Stuttgart Question: Dear Sir or Madam: Regarding the Jews who were living in the city of Stuttgart, Germany, during the Holocaust, to what destination were they deported and when? From reviewing the material at your website, so far I've found only that the Wannsee Conference as originally planned was to discuss problems that had occurred with the deportations of "(Greater) German Jews" beginning October 15, 1941, and that destination train stations were Lodz, Riga, Kaunas, and Minsk. Was one of these destinations in particular used for the Jews of Stuttgart? On what date(s) would their deportation have occurred? Were they deported only or did they face concentration camps and extermination at their destinations? Also, was a Jewish ghetto established in Stuttgart during the 1930s? Thank you very much for your assistance. Andrew Mathis Responds: Stuttgart had virtually no Jewish population in 1933 and, by the Anschluss of 1938, almost then entire community had fled to Palestine (there was a strong Zionist movement in Stuttgart). I know of no cases of Stuttgart Jews being deported anywhere, though Viennese Jews (over 90 percent of the Jews of Austria) suffered much different fates. With regard to Wannsee and destination train stations for Austrian Jews, it is first worth noting that by the "problems" discussed at Wannsee mainly involved Jews of mixed lineage -- the decision to deport "full-blooded" Jews had already been made. Deportations had been taking place from Austria almost since the capitulation of Poland. At Lodz, Jews were shoved into the largest of all ghettoes: The Lodz Ghetto, where they eventually sent to Auschwitz for extermation. At Riga, Kaunas (a.k.a. Kovno), and Minsk, Jews were shot in mass numbers. Further transportation from these points was not likely until the so-called Reinhard camps (Sobibor, Treblinka, and Belzec) were built. These camps took in Jews from the Reich as well as from Poland and other parts of Europe; at least 1.5 million Jews perished in these camps (half in Treblinka alone). Austrian Jews deported through 1943 would have ended up in these camps and very likely would have been killed automatically (there were not labor camps). After October 1943, all remaining Jews went through Auschwitz, where the extermination program continued for another full year. Austrian Jews were lucky in the sense of being able to emigrate before the Holocaust began (most famously Sigmund Freud). Their correligionists in other countries were not so lucky. Andrew Mathis back to the list of questions
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