by The Destruction of the European Jews, Vol. 1-3 (Third Edition) Yale University Press (2003) (pdf)
protested energetically against that statement and emphasized that it was
regrettable that we, in addition to having to perform this nasty job, were
also made the target of mudslinging.” 75 76 77 78
75. For a full account of these events, see Yitzhak Arad, Ghetto In Flames
(Jerusalem, 1980), pp. 221-70, 373-470. Other descriptions are provided by Leonard
TUshnet, The Pavement of Hell (New York, 1972), pp. 141-99, and Joseph Tenenbaum,
Underground (New York, 1952), pp. 349-50, 352-54. The sources in these books are
contemporaneous diaries and postwar testimony of Jews who had lived in the ghetto.
76. Abraham Sutzkever, "Never Say This Is the Last Road," in Schwarz. The Root
and the Bough, pp. 66-92; quotation from p. 90.
77. Kube to Lohse. December 16, 1941, Occ E 3-36.
78. File memorandum by Strauch, July 20, 1943, NO-4317. On teeth extractions,
see report by prison warden Guenther to Kube, May 31, 1943, R-135.
386
THE SECOND SWEEP
Five days later, Strauch sent a letter to Obergruppenführer von
dem Bach in which he recommended Kube's dismissal. In a long list of
particulars, Strauch pointed out that Kube had for a long time favored
the Jews, especially the Reich Jews. So far as the Russian Jews were
concerned, Kube could quiet his conscience because most of them
were “partisan helpers,” but he could not distinguish between Germans
and German Jews. He had insisted that the Jews had art. He had
expressed his liking for Offenbach and Mendelssohn. Whdn Strauch
had disagreed, Kube had claimed that young Nazis did not know anything about such things. Repeatedly Kube had shown his feelings openly. He had called a policeman who had shot a Jew a “swine.”
Once, when a Jew had dashed into a burning garage to save the
Generalkommissar's expensive car, Kube had shaken hands with the
man and had thanked him personally. When the Judenrat in Minsk had
been ordered to prepare 5,000 Jews for “resettlement," Kube had actually warned the Jews. He had also protested violently that fifteen Jewish men and women who had been shot had been led, covered with blood, through the streets of Minsk. Thus Kube had sought to pin on
the SS the label of sadism.”
While the recommendation by Strauch (technically a subordinate
of the Generalkommissar) that Kube be dismissed was not carried out,
Rosenberg decided to dispatch Staatssekretär Meyer to Minsk in order
to give Kube a “serious warning.”*5 On September 24, 1943, the German
press
reported
that
Kube
had
been
murdered
“by
Bolshevist
agents of Moscow”81 (he was killed by a woman employed in his household). Himmler thought that Kube’s death was a “blessing” for Germany. So far as Himmler was concerned, the Generalkommissar had been heading for a concentration camp anyway, for his Jewish policy
had “bordered on treason.”“
A few months before Kube died, Himmler had decided to liquidate
the entire ghetto sytem. The ghettos were to be turned into concentration camps.“ His decision appears to have been prompted at least in part by reports that Jews were employed in confidential positions and
that, in Kaltenbrunner’s words, the personal relations between Reich
79. Strauch to von dem Bach, July 25, 1943, NO-2262. After the war, in Nuremberg. von dem Bach called Strauch “the most nauseating man I have met in my life {den übelsten Menschen, dem ich meinem Leben begegnet hin].“ Von dem Bach in Aufbau
(New York), September 6, 1946.
80. Berger (chief of SS Main Office) to Brandt (Himmler's Personal Staff), August
18, 1943,N 0-4315.
81. “Gauleiter Kube Ermordet,” Deutsche Ukraine-Zeitung, September 24, 1943,
P- 1·
82. Von dem Bach in Aufbau (New York), September 6, 1946, p. 40.
83. Himmler to Higher SS and Police Leader North and Chief of WVHA (Pohl),
June 21, 1943, NO-2403.
387
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
Germans and Jewish women had “exceeded those limits which for
world-philosophical
( weltanschaulichen]
and
race-political
reasons
should have been observed most stringently.”" The East Ministry acquiesced in Himmler's decision."
The changeover to concentration camp administration was carried
out in Latvia without disturbance.“ In Lithuania the surrender of jurisdiction to the SS and Police was accompanied by large-scale killing operations. In Kaunas several thousand Jews were shot and the remainder distributed in ten labor camps. In the Vilna ghetto, where the SS and Police had encountered "certain difficulties,” the ghetto, with
its 20,000 inmates, was cleared "totally.”*’ In White Russia two concentrations of Jews remained, at Lida and Minsk. The Minsk Jews were ordered to Poland." Thus, by the end of 1943, Ostland Jewry had
shrunk to some tens of thousands, who could look forward to evacuation or death. They were now concentration camp inmates, wholly within the jurisdiction of the SS and Police. But they were still the
subject of some controversy.
As late as May 10, 1944, Ministerialdirektor Allwörden of the East
Ministry addressed a letter to Obergruppenführer Pohl of the SS Economic-Administrative Main Office (WVHA) in which he said that the Rosenberg Ministry recognized the exclusive jurisdiction of the SS in
Jewish matters. He also granted that the administration of the camps
and the work activity in the camps would remain in the hands of the SS.
But he “insisted” upon the continued payment of wage differentials to
the Finance Office of the Reichskommissar. The Rosenberg ministry
simply could not “resign” itself to this loss."
This correspondence preceded the breakup of the Baltic camps by
only a few months. From August 1944 to January 1945, several
thousand Jews were transported to concentration camps in the Reich.
Many thousands of Baltic camp inmates were shot on the spot, just
before the arrival of the Red Army."
During the final days of the second sweep, the SS and Police were
84. Kaltenbmnner (Heydrich's successor as chief of RSHA) to SS main offices,
August 13, 1943, NO-1247.
85. Memorandum by ORR. Hermann. August 20, 1943. On interministerial conference of July 13, 1943. NO-1831.
86. KdS Latvia (Obf. Pifrader) to Lohse, August 1. 1943, Occ E 3bß-29.
87. Report by Generalkommissar Lithuania (von Renteln) for August-September,
1943, November 16,1943, Occ E 3a-14.
88. Rudolf Brandt (Himmler’s Personal Staff) to Berger, July 1943, NO-3304. See
summary of East Ministry conference, July 14, 1943, Wi/ID 2.705. Summary of WiStOst
conference, September 13/14, 1943 Wi/ID .43.
89. Von Allwörden to Pohl, May 10, 1944, NO-2074. Dr. Lange (East Ministry) to
Finance Minister von Krosigk, July 24, 1944, NO-2075.
90. Tenenbaum, Underground, pp. 362-63.
THE SECOND SWEEP
beset by a weighty problem. The SS (and also the civil administration)
was worried about the secrecy of the vast operation that was now
coming to an end. Although photography control in the German ranks
was now complete, Hungarian and Slovak officers had taken pictures
of a number of “executions.” The photographs were presumed to have
reached
America.
This
was
considered
especially
“embarrassing”
(peinlich),*' but nothing could be done about the matter. Even greater
fears of discovery were generated as a result of the Red Army's steady
westward advance. The occupied territories were full of mass graves,
and Himmler was determined to leave no graves.
In June 1942, Himmler ordered the commander of Sonderkomman-
do 4a, Standartenführer Paul Blobel, “to erase the traces of Einsatzgruppen
executions
in
the
East.””
Blobel
formed
a
special
Kommando with the code designation 1005. The Kommando had the
task of digging up graves and burning bodies. Blobel traveled all over
the occupied territories, looking for graves and conferring with Security Police officials. Once he took a visitor from the RSH A (Hartl) for a ride and, like a guide showing historical places to a tourist, pointed to
the mass graves near Kiev where his own men had killed 34,000 Jews.”
From the beginning, however, Blobel had to contend with problems. The BdS Ukraine (Thomas) was apathetic about the entire project. There was a shortage of gasoline. The members of the Kommandos found valuables in the graves and neglected to comply with the rules for handing them in. (Some of the men were later tried in Vienna
for stealing Reich property.) When the Russians overran the occupied
territories, Blobel had fulfilled only part of his task.’*
The SS and Police thus left behind many mass graves but few living
Jews. The total number killed in this gigantic operation can now be
tabulated.”
91. Report by Dr. Hans-Joachim Kausch, June 2b, 1943, Occ E 4-11.
92. Affidavit by Blobel, June 18., 1947, NO-3947.
93. Affidavit by Albert Hartl, October 9, 1947, NO-5384.
94. Affidavit by Blobel, June 18, 1947, NO-3947. Reference to the Vienna trial is
made in an affidavit by a former defendant, Wilhelm Gustav Tempel, February 18. 1947,
NO-5123. For descriptions of the work of the (Commando, see affidavit by Szloma Gol
(Jewish survivor), August 9, 1946, D-964; and affidavit by Adolf Ruebe (former
Kriminakekret&r with KdS White Russial. October 23, 1947. NO-5498.
95. Ostland, and Army Group Rear Areas North and Center; Einsatzgruppe A draft
report (undated), PS-2273. Report by Einsatzgruppe B, September I, 1942, EAP VIII
173-8-12-10/1.
Ukraine, Biatystok, Army Group Rear Area South, and Rear Area 11th Army:
RSHA IV-A-I, Operational Report USSR No. 156. January 16, 1942, NO-3405. RSHA
IV-A-I, Operational Report USSR No. 190(65 copies), April 8.1942, NO-3359. Himmler
to Hitler. December 29, 1942, NO-1128.
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
“Ostland" and Army Group Rear Areas North and Center:
An Einsatzgmppe A draft report (winter 1941 —42) listed the following
figures of Jews killed:
Estonia
2,000
Latvia
70,000
Lithuania
136,421
White Russia
41,000
Einsatzgruppe B reported on September 1, 1942, a toll of 126,195.
Ukraine, Biaiystok, Army Group Rear Area South, and Rear Area
Eleventh Army:
Einsatzgruppe C reported that two of its Kommandos (4a and 5) had
killed 95,000 people up to the beginning of December 1941. Einsatzgruppe D reported on April 8, 1942, a total of 91,678 dead. Himmler reported to Hitler on December 29, 1942, the following numbers of Jews shot in the Ukraine, South Russia, and Biaiystok:
August 1942
31 ,246
September 1942
165 ,282
October 1942
95 ,735
November 1942
70 ,948
Total
363 ,211
These partial figures, aggregating more than 900,000, account for
only about two-thirds of the total number of Jewish victims in mobile
operations. The remainder died in additional shootings by Einsatzgruppen, Higher SS and Police Leaders, Bandenkampfverbände, and the German army, as result of Romanian operations in Odessa-Dalnik and
the Golta camp complex, and in the course of privation in ghettos,
camps, and the open woods and fields.
390
Document Outline
RAUL HILBERG E CHAPTER SIX 155 CONCENTRATION
CHAPTER EIGHT 391 DEPORTATIONS
CHAPTER NINE 861
CHAPTER TEN 991
CHAPTER ELEVEN
1045
c PRECEDENTS E
c ANTECEDENTS O
c THE R STRUCTURE * OF E
DESTRUCTION E
c EXPROPRIATION DISMISSALS
ARYANIZATIONS * 3
PROPERTY TAXES
BLOCKED MONEY
FORCED LABOR AND WAGE REGULATIONS
SPECIAL INCOME TAXES
STARVATION MEASURES
c CONCENTRATION x THE REICH — PROTEKTORAT AREA
POLAND
PREPARATIONS
THE FIRST SWEEP
THE KILLING OF THE PRISONERS OF WAR
THE INTERMEDIARY STAGE
THE SECOND SWEEP