Shoa's file (2) / תיק – שואה (2)

📜Lists of Jews in Estonian Camps

The document presents a personal testimony of great interest by Dr. Davudotzki about the fate of Jews in the concentration camps in Estonia during the Holocaust. In his testimony he details the names of the camps, the harsh living conditions, and the struggle of the medical staff with a typhus epidemic under the watchful eyes of the Nazis. Dr. Davudotzki describes the activities of the Jewish underground in the camps, the connections formed with partisans, and the desperate efforts to save lives. The text is interwoven with stories of human courage, such as that of the woman who secretly helped him, and provides an internal view of Jewish resistance and solidarity in the darkest moments. The testimony constitutes an important historical source for understanding the fate of the Jewish communities from Vilna and Hungary that were deported to this region.

Below is a comprehensive and detailed overview that integrates information from the sources regarding the system of concentration camps in Estonia during the Holocaust, focusing on deportations, daily life, underground activity, and the central figures who shaped the fate of the prisoners.

The camp system and deportations to Estonia

During the Second World War, Estonia served as a site of concentration and forced labor for thousands of Jews deported from across Europe. The system included about 25 concentration camps, among them major camps such as Vaivara (Vaivara), which served as the “main camp” where prisoners first arrived, Klooga (Klooga), Jägala (Jägala), Kuremäe (Kuremäe), and Goldfinz.

The population in the camps was diverse:

• Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia: Transports arrived from cities such as Berlin, Prague, and Frankfurt, and many of them were murdered in the camps of Jägala and Klooga (E24-1f, E24-2f).
• Jews from Lithuania: About 12,000 Jews were deported from the Vilna Ghetto and about 2,600 to 2,800 Jews from the Kovno Ghetto. These formed the central core of the camps in Estonia and were heavily involved in attempts at resistance.
• Other Jews: Testimonies indicate that Jews also arrived from France and Hungary.

Documentation and nominal lists

The sources provide chilling documentation of the victims. In a document containing the “lists of Jews murdered in the Estonian camps,” the personal details of dozens of Jews appear, including dates of birth and last places of residence (E24-1f). Dr. David Džobs, a key witness, recounts that he saw a detailed card index of the Klooga camp containing 2,400 names, among them the names of his wife, Miriam Džobs-Kaufman, and his sister, Shifra Džobs-Tzafa, who were murdered there.

The medical aspect: struggle within the inferno

Dr. David Džobs served as a physician in the camps and waged a daily struggle to save lives under impossible conditions. One of the most severe problems was the typhus epidemic. Dr. Džobs testifies that the Germans, headed by the cruel chief physician Dr. Pan-Botmann, carried out murderous selections (referred to as “10%”) and executed the sick in order to “cleanse” the camp.

In order to give prisoners hope and conceal their illnesses, the Jewish doctors invented improvised “medicines”:

• Miraculum (Miraculum): A solution prepared from plants and flowers (referred to as “the one with a thousand flowers”) intended to give prisoners a psychological sense of treatment.
• Panacea Therapeia (Panacea Therapeia): Another name given to the improvised medicines to conceal the lack of real medical means. Dr. Džobs even hid sick prisoners in the Kuremäe camp by falsifying medical diagnoses in order to save them from selection.

The Jewish underground and armed resistance

An organized Jewish underground operated in the Estonian camps, largely based on members of the F.P.O (United Partisan Organization) from Vilna and Kovno.

• Grisha Tzipinlovich (Grisha Tzipinlovich): A key figure in organizing the underground, who worked to establish contacts with Soviet and Estonian partisans and to prepare escape plans.
• Hirshke Glick (Hirshke Glick): The well-known poet stayed in the Goldfinz camp and continued writing poetry there as well. The sources note that he escaped to the forests but was apparently killed in an encounter with the Germans.
• Organization and armament: Prisoners tried to obtain weapons and even produced improvised knives from pieces of metal they found, which they hid in their clothing in case of a revolt.

The final events and the mass murder

Toward the end of the war, with the Soviet front approaching, the Germans began the systematic liquidation of the camps. The most famous massacre occurred in the Klooga camp, where about 2,400 people were murdered. Another murder event took place in Lagedi (Lagedi), where Jews were executed shortly before the final German retreat.

The testimony ends with a heavy sense of loss, but also of Jewish courage expressed in the medical struggle and underground organization in the heart of the Estonian darkness.

List of sources

• E24-1f : A numbered list including 82 names of Jews murdered in the Estonian camps with personal details.
• E24-2f : Testimony of Dr. David Džobs detailing statistical data on Klooga prisoners and deportations from Vilna and Kovno.

E24-1f

E24-2f

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