. NMT04-T0439
Volume IV · Page 439
"In addition to this auxiliary police force, 2 more independent groups have been set up for the purpose of carrying out pogroms. All synagogues have been destroyed; 400 Jews have already been liquidated." (NO-2935.) |
| APPROPRIATION OF PERSONAL
EFFECTS AND VALUABLES |
| While no explanation was ever given as to why the Nazis condemned the Jews to extermination, the public record shows that they counted on substantial material advantage. The levying of enormous indemnities against persons considered by the Nazis as Jews or half-Jews and the expropriation of their property in Germany as well as in the countries occupied by it, brought huge returns to the coffers of the Reich. And even in the dread and grim business of mass slaughter, a definite profit was rung up on the Nazi cash register. For example, Situation Report No. 73, dated 4 September 1941, reporting on the executions carried out by a single unit, Einsatzkommando 8, makes the cold commercial announcement — |
"On the occasion of a purge at Cherven 125,880 rubles were found on 139 liquidated Jews and were confiscated. This brings the total of the money confiscated by Einsatzkommando 8 to 1,510,399 rubles up to the present day." (NO-2844.) |
| Situation Report No. 133, dated 14 November 1941, shows the progress made by this unit in a little over two months. |
"During the period covered by this report, Einsatzkommando 8 confiscated a further 491,705 rubles as well as 15 gold rubles. They were entered into the ledgers and passed to the administration of Einsatzkommando 8. The total amount of rubles so far secured by Einsatzkommando 8 now amounts to 2,511,226 rubles." (NO-2825.) |
| On 26 October 1941, Situation Report No. 125
gave Einsatzkommando 7b credit for 46,700 rubles taken from liquidated Jews,
Einsatzkommando 9 credit for 43,825 rubles and "various valuables in gold and
silver", and recorded that Einsatzkommando 8 had increased the amount of its
loot to the sum of 2,019,521 rubles. (NO-3403. ) Operation and Situation Report No. 31, dated July 1941, rendering an account of operations in Lithuania, recorded the taking of "460,000 rubles in cash as well as a large number of valuables" from liquidated Jews. The report stated further: |
"The former Trade Union Building in Vilna was secured for the German Labor Front [DAF] at their request, likewise the money in the trade union accounts in banks, totalling 1.5 million rubles." (NO-2937.) |
