IBM and the Holocaust (76 page)

On March 2, 1943, the Bulgarian cabinet, still under intense pressure from Germany, ratified the number of trains to be allocated. A few days later, about 7,100 Macedonian Jews were pulled from their homes, congregated in tobacco warehouses, and later marched in long lines through the street. The women wore scarves and carried small bundles for the journey. The men carried larger objects on their backs. They walked passively with helpless expressions on their faces. At the end of the street was the railroad station, Bulgarian Railroads.
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In Thrace, the scenes were the same as more than 4,200 were marched to the boxcars. Standing before simple wooden tables, little children looked up with uncertainty as their parents gave their names to men in black uniforms jotting on note pads. Families crowded along the long ramp between the drab railroad building and the trains towering above them. Finally, they bustled into the cold boxcars for the long journey to a place they could not imagine.
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Pulling through the still snowy mountains, creating long curving lines of boxcars and cattle cars, Bulgarian Railroads delivered its freight to the Danube port of Lom. From there, the Jews were shipped by boat to Vienna. At Vienna, they were transferred to other trains en route to their final destination, Treblinka.
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With or without punch cards, efficiently or inefficiently, a determined Reich would have deported the doomed Greek Jews from Thrace and Macedonia. If locomotives and cattle cars were not available, Eichmann would have ordered a death march, as was done elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Even in the Bulgaria action, river barges were employed. But Berlin's most consistently used transport mode was rail. At the height of the deportations, Himmler beseeched his Minister of Transport, "If I am to wind things up quickly, I must have more trains. . . . Help me get more trains." Trains were Himmler's most valuable tool—and railroads were among IBM's most lucrative clients in Europe.
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February 14, 1945. With the war over in Bulgaria, IBM Geneva received permission from the American Consulate to re-establish relations with Watson Business Machines of Sofia. As they had in other countries, IBM NY asked for all financial records for the years 1942, 1943, and 1944. Datsoff, the manager, was asked to be sure to include a customer list reflecting "points installed and uninstalled to date" for review of Bulgaria's quota.
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On July 29, 1946, IBM NY filed a war compensation claim for losses sustained by its Bulgarian unit. The total was exactly $1,000 including $89 in damaged furniture and $836 for "time clock and typewriter supplies." The company also asked the State Department to help it regain control over its two bank accounts in Sofia.
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For IBM Bulgaria, the war was over.

IN THE NETWORK
of European railroads that delivered Jews to the Germans, Bulgarian Railroads was but a minor player. The Polish railroads transported millions to their fate, either to ghettos, forced worked sites, or the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka. IBM's subsidiary in Poland, Watson Buromaschinen GmbH, serviced the railroads as its main account. Other IBM machines not used for the railways were moved into nearby
Maschinelles
Berichtwesen
field offices or into Germany for service there.
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When the war was over, IBM NY made a priority of recovering the machines and assets of the machines used in Poland. In government filings, the company listed its prewar subsidiary, Watson Business Machines on Ossolinskich 6, not the one it incorporated during the German occupation under the name Watson Buromaschinen GmbH on Kreuzstrasse 23. Nor did IBM list its print shop across from the Warsaw ghetto at Rymarksa 6. But IBM NY did entreat the State Department and military liaisons to help recover its bank accounts, including two at Bank Handlowy and one at Bank Emosyjny, as well as deposits in a post office credit account. Even after Poland was liberated, when Polish machines transferred to Germany proper were used, the Berlin-based enemy property custodian made sure IBM's leasing fees were protected. He opened an additional account at Deutsche Bank to deposit those remittances.
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After more than two years of liaison through the State Department, IBM straightened out which of its machines in Poland belonged to Dehomag and which to the Polish unit. With the Holleriths back and its money recouped, the war was over for IBM Poland.

OPERATING IN
Nazi Europe took fortitude by IBM. But the company was willing to provide service anywhere its Holleriths were needed. Frequently, this meant working with regimes that tolerated the most barbaric renegades, and doing business in areas subject to the most tempestuous military upheaval. Yugoslavia was an example. Germany and its Axis cohorts dismembered Yugoslavia into regions occupied by German, Italian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian forces. Hitler also supported the breakaway region of Croatia, which was the scene of Ustashi tortures.
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But local conditions, no matter how atrocious, were always put aside. On January 3, 1942, for instance, the
New York Times
prominently described the horrible bloodlust underway in Croatia. The article reported what it termed " 'only a pale picture' of the ghastly reign of terror . . . [where] hundreds of persons were killed, but before they died many of them had their ears and noses cut off and then were compelled to graze on grass. The tortures most usually applied were beating, severing of limbs, gouging of eyes and breaking of bones. Cases are related of men being forced to hold red-hot bricks, dance on barbed wire with naked feet, and wear wreaths of thorns. Needles were stuck in fingers under the nails and lighted matches were held under noses."
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The area's most savage concentration camp was at Jasenovac where unspeakable crimes were committed by Ustashi guards. Jasenovac was situated on the Belgrade-Zagreb railroad line.
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Despite any horrors, IBM continued its thriving enterprise in Yugoslavia, known as Yugoslav Watson AG. Before America entered the war, IBM NY had been shipping Belgrade as many as 3 million punch cards annually. In 1942, the German enemy custodian appointed IBM's manager, Vilimir Bajkic, to remain in charge of the subsidiary. Bajkic was to coordinate with Germany's military commander in the area. Dr. Veesenmayer, Hitler's personal representative to the Dehomag advisory committee, was a close ally of the Ustashi during their reign of terror. Throughout the war, IBM cards and tabulators were used mainly by the Yugoslav army, the Ministry of Commerce, and Yugoslav railways. As in other Balkan states, IBM had made arrangements to service the military machines in remote locations after war broke out.
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Just before the Russians finally overran Yugoslavia in October 1944, many of the subsidiary's machines were hastily relocated to German territory, transferred to the nearest
MB
field office, or placed at the disposal of the German Navy. IBM's people in Belgrade forwarded the billing records to Germany before the Russians arrived. Hence, the Reich could continue lease payments into a special custodial account opened in Berlin at the Deutsche Bank. The Reich's last regular payment to Yugoslav Watson, issued April 3, 1945, remitted RM 3,114.15. On April 20, 1945, with the Red Army at the outskirts of Berlin, the enemy custodian submitted a special invoice of RM 51,970.24 for various services. Wehrmacht paymasters remitted the money just before the collapse of the Third Reich, but in the turmoil, the custodian could not deposit the check. Instead, he kept it safe, and later, on August 2, 1945, handed it to Capt. Arthur D. Reed, the U.S. Army's Property Control Officer, for transmission to IBM NY.
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But IBM NY needed all its Yugoslav assets restored. So it asked the U.S. military and State Department contacts to help it recover eighteen specified sorters, tabulators, and alphabetizers moved from its Yugoslavian unit to Germany; serial numbers were provided. The company also asked the State Department to reclaim its bank account at Jugobanka in Belgrade.
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For IBM Yugoslavia, the war was over.

IN THE EARLY
morning hours of August 25, 1944, the bells of Notre Dame began to clang. Soon the other churches joined in welcoming the liberation of Paris. The next day, German POWs, their hands atop their heads, were led through the streets as Parisians celebrated their regained freedom.

On September 6, 1944, CEC Director Roger Virgile and Sales Manager Gabriel Lavoegie were arrested by French Forces of the Interior [FFI]. No charges were levied. Virgile had worked closely with Nazi agents and the Paris office of the
MB,
known as
MB West.
He also coordinated with Dehomag's custodian, working out lucrative leasing arrangements for IBM machines transported from France to Germany, occupied Czechoslovakia, and Poland. By mid-1943, CEC was holding Nazi orders totaling more than FF 38 million, or RM 760 million; of this amount FF 7.4 million had already been advanced.
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Virgile was released briefly, but then re-arrested on September 19 along with CEC Assistant Sales Manager Pierre Bastard. Other CEC officials feared they would be arrested as well. The American Embassy was notified and an urgent cable was sent to Watson. During the next few weeks, efforts to obtain the release of CEC staffers were unsuccessful. Watson was kept informed.
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By October 17, 1944, William Borel, who had been appointed interim manager, wired Watson through the Embassy that IBM staffers were still in jail. "With your intervention, we sincerely hope that the company will soon be operating normally. Two days later, Borel cabled Watson again that key people were "investigating situation which appears to have several angles. Everything is being done to clarify the whole matter."

Shortly thereafter, IBMers were suddenly released. Lavoegie resigned and Virgile took leave from the company. No charges were ever preferred. CEC resumed normal business by November 2, 1944. Even though General Ruling 11 was still in effect, the subsidiary began sending IBM NY copies of new orders through "various channels."
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About a year later, Captain Gamzon, a Jewish officer from the French resistance was speaking to the United Jewish Appeal charity in New York. The UJA was raising funds to assist decimated Jewish populations in Europe. The
New York Times
reported his remarks under the headline "Jews in France Saved by Others." The article reported, "Almost all surviving Jews in France owe their lives to non-Jews who risked everything to save them from the Nazis when they overran and occupied that country. . . . Captain Gamzon, a former leader of the Maquis of France . . . told the delegates that it can be said without exaggeration that any Jew now living in France has been saved at one time or another by a non-Jew—by the police, who made believe they did not see those wanted by the Nazis, and by others; many of them French officials who furnished false ration and identification cards to Jews who were successfully hidden in the various districts. The children specially have been saved, he said, by a people touched and saddened by the deportation of entire families."
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