Fabrikaktion

Fabrikaktion (fabʁi:kakt͡sjoːn, 'Factory Action') is the term for the last major roundup of Jews for deportation from Berlin, which began on February 27, 1943, and ended about a week later. Most of the remaining Jews were working at Berlin plants or for the Jewish welfare organization. The term Fabrikaktion was coined by survivors after World War II; the Gestapo had designated the plan Große Fabrik-Aktion (Large Factory Action). While the plan was not restricted to Berlin, it later became most notable for catalyzing the Rosenstrasse protest, the only mass public demonstration of German citizens which contested the Nazi government's deportation of the Jews . In September 1942 there were about 75,800 German Jews working in the arms industry. The Nazi government informed factory owners that their remaining Jewish workers, even those married to Germans, were going to be deported to labor camps and that the government would work swiftly to replace them with forced laborers from the east; the owners were to prepare for this transition. The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) took action planning multiple deportation trains to Riga and Auschwitz. Because the war consumed most of the transportation capacity the deportations were not performed immediately, but the factories were informed that their Jewish labour workers would be "evacuated" at the end of March 1943. At the beginning of 1943, the plan included 15,100 Jewish workers in Berlin and 5,300 outside of the capital with most of them living in major cities or labour camps. On 20 February 1943, SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann (a main architect of the Holocaust) and head of sub-department (Referat IV B4) of the RSHA issued details on the "technische Durchführung der Evakuierung von Juden nach dem Osten" (Technical Procedures for the Evacuation of Jews to the East).