Raul Hilberg
Page 32
Poland
resurrected
the
medieval
ghetto,
shut off entirely from the rest of the world.
It may be recalled that the introduction of the destruction process
in
Germany
was preceded by Einzelaktionen—short, violent outbursts
against individual Jews. In Austria, too, for a brief period after the
Anschluss there were a few Einzelaktionen. When the German army
moved east, these Einzelaktionen occurred also in Poland. As in the
case of the Reich and Austria, the violence had the function of convincing both the authorities and the victims of the need for law and order.
Just as in Germany, the Einzelaktionen were started by party elements
and curbed by the authority having responsibility for the administration of the area. The party elements in Poland were the Armed SS
(Waffen-SS), military party formations that fought as integral units in
the armed forces. The initial governing authority was the army.
The first reports of violence arrived a few days after the outbreak
of war. In one locality a member of the army’s Secret Field Police and
an SS man drove fifty Jews, who had been employed in the repair of a
bridge all day, into a synagogue and shot them down without any
reason whatever (in einer Synagoge zusammengetrieben und grundlos
zusammengeschossen). After a long correspondence, in which it was
pointed out that the SS man had been aroused by Polish atrocities and
held acted in “youthful initiative” (Jugendlichen Draufgängertum), the
punishment of both culprits was fixed at three years.'
1.
Diary of Chief of the Genera] Staff Haider, September 10, 1939, NOKW-3140.
Army memorandum. September 13, 1939, D-421. Oberkriegsgerichtsrat 3d Army (signed
Lipski) to Oberstkriegsgerichtsrat in Office of Generalquartiermeister, September 14,
1939, D-421.
189
CONCENTRATION
A few days after this incident, the commander of the Fourteenth
Army, Wilhelm List, had to issue an order to prohibit the looting of
property, burning of synagogues, raping of women, and shooting of
Jews.! But even after the end of hostilities, the Einzelaktionen continued. On October 10, 1939, Chief of the General Staff, Haider, made a cryptic remark in his diary: “Jewish massacres—discipline!“2 3 4 During
the following month the army began to collect systematically the evidence of SS atrocities. It may be pointed out that the army was concerned not so much with the Jews as with the attempt to build up a case against the SS in general. Hence the army memoranda dealing with
anti-Jewish Einzelaktionen are filled also with other complaints against
the SS, all mixed together.
On November 23, 1939, General der Artillerie Petzel, commander
of the newly formed Army District XXI in Poznan, reported an incident
that had taken place in the town of TUrek on September 30. A number
of SS trucks filled with SS men and under the command of a senior SS
officer had driven through the town. The SS men had been armed with
horsewhips and had used those weapons freely, whipping passersby on
their
heads
without
discrimination.
Apparently,
a
number
of
ethnic
Germans had also been horsewhipped. The party had then driven up to
a synagogue, had crowded the Jews into the building, and had forced
the victims to crawl, singing, under the benches. The Jews had then
been obliged to drop their pants to be whipped. In the course of this
whipping, one Jew had in fright moved his bowels. The SS men had
thereupon forced the victim to smear the dirt on the faces of other
Jews. The report then continued with a complaint against a Goebbels
representative who had apparently made a victory speech in which he
had managed to laud the SS without even mentioning the army.1
In
February 1940
the army commander in Poland (Blaskowitz)
compiled a long list of complaints for presentation to the Commander-
in-Chief
of
the
army
(von
Brauchitsch).
The
report
contained
altogether
thirty-three
items,
each
one
of
which
was
a
separate
complaint. Item 7, for example, dealt with a search that had been
earned out on December 31, 1939, in the bitter cold, at night, on the
street. The Jews, particularly the women, had been forced to undress
as the police had pretended to look for gold. Another complaint (item
8)
mentioned
that
an
SS
lieutenant,
Untersturmführer
Werner,
was
living under an assumed name with a Jewish actress (Johanna Epstein)
2. Order by List, September 18, 1939, NOKW-M2I.
3. Haider diary, October 10, 1939, NOKW-3140.
4. High Command of the Army/Chief of the Replacement Army (Fromm) to High
Command of the Armed Forces, November 30, 1939, enclosing report of General der
Artillerie Petzel, dated November 23, 1939, D-419.
190
POLAND
in a Warsaw apartment—a clear case of Rassenschande committed by
an SS officer. Item 31 was a description of a whipping orgy in Nasielsk,
This orgy had lasted all night and had affected 1,600 Jews. Item 33,
which was reserved for the end, discussed the case of two policemen
who had dragged two teen-age Jewish girls out of bed. One of the girls
had been raped in a Polish cemetery. The other girl, who had become
ill, had been told by the policemen that they would get her some other
time and that they would pay her 5 zloty. However, the portion of the
report most interesting to us is its conclusion. “It is a mistake," noted
Generaloberst Blaskowitz, “to massacre some 10,000 Jews and Poles,
as is being done at present; for—so far as the mass of the population is
concerned—this will not eradicate the idea of a Polish state, nor will
the Jews be exterminated.”5
The complaint by Blaskowitz echoed the words that Schacht had
spoken five years earlier. Like Schacht, the general was not outraged
by the idea of drastic action but only by the amateurish way in which
the SS attempted to deal with such a massive body as two million Jews.
Actually, the “professionals" in the SS had already taken the situation
in hand.
On September 19, 1939, Security Police Chief Heydrich met with
Generalquartiermeister Wagner of the Army High Command to discuss
some Polish problems. The two officials agreed upon a “cleanup once
and for all,” of “Jews, intelligentsia, clergy, nobility.”6 On the next day
word came from the Commander-in-Chief of the Army that “the ghetto
idea exists in broad outline; details are not yet clear.”’ They were
developed twenty-four hours later in a meeting of office chiefs from the
Reich Security Main Office and commanders recalled from Security
>
Police units (Einsatzgruppen) already in Poland. The decision was to
clear German-speaking areas of Jews, to remove the Jewish population
from the Polish countryside, and to concentrate Jewry in ghettos within
major cities.* These conclusions, which were incorporated on the same
day in an order directed to the Einsatzgruppen,5 constituted an ambitious concentration plan. 5 6 7 8 9
5. Notes for an oral report prepared by Blaskowitz, February 6, 1940, NO-3011.
6. Haider diary, September 10, 1939, NOKW-3140.
7. Haider diary, September 20, 1939. NOKW-3140.
8. Conference minutes of September 21, 1939, in Staatsanwaltschaft beim Landgericht Berlin, 3 P (K) Js 198/61. ''Schlussvermerk in der Strafsache gegen Beutel u.a.
wegen Mordes," January 29, 1971, pp. 17-19. Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen, Ludwigsburg.
9. Heydrich to Einsatzgruppen, copies to Army High Command (OKH), Staatssekretär Neumann in Office of Four-Year Plan, Staatssekretär Stuckart of the interior Ministry, Staatssekretär Landfried of the Economy Ministry, and Chief of Civil Administration in the Occupied Territories, September 21, 1939, PS-3363.
191
CONCENTRATION
The introduction of the order makes a brief reference to an ultimate
goal, an emigration of the Jews that was to be completed later, but that
was not spelled out at the moment. Part I provided that the Jews were
to be ejected from the territories of Danzig, West Prussia, Poznaft, and
Eastern
Upper
Silesia.
These
areas
later
became incorporated
territory, that is, territory integrated into the administration of the Reich.
The Jews from these areas were to be shoved into the interior of
Poland, a territory later known as the “General Government” (Generalgouvernement). The Jews in the General Government were to be concentrated in cities. Only cities that were located at railroad junctions, or at least along a railroad, were to be chosen as concentration points.
All Jewish communities of less than five hundred were to be dissolved
and transferred to the nearest concentration center.
In part II of the order Heydrich directed that a council of Jewish
elders (Ältestenrat, also Judenrat) composed of influential persons and
rabbis was to be set up in each Jewish community. The councils were
to be made fully responsible (in the literal sense of the word) for the
exact execution of all instructions. They were to take an improvised
census of the Jews in their area, and they were to be made personally
responsible for the evacuation of the Jews from the countryside to the
concentration points, for the maintenance of the Jews during transport,
and for housing upon arrival. There was no objection against Jews
taking with them their movable possessions. The reason to be given for
the
concentration was
that the
Jews
had participated decisively in
sniper attacks and plundering.
It is interesting to note that the army wanted no part in the execution of this plan. During the Heydrich-Wagner discussion of September 19, 1939, the army quartermaster-general had insisted that the military
authorities be notified of all activities by the SS and Police but that the
"cleanup” take place after the withdrawal of the army and the transfer
of power to the civilian administration, that is, not before early December.10 In view of the army’s early abdication of power in Poland, this demand could easily be fulfilled. This time the army did not have to
dirty its hands with such business. In 1941, as we shall see, the military
could no longer extricate itself from its assigned role in the destruction
of the European Jews, but in Poland the concentration process was
placed squarely into the laps of the newly formed civil administration.
The Einsatzgruppen, on their part, were not able to accomplish
much. Ghettoization was a procedure far too complex for a handful of
battalion-sized units that were to be disbanded and transformed into a
regular Security Police administration upon the cessation of military
10. Haider diary, September 19, 1939, NOKW-3140.
192
POLAND
rule. They did establish several Jewish councils, simply by calling on
an identified Jewish leader to form a “Judenrat.”" In Warsaw on October 4, 1939, a small Security Police detachment raided the Jewish community headquarters, showing an interest in the safe and asking who the chairman was. The janitor told them it was Adam Czerniaköw." On
the same day, Czemiakdw was driven to the building occupied by the
staff of the Einsatzgruppe and told to co-opt twenty-four men to serve
on the council and to assume its leadership.1’ For the next few days,
Czemiaköw
made
lists
and
drafted
organization
charts."
The
Einsatzgruppe reported back that it had “secured the Jewish community
together
with
president
and
secretary,
just
like
the
museum.
[Die
Jüdische
Kultusgemeinde
mitsamt
Präsident
und
Schriftführer
wurde
ebenso wie das jüdische Museum sichergestellt.]”'1
The era of civil administration began at the end of October. There
were two kinds of administrative structures, one in territories incorporated into the Reich, the other in the so-called Generalgouvernement. In the incorporated areas, administrative offices were modeled on those of the Reich itself. Two new Reichsgaue had been carved out
of the conquered incorporated territory: Danzig-West Prussia and the
Wartheland. A Reichsgau was a territorial unit that combined the features of a Prussian province (or non-Prussian Land) and a party district (Gau). The chief of this territorial unit was a regional Reich official
(Reichsstatthalter), who was at the same time a regional party official
(Gauleiter).
The Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of Danzig-West Prussia was a
man called Forster. Inasmuch as Forster had already been the Gauleiter
of the “Free City” of Danzig, the appointment resulted in a widening of
his functions. The Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter of the Wartheland,
Greiser, had previously been the president of the Danzig senate. In that
office he had distinguished himself by introducing the whole gamut of
anti-Jewish legislation long before the arrival of German troops. The
“Free City” had enacted a Law for Blood and Honor, decrees for the 11 12 13 14 15
11. See Isaiah Trunk, Judenrai (New York, 1972), pp. 21-26.
12. Apolinary Hartglas, “How did Czerniakow Become Head of the Warsaw
Judenrai?" Yad Vashem Bulletin 15 (1964): 4-7.
13. Czemiakdw's entry in his diary, October 4, 1939, in Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw
Staron, and Josef Kermisz, eds.. The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow (New York,
1979), p. 78. All subsequent citations of the diary will refer to this edition. The diary was
translated into English by Professor Staron and the staff of Yad Vashem. For an edition
in the original Polish language, see Marian Fuks. ed., Adama Czerniakowa dziennik gella
warszawskiego (Warsaw, 1983).
14. Entries for October 5-14, 1939, Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, pp. 78-83.
15. Report by Einsatzgruppe IV, October 6, 1939. in Berlin prosecution, final summation against Beutel, 3 P(K) Js 198/16.
193
CONCENTRATION
MAP 1
POLAND UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION 16
removal of Jewish doctors and lawyers, and a systematic Aryanization
program. All but a remnant of Danzig's 10,000 Jews had emigrated
before the war.14 After Danzig had been overrun, Senatsprasident
16.
F. Redlin, "Danzig lost die Judenfrage," Die Judenfrage, January 26, 1939, p. 5.
Greiser had worked in close cooperation with the German Foreign Office. Weizsacker via
Wdrmann to Erdmannsdorff, October 17, 1938, NG-5334. See also Herbert S. Levine,
194
POLAND
Greiser, who was out of a job, was shifted south to become the chief
executive of the Wartheland. Unlike his colleague Forster, who had
only some tens of thousands of Jews, Greiser had several hundred
thousand. His role in the concentration, the deportations, and even the
killing operations therefore became crucial.
In addition to the two Reichsgaue, the incorporated territory contained also two smaller units that were parceled out to neighboring Reich provinces. The province of East Prussia annexed some territory
in
this
process,
and Silesia
became Great Silesia.
However,
Great
Silesia was a cumbersome administrative unit. Thus in January 1941
the Grossgau was divided into two Gaue: Lower Silesia (seat, Breslau),
which contained only old German territory and was governed by Ober-
prasident
and
Gauleiter
Karl
Hanke,
and
Upper
Silesia
(seat,
Katowice), which consisted mostly of incorporated territory and which
was placed under Oberprasident and Gauleiter Fritz Brecht."
Counterclockwise,
the
new
administrative
units,
with
their
chief
executives and the number of Polish Jews under their jurisdiction, were
therefore as follows:
Danzig-West Prussia (Forster)
Expulsions (no ghettos)
East Prussia (Koch)
30,000 to 40,000
Wartheland (Greiser)
ca. 400,000
Upper Silesia (Bracht)
100,000
East and south of the incorporated territories, the Germans created