To enable English subtitles, press the ‘CC’ button at the bottom of the video. For AI-generated subtitles in any other language, click the ‘gear’ icon at the bottom of the video, select ’Subtitles/CC’ and then ‘Auto-Translate’.
For more information on the trial of Adolf Eichmann and this project, please see the description on the @TheEichmannTrial channel page or visit www.eichmanntrial.com. For more information about this session of the trial and links to notable moments in the video, read below.
SESSION 8 of the trial of Adolf Eichmann took place in the morning of Tuesday, April 18, 1961. In this session, Prosecuting Attorney General Gideon Hausner completes his opening statement, which began in SESSION 6, specifically discussing the extermination of the Jews of Northern, Western and Southern Europe and activities against the Jews of the Hungary. Near the end of his opening statement, Hausner puts the number of estimated Jewish victims at six million, a number now widely associated with the Holocaust. Although the number had been cited previously at the Nuremberg trials, this marked the first time it had been invoked in such a public arena. That number would be mentioned again in Session 13 by witness Salo Baron in footage that has not survived.
While the majority of the footage from SESSION 8 has survived, several sections of varying lengths are missing. Part of the middle of the session has degraded audio, but the dialogue can be followed using the subtitles. The last several minutes of this session feature severely-degraded video, though the audio survives.
For a transcript of SESSION 8 including the portions missing from the footage, visit: http://nizkor.com/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-006-007-008-01.html
NOTABLE MOMENTS:
00:00:00 – Court Not in Session
00:06:11 – Defense Counsel Dr. Robert Servatius and Attorney General Gideon Hausner enter
00:07:24 – Eichmann enters
00:08:01 – Eichmann exchanges written notes with his legal team
00:10:06 – Session 8 begins
00:42:41 – Philosopher Hannah Arendt seen in audience
01:18:59 – ‘The Extermination of Hungarian Jewry’
01:38:15 – Hausner discusses Raoul Wallenberg
01:50:39 & 01:50:54 & 01:51:39 – Moshe Dayan in audience
01:53:11 – Recess
01:58:03 – Eichmann enters, speaks with Servatius via closed-circuit system
02:00:55 – ‘The Camps’
02:27:14 – Hausner discusses the Auschwitz concentration camp
02:41:23 – ‘A World That Has Vanished’
02:41:39 – The number ‘six million’ is invoked for the first time
02:57:03 – Hausner brings his Opening Statement to a conclusion
03:04:25 – Court adjourns
PRESIDING JUDGE: I declare the eighth Session of the trial open. The Attorney General will continue with his opening statement. HAUSNER: I now turn to Western Europe. In these opening remarks, I shall concentrate especially on one part of this story the tragedy of Dutch Jewry. When the German Army turned westward, in May 1940
It laid low the Netherlands, among other countries. A Reichskommissar was appointed with full legislative and executive authority. In the office of the Security Police Commissioner we shall find the special Department for Jewish Affairs which later had the same designation as Adolf Eichmann’s Department—IVB4. Heading this Department in Holland were Eichmann’s representatives
Zoepf, Rajakowitsch, and others. In Amsterdam, an Emigration Center was set up the true purpose of which was to discover the names and addresses of the Jews and to mark them down for the “final solution.” The anti-Jewish campaign began immediately after the occupation
Following the pattern already familiar to us from the decisions of 21 September 1939 which constituted the master-plan for the extermination program everywhere: anti-Jewish legislation, depriving the Jews of human and civil rights; identification of Jews by compelling them to wear the badge of shame; theft of Jewish property;
And finally—deportation of the Jews for extermination. The legislative program was initiated in 1940 with a series of laws parallel to those in occupied France and which were implemented there in cooperation with Eichmann and his Department. We shall present you an official report by the Dutch Government on this series of decrees
Which began by ousting Jews from economic life, went on to dismiss Jewish officials; branched out to copying the Nuremberg laws. Free movement and transfer, and attendance at theatres and places of entertainment were forbidden; the practice of free professions was restricted; special identity cards were issued; Jewish children were expelled from the schools
And every Jew was to wear the badge of shame. Later, Jews were forbidden to use telephones and public means of transportation or to enter non-Jewish stores; an evening curfew was imposed, and visits to non-Jewish homes were banned. The use of bicycles, so popular in Holland, was also forbidden to Jews
And they were ordered to give up all bicycles in their possession. Here too the problem of children of mixed marriages troubled the occupation authorities. In Germany proper, the issue had been raised by the military authorities tens of thousands of whose soldiers were one-eighth or one-quarter Jews
And had to fight for the Fuehrer and the Fatherland under the shadow of their “unclean” origins. These would go home on leave to a partially Jewish father or mother after witnessing with their own eyes, or carrying out with their own hands the slaughter by the Einsatzgruppen of the Jews in the East—
—that is to say, of those people who were being killed for no other crime than that of belonging to the very same group as the father or mother of the German soldier. That was why Hitler himself insisted that care be exercised in dealing with this situation during wartime
And we shall see the series of special instructions relating to it. One of those in charge of anti-Jewish legislation in Holland prepared a report on his discussions of the problem and noted that Eichmann, in those consultations had expressed radical opinions, even more so that Hitler
And demanded the inclusion of all children of mixed marriages in anti-Jewish legislation. Finally, a solution was found for this too. The Accused and his subordinates gave instructions that the children of mixed marriages were to be sterilized in order to prevent them from having families. But in Holland, for the first time
The Nazis encountered resistance on the part of the local non-Jewish population to the abominations they committed against the Jews. After the hounding of the Jews in Amsterdam a general strike broke out in the city in February 1941, and spread to Utrecht, Hilversum, and other places.
Gas and electricity plants were brought to a standstill and passengers were taken off the trains. Revolt broke out. The Nazis quickly alerted the SS and Death Head units from Germany the police was reinforced and orders were given to shoot to kill at crowds. The leaders of the Dutch resistance movement were arrested
Some put to death, others imprisoned, and taken as hostages. Jewish children of mixed marriages were dispatched to concentration camps and tortured to death. The strike was smashed by Nazi might and terror and the process of extermination continued. Zoepf, Eichmann’s envoy and subordinate in Holland reported on 8 June 1942
That the rest of the anti-Jewish legislation too had already been planned and was soon to be published. Things did not go so easily with the introduction of the “Jewish badge.” As a demonstration of solidarity with the persecuted non-Jews in their thousands also began wearing the yellow Star of David
“but we have taken energetic steps to prevent this,” Zoepf reported. At first the Jews, to Zoepf’s surprise were proud of their badge of shame but later, the fear of what lay ahead became stronger, he wrote. And meanwhile, as it were by the way
The burning of synagogues had been organized in a number of districts. Along with the implementation of the first stage i.e. the identification and isolation of the Jews and their segregation from the rest of the population came the additional steps: their concentration in camps and special neighborhoods and the pillage of their property.
The machine worked efficiently. In January 1942, the transfer of Jews to labor camps began first to the Ellerkom Camp which soon became notorious for the acts of terror and cruelty executed there and later also to other camps Vught, Westerbork, and so forth.
A “purge” of the various parts of Holland, and the shipment of Jews to camps, was begun. This applied to all Jews, men and women, children and infants difficult cases from mental hospitals those who had sought refuge in old people’s homes or homes for the blind
And even sick people in hospitals awaiting medical treatment. German “thoroughness” was in full evidence. At first the Germans did not know what to do with Jews of the Spanish and Portuguese community in Holland. Did these belong to the people doomed to destruction or not? Then Eichmann’s office came and resolved their doubts
By ruling that these were full Jews in all respects and subject to extermination with the rest of their brethren. Holland was the scene of frequent manhunts for Jews, and forced transfers to camps. The Jews began to hide, as in the well-known case of Anne Frank. In November 1943 the Accused gave instructions
To increase the reward promised to anyone revealing hidden Jews and a monthly quota was fixed of Jews to be handed over for deportation and extermination. At that time the twin phase of the “final solution” was also implemented—the theft of property. This too was the concern of Zoepf and Dr. Rajakowitsch.
In May 1941, the Jews were ordered to register all their property and deposit it with a German firm. The Dutch Government report adds these facts: in September-October, 1941 all the public institutions of the Jewish communities were abolished and their property was deposited in a specified bank.
In May, 1942, the Jews were ordered to hand over all their money, gold, jewelry and objets d’art. For purposes of blackmail and theft the Germans were ready even to permit an occasional Jew to save his life. Eichmann’s Department issued instructions that, for 100,000 Swiss francs the emigration of old Jews would be permitted.
Many such applications were made, but only a few could make all the blackmail payments; only 28 Jews in this category were permitted to emigrate in accordance with this scheme. Zoepf reported that, as exceptional cases, he had permitted eight Jews to emigrate
In exchange for the transfer of an industrial plant to the Reich, because of its great economic value. At the same time, a special branch carried out a program of collecting Jewish moveable property including furniture, household utensils, and objects d’art. We shall submit an official German report about this operation of the Rosenberg HQ With all the details of the plundered property. There are detailed lists describing the contents of hundreds of crates of kitchen utensils, articles of clothing mirrors, curtains, lamps, pianos and libraries—besides priceless objets d’art. There is also a list of places to which the loot was sent
Such as Berlin, Hamburg, Rostock, Bonn, Linz, Kiel, Hanover, Gratz, Bremen Luebeck, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Ludwigshafen, Koenigsberg, Munich and many other places. The thieves saw to it that the entire German people, in all parts of the State should profit from the plunder. Altogether 29,436 freight cars were sent, in 735 special trains
Laden with the stolen property of Western European Jews. Now already roofless, homeless and destitute the Jews were crowded into camps to await their bitter fate. Adolf Eichmann learned “from a top secret source” that a number of people— —a mere twenty hapless Jews—had been sent passports and emigration papers.
Immediately he ordered a strict inquiry gave notice that he alone would determine their fate and, in order to prevent the recurrence of such “undesirable occurrences” gave instructions that henceforth contact with the outside world from the camps would be made more difficult. A Jew would be permitted to send only one postcard per month;
The postcard must be written in German and its contents restricted to greetings and information about personal matters. All such mail must be sent to Eichmann’s office in Berlin whence it would be forwarded to its destination. The problem of the property of foreign nationals had to be solved.
Eichmann wrote to the Foreign Ministry asking for a decision on the property of Jews who were not Dutch nationals and also of Jews of foreign domicile living in Germany. He suggested a meeting on the question to be attended by representatives of all the Ministries concerned.
The principle was laid down, thenceforth to apply to all the satellite countries that Germany “surrendered” her right to receive from foreign countries the property of the German Jews resident in those countries when they were sent to extermination camps and on the other hand decided not to transfer to foreign countries
The property of their Jewish citizens who had been resident in Germany and would be deported therefrom. This rule was established for all the occupied countries in the following terms, and I quote: “In order to facilitate the operation already begun and in order not to endanger the solution of the Jewish Question in Europe
Which is being implemented it is hereby laid down that the negotiations with foreign governments relating thereto shall be conducted on the basis of the territorial principle.” In other words: the property of Jews sent to be exterminated would remain in the country from which they had been dispatched without regard to their citizenship.
This is another example of the fact that the plunder was closely linked with the killing as two aspects of one and the same operation. This territorial principle henceforth constituted the guiding line for the satellite countries and an acceptable bribe for them to deport their Jews and above all, their Jews of foreign nationality
In order to enable them to confiscate their property. In a number of places, as we shall see the expulsion of stateless or foreign individuals was begun and after people there had grown accustomed to the idea of Jews being deported and their property stolen
As a rule the turn of the local Jewish citizens would also come. Let us return to Holland. Now that the decision about property had been reached everything was ready for the final steps. The Jews had been segregated, labelled, assembled, robbed of their property squeezed dry to the last drop.
Now came the phase of their shipment to camps in the East where their bodies would be further exploited by sweat and exhausting labor; their hair would be clipped for various uses, and finally they would be sent to the gas chambers. After death, their gold teeth would be extracted from their mouths
And their wedding rings removed from their fingers— —these too were valuable. And when this ghastly work was done, their corpses would be piled into furnaces and of these human beings only a pile of ashes would remain. Order was maintained and efficiency prevailed.
The transport arrangements “to the East” were made by Eichmann and his Department. We shall submit the documents calling meetings in Eichmann’s office the minutes of the meetings he conducted and the instructions he issued. Officially, in correspondence with the German Foreign Ministry these were still couched in terms of “deportation for labor”
And “assignment for work in Auschwitz” of 400,000 Jews from occupied France, 400,000 from Holland, and 10,000 from Belgium. In this correspondence, Eichmann repeatedly emphasized that only people capable of work were involved. At a later stage I shall discuss the meaning of “deportation to Auschwitz.”
But let me say immediately that here Eichmann was deceiving his Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In his operation orders to his units he laid down that each transport from France, Belgium and Holland was to include ten per cent unfit for work.
It is clear that those capable of work were to give of their strength and energy as slave laborers while the rest would be passed on for immediate extermination. The deportation from Holland began in the middle of July 1942. After a month-and-a-half of accumulated experience Eichmann convened his envoys for consultations in Berlin
And each presented a report on his operations. Eichmann demanded that the deportations be completed by the end of the year fixing July 1943, as the final date. He demanded special efforts during the ensuing months and stated that the railway management would be unable to provide transports during November to January
But undertook to arrange for at least one train a day. The deportations proceeded apace. At the end of April 1943, Zoepf reported to Eichmann that he had not succeeded in completing his work and that only 68,300 Jews had been deported so far, leaving about 71,700. A more vigorous operation was immediately decided upon
And Eichmann set the end of 1943 as the ultimate date for its conclusion. He demanded 8,000 deportees during May, and 15,000 in June. Detailed instructions were issued on the compulsory sterilization of children of mixed marriages. Eichmann decided on further encouragement for Dutch informers against Jews in hiding
Who in return for information on large numbers of Jews would be relieved of the obligation to report back to prisoner-of-war camps which had then been imposed on part of the Dutch population in reprisal for intensified underground activities. In order to avoid possible difficulties on the part of Sweden the protecting power for Holland
It was decided to enact a special law whereby Dutch Jews, like those of the Reich would lose their nationality the moment they crossed the State frontier on the journey eastwards. Zoepf was enjoined to carry out the orders to the letter and indeed the second half of 1943 was a period of increased activity.
The trains rolled eastwards loaded with their human cargo. Finally, only scattered groups of Jews were left in Holland. These included such people as skilled diamond craftsmen whose services were required by Germany; their future was left to be decided by Himmler himself.
There were also a few Jews employed in collecting metals for the German war industry and some who had fought in the ranks of the German army during the First World War. Altogether, these totaled 870 persons, and they too were imprisoned and deported to Theresienstadt.
Over a thousand Jews were still employed in German armament plants in the Vught camp. These, too, were eventually deported and the street searches after those in hiding continued. About 120,000 Jews were deported and removed to extermination camps in Poland; a few were deported to other places, and of all these about 5,000 survived.
This, in brief, is the tale of extermination in one country where Adolf Eichmann operated. The same story will be repeated in all the other countries with some slightly different nuances in style, with minor adaptations to local conditions— —variations on a single theme of atrocity, murder and extermination. Let us begin with the North.
In Norway, there were a handful of Jews, some 1,750 in all. About half fled to Sweden; the remainder were deported to the extermination camps in Poland. The Norwegian underground did what it could to smuggle out Jews. The people resisted the extermination campaign and accordingly brought upon themselves a campaign of bloodstained terror.
Here also human rights were abolished; property was looted, identification cards were stamped with the Jewish mark; searches and arrests were instituted; and finally, towards the end of 1942, came the deportations. The treatment of the Jews was in the hands of the Commander of the Security Police (BdS)
About whom Eichmann said: “This was my office.” He did all he could to frustrate the Swedish Government’s efforts to rescue the Jews of Norway. His Office wrote to the German Foreign Ministry: “The Swedish Government, in relation to these Jews is conducting a transparent naturalization stratagem… which should not be agreed to.” End quote.
In another document, Eichmann complained that the Swedish Government “is attempting to frustrate the efforts adopted against the Jews.” Of the 800 Norwegian Jews deported, 21 survived. At the time of Denmark’s capitulation, about 6,500 Jews were living there. For special reasons, the Germans at first permitted the local authorities to continue to function.
They hoped to establish Denmark as a Musterprotektorat—a model protectorate. King Christian remained the formal ruler of the State and the Danish Government continued to function. This explains why the anti-Jewish laws were not enacted nor was the Jewish badge introduced. The King intervened personally on behalf of the Jews of his country.
The Germans themselves were hesitant and the Foreign Ministry doubted the advisability of imposing the extermination campaign on Denmark. But when it came to the Jews, a man like Eichmann would never retreat. As early as April 1943, he told von Thadden, of the Foreign Ministry and I’m quoting him:
“You will shortly be persuaded to change your attitude.” And indeed, Eichmann won through. An outbreak of strikes and the intensification of the anti-German underground operations provided a convenient opportunity: a state of war was declared by the occupation authorities; in September 1943, the SS angel of death
The senior commander of the Security Police, the BdS appeared in Copenhagen and immediate plans were laid for hunting down the Jews. We shall submit to you the Danish Government’s official report which describes the activities of the Commander of the Security Police, Dr. Mildner.
As a safety measure, Eichmann sent his second in command, Rolf Guenther to Denmark together with a number of other people from his Department. For reasons of its own, the Army of Occupation was doubtful whether to cooperate in the hunt. The Foreign Minister then approached Eichmann, as one having unlimited authority on Jewish questions
And requested him to request the Army to recant. The roundup finally took place during the first days of October 1943. The barbarians broke into Jewish homes seized Jews in the streets and brought them in. But then something occurred that stunned the assassins: most of the Jewish homes turned out to be empty.
The Danish people, having prior knowledge of the murderous plot had organized courageously and at great risk under the very noses of the occupation authorities, an underground rescue operation which became known as “The Miniature Dunkirk.” Fishing and excursion boats and any other vessel able to float were mustered at the ports.
The Jews were escorted to the coast by scouts, students and other volunteers put on board and secretly transported to Sweden. —their imprisonment in the Breendonck camp. It was in this camp that whenever one was executed the Jews were ordered to march before the corpse singing the camp anthem:
“Wir werden nie Breendonck vergessen, das Paradies der Juden” (Never shall we forget Breendonck, the Jewish paradise). In the Belgium Government’s official report on the extermination this phase was called “la phase preparatoire” (the preparatory phase). This was followed by what the report called “la phase d’extermination” (the extermination phase).
Here again, we witness the looting of property and the deportations first to selection and concentration camps and then—eastwards. The following is an extract from an official Belgian report on the deportations to the collection camps at Malines. I quote: “When they arrived at Malines and the doors were opened a terrible sight was revealed.
When they opened the doors of each tragic truck thick fumes and a disgusting odor escaped and out of the doors, forced open by the pressure from within there poured out— —like fish spilling out of a fishing boat, one of whose sides had been removed— —a horrible conglomeration of bloated, reddened and bluish bodies
Their eyes protruding from their sockets and clothes soaked in sweat and excrement. Nine corpses were removed from the trucks; 80 unconscious people were transferred to the infirmary.” End quote. The mass arrests began in July 1942. In August the deportations to Auschwitz commenced. Through the various documents we shall submit to you
We shall prove Eichmann’s direct responsibility for the extermination of tens of thousands of Belgian Jews. Only a part of the Jewish community of this country survived thanks to the assistance of the underground which on one occasion attacked a deportation train and enabled some of the condemned to escape
And to the fact that the Christian population hid a number of Jews. Some of the Jews were saved by fleeing to other countries. Eichmann sent his assistant, Burger, to Belgium and, in accordance with his directives the first step was the deportation of stateless Jews;
At a later stage the scope of the operation was extended to Belgian nationals. Here again we see Eichmann planning, initiating and pushing aside every obstacle in the path of the extermination. In France, too, we shall find Department IVB4 operating in accordance with the familiar formula. Here Eichmann operated personally
Together with his lieutenants who headed the Jewish section of the Security Police Headquarters. First came Dannecker, followed by Roethke and finally, Alois Brunner; and the Frenchmen, Pierre Laval and Darnand, who collaborated in their work. In France we shall see the same path of suffering:
The denial of human rights in the series of laws of 27 September 1940; compulsory registration, the marking of business establishments; night curfews and the Jewish badge. Concurrently, the plunder took place and the Jews were hunted down and assembled; many of the hunts took place in Paris itself.
The captured Jews were taken to collection camps: Drancy, Compiegne, Pithiviers, Beaune-la-Rolande and others. From there they were consigned eastwards—to death. The Vichy authorities also abandoned the Jews to the tender mercies of the Germans; in the first instance, the stateless Jews were taken, followed by foreign nationals
And finally, despite Marshal Petain’s opposition, French citizens as well. And here again we shall see the underground, the French Maquis doing what it can to help people to hide and escape. But German “efficiency” triumphed. Eichmann dealt personally with the deportations from France
And his representatives went to Pierre Laval to bargain over the expulsion of the Jews. His stewards forcibly separated children from parents the mothers holding on to their offspring and begging the butchers to leave them together. You will hear a description of these dreadful scenes.
At the end, when no more than 4,000 children between the ages of two and fourteen were left Dannecker recorded the substance of Eichmann’s orders with respect to the children in these words and I quote: “He [Eichmann] decided that once it would be possible to renew the transports to the Generalgouvernement
Children’s transports can get under way.” End quote. And indeed, as early as 14 August 1942, Roethke reported to the Accused and informed the Auschwitz Camp Command that the deportation of the children had been started. Listen to a description of how these children arrived at Drancy. I quote:
“The children would arrive at the Drancy Camp packed in buses guarded by policemen; they would be put down in the courtyard surrounded by barbed wire guarded by a platoon of French gendarmes. The police and the gendarmes, hard people, not easily given to emotion
Ould not hide their feelings and their abhorrence of the task they were compelled to carry out. On the arrival of the buses, they would begin to remove the children and lead them in groups to the halls the older ones holding the hands of the smaller children or carrying them in their arms.
They did not weep, the children; they walked terrified, disciplined, miserable and complied with the orders like a flock of sheep, one helping the other.” Listen how these children were deported from Drancy: “On the day of deportation, they would be awoken at 5:00 in the morning.
Irritable, half-asleep, most of the children would refuse to get up and go down to the courtyard. The volunteer women would have to urge them, gently, patiently and so tragically so as to convince the older children that they must obey orders and vacate the halls.
On a number of occasions the entreaties did not help; the children cried and refused to leave their mattresses. The gendarmes would then enter the halls take up the children in their arms as they screamed with fear struggling and grasping at each other. The halls were like a madhouse;
The scene was too terrible for even the hardest of men to bear. “In the courtyard, they would call out the names of the children one by one mark them off in the register, and direct them to the buses. When a bus filled up it would leave the camp with its cargo.
Since many children remained unidentified and others would not answer to their correct or assumed names they would include them in the convoy to make up the number. “Each convoy consisted of 500 children and 500 adults chosen from the camp prisoners. Within a period of about three weeks
During the second half of August and the first part of September 1942 4,000 children, thus made into orphans were transported in this fashion, intermixed with adult strangers. “Hauptsturmfuehrer Roethke was present at these transports and would inspect personally the parading of the children the roll-call and the loading into the buses.”
Eichmann thought that France was backward in carrying out the deportations and a ramified correspondence ensued. In April 1944, Department IVB4 issued an order to arrest all Jews irrespective of nationality. Eichmann ordered that informer money, to be drawn from their property be paid for information leading to the apprehension of Jews in hiding.
Southern France fell to the Italians. Mussolini was prepared to cooperate with the Germans in the extermination program but a section of the Italian administration was unenthusiastic and thwarted the operations. With respect to the solution of the Jewish Question in Italy proper
The Nazis decided to call in Himmler himself to conduct the talks with the Duce. In so far as other countries under Italian rule were concerned Eichmann and his associates complained bitterly over the saboteur Italian administration in Southern France, Greece and Yugoslavia. These complaints were summarized, among other things
In a letter drafted by Eichmann on 25 February 1943 addressed to the Foreign Ministry and signed by the head of the Gestapo, Mueller who also referred to Eichmann as his source in the body of the letter. The letter complained of the Italian authorities’ attitude
And their constant habit of taking the side of the Jews. This greatly interfered with the “final solution,” Mueller wrote and even partially thwarted its implementation since other countries pointed to this attitude on the part of one of the Axis Powers as an excuse for their hesitation to act against the Jews.
Heavy pressure was exerted on the Italian authorities through the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ribbentrop. All these approaches were prepared by Eichmann who refused to reconcile himself to the escape of a few tens of thousands of Jews from the dragnet covering Europe. As a general rule the Italians adopted delaying tactics
And succeeded in saving thousands of Jews from certain death. When the Italians left Monaco Eichmann asserted that 15,000 Jews were living within the territory of the Principality and demanded their incorporation in the scope of the general operation.
The German Consulate in Monaco stated that the number of Jews was no more than a thousand but Eichmann persisted claiming that he knew, as a result of a personal visit that the number specified by him was the correct one. Ultimately, even he had to admit that the number of Jews in question
Was only between 1,000 and 1,500 and his office requested that appropriate steps be taken against them. Apparently, the operation was successfully carried through for in July 1944 the German Consul in Monaco was able to announce that there were no more than forty to fifty Jews left in the Principality.
The same energy, the same care to seal up every rescue loophole are to be seen in other areas as well. An Einsatzkommando operated in Luxembourg and looked after legislation, the looting of property the introduction of the Jewish badge, territorial concentration, at Fuenfbrunnen and the deportation of the Jews.
After the fall of Mussolini and Badoglio’s surrender Eichmann’s henchmen, Bosshammer and Dannecker operated in that part of Italy occupied by the Germans On 16 October 1943, an extensive roundup of Jews in Rome took place and from there the wave of arrests spread to the Italian North.
Thanks to the assistance of the Italians who hid many Jews at the risk of their own lives the hunt proved unsuccessful. The Italian clergy rescued Jews and hid them in monasteries. The Pope himself intervened on behalf of the arrested Roman Jews. —the burning down of synagogues and the extortion of heavy collective fines.
The Serbian and Croatian Jews were concentrated in camps including Jasenovac, where 20,000 Jews were executed. The women and children were concentrated in Stara Gradiska and Djakovo and many died either from disease or through direct extermination. Jews from Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria, en route to Palestine were captured in Yugoslavia on the Danube.
These people, 1,107 in all, were taken by the Germans to the Sabac camp and there exterminated. The Serbian Jews were thus done to death, mostly on Serbian soil in accordance with Eichmann’s personal suggestion to which I have already referred: “Eichmann recommends shooting.”
The surviving victims were rescued as a result of a partisan operation in which the Jews took part. In Croatia, the Accused operated through his representative Abromeit. The Croatian Jews were deported to the extermination camps between March and July, 1943— —after the Jews had been isolated
And anti-Jewish legislation had been passed by the Croatian Government and its Minister of the Interior, Artukowic. In April of the following year Department IVB4 complained that the operation in Croatia had still not been completed and the Foreign Ministry explained in reply
That this was due to the large numbers of mixed marriages in the region. In Slovenia, a part of Yugoslavia, Adolf Eichmann had an additional task: the deportation of the non-Jewish Slovenian population to Serbia and Croatia in order to evacuate the area and “to resolve national problems in accordance with the Fuehrer’s decision.”
We shall submit to you the deportation orders and the thirty reports on the operation carried out against 14,000 Slovenians who were wantonly uprooted from their homes where their fathers had lived before them, and deported to Serbia and Croatia. The execution of this task too was placed in the hands
Of the experienced uprooter of populations, Adolf Eichmann. The planning of this deportation involved a quarter-of-a-million people. The extermination in Slovakia, which had been established as a separate political unit was conducted in accordance with the general pattern. Here also the territorial principle in such matters as looting of property was applied.
Those deported for extermination were compelled to sign affidavits “of voluntary relinquishment” of their property which was valued at a total of some seven billion crowns. Eichmann’s representative in this sector was Dieter Wisliceny and Eichmann also came personally to deal with matters.
Slovakian allies were found in Prime Minister Tuka and Mach, the Interior Minister who were among the first leaders of the satellite countries to cooperate in deporting Jews. After 55,000 Jews had already been deported from Slovakia an attempt was made to ransom the lives of those remaining in return for money.
Some 20,000 dollars were transferred to Wisliceny, according to his own account while other sources claim that the amount involved was between 40 and 50 thousand dollars. Slovakian officials also received money. Pressure was exerted through Church circles and the Slovakian Government began to have doubts about continuing the deportations. Ludin, the German Ambassador
Reported that owing to the influence of the Church and the corruption of the Slovakian administration the 35,000 Jews remaining in Slovakia had been issued with documents exempting them from deportation. In the meantime, Wisliceny succeeded in deporting another 3,000 Jews. Eichmann immediately applied counter-pressure. He commissioned Fritz Fiala, a Slovakian journalist
To write articles in the Slovakian Press describing how he had visited work camps in the East and seen “with his own eyes” the good living conditions that the Jews enjoyed there. Strong pressure was also applied by the German Foreign Ministry and ultimately Wisliceny and, later, Alois Brunner, returned to Bratislava.
The roundups began in September 1944 and once again more than 12,000 Jews were deported while many more thousands were killed in Slovakia itself. Eichmann decided to try and extort additional profits from the Slovakian Jews. He demanded of the Slovakian Government a payment
Of 500 marks “transfer money” for every Jew deported to the work camps. Here, too, we see Eichmann’s hand in everything. Important matters were handled by him personally through direct contact with Tuka, the Prime Minister, and the Interior Minister Mach. It was to him that the Foreign Ministry addressed its repeated requests
To allow Slovakian representatives to visit the “work camps” to which the Jews were ostensibly being sent. He refused so adamantly, however that the Foreign Ministry replied that his refusal would endanger the possibility of getting more Slovakian Jews deported. The Foreign Ministry explained
that Mach, “despite all his good intentions, would be unable under existing conditions to overcome the opposition of his Government colleagues to additional deportations to the East.” Eichmann retorted that a visit to the Polish camps by the Slovakian representatives was simply impracticable. —Yugoslavia.
However, as you will see from the document itself, this line was crossed out, though in such a manner as to leave the text legible. The significance of the erasure is explained in Dannecker’s report to Eichmann. Bulgaria did not want to throw its Jews to the wolves;
It was easier to induce the Bulgarians to hand over “foreign Jews” from the recently annexed territories than the Jews of Bulgaria proper. Consequently, in accordance with an official decision it was originally written into the agreement that the deportations would only affect the newly acquired areas. However, as reported by Dannecker
Both sides were aware of the fact that 20,000 Jews were not to be found in these areas and that about 6,000 would still be lacking from the quota and Commissar Belev undertook to supply these from Bulgaria proper. At least half would come from Sofia, wrote Dannecker
And those to be taken would be “influential Jews… that is to say those whose economic position is sound or who have contacts with official Bulgarian circles.” In answer to Belev’s question whether he could prepare additional deportations Dannecker replied in the affirmative.
An attempt to deport Jews from Old Bulgaria was frustrated in the last moment as a result of intercession in Sofia. Consequently, according to the German report, the deportation embraced “only” 11,343 Jews who were transported for extermination to Poland. After the Jews of Thrace and Macedonia had been handed over for extermination
An attempt was made to avoid deporting the others. The Jews were removed to scores of forced labor camps but the Bulgarian authorities opposed their deportation to Germany. Naturally, from the point of view of the Gestapo this territorial concentration was the normal preparatory phase leading to the final extermination.
This was why it was stated in the official report, and I quote: “After having expelled the Jews from Sofia we shall, certainly, according to our knowledge of the situation on the spot be confronted with new problems until we succeed in removing them to the eastern regions.
In the meantime, however, the Jewish Question has substantially moved forward in the direction of the transportation to the east. Things are on the move. There is no longer a way back.” End quote. But the Bulgarians nevertheless refused to deport additional Jews.
Eichmann then contended that the deportation of the Jews to the work camps was nothing but “an excuse to avoid deporting the Jews to the East which, for Germany, is the desired solution.” End quote. In spite of the pressure, the Jews were left in the forced labor camps.
Conditions were harsh and difficult, and many broke under the strain but they were not handed over to the Germans. By this time, things were moving at the front and Bulgaria sought a way to extricate herself from the ties with the Axis countries. The Jews who remained were saved.
The Jews of occupied Greece also passed through the valley of the shadow of death especially the Salonika community, where the majority of Jews in occupied Greece lived. Brutality, arrests, plunder, the loot of property accompanied the German conqueror in addition to anti-Jewish legislation the Jewish badge and the establishment of ghettoes.
Here Eichmann operated through his accomplices Wisliceny, Alois Brunner and Burger who worked in close association with the Military Governor, Dr. Merten. Once again, we shall witness the results of their activities: kidnappings for forced labor, and the ally they introduced into the Jewish quarter—typhus.
Finally, in March 1943, the death deportations began, in cattle and goods wagons. With all speed and energy, about 54,000 Salonika Jews were removed to the extermination camps. Eichmann issued special instructions that the sick and the diseased were also to be deported.
We shall hear a description of how these Jews went to their deaths transport after transport how one of the best organized communities in the world was destroyed. At the beginning of June 1943 the “transport of intellectuals” was deported from Salonika
And in August of the same year, the operation was brought to a close. After this, Eichmann continued to deal with Jews of foreign nationality in Salonika and ensured that they be included in the “final solution.” Eichmann also sought to lay his hands on the handful of Jews in the Italian-occupied areas
And especially in Athens, but the Italians did not cooperate. Wisliceny went to Athens to hunt down the Jews and even succeeded in arresting the Saul family the head of which was the legal adviser to the Italian Legation in Greece. The Italians threatened to arrest Wisliceny on their territory and Eichmann reacted posthaste;
Threatening to report to Himmler that the Italians had taken it into their heads to arrest a German police officer in the pursuance of his duties. The German Foreign Ministry eventually explained Wisliceny’s journey as being occasioned by “special reasons which have no connection with police operations.” Eichmann naturally received a report of this explanation
But continued to complain bitterly at the lack of cooperation on the part of the Italians. As he wrote: “We shall only be satisfied if the Italians adopt in their territories the same measures as we are accustomed to adopt in our occupied territories namely the removal of all Jews to the East.”
The Holocaust also swept over other communities in Greece. The Jews of Rhodes, some of whom were removed to Auschwitz and some drowned; the Jews of Corfu, Thessaly, Epirus, the Peloponnese and the Greek islands. Now let us take a look at those areas which the Germans considered as a part of the Greater Reich.
The work in the Czech Protectorate was carried out according to the familiar pattern; anti-Jewish laws, the appropriation of property and enclosures in ghettoes. Here, too, we shall find a special Nazi invention— —it is called Theresienstadt. At a meeting of SS Commanders on 10 October 1941 in which Eichmann and Heydrich took part
The solution of the Jewish Question in the Protectorate was discussed. It was stated that due allowances would have to be made in view of the Czech attitude to the Jews which differed from that current in the territory of the Generalgouvernement in Poland
According to the minutes, Eichmann suggested that 5,000 Jews be deported from Prague “to Communist prisoner-of-war camps under the command of Nebe and Rasch.” These two were then the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen which had received the order for the direct extermination of Jews.
The meaning of his suggestion was clearly to send 5,000 Jews to death. He did carry out the operation, and we have already met these Jews doomed for a certain and cruel death in the Riga and Minsk Ghettoes. A substantial part of the remaining Jews were removed to the Theresienstadt Ghetto
Set up by Eichmann and which was under his direct command. Tens of thousands of Jews were concentrated in this camp which was intended to serve a number of purposes: firstly, to pacify the Jews themselves in a way since the Theresienstadt deportees were ostensibly to be granted life by the evil regime.
The Jew who sought some consolation was allowed to deceive himself into believing that if he were deported to Theresienstadt he would not be killed. Secondly, here was a kind of an official window-front to satisfy all those who claimed that all the Nazis were capable of doing was to kill.
Red Cross representatives and journalists could be brought to Theresienstadt as could Heads of States in the countries from which Jews had been expelled who feared for their fate. In Theresienstadt they could put on a show; it would be a place in which the Jews supposedly lived and worked under their own administration
And—most important of all—alive. All this was only a means of deception and camouflage since, from the very outset this camp was meant to be nothing more than a pretense. In the internal decision on its establishment, it was stated that, and I quote: “…the Theresienstadt Camp would be transferred
To the authority of the Central Authority for Jewish Migration. After the deportation from this temporary collection camp It would be possible to deport the whole crew to territories in the East and to transform the place into a model German settlement.” End quote. It was decided on the spot that Theresienstadt would have no cemetery only crematoria to burn the bodies.
It was also stated that in the event of a shortage of living quarters for the Jews they should dig holes and tunnels for themselves in the ground. This became a part of the official policy of the destruction program. On the one hand, the extermination of millions
And on the other, Theresienstadt, ostensibly under its independent Jewish administration. Naturally the administration was entirely in the hands of the Eichmann gang. From time to time, punitive measures were showered on the Theresienstadt Jews: executions as a punishment for sending post contrary to the rule the prohibition of births, the compulsory abortion of women
The prohibition of smoking, etc. The children were housed in an institution within the precincts of the Ghetto and were permitted to see their parents once a week. Violators of the ghetto administration’s orders were punished by beating. We shall submit to you the orders of the ghetto administration
And you shall see how Eichmann held his victims under constant terror. It was necessary, however, to obtain the consent of Himmler himself to deport Theresienstadt inmates to Auschwitz or to eastern regions for extermination. Needless to say, this consent was given whenever it was asked for.
The death-rate in Theresienstadt was appalling, owing to the terrible conditions. Those who were not dispatched by this camp— were finished off at Auschwitz. This was, in actual fact, a collection and transit camp for extermination. Those who passed through it were Jews of the Protectorate as well as many foreign nationals—
—tens of thousands of Jews from Germany, Austria and other places. To Eichmann’s crimes in the Protectorate should be added the slaughter of the Christian children of Lidice. Lidice was a Czech village which was wiped off the face of the earth in revenge for an attempt on Heydrich’s life.
About a hundred unfortunate children from this village were moved to the Lodz Ghetto (Litzmannstadt) there to suffer the same fate as the Jews. Krumey, one of Eichmann’s assistants, asked him for instructions with regard to the application of “special treatment” to these children. The murder of innocents— this everywhere was Eichmann’s business.
So to Austria, where once again we shall meet with the operations so familiar from elsewhere. At first, pressure was maintained to expedite the deportations. Eichmann was even prepared to hand over Herzl’s remains in Vienna providing that these would leave together with at least 8,000 Jews.
Afterwards, with the change in the general line, came the familiar operations: anti-Jewish legislation, looting, deportation to extermination areas i.e. to the operational areas of the Einsatzgruppen, and to Poland. Jewish property was confiscated and transferred to German ownership; the Jews were told that since they had not succeeded in migrating from Germany
The Germans would have to begin removing them to Poland “for labor.” The community institutions were ordered to supply lists of deportees. Later on, they would simply speak of “removal” to the Generalgouvernement. The Viennese Jews were transported to their deaths via Theresienstadt, Lodz, Minsk, Riga and other places.
Others were consigned directly to the extermination camps in the East. All these operations were carried through by Eichmann under his direct supervision. All Jewish affairs in Austria were under his control. In Germany itself, the deportations to Poland had already begun at the beginning of 1940.
The Jews of Stettin and Schneidemuehl were deported, it was stated because of the need to vacate apartments for the Germans. Eichmann carried this into effect within the scope of his eviction authority. He deported the Jews from Baden and Pfalz to Vichy France at the end of 1940.
Later on, the deportation of Jews from Germany became part of the “final solution.” Those Jews were sent to an immediate death in Minsk and Riga or dispatched for execution later via the Lodz Ghetto (Lietzmannstadt). We shall submit to you the detailed instructions for the deportations to the extermination region in Lublin
issued by Eichmann from the beginning of 1942 to all police units—Stapostellen— and to the commanders of the Security Service—SD. On 30 May 1942, Eichmann informed the representatives of the communities of Vienna, Prague and Berlin that the Reich, Austria and the Protectorate were to be “cleansed” of Jews.
In Berlin, roll calls, known as “Eichmann Roll Calls” (Eichmann Appelle)— —took place at which the deportation selections were made. Once again, we shall see the direct hand of Adolf Eichmann planning, executing and tackling all matters, both small and large relating to the “final solution.”
Finally, in 1944, there was only one country within the sphere of influence of the Reich left with a considerable Jewish population. That was Hungary. After the annexation of Southern Slovakia, Northern Transylvania and Carpatho-Russia there were about 800,000 Jews living in Hungary. Since 1942, when a representative of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Had demanded of the Hungarian Ambassador to fulfill the Fuehrer’s wish and take part in the “solution of the Jewish problem.” End quote. As usual, the promise was made that Jewish property would be turned over to Hungary. The objectives outlined by the Foreign Ministry to its representative in Budapest
Were to demand that the Hungarians remove the Jews from all influence in cultural and economic life introduce the Jewish badge, uproot the Jews and deport them to the East. The Magyars, however, contented themselves in the first place with legislation denying the Jews a number of rights.
Prime Minister Kallay did not hide his anti-Semitic feelings but he did not agree to throw the Jews to the wolves. Replying to a question from a member of the Arrow Cross Party in the Hungarian parliament Kallay stated on 7 December 1942 that the time was not appropriate
For imprisoning the Jews in labor camps and ghettoes. Naturally, the Accused received a German Foreign Ministry report on this development. Eichmann was already looking forward to the extermination of Hungarian Jewry. When the German Foreign Ministry proposed action against Jews who had taken refuge in Hungary Eichmann stated that he objected to partial operations.
On 25 September 1942, he wrote and I quote: “In my view it would be necessary for this purpose to set in motion the whole deportation machine… without thereby bringing us closer to the solution of the Jewish question in Hungary…
It would be better to wait until Hungary is ready to include her own Jews in the scope of this operation.” End quote. So he waited for his quarry and he knew that it would not escape him. In the meantime, German anger grew
And in April 1943, Horthy, Regent of Hungary, was summoned to a meeting at the Klessheim Palace with Hitler and his Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. According to a minute of this conversation, Ribbentrop declared that there were only two alternatives: to imprison the Jews in concentration camps, or to exterminate them.
Hitler said that the Jews should “be treated like tuberculosis bacilli” and showed his knowledge of history in the following statement, and I quote: “Peoples who have not been protected themselves against the Jews are doomed to extinction.
One of the most famous examples is the decline of such a great and proud people as the Persians who now lead a miserable existence as Armenians.” [TRANSLATION NOT AVAILABLE] Horthy was not convinced. At the end of 1943 Veesenmayer, who was later to be German Ambassador in Budapest
Sent a final report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs proposing that Germany should no longer rest content with the fact that independent Hungary was her ally but should actually occupy the country. One of the declared purposes of the occupation was to harness Hungary to the program of exterminating the Jews. This was done.
When Horthy was invited a second time to meet Hitler on 7 March 1944 an ultimatum was presented to him, and while he was still debating what to do the German Army crossed the border and took control of the whole country without resistance.
With the entry of the Germans, Eichmann and his special units moved in. The fate of Hungarian Jewry had been sealed. Eichmann brought into Hungary his whole group of accomplices the entire gang of murderers who together with him had carried out the extermination program in the various concerned lands:
Krumey, Wisliceny, Dannecker, Abromeit, Hunsche, Novak, Burger, Alois Brunner and others all those who had already sent millions of Jews to the slaughter who had gained experience throughout Europe in methods of persuading and inciting the local population. All of these, who had already proved their efficiency and talent now swooped down upon Hungarian Jewry.
Here they could not wait. The Soviet Army had already reoccupied the Ukraine and advanced into the Carpathian mountains. There was serious ground for the fear that if the destroyers did not carry out their evil work quickly they would never be able to do so. The top echelons of IVB4 were therefore assembled here
After being released from their duties in other countries where the extermination program had been completed or was continuing without them. Here then was an apparent sense of urgency in all their activities, a desire to finish the job at all costs a need to concentrate all stages of the preparatory work
At times to skip some of them to shorten procedures with the sole purpose of achieving results as quickly as possible. The gang had at their disposal all the power of the German Army as well as the Hungarian civil service when Sztojay, a puppet of the Germans, was appointed Prime Minister.
It is doubtful whether the Nazis any longer believed at that time that they would win the War but they wanted at least to complete the destruction of the Jews. On this front, come what may, they wanted to guarantee themselves a victory.
The arch exterminator himself took his place at the head of this group controlling the “dirty work” in the field. Here he appears not only as the one who pulls the strings directs, plans, stimulates and is generally responsible for implementation but also as an independent executive officer.
Himmler had laid down that Eichmann was his plenipotentiary according to the evidence given by Vajna Gabor, the Hungarian Minister of the Interior. His faithful colleague was Endre, the Hungarian Secretary of State for Jewish Affairs. The lesson of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt had been well learned.
Eichmann was determined that this disgraceful episode would never be repeated. Particular attention was devoted to ensuring that it would never occur to the Jews to revolt or attempt to escape and save their property. The Nazi aim was to murder and to inherit at one and the same time.
The entire familiar program of oppression was put into action here at one fell swoop— —accompanied, as usual, by inducements and the raising of false hopes. Expectations of rescues were raised while the property was being plundered; consideration was shown in trivial matters;
And the illusion was spread that no harm would come to those Jews who were ready to work. But in the meantime all the necessary preparations were made in the death camps which had already actually ceased operations. Rudolph Hoess was ordered to set Auschwitz in motion again and to make preparations for intensified extermination
And he arrived in Budapest to coordinate arrangements with Eichmann. Eichmann insisted on an intake of frequent transports but Hoess contended that he would be unable to handle such large numbers. Finally they compromised; two trains one day and three the next. And indeed Auschwitz had never witnessed a period of such feverish activity
As in the summer and autumn of 1944. The gas chambers and furnaces worked day and night. Matters reached such a pitch that bodies were burned in the open field. There were times when, in one sweep, more than 10,000 Jews a day were destroyed.
The extermination process in Hungary began in earnest on the morrow of the occupation. Already on 20 March 1944, Wisliceny and Krumey, Eichmann’s principle aides convened all the Jewish leaders and announced the dissolution of the various community institutions and organizations
And the establishment of the Central Jewish Council as the only body recognized by the Germans. At the same meeting, in which a sergeant stood by the German tyrants with a revolver directed at the fifteen Jewish representatives it was furthermore stated that henceforth all Jewish affairs in Hungary
Were to fall under the supervision of the Special Unit of the SS. The Jews, however were not to worry— so long as they behaved themselves. Eichmann, chief and commander of the Special Unit which was called after his name “Sondereinsatzkommando Eichmann”
Now became the lord of life and death, the absolute master, of Hungarian Jewry. From that time on, the flood of the all-too-familiar laws and decrees was let loose: the prohibition to leave one’s place of residence, the prohibition to use transport the disconnection of telephones, the freezing of bank accounts
House curfew, the closure of shops, registration of all property, and the like. When the community representatives lodged complaints the Accused retorted that all orders must be carried out without delay. At the beginning of April all Hungarian Jews from six years of age and over were obliged to wear the yellow badge.
An air attack on Budapest provided the command with a pretext to commandeer 500 Jewish apartments which were turned over, complete with furnishings and equipment, to Hungarians and while the Jewish representatives were seeking to mitigate the decree the number of apartments demanded was raised to two thousand.
Jews were hunted on trains and in the streets. Those taken were assembled in camps, the most infamous of which was the Kistarcsa Camp. A roundup of Jews was started in the provincial towns according to prepared zones marked out in advance.
In a number of towns ghettoes were set up where conditions were so wretched that they defy description. To carry out the roundup in Budapest in one sweep was no easy task as its quarter-of-a-million Jews were scattered throughout the city. It was thus found necessary to operate in stages
The houses in which Jews were ordered to live being marked with a large yellow sign. Here too, Hungarians and Jews were informed that the Jews were only wanted for work. The Hungarian Government agreed to put 50,000 Jews at the disposal of the Reich for “work in Germany.”
But the official German correspondence, all in the name of the Accused clearly indicates the true objective—Auschwitz. The mass deportations began in the middle of May, 1944. Reports exist on the different stages of the operation the details of which were worked out by Eichmann.
While negotiations marked by extortions and promises of rescue, were in progress a daily average of 12,000 were being deported. Wisliceny contacted Pinhas Freudiger a leader of the Orthodox community whose grandfather had been the recipient of an Austrian title of nobility and who was consequently addressed as Baron Freudiger.
In return for two million dollars Wisliceny offered to rescue Jews and even received a substantial payment on account. Parallel negotiations interspersed with threats of extermination and promises of rescue were in progress between Eichmann, Kasztner and Joel Brand. Kasztner was the representative of the Jewish Rescue Committee
And it was Brand who was chosen as the emissary to bring Germany’s fantastic offer— —“Blood for Goods”— —to the Western World. Jews were to be saved in return for trucks, coffee, tea and soap. The Jews were told that the trucks would not be used on the Western Front.
Brand accompanied by Bandi Gross, on Eichmann’s orders was instructed to travel to neutral Turkey to submit the offer to Jewish bodies. Another motive on the part of the Germans was revealed in an official report sent by Ambassador Veesenmayer to Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister.
Ribbentrop on hearing of the suggested deal over the London radio requested his Ambassador to forward full details immediately. The latter reported that because of the shortage of certain commodities Brand had been dispatched with an offer that in return for these goods “a number of Jews would be allowed to leave for Turkey.”
End quote. According to Ribbentrop’s testimony at the Nuremberg Trial the Foreign Minister promptly intervened to cancel the deal since it would be beneath German dignity to receive payment in return for stopping the extermination. Kurt Becher, a high-ranking SS officer was delegated by Himmler to conduct these negotiations
And his aim was to extort as much as possible from the Hungarian Jewish community. Himmler told Becher that he could promise what he liked: “What we shall carry out, however, is a different matter.” In order to facilitate the negotiations, however Becher obtained Himmler’s consent to allow one train containing 1,684 people, to leave.
The train was directed to Bergen-Belsen and from there, on two separate occasions those released were permitted to travel to Switzerland. The Nazis extorted one thousand dollars from every person traveling on the train. When explaining the release of the second batch from Bergen-Belsen for Switzerland Schellenberg, a high-ranking SS officer
Explained that Himmler had something else entirely in mind in allowing these people to be rescued. Himmler, he said, wanted to earn himself a good name in the Western press to assume the role of a terminator of the murders the redeeming angel with whom it would be proper to establish contact
With a view to a cease-fire and armistice. It is known that Himmler did have some such scheme in mind having already despaired of the possibility of victory on the battlefield and believing that Hitler would be unacceptable to the Western Powers as a party to the negotiations.
Consequently, Himmler wanted to groom himself for such talks. A few months later, he repeated the attempt and was on the verge of establishing contacts with the West. The premature publication of the matter over the London radio however naturally thwarted the whole attempt, which was, among other things
Preconceived as a means to split the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. Becher was interested in extortion, Himmler in a “good name.” But there was one man who disapproved of the whole deal who carried out Himmler’s instructions to send Brand to Istanbul with notable distaste
Who strove with all his might to sustain the extermination and murder operations. This man was Adolf Eichmann. He started mass deportations immediately after Joel Brand had departed. He announced that if an immediate affirmative reply was not received from Brand “I shall let the Auschwitz mills work”
And while making pretense that the survivors would be saved if the deal succeeded he persisted in his satanic extermination operations. The looting of Jewish property continued as did the arrests. Naturally the Jews tried to escape, particularly to Palestine. Eichmann knew of this and insisted on energetic steps to seal all outlets.
“It should be explained to the Hungarian authorities in an unequivocable and clear-cut fashion” he wrote on 24 July 1944 that “migration to Palestine within the scope of this operation will not be approved.” End quote. He complained about the Swedish and Swiss Embassies issuing the Jews papers which enabled them to emigrate from Hungary.
The main target of his venom was a young Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg an architect by profession and a man of sterling qualities who had made the rescue of Jews his life’s vocation. Wallenberg gathered around him a whole team of workers issued passports granting the holders right of residence in Sweden
And, at the risk of his diplomatic status and even his life, instituted rescue operations. He rented and acquired buildings in which he housed Jews under the protection of the Swedish flag and assembled, at one period, as many as 40,000 Jews. When the “Death March,” of which I shall speak later, began
Wallenberg escorted the marchers with trucks laden with food, medical supplies and clothing. He also tried to remove from the March anyone to whom Swedish papers of protection could feasibly be issued. Wallenberg, to whose credit can be counted tens of thousands of survivors
Also enrolled the support of other diplomats as well as the Red Cross. All this was the work of one courageous man who had the strength to act according to his conception and belief. His deeds like those of King Christian of Denmark, again give rise to the sombre thought:
How many could have been saved, even in the countries of actual extermination had there only been many others like him among those who had the power to act whether openly or in secret. It is not surprising that Eichmann released a flood of anger against this liberator.
The Swedish Embassy in Berlin lodged a complaint that Eichmann had told the Red Cross in Budapest he had it in mind to shoot “the Jewish dog” Wallenberg. The Foreign Ministry apologized to the Ambassador stating that no doubt the words were not seriously meant. In the written exchange it was explained that Eichmann’s reaction
Had to be understood against the background of Wallenberg’s “illegal” activities to rescue Hungarian Jewry and were meant to restrain him from persisting in his efforts. The deportations were carried out in secret. Nothing was mentioned about them in the newspapers and the Germans took special measures to avoid publicity
Lest the Jews of Budapest should be alarmed. The deportees, on arrival at Auschwitz were ordered to send soothing postcards to their relatives. The text of the postcards was dictated by the Auschwitz butchers who instructed that an Austrian resort, “Waldsee,” be designated as the place of dispatch.
The postcards stated that those transported for work were all well; they usually arrived after their senders had been consumed in the Auschwitz furnaces. In response to a Red Cross request that a representative accompany the transport Eichmann did not object to one being present during the dispatch
Though only after the transport had been prepared by Eichmann but “the accompaniment of the transport by a representative must on no account be allowed.” Meanwhile the German position at the front deteriorated; the Soviet Army advance continued. Pressure was put on Horthy from different quarters to put an end to the deportations
And at the beginning of July he mustered up courage and ordered that they should cease. According to an official report of their Foreign Ministry the Germans had succeeded up to the end of June in sending 437,402 Jews for extermination. Horthy’s instruction frustrated the plans prepared for the middle of July 1944
to deport all the Jews of Budapest on one day by mobilizing all available manpower including even municipal workers and postmen. The details of the plan were drawn up together with Eichmann. The Germans looked for a convenient excuse for this lightning operation and the Director of the Foreign Ministry Press Office suggested
That explosives “be discovered” in synagogues. Veesenmayer rejected the suggestion on the grounds that the synagogues for a long time had been under the strict supervision of the police and therefore the excuse would not hold water. In spite of Horthy’s order, Eichmann tried to continue the deportations.
At the beginning of July he attempted to dispatch an extermination transport from the Kistarcsa Camp. The matter became known to the Budapest Jewish leaders who intervened with Horthy who ordered that the transport be stopped at the border and sent back. When the Accused saw what had happened
His lieutenants convened the whole of the Community Council a second time ostensibly for discussions and kept them occupied the whole day with inconsequential matters simply in order to detain them while his agents in Kistarcsa loaded 1,200 Jews into a deportation train and sent it on its way.
The Jewish leaders, virtually the prisoners of Eichmann’s stewards, in Schwabenberg forboded evil. When evening came and they were released they heard about the train and hastened to Horthy to countermand the decree again. On this occasion, however, it was too late. The train had crossed the Hungarian border and as has now been ascertained
The community representatives were only released after the receipt of a message from Eichmann’s Unit that the train was safely on its way to death. When Wisliceny afterwards met Freudiger he told him: “Did you really think that Eichmann would allow this old fool Horthy to frustrate his wishes?”
This operation too proves Eichmann’s satanic initiative. No one at that time demanded that he act; Horthy did not agree to the continuation of the deportations. No one could have pointed an accusing finger at Eichmann had he refrained from action and awaited the results of the diplomatic and military pressures
Applied by the Germans to Hungary to renew the extermination. But when the issue at stake was the extermination of the Jews Eichmann acted over and above any instructions. Two letters and a postcard from Jakob Reich who was in the two Kistarsca transports have been preserved.
He wrote a letter from the Camp on toilet paper after having been miraculously saved in the first transport. On being deported a second time, he wrote a postcard which it seems he threw from the train and on which was scribbled: “Blessed be the hand that sends this postcard.”
Such a hand was found, and the postcard was delivered to his wife in Budapest. This is what it said: “It is Wednesday afternoon… They have packed us in and we are traveling. God be with you, my dear family. God be with you. I embrace you and many kisses. Father.”
Reich was not privileged to see his family again. His widow will submit to you his letter and postcard. The German pressure to renew the deportations did not cease. Hitler himself intervened and ordered his Foreign Minister to warn Horthy that Germany would not suffer any delay in measures against the Jews
And that Horthy’s attitude would bring a catastrophe on the Hungarian people. To frustrate any possibility of the Jews leaving Hungary for neutral countries Eichmann took steps reported by Veesenmayer in the following terms to the Foreign Ministry on July 25, 1944 and I quote: “…It has been agreed with Eichmann
That when the renewal of the deportations of the Budapest Jews…become possible these should be carried out quickly and with the utmost dispatch so that the Jews who come into question for migration be deported before they have time for any formalities.” End quote.
Austria at that time was in urgent need of workers for fortification work. The German war plan expected heavy defensive battles to be fought in this region. At the beginning of June, 1944 Blaschke, the Mayor of Vienna, approached his friend, the head of the RSHA, Kaltenbrunner
With the request to consign a number of deportation transports to carry out the fortification work. Kaltenbrunner replied that instructions had been given to move about 12,000 deportees to Vienna and that they were to be kept in closed camps. The women, children and those incapable of work
Would be taken for “special operations,” i.e. extermination. However, the representatives of Hungarian Jewry were informed by Eichmann and his accomplices that Jews could be saved “by consignment to Austria,” in return for ransom money. Anyone paying as demanded would be saved by traveling to Austria.
Eichmann said that he would be prepared to “keep on ice”—his own expression— —in Austria 30,000 Jews capable of work; the families would live in camps at the expense of the Budapest Jews. In return, he demanded a ransom of five million Swiss Francs the equivalent of 200 dollars per head.
Some 15,000 Jews were apparently consigned to Austria in this way. In the autumn of 1944, Horthy attempted to withdraw his country from the War on the side of Germany. But the Germans, who knew of his activities, took control of Budapest by force in Operation “Iron Fist.” They arrested Horthy
And on 15 October 1944, put Szalasi, the leader of the Arrow Cross, in power. Now once again the Jews were at their mercy. Eichmann who had left Budapest when the deportations had ceased on Horthy’s instructions returned on 18 October and the operations against the Jews were renewed with full vigor.
And now, with the infamous operation known as “The Death March” came the finale of Eichmann’s campaign of murder. There were no longer any trains available. Himmler had in the meantime ordered all exterminations to be stopped but Eichmann found a way to circumvent Himmler’s instructions.
He organized, with the help of his Hungarian Fascist allies a march of Jews in the direction of Austria, ostensibly to provide labor for fortifications but actually to murder them. Eichmann’s calculation was simple: the weak would fall by the way the sturdy would arrive at their destination to build the fortifications
And would afterwards be destroyed. The march began in November along a 200-kilometer route in rain, snow and cold. They lodged in the open or in pigsties. Thus were the women, children and old folk deported. Anyone who found the walking difficult was shot by the guards
Who beat and tormented the victims every step of the way. Those who had no strength left, collapsed and died. Hundreds committed suicide or died of the typhus raging among the marchers. The food allocated once every few days consisted of hot water and some bread.
People died like flies; the whole route was strewn with corpses. The number of those who fell by the way is estimated at six to ten thousand. The horrors attained such proportions that even the escorting Hungarian officers and soldiers began to mutiny and requested that they be sent to the front.
The intervention of Szalasi, the Hungarian Prime Minister, to put an end to the march had no effect. And then an astonishing thing occurred. Himmler himself reprimanded Eichmann for organizing this operation and only then did the dreadful march end. The Soviet Army had by this time surrounded Budapest
And the remnants of the Jewish community in the capital were saved. PRESIDING JUDGE: We’ll stop here for twenty minutes. PRESIDING JUDGE: Please, Mr. Hausner. HAUSNER: And now, honorable judges to discuss the camps. I have already spoken of the character and quality of the Nazi concentration camp
As a medium to consolidate the dictatorship and to terrorize the opponent so as to break him or to bring him round. There were hundreds of concentration, collection and transit camps in Germany and the occupied territories. Insofar as the Jews were concerned, all of them had a single aim: their utter destruction.
And even if the Nazis had not introduced direct extermination methods it would not have taken long for the ghetto and labor camp inmates to die of starvation, exhaustion and disease. But the “Final Solution” was not to be kept waiting and extermination camps were therefore erected.
In the other camps, such as Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau thousands and tens of thousands also perished as a result of the planned maintenance of a way of life which was bound to kill. In these camps too Eichmann had control over all matters pertaining to Jews and we shall submit evidence to prove it.
In these opening remarks, however I wish only to dwell on those special camps known as extermination camps which were, from the very start constructed to implement the “Final Solution” and in which millions of Jews met their deaths. In Hitler’s book Mein Kampf the idea of exterminating Jews by poison gas is already mentioned.
He wrote that if 12,000-15,000 Jews had been poisoned during the First World War a million Germans would have been saved. After the Einsatzgruppen murder operations by shooting had proved unsatisfactory the idea was mooted, as I have already mentioned to use gases against the Jews. The first experiments were made by Globocnik in Poland
And Eichmann, who realized the effectiveness adopted this process for the implementation of the “Final Solution.” This he confirmed to Dr. Wetzel of the Ministry for Occupied Territories who presented a written report on this matter. Eichmann traveled personally to Globocnik
To inform him that his experiments would be adopted for use on a general scale in the area under his authority, as well as in other places and sent him a man called Gunther, together with a poison gas expert. Eichmann made a tour with Rudolf Hoess
To select a suitable site for the erection of gas installations at Auschwitz and also visited the Treblinka, and Chelmno extermination camps to examine their effectiveness. He was satisfied with the system which he considered preferable to shooting. He and his Section dealt with the obtaining of Blausaure gas
Termed Zyklon B, composed of hydrogen cyanide. This gas was employed in a number of extermination camps. As late as the beginning of 1945 on the threshold of the end of War Eichmann was still planning to wipe out all the Jews still alive at Theresienstadt
In gas installations to be erected there on his initiative as the others had then ceased to function. On Eichmann rests the direct responsibility for the operations of these fearful camps set up for the implementation of the “Final Solution.”
In a few of them a last effort was made to extort a work and labor force from the Jews before sending them to their destruction. The Court will permit me to describe briefly what occurred in these places all of which were set up by the SS
While the exterminations were conducted by the RSHA. The Majdanek Camp, near Lublin, was established in 1941. At first, prisoners of war were detained here but later Jews began to arrive from Czechoslovakia, France and Greece, and the camp grew. It contained separate units, called “fields.”
In the spring of 1942, gas extermination installations were constructed as well as two ovens to burn the bodies. In the summer of the same year Polish Jews began to arrive in large numbers. In the spring of 1943, the Jewish deportees from Warsaw arrived at Majdanek and immediately the killings were speeded up
Reaching a climax in November when, in one day, 18,000 Jews were shot. Conditions in the camps even without taking into account the installations for direct execution were so arranged that the prisoner was bound to perish whether from hunger, disease or pure physical exhaustion. The food provided was about one-third of the necessary minimum.
The clothing left the prisoner exposed to the mercies of the elements; the quarters were draughty huts each housing five-hundred people or more two to a mattress. The work in which the prisoners were employed until being killed was in itself a means of extermination designed to destroy the body.
The same purpose was pursued by cruelty and beating during work and the employment of men in labors having no possible utility. No wonder the garments and mattresses of the prisoners were perpetually teeming with lice, bugs and insects. Tuberculosis and typhoid abounded. In Majdanek cure for typhus was execution by shooting.
The sick people would undergo selection: Anyone capable of running before the selection committee was spared for the time being. Those who stumbled were removed for immediate killing. On rainy and stormy days the prisoners were deliberately ordered to cat in the open.
During parades, the sick and the dying were instructed to lie in the mud and snow. Jewish prisoners were brought in their tens of thousands to the gas chambers without even undergoing registration or selection. The women’s hair was shorn; gold teeth extracted. Evidence was later found confirming that nine crates of gold and valuables
Were dispatched to the Reich from Majdanek. The death rate in the camp was frightful— some 180 people a day. Children died like flies. The selection procedure at the Majdanek camp was as follows: males to the right; females to the left; children and old folk to the center.
Mothers who clung to their children were separated by the lash. You will hear the evidence of a woman who obstinately refused to let go of her baby. An SS man approached her, smashed the child’s head on the ground and handed the woman the blood-soaked body with the words: “Now take your child.”
There were cases when babies were torn apart by the bare hands before the very eyes of the mothers, who went out of their minds in horror. In Majdanek there was only one place where the children were treated kindly: At the entrance to the gas chambers each one was handed a sweet.
To all intents and purposes, the prisoners were at the mercy of all SS men in the camp who could kill or outrage them at will. Every Sunday a “run” was held. All the prisoners were obliged to run and anyone who lost a wooden shoe or stumbled was killed on the spot.
According to the estimate of the Polish Government committee at least 200,000 Jews were destroyed at Majdenek. The Treblinka Camp was set up in the Warsaw district in an isolated region close to a small Polish village; it was in existence during 1942-1943. ears after the Germans themselves had destroyed the camp in November 1943
Domestic items, clothing and suitcases were still left scattered about the place. It was still possible to find in the area mounds of sand intermingled with human ashes and bones. Here camouflage devices were employed on the threshold of the camp. A sham railway station was built with signboards
Indicating an imaginary restaurant, transit points to other stations a waiting room, signals and the like. It was all so arranged that, from the outside, the illusion would be preserved that Treblinka was just another normal camp. But it was difficult to cling to this illusion for any length of time.
Waiting at the station stood SS men and Ukrainian police who would lash out at the arrivals with whips to get them to alight from the coaches. Dawdlers were shot on the spot. In the camp itself, a further attempt at camouflage was made. Sick people, invalids, old folk and children
Would be transferred to a hut adorned with the Red Cross and the sign “Lazarett” (hospital). Inside was a “waiting room” furnished with upholstered couches with an exit to another place. Here a SS man stood, and as the person entered
Would shoot him in the back of the neck and throw him into the pit. All these “arrangements” were made so that entering the gas chambers could proceed without undue interruption from the children, elderly or infirmed and without any interference from the “slower” victims.
The bodies of those who had died en route in the wagons or had been killed on arrival, were all thrown into the Lazarette. At the station the new arrivals were ordered to hand over all the money and valuables in their possession. The victims’ effects were sorted, repaired and sent to Germany.
We know of 203 wagon-loads of clothing alone which were sent in this way. Before the killing, the women’s hair would be clipped and the remaining belongings of the candidates for execution were pillaged. The hair was placed in sacks and sent to Germany.
The males were then ordered to undress and chased into the gas chambers to the accompaniment of beatings and blows from rifle butts. Thus they were herded inside naked, their hands above their heads so that more people could be squeezed into the chamber. The hatch was then closed, the engine was switched on
And the poison gas killed them. Here, too, when the chamber doors were opened the gold teeth were extracted once the gas fumes had dispersed and the bodies flung into pits. Later on, installations were constructed to burn the bodies.
There is one case of a man who was thrown into the death pit while still alive. He succeeded in escaping but the farmers of whom he asked shelter handed him over to the camp command. He was brutally attacked by an SS man, Kurt Franz who finally killed him by beating with a stick.
This Franz had a big strong dog who was trained at the call “Jude,” to pounce on a prisoner and bite him. There was a case of a transport of Jews from Grodno who resisted entering the gas chambers. One of them even threw a grenade at the murderers’ Ukrainian assistants.
Immediately, deadly fire was opened and the Jews were chased, fully clothed into the extermination chambers. It may be stated that at least 7,550 wagon-loads of Jews arrived at Treblinka bringing to their deaths at least 750,000 people. It was here that hundreds of thousands of Warsaw Jews met their end
Together with deportees from Radom, Czestochowa, Kielce and Bialystok Jews from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Belgium and Greece. Old people from Theresienstadt were also sent to Treblinka for extermination. Secret preparations for an uprising were made in Treblinka. The ringleader was a physician, Dr. Chorazycki
On whom the Germans found a sum of money intended for the mutineers. The doctor knew what to expect and immediately swallowed poison. The murderers made strenuous efforts to revive him so that they might torture him to death. Franz forced open his mouth with a knife
Poured water down his throat and began jumping on his stomach in his jackboots. But Dr. Chorazycki was already dead and the SS butchers had only his corpse on which to pour out their venom. Plans for the uprising nevertheless proceeded in secret. A number of prisoners joined forces
Succeeded somehow in stealing a small amount of arms and on 2 August 1943, attacked the guards who included SS men and Ukrainians. In spite of deadly fire a number of people succeeded in breaking through a barbed wire fence and escaping.
One of the mutineers was Rudolf Masaryk, apparently a nephew of the famous Tomáš Masaryk who out of his love for his Jewish wife, had followed her to the death camp. The mutineers set fire to a number of the camp installations and in their flight to the forests they paused a moment
To look back at the great slaughter-house going up in flames. This incident marked the beginning of the dissolution of the camp and in November 1943, its operations ceased entirely. The Germans ploughed over the area and settled Ukrainians on the site. Chelmno, in German Kulmhof, in the vicinity Lodz
Was erected from the very outset solely as an extermination camp. At this place, people were not employed in any way or utilized for labor— —they were slaughtered immediately. The SS commander would tell the new arrivals that they were being taken to work and that before their departure
They would have to wash and hand over their garments for disinfection. They would be escorted to a building in which they undressed. On the walls were prominently placed signs reading: “To The Doctor,” “To The Wash Room.” The Jews would then be ordered to go out naked
Or with nothing but a shirt on their bodies and enter grey vehicles marked “Sonderwagen” each one of which held 80-100 people. These, they were told, would take them to the “washplace.” When the doors were closed, the engine was switched on and the victims killed by exhaust fumes.
Once the screams had died down the vehicle moved off to the nearby forest where Jewish forced laborers, Waldkommando, would remove the bodies. After the teeth had been extracted and the rings removed they would throw the bodies into prepared pits. The Waldkommando worked with their legs in chains.
They were put to death from time to time and new forced laborers chosen from the transports. The exterminations at Chelmno began at the end of 1941. Here too, within a few months, furnaces were built to burn the bodies. The ashes were removed and after the bones had been ground down
They were buried in pits or thrown into the river. In April 1943, the extermination camp ceased operating and the furnaces were demolished. But in 1944 it became apparent that the work was not yet completed; the camp was re-established and new furnaces installed. Once again they operated in accordance with the well-worn procedure:
Death gas and the burning of the bodies. A number of months later, the business of slaughter was completed. The killers dismantled the camp, obliterated the evidence of their murders and set about executing the forced laborers who had been engaged in burning the bodies now called “Sonderkommando”.
A few of them resisted and two succeeded in escaping two of the only four survivors of this camp who were left alive to tell the world of its horrors. According to a conservative estimate some 340,000 Jews were exterminated at Chelmno. These were mainly from the Lodz area, Posen and Warsaw
In addition to Jews from Germany, Austria, France, Luxembourg and Holland who had passed through the Lodz Ghetto. Here, too, the effects and clothing were looted. On 9 January 1943, the “German People’s Winter Aid Campaign” wrote to the German administration of the Lodz Ghetto
Complaining that a part of the clothing sent from Chelmno had not been adequately cleaned and that the “Jewish Badge” had not been removed from one of the coats. Since the garments were intended for German settlers, so the communication stated such neglect was not to be tolerated
As it brought discredit to the “Winter Aid Campaign”: “das Winterhiffiswerk damit in Miskredit komml.” Sobibor was another extermination camp set up at the beginning of 1942 in the Lublin district. Here, as elsewhere, Polish investigators after the liberation uncovered mounds of ashes, bones and human fat.
Here too, there were gas chambers and installations for burning the bodies. You will hear evidence of how the barbarians brutally treated their victims. People who begged for a drink of water were taken to the public lavatories and smeared with feces.
Here, too, you will hear of dogs set on people to tear them to pieces of punitive parades when the unfortunate victims were ordered to pass between rows of whip-wielding SS men and Ukrainians. Sobibor was a terminal for large transports and, according to the estimate of the Polish authorities
At least a quarter-of-a-million Jews were exterminated there. The men and women were stripped naked and led in single file in long rows to the gas chambers. As in other places, the old people and children were shot separately so as not to get in the way of those marching to the gas chambers.
Sobibor was the grave of Jews from Poland, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Austria and France. Here, too, the familiar process of plundering the belongings extracting the teeth and clipping the hair was repeated. Sobibor was also the scene of an uprising. In October 1943, a number of Jewish workers employed in the camp mutinied
Succeeded in getting hold of arms and killed some of the SS men. and a few hundred prisoners escaped to the forests Following the uprising, the camp was dismantled— —Jewish victims. And now to the largest and most terrible of the extermination camps— Auschwitz. The death factory for millions
Which will always be remembered in the annals of humanity as the symbol of horror and infamy. Auschwitz in Polish ‘Owiccim’ is a small townlet to the west of Krakow. It is a small place, impoverished by nature an area of swamps and sand dunes mist and dampness, fever and putrid water.
It was here that this camp was established with the sure knowledge that it was to be a slaughterhouse. The SS guards were told that they must not even rinse their mouths with unboiled water. This enormous concentration camp contained 39 branches including auxiliary camps, (Nebenlager), exterior camps (Aussenlager)
Work camps (Arbeitslager) and branch camps (Zweiglager). At the end of 1941, Auschwitz had a capacity of 18,000 persons; in 1943, there was room for 30,000. According to the confession of the first commander of the camp, Rudolf Hoess about two-and-a-half million people were exterminated
And a further half-million died of disease, hunger and torture. Not only Jews were brought here. There were many others whom the evil regime had resolved to afflict with forced labor and put to death. There were, for example, some thousands of Soviet prisoners of war gypsies or opponents of the regime from other countries
Amounting in all to some tens of thousands. But the Jews were brought here in their millions. The camp and its branch, Birkenau were surrounded— —extermination chambers. At other times, they were screened: those capable of work were placed in the slave camp and the others sent to their deaths.
The workers were employed in the I.G. factory or in the Krupp armament works known here as “Union” manufacturing hand-grenade parts They worked in other enterprises as well in mines, in the fields and in the forests. From those firms in which the workers were consigned for labor
The camp command used to receive six marks a day the prisoners’ maintenance amounting to 30 pfennig. Before death, profit was made out of the sweat of Jewish toil. But labor promised life; so people tried to appear healthy, to stand upright to swell out a lean breast, to raise their heads
To act as if there was nothing wrong with them. Otherwise, Doctor Mengele would point his finger to the left during the selection parade. To the left meant death. The fate of five hundred people was decided in these screenings in about a quarter of an hour. Anyone classified as incapable of work
Was removed to a special place in expectation of death. In the cards of the Jewish prisoners which have been discovered it was recorded who sent them to Auschwitz: Section IVB4 of the RSHA. And we shall yet hear evidence that with respect to the Jews in this camp Eichmann had complete control. The gas was delivered by a number of German firms. A few accounts have survived and we shall present them to the Court.
In appearance such an account looks like a normal bill of merchandise. Place of delivery: Auschwitz. Goods: 13 boxes of Zyklon B, containing 195 kilograms of cyanide gas. Cost: 975 marks. Six kilograms of this material were sufficient to exterminate 1,500 people. Every bill of this kind meant, therefore, a means of killing 42,500 persons.
Eichmann was in Auschwitz and saw what was being done there. He directed the operations and gave instructions which transports were to be sent to immediate extermination and which were to be kept for extermination later on; this was generally after the victims had written “soothing” postcards to Theresienstadt and other places.
He also dealt with the tremendous pillage which continued right up to the gates of this hell. The plunder attained fantastic proportions. The looted diamonds were sold in Switzerland and, in Eichmann’s words, influenced the whole of the Swiss market for precious stones. According to one witness
The looted valuables alone were valued at a milliard marks. The giant warehouses containing the effects of those sentenced to death were given the name “Kanada” perhaps a corruption of the words “keiner da” (no one here). Hundreds were employed in them.
We shall submit to you a report on the delivery of these effects to Germany. During 47 days between December 1, 1944 and January 1, 1945 the following was sent from Auschwitz to Germany: 99,922 sets of children’s clothing 192,652 sets of women’s clothing and 22,269 sets of men’s clothing.
After Auschwitz fell to the Red Army there were still hundreds of thousands of sets of clothing tens of thousands of pairs of shoes enormous piles of shaving brushes artificial limbs and spectacles. We will show you the photographs so that you can see them with your own eyes.
The killings in Auschwitz were carried out by every method: shooting, hanging and beating but mainly in the massive gas chambers. Here, once again— —in the open. Here, too, hair was shorn, teeth extracted and rings removed. About 40 people were employed to handle the teeth alone
And day by day kilograms of gold were melted down at times as much as 12 kilograms a day. At first the victims’ ashes were buried in pits but later they were thrown into the Vistula. Here, medical experiments were made on human beings as if they were guinea pigs.
Parts of female sex organs were cut out or limbs were subjected to X-rays until the unfortunate creatures writhed in pain prior to their death. Men were castrated; experiments were made on the influence of paraffin and petrol injections on human skin and the effects of chemical substances on mental resistance.
Associated with Auschwitz is a collection of skeletons found in Strasbourg by soldiers of the Allied Forces when they entered the city in 1944. We shall prove that in response to Eichmann’s order 150 Auschwitz prisoners were “supplied” for death in the Natzweiler Camp in Germany
So that their skeletons might be sent for anthropological research at the SS Institute of Race Research (Ahnenerbe) which had requested skulls of “Jewish Communist Commissars.” The letters have been preserved and we shall submit them to the Court. —the slaves would go out to work and return in the evening exhausted, wounded
And carrying their comrades who had been killed by the guards. The methods of punishment at Auschwitz would not have shamed the most cruel barbarians in history. Beating on the naked body was a comparatively light punishment. Water was poured into people’s ears fingernails extracted and prisoners starved until they went out of their minds.
In the bunker of those sentenced for punishment by starvation a dead prisoner was found bent over whom was a second prisoner, also dead grasping the liver from the corpse of the first. He had died while tearing at the liver of a fellow human being.
Stories like this were also heard from the Mauthausen camp. The Nazi contribution to European culture— HAUSNER: The Nazis believed that their crimes would not be revealed that their secret would remain intact. But the secret of these atrocities has been laid bare and we must fulfill the dying injunction of an anonymous poetess
Who wrote, before being put to death in Auschwitz: “There is no more hope in the white skull Among the barbed wire, under the ruins And our dust is scattered in the dust out of the broken jars. Our army will go forth, skullbones and jawbones And bone to bone, a merciless line
We, the hunted, the hunters, will cry out to you: The murdered demand justice at your hands!” On whose head did this venomous wrath of extermination and murder fall? We shall prove that the Jewish people were bereaved of many millions certainly close to six million people.
But this meant more than the destruction of over a third of the total; it meant the extinction of those Jewish communities which represented the most important element of the nation from the point of view of inspiration and national consciousness creative power, cultural and spiritual resources
Devotion to the Jewish people and its values. There were some grounds for the Nazis belief that if they could succeed in wiping out this part of Jewry they would prove victorious in their battle against Jewry in general. [TRANSLATION NOT AVAILABLE] From the point of view of Europe a national community was exterminated
Which had resided there from the second century BCE as an integral part of its human landscape a nationality of which H.A.L. Fisher, the historian wrote in the introduction to his History of Europe and I quote: “As the sunshine of religious toleration spread through Central and Western Europe
The Jews were admitted to civic rights. The hospitality of the Christian state was amply repaid in noble contributions to art, science and literature.” Of the 257 Nobel Prize winners during the first 50 years of this century 34 were Jews, twelve of whom were expelled by the Nazis.
I shall not list here all the outstanding Jews stemming from those countries which had suffered the hand of Hitler It will suffice if we mention great geniuses like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud; Fritz Haber, the chemist; Henri Bergson, the philosopher; Paul Ehrlich and Elie Metchnikoff, biologists; Niels Bohr, physicist;
Otto Warburg and Ernst Boris Chain, physiologists; thinkers like Martin Buber judges like Lauterpacht, Brandeis and Kelsen writers like Emil Ludwig, Stefan Zweig, Franz Kafka Franz Werfel, Jakob Wassermann, Max Brod and Lion Feuchtwanger sculptors and painters like Antokolsky, Chagall, Modigliani and Max Liebermann; Max Reinhardt, the producer; musicians like Huberman, Rubinstein and Kreisler
Among hundreds of others to pin but a partial idea of the Jewish People’s contribution to European culture and life The associations between Jewry and Germany comprise a tragic chapter in human annals. Anyone who peruses Bernfeld’s Book of Tears {Sefer Ha-Demaot, vols. (1923-26)}
Which is an account of the persecutions that have befallen the Jewish People will readily see that Germany was the country where Jews suffered more than in any other place. And yet, the Jewish people bestowed great love and devotion on Germany. Its folk-language, Yiddish, was created on the pattern of German;
It carried this tongue with it to every country of the dispersion to Poland, Russia and across the seas. It was in German that Herzl wrote his classics of Zionism that the proceedings of the Zionist Congresses were held that standard works on Jewish history and philosophy were written
In other European countries Jews also settled down and attained positions of honor but nowhere in recent generations did they display the same devotion and enthusiasm as in Germany. Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle created German Socialism which spread throughout the world and it was their pupil, Eduard Bernstein, who founded reformed socialism.
When World War I broke out the German Jewish community flocked to the ranks of the German army with patriotic zeal; the aged philosopher, Hermann Cohen stepped down from his university rostrum and called for a supreme effort on behalf of Germany. Fritz Haber devoted himself tirelessly to the scientific effort
And invented the synthesized ammonia which was of much assistance to the German war effort. The German Jewish community was proud of every soldier and officer awarded a medal. After the capitulation, the Jews devoted themselves to the reconstruction of the country. Walter Rathenau, first as Minister of Economic Affairs and later as Foreign Secretary
Achieved much on behalf of Germany. Hugo Preuss, the Jewish Minister of the Interior prepared the draft of the Weimar Constitution one of the most progressive constitutions in Europe. But all this only served to fire the anger of the Nazis. Rathenau was assassinated by nationalist plotters.
The Jewish contribution to Germany was represented by the Nazis as a foreign growth which had to be uprooted— —and this became an accepted aim in their campaign of incitement. In terms of the Jewish People European Jewry on the eve of the Holocaust
Was the heart of the whole nation, the source of its vitality. The great majority of its spiritual guides and leaders either dwelt there or were of European origin. Here were to be found the great religious scholars the inheritors of the great Rabbi Elijah of Vilna in the renowned Volozhin Yeshiva.
It was here, in a suburb of Kovno that the Slobodka Yeshiva was situated in which the Lithuanian tradition of study was maintained. It was from Europe, that Rabbi Kook and the Hafetz Haim came; that the visionaries of the State, the architects of Jewish nationalism its leaders, thinkers and writers, emerged.
This was the Jewry which, in the last generation gave to the nation Herzl and Nordau, Ahad-Ha’am and Pinsker Bialik, Tchernichowsky and Schneour, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky. It was from here that the daring pioneers set forth in the quest for the Promised Land the members of the first and second waves of immigration
Who laid the foundations on which the State was ultimately built. From here came the dreamers and the fighters the molders of the new Jew’s way of life, thought and character, men like A.D. Gordon, Berl Katznelson Kurt Blumenfeld, Shmaryahu Levin and many others. These millions who were destroyed waited for their State
But were not privileged to see it. It was in these communities which were destroyed in the years between the wars that the wonderful youth movements imbued with national and social ideals their members burning with faith pure of body and heart for whom Zion was their life-breath. [TRANSLATION NOT AVAILABLE]
Ancient communities were destroyed of which I shall mention only a few. There was the illustrious Jewry of Amsterdam, shelter of the Spanish Marranos where Menashe ben Israel dwelt, where Baruch Spinoza lived and wrote. Gone is the Jewry of Prague with its magnificent synagogues which had been in existence since the tenth century
The city of the “Maharal” and the “Noda Biyehuda.” The Jewish community of Berlin was exterminated— —the home of Moses Mendelssohn and Ezriel Hildesheimer. Doom descended on the Jewry of Vienna with a history going back more than a thousand years where Theodor Herzl wrote and worked.
Gone forever are the glorious Jewish centers of Poland headed by the illustrious Warsaw community the center of Polish Jewry, steeped in Jewish culture. the city of I.L. Peretz, Nahum Sokolow and David Frischmann. Lvov Jewry has vanished a great center of Jewish religious scholarship and enlightenment
A focus of Jewish education, cradle of leaders and guides the city of the “Turei Hazahav” and the “Shir.” Even its ancient cemetery, itself a glorious record of Jewish history was destroyed and is no more. The Jewry of Lvov, city of industry and trade
Of Jewish craftsmanship linked with a rich Hebrew culture, was wiped out. Jewish Vilna is no more the Jerusalem of Lithuania the home of the Vilna Gaon a city full of teaching, wisdom and study which its Jewish poet described as “a city of spirituality and simplicity a city immersed in contemplation.”
It was from here that the famous edition of the Talmud was distributed to all Jewish communities throughout the world. The Jewry of Krakow has gone, city of enlightenment and scholarship the city of Jews who combined East and West the city of the “Rama” bearer of a wonderful tradition and culture.
The Kovno community is no more; it was here that Rabbi Israel Salant lived and worked. The Odessa Jewish community was exterminated he cultural cradle of Bialik, Mendele Mokher Seforim and Ahad Ha’am. Gone is the Kiev Jewish community which once so proudly confronted the blood libel in the Beilis trial.
Gone is the ancient community of Salonika where Jews had lived for some 2,000 years the city which gave shelter to the refugees from Spain and Portugal and in which Jewish scholars and great religious luminaries grew up side by side with Jews strong of muscle and healthy of body
The city of Rabbi Moshe Almosnino. Gone forever is the Jewry of Bratislava or Pressburg the zealous guardian of the Law and the commandments the city of the “Hatarn Sofer.” Vanished is the community of Budapest where Jews probably lived even before the arrival of the Magyars
A city of renown in Jewish life, mother of some of Jewry’s greatest luminaries. The Jewish townlet in eastern and southern Europe is destroyed; the shtetl, the abode of tens of thousands of Jews each with its study center and lodging house a reservoir of scholarship and of love for Israel
Where the Jewish spirit was nurtured until the last generation where the tradition of Jewish family life was preserved in the typical small Jewish houses which all the winds in the world could not shake stronghold of Torah and tradition, of yearning for the coming of the Messiah— —this too is no more.
An entire civilization has been destroyed with a characteristic way of life, an atmosphere and faith. Landmarks of Jewish history have been obliterated. The heart of the Jewish people has been wounded. Adolf Eichmann knew what he was about: If he should succeed in destroying this Jewry, he would destroy the whole of Jewry.
The others, he hoped, would perish, or be assimilated. By the mercy of Providence, which preserved a saving remnant Adolf Eichmann’s design was frustrated, and the intention that he cherished was not implemented to the end. Adolf Eichmann’s guilt lies in the planning, initiation organization, and execution of the crimes specified in the indictment.
We shall prove his guilt as planner, initiator organizer and executor of the crime known as the final solution of the Jewish problem. His direct part in the implementation of this criminal program his role as administrator, director and commander of the operation as well as the part he played as partner and accomplice
In the implementation of the program by others. He was the pivot of the criminal conspiracy to exterminate the Jewish people wholly or in part. And he was partner to the crimes committed by the SS, the SD, the Gestapo including the members of the Einsatzgruppen the security police commanders
Senior SS police officers, their emissaries and branch offices and all those who are under their command and carried out their instructions in respect of all the acts of murder, plunder torture and persecution detailed in the indictment we shall prove that the accused performed all these deeds with the set purpose
Of destroying the Jewish people wholly or in part. We shall prove that his deeds were crimes against the Jewish people crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in the indictment. We should also prove the offenses committed by the accused against persons of other nationalities.
In support of the charge, we shall produce extensive written and oral evidence. And may I say immediately that the central archives of the Gestapo including the archives of Eichmann’s Department are not in our position and have not as yet come to the light of day. But abundant documentary evidence is to be found
In the gigantic archives of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and other ministries of the German Reich. In correspondence between the accused and his partners in crime with the ministries in the offices of the security police and other officials Bureau in German cities and in the lands conquered by the Nazis.
Further, there are documents and reports which have been published by governmental institutions for the documentation and investigation of Nazi crimes such as those in Poland, France, Holland, Denmark and Belgium. Much material is available in the minutes of the various courts which tried Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg and in the liberated countries.
Documents have also been preserved by various persons and many of them are in our hands. We shall call witnesses who met Eichmann and at the time of these acts and others who will describe his actions and crimes as they experienced them in their own persons
And will give evidence of what they saw and heard during the period of the Holocaust. The killing of millions of Jews represented the killing off of millions of witnesses. But witnesses still survive who can report what they saw with their own eyes heard with their own ears and suffered in their own persons.
To the best of our ability, we should try to demonstrate to this court in full what Adolf Eichmann did to the Jewish people. But we shall not be able to bring proof as to the fate of each community or the destruction of each Jewish population.
This will remain the task of the historian. Accordingly, we shall bring before the court all the evidence of our disposal on the decisions made to carry out the extermination program the methods by which these decisions were carried out and the evidence as to the role and responsibility of the accused therein.
We should also submit historical evidence as to the demography of the Jewish people before the Nazis came to power and the picture of destruction which was unfolded when the smoke of battle lifted at the end of hostilities during the Second World War.
We should also show proof of the various forms of extermination used and the methods employed by the accused to carry out this program in every place in which he operated. We shall then show the fate of a number of Jewish communities and in the light of the extermination decision on the one hand
And the fact of the Holocaust on the other. We shall request the court to conclude what will have been established in regard to a number of localities occurred also, to the whole house of Israel in conquered Europe.
It is beyond our power to give an accurate description of this terrible disaster in all its depth. I’m afraid that even after submitting all the material which we have established and all the evidence in our possession we should not be able to do more than give a pale reflection
Of the enormous human and national tragedy which occurred to Jewry in this generation. Adolf Eichmann will enjoy a privilege which he did not accord to even a single one of his victims. He will be able to defend himself before the court.
His faith will be decided according to law and according to the evidence with the burden of proof resting upon the prosecution and the judges of Israel will pronounce true and righteous judgment. PRESIDING JUDGE: We adjourn until 3:30 in the afternoon. Tomorrow, on the eve of the Day of Independence
There will be no afternoon session.