Operation Reinhard The Personnel
Preparations for Operation Reinhard were initiated more than six
months before Himmler's order to commence the Aktion and at the
latest two months prior to the Wannsee Conference. The first tasks
were to organize the labor force and to construct the extermination
centers. Upon completion of his task, Globocnik, in a letter dated
October 27, 1943 to the Personnel Headquarters in Berlin, provided a
detailed report, which sets out the total number of personnel
involved in this operation -- 434 men. (Original in the US
Documentation Center, Berlin.)
In the construction and handling of the gassing installations,
experienced former workers from the "Euthanasia" programs occupied
leading positions in the planning, building, and administration of
the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka extermination camps. In the late
autumn of 1941 the Belzec and later the Sobibor and Treblinka
extermination camps were set up, as was a training ca np for
"foreign" personnel -- Ukrainian volunteers -- in Trawniki, as well as
the camp in the "old airport" of Lublin where the clothes and movable
belongings of the victims were stored.
As head of the main department on Globocnik's staff, SS-Sturmbannführer Ho"fle was responsible for organizing and deploying
the work force. He also coordinated the timing of the arrival of the
extermination transports at the different camps. During the first
months of Operation Reinhard, all extermination camps were under
Globocnik's direct control; at the beginning of August 1942 Christian
Wirth was appointed Inspector of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
(The documents do not specify that Wirth's area of command extended
also to Kulmhof.)
About twenty to thirty SS-men served in each camp. Most of them had
formerly been engaged in the "Euthanasia" Operation. The camp
commandants held the rank of SS-Ober- or Hauptsturmführer. The
others also held noncommissioned officer ranks. No rank-and-file
SS-men were employed in any of the camps.
Units composed of Ukrainians with some volksleutsche (ethnic Germans)
were assigned to assist the German camp personnel. The formation and
training of such units took place in the "Trawniki SS-Training-Camp"
which had been set up in the autumn of 1941. Afterwards, they were
distributed among the camps in groups of 60 to 120 men with their own
leaders, usually ethnic Germans. Some of the units assembled in
Trawniki were also brought into action in the ghettoes during the
deportation of Jews, for example, at the time of the transportation
of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka extermination
camp. (StA Wiesbaden AZ: 8Js 1145-60 with plentiful evidence <see
indictment, p. 329>; verdict in the criminal proceedings StA Hamburg
AZ: 147 Ks 2/75 of 17.5.1976 <ZSL Misc. vol. 519>.) The first Jews
brought to the camps were those from the vicinity. They were used
for construction work and also performed various services for the
German camp personnel. They were generally skilled workers or
craftsmen such as carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors, and shoemakers.
As soon as the construction phase was completed, most of them were
killed in trial gassings.
When the organized mass gassings began, the camp administration
needed more and more workers from amongst the death transports. A
few, especially skilled workers, were employed in the extermination
camps according to the specific directives of the German and
Ukrainian camp leaders. Others had to work in the gas chambers,
removing and incinerating the corpses, and also sorting the clothes
and baggage of the victims. In the initial period, in particular,
they were kept alive for only a few days or weeks before being killed
and replaced by Jews from newly arrived transports. In each of the
camps the Jewish labor force consisted of 600 to 1,000 prisoners. At
a later stage Jewish prisoners became part of the permanent staff of
the camp. While members of the German or Ukrainian camp personnel
were occasionally transferred to other camps, once Jewish prisoners
had entered a camp they never left it again.
[
Previous |
Index |
Next ]
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.
The Extermination
Camps
of
Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka