The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: camps/aktion.reinhard/belzec/deport.prep


Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Reinhard Preparations Begin - Deportations
Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Belzec,deportation,Piaski,Regger,Reinhard,Siebert,Turk

File: reinhard deport.prep
Last-modified: 1993/03/08
XRef: reinhard reinhard.faq1, reinhard reinhard.faq2

"Organizing the deportation of the 2,284,000 Jews who, according to German
data, lived in the General Government in hundreds of ghettos dispersed all
over the country demanded thorough planning. The geographical dispersion of
the Jewish ghettos, the location and killing capacities of the death camps,
the available means of transport and their projected optimal use would all
have to be considered.

...

The earliest known German document regarding any cooperation between SS
authorities and civilian officials in the deportation of Jews in the
framework of Operation Reinhard is a note written by Dr. Richard Turk, the
head of the Department of Population Affairs and Welfare ... in Lublin
district. The document states:

Notice, Lublin, 17 III 1942, Ref (event) II, R/We
On March 4, 1942, I received a telegram from the government in Cracow,
signed by Mr. [Friedrich] Siebert, the chief of the SS department, in which
the concluding sentence reads as follows: I ask you to be helpful to the SS
and Police Leader of Lublin in his actions.

On March 7 I received a telephone call from the government [in Cracow],
from Major Regger, in which I was strictly requested, in connection with
the resettlement of the Jews from Mielec to the Lublin district, to reach
an agreement with the SS and Police Leader, and it stressed the highest
importance of this agreement.... I arranged a conference with
Hauptsturmfuhrer Ho"fle for Monday, March 16, 1942, and it took place at
17:30. In the course of this conference, Ho"fle explained the following:

1. It would be appropriate if the transport of Jews that arrive in the
Lublin district were split in the departure stations into those who are
able to work and those who are not. If this division is impossible in the
departure stations, eventually it should be considered to divide the
transport in Lublin, according to the aforementioned point of view.

2. All the Jews incapable of work would arrive in Belzec, the final border
station in the Zamosc region.

3. Hauptsturmfuhrer Ho"fle is preparing the erection of a big camp, where
the Jews capable of work will be held and divided according to their
professions and from where they will be requested [for work].

4. Piaski will be cleared of Polish Jews and will become a concentration
point for Jews arriving from the Reich.

5. In the meantime Trawniki will not be populated by Jews.

6. The Hauptsturmfuhrer asks whether on the train section Deblin-Trawniki
60,000 Jews can be disembarked. After having been informed about the
transports of Jews dispatched by us, Ho"fle announced that out of the 500
Jews who arrived from Suzic, those unable to work can be sorted out and
sent to Belzec....

In conclusion, he announced that every day he can receive four to five
transports with 1,000 Jews each for the destination of Belzec station.
These Jews would cross the border [of the occupied territories of the
Soviet Union] and never return to the General Government." <1>

It is interesting to note here that even discussions regarding the true nature
of the extermination camps with civilians not directly involved was a crime
immediately punishable by death. Once you clearly understand that (this
fact is well documented throught the public histories of the period) fact,
this document becomes quite chilling. Consider, for instance, the casual
references to the Belzec depot, which proved to be a final stop for the
Jews who were delivered there. In all, using German transportation,
military, and civilian records, Arad estimates 1.7 million Jews
were murdered during Operation Reinhard. A good many of that number drew
their final breath on the Belzec platform. 

The document cited above, coupled with known deportation figures for
Piaski during March of 1942, suggest far greater numbers than those I
have accounted for in the Arad book (see below), which does not
include data for Jews brought into the General Government area from
other parts of Europe (Germany, Austria, etc.) or for Jews deported to
Auschwitz or other camps than the three noted in the Arad title. If
anyone runs across such data during their reading, I would very much
appreciate having it, so the information available here will be more
complete.

For additional information concerning the fate of one Jew from Piaski, see
Rashke, Chapter 10.  ((Rashke, Richard. Escape From Sobibor (Boston: Houghton 
Mifflin Company, 1982))

<1> "Dokumenty i Materialy do Dziejow Okupacji niemieckiej w Polsce: Akcje
i Wysiedlenia", Wydawnictwa Centralnej Zydowskiej Komisji Historycznej,
Warszawa-Lodz-Krakow, 1946, pp. 32-33; Gerald Reitlinger, "The Final
Solution", second edition, London, p.268

Excerpted from....----------------------------------------------
BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps
Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987. ISBN 0-253-3429-7
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