90 Command Staff - Sobibor (Holocaust: Reinhard)
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This article is from the Holocaust FAQ, by Ken McVay kmcvay@nizkor.org with numerous contributions by others.
90 Command Staff - Sobibor (Holocaust: Reinhard)
Bauer, Erich
Bolander, Karl (Kurt Balender? -
Get http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/places/poland/wlodawa/wlodawa.015)
Some confusion exists in my mind about Bolander - or Balender -
since both names have appeared, they may be one and the same, or
there may have been two men with similar names.. I do not know
yet.
Bredov, SS Sgt. Paul
Frenzel, SS Sgt. Karl
When the Germans learned of a planned revolt, they chose 72 men
and sent them to the crematorium - Frenzel supervised this action,
and "Returning from the scene of the murder he ordered the quick
erection of a temporary stage out of some planks, called for the
orchestra, gathered the women and told them to sing and
dance."(Testimony from the Sobibor Trials, as related in
Wlodawa.016) During the trials, Frenzel has also accused of
shooting a young boy for the crime of eating sardines...
Gomerski, SS Sgt. Hubert
Groth, Paul (Sgt)
Hering, SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer Gottlied - Replaced Wirth as Camp
Commandant after Wirth appointed Inspector of the Reinhard death
camps in August, 1942.
Lampert, Erwin
Michel, SS Sgt. Hermann ("The Preacher")
Neiman, Oberltnt. Designated as deputy commander by Razgonayev.
See http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/r/razgonayev.mikhail.a
for Soviet interrogation of same.
Poul, ? SS Obersturmfuehrer (1st. Lt.)
Rashke's work (Escape from Sobibor) provides some insight into the
mentality of the German staff regarding their attitude towards their
victims. He notes that the flow of transports into the camp during
the winter of 1942 had slowed to a trickle, primarily because most of
the Polish Jews were already dead, and because the trains were needed
to support the crumbling Eastern Front. This, he comments, along
with the isolation of the nearly snowbound camp, made them edgy and
bored:
They took it out on the Jews.
Sergeant Paul Groth made up little games. He'd order four Jews
to carry him around the yard like a king while he'd drop burning
paper on their heads. Or he'd make prisoners jump from roofs
with umbrellas, or scale roof beams until they fell to the
floor. Those who sprained ankles and broke legs were shot in
Camp III. Or he'd organize a flogging party, forcing Jews to
run the gauntlet past Ukrainians with whips. Or he'd order a
thin prisoner to gulp vodka and eat two pounds of sausage within
minutes. They he'd force open the Jew's mouth and urinate in
it, roaring with laughter as the prisoner retched in the snow.
Groth softened briefly. Three beautiful girls came to Sobibor
on a transport from Vienna. Groth took Ruth as his servant and
mistress. Seageant Poul, the drunk, smuggled the other two into
the Merry Flea. Groth fell in love with the dark-eyed teen-ager
and, almost as a favor to her, or so it seemed, stopped beating
the other Jews. But the truce was short-lived. It was against
SS regulations to molest Jewesses - an insult to the master
race. Himmler was quite adamant on that point. So while Groth
and Poul were on leave, Kommandant Reichleitner transferred both
of them. Groth ended up at Belzec.
The Sobibor Jews were delighted to see the two Nazis go, but
Groth and Poul were easily replaced, and life went on as usual.
The empty winter days also got to Kurt Bolander and Erich Bauer.
Because there was little to do in Camp III without Jews to gas,
Bauer turned to vodka. He kept a private bar in his room in the
Swallow's Nest, and there Jews would come to mix drinks or make
eggnog. The short Nazi - he was under five feet six inches -
would sit in his armchair, facing a photograph of his wife and
children and a portrait of the Fuehrer ... and drink himself
into oblivion. If a prisoner spilled any liquor or broke a
bottle, the former street-car conductor would make him wipe the
floor with his tongue.
Bolander took out his frustration on the ten Jews who carried
the swill buckets from Camp I to the gate to Camp III. Bolander
would make them run, and if, as sometimes happened, the Jews in
Camp III opened the gate before the Jews from Camp I had left,
Bolander would shoot the swill carriers. Somehow, the Nazis had
deluded themselves into believing that the Camp I Jews didn't
know what went on in Camp III. And they wanted to keep it that
way. (Rashke, 101-102)
Reichsleitner, SS-Obersturmfuehrer Franz. Replaced Stangl as commander
at the end of August, 1942. Stangl was transferred to Treblinka.
Stangl, Franz, Oberleutnant (Camp Commandant)
Franz Stangl, the commander of Sobibor and Treblinka, was
stationed in northern Italy, in the areas of Fiume and Udine,
from the autumn of 1943 and engaged in actions against partisans
and local Jews. After the war he escaped to Brazil; in 1967 he
was discovered there, arrested, and extradited to the Federal
Republic of Germany. He was tried in Dusseldorf in 1970 and was
sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in prison a few months
after the end of the trial. (Arad, Belzec)
Stangl was sent to command Sobibor after construction fell behind
schedule in the Spring of 1942. His commanding officer sent him to
meet with Wirtz at Belzec, and he described his visit thus:
"I went there by car. As one arrived, one first reached Belzec
railway station... Oh, God, the smell! It was everywhere.
Wirth wasn't in his office. I remember they took me to him...
he was standing on a hill next to the pits... the pits....
full...they were full. I cannot tell you; not hundreds,
thousands, thousands, thousands of corpses... that's where
Wirth told --- he said that was what Sobibor was for...
Wirth told me I should definitely become the commander of
Sobibor. I answered that I was not qualified for such a
mission.... I received from Globocnik the task to erect the
camp. That it was not to be an ammunition camp but a camp for
killing Jews I learned finally from Wirth. ... Actually, I was
not relieved [of my post]. I stayed in Sobibor. Transports
arrived and were liquidated..."
When asked during his trial how many people could be murdered in
one day, Stangl answered:
"Regarding the question of what was the optimum amount of people
gassed in one day, I can state: according to my estimation a
transport of thirty freight cars with 3,000 people was
liquidated in three hours. When the work lasted for about
fourteen hours, 12,000 to 15,000 people were annihilated. There
were many days that the work lasted from the early morning until
the evening." (Arad, Belzec)
Thomalla, SS-Obersturmfuehrer Richard. SS Construction Office, Lublin
Wagner, Gustav (Quartermaster-Sergeant) - the man who supervised
the daily life at Sobibor. Moshe Bahir described him thus:
He was a handsome man, tall and blonde -- a pure Aryan. In
civilian life he was, no doubt, a well-mannered man; at Sobibor
he was a wild beast. His lust to kill knew no bounds. I saw
such terrible scenes that they give me nightmares to this day.
He would snatch babies from their mothers' arms and tear them to
pieces in his hands. I saw him beat two men to death with a
rifle, because they did not carry out his instructions properly,
since they did not understand German. I remember that one night
a group of youths aged fifteen or sixteen arrived in the camp.
The head of this group was one Abraham. After a long and
arduous work day, this young man collapsed on his pallet and
fell asleep. Suddenly Wagner came into our barrack, and Abraham
did not hear him call to stand up at once before him. Furious,
he pulled Abraham naked off his bed and began to beat him all
over his body. When Wagner grew weary of the blows, he took out
his revolver and killed him on the spot. This atrocious
spectacle was carried out before all of us, including Abraham's
younger brother. (Museum, 37, as cited in Arad, Belzec)
Wagner's ruthless behavior toward the Jews is mentioned in some other
testimonies of Sobibor survivors. Ada Lichtman writes that on the
fast day of Yom Kippur, Wagner appeared at the roll call, took out
some prisoners, gave them bread and ordered them to eat. As the
prisoners ate the bread, he laughed loudly; he enjoyed his joke
because he knew the Jews he had forced to eat were pious. (Lichtman,
36-37, as cited in Arad, Belzec)
Gustav Wagner escaped after the war to Brazil, where he lived openly.
The Brazilian Supreme Court refused to extradite him. In October
1980 his attorney announced that Wagner had committed suicide. (Arad,
Belzec)
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