The author of the lengthy report reminded his critics that three of the vans [in Chelmno] “had processed 97,000 since December 1941, without any visible defects.” Nonetheless he suggested a series of six major technical improvements to deal more efficiently with the “number of pieces” (Stückzahl) usually loaded in each van.113 Regarding the “97,000,” the expert had probably deemed it safer to avoid any further identification. In the second section of the report he referred to “pieces” and in the sixth section, he changed the identification once more: “It has been noted from experience that upon the shutting of the back door [of the van] the load [Ladung] presses against the door [when the lights are turned off]. This stems from the fact that once darkness sets in, the load pushes itself towards light.”114
Apparently the single van sent from Berlin to Belgrade to kill the 8,000 Jewish women and children of the Sajmište concentration camp gave no reason for any complaints. After the Wehrmacht had shot most of the men as hostages in the “antipartisan” warfare during the summer and fall of 1941, the women and children were moved to a makeshift camp—a few dilapidated buildings—near Belgrade until their fate was decided. It remains unclear who in the German administration in Belgrade, whether SS Gruppenführer Harald Turner, head of the civilian administration, or SS Standartenführer Emanuel Schäfer, the chief of the security police in Belgrade, asked the RSHA to send the van.115 Whatever the case may be, the van reached Belgrade at the end of February 1942. In early March the killings started, and by May 9, 1942, the Jewish women and children of Sajmište, as well as the patients and staff of the Jewish hospital in Belgrade and Jewish prisoners from a nearby camp had all been asphyxiated. On June 9 Schäfer informed the head of the carpool at the RSHA: “Subject: Special Saurer type van. The drivers…Götz and Meier finished their special assignment. They are returning with the van. Because of damage to the rear part of the van…I ordered its transportation by train.”116
In August 1942 Turner reported: “Serbia is the only country in Europe where the Jewish problem has been solved.”117
Killings could not be extended at will, however, to other groups than the designated Jews even when a high-ranking party official deemed them necessary. Thus, on May 1, 1942, in a message to Himmler, Greiser expressed his confidence that within two to three months the “special treatment” of some 100,000 Jews in Chelmno would be completed. He asked for the authorization to murder some 35,000 Poles suffering from open tuberculosis.118 The authorization was granted at first but then canceled by Hitler; the Nazi leader wished to avoid any rumors about the resumption of euthanasia.
Calls for Jewish armed resistance, such as Kovner’s manifesto in Vilna, arose from the ranks of politically motivated Jewish youth movements, and the first Jews to fight the Germans as “partisans,” in the East or in the West, usually belonged to non-Jewish underground political-military organizations. In western Belorussia, however, a uniquely Jewish unit, without any political allegiance except for its aim of saving Jews sprung up in early 1942: the already briefly mentioned Bielski brothers’ group. The Bielskis were villagers who had lived for more than six decades in Stankiewicze, between Lida and Novogrodek, two midsize Belorussian towns.119 Like their peasant neighbors they were poor, notwithstanding the mill and the land they owned. The only Jews in their village, they fully belonged to it in most ways. They knew the people and the environment, particularly the nearby forests. The younger generation included four brothers: Tuvia, Asael, Zus, and Arczik.
In December 1941 the Germans murdered 4,000 inhabitants of the Novogrodek ghetto, among them the Bielski parents, Tuvia’s first wife, and Zus’s wife. In two successive groups, the one led by Asael, the second by Tuvia, the brothers moved to the forests, in March and then in May 1942. Soon all deferred to Tuvia’s leadership: An even larger number of family members and other Jews fleeing the surrounding ghettos joined the “Otriad” (a partisan detachment); weapons were acquired and food was secured. By the end of the German occupation, the Bielski brothers had assembled some 1,500 Jews in their forest camp, notwithstanding almost insuperable odds.120
While the Bielski group was one of its kind, other Jewish resistance movements organized within the ghettos of the occupied Soviet Union did often receive support from the council leadership. In Minsk, for example, the noncommunist Ilya Moshkin, an engineer who knew some German and was probably appointed head of the Judenrat precisely for that reason, was in regular (weekly) contact with the commander of the communist underground in the ghetto and the city, Hersh Smolar. Such regular cooperation—for which Moshkin ultimately paid with his life—was entirely atypical farther west, in the Baltic countries and in former Poland, be it from fear of German repraisals against the ghetto population.121 The only partly comparable situation to that in Minsk was, for a time at least, that of the Bialystok ghetto, where Ephraïm Barash’s Judenrat did keep in touch for more than a year with Mordechai Tenenbaum’s underground organization, a case to which we shall return.
VII
In mid-March 1942, the sixty-seven-year-old former owner of a shoe business and chairman of the Nuremberg Jewish community, Leo Israel Katzenberger, was interrogated by the criminal police, then put on trial for Rassenschande, race defilement. The codefendant was the thirty-two-year-old “full-German” woman, Irene Seiler (born Scheffler), owner of a photo business, also in Nuremberg; she was accused of race defilement and perjury. The presiding judge, regional court director and head of the special court, Dr. Oswald Rothaug, had been handed a choice case: He rose to the occasion, the more so because the trial attracted wide public interest. “The courtroom was filled to capacity with leading jurists, Party members, and military personnel.”122
During the interrogation the defendants readily confirmed that for many years they had been acquainted and on affectionate terms (Seiler had been introduced to Katzenberger by her own father, a friend of his), that Katzenberger had at times helped Seiler financially and advised her in her business. Moreover, they lived in the same housing complex and thus were in close and frequent contact. Yet both strenuously denied, also under oath, that their mutual affection, which at times had led her to kiss him as a natural expression of her feelings, ever led to any sexual relations. At times Katzenberger brought Seiler some chocolates, cigarettes, or flowers and also occasionally gave her shoes. Seiler married on the eve of the war, and according to her testimony, her husband had met Katzenberger and knew of their longtime friendship. In 1941 and early 1942, as Katzenberger and Seiler were arrested and prosecuted, Seiler’s husband was at the front.
“Rothaug,” Seiler testified after the war, “reproached me that as a German woman whose husband was on the front, I had forgotten myself to the point of having an affair with the little syphilitic Jew…. He told me that from Katzenberger’s point of view it [the affair with me] would not have constituted race pollution since the Talmud permitted it.”123 The witnesses for the prosecution, whose testimonies Seiler reported in detail, were sworn in by the judge whenever the accusations against the defendants appeared sufficiently incriminating. The examination of the witness Paul Kleylein was typical: “Rothaug asked the witness to describe his observations. He began by stating that Katzenberger’s conduct had been unbearable and that both he and his wife had been profoundly shocked by my immoral behavior, particularly since my husband was a soldier. Asked to furnish further details, Kleylein stated that the tenant Oesterleicher had said to me, in the presence of other persons in an air-raid shelter: ‘You Jewish bitch, I am going to give it to you.’ Yet, I had not replied to this, and I had also not done anything about it later. He therefore had concluded that I had not undertaken anything out of shame and because of a guilty conscience.”124
Witnesses for the defense, such as Ilse Graentzel, an employee in Seiler’s photo business, were also called. Rothaug asked Graentzel “whether Jews had not been photographed in my photo-studio up to the end. Mrs. Graentzel said yes, and I also confirmed it. Rothaug accepted this as a new proof of
my attachment to the Jews.”125
Seiler was condemned to two years in a penitentiary for perjury. As for Katzenberger, there was no doubt about the outcome. As Rothaug put it: “It is enough for me that this swine said that a German girl was sitting on his lap.”126 On June 3, 1942, the Jew was condemned to death.127 Nobody was surprised.
On January 6, 1942, on his way home after shopping at Chemnitzer Platz, Klemperer was arrested on the tram and brought to Gestapo headquarters. The official in charge yelled at him: “Take your filth (briefcase and hat) off the table. Put the hat on. Isn’t that what you do? Where you stand, that’s holy ground.”—“I’m Protestant.”—“What are you? Baptized? That’s just a cover-up. As a professor you must know the book by…by somebody Levysohn, it’s all in there. Are you circumcised? It’s not true that it’s a hygienic prescription. It’s all in the book.” And so it went. Klemperer was forced to empty his briefcase, to have every item checked. Then: “Who is going to win the war? You or us?”—“What do you mean?”—“Well, you pray for our defeat every day, don’t you?—To Yahweh, or whatever it’s called. It is the Jewish War, isn’t it. Adolf Hitler said so—(shouting theatrically) and what Adolf Hitler says is true!”128
In early 1942 Goebbels had prohibited the sale of any media items (newspapers, journals, periodicals) to Jews.129 Some two weeks earlier the use of public phones had also been forbidden.130 Private telephones and radios had already been confiscated long ago; the new instructions would close another gap. Moreover, the growing scarcity of paper seemed to add greater urgency to curtailing the distribution of newsprint. The minister of posts and communications was ready to adopt the new measure, despite some technical difficulties. Unexpected opposition arose, however, from the RSHA. In a February 4 letter to Goebbels, Heydrich argued that it would be impossible to inform the Jews, particularly their representatives both nationally and locally, of all the measures they had to heed, only by way of the Jewish News Bulletin ( Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt). Moreover, professional periodicals were essential for Jewish “caretakers of the sick” or “consultants.” “As I have to keep the Jews firmly in hand,” Heydrich added, “I must ask to ease these instructions, the more so since they were issued without the essential consultation with my office.”131 By March, Goebbels’s regulations had been partly abandoned.
The prohibition of Jewish emigration led to the closing, on February 14, 1942, of the Reichsvereinigung offices, which advised and helped the emigrants.132 As for the public identification of Jews, the individual star did not suffice; on March 13, the RSHA ordered the fixing of a white paper star to the entrance door of every apartment inhabited by Jews or to the entrance of any Jewish institution.133
The display of signs and badges favored by the RSHA was in turn questioned by the propaganda minister. Thus on March 11 Goebbels rejected an SD proposal that Jews allowed to use public transportation should display a special badge. The minister, who wanted to avoid further public discussion of the star issue, suggested that these Jews be given a special permit to be presented to the ticket taker or, on demand, to army officers and party officials.134 On March 24 Heydrich forbade the use of public transportation to Jews, except for holders of the special police permit.135
Random Gestapo raids on Jews’ houses were particularly feared. At the Klemperers’, the first of these “house visits” took place on May 22, 1942, a Friday afternoon, while Victor K. was not at home: the house was left upside down, its inhabitants had been slapped, beaten, spat on, but, as Klemperer noted, “we got away not too badly this time.”136
On May 15, Jews were forbidden to keep pets. “Jews with the star,” Klemperer recorded, “and anyone who lives with them, are, effective immediately, forbidden to keep pets (dogs, cats, birds); it is also forbidden to give the animals away to be looked after. This is the death sentence for [their cat] Muschel, whom we have had for more than eleven years and to whom Eva is very attached. Tomorrow he is to be taken to the vet.”137
In mid-June, as already mentioned, Jews had to give up all electrical appliances, including any electric cooking and household appliances, as well as cameras, binoculars, and bicycles.138 On June 20, the Reichsvereinigung was informed that by the end of the month, all Jewish schools would be closed: No further schooling was available for Jews in Germany.139 A few days later, an order that apparently originated with the Propaganda Ministry, but was issued by the Reich Transportation Ministry on June 27, forbade the use of freight cars for the transportation of the corpses of Jews. “In doubtful cases evidence had to be produced that the corpse belonged to an Aryan.”140 On September 2, upon decree from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Supply, Jews would no longer receive meat, milk, white bread, or smoking wares or any scarce commodities; no exceptions were made for pregnant women and sick people.141
While the rhythm of deportations from the Reich accelerated, the availability of Jewish homes nonetheless declined well below the demand for them, due to the housing shortage created, among other things, by the Allied bombings. Some painful situations led to interventions from the highest authority. Thus the newly appointed general director of the Munich State Opera Orchestra and Hitler protégé, Clemens Krauss, could not find suitable apartments for the musicians he brought to the Bavarian capital. On April 1, 1942, Martin Bormann, who had been apprised of the difficulties, wrote to the Munich lord mayor, Karl Fiehler: “Today I reported to the Führer about the correspondence from general director Krauss. The Führer wished you to check one more time to see whether a few more Jewish apartments could be made available for the newly contracted members of the Bavarian State Opera.” Fiehler answered right away that no Jewish apartments were left as he had distributed some to members of the party office (Bormann’s agency) and—according to Krauss’s own wishes—the last six had been given to three choir singers, two orchestra musicians and one lead dancer.142
On the eve of the assembly date for the Jews slated for deportation, neighbors in the Jews’ house would try to extend a helping hand. “Yesterday with the Kreidls,” Klemperer recorded on January 20, 1942, “downstairs until midnight. Eva helped sew straps for Paul Kreidl, so that he can carry his suitcase on his back. Then a feather bed was stuffed, which one has to hand over (and apparently one does not always see again). Today Paul Kreidl carted it to the prescribed forwarding agent on a little handcart.”143 The next day Klemperer added: “Before a deportee goes, the Gestapo seals up everything he leaves behind. Everything is forfeit. Yesterday evening, Paul Kreidl brought me a pair of shoes that fit me exactly and are most welcome given the terrible condition of my own. Also a little tobacco which Eva mixes with blackberry tea and rolls in cigarettes…. The transport now includes 240 persons; there are said to be people among them who are so old, weak and sick that it is unlikely that everyone will still be alive on arrival.”144
The information available about the trains’ destinations was scant, often disbelieved, mixed with fantastic rumors, and yet sometimes astonishingly close to reality. “In the last few days,” Klemperer noted on March 16, “I heard Auschwitz (or something like it), near Königshütte in Upper Silesia, mentioned as the most dreadful concentration camp. Work in a mine, death within a few days. Kornblum, the father of Frau Seligsohn, died there, likewise—not known to me—Stern and Müller.”145 In March 1942 Auschwitz was just becoming an extermination center, as we saw. Yet, through channels hard to trace, rumors seeped back to the Reich.
At the end of November 1941, Hertha Feiner had been dismissed from her teaching position and was employed at the Berlin community offices. In veiled words she informed her daughters of the worsening situation, in a letter on January 11, 1942: “We are in a very serious time. Now it has been Walter Matzoff ’s turn and that of many of my girl students. I have to be very much involved and I try to assist as many people as possible.”146
Feiner was only a recent employee, and although she apparently worked in the community office that established the lists of Berlin Jews she hardly could have
an overview of the process or any knowledge of its outcome. But, in and of itself, the updating of these lists and mainly of the addresses of the remaining Jews was of help to the Gestapo. Of course, to keep the deportation trains rolling, the Germans also had lists of their own. Nonetheless, in this domain in particular, the Reichsvereinigung and the Berlin community leadership became involved in the same kind of collaboration as most Jewish Councils throughout occupied Western and Central Europe.147
The registration efforts of the Berlin community may have been questionable; but the assistance offered to those summoned for deportation by the Reichsvereinigung or by community employees, in Berlin or in various parts of the Reich, cannot be considered in the same way, despite the severe interpretation of some historians.148 Although local employees of the Jewish organizations informed the Jews of the decision, the procedure, the time, and the assembly place, there is no indication that the victims followed instructions just because they trusted their coreligionists. All knew that the orders were issued by the Gestapo and that the Jewish representatives had no influence whatsoever on the process as such.
On March 29, 1942, for example, the main office of the association in Baden-Westphalia [located in Karlsruhe] wrote to its Mannheim branch concerning the 125 Jews of Baden whom they had to inform “on instructions from the authorities” that they were to get ready for deportation. The list of those to be sent away was attached. “We ask you,” the main office wrote to the Mannheim employees, “that you visit the persons who are going to take part in the journey as soon as possible and extend to them advice and assistance.” Given the number of those involved, Karlsruhe suggested finding “tactful” volunteers to assist the deportees. The volunteers did not have to be members of the Reichsvereinigung, but, obviously, they had to belong to “the Jewish race.” As time was very short, employees and volunteers had to be available “in the coming days” to stand by those to be evacuated. The Karlsruhe office added that if one of the persons designated was totally unable to travel for health reasons, a medical certificate should immediately be sent to them and they would submit it to “the authorities.” “However,” the letter ended, “we cannot foresee how far the authorities will be ready to change their orders in these cases.”149
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