Archive/File: people/e/eichmann.adolf/transcripts/Sessions/Session-077-04
Last-Modified: 1999/06/08

Dr. Servatius I  now come to a different chapter.  These are
the files of the Gestapo, Police Station Wuerzburg,
beginning with exhibit T/753, document No. 1284. These files
contain a local segment of two larger operations that appear
in later documents, namely the transportation of about
twenty thousand Jews to Riga-Minsk and twenty thousand, I
think, to Litzmannstadt (Lodz).  The first communication,
dated 22 September 1942, is addressed to the Field Branch
Wuerzburg and deals with the change of residence of Jews to
Theresienstadt.  This communication mentions the Special
Account W from which the cost of transportation is being
paid here.

Witness, would you explain how this can be reconciled with
the idea that the money was to benefit the Jews?

Accused:    I already said before that, all of a sudden,
practically everything was paid from this Special Account W,
which otherwise would have had to be paid, at any event in
part, by the Reich Treasury.  The person decreeing an
evacuation - which could have been Heydrich, later on
Kaltenbrunner or Himmler - had to name the final
destination, as well as from where they were being
evacuated, and suddenly the authorities invariably came up
with the question: Yes, but who is going to pay for it all?
Normally, when the Reich Minister of the Treasury had to
pay, a corresponding, complicated procedure had to be set in
motion.  Special Account W did away with this involved
administrative procedure, because the Chief simply gave the
order, "from Special Account W," and that is how it was
paid.

Dr. Servatius:  The next communication is T/752, document
No. 1294.  It is a a telegram from the Accused to State
Police Nuremberg/Fuerth, dated 19 September 1942, and deals
with transportation to Theresienstadt.  It refers to
guidelines and makes various arrangements.

Witness, do these arrangements which you make here not
contradict each other?  Would you express your position on
the various points, 1, 2 and 3?

Accused:    Yes.  According to orders for carrying out the
evacuation, guidelines had to be issued to the different
State Police branches and main State Police branches of the
units charged with carrying out the deportation.  These
guidelines were not drawn up from one day to the next, but
came into being in the course of time.  The key words,
conditions and demands were, on many occasions, made
personally by Himmler, supplemented by the personal wishes
of persons such as Heydrich, Kaltenbrunner or Mueller, etc.
As to the three points mentioned in this telegram, they, so
to speak, represent exceptions to these guidelines.  They do
not constitute contradictions.

Dr. Servatius:  I shall put the contradictions to you which,
in my view, need to be clarified.  Point 1 permits taking
along nursing staff to Theresienstadt under certain
conditions.  In point 2 permission is not granted for anyone
to join the transport voluntarily, and point 3 does not give
a ruling on whether parents to be evacuated may remain with
their daughter; the decision is left to the discretion of
the local authorities.  Would you explain  these points?

Accused:    Point 1 represents a relaxation, because the
guidelines obviously do not allow for an escort of nursing
staff.  There certainly had been no such cases, so there is
a query on that.  It is, so to say, an extension of the
guidelines to permit nursing staff, provided that the
persons meet the criteria of the guidelines for the transfer
of residence by Jews to Theresienstadt.  Hence, there is
certainly no contradiction here to the guidelines.

Point 2: Here someone presented himself for voluntary
deportation to Theresienstadt.  This could not be approved,
because the person in question fitted neither the guidelines
for evacuation to the East nor those for transfer of
residence to Theresienstadt.  This person - Israel Fels -
was not allowed to be evacuated but had to remain within the
Reich.  Hence, this, too, does not contradict the existing
guidelines.

As to point 3, the decision whether a family, part of which
had fallen ill, was to be torn apart, that, too, was not
provided for in the guidelines.  The State Police branch
therefore sent a query, and it was intimated to it that, for
the time being, it would be better if the parents were to
nurse their daughter, and that otherwise the matter was to
be left to local discretion.  In my view, this, too, in no
way diverges from the guidelines, unless it be considered to
supplement them.

Dr. Servatius:  I now come to exhibit T/722, document No.
737.  This is a circular letter of the Reich Association of
the Jews in Germany, Berlin, to the Jewish Religious
Associations, dated 1 December 1941; it deals with
restrictions on the disposal of the movable property of
Jews.  It is a detailed regulation about the disposal of
movable property with official permission, given only in
exceptional cases.

The Accused has already explained his position on this basic
question, regarding who is this supervisory authority and
who initiates these matters, and I shall not ask him
anything further on this subject.

Exhibit T/750, document No. 1292, is a decree of the State
Police, Nuremberg-Fuerth branch, concerning the
sequestration of property.  Problems arose here because the
Reich Citizenship Law does not really apply, since the
persons about to be evacuated are not leaving the boundaries
of the Reich, because they are apparently going to
Theresienstadt, which is on the Austrian border.  Reference
is made here to an earlier law dated 14 July 1933, which
permits sequestration of property of persons hostile to the
nation and the state.  This required a decision.

Witness, who determined whether the property was of a person
hostile to the nation or the state?

Accused:    The actual decision was, anyway, not made by the
police, as is clearly shown, I think, in the Duesseldorf
Files.

Dr. Servatius:  I shall refer to these Duesseldorf Files
later; they are these four volumes.

Presiding Judge: But, Dr. Servatius, we see that the
instructions for sequestration come from the Secret State
Police.  That is on the last page of this document.

Dr. Servatius:  But it has already been established that
such property is concerned.  We shall see from the
Duesseldorf Files that a decree by the Reich Minister of the
Interior exists here, on which the Regional Governor
(Regierungspraesident) refers, determining general direction
for cases of persons to whom this decree can no longer be
transmitted because they had committed suicide, that their
property is always considered to be of persons hostile to
the nation.

Judge Raveh:   Can you remember who communicated these
statements?  Who transmitted this general directive to the
District Governor?

Dr. Servatius:  That emerges from the Duesseldorf Files; I
am going to discuss this matter when I shall deal with the
particular document stating who decreed it, and how it was
handled.

The next exhibit is T/724, document No. 1283.  This, too,
deals in detail with Account W.  Finally, I should still
like to mention just one point.

Witness, it says at the end: "In the spirit of point three
of this regulation, care should be taken that, with future
transports, the deportation lists be handed over in time to
make the donations possible."  What is the purpose of this
hurry to obtain the lists?  Would you state your position on
that?

Accused:    On reading this sentence, I should point out
that this is not a matter of the evacuating agencies handing
over the deportation lists to the Head Office for Reich
Security, but apparently of handing over - promptly handing
over - of the deportation lists to the relevant district
branches or to the Religious Associations, or to the Reich
Association, so as to enable them to discuss this matter of
the donation with the Jews to be deported.  According to the
principle which I mentioned earlier, it is anyway forfeited
to the Reich, according to Regulation 11.  Thus, by means of
a donation - to put it vulgarly - save whatever can be
saved.

Dr. Servatius:  That is to say, the Jews were unable to save
anything for themselves, but merely for the branch office
which may, perhaps, at some time use some of it for their
benefit?

Accused:    No, for the Jewish institutions.

Dr. Servatius:  I now come to exhibit T/717, document No.
1276.

Interpreter: I should point out that I did not hear the last
reply of the Accused to the question asked by Counsel fo the
Defence.

Dr. Servatius:  Witness, would you take care to speak more
slowly.  It is to your own disadvantage if you speak too
quickly, because, with the best will in the world, the
interpreter is unable to translate.

Accused:    Yes.

Presiding Judge: I do not think, Dr. Servatius, that
anything has got lost because of fast speech.  The question
referred to the arguments which you presented just now.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit is T/717, document No.
1276.  It is a communication of the Nuremberg Gestapo dated
19 November 1941.  At the top of page 2, it says: "Payment
for the actual expenditure incurred until the arrival in
Nuremberg is to be taken care of by the local police
authorities."  It then says: "Possibly, a special levy is to
be imposed on the Jews to be evacuated."

Witness, how is this special levy that is being imposed here
to be explained, apart from the donations to Account W.?

Accused:    I do not know; after all, twenty years have
passed since then, but I can explain it.  In any case, it
has to be a local regulation.  This local regulation will
and can have come about through the relevant Higher SS and
Police Leader having been asked for permission.  He then
gave the order, because this does not so much concern the
police authorities of the Gestapo, as I believe follows from
the text, but rather the accompanying Order Police, and the
latter now saw to it, quite naturally, through official
channels, from where they were now somehow going to get the
money for this transport.

Dr. Servatius:  It then says at the bottom of page 2 that,
in addition to stoves, cauldrons, etc., for every hundred
Jews...no, that in each case one reel of barbed wire was to
be taken along.  How is that to be explained?

Accused:    The only way I can explain this is that some
request must have preceded it on the part of the office in
Prague or Theresienstadt, rather Theresienstadt via Prague,
that, for some purpose or other, barbed wire was needed
which, at that time, was a controlled commodity.  The
purpose for which barbed wire was needed in Theresienstadt I
do not know.

Judge Raveh:   Where does it say that it was Theresienstadt?

Dr. Servatius:  It does not say so in the document itself,
but it can be gathered from the circumstances and from the
context?

Attorney General: I have no wish to interfere in the course
of the examination-in-chief, but I would ask the Court to
point out to Counsel for the Defence that it is the Accused,
and not Counsel for the Defence, who must reply to the
questions.

Presiding Judge: It was perhaps Counsel for the Defence who
was being addressed.

Attorney General: In the year 1941, Theresienstadt did not
yet exist, so that it could not have been Theresienstadt.
Presiding Judge: It says here: "The Settlement Offices in
the East" (Ansiedlungsdienststellen im Osten).

Accused:    That is so, I must correct myself.  When I read
this, and at the bottom it said, "cauldrons and windowpanes,
and all those things," I assumed that it would be
Theresienstadt, but that is a mistake on my part.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit is T/720, document No.
1277.  This deals with a transport of one thousand Jews from
Nuremberg-Fuerth.  There is a reference to a decree by the
Reich Leader of the SS, dated 31 October 1941, with the file
reference IVB4.

Presiding Judge: On what page is this?

Dr. Servatius:  On page 1, the first sentence.  Witness, the
file reference leads one to assume that your office issued
these organizational instructions.  Would you state your
position on this?  I must correct myself, the actual
organizational instructions came from Nuremberg from that
same office, but it refers to the decree which orders the
evacuation.

Accused:    My Section had to pass on, through the official
channels, the evacuation orders which the Chief of the
Security Police and the Security Service, in certain
instances Himmler himself, had given.  These orders merely
gave the numbers to be evacuated, the destination, date,
timetable, and the necessary arrangements with the Order
Police, as regards train escort and such things.  Well, the
further down this is passed on, the more the respective
offices refine and elaborate on such official instructions,
as is common with the police and the military.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit I shall discuss is T/664,
document No. 1281.  These are guidelines for the technical
execution of the evacuation of Jews to the
Generalgouvernement.  The guidelines are not dated.

Witness, were these guidelines issued by your office?

Accused:    Although there is neither a signature nor a
letter-heading, I can infer from the text, from the
contents, that they were indeed put together by my
administrative office, on the basis of orders and
instructions which had come from the departments that had
given the orders.

Dr. Servatius:  The next exhibit is T/740, document No.
1290.  This is a telegram to IVB4 concerning the departure
of the transport from Nuremberg.

Witness, can you say where the large sum of 47,750 Marks
comes from, which the transport escort is taking along?
Those are the last lines but one on the last page.

Accused:    Every Jew who was evacuated had to pay 50 Marks.
That much I still know.  That is to say, it came back to me
when I read about it somewhere, somewhere in the documents.

Dr. Servatius:  I am passing over exhibit T/739, which I had
intended to refer to, and come to exhibit T/721, document
No. 1286.  It gives two lists of belongings taken away from
the Jews during a search of their hand-luggage and a body
search.  Receipt for these things on behalf of the Senior
Head of the Finance Administration (Oberfinanzpraesident) in
Mainfranken is acknowledged, signed in both cases.

Witness, has it ever come to your knowledge that a Senior
Head of the Finance Administration objected, and did not
accept these articles?

Accused:    No.

Dr. Servatius:  I shall skip three exhibits which are on my
list and come to T/742, document No. 1280.  This is an
express letter from Mueller to IVB4a concerning the
Litzmannstadt (Lodz) and Riga-Minsk evacuation operation,
dated 21 May 1942.  At the top of page 2 of this
communication, it says: "In order to exploit to the utmost
the possibilities for reception still available in the East
for an additional evacuation, I request you to state the
number of Jews still remaining within the area of your
office, and who, while observing the strictest attention to
the guidelines, can still be evacuated."

Were you responsible for this insistence on stepping up the
evacuation?

Accused:    No.  The date, 21 May 1942, is remarkable.
There is evidence also in other documents for what I am
going to say now.  After Stalingrad, a considerable effort
is apparent on the part of the organs of the Reich
leadership, to force the pace of the deportations by every
possible means.  I assume that this, too, was a way, on the
part of the Reich leadership, to create a diversion.  The
document itself shows that I was not able either to order or
to call off a deportation.  My superiors did that.

Presiding Judge: What is the meaning of the word "Anlekund"
(diversion) which the Accused used?

Accused:    By that word, Your Honour, the Presiding Judge,
I mean to give expression to the political aspect that it
was obviously considered necessary, in particular by the
central propaganda organs of the Reich, gradually to divert
the attention of the people, the public, from the Stalingrad
defeat.  Certainly, they fell back on the old device that
some guilty party or other must be found, though, in this
instance, the guilty one was not explicitly mentioned.  Yet
merely the movement, the fact that the Reich commanded
deportations, provided an additional welcome occasion for
the Reich Ministry of Propaganda to pursue these matters
energetically.  At that time, the central Reich authorities
issued the relevant orders, not only in Germany, but also in
other countries, in France in particular.

Judge Halevi:  When did Stalingrad take place?

Accused:    I do not, at this moment, remember the day, but
it must have been February or March, 1942.

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