Contents

Document 1

7 APRIL 1943

My beloved!

Before I leave this world, I want to leave behind a few lines to you, my loved ones. When this letter reaches you one day, I myself will no longer be there, nor will any of us. Our end is drawing near. One feels it, one knows it. Just like the innocent, defenseless Jews already executed, we are all condemned to death. In the very near future it will be our turn, as the small remainder left over from the mass murders. There is no way for us to escape this horrible, ghastly death.

26 APRIL 1943

I am still alive and I want to describe to you what happened from the 7th to this day. Now then, it is told that everyone’s turn comes up next. [By now], Galicia [is probably] totally rid of Jews... the ghetto is to be liquidated by the 1st of May. During the last days thousands have again been shot... before the grave[,] one is stripped naked, then forced to kneel down and wait for the shot. The [other] victims stand in line and wait... they have to sort the first, the executed, in the graves so that the space is used well and order prevails. The entire procedure does not take long. In half an hour the clothes of the executed return to the camp... Despite all these experiences, [t]he urge for self-preservation has now often become greater, the will to live stronger, the closer death is...

Document 2

They approached. Wirth and I, we were standing on the ramp in front of the death chambers. Completely nude, men, women, young girls, children, babies, cripples, filed by. At the corner stood a heavy SS man, who told the poor people... “No harm will come to you! You just have to breathe very deeply, that strengthens the lungs, inhaling is a means of preventing contagious diseases. It’s a good disinfection!” They asked what was going to happen... He told them: “The men will have to work, building roads and houses. But the women won’t be obliged to do so; they’ll do housework, cooking.” … this was a last small hope, enough to carry them, unresisting, as far as the death chambers. Most of them knew all, the odor confirmed it! They walked up the small wooden flight of stairs and entered the death chambers...

Inside the chambers, SS men crowd the people. “Fill them up well,” Wirth had ordered, “700 to 800 of them every 25 square meters.” The doors are shut.... After two hours and 49 minutes–the stop watch recorded it all–the diesel started. Up to that moment, the people shut up in those four crowded chambers were still alive, four times 750 persons in four times 45 cubic meters! Another 25 minutes elapsed. Many were already dead; that could be seen through the small window when an electric lamp inside lit up the chamber for a few moments.

After 28 minutes, only a few were still alive. Finally, after 32 minutes, all were dead.

Document 3

Article 1: Sterilization and Hereditary Disease

Any person with a hereditary disease may be rendered infertile if, according to the judgment of medical science, procreation by said person is likely to produce children who suffer from serious physical or mental hereditary defects.

A person with a hereditary disease is defined by this law as anyone who suffers from one of the following illnesses:

1. Congenital feeblemindedness
2. Schizophrenia
3. [Manic-depressive] insanity
4. Hereditary epilepsy
5. Hereditary Huntington’s chorea
6. Hereditary blindness
7. Hereditary deafness
8. Extreme hereditary physical deformity…

Article 12: Direct Compulsion

Once the court order for sterilization has been finalized, [the procedure] must be performed even without the consent of the patient to be sterilized, unless said person initiated the petition himself. The administrating physician shall be responsible for requesting necessary law enforcement measures from the department of police. Should these measures prove insufficient, the use of force shall be permitted.

Document 4

... the planned total measures (i.e., Endziel [the final aim]) are to be kept strictly secret.

Distinction must be made between:

1. the final aim (which will require extended periods of time) and
2. the stages leading to the fulfillment of this final aim (which will be carried out in short periods) ...

For the time being, the first prerequisite for the final aim is the concentration of the Jews from the countryside into the larger cities.

This is to be carried out speedily...

As far as possible... [certain] areas... are to be cleared of Jews; at least the aim should be to establish only a few cities of concentration. In [other areas], as few concentration centers as possible are to be set up, so as to facilitate subsequent measures. In this connection it should be borne in mind that only cities which are rail junctions, or are at least located on railroad lines, should be selected as concentration points.

On principle, Jewish communities of less than 500 persons are to be dissolved and transferred to the nearest concentration center...

For reasons of general police security, the concentration of the Jews in the cities will probably call for regulations in these cities that will forbid their entry to certain quarters completely and that—but with due regard to economic requirements—they may, for instance, not leave the ghetto, nor leave their homes after a certain hour in the evening, etc....

Document 5

Friday, September 4. Łódź.

Yesterday’s tragic news has turned out to be unfortunately true. The Germans are demanding all the children up to age ten, the elderly over sixty-five, and all other sick, swollen invalids, people unable to work, and those without employment. The panic... is incredible. Nobody’s working anywhere; everyone’s running to secure work assignments for those... who are unemployed; parents of the unfortunate children are trying to save them... The Registration Office was sealed after the lists were made, so that all rescue attempts by falsifying birth certificates... [or] death certificates... are failing.

Today, despite incredible difficulties, I managed as a clerk to get a work assignment for Mom... I am very worried about Mom because she’s terribly emaciated, shrunken, and weak... she still works in the garden most of the time, is not sick, and even cooks, cleans, and, if there’s need, does laundry at home.

The mood of panic is intensifying... All kinds of rumors are repeated from lips to lips that we should expect the worst.

Father’s cousin, who has a three-year-old girl and wants to save her, came to us... We’ve agreed to let her stay with her child, and even to let her whole family come down. They were afraid to stay at their home, not to be taken hostages for the child...

Document 6

The authorities posted their decrees... The last transports for the Többens and Schultz factories will take place tomorrow at 7 a.m. Anyone who stays will be shot...

Today no one will be able to get [away]... the streets are empty but for the sound of the [armed police] ... I turn around. They’re marching straight toward us, and the way back has been cut off. The Germans are rounding up everyone waiting to pass through the checkpoint... They aren’t letting any of the off-site workers through. I’m furious at myself for not making it back to my people...

The Germans... line us up—thirty to forty people—in ranks of four. They lead us outside the ghetto and herd us down Zelazna Street to the [command post]. That’s bad. We know what they do to people there. I’m too mad at myself for getting caught to be afraid. How could I be so stupid? One boy tries to escape and takes a series of bullets... He runs a few more meters, curling up like a cat. He’s writhing with pain; the Germans order us to carry him by his arms and legs... We wait next to the wall for the end, men on one side, women on the other. The wounded boy is howling... his brother asks the Germans to put him out of his misery but they just laugh. “You’ll all look like that in a minute...”

I know our side won’t give up easily; our people are ready to fight to the last, their only thought is to fell as many Germans as possible, to do their little part in the struggle for freedom, for human dignity.

Document 7