Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews Peter Longerich (grave mercy .TXT) 📖

Soviet authorities as most recent research has shown.

After his discussion with Himmler and Goering on 12 February and a further

conversation with Hitler on 29 February, Frank agreed that ‘at least another

400,000 to 600,000 Jews could come into the country’ (the General Government),

which he announced at a meeting on 2 March. Two days later he informed the

District and City chiefs of Lublin that the area east of the Vistula was still ‘intended

to be a kind of Jewish reservation’. It was true that they had abandoned the idea of

being gradually able to ‘transport 7½ million Poles into the Generalgouvernement’,

but they were still planning ‘to remove from the Reich some 100,000–120,000

Poles, some 30,000 Gypsies and a number of Jews to be established at our

discretion’. For the ‘ultimate goal’ was to make the German Reich ‘free of Jews’.

Frank noted as a positive sign the fact that future transports now depended on his

explicit agreement. 54

Deportations

159

On 8 March the German authorities took the decision to postpone the forma-

tion of a ghetto in Warsaw, not least because they were assuming that the district

of Lublin would be designated the ‘reservation’ for the Jewish population of the

General Government and those Jews deported from the Reich. 55

On 24 March Goering actually banned all deportations into the General

Government until further notice unless they were explicitly authorized by him

and by Frank. 56 This effectively put an end to deportations but was in all likelihood only a temporary measure in the face of the pressures on the transport

systems caused by the troop movements in the west, since the authorities in the

General Government were expecting the transports to recommence after a few

months. 57 With the cessation of the deportations, however, the project of a special

‘Jewish reservation’ in Lublin was definitively dropped, while in Warsaw prepar-

ations for the construction of a ghetto were immediately resumed. 58

Between the failure of the Nisko plan in October 1939 and the provisional end of

deportations in March 1940, a total of about 128,000 people had been deported

from the Warthegau into the General Government under the aegis of the first

short-term plan and the intermediate plan, and this figure includes a few tens of

thousands of Jews. As we have seen, the extent and modalities of these ‘resettle-

ments’ were affected above all by the ethnic German ‘returning settlers’. Both the

comprehensive plans for resettlement on the German side (in other words above

all the intention to drive millions of Poles into the General Government) and the

aim of making first the annexed Eastern regions and then the area of the Old

Reich ‘free of Jews’ had to be postponed for the foreseeable future.

The second short-term plan was to be realized, however, albeit in a modified

version. Between 1 April 1940 and 20 January 1941 130,000 Poles and 3,500 Jews from

the Warthegau were to be transported into the General Government. The second

short-term plan was also the framework for the resettlement of 30,275 ethnic

Germans from the areas around Chelm (German Cholm) and Lublin into the

Warthegau between 2 September and 14 December 1940 (the so-called ‘Cholm

campaign’) and for the compensatory deportation of 28,365 Poles from that region. 59

After the deportations into the General Government had more or less stopped, the

Oberpräsident and Gauleiter of Silesia, Josef Wagner, was forced to alter his plans after having announced in February that 100,000 to 120,000 Poles and 100,000 Jews would

be removed from the annexed area of eastern Upper Silesia into the General Govern-

ment. The provincial authorities were now concerned with deporting the Jews from

the western part of eastern Upper Silesia (the areas that had been part of the Reich

until 1921/2 and were urgently to be ‘Germanized’) into the eastern part of eastern

Upper Silesia (a purely Polish area). By the end of June whole districts (Landkreise) of

the western areas were ‘free of Jews’; about half the whole Jewish population of Upper

Silesia was now living in the three cities of the eastern part of Upper Silesia. 60

Just as in the other annexed Polish areas, this ‘resettling’ of Jews was a

component of much more comprehensive resettlement plans. There was therefore

160

The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941

probably in addition an unknown number of Jews amongst the more than 81,000

inhabitants of the province that had to make room for 38,000 ethnic Germans

between the autumn of 1941 and the spring of 1942.

Anti-Jewish Measures in the First Months

of the Occupation

We have seen how, during the first phase of the German occupation of Poland,

not only the Einsatzgruppen but also the military administration came to prom-

inence through anti-Semitic measures (the latter albeit only briefly). 61 In the first months of the General Government the ruling authorities set about intensifying

and extending these anti-Jewish measures. The core of ‘Jewish policy’ as exercised

in 1939–40 was definition, labelling, forced labour, expropriation, restriction of

the freedom of domicile, and the establishment of Jewish-run administrative

bodies.

On 23 November 1939 the General Government authorities instituted the

compulsory labelling of Jews over 10 years old with a blue Star of David on a

white armband. 62 A regulation dated 24 July 1940 established a definition of Jews in accordance with the Nuremberg Laws after Frank had disregarded more far-reaching suggestions. 63 Compulsory labour for all Jews between 14 and 60 had already been introduced in the General Government in October 1939: first labour

gangs and then work camps were instituted under the supervision of the SS

responsible for putting compulsory labour into practice. 64 In November 1939

Jewish bank accounts were suspended and Jewish businesses were labelled; at

the beginning of 1940 instructions were issued for the registration of Jewish

capital. The Jews in the General Government were not in fact to be excluded

from economic life in general via these regulations but over a longer period

they were to be driven out by means of confiscation, ‘Aryanization’, or the

enforced closure of Jewish businesses, amongst other measures. 65 A regulation of 11 November 1939 limited the rights of Jews to live where they pleased: leaving

their place of residence required formal permission; a curfew was imposed. 66

From the beginning of 1940 bans were issued on Jews using public transport. 67

In accordance with the order given in Heydrich’s express letter of 21 Sep-

tember 1939 to ‘increase