Report No. 51 to the Fürher

                       

                       

(Yad Vashem Collections, O.18, file no. 292)

This is a report from Heinrich Himmler to Hitler on the combatting of partisans in the Ukraine area. Many people will feel the need to point out the fact that the 363211 Jews executed are listed under the "Gang Helpers and Gang Suspects" (in this case, "gang" refers to partisan" section. This is true, but that doesn't mean those Jews were legitimately bandit helpers or in any way complicit with partisans. However, as shown by the analysis of the report done by Hanz Metzner, the population of the areas which saw around 85% of these killings was about 326,000, so the overwhelming majority of these Jews - many of whom were women and children - would have had to be helping partisans. That is, however, unlikely due to the fact that, as an armament inspector in Ukraine put it, 

"They [the Jews] tried to avoid anything that would displease the German administration. It is self-evident and not surprising that they hated the German administration and army at home. However, it cannot be proven that the Jews were involved in acts of sabotage... There were certainly some terrorists or saboteurs among them - just like among the Ukrainians. But it cannot be claimed that the Jews as such posed any danger to the German Wehrmacht."(PS-3257)

It is therefore extremely unlikely that the overwhelming majority of these areas' Jewish populations were partisans when the Jewish population of the Ukraine is described as being relatively compliant with German occupation, if only out of fear for their lives. By this point, 150,000-200,000 Jews have already been killed in the Ukraine area, as per the same document. It is thus inconceivable that all of these 363,211 Jews who were killed were partisans, when the Jewish population of Ukraine is described as being compliant out of fear.

So then why are the Jews killed labelled under "Gang helpers and Gang Suspects?"

Well, for starters, Nazi ideology placed all Jews under that category, whether they be infants, children, adults, or elderly. It is therefore not inconceivable for that ideological categorization of Jews to have seeped into this report, as it did in so many other reports, letters, and orders. It's also helpful to notice that the Jews are not listed under the sub-categories of Gang Helpers or Gang Suspects, but as their own category. The number of Jews killed also exceeds the total number of Gang Helpers and Gang Suspects combined.