TheNisko Plan was an operation to deport Jews to theLublin District of theGeneral Governorate of occupied Poland in 1939. Organized byNazi Germany, the plan was cancelled in early 1940.
The idea for the expulsion and resettlement of the Jews of Europe[1] into a remote corner of theGeneralgouvernement territory, bordering the cities ofLublin andNisko, was devised byAdolf Hitler and formulated by his SS henchmen. The plan was developed in September 1939, after theinvasion of Poland, and implemented between October 1939 and April 1940, in contrast to similar Nazi "Madagascar" and other Jewish relocation plans that had been drawn up before the attack on Poland, at the beginning of World War II.[2][3][4] It bore similarities to the AmericanIndian reservations.[5]
Hitler devised the idea with the help of Nazi chief ideologistAlfred Rosenberg andReichsführer-SSHeinrich Himmler, including the participation ofSS-ObersturmbannführerAdolf Eichmann ("architect of theHolocaust"); as well asHeinrich Müller of theGestapo, and Governor-GeneralHans Frank and deputy governorArthur Seyss-Inquart of theGeneralgouvernement administration.GruppenführerOdilo Globocnik, the formerGauleiter ofVienna who was appointed theSS and Police Leader of the new Lublin District, was put in charge of the reservation. During the early implementation of the plan, the Nazis set up a system of ghettos for Jewish civilians to use them asforced labor for the German war effort. The firstforced labor camps were established for theBurggraben project intended to fortify theNazi–Soviet demarcation line and to supply the local SS units at Lublin from Lipowa.[3][6]
In total, about 95,000 Jews were deported to the Lublin reservation.[7] The main camp of the entire complex was set up inBełżec initially (before the construction ofdeath camps) for Jewish forced labor. In March 1942, it became the first Naziextermination camp ofOperation Reinhard, with permanentgas chambers arranged byChristian Wirth in fake shower rooms.[8] Though the Burggraben camps were temporarily closed in late 1940, many of them were reactivated in 1941. Two additional extermination camps,Sobibor andMajdanek, were later set up in the Lublin district. TheLipowa camp became a subcamp of the latter in 1943. The Nisko Plan was abandoned for pragmatic reasons; nevertheless, theZwangsarbeitslagers (German for "forced labor camps") already established forDAW became the industrial base of other SS projects such asOstindustrie. A number of them functioned untilAktion Erntefest, others beyond the massacres.[9]
Theantisemitic regime in Nazi Germany intended to achieve a permanent solution to what they regarded as the "Jewish question". Before theFinal Solution was announced and organised during theWannsee Conference of 20 January 1942, some top Nazis had envisioned aterritorial solution of the "Jewish question". However, except for the Nisko Plan, none of the territorial solutions progressed beyond the planning stage. Instead, the Nazi Germans implemented the near-complete extermination of theEuropean Jews through the Holocaust.
In late summer 1939, Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler, with one of his foremost Nazi ideologuesAlfred Rosenberg, developed the idea for a Jewish "reservation" (Judenreservat). The town ofLublin in Poland had been the focus of Nazi planners since the early 1930s, after Herrmann Seiffert described it as the center of Jewish worldwide power and source of their genetic potential.[10] AfterNazi Germany haddefeated Poland in September 1939 andpartitioned the country with the Soviet Union, the Lublin area became part of the Generalgouvernement headed byHans Frank.[11] Once under Nazi German control, the area was inspected by Frank's deputyArtur Seyss-Inquart in November 1939. He reported that – according to the local governor – the area, "swampy in its nature", would serve well as a reservation for Jews, and that "this action would cause [their] considerable decimation."[10] On 25 November, Frank informed the local administration that an influx of "millions of Jews" was proposed.[10] Also in November,Odilo Globocnik was put in charge of all issues regarding the Jews in the Lublin area, representing the SS as the area's SS and Police Leader.[10] Globocnik set up a department led by a Dr. Hofbauer to plan the settlement of the expected Jews and their conscription toforced labor.[10]
The original Lublin Reservation comprised an area of 800 to 1,000 square kilometres (300 to 400 square miles) located between theVistula andSan rivers, southeast of Lublin.[10] Adolf Eichmann, then head of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration for theProtectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was the first to realize the Nisko Plan by deporting Jews to the Lublin Reservation.[10][12] While initially the Jews ofEast Upper Silesia were to be deported there, Eichmann expanded the program to include Jews fromMährisch-Ostrau in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and fromVienna.[13] Eichmann also set up a transit camp inNisko, a town on the western border of the Lublin district, from which the deportees were to be expelled eastward.[13]
The first Jews were shipped to Lublin on 18 October 1939. The first train loads consisted of Jews deported fromAustria and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.[14] When the second and third transports were prepared, Heinrich Müller, on behalf of SS headHeinrich Himmler,[13] ordered on 19 October a suspension of further deportations.[13] HistorianChristopher Browning noted that Himmler's decision must be seen in correlation with his new position as chief coordinator of the resettlement ofethnic Germans to the formerPolish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, a position he held since 15 October. He suggested also that Himmler did not consider the deportation of Jews from all theThird Reich to be as urgent as providing space for theGeneralplan Ost resettlement of ethnic Germans into Nazi Germany's new eastern provinces.[13]
This priority shift resulted in focusing on the expulsion of Jews from these provinces to the Lublin reservation,[13] the contemporary resettlement of about 30,000 ethnic Germans from the Lublin district in the opposite direction,[13] and the resettlement of Jews living within the Generalgouvernement to the eastern bank of the Vistula.[13] Hitler approved of this priority shift: While in early October he had envisioned the short-term expulsion of all Jews from Vienna and 300,000 Jews from theAltreich to the Lublin reservation, in late October he approved Himmler's plans for deportation of 550,000 Jews from the new eastern provinces and all"Congress Poles", meaning Poles from the Soviet partition residing in the Third Reich, to the Lublin reservation.[13] While this would have resulted in short-term expulsions of one million people, this number was cut down for capacity reasons to 80,000 after intervention on 28 November 1939 by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of theReich Security Main Office.[13]
The reservation was not kept secret; the local population was aware and the international press reported on it.[15] Reports in theLuxembourgian paperLuxemburger Wort of 12 November and the British paperThe Times of 16 December 1939 both gave a total of 45,000 Jews deported to the reservation so far.[15] Also in December, the American paperThe Spectator reported the camps were enclosed by barbed wire on an area of 80 by 100 kilometres (50 by 60 miles) near Nisko and Lublin 105 km (65 mi) apart from each other, and prepared for an intake of 1,945,000 Jews.[15] An excerpt from aLuxemburger Wort report of November 1939 reads:
Sometimes trains drive on for forty kilometres beyond Lublin and halt in the open country, where the Jews alight with their luggage and have to find themselves primitive accommodation in the surrounding villages. —Luxemburger Wort newspaper.[16]
Historians estimate that by 30 January 1940, a total of 78,000 Jews had been deported to Lublin from Germany, Austria andCzechoslovakia.[17] This figure was given by Heydrich when he reported inBerlin in January. He stated the number would increase to 400,000 by the end of the year.[18] Among the Jews deported to the reservation in February 1940 were thePomeranian Jews,[19] resulting inGauleiterFranz Schwede-Coburg declaring hisPomeranian Gau the firstGau of the Altreich to bejudenrein ("cleansed of Jews"). The deportees were put under the authority of theJudenrat in neighboring Lublin.[20] By April, when the reservation was dissolved, the total number of Jews who had been transported to Nisko had reached 95,000.[21]
Many deportees had died due to starvation, either during the transport[19] or during their stay in the reservation.[21] Additional deaths in the reservation were caused bytyphus andtyphoid fever epidemics, the lack of housing and any "sources of livelihood", a situation the local Jews were not able to ease, despite their great efforts.[10]
From early 1940, some of the Jews deported to the Lublin area were held in theLipowa 7 camp.[22] These were deportees from the Altreich as well as fromReichsgau Danzig-West Prussia,Reichsgau Wartheland, andSouth East Prussia.[22] The Lipowa camp remained in place after the Lublin reservation was abandoned.[22] After January 1941, the Lublin Jews who earlier had resided outside the camp, were forced to live in the camp after its expansion.[22] Also in 1941, the camp was officially made part of the SS enterpriseDeutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW). Effectively it remained outside DAW control by staying under the direct aegis of Globočnik.[23] This changed only in 1943, after Globočnik resigned as the Lublin district SS-and-Police Leader and the camp became the sub-camp ofMajdanek concentration camp complex.[23]
When the Lublin reservation was planned, the reservation was to be combined with several forced labor camps (Zwangsarbeiterlager,ZALs) along theNazi–Soviet demarcation line. The reservation was to supply the ZALs with workforce to erect military defense facilities, including a large anti-tank ditch along the demarcation line code-namedBurggraben ("fortress' ditch"). While initially the SS headquarters had envisioned four large camps, governor Hans Frank refused to finance such a large project. Thus Odilo Globočnik decided instead to set up various small camps run at a lower cost. This resulted in desperate conditions: the inmates were crowded in dark and dirty rooms with no glass in the windows, had to sleep on the floor, the sick were not separated from the healthy, and the supply of food, water and soap was insufficient. About 30% of the inmates did not have shoes, pants, or shirts. This situation caused a rapid spread of lice and diseases. Of allBurggraben-ZAL-camps, the laterextermination campBełżec was the main camp. TheBurggraben project was abandoned in late 1940 due to pressure applied by the German military (Wehrmacht), who regarded it to be of no military use. Heinrich Himmler, however, disagreed and continued to support the project. While theBurggraben camps had been closed in late 1940, some were reinforced in spring 1941 on Himmler's initiative and again put under Globočnik's supervision to finish the anti-tank ditch.[24]
On 23 March 1940,Hermann Göring with Himmler's approval put a hold on the Nisko Plan, and by the end of April, final abandonment was announced by Krüger.[10][25] Reasons for the abandonment included Frank's refusal to accept further influx of deportees into "his" General-Government which he viewed as overcrowded, and the fear the Nazis would lose international reputation due to the international press reports.[10] The rationale of the abandonment was not one of principle, but a pragmatic one, and deportations continued at a slower pace.[10]
In thefunctionalism versus intentionalism debate, which began in the 1960s, the Nisko Plan was brought up by Holocaust historians as an example of escalation of the Nazi anti-Jewish measures in World War II.Christopher Browning in his article, "Nazi Resettlement Policy and the Search for a Solution to the Jewish Question, 1939–1941", focused on the presumed Nazi intention forterritorial solutions preceding the subsequent genocide.[26] Nevertheless, already at the beginning of war, on 24 October 1939The Times noted that the German plan to create a Jewish state was cynical, and would surely doom the Jews to a deadly famine.[27] Most historians of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust have concluded that the Nisko Plan was integrally related to Hitler's other programs and hisintent to destroy the Jews in Europe. Thus the Nisko Plan was a preface to theFinal Solution.[13]
Browning has suggested that the Nisko Plan was an example that Hitler did not have previous intentions for the gassing of the Jews. He contends that the Nisko (or Lublin) Plan,Madagascar Plan andPripet Marsh Plan, all served as territorial solutions to the Jewish question, but were separate from the Final Solution. Mainstream historians contend that Hitler and his government formulated an issue out of the "Jewish question", raised broad anti-semitism in Germany, and created the need for a type of "territorial solution" which could only result in a genocide.[13]
Under this plan, the Nazis would deport all the Jews of Europe to a specific region near Lublin, where they would be consolidated, much like the Native Americans reservations in the United States.
Lublin Headquarters.
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