Murder Story of Zheleznovodsk Jews at the Glass Factory in Mineralnyye Vody (Gas Vans)

Upon the orders of the commandant, all the Jews of Zheleznovodsk had to wear a white armband with a blue-and-white Zionist star on their right arm. The Jews were completely disenfranchised. Their complaints were routinely ignored. The soldiers of the garrison of the town of Zheleznovodsk mercilessly abused the Jews, beating them and robbing them of their property. The soldiers of the first SD unit would raid the Jews' apartments, stealing all their possessions and money. An elderly Polish woman lived in the building next to the military post office, near Kleist's headquarters. The POW and his comrade Franz Lidtke visited her and gave her their laundry to wash. This woman worked at one of the sanatoriums. She told the POW that the soldiers of Kleist's army had entered her apartment and wanted to take all of her belongings. However, when she had convinced the soldiers that she was not a Jew, but a Catholic, they left her alone. Sergeant Beme, who belonged to the second company of the 45th Cycle Battalion of the Ukrainian Guard, was particularly active in looting Jewish property. With the help of his soldiers, he took the Jews' gold watches, jewelry, money, clothes, and other valuable objects that could be shipped. Beme sent the looted property to Germany very frequently. While the packages could not exceed one kilogram in weight, there was no restriction on the number of packages, and Beme tried to mail them as quickly as possible. He ordered his soldiers to look for valuable things, such watches, jewelry, cameras, etc. Like Beme, many other German soldiers sent the money that they had looted from the Jews home to Germany. The German military post accepted Soviet currency at a rate of ten rubles to one Reichsmark.