State Attorney Bar-Or: I go on to a further document from
the Wuerzburg file, No. 1286. This is a list I have just
mentioned. Wuerzburg reports to the Regional Headquarters
of the Gestapo about the valuable objects seized during the
body search of the Jews readied for the transport to the
East of 26 November 1941. In this detailed list, the Court
will also find watches, rings, etc. The name of each Jew
appears together with the personal objects found on his body
at the last moment. Finally, another list which contains
much more varied objects. There appears even an Iron Cross,
Second Class, a Cross of Merit, Second Class, and two
Frontkaempferehrenkreuze (Cross of Honour for Frontline
Fighters). These objects were taken away, and it was
reported that they were in safekeeping.
Presiding Judge: This will be T/721.
State Attorney Bar-Or: I now submit our document No.737, a
circular letter which is typical, from the Reich Association
of the Jews in Germany, dated 1 December 1941, and signed by
Paul Israel Eppstein and Philip Israel Kotzover. On the
basis of orders from the Accused and his Section, the Reich
Association submits information about the detailed
implementation of the restrictions on disposal of movable
property by Jews. Among other things it says here: “In
connection with the fact that lately, without any general
cause, a change of property of considerable proportions,
especially of property under management belonging to Jews up
to now, had been noted, the Supervising Authority, wishing
to avoid disturbances in the orderly functioning of the
market, has issued the following regulations which we
publish hereunder.”
This referred, of course, to an attempt by Jews, who found
themselves before the final stages, to secure their property
by transferring it secretly to Germans who might be ready,
in some case, to look after it. Information about this
reached the Accused and his Section, and here we have before
us the means by which to avoid such illicit diversions of
property, so to speak.
Presiding Judge: This will be T/722.
State Attorney Bar-Or: Now I pass on to our document No.
738. Two days later, the Reichsvereinigung publishes, again
over the signature of Eppstein, joined this time by Dr.
Arthur Liliental, instructions, or rather guidelines; this
is called “Merkblatt” (instruction sheet) here – to all the
Jewish communities, which are here called – as they should
be according to the law – “An die juedischen
Kultusvereinigungen” (to the Jewish religious associations).
The instruction sheet is dated 3 December 1941.
Presiding Judge: Do you have only this copy? Do you not
have the original?
State Attorney Bar-Or: We received the document like this.
This was also the form in which it was shown to the Accused.
Presiding Judge: Where did you receive it from?
State Attorney Bar-Or: I think it comes from Yad Vashem.
This document was shown to the Accused and was marked
T/37(230). The Accused refers to it on page 2629. The
establishment of “Special Account W” is explicitly mentioned
here for the first time, and this is what is said, inter
alia:
“For the purpose of raising funds in connection with
evacuation transports, the following rules are
established under orders of our Control Authority: (1)
Every participant in evacuation transports has to be
made to pay a suitable part of his liquid means (not
including securities) to the Reich Association. It
must be pointed out in this connection that the amount
paid must be no less than 25 per cent of the liquid
funds (without securities). (2) This payment shall be
made as a contribution, the need for which must be
suitably explained to the donors.”
These were people whose deportation by train was imminent,
it was the last minute in the Sammellager.
“It may be explained that the contributions are first
and foremost intended as monies to be used for the sums
which are to be sent with the evacuation transports,
and also for supplying the transports with food, tools,
etc. Furthermore, they shall serve – this may be
explained to the Jews – the tasks incumbent on the
Reichsvereinigung, in particular the welfare of its
members.”
Further on it says:
“Each request for allotment of funds from Special
Account W has to be accompanied at the same time by a
statement of income and expenditure” of the kind with
which the Court is already familiar from earlier
documents “up to that moment; this may be limited to
major categories of income and expenditure. After
completion of the transports, an exact statement of
account has of course to be given.”
Paragraph 6 reads:
“In the monthly reports, the income of Special Account
W has to be counted as additions to the balance, the
expenditure as subtractions from the balance.”
There is no need to state in this connection that means at
the disposal of the account of the Reichsvereinigung, or
monies ostensibly transferred to it, were not only under the
supervision of the Accused, but under his complete control.
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/723.
State Attorney Bar-Or: I pass on to document No. 1283,
again from the file of the Gestapo in Wuerzburg, a letter
from Suhr of the Accused’s Section, dated the same day, 3
December 1941. It concerns the evacuation, the deportation
of Jews to Minsk and Riga from the Old Reich, from the
Ostmark – that means Austria – and from the Protectorate
Bohemia and Moravia. Here he speaks about guidelines for
the treatment of the property. We shall find that this
Suhr, who was a lawyer, dealt, during his period of service
in the Section of the Accused, mainly with matters of Jewish
property. I beg to direct attention to what is said at the
end here: “In the spirit of paragraph 3 of the present
Order, care has to be taken in the case of future transports
that lists of the deported persons are handed over in time,
in order to enable the donations to be made.” There is
always this concern for the financing of the transport out
of means not provided for by law, which have to be raised by
this method of what was dubbed donations.
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/724.
State Attorney Bar-Or: I pass on to document No. 734, a
letter sent to the Accused. It only says here: “To the Head
Office for Reich Security,” but we shall see at once that it
reached the Accused; it was sent in the name of the Military
Commander in France and dealt with the emigration of Jews of
German nationality from the Reich to the occupied area of
France. He relates that recently there has been an
increasing number of cases where such people residing in the
area of occupation, and who have relatives in the Reich, ask
permission to bring them into the French occupied zone. He
asks for guidance what to do.
Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/725.
State Attorney Bar-Or: In the next document, No. 735, we
find the reply from the Accused, this time marked IVB4a. He
does not, of course, write to the Military Commander; he
writes to the representative of the Head of the Security
Police and the Security Service for France and Belgium,
Paris Office. He refers to the Runderlass (circular
letter), or general instruction, IVB4 (Rz) of 23 October
1941, which is our document No. 1209; I regret that I cannot
state what marking this document was given here. He reminds
the men in France that, in accordance with orders from the
Reichsfuehrer SS, all emigration of Jews from the Reich area
has been stopped, that all applications reaching Berlin
directly are refused by Berlin, and that the same has to be
done in the German-occupied zone in France.
I draw attention to a marginal remark added here by
Dannecker. In the document it says: “I request you to
inform the Military Commander in accordance with the above
and to ask him to refuse, on his part also, any movement of
Jews to the occupied zone of France, since the Jews, aware
of the evacuation to the East, are trying to escape from it
by every means possible.” After the words “to the occupied
zone of France,” Dannecker adds: “and also unoccupied.”
Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/726.
State Attorney Bar-Or: And one more document on this
chapter, No. 736, a letter from Dannecker to the Military
Commander in France. Here we see the administrative channel
by which Eichmann’s instructions are transmitted also to
this high level. The letter was dictated and signed by
Dannecker, and he repeats, in fact, the instructions he
received from Eichmann and brings them to the attention of
the Military Command.
Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/727.
State Attorney Bar-Or: Now to document No. 1173, a letter
from Eichmann to the Foreign Ministry, dated 28 January
1942. Here is one of the cases where he finds time to deal
with the individual case of a Jew, Dr. Alfred Israel
Philippsson. Sven Hedin, the Swede, has intervened here and
approached the Minister of the Interior, in order to obtain
permission for this Jew to remain in Bonn, so that he will
not be deported to the East. Eichmann says: “…his
remaining in Bonn until his demise, as well as an
exceptional emigration, cannot be permitted, since in the
course of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, it is
intended to concentrate Jews over 65 residing in the Reich
area in a ghetto for old people.”
The Court has already received a document reporting about a
meeting held in Prague in October 1941. We shall still
revert to that document. Here, for the first time, mention
is made of the intention to create what they call an
“Altersghetto” (ghetto for the aged), here there is already
an explicit reference to this plan.
Presiding Judge: It appears here that there were
instructions not to send old people to the East. Is
something known about this?
State Attorney Bar-Or: Yes. We shall show this. I shall
prove there were instructions by the Accused concerning
persons over 65 years of age. This refers, of course, to
the year 1942. The ghetto began to function only in January
1942. He gives orders to transfer those over the age of 65,
and, in addition, some further privileged categories, to
Theresienstadt. We have heard, and we shall still hear
more, about what happened in Theresienstadt.
Presiding Judge: This document will be marked T/728.
State Attorney Bar-Or: And now document No. 1265, again
guidelines from the Accused’s section IVB4a, signed by Suhr,
guidelines about the treatment of the property of Jews about
to be deported to the area of the Generalgouvernement,
Lublin-Trawniki. Here we have the interpretation of the
jurist Suhr, which is worth reading. At the end of page 2
he says:
“…Since the Generalgouvernement has to be regarded as
a foreign country in this respect,” i.e., a country not
belonging to the area of the Reich, “therefore, by
virtue of paragraph 3 of Regulation 11 under the Reich
Law of Citizenship of 25.11.1941 (Reich Official
Gazette I, page 722), the property of the Jews who lose
their nationality in the framework of this legal
regulation is automatically forfeited to the German
Reich immediately after the German border has been
crossed. The same applies to Jews who were stateless
at the time when this Regulation came into force and
whose last nationality was German, if they normally
reside abroadĀ or made their home abroad, which is the
case here. It seems that these conditions apply to
most of the deported Jews.”
The emphasis is in the original. And he continues:
“In the few cases where Regulation 11 under the Reich
Citizenship Law is not applicable, inter alia in cases
where the Jew dies after the notification about his
deportation but before his entry into the
Generalgouvernement, the property has to be confiscated
immediately, on the strength of the pertinent
regulations regarding the confiscation of the property
of the enemies of state and nation, for the benefit of
the German Reich.”
Nothing can escape here from the clutches of the “legal”
regulations which were made on this subject.
In connection with what we have already learned about the
use, at the very last moment, of personnel of the Execution
Office, for the purpose of serving the confiscation orders,
I direct attention to one sentence only on page 4 at the
beginning of the next passage: “When the confiscation orders
have thus been completely filled in, they must be handed to
the execution officers for service on the Jews.” And, in
fact, the execution officer of the court comes to the
assembly camp and hands these notifications to the Jews.
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/729.
State Attorney Bar-Or: Our document No. 1278, a letter from
the Accused to all State Police Headquarters in the Old
Reich, to the State Police Headquarters in Vienna, and, for
information, to the Inspectors of the Security Police and
the Security Service in the Old Reich and in Vienna. Here,
too, the subject is the evacuation of Jews. The marking is
IVB4 without any addition. The letter is dated 31 January
1942, and says, inter alia:
“The evacuation of Jews to the East, which has recently
been carried out in some regions, represents the
beginning of the Final Solution of the Jewish Question
in the Old Reich, the Ostmark, and the Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia.”
On page 2 he says:
“At present new possibilities for reception are being
worked out, with the aim of deporting further
contingents of Jews from the Old Reich, the Ostmark,
and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The
detailed planning and preparation of this further
evacuation necessitates, in the first instance, a
scrupulous ascertainment of the numbers of Jews still
resident in the Reich area, according to the following
aspects which correspond to the guidelines for the
evacuation…”
And here now, steps towards further deportations in 1942 are
being planned.
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/730.
State Attorney Bar-Or: I now turn – not necessarily in
connection with the operations we have been considering – to
an agreement made on 8 August 1941, at the headquarters of
the Fuehrer between Joachim Ribbentrop and Heinrich Himmler,
which is contained in our document No. 466. With the
Court’s permission, I shall briefly summarize its contents:
In those areas outside the Reich where it was necessary to
operate either directly or indirectly, differences of
opinion between the Foreign Ministry and the Head Office for
Reich Security seem to have emerged concerning the method of
action to be taken there. The men of the Security Police
frequently circumvented Foreign Ministry channels, so it
appears, and each side, Ribbentrop for the Foreign Ministry
and Himmler for the Security Police, wishes to secure his
place, but this time through coordination, without local
partisanship, without relying on the intuition of the men on
the spot. It is this arrangement of 8 August 1941, which
guides the coordination from now on, the adjustment between
the Accused and his men on the one hand, and, on the other,
the aides of Luther, Rademacher, von Thadden, and all those
whom we find on Ribbentrop’s side. The place of the various
police attaches and their tasks are discussed here. We
shall come to them later. I have already submitted an
earlier document, in which the Court could find details
about men who eventually served in these posts. It is these
instructions, or rather this agreement, that determines
definitely the methods of operation between the Accused’s
Section and the corresponding department in the Foreign
Ministry.
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/731.
State Attorney Bar-Or: Let us turn to the sufferings of the
individual for a moment. I submit document No. 1559, a
letter from the Accused to the Foreign Ministry, dated 28
October 1941 – IVB4b (Rz). The subject is the emigration of
the Jewess Lilli Sara Zatzkis. To a letter of 20 October
1941, from the Foreign Ministry, he replies that emigration
of Jews to unoccupied France has to be prevented “im
Hinblick auf die kommende Endloesung der europaeischen
Judenfrage” (in view of the coming Final Solution of the
European Jewish Question). At the end he says: “I have
instructed the Reich Association of the Jews in Germany to
give a negative reply to the Jewess Zatzkis with reference
to her application of the end of 1941.”
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/732.
State Attorney Bar-Or: Our document No. 1558 brings before
the Honourable Court a letter from a Jewish lady, Flora Sara
Bucher. She wrote to the Foreign Ministry on 10 October
1941, mentioning that she was cohabiting in a mixed
marriage, and that her mother was sent to the South of
France on 22 October 1940 – I assume that she means the camp
at Gurs; we recall this operation. Now she wishes to join
her mother and asks the Foreign Ministry for the necessary
papers. This request was passed on to Eichmann.
Presiding Judge: This will be marked T/733.
Last-Modified: 1999/06/01
