The Ghetto at Czestochowa

Czestochowa Ghetto

Pre-war Postcard of the Synagogue in Czestowchowa

Czestochowa was occupied on 3 September 1939. On the next day the Nazis killed 300 Jews, in an action known as "Bloody Monday". At that time approximately 28-30,000 Jews lived in the town (total population: 130-140,000).

Until 9 April 1941, when the ghetto was established, the Jews suffered from expropriation, humiliation and maltreatment. By June 1942 the ghetto’s population had increased to around 40-50,000; around 15,000 Jews from the surrounding area had been forced to move into the ghetto.

On 16 September 1939 the Judenrat was established, led by Leon Kopinski. Other members were three lawyers (J. Gitler, Z. Rotbart, S. Pohorille), the director of the Jewish Gymnasium (Anisfelt), a famous sportsman (B. Kurland), L. Bromberg and N. Berliner.

On 4 October 1942 all members of the Judenrat were deported to Treblinka (except Kopinski and Kurland), together with members of the Jewish ghetto police and their families. Kopinski was shot after the deportation, Kurland became chief of the Judenrat until 22 July 1943 when he was accused by the Germans of being disloyal. Finally he was shot at the Jewish cemetery.

Location of Czestochowa

Anisfelt was responsible for the organisation of the Jewish ghetto police. Its commander was a man named "Parasol", a former Polish army officer. The ghetto police numbered 250 persons.

In August 1940 about 1,000 young men from Czestochowa between the ages of 18 and 25 were sent to the Forced Labour Camp Cieszanow -in the Lublin District. They were sent to build a highway; almost none survived. One of the survivors was Joseph Sher.

The ghetto remained "open" until 23 August 1941; then it was sealed off. Many Jews from Czestochowa, from other Polish towns and from Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Bohemia were forced to work for Germany's profit, and to support the Nazi war effort.

Forced labour camps were installed, for example in the armament factories and workshops of HASAG (Hugo Schneider Metallwarenfabrik AG, located in Leipzig): HASAG-Rakow (former ironworks in Rakow suburb, which was converted into an ammunition factory), HASAG-Pelcery (former textile factory near the station, also converted into an ammunition factory), Metalurgia (foundry on Krotka Street) and some more smaller factories or workshops.

Jewish life in Czestochowa

Nobody in the ghetto believed that deportations would occur. Everybody assumed that the ghetto was important for war production. Even when in July / August 1942 many Warsaw Jews escaped to Czestochowa and talked about deportations to the Treblinka death camp, the Jews of Czestochowa did not believe them. Horrible stories, told by Treblinka escapees, were called "the imagination of sick brains".

The ghetto clearing took place between 22 September 1942 and 8 October 1942. On Garibaldi Street some houses were prepared as storage rooms in which the plundered property was stored after the deportation. All entrances to the cellars were painted white so that the Germans could quickly find hidden Jews.

The first “Aktion” was organized on Yom Kippur, 21 - 22 September 1942. In the night SS and Ukrainians from Trawniki surrounded the ghetto and installed lamps on the streets. Then the Jews were thrown out of their flats. They had to gather in front of the Metallurgia factory, where a selection took place. Around 7,000 Jews were forced to march to the railway ramp at Zawodzie. There they had to enter cattle wagons and were deported to Treblinka. 200 other people were killed on the spot, 350 selected for work. A mass grave for the murdered Jews was dug on Kawia Street.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/czest.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

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

The Jewish Ghetto at Radom!

The Radom Ghetto

The Ghetto in Radom

Following the German invasion of Poland, the area known as the Generalgouvernement was divided into four administrative districts: Krakow, Lublin, Radom and Warsaw. After the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union, a fifth district, Galicia, which had formerly been occupied by the Soviets, was added in August 1941.

A census taken at the beginning of 1940 revealed that there were about 280,000 Jews resident in the Radom district, governed by Dr. Karl Lasch, the SS and Police Fuhrer for Radom was initially SS- Brigadefuhrer Katzmann, later replaced by Oberg and then Bottcher.

The city of Radom was occupied on 8 September 1939.

Around 30,000 Jews (one third of Radom's population) fell into German hands. During the next months the Jewish community increased as several thousand Jews were sent to Radom, having been expelled from Poznan and Lodz provinces. In turn, 1,840 Radom Jews were deported to small towns in the environs.

At the IMT trial in Nuremburg, a Jewish resident of Radom, David Wajnapel, provided graphic testimony concerning conditions in the city following the German invasion:

“A few weeks after the entry of the German troops into Radom, police and SS authorities arrived. Conditions became immediately worse. The house in the Zeromski St. where their headquarters were became a menace to the entire population.

People who were walking in this street were dragged into the gateway and ill-treated by merciless beatings and by the staging of sadistic games. All SS officers, as well as the men, took part in this. Being a physician, I often had the opportunity to give medical help to seriously injured victims of the SS.”

Radom refugees

In December 1939 a Judenrat, headed by Josef Diamant, was established, and from 1 April 1941, a Jewish Order service created, headed by Joachim Geiger, who had previously been in charge of the provision of Jewish forced labour in the city.

The Radom Judenrat also served as the main Judenrat (Oberjudenrat) for the entire Radom district. On 1 July 1940, all property of the Jews in the region was transferred to the German administrative office (Treuhandstelle), headed by Felix Weinopfel.

Beginning in August 1940, around 2,000 Jews were deported to work camps in the Lublin district, where they were engaged in the construction of the "Otto Line", a series of anti-tank ditches and fortifications on the frontier between German and Soviet occupied Poland.

Virtually all of these deportees perished. Hundreds more were sent to forced labour camps near Radom, in places such as Kruszyna, Jedlinsk, Lesiow, Dabrowa Kozlowska and Wolanow. Jews taken from Radom to the labour camp at Cieszanow would bitterly sing in Yiddish:

Work, brothers, work fast. If you don't, they'll lash your hide. Not many of us will manage to last – Before long we'll all have died.

1,500 Radom Jews were deported to the small town of Busko in December 1940, to be followed by a further 1,000 in February 1941. As a result, the apartment density in the Jewish quarter of Busko rose to 20 per room and a typhus epidemic broke out. Following the various deportations to and from the city, in the spring of 1941, shortly before the establishment of the ghettos, there were approximately 32,000 Jews in Radom.

Between March and April 1941, the Germans established two ghettos: The large ghetto in the centre of Radom contained 27,000 people and the small ghetto in the Glinice suburb about 5,000.

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/radom.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

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

The conclusion to the Genocide called Action Reinhard

The Conclusion to Aktion Reinhard

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

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.

The cremation surface could take about 200 corpses. First, a wood fire was kindled under the iron grate. During the course of the cremation operation the corpses later served as the only fuel.

From time to time the badly twisted rails had to be replaced by new ones.”

<-Gisela Gdula, On the right Michael Tregenza, Belzec investigator (circa 2002)

Gisela Gdula a Belzec villager interviewed in 2004 said:

“We used to take round loaves to the camp from our bakery, we saw pyres like a volcano - the villagers had to scrape human fat off the windows.”

Another of the Belzec SS garrison SS-Scharfuhrer Werner Dubois testified:

“The transports to Belzec and consequently the gassing operations, stopped quite suddenly. As staff members of the Belzec camp, we were informed that the place would be rebuilt completely.

A working group of Jews whose size I don’t remember was in charge of the demolition work. It is worth mention that at the time (March – April 1943) the cremation of the corpses was terminated and the graves levelled.

The camp was emptied entirely and levelled accordingly. I heard that some planting was done there. The Jewish work commando, after accomplishing this work, was taken to Sobibor.

I remained in Belzec for two more days, together with some of my colleagues and guards, to carry out the last clearing and loading. Some time later when I was in Sobibor, I heard that during the transport of the Jewish work commando from Belzec to Sobibor some mutiny and shooting took place which led to some deaths.”

After the camp buildings were dismantled and the German and Ukrainian staff had left people from the neighbouring villages and townships started digging in the area of the camp, searching for gold and valuables. A Pole Edward Luczynski, who lived in Belzec, testified:

“After levelling and cleaning the area of the extermination camp, the Germans planted the area with small pines and left. At that moment, the whole area was plucked to pieces by the neighbouring population, who were searching for gold and valuables.

That’s why the whole surface of the camp was covered with human bones, hair ashes from cremated corpses, dentures, pots and other objects.”

In order to safeguard the site from the above kind of activity, the Aktion Reinhard organisers decided to build a farm on the former death camp site. A farm was built for a Ukrainian guard who would live there with his family.

This precautionary measure was later adopted also in Treblinka and Sobibor. Globocnik wrote about this to Himmler:

Russian photo from Treblinka (circa 1944) ->

“For reasons of surveillance, in each camp a small farm was created which is occupied by a guard. An income must regularly be paid to him so that he can maintain a small farm.”

The next camp to be liquidated was Treblinka. The last transports came from the Bialystok designated Pj 207 and Pj 208 (Pj – Polish Jews) which arrived in Treblinka death camp on 18 and 19 August respectively.

Due to the revolt and the partially destroyed facilities, only ten freight cars loaded with Jews could be unloaded on the ramp, a fifty percent reduction compared with the pre-revolt situation.

After the completion of this extermination action, in recognition of Globocnik’s work, Globocnik was appointed to the post of Higher SS and Police Leader for the Trieste area in north eastern Italy.

Globocnik left Lublin in September 1943 and took with him to Italy over the next few months a group of SS men and Ukrainians who had been under his command in Aktion Reinhard, including key personalities such as Wirth, Stangl, Reichleitner, Hering and Franz.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/

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

The Gerstein Report - Belzec

The Kurt Gerstein Report

Tübingen (Württemberg), garden route 24, the 4. May 1945 at present Rottweil (Translated from German)

Kurt Gerstein

Personal History:
Kurt Gerstein, retired mining civil servant, graduate engineer, on 27 September 1936 released from the Höheren Preußischen Bergdienst because of subversive activity.
Born on 11 August 1905 in Münster (Westfalen), associate of the engineering works De Limon Fluhme & Co. in Düsseldorf, Industriestraße 1 - 17. Special factory for automatic grease systems for engines, Knorr- and Westinghouse brakes.

Personnel record: 1905-1910 in Münster (Westfalen). 1910-1919 Saarbrücken. 1919 until 1921 Halberstadt. 1921-1925 Neuruppin near Berlin. There in 1925 school-leaving examination at the humanistic grammar school. Studies: University Marburg a. Lahn 1925-1927. Berlin 1927-1931, college of technology Aachen 1927. Graduate engineer examination 1931 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Since 1925 active member of the organized Protestant Youth (CVJM-YMCA) and the bible circles at secondary schools.

Political activity: Active follower of Brüning and Stresemann. - Since June 1933 persecuted by the Gestapo because of Christian activity against the Nazi State. On 2 May 1933 joined the NSDAP, on 2 October 1936 expulsion from the NSDAP because of subversive (religious) activity for the denominational church. At the same time expulsion as official from the civil service because of disturbing a party solemnity ceremony at the state theatre in Hagen (Westfalen) on 30 January 1935 - a performance of the drama "Wittekind" - thrashed in public and injured.

On 27 November 1935 mining service examination at the economics ministry in Berlin, all examinations passed with distinction. Until arrest on 27 September 1936 civil servant at the Saarland mines administration in Saarbrücken. This first arrest happened because of sending 8,500 subversive (re the Nazis) pamphlets to all heads of ministerial departments and high judicial officers in Germany. In accordance with a life-long wish I then studied medicine in Tübingen at the Deutsches Institut für Ärztliche Mission. This was possible because of my economic independence. As an associate of the De Limon Fluhme & Co. in Düsseldorf I earned an average income of 10,000 Reichsmark yearly. I used to spend approximately one third of this income for my religious ideals. In particular, I had 230,000 religious and anti-Nazi pamphlets printed and distributed at my own cost.

On 14 July 1938 my second arrest occured, and I was committed to the Konzentrationslager Welzheim because of subversive activity. Before that I was frequently warned and interrogated by the Gestapo, and received a ban on speaking throughout the whole Reich area.

When I heard about the beginning of the killing of mentally ill persons at Grafeneck and Hadamar and other sites, I decided to make every effort to look into the matter of these ovens and chambers in order to learn what happened there. This was all the more relevant as a sister-in-law by marriage - Bertha Ebeling - was compulsorily killed in Hadamar. With two references from Gestapo officers who had worked on my case, I easily succeeded in joining the SS. The gentlemen took the view that my idealism, which they probably admired, must be of advantage to the Nazi cause. On 10 March 1941 I joined the SS. I received my basic training in Hamburg-Langenhorn, in Arnhem (Holland), and in Oranienburg. In Holland I immediately contacted the Dutch resistance movement (graduate engineer Ubbink, Doesburg) [See our page "Gerstein’s report in the Netherlands"].

Because of my dual studies I was soon taken over by the technical-medical service and allotted to the SS-Führungshauptamt, Amtsgruppe D, Sanitätswesen der Waffen-SS Abteilung Hygiene. I completed the training in a course together with 40 physicians. At the Hygienedienst I could determine my activities for myself. I constructed mobile and stationary disinfection facilities for the troops, for prisoner-of-war camps, and concentration camps. With this I had great success and was from then on undeservedly considered as a kind of technical genius. Indeed it turned out well at least to some extent, by getting the horrible epidemic typhus wave in 1941 in the camps under control. Because of my successes I soon became Leutnant and then Oberleutnant.

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

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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