Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Maidanek: Robbing the Prisoners (7 of 7) Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Nizkor Project http://www.nizkor.org Keywords: Lublin,Maidanek ------------------------------------------------------------pg 22-- VII. THE HITLERITES ROBBED THE PRISONERS IN THE CAMP OF THEIR VALUABLES AND BELONGINGS The Hitlerites reduced the robbing of the prisoners and those they tortured to death in the camp to a regular system. The material proof which the Commission discovered in the camp: the store of boots and shoes which had belonged to those who were shot or who died, the store of miscellaneous belongings of the prisoners, and also the Gestapo store in Chopin Street in Lublin, indicates that all the clothing and other belongings of thc prisoners were carefully sorted and shipped to Germany. The huge shoe store discovered in field No. 6 at the camp contains boots and shoes bearing the labels of shops in Paris, Vienna, Brussels, Warsaw, Triest, Prague, Riga, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Kiev, Cracow, Lublin, Lvov, and many other towns, shoes of different shapes and sizes, men's women's, juveniles' and infants', army boots, civilian town shoes and peasants' topboots. In addition to boots and shoes a large quantity of ripped footwear (separate soles, uppers and heels) were fouud, sorted and piled in stacks ready to be shipped to Germany. The Commission established that in the "Extermination Camp" alone the footwear of children, men and women who were tortured to death and killed in the camp runs into over eight hundred and twenty thousand pairs. In an enormous warehouse of the Gestapo in Chopin Street, in Lublin, the Commission found large stocks of various kinds of men's, women's and children's underclothing, and also a large variety of other personal belongings. For example: several shelves of balls of knitting wool, thousands of pairs of spectacles, tens of thousands of pairs of various kinds of men's, women's and children's footwear, tens of thousands of men's neckties bearing the labels of shops in different cities, such as Paris, Prague, ------------------------------------------------------------pg 23-- Vienna, Berlin, Amsterdam and Brussels, tens of thoueands of women's belts, part of which were sorted and ready for shipment, bath robes, pyjamas, bedroom slippers, numerous children's toys, rubber teats, shaving brushes, scissors, knives and a vast quantity of other household utensils. Here also were found numerous suitcases of various types belonging to Soviet citizens, Poles, Frenchmen, Czechs, Belgians, Netherlanders, Greeks, Croatians, Italians, Norwegians, Danes and also Jews from different countries. In the same warehouse the Commission found some of the books and papers of the warehouse, from which it is evident that this warohouse in Chopin Street was a base where these belongings were sorted and prepared for shipment to Germany. Concerning the shipment of the belongings of people shot in camps there was a special order couched in the following terms: "SS-Head Office of the Economic Administration. Chief of tho Administration of D-Conc. Camp. D/l Az: 14 D 3 (Ot) I. Oranienburg, July 11, 1942. To All Commandants Of Concentration Camps. "The Chief Administration of State Security reports that parcels of clothing have been sent from concentration camps, addressed mainly to the Gestapo Administration in the city of Bruenn, and that in some cases this clothing was perforated with bullet holes and blood stained. Some of these parcels were damaged and strangers were thus able to ascertain the nature of their contents. "In view of the fact that the Chief Administration of State Security will shortly issue regulations governing the handling of property left after the death of prisoners, the sending of articles must be stopped forthwith pending the final settlement of the question of how the property of executed prisoners is to be dealt with. Signed: Glicks SS Brigade Commander and Major General SS Troops." ------------------------------------------------------------pg 24-- The evidence of SS prisoners of war who bad served in tho "Extermination Camp" proves that an organized system prevailed in the camps of robbing the prisoners of their personal belongings and property, and of the appropriation by camp officials of the property of prisoners who were tortured to death and shot. At a plenary meeting of the Commission, Rottenfuehrer SS Vogel, a German prisoner of war, stated: "I was Deputy Chief of the clothing warehouse at the Majdanek Camp. The clothing and footwear of exterminated prisouers was sorted and the best was shipped to Germany. In l944 alone, I myself shipped to Germany over eighteen carloads of clothing and footwear. I cannot say exactly how many pairs of boots and shoes and sets of clothing were despatched, but I assert that it was a very large quantity. What I sent off was only a part of what was shipped to Germany. Everything was shipped to the address: *** Pl=F6tzensee-Berlin, Strafanstalt." Obersturmfuehrer SS Ternes, a prisoner of war, officer of the German army, formerly a camp auditor, stated: "I know personally that the money and valuables taken from the prisoners were sent to Berlin. The gold taken from the prisoners and sent to Berlin was calculated by weight. Virtually, all this stolen property constituted an item of revenue of the German government A very large quantity of gold and valuables was sent to Berlin. I know all about this because I worked as an auditor at the camp. I must emphasize that a great deal of the money and valuables that was taken from prisoners was not entered in the books, as they were appropriated by the Germans who took them from the prisoners." Thus, the robbing of the tortured prisoners in the Majdanek Gamp, as well as in other camps, constituted a definite item of income of the Hitlerite robbers of various ranks. On the basis of documentary evidence, the interrogation of witnesses and of eyewitnesses of the crimes committed ------------------------------------------------------------pg 25-- by the Germans in thc city of Lublin, in the Majdanek Concentration Camp, in the Lublin prison and in the Krembecki Woods, on the basis of considerable material proof obtained by the Commission, and also on the basis of the findings of thc Committee of Medical Experts and the Committee of Technical and Chemical Experts, the Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission finds that: 1) The Majdanek Concentration Camp, which the Germans called "Vernichtungslager," i.e., "Extermination Camp," was a place for the wholesale extermination of Soviet prisoners of war, prisoners of war of the former Polish army, and of civilian inhabitants of different European countries occupied by Hitler Germany and also of the temporarily occupied regions of Poland and the U.S.S.R. 2) The prisoners at the Majdanek Camp were subject to a brutal system of treatment. The methods employed for the wholesale extermination of prisoners were: single and wholcsale shooting and killing, wholesale and single asphyxiation in gas chambers, hanging, torture, torment and organized starvation. In this camp the SS butchers and the Gestupo carried out the wholesale extermination of Poles, Frenchmen, Netherlanders, Italians, Serbs, Croatians and persons of other nationalities, and also Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of war of the former Polish army confined as prisoners in this camp, as well as those transported to this camp from other camps and places especially for the purpose of being exterminated. 3) In order to wipe out the traces of their criminal activities, the Hitler butchers resortcd to the following system of measures: burning the corpses of prisoners on gigantic bonfires in the Krembecki Woods and in the camp, burning the corpses in the crematorium especially built for the purpose, grinding up small bones, scattering ashes over the fields and vegetable plots belonging to thc Hitlerite officials of ------------------------------------------------------------pg 26-- this camp, and preparing large manure heaps of human ashes and dung. The Hitlerite robbers operated an entire system of robbing the people they tortured for the enrichment of the rank-and-file SS and Gestapo men as well as of the leading officials of this robber gang. The system of robbing the prisoners in this camp constituted an important item of rcvenue of the Hitler-government. The Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission finds that during the four years the Majdanek Extermination Camp was in existence the Hitlerite butchers, on thc direct orders of their criminal government, exterminated by means of wholesalc shooting and wholesale asphyxiation in gas chambers of about one million five hundred thousand persons-Soviet prisoners of war, prisoners of war of the former Polish army, and civilians of different nationalities, such as Poles, Frenchmen, Italians, Belgians, Netherlanders, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, Croatians and a vast number of Jews. The Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of the Crimes committcd by thc Germans in Lublin finds that the principle culprits in these crimes are the Hitler government, chief executioner Himmler, and his underlings of thc SS and SD in the area of the Lublin *** Wojew=F2dstwo. The principal instruments of these atrocitics are Obergruppanfuehrer Globocnik-Chief of the SS and SD in Lublin; Wendler-ex-Governor of the Lublin *** Wojew=F2dstwo; Sturmbannfuehrer Dominnik-Chief of thc SS and SD in Lublin; Sturmbannfuehrer Liski-Chief of Prisoner of War Camps in Poland; Standartenfuehrer Koch-Chief of Camps; Obersturmfuehrer Kegel; Hauptsturmfuehrer Melzer-Deputy Commandant of the camp; Hauptsturmfuehrer Kloppmann; Obersturmfuehrer Tumann; Oberscharfuehrer Musfeld; Oberscharfuehrer Kostial; camp doctors Hauptscharfuehrer Erich Gruen, Hauptscharfuehrer Rindfleisch and Hauptsturmfuerer Blanke; Untersturmfuehrer Wende, Chief of the ------------------------------------------------------------pg 27-- crematorium and all the other persons acting in the role of executioners and guilty of exterminating innocent people. Signed: Chairman of Ihe Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission WITOS, Vice-Chairman of the Polish Committee for National Liberation Vice-Chairman of the Commission D. I, KUDRYAYTSEV (U,S,S.R.) Members: SOMMERSTEIN, Member of the Polish Committee for National Liberatian Prof. N. I. GRASCHENKOV (U.S.S.R.) Prof. V. I. PROZOROVSKY (U.S.S.R.) The Rev. Dr. KRUSZYNSKI, Dean of The Lublin Catholic Cathedral CHRISTIANS, Chairman of the Lublin Red Cross Society Prof. BIALKOWSKI, Professor of thc Lublin Catholic University Prof. POPLAWSKI, Professor of the Lublin University BALCERZAK, Procurator of The Lublin Appeal Court SZCZEPANSKI, President of the Lublin Circuit Court
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