|
|
 |
 |
AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © |
|
|
| Note:
Page 122 is blank. |
 |
Back |
 |
Contents |
Page 123 |
|
Home
Page |
Forward |
 |
| |
PART TWO
CHAPTER 2
KREMATORIUM I OR THE "OLD"
KREMATORIUM
OF THE MAIN CAMP (STAMMLAGER)
The
installation, utilization and transformation
of the first cremation
facility at Auschwitz
designated BW 11 and then BW 14
as from September
1944.
INTRODUCTION |
| |
Krematorium I, the first cremation installation in
Auschwitz, was part of the “normal“ equipment of the camp. but came
to be used as an experimental criminal instrument for killing people by
hydrocyanic acid intoxication in the morgue, which was transformed into a gas
chamber. This prototype murderous role was relatively limited in extent, but
makes Krematorium I a powerful symbol, created by the shock of the revelation
of extermination practiced on a large scale, both for the SS who saw this
concretization of official decisions and for the prisoners who were forced to
work there as members of the Sonderkommando.
Krematorium I has two
vital functions: first, its present rote of being the only Auschwitz
Krematorium where a gas chamber can be visited (in summer sometimes by as many
as 5 000 to 7 000 people of various nationalities per day) and, second, its
historical role of having been the “test bed” for gassing and
cremation in Birkenau Krematorien of type II/III [Krematorien IV and V being of
a new and different type, based not on the principle of Krematorium I but that
of Bunkers 1 and 2].
Unlike Krematorien II, III, IV and V, there are
very few German documents concerned with Krematorium I. These do not make it
possible to formally establish proof of homicidal gassing in its morgue and
this lack of documentary evidence, together with the present state of the
premises, has favoured revisionist attacks aimed at demonstrating that the gas
chamber did not really exist. The fact is that while the building itself is
still the original one, its internal arrangement, as found in January 1945, has
been restructured and the installations connected with its cremation and
gassing activities have been reconstructed and reconstituted, a fact
which in the eyes of the revisionists negates their existence.
As evidence to establish the
reality of homicidal gassing there remain only the testimonies of
participants, the best known of whom are:
|
| |
| ALTER FAJNZYLBERG (alias Stanislas Jankowski,
prisoner 27675), former member of the Sonderkommando who made a deposition at
Cracow on 16th April 1945. This was subsequently published in the special
number of the “Heften von Auschwitz” [Auschwitz
Notebooks] by the PMO in 1971 [Document A is a translation of an extract
from pages 42 and 43 of the 1972 edition, concerning Krematorium I]. Following
the "Faurisson Affair" Alter Fajzylberk made a new declaration
before a Paris notary on 29th September 1980 [Documents B1, B2 and B3, on which
his statements concerning Krematorium I are indicated by a double line in the
margin]. |
| |
| FILIP MÜLLER, former member of the
Sonderkommando, who recounts his period in the camp in the book
“Sonderbehandlung” [Special treatment], Verlag
Steinhaussen Gmbh, Munich 1979, which appeared in French as “Trois
ans dans une chambre à gaz d'Auschwitz” [Three years in an
Auschwitz gas chamber], Pygmalion, Gerard Watelet, Paris 1980. and in English
as “Eyewitness Auschwitz”, New York, Stein and Day,
1979. The French version is the one discussed here. |
| |
| RUDOLF HOESS, founder Commandant of the camp, who
wrote his memoirs in prison before being judged and executed. The greater part
of this work has been published very faithfully in French by the PMO in a book
entitled “Auschwitz vu par les SS” [Auschwitz seen by
the SS]. [In the English test, references are to “Commandant of
Auschwitz” by Rudolf Hoess, Translated by Constantine Fitzgibbon,
Pan Books, 1961]. |
| |
| PERY BROAD, former SS Unterscharführer in the
Political Section of the Camp, who in 1945 wrote a text that he gave to the
British who had taken him prisoner at the end of the war. This document has
been the subject of several PMO publications, the only one used here being the
“Déclaration de Pery Broad” in
“Auschwitz vu par les SS”, 1974 edition. |
|
| |
AUSCHWITZ:
Technique and operation
of the gas
chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
|
Back |
Page 123 |
Forward |
|
|
