konzentrationslager 1938-1945. Das System des Terrors (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1994), p. 176; Inspection of Auschwitz by SS Obergruppenführer Pohl on September 23, 1942, Special Archives Moscow, 502-1-19, fol. 86 (copy in IG Farben Auschwitz Massenmord. Über die Blutschuld der IG Farben. Dokumentation zum Auschwitz Prozess [Berlin: Arbeitsgnippe der ehemaligen Häftlinge des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz beim Komitee der Antifaschistischen Widerstandskämpfer in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1964], doc. 74, p. 117)
56. see also decode of radio telegram from Maurer (WVHA) to the Chief of Admistration Auschwitz with reference line "Aktion Reinhardt," October 22, 1942, PRO, HW 16/21.
57. Globocnik's letter (State Secret) to Himmler with annexes, January 5, 1943 (read: 1944), BAB, NS 19/2234, fols. 33-67
58. printed as part of PS-4024 in: Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher, vol. 34, p. 70-92.
59. See Richard Breitman and Shlomo Aronson, "Eine unbekannte Himmler-Rede vom Januar 1943," Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte 38 (1990), p. 340.
60. Most historians referred the Aktion to Reinhard Heydrich. The well-known hypothesis of Robert L. Koehl, Uwe Dietrich Adam, Wolfgang Benz, the Institut für Zeitgeschichte München, et al. that Einsatz or Aktion Reinhardt was named after State Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt is highly questionable. The only interesting reference to the Reich Ministry of Finance to be found in the archives of the IfZ is a Declaration on Oath by Bruno Melmer, Nuremberg, February 11, 1948 (NG-49S3). Fritz Reinhardt is not mentioned at all. Another serious problem is that Melmer reported important events for May 1942 which actually took place in mid-August 1942. It will be difficult to explain why Einsatz or Aktion Reinhardt should have been named after a State Secretary whose ministry first became involved in the Aktion over two months after the first known occurrence of the code name.
61. Breitman/Aronson, pp. 343-44.
62. Report and list of ancestors on the "racial" origin of former Naval First Lieutenant Reinhardt Heydrich by Dr. Achim Gercke (NS Auskunft), June 26, 1932, BAB, BDC, SSO Reinhard Heydrich, fol. 9-11
63. printed in Shlomo Aronson, Reinhard Heydrich und die Frühgeschichte von Gestapo und SD (Stuttgart, 1971), pp. 312-13. The first name Reinhardt is mentioned five times in these documents.
64. Blank questionnaire for the completion and correction respectively of officer's master file and the Dienstaltersliste, November 26, 1937, BAB, BDC, SSO Reinhard Heydrich.
65. Letter from Waffen SS Standortverwaltung Lublin, SS Stubaf. Wippern, to SS- u. Polizeiführer Reinhardt, June 6,1942
66. see Pohl, Distrikt Lublin, p. 130, n. 94.
67. Stamp on the copy of a letter by Höfle, September 9, 1942, in Helge Grabitz and Wolfgang Scheffler, Letzte Spuren. Ghetto Warschau, SS Arbeitslager Trawniki, Aktion Erntefest. Fotos und Dokumente über Opfer des Endlösungswahns im Spiegel der historischen Ereignisse (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1993), p. 68.
68. See n. 34.
69. The authors checked thirty-four copies of original documents: twenty-two documents had Reinhardt thirty-five times, eleven documents had Reinhard fifteen times, and one had both spellings. There can be no question of an equal use of both spellings.
70. Peter Witte, Michael Wildt, Martina Voigt, Dieter Pohl, Peter Klein, Christian Gerlach, Christoph Dieckmann, und Andrej Angrick, eds., Der Dienstkalendcr Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg: Christians, 1999), pp. 233-34
71. Bogdan Musial, "The Origins of 'Operation Reinhard': The Decision-Making Process for the Mass Murder of the Jews in the Generalgouvernement," Yad Vashem Studies XXVIII (2000), pp. 116-18.
72. See Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Vemichtungslager
73. Arad, Belzec
74. See Weekly Report of Sector Propaganda Lublin, March 28, 1942
75. On April 17, 1942 Himmler had a conference with SSPF W7arsaw, SS Ober-führer Arpad Wigand, and in all probability informed him about the beginning of constniction work at Treblinka. See Dienstkalendcr Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, p. 399.
76. The acceleration of the murders on the occasion of Himmlers visit to Warsaw was furthermore confirmed by an astounding intelligence report by a British Jewish prisoner of war who succeeded in escaping from the Warsaw ghetto and informing U. S. authorities in Lisbon. See letter Lisbon to OSS, June 20, 1942, NA, RG 226, Office of Strategic Services 26896 (copies courtesy of Richard Breitman); see Hilberg, Vernichtung der europäischen Juden, vol. 3, pp. 1190-91.
77. Radio telegram from SS-Brigadeführer Adolf Katz (SS Personnel Main Office) to Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Kment (official for conferring medals in Himmlers Personal Staff), January 15, 1945, BAB, BDC, SSO Odilo Globocnik
78. Attested copy Himmler to Krüger, July 19, 1942, BAB, NS 19/1757, fol. 1 (NO-5574); printed in Peter Longerich and Dieter Pohl, eds., Die Ermordung der europäischen Juden. Eine umfassende Dokumentation des Holocaust 1941-1945 (Zurich: Piper, 1989), doc. 74, p. 201.
79. On the acceleration of the murders see Christopher R. Browning, "A Final Decision for the Final Solution? The Riegner Telegram Reconsidered," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 10:1 (Spring 1996), pp. 3-10, English quotation p. 6
80. Pohl, Ostgalizien, pp. 211-13.
81. See Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42, p. 509; Eichmann interview by Willem Sassen, BAB, All. Proz., 6/95, pp. 20-21
82. quoted in Christian Gerlach, "Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp in Mogilev, Belorussia," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 11:1 (1997), p. 75, n. 57.
83. See Yaakov Lozowick, Hitlers Bürokraten. Eiclimann, seine willigen Vollstrecker und die Banalität des Bösen (Zürich; München: Pendo, 2000), p. 364, n. 104.
84. Himmler to the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, January 18, 1943, BAB, NS 19/1577.
85. Of these ninety-five transports four with 4,019 people were sent to the Warsaw ghetto in March/April 1942, and later to Treblinka; ten transports with about 18,000 people directly to Treblinka (District Warsaw) in September/October 1942. Eighty-one transports went to the Lublin district; Peter Witte, "Catalogue of Deportations" (unpublished manuscript).
86. On Korherr and the relevance of his reports in establishing a total number of victims see Georges Wellers, "The Number of Victims and the Korherr Report" in Serge Klarsfeld ed., The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania (New York: The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation 1978), pp. 139-62.
87. In the Appendices, pp. 163-210, the two unabridged reports and most of the letters are reproduced. On the history of the Korherr Reports see Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1955), pp. 135-39.
88. Himmler to Inspector of Statistics Dr. Richard Korherr, January 18, 1943, BAB, NS 19/ 1577, fol. 3; quoted in Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, p. 136.
89. Rudolf Aschenauer, ed., Ich, Adolf Eichmann, Ein historischer Zeugenbericht (Leoni am Stamberger See: Druffel Verlag, 1950), p. 474.
90. Inspector of Statistics Korherr to Dr. Rudolf Brandt, with First Korherr Report annexed, March 23, 1943, BAB, NS 19/1570 (letter NO-5195 and report NO-5194); copy oflctter in Klarsfeld, p. 189; letter in English p. 190; report printed in German pp. 165-76, in English pp. 177-88.
91. Inspector of Statistics Korherr to Dr. Rudolf Brandt with second Korherr Report (NO-5193) annexed, April 19, 1943, BAB, NS 19/1570; copy of letter and report in Klarsfeld, pp. 207, 195-201, in English pp. 202-08.
92. Ich, Adolf Eiclimann, p. 474. This was also confirmed by Erika Scholz, a secretary of IV B 4, who vividly remembered that she typed State Secret reports to Himmler on the actual state of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question in 1943. Protocol of interrogation Erika Scholz, June 24, 1966, vol. 7, p. 3-4, LG Berlin 1 Ks 1/69 (IV B 4 proceedings); protocol September 18, 1966, vol. 7, p. 3 (copies courtesy of Andrej Angrick, Berlin).
93. Jochen von Lang and Claus Sybil], eds., Eichmann Interrogated. Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police (London: The Bodley Head, 1983), p. 113.
94. Klarsfeld, pp. 193-94, incorrectly translated twice "the camp" instead of "the camps. "
95. Durchgangslager was originally a military technical term to designate provisional camps behind the front lines for new prisoners of war who were to be transported to POW7 camps farther in the rear. In a similar sense the term was used for camps receiving large numbers of Volksdeutsche before they were sent to their final places of settlement in the Reich.
96. Presumably the first killing site called a Durchgangslager was the camp in Soldau (Dzialdowo), established in winter 1939/40 "especially for the purpose of necessary inconspicuous liquidations" of Poles and handicapped people. See Interrogation of Dr. Dr. Otto Rasch, June 16, 1943, fol. 4, BAB, BDC, SSO Hans Krause (NO-1073); HSSPF Wilhelm Koppe to SSPF Jakob Sporrenberg, October 18, 1940, BAB, NS 19/2576.
97. On Durchgangslager Sobibor see the correspondence between Himmler and Oswald Pohl under this subject line, July 1943, BAB, NS 19/1571; see further radio telegram HSSPF Russl- and Mitte to SSPF Lublin, October 27, 1943, PRO, HW 16/39.
98. On Chelmno see Oskar Singer's entry in his diary, May 15, 1942, when he mentioned a Durchgangslager near Kolo as the aim of deportations. He did not yet know that it was Chelmno in fact. See Hanno Loewy and Gerhard Schoenberner, eds., Unser einziger Weg ist Arbeit. Das Getto in Lodz 1940-1944. Ausstellungskatalog des Jüdischen Museums Frankfurt am Main, (Frankfurt; Vienna: Löcker, 1990), p. 204.
99. See Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, and Adalbert Rückerl, eds., Nazi Mass Murder. A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 5-6.
100. Klarsfeld, pp. 171, 183. Again Klarsfeld's translation is incorrect.
101. PRO, HW 16/97, Decode References, Call Signs, No. 3 Traffic.
102. Ich, Adolf Eichmann, p. 474
103. Klarsfeld, pp. 171, 183; Karel Lagus and Josef Polák, Město na mrí̌ezemi (Prague: Naše vojsko, 1964), pp. 348-49.
104. Klarsfeld, pp. 172, 183; Ladislav Lipscher, Die Juden im Slowakischen Staat (Munich; Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1980), p. 121.