I was interacting with Bombsaway in another thread and I asked about the jews sent east in a support role on operation barbarossa and I was presented with this.bombsaway wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2025 12:48 amI don't know specifically about that but there's evidence of Jews being brought in for work, though this stops at a certain point. I think the last document is around the time mass deportations began from the Polish ghettos.
Ultimately there wasn't much need to bring Jews in, because there were too many native Jews there already. The documents are clear that the Nazis were trying to decrease their reliance on Jewish workers eg
Strauch again, same documentStrauch, 8-10.4.43: "When the civil administration arrived it already found economic enterprises operated by the Wehrmacht aided by Jews. At a time when the Bielorussians wanted to murder the Jews, the Wehrmacht cultivated them. In that way Jews reached key positions and it is difficult today to remove them completely, for then the enterprises are liable to be destroyed, something we cannot allow ourselves. I am of the opinion that we can confidently say that of the 150,000, 130,000 have already disappeared. 22,000 are still alive in the area of the Gebietskommissariat." [Shalom Cholawsky, The Jews of Bielorussia during World War II, Amsterdam, 1998, p.64, citing Protokoll über die Tagung der Gebietskommissare, Hauptabteilungsleiter und Abteilungsleiter des. Generalkommissars in Minsk vom 8.April bis 10.April 1943. YV TR-10/808; also in Erich Haberer, ‘The German police and genocide in Belorussia, 1941-1944. Part I: Police deployment and Nazi genocidal directives’, Journal of Genocide Research, 2001, 3 (1), p.13, citing CSA-Minsk 370/1/1263/126-45].
https://www.yadvashem.org/untoldstories ... y_Kube.pdfI would ask you to see to it that the Jew disappears at least where he is superfluous. We do not comprehend that there should be Jewish cleaning ladies, telephone operators, etc.; and also, we do not understand that so many bootblacks are needed. They are superfluous and therefore must disappear. We will manage quite well without Jews. We will reduce their numbers by half without encountering economic difficulties (translation by Haberer here)
This document is important because it shows the highest civilian authority in Belarus talking in supportive terms about the killing of Jewish laborers.
"Naturally I and the SD would like it best if Jewry in the Generalbezirk of Belorussia was finally eliminated after their labor is no longer required by the Wehrmacht. "
And also that Polish Jews should not be brought in
So if they're already killing Jewish workers it wouldn't make sense for them to bring in more.I beg the Reichskommissar (already warned by telegram) to prevent the dispatch of such transports, in his capacity as supreme authority in Ostland. The Polish Jew, exactly like the Russian Jew, is an enemy of the German nation. He represents a politically dangerous element, a danger which far exceeds his value as a skilled worker.
I've never run into what is referenced here and I haven't looked at source to I can't speak to the fidelity of the translation to the original. On a surface inspection and assuming good faith, it doesn't look very good.
I do not like it.