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I do agree in most cases with Mr,.Honey. For the first time after his extensive comments, he shares with us a valid and understandable reason for his personal reason to defend Fredy Hirsch. I doubt very much that the objective truth can be ever arrived at. There is always a context within which events take place, and memories of survivors are not always reliable. I include myself, who has lived in Theresienstadt from January 1942 to 1944 when I was deported with the first of the fall 1944 transports to Birkenau. I agree specifically with Mr. Honey that persons who happen to have some functions -- say, in the so-called "Juedische Selbstverwaltung" (Jewish Self Administration) in Theresienstadt, or a function within the administration of Auschwitz or Birkenau which gave them certain powers or authority to adopt decisions, oftentimes tend to defend their actions. Whether these were right or wrong, we should never forget that the ultimate authority was always the power to be -- the Lagerkommandant in Theresienstadt or a SS commander in Birkenau. I have been in a position where I did not have any authority to decide about life or death of prisoners in Theresienstadt. I worked as a draftsman in the so-called "Technische Abteilung Zeichensaal" in the Magdeburger barracks in Theresienstadt. Between other tasks, our department had to prepare monthly statistics for the Kommandantur. The first Elder of the Jews, Jacob Edelstein, tried to please the Nazis as much as possible in order to gain some minimal concessions. I am sure he was aware of his inability to prevent transports. He was excellent in gaining small concessions. Typically, the nazis always avoided to issue their instructions/commands in writing. Edelstein had to present himself every day at the Kommandatur to receive his orders. Subsequently he put them on paper in so-called "Aktenvermerke" (memoranda). Many of these were given to my boss, the late Bedrich Fritta. One of my duties was to present myself every day in the morning at the Kommandantur to Lagerinspekteur Bergl (the second in command). We had prepared giant graphs, six of them, showing the "vital statistics" of the camp on a daily basis. These were, for instance, numbers of prisoners who had died on a given day, and many other statistics. Edelstein exploited very well the German obsession with data. I was nothing more than an employee fulfilling his duties in changing the statistics on a daily basis, but my constant presence allowed me to hear information. I met Eichmann in person a few times. I had no idea of his true role. He appeared as a gray nobody. I only recall his piercing eyes. Every time he visited the ghetto, many transports to the "East" followed. Thus I had an opportunity to hear information, for instance I found out about transports coming to Theresienstadt including the city they came from, and the total amount of deportees. I had to draw statistics which showed likewise transports to "the East" without showing their destination. With a special pass, I was allowed to visit recently arrived deportees in the so-called 'Schleuse" and those to be deported who were isolated from the rest of the prisoners. I used a ruse: I volunteered to paint the transport numbers of the deportees to the East on their luggage. As a draftsman, who was oftentimes required to "make overtime" in the Magdeburger Kaserne, I had a special permit to leave my "Ubikation" (the term used for housing) after 8pm. The same pass allowed me to leave the ghetto alone, without any escort, within a certain radius. Likewise, Dr. Hans G. Adler, the author of the key book about Theresienstadt "Theresienstadt, Antlitz einer Zwangsgemeinschaft" never occupied a position of a functionary reponsible for any decision. He was a so-called "Ordonnanz" which could be translated loosely as a manservant in the Magdeburger barracks where the "Aeltestenrat" operated, and where individual Elders of the Jews (Aeltestenraete) had living quarters for themselves and their families. Most offices of the "Juedische Selbstverwaltung" were located in this building including the so-called "Zentralevidenz" (this term could be translated as office of vital statistics.) Access to the Zentralevidenz was strictly forbidden and restricted to a few people. Data in this office included dates of deaths, for example, but most of all, all data about incoming and outgoing transports. Dr.Adler had the chance to collect lots of information when he was cleaning or arranging quarters. He was no functionary but a person who had access to a lot of information. The type of moral dilemma key functionaries were subjected to was something like the following. Edelstein would come back from his daily visit to the Kommandatur and a dictated memorandum "Aktenvermerk" in the sense that the "vorgesetzte Behoerde" (that was the respective Camp Commander) had given order to assemble within a week a transport of 2,500 ghetto prisoners to the East. They had to be over 65 years old, should not include former citizen of the Reich, and should exclude certain VIPs (Prominente). It was the task of the "Zentralevidenz" to select the individual prisoners to be deported. This selection took place secretly. somebody in the Zentralevidenz may have had the of having to include his own father for he was over 65. He would not do so, but he had to include another person over 65. This way, in 1942, He practically condemned one prisoner to death by saving at least temporarily his father. The dilemma was insolvable. If the employee could not take it and resigned, somebody else would volunteer for the position. This person, in turn, would have been clearly included in the fall transports of 1944 to Birkenau, when the Nazis wanted to get rid of potential witnesses of their crimes as they tried to destroy any document dealing with deportations. Mr. Honey's theory about the reasons for the fall transports of Czech Jews in 1944 to Birkenau -- I was included -- may be just one of the theories. I had participated in a minor role in the "Verschoenerung" (beautification effort) staged by the Nazis to fool the International Red Cross. I did not have any leading role. One of my tasks was to draw the route the Commission had to take. They were not allowed to depart from it, and I had to change it -- believe it or not -- 36 times. I leave it to the members of the list to decide whether I was guilty of participation in the action to deceive the foreign visitors. The tasks of all 36 artists in the "Technische Abteilung, Zeichensaal" were outlined by Edelstein to please the Germans as much as possible, to fulfill any crazy wish as slaves, and to give the Germans the impression that we were indispensable for the functioning of the administration. Fritta and his second-in-charge, Petr Kien, established a secret priority code. My number was 7. That meant that everybody with higher numbers than me on the list would have been made available for deportation before it was my turn.. I was never deported because of my number. I was included in the first fall transport, however, because I witnessed too much, I believe. Morally speaking, I would make a distinction between cooperation and collaboration. Most of us cooperated with the Nazis to the extent we hoped to be saved from transports. Direct collaboration, as for instance that of the Dutch artist Jo Spier in the movie "Der Fuehrer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt" was very clear for us other artists and we refused to have anything to do with Mr. Spier. It is obvious that all of us tried to save our lives but prisoners like Spier went too far. The degree of his collaboration was more difficult to discern than actions of Juedcnraete in Polish ghettos, for example. Mr. Honey has an advantage. He was a child at the time and it is difficult to imagine that he could have influenced events in any way. Hindsight is problematic, multiple factors intervene. I married in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1956. The rabbi who married me was a brother of Fredy Hirsch. He had a striking resemblance to Fredy. He asked me repeatedly about the fate of his brother. I refused to answer, claiming I did not know it. I found it was more gentle. History seems to have proven me right, as Mr. Honey apparently has more information and has been researching very much. Last not least it is worth mentioning that Communist affiliations or Zionist tendencies naturally tend to color historical events. However, the very fact that somebody was a Communist should not necessarily a priori been construed as falsifying facts. There are and were Communists who were telling the truth. I am against any attempt to condemn anybody for being Communist or Zionist or Orthodox, thus discarding his testimony. Fred Klein Ex prisoner of Theresienstadt, R-396
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