Office of the SS "Ancestral Heritage" Research Organization, Berlin
Subject: Evacuation of the museum in Charkow.
On August 8, '43 in the evening it became known that the possibility of an evacuation of Charkow until August 14 existed. On August 10, 1943, I went in the company of an interpreter, SS Sergeant Jacobsen to Charkow. In the afternoon I reported to the commander of the D.K.V. of the SIPO and the SD, Major Krauebitter, and informed him that I was entrusted by the Reichfuehrer SS with the salvage of the museum in the field of operations of the Waffen SS on the Southern front. In this connection I learned of the fate of the museum in Charkow during the evacuation of Charkow in the beginning of 1943; a separate report on that subject is being prepared. At the same time Major Krauebitter informed me that the KVR with the garrison of Charkow, who was responsible for the museums had already left the city days ago. A further inquiry in the buildings of the bureau of the Special Purpose Staff R.R. revealed that this bureau already had left Charkow on the morning of August 10. A survey of the museum in the company of Major Krauebitter revealed the following picture:
The Museum contains a small prehistoric department after the really prehistoric museum had been destroyed in the winter after failure of evacuation. Moreover, it contained a good collection of Ukrainian art of folklore character, small objects of ecclesiastical art, particularly, however, mostly paintings of Ukrainian painters, as the pictures of central- and west-European masters had been transported to Germany by the SD in 1942. The storehouse of the museum contains still numerous pictures. The key to the museum was given to the Ukrainian lady superintendent by the Special Purpose Staff R.R., who also related that at eight o'clock in the morning on October 8 a gentleman of the Special Purpose Staff R.R. had been in the museum and with several pictures had quickly departed at 8:30 o'clock. As a matter of fact, some pictures of the collection were missing, approximately 1%.
After no one had taken steps toward any real preservation of the museum, neither among the garrison nor among the Special Purpose Staff R.R., which according to the poster, referred to as Exhibit I, was responsible for the care of the collection, the packing was begun.
The prehistoric findings—almost exclusively ceramics of the bronze age—were packed in two wooden boxes and shipped by a truck of the EKV; they were to be sent from Kiev to Berlin.
The exhibit of Ukrainian popular art contained textiles, ceramics, glass, costumes, and objects of wood. The greater part is packed in two large wooden boxes and was shipped with the evacuation material of the EKV by rail to Dnjepropetrowsk. Among it was a large tapestry, which on account of its size could not be packed.
From the collection of paintings the most valuable pictures were selected and shipped by rail in the direction of Dnjepropetrowsk.
The documents that remained lying on the desk of the Special Purpose Staff R.R.—a work plan of the Special Purpose Staff R.R. signed by a section chief Schmidt and a report on Ukrainian art—were saved and turned over to the EKV of the SIPO and the SD.
Signed: Jankuhn
Captain in the SS
For the correctness of this copy
SS Leader