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Subject: HOLOCAUST FAQ: Auschwitz-Birkenau: Layman's Guide (1/2)
Summary: Research guide to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex
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Archive-name: holocaust/auschwitz/part01
Last-modified: 1999/06/01
This FAQ may be cited as:
McVay, Kenneth N. (1998) "HOLOCAUST FAQ: Auschwitz-Birkenau: Layman's
Guide" Usenet news.answers. Available via anonymous ftp from
ftp.nizkor.org in pub/camps/auschwitz/auschwitz.faq1 (and
~/auschwitz.faq2). 30 pages.
The most current version of this FAQ is posted every 45 days in the Usenet
newsgroups alt.revisionism, soc.history, soc.answers, alt.answers and
news.answers, and archived as pub/camps/auschwitz/auschwitz.faq1 (and
~/auschwitz.faq2) on the anonymous ftp archive on ftp.nizkor.org.
This FAQ is available on the World Wide Web at
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/
1.0 Introduction & Editorial Notes............................. 1
1.1 Copyright Notice......................................... 2
1.2 Geographic Description................................... 2
2.0 Gas Chambers............................................... 2
2.1 Krema I.................................................. 3
2.2 Krema II, III, IV, and V................................. 5
2.3 Zyklon B................................................. 6
3.0 Crematoria.................................................11
4.0 Compiling the estimates on numbers exterminated............12
4.1 How many people died at Auschwitz?.......................13
4.2 Estimates by nationality..............................14
5.0 Administration.............................[See Part Two]..15
5.1 Command Staff............................................15
5.2 Medical Staff............................................17
5.3 Selection................................................18
5.4 Tattooing................................................18
5.5 Medical Experimentation..................................19
5.5.1 Clauberg...............................................21
5.5.2 Mandel.................................................21
5.5.3 Mengele................................................22
5.5.4 Oberhauser.............................................22
5.5.5 Schumann...............................................23
6.0 Research Sources & Other Useful Appendices.................23
6.1 Recommended Reading......................................24
6.2 Abbreviations Used in Citations..........................27
6.3 Glossary.................................................27
6.4 Works Cited..............................................28
[Auschwitz] [Page 1]
1.0 Introduction & Editorial Notes
A January, 1993 newspaper article (Foner - see below) presents a
series of lies and distortions regarding events at the Auschwitz
concentration camp as historical fact. The article illustrated an
increasing effort on the part of world-wide neo-Nazi political
organizations to deny that the collective events commonly known as
the Holocaust did occur. Conot addressed the need for a continuing
effort to combat such material in his introduction (Justice at
Nuremberg):
Speaking to the Nuremberg tribunal in his opening address,
"Justice Jackson remarked; `What makes this inquest significant
is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will
lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to
dust.'
These influences, in fact, have regenerated like a poisonous
weed. Anti-Semitism and the euphemistic catchwords that led to
`the Final Solution of the Jewish Question' have reappeared hand
in hand. A world-wide cult has arisen claiming that the
Holocaust never happened. A hundred books, booklets, and
pamphlets have been printed alleging that the slaughter was
imaginary or exaggerated, and is but a Jewish invention.
All of this might be dismissed as the frustrated thrashing about
of a radical, irrational fringe were it not for the haunting
parallels to the pre-Hitler era, and the continuing employment
of Nazi propaganda methodology. A leader of the French
neo-Nazis, for example, asserts that those Jews who died had
merely been victims of the wartime food shortage. The Nazis
had, in fact, originally planned to starve the Jews to death,
allocating 186 calories per capita daily for their sustenance,
but had abandoned the scheme for more direct methods after the
ensuing epidemics had decimated not only the Jews but threatened
to spread to the relatively well-fed German population.
Similar in nature is the assertion that Zyklon B gas was
employed only as a disinfectant at Auschwitz. This had been the
case until the fall of 1941, when an enterprising SS officer had
concluded that if Zyklon B killed lice it could kill people just
as well. Thereafter, the gas had been used, first to murder
thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, and then hundreds of
thousands of Jews - nearly all of them women, children, and old
people unfit for `extermination through work.' Hitler's dictum
that `the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of
credibility, since the great masses of the people ... more
easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one' has once
more come into vogue.
[Auschwitz] [Page 2]
The most effective means to combat such distortions is to make
the facts accessible, and, with them, expose the statements for
what they are. At Nuremberg, General Telford Taylor, the
prosecutor of more war criminals than any other man, said: `We
cannot here make history over again. But we can see that it is
written true.' (Conot, xii-xiii)
This article is presented in that spirit, and in lasting memory of
those who were ruthlessly destroyed during the Holocaust. It is the
result of the combined effort of many, and contains data from myriad
sources. I would like to acknowledge the contributions from Danny
Keren (
[email protected]) in particular, and the subscribers to the
Holocaust Research Information List in general. Without their
contributions, this document could not have been written.
The appearance of a quotation mark within a proper name indicates
that the previous letter should be read as an umlaut, although some
quoted material appends a trailing 'e' instead. (I.e. Hoess and
Hoess reference the same name.)
The documents cited in this work which are available from our ftp
server are often noted in the form (get <path>/<filename>).
1.1 Copyright
This post, as a collection of information, is Copyright 1993-1998 by Ken
McVay, as a work of literature. Non-commercial distribution by any
electronic means is granted with the understanding that the article
not be altered in any way. Permission to distribute in printed form
must be obtained in writing. The removal of this copyright notice is
forbidden.
1.2 Geographic Location
AUSCHWITZ: (Polish: Oswiecim) Located approximately 60km (37mi)
west of Krakow, in Eastern Upper Silesia, which was annexed to
Nazi Germany following the defeat of Poland, in September, 1939.
Site of Nazi death camp. The first camp was built shortly after
Poland's defeat, in a suburb of Oswiecim (Zasole), and held
about 10,000 prisoners. The second site, known as Auschwitz II,
or Birkenau, was located 3km from the original camp. Construction
began in October 1941, and, according to Dr. Franciszek Piper, of
the Muzeum Oswiecim, never completed.
2.0 Gas Chambers
"There was a sign 'to disinfection'. He said 'you see,
they are bringing children now'. They opened the door, threw
the children in and closed the door. There was a terrible cry.
[Auschwitz] [Page 3]
A member of the SS climbed on the roof. The people went on
crying for about ten minutes. Then the prisoners opened the
doors. Everything was in disorder and contorted. Heat was
given off. the bodies were loaded on a rough wagon and taken to
a ditch. The next batch were already undressing in the huts.
After that I didn't look at my wife for four weeks." (From the
testimony of SS private Boeck (Langbein, quoted in Pressac, 181))
2.1 Krema I - The Experimental Gas Chamber
David Cole has produced a videotape which filmed the director of the
Auschwitz State Museum apparently admitting that the gas-chamber
known as "Krema I" was constructed after the war ended, on the direct
order of Stalin. In a letter to Nizkor's Ken McVay, Dr. Piper explicitly
denies making any such statement. Foner (Foner, Samuel P. "Major
Historical Fact Uncovered" SPOTLIGHT Vol. XIX, Number 2, January 11,
1993) tells us:
The videotape on which Piper makes his revelations was taken in
mid-1992 by a young Jewish investigator, David Cole. It has
just been released, on January 1, 1993, although Cole announced
his project at the 11th International Revisionist Conference at
Irvine, California last October.
The small gas chamber of Krema I was used for gassing for a short
time, and then converted into an air-raid shelter; after the war,
it was reconstructed to look as it did when it was used for
gassing, as Dr. Piper notes in his letter of response to the Cole
video. The text of Piper's letter is a bit stilted, as Polish is
his native language, but his intent, and the facts, are quite
clear:
Cole maintains that I first time admitted the allegedly
unknown fact the Nazis adapted the crematorium in question
in which the gas chamber were located for air-raid shelter,
the fact allegedly unknown even for Museum guides. It is
un truth. See enclosed copies of pages from the books
which constitute the fundamental reading for Auschwitz
guides. In book by T-an Sehn "Concentrat Camp
Ogwiqcim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz-Birkenau)Warsaw 1957, You may
read on the page 152-"In May 1944 the old Crematorium I in
the base camp was adapted for use as an air raid shelter.
The Fact is also confirmed in the book by Jean Claude
Pressac "Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas
chambers, published by The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New
York 1989(515 Madison Avenue. On the page 157 you may
read: "With part of the building converted to an air raid
shelter, this is the state in which the SS abandoned
Krematorium I in January 1945" Repeating what Pressac had
written I told what was the nature of the adaptation works
carried out by the Nazis and what one had to do to remove
those changes in order to regain the previous appearance.
[Auschwitz] [Page 4]
They are all "Pipers revelations." In spite of the fact
that such secondary restoration works had to be done there
is an undisputable reality that the gas chamber in question
is housed in the same building which has been existed from
prewar times till now.
(get pub/people/p/piper.franciszec/press/daily.texan.1093
for the entire letter from Dr. Piper to the Daily Texan
regarding the Cole video; Dr. Piper was never the director
of the Auschwitz State Museum.)
Breitman offers the following as background information to the
development of Zyklon B as a killing device, and (more specifically)
to the early use to which Block 11 was put:
Auschwitz had been receiving trainloads of Soviet commissars and
other POW's who were subject to liquidation. Hoess's men had
shot previous shipments of Russian prisoners, but on September 3
Hoess's enterprising subordinate Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritsch
thought of an expedient new method based on the camp's own
experience. The buildings, many of them former Polish army
barracks, were full of insects, and the camp administration had
previously brought in the Hamburg pesticide firm of Tesch and
Stabenow to get rid of them. Two experts had fumigated
particular buildings with a patented insecticide, Zyklon B, a
crystalline form of hydrogen cyanide that turned gaseous when
exposed to the air. (Hoess, "Commandant of Auschwitz," 175.
Interrogation of Hoess, 14 May 1946, NA RG 238, M-1019/R 28/63)
On September 3 Fritsch decided to experiment. First he crammed
five or six hundred Russians and another 250 sick prisoners from
the camp hospital into an underground detention cell. Then the
windows were covered with earth. SS men wearing gas masks
opened the Zyklon-B canisters to remove what looked like blue
chalk pellets about the size of peas, creating a cloud of poison
gas. After they left, the doors were sealed.(Hoess, Commandant
at Auschwitz, 173. See also Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz," in
Jaeckel and Rohwere, eds., Der Mord an den Juden, 167-68) Hoess
wrote later that death was instantaneous. Perhaps that was what
he was told. But he was not present to witness the event; he
was away on a business trip. Other sources indicate that even
the next day not everyone was dead, and the SS men had to
release more insecticide. Eventually all the prisoners died.
When Hoess returned to Auschwitz, he heard about the successful
experiment. On Eichmann's next visit to Auschwitz, Hoess told
him about the possibilities of Zyklon-B, and, according to
Hoess, the two decided to use the pesiticide and the peasant
farmstead for extermination.(Hoess, Commandant, 175. From the
History of KL Auschwitz, New York, 1982, I, 190)(Breitman, 203)
SS-Unterscharfuehrer Pery Broad described a gassing in Krema I while
giving testimony (Museum, 176):
".... The `disinfectors' were at work. One of them was
SS-Unterscharfuehrer Teuer, decorated with the Cross of War
Merit. With a chisel and a hammer they opened a few
innocuously looking tins which bore the inscription `Cyclon, to
[Auschwitz] [Page 5]
be used against vermin. Attention, poison! to be opened by
trained personnel only!'. The tins were filled to the brim
with blue granules the size of peas. Immediately after opening
the tins, their contents were thrown into the holes which were
then quickly covered. Meanwhile Grabner gave a sign to the
driver of a lorry, which had stopped close to the crematorium.
The driver started the motor and its deafening noise was louder
than the death cries of the hundreds of people inside, being
gassed to death."
Mu"llers eyewitness account of gassings in Krema I, in April, 1942, is
recounted in Hilberg's "The Destruction of the European Jews,":
The Auschwitz procedure evolved in stages. In April 1942,
Slovak Jews were gassed in Crematorium I, apparently with their
clothes on. Later, deportees from nearby Sosnowiec were told
to undress in the yard. The victims, faced by the peremptory
order to remove their clothes, men in front of women and women
in front of men, became apprehensive. The SS men, shouting at
them, then drove the naked men, women and children into the gas
chamber.
In The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Jozef Buszko (Jagiellonian
University, Krakow) writes: "The first, relatively small gas chamber was
built in Auschwitz I. Here the experimental gassing using Zyklon B gas
first took place, on September 3, 1941. The victims were 600 Soviet
prisoners of war and 250 other prisoners. After that experiment, the
firm J. A. Topf and Sons received a contract to build much larger,
permanent gas chambers connected with very large crematoria in
Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the mass exterminations were mainly carried
out. Altogether four such installations -- II, III, IV, and V -- were
built in Birkenau." (Encyclopedia, Vol. I, 113)
2.2 Krema II, III, IV, and V - The Birkenau Gas Chambers
Foner continues: "What Piper said, in effect - and on camera - was that
the explosive Leuchter Report was correct: No homicidal gassings took
place in the buildings designated `homicidal gas chambers' at
Auschwitz."
(As to the "Leuchter report", we refer you to the Leuchter Report FAQ,
-
http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/.
Foner omits mention of the larger gas chambers of Kremas II-V, in which
over a million people were murdered. Hilberg (Destruction) provides the
following:
[Auschwitz] [Page 6]
At Birkenau, illusion was the rule. It was not always simple
or possible, inasmuch as at least some of the deportees had
observed the sign "Auschwitz" as the train passed through the
railway yards, (Wiesel, 36) or had seen flames belching from
the chimneys, or had smelled the strange, sickening odor of the
crematoria. (Lengyel, 22) Most of them, however, like a group
from Salonika, were funneled through the undressing rooms, were
told to hang their clothes on hooks and remember the number,
and promised food after the shower and work after the food.
The unsuspecting Greek Jews, clutching soap and towels, rushed
into the gas chambers. (Mu"ller, 80-81) Nothing was allowed to
disturb this precarious synchronization. When a Jewish inmate
revealed to newly arrived people what was in store for them, he
was cremated alive. (Mu"ller, 80) Only in the case of victims
who were brought in from nearby ghettos in upper Silesia
(Sosnowiec and Bedzin) and who had had intimations of Auschwitz
was speed alone essential. These people were told to undress
quickly in their "own best interest." (Mu"ller, 69-71)
And finally, consider these remarks, from the SS Doctor Kremer, made
during a hearing held on 18 July, 1947. (Klee, 258)
I remember I once took part in the gassing of one of these
groups of women [from the women's camp in Auschwitz]. I cannot
say how big the group was. when I got close to the bunker I saw
them sitting on the ground. They were still clothed. As they
were wearing worn-out camp clothing they were not left in the
undressing hut but made to undress in the open air. I concluded
from the behavior of these women that they had no doubt what
fate awaited them, as they begged and sobbed to the SS men to
spare them their lives. However, they were herded into the gas
chambers and gassed. As an anatomist I have seen a lot of
terrible things: I had had a lot of experience with dead bodies,
and yet what I saw that day was like nothing I had ever seen
before. Still completely shocked by what I had seen I wrote on
my diary on 5 September 1942: "The most dreadful of horrors.
Hauptscharfuherer Thilo was right when he said to me today that
this is the 'anus mundi', the anal orifice of the world". I
used this image because I could not imagine anything more
disgusting and horrific.
2.3 Zyklon B
Two German firms, Tesch/Stabenow and Degesch, produced Cyclone
B gas after they acquired the patent from Farben. Tesch
supplied two tons a month, and Degesch three quarters of a ton.
The firms that produced the gas already had extensive experience
in fumigation. "In short, this industry used very powerful
gases to exterminate rodents and insects in enclosed spaces;
that it should now have become involved in an operation to kill
off Jews by the hundreds of thousands is not mere accident."
[Auschwitz] [Page 7]
(Hilberg, Commandant, 567) After the war the directors of the
firms insisted that they had sold their products for fumigation
purposes and did not know they were being used on humans. But
the prosecutors found letters from Tesch not only offering to
supply the gas crystals but also advising how to use the
ventilating and heating equipment. Hoess testified that the
Tesch directors could not help but know of the use for their
product because they sold him enough to annihilate two million
people. Two Tesch partners were sentenced to death in 1946 and
hanged. The director of Degesch recieved five years in prison."
(Feig) (See also Breitman, 203-204, for a discussion of the early
involvement of Heerdt-Lingler)
From the statement of Hans Stark, registrar of new arrivals,
Auschwitz (Klee, 255):
At another, later gassing -- also in autumn 1941 -- Grabner*
ordered me to pour Zyklon B into the opening because only one
medical orderly had shown up. During a gassing Zyklon B had to
be poured through both openings of the gas-chamber room at the
same time. This gassing was also a transport of 200-250 Jews,
once again men, women and children. As the Zyklon B -- as
already mentioned -- was in granular form, it trickled down over
the people as it was being poured in. They then started to cry
out terribly for they now knew what was happening to them. I
did not look through the opening because it had to be closed as
soon as the Zyklon B had been poured in. After a few minutes
there was silence. After some time had passed, it may have been
ten to fifteen minutes, the gas chamber was opened. The dead
lay higgledy-piggedly all over the place. It was a dreadful
sight.
* Maximillian Grabner, Head of Political Department, Auschwitz
Zyklon-B is a powerful insecticide which serves as a carrier for the
gas Hydrocyanic acid, or HCN. It usually comes in the shape of small
pellets or disks. (See Breitman, 203, for more detail about the
early use of the gas at Auschwitz) HCN is the cause of death
following the application of Zyklon-B. While interacting with iron
and concrete, it creates Hydrocyanic compounds, which Leuchter
admitted were found in the ruins of the gas chamber in Krematoria II.
His finding was confirmed by findings of the Polish government.
HCN is *extremely poisonous* to humans. It is used in execution gas
chambers in the US; the first was built in Arizona in 1920.
Holocaust denial often includes the claim that Germany in the 1940's
could not handle the "technical difficulties" inherent in using HCN
for execution - "difficulties" that were easily solved in 1920.
Moreover, the Germans had a lot of experience with HCN, as it was
extensively used for delousing.
[Auschwitz] [Page 8]
There were two types of gas chambers in Auschwitz: those used for
delousing clothes ("delousing gas chambers") and those used for
killing people on a massive scale ("extermination gas chambers").
The delousing gas chambers were a standard feature, and were left
intact by the SS (the extermination gas chambers were dynamited in an
effort to conceal criminal traces).
Holocaust denial asserts that because more Hydrocyanic compounds were
found in the delousing chambers in Auschwitz than in the ruins of the
extermination gas chambers, mass murder using the gas could not have
taken took place within, because the reverse would be true.
HCN is much more effective on warm-blooded animals, including humans,
than it is on insects. The exposure period (to HCN) is much greater
in delousing operations than in homicidal gassings. This means that
a much lower concentration is necessary to kill people than to get
rid of lice, etc. In delousing, concentrations of up to 16,000 ppm
(parts per million) are sometimes used, and exposure time can be up
to 72 hours; while 300 ppm will kill people in fifteen minutes or so.
Therefore, the HCN in the extermination chambers hardly had time to
form compounds on the walls. While some claim that the gas
would need a lot of time to kill, because it would have to spread all
over the chamber, it simply is not true; the gas chambers were not
that large (those in Krematoria II and III were about 210 square
meters), and the Zyklon-B was dropped from four openings (still
visible in the ruins of the gas chambers). Since the concentration
used was higher than the lethal one, death was very swift.
Furthermore, the delousing chambers are intact while the
extermination chambers were blown up (a .GIF picture of the one of
Krema II is available). Therefore, their walls have been exposed to
the elements for the last 50 years. The ruins of the gas chamber of
Krema II are covered with about 3 feet of water during certain
periods of the year; HCN compounds easily dissolve in these
surroundings. Nonetheless, so much gassing took place that some of
the compound remained.
Summarizing, the walls of the extermination gas chambers were in
contact with HCN for a much shorter time then those of the delousing
chambers, and for the last 45 years were exposed to surroundings
which dissolve the compounds, while the delousing rooms were not.
Therefore it is obvious that less traces of compounds would remain in
them.
This fact - that all, or most, of the compounds would vanish during
45 years of exposure - is clearly stated in the report written by the
experts of the Cracow Institute of Forensic Research.
[Auschwitz] [Page 9]
Holocaust deniers once claimed that the gas chamber in Krema I was
left intact, and therefore its walls were not exposed to the
elements. But - as they admit themselves - the gas chamber of Krema
I was used only for a short time, and than it was changed to an
air-raid shelter. After the liberation of the camp, it was
reconstructed to its original shape. This, and the fact that "only"
about 10,000 people were murdered inside it (compared to 350,000 and
400,000 in Kremas II and III) explain why relatively small amounts of
cyanide compounds remain. As for Kremas IV and V, they were
completely destroyed by the SS before the Soviets liberated the camp.
Finally, cyanide compounds were found on the ventilation grills of
the extermination chambers, proving beyond doubt that gassing did
take place inside them.
The claim that it would have been impossible to use the gas chambers
for killing, because they were too close to the furnaces, and the gas
would explode, is often found in Holocaust denial literature, and is
one of the assertions of the Leuchter report.
The concentration of HCN necessary to cause death is nearly 200 times
lower than that which causes explosion. Although the SS used a
concentration higher than the lethal one, it was far below that
causing explosion.
As a reference, one can look at "The Merck Index" and the "CRC
handbook of Chemistry and Physics", or consult any manual dealing
with toxicity and flammability of chemicals. For HCN, a
concentration of 300 ppm (parts per million) kills humans within a
few minutes, while the minimal concentration that can result in an
explosion is 56,000 ppm.
Another common claim is that it takes 20 hours to air a room which
has been disinfected with Zyklon-B, and therefore the eyewitness
accounts giving a time of 20-30 minutes from when the gassing started
to when the bodies where carried out is impossible, because the
people carrying out the bodies would perish.
If one disinfects a building in ordinary commercial use, it should
not be reentered within 20 hours. That figure, however, has no
meaning in relation to the extermination chambers, because they were
forcibly ventilated. Fifteen minutes were enough to replace the air.
When ventilation was not used, the Sonderkommando (prisoners used as
forced labor) who took the bodies out had gas masks on. The Germans
had plenty of experience with gas, especially HCN, which was widely
used for delousing. They knew how to work with it without getting
hurt. It is absurd to use the 20 hour figure in this context, which
does not assume forced ventilation and takes a huge safety factor
into account. The SS didn't care much for the safety of the
Sonderkommando who had to enter the gas chambers to take the corpses
out.
[Auschwitz] [Page 10]
Furthermore, what makes ventilation difficult and lengthy is the
presence of rugs, furniture, curtains, etc. Needless to say, these
were not present in the gas chambers - there was just bare concrete,
making ventilation fast and efficient.
If the "20 hours ventilation period" above was true, this would mean
that the corpses of people executed using cyanide gas in US gas
chambers would remain tied to the chair 20 hours after they were
killed...
Another common claim is that the "alleged" extermination chambers are
actually morgues, and that Zyklon-B was used in them as a disinfectant.
This claim stems from the fact that Hydrocyanic compounds were found
on the ventilation grills of the gas chambers in Krematoria II and
III (the chemical analysis was carried out by Dr. Jan Robel of the
Cracow Forensic Institute in December 1945, and was part of the
evidence in the trial of Auschwitz commander Hoess). This proves
that gassing did take place in that chamber. Zyklon-B cannot kill
anaerobic bacteria - it kills only aerobic organisms. That means it
would be useless for disinfecting corpses.
In closing, consider the testimony of SS private Hoeblinger:
(Langbein)
I was detailed to the transport service and I drove the Sanka
[abbreviation for Sanitatskraftwagon/medical truck] which was to
carry the prisoners....
Then we drove to the gas chambers. The medical orderlies
climbed a ladder, they had gas masks up there, and emptied the
cans. I was able to observe the prisoners while they were
undressing. It always proceeded quitely and without them
suspecting anything. It happened very quickly.
Note Pvt. Hoeblinger's mention of gas masks - some Holocaust deniers
insist that the SS-men dropping the gas would be killed by it, which
leads one to speculate about their reading ability.
Finally, the undeniable evidence that the SS ordered Degesch to
remove the indicator odor, mandated under German law, which was added
to the Zyklon B in order to provide a warning to human beings that
the lethal stuff was nearby. I believe this demonstrated clear
criminal intent - the SS would hardly have removed the indicator odor
if they had intended, as the denial set insists, to use the gas only
on insects and corpses... (get pub/orgs/german/farben.ig/farben.001 for
more information about this demand from the SS. Borkin, 123)
Recommended reading:
Barrington,J.H., ed. The Zyklon B Trial: Trial of Bruno Tesch and
Two Others. London, 1948, and Borkin (see Work Cited).
[Auschwitz] [Page 11]
Harmon, Brian. Technical Aspects of the Holocaust: Cyanide, Zyklon-B,
aand Mass Murder. (get pub/camps/auschwitz/cyanide.001), 1994
United Nations War Crimes Commission. Law Reports of Trials of War
Criminals. Vol. 1, London, 1947. See pp. 93-104
3.0 Crematoria
Konnilyn Feig provides an overview of the operation of the
crematoria, and describes the process by which the stoking gangs
sorted bodies into combustability catagories as the result of earlier
experiments by the SS staff to reduce fuel consumption. In this
effort, they had the assistance of the firm of Topf and Sons, who had
built the crematoria.
(
http://ftp.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?camps/auschwitz/auschwitz.01)
In essence, well-nourished corpses were burned with emaciated ones in
order to determine the most efficient combination. Three to four
bodies were burned at a time, and different kinds of coke were used,
then the results were recorded:
Afterwards, all corpses were divided into the above-mentioned
catagories, the criterion being the amount of coke required to
reduce them to ashes. Thus it was decreed that the most
economical and fuel-saving procedure would be to burn the bodies
of a well-nourished man and an emaciated woman, or vice versa,
together with that of a child, because, as the experiments had
established, in this combination, once they had caught fire, the
dead would continue to burn without any further coke being
required. (Mu"ller, 60-61; Klarsfield, 99-100)
The need for large-scale efficiency, to cope with the astounding
number of corpses produced by the gas chambers, eventually led to the
design and construction of new crematoria, and daily capacity rose
from as low as six hundred forty eight per day (Mu"ller's 1942
figure) to a high of over ten thousand (Hoess, Gricksch), but, as
Feig tells us, the SS eventually had to employ large pyres and pits
to dispose of the mounting pile of corpses:
As early as June 13, 1943, all was not well with the new
installation. ... Eventually the ovens seemed to
fall apart. Crematorium Four failed completely after a short
time and Crematoria Five had to be shut down repeatedly. (TWC,
V:624) (Between 1945 and 1962 Polish officials found five
manuscripts written by Sonderkommando members before their
deaths. The published manuscripts and documents relate to the
specific process of extermination at Birkenau, and provide
detailed descriptions of the crematoria and gas chambers.)
The scientifically planned crematoria should have been able to
handle the total project, but they could not. The whole complex
had forty-six retorts, each with the capacity for three to five
persons. The burning in a retort lasted about half an hour. It
took an hour a day to clean them out. Thus it was theoretically
[Auschwitz] [Page 12]
possible to cremate about 12,000 corpses in twenty four hours or
4,380,000 a year. But the well-constructed crematoria fell far
behind at a number of camps, and especially at Auschwitz in
1944. In August the total cremation reached a peak one day of
24,000, but still a bottleneck occurred. Camp authorities
needed an economic and fast method of corpse disposal, so they
again dug six huge pits beside Crematorium Five and reopened old
pits in the wood. Thus, late in 1944, pit burning became the
chief method of corpse disposal. The pits had indentations at
one end from which human fat drained off. To keep the pits
burning, the stokers poured oil, alcohol, and large quantities
of boiling human fat over the bodies.
4.0 Compiling Estimates of the Numbers Exterminated
When the extermination camps failed to achieve their objective, the
total extermination of European Jewry, by the end of 1942, Heinrich
Himmler commissioned a statistical report in order to determine what
'progress' had been made.
In January of 1943, Dr. Richard Korherr, a noted statistician who was
outside SS circles, working with Adolf Eichmann and camp commanders,
began compiling reports and figures to present to Himmler. As
Breitman relates,
Korherr's job was complicated by the fact that, even in a report
designed for Himmler, he was not supposed to spell out the facts
in black and white. It was easier to state how many Jews were
still alive than what had happened to the others. To be sure,
Korherr could state that through various means the Jewish
population in the Reich and the Government General had
diminished by 3.1 million between 1933 and 1942. In spite of
his generous use of the term "evacuation," however, which
Himmler seconded, to mislead those who would read the document
in later years, Himmler had to correct Korherr's wording in one
place. Where Korherr had written of the "special treatment" of
the Jews, Himmler had insisted on either the "transportation of
the Jews from the Eastern provinces to the Russian East" or the
"sifting of the Jews through the camps." These were among the
officially approved terms to camouflage the realities of the
Final Solution. (Korherr's reports in NA RG 238, NO-5193 and
5194, Himmler's correction of wording in Brandt to Korherr, 20
April 1943. NA RG 238, NO-5196. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction
of the European Jews {Chicago, 1961}, 2nd expanded ed., 3 vols.
{New York, 1985},I, 322-23, reviews the whole range of Nazi
terms that veiled the realities.) (Breitman, 242)
Note that Himmler was successful in his attempts to camouflage
reality to the degree that present-day Holocaust denial insists that
Jews were simply "relocated to the East," and not exterminated.
[Auschwitz] [Page 13]
Eichmann's interrogation regarding the total number of victims
supports Fleming's figure of about five million killed
(
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/e/eichmann.adolf/eichmann.005),
while figures compiled by Yehuda Bauer, of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem,
are somewhat higher.
Bauer's figures are in the right-most column:
German Reich (boundaries of 1938) 130,000 125,000
Austria 58,000 65,000
Belgium 26,000
Belgium & Luxembourg 24,700
Bulgaria 7,000
Czechoslovakia (boundaries of 1938) 245,000 277,000
France 64,000 83,000
Greece 58,000 65,000
Hungary & Carpatho-Ukraine 300,000 402,000*
Italy 8,000 7,500*
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia 200,000
Luxembourg 3,000
Netherlands 101,800 106,000
Norway 677 760
Poland (boundaries of 1939) 2,700,000
Polish-Soviet area 4,565,000
Romania (boundaries prior to 1940) 220,000 40,000
USSR (boundaries prior to 1939) 800,000
Yugoslavia 54,000 60,000*
-----------------
4,975,477 5,820,960
* May be underestimated
4.1 How many people died at Auschwitz?
Foner's Spotlight article makes the following assertions regarding the
number of people killed at the camp:
Like most Americans, since his youth Cole had been instructed
in the "irrefutable fact" that homicidal gassings had taken
place at Auschwitz. The number of those so executed - also
declared irrefutable - was 4.1 million.
Then came the Leuchter Report in 1988. This was followed by a
"re-evaluation" of the total deaths at Auschwitz (down to 1.1
million). As a budding historian - and a Jew - Cole was
intrigued.
Previous to 1992, anyone who publicly doubted the 4.1 million
"gassing" deaths at Auschwitz was labeled an anti-Semite,
neo-nazi skinhead (at the very least). Quietly, because of
revisionist findings, the official figure was lowered to 1.1
million. No mention of that missing 3 million.
[Auschwitz] [Page 14]
Foner's assertions are simply not true; although it is correct to note
that the Polish Communist government did claim that four million people
were exterminated at Auschwitz, historians (Feig, Reitlinger, Hilberg,
et al.) have never supported that figure. Consider the estimates
provided by Buszko at the end of his article on Auschwitz, which appeared
in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust:
Of the 405,000 registered prisoners, 65,000 survived
Of the 16,000 Soviet POW's, 96 survived
Various estimates suggest 1.6 million were murdered
Buszko's article, and the above estimates, appeared in the 1990 edition
of the Encyclopedia, which clearly puts the lie to Foner's comment that
"anyone who publicly doubted the 4.1 million ..." figure "previous to
1992..." was "...labeled an anti-Semite..." Buszko is not only a Jewish
historian, but Polish as well.
Leon Poliakov, the author of the well-documented "Harvest of
Hate," which was, we note, first published in _1956_, provides
the following information, which clearly demonstrates that Foner's
contention, cited above, is an outright lie:
After some thirty months of intense activity, the Auschwitz
balance sheet showed close to two million immediate
exterminations (this figure can never be fixed exactly), (8) to
which one must add the deaths of some 300,000 registered
prisoners - Jews for the most part, but not entirely - for whom
the gas chamber was only one of any number of ways by which they
might have perished. (Poliakov, 202)
(8) In his affidavits, Hoess spoke of two and a half million,
'a figure set officially,' he wrote, under the signature of
[Eichmann], in a report to Himmler. This figure has been
accepted by several authors, and it appears in the verdict at
the trial of the major war criminals. However, there is no
reason for accepting without question the statistics attributed
to Eichmann, which may err on either side. Adding the number of
victims to those deported from different countries gives a lower
figure, although we have little data, for example, on the number
of Polish Jews sent to Auschwitz. An approximate figure in the
neighborhood of two million seems closer to the truth."
(Ibid.)
Feig also provides evidence of the false nature of Foner's comment when
she notes that `Hoess testified that the Tesch directors could not help
but know of the use for their product because they sold him enough to
annihilate two million people.' Feig's book was published in 1981.
[Continued in Part Two]
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