The ‘Disappearance’ of SS-Hauptscharführer Lorenz Hackenholt A Report on the 1959-63 West German Police Search for Lorenz Hackenholt, the Gas Chamber Expert of the Aktion Reinhard Extermination Camps © Michael Tregenza (Page 15) Treblinka had only been in operation for a few weeks, but already the camp was in chaos. Thousands of decomposing corpses littered the camp and long lines of railway wagons filled with Jews waited on sidings for their turn to enter the camp. The commandant, Dr. Irmfried Eberl, was sacked and Wirth assigned to reorganize and speed-up the extermination process. [49] The first task, however, was to clear up the the mess in the camp and bury the decomposing corpses. The worst mess was in Camp II, the so-called 'Upper Camp', the extermination compound where a large pile of rotting corpses had accumulated near the gas chambers under which, according to Treblinka SS-man Franz Suchomel, there was 'a cesspool three centimeters deep, full of blood, maggots and shit'. No one — German, Ukrainian or Jew — wanted to touch this mess, not even after dire threats and beatings from Wirth. The Jews preferred to be shot rather than work there. [50] SS-NCO Erwin Kainer, assigned by Wirth to supervise the task but unable to persuade anyone to help, committed suicide. [51] In the end, Wirth himself and his team from Belzec had to carry out the gruesome task, as SS-NCO Suchomel recalls: He really did work at it. Comrades who were up there told me this. Using long leather straps placed under the arms the corpses were dragged to the pits and got rid of. In those first days after his arrival, Wirth also issued orders for the construction of new gas chambers. The plans were drawn up by a man in Wirth's retinue called Hackenholt, whom we called 'Hacko' ... Lambert was called in as a builder after 'Hacko' had already done some preparatory work. [52] Erwin Lambert, like Hackenholt, was a bricklayer by trade, now in the employ of the Foundation in SS-uniform. Previously he had carried out construction work at the T4 killing centres, mainly converting rooms into gas chambers and erecting chimneys for the crematoria. He had also worked previously in Treblinka for a short time when the camp was under construction. According to Lambert - and in agreement with Suchomel's statement above — he returned to Treblinka in August or September 1942, after the construction of the new gas chambers had already started: Wirth was already in the camp. I also met Franz and Hackenholt in Treblinka ... Hackenholt and I had a Kommando of Ukrainians with us who worked for us as labourers. [53] _______________ [48...cont.] Stuttgart. 1939 special police duty in Gotenhafen (Gdynia) in SS-uniform, than transferred to 'T4'. Served in the Hadamar and Sonnenstein 'euthanasia' centres before transfer to Belzec in the summer of 1942. [49] ZStL AR-Z 230/59: The Case Against Kurt Franz et al (First Treblinka Case), p. 2040. Statement by Josef Oberhauser on 21.2.1962 in Munich. [50] Franz Suchomel, Christian Wirth, genannt 'Christian der Grausame' oder 'Stuka' (Ukr.), Altotting 1972 (private report). [51] Ibid. Kainer had already served a term in Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1941 on Wirth's orders for breaking the 'T4' oath of silence while serving in the Hadamar gassing centre. He shot himself when threatened by Wirth with a second term in Sachsenhausen for disobeying his order to clear up the mess around the Treblinka gas chambers. [52] Ibid. [53] ZStL 208 AR-Z 230/59 (First Treblinka Case), p. 3840. Statement by Erwin Lambert on 27.10.1967 in Stuttgart.    Back Page 15 Forward
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