I now offer in evidence Document Number RF-1217, which is a memorandum of 15 June 1942 headed “Other Transports of Jews Coming from France.” It is still dealing with the same operation, but I believe it is interesting to submit these documents without reading them, since they show the extremely complex and regular working of this administration whose purpose was to arrest and deport innocent people. The beginning of the memorandum alludes to a new conference held in Berlin on 11 June 1942 and attended by those responsible for the Jewish departments in Brussels and The Hague, as well as by Dannecker himself. In the fourth paragraph on Page 1 of this document I read the last sentence of the paragraph, “Ten percent of Jews unfit for labor may be included in these convoys.” This sentence shows that the purpose of this deportation was not merely to procure labor, even if it involved labor to be exterminated by work.
I should like also to read the fifth paragraph, which contains only one sentence:
“It was agreed that 15,000 Jews should be expelled from Holland, 10,000 from Belgium, and up to 100,000 from France, including the unoccupied zone.”
The last part of the memorandum relates to the technical execution. It alludes first to negotiations with the transport service to obtain the necessary trains. It then alludes to the necessity of inducing the de facto French Government to take steps to deprive of their nationality all Jews resident outside of French territory. This would mean that deported Jews would no longer be considered as French citizens. Lastly the French State was to pay the cost of transport and various expenses connected with the deportation.
I now present Document Number RF-1218, which is a memorandum dated 16 June 1942, entitled “The Transportation of Jews from France: Subject, Order from the SS Obersturmbannführer Eichmann to SS Hauptsturmführer Dannecker, 11 June 1942.” The first three paragraphs of this memorandum show that there was difficulty in transporting deportees, because of the large quantity of railway stock necessary for the preparation of the eastern campaign. I should like to read the last two paragraphs of this letter:
“We are now carrying out a large-scale reorganization of the German transport agencies in France. The main feature of this is that the numerous organizations existing hitherto will be taken over by the Reich Ministry of Transportation, which will be responsible for them. This reorganization, which was ordered without notice, takes a few days to complete. Before that date it is impossible to give approximate information as to whether the transportation of Jews can be carried out in the near future or at a later date, on the scale anticipated, or even partially.”
These remarks seemed to me interesting as defining the responsibility of the Reich Cabinet. Such a large undertaking as the deportation of so many Jews required the intervention of many different administrative services, and we see here that the success of this enterprise depended on the reorganization of transport on the responsibility of the Reich Ministry of Transportation. It is certain that a ministerial department of this kind, which is above all a technical department, intervened to help carry out that general enterprise of deportation.
I now submit Document Number RF-1219 which is a memorandum by Dr. Knochen dated 15 June 1942. This memorandum is entitled, “Technical Execution of New Convoys of Jews from France.” Not to take too much time I shall read only the first paragraph of this memorandum:
“To avoid any conflict with the operation in progress with regard to ‘French workmen for Germany,’ mention will be made only of Jewish resettlement. This version is confirmed by the fact that the convoys may include entire families and therefore the possibility is left open of sending at a later date for the children under 16, who were left behind.”
The remainder of the memorandum, like all these texts, which are so extremely painful from a moral point of view, continues to discuss the question of the deportation of the Jews in round figures as if all these human beings were mere goods and chattels.