THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, March 12, 1982 21
Wannsee Conference Began Nazi 'Final Solution'
(Continued from Page 1)
Adolf Eichmann joined
Heydrich's SD, the SS
special branch, in 1934
and in 1939 was ap-
pointed head of the
Jewish affairs depart-
ment at the Reichssic-
herheitshauptamt.
From 1941 he was re-
sponsible for organizing the
shipment of most of the
Jews in German-occupied
Europe to concentration
camps.
After the war he escaped'
---- a Italy to Argentina,
dere the Israeli secret
service traced him and ab-
ducted him. He was tried by
an Israeli court, sentenced
and executed in 1961.
The final solution of
.__ the Jewish question was
expected
by
the
_ or_ Reichssicherheitshauptamt
to entail the extermination
of about 11 million practic-
ing Jews in Europe.
The crucial paragraphs of
it"
the Wannsee minutes read
as follows:
"Europe will- be com-
i bed from West to East.
The Reich, including the
,-
Protectorate of Bohemia known as Zyklon B. It had
and Moravia, will need successfully been used in
searching first, if only for experiments in Auschwitz
reasons of housing and in September 1941.
other social necessities.
Gas chambers were
"Evacuated Jews will available at Chelmno, near
first be shipped systemati- Lodz, and Belzec, near
cally to so-called transit Lublin. The Wannsee
ghettoes-prior to shipment gathering expressed ap-
further east. proval of the existing
"Suitably organized, the facilities.
Jews will be put to work in
Extensions were made to
the East as part of the final Auschwitz. In the first half
solution. Jews capable of of 1942 a new death camp
work will work in road was built near gobibor and
gangs, strictly segregated the labor camps at Maj-
according to sex, most danek, near Lublin, and
doubtless being eliminated Treblinka were converted
by a process of natural re- into death camps.
duction.
Now the killing began in
"The remainder, being
the fittest, must be suitably earnest, as Gordon A. Craig
treated. If released they puts it in his history of
might otherwise form the Germany.
By the war's end nearly
nucleus of a Jewish re-
covery, as historical experi- six million people had
met their deaths in the
ence has shown."
By 1942, suitable camps. The Wannsee
treatment needed no conference marked the
further definition. As beginning of the three-
part of Hitler's euthanas- year climax of the
ia program lethal gases genocide program.
had been developed.
It was, as Craig puts it,
The Wannsee Conference the beginning of the most
gave preference to a cyanide disgraceful era in German
history.
But it was only the cul-
mination of a number of
events and trends, espe-
cially in the first two years
of the Second Work+ War.
From 1933 on, the Jews in
Germany were systemati-
cally stripped of their
rights. Until 1935 or 1936
Hitler showed some re-
straint, partly for foreign
policy, partly for economic
reasons.
One reason: the 1936
Olympics were to be held
Witness
Re-Opens
Frank Case
a
At the end of Sep-
tember 1939 Heydrich
submitted plans to de-
port all Jews to Poland,
where they were to be
crowded into ghettoes
prior to a final solution
that was top secret and
would take more time.
He may at that stage have
thought for a while in terms
of a Jewish state under
German administration
near Cracow, as mentioned
in the minutes of a conver-
sation with General von
Brauchitsch, commander-
in-chief of the German
Army.
But the final solution was
soon to become, in reality,
the bid to physically exter-
minate the Jewish people.
Signs that this was
envisaged were increas-
ingly apparent from the
summer of 1941.
Occupied Poland and
Russia provided the terri-
tory needed for mass depor-
tation and the construction
of death camps.
There were so many
Jews in both countries
that expulsion alone no
longer made - sense and
was prohibited on Oct.
23, 1941.
But without putting it in
as many words, the SS cir-
cular announcing the ban
left little doubt as to what
was intended. In brackets it
added that evacuation
measures were not affected.
So the Wannsee Confer-
ence 40 years ago may fairly
be taken to have marked the
beginning of the organized
Holocaust that took mil-
lions of European Jews to
the concentration camp and
the gas chamber.
(Continued from Page 1)
In 1915 Georgia Gov.
John Slaton commuted the
sentence to life imprison-
ment. This revived the mob
fury. Vigilantes, calling
themselves Knights of
Mary Phagan, dragged
Frank from the prison farm
where he was held and
hanged him in Marietta,
Ga., next to Mary Phagan's
grave.
The Knights of Mary
Phagan became the nucleus
of the re-born Ku Klux Klan
status. The federal govern- "Action," and the sale of in Georgia. Armed anti-
Semitic mobs roamed the
ment appealed because it books and pamphlets.
did not receive a summary
Among the views and streets of Atlanta, forcing
judgment refusing tax- ideology propounded are the Jewish shopkeepers to
following:
board up their places of bus-
exemption.
"There will be a iness. Jewish businesses
In their brief, the ADL,
the AJCongress and the worldwide pogrom" against were boycotted and some
NAACP argued that what- Jews; "oceans -of blood" are Jews reportedly moved
ever standard 'is employed the "only way" to solve a away.
Mann told reporters
under the IRS rule to define biological problem when it
"charitable" and "educa- Comes down to the "final that he kept silent ini-
tional" activities, the Na- implementation"; far better tially out of fear. Conley
tional Alliance clearly fails the loss of a few million lives had threatened–to kill
that test.
in a race war than the "loss him. His mother warned
The human rights or- of everything through con- him not to speak out and
ganizations pointed out tinued assimilation and he volunteered no infor-
that the National Al- miscegenation"; Martin mation during his brief
liance's main activity is Luther King was "a front testimony at the Frank
the publication and dis- man for the Reds;- and trial.
The frail, ill octogenarian
tribution of a monthly "Europe" lost World War II
newspaper called "At- because "the Germans just said that years later he tried
to tell his story but was ig-
tack" and a bulletin title weren't brutal enough."
Disc Jockey
nored by the authorities and
the press. He said he re-
"The Best Music in Town"
vealed it now to ease the
burden on his conscience be-
Parties, Dances &
tinue to insist that Israel tine Liberation Organiza- fore he dies.
Special Occasions
is not planning any milit- tion in south Lebanon. He
According to the Tennes-
ary action against south accused Libya and Iraq of sean, a two-month investi-
546-5797-544-0454
Lebanon and will take no aiding the PLO.
gation confirmed that
such action so long as the
Saguy said the PLO has Mann's account was accu-
other parties (principally doubled its artillery and
rate in every detail. Mann
the PLO) maintain the increased the number of submitted to lie detector
present ceasefire, which its tanks in south Leba- and other tests.
was negotiated by Habib non by 50 percent since
last summer. the ceasefire went into ef-
Earlier, Premier Begin's fect last July.
office - strongly denied a
Ariel Sharon said over
Newsweek report based ap- the weekend that Israel
parently on leaks from does not want to invade
If I Can't Beat Your Best Deal
Habib's earlier meeting Lebanon, but would if she
with Begin two weeks ago, were provoked. He said the
that the U.S. had cautioned provocation would be if ter-
Israel against "subterfuge." rorists murdered Israelis.
The implication was that Is- President Carter's na-
6 Mile, I 81k. W. of Schaefer
rael would allow a terrorist tional security adviser,
incursion as a pretext for at- Zbigniew Brzezinski, told a
tacking south Lebanon. • weekend television inter-
Habib told the Israelis view that Sharon's state-
ARNOLD MARGOLIS
that all parties in the area ment meant to him that Is-
INTERIOR
Featuring: Beauty Rest by Simmons and
want to preserve the cease- rael did not want to invade
DECORATOR
fire. He arrived in Israel Lebanon, but that it would.
all other national brands
SERVICE
after visiting Lebanon, He called this "ominous."
Brzezinski said that he
Syria, Saudi Arabia and
respects Israel's reasons for
Jordan.
Last week, Israel's chief not wanting to deal with the
•SCHOOLFIELD •SELIG •SIMMONS •SEALY •SERTA •SPRING AIR •LA-Z-
of military intelligence, PLO, but said Israel should
BOY •STIFFEL LAMPS •KROEHLER •AMERICAN •BURLINGTON •BASSETT
Gen. Yehoshua Saguy, told talk with PLO representa-
•BARCALOUNGER •LANE •UNIQUE
reporters that there was a tives but not negotiate with
13703 W. McNichols 342 5351 Hrs. Mon thru Sat. 9:30 til 5:30
large buildup by the Pales- them.
Tax Exemption for Nazis
(Continued from Page 1)
able" and "educational,"
appealed the IRS ruling
in federal district court in
Washington, D.C. The
court ruled last May that
the IRS regulation inter-
preting the "educa-
tional" standard of its
rule was too vague and
sent the case back to the
IRS for further proceed-
ings.
Both the National Al-
- liance and the federal gov-
ernment appealed the rul-
ing in the U.S. Court of Ap-
peals for the District of Col-
umbia. The National Al-
liance's appeal was based on
its failure to get a declarat-
ory judgment of tax exempt
in Berlin, so the aim was
to keep up pretenSes.
Yet in September 1935,
the Jews were finally de-
prived of all rights when a
law was enacted that Ger-
man citizens must be of
Aryan extraction.
This was the time when
German Jews were for 'the
most part stripped of their
property and their liveli-
hoods. But from 1934 on,
Heydrich had more long-
term aims in mind.
He told Goering he felt
depriving the Jews of their
livelihoods was only an
interim move. The main
problem, that of throwing
the Jews out of Germany,
remained.
By the end of 1938
many of them, an esti-
mated 170,000 had left
voluntarily. In January
1939, Heydrich set up a
Reich Central Office for
Jewish Emigration, but it
closed down when war
was declared.
By this time Hitler al-
ready had more in mind
than emigration or expul-
sion of the Jews. On Jan. 30,
1939, the anniversary of the
Nazi take-over in 1933, he
told the Reichstag the
Jewish race would be ex-
terminated in Europe if in-
ternational Jewry were to
plunge the world into an-
other war.
In starting the war him-
self on Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler
fulfilled the prophecy for
which he had already
blamed the Jews.
As the war extended to
ever-wider areas the Nazis
were increasingly relieved
of the need to take political
considerations into account.
MARC
ANKERMAN
Israel Denies Warning from U.S.
JERUSALEM (JTA)
Israel has officially denied
reports that U.S. special
envoy Philip Habib warned
Israeli leaders this week
against taking any military
action in Lebanon. Israel
received "no w_arning what-
ever" from Habib, the
Foreign Ministry spokes-
man in Jerusalem said.
There were reports in the
American media, and also
on Israel Television on
Tuesday night, that Habib
had conveyed such a warn-
ing to Premier Menahem
gin, Defense Minister
el Sharon and Foreign
Minister Yitzhak Shamir
with whom he met Monday.
The Israeli television cor-
respondent surmised that
the warning — or more ac-
curately, the leaks from
U.S. sources of such a warn-
ing — was intended by
Washington as a demonst-
ration to Arab moderate
states that the U.S. ( and .not
Russia) had it in its power to
restrain Israel.
Highly-placed Israeli
sources, however, con-
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