by Chris Webb
In February 1942 I reported to the Community Charity Foundation in Berlin, which was then in the process of dissolution. The personnel were largely passed to the office of Globocnik. I need to amend this statement and say that about 20% of the personnel were thus transferred and of these a large part continued to be paid by the foundation. These payments were made by a Loans Office, of which I was in charge. My knowledge of the camp Belzec and its staff stem from this arrangement.
I went to Belzec twice. I no longer remember the exact dates.There was an interval of about six weeks to two months between these visits. The second visit in 1942 must have taken place before the weather turned cold, as I clearly recall that I spent the night in a PKW, near the railway station Rawa Ruska, there was a guarded market-place—which I could not have done had it been really cold.
The purpose of my visit was to deliver supplies to the camps in the Lublin region. I seem to remember that the goods train was shunted into sidings at the camp (Belzec) and that I spent the night in a sturdily constructed brick building, on a road about 500 metres distant from the camp.
Close to this was the billet of Wirth. The staff which accompanied the goods train became the responsibility of the admin staff member Fichtner. I already knew him from a previous meeting. I am of the opinion he must also have been employed in another Foundation and that I must have got to know him, when this was dissolved.
From my two visits I clearly remember only Wirth and Fichtner. In the course of the dissolution of these organizations, mainly at evening get-togethers, I learned the names of other people, and likewise because I was in charge of these organizations, but this did not mean I could recall individuals.
On one occasion—I no longer remember whether it was my first or second visit—a trainload of Jews arrived while I was there. Accompanied by a SS-man I was able to watch the unloading of the Jews. Who this SS-man was I cannot now say. I also do not know what rank he had. There would be no point in showing me photos of possible people for me to identify, nor any purpose in naming them. One has to take account that 20 years have since passed.
The question as to who were materially involved in driving the Jews out of their carriages, is not one I can give a straight answer. The train consisted of ordinary passenger carriages. The disembarkation of the Jews took place with relatively little trouble, and I gained the impression that after a long journey the Jews were glad to be able to breathe some fresh air.
Where there was a certain melee, order was restored with the help of a Jewish working party and other volunteers. After a short while the Jews were addressed, possibly by Wirth, but I cannot be certain about this, as I was not interested in these details. The way I have put this, does not do justice to my attitude. I should like to reply to the question in a useful manner, but I found this experience too upsetting for me to be able to remember these things.
After the address, the Jews, though clearly disturbed went surprisingly peacefully along the way pointed out to them, which led to the huts. I do not believe that the Jews knew what was in store for them. I did see, for example, how an SS-man supervised the hut where the Jews had to undress and another SS-man then pointed them in the direction they had to follow, but I cannot say who these SS-men were. I mean that I am not in a position to say it was this, or other SS-men who carried out this given function.
I am unable to answer the question regarding the organization of the SS staff or which rank was responsible for which function. I never knew who was camp commandant or his deputy, or who was chief NCO, or section leader. In my opinion the camp commandant was Wirth. I cannot say whether Wirth had an adjutant, or who he might have been.
According to my information after the closure of the camps in the Lublin area, four men belonging to the volunteer group went to Italy. I do not know their names. A number of names were mentioned to me, regarding which I can say the following:
Barbel—He probably came from Linz and was Austrian.[153]
Girtzig—I know his name, but I have nothing further to say.
Groot—Came from Hamburg, was rather young, as I remember came from Hartheim Institution. I noted that he was unable or unwilling to reply to me in a low-German dialect.[154]
Häusler—Was originally in the administration of T4 and later on the Lublin administrative staff.[155]
Hodl—Was possibly a driver in Hartheim. I do not know if he was posted to the East.[156]
Kriegas—Or Kriegad—was possibly correct name Gringers. I know nothing more.[157]
Münzberger—Was possibly Austrian and to my knowledge was not posted to the East, as he was probably too old. He must now be in his early sixties.[158]
Oberhauser—I do know but can no longer describe him. He was possibly a section leader
Zierke—I have heard this name, but I cannot say if he belonged to the T4 office staff or was transferred to the East.[159]
I am unable to answer the question which actual duties were performed in Belzec by Oberhauser, Girtzig, Unverhau or Gley, as I do not know. I am unable to provide further information regarding the events and conditions in camp Belzec or about people on the camp staff.
Signed: R.Lorent [160]
*
In August 1963 the eight former SS NCOs were brought before examining magistrates to answer for their alleged war crimes committed at Belzec. During these pre-trial hearings, Rudolf Reder, now known as Roman Robak, traveled from Toronto in Canada, but was unable to positively identify any of the accused.
Although those charged tried to minimize the roles they played in the extermination of the Jews in Belzec, they admitted their guilt, but pleaded mitigating circumstances. They claimed they had carried out their duties in Belzec, in fear of their lives—so brutal were commandants Wirth and Hering. As a consequence of this, the examining magistrates decided not to proceed with a public trial for seven out of the eight men accused. They ruled that Josef Oberhauser would stand trial because of his close relationship with Christian Wirth, and his wider involvement with Aktion Reinhardt. The rest were acquitted.
Werner Dubois, Erich Fuchs, Robert Juhrs, Heinrich Unverhau, and Ernst Zierke did not enjoy their freedom, as immediately after leaving the courtroom, they were once again arrested and taken into custody to face similar war crimes charges, in connection with their service at the Sobibor death camp.
Josef Oberhauser faced justice at the Munich Assize Court on January 18, 1965, in a trial that only lasted four days. One of his former collegues in the SS, Karl Schluch, was particularly scathing about Oberhauser:
If Oberhauser maintained that he did not partipate in the extermination of the Jews in Belzec, or that he did not see the whole operation from beginning to end—from the unloading to the removal of the bodies—then I say, try another one. Oberhauser not only knew the entire running of the extermination operation well, but also took part in it. In my opinion, there is no doubt that Oberhauser was an authoratiative person in the killing of the Jews in Belzec camp. The Belzec camp operated for only one reason and for what Oberhauser did he was well promoted.[161]
Oberhauser claimed at the start of his trial that he had already been tried in a Magdeburg court, for crimes committed at Belzec, and had been found guilty and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the court investigated this claim and established that Oberhauser had been tried and sentenced for crimes relating to euthanasia, and thus the trial proceeded.
Despite Oberhauser’s defence of only being on the periphery of the mass extermination of the Jews in Belzec, he was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to four-and-a-half years imprisonment, the only defendant to answer for the death of nearly half a million innocent men, women, and children. He only served half the sentence and returned to his old job as a barman in the Franziskaner Postubel in Munich. It was at this bar that Oberhauser was confronted by Claude Lanzmann, who, in the film Shoah, released in 1985, held up a photograph of Christian Wirth. “Do you recognise this man? No? Christian Wirth? Mr. Oberhauser! Do you remember Belzec
? No memories of Belzec? Of the overflowing graves? You don’t remember?”
Josef Oberhauser passed away in Munich during 1979. He was 64 years old.
A number of the Trawnikimänner who had served at Belzec death camp were brought to trial by the Soviets. B. Bielakow, M. Matwijenko, I. Nikoforow, W. Podienko, F. Tichonowski, F. Schultz, J. Zajczew, and several others were tried, found guilty of war crimes, and executed. Two further trials were held in Kiev, and 13 former Ukrainian SS guards shared the same fate.
Samuel Kunz, was an ethnic German born in August 1921, in a small village on the River Volga, who joined the Red Army and fought against the invading Germans. He was captured and, whilst a prisoner of war, volunteered to join the SS, and was trained at the SS training camp at Trawniki, near Lublin. Kunz was then posted to the Belzec death camp, where he served from January 1942 to May 1943, as a Volksdeutsch member of the camp staff.
After the war he settled near Bonn—then West Germany—where he worked as a technician for the Buildings Ministry. Kunz was questioned on numerous occasions, in 1969, 1975, and 1980, but he evaded justice due to his lowly rank. He was finally charged in July 2010 with assisting in the murder of 430,000 Jews. It was also alleged that he murdered ten Jews by shooting them in two separate incidents.
On November 22, 2010, a Bonn court spokesman Joachim Klages confirmed that Samuel Kunz had died, aged 89, in his hometown near Bonn, although the causes of death were unknown.[162]
So Samuel Kunz had at least been charged—though somewhat belatedly—for his alleged crimes, but had evaded justice. It is highly unlikely that anyone else will stand trial for war crimes committed at the Belzec death camp. The long road to justice has finally come to an end.
Chapter XVII
The Paintings of
Waclaw Kolodziejcyk
During the 1960s, Waclaw Kolodziejczyk, a former railway employee at Belzec station, created six paintings showing the Belzec death camp and the village during the German occupation. He and his family were eye-witnesses to the brutal conditions of the transports, as they passed through the station on the way to the death camp.
Shortly before his death, Waclaw Kolodziejczyk donated the paintings to the local parish church in the Belzec village, four of which are reproduced in this book. It must be stressed that Kolodziejczyk never set foot in the death camp, and the two paintings of the camp were from a combination of second-hand knowledge, along with a degree of artistic licence, and therefore cannot be treated as definitive illustrations. For example, the heavy wooden entrance gate has been replaced by a see-through iron gate:
Belzec Death Camp—Arrival of a Jewish Transport
Belzec Death Camp—Burning of Corpses
The Punishment of Bartlomiej Panasowiec
This painting shows the punishment of Bartlomiej Panasowiec, a resident of Belzec village who was caught by the Germans spying on the camp. Christian Wirth and Gottlieb Hering on horse-back chased him through the village, setting their dogs on him and beating him with whips. Panasowiec was seriously injured but he survived the ordeal, and, as a Ukrainian, he and some of his family were resettled to the Ukraine. It is worth pointing out that the two SS-men were pictured wearing German Army uniforms, which is incorrect.
Belzec Railway Station
This is a fine painting of the old railway station before it was destroyed. On July 5, 1944, a German ammunition train was standing at the Belzec station when it was bombed in an attack by a lone Soviet fighter plane. In the ensuing explosion the station and a number of adjacent buildings were destroyed completely.
All the color reprints are courtesy of the Holocaust Historical Society.
Chapter XVIII
The Number of Victims
As a result of recent research, most notably by Steven Tyas, which considerably helped my own work at the National Archives in Kew, a German police message sent by Herman Höfle was intercepted and decoded by the British Intelligence staff at Bletchley Park. It is thanks to the sterling research of Tyas that this decode became known.
The message sent by Herman Höfle to SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Heim, Commander-in-Chief (Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei, BdS) office in Krakow, was a 14-day report for Aktion Reinhardt and a year-end report up to December 31, 1942. This was the second of two messages intercepted by the British—the first one Höfle sent to Adolf Eichmann at RSHA Berlin was only partially intercepted. The second message to Heim was intercepted in full, on January 11, 1943. The death camps were identified only by letters.
Camps
14 Day Report to 31-12-1942
Year End 1942
L—Lublin
12,761
24,733
B—Belzec
0
434,508
S—Sobibor
515
101,370
T—Treblinka
10,335
713,555*
Totals
23,611
1274,166
In the original message the British Intelligence staff made a mistake and missed the last 5 off the Treblinka figure, it has to be 713,555 to fit the total figure. The message does not refer to the above as victims, but people sent to the camps. This decoded message is one of the most important historical finds of recent years.[163]
The figure of 434,508 for Belzec is thought to be the total for only the Generalgouvernement and does not include the Jews deported to Belzec from the Reich and other places, recently estimated as between 20–25,000. Thus, the likely total for the number of people murdered at the Belzec death camp is around the half a million mark. Though it is fair to say it is unlikely that the true figure will never be known.
What is interesting is that the figures for Aktion Reinhardt submitted by Herman Höfle in his message include the camp at Lublin (Majdanek) which was not officially part of Aktion Reinhardt. The camp at Lublin came under the control of the Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt (WVHA)—Concentration Camp Inspectorate—whilst Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka were controlled by Odilo Globocnik. The Old Airfield camp was a storage depot for the clothing and footwear of the murdered victims in the three Aktion Reinhardt camps as well as from the ghettos and was due to become a sub-camp of the Lublin concentration camp. But the liquidation of the camp as part of Aktion Erntefest in November 1943 meant this plan never came to fruition.[164]
Epilogue
On July 4, 1944, a German anmmunition train was stationary at the Belzec railway station when it was bombed by a lone Soviet fighter plane. In the ensuing explosion the station was completely destroyed, along with a number of other buildings in the vicinity. After the fires had been put out, the Germans erected a wooden barrack near the ruins that served as the station for the next fifty years, until a new one was built in 1994. The destruction of the railway station may well be the reason why no railroad documentation of the transports to Belzec has apparently survived.
The Soviet Red Army liberated Belzec village on July 21, 1944, and a Polish War Crimes Commission, led by Judge Czeslaw Godzieszewski from the District Court in Zamosc, commenced its investigations at the former death camp site. In addition to hearing testimony from the Belzec villagers, including those who had helped construct the gas chambers, and others who witnessed transports arriving, the investigation team carried out on-site investigations at the former death camp. Nine pits were opened to confirm the existence of mass graves. The human remains found were reinterred in a specially erected concrete crypt near the northeast corner of the camp. In February 1946, officials from the District Court Zamosc returned to Belzec to interview several of the witnesses again, and the War Crimes Commission published a report on their findings on April 11, 1946.
The first monument to the victims who perished at Belzec was unveiled on December 1, 1963, but the site was neglected and rarely visited. In 1993 an agreement was reached between Poland and the United States of America concerning the construction of a new memorial at the site of the former death camp. Among the signatories we
re members of the Council for the Preservation of the Memory of Victims of War and Persecutions and members of the American Jewish Community.
During the years 1997 and 1999, the site of the former death camp saw a number of archeological studies under the stewardship of Professor Andrzej Kola, director of the archaeological faculty at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. They located 33 mass graves, most containing crematory ashes and charcoal, as well as a number of traces of the camps buildings and unloading ramps. The team also uncovered plastic plates with the Jewish Star of David, glass and china destructs, spoons, knives, keys and padlocks, and a silver cigarette case bearing the engraved inscription “Max Munk, Wien 27.”
The new memorial took the form of a symbolic cemetery designed by Polish artists Andrzej Solyga, Zdislaw Pidek, and Marcin Roszcyk. The entire area of the former camp, with its central part covered in slag and marked mass graves, constitutes a monument with a passage through it that symbolises the last stage of life. At the end of the passage there is a wall with names of over 200 Jewish communities whose members were murdered at Belzec. The memorial museum is built in the shape of a train entering the camps unloading ramp. The memorial museum was opened on June 3, 2004, by the Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. He was accompanied by representatives from the Polish government, the American Jewish Committee, and the United States Holocaust Museum, Washington, D.C., United States of America.
It is a fitting memorial to the hell called Belzec.
Illustrations and Sources
Photographs