SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 293
output of the Jews, since the retraining have [sic] an effect only after
some time and since only a portion of the Jews deported and still to
be deported is fit for labor.”
To cover these expenses, the Reich asked the Slovak government for
the reimbursement of 500 Reichsmark per person.
On 11 May SS-Hauptsturmführer Wisliceny, Eichmann’s representative
in Slovakia, wrote the following letter to the Slovak ministry of
the Interior: 889
“As the Berlin Reich Security Main Office informed me by telegram
on 9 May 1942, the possibility exists of accelerating the deportation
of the Jews from Slovakia, in that still additional transports
can be sent to Auschwitz. However, these transports are permitted to
contain only Jews and Jewesses fit for labor, no children. It would
then be possible to increase the transport rate by 5 trains per month.
For the practical execution I venture to make the following proposal:
during evacuation from the cities, Jews who can be pronounced
fit to work will be selected out and passed into the two camps Sillein
and Poprad.”
The proposal was not accepted, because the 19 transports of Jews
that left Slovakia in May were all sent to the Lublin district with destinations
Lubartów, Luków, Mi�dzyrzec Podlaski, Che�m, D�blin,
Pu�awy, Na��czów, Rejowiec, and Izbica.
In its edition of 25 April 1942 the newspaper Lemberger Zeitung
wrote in this respect: 890
“First, single and physically fit Jews and Jewesses are deported.
The immediate consequence of this measure was that a large part of
the able-bodied Jews suddenly became ‘unfit for work,’ for a variety
of reasons, and inundated the hospitals, so that soon enough the really
sick Aryans could not be treated.”
The transports from France also enter into this context. On 10 March
1942 Theodor Dannecker, SS-Hauptsturmführer and co-ordinator of
Jewish affairs in France, reporting on a meeting held in the offices of
department IV B 4 of RSHA, stated that negotiations could now be initiated
with the French authorities “concerning the removal of some
5,000 Jews to the East.” The document specifies that “initially, it is only
889 Ibid., pp. 108f.
890 “Die slowakischen Juden arbeiten,” in: Lemberger Zeitung, 25 April 1942.