Briefaktion: The Family Camp

Briefaktion, which is German for “letter action,” or, as some philatelists refer to it, “operation mail,” was a Nazi ruse used a number of times throughout the history of the Reich. Aktion is a famous Nazi euphemism used to refer to any non-military campaign to further Nazi ideals of race, but most often the term referred to the assembly and deportation of Jews to concentration or death camps (see About.com, http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaustglossary/g/Aktion.htm).

Nazi euphemisms and terminology were used throughout the history of the Reich for misdirection and to disguise the actual action intended. Arbeit Macht Frei, “Work makes you free,” was a sign placed over the entrance of Auschwitz: the work was, of course, was slave labor. Endlosung, or “Final Solution,” is the term used to define the elimination of all Jews. The word Briefaktion is no different; the ruse lies in the total misinformation conveyed by the letters, which always were sent after the writers had died or were on the way to their demise. The Briefaktionen were intended to lead people to believe that they should not be frightened about deportations, as they were merely transfer to a new place to work.

Examples of Briefaktionen

The most famous example of this type of deception was practiced in the Familienlager or “Family Camp” in the Birkenau section of Auschwitz. A unique document (Figure 1) from the Auschwitz Museum Archives shows an order for a truck to implement a Briefaktion des RSHA (Juden). It was for a truck and 2 persons to pick up mail at subcamps of Auschwitz 3 (Monowitz) and Camp Javisciovitz. The mail would be taken to Berlin, were it would be censored and post marked.

There were other noted Briefaktionen that took place. In the summer of 1942, letters were received from victims of mass deportations of Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka. The Gestapo had their victims write that they were in the east, were in working and employed and that things were good. The letters were falsely postmarked from Smolensk or Bobruisk, and their writers were taken to the gas chambers.

Another example took place in Kielce, where boys were sent for forced labor to a munitions factory in Skarzysko-Kamienna. They wrote to their relatives that they were in good health, had sufficient food, and were with their families (Yad Vashem Studies: 1967, Volume VI, 70).

Briefaktion Linking Theresienstadt and Auschwitz

The family camp concept began within the Theresienstadt ghetto outside of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Theresienstadt was originally built as a fortress for Austrian royalty under the orders from Joseph II of Austria in 1780 to 1790 and was named for his mother, Maria Theresa, who ruled from 1740-1780. The Nazis took control on June 10, 1940 and turned the little fortress, the Kleine Festung, into a prison (see note below for an observation about the postal system). By November, 1941, the bigger fortress had become a ghetto.

The Nazis intended Theresienstadt be a model ghetto, a working town that would demonstrate how well the Jews d under Nazi rule. It had stores, factories, schools, musical productions, and a “government” that functioned under the Nazis oversight. The only thing that changed were the people. Jews were constantly being shipped into Theresienstadt and transported out to Auschwitz. The population was gathered mostly from the “Protectorate”: Germany and other western European countries. They were particularly prominent persons, old people, or those who had served in the German Army during World War I.

During the week of September 3 through 8, 1943, five transports of Jews were sent to Auschwitz by cattle car (Figure 2). The first four of these transports were processed in the usual manner: heads shaven, possessions taken away, and selection. On September 8 a transport with 5008 Czechoslovakian Jews went from Theresienstadt to form the “Family Camp” in Birkenau.

Those prisoners in the fifth and final transport did not go through the usual selection process: they kept their possessions, their hair was not cut, and family units were kept intact. These Jews were housed in a separate camp near the main gate of Birkenau that was designated BIIb–commonly called the Family Camp (Figure 3). While they fared better than most, they still had to endure living conditions that were as deplorable as in the rest of the Birkenau Camp. Within the first month, almost a thousand people died. In December, 1943 another 5,000 people were transported from Theresienstadt to the Family Camp.

Figure 3: Map of Birkenau, Auschwitz, with the BIIb section that housed the Family Camp. Conditions were awful, but families were kept together and the camp was set up as a small town.

 

The purpose of the camp was twofold: 1) to act as another model camp to show the world how well Jews were treated at Auschwitz, and 2) to use a Briefaktion so that Jews in Theresienstadt and other locations would believe that transportation was not a death sentence. To complete these ruses, the Nazis set up within the Birkenau Family Camp a self-contained environment similar to Theresienstadt that would to include schools for the children and basic services, maintaining the appearance of a functional town.

“The men did not have to report to work, and the children went to school under the leadership of the inspirational Freddy Hirsch. There was a small garden area for the children. With the exception of the camp Elder, all the administration positions were held by the inmates. Best of all, the men’s and the women’s barracks were across from each other, and in the evening families could gather on the Lagerstrasse.”  (Ager, D.E., Wright, L. Language, politics, and Society. The New Languages Department, Tonawanda, NY, Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2000.) The one thing the Nazis forced the inmates to do was to write postcards from the time they were transported to the camp.

Mail coming from the Family Camp had a distinctive return address: Arbeitslager Birkenau, Post Neu-Berun, Oberschlesien “Work Camp Birkenau, Mail Neu-Berun Oberschlesien.” The letters were transported to Berlin, were they were postmarked with Berlin circular cancel and the Jewish Council cachet. In addition to the different return address, it was also out of the ordinary that Jewish prisoners were permitted to use postcards for correspondence, rather than standard camp forms.

On March 7, 1944, on the eve of the Fast of Esther, the camp administration had the original transferred families write multiple cards directed to friends in Theresienstadt and relatives in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. This was about six months after their arrival. The next day the entire transport was gassed. However, their cards were taken to Berlin, cancelled with a Berlin cancel, and sent out (Figures 4 and 5). This process continued for two weeks after the deaths of the writers. Many cards had the date changed to March 25. Two more transports came from Theresienstadt to the “Family Camp,” and it seems that each transport lasted six months before extermination.

The reasons for the Family Camp and the Briefaktion documented in correspondence between the International Red Cross and Adolf Eichmann’s office. The Nazis organized a visit for the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross to Theresienstadt, to be followed by a visit to the Family Camp in Birkenau. After a successful visit to Theresienstadt, the International Red Cross wrote a glowing report about the ghetto and felt that no more evidence of the treatment of Jews under Hitler was needed. And so the “Family Camp” was liquidated.

 

Bibliography:

Ager, D.E., Wright, L. Language, politics, and Society. The New Languages Department, Tonawanda, NY, Multilingual Matters Ltd, 2000.

Blumenthal, Nachman. The Nazi Vocabulary. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Studies on the European Catastrophe and Resistance: volume 6, 1967.

Dwork, Deborah and Van Pelt Robert. Auschwitz 1270 to the present. New York and London, W.W. Norton & Company, 1996.

Gutman, Yisrael, Berenbaum, Michael. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Indianapolis, Indiana Press:: 1994.

Longerich, Peter. Holocaust, the Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. New York, Oxford Press, 2010.

Lordahl, Erik, and Schwab, Henry. “System of Registration Concentration Camp Auschwitz Inmate Mail,” German Postal Specialist, 1998.

Yad Vashem Conference: The Nazi Concentration Camps, Jerusalem Yad Vashem Press, 1984.

Yad Vashem Studies: Volume IV, ed. Shmuel Esh. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Press, 1960.

Yad Vashem Studies: Volume VI, ed. Nathan Eck. Jerusalem, Yad Vashem Press, 1967.

 

NOTE: The postal system in Theresienstadt was erratic and inconsistent, but it seems there was one constant oddity. The mail from the ghetto was not canceled with a Theresienstadt cancel; only the mail from the Kleine Festung had a Theresienstadt circular cancel (Figure A). The Kleine Festung was the section were non-Jewish political and criminal prisoners were kept. All Jewish mail out of Theresienstadt went by truck to Prague or Berlin (Figures B and C) to be cancelled and distributed.

Figure A: Post card from the Kleine Festung, the “Little Fortress” within Theresienstadt. It has the circular cancelation “1/5/42 Theresienstadt/Terezin.” The return address is Theresienstadt Kleine Festung. Oddly, the mail coming out of the Theresienstadt Jewish Ghetto did not have the name Terezin in the cancellation.