The Destruction of the European Jews

479 Pages·2003·2.52 MB·English

by  Raul Hilberg

THE
DESTRUCTION
OF THE
EUROPEAN JEWS
THIRD EDITION
VOLUME
III
RAUL· HELBERG
Tale L 'nivcrsitv Tress \rnv Haven and London
Publication of this volume was made possible in part by a generous donation from
Eric Marder.
Copyright © 1961, 1985, 2003 by Raul Hilberg.
All rights reserved.
First edition published 1961 by Quadrangle Books, Chicago.
Revised edition published 1985 by Holmes and Meier, New York and London.
Third edition published 2003 by Yale University Press, New Haven and London.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.
Designed by Mary Valencia.
Set in Galliard type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hilberg, Raul, 1926-
The destruction of the European Jews / Raul Hilberg. — 3rd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-09557-9 (set: alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-300-09592-0 (vol. 3 : alk. paper)
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945). 2. Germany—Politics and government—1933-
1945.
I. Title.
D804.3 .H548 2002
940.53'18 —dc21
2002066369
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Tiie paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of
the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources.
10 9 8 7 6
C O N T E N T S
VOLUME
I
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION ix
PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION xi
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xv
1 PRECEDENTS 1
2 ANTECEDENTS 29
3 THE STRUCTURE OF DESTRUCTION 49
4 DEFINITION BY DECREE 61
5 EXPROPRIATION 79
Dismissals 81
Aryanizations 92
Property Taxes 132
Blocked Money 137
Forced Labor and Wage Regulations 143
Special Income Taxes 147
Starvation Measures 148
6 CONCENTRATION 155
The Reich-Protektorat Area 155
Poland 188
The Expulsions 206
G hetto Formation 216
Ghetto Maintenance 236
Confiscations 242
Labor Exploitation 251
Food Controls 263
Sickness and Death in the Ghettos 271
7 MOBILE KELLING OPERATIONS 275
Preparations 276
The First Sweep 295
Strategy 297
Cooperation with the Mobile Killing Units 305
The Killing Operations and Their Repercussions 327
The Killing of the Prisoners of War 346
The Intermediary Stage 353
The Second Sweep 382
CONTENTS
VOLUME
n
8 DEPORTATIONS 409
Central Agencies of Deportation 424
The Reich-Protektorat Area 433
The Uprooting Process 434
Special Problem 1 : Mischlinge and Jews in Mixed
Marriages 434
Special Problem 2 : The Theresienstadt Jews 447
Special Problem 3: The Deferred Jews 457
Special Problem 4: The Incarcerated Jews 467
Seizure and Transport 472
Confiscations 490
Poland 501
Preparations 503
The Conduct of the Deportations 509
Economic Consequences 550
The Semicircular Arc 571
The North 583
Norway 584
Denmark 589
The West 599
The Netherlands 600
Luxembourg 632
Belgium 635
France 645
Italy 703
The Balkans 723
Military Area “Southeast’' 724
Serbia 725
Greece 738
Satellites par Excellence 755
Croatia 756
Slovakia 766
The Opportunistic Satellites 792
Bulgaria 793
Romania 808
Hungary 853
CONTENTS
VOLUME
m
9 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS 921
Origins of the Killing Centers 921
Organization, Personnel, and Maintenance 960
Labor Utilization 983
Medical Experiments 1002
Confiscations 1013
Killing Operations 1027
Concealment 1027
The “Conveyor Belt” 1033
Erasure 1042
Liquidation of the Killing Centers and the End of the
Destruction Process 1045
10 REFLECTIONS 1059
The Perpetrators 1059
The Destructive Expansion 1060
The Obstacles 1075
Administrative Problems 1075
Psychological Problems 1080
The Victims 1104
The Neighbors 1119
11 CONSEQUENCES 1127
The Trials 1142
Rescue 1194
Salvage 1241
12 IMPLICATIONS 1289
APPENDIX A GERMAN RANKS 1297
APPENDIX B STATISTICS OF JEWISH DEAD 1301
APPENDIX C NOTATION ON SOURCES 1323
INDEX 1333
CONTENTS
THE
DESTRUCTION
OF THE
EUROPEAN JEWS
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Map 7 The Killing Centers
C H A P T E R N I N E
KILLING CENTER
OPERATIONS
ORIGINS OF THE KILLING CENTERS
The most secret operations of the destruction process were carried
out in six camps located in Poland in an area stretching from the
incorporated areas to the Bug. These camps were the collecting
points tor thousands of transports converging from all directions. In
three years the incoming traffic reached a total of close to three million
Jews. As the transports turned hack empty, their passengers disappeared
inside.
921
The killing centers worked quickly and efficiently. A man would step
oft a train in the morning, and in the evening his corpse would be burned
and his clothes packed away for shipment to Germany. Such an operation
was the product of a great deal of planning, for the death camp was an
intricate mechanism in which a whole army of specialists played their
parts. Viewed superficially, this smoothly functioning apparatus is decep­
tively simple, but upon closer examination the operations of the killing
center resemble in several respects the complex mass-production methods
of a modern plant. It will therefore be necessary to explore, step by step,
what made possible the final result.
A salient fact about the killing center operations is that, unlike the
earlier phases of the destruction process, they were unprecedented. Never
before in history had people been killed on an assembly-line basis.1 The
killing center as such had no prototype, no administrative ancestor. This
is explained by the fact that it was a composite institution that consisted
of two parts: the camp proper and the killing installations in the camp.
Each of these two components had its own administrative history. Nei­
ther was entirely novel. As separate establishments, both the concentra­
tion camp and the gas chamber had been in existence for some time. The
great innovation was effected when the two devices were fused. An exam­
ination of the death camp should therefore begin with its two basic com­
ponents and how they were put together.
The German concentration camp wis born and grew amid violent
disputes and struggles between Nazi factions. Even in the earliest days of
the Nazi regime, the importance of the concentration camp was fully
recognized. Whoever gained possession of this weapon would wield a
great deal of power.
In Prussia, Interior Minister (and later Prime Minister) Goring made
his bid. He decided to round up the Communists. This was not an incar­
ceration of convicted criminals but an arrest of a potentially dangerous
group. “The prisons were not available for this purpose”;2 hence Goring
established concentration camps, which he put under the control of his
Gestapo (then, Ministerialrat Diels).
Almost simultaneously, rival camps appeared on the scene. One was set
up at Stettin by Gauleiter Karpenstein, another was established at Breslau
by SA leader Heines, a third was erected near Berlin by SA leader Ernst.
Goring moved with all his might against these “unauthorized camps.”
Karpenstein lost his post, Ernst lost his life.
1. The phrase was used by a camp doctor, Friedrich Entress, in his affidavit of
April 14,1947, NO-2368.
2. Testimony by Goring, International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major Hi?;·
Criminals (Nuremberg, 1947), IX, 257.
922 KILLING CENTER OPERATIONS