SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 205
so in view of the intention to move undesirable elements from the
Reich territory into the sparsely populated eastern regions.”
Thus, just a few months after it had been made, Zeitschel’s proposal
was accepted by Hitler himself when he decided to shelve the Madagascar
plan and to move all Jews living in the occupied territories into the
East. He probably took this decision at some point in September of
1941. On 23 October 1941 Himmler stopped all Jewish emigration, 599
effective immediately, and the evacuation of 50,000 western Jews to the
East was ordered the following day. On 24 October 1941 Kurt Daluege,
the chief of police (Ordnungspolizei) issued a decree on the subject
“Evacuations of Jews from the Altreich and the Protectorate”: 600
“Between 1 st November and 4 December 1941, 50,000 Jews will
be deported by the security police from the Altreich, the Ostmark
[Austria], and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia into the region
of Minsk and Riga in the East. The deportations will be carried
out by Reichsbahn trains of 1000 persons each. The trains will be
assembled at Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Dortmund, Münster, Düsseldorf,
Cologne, Frankfurt/M., Kassel, Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Munich,
Vienna, Breslau, Prague, and Brünn.”
The new NS policy towards the Jews was announced to the higher
party echelons at the Wannsee-Konferenz, a meeting specially convened
for this purpose. It had originally been scheduled for 9 December
1941, 601 but was then postponed. It eventually took place in Berlin, Am
Großen Wannsee 56/58, on 20 January 1942. The main speaker was
Reinhardt Heydrich. The minutes of the meeting begin with a broad
overview of the National-Socialist policy towards the Jews: 602
599
T-394: “Reichsführer-SS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei has ordered the emigration of
Jews to be prevented with immediate effect.”
600
PS-3921.
601
PS-709. NG-2586-F.
602
This English translation of the Wannsee Protokoll can be found on the website of the
Wannsee Memorial Institute in Berlin: www.ghwk.de/engl/protengl.htm. Editor’s remark:
Although the authors of the present work consider the content of the Wannsee Protocol
to be plausible and therefore see no need to doubt its authenticity, it should be
pointed out that other revisionist authors strongly disagree, cf. Roland Bohlinger, Johannes
P. Ney, Zur Frage der Echtheit des Wannsee-Protokolls, 2nd ed., Verlag für
ganzheitliche Forschung und Kultur, Viöl 1994; Roland Bohlinger (ed.), Die Stellungsnahme
der Leitung der Gedenkstätte Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz zu dem von
Bohlinger und Ney verfaßten Gutachten zur Frage der Echtheit des sogenannten Wannsee-Protokolls
und der dazugehörigen Schriftstücke, Verlag für ganzheitliche Forschung,
Viöl 1995; cf. Johannes P. Ney, “Das Wannsee-Protokoll – Anatomie einer Fälschung,”
in: Ernst Gauss (ed.), Grundlagen zur Zeitgeschichte, Grabert, Tübingen 1994, pp. 169-
191; Engl.: “The Wannsee Conference Protocol: Anatomy of a Fabrication,” online: