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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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given to dismantle Krematorien II and III [IV had already been
demolished and V continued in service for “normal” cremations]. The
destruction of the “murder weapon” started at the beginning of
December 1944. Because of bureaucratic delays, the Bauleitung’s
request for Huta's drawings was also made at the beginning of
December 19. The Huta drawings presented here were not found among
the Bauleitung documents recovered after the Liberation, but in a
search of the Huta offices in Kattowitz ordered by the Examining
Judge Jan Sehn in 1945 or 1946.
In conclusion, the Huta
drawings do not contain “criminal traces”, but they do make it
possible to better understand some of the Bauleitung drawings and
they also show that the “secrecy” that was thought after the war to
have surrounded the Krematorien could not have existed during their
planning and construction. However, once the “special actions” were
over, there is no doubt that the SS tried, without completely
succeeding, to get rid of all the evidence. They destroyed their
archives (but not completely). At Birkenau, they dismantled
Krematorien II and III, but were unable to finish the job and ended
up having to dynamite what remained. Lastly, in addition to such
measures they desperately tried to find and liquidate any surviving
members of the Sonderkommando, right up to May 1945.
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Drawing of the
chimney for Krematorien II and III
[PMO file BW
30/40, page 47] |
Translation of
inscriptions: |
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· Fuge / Joint
· Eigengewicht / Static weight
· Winddruck / Wind pressure
· Kippmoment / Turning
moment |
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This drawing is extracted from the first set of static
calculations produced by the Huta engineer Dziubany, referring to
items 1 to 25 of the original estimate.
Despite the letter
of 2nd August 1942 [Document 1] telling Huta not to concern
themselves with the static calculations for the chimney, they
nevertheless did carry out such a study in conjunction with the
Bauleitung drawing 1434 “Errichtung eines Schornsteines am
Krematorium / Construction of the Krematorium”, drawn on 3rd June
1942, though this did not stop Messrs Topf & Sons, responsible
for the furnaces, from producing their own drawings. In the end the
two identical chimneys of Krematorien II and III were built by
Messrs Robert Koehler of Myslowitz. Despite all the calculations and
the care taken with the actual building, serious problems were
encountered with the chimney of Krematorium II as early as May-June
1943, and part of the lining even collapsed. After much discussion,
which went on until mid-September 1943, between Kurt Prüfer, chief
engineer at Topf, Robert Koehler and the Bauleitung, during which
each blamed the other for the defects, the three parties finally
agreed that the cost of relining the Krematorium II chimney should
be equally shared between them [PMO file BW 30/25, pages 11 and
12, Aktenvermerk Ki/lei no. 316132/43 of 13/9/43].
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Back |
Page 314 |
Forward |
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