SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 365
Lemberg, in spite of the fact that mainstream historiography does
not mention the arrival of Belgian or Dutch Jews at Be��ec.
5) On 15 June 1943 the New York Times reported a communiqué of the
Belgian government in exile, according to which most of the Belgian
Jews had been sent to concentration camps in Germany, Poland, and
in the occupied Russian territories.
6) The communist French underground newspaper Notre Voix wrote in
April of 1944: 1087
“Thank you! A news item that will delight all Jews of France
was broadcast by Radio Moscow. Which of us does not have a
brother, a sister, or relatives among those deported from Paris?
And who will not feel profound joy when he thinks about the fact
that 8,000 Parisian Jews have been rescued from death by the
glorious Red Army! One of them told Radio Moscow how he had
been saved from death, and likewise 8,000 other Parisian Jews.
They were all in the Ukraine when the last Soviet offensive began,
and the SS bandits wanted to shoot them before they left the
country. But since they knew what fate was in store for them and
since they had learned that the Soviet troops were no longer far
away, the deported Jews decided to escape. They were immediately
welcomed by the Red Army and are presently all in the
Soviet Union. The heroic Red Army has thus once again earned a
claim on the gratitude of the Jewish community of France.”
It may be argued that this is a document written by French communists
who used a radio broadcast of Radio Moscow and that both the
French communists and Radio Moscow could be suspected right
away of spreading propaganda. However, it is difficult to see in what
way the presence of French Jews in Ukraine could have lent itself to
propaganda. Moreover, one cannot see any reason why Radio Moscow
or the French underground newspaper should have invented
such a story. (What seems to be cooked up in this instance, on the
other hand, is the tale that the SS wanted to shoot the Parisian Jews,
but that the Jews could all escape and find refuge with the Red Army.)
7) In December of 1945 Friedrich Jeckeln, the former head of SS and
police Ostland, but at that time in Soviet captivity, stated that Jews
1087 Adam Raisky, La presse antiraciste sous l’occupation hitlérienne, Paris 1950, p. 179. A
photocopy of this text is given by J.-M. Boisdefeu, op. cit. (note 1082), chapter V, C.