Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews by Peter Longerich (booksvooks TXT) 📕

the commander of the Security Police in Lvov, Fritz Katzmann. 106 From early October such massacres occurred almost every week. The massacre among the

Jews of Stanislau on 12 October 1941 (the so-called ‘Bloody Sunday’, in which

around 10,000–12,000 people were murdered) is particularly noteworthy. 107 The Security Police in Galicia were thus, independent of their political status, following

the same pattern of radicalization as the units in the occupied Eastern territories.

These mass executions would inevitably further radicalize the ‘Jewish policy’

throughout the whole of the General Government.

Concrete preparations for mass murder of the Jews in the General Government

had also been undertaken since October in the neighbouring district of Lublin, the

territory which had been set aside in 1939 as a ‘Jewish reservation’, and which was

to serve in the spring of 1942 as a reception zone for the third wave of deportations

from the Reich, as well as for deportations from Slovakia.

The SS Police Commander of the district of Lublin, Odilo Globocnik, played a

key role in the preparations for the murder of the Jews of the district. On 13

October, the same day as Rosenberg disappointed Frank’s hopes of quick deport-

ations to the occupied Eastern territories, Globocnik108 met Himmler, to speak to him about the proposal he had made two weeks earlier, to limit the ‘influence of

the Jews’ against whom it was necessary to take steps ‘of a security policy

nature’. 109 It was probably at this meeting that Globocnik received the assignment to build Belzec extermination camp. 110

A personal letter sent by a colleague of Globocnik’s, Hauptsturmführer Hellmuth

Müller, on 15 October 1941 to the head of the Main Office for Race and Settlement,

Otto Hofmann, makes it clear that decisions concerning Globocnik’s radical plans

for the future of Judenpolitik in his district were actually made in mid-October.

Müller wrote that Globocnik saw ‘the political conditions in the GG basically as a

transitional stage’. Globocnik, who was strongly opposed to the governor of the

district in this respect, considered the ‘gradual cleansing of the entire GG of Jews

and also of Poles for the purpose of securing the Eastern territories etc. to be

Autumn 1941: Deportation and Mass Murders

295

necessary. He is, in this connection, full of good and far-reaching plans the

implementation of which is hampered only by the, in this respect, limited influence

of his current office. For, before he can act he needs the support of the civil offices

and authorities of the GG, which will only cooperate on the basis of existing laws

and decrees. ’111

Müller’s letter, which corresponds to the state of information before Globocnik’s

trip to Berlin, thus shows that Globocnik had at this point not yet been given any

extensive authorization to implement the destruction of the Jews. That changed

fundamentally, however, after Globocnik had returned from his trip to the Reich,

and Frank had been informed by Rosenberg that a deportation of the Jews from the

General Government to the occupied Soviet territories was illusory. Müller’s letter

also makes it clear that, as far as Globocnik was concerned, the mass murder of

Jews in his district was only the first step to a far more comprehensive ‘new order’

in terms of population policy in the district of Lublin, aimed at the settlement of

ethnic Germans and the expulsion of the Polish population. 112 In the short term, however, the plans for the mass murder of indigenous Jews were to be used

primarily to free up accommodation in the overcrowded ghettos of the district,

which was to be filled with Jews from the Reich and Slovakia.

Subsequent events make it plain that the meeting between Himmler and

Globocnik on 13 October 1941 was actually of considerable importance in terms

of the transition to mass murder. At the beginning of November and two to three

weeks after the meeting, after the ‘Jewish question’ had been discussed several

times at the meetings of the government of the General Government, work began

on the construction of the first extermination camp, Belzec, a relatively small

collection of barracks. 113 From December 1941 onwards, the euthanasia staff assigned to the T4 organization began arriving in Lublin. 114

As has already been outlined, according to Eichmann’s own statements he

visited the camp while it was still under construction in late summer or autumn.

Given the advanced state of the building work that he describes, a date in the

winter would seem more likely. However, it is also possible that in his recollections

he was confusing this visit with a later visit to Treblinka, which was also under

construction at the time. 115 Some weeks after work began in Belzec. On 27 and 28

November 1941 a meeting of T4 specialists was held in Pirna (Saxony). There, as

one of the participants wrote beforehand to his wife, ‘future developments’ would

be discussed. 116

However, there was another reason why mid-October was a particularly

critical phase in Judenpolitik in the the district of Lublin. On 20 October 1941,

accompanied by Ribbentrop, Himmler met the Slovakian President, Joseph

Tiso, his Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Vojtech Tuka and the Slovak-

ian Interior Minister, Sano Mach, and made the head of the Slovakian state

the offer of deporting the Slovakian Jews to a particularly remote area of the

General Government. 117 There is much to suggest that this offer formed the 296

Final Solution on a European Scale, 1941

starting point for the construction of a second extermination camp in the

district of Lublin, Sobibor. 118 There are—unconfirmed—indications that the building of Sobibor was already being prepared in late 1941, but that the

beginning of construction was postponed until the spring of 1942.119 When the deportation of the Slovakian Jews, first mooted in October 1941, began

in May 1942 it was in fact Jews from the district of Lublin who were first

murdered in Sobibor. But, from June onwards, the Slovakian Jews were included

as well.

There are also indications that in November 1941 the district physician in the

district of Galicia, Dorpheide, tried to have staff from the T4 organization made

available to him in Lvov, the district capital, to murder mentally ill people. This

might, however, have to do with the construction of another extermination camp

in the district of Galicia which was never realized. 120

The fact that Belzec’s capacity for murder was initially limited (the camp was to

be considerably extended in the spring), and that the