On 5 May 1945, Mauthausen Concentration Camp was liberated by the US Army.
Just a simple poem to commemorate that day.
In Mauthausen’s shadow, where darkness did dwell, In the heart of despair, where horrors did swell, There came a day of courage, a day of light, When the chains of oppression were shattered in flight.
From the depths of anguish, where freedom seemed lost, Rose the spirit of resistance, no matter the cost. In the eyes of the weary, defiance did gleam, As they dared to dream of a world redeemed.
Through the barbed wire fences, they saw hope’s distant gleam, A beacon of liberation, like a radiant stream. With each step towards freedom, they reclaimed their might, Breaking the shackles of tyranny, banishing the night.
In the echoes of Mauthausen, the voices of the brave, Sing of resilience, of the souls they saved. Though the scars may linger, and memories remain, Their triumph stands eternal, a testament to pain.
So let us remember, the courage of that day, When the walls of oppression crumbled away. In the liberation of Mauthausen, let freedom resound, A triumph of humanity, on hallowed ground.
The Battle of Castle Itter is a remarkable event from World War II, often referred to as one of the strangest battles of the war. It occurred on May 5, 1945, during the conflict in Europe’s final days.
Castle Itter, located in Austria, was being used as a prison for high-profile French prisoners, including former prime ministers, generals, and other prominent figures. As the war drew to a close, the situation in the region became chaotic, with the Allied advance and the collapse of Nazi Germany leading to confusion and shifting allegiances.
In early May 1945, a small group of Wehrmacht soldiers—led by Major Josef Gangl—found themselves in an unusual position. They were stationed near Castle Itter and had received word that the SS was planning to execute the prisoners held there. Gangl, sympathetic to the prisoners’ plight, decided to defy orders and protect them.
The purpose of the prison was to hold high-profile prisoners that the Reich deemed valuable. A notable prisoner was the tennis player Jean Borotra, French VIP prisoners, French Resistance member François de La Rocque, and many Eastern European prisoners from Dachau, who performed maintenance and other menial tasks. Also among them were former Prime Ministers Paul Reynaud and Edouard Daladier, General Maxim Weygand, former Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, and Madame Weygan, wife of General Weygan.
What ensued was a remarkable alliance between former enemies. Major Gangl and his men joined forces with the prisoners, who included French resistance fighters and American soldiers. Together, they defended the castle against an attack by SS Forces, who were intent on carrying out the prisoners’ executions.
A highly decorated Wehrmacht officer, Gangl had become opposed to the Nazis and was collaborating with the Austrian resistance.
Gangl had intended to free the castle prisoners but was unwilling to sacrifice the few troops he had in a suicidal attack on a heavily defended fortress manned by the SS. Instead, he was conserving them to protect residents from SS reprisals, in which troops shot at any window displaying either a white or Austrian flag and summarily executed males as deserters, traitors, and defeatists. His hopes were pinned on the Americans reaching Wörgl and promptly surrendering to them. Instead, he approached them under a white flag and asked for their help.
Around the same time, a reconnaissance unit of four Sherman tanks of the 23rd Tank Battalion of the 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps.
The battle began to kindle when, on May 3, the Yugoslav handyman Zvonimir Čučković and the Communist Resistance member—left the castle on the pretense of an errand for Commander Sebastian Wimmer. Čučković carried a letter with him, in English, that he intended to give to the first American he found, which asked for Allied help.
The closest town, Wörgl, was still under German command, so Čučković traveled towards Innsbruck, 40 miles away. That same evening, Čučković reached the city’s outskirts and encountered an advance party of the 409th Infantry Regiment of the American 103rd Infantry Division of the US VI corps, whom he told about the prison. While they could not mount the rescue operation themselves, they passed the message on to their headquarters for an answer.
At dawn the next day, a heavily armored rescue operation was mounted, but they were forced to stop upon encountering heavy shelling after Jenbach. Around the same time, with the failure of Čučković to return, Commander Sebastian Wimmer fled his post in fear he had been discovered. With Wimmer gone, the SS-Totenkopfverbände guards soon departed their posts. The prisoners soon took over the castle and armed themselves with what weaponry remained.
Gangl sought to maintain his unit’s position in the town to protect residents from SS reprisals. Nazi loyalists would shoot at any window displaying either a white flag or an Austrian flag, and would summarily execute males as possible deserters. Gangl’s hopes were pinned on the Americans reaching Wörgl promptly so he could surrender to them.[21] Instead, he would now have to approach them under a white flag to ask for their help.
Around the same time, a reconnaissance unit of four Sherman tanks of the 23rd Tank Battalion, 12th Armored Division of the US XXI Corps, under the command of Lieut. Lee had reached Kufstein, Austria, 13 km (8 mi) to the north.
There in the town square, it idled while waiting for the 12th to be relieved by the 36th Infantry Division. Asked to provide relief by Gangl, Lee did not hesitate, volunteering to lead the rescue mission and immediately earning permission from his HQ.
The battle was intense and chaotic, with the defenders heavily outnumbered and outgunned. However, they managed to hold out until reinforcements from the 142nd Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 36th Division arrived, effectively ending the threat from the SS.
Unfortunately, Gangl was fatally hit by a sniper while trying to get former French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud out of the line of fire. At around 4:00 p.m., a relief unit from the 142nd US Infantry Regiment reached the castle and defeated the besiegers, capturing about 100 SS men.
The Battle of Castle Itter was not the first time US soldiers and German Wehrmacht soldiers worked together. One week earlier on April 28, 1945, a coalition of American and German soldiers worked to save the famous white Lipizzaner horses from an advancing Russian army. It was called Operation Cowboy.
Both events are rare, nearly bizarre, examples of cooperation between unlikely allies amid war. It highlights the complexities and fluidity of the final days of World War II in Europe, as well as the resilience and courage of those involved.
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On September 15, 1935, the Nazi regime announced the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor (‘Gesetz zum Schutze des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre’). The law forbade sexual relations and marriages between Germans classified as so-called ‘Aryans’ and Germans classified as Jews.
“–Section 1
Marriages between Jews and citizens of German or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad.
Proceedings for annulment may be initiated only by the Public Prosecutor.
Section 2 Sexual relations outside marriage between Jews and nationals of German or kindred blood are forbidden.
Section 3 Jews will not be permitted to employ female citizens of German or kindred blood as domestic servants.
Section 4
Jews are forbidden to display the Reich and national flag or the national colors.
On the other hand they are permitted to display the Jewish colors. The exercise of this right is protected by the State.
Section 5
A person who acts contrary to the prohibition of Section 1 will be punished with hard labour.
A person who acts contrary to the prohibition of Section 2 will be punished with imprisonment or with hard labour.
A person who acts contrary to the provisions of Sections 3 or
4 will be punished with imprisonment up to a year and with a fine, or with one of these penalties.
Section 6 The Reich Minister of the Interior in agreement with the Deputy Fuhrer and the Reich Minister of Justice will issue the legal and administrative regulations required for the enforcement and supplementing of this law.
Section 7 The law will become effective on the day after its promulgation; Section 3, however, not until 1 January 1936.”–
Hitler often blamed moral degradation on Rassenschande, (Racial disgrace) a way to assure his followers of his continuing antisemitism, which had been toned down for popular consumption.[As early as 1924, Julius Streicher argued for the death penalty for Jews found guilty of having sexual relations with Gentiles.
For many it was often a case of divorce or death. Those who chose to remain married were punished by imprisonment in camps where many died.
Rather then go into the detail of the laws and its implications, I just want to highlight one case.
Rosa Schnedlitz had married Michael Schwarz in 1922, in Vienna. She was born Roman Catholic, but had joined the Jewish Religious Community of Vienna, and together with her husband she raised their 7 children in the Jewish tradition. After the annexation of Austria by the Nazis, Michael was sent to labor camps. Meanwhile, Rosa became involved with a member of the Nazi Party named Josef Scholz. When her husband returned to Vienna, she asked him for a divorce, which he refused. In April 1943, Michael was arrested by the Gestapo under the pretense of Communist activity. He died a few months later while imprisoned in Auschwitz. Rosa remarried and changed her last name to Schnedlitz. In addition, five of Rosa’s seven children were deported to Theresienstadt after she abandoned them to the care of the Vienna Jewish community. The other two suffered harassment by employers and law enforcement. In 1946, Rosa was accused of denouncing her first husband to the Gestapo and put on trial in Vienna.
Rosa pled not guilty to the charge of playing a part in her husband’s deportation and murder. Her defense rested on her narrative that she was a helpless victim of Nazi policy. Below is the translation of the report of that case.
—Reference Number Vg3c Vr 5056/46
Questioning of the Accused
District Criminal Court I, Vienna II
August 23, 1946 Beginning
In attendance:
Judge: Higher Regional Court Councillor Gruchol
Secretary: Court clerk Gusti Desarsch
Criminal proceedings against Rosa Schnedlitz
The accused is urged to give distinct, clear, and truthful answers to the questions that are to be submitted. The accused states with regard to [her] personal circumstances:
First name and surname (for women, also maiden name): Rosa Schnedlitz, née Schandl, formerly Schwarz
Name usually used or byname:
Parents’ names: Josef and Marianne Schandl, maiden name unknown
Husband’s first name: Matthias Schnedlitz
Day, month, year of birth: February 20, 1895
Place (district, region) of birth: Vienna
Home town (district, region): Vienna
Religious affiliation: Roman Catholic (1922–1938, Jewish)
Marital status: Married
Occupation and occupational status: Household; maker of straw hats
Last place of residence (street address): 11th [district of Vienna], Simmering, 85/I/2 Hauptstr.
Formal education: 5th grade of elementary school 8 k
Assets and income: no, no income (one half)
Obligation to care for: no
Prior convictions: no—-
“I acknowledge that preliminary proceedings have been instituted against me due to suspicion of commission of a crime under §7/3 of the KVG [War Criminals Act], and that detention pending trial is imposed on me in accordance with §§175.2.3 and 180/2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
I was never a member of the NSDAP1 or one of its organizations. In 1922 I married the Jew Michael Schwarz and also converted to Judaism. I had been an Aryan and am a Roman Catholic. I was married to Michael Schwarz for 22 years. In 1942 I met Jos. Scholz. After I had previously been forced by the NSDAP1 to leave my husband Michael Schwarz. I was nagged by the Party to renounce the long-term relationship with the Jew. At the instigation of my domestic partner Scholz, I directed a letter to my husband Michael Schwarz, asking him to agree to a divorce. Because he was not willing to agree to the divorce, I wrote again at Scholz’s urging, reminding him [Schwarz] that in 1928, when the communists in the Lobau region were hunting down Nazis, he also took part in this and beat up Nazis. I asked Mr. Scholz to give this letter only to my husband in person. But Scholz, behind my back, took this letter to the police, and I was summoned to the police on the basis of these facts. What happened to my husband was not known to me at that time. I learned only later, when I got out of the Lainzer Hospital in January 1944, that my husband had died. Not until I was at the Gestapo office did I learn that my husband was in Auschwitz and died there from angina and inflammation of a muscle. That he was gassed, about that I knew nothing.
As concerns my middle daughter, Hilda, all I said about her at the Simmering police station was that she did not want to wear the Jewish star. I was not ill-intentioned, and all I wanted was for the police to caution her, because she was unwilling to heed my admonitions. My daughter Hilde was summoned to the police station, and nothing happened to her there.
My oldest son, Erwin, was denounced by the plant manager of the Persil firm because he was a Jew, and he [the manager] also wanted to fire him for that reason.”
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Ruth Maier is often referred to as Norway’s Anne Frank, I don’t agree with that. I think it takes away the value of the words of both women. Their circumstances and lifestyles were completely different. Even the way they were murdered was different. The only thing they had in common was that they were both Jewish.
Ruth Maier was born on 10 December 1920, in Vienna. She and her sister Judith, who was 1½ years younger, spent the first years of their childhood in Vienna-Döbling, in the attic apartment of an apartment building on Peter-Jordan
Starting in 1930, the municipality of Vienna built a large residential complex nearby – along Gersthofer Straße – in which the family moved into a spacious apartment on the 3rd floor (staircase 1, door 14; entrance Hockegasse 2). On the floor above, the father, the chairman of the Austrian postal union and secretary of the International Trade Union Federation of Postal, Telephone and Telegraph employees PTTI, Ludwig Maier, had his office.
Ruth liked to sit and read in her father’s study, with whom she had a close relationship. She was just 13 years old when her father died of bacterial dermatitis. Mother Irma and Grandmother Anna tried to give the two girls a happy childhood.
On her 18th birthday, Ruth witnessed the violent excesses of the Nazi mobs during the November 1938 pogrom in Vienna: Ruth Maier, who had previously had no connection to Judaism, began to confront her identity in her diary. Judith managed to escape to the United Kingdom, via the Kindertransport. Ruth was able to find refuge in Norway. She was too old for the Kindertransport.
On 30 January 1939, a family from Lillestrøm took Ruth Maier into their home: the telegraph operator Arne Strøm, an acquaintance of Ruth’s father, had vouched for the Norwegian authorities that the young refugee would not be a financial burden to the state. In August 1939 Ruth Maier was admitted to the Frogner School in Oslo, she became fluent in Norwegian within a year, completed her final exams, and befriended the future poet Gunvor Hofmo at a volunteer work camp in Biri. The two became a couple, finding lodging and work in various places in Norway.
Ruth was also one of the models for the statue “Surprised”, by Gustav Vigeland. It is on permanent display in Frogner Park in Oslo. Vigeland began work on the sculpture in about 1904. The model for the face of the sculpture was Inga Syvertsen; the sculpture was completed in 1942. Ruth was surprised by another person entering the room while she was modelling for Vigeland, and she tried to cover her naked body, which shows in her posture. The statue was eventually cast in bronze in 2002.
But even during this period, Maier repeatedly found herself overcome by a sense of loneliness and of being misunderstood, feelings which became particularly strong once the German Wehrmacht occupied Norway. They eventually led to a nervous breakdown, and in early 1941, Maier had herself committed to a psychiatric ward. Gunvor Hofmo’s visits were the only ray of hope during the seven weeks she spent there. In fact, it seems that Hofmo was the only person in Norway who cared about Maier.
Below are some excerpts from Ruth Maier’s diary.
Saturday, July 20, 1940, Lillestrøm “Lillestrøm is unbearable now. You come across German soldiers at every turn. They wink at the young girls with the same self-confidence, and the girls always smile back, bewitched by the uniform sore.”
In early January 1941, Biristrand “I can’t tell you how warm I am with Gunvor. I love her deep eyes very much. I love her way of speaking about things subtly”
Ruth’s ast note to Gunvor Hofmo
“I believe that it is good that it has come to this. Why should we not suffer, when there is so much suffering? Do not worry about me. Perhaps I would not want to trade with you.”
Norwegian police officers entered the Engelheim boarding house for girls and young women in Oslo on November 26, 1942, and took Ruth Maier away. The arrest is said to have been violent. Maier was dragged into a car and forced to board the “Donau,” a prisoner transport ship, on the very same day.
Five days later, she was murdered in the Auschwitz extermination camp along with 187 Jewish women, 42 children, and 116 men from Norway who were unable to work.
Jan Erik Vold, the editor of her diaries writes about the last hours before her deportation:
“The raid in which she was arrested took place on November 26. 300 men, members of the police, Quisling’s stormtroopers and the Gestapo took part in the operation. Taxis that had been confiscated were used to transport the arrested persons. Nunna Moum lived in the Same boarding school as Ruth. She says that the arrest happened quietly. Two Norwegian police officers led the Austrian down the stairs into the street to a waiting car. She was told to sit in the back seat, where two tearful girls were already sitting. The girls in the boarding school woke each other up and watched the scene. Someone said, ‘We can watch your gold watch until you come back.’ Ruth replied, ‘I’ll never come back.’ “
Gunvor Hofmo kept Ruth’s diaries and much of her correspondence. She approached Gyldendal to get them published in 1953 but was turned down. After she died in 1995, Jan Erik Vold went through her papers and came upon Ruth Maier’s works. After editing them for ten years, they were published in 2007. Vold was highly impressed by the literary value of the diaries, comparing Ruth Maier’s literary talent to that of Hannah Arendt and Susan Sontag. The book was translated into English by Jamie Bulloch in 2009
Gunvor Hofmo never got over the loss of her girlfriend. This traumatic experience was probably one of the reasons for the crisis Hofmo went through in the 1950s, which caused her to become a long-term patient at the Gaustad mental hospital in Oslo for two decades. In the immediate postwar period, Hofmo had suffered from obsessions which became increasingly intrusive. She heard voices and was afraid of “radiation” in her head.
In a speech issued on 27 January 2012 on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg issued an official apology for the role played by Norwegians in the deportations. As reported on the official website of the Norwegian Government, Stoltenberg delivered his speech at the dock in the capital Oslo where 532 Jews boarded the cargo ship Donau on 26 November 1942, bound for Nazi camps. Stoltenberg said:
“The Holocaust came to Norway on Thursday 26 November 1942. Ruth Maier was one of the many who were arrested that day. On 26 November, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, the sound of heavy boots could be heard on the stairs of the boarding house “Englehjemmet” in Oslo. A few minutes later, the slight Jewish girl was seen by her friends being led out the door of Dalsbergstien 3. Ruth Maier was last seen being forced into a black truck by two big Norwegian policemen. Five days later the 22-year-old was dead. Murdered in the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Fortunately, it is part of being human that we learn from our mistakes. And it is never too late. More than 50 years after the war ended, the Storting decided to make a settlement, collectively and individually, for the economic liquidation of Jewish assets. By so doing the state accepted moral responsibility for the crimes committed against Norwegian Jews during the Second World War. What about the crimes against Ruth Maier and the other Jews? The murders were unquestionably carried out by the Nazis. But it was Norwegians who carried out the arrests. It was Norwegians who drove the trucks. And it happened in Norway.”
I don’t agree with the line of the speech “Fortunately, it is part of being human that we learn from our mistakes” The unfortunate truth is that we don’t, we should, but we don’t.
Mauthausen was a concentration camp in Austria. It was one of the most brutal and severe of the concentration camps. The prisoners suffered not only from malnutrition but also because of overcrowded huts, constant abuse and beatings by the guards and kapos, and also from exceptionally hard labour.
An estimated 197,464 prisoners passed through the Mauthausen Concentration Camp system between August 1938 and May 1945. At least 95,000 people lost their lives there.
Below are two (of many) testimonies: one from a nurse who was there after the camp’s liberation, and another from a survivor.
Marie Knowles Ellifritz was 22 when she tended to the survivors of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Her commanding officer gave the nurses the option not to enter the camp because he couldn’t bring himself to subject them to the horrors he had seen. This is her recollection:
The emotional trauma caused by our medical participation in the liberation of the European concentration camps was beyond belief. As Americans and as women we never before had been subjected to such inhumanity to man. And my initial feeling was of a tremendous job to do.
To try to accommodate 1,500 patients into a 400-bed hospital had to be madness. That fact became our madness. And it proved to become a tremendously overwhelming job. Clinically, it was a matter of sorting the dead from the living, deciding who would live for at least three days or more, making all those we found comfortable and beginning the process of treatment. A tent to keep the patient dry, an air mattress to give them a place to lie down, a blanket to help them keep warm, pyjamas to give them some dignity, a small amount of food to nourish them, and plasma to preserve the remaining life and begin them on a road back to living.
Everyone had work to do. The patients themselves helped as much as they could. We deloused them. We moved them out of the larger camp into our tent city and we let the fresh air, the sunshine, the space, and most of all their freedom do its work.
It seemed to take one to three days for us to convince some of them that they were truly free at last. And when that reality came they simply closed their eyes and died in peace and freedom. Some of the patients seemed to know immediately that they were free once again and so they were able to rejoice and begin making plans for the future. Life force for these patients had begun when the camp’s gates were opened by their liberators.”
___________
Saul Inber grew up in a religious Jewish family. He was trained as a tailor. In 1939 he was sent to forced labour along with most of the young men of his town. He worked in many different labour camps before being deported to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp system in 1944. While working there, Saul’s hand was broken by an SS guard. He eventually ended up in the hospital in the Dachau Camp. He was liberated by US troops in May 1945.
After the war, he returned to his hometown and was reunited with his sister. They lived in a displaced persons camp in Austria, where Saul met and then married his wife, Miriam. Saul, his wife, and their two children settled in the United States in 1957.
Saul Inber’s testimonial: We were digging, digging other, other, making Schuetzengraben, I don’t know how they say, uh, trenches. And between us were, uh, a German. He had a very bad habit. He was a, had a, a habit, he used to go to pick up somebody and take him out and beat him for no reason. And, uh, too one time I fall, I fall in his category, and working so in the Schuetzengraben he, he started screaming, “Hey, you there, stinker, you there, come here,” uh, you know.
When I approached him, you know, and he took me on the side, this wall, you know, on uh, on the side from the house, we were in the back, you know, where the bombs had fallen, and we, we worked. And he, he put me, me near the, near the wall, my…myself. And he come to me and he asked me, you know, in a nice way, nice talking, and then he come and he lift up mine chin. When he lift up mine chin, he said to me in, uh, his words in German but I, because I speak Yiddish I understood the German, he said, “Where is your God?” And I raised my right hand–I remember it exactly–I raised my right hand…and face it to the sky. As soon as I lift up my hand to the sky, he pushed me to my stomach. He gives me such a punch because I was near the wall, I was thinking I’ll faint, and, and then he raised again my chin, you know, and he asked me again, and, uh, again I raised my hand and I told, “That’s my God. I believe in Him.” And he knocked me, but now, he knocked me again…he knocked me in the front in mine nose. I have a broken nose and he knocked those, mine first three teeth what I have up to today false teeth, he broke them, I took out my teeth and threw them away in the front of him, and I was bleeding, very much. And that, the same minute, when I took out mine teeth, he asked me again, something come in my mind. It’s like announced from God and I say, when he asked me, “Who’s your God?” I say, “You my God.” I point with the finger and with the same hand, with the right hand what I point to God, I point to him and I say, “You mine God,” and he asked me, “How come I’m your God?” I said, “When you don’t beat me, you mine God.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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Amon Göth’s granddaughter, Jennifer Teege, wrote a book titled, My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me. I don’t think that would be the case. In my opinion, Jennifer would not have been conceived had her grandfather been alive.
Göth was relatively unknown until Stephen Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List. His brutality was unhinged.
I wrote about Göth before. In this post, I want to focus on his evil nature—he was nearly too evil for the Nazis. Amon Göth was born on 11 December 1908 in Vienna and raised as a Roman Catholic. His grandfather and his father had a printing company that printed and bound books on military and economic history.
In 1940, Göth joined the Schutzstaffel with the number 43673. His career as a professional killer began. Until 30 May 1942, Göth was employed as an SS-Untersturmführer at the “Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle” in Katowice, Poland. On 12 June 1942, he was assigned to the staff of Odilo Globocnik, the Austrian-born SS- und Polizeiführer at Lublin. He was deployed there at the field of action of the Judenumsiedlung [resettlement of the Jews] a euphemism for the deportation and mass killings in the context of Aktion Reinhard.
Aktion Reinhard was the code name for the Nazi operation to destroy more than two million Jews in five districts of the General government—Warsaw, Lublin, Radom, Krakow, and the city of Lviv. This operation was named after Reinhard Heydrich, who, until his death on 4 June 1942, had been the main organizer of the Holocaust. Goeth was involved in the clearing of several smaller ghettos. After a conflict with SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, chief of staff of Aktion Reinhard, and another Austrian, he was transferred to Krakow. Goeth had been accused of corruption by Höfle. This warning, however, was not an incentive for Goeth to stop his corrupt activities.
However, by 1943, he had been promoted to Hauptsturmführer (similar to an army captain), and he had also become the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów Concentration Camp.
Now populated with prisoners, Płaszów started out as a slave labour camp before eventually being upgraded to full concentration camp status when it grew in size. Daily life at the camp was even more horrendous than in the other Nazi-established camps, due mainly to the activities of its commandant. Göth enjoyed humiliating, torturing and murdering people. He established rules for his little fiefdom. They were among some of the harshest ever imposed within the Nazi concentration camp system.
Prisoners could be executed for a whole wealth of reasons, ranging from being found with extra food hidden in their clothes to being related to a prisoner who had attempted to escape. Göth believed in collective punishment and wouldn’t hesitate to execute or severely beat prisoners who hadn’t done anything wrong. Executions took place on a daily basis on a large hill close to the camp known as Hujowa Górka. Trenches were dug on the hillside and prisoners were forced to stand naked in lines in the trenches where they were shot one after the other in the back of the head. Göth ordered that all prisoners of the camp had to watch these mass executions, including the children who lived in the camp. These children were eventually rounded up and sent off to Auschwitz to be gassed when Göth needed room for incoming prisoners.
It wasn’t just the strict rules Göth imposed on the camp that left prisoners living in a permanent state of fear. The commandant’s psychotic behaviour made life in Płaszów almost unbearable. Prisoners who survived the war describe a huge, foul-tempered and often drunken man who liked to shoot at least one person dead, every day before he’d had his breakfast. One prisoner, Poldek Pfefferberg said, “When you saw Goeth, you saw Death.”
Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, a young woman forced to work as Göth’s maid witnessed firsthand his appalling sadism. “As a survivor, I can tell you that we are all traumatized people, never would I, never, believe that any human being would be capable of such horror—of such atrocities.”
Then there were Göth’s dogs. Rolf and Ralf, were personally trained by Göth to attack prisoners on command. The dogs would tear their victims limb from limb as their screams rang out across the camp. Even the men who looked after Rolf and Ralf were safe. When Göth began to suspect the dogs preferred one of their handlers over their master, he had the man brought before him and shot.
Goeth personally murdered some of the Jewish victims himself, including approximately 90 women and children at Tarnów.
Göth’s corrupt life was the reason for the SS to arrest him on 13 September 1944. A higher-ranking SS officer, Eckert, investigated the corrupt ways of Göth. Evidence was found in his villa, a sum of around 80,000 Reichsmark. He had no explanation as to how he came about this sum. As well as the cash, a million cigarettes were found in the same villa. His apartment in Vienna looked more like a warehouse than a place to live due to the stockpile of stolen goods there. Göth was charged with black marketing and corruption but never faced a trial. There was no time because the war rapidly came to its conclusion. Suffering from diabetes, he was released in January 1945 and transported to a sanatorium in Bavarian Bad Tölz. In the meantime, the prisoners in Plaszow were transferred to other camps and evidence of the mass killings had been destroyed. The bodies in the mass graves around Plaszow were dug up and subsequently burnt. The last 2,000 prisoners were deported to Auschwitz on 14 January 1945.
Göth was arrested in Bad Tölz in Bavaria in 1945 by US troops. At the time of his capture, he was wearing a German Army uniform and was not immediately identified as an SS officer. However, survivors of Płaszów were able to identify him. He was tried and found guilty of imprisoning, torturing and killing thousands of people.
Amon Göth was sentenced to death for his crimes. He was hanged in the Montelupich Prison in Kraków on 13 September 1945, a short distance from the site of the notorious concentration camp where his disrespect, sadism and utter lack of humanity had caused so much human suffering in the history of Nazi tyranny.
Hanged on 13 September 1945, his final words were, “Heil Hitler.”
The number of victims of the Holocaust is just so difficult to fathom. When you talk about millions it just becomes a number it is just something that our human mind can’t comprehend.
It is often better to remember those who were murdered, one by one. Today I am remembering Jesaia Swart. He was murdered today 80 years ago in Mauthausen.
He was the youngest child of Gabriel Swart and Sara Peper. He married Saartje Levitus, the eldest child of Heiman Levitus and Esther Kosses, on 4 August 1909. Jesaja and Saartje had ten children: Hijman, Nathan, Marcus, Margaretha, Izak Jacob, and five children who survived the war. The family lived at several addresses in Amsterdam but lived at 43 Czaar Peterstraat from 1938 onward.
Jesaja Swart was arrested on 9 June 1942 and transferred to the concentration camp at Amersfoort via the house of detention on the Amstelveenseweg. After being tortured extensively, he was deported to Mauthausen, where he was murdered on October 14, 1942.
Born in Amsterdam, 15 February 1884. Reached the age of 58 years. Occupation: Rag peddler.
Anyone who has seen ‘Schindler’s List’ will know about Amon Göth, who was played by Ralph Fiennes in the movie.
Göth was the son of a prosperous publisher in Vienna. In 1931 he became a member of the Austrian Nazi Party at the age of 23.He was granted full party membership on 31 May 1931. His decision to join the party at this early stage meant that he was considered an Alter Kämpfer (Old Fighter), i.e., one who had joined the party before Adolf Hitler’s rise to the position of Chancellor of Germany.
Göth rose steadily through the SS ranks, earning a promotion to untersturmführer (equivalent to second lieutenant) in 1941 and joining Operation Reinhard, the Nazi campaign to kill the Jews of occupied Poland, in 1942. He was made commandant of Plaszow in February 1943 but remained active elsewhere, supervising the violent closings of the Kraków ghetto (March 1943), the Tarnów ghetto, and the Szebnie concentration camp (both in September 1943). His performance so pleased his superiors that he was promoted two ranks to hauptsturmführer (equivalent to army captain) in summer 1943.
In Plaszow, Göth had many prisoners killed as punishment for infractions, but he also killed randomly and capriciously. From the balcony of his villa, he took target practice with his rifle on prisoners as they moved about the camp.
Joseph Bau, a Polish-born Israeli artist, philosopher, inventor, animator, comedian, commercial creator, copy-writer, poet, and survivor of the Płaszów concentration camp, said about Göth.
“A hideous and terrible monster who reached the height of more than two meters. He set the fear of death in people, terrified masses, and accounted for much chattering of teeth.
He ran the camp through extremes of cruelty that are beyond the comprehension of a compassionate mind – employing tortures which dispatched his victims to hell.
For even the slightest infraction of the rules, he would rain blow after blow upon the face of the helpless offender and would observe with satisfaction born of sadism, how the cheek of his victim would swell and turn blue, how the teeth would fall out and the eyes would fill with tears.
Anyone who was being whipped by him was forced to count in a loud voice, each stroke of the whip and if he made a mistake was forced to start counting over again.
During interrogations, which were conducted in his office, he would set his dog on the accused, who was strung by his legs from a specially placed hook in the ceiling.
In the event of an escape from the camp, he would order the entire group from which the escapee had come, to form a row, would give the order to count ten, and would, personally kill every tenth person.
At one morning parade, in the presence of all the prisoners he shot a Jew, because, as he complained, the man was too tall. Then as the man lay dying he urinated on him.
Once he caught a boy who was sick with diarrhea and was unable to restrain himself. Goeth forced him to eat all the excrement and then shot him”.
He was even to evil for Nazi standards. On 13 September 1944, Göth was relieved of his position and charged by the SS with theft of Jewish property (which belonged to the state, according to Nazi regulations), failure to provide adequate food to the prisoners under his charge, violation of concentration camp regulations regarding the treatment and punishment of prisoners, and allowing unauthorised access to camp personnel records by prisoners and non-commissioned officers. Administration of the camp at Płaszów was turned over to SS-Obersturmführer Arnold Büscher. The camp was closed on 15 January 1945.Göth was scheduled for an appearance before SS Judge Georg Konrad Morgen, but due to the progress of World War II and Germany’s looming defeat, the charges against him were dropped in early 1945.
All those charges against him may appear that the Nazis actually cared for the wellbeing of prisoners, but that wasn’t the case. It only meant that Göth’s crimes were against the ‘greater good’ of the third reich. He enriched himself and used prisoners for his own benefit.
After being diagnosed with diabetes, he was sent to an SS sanitarium in Bad Tölz, Germany, where he was arrested by U.S. troops in early 1945. The Americans turned him over to the restored Polish government, which then tried him for war crimes, most notably the killing of more than 10,000 people in the Plaszow and Szebnie camps and in the Kraków and Tarnów ghettos. Göth’s defense was that he was only following orders. After the brief trial, he was convicted on September 5, 1946, and hanged eight days later. He was sentenced to death and was hanged on 13 September 1946 at the Montelupich Prison in Kraków, not far from the site of the Płaszów camp. His remains were cremated and the ashes thrown in the Vistula River. Allegedly his last words were ‘Heil Hitler’.
In addition to his two marriages, Göth had a two-year relationship with Ruth Irene Kalder, a beautician and aspiring actress originally from Breslau (or Gleiwitz; sources vary). Kalder first met Göth in 1942 or early 1943 when she worked as a secretary at Oskar Schindler’s enamelware factory in Kraków. She met Göth when Schindler brought her to dinner at the villa at Płaszów; she said it was love at first sight. She soon moved in with Göth and the two had an affair, but she stated that she never visited the camp itself. Göth’s second wife Anna, still living in Vienna with their two children, filed for divorce upon learning of Göth’s affair with Kalder. Kalder left for Bad Tölz to be with her mother for the birth of her daughter, Monika Hertwig , on 7 November 1945. She was Göth’s last child. Kalder was devastated by Göth’s execution in 1946, and she took Göth’s name shortly after his death.
In 2002, Hertwig published her memoirs under the title Ich muß doch meinen Vater lieben, oder? (“I do have to love my father, don’t I?”). Hertwig described her mother as unconditionally glorifying Göth until confronted with his role in the Holocaust. Kalder suffered from emphysema and committed suicide in 1983 shortly after giving an interview in Jon Blair’s documentary Schindler. Hertwig’s experiences in dealing with her father’s crimes are detailed in Inheritance, a 2006 documentary directed by James Moll. Appearing in the documentary is Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, one of Göth’s Jewish former housemaids. The documentary details the meeting of the two women at the Płaszów memorial site in Poland. Hertwig had requested the meeting, but Jonas-Rosenzweig was hesitant because her memories of Göth and the concentration camp were so traumatic. She eventually agreed after Hertwig wrote to her, “We have to do it for the murdered people.” Jonas felt touched by this sentiment and agreed to meet her.
Monika Hertwig in front of her father’s villa in Plaszow.
Monika’s daughter Jennifer Teege is a German writer. Her grandfather was Amon Göth. Her 2015 book ‘My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family’s Nazi Past’ was a New York Times bestseller. I don’t agree with that because if it was up to her Grandfather she wouldn’t even have been born, because of her Father’s Nigerian background.
Before I go into the main story, I just want to point out the most disturbing aspect of the picture above. At the very front is a lady carrying a baby. We know now what her fate would have been. It is a disturbing sight on an old photograph, so just imagine how disturbing this most have been for those who were forced to help the Nazis in their crimes. These men would have also know what fate awaited the lady and her baby, and they could nothing about it, to safeguard their own survival and perhaps of their family. Or at least the notion that they perhaps would survive.
Sonderkommandos were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed of prisoners, usually Jews, who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust. The death-camp Sonderkommandos, who were always prisoners and victims themselves, were unrelated to the SS-Sonderkommandos, which were ad hoc units formed from members of various SS offices between 1938 and 1945.
This blog is not to judge those were forced into the Sonderkommandos, none of us can judge because we were never put in that situation. This blog is about a few of the Dutch Jews who were forced into the Sonderkommandos in Auschwitz.
With the arrival of a deportation train in Auschwitz, the work of the Sonderkommandos began. They had to escort the victims to the gas chamber, reassure them and collect their belongings. After the victims were gassed, the members of the Sonderkommandos moved the corpses from the gas chamber and took them to the incineration pits or crematoria. For this arduous work, Jewish men are selected on the platform, including one hundred to one hundred and fifty Dutch. They were forced to become part of the Nazi killing machine at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
During the invasion of the German army of the Netherlands in May 1940, Josef van Rijk fought with the reserve company De Jagers in The Hague against the Germans. During that time Josef shot d a German paratrooper, and killed him. Maurice Schellekes is a tailor and didn’t notice much of the German invasion. But both Jewish men soon had to deal with the persecution of the Jews in the occupied Netherlands. Josef is fired from De Bijenkorf in The Hague and Maurice was sent the Jewish labor camp Kremboong on March 31, 1942.
Josef tries to flee to Switzerland, but is arrested during a check at Amsterdam Central Station. He is imprisoned in the prison on the Amstelveenseweg and is soon transferred to Camp Westerbork. Maurice also flees after rumors that Kremboong will be evicted. He goes into hiding in Amsterdam. On August 6, 1942, Maurice goes outside to get razors and is arrested. He also ends up in Camp Westerbork.
Josef and Maurice both only spent a brief time in Camp Westerbork. Because they were arrested after an attempt to flee and trying to go into hiding, the men are considered ‘criminal cases’. They were deported on 10 August 1942 from Camp Westerbork to Auschwitz.
The following day they arrive at the extermination camp and are selected to work in the Sonderkommando. Maurice works at the mass graves in the open Sonderkommando of Bunker II. Josef buries the corpses after they are taken from Bunker II to the mass graves via a narrow gauge railway with a small wagon.
Working in the Sonderkommando was physically very demanding. In the scorching August sun, the men barely get a drink. The SS and Kapos guarding them constantly mistreated the men. But then suddenly there was a way out. All Dutchmen were called upon to participate. The men of the Sonderkommando were not allowed to leave at all.
This saved Josef and Maurice’s lives. The group of 1200 Dutch people had to undress and were inspected. The healthy men, including Josef and Maurice, were given clean camp clothes, leave Birkenau and walk to Auschwitz. The other Dutch were gassed. Josef and Maurice end up in the Kanada-Kommando.
–When the selection process was complete, a work group of prisoners called the ‘Kanada Kommando’ collected the belongings of victims and took them to the ‘Kanada’ warehouse facility for sorting and transporting back to Germany.
To prisoners Canada was a country that symbolised wealth. They, therefore, gave the ironic name Kanada (the German spelling of Canada) to the warehouse area as it was full of possessions, clothing and jewellery.–
Both Josef and Maurice survived the war.
“An intertwined mass of people – tangle of people – who could only be separated by moistening them. They were sprayed wet. (..) By just pulling you took the bodies out, like a bunch of animals. We have been horrified done that for a few days but by then we were already used to it.”: Josef van Rijk
“I realized that this mound was loose earth, shoveled from the ground where there was now a mass grave filled with rows of women’s bodies covered with quicklime. It was such a terrible sight that words on paper simply cannot describe it. There was the work that was waiting for me.”: Maurice Schellekes
At the end of 1943 a new group of Dutchmen ended up in the Sonderkommando. Including Samuel Zoute who arrived on 21 October 1943. Before the war, he sold fruit and vegetables on the Albert Cuyp market. On 19 October 1943, Samuel is deported from Camp Westerbork to Auschwitz, together with his wife Doortje and four children. Doortje, Rachel, Abraham and Simon are gassed immediately. Eldest son Maurits is selected for labour, until he too is gassed. Samuel found his son Maurits among the gassed people and had to burn him.
On August 17, 1943, Abraham Beesemer, Joseph Peperroot, Salomon van Sijs and Louis Elzas arrived in Auschwitz. The men were first in the quarantine block and at the beginning of January 1944 they ended up together in the Sonderkommando. Jacob Beesemer, Abraham’s brother, was later also selected for the Sonderkommando.
These Dutchmen were also looking for a way out of the Sonderkommando. The number of incoming transports decreased and the Sonderkommandos were slowly reduced. The threat of the complete liquidation of the Sonderkommandos hung in the air. On October 7, 1944, a prisoner knocked down an SS man with a hammer and started the uprising. Several Sonderkommandos revolt. One of the crematoria is blown up and hundreds of Sonderkommando prisoners flee the camp. Three SS men and about 450 Sonderkommando prisoners were killed. The brothers Abraham and Jacob, Salomon, Joseph and Louis were murdered by the SS. Samuel Zoute and Hagenaar Henry Bronkhorst worked at other crematoria in other Sonderkommandos and managed to survive the uprising.
After the uprising, Henry Bronkhorst, Samuel Zoute, Maurice Schellekes and Josef van Rijk are still alive. As the Russians approach, the death marches begin to clear the camp. Henry Bronkhorst is the only one who manages to mix with the other prisoners and thus remain in Auschwitz until its liberation by the Russians on January 27, 1945. The rest are forced to join the death marches: Samuel, Maurice and Josef leave Auschwitz. Samuel ends up in Mauthausen, he is murdered on March 7, 1945. Maurice ends up in Ebensee, a satellite camp of Mauthausen, and is liberated by the Americans on May 6, 1945. Josef ends up in Leitmeritz, a subcamp of Flossenbürg and is liberated by the Russians on 9 May 1945.
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On 2 June 1942, 64 people were transported from Camp Amersfoort in the Netherlands to Mauthausen in Austria. Of the 64 people, 12 were murdered on 6 July 1942.
Nathan de Klijn was born in Amsterdam on 29 August 1905. He was murdered in Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 36 years. His surname is pronounced the same as mine. Occupation: Transport bicycle hand.
Louis Cohen was born in Amsterdam on 3 January 1918 and murdered in Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 24 years. Occupation: Office clerk.
Alexander van der Stam was born in Antwerp on 30 September 1894. He was murdered in Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He was 47 years old. Occupation: Waiter.
Jozua Klein was born in Wildervank on 3 April 1901. He was murdered in Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 41 years. Occupation: Merchant.
David Abraham Drielsma was born at Elst, Gelderland, on 18 September 1903. He was murdered at Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He was 38 years old.
Marcus Cohen was born in Groningen on 12 July 1907. He was murdered at Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He was 34 years old. Occupation: Debenture bond office owner.
Maximiliaan del Valle was born in Amsterdam on 23 April 1897. He was murdered at Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 45 years. Occupation: Literary scholar.
Levi Messcher was born in Haskerland on 28 June 1895. He was murdered at Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 47 years. Occupation: Sales representative.
Levie Godschalk was born in Amsterdam on 24 June 1906. He was murdered at Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 36 years. Occupation: Livestock wholesale dealer.
Bernhard van der Kloot was born in The Hague on 16 November 1897. He was murdered at Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 44 years. Occupation: Merchant.
Juda Schrijver was born in Amsterdam on 21 July 1915 and murdered in Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 26 years. Occupation: Dispatch boy.
Albert Sluizer was born in Amsterdam on 12 August 1916. He was murdered in Mauthausen on 6 July 1942. He reached the age of 25 years. Occupation: Manager.
I only gave limited biographies on the men, but this is to show that they weren’t members of political or terror groups, criminals, or tax evaders. They were all just regular guys with regular jobs. Yet there were murdered because the Nazis thought they were different.
History of Sorts 
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