Just past the wooden wall leads to the Umschlagplatz. The sorting process has already begun, with many women and children on the right and older men on the left. Some will be sent on trains to labor camps, while others will go to Treblinka.
SS troops escorted Jews to this location, where they were sent by train to labor camps or where they boarded a train for the Treblinka extermination camp. Officer with many decorations and black gloves is Jürgen Stroop.
There is a map for every day of the fighting, as the operation was very fluid with no set battle lines. These maps are for April 27 and April 28, 1943. In addition to the points of fighting, the areas of the Ghetto that the Nazis set afire are shown.
Jürgen Stroop is looking at a paper or a map. Soldiers around him stand at the ready, indicating that he is in or close to the Jewish Ghetto. Stroop was born at Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia, on September 26, 1895. He fought as an enlisted man in World War I, winning the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Stroop joined the Nazi Party and SS in the 1930s. In 1941, Stroop fought on the Russian Front with the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division in the Waffen-SS. Jürgen Stroop then became the Inspector of the Security Police in South Russia and then the SS and Police Leader for Lemberg. He then assumed duties as the SS and Police Leader for Warsaw in April 1943, received the Iron Cross First Class and was apprehended after the war. Turned over to Poland, Jürgen Stroop was convicted by a Polish court of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. The Poles hanged Jürgen Stroop on the site of the former Jewish Warsaw Ghetto on March 6, 1952.
The round has just exploded against the building, near the roof, in front. These are German Army – not SS – troops, likely from the Light Alarm Flak Battery 3/VIII.
Given the stance of the SS soldier at left, the group is probably in the small factory area of the Ghetto. The SS wanted to liquidate the Ghetto; the German Army wanted the factories to continue production of small goods they needed.
The photograph was taken in April or May 1943. Carrying their belongings, these people will probably be put on a train to Treblinka and will be dead by noon the day after this photo was taken.
Photographs at execution sites were strictly forbidden, but a few surface in archives or from German military antique dealers’ stores every year.
Erich Naumann during early career
Naumann commanded Einsatzgruppe B from November 1941 to March 1943. Einsatzgruppe B killed at least 134,000 victims during the war. Born in Meissen, Saxony on April 29, 1905, Naumann was a high school graduate, a merchant, married and listed his religion as agnostic. He entered the Nazi Party on November 1, 1929 and the SS on July 1, 1935. He also served as the Inspector of the SD in Berlin. During his service in Einsatzgruppe B, he won the Iron Cross First Class. Naumann was convicted at trial after the war, sentenced to death and hanged at Landsberg, Bavaria on June 8, 1951.
Blobel commanded Einsatzkommando 4a from June 1941 to January 1942. In total, Einsatzkommando 4a murdered 59,018 people. Blobel then commanded Sonderkommando 1005 from July 1942 to July 1944. In the fall of 1942, this unit began disinterring corpses at various Einsatzgruppen killing sites and destroyed the remains through burning. The organization then turned to the concentration camps, especially at Treblinka, Sobibór and Belzec, to erase all traces of the crimes there. He also served as the commander of the SD in Salzburg. Paul Blobel ended the war in command of Einsatzgruppe Iltis, fighting Yugoslav partisans in the area of Carinthia, Austria. He was convicted at trial after the war, sentenced to death and hanged at Landsberg, Bavaria on June 8, 1951 – one of the last Nazi war criminals to be executed in the west. Born in Potsdam on August 13, 1894, Blobel was a Protestant, married, an architect, winner of the Iron Cross First Class in World War I, a Nazi Party member and an SS member since December 1, 1931.
