Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-016 Last-Modified: 1999/05/27 The Deportation of the Jews of Stettin 75. At the same time, the Jews of Stettin were being deported to the Generalgouvernement area. This action (as well as similar action against the Jews of Schneidemuehl) was out of the ordinary at this stage in the development of affairs, because here, for the first time, Jews of German nationality were deported from the Old Reich, and not from territories in the East recently annexed to the Reich. The first indication of this we find in the minutes of the above meeting dated 30 January 1940 (exhibit T/166), at which Heydrich stated that "in the middle of February, one thousand Jews will be deported from Stettin, since their apartments are urgently required for reasons connected with the war economy, and they, too, will be sent to the Generalgouvernement area (see p.7 supra). The deportation from Stettin was carried out during one single night in the early hours of 13 February 1940. The Jews were taken from their apartments. They were allowed to take one suitcase with them. Every head of family had to sign a waiver in respect of all his property. They were not allowed to take with them provisions for the journey. One thousand three hundred persons were evacuated; amongst them children and old people. If anyone was unable to walk, he was taken to the railway station on a stretcher. Twenty- four hours later, the first corpses were removed from the train. The deportees were taken to Lublin, and from there all of them - men, women and children - were taken on foot to villages at a distance of 26-30 kilometres from the town. The temperature was 22 degrees below zero and the snow was deep. During this march, which lasted fourteen hours, seventy-two persons fell by the way, and most of these froze to death. In one of the reports from which these details are taken (T/666; T/669), we read about a woman who was found frozen on the road with a child of three in her arms, whom she had tried to protect with her clothes from the cold. Most of those who reached the three villages were housed in stables and farms, under terrible hygienic conditions. By 12 March 1940, 230 people of this transport had died. When the Accused was questioned in connection with the reports on this deportation, this was his reaction: "There is a grain of truth in this information. The reason is the exaggerated speed with which these deportations and expulsions were ordered to be carried out. Only fifteen days elapsed from the day the order was given until the expulsion was carried out." (Session 76, Vol. IV, pp. xxxx116-120.) The deportation of Jews from the Reich to the Generalgouvernement area again aroused resistance from Frank. In March 1940, Goering responded to his pressure and prohibited further deportations without his and Frank's consent (T/383). But in a later document (T/384), we see that at the beginning of 1941, and until March 1941, once again Jews were deported from Eastern Territories annexed to the Reich, and also from Vienna, to the Generalgouvernement area. The Accused bears responsibility for all the deportations to the Generalgouvernement area described above, because of the role of "central direction" which he played in this matter, in accordance with the appointment he had received from Heydrich. When cross-examined by the Attorney General, he finally admits and says, in connection with the Stettin deportation (Session 98, Vol. IV, p.xxxx15): "This was divided into a number of parts, this was not one independent matter. A number of authorities participated. As far as I was competent to do so, I had to carry this out."
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