1941
The Decision To Exterminate
The war moved into full gear in the summer of 1941, and what was called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" then followed in the wake of the German army's advance into Soviet Russia.
From October 1941, German Jews were transported to ghettos in Poland. The Economic and Administration Main Office of the SS had considerable industrial interests in Eastern Europe, and used Jewish labour, skills and equipment. Auschwitz for example, was an extermination camp (at Birkenau) for Jews, a general concentration camp (Auschwitz I), and industrial complex (Buna - Auschwitz III) for the production of synthetic rubber, and a prisoner of war camp.
With the invasion of Russia Hitler now became involved in a war of ideologies - his wish was not simply to conquer territory but to remove those people who he felt were "sub human" the Slav race and, more importantly to Hitler, the Jews.
Following behind the invasion forces into Russia were mobile extermination squads whose task was to kill both communists and also Jews.
The Action Groups were divided into four - A, B, C and D - and operated just behind the advancing troops. Immediately after entering a town or village, the commander of the Action Group would send for the rabbi and demand that his community should assemble for despatch to a Jewish region.
When the Jewish community had assembled, the Action Group, with the help of local militia, would usually transport the Jews by truck to a nearby wood and be forced to dig a trench. The whole population would then be machine-gunned.
EXTRACT FROM A REPORT BY KARL JAGER, COMMANDER OF EINSATZKOMMANDO 3, ON THE EXTERMINATION OF LITHUANIAN JEWS, 1941.
Final Summary of Executions carried out in the operating area of ED (Einsatzkommando) 3 up to December 1, 1941.
"... I can confirm today that Einsatzkommando 3 has achieved the goal of solving the Jewish problem in Lithuania. There are no more Jews in Lithuania, apart from working Jews and their families.
These number:
in Shavli, about 4,500
in Kovno, about 15,000
in Vilna, about 15,000.I wanted to eliminate the working Jews and their families as well, but the Civil Administration (Reichskommissar) and the Wehrmacht attacked me most sharply and issued a prohibition against having these Jews and their families shot."
"The carrying-out of such Aktionen is first of all an organisational problem. The decision to clear each sub-district systematically of Jews called for a thorough preparation for each Aktion and the study of local conditions. The Jews had to be concentrated in one or more localities and, in accordance with their numbers, a site had to be selected and pits dug. The marching distance from the concentration points to the pits averaged 4 to 5 kms. The Jews were brought to the place of execution in groups of 500, with at least 2 kms distance between groups..."
"...I consider the Aktionen against the Jews of EK 3 to be virtually completed. The remaining working Jews and Jewesses are urgently needed, and I can imagine that this manpower will continue to be needed urgently after the winter has ended. I am of the opinion that the male working Jews should be sterilised immediately to prevent reproduction. Should any Jewess nevertheless become pregnant, she is to be liquidated..."
Jäger
SS Standartenführer
The Wannsee Conference for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question held in Berlin, spelt out the fate of the Jews in Europe:
"In view of the dangers of emigration in time of war and in view of the possibilities in the East, the Reichsführer SS and Chief of the German Police (Himmler) has forbidden the emigration of Jews. In lieu of emigration, the evacuation of the Jews to the East has emerged, after an appropriate prior authorisation by the Fuhrer, as a further solution possibility."
"In the course of the Final Solution, the Jews should be brought under appropriate direction in a suitable manner to the East for labour utilisation. Separated by sex, the Jews capable of work will be led into these areas in large labour columns to build roads whereby doubtless a large part will fall away through natural reduction. The residual final remainder which doubtless constitutes the toughest element, will have to be dealt with appropriately, since it represents a natural selection which upon liberation was to be regarded as a germ cell of a new Jewish development (see the lessons of history)."
From the haphazard murders of the Action Groups, the Nazis had come to the decision to systematically exterminate every Jew in Europe. Special death camps were to be set up with the sole purpose of murdering Jews.
Over three million Jews were killed in these death camps which were built near cities: Treblinka to Warsaw, Belzec, Sobibor and Majdanek to Lublin, and Chelmno to Lodz. The camp at Auschwitz in Silesia was chosen to exterminate longer-distance deportees from Western, Central and Southern Europe, and was astride a major railway route from Vienna to Crakow.
Why do you think that the Nazis chose to locate the death camps in Poland rather than in Germany?
Look at the two sources below:
- In what ways are the attitudes of Hoess echoed in the film 'Schindler's List'? Reading the second source, how is the testimony of the Auschwitz survivor reflected in Hoess' description of the camp and its activities? What reasons are given to the Jews for their transportation? How does this affect the ways in which they react?
- The death camps kept up their murderous work often until just before they were liberated by the Allies in 1945. By the end of the war, 6,000,000 Jews had been murdered.
EXTRACT FROM WRITTEN EVIDENCE OF RUDOLPH HOESS COMMANDER OF THE AUSCHWITZ EXTERMINATION CAMP
"In the summer of 1941, I cannot remember the exact date, I was suddenly summoned to the Reichsführer SS, directly by his adjutant's office. Contrary to his usual custom, Himmler received me without his adjutant being present and said in effect:
The Führer has ordered that the Jewish question be solved once and for all and that we, the SS, are to implement that order.
The existing extermination centers in the East are not in a position to carry out the large Aktionen which are anticipated. I have therefore earmarked Auschwitz for this purpose, both because of its good position as regards communications and because the area can easily be isolated and camouflaged.
The Jews are the sworn enemies of the German people and must be eradicated. Every Jew that we can lay our hands on is to be destroyed now during the war, without exception. If we cannot now obliterate the biological basis of Jewry, the Jews will one day destroy the German people."
"We discussed the ways and means of effecting the extermination. This could only be done by gassing, since it would have been absolutely impossible to dispose by shooting of the large numbers of people that were expected, and it would have placed too heavy a burden on the SS man who had to carry it out, especially because of the women and children among the victims. We calculated that after gas-proofing the premises then available, it would be possible to kill about 800 people simultaneously with a suitable gas. These figures were borne out later in practice..."
"Hugo Gryn was born in Czechoslovakia in 1930. Not long after his bar mitzvah he was sent with his family to Auschwitz. This is how he describes what happened:
Although we did not yet know the name of our destination we were, in fact, at Auschwitz-Birkenau. When the SS guards, with rifles at the ready pointing at us, led us to the train, the ghetto-commandant announced that this transport was heading 'East' where Jews would be resettled and given agricultural work. The war had made a shortage of food and Jewish colonies would have to help the Axis war effort. In the process, the commandant added "You will be well housed, well fed and when the war ends maybe we shall let you go to your homes again!"
...my father returned,...he sat down beside me and said, "We are in the most terrible place in the world, and we are abandoned people. I don't know what is to become of us." And for the first time since we got on the train my father cried and his sobs were the saddest sounds I had ever heard. In the next two or three days I descovered how Auschwitz-Birkenau worked. How the young and old, to the sound of music were marched to the low buildings that looked like our shower block, how they had to strip and make neat piles and how instead of hot water they were engulfed by the vapours of Zyclon B gas and how they were then taken to ovens and cremated... And about the way in which human fat and ashes were turned into soap. Perhaps the small grey bars of soap we were given."
You might find the document giving a historical summary of events helpful in gaining an overview of what happened in the period 1933-1945.
