12. Galicia’s Horrific Governor
Relocating Jews to Krakow’s Ghetto was the first step on the road to extermination. From there, most Jews were transported to the death camps, from which few emerged alive. However, that was not the worst for von Wachter, who went on to write even more dark chapters in the Nazis’ book of horrors.
The baron’s activities in Krakow were just a prelude to the atrocities he would visit upon hundreds of thousands, when he was made governor of Galicia, in today’s Ukraine. When Galicia’s governor was arrested and shot for corruption and extensive black market activity, Hitler personally picked Otto von Wachter to fill the vacant slot in 1943. The baron did not disappoint his idol.