New Evidence of Waldheim’s Past

It was nearly impossible for Austrian Presidential candidate Kurt Waldheim to have not known about the deportation of thousands of Greek Jews from Salonika when he was based near that city as a Wehrmacht officer during World War II, two Austrian news publications charged Monday.

Further, both the Socialist daily Neue Az and the weekly news magazine Profil published reports which are said to link Waldheim’s Nazi military unit, Abteilung IC of Heeresgruppe E, to later deportations of Greek Jews from the Aegean Islands.

The reports are part of the mounting allegations against the former United Nations Secretary General asserting that he had lied about his past war-time activities. The conservative Presidential candidate has vehemently denied the charges and said in a weekend interview that the defamatory campaign against him has finally collapsed.

LOCAL WITNESSES QUESTIONED

Neue Az and Profil both said, based on research in Greece, that it was impossible for Waldheim to have known nothing of the ghettos and transports. The publications’ reporters had questioned local witnesses in Salonika and in the small nearly village of Arsaki, where the staff headquarters of Heeresgruppe E was situated during the war.

“It was impossible that he did not know anything,” said Leon Benmajor, the 70-year-old president of the tiny Jewish community of Salonika. Another woman, Hella Kunjo, an 80-year-old Karlsbad resident married to a Greek Jew, added: “He must be crazy.”

The deportation of almost 50,000 Jews from Salonika was a major operation. At least one-fourth of the population of that Greek town was first forced to wear the large yellow Star of David, then rounded up in ghettos, moved to a central camp, and then in railroad cars to the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen.

According to the reports, this completely changed the character of Salonika, where the Jewish population had not lived in secluded quarters but was spread all over the town. After the deportations, shops, stores and offices in the town were deserted, and trade almost broke down.

Waldheim has always contended that he had not known anything about those deportations until earlier this year when his unit was connected with them in the media. He argued that the headquarters where he served on the staff of General Alexander Loehr had been off in the mountains, and he had been unable to take notice of anything.

FINDINGS BY REPORTERS

The two Austrian reporters found that the staff building was situated well above Salonika with a scenic view of the city and no obstacles in between. Large transports must have been visible from the headquarters structure, they argued in the reports.

Inhabitants of Arsaki, which has been renamed Panorama, told the reporters that since not very many of them were willing to work for the Germans, townspeople would come up to do the cooking and cleaning. They must have reported about the goings-on down there, they added.

Another witness, who was quoted in both the Profil and Neue Az reports, was a Greek collaborator with the Germans who is still not accepted among the local population. Asked whether the German officers, whom he described as noble and educated men, had known something about the deportations, he said, “Of course they knew. Every small child would know, every dog, every cat.”

Local newspapers at that time also mentioned the deportations. The Greek paper, New Europe, wrote, “Finally the cleaning has begun. Since yesterday the Jews are leaving our town. They were our enemies, and this we do not mind. No one minds if he gets rid of an enemy or of a disease.”

The news publications also said that while Waldheim’s unit was not directly involved in the deportations from Salonika, it had been directly informed about the action by Adolf Eichmann. According to Neue Az and Profil, Eichmann was in Salonika in February 1943 to give orders for the deportations. At the meeting, an officer from Abteilung 1C was present, the publications said.

Despite not having played a role in the deportation of Jews from Salonika, Waldheim’s unit is alleged to have played a role in the deportation of Jews from the Aegean Islands in 1944. Both publications quoted military documents released in Freiburg, West Germany, where the East Aegean commander ordered the Heeresgruppe E to begin the deportation of all Jews who had no Turkish citizenship.

It was Waldheim’s task to deal with such reports, Profil charged. Neither Waldheim nor Herbert Warnstorff, who, as Lieutenant Colonel was then the commanding officer of Abteilung 1C, remember those reports.