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Contemporary Source

1942-07-23 The Dairy of Wilm Hosenfeld: A Wehrmacht Officer’s Account of Jews Killed by Gas Vans in the Warthegau

Wilm Hosenfeld, a German officer stationed in Warsaw during World War II, recounts in a diary entry of 23 July 1942 the actions of the German occupation, particularly the extermination of Jewish communities in occupied and annexed Polish territories. Hosenfeld learned specifically that “From Litzmannstadt and Kutno, it is said that Jews – men, women, and children – are poisoned in mobile gas vans, their clothes stripped from their corpses, and their bodies thrown into mass graves, with the clothing being sent to textile factories for reuse”.

Contemporary Source

1942-05-23 Ghetto Łódź Administration Supplies Chlorinated Lime and Cement for Sonderkommando Kulmhof’s Special Action

In June and July 1942, the Ghetto Łódź Administration delivered large quantities of chlorinated lime and cement to the Sonderkommando at Kulmhof, according to the invoices addressed to the Secret State Police S[Sonderkommando] and internal correspondence of the administration. The materials were picked up by truck at the loading point at Baluter Ring (Balucki Rynek). For instance , on 21 July 1942 Sonderkommando member Erich Kretschmar confirmed the “receipt of 100 sacks of cement (one hundred) from the warehouse of the Ghetto Administration at Baluterring for the SS special operation”. The chlorinated lime was used to disinfect the mass burial sites, the cement was required for constructing the furnaces used for body disposal.

Note by Luchterhand dated May 23, 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-03-31 Invoice for 5 Barrels of Chlorinated Lime Delivered to Warthbrücken, Near the Kulmhof Extermination Camp (Chełmno)

In March 1942, the Inspector of the Health Service under the Reich Commissary for the Consolidation of German Folk ordered 1,641 kg of chlorinated lime, which was commonly used as a disinfectant. The delivery was processed by Kopernikus Pharmacy in Posen and billed on 31 March 1942. The payment for the shipment, which was unloaded at Warthbrücken, the nearest train station to the Kulmhof extermination camp (Chełmno), was made through the special account of the Ghetto Administration in Litzmannstadt (Łódź Ghetto) through which the extermination camp was funded.

Contemporary Source

1942-09-14 Fritz Sander’s 1942 Report on the “High Demand for Cremation Ovens” at Auschwitz: “Multiple Corpses Must Be Packed into the Muffle Simultaneously”

Report by Topf & Söhne engineer Fritz Sander, dated September 14, 1942, on the new construction of incineration ovens for concentration camps. Sander points out the “high demand for cremation ovens” especially in Auschwitz”, where “they resort to using a large number of ovens or muffles and overloading the individual muffles with multiple corpses”. Furthermore, the practice that “multiple corpses must be packed into the muffle simultaneously…will likely cause damage to the relatively delicate muffle brickwork.”

Memo by Kurt Prüfer, September 8, 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-09-08 Memo by Kurt Prüfer Discloses Auschwitz’s Planned Capacity to Incinerate 2,650 Corpses Daily – Deemed ‘Still Not Sufficient’

Memo by Topf & Söhne engineer Kurt Prüfer regarding a phone call with the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Economic and Administrative Main Office) on September 8, 1942. Prüfer reports that the Auschwitz concentration camp is planning for cremation ovens with a total capacity to incinerate 2,650 corpses per day. However, he notes that “this number of muffles is still not sufficient; we are to deliver more ovens as quickly as possible.”

Koppe to Brandt of 28 August 1942 on Furs from Chelmno Kulmhof extermination camp
Contemporary Source

1942-08-28 Letter from Koppe to Brandt on “furs collected during the action in Kulmhof” (Chelmno)

The letter dated 28 August 1942 discusses the transfer of furs confiscated from those murdered in Kulmhof (Chelmno) to the Waffen-SS, a branch of the Nazi military forces. According to the Higher SS and Police Leader in Posen, Wilhelm Koppe, a wagonload of “high-quality furs” had been delivered to Berlin for the benefit of the SS, with expectations of more to follow.

Contemporary Source

1942-08-13 Letter from Wolff to Ganzenmüller on Deportations of Jews to Treblinka Extermination Camp

The following document, dated August 13, 1942, is SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff’s response to an earlier letter from Albert Ganzenmüller, Deputy Director General of the German Reichsbahn, regarding the deportation of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. In his reply, Wolff expressed his appreciation that “for the past 14 days a train with 5,000 members of the chosen people has been traveling daily to Treblinka and that we are thus able to carry out this population movement at an accelerated pace”.

Report of 5 January 1944 by Globocnik to Himmler on Administration of Operation Reinhardt
Contemporary Source

1944-05-01 Report by Globocnik on the Administrative Processing of Operation Reinhardt

Odilo Globocnik’s report, enclosed in his January 5, 1944 letter to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, details the “administrative processing of Operation Reinhardt”. Globocnik highlighted that “all assets accrued from this operation were centrally recorded, organized, and booked by an administration set up by me.” These assets included large quantities of Reichsmarks, Zloty, jewelry, and clothing, which were primarily transferred to the state institutions. Globocnik estimated the total value of these assets to be minimum “approximately 180,000,000 Reichsmarks,” with “over 1,900 wagons delivered to the German industry alone.” As most Jews deported during Operation Reinhardt were murdered in the death camps at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, even “their food, transported with them, was used to supply Jewish camps.

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