The 'resettlement' discrepency

[bombsaway]

As part of the prep work for my 'best case for the Holocaust' essay, I want to draw attention once again to the USSR and the events of 42/43. All evidence points to massive closures of ghettos with German documents at the time speaking of vast resettlement actions, though details here are nebulous. One would expect much more evidence concerning transport and actual maintenance of Jews than blanket statements of 'resettlement', with no logistical information or anything else given.

See here, my unanswered question to Wetzelrad, which can give you some more info on the situation.

viewtopic.php?p=21879#p21879

How do revisionists resolve this discrepancy?

[Nazgul]

How do revisionists resolve this discrepancy?

The discrepancy in 1942–43 "resettlement" documents is addressed by recognizing that German authorities frequently used this term as a euphemism for the forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system, which included over 4,000 camps and factories supporting the war effort. For individuals unable to work, the Aktion 14f13 program and general "annihilation through labor" policies resulted in extremely high mortality rates within this network, explaining the lack of maintenance records for these populations.

[bombsaway]

I don't think there's any evidence of that. If this was the commonly understood usage - here Himmler is basically saying

we're going to draft the entire population into work camps, except for those who are put in work camps

https://www.yadvashem.org/docs/himmler- ... ution.html

Am I understanding you correctly?

[Nazgul]

Am I understanding you correctly?

You are understanding the bureaucratic ideal, but not the logistical reality.
While Himmler’s July 1942 order (NO-5574) mandated a 'total cleansing' by year-end, Primary Evidence proves this order was not carried out as written. The discrepancy is resolved by the conflict between SS ideology and Heer (Military) necessity:

• The 'Exceptions' Loophole: Himmler’s own decree allows for 'exceptions' to be presented to him personally. The Rüstungsministerium (Armaments Ministry) and the military successfully argued that hundreds of thousands of workers in the Government-General were 'essential' for munitions and infrastructure.
• The Administrative Shift: The 'resettlement' was actually a consolidation. As the FPLO (Feldpostleitoffizier) records show, transports continued to move 'labour' into an industrial archipelago of 4,000 camps (like the Treblinka I Quarry) throughout 1943.
• The Mixed Train Logistics: These trains weren't 'settling' people; they were part of a dual-purpose circuit—bringing 'labour' in and taking rocks and munitions out. Running these circuits empty would have been a waste of wartime resources the Heer would not permit.

When you look at the 14f13 Euthanasia program and the 10,000 deaths at the Treblinka quarry, you see the 'Functional Truth': the population wasn't removed from the Government-General; they were moved into a terminal industrial system. For instance the HASAG Skarżysko-Kamienna forced labor camp and munitions factory were liquidated on August 1, 1944.

Himmler’s decree wasn't a description of what happened; it was an attempt to manage the annihilation through labour that was already underway. The lack of 'maintenance' records is explained by the fact that the victims were being consumed as industrial energy, not 'resettled' as civilians.

[bombsaway]

You are understanding the bureaucratic ideal, but not the logistical reality.

you're missing the point

based on this definition of resettlement "forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system"

Himmler is thus saying, in his resettlement of the GG order

we're going to draft the entire population into work camps, except for those who are put in work camps

which makes no sense

resettlement, whatever it is, is *not* being put into work camps.

[Nazgul]

you're missing the point

based on this definition of resettlement "forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system"

Himmler is thus saying, in his resettlement of the GG order

we're going to draft the entire population into work camps, except for those who are put in work camps

which makes no sense

resettlement, whatever it is, is *not* being put into work camps.

Himmlers order was revoked. Simple.

[bombsaway]

This doesn't matter actually, because it is a rebuttal to your definition of "resettlement" as being "forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system"

Do you not understand this?

If resettlement meant what you say it means, Himmler (and all the other documents I've quoted about what was happening in the GG viewtopic.php?p=22384#p22384 ) wouldn't have used the term this way.

Minutes of the police meeting in Krakow on 18 June 1942:
"The Jewish question is settled in the city of Lublin. The previous Jewish quarter has been evacuated and the able-bodied Jews are housed outside the city in a special district.

[...]

In Radom and Czestochowa, Jewish workers will have to be retained for the armaments industries. Of course, the immediate family members of these workers have to be left behind as well, but everyone else will be resettled."

Instructions of the commissioner for the resettlement to the Jewish Council in Warsaw of 22 July 1942:
"All Jewish persons, regardless of their age and gender, who live in Warsaw are resettled to the east. The following are excluded from the resettlement:

a) All Jewish persons who are employed by the German authority or branch offices and can provide proof of this;

b) all Jewish persons who belong to the Judenrat and are employees of the Judenrat (the deadline is the date of publication of the order);

c) all Jewish persons who work for Reich-German companies and can provide proof of this ;

d) all able-bodied Jews who have not yet been included in the work process, these must be barracked in the Jewish residential area;

[...]"

[Nazgul]

This doesn't matter actually, because it is a rebuttal to your definition of "resettlement" as being "forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system"

I never mentioned 'resettlement'—that’s your word, not mine. My point is about the mechanics of the system.
You are ignoring the fact that the death rate was a direct consequence of an industrial process. Whether you call it a 'transfer' or 'resettlement' is irrelevant to the evidence. The reality is that HASAG and other managers used prisoners as a disposable resource, and Aktion 14f13 was the administrative tool used to 'clean up' the workers once they were physically destroyed by toxic exposure and typhus.
Don't change the subject to definitions; address the fact that the 'selections' were a response to a man-made industrial and medical crisis, not just a pre-planned gassing story

[bombsaway]

This doesn't matter actually, because it is a rebuttal to your definition of "resettlement" as being "forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system"

I never mentioned 'resettlement'—that’s your word, not mine.

Actually you said

The discrepancy in 1942–43 "resettlement" documents is addressed by recognizing that German authorities frequently used this term as a euphemism for the forced transfer of Jewish populations into a massive industrial labor system, which included over 4,000 camps and factories supporting the war effort.

It seems like you're using an LLM and not paying attention to the output, or are just generally incompetent.

the reason you said this, as a reminder, is because if the Jews weren't being put to work, it's a euthanasia/killing order.

THe documents around Volhynia and Podolia point to the resettlement being a mass killing action, nothing else is indicated.

[Nazgul]

THe documents around Volhynia and Podolia point to the resettlement being a mass killing action, nothing else is indicated.

I’m not 'using' the word—I am quoting the document provided. If the document uses the word 'resettlement' to describe what was actually a mass killing action in Volhynia, then the document itself is a piece of Nazi propaganda using a known euphemism. My goal is to analyze what the text says, not to adopt its terminology as my own. Since we both agree that 'resettlement' in this context meant potential death.

The binary you’re presenting—that it’s either a 'killing action' or a 'labor system'—is historically false. My research into Kaiserwald and the HASAG Skarżysko-Kamienna munitions plants shows they were both.

In Werk C at HASAG, Jews were 'resettled' for the industrial purpose of filling mines with picric acid. This wasn't a 'euthanasia order,' but it was an atrocity that resulted in mass mortality; the toxic exposure turned skin yellow and killed workers within three months. This is the definition of 'annihilation through work' (Vernichtung durch Arbeit).

I am quoting the documents because they reveal the Nazi bureaucracy's own terminology for this system. You don't need gas chambers to have a mass killing action when you have starvation, typhus, and industrial poisoning. If you want to discuss the actual mortality rates at these labor sites, let's do that. Otherwise, keep the personal insults to yourself.

[bombsaway]

The binary is yours,

You said

Not even close to an answer to the actual question, which was about non-working Jews.

14f13

Therefore if not to put to work, then killed. Resettlement (as evidenced in the record) refers to Jews being killed and / or being housed somewhere without being put to work.

I guess I'm just explaining to the public, because I plan to stop to talking to you, why that is.

[Nazgul]

Therefore if not to put to work, then killed. Resettlement (as evidenced in the record) refers to Jews being killed and / or being housed somewhere without being put to work.

I guess I'm just explaining to the public, because I plan to stop to talking to you, why that is.

The argument that 'non-working Jews were immediately killed' is a oversimplification that ignores the documented administrative reality of the camp system.

The Warehouse Effect: Many camps, especially transit hubs like Birkenau, functioned as 'warehouses' for human labour. Thousands were held in 'quarantine' or 'transit blocks' not because they were scheduled for death, but because the industrial requisitions from firms like HASAG or Organisation Todt hadn't arrived yet.

The 14f13 Filter: This is where the 'Misuse of Power' occurs. Aktion 14f13 was the administrative tool used to 'clear the books' when these warehouses became overcrowded or diseased. If a prisoner was 'non-working' because of age or infirmity, they were filtered out via 14f13 to save resources for those who could eventually work.

The 'Resettlement' Deception: While 'resettlement' (Umsiedlung) was used as a euphemism for deportation to killing centres, the record also shows it was used for the literal, chaotic movement of people into ghettos and labour camps that lacked the resources to sustain them. The deaths of the 'non-working' were often the result of this biological and logistical collapse, managed post-hoc by the 14f13 execution squads.

The 1943 Counter-Evidence: If the policy was simply to kill the 'non-working,' Secret Order No. 612/43 would not exist. That order specifically commanded that even 'bed-ridden' non-workers be kept for future utility. The fact that many were killed anyway is proof of local administrative misconduct, not a seamless master plan.

If you want to stop talking, go ahead. To be frank, you don’t have much to say that isn’t already in the 'official' script. I'll stick to the actual administrative records like 612/43 while you stick to your assumptions

References

• USHMM
• Resettlement to the East
• Jewish resettlement and ghettos
• Resettlment

[bombsaway]

This is what happened to the "Resettled" population of Volhynia and Podolia

There exist quite some telling German correspondence on what was understood with the term "resettlement of the Jews" (see also Nazi Document on Mass Extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Franke-Gricksch Report).

On 24 July 1942, a local police leader of Kamenez-Podolsk cabled that "together with SD in Stara-Uschitza and Studenica...Jewish action carried out. 700 unfit shot dead."(VEJ 8, document 134).

On 6 August 1942, the KdS branch office in Kamenez-Podolsk reported that "703 Jews were executed in Solobkiwzi and Sibkiwzi...501 [Jews executed] in Wonkiwzi and again in Sibkiwzi". (VEJ 8, document 143).

On 9 August 1942, the KdS branch office in Pinsk noted that "the execution of Jews was carried out in the village Mikasewitschi, Pinsk area. There were 425 Jews in the village. Thereof were executed: 1. 102 men 2. 159 women 3. 159 children. 420 total number. For economic and for sanitary reasons, three engineers and two doctors were kept [alive]." (VEJ 8, document 147).

On 15 August 1942, the KdS office in Rovno noted on "the special treatment [Sonderbehandlung] of Jews" in the Kremianez area a figure of 13,802, thereof 3,421 children (VEJ 8, document 149).

On 18 August 1942, the KdS of Wolhynien wrote to the KdS branch office in Kamenez-Podolsk that he was informed by Hermann Ling that "Jews intended for the DG IV4" were almost about "to be executed, e.g. the executions in the Dunajwec area and Bar were already scheduled". Ling asked to make sure that "in the area next to the DG IV4 the Jews fit for work...shall no longer be executed". The KdS remarked that "the ordered Jewish resettlement will be continued as planned and without interruption. The timely separation of working Jews for the DG IV is a matter of Ling" (VEJ 8, document 154).

On 27 August 1942, a local police leader in Bar reported to the KdS of Wolhynien on "Jewish actions" that in the period 19 to 21 August 1942 the SD Kamenez-Podolsk has executed 4,304 Jews" (VEJ 8, document 161).

Also on 27 August 1942, the deputy of the Gebietskommissar in Lutsk requested "a special allocation of gasoline and oil for the special treatment of Jews [Juden-Sonderbehandlung]". For "this action about 40 motor vehicles, including 3 cars...were driven without interruption" to conduct "a transport of about 4 km (one way)". In addition, "the trucks were on the way for the supply of workers for shoveling, working equipment, food for the workers, gathering of the Jews from the state goods, etc." (VEJ 8, document 161).

The already mentioned report of 1 November 1942 by the Generalkommissar Wolhynien noted the "rumours in the population, especially in connection with the Jewish resettlement and the German transports" that "it is said that all Poles and Catholics will be concentrated in certain parts of the city and treated like the Jews" and that "now the Ukrainians will be shot, pits are laid out everywhere. The Jewish settlement has used a large part of its inhabitants to enrich themselves in a shameless manner. There is a lack of respect for foreign property, on the other hand, there is no understanding of the reasons for carrying out the Jewish resettlement" (VEJ 8, document 217).

On 9 November 1942, the leader of 10th company of SS-Polizeiregiment 15, Helmut Saur, reported that the men were employed for "guarding at the assembly point, securing the individual transports to the execution site, which was about 4 km outside Pinsk". He goes on that "10,000 people were executed. On 30 October, the ghetto was searched through for second time, on 31 October for the third time and on 1 November for the fourth time. A total of about 15,000 Jews were brought to the assembly point. Sick Jews and some children left in the houses were immediately executed in the ghetto in the courtyard. In the ghetto, about 1,200 Jews were executed." (VEJ 8, document 219).

The "resettlement of the Jews" in the Generalbezierk Wolhynien clearly meant their extermination by mass shooting at nearby execution sites.

Mattogno's assertion that "the figures reported in the report dated 28 December 1942 are, therefore, for the most part, greatly exaggerated" is unfounded in the light of the German sources. The Nazi documents indicate that an area with more than 300,000 Jews was systematically cleared in the period in question (and it is outright wrong when considering that more than 85% of the deaths can be assigned to specific killing actions, despite the scarce source coverage in some areas).

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... to_16.html

"More than 85% of the deaths can be assigned to specific killing actions."

So in light of this, I hope you can see why I think your pleading around Secret Order No. 612/43 is so silly. This applied only to people in concentration camps, which there's no evidence that the "resettled" Jews of of Volhynia and Podolia even sniffed . So you're just moving the conversation towards a completely different subject, derailing this thread.

[Nazgul]

So in light of this, I hope you can see why I think your pleading around Secret Order No. 612/43 is so silly. This applied only to people in concentration camps, which there's no evidence that the "resettled" Jews of of Volhynia and Podolia even sniffed . So you're just moving the conversation towards a completely different subject, derailing this thread.

The figures your opponent cites regarding the 'unfit' and children in Volhynia must be viewed through the lens of German military pragmatism in 1942. From their perspective, a child who loses their parents in a 'security clearing' is not just a logistical burden; they are a future partisan.

Under the Barbarossa Decree, the goal was the 'total pacification' of the East. Leaving a generation of survivors who harbor an 'obvious hate' for the occupying force was seen as a strategic failure. Just as Alexander Pechersky proved that Soviet-trained Jews were an immediate existential threat at Sobibor, the German administration viewed the youth as a long-term security risk. They weren't 'clearing the books' via 14f13; they were conducting a generational military operation to ensure no 'avengers' could ever threaten the Heer's rear area again. This is the documented administrative reality of the East, regardless of any later gassing narratives.

You are viewing these records through a 21st-century humanitarian lens. In 1942, the Barbarossa Decree was the law of the land. It didn't matter if the 3,000 people shot in Rovno were children or 'unfit'; under German military law, they were a security risk and a logistical burden in a total war.

The Germans weren't 'clearing the books' with 14f13—that was for the camps. In the East, they were neutralizing a population that produced men like Alexander Pechersky. They saw the 'obvious hate' of the survivors as a future military liability. The executions were a generational security operation, documented as such in their own administrative records, long before any narratives about gassing were introduced.

To understand why the German administration in Volhynia and Podolia acted with such 'restrained aggression,' one must look at what the NKVD had already done in Kurapaty and Vinnytsia.

The Jews of the East were caught in a 'biological and logistical' pincer. On one hand, the Soviet state had already been 'clearing' Jewish intellectuals and 'enemies of the people' in sites like Kurapaty. On the other, the German Barbarossa Decree viewed the remaining population as a Soviet asset.

When the Germans found the NKVD pits in Vinnytsia, it reinforced their military belief that the East was a zone where 'civilized' rules of war did not apply. This wasn't a gassing narrative; it was a competition of massacres. The German 'security clearings' were a response to a Soviet system that had already established the administrative precedent for mass execution. If you ignore the Soviet atrocities, you ignore the very 'existential threat' the Germans used to justify their laws.

Kurapaty (Belarus)
Located on the outskirts of Minsk, this site contains victims executed by the NKVD between 1937 and 1941.

Official Belarusian SSR Investigation (1988): Estimated at least 30,000 victims.

Revised Official Estimate (1990s): Later government investigations lowered the figure to around 7,000.

Independent Historical Estimates: Historian Zianon Pazniak, who first revealed the site, originally estimated between 102,000 and 250,000 deaths. Other scholars suggest a range of 30,000 to 100,000.

Vinnytsia (Ukraine)
This massacre occurred during the Great Purge in 1937–1938 and was exhumed by German forces in 1943.

Documented Recoveries: International commissions in 1943 recovered 9,439 bodies from 91 mass graves.
Estimated Total: Most historical records cite over 9,000 documented deaths, though local testimonies suggested other grave sites remained uninvestigated due to the German retreat.
Victim Profile: Identification efforts showed the majority were Ukrainians, followed by ethnic Poles and some

While there were certainly Jewish victims at both Kurapaty and Vinnytsia, historical evidence and investigations show that they were not the majority.


Vinnytsia: Investigations conducted in 1943 identified the vast majority of victims as ethnic Ukrainians, followed by ethnic Poles. Of the bodies identified, very few were Jewish. Nazi propaganda at the time often depicted the NKVD perpetrators with stereotypical Jewish features to promote the idea of "Judeo-Bolshevism," which may be the source of the claim you read.

Kurapaty: The victims were primarily Soviet citizens from Belarus, including a wide cross-section of the population (intellectuals, farmers, and workers). While some investigations in the 1990s by a "civil commission" attempted to claim the victims were mostly European Jews killed by Germans, most historians and eyewitnesses maintain the victims were a diverse mix of locals executed by the NKVD. A monument was later installed by the Jewish community in Kurapaty to honour the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim victims of the site.

[bombsaway]

So then you agree that in these documents they aren't really talking about resettlement, but mass killing operations?

On a meeting on 28 to 31 August 1942, the commander of the Security Police and Service (KdS) in the Generalbezirk Wolhynien Karl Pütz talked about "the general resettlement of the Jews" (Gerlach, Kalkulierte Morde, p. 714).

Afterwards, Pütz instructed his branch offices that "the actions in this region are to be organized in such a manner that, similarly to the areas of Brest-Litovsk, Pinsk, Starokonstantinov and Kamenets-Podolsk, would be completed, within five weeks. At the meeting of Gebietskommissaren which took place in Lutsk, on August 29-31, 1942, the chief of the Reichskommissariat government Dargel told those present that the Reichskommissar himself had expressed his personal and ardent wish that the clean-up be 100% thorough" (Spector, The Holocaust of Volhynian Jewry, p. 172).

The meeting and policy towards the Jews was also mentioned in correspondence between the civil administration and the SS and police leader Wolhynien:

On 25 August 1942, the Generalkommissar für Wolhynien wrote to the Reichskommissar Ukraine on the "Jewish action" that "it was decided, at my request, that the resettlement of the Jews in the rural areas in the rayon towns should be carried out first, and only then that of the Jewish population at the places of the Gebietskommissare". However, in practice "the resettlements were first made in cities with large Jewish ghettos" and the "result is a general unrest among the Jewish population in the rural cities" (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945 Band 8 [VEJ 8], document 170).

On 31 August 1942, the SS and police leader Wolhynien replied on this accusation that "the actions are carried out in such a way that the resettlements in the district capitals and the rayons are as simultaneous as possible" and that "with the scale of major actions some incidents will be unavoidable and that the smooth running that has been done so far seems all the more remarkable." He also pointed that "at the meetings of the Gebietskommissare in Lutsk on 29 to 31 August, the clearing up of the problem brought complete clarity also towards the Generalkommissar" (VEJ 8, document 170).

In a report of 1 November 1942, the Generalkommissar Wolhynien remarked that "there is not much to report about Jewry, as in most areas the final resettlement is carried out; only now is it more often to be noted that this rabble is defending itself" injuring some guards "assigned to the task of resettlement" (VEJ 8, document 217).

On 8 November 1942, the local area police leader of Brest-Litowsk reported that "on 15 and 16 October 1942, the Jewish action was carried out in Brest-Litovsk. This was followed by the complete resettlement of the Jews in the district of Brest-Litovsk. In total, some 20,000 Jews have been resettled so far." (VEJ 8, document 221).

On 31 December 1942, the Generalkommissar Wolhynien stated that on the "Jewry" that "the cleansing of the area is almost completed" (Pohl et al., Der deutsche Krieg im Osten 1941-1944: Facetten einer Grenzüberschreitung, p. 184).