Jewish Population in the East

I am enclosing for your information a brief situation report pertaining to the situation of the Jewish populations in the [German] occupied East during [WWII], and which comprises part of the Nuremberg record. Dozens of these reports were prepared.

The present brief report, dated from the beginning of July, 1942, contains two points of interest: first, in its reference to the final solution as an event to take place in future time, and second, in its discussion of the number of Jewish persons in the region being dependent on their willingness to declare themselves as Jews in censuses.

Samuel Crowell

Title: “Document 3943-PS: Reports from the Occupied Eastern Territories No. 1, Part 01 [partial translation]”, in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Supplement A: Closing Address, Closing Arguments, Closing Statements; Documents Introduced in Evidence By British and American Prosecutors. District of Columbia: GPO, 1947. pp.

Author: US Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality

Accession Number: AC_94X_09638 Publication Date: PD_19470101. Document Type: Government Document. Source Document Language(s): English See Also Related Document Supersets: ANCA; NCA; NWCT Country of Publication: USA

Reports from the occupied Eastern territories No. 9

To be filed 7/1/1942 [initials]

When making inquires please refer to the above number of the report.

[Page 7, line 11 to page 8, line 16 incl.]

The Jews in White Ruthenia

The White Ruthenian area has always been the most densely populated by Jews of all areas of the Eastern territory. According to a census taken in 1926 more than 400000 Jews lived in what was then the White Ruthenian Socialist Soviet Republic (RSSR). In the Western territories belonging to the former Poland which are also populated mainly by White Ruthenians more than 500000 Jews were living there according to a census last taken in 1931. Experience shows that the Jews, when censuses were taken, for reasons of camouflage only partly acknowledged to be Jews, and therefore the figures given embrace only a part of the Jews actually living in the White Ruthenian settlement area, so that their total number in reality is far higher.

At the outbreak of the war, more than half of the Jews in White Ruthenia lived in the larger cities, above all in Minsk, where out of 238000 inhabitants 100000-120000 were Jews. Although the great majority of the White Ruthenian Jews were impecunious, they still had exercised for a long time a great influence in all spheres of life, in the former Polish area as well as in the originally Soviet Russian area. At the same time, the influence of the Jews in the former Polish territory was due mainly to their very strong economic positions. While in the Soviet Russian part of White Ruthenia they had their powerful positions in the state apparatus, and above all in the Communist party, especially in its real centers of power, the Central Committee and the Politbureaus.

The measures taken by the Security Police and SD have caused basic changes also in White Ruthenia in regard to the Jewish question. In order to bring the Jews under an effective control, independent of the measures to be taken later, Jewish Councils of Elders were formed, who were responsible to the Security Police and the SD for the behavior of their racial comrades. Besides, the registration of the Jews was initiated and they were concentrated in ghettos. Finally the Jews had to wear yellow insignia in front and on their back to be recognized, in the manner of the Jewish star introduced in the territory of the Reich. In order to utilize Jewish labor fully the Jews were generally used for uniform employment and for clearing up operations.

With these measures the foundation was laid for the later intended final solution of the European Jewish problem, for the White Ruthenian territory as well.

[stamp] Z-RV-K Berlin, 1/22/1943

The Chief of the Security Police and of the Security Service, Command Staff