The March 1942 Aktion: the first phase

German authorities assumed control of the 500 man Jewish Ordnungsdienst (police force) for the operation. The force was to assemble, screen, and transport a quota of 1,000 Jews a day, in close coordination with the unsuspecting Judenrat.(1) Beginning on 14 March, Jewish policemen gathered Jews on the basis of their documentation, the names on rolls kept of Jewish community welfare organization, or (in some instances) in settlement of personal scores. Each Jew's documents were first checked and the Ordnungsdienst delivered those lacking appropriate documentation to a school just beyond the Jewish residential district's boundary, the Sobieski School. The deportees filled the schoolrooms and police commissioner Dr. Ullrich rechecked the papers of the day's catch the same afternoon. Trains arrived each morning at a loading platform in the northwest part of the city (the Klepariv siding), directly opposite the Janowska forced labor camp. The selected Jews were moved to Klepariv, loaded aboard freight trains, and dispatched to their final destination.

Early in the operation, the Judenrat had an interest in securing the release of about 120 Jews, mainly specialists and other prominent members of the Jewish community. During the operation's first few days, Dr. Ullrich entertained requests for individual releases. By the third day of the deportation, about 17 March, the Sobieski School remained almost empty and the resettlement train departed Klepariv, not loaded with its quota of 1,000 Jews, but almost empty. Jewish witnesses reported after the war that Dr. Ullrich appeared unusually tense during that day's operation. On the fourth day, Dr. Ullrich did not appear at Sobieski to check papers and dispatch those selected.

SS-Untersturmführer Inquart arrived instead that afternoon (ca. 18 March) and immediately selected almost every Jew in the school for "resettlement," without concern for the status of their papers or appeals for exemptions. Inquart was the Jewish Referent on SSPF Katzmann's staff, and Katzmann's adjutant. The the civil administration police commissioner no longer oversaw the operation. Other SS men accompanying Inquart roamed Sobieski and beat the Jews awaiting transportation. SS men also oversaw the transfer of the Jews from the school to Klepariv (by truck, horse carts, or tram), and the loading of the Jews onto the trains that departed in the direction of District Lublin, to the northwest. The additional violence at Sobieski did not contribute to the attainment of the daily quota; Jews at risk rapidly disappeared into hiding, or acquired the documents necessary to avoid seizure by Jewish police.(2)

On about 20 March, SSPF Katzmann called a meeting with Inquart and a few leaders of the Judenrat. Dr. Landesberg (the Judenrat chairman) and the head of the Jewish police told Katzmann that their men were exhausted, and that there simply were no more undocumented or indigent Jews to be found. Dr. Ullrich, also in attendance, confirmed the difficulties reported. However, Katzmann was not sympathetic. He replied, Wenn ich mit meinem Kommando einsteige, dann werden nicht dreizig-, sondern hundert-tausand ausgesiedelt ["When I get involved with my detachment, not 30,000 but 100,000 will be resettled"].(3) For a couple more days after the meeting the round-ups continued haphazardly. Informers in the civil population reported the locations of Jews in hiding, information that made its way to the German security police.(4) Yet the results must have continued to disappoint Katzmann and Inquart, for no later than 24 March 1942, the SS and Police Leader unleashed his "detachment" against the city's Jews.
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(1) Statement of Dr. Ludwig Jaffe, 11.4.67, New York, Landesgericht Stuttgart Ks 5/65 [Röder et al.], 10060-10083, cited in Pohl, Judenverfolgung, 187. Jaffe is the principal source for the unfolding of the March Aktion in Lemberg that follows.

(2) DALO, R-12 / 1 / 41 / 10, Report (5th Comm.) on sweeps for Jews, 20.3.42. Jews were fleeing the residential district by way of Zamarstynivs'ka and Zhovkivs'ka streets to the Kryvchytsya and Zhovkva districts then leaving the area by car, according do the 5th Commissariat.

(3) Jaffe statement, op. cit. Jaffe participated in the meeting as a Judenrat member.

(4) DALO, R-12 / 1 / 41 / 10, Report (5th Comm.) on sweeps for Jews, 20.3.42. On 19 March, Ukrainian Police headquarters ordered (as Order No. 21) commissariats to report incidents of Jews in hiding that they had received since the start of the month. The 5th Commissariat responded the next day with four incidents involving more than six Jews within the precinct.
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