The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-049-02


Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-049-02
Last-Modified: 1999/06/02

State Attorney Bach:  Dr. Abeles, were you born in Slovakia?

Witness Abeles:  Yes, I was born in Slovakia.

Q. And you studied law in Slovakia?


A. In Hungary.
Q. You studied in Hungary?

A. At that time it was still Hungary.

Q. During the First World War you were an officer?

A. I was in the Austro-Hungarian army.

Q. What was your rank?

A. Officer.

Q. In the Austro-Hungarian army?

A. That is correct.

Q. Were you active in the Orthodox Jewish community of
Pressburg from 1933 to 1936, as well as in the Joint?

A. Yes, in the Joint and HICEM in 1936 and 1937.

Q. Were you also active in the Jewish Central Office?

A. Yes.

Q. What was this office?

A. An umbrella organization for co-ordinating the work of
the various Jewish organizations.

Q. When was this organization set up?

A. In 1938.

Q. What was your role in 1940 in the Jewish Central Office?

A. The Jewish Central Office was set up in 1940 to co-
ordinate the various Jewish organizations: The Orthodox
Central Board, the Neologue Central Board, and the Zionist
organizations sent their representative to the advisory
body.  The members of the advisory body occupied various
leading positions.  I was the head of the emigration
department and the social welfare department.

Q. Dr. Abeles, how many Jews were there in Slovakia before
the Second World War?

A. In Bratislava?

Q. No, altogether in Slovakia.

A. Around 95,000.

Q. What was their situation as citizens until 1938?

A. In the Czechoslovak Republic the Jews enjoyed full
equality of civil rights.  Liberal democratic liberty
prevailed, and the Jews were able to profess not only to
being a religion, but also a national minority, and they
therefore also elected representatives from a Jewish
national list to the Czechoslovak parliament.

Q. Do you remember first meeting Jewish refugees from other
countries in 1938?

A. 1938 was the first time that refugees came to
Czechoslovakia from what had been Austria.

Q. Can you briefly tell the Court of a certain incident
which you remember, with regard to the immigration of
refugees from Austria to Czechoslovakia?

A. In Burgenland - this was formerly Hungary, and later,
after the First World War, it returned to Austria - there
were what were known as the seven communities, the sheva
kehillot.  These were small communities of mainly religious
Jews who engaged in various trades and businesses.  One
night in 1938 these Jews of the seven communities were all
seized by SS forces, and with their children and wives -
either without any luggage whatsoever or only the bare
minimum - were driven to a sandbank in the Danube.  They
were abandoned there in the middle of the night without any
help, without any food.  A Yugoslav ship passed by, and the
captain heard the screams and the crying and reported it in
Bratislava, and that is how, after a while, the Jews of
Pressburg managed to hire an abandoned tug.  By means of
this tug they moved the Jews over to the left bank of the
Danube in Bratislava.  They remained there for six months,
under harsh conditions.  Supplies were obtained for them
from the city and the surroundings.  There were rats and so
on, as is only to be expected on such an abandoned tug.
After six months, some of them could be moved to Hungary,
others to Czechoslovakia, and a very small number received
certificates and could emigrate to Palestine.

Q. Do you remember that this happened on a certain day, on a
Jewish festival?

A. I believe it happened on a Sabbath eve.

Q. I was actually thinking of another festival.  Did that
not happen around the eve of Passover?

Presiding Judge: If the witness does not remember, please
proceed to the next question.

State Attorney Bach:  You said that these were the
conditions of the Jews in Czechoslovakia until 1938.  When
did these conditions change?

Witness Abeles:  At the end of 1938, Slovakia received
autonomy within the Czechoslovak Republic.  With the
granting of this autonomy, a party which had also been
represented previously in parliament in the Czechoslovak
Republic, the so-called Hlinka Party, named after a Father
Hlinka, gained the upper hand.  Unlike the other
Czechoslovak parties, this party was markedly anti-Semitic.

Q. What influence did this party have?

A. Once this party came to power, there immediately began a
very intensive, although not systematic, anti-Semitic
campaign; at that time this mainly took the form of acts of
brutality in the street and in people's homes.

Q. Regarding your reference to brutalities, do you know
anything about the fate of Dr. Fischer?

A. Dr. Geza Fischer was the brother of Mrs. Gisi
Fleischmann, who played a leading role in Jewish life, and
later in the resistance.  Dr. Fischer was a harmless lawyer,
but he looked markedly Jewish.
Q. What happened to him?

A. Once he was walking along the street and was attacked by
local German youngsters.  He was dragged through a gate of
one of the houses and thrashed so mercilessly that his head
was beaten to a pulp.  He was then taken to hospital, more
dead than alive, and died a few hours later.  His wife
committed suicide shortly afterwards.

Q. When this Hlinka group came to power, what effect did
this have on anti-Jewish legislation?

A. During the time that Slovakia was autonomous, there was
no particular anti-Jewish legislation.  There were anti-
Jewish acts, such as the expulsion of Jews who had become
stateless - that was one of those acts of brutality.

Q. When was that?

A. In 1938.

Q. Where were these stateless Jews sent?

A. It must be understood that the detachment of certain
areas as a result of the Vienna arbitration award had made
former Czechoslovak citizens stateless.  They had belonged
to the detached areas.

Presiding Judge: Some areas were then annexed to Hungary,
were they not?

Witness Abeles:  In actual fact they belonged to Hungary,
but arrangements for their citizenship had not yet been
made.  Consequently, shortly after this they had to apply as
foreigners for residence permits, but they were nevertheless
dragged out of their homes in a night operation, and
hundreds of families - men, women and children - were taken
by force to the Hungarian border.

Q. Did you know anyone who was deported?

A. Yes, I knew many of them.  A family was taken from my
building as well.

Q. What happened after the Slovak declaration of
independence in March 1939?

A. In March 1939, when the Czechoslovak Republic was
dismembered, Bohemia and Moravia were made into the
Protectorate, and Slovakia became a so-called independent
state - in reality, a German satellite.  Its official title
was the independent State of Slovakia.

Q. Can you tell us what the Hlinka troops were?

A. At that time in Slovakia a para-military organization,
the so-called Hlinka Guard, was set up.  They wore black
uniforms and had certain police powers.

Q. Was there another para-military organization in Slovakia?

A. There was a similar organization, the FS, the voluntary
Schutzstaffel.  This was composed of ethnic German citizens
of Slovakia.

Presiding Judge: What is the "FS"?

Witness Abeles:  Voluntary Schutzstaffel.

State Attorney Bach:  Various names are mentioned here.  Can
you tell us who is Sano Mach?

Witness Abeles:  At that time Sano Mach was the Minister of
the Interior of Slovakia.

Q. Who was the head of government?

A. Dr. Vojtech Tuka, formerly Dr. Bela Tuka, a Hungarian
renegade; he was my university professor at the university
in Hungary, oddly enough professor of ethics, and suddenly
he became a Slovak, even though he did not even speak proper
Slovakian - a rabid anti-Semite.

Q. Dr. Abeles, what can you say about the newspaper Der
Grenzbote (The Frontier Messenger)?

A. I must explain here that the upholders of German culture
in Slovakia were Jews.  For example, the only German
newspaper in Slovakia, the Grenzbote, was in Jewish hands;
the editor-in-chief and the proprietor were Jews.  After the
Slovak state was established, the newspaper was taken over
by the Germans, by ethnic Germans; the editor was Franz
Fiala - whether he was an ethnic German or a Reich German, I
do not know.  He immediately began belabouring the Jews with
anti-Semitic articles and series in the newspaper.

Q. In Slovakia there was a party called the "German Party,"
was there not?

A. In Slovakia, in addition to the only authorized party,
the Hlinka Party, there was also the German Party, whose
head was an engineer called Karmasin.

Q. Do you know anything about Karmasin's influence on
Slovakia's governing circles?

A. His first step was to take up residence in a Jewish
villa, the most beautiful villa in the town...might I ask
that this question be put to me later in my testimony, when
I come to talk about the arrests and deportations, because
otherwise I shall be anticipating events.

Q. Dr. Abeles, what were the first anti-Jewish laws
promulgated by the Slovak Government?

A. The first anti-Jewish laws were really more capricious
than systematic.  The orders were to hand in radio sets; all
sports equipment, skis, skates, all musical instruments had
to be handed over.  The orders were to hand over furs, which
led to many great problems. It was forbidden to go to public
parks, cafes, cinemas, Jews were not allowed to travel on
trains without special permission.  In the trams Jews were
only allowed to stand on the platform at the back.  It was
forbidden to go out in the evening, but this ban was really
superfluous, because no Jew would have dared to go out in
the evening.

Q. You said that in this first stage anti-Jewish legislation
was not yet systematic.  Did it become systematic later?

A. At the beginning of the Slovak independent state, a
German adviser came to Slovakia, I think his name was
Hauptsturmfuehrer Hahn.  He was subsequently replaced by
Hauptsturmfuehrer Dieter Wisliceny.  When he arrived, things
became systematized.

Q. What was Wisliceny's first action when he came to
Bratislava?

A. Until Wisliceny's arrival, the Jews were really only
persecuted because of their religious affinity.  After his
arrival, the German racial laws were introduced in Slovakia.

Q. Was this legislation also connected with the passage of a
general law in Slovakia, and if so, when?

A. In September 1941, the Jewish Code came out, codifying
all laws which had already been issued, as well as new ones.

Q. Were these the Nuremberg Laws of Slovakia?

A. The Race Laws were introduced: Jews were forced to wear
the "Jewish Star" - initially children from their sixth
year, then from four years onwards.

Q. What institutions were set up after Wisliceny's arrival?

A. A special office, a Central Economic Office, was set up,
the UHU, the abbreviation of Ustredni Hospoda Ugurat.

Q. Who was the head of this office?

A. A Slovak called Moravec was the head of this office.  The
role of the office was to transfer Jewish property to Aryan
hands and to liquidate small Jewish businesses which were
not worth Aryanizing.

Q. Was there a link between Moravec and Wisliceny?

A. Wisliceny's office was in the Gestapo building, where the
German police adviser Gold had his office; he also held
office in the German legation, as well as in the UHU.  Those
were his three official jobs.

A. You referred to the UHU.  Was there also another
institution which dealt with Jewish matters?

A. The Ministry of the Interior dealt with Jewish matters.
There was a separate department in the Ministry of the
Interior, known as the Fourteenth Department.  Whilst the
UHU dealt mainly with economic matters, plundering Jewish
property, the Fourteenth Department dealt with other
restrictions on Jewish freedom and Jewish public life.

Q. What is the Jewish Central Office, and how was it
connected with the UHU?

A. The Jewish Central Office, UZ - Ustredna Zidov, I shall
use the abbreviation, UZ, that is what we called it - the
Jewish Central Office, when it was set up, as I have already
indicated, was under the direct control of the Central
Economic Office.

Q. Who was the head of the Jewish Central Office?

A. The head of the Jewish Central Office was the Jewish
Elder, known as the Starosta, because he was the Jewish
Elder, Heinrich Schwarz, who was shortly afterwards arrested
and maltreated by the Slovak police.  He then fled to
Hungary and died there.

Q. Who was the second head?

A. The first Starosta was chosen by the Jewish organizations
as having their confidence.  The second one was appointed by
the Central Economic Office without consultation with the
Jewish organizations, and the third Starosta, Dr. Oscar
Neumann, again had the complete confidence of Jewish
circles.  The second one was Arpad Sebestyen.

Q. Was Wisliceny in direct contact with the Jewish Central
Office?

A. Shortly after we organized ourselves, Wisliceny appeared
in our offices.  He told us who he was, and then he dealt
directly with the departmental heads and board members; he
gave them orders and instructions and confirmed the budget.
Generally, what Wisliceny ordered is what happened.

Q. Did you have personal contact with Wisliceny?

A. I did sometimes have dealings with Wisliceny.  I must
state that he gave his orders precisely and without brooking
any opposition, but he always did so in a polite and
courteous fashion.

Q. In your department, did you also need confirmation from
Wisliceny?

A. I was on special terms with Wisliceny - not as far as
emigration was concerned, but with regard to the support
which the social welfare department had to provide to needy
Jews, as it was forbidden to collect and spend anything
without his consent.

Q. I come now to the Aryanization operations.  What can you
tell us about this?

A. It was the large Jewish firms which were Aryanized,
primarily industrial firms, part of which were owned by
Jews.  I should like to point out here that engineer
Karmasin applied special influence here, in order to arrange
fat pickings for ethnic Germans, too.

Q. Was the Economic Office also in charge of Jewish labour
camps, Jewish forced labour camps?

Q. Wisliceny's idea, as he explained to us on numerous
occasions, was that the Jews should be excluded from public
life and commerce and should be given jobs in productive
work, and that that was particularly necessary, since major
efforts had to be made for the War which had broken out in
the meantime.  For this reason, he pushed through the
setting up of labour camps to which Jews, who had lost their
livelihood because their licences to trade had been
withdrawn, were assigned.

Presiding Judge: Is that what Wisliceny said?

Witness Abeles:  That was actually Wisliceny's idea, that
was Wisliceny's pet idea.  A retraining department was added
to the Jewish Central Office, at that time headed by this
Dr. Oscar Neumann, the past president of the Zionist
Organization.  Wisliceny showed particular interest in this
department, commenting that the Jews would have to use their
skills once they reached their own country.

State Attorney Bach:  What were the three Jewish labour
camps?

Witness Abeles:  One labour camp in Sered, another in
Novaky, and the last one in Vyhne was a labour camp mainly
for Polish Jews; during the initial period in Slovakia our
organization managed to have a few hundred Jews released
from the Sosnowiec camp, and they were then accommodated in
the Vyhne camp.


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