Dr Gustav Herzog

Vienna IX., Platz der Sudetendeutschen 9

The Situation of the Jews in Buchenwald

On June 14th and 15th in 1938 a new group of prisoners came to Buchenwald, where until then only Reich Germans - political, professional criminals and asocials, including Bible students (Jehovah's Witnesses) - had been: Jews. With these thousand Jews, who came from the so-called social action, a new chapter in the history of Buchenwald began. Now the terror not only of the SS, but also of the criminal prisoners, which had hitherto been directed against political and allegedly asocial prisoners, could be let out on the Jews, who were of course a welcome object for them. Even these first Jews, who were housed in makeshift accommodation in the sheep stall, were only used for the heaviest camp work. A job under a roof, e.g. for tailors and shoemakers, was principally forbidden for Jews. Only work in the open air came into question, mainly transport work of the heaviest kind. The beatings and abuse of all kinds and also the senselessness of much of the work /heaps of stones were moved from one place to another/ made it clear right from the start that it was not always about any kind of work effectiveness, but rather that the extermination of the Jews was also being pursued, even if at that time it did not yet assume the proportions of later years.

The number of Jews in Buchenwald rose sharply over the next few months. On September 24th and 25th, 1938, 2,200 Austrian Jews arrived from Dachau, as well as a transport of 250 Jewish police prisoners from Vienna. The so-called Rathaktion brought in 10,474 Jews from all parts of Germany.

Being a Jew in Buchenwald was tantamount to being a scumbag of the lowest kind, a pariah. At the whim of the SS, the Jewish star was a death sentence in and of itself. The most brutal terror of the SS murderers was directed again and again against columns of Jews. The details of what Jews suffered in the gardens under Obersturmfuhrer Dumböck carrying shit, transporting the heaviest stones for road construction, in the quarry, in the convoys, clearing snow, lifting trees, stones and earth, would fill volumes. In the early days of the dominance of the criminal prisoners, the camp leadership found for the most part willing helpers for their crimes among these, one or the other of whom was a very good comrade. Block elders and Stubendienst, also on Jewish blocks, were career criminals who did their utmost to make the free time on the block a living hell for the defenceless prisoners handed over to them. Fat and meat were skimmed from the meagre food, the portions were cut, the worst frauds were committed in the distribution of food, money and personal property were taken by force - while the professional criminals feasted and splurged, the Jews, exhausted from their work, starved. Arbitrary murders for the smallest offences /the bed was not well made, a knife was dirty, a shoe not clean enough/ were the order of the day and the SS not only did not intervene, but supported all acts of terrorism through bribery, favouritism for the murderers. These conditions in the Jewish blocks suddenly improved /some had been properly managed by Reich German political prisoners/ when the outrageous deeds of some criminal block elders and inspectors of the camp management became too dangerous due to the entanglement of mutual corruption and in Jewish blocks on January 30, 1939 Jews themselves were employed as block elders and Stubendienst.

These included criminal and anti-social elements, and they participated in the murder and plunder of their fellow believers until they were eliminated by political Jews.

The camp administration used a variety of methods to decimate the Jews. In addition to the extremely difficult work briefly described, they managed to do this by introducing special fast days only for Jews, by reducing the scarce free time by forcing Jews to stand in punishment for hours on end until the night hours with simultaneous deduction of food, by closing the canteen, by frequent bans on admission and treatment in the hospital building, etc. led the physical condition of the Jews to get worse. It is obvious that this led to a constantly rising death rate among the Jews. All kinds of harassment and mistreatment by the work details led to multiple suicides out of desperation at the fact that life was no longer bearable. Every day, Jews from the stone-bearer detachment crossed the post chain to end the torture for themselves; others hanged themselves or opened their wrists.

The number of Jews swelled again and again due to constant new arrivals and the lack of potential releases overseas after the outbreak of war, though due to the circumstances described above, as well as due to dysentery and typhus epidemics, it also decreased considerably. In September 1939, 182 Czech Jews arrived, also in September a large transport of mostly invalid Jews from Dachau, numerous smaller transports and individual arrivals, 389 Dutch Jews in February 1941, etc. Special mention should be made of October 2, 1939, as 1048 stateless and Austrian Jews came, of whom only 27 are alive today. 44 were released.

The number of dead rose again, since only makeshift barracks and tents were now made available as accommodation. Sanitary and hygienic facilities were scarce. The camp doctor Dr. Eisele himself wrote down the numbers of bad-looking prisoners in the camp, ordered them to the infirmary and injected them personally.

Parallel to the murderous terror of the SS henchmen, there was a systematic plundering of material goods over the years. From the simple SS man, who worked on his own, to the camp commander, who made large-scale collections, everyone tried to enrich themselves personally, everyone plundered and robbed. I do not even mention the cases when the SS took gloves or linen from the Jewish blocks when they tried under threats to get money and cigarettes. But collections were ordered under the flimsiest of pretexts: an injured wolf from the commandant’s private zoo fetched over 8,000 marks, a deceased bear cost not much less, broken lampshades, disinfection of Jewish blocks allegedly infested with lice, soiled towels, broken crockery, etc. many thousands of marks were always collected. The plundering of 10,000 Jews in the Rathaktion in 1938 took place on the most generous scale. Cars and motorcycles were stolen under blackmail with a forced signature. Hundreds of thousands of marks from the collection flowed into the pockets of the SS.

A particularly gruesome chapter in Buchenwald’s history, so rich in murder and terror, was the liquidation of entire groups of Jews, two examples of which can be cited.

On the occasion of the alleged assassination attempt on Hitler in Munich's Hofbräukeller in 1939, a total of 21 mostly young and strong people were picked out at random from the Jewish blocks and shot in the quarry.

When in May 1941 the Viennese Social Democrat Hamber was murdered by drowning by Oberscharführer Abraham, and his brother reported as a witness to this brutal murder, all 31 Jewish workers of the commando were arrested and killed by the bunker boss Sommer.

The situation of the Jews improved when mostly political prisoners, risking their own lives, set up retraining courses for Jews, for example as bricklayers’ apprentices, and the Jews were somewhat protected by the trades.

The order of the Reich leadership, which was now being carried out, to exterminate the Jews in their entirety, made itself felt in Buchenwald as early as 1941. On July 13, 1941, alleged invalids, mostly Jews, and the next day 93, were sent to a gassing experiment and completely exterminated. In March 1942 in three transports, 285 Jews, many weak and sick, but also those who had somehow attracted the attention of the camp leadership, were sent on a gassing transport. With the deportation of 405 Jews on October 16, 1945, 230 Jews, exclusively bricklayers, remained in the Buchenwald camp.

Only in the early summer of 1944 did new Jews arrive. On May 24, 1944, 6,115 Hungarian Jews came, on August 3, 1944 5,745 Polish Jews and on August 11, 1350 Jews from Natzweiler. With the evacuation of the camps in the eastern regions, such as Auschwitz, Birkenau, Monowitz with subcamps, tens of thousands of Jews came to Buchenwald, the exact number of which can no longer be recorded. Thousands died of weakness and exhaustion from the transports, thousands were exterminated in Buchenwald’s subcamps, and of the more than 28,000 prisoners who were pressed onto transports and mostly liquidated on the streets before the camp was conquered by the Americans, about half were Jews.

On the day of liberation, April 11, 1945, about 4,000 Jews were still living in Buchenwald.

Documentační akci dal k dispozici pan Max Munk, Uherské Hradiště.

Weinberger

Tressler