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

German Jewish adviser in Slovakia, Wisliceny, had in 1942 accepted a large sum in dollars from the Jews. It remains unresolved

whether this payment had any causal connection with the suspension of

deportations from Slovakia. Thus, treating Jewish prisoners as negotiating

counters was not a new procedure. 240

In March 1944, representatives of the Vaada Aid and Rescue Committee,

supported by Zionist organizations, contacted Wisliceny, who had by now

begun preparations for the deportations in Budapest as a member of Sonder-

kommando Eichmann. Negotiations were carried out concerning the depart-

ure from the country of a large number of Hungarian Jews in return for

foreign currency or goods; the SS’s desire for 10,000 lorries proved to be at

the core of this. The Jewish negotiators made several large advance payments

in dollars. In compliance with an agreement made with Eichmann, Vaada

representatives went to Istanbul to make contact with the Allies, since the

possibility of as many as several hundred thousand people leaving the country

and the receipt of material benefits in return was only imaginable with Allied

support. But the mission failed: the two Vaada emissaries were arrested by

the British in Syria, and the British steadfastly refused to get involved in

bartering of this kind. 241

Meanwhile Vaada, represented by Rudolf Kastner, continued to negotiate

with the SS in Budapest. Two operations emerged out of this. On the one

hand, at the end of June 15,000 Jews, rather than being sent to Auschwitz,

Murders and Deportations, 1942–3

413

were deported as forced labourers to Austria where, as Kastner said, quoting

Eichmann, they were to be ‘put on ice’, to be kept ready for further barter

negotiations. It seems probable that this step was not a substantial concession

on Eichmann’s part, but that he was only responding to an urgent request from

Kaltenbrunner to send forced labourers to the area around Vienna. Also, at the

end of June, in accordance with an agreement made between Kastner and

Eichmann, 1,684 Hungarian Jews were taken to Bergen-Belsen on a special

transport. From there they travelled to Switzerland in two groups, in August

and December. In the meantime, Kurt Becher, the head of the equipment staff of

the HSSPF in Hungary, the man responsible for the exploitation of stolen Jewish

property, took over the negotiation of the benefits to be expected in return from

the Jews, first with the representatives of Vaada, then, from August 1944, also

with the representative of the JDC in Switzerland, Saly Mayer. Until January 1945

further discussions were held in Switzerland between representatives of the SS

and Jewish organizations, covering large-scale barter deals of people for money

or goods. Becher succeeded in securing the attendance of a representative of the

War Refugee Board, an American government body, at one of these meetings

early in November in Zurich; he had thus achieved the goal that Himmler linked

with these negotiations, namely contact with official American agencies. But

these discussions produced no results whatsoever, either in terms of further

rescue projects or of possible peace feelers. 242

But in the meantime negotations on another plane had achieved a concrete

success: as a result of direct discussions between former Swiss President Jean-Marie

Musy and Himmler—they were held in Vienna in October 1944 and in Wildbad

(Black Forest) in January 1945—in February 1,200 Jews were released from

Theresienstadt to Switzerland. 243 In the last phase of the war, Himmler would once again try to use the fate of the Jewish concentration camp inmates as a starting

point for making contact with the Allied side.

The negotiations concerning the release of Jewish prisoners show once

again how flexibly Judenpolitik could be administered. Even if the goal of the

systematic murder of the European Jews was of prime importance to the SS,

at the same time Himmler was prepared to make tactical concessions in the

form of the release of smaller contingents of prisoners, if other targets—the

shortage of foreign currency, the SS’s need of equipment, the possibility of

establishing negotiating channels with the Western Allies—were temporarily

of prime importance. Himmler also seems to have been prepared to nego-

tiate seriously over the release of larger groups of Jews, if it meant that the

collapse of the Third Reich could be delayed or even prevented as a result.

Hitler did not agree with this approach as Himmler was forced to recognize:

the Führer reacted with great indignation when he subsequently learned of

the release of the Jews to Switzerland, and forbade similar steps in the

future. 244

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Extermination of the European Jew, 1942–1945

The Clearing of the Concentration Camps and the Death Marches

As early as 17 June 1944 Himmler transferred to the Higher SS and Police

Commanders the right of command over the concentration camps in the event

of ‘A Case’ (initially an uprising by inmates, but then above all the approach of

enemy troops). 245 Accordingly, the HSSPF established precisely when the clearance was to take place and organized it in collaboration with Department D of the

WVHA. As to the further fate of the inmates, organizational measures taken at an

intermediate level were to prove crucial. Thus, right into the final phase of the war

the perpetrators had a great deal of room for manoeuvre as far as the murder of

Jews and other prisoners was concerned.

The clearance and evacuation led to a new selection of the prisoners. While in

some concentration camps German prisoners were released, weak and sick

prisoners—mainly Jewish—were generally murdered in the camps before the

order to evacuate was given. The evacuation marches then ordered by the camp

authorities—in some cases there were also railway transports—generally occurred

in winter conditions, with inadequate provisions or none at all. There were

inadequate breaks and accommodation and the escorting troops, often with

local help, murdered the prisoners who were left behind. In these columns,

generally composed of members of all categories of prisoners, the chances of

survival of the Jewish prisoners were worst because of their generally advanced

exhaustion.

As a rule the sub-camps were cleared first and the prisoners brought to the

main camp. The goal of the so-called ‘evacuations’ of the main camps was in turn

the concentration camps in the centre of the German Reich. Bringing together a

large number of prisoners in fewer and fewer camps generally led to an almost

total breakdown of supplies for the prisoners in the camps and a further worsen-

ing of already almost unbearable conditions. Instead of the imminent liberation

that many prisoners expected from the Allied advance, for