But Why Weren’t the Jewish Children Gassed?

The Kalendarium, written by Danuta Czech of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, proffers day-to-day summaries of events at Auschwitz from 1939 until 1945. It was first published in several booklets beginning in 1960 as “Notebooks of Auschwitz” and then republished in book form. As released in 1989, it reflects the official version of history propagated by officials at the holiest site of Jewish martyrdom. Their account is very distressing, particularly for the period beginning in June 1944. During that time hundreds of thousands of Jews arrived at Auschwitz from Hungary, Poland (especially the Lodz ghetto), and other locations. According to the official historians they were gassed and incinerated in truly Dantean fashion. Official calculations show that it was necessary to dispose of 24,000 deportees per day, which greatly surpassed the camp’s capacity as calculated by these same officials. Truly an incomprehensible mystery!

Under June 6, 1944, we read the following entry in the Kalendarium: “Arrival from Vught (Pays-Bas) of 496 Jews, both men and women. Following selection, 99 men, matriculation numbers 188,926 -189,024, as well as 397 women, numbers 78,253-78,533 and 81,735-81,850, were admitted into the camp.” The Kalendarium gives us no further information about them. For some strange reason it does not state that the entire transport was matriculated and thus spared extermination. That it was, however, is undeniable, since 99 plus 397 equals 496. The Kalendarium would have us believe that all the detainees in the transport were capable of working but the truth is that children, elderly and sick persons were also included in the transport.

Thanks to the Internet, even amateur historians can easily verify this fact. The website of the Holocaust Museum in Washington (www.ushmm.org) contains extracts from a microfiche collection of Auschwitz documents which contain several pages of personal data (Häftlings­Personalbogen) on internees who were registered at Auschwitz preparatory to matriculation. Unfortunately, fewer than 5,000 fiches are presently online for the period May 1943 until October 1944. In examining the microfiches and searching for children or internees entering Auschwitz on June 6, 1944, we find specific mention of four Jewish children from the Netherlands. All four arrived on June 6 and without doubt belonged to the transport from Vught.

• The first is Jack S., born June 4, 1933 (exactly 11 years old.) The fact that his name is not part of the “In Memoriam” (a memorial to Dutch Jews who died during deportation) indicates that young Jack returned from deportation. We learn that his mother, who presumably was part of the same transport, died on May 5, 1945 at Czernowitz in North Bucovine in the western part of present Ukraine. We are justified in asking how the unfortunate woman came to be at that location at the end of the war, since it had been recaptured by the Russians on March 29, 1944.
• Jack V., born April 20, 1938 (6 years old.) He also returned, as did his parents – if they had even been deported in the first place.
• Hans N., born December 4, 1934 (less than ten years old). Hans likewise returned from deportation as did his father, if the latter had been deported. His mother, however, died at Auschwitz on December 31, 1944.
• Heinie J., born on December 19, 1935 (less than nine years old). Heine and his parents, if they had been deported, returned from deportation.

The microfiche lists another seven adults as belonging to the same transport. One of these died on March 17, 1945 at Buchenwald, another on May 31, 1945 at Bergen-Belsen; and five returned to the Netherlands.

Further verification of this is found in a publication released in December 1953 by Het Nederlandsche Roode Kruis (The Dutch Red Cross) under the title Auschwitz-Deel V: De Deportatietransporten in 1944. The author, J. Looijenga, specifically states that the transport included seventeen children under age 15. Among the 60 known survivors there were three boys around the age of 10 and two girls aged 13. Thus it seems necessary to add at least one of the four boys noted above (Jack V., aged 6). Looijenga, it is true, did not find any other children who escaped from any other transports. With one exception, however, all transports leaving the Netherlands had departed earlier, at a time when the Germans still had the possibility of resettling in the Ukraine those deportees who were unfit for work. Such was no longer the case during the period of the transport from Vught in June 1944, since the Russians had recaptured most of Ukraine in the spring of 1944.

And what was the itinerary of the deportees from Vught? Looijenga says that, shortly after their arrival, most of the deportees were transferred to Langenbielau/Reichenbach, which was a labor camp northwest of Auschwitz, ancillary to Grossrosen. A first transport departed on June 10^th and a second departed on August 23^rd. According to Looijenga, it consisted of “around fifty women who were elderly, or ill, or else mothers with small children.” Of these 50 women and children, 31 belonged to a classification which the Red Cross ignored in 1953. Thus they were arbitrarily classified as dead the moment they departed from Auschwitz. One thing is known for sure: none of the children of the transport, their mothers, the elderly men or women, or the ill or invalid members of the convoy who accompanied them was gassed and this, of course, does not conform to official dogma. Chief historian Gayssot has an obligation to give us some explanation for this. But perhaps this is a wondrous mystery. Could it be that it is a matter of faith, inaccessible to mere human reason and thus, proscribed from doubt?

Note

A version of this article appeared in “Akribeia,” vol. 5, October 1999, pp. 141-143. Translated by James M. Damon.