The Stone Crusher
Page 48
17. Wagner, IG Auschwitz, pp. 163–92; Irena Strzelecka and Piotr Setkiewicz, “Bau, Ausbau und Entwicklung des KL Auschwitz” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz 1940–1945, vol. 1, p. 128.
18. The entry recording Fritz Kleinmann’s death has not come to light; presumably it was among the majority of Auschwitz records destroyed before liberation of the 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 361
05/04/2018 14:02:20
362 N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 1 1 - 2 2 6
camp. Some hospital registers have survived (and have the format described), but this one is apparently lost or the entry was later removed.
19. In his published recollections Fritz makes no mention of his suicidal thoughts at this time, but in his 1997 interview he describes them at some length and with strong emotion.
20. Fritz is unclear about exactly how long it was before his father was told about his survival. In his written memoir, he implies that it was shortly after his transfer from the hospital to block 48, whereas in his 1997 interview he is vague, implying that through necessity the secret was kept for a long time.
21. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 537, 542.
22. Langbein, People, p. 40; Wachsmann, KL, pp. 388–9; Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 537, 812.
23. Prisoner resistance report, December 9, 1943, quoted in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 542. There followed a period of conflict between the camp Gestapo and the new commandant, who deeply disapproved of the anarchic operation the Gestapo had been running.
Chapter 15: The Kindness of Strangers
1. Wagner, IG Auschwitz, p. 333.
2. The version of this incident given by Fritz Kleinmann differs in some details from the version in Gustav’s diary, and both differ from the Gestapo records (as quoted in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 481–2). The account given here is a synthesis of the three.
3. Gustav recorded in his diary that both Eisler and Windmüller were shot (see also Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 482); presumably this was the story that came back to Monowitz at the time.
4. Not to be confused with the Rote Hilfe eV, a socialist aid organization founded in 1975. The original Rote Hilfe was founded in 1921 as an affiliate of the Inter‑
national Red Aid. It was banned under the Nazis and later disbanded. Many of its activists ended up in concentration camps.
5. Fritz does not specify whether Wocher had been discharged from the army or not. However, a reference to his wearing uniform when away from the factory indicates that he had not.
6. It is not known exactly what Alfred Wocher’s duties were on the Eastern Front, or what unit he was in, but it is difficult to believe that he was not aware of the mass murders of Jews carried out there. By no means were the Waffen‑SS and Einsatzgruppen the only organizations involved; Wehrmacht units took part too, and even if Wocher was nowhere near any such events, he must have heard reports.
It may be that he perceived those things differently, and that he was only affected 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 362
05/04/2018 14:02:20
N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 2 6 - 2 3 1 363
at last by witnessing the persecution and murder of people who were German‑
born and spoke German.
7. Langbein, People, pp. 321–2.
8. There was never a “ramp” at Monowitz, and the railroad did not enter the camp; from 1942 onward, standard procedure was that transports went to the “old Jew‑
ramp” at Oświęcim train station, or to a spur near Auschwitz I, and from 1944 to the ramp inside Birkenau. However, Fritz Kleinmann ( Doch der Hund, pp. 129–30) suggests that some transports were unloaded at or near Monowitz, presumably in open ground near the camp, and that men selected for Monowitz arrived with their luggage.
9. In Birkenau, two whole sections of the camp, known in camp slang as Kanada I and II, comprising thirty‑six barrack blocks, were used for storage of loot. Offi‑
cially the sorting details were called Aufräumungskommando (“cleaning‑up com‑
mando”) but the unofficial name “Kanada Kommando” became so entrenched that the SS used it as well (Andrzej Strezelecki in Gutman and Berenbaum, Anatomy, pp. 250–2).
10. There were twenty‑three apartments in Im Werd 11; by 1941 and 1942 only twelve were still occupied (Lehmann directory house listings, Im Werd, 1938, 1941–2, WLO).
11. Although he makes no mention of it in his written memoir, Fritz says in his 1997
interview that he hoped Wocher would be able to find his mother and gave him a letter for her.
12. He is listed as “Bildwurfmeister” in Lehmann directory listings, Im Werd, 1942, WLO. Karl Novacek is not the same man as the Friedrich Novacek who lived in the same building and was one of the friends who betrayed Gustav and Fritz in 1938 and 1939. It is not known whether Karl and Friedrich were related.
13. Fritz gives no details how this was accomplished; since there were two cases of foodstuffs, he must have done it in multiple small installments.
14. Transport list, Da 227, September 14, 1942, DOW. Transport Da 227 arrived at Minsk two days later, and as was usual the deportees were taken straight to Maly Trostinets (Alfred Gottwaldt, “Logik und Logistik von 1300 Eisenbahnkilometern”
in Barton, Ermordet, p. 54).
Chapter 16: Far from Home
1. Gustav Kleinmann, letter to Olga Steyskal, January 3, 1944, DFK.
2. Gustav Kleinmann, letter to Olga Steyskal, January 3, 1944, DFK. These last named families are probably those of Rudolf Rittmann, a Reichsbahn employee, and Franz Burič, a master tailor, both of whom had apartments in the same building as Olga Steyskal (Lehmann directory name listings, 1942, WLO).
294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 363
05/04/2018 14:02:20
364 N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 3 2 - 2 3 8
3. Langbein, People, p. 25; Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, pp. 129–30.
4. Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, pp. 129–30; Wagner, IG Auschwitz, pp. 101, 103; Levi, Suvival, p. 32.
5. Fritz Kleinmann in Gärtner and Kleinmann, Doch der Hund, p. 132; Wagner, IG
Auschwitz, p. 101.
6. Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 702. About 320,000 of Hungary’s Jews had formerly been citizens of neighboring countries before Germany had carved off parts of them and given them to its Hungarian ally.
7. Ibid., p. 707.
8. Danuta Czech, “Kalendarium der wichtigsten Ereignisse aus der Geschichte des KL Auschwitz” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz, vol. 5, p. 201; Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 618.
9. Wachsmann, KL, p. 458; Danuta Czech, “Kalendarium der wichtigsten Ereignisse aus der Geschichte des KL Auschwitz” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz, vol. 5, p. 202.
10. Rees, Holocaust, pp. 381–2.
11. Danuta Czech, “Kalendarium der wichtigsten Ereignisse aus der Geschichte des KL Auschwitz” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz, vol. 5, p. 203; Wachsmann, KL, pp. 457–61; Cesarani, Final Solution, pp. 707–11; Rees, Holocaust, pp. 381–5; Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 627.
12. Danuta Czech, “Kalendarium der wichtigsten Ereignisse aus der Geschichte des KL Auschwitz” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz, vol. 5, p. 203.
13. Cesarani, Final Solution, p. 710.
14. Wachsmann, KL, pp. 460–1.
15. This appears to have happened around May 1944, as Gustav refers to it immediately after his description of the Hungarian Jews. In Fritz’s memoir, he implies that it occurred before Christmas 1943, but the diary seems to rule this out.
16. Auschwitz III‑Monowitz hospital admissions list, February–March 1944, pp. 288, 346, ABM. Gustav’s illness isn’t named in the hospital record (which records only name, number, dates, and either discharge, death, or “nach Birkenau”), and he doesn’t refer to this episode in his diary, which jumps directly from October 1943 to May 1944. Fritz doesn’t mention either episode in either his memoir or interview.
17. Konstantin Simonov, quoted in Rees, Holocaust, p. 405. Othe
r death camps in the region, such as Sobibór and Treblinka, had been decommissioned in October 1943, at the same time time as Maly Trostinets.
18. The museum at Majdanek still exists (www.majdanek.eu/en/mission).
19. The other practical arguments were that aerial bombing was not precise enough to be effective. To be sure of hitting the gas chambers at Auschwitz, for instance, would have required such a magnitude of ordnance dropped over such a wide area 294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 364
05/04/2018 14:02:20
N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 3 8 - 2 4 6 365
that thousands of prisoners in Birkenau would probably have been killed, without any certainty that the gas chambers would be hit. Bombing the rail network lead‑
ing to the camps was similarly problematic. Railroads were extremely difficult to hit from high altitude, and wherever they were destroyed as part of the strategic campaign the Germans simply diverted traffic and usually had the tracks repaired and in service again within twenty‑four hours or less. For overviews of the argu‑
ments on both sides, see Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies; David S. Wyman, “Why Auschwitz Wasn’t Bombed” in Gutman and Berenbaum, Anatomy, pp. 569–87; Wachsmann, KL, 494–6.
As for the question “Why didn’t the Allies do something to halt the Holocaust?” this author’s answer is that they did; they waged—and eventually won, at the cost of millions of Allied lives—a total war of destruction against the state that was perpetrating it.
20. Air raid precautions in Auschwitz had been discussed at a meeting of the camp command on November 9, 1943, including imposition of blackout, but nothing was apparently done until well into 1944 (van Pelt, Case for Auschwitz, p. 328).
21. Fritz specifically says bacon— Speck—in his memoir ( Doch der Hund, p. 139).
Some stricter Jews traded nonkosher foods for bread if they could, and there were Hasidic rabbis in Monowitz who refused all nonkosher food; they quickly starved to death (Wollheim Memorial oral histories: online at www.wollheim‑memorial
.de/en/juedische_religion_und_zionistische_aktivitaet_en; retrieved July 4, 2017).
22. Fritz mentions this encounter in Doch der Hund (p. 142) without identifying the young man more specifically. He appears to have been prisoner number 106468, who appears in the Auschwitz III‑Monowitz hospital record (ABM) but not in any other surviving Auschwitz records. This serial number was one of a batch issued on March 6, 1943, to Jews deported from Germany (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 347).
23. Wagner, IG Auschwitz, p. 108.
24. Quoted in Wagner, IG Auschwitz, p. 108. Eventually Rakers was relieved of his position on instructions from the IG Farben management.
25. Fritz identifies them only by the names Jenö and Laczi. Surviving Auschwitz records show that two Jewish brothers arrived together on a transport from Hun‑
gary at about this time: Jenö and Alexander Berkovits (prisoner numbers A‑4005
and A‑4004; Monowitz hospital records and work register, ABM).
Chapter 17: Resistance and Betrayal
1. Personal details: arrivals list, October 19, 1942, ABM; prisoner card, Chaim Gos‑
lawski, 69976, ABM.
294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 365
05/04/2018 14:02:20
366 N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 4 6 - 2 5 5
2. Without explanation, Fritz indicates that “Pawel” was also known as “Tadek.”
These were apparently false names. The real names of the Poles were Zenon Milac‑
zewski (number 10433) and Jan Tomczyk (number 126261); the “Berliner” was apparently Polish‑born Riwen Zurkowski (number unknown), who had presum‑
ably lived in Berlin (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 619).
3. Fritz doesn’t explain why Goslawski couldn’t give the package directly to Peller at rol cal . Possibly the construction workers were subjected to greater scrutiny when entering the factory enclosure; or the two men, being in separate blocks, didn’t have the chance to communicate before roll call; or the package was arranged in haste and there wasn’t time before Peller left for work. The date is given as May 4 (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 619) or May 3 (Jan Tomczyk’s prisoner record, ABM).
4. Monowitz commandant’s office notification in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 634.
5. Date unknown. Thirteen Poles were transferred to Buchenwald on June 1, 1944
(Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 638), and several transports of Poles went between August and December 1944 (Stein, Buchenwald, pp. 156, 166; Danuta Czech, “Kal‑
endarium der wichtigsten Ereignisse aus der Geschichte des KL Auschwitz” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz, vol. 5, p. 231).
6. Langbein, People, pp. 151–2.
7. The date of the execution is unclear. It may have been as late as December. The date of death of Zenon Milaczewski (one of the Poles known to Fritz as “Szenek”
and “Pawel”) is given in the Monowitz hospital death book (ABM) as Decem‑
ber 16, 1944.
8. Fritz states that two men were hanged but according to Gustav Herzog, there were three; aside from Diamant, their names were Weiss and Felltmann (Frankfurt trials statement, Abt 461 Nr 37638/84/15893, FTD).
9. Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 307. Gilbert states that the raid began at 10:32 pm, but this seems highly unlikely, as US bombing raids were normally performed in daylight. Czech ( Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 692) gives the time as “late afternoon.”
10. Arie Hassenberg, quoted in Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 308.
11. Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 308; testimony of Siegfried Pinkus, Nuremberg Military Tribunal: NI‑10820: Nuremberg Documents, quoted in Wollheim Memorial, www.wollheim‑memorial.de/en/luftangriffe_en (retrieved July 5, 2017).
12. Levi, Survival, pp. 137–8.
13. Henryk Świebocki, “Die Entstehung und die Entwicklung der Konspiration im Lager” in Długoborski and Piper, Auschwitz 1940–1945, vol. 4, pp. 151–2n.
14. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 722.
15. Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, p. 315ff.
16. Ibid., p. 326.
17. Prisoner number 68705, arrivals list, October 19, 1942, Monowitz hospital records, ABM.
294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 366
05/04/2018 14:02:20
N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 5 5 - 2 6 3 367
18. Prisoner number 68615, listed in arrivals list, October 19, 1942, ABM.
19. Fritz doesn’t identify the weapon as a Luger, but that’s almost certainly what it was. In Doch der Hund (p. 158) he describes it as an “0.8 mm pistol,” which is clearly an error, as there has never been any such weapon. He may have meant 0.8 cm (8 mm), but that is not a standard caliber either (9 mm and 7.65 mm were the standards at the time). The model number of the military‑issue Luger was P.08 (for 1908, when it was first introduced), which might account for Fritz’s error of memory. Fritz surmised that the weapon came from Wocher’s friends in the Luftwaffe flak units, and such units were issued with the Luger P.08 well into World War II, when higher‑status army and SS units had switched to the Walther P.38 (Walter, Luger, ch. 12).
20. In Doch der Hund (p. 159) Fritz says that he had no knowledge of where Meixner hid the guns, but in his 1997 interview he says that it must have been somewhere in the hospital laundry.
21. In his memoir, Fritz mistakenly gives the date of this raid as November 18. There was no air raid on that date. Altogether there were four during 1944: August 20, September 13, December 18, and December 26 (Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. 307–333).
22. Although many of the bombs fell in open ground, and a few on the surrounding camps, the December 18 raid succeeded in doing very heavy damage to several buildings in the Buna Werke (Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, pp. 331–2).
23. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 780.
24. Ibid., pp. 778–9.
25. Ibid, pp. 782–3.
26. Jósef Cyrankiewicz, January 17, 1945, quoted in Czech, Ausc
hwitz Chronicle, p. 783.
27. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 785, 786–7.
28. Gustav Kleinmann’s diary indicates units of one hundred, whereas other records specify one thousand as the unit size (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 786), and Fritz Kleinmann’s memoir mentions three groups of about three thousand; the inference is that the units were organized hierarchically, in military style.
29. Gustav specifically identifies Moll. He was based at Birkenau, and no record has been found of his presence at Monowitz at this time. Possibly it was a flying visit to check on the evacuation.
30. On January 15, 1945, the total number of prisoners in Auschwitz III‑ Monowitz and its subcamps was 33,037 men and 2,044 women (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 779).
294265XGB_STONE_CS6_PC.indd 367
05/04/2018 14:02:20
368 N o t e s t o P a g e s 2 6 8 - 2 8 3
Chapter 18: Death Train
1. Altogether, fifty prisoners were shot dead during the march (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 786n).
2. Stanislawa Iwaszko in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1A, p. 250; Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 788.
3. Irena Strzelecka in Megargee, USHMM Encyclopedia, vol. 1A, pp. 243–4.
4. Four trains left Gleiwitz that day, carrying prisoners from several Auschwitz sub‑
camps besides Monowitz. The Monowitz prisoners were split between different trains. Each had a different destination: the concentration camps of Sachsenhausen, Gross‑Rosen, Mauthausen, and Buchenwald (Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 797).
5. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 791.
6. Moon phase data from www.timeanddate.com/moon/austria/amstetten
?month=1&year=1945.
7. In his 1997 interview, Fritz says that he discarded his camp uniform after jumping, but in his written memoir he places it before. This seems more likely, since his uniform would be of value to the other prisoners to fend off the cold.
8. Eating regular soap would probably not have much effect (although the carbolic soap in use at the time might do so). Shaving soap, however, if of the hard type, contains potassium hydroxide, which is highly toxic and produces severe gastro‑
intestinal symptoms if ingested.
Chapter 19: Mauthausen