SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 333
with punched numbers” 1018 to be worn like a military ID tag. The cement
disks were therefore the ID numbers of the deportees passing
through Be��ec and the other Aktion Reinhardt camps and, in all likelihood,
tied in with a file system. On account of their precision, the
numbers cited in Höfle’s message speak in favor of such a procedure.
This does not stand in the way of the explanation we have proposed
above: If each deportee going through an Aktion Reinhardt camp did
indeed receive an ID number, then we can also understand why the cement
disks accompanying the clothes into the disinfestation chambers
show such high figures – over 60,000.
9.6. Prof. Kulischer on the Expulsion of Jews
But where did the Jews who had been evacuated from Greater Germany
actually end up? This question was answered at the time of Korherr’s
report by Professor Eugene M. Kulischer, member of the International
Labour Office at Montreal, Canada, in a book entitled The displacement
of population in Europe 1019 published in 1943. For his work
the author used the assistance of 24 institutions – Jewish, American,
Belgian, Czechoslovak, Finnish, French, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian,
Polish, Turkish, Yugoslav, as well as the International Red Cross.
Each one of these institutions had a dense network of information
channels in the various European countries, which meant that Kulischer
had at his disposal the best sources of information relative to his
project.
The book has a section entitled “The Expulsion and Deportation of
Jews,” which testifies to the author’s profound knowledge of the National
Socialist policy towards the Jews. It was a detailed statistical
presentation, which constitutes the best comment on Korherr’s report.
We will quote the major passages: 1020
1018
H. Maršálek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslager Mauthausen. Dokumentation,
Österreichische Lagergemeinschaft Mauthausen, Vienna 1980, p.45. We wish to add that
metal tags were used in the German army for the identification of soldiers. They were
worn with a neck-band and had two sections, each bearing the same ID numbers etc.
When a soldier was killed, one half was broken off and sent to the competent military authorities,
the other half would be buried along with the body.
1019
E.M. Kulischer, The Displacement of Population in Europe, International Labour Office,
Montreal 1943.
1020
Ibid., pp. 95-99.