by The Destruction of the European Jews, Vol. 1-3 (Third Edition) Yale University Press (2003) (pdf)
Hungarian Jewry (Zurich and Vienna, 1948), pp. 72-73.
29. Extract from indictment, in Carp, Cartea Neagra, vol. 3, pp. 225-26.
30. Carp, ibid·. 201; report by Fred Saraga, January 31, 1943, Yad Vashem document M 20. Saraga served on the Jewish Commission from Bucharest that visited Tfansnistria.
375
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
such matters were none of his business and that the economy did not
interest him at all.91
On October 30, 1941, Gebietskommissar Carl of Slutsk, White
Russia, reported to Kube that the 11th Lithuanian Police Battalion had
arrived in his city suddenly in order to wipe out the Jewish community.
He had pleaded with the battalion commander for a postponement,
pointing out that the Jews were working as skilled laborers and specialists and that White Russian mechanics were, ‘'so to speak, nonexistent.” Certainly the skilled men would have to be sifted out. The battalion commander did not contradict him, and the interview ended
upon a note of complete understanding. The police battalion then encircled the Jewish quarter and dragged out everybody. White Russians in the area tried desperately to get out. Factories and workshops
stopped functioning. The Gebietskommissar hurried to the scene. He
was shocked by what he saw. “There was no question of an action
against the Jews anymore. It looked rather like a revolution.” Shots
were fired. Lithuanian police hit Jews with rifle butts and rubber truncheons.
Shops
were
turned
inside
out.
Peasant
carts
(Panjewagen),
which had been ordered by the army to move ammunition, stood abandoned with their horses in the streets. Outside the town the mass shootings were carried out hurriedly. Some of the Jews, wounded but
not killed, worked themselves out of the graves. When the police battalion departed, Gebietskommissar Carl had a handful of Jewish workers left. In every shop there were a few survivors, some of them with bloody and bruised faces, their wives and children dead.92
When Kube received this report, he was incensed. He sent it on to
Lohse, with a duplicate for Reichsminister Rosenberg. Adding a comment of his own, Kube pointed out that the burial of seriously wounded people who could work themselves out of their graves was such a
disgusting business (eine so bodenlose Schweinerei) that it ought to be
reported to Goring and to Hitler.99
In October 1941 the Reichskommissar forbade the shooting of Jews
in Liepaja (Latvia). The RSHA complained to the East Ministry, and
Dr. Leibbrandt, chief of the ministry's Political Division, requested a
report.94
In
the
correspondence
that
followed,
Regierungsrat
Tram-
pedach (Political Division, Ostland) explained that the “wild executions of Jews” in Liepaja had been forbidden because of the manner in which they had been carried out. Trampedach then inquired whether 31 32 33 34
31. Gewecke to Lohse, September II, 1941, Occ E 3-22.
32. Carl to Kube, October 30, 1941, PS-1104.
33. Kube to Lohse, November 1, 1941. PS-1104.
34. Leibbrandt to Reichskommissar Ostland, October 31, 1941, PS-3663.
376
THE SECOND SWEEP
the letter from Dr. Leibbrandt was to be regarded as a directive to kill
all Jews in the east, without regard to the economy.” The ministry’s
answer was that economic questions should not be considered in the
solution of the Jewish problem. Any further disputes were to be settled
on the local level.* This declaration ended the incipient struggle for the
preservation of the Jewish labor force. The Kommissare were now
resigned to its loss.
In the Ukraine the Armament Inspectorate looked forward to the
massacres with some apprehension, but declined to fight about the
issue. On December 2, 1941, the Armament Inspector sent a report by
an
expert,
Oberkriegsverwaltungsrat
Professor
Seraphim,
to
the
chief
of the Economy-Armament Office in the OKW (Thomas). The inspector took pains to point out that the report was personal and unofficial.
He requested the receiving agency not to distribute it without the express permission of General Thomas.57
Seraphim wrote that, obviously, “the kind of solution of the Jewish
problem applied in the Ukraine” was based on ideological theories, not
on economic considerations. So far, 150,000 to 200,000 Jews had been
“executed"
in
the
Reichskommissariat.
One
result
of
this
operation
was that a considerable number of "superfluous eaters” had been eliminated. Undoubtedly, the dead had also been a hostile element “that hated us.” On the other hand, the Jews had been “anxious" and “obliging” from the start. They had tried to avoid everything that might have displeased the German administration. They had played no significant
part in sabotage, and they had constituted no danger to the armed
forces. Although driven only by fear, they had been producing goods in
satisfactory quantities.
Moreover, the killing of the Jews could not be looked upon as an
isolated phenomenon. The city population and farm laborers were already starving. “It must be realized,” concluded Seraphim, “that in the Ukraine only the Ukrainians can produce economic values. If we shoot
the Jews, let the prisoners of war perish, condemn considerable parts
of the urban population to death by starvation, and lose also a part of
the farming population by hunger during the next year, the question
remains unanswered: Who in all the world is then supposed to produce
something valuable here?” The answer to this rhetorical question was
soon to be provided by Himmler's men. 35 36 37
35. Reichskommissariat Ostland to East Ministry, November IS, 1941, PS-3663.
36. Dr. Bräutigam (deputy of Leibbrandt) to Reichskommisar Ostland, December
18, 1941, PS-3663. For attempt at local compromise, see Reichskommissar Ostland, Ha
to Higher SS and Police Leader North, December, 1941, Occ E 3-33.
37. Armament Inspector Ukraine to General Thomas, enclosing Seraphim report,
December 2, 1941, PS-3257.
377
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
The sweep through the Ostland in the fall of 1941 was only a warmup, but it settled a decisive issue. The Jews were at the disposal of the civil and military authorities only at the sufferance of the SS and
Police. The killers had first claim.
In the meantime, the Jews kept working. During the quiet months
of the winter and spring of 1942, they began to adjust themselves to
their hazardous existence. They tried to make themselves “indispensable.”“ The most important possession of any Jew in this period was a work certificate. None of the penalties threatened by the Jewish ghetto
police for infractions of rules were as severe as the confiscation of a
certificate,” since it was looked upon as a life insurance policy. Whoever lost it stared death in the face. Some certificate holders grew confident
during
the
lull.
In
the
Kamenets-Podolsky
district
(Ukraine), one Jewish worker approached a Gendarmerie sergeant and
pointed out: “You are not going to shoot us to death; we are specialists.”*
The civil administration utilized the time to brace itself for the
coming sweep. The Kommissare prepared lists of irreplaceable Jewish
workers and ordered that the vocational training of non-Jewish youths
be stepped up/1 In June, Regierungsrat Trampedach (Political Division,
Reichskommissariat Ostland) wrote to Kube that in the opinion of the
BdS (Jost) the economic value of the Jewish skilled worker was not
great enough to justify the continuation of dangers arising from Jewish
support of the partisan movement. Did Kube agree?* Kube replied that
he agreed. At the same time, he instructed his Gebietskommissare to
cooperate with the SS and Police in a review of the essential status of
Jewish workers with the aim of eliminating ( auszusondern) all those
skilled laborers who under the “most stringent criteria” were not “absolutely” needed in the economy/5
In the summer of 1942, the second sweep was in full force. The 38 39 40 41 42 43
38. Hauptkommissar Baranowicze (ORR. Gentz) to Lohse, February 10. 1942,
Occ E 3-38.
39. Proclamation of the police chief in the Vilna ghetto, June 7,1942, Vilna Ghetto
Collection No. 17. Also, his order of March 10,1942, Vilna Collection No. IS. FOr use of
certificates to keep Jews at work during periodic shootings, see also Jewish Black Book
Committee, The Black Book, pp. 321-23,323.
40. Gendarmeriemeistcr Fritz Jacob to Obergruppenführer Rudolf Querner (personal letter), June 21, 1942, NO-5655.
41. Hauptkomtnissar Baranowicze (ORR. Gentz) to Lohse. copy to Kube. February 10, 1942, Occ E 3-38. Memorandum by Reichskommissariat Ostland/IIb, November.
1941, Occ E 3-33.
42. Ttampedach to Kube. June 15. 1942, Occ E 3-40.
43. Kube to Reichskommissar Ostland, July 10, 1942, enclosing directive of the
same date, Occ E 3-40.
378
THE SECOND SWEEP
entire machinery of the SS and Police was mobilized for the task, and
the Ostland and the Ukraine were covered with a wave of massacres.
Unlike the first sweep, which caught the Jews by surprise, the second
wave was expected by everyone. It was no longer feasible to employ
ruses. The ghetto-clearing operations were carried out in the open,
with ruthlessness and brutality. The actions were uncompromising in
character and final in their effect. No one could remain alive.
In the bureaucracy the feverish pitch of the killers created a
strange
transformation.
The
Gebietskommissare,
who
had
previously
protested against the destruction of their labor force and against the
methods of the SS and Police, now joined Himmler’s men and, in some
cases, outdid themselves to make their areas judenfrei. By November
1942, the Reichskommissar Ostland was constrained to forbid the participation of members of the civilian administration in “executions of any kind.”" Lohse was a little late. In town after town, Jewish communities were disappearing in the frenzy of the killings.
The first step in a ghetto-clearing operation was the digging of
graves. Usually, a Jewish tabor detachment had to perform this work.45
On the eve of an Aktion, an uneasy air pervaded the Jewish quarter.
Sometimes
Jewish
representatives
approached
German
businessmen
with requests to intercede.46 Jewish girls who wanted to save their lives
offered themselves to policemen. As a rule, the women were used
during the night and killed in the morning.4’
The actual operation would start with the encirclement of the
ghetto by a police cordon. Most often, the operation was timed to begin
at dawn,4* but sometimes it was carried out at night, with searchlights
focused
on
the
ghetto
and
flares
illuminating
the
countryside
all
around.45
Small
detachments
of police,
Kommissariat employees,
and
railroad men armed with crowbars, rifles, hand grenades, axes, and
picks then moved into the Jewish quarter.50
The bulk of the Jews moved out immediately to the assembly
point. Many, however, remained in their homes, doors locked, praying
and consoling each other. Often they hid in cellars or lay flat between
the earth and the wooden floors.5' The raiding parties moved through
44. Order by Reichskommissar Ostland, November i 1, 1942, NO-5437.
45. Affidavit by Alfred Metzner, October 15,1947, NO-5530. Metzner, an employee
of the Generalkommissariat Slonim (White Russia), personally killed hundreds of Jews.
46. Affidavit by Hermann Friedrich Graebe, November 10, 1945, PS-2992. Graebe
was with a German firm in Sdolbunov, Ukraine.
47. Affidavit by Alfred Metzner, September 18, 1947, NO-5558.
48. Report by Hauptmann der Schutzpolizei Paier on operation in Pirisk, undated,
probably November. 1942, USSR-119a.
49. Affidavit by Graebe, November 10, 1945, PS-2992.
50. Report by Paier, USSR-l 19a; and affidavits cited above.
51. Affidavit by Metzner, September 18, 1947, NO-5558.
379
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
the streets shouting, “Open the door, open the door!"12 Breaking into
the houses, the Germans threw hand grenades into the cellars, and
some “especially sadistic persons [besonders sadistische Leuie]” fired
tracer
bullets
point-blank
at
the
victims.
During
an
operation
in
Slonim, many houses were set afire, until the entire ghetto was a mass
of flames. Some Jews who still survived in cellars and underground
passages choked to death or were crushed under the collapsing buildings. Additional raiders then arrived with gasoline cans and burned the dead and wounded in the streets.”
Meanwhile, the Jews who had voluntarily left their homes waited
at the assembly point. Sometimes they were forced to crouch on the
ground to facilitate supervision.5* Trucks then brought them in batches
to the ditch, where they were unloaded with the help of rifles and
whips. They had to take off their clothes and submit to searches. Then
they were shot either in front of the ditch or by the “sardine" method in
the ditch.
The mode of the shooting depended a great deal on the killers’
sobriety. Most of them were drunk most of the time; only the “idealists” refrained from the use of alcohol. The Jews submitted without resistance and without protest. “It was amazing,” a German witness
relates, “how the Jews stepped into the graves, with only mutual condolences in order to strengthen their spirits and in order to ease the work of the execution commandos.”52 53 54 55 When the shooting took place in
front of the ditch, the victims sometimes froze in terror. Just in front of
them, Jews who had been shot were lying motionless. A few bodies
were
still twitching, blood running from their necks. The Jews were
shot as they recoiled from the edge of the grave, and other Jews
quickly dragged them in.
At the shooting site, too, there were some “mean sadists.” According to a former participant in these operations, a sadist was the type of man who would hurl his fist into the belly of a pregnant woman and
throw her alive into the grave.56 57 Because of the killers' drunkenness,
many of the victims were left for a whole night, breathing and bleeding.
During an operation at Slonim, some of these Jews dragged themselves, naked and covered with blood, as far as Baranowicze. When panic threatened to break out among the inhabitants, native auxiliaries
were dispatched at once to round up and kill these Jews.”
52. Affidavit by Graebe, November 10, 1945, PS-2992.
53. Affidavit by Metzner. September 18, 1947, NO-5558.
54. Affidavit by Graebe, November 10, 1945, PS-2992.
55. Affidavit by Metzner. September 18. 1947, NO-5558.
5$. Ibid.
57. Ibid. There were similar occurrences at Slutsk, Teresi
id Pifisk. Gebiets-
380
THE SECOND SWEEP
The Gebietskommissar of Slonim, Erren, used to call a meeting
after every ghetto-clearing operation. The meeting was the occasion
for a celebration, and employees of the Kommissariat who had distinguished themselves were praised. Erren, who was perhaps more eager than most of his colleagues, acquired the title “Bloody Gebietskommissar.”
As the massive killing wave moved westward across the two
Reichskommissariate and the Bialystok district, it became clear that in
the Ukraine the operations would be over before the end of 1942. In the
Volhynian-Podolian
Generalkommissariat,
the
armament
industry
gradually collapsed. Tens of thousands of Jewish workers in the plants
of the western Ukraine were “withdrawn.” Ghetto after ghetto was
wiped out. In one report, armament officials expressed the opinion that
no one, not even skilled workers, would be saved; the very nature of
these
Grossaktionen
precluded
special
arrangements.
In
Jandw,
for
example, the entire ghetto with all its inhabitants had been burned to
the ground (das game Ghetto mit sämtlichen Insassen verbrannt)." On
October 27, 1942, Himmler himself ordered the destruction of the last
major Ukrainian ghetto, Pirtsk.”