Comment: Strikingly similiar to a document David Irving made famous from British decodes, suggests originally this must have been a normal communication, for reasons unknown only a handful have survived. Possibly the reason the one in the British Decodes made it through the net, was because there was a mention in a Himmler telephone memo.
Text:
Telegrams from Lodz to the RSHA Referat IV D 4 served as confirmation and final report about each deoportation train. A December 17 telex, for example, reported under the heading "Transport of Poles - Lithuanian Operation" that:
train 3145 carrying 957 Jews had arrived in Lodz/Litzmanndstadt on December 17, 1940 at 5 AM and after inspection left for its final destination of Lukow [in the Generalgouvernement] at 6 AM. This transport would probably conclude this operation for the remainder of the year. The foodstuffs provided for this transport in Soldau [Danzig-West Prussia] amounted to: sausage 500 kilograms, bread 1,000 kilograms, legumes 200 kilograms.Altogether about 17,000 people from Upper Silesia and 30,000 from Danzig-West Prussia were deported to the Generalgouvernement in 1940
Footnoe: Telex from Lodz (Litzmannstadt) to the RSHA - to SS Stubaf. Eichmann and to the Chief of the Sicherheitspolizei and SD - SS-Staf. Damzog - Posen, re: Transport of Poles, Operation Lithuania, dated December 17, 1940, in Adolf Diamant, Getto Litzmannstadt: Bilanz eines nationalsozialistischen Verbrechens (Frankfurt: Verlag Heimat Sachsen, 1986), 76
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Compare with Decodes Telegram from November 1941
No 35: SPK from DQB SSD Berlin No. 44 2300 3 parts 173 169 177 SPK1
Commander of Security Police Dr lange in riga.
Re Evakuierung of the Jews. November 17, 1941 at 18:25 hrs transport train No. DO 26 has left Berlin for KOVNO [Kaunas] with 944 Jews. Transport escorted by two Gestapo and fifteen police officers. Transport commander is Kriminaloberassessor EXNER, who has two copies of the transport list with him. Transport provided with following provisions: 3000 Kg. bread, 2700 Kg. flour, 200 Kg. peas, 200 Kg. nutriments, 300 Kg. cornflakes, 18 bottles of soup spices. . . . [continued in Berlin Nr 45]."
No 36: SPK1 from SPÖ SSD Berlin No. 45 2300 2 parts 107 103
SPK1 410 .... 52,5 Kg. soup-powders, 100 packets of .... corrupt groups .... 50 Kg. salt, 1.... corrupt groups .... 1 ..... corrupt groups ...... and 47,200 Rm. in Reich cashiers' credits. Gestapo HQ Berlin, IV D 1.
Here also is what Longerich had to say
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is the first train to Kovno. The people were all killed in Kovno.
Q. [Mr Irving] Thank you for telling us. That is very interesting to know that. This is the train load on November 17th 1941, 6.25 p.m., the transport train number DO, presumably that is Deutschland Ost, 26th, has left Berlin for Kovno with 944 Jews on board, details of what the transport escort is. Then it says the transport has been provided with 3,000 kilograms of bread, 27 hundred kilograms of flour, and various other things, which indicates that they were going to have enough food for the journey and some.
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
Q. [Mr Irving] There is another telegram, I am not sure if it is in this bundle or not, Miss Rogers will know, which actually says they are going to be taking their Gerat with them.
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Tools.
Q. [Mr Irving] Their tools or appliances?
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
Q. [Mr Irving] Does that imply they anticipated the people sending them, anticipated they were going to be going to a new life, if I can put it that way?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: We had this this morning, you got the answer you wanted. They were lured into thinking that they were going to a new life in the East.
MR IRVING: Very well, but am I right now, Dr Longerich, you said that this particular train load, which was referred to here, which I did not know, I have to confess, ended up being murdered?
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The first five trains to Riga were diverted to Kovno and these are the trains where the people were killed, and the first train to Riga as well. If I am not completely mistaken, I am pretty sure the people on this train were killed.
Q. [Mr Irving] So would this indicate a totally chaotic situation? The people in Germany who were sending them out, assume they are going to need tools and bread for a new life, whereas the people who received them, bumped them off as they arrived?
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Again, the tools and the food was provided by the Jewish community.
Q. [Mr Irving] That is neither here nor there, is it, really?
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It was provided by the Jewish communities, so the Jewish communities were assuming that, as a kind of solidarity with the people who were deported, they had to provide them with enough food and tools to survive the first days and maybe to build up new homes. I cannot draw from the fact that these trains were provided with food and tools, I am not able to draw any conclusions as far as the motives and aims of the Gestapo was concerned. It refers to the Jewish communities in Germany, what they thought it was appropriate to do.
Q. [Mr Irving] Yes, but ----
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The SS or the police did not provide the trains with food from their own stocks.
Q. [Mr Irving] Yes. I now take you to page 124. That is the other message I was referring to, where they are being sent with the food and the money and the appliances.
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
Q. [Mr Irving] This is a message from the SS, is it not, in Bremen to the commander of the police in Riga, saying, we are sending all these people with this food and with these appliances?
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
Q. [Mr Irving] Is a reasonable inference, reading that, that the people in Bremen assumed that they were not just carrying all this stuff as camouflage, because they were going to be bumped off when they got there? The people in Bremen had Is a reasonable inference, reading that, that the people no idea they were going to their deaths?
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The Gestapo, you mean?
Q. [Mr Irving] The people who sent this message.
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not know. I am really cautious to draw this conclusion from this document. They are just saying the Jews are coming and they are bringing money and tools and food with them. I have to see if it survives the internal correspondence of the Gestapo in Bremen. I would not simply agree.
Q. [Mr Irving] Would not the least perverse interpretation to be put on this message be that it is an innocent message from the people in Bremen, saying we are sending a train load of a thousand people who are members of the chosen race, with all their food and appliances, and they are arriving at such and such a time, and so on? Any other interpretation is pure speculation.
A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Every interpretation here is I think speculation. The money, for instance: Do you think this is money from the Gestapo in Bremen to buy food for the Jews in Riga? I would think the money is taken from the Jewish community and it goes into the pockets of the Gestapo. I see this document here and I cannot follow your line of interpretation.
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Finally to complete the trip down memory lane, the text of the telephone conversation of Himmler with Heydrich, 30 November 1941
Verhaftung Dr. Jekelius
Angebl[icher] Sohn Molotow.
Judentransport aus Berlin.
Keine Liquidierung.
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