TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter VI: National-Socialist Policy of Jewish Emigration 181
for the resettlement of the Jews to the east African island and the supervision
of the evacuated Jews. 512
This, then, was the “territorial final solution” of the Jewish question that
Heydrich had in mind.
2. The Madagascar Plan 513
On August 30, 1940, Rademacher prepared the note “Madagaskar-Projekt,”
in which the section “Finanzierung” (Financing) begins with the following
words: 514
“The execution of the proposed final solution requires substantial
means.”
The ‘final solution of the Jewish question’ therefore meant nothing other
than the resettlement of the European Jews to Madagascar. On July 12, 1940,
Hans Frank, Governor General of Poland, gave a speech, in which he announced
the decision 515
“to deport the entire Jewish tribe in the German Reich, in the General
Gouvernement, and in the Protectorate within the shortest time imaginable
after the conclusion of peace to an African or American colony. Madagascar,
which is supposed to be ceded by France for this purpose, is under
consideration.”
On July 25, Frank repeated that the Führer had decided to deport the
Jews, 516
“as soon as the overseas traffic permits the possibility of the transportation
of the Jews.”
In October 1940, Alfred Rosenberg wrote an article entitled “Juden auf
Madagaskar” (Jews to Madagascar), in which he recalled that as early as the
anti-Jewish Congress of Budapest in 1927
“[…] the question of a future forced evacuation of the Jews out of
Europe [was] discussed, and there for the first time surfaced the proposal
of promoting Madagascar as the future home of the Jews.”
Rosenberg took up the proposal and expressed his wish that “Jewish highfinance”
of the USA and Great Britain might also contribute to the establish-
512
NG-2586-J.
513
A detailed complete study of this question is Magnus Brechtken’s “Madagaskar für die Juden”:
Antisemitische Idee und politische Praxis 1895-1945, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich
1998.
514
NG-2586-D.
515
PS-2233. IMT, vol. XXIX, p. 378.
516
PS-2233. IMT, vol. XXIX, p. 405.