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7. "Special Treatment" of Jews Not Fit for Labor

The meeting between Speer and Pohl mentioned in the preceding chapter took place on September 15, 1942. On the next day, Pohl made a detailed re-port on it to Himmler. The discussion had dealt with four points, the first of which concerned the "enlargement of Auschwitz barracks camp due to eastern migration." Pohl spoke to this point:

"Reichsminister Prof. Speer has fully approved the enlargement of the
Auschwitz barracks camp and made available an additional building allocation
for Auschwitz to the extent of 13.7 million Reichsmarks. This building
allocation covers the erection of approx. 300 barracks with the necessary
support and supplemental facilities. The required raw materials are
allotted to the 4th quarter of 1942 as well as to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters
of 1943. When this additional construction program is carried out, a
total of 132,000 persons can be accommodated in Auschwitz."

Pohl emphasized:

"All participants agreed that the work force present in the concentration
camps must now be deployed for large-scale armament work."

After he had stressed the necessity of removing German and foreign civilian workers from insufficiently manned armament factories in order to fully staff similar factories, replacing them with concentration camp inmates, Pohl continued:141

"In this manner Reichsminister Prof. Speer wants to swiftly ensure the
employment of initially 50,000 Jews fit to work in existing private firms
with existing possibilities for accommodations. We will skim off the workers
required for this purpose primarily from the eastern migration in
Auschwitz, so that our existing industrial facilities will not be disrupted in
their performance and their structure by continuously changing the labor
force. The Jews intended for the eastern migration will therefore have to
interrupt their journey and perform armament work."

By the "eastern migration" was to be understood the deportation of the Jews into the eastern occupied territories. In this context the last sentence obviously means that the Jews unfit for labor were not interrupting their journey - thus not stopping at Auschwitz - but were continuing onward. The location, to which at least a portion of these people was being sent, emerges from a report that SS Untersturmführer Horst Ahnert wrote on a meeting held at Department IV B 4 of the RSHA on August 28, 1942. The meeting was called for the purpose of discussing the Jewish question and especially the evacuation of Jews into occupied foreign territories as well as to address the transportation problems. The evacuation of the Jews to the east was supposed to take place via Auschwitz. Under point c), it stated with regard to the points under discussion: 142

"Sending along of blankets, shoes, and eating utensils for the transport
participants. It was requested by the commandant of the Auschwitz internment
camp that the necessary blankets, work shoes and eating utensils by
all means be included in the transports. Insofar as this has not been done
until now, they are to be immediately sent on to the camp."

Point e) concerned the purchase of barracks:

"SS Obersturmbannführer Eichmann requests that the purchase of the
barracks ordered by the Commander of the Security Police Den Haag be
carried out immediately. The camp is supposed to be established in Russia.
The transport of the barracks can be managed in such a way that 3-5 barracks
are carried along on each transport train."

According to Radio Moscow, several thousand Jews were resettled in the Ukraine. In its issue number 71 of April 1944, the Jewish underground newspaper Notre Voix was able to report the following:143

"Thank you! A news item that will delight all Jews of France was
broadcast by Radio Moscow. Which of us does not have a brother, a sister,
or relatives among those deported from Paris? And who will not feel profound
joy when he thinks about the fact that 8,000 Parisian Jews have been
rescued from death by the glorious Red Army! One of them told Radio
Moscow how he had been saved from death, and likewise 8,000 other Parisian
Jews. They were all in the Ukraine when the last Soviet offensive began,
and the SS bandits wanted to shoot them before they left the country.
But since they knew what fate was in store for them and since they had
learned that the Soviet troops were no longer far away, the deported Jews
decided to escape. They were immediately welcomed by the Red Army and
are presently all in the Soviet Union. The heroic Red Army has thus once
again earned a claim on the gratitude of the Jewish community of France."

The documents just cited prove that a substantial portion of the Jewish population of western Europe (namely that of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands) was indeed being deported to the east from the second half of the year 1942 on, and yes, by way of Auschwitz, which served as a transit camp. In this connection, there is also a radiogram from Arthur Liebehenschel of October 2, 1942, dealing with the "resettlement of Jews" (the orthodox historiographers arbitrarily equate this term, too, with 'mass-murder'). The radiogram read as follows:144

"Permit for travel for a 5-ton truck with trailer to Dessau and back, for
the purpose of picking up materials for resettlement of Jews, is hereby issued."

These materials were, without a doubt, identical with the "material for special t.[reatment]" dealt with by the radio message of August 26, 1942: It therefore concerned Zyklon B. On the other hand, "resettlement of Jews" was synonymous with "evacuation of Jews" and "migration to the east." Thus, we can conclude that this Zyklon B found its application in the delousing of the personal property of the Jews unfit for labor who were being deported farther to the east. Since October of 1942, the evacuation of the Jewish population to the east,
during which the Jews fit for labor were selected out at Auschwitz and remained there, was officially designated as "carrying out of special treatment."

How was this 'special treatment' managed in practice? In the third paragraph of a letter dated June 4, 1943, already cited on p. 41, Bischoff wrote of the central sauna, then under construction:145

"The large dressing and undressing rooms are absolutely necessary,
since the influx of an entire transport (approx. 2000), most of which arrive
at night, must be confined within a single area until the next morning. Having
the arrivals wait in the fully occupied camp is excluded due to the danger
of transmission of lice."

This practice pertained to entire transports arriving in Auschwitz, and not only to the small portion of the inmates that was registered there. This is further confirmed by the fact that the average number of male prisoners taken into the camp population from each arriving transport between July 4, 1942, and the end of May 1943 was approximately 220, while it amounted to about 135 for female prisoners. On the other hand, the average number of Jewish inmates deported with the approximately 230 transports arriving in Auschwitz
in the same period of time was about 1,300.146 In view of these figures, Bischoff 's number of approximately 2,000 prisoners to be lodged for the duration
of one night can only have referred to a complete transport. In addition, it emerges from the Bischoff letter that a complete transport had to be lodged separately, because of the danger of spreading lice, i.e., in order not to reinfect the already deloused prisoners. With regard to the wait mentioned by Bischoff, this was surely the wait for the separation of those fit for labor from those unfit for it, who were deported on to the east. But what occurred when there were no trains immediately available for transportation eastward? There is no question but that those unfit for labor, who were not permitted to come into contact with the registered prisoners, were confined to their isolated quarters until further notice. In practice, they were temporarily assigned a separate place to stay, which is often called "special lodging" in the documents; sometimes such prisoners were also said to be "separately accommodated." These terms, behind which the official historiography once again sniffs camouflage words for 'gassing,' occur in radio messages sent by SS Obersturmführer Heinrich Schwarz, the head of
Department IIIa, which was responsible for labor deployment, to Gerhard Maurer, head of Office DII (deployment of prisoners) of the SS WVHA. In a radio message of February 20, 1943, on the transports of Jews from Theresienstadt (they occurred on January 21, 24, and 27 of that year), Schwarz stated the number of the Jews "selected for labor deployment" as well as that of the Jews "separately accommodated" and continued:147

"The special accommodation of the men was done owing to excessive
infirmity, that of the women because the greatest portion was children
[sic]."

A radio message of March 15, 1943, had a similar content:148

"Re: Jewish transports from Berlin. Auschwitz concentration camp reports
Jewish transports from Berlin. Admittance of a total strength of 964
Jews on March 13, 1943. 218 men and 147 women deployed for labor. The
men were transferred to Buna. 126 men and 473 women and children were
separately accommodated."

The prisoners not fit for labor, who were assigned "separate accommodation," therefore received "special treatment" or were "specially treated," as stated in a Schwarz radio message of March 8, 1943,149 in contrast to those who were registered, who remained in Auschwitz. This expression denoted the "carrying out of the special treatment" explained above.