[WW2] - "De rena förintelselägren" (Treblinka II, Belzec, Sobibor och Chelmno)

---On March 17, 1942, Fritz Reuter, an employee of the Department of Population and Welfare of the Office of the General Gouvernement of the district of Lublin, wrote a note, in which he referred to a talk conducted on the previous day with the SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Höfle, the delegate for the resettlement of Jews in the Lublin district:[689]

"I arranged for a talk with Hstuf. Höfle for Monday, the 16th of March 1942, namely at 17:30 hours. In the course of the discussion the following was explained by Hstuf. Höfle:

It would be expedient to divide the transports of Jews arriving in the Lublin district already at the station of departure into employable and unemployable Jews. If it is not possible to make this distinction at the station of departure, one must eventually pass on to separating the transport in Lublin according to the aspects mentioned above.

Unemployable Jews are all to come to Bezec [Beec], the outermost border station in the Zamosz district.

Hstuf. Höfle is thinking of building a large camp, in which the employable Jews can be registered in a file system according to their occupations and requested from there.

Piaski is being made Jew-free and will be the collection point for the Jews coming out of the Reich.

Trawnicki [Trawniki] for the present time is not occupied by Jews.

H. asks where on the Dblin-Trawnicki route 60,000 Jews can be unloaded. Informed about the Jewish transports now running as far as we are concerned, H. explained that of the 500 Jews arriving in Susiec, those who were unemployable could be sorted out and sent to Bezec. According to a teletype of the government of March 4, 1942, a Jewish transport, whose destination was the Trawnicki station, is rolling out of the Protectorate. These Jews are not unloaded in Trawnicki, but have been brought to Izbiza. An inquiry of the Zamosz district, asking to be able to request 200 Jews from there for work, was answered in the affirmative by H.

In conclusion he stated that he could accept 4-5 transports daily, of 1,000 Jews with the destination station of Bezec. These Jews would go across the border and would never come back into the General Gouvernement."

This document is of capital significance for two reasons. First, Höfle was the deputy Stabführer (staff leader) of the SS and Police Chief for the Lublin district (Otto Globocnik). According to official historiography, he coordinated in this capacity "the construction of the extermination camp Belzec and the deportations to there from the Lublin district."[690] Second, Beec is supposed to have started its homicidal activity subsequent to the talk reported, on March 17, 1942. According to official historiography, it was (like Treblinka, Sobibór, and Chemno) a pure extermination camp, where there was no separation of those fit and those unfit for labor. Yet in the cited document it says:

A subdivision of the Jews into those able to work and those not able to work was planned.

The Jews able to work should be used for labor assignments.

Beec was supposed to become a camp, where the Jews fit to work were "registered in a file system according to their occupation." This does not conform in the least to a 'pure extermination camp.'

The Jews unable to work were all supposed to go to Beec. The camp was supposed "to accept 4-5 transports daily, of 1,000 Jews with the destination station of Be[l]zec," clearly Jews unable to work, who are deported "across the border" and are supposed to never come back into the General Gouvernement. For that reason, Beec was designated as "the outermost border station in the Zamosz district." This sentence has sense only in connection with a resettlement beyond the border.---"

"The deportations were carried out on August 18-19, 1943. From Bialystok
7,600 Jews were sent to Treblinka. Some other transports were deported to
Majdanek and Auschwitz. The final liquidation of the ghetto met with stiff
resistance from the Jewish Underground, which fought back, and many Jews
found their death inside the ghetto during this uprising. But the Bialystok
ghetto, the last ghetto in the entire district, was finally liquidated. The
total number of Jews from Bialystok who were deported and murdered in
Treblinka came to about 118,000..."

TR-10/1112, the Zimmerman trial, Band 1 (1-2),
pp. 1-3, vittnesmål av Otto Hellwig

"---In a letter of May 22, the District Chief of Hrubieszow stated:[700]

"The number and place of residence of those Jews whose evacuation appears to be necessary first, is as follows:
1.

in Hrubieszow 5,690 Jews
2.

" Uchanie 2,025 Jews
3.

" Grabowiec 2,026 Jews
4.

" Dubienka 2,907 Jews
5.

" Bełz 1,540 Jews."

There is no doubt at all that these transfers were serving the purpose of creating room for the western Jews deported into the Lublin district. Later, the latter would then also be evacuated again in stages. A report of October 5, 1942, of the District Chief in Lublin to the Governor of the Lublin district sets out the following information regarding this:[701]

"Reference: Dispositions of August 18, 1942, and September 28, 1942

With regard to the above dispositions I am reporting that since the first of January 1942, 8,009 Jews from the Reich have been resettled into my district. 3,692 of these have already been resettled again. Expenditures or outlays have not been incurred due to these evacuations, the Piaski community merely put 400 vehicles at their disposal without cost for the transportation of the sick, children, and baggage."

The 8,009 Jews mentioned were accommodated in the following locales according to this report:

*

- 1,200 Jews from Germany in Bełżyce
*

- 5,466 Jews from Germany in Piaski
*

- 54 Jews from Germany in Luszawa
*

- 652 Jews from Germany in Kamionka
*

- 125 Jews from Slovakia in Firlej
*

- 512 Jews from Slovakia in Ostrow Lub.

The German policy of resettlement of the Jews was also echoed in the German press. On October 17, 1942, an article appeared in the Lemberger Zeitung with the headline "The first Jew-free city in the GG" (GG = General Gouvernement), in which the following was written:[702]

"Lublin is the first city in the General Gouvernement, which has become Jew-free, and the process now begins of liberating the territories of the individual administrative districts from Jews, who were bringing the economic life of this nation into considerable disorder. The first district, which no longer has Jews, is Biala Podlaska. The process is carried out as follows: the district people determine some location as the area of residence for the Jews of the entire administrative district. In clearing up [their district], the two districts of Biala Podlaska and Radzin have jointly selected one city as a Jewish living area, namely Miendzyrzec. Since this place lies in the territory of the administrative district of Radzin, however, Piala Podlaska no longer has any Jews. [...] In order to bring about order in the part of the country around Lubatow [Lubartów], the District Chief of Lublin-Land decided upon the ghetto of Lubatow as the Jewish living area for the Jews of the communities of Tysmieniec, Uscimov, Firlej, Kamionka, Luszawa, Lucka, Samokleski, Tarlo, and Ostrow as a city including Niemce. All Jews of the communities named must leave the communities no longer than 24 hours after publication of this police order of the District Chief and set out for the Jewish living area of the city. The Jews who are found still outside of Lubatow after that period has elapsed are punished by death. The Jewish Council of the city of Lubatow is under obligation to accommodate, to register, and if necessary provide room and board for the Jews moving to Lubatow from the above cited communities."

It is clear from this article that if an area was declared to be 'Jew-free,' this in no way needed to mean the extermination of the Jewish population concerned!---"

"The deportations were carried out on August 18-19, 1943. From Bialystok
7,600 Jews were sent to Treblinka. Some other transports were deported to
Majdanek and Auschwitz. The final liquidation of the ghetto met with stiff
resistance from the Jewish Underground, which fought back, and many Jews
found their death inside the ghetto during this uprising. But the Bialystok
ghetto, the last ghetto in the entire district, was finally liquidated. The
total number of Jews from Bialystok who were deported and murdered in
Treblinka came to about 118,000..."

TR-10/1112, the Zimmerman trial, Band 1 (1-2),
pp. 1-3, vittnesmål av Otto Hellwig

After the war, there remained 1085 Jews in Bialystok, of whom 900 were local inhabitants and the rest from the neighboring villages.
http://www.zchor.org/bialystok/bialystok.htm