"The first gas chambers erected in Sobibor were in a solid brick
building with a concrete foundation. ... There were three gas chambers
in the building, each 4 x 4 meters. The capacity of each chamber was
about two hundred people. Each gas chamber was entered through its own
separate door leading from a veranda that ran along the building. On
the opposite side of the building, there was a second set of doors for
removing the corpses. Outside was a shed in which the engine that
supplied the carbon monoxide gas was installed. Pipes conducted the
gas from the engine exhaust to the gas chambers." <1>
"In the middle of April, 1942 ... experimental killings were carried
out ... About 250 Jews were brought from the Krychow labor camp, which
was close to Sobibor, for this purpose. <2> Wirth arrived ... to
attend these experiments. With him came a chemist whose pseudonym was
'Dr. [Karl] Blaurock.' SS Scharfuhrer Erich Fuchs, who served in
Belzec, describes the preparations and the first experimental killing
in Sobibor:
....We unloaded the motor. It was a heavy Russian benzine
engine ... at least 200 horsepower ... we installed the engine
on a concrete foundation and set up the connection between the
exhaust and the tube.
I then tested the motor. It did not work. I was able to repair
the ignition and the valves, and the motor finally started
running. The chemist, who I knew from Belzec, entered the gas
chamber with measuring instruments to test the concentration
of the gas.
Following this, as gassing experiment was carried out. ....
about thirty to forty women were gassed in one gas chamber.
The Jewish women were forced to undress in an open place close
to the gas chamber, and were driven into the gas chamber by
[the SS and Ukrainians]. ...Both of us stood by the motor and
switched from "Neutral" (Freiauspuff) to "Cell" (Zelle), so
that the gas was conveyed to the chamber. At the suggestion of
the chemist, I fixed the motor on a definite speed so that it
was unnecessary henceforth to press on the gas. About ten
minutes later the ... women were dead." <3>
"The first stage of killing operations in Sobibor lasted from May
until the end of July 1942. In this period Jews were sent there from
ghettos in the Lublin district and from Czechoslovakia and Austria.
The Jews who came from foreign countries were deported either to
ghettos in the Lublin district and from there to Sobibor or directly
to the camp. ... during these months 10,000 Jews arrived from Austria
and Germany ...
During the first stage of the killing operations in Sobibor, which
lasted three months, at least 90,000 - 100,000 Jews were murdered
there.
At the end of July 1942, the large-scale deportation to Sobibor ceased
because of the reconstruction work on the railway between Lublin and
Chelm, which meant that no trains from the General Government could
reach the camp."
<1> Adalbert Ruckerl, "NS-Vernichtungslager in Spiegel deutscher
Strafprozesse, DTV Dokumente", Munich, 1977, pg. 163
<2> Yad Vashem Archives 1284/1255, Sonia Guter's testimony, Rejowiec
<3> Yad Vashem Archives TR-10/1069, Band 9, p.1784, the
Sobibor-Bolender trial, Dusseldorf; Adalbert Ruckerl (See <1> above),
pp.165-166.
As quoted in....
BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps
Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987. ISBN 0-253-3429-7
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