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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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"So far as the evacuation of the Jews from
the Old Reich (Altreich) is concerned, the Sturmbannführer Eichmann made
known that in answer to a request made in this direction by the
Obergruppenführer Heydrich, the Führer has forbidden the evacuations
during the war; following which (Heydrich) had a proposition drawn up which has
partial evacuations from big cities as its goal." Loesener did not
specify that it was a question of deportation to the occupied Soviet regions.
Himmler wrote to Greiser (116) on
September 18, 1941, to ask that he temporarily lodge (in the ghetto of Lodz)
the Jews of the Reich, before sending them farther on:
"The Führer desires that the Old Reich
and the Protectorate be emptied and freed of the Jews, progressing from the
West to the East. I am therefore making the effort first of all to transfer the
Jews of the Old Reich, as a first step, into the regions which have been
annexed to the Reich for two years to send them farther east next spring."
The operation took place in October 1941: some twenty thousand
Jews were deported from the big German cities, as well as from Vienna and
Prague, to the ghetto of Lodz. It has been stated above that the extermination
camp of Chelmno had begun to operate in December 1941. The contingent of German
Jews remained intact until May 1942. The intention to send it "farther east"
was then abandoned, and 50% of this group of deportees were exterminated on the
spot at Chelmno. Those able to work were temporarily kept alive.
(117)
But one month after
Himmler's letter to Greiser, Heydrich even so obtained the possibility and
thus, evidently, the consent of Hitler, to deport the Jews from the cities of
the Reich and from the Protectorate directly into the "zones of operation" of
the Einsatzgruppen. On October 24, 1941, a memorandum (PS-3921) of the Security
Police ordered is bureaux [sic] in sixteen cities (including Vienna and Prague)
to accompany the transports of Jews that the Sipo-SD was to form for the
destination, of the regions of Riga and Minsk and to hand them over on their
arrival to the representatives of the Sipo-SD there.
The operation
extended from November 1 to December 4 and concerned 50,000 Jews. The contact
with the Einsatzgruppen had already been established. At a meeting over which
Heydrich presided on October 19, 1941 (118), Eichmann announced that the commanders of two of the
four Einsatzgruppen (Nebe and Rasch) operating in these regions had confirmed
that the Jewish deportees "can be interned in the zones of operation with the
Communist internees." At Eichmann's trial, the judge asked him the meaning of
the term "zone of operation" (119): "Is
that where the Einsatzgruppen operated?" and received the answer: "Certainly,
that is how it must be understood, it is natural." Note that with time the
Einsatzgruppen, which were mobile units, were relieved by the local services of
the Sipo-SD. (120)
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
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