Dogzilla of course can find many examples of a
Quote:
historian who endorses ANY specific detail found in ANY specific holocaust survivor or perpetrator testimony so we can see what such an "endorsement" looks like
in the critique linked to in my signature. I will highlight one example of weighing and comparing testimonies which can be found on pp.235-6, footnote 451. It discusses whether or not Trawniki auxiliaries took part in the mass executions at Poniatowa during Operation 'Erntefest' in November 1943.
This section was written by me, and I am a historian, so it irrefutably qualifies.
Quote:
There are contradictory testimonies regarding the presence of Trawnikis in the sentry screens surrounding the execution sites at Poniatowa and Trawniki. According to one SS NCO at Poniatowa, none were present. Vernehmungsniederschrift Stephan Baltzer, 14.4.1970, StA Hamburg 147 Js 43/69, Bd.85, p.16115. According to one Trawniki also stationed at Poniatowa, the shooting was done by Germans while the Trawniki guards remained at their posts around the camp. Protokol doprosa, Ivan Vasilevich Lukanyuk, 12.4.1948, ASBU Ivano-Frankivsk 5072-2123, pp.10-22. However, a rare survivor testimony from the same camp suggests that Trawnikis were involved in rousting Jews from hiding places in the barracks. Andrzej Żbikowski, ‘Texts Buried in Oblivion. Testimonies of Two Refugees from the Mass Grave at Poniatowa’, Holocaust. Studies and Materials, 1/2009, pp.76-102, here p.89. At Dorohucza, the camp was surrounded by a police unit who demanded that all Germans as well as Ukrainians surrender their weapons while the inmates were rounded up. The use of troops who had had no personal contact with the inmates was thus evidently a deliberate strategy.Cf. Vernehmung Robert Jührs, 13.10.1961,BAL B162/208 AR-Z 252/59, Bd.8, pp.1486-7. Jührs had previously served at Belzec.
The preceding and ensuing pages (pp.233-237) give many more sources on the context for 'Erntefest'. Indeed I cite from materials taken from seven different archives just on the direct circumstances of 'Erntefest' and another two archives on the context. Yet this was just a brief sketch; the most comprehensive account of 'Erntefest' is an edited collection that is 500 pages long.
The footnote summary was also brief; and that highlights something which may not have occurred to Dogzilla, which is that many issues cannot be explored in exhaustive detail or resolved once and for all in the space of even a lengthy text. There are dozens of other relevant testimonies to the issue at stake; they were not cited for space reasons. The reason to discuss this at all was because of the oddity of the Nazis moving six full battalions of police troops into the Lublin district to carry out the mass executions when they had several battalion equivalents of Trawnikis already in place. Juehrs' testimony from Dorohucza confirms one common sense inference why they did this, i.e. to use troops that had not hitherto guarded the victims.
Another example, from p.174, also written by me. This example shows how the initial phase of Aktion Reinhard was evidently conceived by the SS as a limited action. To support this point I make note of
a) how few personnel from T4 compared to the total number of T4 personnel were sent to Lublin at first
b) a contemporary document which confirms this in writing
c) two testimonies, cited indirectly in this case, but with direct citations for corroboration, speaking of an initially limited program:
Quote:
The more striking point is the initially relatively small size of the T4 contingent assigned to Belzec and its progressive reinforcement in the spring of 1942 after the operation was expanded. As Victor Brack later wrote to Himmler on June 23, 1942, “in accordance with my orders from Reichsleiter Bouhler, I have long ago put at Brigadeführer Globocnik’s disposal part of my manpower to aid him in carrying out his special mission (Sonderauftrag). Upon his renewed request, I have now transferred to him additional personnel.”[1]
The evidence examined so far points to the interpretation that Belzec, soon to be joined by Sobibor, were intended to carry out what was still a relatively limited killing program. Indeed, Adolf Eichmann later testified that Globocnik had at first been authorised to kill around 100,000 people, and then secured a further authorisation to murder another 150 to 250,000 from Heydrich.[2] Josef Oberhauser similarly testified that at first:[3]
only Jews unfit for work from various ghettos were to be liquidated. There was not yet any talk of a grand-scale extermination action. I learned of the plan to systematically exterminate the Jews when Brack went to Globocnik in Lublin in April or May 1942 and told him that the former members of Aktion T4 would be placed at his disposal for the carrying out of the extermination of the Jews
[1] Brack an Himmler, 23.6.1942, BA NS19/1583, p.16, also NO-205; our emphases.
[2] Longerich, Holocaust, p.331.
[3] Pohl, Judenpolitik, pp.125-6, citing Vernehmung. Oberhauser, 10.11.1964, Oberhauser Bd. XV, Bl. 2918-20 (StA München 1 110 Ks 3/64); a similar description of Brack’s visit is in Vernehmung Josef Oberhauser, 14.12.1962, BAL B162/208 AR-Z 252/59, Bd. 9, p.1681ff, also excerpted in Klee, The Good Old Days, p.229.
I discuss Brack's letter to Himmler further on pp.203-4, quoting it in full and noting how the document cannot be read as indicating anything other than a plan of systematic mass murder as of June 1942, and cite a further, less well known document corroborating the use of T4 personnel to achieve this goal. The preceding and subsequent pages show how in comparison to spring 1942, during June-August 1942 a demonstrable extension and acceleration of the killing program occurred.
