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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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either problem]. After their revision, an operation that may be
considered routine, Krematorien Il and III fulfilled their role
perfectly from May to July 1944. As for Krematorien IV and V, we
have no precise information about their reactivation. According to
Sonderkommando and SS accounts and depositions concerning the
"forest Krematorien", which are confused and divergent on this
point, the following situations emerge. Krematorium IV either
functioned again for a very short time, a few days to a few weeks,
before being closed down for good, or was not trimmed at all and
served as accommodation for about 700 Sonderkommando men, who
occupied ALL the available space in the building, (including the gas
chambers, but not the furnace room and its annexes, which were
probably reserved for the Capos). The furnaces of Krematorium V, not
so badly damaged as those of Kr IV, either worked at such a slow
rate that open air incineration ditches had to be rapidly dug behind
the gas chambers in order to compensate for their poor throughput,
or, knowing in advance that the Krematorium V furnaces would be
unable to operate at the pace required for the future, the SS
decided to replace them with five small incineration ditches and to
reactivate Bunker 2, under the designation Bunker V. which also had
an incineration ditch. There is still another possibility, in view
of the repairs of early June, i.e. that Krematorien IV and V were
not repaired by the end of April 1944 and the SS had the five
incineration ditches dug and Bunker 2/V reactivated right away. It
is possible that, overwhelmed by the mass arrivals of Hungarian
convoys in May, they tried at the beginning of June to rapidly
reactivate Krematorien IV and V in order to increase incineration
capacity at Birkenau. These cursory repairs, made in extremis, seem
to have succeeded in the case of Kr V, which worked more or less
correctly until January 1945, but turned out to be inadequate in the
case of Kr IV, whose furnaces and chimney needed to be completely
rebuilt.
Between May and the beginning of July 1944,
some 200,000 to 250.000 Hungarian Jews were annihilated in the gas
chambers and incineration furnaces of Krematorien II and III, the
gas chamber and five incineration ditches of Krematorium V, and the
gas chamber (the original internal walls dividing the building into
four small gas chambers had been removed, leaving a single chamber
of external dimension 7 in by 15m) of Bunker 2/V and its
incineration ditch of 30 m2 area. According to the accounts of
former prisoners, this was the darkest and most depressing period in
Birkenau, at the time when the Liberation of Europe was beginning.
The most palpable sign of this demential period, engraved on the
memory of survivors, was four black columns of smoke, belched forth
24 hours a day by the Krematorien. This picture, of course, cannot
be taken entirely at face value, because two of the Krematorien were
out of service and aerial photographs taken during this period show
no trace of smoke. An argument has grown up over the discrepancy
between the memory of survivors and the indisputable evidence of the
aerial photos. Even though this can now be explained by the gaps
between the arrival of convoys, historians have been extraordinarily
unlucky in that the American reconnaissance aircraft flew over
Auschwitz Birkenau precisely on days when nothing was happening or
when the cremation of the last batch had finished. On the other
hand, it is easier to explain the four columns of smoke, despite the
feet that two of the four Krematorien were not working. The chimneys
of Krematorien II and III were visible from almost all over the
Birkenau camp and everybody could see when they were smoking. In the
case of Kr V, practically surrounded by the birch wood and hence
invisible to most of the prisoners, the incineration ditches behind
it burned regularly, giving the impression that the furnaces were
working. As for Kr IV, partly hidden by a screen of trees, an
observer within the limits of B.II (and most of the survivors are in
this category) could see the smoke coming from the incineration
ditch of Bunker 2/V, located 400 m to the west of Krematorium IV and
on the same line of sight, and had the impression it was coming from
the Krematorium.
On 6th June 1944, the Bauleitung produced
drawing 4054, on which the “Jewish ramp” where the convoys arrived
was transformed into a real station, an installation that could be
called the “extermination station” [Document 76]. This
version produced by the Bauleitung Drawing Office is more realistic
than the plan mentioned by Hoess of a huge station covering the four
Krematorien, for it includes only Krematorien II and III, the only
ones that were actually working. [It should be pointed out that the
only piece of “camouflage” found on any of the known Bauleitung
drawings appears here, where “Gemüesehalle / Vegetable shed”
probably stands for “Effektenhalle / Effects shed”].
On 26th
June 1944. the US Air Force photographed the entire Auschwitz
Birkenau Monowitz complex from a height of 30,000 feet [Document
77]. An enlargement [Document 78] reveals no activity in
the four Krematorien, which is perfectly natural, because the last
transport of Hungarian Jews from Wegier had arrived on 18th June and
the next did not arrive at Birkenau until 28th June.
On 25th
August 1944, the US Air Force photographed, in clear weather, part
of the Birkenau camp (B.I, the ramp and Krematorien II and III, from
a probable height of about 3,000 feet [Document 79]. No
incineration activity can be detected in the Krematorien, and yet
the previous day five transports had arrived in the camp: three from
Lodz, one from Wegier (Hungary) and one from Boryslaw (Soviet
Union). The total number of deportees in these five convoys is not
known, but the number selected for work is: those from Lodz 10, 7,
and 222: from Hungary 28 and from the Soviet Union 2. A total of 269
judged fit for work. Assuming that IN THE WORST CASE 10% of the
total were pronounced fit, the total for the five convoys would be
in the order of 2,700 people. The incineration of 2,400 or 2,500
corpses in Krematorien II and III and the ditches of Krematorium V
and Bunker 2/V was a matter of routine, compatible with the real
throughput of the installations, and could have been completed by
the time the photograph was taken, before midday on 25th August. (It
should be noted that the incineration ditches were not photographed,
so we do not know whether they were operating or not.)
On
13th September 1944, Krematorien IV and V were photographed by an
American aircraft [Document 75], and no trace of smoke can be
seen. No convoy had arrived at Birkenau that day, and only the 300
Jewish children of a transport from Kowno had been gassed the
previous day.
After the Sonderkommando revolt of 7th October
1944, Krematorium IV, which was set on fire during the uprising, was
completely demolished except for the concrete floor, which remained
in place.
On 26th November 1944, following the publication in
American newspapers of the “War Refugee Board” report on the
Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, Himmler gave the order,
probably verbal (no written trace ever having been found) to
completely dismantle Krematorien II and III. |
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THE USE OF THE KREMATORIEN FOR THE
"RESETTLEMENT"
OF JEWS UNFIT FOR WORK |
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After selection at the Jewish ramp at Auschwitz station [the new
siding in the very center of the Birkenau camp was not completed
until May 1944. for the arrival of the Hungarian transports], groups
of 1,000 to 1,500 classified as “unfit” [for work] were taken on
foot, or for the weaker ones, by truck, to Krematorium II or III.
For about two weeks, from 15th to the end of March 1943, victims
heading for Krematorium II, the only one ready at that date, used a
particular route, Because the access stairway to the underground
undressing room was not yet finished, a stable type hut was erected
on a north-south line in the north yard of the building [Document
80], to serve as a temporary undressing room. After passing
through the wire mesh gates in the fence round the Krematorium. the
unfit entered this hut at the northern end, emerged naked front the
southern end and, then being visible to the prisoners, in B.IIf,
disappeared into the northern stairway of the Krematorium
[Document 81]. From there, they were channeled into
Leichenkeller 1, the gas chamber, the door was shut on them and they
were gassed. Once the stairway from the outside directly to the
underground undressing room was completed, the hut was dismantled,
and from April 1943 the victims entered the north yard of
Krematorium II, walked along the northern side of the undressing
room along its whole length, went down the western stairway
[Document 82], with its metal guard rails, and entered the
undressing room. The whole operation now being underground, nothing
was visible from the outside, which was not the case before. Once
they were undressed [Document 83], the unfit went through the
double door at the far end of the undressing room along a short
corridor and through the vestibule into the gas chamber, whose
entrance was on their right.
As soon as the whole group of
1,000 to 1.500 people was in the gas chamber, the gas light door was
closed and secured with its two latch bars, which were screwed
tight. The lights in the room were then probably extinguished. On
the roof, SS medical orderlies wearing gasmasks introduced 1 or 1.5
kg of Zyklon B into each of the four “chimneys”, with their covers
(making 4 to 6 kg in all) which projected 40 or 50 cm above the
grass growing on the earth bank covering the roof of the gas
chamber. Death followed very quickly, as the amount of Zyklon B used
was FORTY times the lethal dose [Document 84]. In a few
minutes, five at the very most, depending on the humidity of the air
and the ambient temperature, all the victims were dead. In theory,
an SS doctor was supposed to check by looking through the peephole
to make sure nobody was still moving. But as a real check was
impossible it could but be cursory and was generally dispensed with
altogether, the poison used being so very toxic and effective. The
air extraction system was then switched on for at least 20 to 30
minutes, for there was a great deal of poisoned air still in the
chamber, the amount absorbed by the victims being minimal. The gas
tight door was then unbolted and opened, and the work of extracting
the corpses began immediately [Document 85] The “dentists”
then pulled out the gold teeth and collected any jewelry (most of
the “crematorium” gold came from melted down jewelry. NOT GOLD
TEETH, which only accounted for a very small percentage). “Barbers”
sheared the hair off the women. These two operations were carried
out either directly in the gas chamber entrance [Document 86]
or where the corpses were taken from the lift at the end of the
furnace room. In the early days the corpses were loaded 3 or 4 at a
time on the temporary goods hoist, then later 10 to 15 at a
time on the permanent electric lift, and sent up to the ground
floor. There, the Sonderkommando men attached leather thongs to them
and slid them along a shallow trough of water to a point in front of
one of the furnaces [Document 85]. They were placed head to
foot in threes on a metal “corpse stretcher” and charged into one of
the muffles (this was the normal number for normal adults: it could
be more in the case of children, but it could never possibly have
been twelve adults, even reduced to musulman stale, as claimed by
one former Sonderkommando man) [Document 87]. The
incineration of such a charge took 45 to 60 minutes [Document
88], though some unrealistic witnesses have claimed it look only
15 to 20 minutes. or even less. The pulsed air blowers on the side
of the furnaces were apparently used only when starting up a
furnace. Once the furnace was hot, the corpses burned spontaneously.
Witnesses have stated (or drawn [Document 89]) that when
working at full capacity and high temperature, flames leapt 2 or 3
meters from the top of the chimney. There is no photographic
evidence to corroborate this claim, however. The work of
incinerating the corpses was watched by the SS from a room known as
the “Capo’s room” [Document 90].
The destruction of
1,000 to 1,500 people took a whole day or more. The two bottlenecks
in the process that put absolute limits on the extermination
capacity of Krematorien II and III were in fact the extraction of
corpses from the gas chamber, which took “hours and hours” according
to former Sonderkommando member David Olère, and then the cremation
process, which took 24 to 36 hours. Somewhere between 15th and 20th
June 1944. during the extermination of the Hungarian Jews, the three
working Krematorien and Bunker 2/V established the unhappy record of
between 4,000 and 5.000 people eliminated in a single day (the
“emotional” figure put forward after the Liberation for this day was
25,000). |
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THE DESTRUCTION OF
KREMATORIEN II AND III
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| After the order was received to destroy Krematorien II and III,
an “Abbruchkommando / demolition commando” was formed on 1st
December 1944 to perform this task. Work advanced rapidly. The roofs
were dismantled, the undressing room ventilation systems removed,
the chimneys and furnaces dismantled. On 21st December 1944, the
floors of the roof spaces were bare and the earth banks over the
undressing rooms (Leichenkeller 2) had been removed, this earth
being placed on the ground on either side of these premises,
[Document 91]. The way in which the earth was removed and
cleared assay from the cellars shows that the SS intended to expose
the walls as well, so as to be able to remove all trace of the
Krematorien. Unfortunately for them, it would appear that these
outdoor activities had to stop because the ground was frozen. Work
then proceeded inside the buildings, the ten cremation furnaces
being removed, so that only the empty foundation pits were found at
the Liberation. On 14th January 1945, internal dismantling continued
[Document 92]. In the afternoon of 18th January, Auschwitz II
(Birkenau] was evacuated. It had not been possible to complete the
destruction and removal of the Krematorien, partly because of the
frost and snow and partly because of the lack of time, for the
Russian troops were dangerously close. On 20th January 1945, the SS
blew up the remaining carcasses of Krematorien II and III,
apparently in daytime (towards midday for Kr III, according to Mr.
Otto Klein’s | |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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