by Omer Bartov
13 Wizinger, YVA, 8–9; Halpern, Family and Town, 46; Gross 1996; A. Appleman-Jurman, interview with author, October 19, 2005; “Letter from Dr. Max Anderman” and S. Rosental, “Second Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 236; 258, 262–64, respectively. See also MWC, account by Elie Berger: “58 Torah scrolls that were hidden by the monks of the Basilian Monastery were returned and taken to Czernowitz.” May 18, 1947.
14 Wizinger, YVA, 14–15.
15 Y. Shikhor (I. Szwarc), “First Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 237–38, 273–74; DATO, fond R-174, op. 1,- od., zb. 1283, 3.9.31; letter by Arye Leib (Leon) Slutzky of the Institut für Judaistik, University of Vienna, enclosing copy of Szwarc’s original account, to Simon Wiesenthal, January 25, 1978, Wiesenthal Archive in Vienna, Buczacz folder (hereafter WA/B). See also an account of the killing of three hundred Hungarian Jews near Buczacz in 1942 in H. Komański et al., “Ludobójstwo i czystki etniczne,” Na Rubieży 4 (1995): 4–25, here 5–6.
16 Shikhor (Szwarc), “First Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 238, 266; Szwarc 1945. Similar accusations were made by Wizinger, YVA, 15, S. Rosen 1960, and Eliasz Chalfen, YVA, M1/E 1559 (hereafter E. Chalfen 1947). For conditions in these labor camps, see Gerber 1996; Mosze Ginsberg, BArch B162/5166, Tel Aviv, September 30, 1964, pp. 1219–20 (hereafter Ginsberg 1964); Gross 1996; Leon Schmetterling, SFV 2659, May 21, 1995 (hereafter Schmetterling 1995); Michael (Samuel, Shmuel) Suhl, SFV 12558, March 1, 1996; Icchak Miller, BArch B162-6081, p. 48; Staatsanwaltschaft (state attorney, hereafter StA) Oldenburg, Rep 946 Akz. 133, vol. 14: 135–37; vol. 15: 60–61, 68–70, 117–18, 119–26, 128–29, 240–43, 251; vol. 16: 74, 212–15; vol. 17: 74; StA Amberg, vol. 1506/2: 223–29, 416–17; vol. 1506/3: 23, 184; vol. 1506/5, no page numbers.
17 S. Rosen 1960; Rosental, AŻIH; letter by Bernhard Seifer, June 5, 1946, MWC (hereafter Seifer 1946); E. Bazan (Worman), “The Resistance in Buczacz,” in Sefer Buczacz, 286; Worman 1976 and 208 AR-Z 239/59, StA Saarbrücken, vol. 3 (hereafter Gelbart 1965), p. 1007, note that the third Judenrat chairman, Dr. Engelberg, escaped after being warned by Landkommissar Walter Hoffer. Gelbart, “Fourth Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 273, and 276, where he comments that Kramer and Seifer “appealed to the Germans” on behalf of the Jews at least “until the fall of 1942.” A German translation of Gelbart’s account is in a letter from Simon Wiesenthal to public prosecutor Wilhelm Angelberger in Mannheim, September 3, 1965, “Bericht Polizei Israel,” WA/B; Anonymous, YVA M-1/E, 1726 (hereafter Anonymous 1948); further in Michael Margules, BArch 162/5163, Saarbrücken, 1960, p. 164 (hereafter Margules 1960).
18 Halpern 1948; S. Rosen 1960; Wizinger, YVA, 23–24.
19 Gerhard von Jordan, a former German official in nearby Kołomyja (Ukrainian: Kolomyya), described a similar situation there: “On the fingers of the Gestapo commissars one could see large glittering diamonds; their wives acquired elegant underwear and good clothing materials from Jewish provisions. Furs and leather goods were acquired in large quantities. . . . From this bribery business developed a nauseating friendship between Jews and Gestapo leaders. . . . Jewish coachmen, Jewish maids, Jewish workmen and Jewish merchants went in and out of the homes of the Gestapo. To be sure this did not prevent the Gestapo from bestially murdering their good friends at the very first opportunity.” BArch (Außenstelle Bayreuth), Ost-Dok. 13/236, “Erlebnisbericht über meine Tätigkeit im ehem. Generalgouvernement,” November 29, 1956; G. von Jordan, Polnische Jahre (Bad Rappenau-Heinsheim, 1986); “Es war oft auch recht lustig,” Der Spiegel 42 (1995): 92–101, http://magazin.spiegel.de/EpubDelivery/spiegel/pdf/9222612; T. Kleine-Brockhoff, “Raub ohne Zeugen,” Die Zeit 44 (1995), http://www.zeit.de/1995/44/Raub_ohne_Zeugen (both accessed November 17, 2016).
20 Shortly after the war Abraham Chalfen wrote to Palestine that the Buczacz Judenrat had “supervised the implementation” of German orders and “the Jewish police carried them out”; the Jews “could not tell who was crueler: the Judenrat or the Gestapo.” Shmuel Rosen recalled that the Judenrat adamantly refused to help a Jewish army veteran Jankiel Zuler purchase weapons, and later “threatened to denounce” Rosen’s own resistance group “to the Germans if we continued”; especially Kramer, Seifer, and Berko Hersas—the only other Judenrat member who survived—“were emphatically opposed.” Only the Judenrat member and former deputy mayor Emanuel Meerengel helped the resistance, as also confirmed by resistance leader Worman. Izaak Szwarc noted that a group of armed Jews deported to Buczacz from Tłumacz “troubled the Judenrat” because of “the general opinion . . . that they were not afraid of the Germans and the Ukrainians.” Yehoshua Friedlender believed that Seifer “saw the poor as human dust meant to satiate the German beast and save those ‘worthy of rescue’ until the bad times passed.” “Letter from Dr. Abraham, Łódź, January 1, 1946,” in Sefer Buczacz, 233–35; S. Rosen 1960; S. Rosen, interview with author, Tel Aviv, March 12, 2002 (hereafter Rosen 2002); Worman 1976; Szwarc 1945; YVA M1Q/53, Samuel Hersas, “Questionnaire,” October 15, 1947; Friedlender 2004.
21 Seifer 1946; Wizinger, YVA, 49; Worman 1976; S. Rosen 1960; Gelbart 1965; Kornblüh 1945; J. Kornblüh, USHMM RG-15.084M, reel 35, 301/3279, and 301/3283, January 13 and 19, 1948 (hereafter Kornblüh 1948); Rosental, AŻIH; Anonymous 1948; S. Rosen 2002. Sefer Buczacz, 301, cites Haaretz correspondent Yitzhak Bornstein writing from Warsaw in September 1949 that “the members of the Jewish council . . . stood up” to the Germans “with dignity and pride” and “did not fulfill all the Hitlerite demands. The Jews said to themselves: It is better to die with dignity than to die in disgrace.” See also the detailed but false description of the Judenrat in Gazeta Żydowska, one of two official mouthpieces of the Jews under German occupation, May 29 and July 1, 1942.
22 Wizinger, YVA, 47; Worman 1976 (naming him Edelstein). Sala Anderman saw Munio (Menachem) Landau betray the bunker; Ebenstein then fled and was shot by the gendarme Peter Pahl. Erna Klanfer also testified that Pahl shot Ebenstein. Landau survived and testified in Haifa on November 4, 1965, that he “knew the gendarme Pahl at the time well.” S. Anderman, BArch B162/5169, p. 1974 (hereafter S. Anderman, BArch); E. Klanfer, BArch B162/5180, Netanya, Israel, September 2, 1968, pp. 5626–29 (hereafter Klanfer 1968); BArch B162/5169, pp. 1835–36, respectively.
23 Wizinger, YVA, 21, 53–54; Halpern 1948; E. Chalfen 1947: this line is omitted from E. Chalfen, “Third Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 265; Gelbart, “Fourth Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 273; see also Sefer Buczacz, 295–96, for a reprint of a report from Paris in Haaretz of January 1947 on a chance encounter between a survivor and a former OD member from Buczacz.
24 Rosental, AŻIH; reference to axes expunged from Rosental, “Second Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 260; S. Rosen 1960.
25 Sala Anderman, a nurse at the hospital at the time, witnessed similar killings by the gendarme Peter Pahl and others (S. Anderman, BArch). Halpern recalled that during the second action OD men did not collaborate “as much as in the first roundup, because some of their members had also been deported.” Hindzia Miller (Hilda Weitz) testified that during the fourth roundup, of April 1943, OD chief Wolcio Wattenberg, who knew her family, “fell on his knees and begged the Germans and the Ukrainians, ‘Please take me, but don’t take them.’ ” This likely led to his removal and murder. Izaak Szwarc recalled that during the same action the OD man Janek Anderman “shot a Ukrainian policeman and injured a German.” The Germans then “beat him until he lost consciousness, dragged him to town,” and “in front of the city hall poured gasoline on him and burned him alive.” Halpern 1948; H. Weitz, SFV 47637, November 4, 1998; Szwarc 1945; Shikhor (Szwarc), First Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 246–47. See also Worman 1976; Bazan (Worman), “The Resistance in Buczacz,” in Sefer Buczacz; Gekht, “Stolen Childhood.”
26 If this was Natan (Nadje) Dunajer’s mother, this account would indicate that the former communist and future resistance leader was also an OD member. For witness testimonies on Pal, see Benzion Schor, Bogotá, Colombia, November 21, 1967, BArch B/
5176, pp. 4596–602; Abraham Bilgoraj, Beit Dagon, Israel, April 22, 1965, BArch B/5166, pp. 1238–45.
27 BArch B162/5182, vol. 20, January 10, 1968, pp. 6212–19 (hereafter Bauer 1968). Gelbart, “Fourth Testimony,” in Sefer Buczacz, 282–83, notes that in June 1943 “a small group of surviving youths were hiding in the forests of Buczacz: the two Bauer brothers, List, the son of the baker, Friedlender, Fritz, and others—several dozen boys aged 17 to 22.” Fritz was also a former OD member. Erna Klanfer testified that “the Jewish Ordnungsdienst knew well the terrain of Buczacz and the bunkers in which the Jews hid”; she encountered Bauer in Tel Aviv after the war and recognized him as a former policeman. Klanfer 1968. Beno Wechsler testified in Israel, “Izi Bauer was in the Jewish police that used to catch the Jews, he lives here.” YVA 03/9078, September 4, 1995 (hereafter Wechsler 1995). Worman 1976, who turned down a request from the Judenrat to command the Jewish police, ended up organizing a resistance group in Buczacz. But as he testified, “one cannot say that there was one heroic battle” or “great acts of courage. . . . The best reward was that we survived.” Worman claimed that as communists, Dunajer’s and Friedlender’s resistance groups rejected “the nationalist character of our organization”; he also accused Wizinger of joining a Polish resistance group that “attacked Jews and carried out many murderous actions and terrified everyone.” Wizinger’s version completely contradicts this claim. Shlomo Gutkowski (Munio Weitz), SFV 46271, August 16, 1998, gives a critical account of Worman’s group (hereafter Gutkowski 1998).
28 Bazan (Worman), “The Resistance in Buczacz,” in Sefer Buczacz, 288; Worman 1976; E. Chalfen 1947; Rosental, AŻIH; S. Rosen 1960; Gelbart 1965; AAN, zesp. 1326, 203/XV/28, May 5, 1944, p. 123.
29 Buchatski Visti, September 21, 1941, p. 2: “The offices of the district leadership of the OUN-M [the more moderate faction of OUN led by Andriy Melnyk] are located at the Prosvita House (formerly the ‘Sokół’) under the name ‘Sich.’ ” Kaznovskyi’s deputy, Vasyl Kit, commanded the ten-man Buczacz city police force throughout the occupation; Kit’s deputy Dankovych became chief of police in Barysz in 1942. There were eleven Ukrainian police outposts in the Buczacz district; each included a German gendarme. These approximately sixty men, most of them older adherents of OUN-M, were an integral component of German genocidal policies. The younger members of Bandera’s more radical OUN-B went underground. Halpern, Family and Town, 46, writes, “Dr. Fuchs’s wife was arrested.” Kornblüh 1945 notes that “Mrs. Fuks, the wife of a physician who had been arrested before,” was among the victims. The only Jewish witness who testified at the postwar Soviet investigation, twenty-year-old Bernard Kramer, saw “about 450 people” being led “in a column guarded by the Ukrainian district police” toward the killing site. There were three women in the first row, including “my aunt, Liuba Weisser.” Another witness saw “four or five women,” including “one named Fuchs.” See also n. 6.
30 Shikhor (Szwarc), “First Testimony”; Rosental, “Second Testimony”; Chalfen, “Third Testimony”; Gelbart, “Fourth Testimony”; and Bazan (Worman), “The Resistance in Buczacz,” all in Sefer Buczacz, 238, 260, 265, 274, and 285, respectively. Gelbart 1948, 1965; Szwarc 1945; E. Chalfen 1947; Rosental, AŻIH; Worman 1976; Filip Czarski, BArch B162/20035, September 26, 1967, pp. 712–13; Gerber 1996.
31 Kornblüh 1945; Kleiner 1951; Szwarc 1945; Wizinger, YVA, 20; Jakub Hornreich, BArch B1672/20035, Akko, Israel, February 2, 1966, pp. 453–56.
32 Wizinger, YVA, 1–20; Kleiner 1951; Leslie Gordon, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, June 1, 1961, Session 62, part 5, Nizkor Project, http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-062-05.html (accessed November 17, 2016); S. Rosen 1960.
33 S. Rosen 1960; Bazan (Worman), “The Resistance in Buczacz,” in Sefer Buczacz, 285; Fabian Strauber, YVA, M-1/E, 1529, Stuttgart, July 28, 1947 (hereafter Strauber 1947); DATO, fond 274, op. 4, spr. 78, p. 44; David Munczer, YVA 03/6183, October 26, 1990, pp. 3–4; Yisrael Munczer, YVA 03/642, April 23, 1961, p. 4, and YVA 03/5878, April 27, 1990, pp. 7–8; Y. Munczer, A Holocaust Survivor from Buczacz (Jerusalem, 1990, in Hebrew), pp. 12–15; David Seiler, account to the Soviet Extraordinary Commission (hereafter SEC), November 5, 1944, USHMM RG-22-002m, Reel 17, folder 371.
34 The outpost reported to the SS- und Polizeiführer (SS and Police Leader, SSPF) of Distrikt Galizien in Lemberg, SS-Brigadier General Friedrich Katzmann, who reported in turn to the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (higher SS and police leader, HSSPF) of the General Government, Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, in Kraków. At the top of the hierarchy was the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Reich Security Main Office, RSHA) in Berlin under Reinhard Heydrich (Ernst Kaltenbrunner after January 1943), whose direct boss was Reichsführer (Reich Leader) of the SS and chief of the German police Heinrich Himmler. Justiz und NS-Verbrechen (Nazi Crimes on Trial, J.u.NS-V), vol. 18, pp. 659–60. See StA Dortmund 45 Js 11/65, 4690, Arnsberg, April 2, 1968, pp. 196–204; 4692, pp. 81–83 for a personnel list of the Czortków Sipo, noting five chiefs, ten Gestapo officials, a dozen guards and administrative staff, and SS men Richard Pal and Paul Thomanek. Kurt Köllner listed about forty men in the outpost, including “criminal officials of German, Ukrainian, and Polish nationality”: StA Hagen, vol. 5, April 21, 1959, p. 152; BArch B162/5164, December 1, 1964, pp. 1–10. The establishment figure for the “non-German police for 1943” in Czortków indicated 302 Ukrainian policemen and officers (3,674 for Galicia as a whole), raised to 305 (4,133) on July 1, 1943, and remaining at this level on January 1, 1944. USHMM RG-31.003M Reel 1 (1992.A.0069), from YVA M-37, March 17, July 4, and December 22, 1943, pp. 19–21, 35–39.
35 The first outpost chief was a World War I and Freikorps veteran and Nazi Party member, Detective Sergeant Fritz-Ernst Blome. Appointed in September 1941 but dismissed shortly thereafter for being “too weak,” he was replaced by Detective Superintendent Karl Hildemann, who was in turn transferred in November 1942. The next chief, Detective Sergeant Hans Velde, died from spotted fever in March 1943 and was replaced by Detective Sergeant Heinrich Peckmann, deputy chief of the outpost since late 1942. Finally, in October 1943, Detective Superintendent Werner Eisel, a lawyer and Nazi Party member, took over until the outpost was dismantled in early 1944. Of these men, only Peckmann was indicted but acquitted after the war; Blome and Eisel died in 1948 before trial proceedings could begin. J.u.NS-V, vol. 18, p. 659; BArch (Außenstelle Ludwigsburg) DP3/1645, indictment, Kurt Willi, Otto Köllner and Heinrich Peckmann, Saarbrücken, June 12, 1961; USHMM RG-31.003M Reel 1, BDC-RS/BArch (Berlin); Werner Eisel, Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe (hereafter GLA-K) 309. Zug. 2001-42/881, Landesgericht (State Court, hereafter LG) Mannheim, S.B. 40; IPN Warsaw 375/33, pp. 1, 3–7; BArch ZB827/2; BArch B162/20037, December 27, 1961, pp. 94–100; 5164, December 1, 1964, pp. 698–707; Sandkühler, Endlösung, 154, 440; Pohl, Judenverfolgung, 411–12.
36 This account is based on J.u.NS-V, vol. 18, pp. 655–80; BArch (Außenstelle Ludwigsburg), DP3/1645, pp. 7–23. Officially Köllner’s position was at times referred to as “Judensachbearbeiter.”
37 A. Angrick, “Annihilation and Labor,” in The Shoah in Ukraine, ed. R. Brandon and W. Lower (Bloomington, IN, 2008), 190–223.
38 Among other crimes, Köllner was accused of shooting twelve patients, including three women and several children, in their beds at the Buczacz ghetto hospital in early 1943. BArch (Außenstelle Ludwigsburg), 208 AR-Z 239/59, vol. 1, pp. 17–19.
39 This account is based on J.u.NS-V, 18: 658-9, 677-79, 682; BArch (Außenstelle Ludwigsburg) DP3/1645, pp. 9–10, 23–24, 27–28. See also the questionnaire filled out by Peckmann on April 18, 1939, in Cologne: GLA-K 309 Zug. 2001-42/881. See further in StA Dortmund 45 Js 11/65, 4688, M. Weisinger [Wizinger], Tel Aviv, August 18, 1963, pp. 40–43; Dr. I. Schorr, Tel Aviv, September 5, 1963, p. 46; summary of accusation, May 3, 1965, pp. 161–63; 4689, J. Kohn, Beit Dagon, October 21, 1965, pp. 130–35; W. F. Müller, Ansbach, January 11, 1966, pp. 148–55; A. D. Schweiger, Haifa, July 14, 1965,
pp. 167–69; S. Elizur, Tel Aviv, June 14, 1965, pp. 175–79; 4690, Peckmann interrogation, Euskirchen, March 2, 1966, p. 8; summary and dismissal, August 24, 1966, pp. 127–49. See also N. Rosenberg, BArch B162/5163, Tel Aviv, March 3, 1960, p. 80; Schorr, 1961, pp. 403–12; Sandkühler, Endlösung, 442.
40 This account is based on BArch B162/5175, October 24, 1967, pp. 4253–58. Dov Rachelson described Rosenow as “a degenerate with an especially trained dog that would respond to the call ‘Jude’ by attacking Jews, biting and tearing off pieces of flesh. He was the ghetto’s nightmare and it was enough for someone to say ‘Rosenow is coming’ for everyone to hide.” BArch B162/5175, vol. 81, pp. 97–100. Richard Pal claimed that Hildemann was “shot by the Germans in the Baltics, because . . . just as in Czortków, he did not agree with the Jewish actions.” BArch B162/5175, October 30, 1967, p. 4272. Józef Rabinowicz described “the ‘executioner trio’ made up of Brettschneider, Martin, and Rosenow—the latter always accompanied by a dog,” and said that Brettschneider “was considered a dangerous murderer by the inhabitants of Buczacz . . . especially . . . when he was drunk.” 208 AR-Z 239/59, vol. 3, Tel Aviv, October 23, 1964, pp. 935–37.
41 This account is based on J.u.NS-V, vol. 16, pp. 727–72. See also StA Hagen, 11 Ks 1/57, vol. 1, July 20, 1955, pp. 128–37, and references below. On labor camps in the Tarnopol area, see also Case Nr. 63, Andere Massenvernichtungsverbrechen: LG Stuttgart, 15.07.1966, Ks 7/64, Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Supreme Court, BGH), 1 StR 601/67, May 7, 1968.
42 StA Hagen, 11 Ks 1/57, vol. 5, April 21, 1959, pp. 154, 156. Margules 1960: “Rux was very close friends with Thomanek. Both were also friends with Pahl” (likely referring to Richard Pal), p. 139.
43 BArch B162/5176, p. 66 (2); StA Hagen, 11 Ks 1/57, vol. 5, April 21, 1959, p. 157.
44 208 AR-Z 239/59, vol. 3, StA Saarbrücken, March 26, 1965, pp. 764–67; testimony by Albert Wachinger: BArch B162/5180, November 12, 1968, pp. 5669–71. See also testimony by Franz Rauscher, 5178, July 24, 1968, p. 5213. Rosental, AŻIH, witnessed several other killings of Jews, including his two daughters, by Thomanek. S. Rosen witnessed the killing by Thomanek of Dawid Aba Stern, his wife, and two daughters at the Judenrat building. StA Hagen, 11 Ks 1/57, vol. 5, January 12, 1958, p. 14; vol. 10, May 18, 1960, p. 56.