A German historian has come across a series of harrowing photographs secretly taken during the early stages of the Holocaust of Jewish families being driven from their homes by the Nazi regime.
13 photographs taken more than 80 years ago shed light on one of the most sinister incidents in history, showing followers of the Third Reich forcing Jewish families and community members in the town of Breslau in Silesia, today Wrocław in Poland, to gather outside a restaurant near a train station to be sent home.
Surrounded by armed members of The Gestapo — a secret police force that ruthlessly investigated and exposed enemies of the State during the reign of the Nazi party — unsuspecting civilians carrying a lot of baggage could not imagine what was in store for them.
“They seem quite calm. It seems clear they didn’t know they were going to be killed,” Steffen Heidrich, a historian who identified the photo, told The Observer last month.
“This is relatively early in the history of these evictions and so they obviously didn’t expect it.”
Almost all of those seen in the photograph are believed to have been killed just days after they were taken by the head of the SS and orchestrated by Heinrich Himmler’s mobile Holocaust killing unit — the Einsatzgruppen — in a mass shooting in Lithuania in November 1941, while others are believed to have been killed on then in Poland in April 1942, documents show.
Jews are waiting in front of the meeting place, either standing in groups or sitting with their luggage: some are engaged in conversation, and others are waiting in silence on November 21, 1941. The area is cordoned off along the trees by a wire rope. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden A group of people arrive at the “Schießwerder” on November 21, 1941. They may be Gertrud Cohn, an unidentified man, and her daughters Tamara (left) and Susanne (right). Behind stood a truck from a shipping company carrying luggage. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden Several groups of people stand in front of the “Schießwerder” restaurant. In the middle, a doctor, probably Dr. Herbert Hayn, can be seen. To his right stands an armed municipal police officer, hidden behind a Gestapo officer on November 21, 1941. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden
On November 21, 1941, more than 1,000 residents of Breslau were arrested by members of the Gestapo, then inhumanely stuffed into trains for four days to be deported to Fort IX of the Kaunas Fortress in Kovno, Lithuania.
Upon their arrival, members of Einsatzgruppe A will be tasked with killing deportees on orders handed down by one of the leading architects and supervisors of the “Final Solution”, Reinhard Heydrich.
The killings will be carried out by a sub-group of the mobile death unit, Einsatzkommando 3 under the command of Karl Jäger.
It is estimated that between 45,000 and 50,000 Jews were killed in the fortress.
More Breslau Jews arrive at the “Schießwerder” on November 21, 1941. The woman in the center of the picture looks straight at the photographer. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden This last picture was taken in April 1942 during the second deportation from Breslau. The deportation luggage was packed differently due to new orders from the Gestapo for the second deportation. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden
Again, on April 9, 1942, nearly 1,000 Jews were arrested outside the same restaurant before being transported by train to Izbica – a ghetto in eastern Poland with a death rate almost identical to the infamous Warsaw ghetto.
Two people in the transport later survived, according to The Observer.
Heidrich discovered the photographs in an archive in Dresden, Germany, while working with fellow researchers to catalog a large cache.
“When I first took these pictures, it was a happy moment,” Heidrich told the outlet.
Jews were waiting with their luggage in the “Schießwerder” beer garden, which was used as a rallying point on November 21, 1941. By now, few seats were empty. On the right side, the truck tarp behind which the photographer is hiding blocks the view. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden Two elderly people with luggage hurriedly walk on the front lawn of the “Schießwerder” on November 21, 1941. Various vehicles stand in the background of the picture. The trailer loading area appears to be empty. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden
“It is clear that they are scenes of eviction. I Googled the name of the restaurant to confirm the location. Other pictures, mostly in very poor condition, are of Jewish life in the DDR [the former East Germany]or Jewish life in Dresden before the Shoah [Holocaust]so it was unexpected to find an eviction scene there.”
The historian, along with other researchers at the Freie Universität in Berlin, hopes that surviving friends and younger relatives will be able to recognize some of those who were uprooted from their lives and killed by the Nazis in the photo series available generally.
Alina Bothe, the university’s project director, believes the photo was taken by an architect named Albert Hadda, who secretly recorded it through a wall or car window during the eviction.
Jews are waiting in front of the meeting place, either standing in groups or sitting with their luggage: some are engaged in conversation, and others are waiting in silence on November 21, 1941. The area is cordoned off along the trees by a wire rope. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden A man pushes an elderly woman in a wheelchair who has a suitcase at her feet. In the back, you can see the truck from the shipping company to pick up the luggage. A projection of the wall to his right shielded the photographer from view. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden Several men stand in front of the “Schießwerder”, one of them looks directly at the photographer. At the bottom edge, you can see the gate to the truck loading area from where the photo was taken. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden
“The accidental and sensational discovery of the archive opens a new perspective on the persecution of Jews persecuted in Breslau,” he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month.
Hadda, a Jew himself, was deported in 1944 to a labor camp but escaped back to Breslau, where he hid until liberation by the Soviet Union.
After the war, Hadda lived in Frankfurt, working for Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius before immigrating to Israel.
In the background, a man stands on top of a pile of luggage facing the crowd. In front of him, to his right, a municipal official on a bicycle. At the top edge of the picture, a truck tarp cuts off the view. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden A view of the “Schießwerder” beer garden on November 21, 1941. Several transport vehicles ready for departure. In the background, people who were persecuted because of the Jews were pushing against each other. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden
More than six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust – a third of the world’s Jewish population.
It is estimated that over two million of those killed were committed by members of the Third Reichs Einsatzgruppe — commonly referred to as the “Holocaust by bullets” before and during the creation of the death camps.
About 1.3 million Jews who lived under the Nazi regime or in German-controlled territories survived to see the end of the war.
Larger luggage is carried there on trolleys. On the right edge stands a man surveying what is going on, possibly a Gestapo officer on November 21, 1941. Landesverband Sachsen der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Dresden
The images were shared last month as part of International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the international research project #LastSeen, which published the pictures on its website as a stark reminder of the horrors orchestrated by the Nazi regime.
Anyone who recognizes the person from the photograph is encouraged to contact the project by email at its website.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
