The case of Transnistria: resettlement and survival of Jews in Occupied USSR

[Hektor]

What you should be asking yourself is, "Why were hundreds of thousands of Jews being transported to Transnistria?"

Consider the fact that Transnistria is located extremely deep into eastern Europe, in modern day Moldova and just south of central Ukraine. This was exactly the region into which reams of German documents attest that the National Socialist government was planning to literally resettle all of Europe's Jews as a "final solution to the Jewish question" after the war.

If, as you seem to believe, these plans were mere "code words" for extermination in the East, why would these Transnistria Jews be transported there and not exterminated?

Do you have examples of such documents?

I think we need sourcebooks on that kind of document. Something that can be pulled out and be shown when people wonder, if you point out that documentary evidence says Jews were resettled and not gassed as the Holocaust storyline alleges. There is a gap for souce books with WW2 era documents.

The common practice is however that 'Holocaust Historians' will pull out some snippets of documents (authentic or not) to argue their case with. There is usually no context except for their imagined Extermination Program (that's an unstated premise in mainline 'Holocaust Research'), Broader context could be given with sourcebooks consisting of document facsimiles dealing with the issue of deportation, ghettos, resettlement, etc.

[bombsaway]

The documents are very clear on the "Final Solution" being a resettlement policy. Even Sobibor has been described as a "transit camp" in the documents.

If the documents are clear we should be able to reconstruct in broad strokes what happened to the Jews. First off, were they transported en masse out of Poland?

This was exactly the region into which reams of German documents attest that the National Socialist government was planning to literally resettle all of Europe's Jews as a "final solution to the Jewish question" after the war.

I'd be interested in seeing some of these documents but detailed Romanian censuses paint a clear picture that this level of resettlement did not occur in Transnistria

From https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Romani ... 1566637716

Exactly. So where's the bodies? Not just for these 1.9m but the 6m. Where are they?

In my view, the bodies, where they were not destroyed, are littered across Eastern Europe amongst the tens of millions of soldiers and civilians that also died there.

[Lamprecht]

The documents are very clear on the "Final Solution" being a resettlement policy. Even Sobibor has been described as a "transit camp" in the documents.

If the documents are clear we should be able to reconstruct in broad strokes what happened to the Jews. First off, were they transported en masse out of Poland?

That's not what I said. It's not clear exactly where they went, what is clear is that 1.5m+ were not dumped into pits at Treblinka 2, Sobibor, and Belzec. The documents describing the purpose of the camps and the "Final Solution" policy contradict your position that they were dumped into pits.

You haven't even answered questions I asked over a week ago about these claimed Transnistria testimonies. You have failed to make a case for what documentary evidence absolutely must exist. All that we have confirmed is that the pits must exist for your conspiracy theory to be true. There is no evidence in favor of them existing. In fact, every attempt to document the pits has ended in miserable failure. You refuse to answer 10 simple questions about them.

In my view, the bodies, where they were not destroyed, are littered across Eastern Europe amongst the tens of millions of soldiers and civilians that also died there.

Please explain how bodies are "destroyed"
Also, are you insinuating that 1.5m+ were NOT dumped into massive pits at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka 2?
Because that's what "eyewitness testimony" claims.

[Butterfangers]

Putting this here from physical evidence thread

Mattogno and Kues were among the pioneers that really dove into the question of whether AR camps were transit camps, what evidence exists for this, etc. I don't think they ever claimed to have proven where all Jews went.

Thomas Kues: "Taken together, this means that the number of Jews who reached the occupied eastern territories almost certainly amounted to somewhere between 1,800,000 and 1,900,000."

I don't care that much about specifics, I know it's impossible to account for every person or community during a mass transfer, but you can paint a picture in 'broad strokes'. Kues and Mattogno definitely do, taking the Korherr report at its word. A question mark isn't satisfactory to me, because as I've said before I have an assumption that what happens to millions of people should be well traceable in terms of documents and witness testimony. If you're not able to produce a narrative, it's probably because there's very little evidence for your position, therefore its very likely to be false.

In the same section of the 2010 article where Kues makes the statement you quoted above, he previously states:

For the second group [Jews who were allegedly 'gassed' between December 1941 and late 1943] we have reliable figures of arrivals to the Reinhardt camps...

As has already been quite clearly shown (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14847#p107640 and viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14794), the documents which were once thought of as "reliable" are, in fact, not... at least, not in terms of demonstrating anything whatever with regard to how many Jews actually arrived at AR camps. This is relatively new information which Kues would not have known 12-13 years ago.

More importantly, as I have already stated and which you quoted me saying above, Kues never "claimed to have proven where all Jews went". He explains his intent in the first section of the same article. His goal is [essentially] to over-determine the case against the Holocaust orthodoxy by identifying not-so 'gassed' Jews to the extent possible:

Searching for the “gassed” Jews constitutes part of a new, constructive aspect to the revisionist critique, as the orthodox historiography is not only shown to be flawed, but an alternative reconstruction of events in accordance with known facts is offered (however spotty at this early point in time) – a development of revisionism which Carlo Mattogno has termed “affirmationism”.

Kues (and every other Revisionist) have over-estimated how many Jews they have needed to account for, considering there is not even a reasonable range estimate of how many ever ended up in the eastern territories by the end of the war. No known documents credibly support such an estimate. The number could easily be one-half or one-third of the 1.8 - 1.9 million figure Kues uses in your quote provided.

Kues, like most Revisionists, will of course primarily refer to the fact that no physical/forensic evidence of the claims of 'gassed' Jews has ever been shown to exist. That's the hurdle you have failed to overcome, so you dodge it repeatedly. But it is no small matter. If cremains existed in precisely-known locations, and the lives of person(s) or entire nations on trial are on the line (which they are / were), then the ethical thing to do before anyone can be tried and sentenced is to identify whether cremains (evidence) actually exist in said locations.

This was never done... And that's a really big problem.

[borjastick]

In my view, the bodies, where they were not destroyed, are littered across Eastern Europe amongst the tens of millions of soldiers and civilians that also died there.

Complete nonsense.

We are told the mass murders took place in six camps, 'death camps' across eastern Poland in a short period of time.

These camps were Auschwitz, Belzec, Majdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor and Chelmno. Of those six camps four were 'found' by the Russians with nothing left of them. Razed to the ground or as we normies would say they were dismantled after use as transit camps was no longer required. The other two being Auschwitz and Majdanek were found relatively intact. In both cases the Russians made bold, some would say mad claims of mass murder in gas chambers of millions of people. In both cases the death toll was hugely reduced over time where it now sits at an embarrassingly low total compared to the start point. And that begs all manner of questions.

As for your claim that those others killed in the holocaust lie across eastern europe where millions of other soldiers' remains also lie, that is nonsense too. In each case where the 'holocaust by bullets' is claimed statements from the locals idiots claims they know exactly where these shootings took place and yet no excavation is done. no technical analysis carried out and no knowledge is gained. Why would that be?

[DissentingOpinions]

In Korherr’s report, he says that the evacuated Jews are not in ghettos or camps - even if he was excluding Ostland ghettos, Himmler declared late into Aktion Reinhardt that they were to be closed & their inhabitants be transited further east. Further east was the Eastern Front, then Russia, then the Far East. Hence, these Jews were brought into the Russian Far East. Whether or not they were murdered in gulags is unknown.

[Hektor]

In Korherr’s report, he says that the evacuated Jews are not in ghettos or camps - even if he was excluding Ostland ghettos, Himmler declared late into Aktion Reinhardt that they were to be closed & their inhabitants be transited further east. Further east was the Eastern Front, then Russia, then the Far East. Hence, these Jews were brought into the Russian Far East. Whether or not they were murdered in gulags is unknown.

Dr. Josef Buehler said 'North East of Europe in Russia'.
At the time this developed to be a feasible option. Whether that is in Ghettos or a reserve are is open. Also to what extent that was realized.

BUEHLER: Yes, I was sent to the conference and the subject of the conference was the Jewish problem. I might say in advance that from the beginning Jewish questions in the Government General were considered as coming under the jurisdiction of the Higher SS and Police Leader and handled accordingly. The handling of Jewish matters by the state administration was supervised and merely tolerated by the Police.

During the years 1940 and 1941 incredible numbers of people, mostly Jews, were brought into the Government General in spite of the objections and protests of the Governor General and his administration. This completely unexpected, unprepared for, and undesired bringing in of the Jewish population from other territories put the administration of the Government General in an extremely difficult position.
Accommodating these masses, feeding them, and caring for their health-combating epidemics for instance-almost, or rather, definitely overtaxed the capacity of the territory. Particularly threatening was the spread of typhus, not only in the ghettos but also among the Polish population and the Germans in the Government General. It appeared as if that epidemic would spread even to the Reich and to the Eastern Front.

At that moment Heydrich's invitation to the Governor General was received. The conference was originally supposed to take place in November 1941, but it was frequently postponed and it may have taken place in February 1942.

Because of the special problems of the Government General I had asked Heydrich for a personal interview and he received me. On that occasion, among many other things, I described in particular the catastrophic conditions which had resulted from the arbitrary bringing of Jews into the Government General. He replied that for this very reason he had invited the Governor General to the conference. The Reichsfuehrer SS, so he said, had received an order from the Fuehrer to round up all the Jews of Europe and to settle them in the Northeast of Europe, in Russia. I asked him whether this meant that the further arrival of Jews in the Government General would cease, and whether the hundreds of thousands of Jews who had been brought into the Government General without the permission of the Governor General would be moved out again. Heydrich promised me both these things. Heydrich said furthermore that the Fuehrer had given an order that Theresienstadt, a town in the Protectorate, would become a reservation in which old and sick Jews, and weak Jews who could not stand the strains of resettlement, were to be accommodated in the future. This information left me definitely convinced that the resettlement of the Jews, if not for the sake of the Jews, then for the sake of the reputation and prestige of the German people, would be carried out in a humane fashion. The removal of the Jews from the Government General was subsequently carried out exclusively by the Police.

I might add that Heydrich demanded, particularly for himself, his office, and its branches, the exclusive and uninterrupted competence and control in this matter.

It is plausible that Jews deported to the East where also moved through those transit camps and could have easily ended up in ghettos behind the Eastern front. The lack of documentation would not surprised, if any documentation of that kind was filtered out by those having control of this at some time.

[Butterfangers]

In an earlier post, I noted that the word used by Korherr in his statement about Jews sent "through the camps in the General Government" was the German word "durch", meaning through. However, the actual phrase used was, "Es wurden durchgeschleust durch die Lager im Generalgouvernement.....................". Original German is here:

The verb used here is "durchschleusen", conjugated into its past participle form as "durchgeschleust". Here is what it means:

This is a compound word, so we can break it down further into parts to better understand the meaning. Since we know "durch" essentially means "through", the word "durchgeschleust" can be broken down with "geschleust" ("schleusen"), which means:

All of this is just to give a much clearer picture of the fact that Korherr was indeed referring to the sifting / channeling / navigating / funneling / smuggling through the "camps in the General Government".

What is extremely important to understand is that nowhere in this document does Korherr mention AR camps. He refers to "camps in the General Government", of which it turns out there are hundreds thus far known and likely hundreds more not yet known (or thousands, if we include all concentration/collection sites and not just labor camps).

Jews were channeled through the camps in the General Government (and through the Warthegau).

Also important to understand is that they were sent toward the Russian East (not necessarily "to", as has been the common interpretation). I showed in an earlier post on this thread that "toward" and "toward" (or "for") are all valid translations of the word "nach". Additionally, when speaking specifically of a transit between one location/place to another, it appears that "toward" is the more accurate translation for "nach", per Google:

Although other parts of this document use "nach" in ways that might imply a more immediate destination (such as "nach Theresienstadt"), the word is flexible as shown. And of course, the Jews in question received "special treatment"; a term which applied to these channeled/sifted Jews, specifically. Korherr himself sought to find out what this meant and received an official answer:

It was precisely the term "special treatment" (sonderbehandlung) that motivated me to inquire of the RSHA by telephone what this term meant. I received the answer that it referred to Jews who would be settled in the District of Lublin.

http://fpp.co.uk/History/General/Korher ... 50777.html

Of course, some of these Jews were sent along the line with the destination of "T", for "Treblinka" (shown in the Hoefle telegram), which was north of the Lublin district. But these Jews, too, would have been considered as having been sent to "Lublin" or the Lublin district/system/etc.:

Interrogator: “What was Camp T?”
Wisliceny: “If I correctly recollect, that belonged to the complex Lublin system. I remember having heard the designation Camp T”.

Thus, we have Jews being sent:

1) out of the eastern provinces,
2) toward the Russian East.
3) channeled/sifted through the camps in the General Government,
4) settled (or at work) in the "greater Lublin district" area
5) some unknown number of these still ending up further east


^ This is what the Korherr report actually states. This "channeling/sifting" is no doubt a component of the "special treatment" referred to in this same document (which could also refer to the dispossession of these Jews... I'll address this further in a moment). If we are to be so bold as to interpret the Korherr report literally---that it refers to the "evacuation" of the Jews and not extermination---this report simply describes how many Jews were evacuated from the ghettos, sent east to work or to be settled, and designated as ultimately destined for the Russian East.

This document tells us nothing about how many Jews even made it to camps Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka.

The other well-known document which the establishment says does claim to demonstrate the number of arrivals is the Hoefle telegram. Here it is:

It translates roughly as the following:

Secret Reich matter! To the commander of the security police, for the attention of SS Obersturmbannfuhrer HEIM, KRAKAU. Re: 14-day report operation REINHART. Reference: there. Fs. Access until 31.12.1942, L 12761, B O, S 515, T 10335 together 23611. Stand... 31.12.1942, L 24733, B 434508, S 101370, T 71355, together 1274166.

SS and Pol.fuhrer LUBLIN, HOEFLE, Sturmbannfuhrer.

Since we know that the same figure in the telegram of 1,274,166 refers to the Jews (in the Korherr report) who were evacuated out of the ghettos then "channeled/sifted through the camps in the General Government [toward the Russian East]", and since it is further confirmed which of the "camps in the General Government" are being referred to by the lengthy stops at the sites of numerous labor camps (along with roadways/connections to even more labor camps; see: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14847&p=107640#p107640), the notion that the number of Jews who were evacuated out of the ghettos are precisely the same number that arrived at the camps of Belzec, Sobibor, or Treblinka at the far-eastern end of the "Lublin camp system" is unfeasible.

Thus, we are forced to consider alternative interpretations to the Hoefle telegram other than that the numbers reported were Jews who had all physically arrived at the Belzec / Sobibor / Treblinka camps by the time the report was made. To do so, there are some key factors to keep in-mind:

1. The key and critical functions of the Lublin district and surrounding network were transit and [consolidation, dispatching, utilization of] labor. Explained here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14847#p107650
   
2. The purpose and function of 'Aktion Reinhard' was the confiscation and utilization of Jewish property. See the post linked and the one after it, here: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic ... 3#p2319478
   
3. The word used in the Hoefle telegram to describe the relation between the numbers/figures provided and "B", "S", and "T" (and "L"), is the word "Zugang", written as "Fs. Zugang bis..."

Regarding the first point above, this context (transit, labor) is crucial to understanding why Jews might have been sent here (Lublin district), ending up at any of the labor camps along the line and/or being resettled (temporarily or permanently) in the "greater Lublin" area. When you have a central hub that serves a purpose of sending out resources and labor to all of occupied Europe, you need to have labor resources at-the-ready! And what is the best way to organize this sort of labor, which arrives in [greater] Lublin district on trains from a west-to-east direction? Well, you have them at camps and sites that run along (or nearby) that same line. You might even categorize them accordingly (e.g. those who were along the Treblinka line being categorized as "T", as they remain in a sector which is still relevant to the Treblinka "gate" leading further east). This type of "special treatment" that is fully compatible with the Korherr report and also explains the Hoefle telegram (more on that in a moment). Jews who were given "special treatment" were not sent directly to the Russian East. They were sent to greater Lublin district.

On the second point above, PrudentRegret has made an excellent case which shows that "Aktion Reinhard" at its core was all about the confiscation (and utilization) of Jewish property. Any significance given to these camps regarding their secrecy or as it pertains to "special treatment", etc. had everything to with this policy of confiscation and management of Jewish property. Whereas many Jews disembarked before the trains ever reached Belzec / Sobibor / Treblinka / Lublin, their property continued onto this point, where it was sorted and then further managed. Note there are additional sites related to property sorting (warehouse, laundry) among those labor camps nearest to the border where Treblinka and Sobibor lie:

Clearly, property-sorting was a key focus for the area and the lines running through them.

On the third point I listed above, I note that the word on the Hoefle telegram is "Zugang" written as "Fs. Zugang bis...". Wikipedia seems to think this phrase means "Recorded arrivals until...", which suggests the "Fs." may indicate an abbreviation for "Recorded":

I do not currently have any way to verify this and Wikipedia does not explain how this was determined (yet this could be significant to understand exactly what is being said). In any case, it is what follows that would seem to be of at least similar importance ("Zugang bis..."). Here are the top translations, per Google, for "Zugang":

And for "bis", the top translations are:

bis.png (11.18 KiB) Viewed 249 times

Although "bis" can frequently mean "to", putting both words together ("Zugang bis"), pretty consistently delivers "Access until", including when referring to a point in time which is what is done in the Hoefle telegram ("Fs. Zugang bis 31.12.1942..."):

Since the "until" portion pretty clearly refers to the date which is noted, the word that we really need to consider is "Access". What does "access" really mean?

Whether as a noun or a verb, it is clear that this word can as much apply to those who have approached, are on the path of, etc. a given position as those whom have already physically arrived or passed through. I have access to my local gym, as a member. It doesn't mean I am already there. Just to clarify whether the definition of "access" in English compares to the definition of "Zugang" in German, here's how the definition is described in a German dictionary (Google-translation of the same page provided for non-German readers):

https://de.thefreedictionary.com/Zugang

"The possibility to go in..."
"Entrance, driveway"
"the path that leads to..."
"the ability... to get into something"

"Fs. Zugang bis 31.12.1942...", as written in the Hoefle telegram, simply indicates that the listed number of Jews had accessed the [greater] Lublin district system by that time, via the corresponding routes as indicated by "T", "S", "B", and "L" in the Hoefle telegram. Each of these routes corresponded to a territory which was tied to both (1) transit further east, as needed or requested, and (2) 'Aktion Reinhard' sites for the confiscation of property at the end of each "access aisle". Hoefle was, of course, SS and Police Leader in the District of Lublin as well as Commander of the main department of Aktion Reinhard, so all of this should be kept in-mind when interpreting his telegram, factoring in what we now understand as outlined above.

Here is a question, treat it as a hypothetical: what would be the most efficient way to organize a system which transits Jews from further west to the 'premier labor and transit center of all of ''Nazi Europe', intending to station them there until needed, with all property ending up at the major "gates" at the end of each respective line? What would be the most likely way to do this, especially if the same person [Hoefle] was in command of both the Lublin district as well as the 'Aktion Reinhard' property-confiscation operation? If you were him, you would organize the entire system based upon these lines. Labor camps and other important sites would be associated with these routes, as would the Jews (labor) within that same "complex Lublin system".

When Hoefle reported on Jews who had accessed "T", "S", "B", "L"; he identified the total number available for labor (or perhaps including any simply pending resettlement) in each of the corresponding areas. Additionally or alternatively, he may have been using these figures as an indication of how much property (or from how many Jews said property) had been obtained. Most likely, he is simply using the figures of Jews deported out of the Eastern Provinces for these purposes, rather than having any special data about how many "arrived" at any exact, physical location. This explains why Korherr's figure (meant to show the number of Jews who "evacuated" the Eastern Provinces through the GG) is the same as Hoefle's (showing the number who "arrived" in the [greater] Lublin district).

[Quick note: for those who are not aware, the confiscation of Jewish property was a secret operation. There is abundant evidence that it was treated this way. Thus, the Korherr report, Hoefle telegram and other 'Reinhard-relevant' documents being indicated as a "secret Reich matter" is still perfectly-aligned with what I've outlined above, as is any other evidence the program was kept secret.]

Obviously, these particular Jews had received "special treatment" in not being sent directly to the Russian East, instead being put to work or settled locally until an appropriate time (or perhaps staying put until the end of the war). They had also received "special treatment" by being dispossessed along the way.

Lastly, I'll respond to the following:

In Korherr’s report, he says that the evacuated Jews are not in ghettos or camps - even if he was excluding Ostland ghettos, Himmler declared late into Aktion Reinhardt that they were to be closed & their inhabitants be transited further east. Further east was the Eastern Front, then Russia, then the Far East. Hence, these Jews were brought into the Russian Far East. Whether or not they were murdered in gulags is unknown.

Korherr adds this description to Section V of his report however you need to also consider the fact that not all evacuated Jews received "special treatment"---only those channeling/sifting through camps in the GG and Warthegau. There is no indication that 'camps in the General Government / Warthegau' means Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, etc. There were hundreds of labor camps along these routes, and the Fahrplanordnung documents show lengthy stops at only these general locations, for which there is no rational explanation but the off-boarding and/or exchange of labor (and perhaps other settlers). Korherr not only indicates on his report that the Jews from the Eastern Provinces would receive "special treatment" but later confirms that this means those within that category would be "settled in the Lublin district". He does not specify the details of this settlement (e.g. temporary vs. permanent) and presumably did not bother to ask, but seems to have found the explanation sufficient for his purposes. Other interpretations of "special treatment" can include those relevant to Aktion Reinhard as it pertains to confiscation of property. All of these interpretations are valid insofar as Hoefle oversaw the relevant jurisdictions in both Lublin and AR.