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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1942: The "Final Solution" |
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pg. 400 |
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Far from their homeland, Polish-Jewish refugees gather in a wooden shelter that functions as their synagogue on the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Fleeing persecution, they had reached Portugal, where the Joint Distribution Committee was able to arrange a journey for them and 150 others to Jamaica. Housed in a refugee camp, they awaited visas that would allow them to travel to the United States or various Latin American countries.
Photo: American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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Richard Glücks was the direct supervisor of Rudolf Höss and other concentration-camp commandants. Besides selecting the site for Auschwitz, Glücks was responsible for the medical "services" rendered at the camp and the slave-labor operations that bolstered the German war efforts. He decided how many prisoners were selected for gassing and slave labor. He was last seen in a naval hospital near the Danish border; whether he committed suicide or was murdered by Jews seeking revenge has yet to be resolved.
Photo: Berlin Document Center / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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Stutthof
Stutthof, located in Poland about 20 miles east of Danzig, became the first camp established on Polish territory. Opened in September 1939, it began as a harsh labor camp for civilian POWs, who were later joined by Danes and others. In early 1942 Stutthof was transformed into a concentration camp and became the hub of a constellation of camps. Jews from the Baltic states, Hungary, and other camps were sent to Stutthof in 1944. The majority were women. Many died from hard labor, starvation, and disease. Others were gassed or thrown alive into the crematorium. As Soviet forces neared Stutthof in the winter of 1944-45, some Jews were sent on death marches; others died crossing the Baltic by boat. Many were so weak that they survived for only hours after their liberation in May 1945. About 65,000 people died at Stutthof.
Photo: Yad Vashem
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December 17, 1942: Accepting the United States government position that the Jews being massacred by the Germans can be helped only by a total and unconditional Allied victory over Germany, the American press continues to treat the Holocaust as just another war story, and is unwilling to discuss the systematic annihilation of the Jews. Given the Allied governments' knowledge of the Holocaust at this time, waiting until the Allied Armed Forces have achieved a total victory over the Germans indicates that the Allied governments have accepted the probablility that the majority of European Jews will be killed before the Germans can be stopped.
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December 17, 1942: Jewish inmates at the labor camp at Kruszyna, Poland, near Radom, attack guards with knives and fists. Six prisoners are killed and four escape; See December 18, 1942.
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| 1942: The "Final Solution" |
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pg. 400 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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