which I absolutely denied. I asked him why he suspected me, and he told me they
were gassing Jews and Gypsies at Chelmno. I took my leave with the Polish greeting
and went away.14
On his way to Warsaw, Grojanowski stopped in Grabow where he told the rabbi his
story. The rabbi, in turn, wrote to friends in Lodz. But the news came too late to save the
Jews of Grabow. They were gassed at Chelmno shortly after the letter was written.
After establishing the first mechanized death camp at Chelmno, the Nazis built three
more along rail lines near the former border between Poland and Germany: Belzec,
Treblinka, and Sobibor. The only workers in these camps were those who disposed of the
corpses. Many of them were previously employed at “euthanasia centers.” There are few
written accounts of the four death camps. Only two people survived Belzec and three
came through Chelmno alive. Fewer than forty people lived through Treblinka, while
sixty-four survived Sobibor.
CONNECTIONS
In his letter to his friends in Lodz, Jacob Schulmann, the rabbi of Grabow, wrote, “Do not
think that this is being written by a madman. Alas, it is the tragic, horrible truth.” Why
are those who bring terrible news often dismissed as “mad”?
ÆFor background on understanding oral testimonies, see Lawrence Langer’s essays in
Elements of Time, pages 291-316. See also the video, Imagining the Unimaginable,
available from the Facing History Resource Center and described in Elements of Time,
pages 180-189.
READING 5
Blueprint for the “Final Solution”
In January 1942, representatives from the SS, the SS Race and
Settlement Office, the SD, the Einsatzgruppen, the Party
Chancellery, the Interior Ministry, the Office of the Four-Year
Plan, the Justice Ministry, the Office of the Governor General of
Poland, the Foreign Office, and the Reich Chancellery met in the
Berlin suburb of Wannsee. They had come together to discuss
the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” It was an official
meeting. So minutes were taken and distributed to those who
could not attend.
The conference did
not mark the start of
the Holocaust. Jews
were being killed long
before the meeting. It
was significant, mainly
because it turned the
“final solution” over to
the bureaucrats.
The Holocaust 319
At the beginning of the meeting the Chief of Security Police and the SD, SS
Obergruppenfuehrer [Reinhard] Heydrich, announced his appointment by the Reich
Marshal [Hermann Goering], as Plenipotentiary for the Preparation of the Final
Solution of the European Jewish Question, and pointed out that this conference had
been called to clear up fundamental questions. The Reich Marshal’s request to have a
draft sent to him on the organizational, functional, and material concerns on the final
solution of the European Jewish question necessitates prior joint consideration by all
central agencies directly concerned with these questions, with a view to keeping
policy lines parallel…
In the course of the practical implementation of the final solution, Europe is to be
combed from west to east. The Reich area, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia, will have to be handled in advance, if only because of the housing problem
and other sociopolitical necessities.
The evacuated Jews will be brought, group by group, into so-called transit
ghettos, to be transported from there farther to the east.15
Heydrich argued that there were more than eleven million
The murder of Jews
European Jews if strict racial definitions were applied. The
would now be carried
participants then established a complicated set of rules to out in a systematic
determine who was and who was not a Jew. The conference did way. It would be done
not mark the start of the Holocaust. Jews were being killed long according to “rules
before the meeting. It was significant, mainly because it turned and regulations.”
the “final solution” over to the bureaucrats. The murder of Jews
would now be carried out in a systematic way. It would be done according to “rules and
regulations.”
CONNECTIONS
Note the language used in the minutes of the Wannsee Conference. How you account for
the way the task is described?
ÆThe notes taken at the Wannsee Conference, only a small portion of which are included
in this reading, are the basis for a feature-length film called The Wannsee Conference.
The film, available from the Facing History Resource Center, shows how murder can be
discussed without ever using the word.
Historical events do not follow a neat timeline. For the most part, mass shootings ended
after the Wannsee Conference. But ghettos were enlarged in some places, even as others
were destroyed and their inhabitants shipped to death camps.
320 Facing History and Ourselves