Skip to main content

Delousing—Naked in Litzmannstadt (Łódź), 1943-44

She was only six, but my mother Kathe Bräul’s most vivid recollections of the trek out of Molotschna in 1943 are the lice-infested barns that they slept in—an experience shared by thousands of Mennonites. Katie Friesen recalled how her mother and friends tried to sleep sitting on pails with their skirts pulled up “so that the parasites at least could not crawl up on them” (note 1). “We were full of lice, in our hair and up and down the seams of all our clothes,” a slightly older neighbour in Marienthal—Albert Dahl—recalled when my mother and I met him for coffee a few years ago.

There were many indignities suffered by those evacuated from Ukraine, and lice are part of that story. But so is the memory of public nakedness when they were deloused upon entry into “Greater Germany” at Litzmannstadt (Lodz). All were required to be disinfected and deloused in large facilities outside the city at the rail junction in Görnau (Zgierz) or Pobianitze. About 1,600 persons could be deloused in those facilities in one day (note 2). "That was no fun either, but very necessary to prevent diseases” (note 3).

Katie Friesen recalls how “males and females were put in separate rooms and then put through the cleaning ritual” while their clothes were taken elsewhere to be disinfected (note 4). Mennonite modesty kept her from noting further details.“ Now in her old age, my mother has told me multiple times how embarrassed she was seeing her mother and all the other Mennonite women naked as steam came from ceiling vents.

Margaret Siemens Braun (b. 1930) of Neuendorf had similar recollections and feelings.

"We had to go through a big room where they put us all in, and deloused us. You had to take your clothes off: babies, pregnant women, everyone, all in the same room! I thought it was the most terrible thing. They had us all in there, and they sprayed us, and the clothes did go into an oven. How we found our clothes, I don't remember, but they brought the clothes back, and they were baked." (Note 5)

In her memoir Helene Dueck offers further details:

“We were led into large rooms where men and women were separated. Little boys under six went with the women and the older boys with the men. In one large room we all had to undress. The clothes were labelled and brought away to be deloused. We ourselves entered a huge bathroom with dozens of showers and long rows of benches. Here we had to wait for hours and sit naked on the cold benches. How embarrassing that was! Most of us had never been to the beach and had never worn a bathing suit, and here were hundreds of naked women with their children, exposed to every eye. The workers, men and women, were walking around. We could have sunk into the earth [with embarrassment].

Workers went from woman to woman powdering their hair, which was washed in troughs after a long wait. The water had a pungent smell. Then we got into the shower, and after a long wait, we stood in long lines again, still without clothes, to get a stamp on our left arm. The dark blue stamp clearly said CLEAN, and with that we were now ready to live in the Reich. In the other room we found our clothes, which had been dry cleaned and were barely recognizable. They were wrinkled and had lost their colours. We had to wear them because we had no others. We were told that all this was necessary to avoid disease. Everyone who came from the East had to go through the delousing camp." (Note 6)

One report confirms that they received the stamp “REIN” (clean) on their “left wrist,” but the official complained that it is easily washed off, “especially by the women” (note 7). In another report it is noted that resettlers bathed with a 5% cresol soap formula and washed hair with sabadilla vinegar (note 8).

Connie Braun tells her father’s account and adds that the men and the boys had their heads shaved and that the girls had their braids “snipped off if necessary” (note 9).

Isaac Reimer—a former mayor of Einlage and Novo-Zaporizhzhia under German occupation—is most graphic in his recollection:

“We entered Poland, Warthegau, and stopped at the Pobianitze station [near Litzmannstadt]. Here the whole transport was first bathed and deloused. During the bathing in the large bathing room, the women in charge of the transports stood on the balcony in the bathing room and looked at the naked men. Little attention was paid to the old, weak men, but more to the young, strong men. If such a man was discovered, he was thoroughly looked over, one of them alerted the other women to him, even pointing her finger at him, and he was then admired and complimented.

With the women vice versa, there the men stood and looked at the women while bathing and passing by. Liese Jäger, who was never at a loss for words, said to them: ‘Well, have you looked at me enough from the front?’ Then she turned around, bent down, and said: ‘Now look at me from behind, too.’ After delousing the women had to spend the night in their railroad car and the men were allowed back into theirs.” (Note 10)

After delousing another Marienthal child remembered that when their clothes were finally returned they “were treated to a hot milk soup with a slice of bread. That felt great” (note 11). Helene Dueck was a little older and remembered above all her exhaustion:

“We were now led into a huge room where thousands of refugees had already bedded down for the night. Exhausted, we lay down on the straw bed that had been assigned to us and waited for dinner. Finally it came. A big piece of bread with jam and a piece of sausage. I ate it very slowly to keep the taste in my mouth longer. Then I fell asleep and slept well, even though the lights were on all night, children were crying and there was a constant coming and going.” (Note 12)

After leaving Litzmannstadt and arriving at their resettler camps, a second delousing would occur. A medical officer for the camps in the District of Schieratz reported to the Governing President of the City of Litzmannstadt that when delousing locally, he personally “had to ensure that women were not deloused by men and that the appropriate separation was observed. I found little understanding for this. The transport leader told me that other Black Sea Germans had complained bitterly that their women had been deloused by soldiers in Litzmannstadt” (note 13).

It is difficult not to contrast the Mennonite experience of delousing and nakedness in Nazi Germany and that of the Jews of Warthegau sent naked into showers which were gas chambers.

As Nazi Germany was cleansing and resettling its “chosen people” from the east for a new “blond province” in Wartheland (as Himmler once directed; note 14), the historical “chosen people” had a very different fate, of which previous posts have touched upon (note 15).

In 1942 Himmler had visited Mennonites in Halbstadt and then two months later over New Years met with Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh, their representative in Germany. “I have been in Ukraine [October 1942] and I have observed the people there for myself. Your Mennonites are the best,” Himmler told Unruh (note 16). Himmler's criteria of value were racial purity, racial prowess and racial fecundity. And when he addressed ethnic Germans in Halbstadt, Himmler promised his Mennonite hearers that they would be compensated according to their assets as of August 1, 1914—a promise they would cling to and repeat to officials as they entered Warthegau (note 17).

Mennonites remained a favoured and desired resettler group for officials in Litzmannstadt as well (note 18). Though humiliated in this initiation process, they were now clean, lice-free and soon ready to contribute as settlers in the strange new world of the Greater German Reich.

            ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Sampler delousing photos from WW1 from Thomas Edelman, “Wen juckt’s?,” https://blog.hgm.at/2021/03/15/wen-juckts/. Lodsch/Litzmannstadt EWZ photo above from Bundesarchiv Bild 146/74/79/73.

Note 1: Katie Friesen, Into the Unknown (Steinbach, MB: Self-published, 1986), 67.

Note 2: Medical Officer for the State Health Office of the District of Schieratz (Warthegau) to the Governing President of the City of Litzmannstadt, February 4, 1944, regarding the field report on the deployment of Black Sea Germans, February 4, 1944. In Unterbringung der Schwarzmeerdeutsche, SAP-53/299/0, series 2.2, file 1978, Blatt 95, https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/de/jednostka/-/jednostka/1049367. See also Hans-Jürgen Bömelburg, Lodz (Paderborn: Brill-Schöningh, 2022), 192. On entering Litzmannstadt, see related post: https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/03/litzmanstadt-odz-entering-reich-1943-44.html.

Note 3: Martha Cornies, “Auf der Flucht,” Mennonitische Rundschau 93, no. 15 (April 15, 1970), 14, https://archive.org/details/sim_die-mennonitische-rundschau_1970-04-15_93_15/page/14/mode/2up.

Note 4: Friesen, Into the Unknown, 73.

Note 5: George Braun and Margaret Siemens Braun, Follow the Black Lines, p. 55 (courtesy of Dave Loewen).

Note 6: Helen Dueck, Durch Trübsal und Not (Winnipeg, MB: Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies, 1995), 79f., https://archive.org/details/durch-truebsal-und-not/mode/2up.

Note 7: N.N. (Lodsch) to SS-Sturmbannführer Sandberger, letter, December 26, 1939, Bundesarchiv R69/69, Blatt 2, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/6692a3a8-098c-440e-9d11-a42035ff6755/.

Note 8: February 3, 1944, Gesundheitsamt Kreises Schrimm (Warthegau), Blatt 59, slide 64, Unterbringung der Schwarzmeerdeutsche (see note 2).

Note 9: Connie Braun, The Steppes are the Colour of Sepia: A Mennonite Memoir (Vancouver, BC: Ronsdale Press, 2014), 136, https://archive.org/details/steppesarecolour0000brau/. 

Note 10: In Heinrich Bergen, ed., Einlage/ Kitschkas, 1789–1943: Ein Denkmal (Regina, SK: Self-published, 2008), 389.

Note 11: Selma Kornelsen Hooge and Anna Goossen Kornelsen, Life Before Canada (Abbotsford, BC: Self-published, 2018), 70.

Note 12: Dueck, Durch Trübsal und Not, 80.

Note 13: Medical Officer for District of Schieratz to the Governing President of Litzmannstadt, February 4, 1944, Unterbringung der Schwarzmeerdeutsche (see note 2).

Note 14: Chef des Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamtes-SS Günther Pancke to Himmler, December 20, 1939, letter, Bundesarchiv NS 2/60, Blatt 4, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/d90b9bc3-f8d2-441d-af46-36a23b3a5d11/; also reported by SS-Sturmbannführer Künzel, December 12, 1939, Blatt 16. In this context Künzel quotes Hitler extensively on racial value from his Mein Kampf (1931, pp. 448f.). On delousing and the concentration camps, see Himmler’s handwritten discussion point no. 7 with Oswald Pohl, December 5, 1939 in Lodz/Litzmannstadt, where he first discusses the idea of a “crematorium with a delousing installation.” In Bundesarchiv NS 19/1449, Blatt 16, https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/direktlink/5e0c3166-d1fa-4a25-8629-db0f7cd7b477/. Pohl was the Chief of the Main Bureau for Budget and Construction, and would later control 20 SS-run concentration and labour camps.

Note 15: See previous posts, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-small-town-near-auschwitz-chortitza.html; AND https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/10/eugenics-and-euthanasia-russian.html (other links forthcoming).

Note 16: Cited in Diether Götz Lichdi, Mennoniten im Dritten Reich. Dokumentation und Deutung (Weierhof/Pfalz: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein, 1977), 140f. https://archive.org/details/mennonitenimdrit0000lich/.

Note 17: Horst Hoffmeyer, “Die Lage der Rußlanddeutschen im Warthegau” 1944, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC, T-175, film 72, 2588975-983, 975.

Note 18: See previous post, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/08/mennonites-highly-attractive-and.html. Also see Andreas Strippel, NS Volkstumspolitik und die Neuordnung Europas: Rassenpolitische Selektion der Einwandererzentralstelle des Chefs der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (1939–1945) (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2011).

---

To cite this page: Arnold Neufeldt-Fast, "Delousing--Naked in Litzmannstadt (Lodz), 1943-44," History of the Russian Mennonites (blog), November 3, 2023, https://russianmennonites.blogspot.com/2023/11/delousingnaked-in-litzmannstadt-odz.html.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flooding as a weapon of war, 1657

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these maps speak volumes. In February 1657, the Swedish King Carolus Gustavus ordered an intentional breach of the embankments along the Vistula River to completely flood the villages of the Danzig Werder. See the vivid punctures and water flow in 1657 map below; compare with the 1730 maps with rebuilt villages and farms ( note 1 ). In Polish memory this war is appropriately remembered as "The Deluge". Villages in the Danzig Werder (delta) from which Mennonites immigrated to Russia include: Quadendorf, Reichenberg, Krampitz, Neunhuben, Hochzeit, Scharfenberg, Wotzlaff, Landau, Schönau, Nassenhuben, Mönchengrebin, and Nobel ( note 2 ). In the war the suburbs outside the gates of Danzig suffered most; Mennonites lived here in large numbers, e.g., in Alt Schottland and Stoltzenberg. First, these villages were completely razed by the City of Danzig to keep the invading Swedes from using the villages to their advantage in battle. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

“The way is finally open”—Russian Mennonite Immigration, 1922-23

In a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, leaders took a decision to work to remove the entire Mennonite population of some 100,000 people out of the USSR—if at all possible ( note 1 ). B.B. Janz (Ohrloff) and Bishop David Toews (Rosthern, SK) are remembered as the immigration leaders who made it possible to bring some 20,000 Mennonites from the Soviet Union to Canada in the 1920s ( note 2 ). But behind those final numbers were multiple problems. In August 1922, an appeal was made by leaders to churches in Canada and the USA: “The way is finally open, for at least 3,000 persons who have received permission to leave Russia … Two ships of the Canadian Pacific Railway are ready to sail from England to Odessa as soon as the cholera quarantine is lifted. These Russian [Mennonite] refugees are practically without clothing … .” ( Note 3 ) Notably at this point B. B. Janz was also writing Toews, saying that he was utterly exhausted and was preparing to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Formidable Fräulein Marga Bräul (1919–2011)

Fräulein Bräul left an indelible mark on two generations of high school students in the Mennonite Colony of Fernheim, Paraguay. Former students and acquaintances recall that Marga Bräul demanded the highest effort and achievements of her students, colleagues and of herself—the kind of teacher you either love or hate but will never forget! In March 1947, Marga was offered a position at the Fernheim Secondary School ( Zentralschule ). A recent refugee to Paraguay from war-torn Europe, she taught mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In 1952, she was the only female faculty member ( note 1 ). Marga wedded a strong commitment to academics with a passion for quality arts and crafts. She provided extensive extra-curricular instruction to students in handiwork and was especially renowned for her artwork—which included painting and woodworking— end of year art exhibits with students, theatre sets, and festival decorations. Marga’s pedagogical philosophy was holistic; she told Mennonite ed...
Post a Comment
Read more

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws.  It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mennonite “Displaced Persons” and MCC’s “Jewish Argument”

At the conclusion of the war Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) was fully aware that “their” 13,000-plus Russian Mennonite refugees in Germany did not qualify as displaced persons and for support from the International Refugee Organization. They were refused IRO “care and maintenance” as Soviet citizens, i.e., they were free to return home. MCC sought to convince the IRO that the Mennonite refugees were not “Soviet Germans” and--if they had became German citizens in Warthegau (also a disqualifier), it was done under duress ( note 1 ). Astonishingly MCC’s Europe Director Peter J. Dyck—later seen as the Moses of the Mennonites—proposed to top military personnel at US military headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany (USFET) in July 1946, that Mennonites be granted the same status as Jews as a persecuted people. “By a recent decree all Jews, regardless of their nationality, are automatically given the status of 'D.P.' [displaced person] on the grounds that they are victims of persecu...
Post a Comment
Read more

1929 Flight of Mennonites to Moscow and Reception in Germany

At the core of the attached video are some thirty photos of Mennonite refugees arriving from Moscow in 1929 which are new archival finds. While some 13,000 had gathered in outskirts of Moscow, with many more attempting the same journey, the Soviet Union only released 3,885 Mennonite "German farmers," together with 1,260 Lutherans, 468 Catholics, 51 Baptists, and 7 Adventists. Some of new photographs are from the first group of 323 refugees who left Moscow on October 29, arriving in Kiel on November 3, 1929. A second group of photos are from the so-called “Swinemünde group,” which left Moscow only a day later. This group however could not be accommodated in the first transport and departed from a different station on October 31. They were however held up in Leningrad for one month as intense diplomatic negotiations between the Soviet Union, Germany and also Canada took place. This second group arrived at the Prussian sea port of Swinemünde on December 2. In the next ten ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fraktur (or Gothic) font and Kurrent- (or Sütterlin) handwriting: Nazi ban, 1941

In the middle of the war on January 1, 1942, the Winnipeg-based Mennonitische Rundschau published a new issue without the familiar Fraktur script masthead ( note 1 ). One might speculate on the reasons, but a year earlier Hitler banned the use of the font in the Reich . The Rundschau did not exactly follow all orders from Berlin—the rest of the paper was in Fraktur (sometimes referred to as "Gothic"); when the war ended in 1945, the Rundschau reintroduced the Fraktur font for its masthead. It wasn’t until the 1960s that an issue might have a page or title here or there with the “normal” or Latin font, even though post-war Germany was no longer using Fraktur . By 1973 only the Rundschau masthead is left in Fraktur , and that is only removed in December 1992. Attached is a copy of Nazi Party Secretary Martin Bormann's official letter dated January 3, 1941, which prohibited the use of Fraktur fonts "by order of the Führer. " Why? It was a Jewish invention, apparent...
1 comment
Read more

The Flight to Moscow 1929

In 1926, my grandfather’s sister Justina Fast (b. 1896) and her husband Peter Görzen moved from Krassikow, Neu Samara (Soviet Union) to village no. 5 Dejewka, Orenburg. “We thought we would live our lives here with our children secure in the hands of God. But the times were becoming turbulent,” Justina recalled. In May 1929 they travelled back to Krassikow for Pentecost to visit with her mother, brothers and their families. But when they returned to their home, she writes, “… a large quota of grain was demanded of us. But we had nothing, and the harvest was not yet in. Then we heard that many were planning to move to Canada, including my three siblings with my mother, and my husband's three sisters too. My husband decided to go to Moscow first to see if it was possible and what was required for emigration. We made the decision to leave when the harvest was complete. At that time so many people were leaving [for Moscow], and early in September we sold everything we had. Only the b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Immigration to Canada, 1923: Background

In April 1921 Mennonites in the Caucasus and Don Region officially petitioned Moscow for permissions to emigrate—which Lenin had “flatly refused.” Their rationale was more than economic. “The disruption of economic conditions leads to impoverishment, which again goes hand in hand with the degradation of morals and has an alarming impact on our youth, who are also constantly exposed to the pressure of brutal and ruthless agitation on the part of those in power. … This decay of our spiritual and economic goods will only become greater and more ruinous.” ( Note 1 ) Later that year and some months before the large-scale feeding operations could begin in the Soviet Union, American Mennonite Relief (AMR) commissioner A.J. Miller petitioned the Soviet Embassy in London for exit permissions for 20,000 Mennonites ( note 1b) . He was unsuccessful. Nonetheless in a highly secretive meeting in Ohrloff, Molotschna on February 7, 1922, key Mennonite leaders took a decision to work toward the re...
Post a Comment
Read more