SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 279
alleged gas chambers of the Aktion Reinhardt camps were built by T4
staff along the lines of those of the euthanasia institutions.
What is even less valid is the alleged proof of the secrecy surrounding
all this. In this respect M. Novitch wrote: 847
“Euthanasia was treated as a state secret, and all its participants
were sworn to silence. Operation Reinhard was also a state secret;
he who had not taken a vow of silence in Berlin had to do so in
Trawniki. They signed the following proclamation: ‘Any member belonging
to the team of the death camps swears that he has been instructed
by Sturmbannführer Hoefle, commander of the head office
of Operation Reinhard, not to reveal any information, oral or written,
on the resettlement of Jews.’ It was stressed that anyone divulging
a secret would be severely punished; it was also forbidden to
take photographs of the camp.”
Leaving aside the straightforward lie regarding the “death camps,” 848
the obligation to secrecy concerned everybody, including the firms
working in the concentration camps. These companies had to sign a
“Verpflichtungserklärung zur Geheimhaltung” (declaration of committment
to secrecy) which covered leakage of information and the taking
of photographs and threatened any such acts with the punishments
for high treason. 849
On the other hand, the Holocaust thesis discussed above is neither
the only one nor even the one most compatible with the circumstances.
As it is certain that the National-Socialist policy in respect of the Jews
did not aim at their extermination but at their deportation to the East, as
there is no documentary evidence which would indicate that this deportation
policy was ever reversed or interrupted in a manner which might
cited by Y. Arad in the passage quoted above, declared that in 1941 it was an “open secret”
that the German authorities wanted to exterminate all Jews. Holding this to be
“unwürdig” (below their dignity), he and his collaborators looked for “a different solution
of the Jewish problem” and found one: the deportation of the Jews to the island of
Madagascar, which they had thought out and proposed as an alternative to the extermination
project already on the books! This will give the reader an idea concerning the trustworthiness
of such testimonies.
847 M. Novitch, op. cit. (note 39), p. 24.
848 The document cited by M. Novitch states: “Minutes of the engagement of […] as a person
specifically entrusted with the execution of work in connection with the implementation
of Jewish resettlement within “Einsatz Reinhard” by the Chief of SS and Police in
the Lublin district. […] declares: I have been thoroughly instructed and advised by SS-
Hauptsturmführer Höfle in his quality as head of the Division “Einsatz Reinhard” under
the Chief of SS and Police in the Lublin district: […]” Jüdisches Historisches Institut
Warschau (ed.), op. cit. (note 116), p. 300.
849 WAPL, ZBL, 7, p. 5.