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Seizing Property - MM

The document discusses the systematic seizure and redistribution of property by Nazi Germany from persecuted individuals, particularly Jews, during World War II. After the war, various treaties were established for reparations, but many victims faced challenges in reclaiming their properties, especially in Poland and Russia. The bureaucratic processes involved in handling the seized possessions illustrate the extensive knowledge and complicity of individuals in the Nazi regime's actions.

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9 views

Seizing Property - MM

The document discusses the systematic seizure and redistribution of property by Nazi Germany from persecuted individuals, particularly Jews, during World War II. After the war, various treaties were established for reparations, but many victims faced challenges in reclaiming their properties, especially in Poland and Russia. The bureaucratic processes involved in handling the seized possessions illustrate the extensive knowledge and complicity of individuals in the Nazi regime's actions.

Uploaded by

prabht
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Seizing Property

Learn about Nazi Germany’s system of collecting, cataloging, and


redistributing the possessions of prisoners in ghettos and camps.

Facing History & Ourselves, "Seizing Property," last updated


August 2, 2016. LAST UPDATED: August 2, 2016
What happened to the stolen properties?
● After World War II, according to the Potsdam Conference held between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Germany
was to pay the Allies $23 billion mainly in machinery and manufacturing plants. Reparations to the Soviet Union
stopped in 1953 (only paid by the GDR).
● Germany concluded a variety of treaties with Western and Eastern countries as well as the Jewish Claims
Conference and the World Jewish Congress to compensate the victims of the Holocaust. Until 2005 about 63
billion euros (equivalent to approximately 87.9 billion euros in 2022) have been paid to individuals.
● In Poland: Thousands of Jews families' property was seized by Poland's Nazi occupiers and then kept by its
postwar communist rulers.
○ Home to one of the world's largest Jewish communities before the war, Poland is the only EU country that has not legislated on
property restitution.
○ Soon after the fall of communism, many Poles accepted that property taken by the Nazis, and then the
communists, should be returned to its rightful owners. But many now feel it is unfair to expect the
government to reimburse everybody.
● To make matters more difficult, Jews say documents proving property ownership were often destroyed in the
Holocaust.
● In Russia: "Something that should be fundamentally a moral question - I had a house, the Nazis stole it, the
Soviets stole it, I should get it back - is now being made into a political question," Poland's Chief Rabbi, Michael
Schudrich, told Reuters.
What happened to the stolen properties?
● During World War II, the Nazis seized property, real and movable, from
organizations and individuals which the Nazi regime was persecuting -- Jews,
members of some Christian organizations, Roma, homosexuals, and others.
● Much of that property in Western Europe was returned during the post-war
period -- under occupation law in areas occupied by the Allies, and under
the laws of individual countries.
● This was not generally possible behind the Iron Curtain (Russia), where the
newly-established communist governments simply took over property
seized earlier by the Nazis. Those governments also frequently confiscated
additional property from their own citizens.
Killing, Raiding, Stealing, Owning
Germany created a massive bureaucracy to collect, catalog, and redistribute or
sell the possessions the Nazis seized from the people they imprisoned or
murdered in ghettos and camps.

Historian Lucy Dawidowicz describes the agencies and procedures involved in


redistributing the property the Nazis took from the nearly 2 million Jews who
lived in the General Government in Poland who were murdered as part of
Operation Reinhard between 1941 and 1943:
● All cash proceeds in German notes were to be deposited to the Reichsbank account of the SS's
Economic and Administrative Main Office (WVHA) . . .
● Foreign currency . . . , precious metals, jewelry, precious or semiprecious stones, pearls, dental
gold, and scrap gold were to be delivered to the WVHA for immediate transmittal to the
Reichsbank.
● All timepieces, alarm clocks, fountain pens, mechanical pencils, hand- or electric-operated shavers,
pocket knives, scissors, flashlights, wallets, and purses were to be sent to a WVHA installation for
cleaning and price estimation, and then forwarded, for sale, to the combat troops.
● Men's underwear, men's clothing, including footwear, were first to fill staff needs at the
concentration camps and then to be sent, for sale, to the troops as an undertaking of the Ethnic
German Welfare Office (VOMI). The proceeds were to go to the Reich. Women's clothing,
underwear, and footwear and also children's clothing and underwear were to go to VOMI for cash.
Pure silk underwear was assigned to the Ministry of Economy.
● Eiderdowns, quilts, blankets, dress materials, scarves, umbrellas, canes, thermos bottles, ear
mufflers, baby carriages, combs, handbags, leather belts, shopping bags, tobacco pipes,
sunglasses, mirrors, cutlery, knapsacks, leather and synthetic-material suitcases were to go to VOMI
. . . Bed linens, sheets, pillowcases, handkerchiefs, washcloths, tablecloths were delivered to VOMI
for cash.
● All kinds of eyeglasses and spectacles were assigned to the Public Health Office for sale.
● High-class furs, dressed or undressed, were to be delivered to WVHA; cheaper fur goods
(neckpieces, hare and rabbit furs) were to be delivered to the Clothing Works of the Waffen-SS at
Ravensbrück.
Connection Questions: Answer HERE in pairs

1. How does the author’s list of the types of property the Nazis took
from their victims help to illustrate the reality of the lives that
were lost?
2. How did Germany benefit materially from the mass murder of
Jews, Sinti and Roma, prisoners of war, and others?
3. What does the author’s description of the bureaucracy
(government process and “red tape”) that was necessary to
process all of the seized possessions (at the time they were
stolen) suggest about the number of people who must have
known about what was happening in the ghettos and camps?

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