Rescue of Jewish Children. The Kinder Transports

The Kindertransports

A Jewish child resting enroot from Nazi Germany

The history of the Kindertransports is a poignant tale of rescue, separation, loss and integration following the persecution of the Jews in the Nazi Reich and countries annexed by the Germans during the latter part of 1938.

Following the Kristallnacht outrage against the Jews on the 9 November 1938 as a response to what was happening to the Jews in the Reich a debate was held in the House of Commons as a direct result of an appeal by the British Jewish Refugee Committee.

The British Government had just refused to allow 10,000 Jewish children to enter Palestine, but with the atrocities in Germany, there was a change of heart, best expressed by the words of British Foreign Minister Samuel Hoare, “Here is a chance of taking the young generation of a great people, here is a chance of mitigating to some extend the terrible suffering of their parents and their friends.”

The British Government agreed to permit an unspecified number of children under the age of 17 to enter the United Kingdom. The children were allowed to enter the British Isles on temporary travel documents, with the belief that the children would re-join their parents at a later date, when things returned to normal.

Two Austrian Jewish girls on thier way to Great Britain

However it was private citizens or organizations had to guarantee to pay for each child's care, education, and eventual emigration from Britain. In return for this guarantee, the British government agreed to allow unaccompanied refugee children to enter the country on temporary travel visas. It was understood at the time that when the “crisis was over,” the children would return to their families.

Parents or guardians could not accompany the children. The few infants included in the program were tended by other children on their transport. A £50 Sterling bond had to be posted for each child, “to assure their ultimate resettlement.”

A number of people and organisations rose to the immense challenge of organising the transports, Jews, Christians and Quakers worked together to get the children out of Germany and the annexed territories.

Lola Hahn with Chaim Weitzmann

The framework for the refugee operation was formed by Lola Hahn – Warburg several years earlier, Lord Baldwin, Rebecca Sieff, Sir Wyndham Deeds, Viscount Samuel, Rabbi Solomon Schoenfeld, who saved approximately 1,000 Orthodox children.

In addition Nicholas Winton rescued nearly 700 Jewish children in Prague, Professor Bentwich organiser of the Dutch escape routes and the Quaker leaders Bertha Bracey and Jean Hoare (cousin of Sir Samuel Hoare) who herself led a planeload of children out of Prague.

According to a scrapbook Winton kept, 664 children came to Great Britain on transports that he organized. In the research compiled for the documentary “The Power of Good: Nicholas Winton,” aired on Czech television in 2002, researchers identified five additional persons who entered Britain on a Winton-financed transport, bringing the official number to 669 children. The available information indicates that some children who were rescued have not yet been identified.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/kindertransport.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Nazi horror at Ottwock Sanitorium

Otwock & the Zofiowka Sanatorium

A Refuge from Hell

The Sanitorium in Otwock

Adam Czerniakow the Chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat wrote in his diary, about his stays in the Jewish sanatoriums in Otwock, as a refuge from the hell, that the ghetto had become. .

Otwock is located 27 kilometres East South East from Warsaw and a Jewish community was established in 1880 when a rabbi from Warka, Kalisz called Simcha Bunem established a study house on land rented from two Jews – Blass and Reindorf.

Otwock grew with the opening of the Vistula Railway and when the spa at nearby Naleczow closed it gates for Jews, the spa conditions at Otwock made it a fashionable haven for Jews who needed treatment.

Aleksandra Street was at the heart of the Jewish district – the first synagogue was built there. The majority of Jews lived in wooden houses with verandas and porches. From 1910, a second house of prayer with a ritual bath was situated in Gorna Street.

In 1895 the first sanatorium for Jews, established by Jozef Przygoda, a medical assistant started to function and this was continued by his son Wladyslaw. Therapeutic resorts in Otwock were run by Jewish associations Marpe from 1907 and Brijus from 1911, Zofiowka on Kochanowskiego Street was founded in 1908 by the Association for Mentally and Neurotically ill Jews. By 1935 Zofiowka had 275 beds and its first chairman was Samuel Goldflam.

In 1911 the Jewish Association against Tuberculosis bought 32 morgues of forest on the slopes of the Meran Dune, Brijus sanatorium was built there and a second Brijus sanatorium for young people suffering from tuberculosis.

Samuel Goldflam

By 1939 Otwock’s population numbered more than 19,000 citizens of which approximately 14,000 were Jews, but then the Germans occupied Poland, and the Jewish population was destined for destruction.

Extracts from the Diary of Adam Czerniakow

July 20 1940

Today at 7 in the morning I gave myself a 24 hour holiday after all these months – I am leaving for Otwock. We are having beautiful weather; at 5am it is 61 degrees F.

An inspection of the Brijus TB Sanatorium and later of Zofiowka

I notice in Zofiowka the woman troublemaker who cost us 100,000 zlotys, adult lunatics and children. One child in a straightjacket to prevent self-injury, the face covered with flies.

Another one is scratching wounds on his head. A female singer in bed executes some operatic arias: she used to perform in Italy. Other women by the piano were playing and singing. I joined them.

Zofiowka Sanitarium in Otwock

Somebody built himself a tombstone in a cemetery with his name carved on it. It is to this address that he would direct his creditors.

August 4 1940

At 1.30 I left for Otwock for a few hours. At the Brijus sanatorium I met for the first time in my life a female veterinarian, Miss Neufeld. A lunatic who fled from Zofiowka was run over by a train and the police have brought in the corpse. By 8 o’clock I am back in Warsaw, a half –hour by car

August 17 1940


Read the full article here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/otwock.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Conclusion to the Action Reinhard

The Conclusion to Aktion Reinhard

Panorama of Belzec after the camp was dismantled (circa 1944)

Heinrich Himmler the Reichsfuhrer –SS visited Lublin in March 1943 and toured the death camps of Sobibor and Treblinka, it became clear that the Aktion Reinhard death camps had fulfilled their gruesome task, and that virtually all of the Jews in the General Gouvernment had been exterminated.

The SS were determined to erase all traces of their crimes, and Himmler ordered all the corpses to be exhumed and cremated. In addition the camp structures were to be destroyed the area ploughed over, and trees to be planted.

The first camp to be dismantled and closed was Belzec, with transports ceasing in mid –December 1942, thereafter cremations became the main focus of activity.

SS-Oberscharfuhrer Heinrich Gley made a statement on the 6 February 1962 about the cremations in Belzec:

“I was assigned with a big Jewish work brigade to the cremation of the corpses by means of railway lines which served as a grate. About 80 -90 Jews then worked under my supervision in three shifts.

The cremation site was as long as a rail and about 4-5 m wide. The rails were placed on top of big rocks and narrow-gauge rails served as a cross-mesh.

Read the full article about the Aktion Reinhard Conclusion here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/arconclusion.html

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Death March from Auschwitz!

The Auschwitz – Birkenau and Sub-Camps

Evacuation and the Death Marches – January 1945

The Red Army advances towards Germany

17 January 1945

Units of the Red Army advance on the outlying areas of Krakow from the north and the northwest and surprise the German positions, which do not expect an attack from this flank.

The last official meeting of the General Governor Hans Frank takes place at 12.0 o’clock, barely two hours later Hans Frank leaves Krakow in the direction of Silesia.

On this day 178 female prisoners and two boys were transferred from the Plaszow concentration camp in Krakow to the women’s camp in Birkenau.

The male and female prisoners fall in for their last roll call. The number of prisoners incarcerated in the main camps and sub-camps are as follows:

Camp	Number of Prisoners	Male or Female
Babitz	159	Male
Budy	313	Male
Plawny	138	Male
Birkenau Production Area	204	Male
Auschwitz Men’s Camp	10,030	Male
Birkenau Men’s Camp	4473	Male
Auschwitz Women’s Camp	6196	Female
Birkenau Women’s Camp	10,381	Female
Total	31,894

Wilhelm Boger

In the wake of the decision to remove the prisoners from Auschwitz, Commandant Baer personally chooses the leaders of the evacuation columns from among the members of the guard companies and orders them to liquidate ruthlessly all prisoners who attempt to escape during the evacuation or drag their feet.

Among the SS guards who were chosen to lead the evacuation columns were the notorious SS- Oberscharfuhrer Wilhelm Boger, who was a feared member of the Politische – Abteilung, SS-Unterscharfuhrer Oswald Kaduk, Rapportfuhrer, who was also considered one of the more brutal members of the SS guards.

In the auxiliary camps that belong to Monowitz, formerly Auschwitz lll, are the following number of male prisoners:

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/auschdeathmarch.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyight Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Forced deportation of Jews to the Lodz Ghetto

Deportations from the Greater German Reich to the Lodz Ghetto

October – November 1941

Dawid Sierakowiak wrote in his diary on 4 October 1941:

German & Austrian Jews heading for Lodz

“Today Rumkowski met with all the teachers in the ghetto. He said that because 20,000 Jews are arriving from all over Germany, he is extending the school recess now, instead of having it during the winter.

I think it’s the end of schooling in the ghetto, at least for me, since I don’t think I’ll be a lyceum student, after all. “

On 16 October 1941 the first of twenty trains left Greater Germany “for the East.” By 4 November they had all completed their journey, taking 19,837 Jews to the Lodz ghetto.

One of these trains, with 512 Jews, came from Luxembourg. Five trains, with 5,000 Jews in all, came from Vienna, a similar number from Prague, and 4,187, in four trains, from Berlin. Other trains came from Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Dusseldorf.

Shlomo Frank recorded in his diary:

Read the full article here:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/Lodz/reichdeport.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchproject.org

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Joel Brand and the Jewish Blood for Goods controversy

Joel Brand

"Blood for Goods"

Joel brand

Joel Brand was born in Nasaud Transylvania in 1907, which was under Hungarian rule. Brand embraced Zionism after a spell in the radical leftist movement in Weimar Germany.

He returned to Transylvania after Hitler came to power but eventually settled in Budapest, where together with his wife, Hansi Hartmann- Brand, he operated a medium –sized glove manufacturing plant.

After the German annexation of Austria in 1938 and the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 the Brands took an interest in refugee causes, and took an active part organising a variety of rescue and relief ventures.

When the Va’ada was established in January 1943 to aid refugees who had escaped from or were seeking to escape from Slovakia and Poland, Brand was chosen to head its Tiyyul (Trip) section, a border crossing operation, whose function was to smuggle Jews out of these countries.

After the German occupation of Hungary on the 19 March 1944, the Va’ada’s primary concern was the rescuing of Jews within Hungary. Brand was also engaged in the Re-Tiyyul (Return Trip) programme, which enabled a number of Polish and Slovak refugees to return to Slovakia where the situation of the remaining Jews was better, for the moment.

Adolf Eichmann

While the first contact and rescue negotiations with the SS were established through Fulop Freudiger, the Orthodox representative of the Jewish Council Zsido Tanacs, and continued later by Rezso Kastner, it was Brand whom Adolf Eichmann summoned on the 25 April 1944, to offer his “Blood for Goods” proposal.

Brand met Eichmann in the Majestic Hotel in Budapest. Eichmann greeted Brand with the following words:

“Do you know who I am?

I have carried out the Aktionen in the Reich – in Poland – in Czechoslovakia. Now it’s Hungary’s turn. I let you come here to talk business with you. Before that I investigated you – and your people.

Those from the Joint and those from the Agency, and I have come to the conclusion that you still have resources. So I am ready to sell you – a million Jews.

Hermann Krumey

All of them I wouldn’t sell you. That much money and goods you don’t have. But a million – that will go. Goods for blood – blood for goods. You can gather up the million in countries which still have Jews.

You can take it from Hungary, from Poland, from Austria, from Theresienstadt, from Auschwitz, from wherever, you want.

What do you want to save? Virile men? Grown women? Old people? Children? Sit down and talk.”

This proposal which had been approved by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsfuhrer SS, was to exchange one million Jews for certain goods, such as 10,000 trucks to be used on the Eastern front, or for civilian purposes.

The Jews could not remain in Hungary, as Himmler had promised to make Hungary Judenfrei (free of Jews), so those covered by this proposal would be permitted to go into any Allied-controlled part of the world, except Palestine, for the Nazis had promised the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al –Husseini, not to allow this.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/brand.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009

Sobibor Death Camp

The Sobibor Death Camp

Sobibor Map as remembered by SS Sergeant Bauer & Survivor Thomas Blatt

The Sobibor death camp was located near the Sobibor village, which was located in the eastern part of the Lublin district of Poland, close to the Chelm – Wlodawa railway line. The camp was 5km away from the Bug River which today forms the border between Poland and the Ukraine.

In 1942 the area around Sobibor was part of the border between the General Government and the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, the terrain was swampy, densely wooded and sparsely populated.

Sobibor was the second death camp to be constructed as part of the Aktion Reinhard programme, and was built on similar lines to Belzec, incorporating the lessons learnt from the first death camp to be constructed.

In the early months of 1942 after a reconnaissance visit by a small aircraft that circled over the village, a train arrived at Sobibor, two SS officers disembarked, they were Richard Thomalla, who worked in the SS-Zentralbauleitung Zamosc, and Baurath Moser from Chelm. They walked around the station, took measurements and eventually made their way into the forest opposite the railway station.

In March 1942 a new railroad spur was built, which ended at an earthen ramp, the ramp was opposite the station building. The camp fence with interwoven branches was built in a manner which ensured that the railway spur and the ramp were located inside the camp, thus preventing passengers at the station from observing what happened in the camp.

Outside view of the Sobibor Death Camp

The deportation trains entered the ramp through a gate and disappeared behind the “green wall.” In the station area three larger buildings existed – the station, the forester’s house, and a two-storey post office. There was also a sawmill and several houses for workers.

As construction work progressed, undertaken by 80 Jews from nearby ghettos, such as Wlodawa and Wola Uhruska, the site was inspected by a commission led by SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Neumann, head of the Central Construction Office of the Waffen –SS in Lublin.

Once the Jews had completed the initial construction phase, they were gassed during an experimental gassing. Two or three of them escaped at that time to Wlodawa and informed the Hassidic rabbi there, what was happening in Sobibor.

Rails leading into Sobibor

The rabbi even proclaimed a fasting in memory of the first victims and also as a sign of resistance. Both the escapees and the rabbi were denounced by a Jewish policeman and all of them were executed.

The camp was in the form of a 400 x 600m rectangle, surrounded by a 3m high double barbed-wire fence, partially interwoven with pine branches to prevent observation from the outside. Along the fence and in the corners of the camp were wooden watchtowers.

Each of the four camp areas was individually fenced in: the SS administration area (Vorlager), housing and workshops of the Jewish commando (Camp 1), the reception area (Camp II) and the extermination area (Camp III), in 1943 a munitions supply area (Camp IV) was added.

The ‘Vorlager’ included the ramp, with space for 20 railway cars, as well as the living quarters for the SS staff and Trawnikimanner. Also included was the main gate, on top of the main gate was a wooden sign about 0.60 x 2.40m with the words ‘SS- Sonderkommando Sobibor, painted in Gothic letters. Unlike the death camp at Belzec, the SS men lived inside the camp area.

The Jews from the incoming transports were brought to the ‘reception area’ (Camp II), here they had to go through various procedures prior to their death in the gas chambers: division according to sex, the surrender of the suitcases, the confiscation of possessions and valuables, removal of clothing and the cutting of the women’s hair.

Globocnik at Sobibor

On their way to the gas the naked victims passed various buildings, some warehouse barracks, a second former forester’s house, which was used as the camp’s offices and living quarters for some of the SS men, separated by a high wooden fence, a small agricultural area with stables for horses, cattle, swine and geese and about 250m south of the gas chambers a small wooden Catholic chapel, in the shadow of tall pine trees, which was now the ‘Lazarett’ and high observation tower used by the forester, overlooked the entire area.

The most isolated area in the camp was the extermination area (Camp III) was located in the north-western part of the camp. It contained the gas chambers, mass graves and housing for the Jewish prisoners employed there.

A path 3 to 4m wide and 150m long, ‘Die Schlauch (The Tube) cynically known by the SS in the camp as the ‘Himmelfahrtstrasse (Street to Heaven) led from the reception area to the

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/sobibor.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009