The World Jewish Congress announced Monday that it has obtained secret German war-time documents linking Kurt Waldheim directly to the deportation of Greek Jews to the Auschwitz death camp in 1944.
The documents, located at the federal archives in Freiburg, West Germany, show that the deportation of 2,500 Jewish men, women and children from the islands of Crete and Rhodes were carried out on the instructions of Waldheim’s intelligence headquarters unit, known as the “IC/AO” section. Waldheim was the deputy chief intelligence officer of the section.
The documents, the first to connect Waldheim directly to the deportation of Jews, contradict his repeated assertions that he knew nothing of the deportations at the time. Last March 7 he said in a cable to WJC president Edgar Bronfman that he had “never been informed” about them.
The documents, made public here the day before Waldheim is to be inaugurated as President of Austria, state that the removal of Jews from Crete and Rhodes was executed “upon the instructions” of the “IC/AO” section. The instructions, issued by Waldheim’s headquarters unit stated: “… deportation of Jews: End of July 1944. Deportation of Jews not having Turkish citizenship in the entire command territory (of the Commander of East Aegaies) upon instructions of the High Command of Army Group E IC/AO.”
As deputy chief of intelligence — a fact Waldheim acknowledged to the U.S. Justice Department in a memo last April 3 — he was “responsible for all operational intelligence and control of the intelligence staff.”
The Jews of Rhodes and Crete were rounded up during the final weeks of July, 1944, stripped of their possessions and transported to Auschwitz where they arrived in mid-August. Nearly all of them were killed.
A related secret document dated August II, 1944, described the hostile reaction of the non-Jewish populations of Crete and Rhodes to the deportation. It noted that “the evacuation of the Jews from the area under command” was received by local Greeks and Italians “with mixed feelings … In some cases the Germans were characterized as barbarians …”
The WJC renewed its call to U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese to place Waldheim on the “Watch List” of aliens excludable from admission to the United States.
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