by Bronka Klibanski
Over the years, various reports of this affair have come to light, all stating that at the end of August 1943 (on the 21st or 22nd), at the time of the annihilation of the Bialystok ghetto and the uprising there, the Gestapo suddenly demanded from the chairman of the Judenrat, Barash, that 1,200 children ages 6-12 be gathered in order to transfer them, so they said, in an exchange deal to Palestine. Four hundred children were removed from two ghetto orphanages and the rest were taken from their parents, who hoped thereby to save their children from death. The Judenrat also arranged for 20 nurses and doctors, headed by Mrs. Haddassa-Helena Levkovitz (1), Barash’s secretary, to accompany the children. It should be noted that in the Bialystok ghetto, already on October 26, 1942, a woman named Mrs.Yente Leizerson with her two children received permission to leave for Palestine in an exchange deal, and that they did, indeed, reach their destination.(2)
The transport of 1,200 children and 20 adults, escorted by 8-10 SS men, traveled for three days by train - in passenger carriages - and arrived on the 24th or 25th of August at the Theresienstadt camp. Upon their arrival, the 20 adults, as well as three other women with their children, Palestinian citizens, were separated from the children and sent on to Auschwitz where they were immediately gassed.(3)
At Theresienstadt the children from the Bialystok ghetto were placed in a special camp called Crete, which had been built outside the citadel. Fifty-three doctors and nurses, inmates of the camp, were assigned to the children, including Dr. Blumenthal, Dr. Kowitsch, Dr. Margulis, Dr. Reich and Dr. Weiss. The children’s camp was completely separated from the other prisoners, and all contact with them was forbidden. The entire arrangement was shrouded in mystery. Despite this, rumors circulated that the children, who had arrived starved and exhausted, resisted undergoing disinfection out of fear of being gassed in the showers.(4)
The inmates of Theresienstadt could not understand this fear, but in the Bialystok ghetto the children had already heard of the shower-like gas chambers in which the Germans killed Jews. Rumors of these began appearing in the Bialystok ghetto at the beginning of 1943, spread by escapees from Treblinka. The testimony of one of them, Abraham Broide, was spread in the ghetto by Mordechai Tenenbaum and can be found in his Underground Archives.(5)
The children were carefully examined by doctors, and those who were found to have infectious diseases were separated from he rest, taken to the small fortress and murdered. The remaining children received excellent care, special food and good clothing. The children’s health soon improved and they learnt once again how to smile and be happy. The prevailing rumor at the time was that they were to be sent to Palestine or Switzerland on the basis of some sort of exchange agreement. The doctors and nurses who were assigned to them were obliged to sign a secrecy pact in everything related to the conditions at Theresienstadt, and all signs indicated that the Germans did indeed intend to send the children abroad.
However, one night, on October 5, 1943, six weeks after they had been brought to Theresienstadt, the children and their accompanying adults disappeared, as mysteriously as they had arrived.(6) The only thing which remained is a list of the 1,196 children and 53 accompanying adults, listed as a special transport, number Dn/a, to Auschwitz.(7)
Only after the war did it become known that the children were brought to Auschwitz and sent straight to the gas chambers.(8) Was their fate connected to the exchange plan? And if so, what were the reasons for the plan’s failure?
Answers to these questions may be found in documents from the German Foreign Ministry, presented to the Nuremberg trials.(9) This documentation enables us to reconstruct the background to this affair, and to uncover the Nazis’ modes of action -their fanatical commitment to the total extermination of the Jews, their manner of holding the children as hostages and utilizing them for propaganda purposes, as well as the mass murder of the children at the end without any hesitation or spark of human feeling, conscience or compassion. Not a single voice was raised in protest against the extermination.
The children from the Bialystok ghetto were among the last surviving Jewish children in Eastern Europe. Aside from them, a few children still remained in the Lodz ghetto, but they too were led to their death in the summer of 1944.
The documentation of the negotiations to save the children and of their extermination, which encompasses an entire year (from April 1943 until May 1944), uncovers a nefarious chapter in German diplomacy. The Germans intended to use this affair to mislead international public opinion, to denigrate England in the eyes of the Arabs and to increase anti-Semitism. The diplomatic correspondence about saving children continues even after there were hardly any Jewish children still alive in all of conquered Europe.
We rightfully tend to blame the world for not doing anything to save Jews. However, here we find that there was someone who tried to do something, but the Germans always found ways to defeat every effort or attempt to save Jews, like the failed humanitarian effort on the part of the British to save 5,000 children. The question is whether the British really intended to save the children and misunderstood the Germans’ intentions, or whether they well understood the game and found it convenient to participate in order to win humanitarian points after the war. On their side the Germans, based on the reactious of the English, apparently estimated that the entire exchange was not very vital to them, and therefore felt no need to take the British offers seriously. Or was it, perhaps, impossible through diplomatic negotiations to dissuade the Germans from their intention to exterminate every last Jew? We still do not have an unequivocal answer to this question.
The efforts to save the children began in February 1943, after the German embassy in Sofia sent a telegram to Eichmann at the Main Reich Security Office on 8.2.43 in regard to a British proposal, presented by the Schutzmacht Section (a division for the protection of the interests of foreign enemy countries in German, trans.) of the Swiss embassy in Berlin, to accept 5,000 Jewish children to Palestine. In response, the German embassy in Sofia received these instructions: “Please tell the Prime Minister (Bulgarian), that we urgently recommend
not to agree to the Swiss intermediary’s proposal in regard to the emigration of 5,000 Jewish children to Palestine. Our experience gives rise to very real fears that under the influence of the British these 5,000 Jews will turn into agents of propaganda against the anti-semitic measures we are taking.... This act will be construed by the enemy powers as a weakness on our side, and it is also in opposition to our policy towards the Arab nations. Please make sure that the refusal will be effected in the most polite manner possible. As far as possible we must prevent enemy propaganda from denouncing our actions as being non-humanitarian. For this reason we must also politely accept the formal offer of the intermediary country.”(10)
Beside the British government, the government of Argentina also expressed its willingness to accept 1,000 children. In addition, at that time, after Stalingrad and the beginning of the German defeat, other governments which were friendly to Germany, such as Rumania, Bulgaria and France, approached the German government and asked its permission to allow several thousands of Jews to emigrate from their countries to Palestine. More than any other, it seems that the Rumanian government was sincere in its request.
On 30.4.43 the German ambassador to Rumania, von Killinger, asked the German Foreign Ministry for information on its final position regarding the emigration of 70,000 Jewish children under eight years of age from Rumania to Palestine - a proposal for which the Marshal Antonescu received the German’s basic agreement” (11) during his visit to the Fubrer (12.4.43).
In a secret letter from 14.5.43, von Tadden, counselor to Inland II (the division of Jewish affairs at the German Foreign Office), relates that Eichmann from the Main Reich Security office mentioned that the heads of his office have expressed their position regarding the Allies’ request to permit the emigration of Jewish children from Rumania and from the East. Their position is “that the emigration of Jewish children must be rejected on principle, and the departure of 5,000 children will be possible only in exchange for German prisoners abroad, four Germans for each child. This would mean the return of 20,000 fertile Germans up to the age of 40 to the German Reich.”’(12) Aside from this, the negotiations must be conducted swiftly, because “the hour is drawing near when as a result of our activities against the Jews, the emigration of 5,000 Jewish children from the East will be impossible for technical reasons. In response to my question whether it is possible to transmit this position of the Reich Fuhrer SS to Herr RAM (the German Foreign Minister) as final, Eichmann answered in the affirmative.”(13)
Nevertheless negotiations dragged on with the Germans using all their talents to place new impossible conditions on the British, and to trap them into a position in which Germany could blame them for the failure of the negotiations. They then used this in their propaganda to accuse Britain of lack of respect for the Arabs and of acting for the good of the Jews.
On 21.5.43, Wagner, the head of the Office for Jewish Affairs at Inland II, submitted a memo on all different efforts being made to save Jewish children. The delegate Feldscher, head of the Schutzmacht Department of the Swiss Embassy in Berlin, submitted the British governments proposal to agree to the emigration of 5,000 non-Aryan people, (85% children and 15% adults from Poland, Lithuania and Latvia) to Palestine, to the delegate Albrecht, Director of the Legal Department. The British government also wished to learn about the Reich’s views in regard to the emigration of Jewish children from Germany, Holland, Denmark and Belgium. The Rumanian government requested a permit for the immigration of 7,000 (not 70,000) children and the Bulgarian government requested a permit for the immigration of 4,000 children and 500 accompanying adults. According to the information obtained by the Foreign Ministry, this was part of a plan to remove 30-50 thousand Jewish children from Europe and send them to Palestine, in order to save them from apparent extermination.(14)
According to Wagner even though the Bulgarian government had already agreed to the children’s departure, it nevertheless informed the German embassy that it intends to respect the Germans’ wish to prevent the emigration of Jews, and will obstruct their leaving by placing technical obstacles in their way. The Reich Fuhrer SS is of the opinion, writes Wagner, that in principle the departure of Jewish children from areas under German control and from friendly countries should be rejected in principle, unless young Germans are permitted to return to the Reich from their places of internment (Palestine, Australia, Portuguese colonies, Argentina and more) at a ratio of 1:4. Inland II decided that aside from fundamental considerations, “we cannot agree to the emigration of Jewish children in light of our Arab policy and the Grand Mufti’s protest against the emigration of Jewish children from Bulgaria to Palestine."(15)
However, in order to place the onus of blame on the other side, Inland II suggested to answer the British query with counter-questions: Will the Jewish children be exchanged for German internees, and will the Jewish children not be sent to Palestine but to other areas?
It appears from the above that the cunning Germans were holding the stick by both ends. In principle they did not intend to allow Jewish children to escape extermination, but they played their game and used politeness to confuse the enemy. They attempted to gain advantage from this diabolical commerce, especially in the realm of propaganda against England.
In a memo dated 1.6.43, von Tadden writes that on 27.5.43 Killinger related by telephone that marshal Antonescu will support the emigration of Jews from Transylvania on Red Cross ships. Inland II suggests that Ambassador Killinger make it clear to the Rumanian government that it must prevent any emigration of Jews, and express the willingness of the Reich government to accept the Jews unwanted in Rumania and send them to the East to work. At that time the real meaning of the innocuous words “send them to the East to work” was well known to both Antonescu and to the Jews.
The nature of the negotiations was worrying to certain German factors, and on 10.7.43 the Ambassador Ruhle wrote to Inland II, warning that the matter of the 5,000 Jews and their transfer to Palestine should be handled with the utmost caution. He states that the German offer (in regard to the exchange, etc) must not be construed “as a brutal blackmail attempt, or as a cynical maneuver. It must be taken into account that even many Jew-haters abroad express emotional resistance to the cruel treatment of the Jews.”(16)
Instead of the German demand that the British Parliament pass a law granting the the children British citizenship immediately upon their arrival in England - a demand without legal precedence - Ruhle suggested that the Germans will agree British government guarantees.
In a memo dated 21.7.43, Wagner summarizes all the requests - ten in number- to save Jews. He call the entire campaign to remove 50,000 Jews from the hands of the Germans the “Jew Campaign” (Action Juive). He lists all the known requests to the German Foreign Office:
1. Feldscher’s request in the name of the British government to remove 5,000 children from the occupied territories in the East.
2. Feldscher’s request concerning the German position on the departure of Jews from the occupied territories in the West.
3. Switzerland’s request in the name of the British government regarding the departure of 5,000 Bulgarian Jews to Palestine.
4. The proposal of the International Red Cross to the German Embassy in Ankara regarding the free passage of 1,000 Jews from Bulgarian ports to Haifa.
5. The request of the Rumanian government to receive permission for the departure of 7,000 Rumanian Jews to Palestine, an approval which the German Foreign Minister already gave to Marshal Antonescu.
6. The request of the Swedish Embassy in the name of the Dutch government in exile in London regarding the departure of 500 Jews to Palestine.
7. The request of the French government (Vichy) regarding the German position on the departure of 2,000 children from France, 500 from Belgium and 500 from Holland, and regarding the transfer of several hundred children from Switzerland through Portugal to Palestine.
8. Intervention on the part of the International Red Cross in regard to the departure of Slovakian Jews to Palestine (no formal request was made since the enemy powers did not recognize Slovakia).
9. Requests for departure of several groups of Jews from Hungary to Palestine.
10. The request of the Argentinian government regarding the departure of 1,000 children from Germany to Argentina.
In the same memo Wagner also suggests answers which should be given to the different governments. He suggested that the answer to Feldscher be that the Reich government is willing in principle to consider the request and negotiate, but only on condition that the British government will agree - on the basis of a cabinet decision - to send the Jews to England instead of to Palestine, and to grant them rights of permanent residents. He also suggested that the responses to the other European governments be in the same vein. He suggests that the Red Cross’s request to permit free passage from Bulgarian ports to Haifa be denied, and that the answer to the Argentinian Embassy be that the Reich government is willing to consider the departure of 1,000 children from the Reich to Argentina in return for 1,000 Germans from Latin or Central America who are
willing to return home, on condition that America or England will ensure them safe conduct. In order to utilize the answer to Britain for propaganda purposes, Wagner suggested that the matter be kept quiet until the response of the British government becomes known. On the other hand he suggests that the German answer be made known to the Grand Mufti and the Arabs. In the event that the British government accepts the German conditions, “arrangements should be made in advance, and the Reich Fuhrer 55 should be requested to give orders that in the meantime the required exchange subjects, i.e. the correct number of children and adults required exchange, will not be evacuated to the East.” The real intention was extermination. Besides Wagner, von Tadden signed the memo as well, in order to emphasize its importance.
At that time the enormity of the extermination of the Jews was already known around the world, and various Jewish organizations (the Joint, the World Jewish Congress, the rescue committees in Constantinople, Geneva, Romania, Hungary and others) tried in every way possible to influence the government of Britain and governments friendly to Germany to make a humanitarian gesture to save the remnants of the Jews, especially the children. These actions did not escape the eyes of the Germans. Parallel to the negotiations which the German Foreign Office seemingly held with the British government, they kept an eye on the activity of the Jewish organizations by penetrating their mail correspondence and through German secret agents who acted as couriers of the Jewish organizations, like V.M. (vertrauensmann in German, confidential men of the security services, trans.) Velti in Switzerland (whom the Germans sometimes called by his private name, Hansli). The letters all reached their destinations, but first were photographed by the German secret police and brought to the attention of the German Foreign Office and of Eichmann at the Main Reich Security Office. In this manner the Germans became aware of all the organized efforts to save Jews, and succeeded in thwarting them without the Jews suspecting a thing. (17)
On the key date, 21.7.43, Ambassador Killinger sent a secret wire through the Foreign Office in Berlin to Eichmann, containing a copy of a letter from Dr. Euzer (head of the Palestinian Office in Bucharest) to Nathan Schwalb in Geneva about the efforts of Romania’s Jews to emigrate despite all the difficulties. In his letter, Dr. Enzer wrote of the pressure the organizations were putting on the Swiss government in Bern so that it will instruct its embassy in Bucharest to act to promote the emigration of children from Bulgaria and Romania through Turkey to Palestine, and of the failure of these plans because of the Romanian government’s objections. We have seen above how the Germans wielded their influence over these governments to thwart any effort to save Jews.
Cynically the Germans tried to turn the drawn-out negotiations with Britain into propaganda material, and described its willingness to save Jewish children as British actions for the benefit of the Jews and against the “noble Arab nations” in the hope that this propaganda will increase the terrorist activities of Arab nationalist circles in the Middle East.
In his notes from 12.8.43 Wagner writes that the Foreign Minister demanded that eight days later (i.e. on August 20th) he resubmit the Inland II proposal from 21.7.43, slightly altered for propaganda purposes. The purpose of the transport of 1,200 children from the Bialystok ghetto, who at that time were brought to Theresienstadt, was to ensure that the Germans were holding children for exchange. However, as was usual before a death transport was effected, Eichmann arrives at the Bialystok children’s camp at Theresienstadt’(18), and on October 5th the 1,200 children with their nurses and doctors are sent to Auschwitz for immediate extermination. As may be remembered, on May 14th Eichmann already announced in the name of the Reich Fuhrer SS Himmler that in principle the emigration of Jewish children should be forbidden, and accordingly he acted. Despite this, the subject of the exchange and the emigration of the children continued to raise a flurry of activity at Inland II, until it became a matter of prestige and discipline in the German camp, which was beginning to fall apart. On 12.10.43, Wagner once again reports to the German Foreign Minister warning that in the event that no answer is given to the French and other governments, an unwanted situation will be created. He also says that there are signs that Romania and Bulgaria will allow their Jews to leave and therefore he requests that the Minister give his opinion regarding his suggestions from July 21st and August 12th. Since he received no answer, on 28.10.43 Wagner sends a secret memo in the name of Inland II, briefly describing all the answers which should be given to the interested governments. He adds that if, contrary to expectation, the English agree to the German conditions it may be assumed that the arrival of thousands of Jews in Britain will cause an increase in anti-Semitism, which the British government does not want but which will act to advance Germany’s goals.
In the meantime the extermination of the Jews was nearly completed and on January 7, 1944 Wagner sends the version of the answer to be given verbally to Feldscher to the Reich Fuhrer SS Himmler at his field headquarters.
On March 29, 1944 von Tadden sends the British government’s clarifications as formulated by Feldscher to the Foreign Minister: the children will be received in England. However, no exchange may be taken into consideration because according to the British government’s view, Germans may be exchanged only in return for citizens of the British Empire. Feldscher does not clarify whether the English answer should be seen as final, and Wagner interprets it as being a trick. The British are willing to receive the children, but are not dealing decisively with the matter. Therefore, according to the German interpretation, it should be assumed that the British are offering only temporary asylum in order to later send the children to Palestine. Inland II therefore views the British clarifications to the German proposals as an attempt to blame Germany for the failure of the campaign. Inland II suggests that Feldscher be answered verbally that the Germans see the Jews as an asocial element, and since the British are interested in them, they can be exchanged for non-German citizens whom the British define as asocial, like prisoners, Irish nationalists, Arabs and Egyptians. The British clarification, the German threaten, will be publicized as a refusal, an escape to formalism and an avoidance of accepting Jews into England for fear of anti-Semitism. It was the intent of the British to expel them form England to Palestine, due to their discriminatory attitude towards the Jews.
On 2 7.4.44 Inland II presents their view to the Foreign Minister for approval: to inform Feldscher of the negotiations’ failure, and to release the matter for publication and propaganda use. A manuscript of a propaganda pamphlet named “Palestine -the struggle between England and Judea” (Palestine - Machtprobe zwischen England und Juda) was attached to the proposal. The pamphlet presents the Feldscher affair as proof of Germany’s straightforward policy towards the Arabs in the Jewish questions, contrary to the English policy. The pamphlet was to be distributed through German embassies abroad.
But the matter does not end here. On May 5th von Tadden hands the Foreign Minister’s Office a memo from Megerle with further clarifications from Feldscher regarding the British wish to accept the Jewish children into the British Empire, in areas outside Palestine and the Middle East. According to Feldscher, the German
government faces the question whether to hand over the Jewish children and receive nothing in return. After all, the Germans themselves demanded that they be transferred to England in order to cause a rise in anti-Semitism. Von Tadden cautions that the Main Reich Security Office secretly reported that “the necessary 5,000 Jewish children can now be found only in the Lodz ghetto, but this ghetto will soon be destroyed according to the order of the Reich Fuhrer SS”(19)
The Germans continue to drag their feet, and on May 27th Wagner writes to von Tadden that in the meantime the Foreign Minister (Herr RAM) has instructed not to do anything in the matter of the “Feldscher Campaign”. But according to his orders, the Megerle offer should be taken up again as soon as the British renew their interest in the matter.
Thus, for over a year, from April 1943 until the end of May 1944, negotiations took place, replete with trickery and deception on the part of the Germans and caution on the part of the English, to seemingly save 5,000 Jewish children. As we have seen, the Germans never really intended to let the children escape the net of extermination. They held the 1,200 children in a special camp at Theresienstadt until October 1943 for negotiation purposes, and until February 1944 they maintained the Czech family camp at Auschwitz, with 3,791 hostages. In the end both groups were exterminated, and in the summer of 1944 the last of the children from the Lodz ghetto, as well as the last of the Hungarian Jews, were taken to their death.
