Raul Hilberg
Page 65
In the western Ukraine, workshops that once produced Panjewagen (wooden carts), soap, candles, lumber, leather, and ropes for the German army stood abandoned at the end of the year. There were no
replacements. A report by the armament command in Luck tabulated
the damage: “The leather works in Dubno are closed.... In Kowel all
Panjewagen
workshops
are
paralyzed.
...
In
the Kobrin
works
we
have a single Aryan metals worker. ... In Brest-Litovsk the Jewish
workshops now as before are empty [nach wie vor leer]."m The Jews of
the Ukraine had been annihilated.58 59 60 61
A journalist traveling through the Ukraine in June 1943 reported
kommissar Carl to Kube, October 30, 1941, PS-l 104; affidavit by Franz Reichralh, October 14, 1947, NO-5439; testimony by Rivka Yossalevska, Eichmann trial transcript. May 8, 1961, sess. 30. pp. L2, Ml, M2. Nl. Reichralh was a German eyewitness at Terespol.
Mrs. Yossalevska dragged herself out of a grave at Pifisk. Dying people, biting her,
attempted to pull her back.
58. Armament Command Luck to Armament Inspectorate Ukraine, report for October 1-10, 1942, Wi/ID 1.97.
59. Himmler to OGruf. Prutzmann, October 27, 1942, NO-2027.
60. Armament Command Luck to Armament Inspectorate Ukraine, report for October 1 to December 31. 1942, dated January 21, 1943, Wi/ID 1.101.
61. The figure of Jews killed in Bialystok, South Russia, and the Ukraine from
August through November 1942 was 363,211. Himmler to Hitler, December 29, 1942,
NO-1128.
381
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
that he had seen only four Jews. He had interviewed a high official of
Reichskommissariat who had summed up the holocaust in these words:
"Jews were exterminated like vermin [Juden warden wie die Wanzen
veriilgt].”61
At the end of 1942 the focus of attention shifted from the Ukraine
to the Ostland. There, too, most of the Jews were already dead, but a
sizable number (close to 100,000) were still alive. The killing of these
remnants was a much more difficult process than the climactic waves
of the second sweep could have led anyone to expect.
The Ostland remnant was divided into two groups: the forest Jews
and the ghetto Jews (including camp inmates). The Jews in the forests
and marshes were a special problem because they were no longer
under control. They had run away and were now in hiding. Consequently,
they
were
more
important
than
their
numbers
(in
the
thousands) would indicate. In the main, we may distinguish among the
forest Jews three types of survivors: (1) individual Jews who were
hiding out,“ (2) Jews in the Soviet partisan movement,6* and (3) Jews
banded together in Jewish units.“ The Jews still under control were
living in the Ostland ghettos, as follows:“
Latvia
4,000
Lithuania
34.000
White Russia
30.000
68,000
62. Report by Dr. Hans-Joachim Kausch. June 26, 1943, Occ E 14-11.
63. These Jews led a precarious existence. See M. Cherszstein, Geopfertes Volk:
Der Untergang des polnischen Judentums (Stuttgart, 1946), pp. 26-40. Cherszstein is a
survivor who hid in the woods.
64. First reports of Jewish movements to the partisans were received in the winter
of 1941-42. Wehrmachtbefehlshaber Ostland/Propaganda Detachment (signed Oberleutnant Knoth) to commander of Army Group Rear Area North, undated report received February 8, 1942, NOKW-2155. By June 1942 some partisan units were eliminating
"unpopular Jews and other asocial elements through trial and public shooting." Propaganda Abteilung Ostland to Wehrmachtpropaganda, June 4, 1942, OKW-745. Similarly, Propaganda Abteilung W toOKW/WPr Ie, August 4,1942,OKW-733. See also Schwarz,
The Jews in the Soviet Union, pp. 321-30.
63. OKH/Chief of Secret Field Police to army groups and armies in the East, July
31, 1942, NOKW-2S3S. Kreisverwaltung Koslovchisna to Gebietskommissar in Slonim,
November 3. 1942, EAP 99/88. RR. Dr. Ludwig Ehrensleitner (deputizing for Gebietskommissar Erren of Slonim) to Kube. March 21, 1943, Occ E 3a-l6. Reports by 69th Jäger Division (in Lithuania) to 3d Panzer Army, August 30-31, 1944, NOKW-2322. For
relations between Jewish and Soviet units, see Tobias Bielski, "Brigade in Action," in
Leo W. Schwarz, ed., The Root and the Bough (New York, 1949), pp. 112-14.
66.
RSHA Summary Report No. 7, June 12, 1942, NO-5IS8. RSHA Summary
Report No. 8, June 19, 1942, NO-5157. Generalkommissar White Russia to East Ministry, November 23, 1942, Occ E 3-45. Estonia was judenrein. RSHA IV-A-I, Operational 382
THE SECOND SWEEP
These ghettos became a problem because they, too, developed into
focal points of resistance.
The drive against the forest Jews was launched early in 1942. During February and March of that year, the SS and Police Leader North (Jeckeln) struck against the partisans in a drive that became the precursor of later “antipartisan” operations by von dem Bach. Each of these operations covered a specific area. As a rule, the smaller ghettos in the
area were wiped out, and any fugitives encountered alone or with the
partisans
were
shot.
In
the
prototype
Aktion
Sumpffieber
(Action
Marsh Fever), carried out by Jeckeln in February-March, 389 “bandits” were killed in combat, 1,274 persons were shot on suspicion, and 8,350 Jews were mowed down on principle.6’
Following
the
establishment
of
the
antipartisan
command
under
von dem Bach, Bandenkampfverbande led by Brigadefiihrer von Gott-
berg were thrown into action in White Russia. On November 26, 1942,
von Gottberg reported 1,826 dead Jews, “not counting bandits, Jews,
etc.,
burned
in
houses
or
dugouts."
This
was
“Operation
Nuremberg.”“ On December 21 von Gottberg reported another 2,958 Jewish
dead in “Operation Hamburg."® On March 8, 1943, he reported 3,300
dead Jews in “Operation Homung.”’0 In general, we may therefore
conclude that this type of operation directed against the forest Jews
Report USSR No. 155, January 14, 1942, NO-3279. The ghetto figures do not include
several thousand Jews in camps. When the camp Jews were transferred to the ghettos in
1943, the ghetto population in Latvia increased to almost 5,000. KdS Latvia (Obf. Pif-
rader) to Lohse, August 1, 1943, Occ E 3ba-29. The ghetto population in Lithuania
increased to over 40,000. Report by KdS Lithuania for April 1943, Occ E 3ba-95; report
by Generalkommissar Lithuania for April and May 1943, Occ E 3ba-7. Later in 1943.
thousands of Jews, most of them from the Vilna ghetto, were brought to Estonia for
construction projects and shale oil production. See war diary of MineralOlkommando
Estland/Gruppe Arbeit, November 1943 to January 1944, Wi/ID 4.38, and reports and
correspondence of K
ontinental 6l A.G. in Wi/1.32.
67. Report by Higher SS and Police Leader North, November 6. 1942, PS-1113.
68. Bgf. Gottberg to Gruf. Herff, November 26, 1942, NO-1732.
69. Gottberg to Herff, December 21, 1942, NO-1732. Also, RSHA Summary Report No. 38, January 22, 1943, NO-5156.
70. Gottberg to Herff, March 8, 1943. NO-1732. RSHA Summary Report No. 46,
March 19, 1943, NO-5164. See also report by Kube on “Operation Kottbus June 1,
1943, R-135. This report does not specify Jewish dead, but Lohse, in reporting about the
matter to Rosenberg, commented on the 9,500 dead “bandits" and “suspects" as follows:
'The fact that Jews receive special treatment requires no further discussion. However, it
appears hardly believable that this is done in the way described in the report by the
Generalkommissar. . . What is Katyn against that?” Lohse to Rosenberg, June 18. 1943
R-135. Katyn is a reference to the German claim that the Soviets had massacred Polish
officers in the Katyn forest.
383
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
was quite successful, although several thousand Jews in the woods
were able to survive until the arrival of the Red Army.
In October 1942, just before the end of the Ukrainian sweep and in
conjunction with the antipartisan operations, the stage was set for the
destruction
of
the
remaining
Ostland
ghettos,
which
held altogether
about 68,000 to 75,000 Jews. On October 23, 1942, Dr. Leibbrandt, the
chief of the Political Division in the East Ministry, sent the following
letter to Generalkommissar Kube:
I request a report about the Jewish situation in the Generalbezirk
White Russia, especially about the extent to which Jews are still employed
by German offices, whether as interpreters, mechanics, etc. I ask for a
prompt reply because I intend to bring about a solution of the Jewish
question as soon as possible.’1
After a considerable delay Kube replied that, in cooperation with the
Security Police, the possibilities of a further repression of Jewry (die
Möglichkeiten
einer
weiteren
Zurückdrängung
des
Judentums)
were
undergoing constant exploration and translation into action.’1 But as
late as April 1943 von Gottberg complained that Jews were still being
employed in key positions, that Jews were sitting in central offices in
Minsk, that even the idea of the court Jew was still alive.”
As Kube had indicated, the reduction of the Ostland ghettos with
their remnants of the Jewish skilled-labor force was a slow, grinding
process.
In
the
course
of
this
process,
two
centers
of
resistance
emerged in the territory, one within the ghettos, the other in the person
of Generalkommissar Kube himself.
Within the ghettos Jewish attempts to organize a resistance movement were largely abortive. In Riga and to a lesser extent in Kaunas, the Jewish police (Ordnungsdienst) began to practice with firearms.
(However, in both places the police were caught before a shot was
fired. )’* 71 72 73 74
71. Leibbrandl via Lohseto Kube, October 23, 1942, Occ E 3-45.
72. Generalkommissar of White Russia to East Ministry, November 23, 1942,
Occ E 3-45.
73. Speech by vonGottberg before SS and Police officials, April 10,1943, Fb 85/1.
In this talk he reported having killed 11,000 Jews through March 1943.
74. On Kaunas, see Samuel Gringauz, "The Ghetto as an Experiment of Jewish
Social Organization," Jewish Social Studies 11(1949): 14-15, 19. Gringauz was a survivor
of the ghetto. For an account of the Riga incident, which took place in October 1943, see
Jeanette Wolff in Eric H. Boehm, ed.. We Survived (New Haven, 1949), pp. 262—63.
Wolff survived in Riga. An earlier shooting of Ordnungsdienst personnel in the Riga
ghetto had occurred after some armed Jews escaping from the ghetto had been intercepted on the road. For a description of the earlier incident, see the judgment of a Hamburg court against Karl ToIlkQhn, May 9, 1983, (89) 1/83 Ks, pp. 26-36,66-85.
384
THE SECOND SWEEP
In the Vilna ghetto, where most Jewish inhabitants had been shot
in 1941, a United Partisans Organization (Fareinikte Partisaner Or-
ganizatzie) was formed in January 1942. Its leadership was composed
of Communists, the nationalistic Zionist Revisionists, and members of
the Zionist movements Hashomer Hatzair and Hanoar Hazioni. The
command of this unusual political amalgamation was entrusted to the
Communist Yitzhak Witenberg.
The self-imposed mission of Vilna's Jewish partisans was to fight
an open battle at the moment when the ghetto faced total dissolution.
While they were waiting for the confrontation, they had to cope with a
ghetto population that was prone to illusions, and they had to resolve
internal contradictions between Jewish and Communist priorities.
The dilemma
of the United Partisans Organization was accentuated when non-Jewish Communists in the woods asked for reinforcements from
the
ghetto,
and
when
some
of
the
Jewish
partisans
themselves wanted to leave. Such departures were opposed by the
official Jewish ghetto chief, Jacob Gens, whose policy of saving the
ghetto by maintaining the largest possible workforce required the presence of strong young people for the protection of vulnerable dependents not capable of heavy labor. Gens knew about the resistance, but he tolerated it only as a means of last resort and only under the condition that it would not interfere with his strategy.
In July 1943, the Germans captured the Lithuanian and Polish
Communist leaders in Vilna, and discovered Witenberg’s identity as a
Communist. The German police demanded Witenberg’s surrender with
implied threats of mass reprisals. As Witenberg was hiding in a ghetto
building,
Gens dispatched
his
men armed
with
stones against assembled partisans. The attack was repelled, but the argument was not
over. Witenberg wanted his partisans to fight then and there, yet they
did not believe that the hour of the ghetto had come or that the Germans were aware of their organization. Hence they overruled him, and Witenberg walked out of the ghetto to his death. According to some
reports, Gens had given him a cyanide pill; other accounts indicate that
his body was found mutilated the next day.
By August and September 1943, the Vilna ghetto was dissolved.
Most of its inmates were sent to Estonia and Latvia, where they were
subjected to attrition and shootings, and from where the remainder was
subsequently
routed
to
the
Stutthof
concentration
camp.
Other
thousands were transported to the Lublin death camp, and still others
were rounded up and shot. During the
se deportations, which were
represented
as
work
relocations,
the
United
Partisans
Organization
realized that it did not have the Jewish community's support for a
battle. It left the ghetto in small groups for the forest, falling prey to
385
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
ambushes, regrouping, and holding on. Gens himself was called to a
meeting by the Germans. A grave had already been dug for him. His
death left the ghetto leaderless in its last days.’5 A survivor who
reflected about this history after the war remarked: “Today we must
confess the error of the staff decision which forced Vitenberg [sic] to
offer himself as a sacrifice for the twenty thousand Jews. ... We
should have mobilized and fought.”*
Generalkommissar Kube's postclimactic resistance was one of the
strangest episodes in the history of the Nazi regime. His battle with the
SS and Police was unique. Kube was an “old” Nazi who had once been
purged (he had been a Gauleiter). As he had pointed out in one of his
letters, he was certainly a “hard” man, and he was ready to “help solve
the Jewish question.But there were limits to his ruthlessness.
In 1943 Kube had a serious controversy with the commander of the
Security Police and SD (KdS) in White Russia, SS-Obersturmbann-
fiihrer Strauch. On July 20, Strauch arrested seventy Jews employed
by Kube and killed them. Kube called Strauch immediately and accused him of chicanery. If Jews were killed in his office but Jews working for the Wehrmacht were left alone, said Kube, this was a
personal
insult.
Somewhat
dumbfounded,
Strauch
replied
that
he
“could not understand how German men could quarrel because of a
few Jews.” His record of the conversation went on:
I was again and again faced with the fact that my men and I were
reproached for barbarism and sadism, whereas I did nothing but fulfil my
duty. Even the fact that expert physicians had removed in a proper way
the gold fillings from the teeth of Jews who had been designated for special
treatment was made the topic of conversation. Kube asserted that this
method of our procedure was unworthy of a German man and of the
Germany of Kant and Goethe. It was our fault that the reputation of
Germany was being ruined in the whole world. It was also true, he said,
that my men literally satisfied their sexual lust during these executions. I