Comments on the Recent Excavations at Belzec,
July 20, 1998
I am enclosing for your information a brief situation report pertaining
to the situation of the Jewish populations in the occupied East, and
which comprises part of the Nuremberg record. Dozens of these reports
were prepared.
The present brief report, dated from the beginning of July, 1942,
contains two points of interest: first, in its reference to the final
solution as an event to take place in future time, and second, in its
discussion of the number of Jewish persons in the region being dependent
on their willingness to declare themselves as Jews in censuses.
Samuel Crowell
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Title: "Document 3943-PS: Reports from the Occupied Eastern Territories
No. 1, Part 01 [partial translation]", in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression.
Supplement A: Closing Address, Closing Arguments, Closing Statements;
Documents Introduced in Evidence By British and American Prosecutors.
District of Columbia: GPO, 1947. pp.
Author: US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality
Accession Number: AC_94X_09638 Publication Date: PD_19470101. Document
Type: Government Document. Source Document Language(s): English See
Also Related Document Supersets: ANCA; NCA; NWCT Country of Publication:
USA
Reports from the occupied Eastern territories No. 9
To be filed 7/1/1942 [initials]
When making inquires please refer to the above number of the report.
[Page 7, line 11 to page 8, line 16 incl.]
The Jews in White Ruthenia
The White Ruthenian area has always been the most densely populated
by Jews of all areas of the Eastern territory. According to a census
taken in 1926 more than 400000 Jews lived in what was then the White
Ruthenian Socialist Soviet Republic (RSSR). In the Western territories
belonging to the former Poland which are also populated mainly by White
Ruthenians more than 500000 Jews were living there according to a census
last taken in 1931. Experience shows that the Jews, when censuses were
taken, for reasons of camouflage only partly acknowledged to be Jews,
and therefore the figures given embrace only a part of the Jews actually
living in the White Ruthenian settlement area, so that their total number
in reality is far higher.
At the outbreak of the war, more than half of the Jews in White Ruthenia
lived in the larger cities, above all in Minsk, where out of 238000
inhabitants 100000-120000 were Jews. Although the great majority of
the White Ruthenian Jews were impecunious, they still had exercised
for a long time a great influence in all spheres of life, in the former
Polish area as well as in the originally Soviet Russian area. At the
same time, the influence of the Jews in the former Polish territory
was due mainly to their very strong economic positions. While in the
Soviet Russian part of White Ruthenia they had their powerful positions
in the state apparatus, and above all in the Communist party, especially
in its real centers of power, the Central Committee and the Politbureaus.
The measures taken by the Security Police and SD have caused basic
changes also in White Ruthenia in regard to the Jewish question. In
order to bring the Jews under an effective control, independent of the
measures to be taken later, Jewish Councils of Elders were formed, who
were responsible to the Security Police and the SD for the behavior
of their racial comrades. Besides, the registration of the Jews was
initiated and they were concentrated in ghettos. Finally the Jews had
to wear yellow insignia in front and on their back to be recognized,
in the manner of the Jewish star introduced in the territory of the
Reich. In order to utilize Jewish labor fully the Jews were generally
used for uniform employment and for clearing up operations.
With these measures the foundation was laid for the later intended
final solution of the European Jewish problem, for the White Ruthenian
territory as well.
[stamp] Z-RV-K Berlin, 1/22/1943
The Chief of the Security Police and of the Security Service, Command
Staff
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