INTRODUCTION
ODILO GLOBOCNIK
SS Brigadeführer
Head of Operation Reinhard
World
War II began in Europe on September 1,1939, with Germany’s invasion of Poland.
Nazi policy against the Jews, limited to the isolation and forced Immigration
of German Jews, now took a new and furious turn.
On
July 31, 1941, Marshal Hermann Goering authorized SS Gruppenfuehrer and Chief
of the German Security Forces, Reinhard Heydrich, to finalize preparations for
the exterminations! “…I hereby commission
you to carry out all necessary preparation with regard to organizational,
substantiative and financial viewpoints for a total Solution of the Jewish
question in the German sphere of influence in Europe. Insofar as the
competencies of other central organizations are hereby affected these are to be
involved.
January
20, 1942, SS Gruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich called a meeting to confirm his
plan to key officials. This meeting is now known as the “Wannsee Conference”,
named for the Berlin suburb where it was held. The only purpose for this
meeting was to organize and coordinate various governmental agencies to carry
out the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem”. The Conference made genocide a
fact for the rest of occupied Europe.
Soon
the same year, under a secret code name “Operation Reinhard” three death camps
were built in rapid succession: Belzec completed in March; Sobibor built in
April; and Treblinka, in July. Under the supervision of SS General Odillo
Globocnik and staffed by personnel from the euthanasia program in Germany
(killing of deformed, mentally retarded Germans in gassing installations)
discontinued in Germany due to the outcry of the church, these camps began a
vast extermination program which did not end until Polish Jewry had virtually ceased to exist.
In
each one of these camps hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. Despite
this, these names except Treblinka where most of Warsaw Jews were killed, are
not as well known as those of other camps like Auschwitz or Dachau, despite the
fact that in the “Operation Reinhard “ camps more Jews were killed than in
Auschwitz. The reason is simple. They were top-secret installations, and in the
few recovered documents were referred to as “Durchgangslagers” (transit camps).
They were dismantled and all signs of their existence were removed long before
the Allies arrived.