The August Frank memorandum of 26 September 1942 was a directive from
SS Lieutenant General ()
August Frank of the
SS concentration camp administration department (SS-WVHA). The memorandum provides a measure of the detailed planning that Frank and other
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
put into the carrying out of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
. It includes instructions as to the disposition of postage stamp collections and underwear of the murdered Jews. It is clear that the Nazis were intent in removing everything of value from their victims.
The memorandum contains an instruction that the
yellow stars that the Nazis forced Jews to wear on their clothing were to be removed before the clothing was redistributed to
ethnic Germans
, native_name_lang = de
, region1 =
, pop1 = 72,650,269
, region2 =
, pop2 = 534,000
, region3 =
, pop3 = 157,000
3,322,405
, region4 =
, pop4 = ...
whom the Nazis were
resettling into
occupied Poland
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...
. This memorandum, when it came to light after the war, played a key role in refuting Frank's claims that he had no knowledge that Jews were being murdered ''en masse'' in the extermination camps of
Operation Reinhard
or ''Einsatz Reinhard''
, location = Occupied Poland
, date = October 1941 – November 1943
, incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps
, perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...
.
Text of the memorandum
The top secret memorandum, printed in multiple copies, was sent to the Chief of the SS Garrison
Administration Lublin, and to the Chief of Administration Concentration Camp
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
among others. English translation, provided by the
Nuremberg Military Tribunal
The subsequent Nuremberg trials were a series of 12 military tribunals for war crimes against members of the leadership of Nazi Germany between December 1946 and April 1949. They followed the first and best-known Nuremberg trial before the Int ...
during the
Trials of War Criminals:
Notes
{{Authority control
1942 documents
Holocaust historical documents
Nazi SS
Operation Reinhard
Planning the Holocaust
September 1942 events