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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © |
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| VI/ The floor area of Bunker 1 (Rudolf HOESS)
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| According to Camp Commandant Hoess, Bunker 1 could contain
800 victims, while Bunker 2 with a total surface area of 105m2 and a usable
area of 90m2 could take 1 200, i.e. 13 persons per square meter This is an
exaggerated figure, since it is possible to squash together only 8-10 persons
per square meter. In reality, Bunker 2 “absorbed” no more than
700–900. However, if we assume that the figures given by Hoess are both
exaggerated in the same proportion, it is possible to calculate the useful
floor area of Bunker 1 by dividing its capacity by the it number of persons per
m2, i.e. 60m2 and including the walls a total ground area of a little under
70m² which could hold only a batch 450 600 victims. |
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| CONCLUSIONS |
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| In order
to try to adopt a valid approach to Bunker 1, I have cited six witnesses: two
SS and four former prisoners: |
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| 1. |
Rudolf Hoess speaks
only of the genesis of Bunker 1. He was the direct initiator of the
installation comprising, according to him, a converted farmhouse and two
undressing huts. Extermination capacity 800 persons. |
| 2. |
Pery Broad never
described Bunkers 1 and 2, but in reality only Bunker 2, as can be
proved, i.e. the white house(s). |
| 3. |
Szlam[a] Dragon,
white he worked at Bunker 2 and knew this place perfectly, devoted only a few
lines to Bunker 1, which means that he visited it but little. Yet he is the
only one to give a precise description of the unit known as Bunker 1: a small
house converted into two gas chambers, a small barn and two huts. In the light
of certain other testimonies, this description, which was considered sound,
calls for a certain caution. |
| 4. |
Maurice Benroubi
mentions Bunker 1 as comprising only “two blocks” with one or more
gas chambers. His account is not situated, but the indication of 300 to 400
meters separating the graves from the Bunker called a “brick house”
(of reddish color), indicates that he was certainly speaking of Bunker
1. |
| 5. |
Milton Buki by 1980
remembered only a “farm cottage of brick” with a few steps and the
mass graves some distance off. These elements indicate fairly certainly that he
was speaking of Bunker 1. |
| 6. |
Moshe Garbarz was
only able to see Bunker very far off as he worked at the graves and I hesitated
a long time before situating his account. Was it Bunker 1 or Bunker 2? I have
decided in favor of 1 because of a single detail that agrees with S. Dragon's
deposition: the presence of a barn. Historically, this is not sufficient, but
with all due caution, two factors come to reinforce the thesis that Bunker 1
was involved: the strange Sonderkommando dressed in white and his participation
in the erection of the lamps for night work, facts mentioned by Mr Benroubi.
But in order to accept that Mr Garbarz’ account is concerned with Bunker
1, it has to be admitted that a straight path wide enough for the circulation
of the wagons (hence 6 or 7 meters wide) was cut through the forest and gave a
direct view between two places, Bunker 1 and its graves. Nothing Mr. Benroubi
says confirms his point, and would even seem to contradict it. Another clue
would indicate that it was Bunker 1, the distance of the observation. In the
area if Bunker 2 and its graves, observation is direct and of no more than 50
to 100 meters maximum. A distance of 400 to 400 meters would better explain the
account of this witness. In addition to the barn, he also mentions two or three
houses where there were small gas chambers able to handle about twenty persons
at a time per house, or 80 in all. This is far from the figure put forward by
R. Hoess, 800, Lastly, I would stress that Mr. Garbarz' testimony is by no
means early, his book dating from 1984. |
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It is
impossible to make a synthesis of all these accounts. A drawing of Bunker I and
the associated installations would make it possible to judge the value of the
testimonies, which include many personal impressions, but few precise details
on the gas chambers. These participants could hardly have imagined in 1942 that
they would become the “privileged few” who witnessed an incredible
episode and lived to tell the tale. All they knew was hunger, cold and the wish
to save their own skins. The rest did not exist.
There was, no drawing
made except, it would appear, for a situation plan drawn by Hoess, and Bunker 1
was carefully dismantled without leaving any ruins. Without any material
traces, the location [Document 2], internal organization [Document l],
and the arrangement of the different annexes of Bunker 1 will never be clearly
elucidated. Its purpose, the extermination of human beings by gassing, cannot
be called into question, if only because of the consent repetition of an
identical process in the accounts of former prisoners, unless like certain
revisionists of bad faith we claim that the witnesses were all lying, including
the SS. |
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THE SUPPOSED MASS GRAVES,
SUBSEQUENTLY CREMATION PITS,
ATTRIBUTED TO BUNKER 1:
IN REALITY
SEWAGE DECANTATION BASINS |
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The plan of the Birkenau camp [Document 3] is that
presented by G. Wellers in “Les chambres à gaz ont
existe” [The gas chambers did exist], which was taken from Hermann
Langbein's book "Der Auschwitz Prozess", the Auschwitz Trial]. pp. 930
931
Comparison with other plans of Birkenau reveals that it is of
very mediocre quality as regards many details. I present it here simply to
demonstrate the difficulty historians had in situating Bunker 1 and its
incineration ditches in 1965, and indeed still have today, and the errors that
can result.
Documents 4 and 5, together with drawings 2534(2)
[Document 6] and 3386 [Document 7] prove without doubt that these
are the provisional sewage decantation basins of B.A. III, dug alongside
drainage ditch F while awaiting the building of the future sewage treatment
plant for BA. III, which was in fact never completed.
Thanks to the
testimonies of survivors of the burial Kommando, we now know that the Bunker 1
graves were 300 to 400 meters to the WEST of the Bunker, not to the SOUTH, and
were dug actually IN the Birch Wood in order to be hidden from view.
It
can be seen that drawing 2534 (2) shows neither orientation nor situation, but
by reference to drawing 3386, showing the second planned section of sewage
plant III, we can locate the four basins in the proximity of Graben [drainage
ditch] F, on the western edge of the third construction stage of Birkenau.
Photo 1 also confirms this location of the basins. On Photo 2, at the end of
the basin is the Bestehender Weg [existing road] shown on drawing 3386.
I have presented Lagdein’s
“Auschwitz-Prozess” plan reproduced by G. Wellers, not
to accuse them of “falsification”, for their books are sound and
honest and have become classics of K.L. Auschwitz history, but to illustrate
the difficulty of rectifying a mistaken interpretation even on a minor point.
In this case two photographs and two drawings are required. |
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| * * * |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique and operation
of the gas
chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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