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Protocol of August 1, 1941 on Jews liquidated by Lithuanian collaborators.
Contemporary Source

1941-08-01 Nazi High-Level Meeting on Occupied Eastern Europe: 10,000 Jews liquidated in Lithuania

On August 1, 1941, Reich Minister Alfred Rosenberg led a high-level meeting to discuss the governance of Nazi-occupied territories in Eastern Europe. Hinrich Lohse, the Reichskommissar for Ostland and Gauleiter of Schleswig-Holstein, reported that “approximately 10,000 Jews had been liquidated by the Lithuanian population”. Lohse emphasized that, following Hitler’s directive, “the Jews should be completely removed from this area”.

Contemporary Source

1942-09-30 Poison and Human Soap – SS Investigator Interrogates Member of Sonderkommando Dirlewanger

Interrogation report dated September 30, 1942, documenting the questioning of SS-Oberscharführer Heinrich Feiertag by an SS court officer regarding allegations against Oskar Dirlewanger, infamous leader of the “Sonderkommando Dirlewanger”, known for its brutality on the Eastern Front. In his testimony, Feiertag acknowledged “hearing rumors about the poisoning of Jews with strychnine”. When confronted with accusations that he was involved in producing soap from human fat, he dismissed them as “slander spoken against me” and stated, “I only shot one Jew, so I would have been lacking material of this origin”.

Report of May 14, 1943 on Nazi Fears of Vatican Leak
Contemporary Source

1943-05-14 Nazi Fears of a Vatican Leak: Schellenberg Reports British Plans to Publicize Atrocities in Poland

In May 1943, Walter Schellenberg, head of RSHA Office VI (Ausland – SD-Ausland), informed the German Foreign Office of Britain’s plan to publish a “White Paper on the alleged German atrocities against Jews and Catholics in Poland.” The Nazis feared that the Vatican might supply the British with supporting evidence that leaked “during a visit by an Italian group to Russia, material relating to this matter could have made its way to Italy”.

Record of May 5, 1944
Contemporary Source

1944-05-05 The Feldscher Aktion Reveals the Decimation of Jewish Children in the Nazi-occupied East

The Feldscher Aktion, named after Swiss diplomat Peter Anton Feldscher, represented a significant diplomatic effort by the British government during World War II to secure the emigration of 5,000 Jewish individuals, primarily children, from Nazi-controlled territories. In a memo dated May 5, 1944, Eberhard von Thadden, the Jewish Affairs Referent of the German Foreign Office, noted that “the Reich Security Main Office confidentially communicated that the 5,000 Jewish children eligible for emigration were now only available in the Litzmannstadt ghetto. However, this ghetto would soon be dissolved by order of the Reichsführer-SS.”

Memo of May 17, 1943
Contemporary Source

1943-05-15 Opera and Gas-Chamber: Italian Fascist Delegation’s Visit to Nazi-Occupied Minsk

Between 20 and 29 September 1942, an Italian delegation led by Fascist Party secretary Aldo Vidussoni traveled from Milan through Litzmannstadt, Brest-Litowsk, Minsk, and Kharkov, reaching Millerovo near Rostov. Vidussoni’s account, recorded in Mussolini’s Secretariat documents, notes that “in Minsk, at the Opera Theater, we saw the belongings of thousands and thousands of murdered Jews piled up” and that “what struck the Italians the most was the method of killing”. In mid-May 1943, the German Foreign Office learnt about the incident from a report that Wilhelm Kube, the Generalkommissar for Belarus, had shown the Italian fascist delegation in Minsk “a gas chamber where the killing of Jews was supposedly carried out.” At the time, in September 1942, homicidal gas vans were actively operating near Minsk.

Memo of 8 July 1942
Contemporary Source

1942-07-08 Iron and Fuel: Sonderkommando Kulmhof’s Negotiations with the Ghetto Lodz Administration on Supplies for Extermination Operations

On 8 July 1942, Albert Plate from the Sonderkommando Kulmhof discussed with the Ghetto Lodz Administration regarding the supply of cement, iron girders, and railroad tracks necessary for constructing open-air cremation furnaces in the forest camp of the extermination site. The Sonderkommando required a total of 30 tons of iron. In turn, Plate committed provision of 2,000 kg of diesel fuel to the Ghetto Lodz Administration to fuel the trucks used for transporting the belongings of murdered Jews to the sorting camp in Pabianice. Later, Ghetto Administration head Hans Biebow confirmed with Sonderkommando leader Hans Bothmann that they would receive 5,000 liters each of gasoline and diesel fuel.

Memo of October 18, 1944
Contemporary Source

1944-10-18 Insights from RSHA Memo: Polish people “fear that they, similar to the Jewish people, are to be annihilated in their ethnic substance”

Memo by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Strickner, head of RSHA Department III (Volkstum, or Ethnicity), analyzing occupation policy from 1939 to 1944 and outlining considerations for reorganizing Polish policy. The document, dated October 18, 1944, explores various approaches to manage the Polish population, with a particular focus on the Generalgouvernement. Strickner notes that “a final and official decision on the ultimate fate of the Polish people was not reached” and the Polish people “fear that they, similar to the Jewish people, are to be annihilated in their ethnic substance.”

Report of the Cash Office of Operation Reinhardt
Contemporary Source

1944-01-05 Report of the Cash Office of Operation Reinhardt

Operation Reinhardt (also Reinhard), a Nazi campaign to exterminate Jews in the Generalgouvernement region of occupied Poland, systematically seized the property of Jewish victims. According to a report by the Cash Office of Operation Reinhardt, a total of 178,745,960.59 Reichsmarks (RM) was confiscated from April 1, 1942, to December 15, 1943. The report is a supplementary to the report by Odilo Globocnik on the Economic Part of Operation Reinhard enclosed to his letter to the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler dated January 5, 1944.

Contemporary Source

1942-12-29 Himmler’s Report to Hitler on the Execution of 363,211 Jews in Four Months

On December 29, 1942, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler delivered a report to Adolf Hitler, mentioning the execution of 363,211 Jews within only four months, between August and November of that year. Himmler’s report, known as report no. 51 to the Führer on Bandit Fighting, provides one of the clearest examples of high-level documentation of the Holocaust.

Letter from April 16, 1942
Contemporary Source

1943-04-16 A Missing Drive Belt Unveils Łódź Ghetto Administration’s Complicity in Chełmno Operations

On April 16, 1943, Hans Biebow, head of the Nazi’s Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto Administration, penned a letter to Friedrich Ribbe regarding the retrieval of a “transmission belt” promised by Sonderkommando Kulmhof. His letter contained a revealing remark that inadvertently exposed the Ghetto Administration’s complicity in the Chełmno extermination process: “The Gestapo has us to thank that the operation out there in K[ulmhof] ran smoothly.” Biebow urged Ribbe to discuss the issue with Alfons Rosse, the deputy head of the Gestapo in Litzmannstadt. Ribbe’s inquiry revealed that the transmission belt is no longer available, as it has been taken by SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, the commander of Aktion 1005.

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