being sent on to their deaths in Belzec. In this way, many Jews were temporarily spared death and instead relegated to forced labor. Hermann Höfle was one of the chief supporters and implementers of this policy. Höfle personally oversaw the deportation of the Warsaw Ghetto, the so-called Großaktion Warschau. The operation was preceded on 20 and 21 July 1942 by a spree of randomly killing actions along the streets of the Ghetto and by the arrest and brutal imprisonment of many others taken as hostages among counselors, department managers and those connected in a way or another to the Judenrat. All this was to intimidate and soften the Judenrat to the new upcoming measures. The day after, in the morning of 22 July, Sturmbannführer Höfle, accompanied by an entourage of SS and government officials, arrived at the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto and announced to the chairman, Adam Czerniaków, that the Jews, regardless of sex or age and with but a few exceptions, were to be evacuated to the East. The exceptions were workers in German factories who had valid work permits, Judenrat employees, the Jewish Order Service, hospital patients and employees, and the families of the exempt. The deportees were allowed to carry with them 15 kg of baggage, food for three days, money, gold, and other valuables. The order also called for 6,000 Jews to report to the Umschlagplatz every day by 4 p.m. to board the trains for deportation. Adam Czerniaków wrote in his diary on 22 July 1942 (he committed suicide the next day): Höfle also played a key role in the Harvest Festival massacre of Jewish inmates of the various labour camps in the Lublin district in early November 1943. Approximately 43,000 Jews were murdered during this operation which was the single largest German massacre of Jews in the entire war. Höfle rejoined Globočnik in Trieste, after various missions in the Netherlands and Belgium. Höfle Telegram On 11 January 1943, Höfle sent a radiogram from Lublin to SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Heim in Kraków, who was at the time the deputy commander of the Security Police and SD in the General Government, and to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in Berlin. The message documented the total deportations of Jews to the four Operation Reinhard camps through 31 of December 1942. Today this document is called the Höfle Telegram. After the war; arrest and suicide On 31 May 1945 Höfle