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THE DEPORTATIONS, MASS KILLINGS
The Recokd The Holocaust in Histohy, 19SJ-1945 4Q
The Anli-Def»mation League of B nai B'rilh and The National Council for the Social Studies
Goebbels
Threatens
Extermination of
Jews in Reprisal
for Bombings
BERLIN, June 12 (From
German Broadcast Recorded by
The United Press in New
York) — Propaganda Minister
Joseph Goebbels said tonight
that Germany would carry out
a mass “extermination” of
Jews ip reprisal (or the Allied
air bombings of German cities
which, he acknowledged, have
caused heavy damage.
Dr. Goebbels, in an article in
the publication The Reich, said
the Jews would be exterminated
throughout Europe “and
perhaps even beyond Europe”
in retaliation against the heavy
air assaults.
Dr. Goebbels said the
damage inflicted thus far on
German war production was
not great enough to cause
“serious setbacks.” He
declared Germany would repay
“blow by blow” the air attacks
on her cities.
From. United Press
International, 6/13/42,
NAZI DOCUMENT
“A Total Clean-Up"
Himmler’s Order, July 19,
1942
I order that the resettlement
of the entire Jewish population
of the Generalgouvemement be
carried out and completed by
December 31, 1942.
By December 31, 1942, no
persons of Jewish extraction are
to be found in the General
gouvemement, except if they
are in the assembly camps of
Warsaw, Cracow,
Czestochowa, Radom, Lublin.
All other work projects em
ploying Jewish labor must be
completed by then or, if
completion is not possible,
must be transferred to one of
the assembly camps.
These measures are
necessary for the ethnic
separation of races and peoples
required in the context of the
New Order of Europe, as well
as in the interest of the security
and purity of the German Reich
and the spheres of its interest.
Any breach in this proceeding
constitutes a threat to peace and
order in the entire sphere of
German interest, a starting
point for the resistance
movement, and a center of
moral and physical contagion.
For all these reasons, a total
cleanup is necessary and is
accordingly to be carried out.
Anticipated delays beyond the
deadline are to be reported to
me in time for early remedial
measures. AH requests from
other agencies for alterations or
for permission to make ex
ceptions are to be submitted to
me personally.
Heil Hitler!
' (Signed) H. HimmUr
From. Lucy Dawidowicz, .4
Holocaust Reader, New York:
Behrman House, Inc., 1976,
2,000,000
MURDERS
RY NAZIS
CHARGED
By Wireless to
The New York T imes
LONDON, Aug. 7 — Polish
Labor Fights, a publication
issued here today, printed an
account of a house maintained
by the Germans at Treblinka,
Poland, for the extermination
of Jews. In this place alone, it is
said, the Germans have killed
2,000,000 persons.
The account of the
executions opens with an
announcement the Germans
pinned up on the station where
the victims arrive.
“You may be easy in your
mind as to your future,” the
notice read. “You are going to
the east to work and your wives
will have care of your
household. Before you leave
you must have a bath and your
clothing must be deloused.
Your property will be restored
to you in proper condition.”
Comply With Order
to Disrobe
Men, women and children
comply with the order for
disrobing and then states-Polish
Labor Fights, comes the first
scene in the last act of the
Treblinka tragedy. The article
continues:
“Children and women go
first, urged on by whips of the
Germans. Faster and faster they
are driven and thicker and
thicker fall the blows on heads
paralyzed with terror and pain.
The silence of the woods is
shattered by the screams of
women and the oaths of
Germans.
“The victims now realize
their doom is near. At the
entrance of the death house the
No. 1 chief himself drives them
to cells, freely using a whip.
The floor of the cell is slippery.
Some fall and are unable to rise
because of the pressure of those
behind. Small children are flung
over the heads of the women.
“When the cells are filled
they are closed and sealed.
Steam is forced through
apertures and suffocation of the
victims begins. At first cries
can be heard but these
gradually subside and after
fifteen minutes all is silent. The
execution is over.
“When the trap is opened to
let the bodies drop down they
fall in a compact mass, stuck
together by the heat and steam.
Cold water is sprayed on them
with a hose after which the
grave-diggers pile the corpses
on a platform like the carcasses
of slaughtered animals.
“Often a gravedigger is too
weak to carry two bodies, as
ordered, so he ties arms or legs
together and runs to the burial
ground, dragging them behind
them.
Men Killed in Same Way
“The execution of men is
carried out in the same way.
They are driven along the same
path through the woods. On
their way to death the reactions
of the victims differ. Some
blaspheme, but all eventually
are silenced by blows.
“At times not all victims can
be squeezed into the death cells
at once, and those remaining
■are kept near the house of
death. They can see and hear all
that takes place, but are so
numbed in their senses that
there is no sign of the instinct of
self-preservation.
“This is clear proof of the
condition to which they have
been reduced by ill treatment
and starvation.”
Tlu■ Sew York Tiuws, 8/8/43.
JEWISH GIRLS
DROWNED
Deposition by Eric Pfaltsgraf
Prisoner of War
Ober-Corporal, 328th Inf.
Reg., 227th Grenadier Div.
The treatment of the Jews
was particularly revolting.
When the latter were seized
they were shockingly beaten
and then hanged. Officers
ordered Jewish girls to be
brought before them. These
girls were forced to dance in the
nude before the officers; they
were usually violated and then
brutally slaughtered. Schuman
was present when Jewish girls
had their clothes torn off their
backs and were drowned in a
well.
From: Jewish Black Book Committee.
The Black Book.
Nazi Execution Mill
Reported in Poland
Feb. 11 (AP) — A young
Polish Jew who escaped from a
mass execution in Poland with
the aid of false identification
papers repeated today a story
that the Germans operated an
“execution factory” in old
Russian fortifications in eastern
Poland.
The Jews were forced naked
onto a metal platform operated
as a hydraulic elevator which
lowered them into a huge vat
filled with water up to the
victims’ necks, he said. They
were electrocuted by current
through the water. The
elevator then lifted the bodies to
a crematorium above, the
youth said.
The youth said he personally
had seen trainloads of Jews
leave Rawna Luska in eastern
Poland in the morning for the
crematorium at near-by Beljec
and return empty in the
evening. He was told the rest of
the story, he said, by in
dividuals who escaped after
actually being taken inside the
factory. The fortifications, he
added, were built by the
Russians after they had oc
cupied eastern Poland.
THE CLEAN-UP
Depocition by Eric Pfaltsgraf
Prisoner of War
Ober-Corporal, 328th Inf.
Reg., 227th Grenadier Div.
...In the Uman, Kirovograd
and Kiev districts the treatment
accorded the Jews was enough
to make one’s hair stand on
end. Obar-SergMMtSchumtn in
Kiev described how the SS
troops personally butchered
Russians and Jews. The
troopers called this a clean-up
or pay-off. Schuman’s battalion
was ordered to clear the Kiev
outskirts of rebels and par
tisans, and thousands of
partisans, Jews and other
“criminals” were put to death.
He related that his unit was
ordered to attend the mass
shooting of these people and he
was therefore witness to a
terrifying sight. About 5,000
people of both sexes and all ages
were forced to dig their graves
and kneel before them. When
they were machine-gunned
they toppled over into the pit.
Another column approached
the grave, they in turn were
mowed down. A third group
was compelled to scatter earth
on the graves and then dig their
own. In these groups were
many women and children who
begged for mercy, but their
cries fell on deaf ears.
When this method of an
nihilation became too tedious
the officers hit upon another
one. Great masses of people
were driven to a crater which
had been prevously mined.
When they were all there the
explosion was set off in such a
manner that the flying clods of
earth buried the people beneath
them. After this, for some
minutes straight, the strip of
ground was heavily fire upon by
machine guns.
From: Jewish Black Book Committee,
The Black Book.
RUSSIAN
WAR PRISONERS
WERE EXECUTED
AND CREMATED
LONDON, Dec. 5 (U.P.) —
Evidence that Russian prisoners
of war were executed and
cremated in German con
centrations camps has been
offered to the emigre Czech
Government by a Czech Army
officer who spent several years
in a German prison camp before
he escaped to England.
The officer’s story has been
investigated by the Czech
Government and will soon be
published. He said that the
inmates of his concentration
camp had found buttons from
Russian uniforms in the ashes
of bodies burned by the Ger
mans after constant and
wholesale executions. The
officer said that some of the
uniforms were those of
executed Partisans, but that
others had undoubtedly been
worn by captured Russian
officers.
From: United Press
International. 12/5/43
The Associated Press,2/11/44