I am amazed and equally appalled that so little is known about this awful event which took place only a few days before Hitler’s suicide, and less than a month before the end of WWII in Europe. Maybe that is why it is only a footnote in history.
Prisoners, 2,862 Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Dutch, and French nationals, from the Salzgitter-Drütte and Salzgitter-Bad satellite camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp were loaded onto goods cars on 7 April 1945 and transported north. This transport had joined others the day before, making the total count around 3,420 men and women.
At the goods station in Celle on the night of 8 April 1945, the train carrying 3,420 prisoners was hit by American bombs. Several hundred prisoners died from the resulting explosion of a nearby munitions train and because they were unable to leave the train cars in which they had been locked.
Those who were able to escape from the train were hunted down by the SS, the police, members of the Wehrmacht and the Volkssturm, the local Hitler Youth and some residents of Celle. 200 to 300 prisoners were shot or beaten to death.
The prisoners who were caught and survived were detained on the spot near the Neustadt wood. Some 30 persons were executed on suspicion of looting. Most of the surviving prisoners were marched to Bergen-Belsen, while others were detained at the army’s Heide barracks. Of the approximately 3,420 prisoners who had been in Celle on 8 April only 487 survivors reached Bergen-Belsen on the morning of 10 April — the same day British forces entered Celle. Some prisoners may have been shot on the 25 km march to the camp, some died at Heidekaserne military barracks nearby, left to die with no food, water or medication. They were discovered by 15th Infantry Division, British 2nd Army, on 10 April.
Bergen Belsen was liberated on April 15,1945.
Only 14 military and police personnel and political leaders were tried in the Celle Massacre Trial, which began in December 1947. Seven were acquitted of murder or accessory to murder because of insufficient evidence, whereas four were found guilty as perpetrators and sentenced to between four and ten years in prison. In addition, three were sentenced to death. One of the death sentences was overturned on appeal and the other two were reduced to 15–20 years’ imprisonment as part of a clemency issued by the British military governor. All those imprisoned were released by October 1952 for good behaviour.
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Jacob was born on October 19,1934 in Amsterdam. He was the youngest child and only son of Rachel Morpurgo-Kijl and Abraham Morpurgo. He had 2 siblings, sisters Carla Celina Morpurgo and Vogelina Morpurgo.
This family was just a regular family, the Father Abraham, was a draper by trade. Mother Rachel is what they call nowadays a stay at home mum, or home maker.
On May 9,1941 Jacob was issued with a passport, which was valid for 2 years, until May 9,1943.
I don’t know the exact date but at some stage Jacob and his family traveled to Belgium. This must have been after his passport had expired. But that would not have mattered because he didn’t ravel there for his holidays. The Morpurgo family was send to the transit camp Mechelen in Belgium. The last day they were there was April 3,1944, because the following day they were all deported to Auschwitz on transport 24. Jacob, his mother and two sisters were murdered upon arrival on April 7,1944.
Abraham was deported to Mauthausen at some point, where he was murdered on February 1,1945. He reached the age of 43. There is a tradition in the Netherlands when a man reaches the age of 50, they say he has seen Abraham. This Abraham never got to celebrate that birthday.
Rachel Morpurgo-Kijl. born in Amsterdam, 21 July 1895. Murdered in Auschwitz, 7 April 1944. Reached the age of 48 years
Vogelina Morpurgo , Born in Amsterdam, 19 February 1925.Murdered in Auschwitz, 7 April 1944.Reached the age of 19 years.
Carla Celina Morpurgo, born in Amsterdam, 4 November 1930.Murdered in Auschwitz, 7 April 1944.Reached the age of 13 years. She had been a student at the Joods Lyceum in Amsterdam.
Vogeltje Morpurgo-van Engel, was the Mother of Abrham, and the Grandmother of Jacob,Vogelina and Carla. She was also on the same transport from Mechelen to Auschwitz and was murdered also on April 7,1944. She reached the age of 68. Her name means little bird.
On April 7,194, thirteen Dutch Jewish citizens were murdered in Auschwitz. Sic were from the same family.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2 ,however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thanks
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All Holocaust stories are sad, even the stories of survival have elements of sadness in them. Because the survivors will have suffered physical and mental pain, and also coping with the loss of family and friends.
I came across a list of household inventory of goods that had belonged to Sara Dewijgaert-Blits. Sara was born on November 8,1868 in Amsterdam, and murdered on September 10 in Auschwitz, she was aged 73. The inventory list reflected her years alive, What makes it so sad is that all items are so recognizable, many we still use today. It is a life through the scope of a household inventory.
Bed/sitting room small table with cloth tea table with tea set flower table (2) sideboard bookcase cupboard chair (2) easy chair (3) stool standing table lamp (2) fold-out bed with casing and curtains bedding cushion (4) small table lamp (2) electric hanging lamp wall plate (8) wall mirror (2) wall hanging mantelpiece runner trinkets (on the mantelpiece) lace curtain (4) drape (4) floorcloth carpet mat (2) wall clock curtain (3)
Living room table with cloth chair (2) easy chair with cushions coal-fired cooker with plate bedside table divan with bedding and blanket small serving tray waste-paper basket linen cupboard wall cupboard treadle sewing machine (“Phoenix”) medicine cupboard small oil painting (4) wall tapestry mantelpiece carpet table lamp lace curtain (3) drape (2) curtain (2) floor covering hanging lamp
Kitchen table with cloth chair chest of drawers meat safe hay chest gas ring coal (13) coal (sack) (2) carpet sweeper wall cupboard lace curtain (2) drape kitchen scales wall hanging paraffin lamp wall plate (2) kitchenware and house ware floorcloth small carpet carpet waste-paper basket
Corridor runner mat (2) wall carpet (2) coat hooks (2) umbrella stand
Staircase carpet
Attic sideboard chair small round table sideboard suitcase travelling case (2) box (2) travel baskets (2) unknown electric heater coal (sack) (6)
I am not a great believer in posting graphic images, but when it comes to the Holocaust there really is not always a way around it.
The picture above was taken in Ohrdruf shortly after it was liberated, it is actually one of the least graphic pictures.
The Ohrdruf camp was a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the first Nazi camp liberated by US troops.
The camp was liberated on April 4, 1945, by the 4th Armored Division, led by Brigadier General Joseph F. H. Cutrona, and the 89th Infantry Division. It was the first Nazi concentration camp liberated by the U.S. Army. There is a scene in ‘the Band of Brothers’ where they liberate a camp, the name isn’t mentioned but I believe it to be Ohrdruf.
One of the 4th Armored Division soldiers, David Cohen, said: “We walked into a shed and the bodies were piled up like wood. There are no words to describe it. The smell was overpowering and unforgettable.”
The horrific nature of what the 4th Armored Division had discovered led General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, to visit the camp on April 12, with Generals George S. Patton and Omar Bradley. After his visit, Eisenhower cabled General George C. Marshall, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington, describing his trip to Ohrdruf:
“The most interesting—although horrible—sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said that he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.'”
Ohrdruf had also made a powerful impression on battle hardened Patton, who described it as “one of the most appalling sights that I have ever seen.” He recounted in his diary that:
“In a shed … was a pile of about 40 completely naked human bodies in the last stages of emaciation. These bodies were lightly sprinkled with lime, not for the purposes of destroying them, but for the purpose of removing the stench.
When the shed was full—I presume its capacity to be about 200, the bodies were taken to a pit a mile from the camp where they were buried. The inmates claimed that 3,000 men, who had been either shot in the head or who had died of starvation, had been so buried since the 1st of January.
When we began to approach with our troops, the Germans thought it expedient to remove the evidence of their crime. Therefore, they had some of the slaves exhume the bodies and place them on a mammoth griddle composed of 60-centimeter railway tracks laid on brick foundations. They poured pitch on the bodies and then built a fire of pinewood and coal under them. They were not very successful in their operations because there was a pile of human bones, skulls, charred torsos on or under the griddle which must have accounted for many hundreds.”
John W. Becket was another soldier who entered Ohrdruf that day. On the 17th of April he documented his experiences and impressions.
“As we came along our way we saw a sign pointing to ‘OHRDRUF,’ 15 kilometers from here, that is where the Germans had a concentration camp. What we saw was enough and at that it was pretty well cleaned up.”
“… an MP captain was questioning one of the liberated prisoners. He was Polish, spoke German, & as he related it was translated to us by the captain.” The prisoner showed them places where prisoners were beaten, tortured, and executed. Beckett wrote, “As the Polish prisoner talked, tears seemed to come to his eyes but he fought them down.”
“All such atrocities that were known to savages & Roman times & here it exists today in 1945, how is it possible, how can a man treat another as such. The question perhaps can’t be answered and I pray they will receive their just rewards, both here & in the life to come. Practically the whole battery went to see it & Patton wanted as many of his men that could go to see it & know that it is real & not propaganda. Its real, all too grotesquely real.”
Bruce Nickols was yet another soldier who recalled on what he saw that day. In 1998 he wrote a report on it.
“Fifty years have passed since this day but I recall my first impression of the camp called Ohrdruf which I found later was associated administratively with the camp called Buchenwald. Ohrdruf was named after the town of the same name, apparently locally famous for its history of being the place where Johann Sebastian Bach composed some of his works..
April 4, 1945 REPORT ON SURRENDER OF THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMP AT OHRDRUF: The date was April 4, 1945 and I was on a patrol as a member of the I &R platoon attached to the Headquarters company of 354th Infantry Regiment, of the 89th Infantry Division, 3rd Army U.S.A.
As I recall it was a beautiful spring morning marred by the fact that we were under mortar attack. I remember very well my surprise when I observed Brigadier General Robertson strolling upright down the road. He was an elderly avunular gentleman who thought nonchalance under fire characterized the general officer’s role model.
I was impressed but remained prone in the drainage ditch until the atttack ceased. Shortly thereafter, an acquaintance let it be known that a camp had been liberated further up the hill.
Fifty years have passed since this day but I recall my first impression of the camp called Ohrdruf which I found later was associated administratively with the camp called Buchenwald. Ohrdruf was named after the town of the same name, apparently locally famous for its history of being the place where Johann Sebastian Bach composed some of his works.
From the outside, the camp was unremarkable. It was surrounded by a high barbed wire fence and had a wooden sign which read, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” The swinging gate was open, and a young soldier, probably an SS guard, lay dead diagonally across the entrance. The camp was located inthe forest and was surrounded by a thick grove of pine and other conifers. The inside of the camp was composed of a large 100 yards square central area which was surrounded by one story barracks painted green which appeared to house 60-100 inmates.
As we stepped into the compound one was greeted by an overpowering odor of quick-lime, dirty clothing, feces, and urine. Laying in the center of the square were 60-70 dead prisoners clad in striped clothing and in disarray. They had reportedly been machine gunned the day before because they were too weak to march to another camp. The idea was for the SS and the prisoners to avoid the approaching U.S. Army and the Russians.
Adjacent to the”parade ground” was a small shed which was open on one side. Inside,were bodies stacked in alternate directions as one would stack cord wood, and each layer was covered with a sprinkling of quick-lime. I did not see him, but someone told me that there had been a body of a dead American aviator in the shed. This place reportedly had been used for punishment, and the inmates were beaten on their back and heads with a shovel. My understanding is that all died following this abuse.
I visited some of the surrounding barracks and found live inmates who had hidden during the massacre. They were astounded and appeared to be struggling to understand what was happening. Some were in their 5 tier bunks and somewhere wandering about.
This was the first camp to be “liberated” by the Allied armies in Germany. Ohrdruf was visited by Generals Eisenhower, Patton and Bradley and there are photographs of them observing the bodies of the machine gunned inmates. According to Eisenhower, Patton had refused to visit the punishment shed as he feared he would become ill. He did vomit at a later time.
Further into the camp was evidence of an attempt to exhume and burn large numbers of bodies. There was a gallows, although I really cannot remember whether I saw it or not. I don’t remember leaving the camp. I recall being numb after seeing the camp. I had just turned 20 years old and I had read the biographical “Out of the Night.” It was a pale and inadequate picture of a German concentration camp by a refugee German author.
I recall becoming very upset when we got back to our quarters, but the whole experience was far beyond my understanding. I wrote a letter to my parents describing the experience which was read at a local gathering of business men. It was widely disbelieved.
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I wish I could tell you a long story about the Rooselaar family, but I can’t. However the few things I do know I will tell you because it is a chilling tale of evil and destruction.
The Rooselaar family lived in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They were moved or rather deported to Westerbork at some stage. I know this because on March 30th 1943 the whole family were put on transport from Westerbork to Sobibor. They arrived in Sobibor on April 2nd 1943, where they were all murdered upon arrival.
The family were:
Father -Hartog Rooselaar born in Amsterdam, on 23 July 1900.Reached the age of 42 years, occupation: Furniture maker.
Mother -Anna Rooselaar-Presser born in Amsterdam, 3 July 1904.Reached the age of 38 years
Son-Salomon Rooselaar born in Amsterdam, 14 September 1930.Reached the age of 12 years.
Son-Barend Rooselaar born in Amsterdam, 30 June 1932. Reached the age of 10 years.
Daughter-Estella Rooselaar born in Amsterdam, 9 July 1936. Reached the age of 6 years.
Son-Eduard Rooselaar born in Amsterdam, 6 October 1938.Reached the age of 4 years.
All 6 members of the Rooselaar family were put on the March 3rd 1943 transport to Sobibor, but they weren’t the only ones. In total there were 1246 people who were on that transport.
On April 2nd 1943,1252 Dutch Jews were murdered in Sobibor. 113 were 18 years or younger. Among them were, Jacob de Vries born in The Hague on April 13.1941. He was 11 days away from his 2nd birthday when he was murdered.
Isidore Kiek born in Hilversum, 17 February 1932 .Reached the age of 11 years.
The oldest of those 133 children would have been 97 today. This means they all could have been still alive on April 2,2022.
On October 14, 1943, some 300 Jewish labourers at the camp rose in revolt and killed several SS supervisors and Ukrainian guards. Many inmates were killed during the rebellion or in the attempt to escape. All who remained were executed the following day. The Nazis dismantled the installations and planted the area with trees. Only about 50 Sobibor prisoners ultimately survived the war.
Imagine if the camp had remained open until the end of the war? More then 34,000 Dutch Jews were murdered in Sobibor which closed in November 1943. It had only be operational for just over 18 months.
Just over 56,000 Dutch Jews were murdered in Auschwitz ,which closed in January 1945.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2 ,however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thanks
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Last Sunday I once again had the privilege to be invited and attended a presentation, organised by the Ghetto Fighters’ House museum, As before I was astounded how little I actually know about the Holocaust.
This the the recording of that presentation and the explanation about the event.
If the Wannsee Conference discussed plans to target young Jewish women as part of its Final Solution protocol that part of the minutes was destroyed. What we do know is that a few weeks after that meeting, Himmler ordered the creation of a women’s camp in Auschwitz. In preparation, he visited Ravensbruck to commandeer female German prisoners to oversee the young Jewish women about to be imprisoned in the new women’s camp in Poland. So began the official systematic annihilation of Jews, which attacked, first and foremost, unmarried Jewish girls and young women, between the ages of 16 and 32. This little-known history of how young women were targeted in 1942, reminds us of the plight of young women today.
Heather Dune Macadam, author of the book 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz, spoke about her research for the book and the soon-to-be-released film 999. She revealed these young women’s poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history.
This first official transport to Auschwitz from Slovakia in March, 1942 deported almost 1000 young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad. One of the women on this transport was Prof. Hanna Yablonka’s aunt, Lila Klein, from the nearby town of Levoča, in the Tatra Mountains. Another young woman from the same town was Yuci [Jozi] Foldi (her Slovak name was Julia Skodova). She was one of the few women who survived the transport. Skovada’s testimony, which she chronicles in her book, Three Years Without a Name: Auschwitz 1942-1945, is extraordinary because she was a witness to what Hanna Yablonka has described as the “archeology of Auschwitz” – the step-by-step the implementation of the Final Solution in this camp.
In her presentation, Yablonka discussed the preparations to publish Skodova’s book, the unique experience of Slovakian Jews in the history of the Final Solution, including her family’s personal story, and the tragic fate of Julia Skodova.
I always try to keep my emotions out of it when I write about the Holocaust, but I often fail. How could I not get emotional when I see a picture of a baby who was murdered.
Donald was born in Amsterdam, on 30 March 1941 .He was murdered in Sobibor, on 11 June 1943., aged 2.
His Father was Meindert Davids and his Mother was Alida Davids-Hoost.
Meindert Davids was born on 23 April 1911 in Rotterdam .He was the son of David Davids and Betje Godschalk. Meindert married Alida Hoost, on 3 July 1940 in Aamsterdam.Alida was born on 1 December 1917 in Amsterdam. She was the daughter of Godschalk Hoost and Leentje Beugeltas. The couple had one child, their pride and Joy Donald, who was born on 30 March 1941 in Amsterdam.
On 17 February 1943, Meindert, Alida and their baby boy Donald were deported from their house on the Waverstraat to concentration camp Vught. From the registration card of the Jewish Council archive of Meindert Davids, it shows that he has been transferred on 21 May 1943 from Vught to the Moerdijk Command, a satellite command of Vught, and subsequently to to Vught and then to Westerbork where he steyd in barrack 62. On 21 September Meindert was put on transport to Auschwitz.
Where he was immediately murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, upon arrival on September 24,1943
Little Donald and his Mother were sent to Westerbork on the 7th of June 1943.
Donald Davids was deported to Sobibor, together with his mother on the 8th June 1943 with the so-called children’s transport.
There were about 3000 people on that transport. Below is the breakdown of the age groups.
Off the 3000 people, 2743 are murdered in Sobibor. 17 Others are murdered elsewhere
Donald Davids is murdered on June 11.1943 He reached the age of 2 years. Another 3000+ Dutch Jews were murdered in Sobibor that day.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2 ,however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thanks
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These are some testimonies of victims, perpetrators an liberators. I will not specify who is who, but the language makes the testimony and context clear.
At the end of blog is a description on one method of mass murder which was used by the einsatzgruppen.
Hans Friedrich:
“The order said—they are to be shot.” “And for me, that was binding.”
Gertrude Deak:
“We had to stand and watch, while the two girls dug their own graves, then were shot, and we had to bury them.”
Gina Rappaport:
“After two years they [the SS] told us to pack our things and go to the station, and they put us on a train which travelled for a [sic] unknown destination. We were seven days in the train travelling very slowly, when we were liberated by the American army on the 13th of April. It was the luckiest day of my life. At that moment I was bathing in the river when I saw the first American soldier from afar. What a joy. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was sure it was a dream, but still it was true. A few minutes before the American soldiers arrived we were told that we should have to go on foot over the Elbe River. But the American army saved us from a sure death, which we will never forget. I was also sad this day because I remembered how many people of value had died and couldn’t see the liberation and the fall of the barbarian, Hitler. I shall never forget what I owe to the American army. I hope that I will be able to estimate the right value, what the Americans have done for us. Now, after five years of suffering I shall know how to appreciate the more my liberty.”
Rudolf Höss:
“True opponents of the state had to be securely locked up. Only the SS were capable of protecting the National Socialist State from all internal danger. All other organisations lacked the necessary toughness.”
Jerzy Bielecki:
“I saw an SS-man, a junior officer, walking around the gravel pit with a pistol in his hand…It was sadism. ‘You dogs! You damned communists! You pieces of shit!’ Horrible words like these. And from time to time he would direct the pistol downwards and shoot: pow… pow pow.”
Sergeant Leon Bass:
“We were in the intelligence reconnaissance section of our unit and we went right to Buchenwald. And that was the day that I was to discover what had really been going on in Europe under the Nazis because I walked through the gates and I saw walking dead people. And just looking at these people who were skin and bone and dressed in those pajama-type uniforms, their heads clean shaved, and filled with sores through the malnutrition. I just looked at this in amazement and I said to myself, you know, “My God, who are these people? What was their crime?” You know? It’s hard for me to try to understand why anyone could have been treated this way. I don’t care what they had done. And I didn’t have any way of thinking or putting a handle on it, no frame of reference. I was only 20. Had I been told, I doubt if I could have had, in my mind’s eye, envisioned anything as horrible as I saw”
Heinz Mayer:
“As the Americans were approaching, the SS thought that it was them who were firing the shots, The SS fled, and the prisoners armed themselves with the abandoned weapons. We occupied all the watchtowers and blocked the forest in the direction of Weimar in order to intercept any returning SS.”
Hans Friedrich
“Because my hatred towards the Jews is too great. And I admit my thinking on this point is unjust, I admit this. But what I experienced from my earliest youth when I was living on a farm, what the Jews were doing to us—well that will never change. That is my unshakeable conviction.”
Lieutenant Marie Knowles Ellifritz:
“The emotional trauma caused by our medical participation in the liberation of the European concentration camps was beyond belief. As Americans and as women we never before had been subjected to such inhumanity to man. And my initial feeling was of a tremendous job to do. To take in 1,500 patients into a 400-bed hospital had to be madness. That fact became our madness. And itproved to become a tremendous overwhelming job. Clinically, it was a matter of sorting the dead from the living, deciding who would live for at least three days or more, and to make all those we found comfortable and to begin the process of treatment. A tent to keep the patient dry, an air mattress to give them a place to lie down, a blanket to help them keep warm, pajamas to give them some dignity, a small amount of food to nourish them, and plasma to preserve the remaining life and begin them on a road back to living. Everyone had work to do. The patients themselves helped as much as they could.
We deloused them. We moved them out of the larger camp into our tent city and we let the fresh air, the sunshine, the space, and most of all their freedom do its work.
It seemed to take one to three days for us to convince some of them that they were truly free at last. And when that reality came they simply closed their eyes and died in peace and freedom. Some of the patients seemed to know immediately that they were free once again and so they were able to rejoice and begin to make plans for the future. Life force for these patients had begun when the camp’s gates were opened by their liberators”
Józef Paczynski —:
“I personally was afraid of walking past Block 11. Personally, I was afraid. Although it was closed off, I was really scared to walk past there. Whether it was the avenue when I was walking there, or what… I was afraid. Block 11 meant death.”
Kazimierz Smolen:
“During an evening roll call, we were told that all the sick among us could go away for treatment… that they could leave to be cured, and that they were to sign up. Of course, it was said that they would be going for treatment. And, in the camp, some people believed it…”
Lucjan Salzman:
“I ran in that direction and as I came onto that place I noticed many prisoners yelling and screaming and jumping and dancing. And there standing amongst them were seven giants, young people. They must have been 18 or 19—American soldiers. There were seven or eight of them standing inside the camp. Apparently they cut the wire and came into the camp. They were bewildered by us. Wild and unkempt and dirty and, I’m sure, smelly people, jumping and dancing and trying to embrace them and kiss them. And I did too. I also joined the crowd and yelled and screamed and somehow knew that the day of liberation has come. It was a strange feeling for me, however, because as I remember it, on the one hand, I was, I was overwhelmed by this unexpected and unhoped for encounter of freedom, but at the same time, what was happening was outside of me. I really—I didn’t know what to make of it. I knew I was free, but I didn’t count on it. I somehow didn’t know what it meant. And I knew it was great, but I, I was overjoyed because all people around me were overjoyed and were singing and dancing and, and—but I, I was 17.I, I was free, but what it meant, I wasn’t sure”
Vasyl Valdeman:
“That’s how it was—the first execution—the most horrible one. It wasn’t the last one. There were three more large executions after that with 2000 to 3000 people shot at every one of them. More people were executed afterwards in smaller scale ones and this is how the Jewish community of Ostrog was annihilated.”
All over the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 the Nazis and their collaborators were murdering women and children at close range and in cold blood. Himmler realised he had to find a better way of killing—better for the murderers, not their victims.
Which is why SS Lieutenant Dr. Albert Widmann of the Technical Institute of the Criminal Police travelled into Eastern Europe. Widmann and his colleagues had been involved in the experiments which had led to the use of bottled carbon monoxide to kill the disabled. But he knew that it would be expensive and difficult to send canisters of carbon monoxide all the way to the new killing locations far from Germany. So he had to find a new way forward, which is why he drove into the Soviet Union followed by a truck carrying boxes of high explosive. Widmann reported to Artur Nebe, commander of one of the killing squads, at his headquarters in the Lenin House in Minsk.
Widmann reported to Artur Nebe, commander of one of the killing squads, at his headquarters in the Lenin House in Minsk.
“I hope you’ve got enough explosives with you? You ordered 250 kg, I’ve brought 450 kg with me. You never know. Very good.”
Nazi eyewitness account of murder experiment with explosives: “The bunker had totally collapsed, there was total silence. Body parts were scattered on the ground and hanging in the trees. And the next day we collected the body parts and threw them back into the bunker. Those parts that were too high in the trees were just left there.”
After this horror, Widmann and his SS colleagues tried another method of mass murder—this one suggested by what had happened to Artur Nebe of the SS earlier on in the year. Nebe had driven home drunk from a party in Berlin and passed out in his garage with the car engine still running. As a result the carbon monoxide from the exhaust gasses had nearly killed him. Learning from Nebe’s experience, Widmann and his colleagues then conducted experiments in the Soviet Union, like that one.
In general I am always careful tp put all the blame on the German when it comes to the Holocaust. There is no denying that the bulk of the responsibility lies with them, but there were many other who enabled them and actively and willingly participated in the mass murder.
I also try not to post pictures that are too graphic because it often has an opposite effect, people are too disturbed to look at them and therefor don’t read the story behind them. I know the picture at the start of the blog is quite graphic, but it comes from a compilation of pictures which has even much more graphic photographs, this one is the least graphic.
The picture are from the The Kovno Garage Massacre, the clubbing to death of Jewish Lithuanians on June 27 1941,by Lithuanian nationalists.
Lithuanian paramilitary fascists murdered sixty-nine Jews by clubbing them with iron bars in an open-air garage before scores of onlookers in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania on this date in 1941.
During the Lietūkis Garage Massacre, carried out before the invading Germans had actually set up their administration, 69 people were killed and publicly humiliated in the process. Jews were forced to gather on the afternoon in the courtyard of a garage at 43 Vitautas Avenue, in the center of the city.
Some of them were killed with shovels, iron bars, or by other barbaric methods. Lithuanian children were lifted onto the shoulder of their parents to catch a glimpse of the “Death Dealer of Kovno”,
Colonel Lothar Von Bischoffshausen gave a testimony of the massacre.
“I arrived in Kovno on the afternoon of June 27, 1941. Whilst patrolling the city I came across a crowd of people that had gathered alongside a gas station to watch what was happening in the adjacent yard.
There were women in the crowd and many of them clambered onto chairs and crates so that they and their children could get a better view of the “spectacle” taking place in the yard below. At first, I thought this must be a victory celebration or some type of sporting event because of the cheering, clapping, and laughter that kept breaking out.
However, when I asked what was happening I was told the ‘death dealer of Kovno’ is at work and he would make sure that all ‘traitors and collaborators’ received a fitting punishment for their ‘treachery.’ When I drew closer I witnessed a display of brutality that was unparalleled by anything I saw in combat during two world wars.
Standing on the tarmac in the yard was a fair haired young man of around 25. He leaned on a long iron bar as thick as human arm and around his feet lay between fifteen to twenty people who were either dying or already dead. A few feet away from him stood another group of individuals who were guarded by armed men.
Every few minutes he signaled with his hand and another person quietly stepped forward and had his skull shattered with one blow from the huge iron bar the killer held in his hand. Each blow he struck drew another round of clapping and cheering from the enthralled crowd.”
Meir Levison was born in Westerbork on 19 November 1943.He was murdered in Bergen-Belsen on 21 March 1945. He was 1 year old when he was murdered.
There are no pictures of Meir. The opportunity for his proud parents to take pictures was taken away from them. Because Meir was born in captivity.
About 5 months after he was born he was born, he was deported to Bergen Belsen, on April 5 1944. He wasn’t the only person who was deported that day. There were another 29 people who were on that transport, all Jewish.
In Bergen Belsen he was murdered on March 21,1945. Only a few weeks before the camp was liberated and less then 2 months before the war ended in Europe.
On June 22,1951 his death certificate was signed on behalf of the then Dutch minister for justice. But justice was never done for the baby Meir Levison.
History of Sorts 
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