SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 297
Piaski will be freed from Polish Jews and will be the collection
point for the Jews coming from the Reich. Trawniki will not be used
for Jews for the time being.
H. asked at which point of the D�blin–Trawniki line it would be
possible to unload 60,000 Jews. When our present transports had
been explained, H. declared that, from the 500 Jews arriving at Susiec,
those unfit for work could be separated and taken to Be��ec.
According to a government teletype dated 4 March 1942, a Jewish
transport from the Protectorate with destination Trawniki is being
run. These Jews have not been unloaded at Trawnicki, but have been
taken to Izbiza. An inquiry from the Zamosc county chief for the use
of 200 Jews from there for work was approved by H.
Finally, he declared that he could receive 4 to 5 transports per
day of 1,000 each with destination Be��ec. These Jews would be taken
across the border and would never return to the General Government.”
This document is of critical importance for two reasons: First of all,
Höfle in his quality of commissioner for the resettlement of Jews in the
district of Lublin, 904 was the deputy of SS- und Polizeiführer for the district
of Lublin, i.e. of Globocnik, who was also commissioner for the installation
of SS and police agencies in the new eastern region, which
means that he, too, operated within the dispositions of the Generalplan
Ost. The task of the labor camp for able-bodied Jews was probably the
supply of manpower for the construction of Durchgangsstrasse IV
(transit road IV) in nearby Galicia.
Secondly, Be��ec is said to have started its murderous activity on 17
March 1942, immediately after the meeting just mentioned. According
to mainstream historiography it was (like Treblinka, Sobibór, and
Che�mno) a straightforward extermination camp with no separation between
Jews fit and unfit for work taking place there. However, the
quoted document states:
1. A separation between Jews fit and those unfit for work was scheduled.
2. Jews fit for work were to be used for work projects.
3. The Jews fit for work would be assembled in a camp where they
would be “classified according to their professions and delegated as
necessary.”
904 Beauftragter für die Judenumsiedlung im Lubliner Distrikt