Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps

by Yitzhak Arad

  In the middle of 1941, Globocnik initiated plans for extensive German colonization, including special SS settlements in the Lublin district, which would serve as a link with areas of German colonization in the newly occupied territories of the Soviet Union. On July 17, 1941, Globocnik was appointed by Himmler as his commissioner to organize the SS and Police posts in the newly acquired eastern territories as settlements for the families of the SS and Police personnel who served there. On July 20/21, 1941, Himmler visited Globocnik in Lublin, and decided to enlarge and extend the SS economic enterprises in Lublin. A concentration camp would be built for up to 50,000 prisoners who would be employed in building and operating these enterprises. This was the initial reason for the construction of the Majdanek concentration camp.2

  Toward the end of 1941 it was decided that Majdanek should serve not only as a concentration camp but also as a camp for Soviet prisoners of war and be subordinated to the jurisdiction of the SS rather than to the German army.

  As plans for Operation Reinhard began to take shape, Globocnik was entrusted by Himmler with the task of preparing for the extermination of the Jews in the General Government. As chief of Operation Reinhard, Globocnik was directly subordinate to Himmler and not to the SS Obergruppenführer, Friedrich Krüger, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the General Government. However, as SS and Police Leader of the Lublin district, Globocnik did continue to be subordinate to Krüger.

  Not only were Globocnik’s personality, his ties with Himmler, and the German economic enterprises there the reasons behind the selection of the Lublin district as the center for Operation Reinhard. The selection of the eastern areas of the General Government for the annihilation of the Jews was meant to serve an additional purpose. Heydrich had stated at the Wannsee Conference: “In the course of the implementation of the Final Solution, Europe is to be combed through from west to east. The evacuated Jews will be brought, group by group, to the so-called transit ghettos [Durchgangsgettos] to be transported from there further to the East.”3 The choice of the Lublin district as the center for the extermination actions could, therefore, serve as a cover for the claim that the Jews were being sent to the East. Their disappearance after their extermination in the death camps could be explained by saying that they had been sent further east, for forced labor in the vast expanses of the Nazi-occupied areas of the Soviet Union.

  The main tasks imposed on Globocnik and his staff within the framework of Operation Reinhard were:

  • the overall planning of the deportations and extermination activities of the entire operation;

  • building the death camps;

  • coordinating the deportations of the Jews from the different districts to the death camps;

  • killing the Jews in the camps; and

  • seizing the assets and valuables of the victims and handing them over to the appropriate Reich authorities.

  Operation Reinhard set the guidelines and directives for the deportations, and its staff was in charge of coordinating the timetable of the transports in accordance with the absorptive capacity of the camps. The specific organization and guarding of the transports of Jews from all over the General Government—and later from other European countries—to the death camps were not under the command of Globocnik’s Operation Reinhard staff. These tasks were handled by the Reich Security Main Office and its branches and by Higher SS and Police Leaders in each locality (SSPF and HSSPF). Nevertheless, teams of officers and noncommissioned officers, in addition to guard units subordinated to Operation Reinhard, were sent to different localities to extend help and even to carry out the deportations to the death camps.

  No written orders were given to Globocnik by Himmler regarding Operation Reinhard and the extermination of the Jews. These orders were given verbally, as were the orders given to the Einsatzgruppen relating to their killing operations in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union. Himmler opposed written orders and documents on the extermination of the Jews. In a speech before an audience of high-ranking SS and Police officers at Posen on October 4, 1943, he stated: “I refer to the evacuation of the Jews, the annihilation of the Jewish people. . . . In our history, this is an unwritten and never-to-be-written page of glory. . . .”4

  For fear of the verdict of history, Himmler was careful not to issue written orders on the extermination of the Jews. Operation Reinhard was set into motion on verbal orders alone.

  The German Personnel

  Odilo Globocnik’s first task was to organize the manpower required for the construction and operation of the killing centers. The people assigned to Operation Reinhard came from the following sources:5

  1. SS and policemen who served under Globocnik’s command in the Lublin district until Operation Reinhard

  153

  2. Members of the SS and Police staffs or units

  205

  3. Chancellery of the Führer—Euthanasia program

  92

  a total of 450 men

  The most important group of Operation Reinhard came from the euthanasia program. They brought with them knowledge and experience in setting up and operating gassing institutions for mass murder. They filled the key posts involved with the extermination methods, the planning and construction of three death camps—Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka—and the command over these camps. Viktor Brack gave evidence in his trial after the war about the transfer of the euthanasia personnel to Operation Reinhard:

  In 1941, I received an order to discontinue the euthanasia program. In order to retain the personnel that had been relieved of these duties and in order to be able to start a new euthanasia program after the war, Bouhler asked me—I think after a conference with Himmler—to send this personnel to Lublin and place it at the disposal of SS Brigadeführer Globocnik.6

  The first group of euthanasia personnel, numbering a few dozen men, arrived at Lublin between the end of October and the end of December 1941. Among them was Kriminalkommissar of Police Christian Wirth, the highest-ranking officer from the euthanasia program assigned to Operation Reinhard, and Oberscharführer Josef Oberhauser. Additional people from the euthanasia program arrived in Lublin during the first months of 1942. Viktor Brack visited Lublin at the beginning of May 1942 and discussed with Globocnik the contribution of the euthanasia organization to the task of exterminating Jews. Globocnik asked for more euthanasia personnel to be placed under his command. His request was accepted. After this meeting Brack wrote to Himmler:

  In accordance with my orders from Reichsleiter Bouhler, I have long ago put at Brigadeführer Globocnik’s disposal part of my manpower to aid him in carrying out his special mission. Upon his renewed request, I have now transferred to him additional personnel. Globocnik took this opportunity to explain to me his idea that the action against the Jews should be carried out with all deliberate speed, in order to avoid getting stuck [in the middle] one of these days when some sort of difficulty may force us to stop. You, yourself, Reichsführer, once voiced to me your opinion that the requirements of secrecy also oblige us to act as quickly as possible. Both conceptions are thus directed in principle toward the same result, and according to my experience, they are more than justified.7

  Some euthanasia personnel arrived in Lublin in May/June 1942 after having served on the eastern front in the Kursk area, in a medical unit. While serving in the front area, they all carried a red paper in their paybooks, signed by the German army headquarters, stating that they were not to be employed at the forward front line. This was to prevent any danger that some of them might be captured by the Soviet army and taken as prisoners. The secrecy of the euthanasia program had to be preserved. When a need for them arose in the rear areas, like the need for people for Operation Reinhard, they were withdrawn from the front area.8

  The euthanasia personnel transferred to Operation Reinhard became SS members and, like the others, wore grey uniforms and held SS ranks. They were under Globocnik’s operational orders, but on personal matters continued to be connected to their he
adquarters in Berlin and took their vacations at the euthanasia recreation center in Austria. A special courier from euthanasia headquarters came to Lublin every week and brought them additional payments and mail. Almost all of the euthanasia personnel who served in Operation Reinhard were appointed to serve in the death camps and not on staff assignments in Lublin.

  SS members, including the euthanasia personnel assigned to Operation Reinhard, reported to the headquarters in Lublin and were instructed as to their duties by Hauptsturmführer Herman Höfle. Everyone signed the following declaration of secrecy:

  I have been thoroughly informed and instructed by SS Hauptsturmführer Höfle, as Commander of the main department of Einsatz Reinhard of the SS and Police Leader in the District of Lublin:

  1. that I may not under any circumstances pass on any form of information, verbally or in writing, on the progress, procedure or incidents in the evacuation of Jews to any person outside the circle of the Einsatz Reinhard staff;

  2. that the process of the evacuation of Jews is a subject that comes under “Secret Reich Document,” in accordance with censorship regulation Vershl V. a; . . . .

  4. that there is an absolute prohibition on photography in the camps of Einsatz Reinhard; . . . .

  I am familiar with the above regulations and laws and am aware of the responsibilities imposed upon me by the task with which I have been entrusted. I promise to observe them to the best of my knowledge and conscience. I am aware that the obligation to maintain secrecy continues even after I have left the Service.9

  The organizational framework of Operation Reinhard was crystallized according to the tasks imposed upon Globocnik. The experience gained during the first three months of the extermination activities—March to May 1942—influenced the organizational structure. The Operation Reinhard organization included the three camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka and the training camp in Trawniki; the SS clothing workshops, which in the past had been subordinated to SS central authorities, were transferred to the command of Operation Reinhard in March 1942. The SS clothing workshops were located in the old airport of Lublin. In this camp the clothes and goods of the victims would be brought and treated. Operation Reinhard headquarters was located in Lublin at Pieradzkiego 11, in the former Stefan Batory college. Globocnik’s headquarters, as SS and Police Leader of the Lublin district, was located separately from Operation Reinhard headquarters.10

  The SS personnel under Globocnik’s command were employed in all of these camps and economic enterprises. At the headquarters in Lublin, Hauptsturmführer Höfle had chief authority over Operation Reinhard, beside Globocnik. As head of the “Main Department” (Hauptabteilung), he was in charge of the organization and manpower of Operation Reinhard. It was he who coordinated the deportation of the Jews from all areas of the General Government and directed them to one of the camps. During the first months of Operation Reinhard, each of the death camps was directly subordinated to Globocnik.

  Between twenty and thirty-five SS men served in each of the death camps, and, with few exceptions, they were from the euthanasia program. The camp commanders had the rank of SS Obersturmführer or Hauptsturmführer. All the other SS personnel were either Hauptscharführers, Scharführers, or Unterscharführers. There were no SS privates in the camps at all.

  In addition to their extermination activities, the SS men were in charge of all the personal effects and property brought and left by the victims. The SS men of Operation Reinhard were given a bonus of 18 DM (Deutsch Mark) a day in addition to their regular pay in accordance with their rank. They received two to three weeks home leave every three months.

  Among the high-ranking staff of Operation Reinhard were many Austrians—Globocnik and Höfle, who commanded the operation, and three of the six SS officers commanding the camps, Dr. Irmfried Eberl, Franz Reichleitner, and Franz Stangl.

  The manpower structure of Operation Reinhard took its final shape during the first months of killing. The heads of Operation Reinhard saw that they would not be able to base their manpower and organizational needs on the experience of existing concentration camps, which were integral to Himmler’s realm of terror. The death camps—Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka—were to be unique, as their purpose was different. The conceptual model for their operation and manpower needs became crystallized from the experience gained during the first stage of implementation of the extermination process in all three camps.

  The Ukrainian Auxiliaries

  The SS unit assigned to each of the camps was too small to meet all its requirements: security, guard duties in and around the camp, and ensuring the smooth extermination of the thousands of victims brought in each transport. An additional security force was necessary for these tasks. Such a unit, composed mostly of Ukrainian nationalist collaborators, was formed.

  Friendly ties between Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi Germany had existed for years. Nationalist Ukrainian emigrants who had found refuge in Germany after World War I and Ukrainian legal and illegal organizations active in the Polish West Ukraine hoped to obtain Nazi Germany’s help in establishing their own independent state in Polish and Soviet Ukraine. Nazi Germany used these organizations for subversive activity when they attacked Poland at the beginning of World War II.

  Nazi Germany’s preparations to attack the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 raised hopes among the Ukrainian nationalists. Two Ukrainian military battalions, the “Nightingale” and “Roland,” were organized by the German Abwehr (army intelligence) to render assistance once the invasion began. Underground ties were maintained with Ukrainian clandestine organizations and groups in Soviet Ukraine.

  On June 22, 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the nationalist Ukrainians in West Galicia staged an anti-Soviet revolt. In the city of Lvov a rally of Ukrainian nationalist leaders proclaimed an independent Ukrainian state and government on June 30, 1941, the day the city was captured by the Germans. The invading German troops were welcomed to the Ukraine by large segments of the local population, who staged extensive anti-Jewish pogroms. But Nazi Germany did not intend to grant the Ukrainians any form of self-rule or independence. The fertile Ukraine was slated as an area for German colonization.

  In the beginning of July, the Ukrainian government was dissolved and its leaders were arrested. In spite of this, collaboration of Ukrainians with Germany continued. Tens of thousands of Ukrainians enlisted in the local police and volunteered for the German security forces. The majority of these Ukrainians were former soldiers of the Red Army who had fallen into German captivity. Nazi Germany encouraged Ukrainian prisoners of war, as well as Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, and others, to join their ranks, and thousands responded to the call. Some of them did it to escape the horrible conditions in which Soviet prisoners of war were kept, others for nationalistic reasons, hoping to receive some kind of Ukrainian independence within the framework of Nazi Europe as a reward for their services. Many joined the ranks of the Nazis for reasons of anti-Semitism, which was quite common among the Ukrainians and other East European nations, or for economic profit. Other Ukrainians who joined the German security forces were local people, most of them inhabitants of Polish West Ukraine. The Ukrainians served in special units of the German army, the SS, and the police. A special unit was organized in Operation Reinhard.

  In addition to the Ukrainians, this unit also included Volksdeutsche who lived in the Ukraine. These Volksdeutsche were descendants of Germans who had come to Russia in the second half of the eighteenth century. They numbered about 400,000 on the eve of World War II. Their knowledge of the German and Ukrainian languages, and their German identity and identification made them the most suitable element to serve in such units, where they made up the low command staff. Most of these Volksdeutsche were also former Red Army soldiers and were removed from the prisoner of war camps.

  Those Soviet war prisoners or local Ukrainians from West Ukraine who volunteered for Operation Reinhard were sent to the SS training camp at Trawniki. In October 1941,
SS Sturmbannführer Karl Streibel was appointed commander of this camp. He toured the Soviet prisoner of war camps in the Lublin district and in the Kiev area and traveled to the Galicia district to find Ukrainian and Volksdeutsche volunteers for Trawniki.11

  Feodor Fedorenko, a Ukrainian and former Soviet prisoner of war, testified in an American court about how he had enlisted in the German service, trained in Trawniki, and was sent to Treblinka as a guard. According to the court’s protocol:

  Evidence as to Defendant’s conduct, 1941–1949.

  Defendant was mobilized on June 23, 1941, almost immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany. He was a truck driver, and the truck he drove was also mobilized. He had no previous military training, and in the next two or three weeks his group was encircled twice by the German army. He escaped the first time, but was captured three days later by the Germans.

  The Germans transported several truckloads of prisoners to Zhitomir, a former Soviet training camp, and defendant described the conditions as very bad and with little water or food. The camp housed about 50–100,000 prisoners, with no barracks available for them. After two to three weeks he was transferred to Rovno. Next he was transferred to Chelm, Poland, a camp surrounded by barbed-wire rolls. . . . Defendant estimated the population at Chelm at about 80,000 prisoners. Defendant described the conditions at Chelm as so bad that if you became ill you rarely recovered. He also indicated that food was at a minimum and that approximately 40,000 prisoners of war died over the winter of 1941/42.

  One day at Chelm the Germans assembled the Soviet prisoners and walked down the line selecting 200 to 300 who were sent to Trawniki. . . . At Trawniki most of the guards were Volksdeutsche. Defendant is not a Volksdeutsche but Ukrainian. . . . In the spring of 1942 the Germans gave black uniforms to all of the prisoners. Volksdeutsche also wore black uniforms, but theirs were well tailored and of better material. After the barracks had been constructed at Trawniki, the Germans gave instruction in the firing of rifles, such as field stripping, and in marching. . . . In the spring of 1942 defendant was sent to Lublin where at first the prisoners guarded their own camp and then were sent to the Jewish ghetto. . . . At Lublin the Soviet prisoners guarded houses, furniture—whatever was left. They were issued rifles which were not fired. The Soviet prisoners were converted from workers to guards at Lublin. From Lublin defendant was sent to Warsaw along with about 80 to 100 others. . . . Defendant was transported to Treblinka as prisoner guard in approximately September 1942.12