IBM and the Holocaust (64 page)

When one list was not up-to-date, the Germans asked for a revision—again and again until perhaps on the fourth revision the names were complete.
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In many cases, Nazi agents merely waited to abduct those Jews who ventured to the constantly watched UGIF office.
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Although many Parisian Jews feared appealing to the UGIF for assistance, at some point of economic, emotional, or familial desperation, a number would risk the approach. All too often, that contact would presage their apprehension. The UGIF's efforts to comply with German demands for continually updated names could only be described as relentless.
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For example, in July 1942, the UGIF
Bulletin
published a notice regarding the children of incarcerated parents. These children, living in terror, were essentially being hidden by family friends and relatives. "We are composing a central listing," read the UGIF notice, "of all those Jewish children whose parents were arrested recently. If the children were taken in by a private organization or by individual families, and you have knowledge of this, we request you let us know immediately." The notice was published within the framework of UGIF welfare services that sought to render financial assistance to abandoned or orphaned Jewish children.
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However, in a telling rebuttal some weeks later, another quasi- sanctioned Jewish organization aligned with the resistance declared: if welfare assistance to the displaced children involved produced a list of the families who have taken them in, the UGIF should not bother.
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Later, when the UGIF tried to impose a special head tax to finance a new UGIF census, the underground press condemned it in no uncertain words.

NOTICE FROM THE JEWISH UNDERGROUND

In order to participate in the expenses of the Union Generale des Israelites en France, and to compensate for the insufficient voluntary contributions, all Jews . . . will be subject to a head-tax of 120 francs for the occupied zone, and 360 francs for the non-occupied zone. . . . The tattletaling . . . enterprise created by the Gestapo needs money and, filled with audacity, imposes a contribution upon its victims, "whose voluntary contributions" are insufficient—and with good reason. . . . Everyone knows how the UGIF helps the unfortunates. Like in Paris, where she turns over to the Gestapo the children entrusted to her care; like in Marseilles where the Jews who go to collect their dole are immediately attacked by the Gestapo, forewarned by this organization of traitors. . . . Solidarity is practiced by the Jews . . . [but not by] the traitors who want one more chance to earn the salary their masters in Vichy and Berlin allocate for them, by organizing a new census of the Jews. For this is also the meaning of the new contribution. . . .

Boycott this new census! Do not give a penny to the UGIF!

Not a penny to the Germans!
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In July 1942, Eichmann arrived in Paris with direct orders from Himmler. All the Jews of France—foreign or native-born—were to be immediately sent to camps. Eichmann began personally supervising the systematic deportation of Jews. Berlin had assigned 37,000 freight cars, 800 passenger cars, and 1,000 locomotives to Occupied France. But local authorities were constantly falling short on the quotas.
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On July 15, one train could not leave on time. Eichmann was outraged, calling the missed departure "disgraceful" in view of how much effort had gone into the schedule. A Nazi official assigned to the Jewish solution recalled the moment: Eichmann threatened, the Nazi recalled, that perhaps he might "drop France entirely as a country to be evacuated." The beleaguered Nazi promised Eichmann no more trains would be late. Frantic local officials did everything they could to comply with Eichmann's obsessive demand for Jews. Hence all attempts to create a hierarchy of exemptions within the French ultra-conservative mindset, such as for women or children, or French nationals or war veterans—these all quickly eroded.
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Typical was the frenzy exhibited by one French policeman when he scribbled a note on September 12, 1942: "Under our current obligation to come up with one thousand deportees on Monday, we must include in these departures . . . the parents of sick [children] and advise them that they could be deported, with their child remaining in the infirmary."
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Throughout 1942, the Germans must have wondered what had happened to Carmille's operation. GCJQ Commissioner Vallat had assured the Ministry of the Interior that Carmille would provide "day-to-day maintenance of the file using perfected tabulation processes. . . . our Services will have permanent access to an updated database for its work." To this end, Carmille had been given a card file of 120,000. He had the only copy. There was no duplicate.
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But Carmille continued a mystery.

In October 1943, Rene Carmille traveled under an assumed name to the town of Annemasse, near the Swiss border, for a secret meeting with relatives of Emile Genon, director of IBM Belgium. Genon was now stationed in Geneva and had been assigned by IBM NY to maintain up-to-date information on all European subsidiaries being operated by German-appointed custodians. Genon wanted intelligence about Westerholt, the SS man appointed CEC trustee. What were his strengths and weaknesses? Carmille gladly provided it, as he needed the continued help of IBM for his punch card operation. Indeed, just after the War, Watson would dispatch a personal emissary and long-time aide, J. J. Kenney, to meet with Carmille's widow in Paris at the Hotel Georges V. At that post-war meeting, Kenney extended Watson's personal thanks for Carmille's regular information.
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Clearly, Carmille was running an active tabulator operation. Why wasn't he producing the Jewish lists?

By November 8, 1942, the Americans, along with some British troops, had landed in Algeria. As many hoped, local French forces joined the Allied campaign against Hitler. On December 5, 1942, French forces seized the entire National Statistics Service branch office in Algiers. Using Carmille's system of tabulators and punch card files, DeGaulle's people were able to organize a seemingly miraculous rapid mobilization of thousands of Frenchmen and others into specific units. As soon as January 17, 1943, the loyal French elements in Algeria were ready to fight as a cohesive and efficient army.
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Instantly mobilized French forces in Algeria fiercely fought the German army along the Algerian-Tunisian border until the Reich was dislodged. It was the beginning of the end of Hitler's army in North Africa. Those French units proceeded to Italy and continued to fight throughout the war.
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The Germans could not understand how the French army in Algeria was assembled so quickly. Carmille's office there had only been tracking Jews, farm workers, and general laborers.

Just days after the French mobilized in Algeria the Nazis discovered that Carmille was a secret agent for the French resistance. He had no intention of delivering the Jews. It was all a cover for French mobilization.

SECTION III F

German Intelligence

The Section received from Paris a dossier in which there was found information about a special bureau in Lyon which, under the cover of a census of the population, was in fact a secret mobilization office. We had been informed that nearly all the directors of that office were General Officers or Superior Officers [of the resistance]. The Demographic Office could find, in a matter of moments, using special cards, all the specialists (Aviators, Tank Drivers, Mechanics, etc. . . . [both the] officers and enlisted personnel) needed to make up organized units. . . . This was not a census bureau but rather an office of mobilization.

Walter Wilde  
special agent
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Carmille had deceived the Nazis. In fact, he had been working with French counter-intelligence since 1911. During the worst days of Vichy, Carmille was always considered one of the highest-placed operatives of the French resistance, a member of the so-called "Marco Polo Network" of saboteurs and spies. Carmille's operation had generated some 20,000 fake identity passes. And he had been laboring for months on a database of 800,000 former soldiers in France who could be instantly mobilized into well-planned units to fight for liberation. Under his plan, 300,000 men would be ready to go. He had their names, addresses, their military specialties, and all their occupational skills. He knew which ones were metal workers specializing in curtain rods, and which were combat-ready troops.
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As for column 11 asking for Jewish identity, the holes were never punched—the answers were never tabulated.
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More than 100,000 cards of Jews sitting in his office—never handed over.
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He foiled the entire enterprise.

Two punch cards were secretly obtained and sent to Gestapo headquarters at Hotel Lutetia in Paris. Carmille was exposed. Some German officers demanded his immediate arrest along with the fourteen-member senior staff of the National Statistics Services. But German intelligence officer Wilde reasoned that someone needed to run the tabulators so that crucial work brigades could still be marshaled to Germany. After all, the strictly occupational information was indeed up-to-date. So Carmille was allowed to continue his operation. But automated Jewish information was now beyond Nazi reach.
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Suspecting he was under suspicion, Carmille nonetheless fearlessly addressed the 1943 graduating class of the Polytechnic School in Paris where his remarks could easily be overheard:

"No power in the world," he exhorted them, "can stop you from remembering that
you are the heirs of those who defended the country of France, from those who stood
on the bridge of Bouvines . . . to those who fought at the Marne. Remember that!

"No power in the world can stop you from remembering that you are the heirs of
Cartesian thought, of the mysticism and mathematics of Pascal, of the clarity of the
writers of the 16th Century, and the perennial accomplishments of the 19th Century
thinkers, all this—in France. Remember that!

"No power in the world can stop you from realizing that your institution has
furnished the world with [great] thinkers . . . that freedom of thought has always
existed . . . with rigor and tenacity. Remember that!

"No power in the world can stop you from knowing that the motto inscribed in
gold letters on the pavilion: 'For Country, For Knowledge, and For Glory,' and the
weighty heritage that constitutes the immense work of your ancestors, is for you a
categorical imperative which must guide your path of conduct. Remember that!

"All this is written in your soul, and no one can control your soul, because your
soul only belongs to God."
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In early 1944, SS security officers ordered Carmille arrested. He was apprehended in Lyon at noon on February 3, 1944. He was taken to the Hotel Terminus where his interrogator was the infamous Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. Barbie was despised as a master of torture who had sadistically questioned many members of the resistance. Carmille went for two days straight under Barbie's hand. He never cracked.
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ON JUNE 11, 1942
, Germany had ordered 15,000 Jews immediately deported from Holland. Eichmann's people used the word "evacuated." The ultimate destination for Dutch Jewry would be the death camps of Auschwitz and Sobibor.
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France's quota was 100,000 drawn from both Zones. But Theodor Dannecker, Eichmann's assistant in Paris, realized he could never meet his quota. On June 22, 1942, the numbers suddenly changed.
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France's new quota was reduced to 40,000 Jews. Holland's was increased to 40,000.
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Holland's Hollerith program under Lentz was a model of efficiency. By March of 1944,
Waffen
-SS commanders in The Hague had ordered a new bombproof facility for Lentz' Population Registry. The new center was to be laced with bunkers to protect the Holleriths and their precious cards. Separate punching, tabulating, and alphabetizing rooms were arranged around a massive punching pool. One corner office was designated just for "lost cards." Administrative and control offices completed the complex.
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