How did Nazis determine if whether or not someone was Jewish or Gay?

It would help if you quoted or referenced some of these documents especially for those, like myself have little knowledge of the situation at that time in Poland.

 

Hi Ron,

Just a couple of items that maybe of interest to you. My Father Inlaw, Stewart Irving with served in both the Canadian Scottish and Seaforth Highlanders lived with us in the last years of his life in a suite we built for him attached to our house. He enjoyed the occasional nip and I would go over to his plce and visit. He was a lover of fine scotch and when I put some Pepsi and ice in mine the next time I came over he had a bottle of rye for me (uncivilized lout). He was captured in northern Italy and was interned in Stalag 7A.

My Mother inlaw who served in the RCAF as a photographer is still alive also.

My Uncle who is still alive was a navigator in the Lancasters, he took part in several big operations but operation "manna" to the Dutch as his favourite. My son married a girl of Dutch heritage last year and her Oma (grandmother) was telling me as a girl she could remember the hunger and the bombers dropping food.

Thank-you and all the veterans for your contribution to my family's freedom.

KTK

 

KTK

Thank you in turn for your much appreciated comments and for posting your family info.

Whilst replying, I have to admit that I was more than surprised to see the type of comment that my completely innocuous link had apparently provoked on this thread and confess that I would not have added any further comment were it not for your own posting.

My very best regards

Ron

 

The link was innocuous and the comments were rather innocuous too, it simply would be better to create your own topic dedicated to "our families and the ww2", and not artificially tacked on to another dedicated to an unrelated topic.
It would have a much better visibility too, which is good. Maybe the admins could do that yet, using their "superpowers".

But I'm still a little surprised you are not interested in your pre-1912 family history, what happened to those who stayed, how it was to live in the "fascists", "virulently anti-semitic" Poland. About your family in the nineteenth century and earlier.
A simple address of their home in 1912 Warsaw could unearth lots of information, but this is not guaranteed.

 

The nazis did not only try to find Jews. If you were a teacher, man of church, foreign country police officer, or other intelligentsia whatsoever. But like I said before, in many places when Germans approached the town or city, the people of the city themselves brought the Jews to the Market place. The Germans needed to do nothing. Just put them in the train or take them to the forest and shoot in the neck. Even the USSR when Poland was divided, gave the names of people in lists to eliminate for the Germans for being troublemakers in the future unless you kill them now and they were in the German side. I would call that true co-operation.

 

My favourite line on this is from V for Vendetta (2006): " People should not be afraid of their governments, the governments should be afraid of their people"

 

In addition, the IBM punchcard technology helped the Nazis to take a census and then subjugate the Jews and other "undesirables" too.

 

Good film, great quote. Haven't thought about that movie in years.

 

Although I do not know how the OP feels, I can tell you that I love it when one of my threads gets hijacked. Often it becomes much more interesting down the new path and it is much more like a conversation. In a conversation among friends one does not get upset if the topic is changed.

Here I like to think that I am talking among friends, so please divert from any of my posts, if I am talking about my uncle please feel free to tell me what your pet mouse is doing, I would like to know and I might have a story about a long tailed mouse.

KTJ

 

Let's get back to the subject. Jewish population in the interwar Europe wasn't equally distributed, see the map below. In Germany there were "just" 565.000 Jewish inhabitants while in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary and Romania there were about 7.500.000 Jewish inhabitants. Therefore, very important question is how east European nations have helped Nazis to determine where their Jews were? I am afraid that we will end-up with a sad conclusion that former compatriots and neighbors of Jews in east Europe have substantially contributed to execution of the Holocaust; as willing informers, perpetrators, Nazi collaborators and direct executioners in concentration camps.

 

The question has been answered a few times here.
They lived in ghettos for a year or two, administered by their own administrative agencies called Judenrats.

In the end the small ghettos were surrounded by the Germans, frequently helped by their collaborators and their inhabitants "evacuated".

Large ghettos were "evacuated" in stages, there the Germans frequently were assisted by Judenrats and their own Jewish Ghetto Police.

From the Diary of Abraham Lewin, an eyewitness from the Warsaw Ghetto, the diary can be found here. Don't expect any heartwarming moments there, there are none.
How the Jewish police helped to send 200,000 Jews to their deaths in the Warsaw Ghetto, (drastic scenes ahead, you've been warned, it's really not worth reading), the word police used frequently below means "Jewish Police":

Mothers and children wander around like lost sheep – where is my child? Weeping. Another wet day with heavy skies: rain is falling. The scenes on Nowolipie Street. The huge round up on the streets. Old men and women, boys and girls are being dragged away. The Police are carrying out the round up, and officials of the Jewish Community wearing white armbands are assisting them.

How Jews saved themselves, fictitious marriages with Policemen. The savagery of the police during the round up, the murderous brutality. They drag girls from the rickshaws, empty out flats, and leave the property strewn everywhere. A pogrom and a killing the like of which has never been seen.


Yet still they set up blockades so as to extort money. The terrible corruption of our police and their assistants. An outrage, an outrage. 6 Solna Street, 99 victims. Today 12,000 martyrs. A kilo of bread – 50 zloty, Potatoes –20.

A blockade on our building for the second time. The two Walfisz boys were taken away. The sight of Nowolipie and Smocza Street at midday – a hunt for wild animals in the forest. The world has never seen such scenes. People are thrown into wagons like dogs, old people and the sick are taken to the Jewish cemetery and murdered there.

The Germans thank the police for their productive efforts. It is said they are going to put the police to work in other locations. So far eight Jewish policemen have committed suicide.

Opposite my window in Nowy Zjad Street, a policeman chases a young woman and catches her. Her cries and screams are heartbreaking.

Yesterday evening a large group of hundreds of Jews were taken into Pawiak. Early today some of them were brought out of Pawiak, among them old people, young women with small babies on pillows. They were led by Jewish policemen.

Whoever falls into the hands of the Germans or the Jewish police is seized. The Jewish policemen took away Hillel Cajtlin. He was released. Balaban has been taken. At 13 Dzielna Street they killed Mrs Grun who was ill and a girl. Yesterday the “action” in Radom began.

People who during the war were well fed come to ask for a little soup at a factory kitchen. The “elite” still get some, but the rabble don’t even get that. Twenty Ukrainians, Jewish policemen, a few dozen, and a small number of Germans lead a crowd of 3000 Jews to the slaughter.

The police commandant of the second district is trying to save his wife and children. A new raid on the Jewish Self-help Organisation at 25 Nowolipie Street. Dr Bornsztajn and his wife taken away. Elhonen Cajtlin with his son and others. This was carried out by Jewish policemen without the Germans, that is, on their own initiative.

The Jewish police have been looting, breaking open flats, emptying cupboards, smashing crockery and destroying property, just for the fun of it. More people were killed today in the course of the blockades. People killed during the blockade, Mirka Priwes, her mother and brother have been deported.

Jewish policemen round up people all day. It is said that they have received an order that each policeman must find six Jews. Harsh conditions at the factory. Before 80 people were employed there and now almost a thousand are registered there.

Today marks four weeks or 28 days of this blood operation, which has no parallel in history. The Germans and the Jewish police have been carrying out further blockades. Disaster has struck our family once again. Gucia and Hela have been taken away, by the Germans, who entered their building.

Today I went with three friends to collect up the books that are in the flats that our firm has been allocated on Mila Street. We set eyes on an appalling vision, all the doors broken open, all the goods and property smashed and scattered through the courtyards. Russian pogromists would have been unable to make a more thorough and shattering pogrom than that carried out by the Jewish police.

There was no “action” yesterday in Warsaw. However, it was reported that there was a hunt on the Aryan side for Jews who had fled there. The squad carried out the “action” in Otwock with the help of 500 Jewish police from Warsaw.

Yesterday evening after six the Jewish police moved into the buildings which were supposed to have been evacuated by the occupants. They drove out the occupants by force, broke into locked flats, robbed and looted and smashed whatever they found and at the same time seized women, especially those who had no papers.

Today leaflets were distributed against the Jewish police who have helped to send 200,000 Jews to their deaths.

 

Jewish policemen in the Warsaw Ghetto:
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Symche Spira, the leader of the Jewish police in the Kraków Ghetto. Before the war he was a carpenter and an Orthodox Jew. He was used to say he would survive the war even if all the Kraków Jews had to perish in result.
He and his policemen carried out all the round ups in the Ghetto. Executed by the Germans in 1944. Many of his men survived thanks to Schindler.
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His men executing Poles and Jews as ordered by the Gestapo:
View attachment 24680

 

Jewish informers talking with SS-Obergruppenführer Maximilian von Herff during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:
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From Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum.

The Jewish police had a very bad name even before the resettlement. The Polish police didn't take part in the forced work press gangs, but the Jewish police engaged in that ugly business.

Jewish policemen also distinguished themselves with their fearful corruption and immorality. But they reached the height of viciousness during the resettlement.
They said not a single word of protest against this revolting assignment to lead their own brothers to the slaughter. The police were psychologically prepared for the dirty work and executed it thoroughly.

And now people are wracking their brains to understand how Jews, most of them men of culture, former lawyers (most of the police officers were lawyers before the war), could have done away with their brothers with their own hands. How could Jews have dragged women and children, the old and the sick, to the wagons—knowing they were all being driven to the slaughter?

There are people who hold that every society has the police it deserves, that the disease—cooperation with the Occupying Power in the slaughter of 300,000 Jews—is a contagion affecting the whole of our society and is not limited to the police, who
are merely an expression of our society. Other people argue that the police is the haven of morally weak psychological types, who do everything in their power to survive the difficult times, who believe that the end determines all means, and the end is to survive the war—even if survival is bound up with the taking of other people's lives.
In the presence of such nihilism, apparent in the whole gamut of our society, from the highest to the lowest, it is no surprise that the Jewish police executed the German resettlement orders with the greatest of zeal. And yet the fact remains that most of the time during the resettlement operation the Jewish police exceeded their daily quotas. That meant they were preparing a reserve for the next day. No sign of sorrow or pain appeared on the faces of the policemen. On the contrary, one saw satisfied and happy individuals, well fed, loaded with the loot they carried off in company with the Ukrainian guards. Very often, the cruelty of the Jewish police exceeded that of the Germans, Ukrainians, and Latvians.
They uncovered more than one hiding place, aiming to be plus catholique que le pope and so curry favor with the Occupying Power. Victims who succeeded in escaping the German eye were picked up by the Jewish police.

I watched the procession to the wagons on the Umschlagplatz for several hours and noted that many Jews who were fortunate enough to work their way toward the spot where the exempted people were standing were forcibly dragged back to the wagons by the Jewish police. Scores, and perhaps hundreds, of Jews were doomed by the Jewish police during those two hours. The same thing happened during the blockades. Those who didn't have the money to pay off the police were dragged to the wagons, or put on the lines going to the Umschlagplatz. A scene I witnessed at 3 Dzika Street, opposite the Umschlagplatz, one day when every policeman had to meet a quota of four "heads" (this was several days before the end of the "operation") will remain in my mind the symbol for the Jewish police in Warsaw. I saw a Jewish policeman pulling an old woman by the arm to the Umschlagplatz. He had a hatchet on his shoulder. He used the hatchet to break down locked apartment doors. As he approached the Umschlagplatz where the watch was stationed, the policeman shamefacedly took the hatchet off his shoulder and transferred it to his hand. It was the general rule those days to see individual policemen dragging men, women, and children to the Umschlag. They took the sick there in rickshas.
For the most part, the Jewish police showed an incomprehensible brutality. Where did Jews get such murderous violence? When in our history did we ever before raise so many hundreds of killers, capable of snatching children off the street, throwing them on the wagons, dragging them to the Umschlag?
It was literally the rule for the scoundrels to fling women on to the Kohn-Heller streetcars, or on to ordinary trucks, by grabbing them by the arms and legs and heaving. Merciless and violent, they beat those who tried to resist. They weren't content simply to overcome the resistance, but with the utmost severity punished the "criminals" who refused to go to their death voluntarily.
Every Warsaw Jew, every woman and child, can cite thousands of cases of the inhuman cruelty and violence of the Jewish police. Those cases will never be forgotten by the survivors, and they must and shall be paid for.

Beside the police, another group of [Jewish] organizations shared in the resettlement operation. Gancwajch's redcapped Special Ambulance Service was the worst. This organization of swindlers had never given a single Jew the medical aid they promised. They limited their activity to issuing authorization cards and caps, for thousands of zlotys. Possession of these, together with Gancwajch's personal assistance, exempted the owner from forced labor and was a defense against all kinds of trouble and taxes, in general.
Besides, a Special Service uniform enabled its wearer to perpetrate a variety of swindles and blackmail associated with sanitation (informing on typhus cases, disinfection steam baths, and the like). It was this pretty gang that now voluntarily reported for the assignment of sending Jews to the hereafter - and they distinguished themselves with their brutality and inhumanity. Their caps were covered with the bloodstains of the Jewish people. The officials of the Jewish Council also cooperated in the "operation," as did the Service of the K.A.M. - City Aid Committee.

 

You seem to singling out the members of the Jewish race as collaborators when they existed in every country occupied by Nazi Germany, while ignoring the crucial fact that this occurred under the umbrella of aggressive Nazi race policies.

I do not say this lightly when it seems to me that this line of argument is veering very close to the so called 'the Holocaust was the Jews fault' nonsense.

That bovine fecal matter doesn't fly around here.

 

I haven't said it was Jews fault, or the Jewish race was collaborationist, or even that those people were collaborators.
For this a common goal with the other side has to exist, like in the case of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania or Norway, countries with their own collaborationist governments.
Here there was none.

Those are not my words, there were written by eyewitness, right then, as the events unfolded, people whose credentials are beyond any doubt. Especially Emmanuel Ringelblum is regarded as the historian of the Holocaust.
These are not even the largest or most drastic examples, only the easiest to scan and OCR.

They show that the Jews were gathered in ghettos, "for their own good" - which they generally accepted as maybe true. They lived there for a few years, "enjoying" a limited self rule.
At some point of time those ghettos, one by one, were surrounded and cut out from outside world, and their inhabitants sent to death camps.
I most cases they didn't even realize they would be killed, they were told it was a relocation for some or other reason.

They weren't murdered by their " former compatriots and neighbors", and it wasn't that "the local citizens brought the Jews to the market place and the Germans just needed to ship them away."
I would challenge anyone to show a nontrivial example of such behavior.

 

How the Jews were identified.
It was easy, thanks to the infamous papers - as in "papers please", everybody had to have one. With a picture, fingerprints, and all the information about the owner.
And a large J - if she/he was a Jew.
Like below:

Charlotte Wolf deported from Germany to the transit ghetto in Piaski in 1940. Transit ghettos were mainly for foreign Jews:
View attachment 24689

Her two years old son Hermann, no picture was needed:
View attachment 24688

13 years old Hildegarde Lubschutz:
View attachment 24686

her older sister, both were sent to Piaski, too.
The Jews from Piaski would be gassed two years later in Bełżec.
View attachment 24687

90 years old Minnie Hirsh:
View attachment 24684

Ernestine Badenski. Sent to ghetto in Lublin, froze to death en route:
View attachment 24685

 

Were the J's added before or after the Nazi party?

 

Haunting images in those IDs. Turns the stomach to think of their fate.