Post by 𝝥𝝰𝘇𝗴𝝻𝝸 on Jan 16, 2023 2:09:29 GMT
Deportations to the Russian East
From Czech radio we discover that thousands of Jews were deported to the Russian East, during WWII. This theme was discussed in the last forum incarnation but now lost. They write:
Tens of thousands Of Jews deported to work in Belarus and in the Baltic states.
The first deportation of Jews to Belarus took place on November 14, 1941. The transport garnered little attention among the Czech public. “The operation took place without complications,” can be read in one of the contemporary Prague Police reports. In total, 22,000 Czech Jews were deported to Belarus during the war.
The first deportation of Jews to Belarus took place on November 14, 1941. The transport garnered little attention among the Czech public. “The operation took place without complications,” can be read in one of the contemporary Prague Police reports. In total, 22,000 Czech Jews were deported to Belarus during the war.
Testimony of Austrian Jew sent to Belarus.
On May 6, 1942, we left the collection camp (in Vienna)... (at the) railway station we learned... that we were being taken to Minsk. We travelled by passenger coach as far as Wolkowisk (Vawkavysk), where we had to... change over into cattle vans... We arrived in Minsk on May 11 (at the) station we were met by SS and Police... For the transport of the sick, of persons who went out of their mind during the journey, the aged and infirm (about 200 in number in our transport) box-cars stood waiting -- great, gray, closed motor-vans into which the people were thrown one on top of the other in confusion... 81 persons fit for work were picked from among the arrivals and taken to the camp of the Security Police and SD in Mali-Trostinez (12 kms. from Minsk). The camp consisted of a few rotting old barns and stables. That is where we were housed... When new people arrived, others who were not 100 percent fit for work were taken out. We were told that some of these were sent to hospital and others to other estates to work there. (Only) the best workers were to stay on our estate, Mali-Trostinez, so that our camp would be an example to others... The highest complement in the camp was about 600 Jews and 300 Russian prisoners... On July 28, 1942, the news reached us in the camp of a "Grossaktion in the Ghetto." It involved at that time about 8,000 Russian and 5,000 German, Austrian and Czech Jews, who had been in the Minsk Ghetto from November 1941... The transports ceased at the end of 1942... (in the meantime) we learned that there were no "other estates" in the vicinity of Minsk and that it was to "Estate 16" that all the people were taken... "Estate 16" is about 4-5 kms.
J. Moser, Die Judenverfolgung in Oesterreich 1938-1945 ("Persecution of the Jews in Austria, 1938-1945"), Vienna, 1966, pp. 35-36.
J. Moser, Die Judenverfolgung in Oesterreich 1938-1945 ("Persecution of the Jews in Austria, 1938-1945"), Vienna, 1966, pp. 35-36.
Vawkavysk had 2 labour camps for Jews and is about 180 km from either Malkinia or Siedlce. It appears this witness rode all the way to Vawkavysk, before changing transports. While now a part of Belarus, prior to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact it was a part of the Second Polish Republic in the Białystok Voivodeship.
In 1885, the town began construction of what would become an important railway junction between Baranovichi and Białystok. The railway station was opened in 1886.
The testimony creates difficulty for those who have argued that there were different track gauges from Malkinia. It is also interesting that there are no horror moments at Maly Trostenets konzentrationslager, apart from the sick perhaps.
Therkel Straede explains why so many Jews were sent to the Russian East.
Prof. Therkel Straede writes:
The option of forced recruitment of local non-Jews was frequently used by the German forces
throughout the occupational period, too, but from early 1942 on it was a less viable solution.
Because at this time, the newly appointed German "Labor dictator" and Plenipotentiary for
Labor Recruitment Fritz Sauckel was just starting up his campaign to recruit millions of
workers from "the Eastern territories" for the armaments industry in the German Reich by
way of conviction as well as – primarily - coercion. So while thousands of male and female
workers were leaving Belarus for Germany, and no local Jews were alive anymore, the SS had
to look elsewhere for the manpower it needed, and turned its eye at Warsaw, where the largest
ghetto in occupied Europe was just in the process of being emptied of Jews.
throughout the occupational period, too, but from early 1942 on it was a less viable solution.
Because at this time, the newly appointed German "Labor dictator" and Plenipotentiary for
Labor Recruitment Fritz Sauckel was just starting up his campaign to recruit millions of
workers from "the Eastern territories" for the armaments industry in the German Reich by
way of conviction as well as – primarily - coercion. So while thousands of male and female
workers were leaving Belarus for Germany, and no local Jews were alive anymore, the SS had
to look elsewhere for the manpower it needed, and turned its eye at Warsaw, where the largest
ghetto in occupied Europe was just in the process of being emptied of Jews.
He is writing about the Waldlager at Bobruysk military base where thousand of men were deported there at the start of the Warsaw transports, which allegedly arrived at TII (and murdered). There was a shortage of workers but as one can see below, most fled to Russia. Sauckel worked directly under Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring within the Four Year Plan Office, obtaining and allocating labour for German industry and agriculture. It has been estimated that over 12 million such laborers eventually were brought forcibly to Germany to work. link
In his book "Bloodlands" Timothy Snyder writes
"Belarus was the geographical center of the confrontation between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which was the heart of the Second World War. Germany's invasion route to Moscow led through Belarus. The country had the right terrain for partisan warfare, and was a major homelands of the Jews of Europe."
Peter Gatrell writes:
Around a quarter of a million of Jews managed to escape in 1939 from Nazi-occupied Poland to territory under Soviet control. In 1941, the Nazi invasion of Poland, Belarus and the Baltic States trapped many of them, but as many as one million Jews may have been saved by their evacuation into the Soviet interior in 1941-42. In due course most of them—along with surviving Jews from Romania—made their way to Palestine.
Likewise, hundreds of thousands of Poles—soldiers and civilians alike—were either deported or escaped to Soviet Central Asia or to Siberia
Likewise, hundreds of thousands of Poles—soldiers and civilians alike—were either deported or escaped to Soviet Central Asia or to Siberia
The JUST act reports"
"The 1939 Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic national census registered 375,092 Jewish residents. After the Nazi occupation of Poland in 1939 and the annexation of Polish territory under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Jewish population rose to an estimated one million, including 404,500 in what is now eastern Belarus and more than 600,000 in present day western Belarus. The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic government is reported to have evacuated approximately 220,000 Jewish residents, primarily from present day eastern Belarus, to other regions of the USSR in 1941 following the Nazi invasion earlier that year."
linkProfessor Gatrell states that about 250 thousand Jews left Poland in 1939 and that a million were evacuated into the Soviet interior. The JUST report mentions that there were a million Jews at the time of Barbarossa in Belarus which was, just prior, a part of the Soviet Union.
If Gatrell is correct and the JUST report is correct there were very few Jews left in Belarus. This would explain the following in the JUST report.
An estimated 600,000-800,000 Jews, including those deported from eastern Poland and other European countries, were killed in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (by Nazi Germany) between July 1941 and October 1943 in more than 500 ghettos, concentration camps, and mass killing sites
This simply could not happen if Professor Gatrell is correct. The assumption being the lack of Jews meant they were killed.
If Gatrell was correct then it would explain the shortage of Jews needed for work and the massive transport of Jews to the Russian East. It would explain why the Germans had more than 250 zwangarbeitslager in Ostland and RKU. The late Belarus Minister of Foreign affairs Vladimir Maki stated in 2021 that Belarus had more than 260 konzentrationslager für Juden and 70 ghettos. link