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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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Page 331 |
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THE BAULEITUNG PHOTOGRAPHS
OF
KREMATORIEN II AND III |
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All the photographs presented here were taken by the
same man, SS Sergeant Kamann, but they come from two different
sources: those “organized” by the former prisoner Lawin Ludwik and
those found to the “Bauleitung Album”, now held by the
Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Lawin Ludwik handed 52
photographs to the Polish judiciary and made the following first
deposition, which appears of page 31 of Volume 15 of the Höss Trial:
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First deposition by Lawin
Ludwik
(summary made from the Polish original) |
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"During the war, the Polish
prisoner Lawin Ludwik was employed in the little Zentralbauleitung
(Auschwitz Waffen SS and Police Central Construction Management]
photographic laboratory. SS Unterscharführer Kamann, employed by
this service and in charge of the laboratory, had a “Retina” [Kodak
“Retina”?] camera and could take photographs in the camp to document
the building work in progress.
Ludwik noticed that among the
developed rolls of film there were pictures of the buildings at
Birkenau and realized that these photos could provide useful
historical documentation on the camp.
While the SS man was
absent, he made some very small prints in the dark room. In this way
he personally “organized” fifty three prints covering different
periods at Auschwitz [main camp] and Birkenau. He then enclosed them
in two metal capsules which were in turn put in a bottle which was
buried in August 1944 near to the third Bauleitung barrack block
[outside the main camp].
At 12 o’clock on 25th September
1946, Lucas dug up the bottle in the presence of a member of the
Auschwitz State Museum [a body different from the present one, whose
role, from the spring of 1946, was to protect and preserve the
premises with a view to organizing future exhibition], Tadeusz
Mynkowski. The prints were in good condition and are listed
below:” |
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This list in fact
contains only fifty photographs, no. 28 being a duplicate of 17, and
no. 39 having been forgotten. One of the missing photographs (since
visible in the “Bauleitung Album”, showing the south
side of Krematorium II and classified by the PMO under neg. no,
20995/504) is to be found in the Archives of the Warsaw Central
Commission for research into Hitlerian crimes in Poland.
Ludwig's list includes fifteen photographs of Birkenau
Krematorien II, III and IV, and three others showing the building of
a section of the “Ringstraße / Ring road” passing between
Krematorien IV and V.
Ludwik subsequently completed his
first deposition with a second, also to be found in Volume 15 of the
Höss Trial: |
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Second deposition by Lawin
Ludwik
(summary made from the Polish original) |
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| Ludwig testified as
follows: |
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“During the winter of 1941-42,
SS Sergeant Kamann was worried about what was happening on the
Eastern Front [?] At first, Kamann was employed on the gardens and
the transport of horses, then he took over the little photographic
laboratory belonging to the Bauleitung. Lawin Ludwik worked there
for two months, then was replaced by a professional photographer,
called Kubiak, but still retained some influence, because he could
speak German and the new man could not. Ludwik and his fellow
prisoner Kubiak decided that they should “organize” some copies of
the photographs, simply by making contact prints [underlined by the
author; this simple process explains the small size of the prints
and the poor quality of the enlargements made after the war]. Two
sets of prints were produced in this way. The first set was given to
a certain Dubiel, but it is not known whether the prisoner survived
or not. This set was buried in Höss’ [the Camp Commandant] garden,
because Dubiel was a gardener there. It was put in a sealed tube,
but there was an accident and the tube was broken and the contents
taken by another prisoner. The second set was also buried.
This second set was dug up near the Bauleitung barracks.
These photos were then enlarged and used as incriminating evidence.
Some of them had been exhibited on the walls of the Bauleitung
building and appeared in several Albums of photographs which were
given as presents to various high-ranking SS visitors.” |
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| This second deposition
by Ludwik, which differs from the first in that he no longer claims
to have acted alone in “organizing” the prints, gives two pieces of
information that were subsequently corroborated: |
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| 1. |
The exhibition on the walls of
the Bauleitung of photographs showing its achievements in the field
of cremation facilities; |
| 2. |
The production of several Albums
of photographs of the buildings erected in the Auschwitz area, which
were given as souvenirs to high ranking SS visitors, no doubt to
show off the“good work” being done by the members of the
Bauleitung. |
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| The first point was
confirmed by SS Corporal Pery Broad of the Political Section of the
camp in his affidavit of 20th October 1947, Document NI 11984
[Paris CDJC reference CLXVI-37]. Here is the seventh
paragraph, translated from the German: |
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| 7. |
“About January 1944, a panel
carrying about 30 photographs was hung in the vestibule of the
Auschwitz Waffen SS and Police Central Construction Management
offices. These photos showed the different phases of construction of
the Birkenau Krematorien. Among others, there were views of long
lines of cremation furnaces. On one which I can remember exactly,
there was a row of 15 furnaces [actually the 15 muffles of the five
three-muffle furnaces of Krematorium II]. It was obvious that more
than one corpse at a time could be burned in a single furnace
(muffle). As I heard later, it was 5 to 7 corpses [actually 2 or 3]
that were burned at a time. I would say these photographs were on
show for about a week, during which time they were seen by many
civilians from the construction firms dealing with the Bauleitung. I
would imagine that the sight of so many cremation furnaces would
convince any visitor that Auschwitz was an extermination camp.
Although epidemics had broken out secretively they were limited in
duration and such great expenditure, so carefully planned, had never
been made for them. After about a week the photos were removed by
order of the Camp Commandant, because going on like the would have
compromised the secrecy.“ |
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Broad’s account gives an idea of the number of
photographs that had been taken of the four Krematorien, “about
thirty”.
The second point was confirmed quite
recently, at the beginning of 1982, when the Auschwitz Museum
received from the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem a copy of an Album
containing 397 photographs, which they had just bought from a German
in Berlin, who had himself negotiated it just after the war from a
Russian officer who had spent some time at Auschwitz. This Album,
since known as the “Bauleitung Album”, shows all the
buildings constructed by the Bauleitung in the Auschwitz region.
There are nineteen photos that concern the Birkenau Krematorien.
They are grouped together in four sheets; one introductory with one
photograph and the legend “Krematorien KGL”, two sheets each with
six photos and one with six remaining out of the original eight, two
having been torn out, and one of which is a duplicate of that on the
introductory sheet. |
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The Bauleitung Album contains eighteen photos of the four
Birkenau Krematorien, eight of which appear on Ludwik’s list, while
ten are new. In addition, the Bauleitung Album contains a photo of
the south side of Krematorium II, furnaces working, under the
heading “Prov. Erdklaranlage im KGL / Provisional earth purification
basins in the POW camp”, while under the heading “Entwesungsanlage
mit Effektenbaracken im KGL / Disinfestation facility and effects
barracks in the POW camp” [known as the “Zentral Sauna”] a view of
the southwest corners of the gas chambers of Krematorien IV and V
can be obtained by enlarging a photo of the
foundations.
In all, we now possess 15+10+2 =27
different photos of the four Birkenau Krematorien and 3 of the
building of the road between Kr IV and V (of no great interest
except for the location, and, on two of them, the presence of
Bischoff and Dejaco).
Of Broad’s “about thirty” photos,
twenty five have been found. The arrangement of the prints on the
pages of the Bauleitung Album, which are in the order in which they
were taken, makes it possible to say that in fact ONLY ONE photo of
the Krematorien is missing. This would be a view of the northwest
corner of Krematorium II at the time it was officially handed over
by the Bauleitung to the camp authorities.
The following
sheets contain the nineteen known photos of Krematorien II and III,
arranged chronologically from late summer 1942 to summer 1943,
supplemented by two prints from Serge Klarsfeld’s “Auschwitz
Album” taken during the extermination of the Hungarian Jews
in May/June 1944.
The Leichenkeller of Krematorien II and
III were excavated and built right at the beginning of the work in
order to get them damp-proofed before the winter. This was managed
just in time, but the roofs were not prepared and concreted until
January 1943 for Krematorium II and later for Krematorium III. In
the meantime a temporary roof was installed over the incomplete
Leichenkeller 2 of Krematorium III, so that work could continue
without being interrupted by rain or snow falls. This temporary roof
did not cover the whole Leichenkeller, however, and it had to be
dried out when completed. |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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