09/14/1942 "Jewish Resettlement" in Eastern Galicia After the actions to resettle the Jews on September 3rd and 5th, 1942 in Skole, Stryj and Khodorow, in which Hauptm. i.e. sh Kröpelin had been ordered and about whom a special report was made, the 7./Pol.24 arrived in Kolomea on the evening of 6.9.42 as ordered. Here I immediately got in touch with the Criminal Police Commissioner and SS - Ostuf. Leitmeritz, head of the Sich branch office Pole. in Kolomea and Rev. Obltn. Hertel from the protective pole. Service department Kolomea added. The action scheduled for September 7th, 1942 in Kolomea was made easier and well prepared for all forces involved, contrary to the experiences in Stryj. T he above - mentioned offices and the employment office in Kolomea issued the slogan to the Jews to register on September 7th. - 5.30 a.m., at the assembly point of the employment office. Around 5,300 Jews were actually marched here at the specified time. Wit h all the forces of my company I cordoned off the Jewish quarter and searched it thoroughly, and about 600 Jews were still found. The loading of the transport train was completed at 7 p.m. 4,769 Jews were resettled after about 1,000 of the total number of Jews who had been raised by the Pol. had been released. Each wagon of this transport train was loaded with 100 Jews. The great heat that prevailed during the day put a heavy strain on the whole operation and also made transport very difficult. After all wa gons had been properly nailed up and sealed, the transport set off for Belzec at around 9 p.m. with an escort detachment from 1/9. As darkness fell, several Jews escaped. After removing the barbed wire, they squeezed through the air gaps, but some of them were immediately shot by the escort squad. while most of the Jews who had fled were eliminated by the railway guards or other police forces during the night or the next day. This transport was able to be delivered to Belzec without any incidents worth ment ioning, although given the length of the train and the intense darkness, the commando proved to be too weak, as the transport leader of 6./Pol.24, who had returned directly to Stanislau, only told me on 11.9. could be reported in Stanislau. On September 7t h about 300 decrepit, infected, frail and no longer transportable Jews were executed. According to me only on 6.9. known order v. September 4th, 1942, concerning the resettlement of Jews - here ammunition consumption 90% of all those executed were shot wit h carabiners or rifles. The pistol was only used in exceptional cases. On September 8th and 9/10/42 actions were carried out in Kuty, Kosov, Horodenka, Zaplatov and Sniatyn (?). About 1,500 Jews had to be marched 50 km from Kuty or 35 km from Kosow to Kolo mea, where they spent the night with other Jews who had been brought together from the area in the yard of the Sipo prison. In addition to the Jews found in Horodenka and Sniatyn, who had already been loaded into 10 wagons each by the Sipo, another 30 wago ns were loaded in Kolomea. The total number of Jews transported to Belzec on the resettlement train on September 10, 1942 was 8,205. During the actions in the vicinity of Kolomea on September 8, 9, and 10, 1942, about 400 Jews had to be shot down for the k nown reasons. With the great increase in Jews to be resettled until 10.9. In Kolomea, despite the concerns I expressed, the security police loaded all the Jews into the 30 wagons provided. In view of the great heat that prevailed on those days and the stre ss on the Jews from long walks or from waiting for days without the delivery of any food worth mentioning, the excessive loading of most of the wagons with 180 to 200 Jews was so catastrophic that the situation became serious adversely affected the transpo rt. How heavily the 10 wagons loaded by the Sipo in Horodenka and Sniatyn were individually filled with Jews, I did not know. In any case, both transports arrived in Kolomea with completely inadequate guards, so that the air holes had been almost completel y removed with barbed wire. I got these transports removed from the train station in Kolomea as soon as possible and arranged for them to be coupled with the 30 wagons from Kolomea that were standing in the siding far away from the station. The Jewish secu rity service and members of the Bahnhof - Gaudienst (Ostbahn gang workers) from Kolomea were deployed to properly lock all insufficiently locked wagons in the usual manner until nightfall. A commando with a strength of 1/15 under the command of Captain W. wa s assigned to guard the parked resettlers' train with 50 goods wagons until it departed and to prevent any attempt to break out. Due to the already described strain on the Jews, the adverse effects of the heat and the severe overloading of most of the wago ns, the Jews repeatedly tried to break out of the parked wagons when darkness had already fallen at around 7.30 p.m. At 7:50 p.m., the commando accompanying the resettlers train of 1/9 strength, led by Zugw. K. at the sidings. Attempts to escape from the p arked train during the dark could either be prevented or the Jews who escaped were shot while trying to escape. In all the wagons, the Jews had stripped completely naked under the influence of the heat. When the train left Kolomea at 8:50 p.m. as scheduled , the security detail moved into the accommodation. The escort detail was, as initially determined by me, with 5 Wchtm. (SD) on 1 passenger car at the beginning and 5 watch m. (SD) distributed to 1 passenger car at the end of the turn. Because of the lengt h of the train and its total load of 8,205 Jews, this distribution proved to be impractical. train At the next stop, J. ordered the guards to be distributed over the entire train. the guard had to remain in the brake shacks during the entire journey in ord er to be able to counteract the escape attempts of the Jews most effectively in this way. After only a short drive, the Jews tried to break through individual wagons on all sides and even the wagon covers. It was also partially possible to carry out this p roject, so that 5 stations before Stanislau Zugw. J. asked the station master in Stanislau by telephone to have nails and boards ready for a temporary closure of the damaged wagons and to request the railway security to guard the transport. When the train arrived in Stanislau, craftsmen from Stanislau station and the railway security were present to carry out the necessary repairs and also to take over the guarding of the train. The work took 1 1/2 hours. When the train continued after this time, when it st opped again after a few stations, it turned out that the Jews had broken out larger holes in several wagons and that most of the barbed wire attached to the ventilation windows on the outside had been torn off. In one wagon, the Jews had even worked with h ammers and tongs. When questioned, they explained that the Sipo had given them this hand tool with the explanation that they could use the same at their next workplace. train J. had the tools handed over to him by the Jews. As the transport train continued its journey, the train had to be temporarily nailed up whenever it stopped at a station, At 11.15 the train arrived in Lviv. Since no relief for the escort detail had arrived, the escort detail J. had to take over the guarding of the train to Belzec. Afte r a short stop at Lemberg station, the train drove to the Kleparow suburban station, where SS - Ostuf. Schulze was given 9 wagons, which were marked with an "L" and intended for the forced labor camp, and were unloaded here. SS Ostuf. Schulze then had about 1,000 Jews loaded in again. At around 1:30 p.m., the transport continued towards Belzec. During the machine change in Lemberg, such an old machine was harnessed that it was only possible to continue the journey with constant interruptions. The slow journey was used again and again by even the strongest Jews to force themselves through the violently created openings and seek their salvation in flight, since they were hardly injured when jumping off the slow - moving train [sic]. Despite repeated requests to th e train driver to drive faster, this was impossible for him, so that frequent stops on the open road became increasingly uncomfortable. The commando had already used up the ammunition it was carrying just behind Lemberg and had also used up another 200 rou nds of ammunition that it had received from members of the Wehrmacht, so that it helped itself for the rest of the journey with stones from the moving train and with the fixed bayonet when the train stopped had to. The increasing panic among the Jews, caus ed by the intense heat, overcrowding of the wagons and the stench of corpses - when the wagons were unloaded there were about 200 dead Jews on the train - made the transport almost impossible. At 6.45 p.m. the transport train arrived in Belzec and at 7.30 p.m. J. to the SS - OStuf. handed over to the head of the camp there. J. had to remain in the camp until the entire transport was unloaded at around 10 p.m., while the escort detail was deployed to guard the wagons parked outside the camp. The number of Jews who escaped on this transport cannot be given because of the special circumstances described. However, it can be assumed that at least 113 of the Jews who fled were shot or rendered harmless in some other way. During the actions between September 7th and September 10th, 1942 nothing special happened. The cooperation between the deployed Orpo forces and the security police forces was good and smooth. 1. Peter Longerich The Murder of European Jews Munich 1989, p.216f https://www.ns - archiv.de/verfolgung/polen/ostgalizien/umsiedlung.php