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"Keeping very clear of any ‘Kuh-Handel’": The British Foreign Office and the Rescue of Jews from Bergen-Belsen1
University of Essex, Colchester, United Kingdom
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was set up in spring 1943 on Himmler’s orders with the designated purpose of holding Jews who were to be (temporarily) exempted from deportation to the extermination camps in the East so that they could be exchanged for German civilians held abroad. However, the number of Jews for whom Bergen-Belsen actually proved to be the antechamber to freedom was limited. The British Foreign Office bears some responsibility for this. It regarded proposals from Nazi Germany for such exchanges as blackmail, and giving in to it as unacceptable. It also insisted that the most important task of the anti-Hitler-coalition, and best chance for saving Jews from extermination, was a quick and unconditional victory over Nazi Germany. Instead of pushing for serious negotiations to secure the release of as many Jews as possible, the British Foreign Office played for time. It seems highly likely that a larger number of Jews held at Bergen-Belsen could have been saved if the negotiations about exchange had been conducted with a greater sense of urgency.
1. Literally, Kuhhandel means cattle trade; an idiomatic translation is "horse trading."
2. See, for example, Tony Kushner et al., "Approaching Belsen: An Introduction," in Belsen in History and Memory, ed. Jo Reilly, David Cesarani, Tony Kushner, and Colin Richmond (London: Frank Cass, 1997), esp. pp. 3–16.
3. Michael Marrus, The Holocaust in History (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1987), pp. 185–92; William D. Rubinstein, The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis (London–New York: Routledge, 2000; originally published 1997), pp. 198–205. It must be noted, however, that Rubinstein is reconsidering his position as far as Bergen-Belsen is concerned. In a paper he delivered to a workshop on "Rescue Attempts for Jewish Prisoners held at Bergen-Belsen" at the Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen in March 2003, Rubinstein conceded that Bergen-Belsen might indeed have offered some hope of rescue and that "the democracies missed an opportunity." See William D. Rubinstein, "The Myth of Rescue: Was Belsen an Exception?" (unpublished conference paper, Bergen-Belsen/Aberystwyth, 2003).
4. See, for example, Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938–1945 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970), pp. 266–70 and 276–80; Monty Noam Penkower, The Jews Were Expendable: Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988), pp. 183–206.
5. Yehuda Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, 1939–1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 276, 377. See also Yehuda Bauer, Jews for Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 104, 199.
6. Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), pp. 233–34 and 237–38; Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 618–22.
7. See for example Heim Avni, Spain, the Jews and Franco (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1982); or Bernd Rother, Spanien und der Holocaust (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2001).
8. Richard Breitman, "Himmler and Bergen-Belsen," in Reilly et al., Belsen in History and Memory, pp. 72–84. Breitman’s earlier monograph on Himmler and the Final Solution did not mention the special status of Bergen-Belsen: Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991).
9. Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: Geschichte des "Aufenthaltslagers" 1943–1945 (Hannover: Verlag für Literatur und Zeitgeschehen, 1962). A somewhat updated version of this study appeared in 1985: Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: Vom "Aufenthaltslager" zum Konzentrationslager 1943–1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985, 6th edition 2002); an abridged version has also been translated into English: Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: From "Detention Camp" to Concentration Camp, 1943–1945, 3rd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984, 2002). See also Alexandra-Eileen Wenck, Zwischen Menschenhandel und "Endlösung": Das Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000). Wenck’s study goes into much more detail than Kolb’s, but does not really add much that is new to the argument developed by Kolb as early as 1962. Surprisingly, Wenck makes little use, if any, of the non-German archival material that had become available by the time she undertook her research.
10. Max Paul Friedman, Nazis and Good Neighbors: The United States Campaign against the Germans of Latin America in World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 192–220; see also Friedman’s article "The U.S. State Department and the Failure to Rescue: New Evidence on the Missed Opportunity at Bergen-Belsen," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 19:1 (2005), pp. 26–50. In 2003, two workshops were held at the Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen, Germany, on rescue attempts for Jewish prisoners held at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, with papers by William D. Rubinstein, Jan Lambertz, Alexandra Wenck, Max Paul Friedman, Pamela Shatzkes, Rainer Schulze, Bernd Rother, Mirjam Schmidt, Michael Grill, Egon Mayer, Laszlo Csosz, and Thomas Rahe.
11. Circular decree (Runderlaß) of the WHVA D I, 29 June 1943, Dokumente des Internationalen Gerichtshof in Nürnberg (Nuremberg Documents, hereafter IGN) NO–1291, cited in Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen: Berichte und Dokumente (Hannover: Schlütersche Verlagsanstalt, 1995), pp. 33–34 (translation follows Kolb’s in his Bergen-Belsen: From "Detention Camp" to Concentration Camp, p. 22).
12. For this task Himmler awarded himself the (additional) title of Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of Ethnic Germandom (Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums). See Robert L. Koehl, RKFDV: German Resettlement and Population Policy 1939–1945. A History of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957); Valdis O. Lumans, Himmler’s Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993).
13. Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, pp. 223–26. See also Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz–Zweiter Weltkrieg, ed., Die Schweiz und die deutschen Lösegelderpressungen in den besetzten Niederlanden: Vermögensentziehung, Freikauf, Austausch 1940–1945 (Beiheft zum Bericht Die Schweiz und die Flüchtlinge zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus) (Bern: BBL/EDMZ, 1999), pp. 29–32.
14. Himmler to SS-Gruppenführer Müller (RSHA), December 1942, Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltung Ludwigsburg (Central Office of the State Judicial Administration Ludwigsburg) I/507 (translation follows Kolb’s in his Bergen-Belsen: From "Detention Camp" to Concentration Camp, p. 21).
15. Handwritten note by Himmler on his meeting with Hitler on 10 December 1942, facsimile in Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: Vom "Aufenthaltslager" zum Konzentrationslager, p. 130. There are two checks next to point 4 of the agenda: special camp for Jews with family in America (Sonderlager für Juden mit Anhang in Amerika), clearly suggesting a positive reaction by Hitler. See also Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 164.
16. Express letter (Schnellbrief) from the German Foreign Office to the RSHA, 2 March 1943, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Bonn (Political Archive of the German Foreign Office) Gruppe Inland II g 177 (translation follows Kolb’s in his Bergen-Belsen: From "Detention Camp" to Concentration Camp, p. 21).
17. It was called Star Camp because those interned there were allowed to keep their own civilian clothes but had to wear the yellow star of David on them.
18. On the so-called Kasztner Transport, see E. Landau, ed., Der Kasztner-Bericht über Eichmanns Menschenhandel in Ungarn (München: Kindler, 1961); Andreas Biss, A Million Jews to Save: Check to the Final Solution (South Brunswick, NJ: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1975); Richard Breitman and Shlomo Aronson, "The End of the ‘Final Solution’? Nazi Plans to Ransom Jews in 1944," Central European History 25 (1992), pp. 177–203.
19. Circular from the German Foreign Office to the "Representatives of the Foreign Office," February 1943, IGN NG–2586–P, cited in Konzentrationslager Bergen-Belsen: Berichte und Dokumente, pp. 29–30. The ten countries affected were Italy, Finland, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey.
20. Die Schweiz und die deutschen Lösegelderpressungen, pp. 53–55.
22. See papers in The National Archives of the UK, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO) FO 916/600–603.
23. Handwritten note by foreign office official, undated, attached to telegram from the British Legation Berne to the Foreign Office, 10 July 1944, PRO FO 916/802. See also papers in PRO FO 916/847.
24. Telegram from Secretary of State for the Colonies to Palestine, 15 August 1944, PRO FO 916/925.
25. Ponsonby (FO, POW Department) to Frere (Colonial Office), 21 October 1944, PRO FO 916/925.
26. Ponsonby (FO, POW Department) to Frere (Colonial Office), 10 November 1944, PRO FO 916/926.
27. Report to the Governments of the United States and the United Kingdom from their Delegates to the Conference on the Refugee Problem held at Bermuda April 19–29, 1943, Recommendation (1), PRO FO 371/36725.
28. Telegram from the Foreign Office to British Embassy Washington (Lord Halifax), 26 February 1943, PRO FO 371/36676.
29. FO minute, 28 May 1943, PRO FO 371/36702.
30. Internal note, 24 February 1945, PRO FO 505/497.
31. See, for example, FO minute, 4 June 1943, PRO FO 371/36702.
32. See J.V.W Shaw, High Commissioner for Palestine, on the 3rd German-Palestinian exchange, 14 August 1944, PRO FO 916/925 and other papers in this file. The report of one of those liberated in this exchange was published as a booklet in 1944: Simon Heinrich Herrmann, Austauschlager Bergen-Belsen: Die Geschichte eines Austauschtransportes (Tel Aviv: Irgun Olej Merkas Europa, 1944). See also From Bergen-Belsen to Freedom: The Story of the Exchange of Jewish Inmates of Bergen-Belsen with German Templars from Palestine: A Symposium in Memory of Dr. Haim Pazner (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986); Chaya Brasz, Transport 222: Bergen-Belsen–Palestine July 1944 (Jerusalem: Graphit, 1994); A.N. Oppenheim, The Chosen People: The Story of the "222 Transport" from Bergen-Belsen to Palestine (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996); Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: Geschichte des "Aufenthaltslagers," pp. 87–93; Wenck, Zwischen Menschenhandel und "Endlösung," pp. 220–28.
33. See papers in PRO FO 916/795–817; on the German-British civilian exchange of July 1944, see also Wenck, Zwischen Menschenhandel und "Endlösung," pp. 228–38.
34. Handwritten minute, 23 February 1943, PRO FO 371/36699.
35. Telegram from the Foreign Office to Berne, 26 February 1943, PRO FO 371/36699.
36. See Frere (Colonial Office) to Walker (Foreign Office) 6 March 1944, PRO FO 371/42776.
37. Telegram from the Foreign Office to Berne, 25 August 1943, PRO FO 371/36702.
38. Foreign Office to Jewish Refugee Committee, 27 October 1944, PRO FO 371/38282.
39. FO minute, 3 March 1944, PRO FO 371/42751 (W 3579/83/48).
40. British Embassy Madrid to Foreign Office, 28 August 1943, PRO FO 371/36666. See further notes and correspondence both in this file and in PRO FO 371/36646.
41. Telegram from Madrid (Hoare) to Foreign Office, 3 March 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 3647/177/48).
42. FO minute (Walker), 7 March 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 3647/177/48).
43. Randall (Foreign Office) to Moylan (Home Office), 11 March 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 3647/177/48).
44. Telegram from the Foreign Office to Washington, 17 March 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 3647/177/48).
45. Telegram from Washington (Viscount Halifax) to the Foreign Office, 24 March 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 4618/177/48).
46. Telegram from the Foreign Office to Washington, 27 March 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 4618/177/48).
47. See Record of the Discussions at the Bermuda Conference, Discussion No. 5, 21 April 1943, PRO FO 371/36725.
48. Telegram from Washington (Viscount Halifax) to the Foreign Office, 23 December 1943, PRO FO 371/36747.
49. FO minute (Henderson), 23 December 1943, PRO FO 371/36747.
50. FO minute (Randall), 24 December 1943, PRO FO 371/36747.
51. FO minute, 24 December 1943, PRO FO 371/36747.
52. Telegram from the Foreign Office to Washington, 1 January 1944, PRO FO 371/36747.
53. Telegram from Washington to the Foreign Office, 6 April 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 5360/177/48).
54. FO minute (Henderson), 8 April 1944, PRO WO 371/42764 (WR 5360/177/48).
55. FO minute (Ponsonby), 7 September 1944, PRO FO 916/927. See also the case of Martin W. Blitz and family, who were transferred to Bergen-Belsen, PRO FO 371/42776.
56. See papers in PRO FO 916/928.
57. Foreign Office (Refugee Department) to British Legation Stockholm, 31 October 1944, PRO FO 371/42806.
58. FO minute (Bell), 7 September 1944, FO 371/42876 (WR 919/414/48). The official reply asked the Swiss authorities only "to refer any doubtful cases to His Majesty’s Legation." Foreign Office to Berne, 25 September 1945, ibid.
59. Memo for H.B.M. Ambassador, Most Secret, 13 January 1945, PRO FO 505/497.
60. Telegram No. 23 from H.M. Ambassador Montevideo to the Foreign Office, 16 January 1945, PRO FO 505/497.
61. Memo for H.B.M. Ambassador, Secret, 1 March 1945, PRO FO 505/497.
62. Memo for H.B.M. Ambassador, 23 January 1945, PRO FO 505/497.
63. FO Circular: Exchange of German Nationals. Secret. 15 November 1944, PRO FO 505/497. The last sentence is underlined in the file of the British Embassy in Uruguay.
64. Ponsonby (FO, POW Department) to Frere (Colonial Office), 19 August 1944, PRO FO 916/925.
65. FO minute (Whitteridge), 4 September 1944, PRO FO 916/927.
66. Colonial Office to Foreign Office, 19 September 1944, PRO FO 916/925. See also other papers in this file, as well as PRO FO 916/601–603 and 926.
67. FO minute (Satow), 23 September 1944, PRO FO 916/925.
68. FO minute (Roberts), 23 September 1944, PRO FO 916/925.
69. FO minute (Mason), 24 September 1944, PRO FO 916/925.
70. Draft memorandum to British Legation Berne, early November 1944, PRO FO 916/925. See also papers in PRO FO 916/926.
71. Jewish Agency for Palestine to Foreign Office (Refugee Department), 5 February 1945, with attached copy of cable from Jerusalem, 4 February 1945, PRO FO 371/51176 (WR 398/379/48).
72. Foreign Office (Refugee Department) to the Jewish Agency for Palestine, London, 9 March 1945, PRO FO 371/51176 (WR 398/379/48). See also other papers in this file.
73. Foreign Office (Refugee Department) to Rabbi Dr. S. Schonfeld (head of the British Chief Rabbi’s Religious Emergency Council), 30 April 1945, PRO FO 371/51176 (WR 973/379/48).
74. FO minute, 28 February 1945, PRO FO 371/51171.
75. See Steven Koblik, The Stones Cry Out: Sweden’s Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1945 (New York: Holocaust Library, 1988), pp. 117–40; Penkower, The Jews were Expendable, pp. 238 and 265–83; Breitman, "Himmler and Bergen-Belsen," pp. 78–80; Meier Sompolinsky, Britain and the Holocaust: The Failure of Anglo-Jewish Leadership? (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2001), pp. 214–15; Lena Eichhorn, Menschenhandel unterm Hakenkreuz (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2002; first published in Swedish under the title Handelsresande i liv: Om vilja och vankelmod i krigets skuggen (Stockholm: Prisma, 1999), esp. pp. 346–79 and 404–15. On the American position see Meredith Hindley, "Negotiating the Boundary of Unconditional Surrender: The War Refugee Board in Sweden and Nazi Proposals to Ransom Jews, 1944–1945," Holocaust and Genocide Studies 10:1 (1996), pp. 52–77.
76. Memo, undated, transmitted with other documents by Mallet to Eden, 27 March 1945, PRO FO 371/51194 (WR 932/897/48).
77. On this visit see papers in PRO FO 371/51115.
78. Internal memo (handwritten) for H.M. Minister, 25 March 1945, PRO FO 188/526.
79. Mallet to Eden, 27 March 1945, PRO FO 371/51194 (WR 932/897/48).
80. FO minutes, 28 March 1945, PRO FO 371/51194 (WR 961/897/48).
83. Memo to Prime Minister (P.M./45/149), 1 April 1945, PRO FO 371/51194. A first draft had given yet another reason why the British Foreign Office was against becoming involved in any way: "because we might well arouse Soviet suspicion"—but this clause was penciled out at some point. Draft memo, 1 April 1945, ibid.
85. P.M./45/149, 1 April 1945, with scribbles by Churchill dated 5 April 1945, PRO PREM 4/52/5 Part I, pp. 783–86. A copy is also in PRO FO 954/23B, pp. 596–98.
86. Telegram from the Foreign Office to H.M. Minister Stockholm, 6 April 1945, with handwritten note dated 7 April, PRO FO 188/526.
87. Foreign Office, Refugee Department, to British Legation Stockholm, 14 May 1945, PRO FO 371/51194.
88. British Legation Berne to Eden, 19 March 1945, PRO FO 371/51115 (WR 918/4/48).
89. FO Circular: Exchange of German Nationals. Secret. 15 November 1944, PRO FO 505/497.
90. FO minute (Mason), 7 April 1945, PRO FO 371/51194 (WR 961/897/48G) (emphasis as in the original).
91. FO minute (Henderson), 7 April 1945, PRO FO 371/51115 (WR 946/4/48).
92. FO minute, 11 October 1944, PRO FO 371/42806; see also Foreign Office (Refugee Department) to British Legation Stockholm, 31 October 1944, ibid.
93. See for example telegram from the Colonial Office to Palestine, 6 January 1945, PRO FO 371/50154 (W 627/627/75); Ministry of Economic Warfare to Lev Zelmanovitz, World Jewish Congress London, 31 January 1945, ibid. (W 856/627/75).
94. The following figures were compiled on the basis of the latest research conducted by the Gedenkstätte Bergen-Belsen and, therefore, differ from some figures given in older literature. My thanks to Bernd Horstmann for allowing me to use his most recent data.
95. The rescue of the Jews of Turkish origin from Bergen-Belsen is a special case. They were, in fact, added on to the group of Turkish Embassy staff and their relatives and Turkish students who were repatriated in early March 1945 from Germany to Turkey following the breaking-off of diplomatic relations between the two countries. See Corinna Görgü, "Türkische Juden als Opfer der Shoah und als Häftlinge in Bergen-Belsen" (unpublished report written for the Gedenkstätte Bergen Belsen, 2004). Görgü is currently writing her MA thesis at the University of Hamburg, Germany, on this question.
96. Contrary to what is generally set out in the available literature, not all of the 1,684 members of the Kasztner group were rescued before the end of the war. Ladislaus Löb, who as a child was in this group together with his father, and who is currently undertaking extensive research into the rescue of the group, established that at least three members of the group died during their stay at Bergen-Belsen, eight children were born, and around seventeen members of the group were not allowed to travel to Switzerland and were kept back at Bergen-Belsen. Löb, therefore, suggests that the number of people rescued from the Kasztner group is approximately 1,670. My thanks to Ladislaus Löb for providing me with this information.
97. Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: Geschichte des "Aufenthaltslagers," pp. 44–52; Wenck, Zwischen Menschenhandel und "Endlösung," pp. 138–63.
98. For example, in December 1944, the Foreign Office was informed of an alleged proposal for a German-Jewish exchange "on an assurance that measures would be taken to prevent war criminals being tried when hostilities were over." FO minute, 7 December 1944, PRO FO 371/42823.
99. In a number of files, there are references to papers still being retained in the department of origin under Section 3 (4) of the Public Records Act of 1958. Just one example is the collection of papers WR 1162/897/48 in PRO WO 371/51194.
100. In this context, see also Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933–1948: British Immigration Policy and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
101. Egon Mayer, "Jewish Holocaust Rescuer Murdered in Tel Aviv: A Personal Memoir," Moment: The Magazine of Jewish Culture and Opinion (August 1995), p. 38.