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On
May 6, 1942, we left the collection camp (in Vienna)... (at
the) railway station we learned... that we were being taken to
Minsk. We traveled by passenger coach as far as Wolkowisk,
where we had to... change over into cattle vans... We arrived
in Minsk on May 11 (at the) station we were met by SS and
Police... For the transport of the sick, of persons who went
out of their mind during the journey, the aged and infirm
(about 200 in number in our transport) box-cars stood waiting
-- great, gray, closed motor-vans into which the people were
thrown one on top of the other in confusion... 81 persons fit
for work were picked from among the arrivals and taken to the
camp of the Security Police and SD in Mali-Trostinez (12 kms.
from Minsk). The camp consisted of a few rotting old barns and
stables. That is where we were housed... When new people
arrived, others who were not 100 percent fit for work were
taken out. We were told that some of these were sent to
hospital and others to other estates to work there. (Only) the
best workers were to stay on our estate, Mali-Trostinez, so
that our camp would be an example to others... The highest
complement in the camp was about 600 Jews and 300 Russian
prisoners... On July 28, 1942, the news reached us in the camp
of a "Grossaktion in the Ghetto." It involved
at that time about 8,000 Russian and 5,000 German, Austrian
and Czech Jews, who had been in the Minsk Ghetto from November
1941... The transports ceased at the end of 1942... (in the
meantime) we learned that there were no "other
estates" in the vicinity of Minsk and that it was to
"Estate 16" that all the people were taken...
"Estate 16" is about 4-5 kms. from Mali-Trostinez on
the main road to Mogilev, (it contains mass graves) of
thousands of persons who were shot or (murdered) in the gas
vans....*
J.
Moser, Die Judenverfolgung in OEsterreich 1938-1945 ("Persecution
of the Jews in Austria, 1938-1945"), Vienna, 1966, pp.
35-36.
*
See document 191. |
