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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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Page 334 |
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| Photo 5 |
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Photo 5:
[PMO neg. no. 287
Ludwik series, and 20995/495 Kamann series] |
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East-west view of the furnace
room of Krematorium II taken on the same occasions as Photo
4, in the first half of January 1943.
From right to
left: the three-muffle furnaces 4, 3, 2 and 1. The openings below
the muffle doors were to collect human ashes. The four small flaps
on each furnace, two at each end of the set of three doors, were
used to regulate the draught. For this picture, Kamann had all the
doors closed that were open on the previous one, except for the
center door of furnace 1 (far end).
In the foreground, the
shallow slope of the narrow gauge rails running down to
Leichenkeller 2 can clearly be seen. After the rails were removed,
the floor was concreted. |
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| Photo 6: |
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Photo 6:
[PMO neg.
no. 291, Ludwik series] |
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West-east view of the
Krematorium II furnace room taken towards the end of January 1943,
probably on the 25th or 26th, when the furnaces were being warmed
through before the inspection on 29th January by representatives of
Topf & Sons, the manufacturers, and members of the Bauleitung,
the customer. According to Pery Broad, this photo already had a
certain fame at the time.
From left to right: three-muffle
furnaces 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. The rectangular holes in the ceiling in
front of each furnace were for ventilation. The three sets of 40 cm
gauge rails set in the floor perpendicular to each furnace were for
corpse charging trolleys identical to those used in Krematorium
I. Bottom right is part of the low trolley carrying the
turntable used to position the charging trolley on the rails before
the desired muffle. This mobile turntable moved on two angle irons
about 90 cm apart set into the concrete floor running at right
angles to the other sets of rails and thus linking them. The
charging trolleys were subsequently abandoned in favor of the simple
and easier to use “corpse stretcher”. Despite the fact that they
were of no use, the fifteen sets of rails were left in place (and
can still be seen today). On the other hand the turntable rails
running the length of the room were removed and the space was
converted into a shallow concrete trough that was filled with water
so that bodies could be easily slid along it from the corpse lift to
the furnaces.
At the far end of the furnace room is the door
to the corridor leading to the Capo’s room, the furnace irons store,
the WC and shower and the prisoners’ rest room. The stairs to the
roof space are just beyond the entrance to the corridor, on the
left. The electricity supply was already installed, but the lamps do
not seem to be in place yet. |
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The incineration capacity of the five three-muffle
furnaces of one Krematorium of type II/III was established in
1945-46 by the technical “expert” engaged by the two Commissions
(first Soviet, then Polish), Professor Dawidowski, in line with the
accounts of former Sonderkommando men, as being 2,500 corpses a day,
which they claimed could be pushed up to as many as 5,000.
These fables. such as the incineration capacity being 18,000
a day and capable of peaks of 24,000, the maximum gassing capacity
of the extermination instruments being estimated at 60,000 in 24
ours and the total number of victims being 4 million, are now
recognized as being “emotional” figures, bearing no relation to
reality and resulting from the shock of unbelievable events that
were still very close in time.
Messrs Topf & Sons, who
had supplied the three muffle furnaces, claimed that a battery of
five would leave a normal “productivity” of 720 corpses in 24 hours.
Their designer, the Topf chief engineer Kurt Prüfer, estimated that
the actual yield of his three muffle furnaces had exceeded his
expectations by one third, reaching almost one thousand cremations a
day for a type II/III Krematorium.
The figure of 1,440 for
Krematorium II or III officially communicated by the Auschwitz SS to
their superiors at the end of June 1943 is a purely administrative
figure, obtained by calculation. In the non-criminal plans
for this type of Krematorium, formulated at the end of December
1941, the cremation rate was to be 60 corpses her hour, so once the
installation was completed the capacity must be 60 x 24 hours =
1,440 per day. It was unthinkable to admit that the actual result
was less than this, and indeed any lesser figure might be
interpreted as sabotage. This rate of cremation, over one third
higher than Prüfer’s figure, was based on absolutely flat out
working 24 hours a day. Even if it was attainable in practice it
could not be maintained for long without causing damage to the
installation and necessitating a shut down for repairs.
The
Buchenwald concentration camp had two three-muffle furnaces of the
same model as the ten in Birkenau. At the Liberation, those at
Birkenau no longer existed, having been dismantled in December 1944,
while those at Buchenwald were intact. To this day, there has never
been a comparative study of this type of furnace to find out what
the actual throughput was. Despite this lack, the present state of
knowledge makes it reasonable to say that the daily throughput of
Krematorium II or III would have been in the order of 1,000 corpses,
whereas the official publications indicate a minimum of 1,440 (based
on the SS letter of 28th June 1943), a figure already considered
inflated (by well over a third) and a maximum of 5,000, a figure
which is technically impossible and is simply a reflection of the
emotional context of the immediate post Liberation period.
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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