Action Jews

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The 30,000 or so after the pogrom night of 9/10 November 1938 denotes Jews displaced within the region or the country in Germany and Austria . In the days after the pogrom, the NSDAP organizations and the police took them to the Buchenwald , Dachau and Sachsenhausen concentration camps , mostly without explanation . This put pressure on the displaced persons and their relatives in order to accelerate the emigration from their homeland and to be able to “ Aryanize ” Jewish assets . The vast majority of those arrested were released by the beginning of 1939. Around 500 Jews did not survive their stay in the concentration camps; they died from suicide or from inadequate care or from the consequences of abuse.

The designation by the perpetrators as action Jews was common, according to contemporary witnesses, at least in Buchenwald concentration camp. Presumably the name was derived from Aktion Rath , as the pogrom was sometimes called.

Commands

Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary that Adolf Hitler himself had ordered the arrest of 25,000 to 30,000 Jews. In the late evening of November 9, 1938, Heinrich Müller announced the planned "actions against the Jews" to the Stapo offices . The arrest of 20,000 to 30,000 mainly wealthy Jews should be prepared. In the early morning hours of November 10th, Reinhard Heydrich forwarded an order from Heinrich Himmler to all the state police control centers and SD chiefs . As many healthy male Jews - "especially wealthy" and "not too old" - were to be arrested in all districts as could be accommodated in the existing cells. Ill-treatment was prohibited.

Arrest operation

The arrest began immediately on November 10 and was discontinued on November 16 by an order from Heydrich. In addition to the Gestapo and the local police, the SA, SS and even the National Socialist Motor Corps were active.

Heydrich's precise specifications were hardly taken into account. On November 11th, an express order was issued to immediately release women and children arrested in the operation. On November 16, the discharge of sick people and those over sixty was ordered.

Most of the male Jews were arrested in their homes, but there were also arrests at work, in hotels, schools and at train stations. While the deployment of police officers in large cities was usually formally correct and without additional humiliation or abuse, insults, kicks and blows were commonplace elsewhere. Some of the arrested people were forced to sing National Socialist songs and exhaustive physical exercises and were led through the city in "disgraceful parades". Most of the Jews who were “in protective custody ” were held in police stations, prisons, gyms or schools for the first two to three days and then transferred to concentration camps.

The historian Wolfgang Benz explains that up to 10,000 Jews remained in prisons or local assembly points because there were insufficient accommodation options in concentration camps. Reliable figures on this as well as comprehensive information on their release from prison or their length of imprisonment are not tangible and represent a research deficit.

Transfer to concentration camp

Most of the prisoners arrived in the three concentration camps of Dachau , Sachsenhausen and Buchenwald in the first two to three days after the pogrom night . Further transports from Vienna arrived by November 22nd. The "action Jews" from Berlin were driven to the Sachsenhausen camp gate in trucks. Others were transferred by bus, train or suburban train and then on foot. For Dachau the admission of 10,911 Jews is documented, for Buchenwald it was 9,845 and for Sachsenhausen the number is estimated at 6,000. The total number of all those imprisoned in concentration camps had thus doubled in one fell swoop.

In many cases, the prisoners were exposed to the brutality of the escort forces during the transport. According to some reports, when they arrived in Dachau and Buchenwald, “almost all prisoners” showed traces of injuries, some of which were severe, which they had suffered during or after their arrest. Others testified that accompanying police officers had behaved correctly or even showed pity.

Camp stay

A humiliating admission procedure with standing roll calls for hours, undressing, hair scissors and putting on prisoner clothes had a shocking effect on the victims and is widely described in contemporary witness reports. Civil values ​​and honorary titles suddenly no longer applied. This created feelings of degradation, lack of rights and being exposed.

The accommodation in Buchenwald was completely inadequate, where five windowless barracks were each occupied by 2,000 “Action Jews” and there were initially no sanitary facilities. The daily routine was divided into three roll calls, which often lasted for hours and became torture in the rain and cold. Sometimes the detainees had to exercise and do senseless and physically strenuous work. In Dachau, the number of registered deaths rose disproportionately.

Release from prison

The length of imprisonment varied widely. From the end of November 1938, 150 to 250 "action Jews" were released every day. On January 1, 1939, 1,605 Jews were still imprisoned in Buchenwald and 958 in Sachsenhausen.

The reports of the “action Jews” show that they could not identify any system or criteria for the dismissals. On November 28, 1938, the release of young people under the age of sixteen was ordered, as well as that of “ front-line fighters ”. From December 12, inmates over 50 and from December 21, preferably Jewish teachers, were to be dismissed. Others gained their freedom because their plans to leave the country were already well advanced or their visas threatened to expire. Still others were released immediately after their villa was transferred. Jewish car owners whose driving license had been withdrawn from December 3, 1938, were pressured into selling their car at a ridiculous price. Anyone who refused to accept such a request could still be unexpectedly called for dismissal.

consequences

The number of “action Jews” who died in the concentration camp was at least 185 in Dachau, 233 in Buchenwald and 80 to 90 in Sachsenhausen. The main causes of the deaths are reported in physical overexertion, septic diseases, pneumonia, and a lack of prescribed medication as well as called diet. Many men suffered the consequences of the detention conditions and fell ill after they were released. In the Jewish Hospital Berlin 600 Notamputationen had to be made that were necessary because of untreated wounds and frostbite.

Relatives noticed psychological changes in their returning husbands. Speechlessness, insomnia, fear and shame were often the reaction to the sudden loss of civil reputation, the brutal attacks and the experience of absolute powerlessness and lack of rights.

The halfway regulated emigration turned into a panic escape. Families were forced to separate in order to flee individually to a foreign country or at least to remove the children from Germany. At least 18,000 were brought to Great Britain, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands or Switzerland with Kindertransport .

literature

  • Barbara Distel : "The last serious warning against annihilation". On the deportation of the “action Jews” to the concentration camps after November 9, 1938. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft. 46, 11, 1998, ISSN  0044-2828 , pp. 985-990.
  • Wolfgang Benz : Members of the prisoner society on time. "The Action Jews" 1938/39. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (Red.): Prisoner Society. Verlag Dachauer Hefte, Dachau 2005, ISBN 3-9808587-6-6 , pp. 179-196 ( Dachauer Hefte. 21).
  • Heiko Pollmeier: Imprisonment and camp experience of German Jews in November 1938. In: Yearbook for anti-Semitism research. 8 (1999), ISBN 3-593-36200-7 , pp. 105-130.
  • Never go back to this country. Eyewitnesses report on the November pogroms in 1938. Uta Gerhardt / Thomas Karlauf Propylänen, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-549-07361-2 .

swell

  • The “action Jews” in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Eyewitness report by Siegfried Katzmann. In: Attacks - magazine for art and culture. Issue 1, November 1985, ISSN  0178-9937
  • Paul Martin Neurath on illness and death in the concentration camp in 1938. Document VEJ . 2/229 In: Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939. Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523 -0 , pp. 634-638.
  • Siegfried Neumann reports on his imprisonment in Sachsenhausen at the end of 1938. Document VEJ. 2/227 In: Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (source collection) Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939. Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523 -0 , pp. 621-632.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (ed.): The Place of Terror - History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps , Vol. 1: The Organization of Terror, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-406-52961-0 , p. 156 and p. 161.
  2. ↑ Kim Wünschmann: Before Auschwitz - Jewish prisoners in the prewar concentration camps , Harvard University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-0674967595 , p. 168.
  3. ^ Wolfgang Benz: Members of the prisoner society ... , p. 179.
  4. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Members of the prisoner society for a time. "The Action Jews" 1938/39 . In: Dachauer Hefte. 21 (2005), ISBN 3-9808587-6-6 , p. 187.
  5. ↑ Stefanie Schüler-Springorum : mass admissions to concentration camps. In: Wolfgang Benz, Barbara Distel (eds.): The place of terror . History of the National Socialist Concentration Camps. Volume 1: The Organization of Terror. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52961-5 , p. 161 with note 2 on p. 164.
  6. ↑ Diary entry for the evening of November 9, 1938 - Document VEJ 2/363 in: Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (source collection) Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939 , Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , p. 365
  7. ^ Document PS-374 in: IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, vol. 25, ISBN 3-7735-2521-4 , p. 376f / also VEJ 2/125
  8. ^ Document PS-3051 in: IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals… , fotomech. Reprint Munich 1989, vol. 31, ISBN 3-7735-2524-9 , p. 517 / also VEJ 2/126.
  9. ^ Heiko Pollmeier: Imprisonment and camp experience of German Jews in November 1938 . In: Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung 8 (1999), ISBN 3-593-36200-7 , p. 108.
  10. ^ Wolfgang Benz: Members of the prisoner society ... , p. 191.
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Benz: Members of the prisoner society ... , p. 180.
  12. ↑ Heiko Pollmeier: Imprisonment and camp experience ... , p. 111.
  13. ↑ Barbara Distel: "The last serious warning before annihilation" ... , p. 986.
  14. ↑ Heiko Pollmeier: Imprisonment and camp experience ... , p. 110.
  15. ↑ 17 deaths from August to October, 187 from November to January when the number of prisoners doubled. Compare Barbara Distel: "The last serious warning before annihilation" ... , p. 987f.
  16. ↑ Heiko Pollmeier: Imprisonment and camp experience ... , p. 116.
  17. ^ Wolfgang Benz: Members of the prisoner society ... , p. 191.
  18. ↑ Barbara Distel: "The last serious warning before annihilation" ... , p. 989.
  19. ↑ Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (source collection) Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939. Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , p 56.
  20. ↑ Heiko Pollmeier: Imprisonment and camp experience ... , p. 117.
  21. ↑ Susanne Heim (edit.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933-1945 (source collection) Volume 2: German Reich 1938 - August 1939. Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-486-58523-0 , p 45.