Introduction to the Holocaust Part III Daniel W

Introduction to the Holocaust Part III Daniel W. Blackmon IB HL History Coral Gables Sr. High

The Death Camps • Chelmno • Extermination began at Chelmno one day before the Wannsee Conference began. Victims were locked into gas vans and killed by carbon monoxide. The bodies were buried in pits after gold fillings had been extracted.

The Death Camps • Belzec • Operated from March 1942 until December 1942 • . Some 600, 000 Jews were killed there.

The Death Camps • Sobibor • Operated from May 1942 to October 1943 • . Some 250, 000 Jews were killed there • . The commander was Franz Stangl, who was then transferred to Treblinka

The Death Camps • Treblinka • . Operated from July 1942 to August 1943 • . Over 700, 000 Jews were killed there.

The Death Camps • Treblinka • . Jews arrived at a train station at the foot of a hill on which the gas chambers were constructed. They were stripped naked and forced to run up the hill (the guards called it the Himmelstraße.

The Death Camps • Treblinka • The reason was that the doctors had determined that Zykon B, the cyanide gas used, would be absorbed into the blood stream faster if the heart rate were elevated and there were a light sweat on the skin.

The Death Camps • Testimony from a camp survivor given at Eichmann’s trial: “The people came through the infamous Himmelstraße, which led from Camp 1 to Camp 2

The Death Camps • “Standing in the Himmelstraße were SS men with dogs, whips, and clubs. The people walked quietly, that was at the beginning, in the summer of 1942. They didn’t know where they were headed for.

The Death Camps • “When they entered the gas chambers, two Ukrainians wer standing by the door. . They provided the gas. . . The last people to enter the gas chambers were pricked with bayonets, since they could see what was going on and didn’t want to enter.

The Death Camps • “Four hundred people were placed in the small gas chamber. . . so that they barely managed to close the chamber’s outer door. When they did close it, we were on the other side.

The Death Camps • “Then we heard only the shouts: ‘Hear, O Israel!’ ‘Papa!’ “Mama!’ Within thirtyfive minutes they were dead. Two Germans stood listening to what was happening inside.

The Death Camps • “They told [us] to open the door. We opened the door and removed the corpses. ” (Yahil 361)

The Death Camps • . Himmler, visiting Treblinka, ordered that corpses be burned and all traces of the mass murder destroyed.

The Death Camps • Majdanek • . Majdanek was both a labor camp and a death camp • . Inmates included Jewish and Polish political prisoners, Russian POWs, and Jews from Slovakia, the Protectorate, Belgium, Dutch, French and Greek Jews.

The Death Camps • Majdanek • . Soviet investigation described living conditions and food as “vile. ”

The Death Camps • Majdanek • . “The SS men in Maidanek were particularly sadistic and tortured people for their pleasure; they were especially fond of slaughtering infansts and children before their mothers’ eyes. ” (Yahil 363)

The Death Camps • Majdanek • . About 200, 000 people were murdered at Majdanek

Auschwitz • Auschwitz was the camp were inmates were given tattoos

Auschwitz • . It was actually a complex of camps. • . Auschwitz I was the original camp • . Birkenau was a large labor camp, spawning three sub-camps. • . Auschwitz III was an industrial center • . Auschwitz-Birkenau was the extermination camp.

Aerial View Auschwitz I

Aerial View Auschwitz II

Auschwitz • . The area was chronically damp and, in winter, brutally cold. • . Deportees were forced to pass by SS doctors, such as Josef Mengele, who waved them to the right or left, meaning either death or hard labor.

Auschwitz • . “Those sentenced to death were led into the anterooms of the death chambers where they were ordered to undress, purportedly in order to shower.

Auschwitz • “. They were told to tie their shoes together and remember the number of the hook on which they had hung their clothing so that they would be able to find their belongings on emerging from the shower.

Auschwitz • . “To complete the deception, each person was given a piece of soap, and the gas chambers were equipped with shower heads.

Auschwitz • [Rudolf] Höß [the commandant] took great pride in these arrangements, claiming that they insured a calm atmosphere by avoiding the wave of terror that gripped the victims in the other camps when they were sent running to their deaths. ” (Yahil 366)

Auschwitz • Zyklon B pellets were then introduced into the chambers, becoming a gas in the chamber. It worked upwards, so children were the first to die.

Auschwitz • When everyone was dead, the SS turned on ventilation fans, and washed the interior down with water. Then prisoners were ordered to remove the bodies to an elevator which took them to the crematorium. (Yahil 366)

Gas Chamber at Auschwitz

Crematorium at Buchenwald

Auschwitz • From the diary of SS Hauptsturmführer Dr. Johann Kremer, assigned as a physician at Auschwitz from August 29 to November 18 1942

Auschwitz ( )2. IX. 1942 This morning at three o’clock I attended a special action for the first time. Dante’s hell seemed like a comedy in comparison. Not for nothing is Auschwitz called an extermination camp.

Auschwitz ( )5. IX. 1942 I was present this afternoon at a special action applied to prisoners in the female camp, the worst I have ever seen. Dr. Thilo was right this morning in telling me that we are in the anus mundi.

Auschwitz ( )5. IX. 1942 Tonight at about eight, I was present at a special action on the Dutch. All the men are anxious to take part in these actions because of the special rations they get on such occasions, consisting of one-fifth of a litre of schnapps, 5 cigarettes, 100 grams of sausage and bread.

Auschwitz ( )6 -7. IX. 1942 Sunday, an excellent lunch: tomato soup, half a chicken with potatoes and red cabbage, petits fours, a marvelous vanilla ice cream. After lunch I was introduced to. . . [illegible word]. Left at eight in the evening for a special action for the fourth time. ” (Pridham and Noakes 1204)

Auschwitz • . Survivor physician Dr. Ella Lingens- Reiner asked an SS doctor, "How can you reconcile that [pointing to the chimneys of the crematoria] with your Hippocratic Oath? " The reply was "When you find a gangrenous appendix, you must remove it. " (Nazi Concentration Camps 211)

Auschwitz • . A workshop in the chamber was used to remove the gold fillings

Plunder • After the camp was liberated, the Soviets found six warehouses (which escaped burning by the retreating Nazis) containing 349, 820 men’s suits, 836, 255 women’s outfits, 38, 000 pairs of men’s shoes, 5, 525 pair of women’s shoes, and 14, 000 rugs. (Yahil 367)

Human Hair at Auschwitz

Shoes From Maidanek

Plunder • . From an account written by SS officer Kurt Gerstein on May 26, 1945 shortly before he committed suicide: “On 8 June 1942 I received a visit form SS Sturmführer Günther of the RHSA. .

Plunder • . He instructed me to obtain 100 kg. of prussic acid for a highly secret Reich operation and to take it in my car to an unknown destination. . We then took the car to Lublin where SS Gruppenführer Globocnek [sic] was expecting us. . Globocnet then turned to me and said:

Plunder • ‘Your particular task is disinfecting the large amount of textiles. The whole clothing collecction has been carried out to provide an explanation for the origins of the clothing given to the eastern workers etc. and to present it as the self-sacrifice of the German people. .

Plunder • Your other and far more important task is the conversion of our gas chambers, which at present operate with diesel exhaust gases, to something better and quicker. I am thinking above all of prussic acid. ” (Pridham and Noakes 1150)

Plunder • . Odilo Gobotcik reported to Himmler that he had forwarded RM 100, 000 of valuables in 825 railway cars to Germany.

Plunder • Report by Globocnik to Himmler on the financial results of Operation Reinhard: (1942 to December 15, 1943):

Cash in ZL(oty) and RM notes RM 73, 852, 080. 74 Precious Metals 8, 973, 651. 60 Foreign Exchange in paper 4, 521, 224. 31 Foreign Exchange in gold coinage 1, 736, 554. 12 Jewels and other assets 43, 662, 450. 00 Textiles 46, 000. 00

Plunder • The money was deposited in the deutsche Reichsbank. • US troops discovered 2, 007 canisters of gold, foreign currrency and other valuables

“Medical Experiments” • One theme of Nazi “experiments” was to learn the best ways of sterilizing persons. • Dr. Horst Schumann transferred from the euthanasia program to practice sterilization by X-rays, using doses large enough to cause death in great agony

“Medical Experiments” • Dr. Eduard Wirths and Dr. Carl Clauberg used chemical methods. Sylvia Friedman, a prisoner frm Slovakia was forced to work as an assistent. She survived and testified as to the fate of 350 Dutch women:

“Medical Experiments” • “After each injection the women ran a high fever, suffering from an infection of the ovary, resulting in sharp pains and contractions that often ended with them fainting.

“Medical Experiments” • “Each woman had one or both ovaries removed, and they were sent to Berlin. . . Various parts of the women’s sex organs were removed, photographed on the spot, and likewise sent to Berlin. . “ (Yahil 369)

Prof. Dr. Carl Clauberg

“Medical Experiments” • Wirths would remove the entire cervix, which was unnecessary since a small tissue sample would suffice for a biopsy. (Nazi Concentration Camps 219)

“Medical Experiments” • Josef Mengele was particularly interested in twins. • One experiment he performed was with patients who had one blue and one brown eye. He would inject blue dye into the brown eye to see if he could change the color. (Nazi Concentration Camps 219)

Dr. Joseph Mengele

Mengele’s Child Victims

“Medical Experiments” • At other camps, experiments were performed on cold immersion and exposure to high altitudes; others were treated with sulfa drugs and other treatments on artificially created wounds. (Nazi Concentration Camps 218)

High Altitude Experiment

Cold Water Immersion “Experiment”

Daily Schedule • Each camp separated the prisoners into hierarchies • . Supervisor prisoners, called Kapos, were used. Rudolf Höß brought the first Kapos in from Sachsenhausen – they were criminals and generally acted as such, exploiting their authority.

Daily Schedule • Roll call was at dawn, and then the prisoners went sent to work. They were sometimes required to sing on their way to work. Roll call was held at the end of the day and they were dispersed to the barracks, where they received a cold, watered down soup.

Daily Schedule • The SS guards diverted a considerable amount of the food intended for prisoners for their own use. Many prisoners died of starvation. • There was no drinking water at Birkenau

Daily Schedule • Beatings were common and murderous. • . Some prisoners committed suicide by throwing themselves on the electrified trench.

Daily Schedule • . The bunks were three tiered, and allotted 31 square inches. • . Prisoners were forbidden to leave the barracks at night, and two barrels were provided in which to relieve themselves. One faucet sufficed 8, 000 prisoners for washing. (Yahil 371 -2)

Punishments • Beatings were very common, with prisoners responsible to keep track of the strokes (an error meant they started all over again. ) Without medical attention, many died of the beating.

Punishments • . Prisoners were suspended by his hands, tied behind him and pulled up on a beam. Höß took credit for that.

Punishments • . There were standing cells, of one square yard each, into which 4 people were crammed. Ventilation was by a 2 inch square vent. Prisoners would be kept in for 10 days.

Never Shall I Forget Never shall I forget that night, The first night in the camp Which has turned my life into one long night, Seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

Never Shall I Forget Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children Whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke Beneath a silent blue sky.

Never Shall I Forget Never shall I forget those flames Which consumed my faith for ever Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence Which deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. .

Never Shall I Forget Never shall I forget those moments Which murdered my God and my soul And turned my dreams to dust.

Never Shall I Forget Never shall I forget these things Even if I am condemned to live As long as God Himself. Never. Elie Wiesel

Auschwitz • Heinrich Himmler inspected the camp on July 17, 1942, and was so pleased he promoted Höß (Yahil 373 -4)

Himmler Inspects Auschwitz

Records • The Germans kept meticulous records at Auschwitz. . Resisters smuggled out some of these records during the war itself.

Transport • “Conducted as it was in the midst of a global war that drew upon qall the material and human resources available to the Reich, the massive extermination operation was and remains one of the least comprehensible of the Nazi’s actions

Transport • “and represented the acme of their digression from the moral lmaxims and rational premises of human society. To effect this program, an entire apparatus had to be built and put into operation,

Transport • “including the construction of technical facilities, procurement of chemical materials and the mounting of complex organizational devices such as the assembling of people for deportation and the seizure of their property.

Transport • “It was necessary to work out a train schedule for directing the transport to their various destinations so that the program could proceed with ease and efficiency, free of the disruptions caused by either a dearth or glut of victims.

Transport • “This planning was accomplished through coordination and cooperation among various places, hierarchies, and administrations scattered across Europe.

Transport • “The regulation of this traffic was the key to ensuring that the gassing facilities in Sobibor and Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz owuld be able to work at full capacity. ” (Yahil 376)

Himmler orders liquidation of the ghettoes • In July 1942, Himmler ordered the liquidation of the ghettoes • On July 22, 1942, the transportation of Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka began.

Himmler orders liquidation of the ghettoes. By the end of July 1942, 65, 000 Jews had been murdered. This includes the children of the Warsaw ghetto orphanage. Janusz Korczak, the educator who ran the orphanage, chose to accompany them to Treblinka rather than stay behind.

Himmler orders liquidation of the ghettoes • Adam Czerniakow refused to acquiesce in the murder of fellow Jews and committed suicide

Himmler orders liquidation of the ghettoes • . He wrote: “We were told that all the Jews irrespective of sex and age, with certain exceptions, will be deported to the East. By 4: 00 am today a contingent of six thousand people must be provided.

Liquidation of the ghettoes • And this (at the minimum) will be the daily quota. . . I am powerless, my heart trembles in sorrow and compassion. I can no longer bear all this. My act will show everyone the right thing to do. ” (Yahil 382)

Liquidation of the ghettoes • Our knowledge of the Warsaw ghetto at this time is enhanced by the diaries of Czerniakow and Emmanuel Ringelblum, both of which survived the Holocaust and were discovered after the war.

Deportations from the West • As the liquidation of the Polish ghettoes reached its height, the deportation and murder of Jews from the West began.

Deportations from the West • . Eichmann ordered on June 23, 1942, that trains leaving the West daily for the East should carry 40, 000 Jews from France and Holland 10, 000 Jews from Belgium. (Yahil 389)

Deportations from the West • . A large French transit camp was established at Drancy and run by a French police officer.

Deportations from the West • . The Norwegian underground learned of Nazi plans and made strenuous efforts to smuggle Norwegian Jews into Sweden

Deportations from the West • The Norwegian churches also attempted to protect and preserve their Jews. A letter of protest was read from the pulpit twice and published as a New Year’s message:

Deportations from the West • )“For 91 years, Jews have had a legal right to reside and to earn a livelihood in our country. Now they are being deprived of their property without warning. .

Deportations from the West • “. Jews have not been charged with transgression of the country’s laws, much less convicted of such transgressions by judicial procedure. Nevertheless, they are being punished because of their racial background, wholly and solely because they are Jews. . .

Deportations from the West • “Thus, according to God’s Word, all people have, in the fist instance, the same human worth and thereby the same human rights. Our state authorities are by law obliged to respect this basic view. .

Deportations from the West • To remain silent about this legalized injustice against the Jews, would render ourselves co-guilty in this injustice. ” (Yahil 396)

End of Part III