SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

368 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
rived with friendly members of the TODT organization and saved
her. She was right now in the camp Vievis. After about a month, she
was transferred to Milejgany and from there to the Zezmarai camp.”
This clearly shows that Vievis served not only as a labor camp, but
as a transit camp as well.
On 19 April 1943 Kruk confided to his diary (p. 519):
“Europe will be purged of Jews. The Jews of Warsaw are being
taken to be killed in Malkinia, near Lwów or near Zamosc. [1095] The
Jews from Western Europe are being taken east, their wandering
goes on.”
The last sentence involuntarily reflects a formulation used twice by
Oswald Pohl in his report for Himmler from 15 September 1942 where
Pohl spoke of “Jews destined for migration to the east.” 1096
On 30 April 1943 Kruk again mentioned the Dutch Jews (p. 525):
“We have already written about the packing up of 130,000 Jews
from Holland and their transport to the East. We have also mentioned
that carloads filled with goods from the Dutch Jews are in the
Vilna railroad station. Now an issue that clears all up – beautiful
old furniture has been brought here, to our joiner’s workshops, to be
repaired. In the drawers people find Dutch documents, including
documents from December 1942, which means that ostensibly the
Dutch were not taken to the East before January of February. Thus
the Jews did not know they were going to be exterminated. The rich
Dutch Jews even brought bridge tables with them in case, God forbid,
such things wouldn’t be found among the backward Ostjuden.
Now it is clear that they were slaughtered. […] In our area dozens
of railroad cars are scattered filled with Jewish junk, remnants of
the former Dutch Jewry”
Kruk does not mention why he is convinced that the Dutch Jews
were “slaughtered.” The fact that the local population found Dutch documents
in the drawers of the furniture removes the last doubts about the
origin of these deportees, because the Yiddish-speaking inhabitants of
the ghetto could most certainly tell Dutch from German.
On 23 June 1943 Kruk wrote in his diary (p. 570):
“In the Minsk ghetto 3,000 – 4,000 Jews now live. Next to the
ghetto is another ghetto. In the first ghetto are Jews from Minsk,
1095
Malkinia was situated near the alleged “extermination camp” of Treblinka.
1096
See chapter 9.2., p. 290.