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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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Page 473 |
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“AUSCHWITZ: A
DOCTOR’S EYE WITNESS ACCOUNT”
by Dr MIKLOS
NYISZLI |
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| Introduction |
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I have taken from Dr Nyiszli’s book only Chapter
Seven, describing the gassing of a convoy at Krematorium II, this
being one of the best-known accounts. Many details can easily be
verified using contemporary documents. The description is entirely
accurate, EXCEPT for certain FIGURES which are very WRONG
indeed.
I must admit that the stark contrast
between the general precision of the account and enormous errors
that it contains led me to think at first that the translator [into
French], Mr Tibère KREMER, must be at fault.
Through the
intermediary of Serge Klarsfeld, the Yad Vashem provided me with a
photocopy of the first Hungarian edition of 1946, apparently
published by the author. I checked in the original text to make sure
the figures were correct. This enabled me to see that the translator
was definitely not at fault. The fact remains, however, that certain
figures in the original are quite wrong. Unless and until any
further information comes to light, we can but attribute these
errors to Dr Nyiszli. |
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Extract from Dr Miklos Nyiszli's book:
“Auschwitz: a Doctor’s eyewitness account”,
Translated by Tibère Kremer and Richard Seaver, London: Granada
Books, 1973 |
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CHAPTER SEVEN
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The strident whistle of a train
was heard coming from the direction of the unloading platform. It
was still very early. I approached my window(1), from which I
had a direct view onto the tracks, and saw a very long train. A few
seconds later the doors slid open and the box cars spilled out
thousands upon thousands of the chosen people of Israel. Line up and
selection took scarcely half an hour(2). The left-hand(3)
column moved slowly away.
Orders rang out, and the
sound of rapid footsteps reached my room. The sounds came from the
furnace rooms of the crematorium: they were preparing to welcome the
new convoy The throb of motors began. They had just set the enormous
ventilators going to fan the flames, in order to obtain the desired
degree in the ovens. Fifteen ventilators were going
simultaneously, one beside each oven (4). The incineration room
was about 500 feet long(5). It was a bright, whitewashed room with a
concrete floor and barred windows. Each of these fifteen ovens
was housed in a red brick structure(6}. Immense iron doors,
well-polished and gleaming, ominously lined the length of the wall.
In five or six minutes the convoy reached the gate, whose
swing-doors(7) opened inwards. Five abreast(8), the
group entered the courtyard; it was the moment about which the
outside world knew nothing, for anyone who might have known
something about it after having travelled the path of his destiny —
the 300 yards(9) separating that spot from the ramp— had
never returned to tell the tale. It was one of the crematoriums
which awaited those who had been selected for the left-hand column.
And not, as the German lie had made the right-hand column suppose in
order to allay their anxiety, a camp for the sick and children,
where the infirm cared for the little ones.
They advanced
with slow, weary steps. The children's eyes were heavy with sleep
and they clung to their mothers' clothes. For the most part the
babies were carried in their fathers' arms, or else wheeled in their
carriages. The SS guards remained before the crematorium doors,
where a poster announced: “Entrance is strictly forbidden to all who
have no business here, including the SS”
The deportees were
quick to notice the water faucets(10), used for sprinkling
the grass, that were arranged about the courtyard. They began to
take pots and pans from their luggage, and broke ranks, pushing and
shoving in an effort to get near the faucets and fill their
containers. That they were impatient was not astonishing: for the
past five days they had had nothing to drink. If ever they had found
a little water, it had been stagnant and had not quenched their
thirst The SS guards who received the convoys were used to the
scene. They waited patiently till each had quenched his thirst and
filled his container. In any case, the guards knew that as long as
they had not drunk there would be no getting them back into line.
Slowly they began to re-form their ranks. Then they advanced for
about 100 yards(11) along a cinder path edged with green
grass (12) to an iron ramp(13) from which 10 or 12
concrete steps(14) led underground to an enormous room dominated
by a large sign in German, French, Greek and Hungarian: “Baths and
Disinfecting Room”. The sign was reassuring, and allayed the
misgivings or fears of even the most suspicious among them. They
went down the stairs almost gaily. .
The room into which the
convoy proceeded was about 200 yards long(15): Its walls were
whitewashed and it was brightly lit. In the middle of the room,
rows of columns(16). Around the columns, as well as along the
walls, benches. Above the benches, numbered coat hangers. Numerous
signs in several languages drew everyone's attention to the
necessity of tying his clothes and shoes together. Especially that
they not forget the number of his coat hanger, in order to avoid all
useless confusion upon his return from the bath.
“That’s a
really German order,” commented those who had long been inclined to
admire the Germans.
They were right. As a matter of fact, it
was for the sake of order that these measures had been taken, so
that the thousands of pairs of good shoes sorely needed by the Third
Reich would not get mixed up. The same for the clothes, so that the
population of bombed cities could easily make use of them.
There were 3000 people(17) in the room: men, women
and children. Some of the soldiers arrived and announced that
everyone must be completely undressed within ten minutes
(18). The aged, grandfathers and grandmothers; the children; wives
and husbamds; all were struck dumb with surprise. Modest women and
girls looked at each other questioningly. Perhaps they had not
exactly understood the German words. They did not have long to think
about it, however, for the order resounded again, this time in a
louder, more menacing tone. They were uneasy; their dignity
rebelled;but with the resignation peculiar to their race, having
leamed that anything went as far as they were concemed, they slowly
began to undress. The aged the paralyzed, the mad were helped by a
Sonderkommando squad sent for that purpose. In ten minutes all were
completely naked, their clothes hung on the pegs, their shoes
attached together by the laces. As for the number on each clothes
hanger, it had been carefully noted.
Making his way through
are crowd an SS opened the swing doors of the large oaken gate at
the end of the room(19), The crowd flowed through it into
another(20) equally well-lighted room. This second room was
the same size as the first(21), but neither benches nor pegs
were to be seen. In the center of the room, at thirty-yard
intervals(22), columns rose from the concrete floor to the
ceiling. They were not supporting columns, but square
sheet-iron pipes(22) the sides of which contained numerous
perforations, like a wire lattice.
Everyone was inside. A
hoarse command rang out: “SS and Sonderkommando leave the room.”
They obeyed and counted off. The doors swung shut and from without
the lights were switched off.
At that very instant the sound
of a car was heard: a deluxe model(23), furnished by the
International Red Cross. An SS officer and a SDG
(Sanitätsdienstgefreiter(24): Deputy Health Service Officer)
stepped out of the car. The Deputy Health Officer held
four(25) green sheet-iron cannisters. He advanced across the
grass(26), where, every thirty yards(27) short
concrete pipes(28) jutted up from the ground. Having donned his
gas mask, he lifted the lid of the pipe, which was also made of
concrete(29). He opened one of the cans and poured the
contents — a mauve granulated material(30) — into the
opening. [The following sentence, present in the Hungarian and
French, is missing from the English translation: “The substance
poured in is Zyklon or Chlorine(31). In granulated form, which gives
off a gas immediately on contact with air.”] The granulated
substance fell in a lump to the bottom. The gas it produced escaped
through the perforations, and within a few seconds filled the room
in which the deportees were stacked. Within five minutes everybody
was dead.
For every convoy it was the same story. Red Cross
cars brought the gas from the outside. There was never a
stock(32) of it in the crematorium. The precaution was
scandalous, but still more scandalous was the fact that the gas was
brought in a car bearing the insignia of the International Red
Cross.
In order to be certain of their business, the two
gas-butchers waited another free minutes. Then they lighted
cigarettes and drove off in their car. They had just killed 3000
innocents(33).
Twenty minutes later, the electric
ventilators were set going(34) in order to evacuate the gas. The
doors opened the trucks arrived and a Sonderkommando squad loaded
the clothing and the shoes separately. They were gong to
disinfect(35) them. This time it was a case of real
disinfection. Later they would transport them by rail to various
parts of the country.
The ventilators, patented
“Exhator”(36) system quickly evacuated the gas from the room,
but in the crannies between the dead and the cracks of the doors
small pockets of it always remained. Even two hours later it
caused a suffocating cough. For that reason the Sonderkommando which
first moved into the room was equipped with gas masks(37). Once
again the room was powerfully lighted, revealing a horrible
spectacle.
The bodies were not lying here and there
throughout the room, but piled in a mass to the ceiling. The reason
for this was that the gas first inundated the lower layers of air
and rose but slowly towards the ceiling. This forced the victims to
trample one another in a frantic effort to escape the gas. Yet a few
feet higher up the gas reached them. What a struggle for life there
must have been! Nevertheless it was merely a matter of two or three
minutes' respite. If they had been able to think about what they
were doing, they would have realised they were trampling their own
children, their wives, their relatives. But they couldn't think
Their gestures were no more than the reflexes of the instinct of
self-preservation. I noticed that the bodies of the women, the
children and the aged were at the bottom of the pile: at the top,
the strongest. Their bodies, which were covered with scratches and
bruises from the struggle which had set them against each other,
were often interlaced. Blood oozed from their noses and mouths;
their faces, bloated and blue, were so deformed as to be almost
unrecogizable. Nevertheless, some of the Sonderkommando often did
recognize their kin. The encounter was not easy, and I dreaded it
for myself. I had no reason to be here, and yet I had came down
among the dead. I felt it my duty to my people and to the entire
world to be able to give an accurate account of what I had seen if
ever, by some miraculous whim of fate, I should escape.
The
Sonderkommando squad, outfitted with large rubber boots, lined up
round the hill of bodies and flooded it with powerful jets of
water(38). This was necessary because the final act of those who
die by drowning or by gas in an involuntary defecation. Each body
was befouled and had to be washed. Once the “bathing” of the dead
was finished — a job the Sonderkommando carried out by a voluntary
act of impersonalization and in a state of profound distress — the
separation of the welter ofbodies began. It was a difficult job.
They knotted thongs around the wrists(39), which were
clenched in a vice-like grip, and with these thongs they dragged the
slippery bodies to the elevators(40) in the next room.
Four(41) good- sized elevators were functioning. They loaded
twenty to twenty-five corpses to an elevator(42). The ring of
a bell was the signal that the load was ready to ascend. The
elevator stopped at the crematorium’s incineration room(43),
where large sliding doors opened autotomatically(44). The
kommando who operated the trailers [The French translation is better
here: “the towing squad”] was ready and waiting. Again straps were
fixed to the wrists of the dead, and they were dragged out onto
specialty constructed chutes which unloaded them in front of the
furnaces(45).
The bodies lay in close ranks: the
old, the young, the children. Blood oozed from their noses and
mouths, as well as from their skin — abraded by the rubbing — and
mixed with the water running in the gutters set in the concrete
floor.
Then a new phase of the exploitation and utilization
of Jewish bodies took place. The Third Reich had already taken their
clothes and shoes. Hair(46) was also a precious material, due
to the fact that it expands and contracts uniformly, no matter what
the humidity of the air. Human hair was often used in delayed
action bombs(47), where its particular qualities made it highly
useful for detonating purposes. So they shaved the dead.
But
that was not all. According to the slogans(48) the Germans
paraded and shouted to everyone at home and abroad, the Third Reich
was not based on the “gold standard”, but on the "work standard”.
[The following sentence appears to be in the English verson ony]
Maybe they meant they had to work harder for their gold than most
countries did. At any rate, the dead were next sent to the
“tooth-pulling” kommando, wich was stationed in front of the
ovens(49). Consisting of eight men, this kommando equipped its
members with two tools, or, if you like, two instruments. In one
hard a lever, and in the other a pair of pliers for extracting the
teeth. The dead lay on their backs; the kommando pried open the
contracted jaw with his lever; then, with his pliers, he extracted
or broke off, all gold teeth, as well as any gold bridgework and
fillings. All members of the kommando were fine stomatologists and
dental surgeons. When Dr Mengele had called for candidates capable
of performing the delicate work of stomatology and dental surgery,
they had volunteered in good faith, firmly beleiving they would be
allowed to exercise their profession in the camp. Exactly as I had
done.
The gold teeth were collected in buckets filled with an
acid which burned off | |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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