Kladovo transport

The Kladovo Transport was an illegal Jewish refugee transport, started on November 25, 1939 in Vienna, the aim of which was to flee to Eretz Israel. As a result of early freezing to the Danube, the refugees in the Yugoslav river-port of Kladovo had to overwinter. In 1940, they waited in vain on a sea-going vessel for the onward journey, and they had to move to the port of Šabac on the Sava, where they were caught by the Nazis in 1941. Only about 200 young people, as well as a few adults could be saved or escape on its own. The men of the transport were shot on 12 and 13 October by units of the Wehrmacht on the orders of General Franz Bohme. The women were transferred to early January 1942 in Sajmište concentration camp, and murdered between 19 March and 10 May 1942 in a gas car, under Herbert Andorfer.

Background

In 1917, the Balfour Declaration by the British in establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine, promised the possibility of legal immigration (Aliyah), was limited in the 1920s, by the introduction of a quota system with certificates of different categories. from In the 1930s, Zionist organizations responded with the implementation of illegal transports (Aliya Bet). At the turn of 1938/1939, within the Zionist movement, Haganah in Palestine, Mossad LeAliyah Bet was set up for the organization of illegal shipments. Between the annexation of Austria to the German Reich and the beginning of the Second World War, 17,000 people in 50 illegal transports Europe left Europe.^[1]

Austrian Jews were largely assimilated; they supported Jewish integration with financial and moral support, without thinking of your own emigration. Hechaluz , which has existed since the 1920s, was Viennese branch organization of the Zionist umbrella organization, and served mainly as a transit station for Eastern European Jews.^[1] With the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938, the Nuremberg laws were adopted overnight. The aggressive policy of expulsion by the Nazis, allowed the emigration to a foreign refuge.^[1]

In May 1939, the British Mandate government in Palestine published the "White Paper", by which the immigration for the next five years had been limited to 75,000. Other countries limited the immigration possibilities drastically. After 1938, Ralph Weingarten held a refugee conference in Evian described his impression of the situation:

Both sides, "receiving" countries and expulsion country wished basically the same thing: this disturbing, annoying minority to deport, somewhere, far away, to sink them in any remote corner of the earth, to make them disappear somewhere.^[2]

It became increasingly difficult for Jews to escape the threat of the Nazis, as their sphere of influence grew. Illegal immigration to Palestine was more and more important, as the organization of transport had been hampered, by the outbreak of war. The British considered Jewish refugees from the hostile areas as "enemy aliens" as they left the Balkans to acquire disused ocean vessels. In Romania, 3,000 refugees already waited for their onward journey.

In the fall of 1939, Adolf Eichmann, founder of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna, put pressure on Georg Überall, Secretary General of the Austrian Hechaluz. Eichmann threatened, that all not yet emigrated Hechaluz members - there waited hundreds in the Hachshara camps outside Vienna on their departure - to deport them to Poland, if they did not leave the country. In addition, he ordered "the Committee for Jewish Overseas transport" and appointed Berthold Storfer, as a head of work. Although he was a Jew, but not a Zionist, and in 1939 with support from the SS became increasingly influential in the organization of illegal transport. The Hechalutz representatives saw him as a collaborator of the Nazis and avoided contact, thereby ultimately leading to failure in the project.^[1]

Organization of transport

In the face of threats, Eichmann decided to dissolve the Hechaluz centers as soon as possible and to bring its members out of the country, and in spite of intensive efforts in Italy, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, by Mossad agents, no cruise ship could be obtained. The Mossad agent Moshe Agami gave his assent to the transport. Ferdinand Ceipek, a former National Socialist, supported the Jewish rescue attempts and helped with 800 regular entry visas to Slovakia.

For the first time, an illegal transport were also allocated to groups of Youth Aliya. This approach was very controversial; the director of the Vienna Youth Aliyah, Aron Menczer, defended the decision. In a letter to a friend he wrote shortly after the departure of the group that there was no other way, and that the risk has been assessed, and was too good to pass up. The Group was approximately one third of children and adolescents up to the age of 17, of which one half was accompanied by their parents, and the rest in the care of youth associations. Another third put the 18- to 35-year Chaluzim of Hechaluz. The remainder was made up of veteran Zionists, who had previously been waiting in vain for entry certificates, because of their age, as well as couples and not least individual Jews who were still able to pay a lot for the trip despite the political circumstances. Also mixed the participants with regard to their social origins were, they represented the entire spectrum of the Jews of Central Europe, and also their religiosity ranged from orthodox through temperate traditional to atheistic.

The Journey

On November 25, 1939, the 822 selected for transporting persons were brought by train to Bratislava. They could only grab a backpack with personal belongings, which could not exceed more than eight kilos, and according to the "emigration tax threshold", ten Reichsmark in foreign exchange.

Arriving in Bratislava, they were interned in the abandoned munitions factory "Patronka" and a former bachelor quarters ( "Slobodrna") and guarded by members of the Slovak fascist Hlinka Guard. They received provisions, by the local Jewish community. The group met 130 refugees from Berlin, 50 from Danzig and about 100 from Prague and Bratislava. While the Danube has already threatened to freeze over, they waited to learn in the camps without a connection for the onward journey. The Slovak authorities presented an ultimatum, to return the group to the German border. After about ten days stay they were brought to the port in buses and were able to board the DDSG steamship Uranus, flying the swastika flag. In this next few hours after the first lunch, all refugees had severe diarrhea, which led to the suggestion that they had been poisoned.

At the border with Hungary, the transport was stopped and returned home. Contrary to the fears that had to stand the passengers now that Uranus was at anchor in Bratislava. The recent departure from Bratislava took place on 13 December. However, the DDSG refused due to the insecured onward journey to go to the Danube Delta. The passengers were then transferred from Budapest in midstream to the three small, Yugoslavian riverboat "Car Nikola", "Car Dušan" and "Kraljica Marija". These were chartered on behalf of Mossad agents Moshe Agami from the "Association of Jewish Communities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia" for a lot of money.

With the three tour boats the refugees came to Prahovo, where they were to 30 December of 18, because they lack the entry over the Romanian border was prohibited. Meanwhile, the weather conditions made an onward journey impossible and they had the Danube iced up, went back to Kladovo, where they were to spend the winter. The general secretary of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Sime Spitzer, undertook to take over the supply of the group. These were, however, already stressed by the supply of rrefugees since the Anschluss. In addition, the port could only be reached with a 24-hour delay due to its unfavorable position and the winter conditions; including a seven-hour sleigh ride, as the nearest railway station 54 kilometers away. Despite the circumstances Spitzer promised to provide tolerable conditions for the refugees.

The time in Kladovo

The confined nature of the ships that had been willing to board people temporarily for the trip in Kladovo, were intolerable and threatening. The six cabins were reserved for the guide and the transportation physician and as a hospital room. All other participants slept huddled on benches and floors in a heated salon or in the cold on deck. The hygienic conditions were also catastrophic. Around mid-January coke-burning stoves were equipped, a converted tractor with 280 beds provided a relief ship and after a few weeks they were given permission to use a narrow shoreline for walking under guard by gendarmes.

In Mid March 1940, Rose Jacobs, and delegates of American Jewish women's organization Hadassah, during a trip to Europe, noted the arduous journey to the travel group and expressed shock at the situation in a letter:

[...] What a sight, what a story! Each of travelers a tragedy for themselves and - in addition - the symbol of the tragedy of a people.^[1]

Jacobs was of the opinion that it was only due to the intense cold that no epidemics had broken out - there was one of the coldest winter of the century. She observationed that the refugees on board had, inter alia, already set up a shoe and clothes repair shop, brought out their own newspapers and led Hebrew and English courses. The end of March, the ships were laid in the summer port. Through its proximity to the city, some refugees who were given passenger bills could move more freely for the first time in four months.

As the steamer were used by the shipping company again and also cost about $1,000 per day, they should be deducted and the people being placed on land. On May 2, the "Car Dušan" and "Kraljica Marija" drove off, but the "Car Dušan" returned in the evening the same day back. 650 people were housed in the part consisting of mud huts and about 2,000 inhabitants in town - especially families and elderly, and 18- to 30-year-old members of Hachshara youth. They were partly private, partly housed in quickly built shacks. The rest of the Hachshara youth, members of the Youth Aliya and another approximately 80 people remained on the converted tug at the "Car Dušan". The Mizrachi Group remained as before at the "Car Nikola". For the Youth Aliya finally tents were procured in order near the ships build a warehouse. Additionally, they were allowed to use a 150 by 350 meter square for the movement, which was prepared in half as a sports ground. In letters to their relatives, the refugees praised the hospitality of the official authorities in Yugoslavia and that the population was very decent.

From the spring of 1940, joined by other refugees, some alone, the group was thus increased to approximately 1,200 people. So around April, a 20-strong group of young Jews from occupied Poland reached the transport - all school friends from Bielsko. They fled in the dead of winter on Russia, the Carpathian Ukraine and Hungary. Among them was Romek Reich, who later married Herta Eisler.

On May 12, Sime Spitzer and Chief Rabbi David Alcalay came from Belgrade and held on the sports field made a general appeal, where they praised the refugees for their perseverance, courage and promised they would still reach their destination. A train should reach within 24 hours Kladovo, to bring them to the Black Sea, where they could board a cruise ship in the port of Sulina. Since the Romanian authorities, the handing over of the train was initially denied and only local representative of the Jewish community association had to travel to Turnu Severin in order to negotiate with the authorities, the arrival of the "Penelope" was delayed for several days. On 21 to 26 May, tables and benches were installed on deck, and wooden bunks were installed in their five bunker rooms. In addition, there were five lavatories. Those refugees who were housed in Kladovo should, until two hours before departure to come to the "Penelope", the others relocated, and all continued to wait for a sign, when it would begin. There were many rumors about an imminent next trip, but they were all canceled at the last moment.

Beginning in September 1940, a large illegal transport passed them: The Storfer transport was the last who could leave the "Reich". The ships "Helios", "Melk", "Palace" and "Uranus" did not stop to pick them up. Many had relatives on ships and were desperate because they could not contact them.

Relocation to Sabac

Because of the incipient action Heim in the German Reich, Kladovo became as a focal point for ships, for the refugees that finally had to leave. However, not in the desired direction: On 17 September 1940, they were, moored with a tugboat, brought in some 300 kilometers upstream on the Sava to Sabac, where they arrived on 22 September.

In Sabac, couples and older people were housed with locals, all over the city in 380 private furnished rooms, while the majority of young people moved in an abandoned three-story flour mill. Various Zionist youth associations lived in another building, the religious Zionist Mizrachi in a smaller house. All the buildings were equipped beside bedrooms with shared kitchens. The center of the camp was a building block in which additional clothes, material and food magazines were available and various workshops could be used for retraining courses. Likewise, were in the building administrative offices and the office of a representative of the Jewish community federation. Two local Jewish doctors operated a private hospital with 20 beds, in an abandoned sanatorium. Although the Association of Yugoslav Jewish communities was formally responsible for them, they were able to largely manage themselves.

The move to Sabac, in the life of refugees became more settled; they held concerts and lectures were given once a week until midnight output. They printed newspapers, and organized in the synagogue Šabacer regular classroom. They could visit the two cinemas in Sabac and one run by the Society of Friends Lesehalle. Although they were not allowed to officially accept any work, some still earned a little pocket money, which they could improve the food rations which were sparse. They asked their relatives for letters and interventions for obtaining immigration certificates to Palestine or to immigration channels in the United States, and also contacted even the local Palestinian authorities and the Jewish Agency.

Mossad agents announced several times to continue their journey, the refugees packed up - and after the cancellation, which came every time at the last moment, again. So for example, the "Darien II", which had the end September 1940 left Alexandria and arrived in Istanbul in October. She was paid for by American Zionist organizations like the Hadassah. However, the direction of Constanta, where they repaired and it should be adapted for the transport, she recorded only on November 2, as there had been between the Mossad, the Americans and Spitzer inconsistencies due to the payment of the bill for the necessary coal. The adaptation work should take two to three weeks, after which the "Darien II" for the refugees should be available. However, the "Darien II" brought now 160 legal refugees who could pay full price, to Palestine. The background of this company are not known. When she came back to the port of Sulina again, the refugees should on December 2 leave there and were embarked in Sabac on trains. Then came the transfer of the shipping company, the exit must on the one hand be avoided because of the advanced season, on the other hand because of the uncertain political conditions; only a transfer of the highest authorities could be swayed. However, the Yugoslav Prime Minister rejected the responsibility for the transport. Spitzer, who was busy since their arrival, to continually find new ways and means for further transport of the group of refugees, organized in mid-December a special train to Prahovo, to send them from there by Romanian trains to Sulina. However, when the train came with Greek flagging, he thought it too great a risk, that he would not go, as he wrote to the Mossad agent Ruth Klüger:

For this we have a lot to responsible institution. [...] I had to also keep in mind that the Romanian authorities could cause difficulties or that people in Romania get stuck in the ice for each case. [...] Even a return to Yugoslavia, after the people had already been on a foreign object, I could not prevail.^[3]

Escape

A few weeks before the German invasion of Yugoslavia, a small part of the refugees had certificates of Youth Aliya, the Zionist women's organization WIZO, and about 50 individual certificates. Among the about 200 to 280 people (the exact number is not known) were mostly young people aged 15 to 17 years, some younger children and girls who had already crossed the age limit of Youth Aliya, some adult caregivers of youth groups, and a few elderly had vouched for the relatives. They got Yugoslav interim passports issued, and had to get visas for Greece, Turkey and Syria. Young people were newly clothed by WIZO and were provided with food and other things necessary for the journey.^[4][5]

Beginning March 16, they traveled in groups of 30 to 50 persons in succession. The journey of the last group threatened to collapse, as all railcars required for mobilization of troops in Yugoslavia; finally, they were able to leave. In the stations along the route, there were Jews who had learned of their passing, and supplied them with food and drinks. Because of bombing of the tracks in Greece and alarms, the journey to Istanbul by train took one week. In Istanbul, the group met in a hotel, and continued the journey by train to the Syrian city of Aleppo to Beirut. In Rosh Hanikra grottoes they reached the Palestinian border. After a stay in a detention camp of the British military, they were distributed to various settlements in the country, mostly kibbutzim, or they moved to relatives already living in the country. One of the rescued youngsters, Ernest Löhner returned later with the Hagana to Yugoslavia, and fought as Parachute liaison officer in Tito's headquarters, then he rose in the Israeli army to the rank of general.

After the destruction of Yugoslavia

With the invasion of Yugoslavia, on April 6, 1941 in Yugoslavia, the capitulation of Yugoslavia on April 17 and the subsequent destruction of Yugoslavia, the Kladovo refugees were overtaken by their pursuers, whom they had fled in 1939. Serbia was placed under German military administration, Šabac became a border town. Already on 16 April, one day before the capitulation of Yugoslavia, the commander of the Security Police and SD, Wilhelm Fuchs, took his first measures against the Kladovo refugees:

All Jews have 19 April to report at 8 am at the Municipal Police at Fire brigade command at Tas-Majdan. Jews who fail to comply with this requirement will be shot.^[1]

Those who registered, were obliged to do forced labor (Zwangsarbeit). At the same time the theft of Jewish property began and Aryanisations in the 23,000 people counted Jewish community of Serbia. On May 30, the military commander Ludwig von Schröder adopted a Jewish Regulation (Judenverordnung), which restricted people's lives harshly, and a labeling requirement did what they had to wear a yellow ribbon with the inscription "Jew". The Belgrade Jewish community has been replaced by the Gestapo by a "representative of the Jewish community of Serbia", whose board they made Sime Spitzer. Spitzer succeeded to send some letters and telegrams to foreign Jewish passages in which he asked both to money and to certificates. The answers were disappointing, especially the news of the fine imposed by the British entry stops for Palestine. Since German emigration was now prohibited, there was no way even for illegal transport. At the same time, Spitzer received the first reports that had already arrived in Croatia, of mistreatment and killings in concentration camps.

After the German invasion, the population was in a state of shock, but there initially were no riots. In the spring, therefore, the combat troops were withdrawn from Serbia and Wehrmacht stationed occupation divisions. In Sabac were the Austrians 6th and 8th Company of the 750th Infantry Regiment of the 718th Infantry Division. On July 20, 1941, the refugees in the camps Sabac, were interned in a barracks just north of the city on the Sava. They had to pack on trucks and walk with all their things. The prisoners were assigned to various forced labor. In September, Felix Benzler demanded the immediate evacuation of the camp and the swift and draconian settlement of the Jewish question that it already came in Croatia.

Guerrilla insurgencies and their consequences

Between mid-July and August 1941, Josip Broz Tito's partisans committed approximately 100 acts of sabotage and were the strategically important and took a weapons factory in Užice. Until the end of July, there was losses of ten men in the first ten days of August, on the part of Wehrmacht. The Chief of the Security Police and SD ordered the execution of hostages and reprisals against the civilian population. Since the resistance of the partisans was not broken, the Wehrmacht commander of Serbia, General Heinrich Danckelmann, called for a reinforcement of troops, which was rejected because of the need in the East. In the event, "mixed Jagdkommandos" from the Security Police, SD and Wehrmacht units were set up, the soldiers were enrolled into the "methods of struggle" between police and SD.

Although so far been no riots in the town of Sabac, the 3rd Company of Police Reserve Battalion 64, as a reinforcement of the three services companies of the 718th Infantry Division. On August 18, they hung ten hostages in the city. On the next day following a "hunting trip" about twenty kilometers west of Sabac about 30 partisans were shot. On the German side were a police officer and three soldiers; Ten soldiers were wounded. As "punishment" about ten to twenty Šabacer Jews were shot in the following night. Refugees of Kladovo group were taken out of interment, and forced to carry the bodies of the Jews through the city and then suspended on pylons. [6] The remaining 63 Šabacer Jews were herded into the concentration camp, which also housed the Kladovo- group. On September 3 Danckelmann stated in a report to the Wehrmacht Commander:

Immediate sanctions for acts of sabotage against the German Wehrmacht, a total of some 1,000 communists and Jews have been shot or publicly hanged response to bandits, even an entire village were burned down; the continuous increase of armed insurrection could not be halted.

In September, the resistance struggle intensified, which now involved the Chetniks. Partisans and Chetniks controlled throughout southern and western Serbia. Wilhelm List, competent Wehrmacht Commander Southeast for the entire Balkans, called for reinforcements in the form of a combat division, and in charge of Serbia General. For this post, he struck at the same time before Franz Bohme, who as "excellent connoisseur of Balkan relations" due to his experiences in World War I and - like other Austrians - because of that defeat harbored personal revenge. Böhme was appointed Commanding General Agent in Serbia and laid the 12,000-strong 342nd Infantry Division to Serbia. Böhme was ordered by Hitler, to "restore with the sharpest means order." At the same time he carried out the command of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, after which 50 to 100 civilian hostages were to be shot for every German killed. This should come, according to Keitel, from the ranks of political opponents. Boehme however meant by his command to "clean up the sheet" not only the rebels, but also ordered the arrest of all Jews of Serbia.

On September 23, about 1,000 guerrillas penetrated and entered Sabac, and initially brought a factory and the power plant under its authority. Thus Sabac was the first city occupied by Germans, that was attacked by the partisans. The battle for the city, in which on the German side, a tank was used, lasted ten hours. Thereafter, the partisans withdrew again. That same evening a battalion of the 342nd Infantry Division moved under the command of Lieutenant General Walter Hinghofer. Under Boehme's command, they began the next day with the arrest of all 14- to 70-year-old male residents of the city, although they did not belong to the rebels. Their homes were looted, neither weapons nor ammunition were found. After three days, 4,459 male civilians were gathered in a square in the west of the city. During this action 75 men were shot from Sabac and five others were reported as "deceased". An engineering battalion of the 342nd division started now with the construction of another concentration camp north of Sabac: the camp Jarak, however, which was located on Croatian soil.

The 342 division, from parts of the Division reserve, including an anti-tank company and the Radfahrschwadron were on 26 September 1941 onwards, about 5,000 men from the concentration camp Sabac, with them, the Kladovo men, on the run, without food and beatings and shootings for "insubordination" or because they no longer working, driven into the KZ Jarak. In Klenak the German guards were joined Croatian Army members. Already in calling this later as "blood March" a designated 80 men were shot. Of the Kladovo men, 21 found their death in the blood March. Finally, the plans were changed due to the unfavorable position of the military camp, Jarak, so the men again had to return to Sabac to the camp Jarak. There, the concentration camp had since been extended to an abandoned barracks, which were intended for the civilian population. The Kladovo men spent several days in the barracks until they were again postponed on October 4, and returned to the "Jewish camp" in the pioneer barracks.

The shooting of the Kladovo men

On October 2, 1941, news came in, of an attack on the guerrilla units of the Army regiment in Topola where 21 soldiers were killed. Then Bohme ordered 2,100 prisoners to be shot. It instructed the 342. division of General Hinghofer with the execution and clarified on 10 October his ideas:

805 Jews and Gypsies are to be taken from the Sabac warehouse, the rest from the Jewish transit camp Belgrade.

Women and children in the Sajmište concentration camp

In early January 1942, the 750-800 women and children, of Kladovo were transferred from the camp in Sabac, managed by the Sajmište concentration camp. First, they were brought by rail to the lying on Croatian soil city Ruma, from where they had to walk to the Sajmiste concentration camp, located north of the Sava in the Zemun district of Belgrade. On their deep winter death march frostbitten children and old women fell behind in the snow.^[6] In the Sajmište concentration camp, there were already over 5,000 Serbian Jewish women, children and old people huddled in the cold walls of the pavilion 3. The Organisation Todt had neglected it, KZ to adapt in time, even though they had six weeks. In a bombing of the nearby Belgrade airport in April 1941, which had opened in 1937, the fairground had been severely affected. The barracks possessed no sanitary facilities except two wells, and the windows were broken. Through the roof snow fell and froze on the concrete floor. Only after some time, did the Organisation Todt provide three storey wooden racks for beds, without a ceiling, without sheets, and only straw that has never been changed. The food they got from the Belgrade care - from the remains that were left from the Belgrade population, supplied, on average, about 80 grams of food per day and person. For each of the 300 infants, there was 200 grams of milk per day. Every night, between 10 and 25 people died of hunger and cold. The bodies of the deceased had to be disposed by the inmates on the frozen Sava, where they were taken by the Belgrade municipality staff car, and driven to the Jewish cemetery.

The camp hospital was crowded, so many patients may be transferred to Belgrade hospitals. A staff member said after the war as a witness:

In the winter of 1941-42, we received a number of new patients: women from Sajmiste. With them, children arrived with frostbite. The nails fell from them, from hunger and cold. They looked like living skeletons, skin and bones. From old men faces, children's eyes stared at us. They had nothing in common with children. The women refused to talk about what was going on in Sajmište.^[1]

The person in charge of the camp, the head of the Gestapo Lothar Kraus, was replaced by Hans Helm in February 1942, testified which later:

have not done anything for better accommodation, because I was convinced that there was no way.

When the prisoners were protesting in January because of unbearable hunger, SS Sturmfiihrer Stracke threatened that immediately 100 of them would be shot if there were further protests.^[1]

In January 1942, shortly before the transfer of the women and children of Kladovo, Herbert Andorfer was commander of the Sajmište concentration camp. The current manager, squad leader Edgar Enge was put to him as adjutant. Internally, however, the camp was passed through the Jewish camp self-government. According to Andorfer's statements an intimate relationship developed between him and the Jewish camp self-government. He drank coffee with them and told them they would soon be transported to Romania.

The Sajmište concentration camp was regarded by the Germans in Serbia, only as a temporary interim solution until the deportation of Jews to the East. At the Wannsee Conference at the end of January 1942, however, it became clear that the deportation of Serbian Jews had no priority and they would have a longer stay in Serbia itself. That became inconvenient for the occupiers for several reasons, not least because the Wehrmacht required concentration camps for internment of partisans. For Felix Benzler it was a matter of prestige, as it had already been used for summer vehemently for their deportation and the Jews were already collected and "ready".^[1]

Murder in gas vans

Andorfer was probably informed by the delivery of a "special vehicle" in the first week of March, in which the Jews were to be "put to sleep". To ensure the smooth running of the gassings, he forged a plan: he made known agent attacks in the camp, that there would for the time being, a stopover in a new, better camp on Serbian soil. When asked about details he responded with a fictitious order for the new camp. He assured them that each transport will be accompanied by a Jewish doctor and a nurse, who would go take care of their health. Assuming their situation could only improve, they looked forward to the relocation. The compilation of Transportation took over the Jewish camp that death candidates volunteered. According to a survivor, Andorfer still advised them to take only the most valuable things, because the Board would be very good in the new camp.

From 19 March to 10 May 1942, from Monday to Saturday every day in the morning, a smaller truck came, in which the luggage was loaded, and the gray painted gas vans in which each group of items from 50 to 80 people got in realizing nothing. One of the drivers distributed more sweets to children. When all were inside the car, the hinged door was locked behind them. The gas car was followed by the smaller truck and a car, in which Andorfer and his aide Enge sat, on the Sava Bridge. Since the camp was on the Croatian side of the Sava, they had to pass Croatian border posts; however, special papers helped them to pass unobstructed. After that, the small truck turned off and brought the luggage to Belgrade depot of the National Socialist People's Welfare.

During a brief stop of the driver of the car gas rose by a lever, whereby the exhaust gases are directed into the car. So the car drove across Belgrade and further to approximately 15 kilometers southeast located in Avala shooting (according to another source in Jajinci in Vozdovac^[7]). There pits had already been dug by a prisoner command. Another inmate command had to get the bodies out of the car and bury themt in the pit. Finally, the men of the "gravedigger commands" were shot with machine guns and also thrown into the mass grave. Edgar Enge at his trial in the 1960s:

After opening the door, it was observed that the bodies were generally more in the rear part of the car's interior. The prisoners then transported the bodies to the pits and covered them subsequently with earth. [...] Life characters I have noticed in the gassed in any case. The faces had a pale appearance. The gas vans were not materially damaged. Essentially you could notice only vomit in the car. At the funeral no doctor was present. It has also not been determined in detail whether the gassed Jews were really dead.

In November 1943, when anticipating the German defeat, the Sonderkommando 1005 under Paul Blobel began to dig the buried bodies and stack them on pyres to burn. This cover-up lasted for four months.

In May 1942, there were still a few survivors of Kladovo, together with a group of German Jews from Banat, in the Sajmište concentration camp. They were intended to cleanse the camp. When they were done, most of them were shot. Only a handful survived, mainly the Jewish who married with non-Jewish women, who were released on the promise of confidentiality. Of the last Jewish refugees accommodated in Sabac, only Dorothea Fink as Aryan and Borika Betting Dorfer survived, who already in late November 1941 took the permission for eye surgery in Belgrade to flee.

Legacy

The fate of the participants of Kladovo became known only after the war, and then only partially. After 1945, the members were informed that all participants of transport would have been shot in the autumn 1941. Many of these families have never learned that the women and children were in the Sajmište concentration camp, and are eventually killed in gas vans. Even 50 years later, not all details of the events were known. Gabriele Anderl and Walter Manoschek reconstructed the events based on documents, statements from survivors, witnesses and members of the Wehrmacht, and surviving letters and diaries of the participants. The results they published in 1993 in the book Failed escape. The Jewish "Kladovo Transport". As late as 1992, Anderlecht reported in their contribution emigration and expulsion, which was published in Erika Weinzierl book expulsion and new beginnings, about the Kladovo transport. Zeljko Dragic during research for his dissertation, on the ratio of the Serbian Orthodox Church to Judaism in the 20th century, came to the three excursion boats and gave birth to the idea for an exhibition that was shown in 2012 in Burgenland Croatian Centre in Vienna. He collected further material and spent a week with witnesses from Israel in Serbia.

In Jerusalem, Yad Vashem was built by the Israeli government to commemorate the Holocaust victims, where there is also a memorial plaque to the victims of Kladovo

In 2002, on the Jewish cemetery in Belgrade, the Jewish community of Vienna built a monument to the 800 Austrian Jews transported.

On 22 April 1995, the "day of remembrance of the victims of the genocide", a monument by sculptor Miodrag Popović was unveiled for the victims of the Sajmište concentration camp, on the banks of the Sava in Belgrade. The ten meter high, abstract composition of bronze is outside the boundary of the camp, so that they can be seen from the bridge and the fortress.

On 8 July to 4 November 2001, the Jewish Museum, Vienna was held an exhibition, " Kladovo – An Escape to Palestine". The basis of the exhibition were photographs that were taken by participants of transport during the flight and were by survivors Ehud Nahir from Palestine. The album compiled by Nahir was reproduced from Douer. In addition, a documentary film by Alisa Douer, was produced with the support of the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism. The exhibition was complemented by a bilingual companion book. Alisa Douer and Reinhard Geir were the exhibition curators.

Legal persecution

In 1966, Herbert Andorfer was investigated, and in 1967 could have been arrested in Munich. He was handed over to Austrian authorities and a short time later extradited to the Federal Republic of Germany, where he was sentenced for murder in 1968 to two and a half years in prison.

In 1947, Franz Böhme committed suicide before his trial that year.

In 1968, Edgar Enge was also prosecuted in Germany. However, he was indeed guilty to murder for aiding and abetting, was put on probation.

References

Sources

• Gabriele Anderl, Walter Manoschek: Gescheiterte Flucht. Der jüdische „Kladovo-Transport“ auf dem Weg nach Palästina 1939–42. Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, Wien 1993, ISBN 3-85115-179-8.
• Željko Dragić: Die Reise in die Ewigkeit. 70 Jahre Kladovo Transport. Putovanje u večnost. 70 godina Kladovo transporta. Twist Zeitschriften Verlag GmbH, Wien 2013, ISBN 978-3-200-02824-1 (deutsch, serbisch, englisch).
• Alisa Douer im Auftrag des Jüdischen Museums Wien (Hrsg.): Kladovo – Eine Flucht nach Palästina/Escape to Palestine. Mandelbaum Verlag, Wien 2001, ISBN 3-85476-044-2 (Begleitpublikation in deutsch und englisch zur Ausstellung Kladovo – Eine Flucht nach Palästina, Jüdisches Museum Wien, 8. Juli bis 4. November 2001).
• Erika Weinzierl, Otto D. Kulka (Hrsg.): Vertreibung und Neubeginn. Israelische Bürger österreichischer Herkunft. Böhlau-Verlag, Wien/Köln/Weimar 1992, ISBN 3-205-05561-6).
• Walter Manoschek: „Serbien ist judenfrei“. Militärische Besatzungspolitik und Judenvernichtung in Serbien 1941/42. 2. Auflage. Oldenbourg Verlag, München 1993, ISBN 3-486-56137-5

This article incorporates information from the German Wikipedia.