railway personnel

Railway Personnel

Historical Background and Source Discussion Suitable for Ages 15 and above

Rationale

The killing method used in the six extermination centers was based on the principle of bringing the victims to the killing site, rather than the killers coming to seek the victims where they resided. Jews had to be deported from all over Europe to the extermination camps in Poland, where most were killed within hours of their arrival. A vast system of transportation had to be set up in order to implement these deportations.

Skopje, Yugoslavia, Bulgarian policemen standing between two deportation trains, March 1943 (Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 92AO6)

Rationale

This determination on the part of the Nazis to ascertain that Europe “be combed through” for every last Jew is one manifestation of the uniqueness of the Holocaust: Nazi ideology was based on a fantasy in which the Jews, wherever they might be, posed a mortal threat to the Aryan race. The intricate system that was set up for the transportation of Jews to the killing centers from all over Europe highlights the cool-headed, premeditated nature of the Nazi murder of the Jews.

Rationale

The designers of Nazi policy strove for a “clean”, orderly and efficient extermination of the Jews, rather than eruptions of violent hatred. Werner Best, for example, a leading Nazi intellectual, spoke of the need to kill without hating. In practice, of course, the murder was accompanied by brutality and cruelty.

Rationale

The involvement of professionals, such as railway officials, raises deep questions. The Nazi regime seemed to encounter no difficulties in enlisting people not necessarily committed to Nazi ideology and transforming them into efficient elements in the killing apparatus. The role played by modern technology in the killing process raises further questions as to the nature of modernity, the modern state and technology.

Historical Background

The railway played a crucial role in the implementation of the “Final Solution”. The organization and coordination of transports was a complicated matter, especially in a wartime setting. With the growing shortage of supplies and the priority given to military transports, the allocation of trains for the deportation of the Jews was not always easily accomplished.

Skopje, Yugoslavia, Deportation of Jews from Thrace, Greece, March 1943213/42


It took the close co-operation of all agencies – the SS, the civilian officials of the German Railway, the Ministry of Transportation and, in some cases, the Foreign Office – to overcome the difficulties and to allow the transports to run so efficiently that hundreds of thousands of Jews could be deported to their death.

Birkenau, Poland, Arrival of a transport to the platform, 27/5/1944268/3


The Nazis had a master plan for implementing their racial theory in such a manner as to facilitate a demographic reorganization of Europe. Germans and Poles were to be resettled. Jews were to be concentrated in the East, and later, after the decision to murder them was made, they were to be deported to killing centers.

Bielefeld, Germany, A German policemen supervising the boarding of the deported Jews to the deportation train, 1941(Yad Vashem Photo Archives 1286/1)


In January, 1942, representatives from a broad range of German ministries and military and civilian agencies were called to a meeting in a villa at Wannsee, on the outskirts of Berlin. Here they coordinated the enormous undertaking of murdering Europe’s Jews. Heydrich, chief of the Reich Security Main Office, said that Europe “was to be combed through from West to East in the course of the practical implementation of the Final Solution”. The officials at the meeting then proceeded to discuss the practical details.

Wannsee, Berlin, Germany, The Villa in Which the Wannsee Conference Was Conducted (Yad Vashem Archives 4613/432)


In the spring and summer of 1942, the extermination facilities were completed, and the deportations to the extermination camps commenced. Nazi Germany employed modern technology and exploited Europe’s extensive transportation networks to deport millions of Jews from all over the continent to the East. Jews from Paris and Amsterdam, from Salonika and Warsaw, were rounded up, packed into box-wagons and shipped hundreds of miles across Europe, only for the large majority of them to be killed upon arrival at their destination.

Salonika, Greece, Jews being taken to the city in wagons during a deportation, 1943(Yad Vashem Photo Archives 4617/4)


The dehumanization, degradation and suffering inflicted upon the victims was tremendous. The Jews were shipped like cattle in sealed box-wagons. They suffered from freezing cold in winter and unbearable heat in summer. The wagons were tightly packed, their occupants locked inside with no sanitary facilities, no fresh air, no water, and only the food they had brought with them. Once they were on the train, they were deprived of any freedom of choice and control over their lives. They were not told where they were going, how long the journey would last, or what would happen once they reached their final destination. The trains were frequently sidetracked to allow other trains to pass. This meant that the deportees spent many days locked in the trains. On arrival, there were many corpses in the train cars.

Testimony

“Over 100 people were packed into our cattle car…. It is impossible to describe the tragic situation in our airless, closed car. Everyone tried to push his way to a small air opening. I found a crack in one of the floorboards into which I pushed my nose to a get a little air. The stench in the cattle car was unbearable…. After some time, the train suddenly stopped. A guard entered the car. He had come to rob us. He took everything that had not been well hidden: money, watches, valuables…. Water! We pleaded with the railroad workers. We would pay them well. I paid 500 Zlotys and received a cup of water…

Testimony

…As I began to drink, a woman, whose child had fainted, attacked me. She was determined to make me leave her a little water. I did leave a bit of water at the bottom of the cup, and watched the child drink. The situation in the cattle car was deteriorating. The car was sweltering in the sun. The men lay half-naked. Some of the women lay in their undergarments. People struggled to get some air, and some no longer moved…. The train reached the camp. Many lay inert on the cattle car floor. Some were no longer alive.” - From the testimony of Avraham Kaszepicki, deported from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp in the summer of 1942.

The Railway Personnel

The deportations were initiated and organized by the SS. Though the plans and ideas came from the hard-core Nazi functionaries who were motivated by ideology and who enthusiastically supported the anti-Jewish policy, many more people from all parts of German society and all state organs were needed. The deportation required the participation of many professional railway personnel, from the top executive down to the last railway engineer. Some of the railway personnel dealt with the transports from their offices. They did not have to see the deportation with their own eyes. Others drove the trains or worked in the railway stations where the trains were loaded or passed by on their way to the East.

Some of those railway people later explained the role they played as they saw it. The statements were made during a trial in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1964.


Walter Stier, former official in the timetable planning of the German railway in Eastern Europe: “I dealt with these matters only from my desk. My sole activity was technically taking care of train timetables.”

Hans Pitsch, station-master in Bialystok, Poland: “I made appropriate reports on the corpses found at the tracks in my jurisdiction. The reports then were submitted to the management. By this I had fulfilled my duty.”


Egon Weber, railway engineer who had driven trains from Bialystok to Treblinka: “I heard the shootings along the train, but never saw them. I never turned my head and looked back. I always looked forward.”

Eduard Kryscak, member of the railway personnel that accompanied the transports:“I did not see anything of the loading of the Jews at the Bialystok railway station. I was totally immersed in filling out the many documents for the transport, and had no time to observe what was going on around me.”

Questions

Like many other bureaucrats, the railway personnel had not been selected for this job because of their commitment to Nazi ideology, but rather for their professional skills.

•What could the reasons that made them participate in the operation have been?

Questions

Eduard Kryscak claimed: “I was totally immersed in filling out the many documents for the transport, and had no time to observe what was going on around me”. · Is it likely that they were so immersed in their work that they had no idea of the implications and results of their tasks? Do you believe this was possible?

· To what extent would you suggest that this disregard or lack of awareness is itself wrong?

Questions

Zygmunt Bauman wrote that the Holocaust was possible because of modern thinking, organizational methods and technology. This permitted man to control his environment as well as to change it drastically. Technology and progress are usually considered beneficial to humanity.

•Might these aspects of modernity in fact pose inherent dangers? What can be done to protect us from the misuse of modern technology and organizational methods?

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