Escape of Viktor Pestek and Siegfried Lederer from Auschwitz

Escape of Viktor Pestek and Siegfried Lederer from Auschwitz
Gate of the "family camp" at Birkenau
Date 5 April 1944 (1944-04-05)
Time Night
Location
Theresienstadt family camp (Block BIIb)
Participants Viktor Pestek, Siegfried Lederer
Outcome Lederer freed
Aftermath
Lederer reports to the Theresienstadt leaders about Auschwitz
  • Pestek executed for favoring inmates and desertion

On the night of 5 April 1944, Siegfried Lederer, a Czech Jew imprisoned at Auschwitz, escaped wearing an SS uniform provided by SS-Rottenführer Viktor Pestek. Because of his Catholic faith and infatuation with Renée Neumann, a Jewish prisoner, Pestek opposed the Holocaust. He accompanied Lederer out of the camp and the two men traveled together to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in order to obtain false papers for Neumann and her mother.

Lederer, a former Czechoslovak Army officer and member of the Czech resistance, attempted to warn the Jews at Theresienstadt concentration camp about the mass murders at Auschwitz, without success. The two returned to Auschwitz in an attempt to rescue Neumann and her mother. Pestek was arrested under disputed circumstances and later executed, while Lederer returned to occupied Czechoslovakia. He rejoined the resistance movement and attempted to smuggle a report on Auschwitz to the Red Cross in Switzerland. After the war he remained in Czechoslovakia and remarried, but he faced antisemitic persecution from the Soviets. He died in Prague in 1972.

Viktor Pestek

Viktor Pestek (cs, de) (18 April 1924 – 8 October 1944) was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina, then part of Romania, to a devoutly Catholic, ethnic German (Volksdeutsche) family.[1][2] His father was a blacksmith and small farmer. Pestek learned these trades as a young man,[1] but joined the Waffen-SS[2] because of his innate sense of adventure;[3] alternately, his mother persuaded him.[1] Auschwitz guard Stefan Baretzki grew up in the same town, and they were acquaintances as children. Pestek was involved in anti-partisan warfare near Minsk, Belarus. His unit was ordered to attack a village suspected to contain partisans and massacre the inhabitants. When Soviet partisans opened fire at the Germans, Pestek was wounded in the arm and leg. Separated from his unit, he hid in a barn with another wounded SS man named Werner.[1][2] After Werner died of his injuries, Pestek was discovered by partisans who spared his life, despite the murders that the SS had just committed in the village. The humanity of his enemy apparently reawakened Pestek's Catholic faith and brought him into conflict with the genocidal German policies.[4] According to Siegfried Lederer, Pestek later said of this incident, "I was a murderer, and a Soviet partisan spared my life anyway".[lower-alpha 1] Upon his return to a German-controlled area, he had lost the use of his hand.[5] Found unfit for front-line service, he was posted to Auschwitz concentration camp as a guard; he was a Rottenführer, a junior non-commissioned rank in the SS.[1]

Siegfried Lederer

Siegfried Lederer
A room in the Small Fortress

Siegfried Lederer (cs) or Vítězslav Lederer (6 March 1904 – 5 April 1972) was born in Písařova Vesce in the Sudetenland, the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia. He spoke fluent German from having spent several years in Germany. Lederer served as an officer in the Czechoslovak Army[6] and ran a family business in textile manufacturing, but lost his livelihood in 1938 when the Sudetenland was annexed to Germany and his family was forced to leave.[7] He moved to Plzeň and worked odd jobs to support his family.[lower-alpha 2] According to Lederer, he joined the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union, was influenced by Communist leader Marie Škardová,[lower-alpha 3] aided those living underground, and distributed illegal publications. Lederer also said that he was a member of the resistance group named after Lieutenant Colonel Jaroslav Weidmann. Later, Lederer joined the Plzeňák 28, a Czech resistance group in Zbraslav so called because it had twenty-eight members, including Josef Pokorný, commander of the Zbraslav gendarme.[7][10]

Briefly arrested by the Gestapo in November 1939 and again in November 1940, on both occasions he was soon released for lack of evidence.[10][11] He was arrested a third time and imprisoned with other political prisoners at the Small Fortress of the Theresienstadt concentration camp.[8] He was trasferred to the Theresienstadt Ghetto on 18 January 1942 and was supposed to be deported on the next transport. Leo Holzer, the leader of the ghetto fire brigade, a hotbed of resistance,[lower-alpha 4] heard about Lederer's resistance activities and postponed his deportation by recruiting him into the fire brigade.[8][lower-alpha 5] However, this did not save his family, which was deported in 1942 and later murdered.[7][lower-alpha 6] In June 1942, Lederer was part of a detachment of Jews from the ghetto forced to bury victims of the Lidice massacre.[lower-alpha 7] Lederer was dismissed from the fire brigade because he was caught smoking. As a result, he lost his protection from transports[2] and was deported to Auschwitz on 18 December 1943. At Auschwitz he was forced to wear both yellow and red triangles marking him as a Jew and a political prisoner.[6] There is no evidence that Lederer was involved in the Auschwitz resistance movement.[2]

Auschwitz

Background

Jews from the transports from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz from September 1943 to May 1944 were established in a separate block at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, known as the Theresienstadt family camp. They were not subject to selection upon arrival, were allowed to retain their civilian clothes, and were not forced to shave their heads. Families stayed together and were also allowed to write to their relatives at Theresienstadt, to those not yet deported, and even to friends in neutral countries, in order to mislead the outside world about the Final Solution. However, the Nazis were planning to murder each group six months after their arrival.[15][16]

Hungarian Jews walking towards the gas chambers at Birkenau, 1944

Pestek was initially appointed the supervisor of BIId at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Although he quickly developed a reputation for "organizing",[3] he was disgusted by the mass murder at Auschwitz and by the contempt of some German SS members for Volksdeutsche,[1] who made up the majority of Auschwitz guards.[17] Jewish girls in the family camp were a popular target for the sexual attention of SS men, because, unlike other prisoners, they had been allowed to keep their hair.[16] Pestek fell in love with Renée Neumann,[lower-alpha 8] a Czech Jewish prisoner at the family camp, although she did not return his affection. He arranged for Neumann to get a job as a block clerk, and offered to help her escape by disguising her as a SS woman. This proved unsuccessful, partly because Neumann was unwilling to leave her mother.[1] According to Czech historian Miroslav Kárný, Pestek decided against escaping with Neumann and her mother because of their lack of contacts in the Czech underground who could help him evade prosecution until the end of the war.[5]

On 8 March 1944, exactly six months from their arrival, the Jews from the family camp who had arrived in September were all gassed, without a selection to find those able to work.[18] About sixty prisoners were spared for special reasons;[16] Pestek managed to rescue Neumann and her mother by temporarily moving them to a different block.[3] Lederer was appointed block elder of Block 14 within the family camp later that month; Cierer and his family moved in because they knew Lederer.[19] Realizing that he would have to act quickly in order to avoid Neumann's death, Pestek began to approach other prisoner functionaries and offered to help them escape.[3][6] Among them were Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who refused the offer because they believed it was a trick, and advised other prisoners not to trust Pestek. Previously, an SS man named Dobrovolný, an ethnic German from Slovakia, had met a Jewish childhood friend at Auschwitz. Dobrovolný offered to help him escape, but then turned him in, resulting in his brutal execution and a bonus for the SS man. This and other similar incidents convinced Vrba, Wetzler, and other prisoners that guards could not be trusted under any circumstances.[6][20][21] According to Wetzler, Pestek told him that "I hate myself for having to watch women and children be killed. I want to do something to forget the smell of burning human flesh and feel a little cleaner."[lower-alpha 9] Pestek also approached the Czech Josef Neumann,[lower-alpha 10] a kapo on the Leichenkommando (disposal of corpses).[5]

Escape

The Israeli historian Jakov Tsur said that Pestek escorted his father, Alfred Cierer, a Czech Jewish industrialist, to the Gestapo for interrogation and made an offer to him. When interrogated, Cierer claimed that the offer was only a transfer to another part of the camp, not a complete escape. Cierer, whose three children were with him in the family camp, refused, but suggested Lederer.[25][26][lower-alpha 11] Others sources reported that Lederer was the one whom Pestek escorted to the Gestapo.[5][28] As a member of the family camp and wanted for his resistance activities, Lederer believed that he had nothing to lose. He told Pestek that he was wealthy and that his contacts in the underground would help Pestek and Neumann.[28] They planned to escape with Lederer disguised as an SS man, and later return to rescue Renée Neumann and her mother. Impersonating SS officers, they would present a forged Gestapo warrant for their arrest. The Auschwitz staff would provide a car and driver; on the way to the Gestapo station Pestek and Lederer would kill the driver. After disposing of the body, the four escapees would take an express train to the Protectorate. The plan was based on Pestek's knowledge of protocol from his experience in the transport office; he obtained official Gestapo paper for forging a request.[6]

As a wounded soldier, Pestek was entitled to a long leave and requested it for 6 April 1944.[28] On 3 April, he stole an SS uniform, pistol, and paybook for Lederer, who hid the supplies in a double wall. Before standing guard at the gate of the family camp on the night of 5 April, he left a bicycle by Lederer's barracks as a signal for him to come out. Pestek told the other guards that Lederer was on special duty and the two bicycled out the front gate after Pestek gave the correct passwords.[29] They went to the railway station outside Auschwitz and caught a train to Prague, avoiding border control by pretending to be luggage inspectors and intimidating the Czech officials.[28]

Auschwitz
Zbraslav
Plzeň
Slovakia
Písařova Vesce
Theresienstadt
Prague
Pestek's and Lederer's travels

Lederer's absence was discovered in the morning on 6 May by an SS man inspecting the family camp; the SS man had seen a woman exiting Lederer's block and stepped in to investigate, only to discover him missing.[30] At 11:30, SS-Sturmbannführer Friedrich Hartjenstein, the commandant of Birkenau, sent a telegram to the German police[lower-alpha 12] notifying them that Lederer had escaped, probably disguised as a SS-Rottenführer. Another telegram four hours later reported that an SS man (presumably Pestek) was being investigated as a suspect for aiding the escape.[31][lower-alpha 13] Cierer and others suspected of being close to Pestek or Lederer were interrogated.[32]

In Prague, Pestek and Lederer sold jewelry that Lederer had obtained on the Auschwitz black market and bought civilian clothes. They also doctored their uniforms to look like Waffen-SS soldiers instead of concentration camp guards.[33] From Prague they went to Plzeň,[lower-alpha 14] where a daughter of a friend of Lederer's named Brigitta Steiner[lower-alpha 15] provided false civilian papers to Lederer. She told them of a Jew in hiding in Prague, Faltys, who could arrange the rest of the papers, including SS officer identification for Pestek and Lederer, which would give them the authority to arrest the two women. Faltys demanded an exorbitant fee, but offered a discount if they could smuggle another woman out of Auschwitz.[28][38]

Return

Pestek and Lederer returned to Auschwitz[lower-alpha 16] planning to rescue Renée Neumann, her mother, and Faltys' relative, but what happened afterwards is disputed. What is known is that the SS arrested Pestek, but Lederer was able to get away.[28] According to Kárný, Pestek had overstayed his leave, and was also suspected of having helped Lederer escape; success was impossible under the circumstances. Lederer said Pestek had left some valuables with a Polish girlfriend in Myslowitz; when he tried to retrieve them, she turned him in. However, Kárný disputes that Lederer could have known that she betrayed him, since by his own account he had stayed behind at the Auschwitz train station while Pestek continued to Myslowitz. Kárný considers it impossible to know what had happened, due to the conflicting testimonies, but he is convinced that it did not happen as Lederer described.[39]

Josef Neumann said that he had been approached by an unknown SS man (probably Pestek), with an offer of escape; this time he recognized that Pestek was sincere. However, before they could put their plans into action, the alarm was raised, a large number of SS guards arrived. Neumann and Pestek were caught and carried away handcuffed to each other; both were interrogated and tortured at Block 11.[41][40] Stefan Baretzki, who knew Pestek well, testified that Pestek had been arrested at Birkenau, allegedly from a note that had fallen into the wrong hands. Baretzki said that he had seen Pestek beaten by other SS guards.[40] Ryszard Henryk Kordek, a prisoner, said that Baretzki had raised the alarm over Pestek's return; Baretzki was one of the guards who beat Pestek.[39] SS man Perry Broad said that he heard kapos bragging about chasing and catching Pestek in the woods around the camp.[40] Kárný hypothesizes that Pestek, realizing that he had been recognized, gave up on saving Renée Neumann and her mother, and therefore made the offer to Josef Neumann.[39] Pestek was sentenced to death by firing squad in Kattowitz for favoring inmates and desertion, and executed in Międzybrodzie Bialskie on 8 October 1944.[40][lower-alpha 17] Members of Pestek's unit reported being ordered to witness the shooting.[42] During the second liquidation of the family camp in July 1944, Neumann and her mother were selected for forced labor in the Hamburg area; both survived the war.[43]

Aftermath

Lederer broke into Theresienstadt multiple times.

On 20 April, before the return to Auschwitz, Lederer went to the nearby town of Travčice,[33][44] where the barber Václav Veselý told him how to sneak past the sentries. Veselý regularly went into the ghetto to shave the Czech guards; he knew Lederer and had helped the Jews in the past. The route took advantage of a security vulnerability around a hospital located outside the perimeter of the camp which had apparently been used for smuggling. Lederer crossed the open space outside the camp while the sentry was looking the other way, passed through a fence, and managed to enter the camp.[33] He gave a report to Leo Holzer,[lower-alpha 18] who transmitted it to Paul Eppstein, then head of the Judenrat, and Rabbi Leo Baeck, a member of the council. Eppstein, Baeck, and Holzer agreed that the truth about Auschwitz must be kept strictly secret.[lower-alpha 19] Baeck had known since August 1943 that Jews transported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz were murdered by gassing.[lower-alpha 20] Although rumors about the fate awaiting them at Auschwitz had already spread around the camp, many people refused to believe them.[49][lower-alpha 21] Explaining why there was such a weak reaction to the possibility of imminent death, Israeli historian and survivor Jakov Tsur stated that no one was capable of understanding Auschwitz until he or she was standing on the Judenrampe and undergoing selection. Even the most pessimistic individuals still believed that healthy young adults would survive.[52][lower-alpha 22][lower-alpha 23] Lederer made two or three trips into the ghetto in May, smuggling weapons and parts of a radio transmitter which he received from Josef Pokorný.[46]

In early June, Lederer attempted to smuggle a report on Auschwitz to the Red Cross in Switzerland.[lower-alpha 24] He met Czech journalist Eduard Kotora in Plzeň, to whom he confided his plans; Kotora accompanied Lederer to the Křimice station where the latter boarded a train. Using false papers provided by Steiner and a false work permit provided by the Zbraslav resistance,[lower-alpha 25] he continued to the Škodovák station, which was used by many Czechs crossing the border to work at the Škoda Works in the Sudetenland. According to Lederer, he was then driven to Constance, alternately dressed as a civilian and an SS officer. He met with the widow of Werner, the SS colleague of Pestek killed in action in Belarus, and gave her some of Werner's personal possessions that had ended up in Pestek's hands. Mrs. Werner introduced Lederer to the captain of a boat on Lake Constance, who agreed to smuggle the report across the border to Switzerland and send it to the Red Cross. There is no evidence that the report reached its destination, or even that Lederer sent it as he described. Kárný writes that the most likely interpretation is that the skipper destroyed the report to avoid difficulties with border control.[55] According to Czech historian Erich Kulka, the Red Cross probably did not receive the report.[56] Lederer said in 1967 that he had the opportunity to escape to Switzerland, but decided not to, because his family had already been murdered by the Germans and he felt that it was his obligation to continue to fight. According to Kárný, Lederer regarded fleeing to Switzerland as cowardice and desertion, even though Kárný notes that his testimony on Auschwitz would have been more credible if he had delivered it in person.[57]

According to Lederer, when it became too dangerous for him to stay in Czechia, he fled to Slovakia, where he joined the Kriváň partisan group and tried to cross the border to fight in the Slovak National Uprising (August–September 1944), and was wounded in the attempt.[58] In November, he made his last visit to Theresienstadt, staying about eight days to compile a detailed report on the Small Fortress, the ghetto, and the Sudeten barracks, where the Germans had transferred the Reich Main Security Office archives in 1943.[46] Lederer's report contained information which, according to Kárný, "every Allied secret service would have given anything"[lower-alpha 26] to obtain. However, there is no evidence that Lederer tried to send it to the Allies.[59] Following this, Lederer said that he returned to Zbraslav and joined a partisan group named after S. P. Vezděněv. According to Kárný, Lederer's role in the Plzeňák 28 group, which during 1944 focused on sabotaging the Roderstein capacitator factory and a local Wehrmacht installation, is unclear.[58] Kulka disagrees, stating that the report on Lederer's activities in the Plzeňák 28 group confirms his testimony "to the smallest detail".[56] He remained in Czechoslovakia after the 1948 Communist takeover and remarried.[9] Due to the state-sponsored antisemitism in communist Czechoslovakia, Lederer was fired from his job and had to work selling textiles. He died in Prague in 1972 at the age of 68.[49][60]

Assessment

According to Hermann Langbein, Pestek was one of only two or three Auschwitz guards that risked their lives to help inmates escape, and his actions in particular indicate the limits of the absolute totalitarian hierarchy imposed by SS leaders.[61] Pestek's actions should be evaluated more favorably than those of the guards who helped inmates escape during the evacuation of the camp in January 1945 in hopes of avoiding punishment for their crimes.[42] One survivor described Pestek as "a decent person who never beat inmates" and Yehuda Bacon said he was "more humane" than other SS guards. Czech prisoners at the family camp reportedly called him "Miláček", Czech for "darling".[1] Bacon also said that Pestek maintained confidential contact with Fredy Hirsch, a leader in the family camp until his death in the 8 March liquidation.[24] According to psychologist Ruth Linn, Pestek may have helped Lederer in an attempt to distance himself from Nazi crimes, because his home in Bukovina had been recently occupied by the advancing Red Army.[49] Pestek is not recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem.[62]

Although described as "one of the most bizarre" escapes of World War II by historian Alan J. Levine,[63] Lederer's escape was overshadowed by that of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler five days later, which produced the Vrba-Wetzler Report.[21] Although some authors, including Levine,[43] have connected Lederer's report to the fact that the second liquidation of the family camp spared those able to work, Miroslav Kárný emphasizes that the decision was made due to the increasing labor shortage.[57] Kárný, who felt that Lederer's actions needed no embellishment, found that Lederer and Eduard Kotora exaggerated his story. These distortions were uncritically repeated by other writers. One influential,[lower-alpha 27] although discredited,[lower-alpha 28] account of the escape was Erich Kulka's semi-fictional 1966 book Escape from Auschwitz.[66] Czech-born Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer wrote in the introduction of the book that "The story that Erich Kulka tells is not fiction";[67] Kulka claimed that his work was historically accurate, even while describing it as a "historical novel".[68] Although Linn claimed that only five Jews "succeeded in getting away to reveal the secrets of Auschwitz",[69][lower-alpha 29] the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum details several other successful escapes by Jews.[70]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ German: Ich war ein Mörder, und mir, dem Mörder, hat ein sowjetischer Partisan das Leben geschenkt.[5]
  2. ↑ According to Czech historian Miroslav Kárný, he worked as a fabric seller, in a kaolin factory, and as an agricultural laborer on multiple farms. Josef Černík, a leader in an organization for reserve officers in the Czechoslovak Army, helped Lederer get the farm work.[8]
  3. ↑ For her resistance activities, Škardová was sentenced to death and executed in 1943. The indictment does not mention Lederer.[9]
  4. ↑ After the war, Holzer estimated that half the men in the fire brigade were in the resistance.[12]
  5. ↑ Lederer later claimed that he had maintained contact with the Plzeňák 28 while at Theresienstadt, but survivors of that group testified that they had heard nothing from him until his escape from Auschwitz.[13]
  6. ↑ Of the Jews deported from Theresienstadt before October 1942, less than half a percent survived the war.[14]
  7. ↑ According to Kulka, because Lederer witnessed the massacre, he was designated "return unwanted".[7] The Lidice massacre is not mentioned in Kárný (1997, p. 161).
  8. ↑ Also Neumannová;[5] see Czech naming customs.
  9. ↑ Czech: "Nenávidím sám sebe za to, že se musím dívat na to, jak jsou zabíjeny ženy a děti. Chtěl bych něco udělat, abych zapomněl na zápach pálícího lidského se masa a mohl se cítit trošku čistší."[22] Also Slovak: Nenávidím sám za seba za to, že sa musím pozerať, ako sú zabíjané ženy aj deti. Chcel by som niečo urobiť, aby som zabudol na zápach mŕtvol a mohol sa cítiť trochu čistejší.[23] There are several versions given of this quote. Vrba's autobiography has "I hate having to witness the murder of women and children. I want to do something to forget this stench and be able to feel a bit cleaner".[24] Writing in German, Kárný quotes Wetzler, who wrote that Pestek said, "Ich hasse, wenn ich zusehen muß, wie man hier Frauen und Kinder mordet. Ich möchte etwas tun, damit ich diesen Gestank [des brennen den Menschenfleisches] vergesse und mich etwas reiner fühlen kann ... "[5]
  10. ↑ Josef Neumann was not a relative of Renée Neumann.[3]
  11. ↑ According to Tsur, Cierer and Pestek both spoke French and used this language in order to avoid being overheard.[5][3] Cierer later shared his contacts with Lederer in hopes that his escape would be successful, and the two men planned together how to bring news of Auschwitz to the outside world—a plan they concealed from Pestek until after the escape. They reportedly spread rumors that Pestek's visits were for "organizing" – trading contraband.[27]
  12. ↑ The telegram was sent to the Reich Main Security Office, the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, the Kriminalpolizei, the Gestapo, and the border police.[31]
  13. ↑ Some authors, unaware of the second telegram, claimed that the Nazi authorities had not connected Pestek to the escape;[31] for example, see Levine (2000, p. 217).
  14. ↑ In Plzeň, the two escapees hid with Josef Černík, a former Czechoslovak Army officer who had previously helped Lederer find work. In May 1944, Lederer was hiding in Prague with Bedřich and Božena Dundr, at Vinohrady, Mánesova No. 16. The Dundrs, who were already under investigation under suspicion of listening to radio broadcasts, later confirmed that Lederer had told them about his trips into Theresienstadt in May. Later, Lederer hid with Mrs. Dundr's brother, Adolf Kopřiva, in Na Závisti, Zbraslav, a suburb of Prague.[34] According to Černík, the Černík, Dundr, and Kopřiva families collaborated closely in providing basic needs for Lederer, and Černík and his wife were interrogated by the Kriminalpolizei, suspected of aiding him. The police posted Lederer's photo, but did not offer a reward for his capture. Josef Plzák, who had known Lederer in the resistance, was arrested in June 1944 under suspicion that he had helped to hide him. Plzák provided assistance to those hiding Lederer and did not betray him.[35]
  15. ↑ Also Steinerová; see Czech naming customs. She later married and was known as Kroftová.[36] Contrary to the reports of some authors, such as Levine (2000, p. 217) and Kulka (1986, p. 90), who claimed respectively that she was Jewish and living under false papers,[37] Steiner was a Mischling, whose German mother prevented her deportation. Steiner, a German bank clerk named Ludwig Wallner whose Jewish sister-in-law had been deported to Auschwitz, and three others were indicted by the Nazi authorities for hiding Pestek and Lederer and providing false papers for them.[36]
  16. ↑ It is unclear when the return to Auschwitz occurred. Langbein (2005, p. 445) gives the date as 23 May; Levine (2000, p. 218) has 26 May; according to Kárný (1997, p. 177), it could have been as early as late April (per Ryszard Henryk Kordek) or as late as June (per Lederer). Josef Neumann gave conflicting testimony on when the return had occurred, saying it was 25 May and late April at different times.[39][40] According to Tsur (1994, p. 135), the June date is too late to be plausible; the return probably happened in late May.
  17. ↑ Pestek's death certificate, reproduced in Kárný (1997, p. 176), confirms that he was shot on 8 October at 6:56. Wilhelm Boger, who was in charge of escapes at Auschwitz, testified about Pestek's trial at the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials; a 1944 official document confirms his account.[39][40]
  18. ↑ Lederer later said that he had also told Jirka Petschauer, the captain of the Jewish police inside the ghetto, and Otto Schliesser, a member of the Judenrat.[44]
  19. ↑ According to Holzer, Eppstein warned him to tell no one, lest a "catastrophe" befall the 35,000 prisoners at Theresienstadt at the time.[45] It is clear that Holzer agreed with Eppstein's and Baeck's assessment; he later wrote that those who kept the secret "feared terrible consequences if the news reached the Theresienstadt public" (German: wenn diese Nachrichten in die Theresienstädter Öffentlichkeit kommen würden[46]). Lederer also complained that even the resistance members in the fire brigade opposed armed resistance, trusting the Red Cross visit to ensure the survival of Theresienstadt's Jews.[44]
  20. ↑ According to Baeck's testimony after the war, an unknown Mischling had been deported directly to Auschwitz and later transferred to a work detail, from which he escaped. With the help of a Czech gendarme, he smuggled himself into the ghetto to warn an engineer who was a friend of his, probably Julius Grünberger. Baeck heard the report from Grünberger in August 1943.[47] Baeck did not even inform the rest of the Judenrat, because he feared that the information would spread to the entire camp. In his memoirs, Baeck wrote that "[l]iving in the expectation of death by gassing would only be the harder. And this death was not certain for all—there was selection for slave labor; perhaps not all transports went to Auschwitz. So came the grave decision to tell no one."[48] Grünberger's report spread as a rumor through Theresienstadt, but many people refused to believe him.[48] Nevertheless, some authors, including Levine (2000, p. 219), have claimed that Lederer's reports were news to the Theresienstadt leaders.
  21. ↑ According to Lederer, whose testimony was repeated in Kulka (1965, p. 192), Linn (2004, p. 16), and Westerholz (2011), the Theresienstadt Jews had just received postcards from friends and relatives who were murdered on 8 March, postdated to 25 March. However, Kárný examined the archives and was unable to find evidence that any of these postcards had arrived at Theresienstadt prior to Lederer's first visit.[50] The Jews deported to the family camp in May 1944 were unaware of Lederer's prior visit to Theresienstadt.[51]
  22. ↑ In fact, the chances of survival for a childless young woman deported after September 1943 were about 20–40%.[53]
  23. ↑ Tsur lists several sources of information for Theresienstadt Jews to learn about mass murder of Jews in the "East" by mid-1944:[54]
    1. Jews who witnessed massacres in Galicia in 1940 and returned to the Protectorate
    2. Information on anti-Jewish actions on shortwave radio from Moscow (beginning late 1941) and the BBC (beginning 26 June 1943)
    3. A letter sent from Lublin to Theresienstadt on 17 August 1942, hinting at the purpose of Majdanek extermination camp
    4. A Jewish policeman named Löwenstein who was transferred from the Minsk Ghetto to Theresienstadt before September 1942; he had witnessed "Aktions" at Minsk
    5. Death notices sent from Auschwitz to Theresienstadt, indicating a suspiciously large number of deaths shortly after arrival
    6. A letter from a prisoner deported to Auschwitz in February 1943 "clearly indicating mass murder" (Czech: zřetelně naznačující hromadné vraždění)
    7. The behavior of a transport of children sent from the Białystok Ghetto to Theresienstadt in August 1943. The children initially refused to take showers, believing they were gas chambers; this incident was widely known in Theresienstadt.
    8. Alfred Cierer, who visited Turkey in early 1943 and learned of the genocide of Jews, was deported to Theresienstadt in August 1943
    9. Lederer's reports, although only known to a few; Tsur notes that those few made no effort to escape
    The Jews received correspondance from Auschwitz beginning in February 1943; later, they received letters from Theresienstadt Jews who had been moved from Auschwitz to other camps.[52]
  24. ↑ Lederer testified that this trip occurred before the return to Auschwitz.[44]
  25. ↑ The identity card has been preserved, and resistance members in Zbraslav confirmed that they provided false employment records.[55]
  26. ↑ German: Für ein Dokument dieser Art hätte jeder alliierte Geheimdienst mehr als alles gegeben.[59]
  27. ↑ Escape from Auschwitz was first published in 1966 in both Czech (as Útěk z tábora smrti, Prague) and English (Pergamon Press, United States). In 1986, it was republished and made a Jewish Book Council selection. Publishers Weekly described the book as "a searing delineation of the horrors of the Nazi regime".[64] For examples of accounts based on Kulka, see Levine (2000, p. 241), Sullivan (1988, p. 55) and Zdražilová (2017, pp. 52–53).
  28. ↑ For example, Kulka's account of the trip to Switzerland was denied by all witnesses, and not supported by the documentary evidence.[65]
  29. ↑ To support this assertion, Linn cites Kulka (1967, p. 201). Referring to Lederer, Vrba, Wetzler, and Arnošt Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz, who escaped together in May, Kulka writes, "Five of [the Auschwitz escapees], who fled immediately after the first liquidation of the family camp, had a higher goal than the saving of their own lives... [These escapes] can be considered the culmination of the effects of the resistance movement to inform the world of what was happening."

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Langbein 2005, p. 442.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Kárný 1997, p. 162.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tsur 1994, p. 139.
  4. ↑ Langbein 2005, pp. 442, 446.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kárný 1997, p. 163.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Levine 2000, p. 216.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Zdražilová 2017, p. 52.
  8. 1 2 3 Kárný 1997, p. 161.
  9. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 178.
  10. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 160.
  11. ↑ Czech, Długoborski & Piper 1995, p. 99.
  12. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 179.
  13. ↑ Kárný 1997, pp. 161–162.
  14. ↑ Adler 2017, p. 45.
  15. ↑ Kulka 1965, p. 199.
  16. 1 2 3 Tsur 1994, p. 137.
  17. ↑ Langbein 2005, p. 280.
  18. ↑ Levine 2000, p. 215.
  19. ↑ Tsur 1994, p. 140.
  20. ↑ Langbein 2005, pp. 442–443.
  21. 1 2 Linn 2004, pp. 15–16.
  22. ↑ Cílek & Moulis 2018, 177.
  23. ↑ Pravda 2018.
  24. 1 2 Langbein 2005, p. 444.
  25. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 163, 179–180.
  26. ↑ Tsur 1994, pp. 139–140.
  27. ↑ Tsur 1994, pp. 139–141.
  28. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Langbein 2005, p. 445.
  29. ↑ Levine 2000, pp. 216–217.
  30. ↑ Tsur 1994, p. 141.
  31. 1 2 3 Kárný 1997, p. 157.
  32. ↑ Tsur 1994, p. 141, 143.
  33. 1 2 3 Levine 2000, p. 217.
  34. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 164.
  35. ↑ Kárný 1997, pp. 165–166.
  36. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 166.
  37. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 180.
  38. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 165.
  39. 1 2 3 4 5 Kárný 1997, p. 175.
  40. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Langbein 2005, p. 446.
  41. ↑ Kárný 1997, pp. 174–175.
  42. 1 2 Langbein 2005, p. 447.
  43. 1 2 Levine 2000, p. 219.
  44. 1 2 3 4 Kulka 1965, p. 192.
  45. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 168.
  46. 1 2 3 Kárný 1997, p. 169.
  47. ↑ Kárný 1997, pp. 180–181.
  48. 1 2 Housden 2013, p. 129.
  49. 1 2 3 Linn 2004, p. 16.
  50. ↑ Kárný 1997, pp. 167–168.
  51. ↑ Tsur 1994, p. 144.
  52. 1 2 Tsur 1994, p. 145.
  53. ↑ Hájková 2013, p. 524.
  54. ↑ Tsur 1994, pp. 144–145.
  55. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 171.
  56. 1 2 Kulka 1965, p. 193.
  57. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 172.
  58. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 177.
  59. 1 2 Kárný 1997, p. 170.
  60. ↑ Zdražilová 2017, pp. 55–56.
  61. ↑ Langbein 2005, pp. 63, 442, 448.
  62. ↑ Yad Vashem 2018.
  63. ↑ Levine 2000, p. 213.
  64. ↑ Publishers Weekly 1986.
  65. ↑ Kárný 1997, p. 181.
  66. ↑ Kárný 1997, pp. 159, 167.
  67. ↑ Kulka 1986, p. xvii.
  68. ↑ Kulka 1986, pp. xi–xii.
  69. ↑ Linn 2004, p. 15.
  70. ↑ Escapes and reports 2018.

Print sources

  • Adler, H. G. (2017). Theresienstadt 1941–1945: The Face of a Coerced Community. Translated by Cooper, Belinda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521881463.
  • Cílek, Roman; Moulis, Miloslav (2018). Zapomeňte, že jste byli lidmi… [Forget that you were human beings...] (in Czech). Prague: Epocha. ISBN 9788074258862.
  • Czech, Danuta; Długoborski, Wacław; Piper, Franciszek (1995). Auschwitz, 1940–1945: węzłowe zagadnienia z dziejów obozu [Auschwitz, 1940–1945: important issues from the history of the camp] (in Polish). IV. Oświęcim: Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau. ISBN 978-8385047520.
  • Hájková, Anna (2013). "Sexual Barter in Times of Genocide: Negotiating the Sexual Economy of the Theresienstadt Ghetto". Signs. 38 (3): 503–533. doi:10.1086/668607.
  • Housden, Martyn (2013) [1997]. Resistance and Conformity in the Third Reich. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-80846-5.
  • Kárný, Miroslav (1997). "Die Flucht des Auschwitzer Häftlings Vítězslav Lederer und der tschechische Widerstand" [The Escape of Auschwitz Prisoner Vítězslav Lederer and the Czech Resistance]. Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente (in German) (4): 157–183.
  • Kulka, Erich (1965). "Terezín, a Mask for Auschwitz". In Ehrmann, František; Heitlinger, Ota; Iltis, Rudolf. Terezín. Prague: Council of Jewish Communities in the Czech Lands. pp. 182–203. OCLC 12720535.
  • Kulka, Erich (1986) [1966]. Escape From Auschwitz. South Hadley: Bergin & Garvey Publishers. ISBN 978-0-89789-088-5.
  • Kulka, Erich (1967). "Five escapes from Auschwitz". In Suhl, Yuri. They fought back: the story of Jewish resistance in Nazi Europe. New York: Crown Publishers. pp. 196–214.
  • Langbein, Hermann (2005) [First published in German in 1972]. People in Auschwitz. Translated by Zohn, Harry. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press in connection with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ISBN 978-0-8078-6363-3.
  • Levine, Alan J. (2000). Captivity, Flight, and Survival in World War II. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 213–219. ISBN 978-0-275-96955-4.
  • Linn, Ruth (2004). Escaping Auschwitz: A Culture of Forgetting. Ithaka: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-4130-1.
  • Sullivan, George (1988). Great Escapes of World War II. New York: Scholastic. pp. 35–55. ISBN 978-0-590-41024-3.
  • Tsur, Jakov (1994). "Lederův a Pestekův útěk" [Lederer and Pestek's escape]. In Brod, Toman; Kárný, Miroslav; Kárná, Margita. Terezínský rodinný tábor v Osvětimi-Birkenau: sborník z mezinárodní konference, Praha 7.-8. brězna 1994 [Theresienstadt family camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau: proceedings of the international conference, Prague 7–8 March 1994] (in Czech). Prague: Melantrich. pp. 135–148. ISBN 978-8070231937 Tsur (born Kurt Cierer) is the son of Alfred Cierer and a survivor of the family camp.
  • Zdražilová, Romana (2017). Červená, Radka Křížková, ed. Perzekuce Židovského obyvatelstva v Plzni v průběhu druhé světové války [Persecution of the Jewish community of Plzeň during the Second World War] (PDF) (Thesis) (in Czech). Plzeň: Západočeská univerzita v Plzni.

Web sources

  • "Escapes and reports". Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. 2018. Retrieved 12 August 2018.
  • "Hrdinovia, čo utiekli z pekla". Pravda (in Slovak). 27 January 2018. Retrieved 8 September 2018.
  • "Nonfiction Book Review: Escape from Auschwitz by Erich Kulka, Author J F Bergin & Garvey $28.95 (150p) ISBN 978-0-89789-088-5". Publishers Weekly. March 1986. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  • Westerholz, Michael (10 January 2011). "Leo Holzer und Theresienstadt" [Leo Holzer and Theresienstadt]. haGalil (in German). Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  • "Names of Righteous by Country". Yad Vashem. 2018. Retrieved 9 August 2018.

  • "Report regarding the activities of Siegfried Lederer in the Czech underground, and a telegram sent by the Gestapo following Lederer's escape from Auschwitz camp, dated, 1944–1945". Yad Vashem. Retrieved 19 August 2018.

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