The Holocaust

by Martin Gilbert

  Thus in the dark of the night a terrible wrestling match began between those who were defending their lives and the killers. The porters fought with the strength of their bodies, without weapons; the killers were armed and confident of their superiority.

  At such times there is no rational thought. Instinct comes in its stead. In time of danger the latent, hidden powers of a man burst out and are exposed; and in particular when one finds oneself in a condition of ‘in any case we will die’. And therefore, before the killers had time to act, the condemned men pounced on them and tried to seize the pistols.

  One of the pistols went off and wounded the tailor in the leg. Then the porters grabbed the Nazis by the throat and tried to strangle them. The two sides wrestled until their strength waned, and in the end the killers, who still had their weapons, were victorious. Izraelit the tailor saved himself by presenting the killers with a document showing that he was working in a factory for the German army. With the dawn, he was taken to the hospital.

  On the morrow, the Nazis avenged the mutiny of the two porters with no Jews. They were put to death for the sins of men who had never laid eyes on them.41

  At Mielnica, near Kowel, one of the two towns mentioned by Ringelblum in connection with ‘lies’ about resistance, an act of resistance had been recorded during the Einsatzkommando killings of July 1941, when Abraham Weintraub ‘dashed out of a group drawn up for the massacre, pounced upon a German officer who was standing nearby, hit him and broke his teeth’. Weintraub was shot dead on the spot.42 But in some of the larger ghettos, submission seemed a way to survival. Moses Merin in the Zaglebia region, Chaim Rumkowski in Lodz, Ephraim Barasz in Bialystok, each believed in the possibility of protecting tens of thousands of Jews by turning their respective ghettos into increasingly productive work centres for German needs.

  In the Lodz ghetto, Rumkowski had always insisted that the ghetto’s chances of survival lay in productive work. But on June 4 the Ghetto Chronicle had noted that ‘fear of the possible resettlement of the unemployed, which would mean the break-up of families, runs deep in the ghetto dwellers’ minds, weighs on them, and prevents them from working.’ Were it not for that worry, the Chronicle added, ‘it could all somehow be endured, for, on the whole, our people are greatly inclined to optimism and to believe in the power of the spirit in spite of physical exhaustion.’43

  Work in the Lodz ghetto was, indeed, on the increase, particularly, as the Chronicle noted on June 10, in providing material for the German army. This increase in orders, it commented, had been observable ‘since the time when the ghettos in the neighbouring small towns were eliminated’.44

  Between the end of May and mid-July 1942, the Lodz ghetto workshops received nearly 800,000 kilogrammes of old clothing, nearly 70,000 kilogrammes of used shoes, and even 12 kilogrammes of old ties.45 During the sorting of the old clothing, one woman worker found a gold necklace weighing 26 grammes.46

  In his public address to the people of the ghetto on May 31, Rumkowski had stressed that work, and working papers, were the principal authorization ‘for remaining in the ghetto’. Of the hundred thousand Jews in the ghetto, seventy thousand were employed. He would try to find employment for ten thousand more ‘in the very near future’, including ‘easy work for children and old people’.47 Nor was work lacking: German army representatives who inspected the ghetto in July expressed themselves ‘entirely satisfied’ by what they saw: including tailor workshops producing ten thousand pairs of pants and trousers in camouflage cloth, and jumpsuits for paratroops.48

  During his speech on May 31, Rumkowski had told the Jews of the Lodz ghetto that ‘considerable blame’ for the ‘resettlement’ of fifty-five thousand Jews from Lodz in the previous six months was to be borne in Lodz itself by those Jews who had been ‘reluctant to work’. He wished therefore to warn them again ‘of the potential consequences of idleness’.49

  Three weeks later, on June 21, Ephraim Barasz explained, at a mass meeting of Bialystok Jews:

  We have transformed all our inhabitants into useful elements. Our security is in direct proportion to our labour productivity. We already have twenty factories in operation. Any day now, there will be opened a weaving factory, a factory making wooden lasts, a woodwork and a wheel factory….

  You are all aware of the visits we have recently had. It is hard to enumerate them all, and I shall only mention those most important ones, on which the fate of the ghetto depended….

  All delegations have expressed their satisfaction with our work, and we received massive orders after the last visits. The visits brought about a continuously improving attitude toward us. The very person who, from the start, was totally against us, now has become friendly.

  Instead of contributions, evacuations etc., we are now given subsidies for our institutions, for the kitchens, training courses, hospitals, and also for industry. But the financial aspect is not as important as is the friendly attitude toward us.

  Steps had to be taken, Barasz explained, so that the existence of thirty-five thousand Jews in the Bialystok ghetto would ‘achieve justification, so that we may be tolerated’.50

  Ringelblum had no illusions as to the Jewish fate under Nazi rule. ‘The extermination’, he wrote on June 25, ‘is being executed according to a plan and schedule prepared in advance. Only a miracle can save us: the sudden end of the war. Otherwise, we are lost.’51

  On June 26, using information collected by the ‘Joy of Sabbath’ circle and smuggled out of Poland, the British government broadcast details of the fate of Polish Jewry. ‘Today,’ Ringelblum noted, ‘there was a broadcast summarizing the situation: seven hundred thousand, the number of Jews killed in Poland, was mentioned. At the same time, the broadcast vowed revenge, a final accounting for all these deeds of violence.’ Ringelblum added, of his own circle’s efforts:

  Our toils and tribulations, our devotion and constant terror, have not been in vain. We have struck the enemy a hard blow. It is not important whether or not the revelation of the incredible slaughter of Jews will have the desired effect—whether or not the methodical liquidation of entire Jewish communities will stop. One thing we know—we have fulfilled our duty. We have overcome every obstacle to achieve our end. Nor will our deaths be meaningless, like the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews. We have struck the enemy a hard blow. We have revealed his Satanic plan to annihilate Polish Jewry, a plan he wished to complete in silence. We have run a line through his calculations and have exposed his cards. And if England keeps its word and turns to the formidable massive attacks that it has threatened—then perhaps we shall be saved.

  There were some people, Ringelblum noted, who believed that as a result of the broadcasts from London, the Germans would be afraid to perpetrate any new massacres. Some people cited ‘evidence’ of Jews ‘supposed to have been deported from Ostrowiec being set free’. If this were confirmed, Ringelblum added, ‘it is really the beginning of a new era’. But, he added, the ‘more sober among us’ warned against having any illusions: ‘No compassion can be expected from the Germans. Whether we live or die depends on how much time they have. If they have enough time we are lost. If salvation comes soon, we are saved.’52

  21

  * * *

  ‘Avenge our tormented people’

  On 7 July 1942 a meeting took place in Berlin, presided over by Himmler. Three other men were also present: the head of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, SS General Richard Glueks; the hospital chief, SS Major-General, and also Professor, Gebhardt; and a leading German gynaecologist, Professor Clauberg. As a result of their discussion, it was decided to start medical experiments in ‘major dimensions’ on Jewish women at Auschwitz. The experiments would be done in such a way, the notes of the meeting recorded, that a woman would not become aware of what was being done to her. It was also decided to ask a leading X-ray specialist, Professor Hohlfelder, to find out if it were possible to castrate men by means of X-rays.

  Himmler warned those present that these were
‘most secret matters’. All who became involved in them, he said, would have to be pledged to secrecy.1 Three days later, at Auschwitz, the first hundred Jewish women were taken from the barracks to the hospital block for sterilization and other experiments. One of those who survived such an experiment travelled, after the war, by ship to the Far East. She was then aged thirty-five years, but the ship’s medical officer, Peter Mackay, reported that she ‘looked at least twenty years older’.

  During the voyage, Mackay also spoke to two Dutch doctors who had been prisoners in Auschwitz, and who described four experiments:

  Experiment No. 1

  These were performed by a Professor Samuel who was forced to do them. Three to four operations per day. The abdomen was opened and an incision made in the uterus, whereupon neoplastic cells were implanted. The origin of these neoplastic cells is unknown.

  Three to six operations were performed after this at three to four weekly intervals and pieces of tissue from the uterus were taken and frozen sections made. The discharge which occurred through the cervix was clear and gave no indication of any change occurring. The women were unaffected by the actual operations.

  Experiment No. 2

  Fifteen girls aged seventeen to eighteen years old. The girls who survived the following operations are in German hands and little is known about them. The subjects were placed in an ultra-short-wave field. One electrode was placed on the abdomen and another on the vulva. The rays were focused on the ovaries. The ovaries were consequently burnt up.

  Owing to faulty doses several had serious burns of the abdomen and vulva. One died as a result of these burns alone. The others were sent to another concentration camp where some were put in hospital and others made to work. After a month they returned to Auschwitz where control operations were performed. Sagittal and transverse sections of the ovaries were made.

  The girls altered entirely owing to hormonal changes. They looked just like old women. Often they were laid up for months owing to the wounds of the operations becoming septic. Several died as a result of sepsis.

  The third experiment, carried out by Dr Clauberg, was described by the Dutch doctors as the one ‘most practised’.

  The women were put on the table. With the assistance of an electrically driven pump a white cement-like fluid (possibly Barium) was driven into the uterus. As the fluid was pumped in, Rontgen photos were taken. The women were extremely ill under this experiment. They felt as though the abdomen was going to burst. After getting up from the table they rushed to the lavatory where the fluid came out again. The pains caused by this experiment were equivalent to labour pains. The fluid which was evacuated was often mixed with blood. The experiments were repeated several times. Those patients that could not be used owing to a small Os Uteri or those patients upon whom the experiments were completed, were sent to Birkenau, another camp, where they were killed. This was practised on practically all women at Auschwitz, about four hundred all told.

  The aim of the experiment was not to affect sterility, nevertheless it is certain that many women owing to the inflammatory reaction set up did become sterile and many died from peritonitis due to a ruptured uterus.

  A fourth experiment, carried out by SS First Lieutenants Weber and Munch, involved the reaction of the blood to various injections, among them malarial parasites, pure carbolic, and air. ‘Many other cruelties were performed’, Mackay added, ‘which have not been set down.’2

  ***

  Auschwitz was now ready to receive Jews from all over Europe: to gas the old, the sick, the infirm and the young, and to ‘select’ the able-bodied for forced labour, and for medical experiments. On July 15 the first two thousand deportees were sent from Holland to Auschwitz. Most of them were German Jews who had found refuge in Holland between 1933 and 1939. On the previous day the Germans had announced that they were going for ‘labour service in Germany’.3 Two weeks later, in Amsterdam, the Gestapo Commander assured the Jewish Council that ‘all Jews taken to Germany are undoubtedly doing ordinary work.’ In addition, he promised them that the Germans had made ‘absolutely certain’ that deported families would be kept together.4

  The two thousand deportees from Holland had been sent east in two trains. Both trains reached Auschwitz on July 17. At Auschwitz, 1,251 men were sent to the barracks at Birkenau where they were tattooed on their forearm with the numbers’ 47088 to 47687 and 47843 to 48493. Of the women deportees, 300 were taken to the barracks and likewise tattooed, with the numbers 8801 to 8999 and 9027 to 9127. The remaining 449 deportees were gassed.5 These included all the children, the elderly and the sick.

  The ‘numbering’ of Jews at Birkenau was not only administratively tidy. It was also a method of depersonalising tens of thousands of men and women, who were being reduced to a cipher, a mere number. Once they had been tattooed, the only thing that was important about them was their number. Whatever productive work that was to be had of them was as if from a machine: a machine with a serial number by which alone it functioned. The tattoo on the forearm also inhibited escape: it was an indelible mark instantly recognisable. Unlike circumcision, which had become under German rule a tell-tale mark and curse only for Jewish men, the tattoo identified Jew and Jewess alike.

  As the deportations from Holland gathered momentum, many Dutch Jews were given shelter by non-Jews. In the small town of Winterswijk, near the German frontier, hiding places were found for 35 of the 270 Jews. Eight miles away, at Aalten, of 85 Jews, 51 were hidden by non-Jews, and survived the war.6

  On July 16, the day after the first Dutch deportation, seven thousand Jews were rounded up in Paris. They were taken, first, to an indoor stadium, the Velodrome d’Hiver, and then to an unfinished suburban building complex at Drancy. The original plan was for them to be deported on July 18, but the train was not ready. Adolf Eichmann was angered, pointing out, as SS First Lieutenant Heinz Rothke, his Paris representative, noted on July 19, ‘that it was a matter of prestige: difficult negotiations had been successfully concluded with the Reich Transport Ministry for these convoys and now Paris was cancelling a train.’ Such a thing ‘had never happened to him before. The whole affair was “disgraceful”.’7

  Matters were soon rectified. On the very day of Eichmann’s protest, July 19, the first thousand Jews, 879 men and 121 women, were deported from Paris to Auschwitz. These deportees from France included 386 Polish-born Jews, and many other Jews born in towns as far away as Odessa, Istanbul, Leningrad, Moscow and Jerusalem. On July 21 these thousand deportees reached Auschwitz. A selection was made, and 375, probably all those over forty-five, were gassed. The other men and women, 615 in all, received tattoo numbers and were sent to the barracks.8 But only seventeen of the men sent to the barracks, and none of the women, survived the war.9

  On their arrival at Auschwitz, the Jewish deportees were met with a combination of threats and deception. If there were several trains on a single day, haste was the predominant mood. Rudolf Vrba, deported from Slovakia in July, recalled how, on arrival, the Jews in his carriage ‘began to throw out all the corpses of the dead. But all of a sudden there were voices, “Juden, raus, raus, raus—schnell, schnell, schnell.” “Jews, out, out, out—quick, quick, quick….”’

  DEPORTATIONS TO AUSCHWITZ

  THE WESTERN DEPORTATIONS

  Vrba was selected for the barracks, where he worked first as a clerk and later as one of those prisoners forced to sort out the belongings of the new arrivals. Later he recalled the days on which there was, perhaps, only a single train, and hence less hurry. On such occasions, Vrba noted, the SS ‘might grant you the gentle technique, with humour’. This, he recalled, was the gist of the ‘gentle’ approach:

  Ladies and gentlemen, we are so sorry. Look just at this mess! How do they treat people! Would you please get out and please don’t get in touch with those criminals—they are here only for taking your luggage and if you have got unmarked luggage and you are afraid that you might, it might get lost, just take it with you, but which you have go
t names on it, just don’t worry. We are keeping a good eye that none of those criminals can take anything away. And our German honesty, about which I hope you have got no doubt, is a guarantee that all your property will be given to you. Now the whole thing is to make the whole procedure—please don’t make us any trouble—so that we can give you water and allow you the basic sanitary conditions to be restored after this dismal journey.

  In this way, Vrba added, the SS, while looking around at the ‘excrement and urine and blood around the wagon’, pretended it was all some terrible mistake. But the gentle or brutal techniques had only one objective, neither to be gentle nor to be brutal, but to ensure that the people who had arrived reached the gas-chamber ‘as soon as possible and without a hitch’.10

  The Jews who arrived at Auschwitz had been given many promises. Lilli Kopecky, who, like Vrba, was deported from Slovakia that summer, recalled a Dutch Jew asking, angrily, ‘Where is my wife, where are my children?’ The Jews in the barracks said to him, ‘Look at the chimney. They are there. Up there.’ But the Dutch Jew cursed them. ‘There are so many camps around,’ he said. ‘They promised me we would be kept together.’

  ‘This’, Lilli Kopecky reflected, ‘is the greatest strength of the whole crime, its unbelievability.’ The explanations, and the warnings, were simply disbelieved. Lilli Kopecky herself recalled how, ‘when we came to Auschwitz, we smelt the sweet smell. They said to us, “There the people are gassed, three kilometres over there.” We didn’t believe it.’11

  In the East, the Einsatzkommando units had returned to the almost daily pattern of slaughter of the autumn of 1941. On 13 July 1942, two days after the first medical experiments had been performed at Auschwitz, a German engineer, Hermann Graebe, witnessed the round-up of several thousand Jews in the Rowne ghetto in the Volhynia. Graebe was present in order to prevent the deportation of a hundred Jews employed in the engineering works of which he was the manager. Immediately after the war he recalled, of the events of July 13: