Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Judgment/Judgment-024 Last-Modified: 1999/05/27 The First Expulsions within the Framework of the "Final Solution" 83. On 10 October 1941 a meeting held in Prague was attended, amongst others, by Heydrich (to whom in the meantime had been entrusted - in addition to his tasks as head of the Head Office for Reich Security - effective rule in the Protectorate) and the Accused. A memorandum of this meeting has been preserved and was submitted to us as exhibit T/294. At this meeting, a programme was set for future action for the solution of the Jewish question in the Protectorate and the territory of the Old Reich, but measures already taken were also mentioned. The main points may be summed up thus: (a) The date for the beginning of evacuation had already been set earlier for 15 October 1941. (b) Reference was made to difficulties with the authorities in Lodz (the Lodz Ghetto was intended to be one of the main places of reception for deported Jews). (c) 50,000 Jews were to be sent to Minsk and Riga. (d) "SS Brigadefuehrer Nebe and Rasch could also receive Jews in camps for Communist detainees within the operations areas. This had already begun, as was reported by SS Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann." In connection with paragraphs (c) and (d), we shall see presently that Riga was the centre for Operations Unit A, commanded by Stahlecker, that Nebe commanded Operations Unit B (with Minsk as its centre), and that Rasch was commander of Operations Unit C. (e) Terezin (Theresienstadt) was decided upon as the place for the concentration of Jews from the Protectorate, and the memorandum includes many details in connection with the carrying out of the concentration and the administration of the ghetto to be set up there. (We shall devote a separate chapter to this later on.) (f) Gypsies were to be transferred to Riga. At the end of the memorandum, there is a remark: "Since the Fuehrer's wish is that, by the end of the year, the Jews be removed, to the extent possible, from the German area, all pending problems are to be solved immediately. Even the problem of transportation is not to present difficulties in this matter." First, Jews were expelled to Lodz. On 30 September 1941, Brunner, one of the Accused's assistants, who at the time was in charge of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, informs Dr. Loewenherz that: "because of the need of the Aryan population to change their residences, due to air raids, some of the Jews from the Old Reich, from the Protectorate and Vienna must be removed to Lodz." A quota of 5,000 people was fixed. They were permitted to take with them luggage up to 50 kilogrammes and 100 Reichsmark only. Thus, from 15 October up to 2 November 1941, 5,002 people were deported (Loewenherz Report, T/154, pp. 35, 36 of the original). We have received a series of documents (T/200, dated 9.10.41; T/243, dated 11.10.41; T/222, dated 19.10.41, and T/244 - the date is not clear, but appears to be 22.10.41), all of which show that as from 15 October 1941, 20,000 Jews, including 5,000 Jews of Vienna, were deported from the Reich to the Lodz Ghetto, and also 5,000 Gypsies. As far as we know, these were the first expulsions from Reich territory after Hitler issued the order for the Final Solution. The Loewenherz Report (T/154) also describes the deportations to Riga and Minsk. Dr. Loewenherz received information on this from Brunner on 27.10.41, and on 25.11.41, 28.11.41 and 2.12.41, 3,000 Jews were deported from Vienna to Riga and Minsk. Amongst the deportees from Vienna to Riga was the witness Liona Neumann (Session 30, Vol. I, p. 508), who was deported in January 1942. 84. The documents submitted to us illustrate the method of carrying out these expulsions to Riga and Minsk, as follows: (a) T/714, on 24 October 1941, the head of the Order Police (Ordnungspolizei) in Berlin (General Daluege) writes to the commanders of the Order Police of the Reich in Vienna, Prague and Riga that, during the period 1 November 1941 - 4 December 1941, the Security Police will expel 50,000 Jews from the Old Reich, from Austria and the Protectorate, to the East to the vicinity of Riga and Minsk, and continues: "According to what has been agreed with the head of the SD and the Security Police, the Order Police undertakes to guard the deportation trains by posting an escort...details should be worked out in co-operation with the local SD authorities. The duty of the escorting guards ends with the handing over of the transports in due order at the places of destination to the competent authorities of the Security Police ..." (b) Document T/720 shows, by way of example, how the plan was carried out at the local level. On 11 November 1941, the Nuremberg Gestapo office sends to its affiliated authorities organizational instructions for the evacuation of Jews on 29 November 1941. The instructions were given in reliance upon a decree by the Reichsfuehrer-SS (Himmler) dated 31 October 1941, bearing the reference number of the Accused's Section IVB4, and therefore issued from this Section. The directives were styled with the accuracy of a military operation order and allocated the various duties - who would receive the Jews arriving from other places; who would transfer them to the place of concentration; who would guard them until they were loaded on to the freight cars of the train. Nor was the robbery of the evacuees' property forgotten. This, too, would be carried out according to plan. On a certain date, Jews were to be informed that, retroactively as from 15 October 1941, all their property was considered as confiscated by the State Police, and that they were to draw up a full list of their property for this purpose. On the day of expulsion, their apartments were to be closed and sealed by the police. A search was to be carried out upon the persons of the evacuees, and every object of value was to be taken away, except a watch and a wedding ring. (c) Document T/719 includes three letters dated 27.11.41, 3.12.41 and 11.12.41 sent from the Accused's office and signed by Heydrich and Mueller. They contain instructions to prevent the irregular transfer of property by Jewish evacuees. (d) In document T/302 (December 1941), the local authority in Duesseldorf informs the Accused's Section - for the attention of the Accused or his deputy, and the commander of the SD and Security Police, Operations Unit A in Riga, that on 11 December 1941 a train with 1,007 Jews left the Duesseldorf railway station for Riga. Handwritten notes are attached to this document which cannot fail to stir the heart of the reader. They show the composition of the transport, according to age, sex and profession. 1,007 personal tragedies found their expression in lines - one line per man, woman or child, four straight lines cut by one slanting line, until the full number is reached. The document is continued in exhibit T/303 dated 26 December 1941, in which Police Captain Salitter, the commander of this transport, reports on the journey, up to the handing over of the unheated train at its destination in a temperature of 12 degrees below zero on the night of 13-14 December. According to the report, there were in Riga previously 35,000 Jews who had been transferred to the ghetto, and he continues: "Now, from what I have heard, there are in this ghetto only 2,500 male Jews exploited as manpower. The other Jews were directed to some other suitable occupation (Verwendung) or shot to death by the Latvians." 85. During the period of these expulsions, Regulation No. 11 was published under the Reich Nationality Law (exhibit T/637), dated 25 November 1941. According to para. 1 of this regulation: "a Jew whose regular place of sojourn is abroad cannot be a German national. The regular place of sojourn is abroad when a Jew stays abroad under circumstances which show that he is not staying there only temporarily." Para. 3 provided that the property of a Jew, who lost his German nationality according to these regulations, is confiscated for the benefit of the Reich. The sting in these regulations - "the legal trick," to use the expression of Counsel for the Defence - lies in the fact that this "legal" arrangement was used also against Jews expelled from the Reich territory, as if they moved their places of residence of their own will to the place to which they were expelled.
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