The Protocol I

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The protocol of the meeting on 20 January 1942 – shown here as a reproduction – starts with a list of the participants. Section two describes the opening of the meeting. Reinhard Heydrich began by stating his remit and responsibility and the meeting’s aims. Then he continued with a report on the forced displacement of Jews so far. On page 3, this passage is announced as – and I quote – a ‘brief review of the struggle conducted so far against this foe’, a formulation which, in itself, already indicates the radical nature of the crimes alluded to. In general, the protocol’s language is deliberately designed to largely obscure the extent of injustice and violence. Mass killings planned and already carried out may well have been addressed, but any references to them in the protocol can only be found between the lines. For example, the second paragraph on page three mentions that the previous ‘task’ was to force– quote – ‘the Jews out of the living space (Lebensraum) of the German people’. Here, the implication is that forced displacement and looting, long declared as legal, are now to be supplemented by further additional measures which, even in the view of the perpetrators, were illegal.

The passage ends on page 5 of the protocol by pointing out that now even ‘emigration’ for Jews has been forbidden. With that, no avenues of escape were left. Section III of the protocol deals with the fate of Jews living in the German sphere of control – as you can hear if you key in 335.