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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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| The Sonderkommando revolt |
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| The revolt was triggered on 7th October 1944 and resulted in the
burning of Krematorium IV, where most of the Sonderkommando men were
housed, and the deaths of three SS and two to three hundred
prisoners. By 9th October, only 212 Sonderkommando men remained
alive. Several accounts of the uprising have been written, but they
are not reproduced here as it is difficult to assess their veracity.
In the author’s opinion, this rebellion was an act of despair on the
part of prisoners who were overcrowded and underoccupied, who had
seen too much and felt that their end was near. |
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| The demolition of Krematorium IV |
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| Demolition began after the fire. The building was already out of
service as a crematorium and could no longer be used even as a
dormitory. The metal parts of its furnace were removed and stored in
the Auschwitz “Bauhof”. After demolition there remained only the
bare concrete foundation slab [Document 13]. |
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The final phase of operation
and the
destruction of Krematorium V |
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After Himmler gave the order to cease gassings and to demolish
Krematorien II and III, Krematorium V continued to be used to
cremate the bodies of prisoners who died of exhaustion, hunger or
disease. The undressing room / morgue was divided up to create new
rooms to house, for example, Doctor Mengele’s racial research team
from Krematorium II. In one of the two now unused gas chambers.
hutches were installed for breeding rabbits. The 30 or so remaining
members of the Sonderkommando, who looked after the now “normal”
operation of Krematorium V, no longer had the pickings from the
Hungarian transports to rely on and had to improve their rations as
best they could. They were housed in the former coal store next to
the doctor’s room, which was converted into a kitchen.
On 17th January 1945. the SS bums their last archives.
Virtually all the files from the Political Section of the camp were
destroyed, but those of the Bauleitung were forgotten in this final
attempt to make it impossible to calculate the total number of
deaths in the camp. In the night, taking advantage of the
provisional abandonment of Krematorium V by the SS, the 30
Sonderkommando men fled towards the main entrance of the Birkenau
camp and disappeared into the crowd of prisoners massed before the
gates. Evacuation of the camp began at dawn on 18th January, over
snow-covered roads and in arctic conditions.
The SS had been
over-hasty in leaving the camp. for the Russians did not actually
reach Oswiecim until 27th January. There was therefore time for
small groups to return to the camp to finish off destroying the
“murder weapons”.
After having blown up the remaining shells
of Krematorien II and III about midday on 20th January, the SS
dynamited Krematorium V, which exploded about one o'clock in the
morning of 26th January [according to Danuta Czech’s “Calendar
of everts”]. A former prisoner, Dr Otto Wolken, relates
that: |
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“One night ... the silence was broken by a great
explosion ... in the pale light of the moon I saw an enormous
cloud of dust in the place where crematorium number five had stood
the previous day.” |
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This witness gives no date for this episode, but according to
the chronology of his account it would have been in the night of
21st/22nd January 1945.
A survey of the location of the
explosions carried out by the author [Document 14] shows that
eight identical charges were used in the central and western parts
of the building, arranged in a regular and symmetrical pattern, and
a larger ninth charge, or several charges, was placed in the
8-muffle furnace. All were detonated simultaneously. |
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Krematorium V
after the Liberation of the
camp:
clearance and partial reconstruction |
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On their arrival, all the Soviets found of Krematorium IV was a
concrete slab and of Krematorium V a shapeless heap of rubble
[Photo 19 in annex]. They immediately began to clear the
rubble, for they hoped to find the 8-muffle furnace still intact,
all the furnaces of Krematorien I, II, III and IV having been
dismantled. They were disappointed. The explosives that the SS had
placed inside the muffles had virtually pulverised the furnace.
Nothing remained of its eastern part and only a small section of the
northwest part retained any form [Photo 24 in annex]. The
rubble was heaped up around Krematorium V. A gas-tight door with no
peephole was discovered, scarcely damaged [Photo 26 in
annex]. Of the three shutters for Zyklon-B introduction openings
still existing, it is not known whether they were from the “Bauhof”,
and therefore came from Krematorium IV, or whether they were found
in the ruins of Krematorium V. Once the ruins were cleared, the
various items found were stored separately with a view to making a
reconstruction [Photo 23 in annex]. In the author’s opinion,
this would have been possible only if a Topf drawing of the 8-muffle
furnace was available, and no such drawing has ever been found. By
removing the twisted metal components of the furnace frame of
Krematorium V and replacing them with the intact ones taken from Kr
V and left in the “Bauhof”, it would have been possible to
reconstitute the furnace perfectly, provided the drawing was
available. With no drawing it could not have been accurately
reproduced. Reconstruction of the rest of the building would have
presented no problem, for its external aspect and internal
arrangement were clearly shown on Bauleitung drawing 2036. What is
more, the type of gas-tight doors and Zyklon-B introduction shutters
was known. The walls were in fact rebuilt up to a height of about
one meter. but reconstruction was then halted for some unknown
reason.
This study of Krematorien IV and V is necessarily of
a somewhat general nature. It is not possible to make an in-depth
and detailed study like that of Krematorien II and III for the
simple reason that very few German documents concerning Krematorien
IV and V are available. This lack of documentation is no doubt a
further reflection of the fact that Kr IV and V were used very
little, as against the constant use of II and III.
Krematorium IV served as a test bed, and as a result
of this brief experiment Krematorium V was virtually deprived of its
furnace.
Krematorium V did play an important supporting role
during a critical period in 1943, being the only installation used
for the gassing and cremation of the unfit for work over a period of
two months, a relatively light task that it nevertheless only just
managed and which ceased as soon as Krematorium III was completed
and II was brought back into service. It was kept in reserve’ and
its gas chamber section was reactivated during the Hungarian
extermination, and used in association with open-air cremation
ditches which made up for the inadequate output of its furnace,
which remained unused. As from the end of November 1944, Krematorium
V handled alone all the “normal” cremation of the camp.
There
remain several unknowns concerning Krematorien IV and V. The lack of
a Topf drawing of the 8-muffle furnace means that we do not know its
internal arrangement: whether there was a space between the two
4-muffle half furnaces; the precise location of its firing hearths
(on the same faces as the muffle doors or in the possible space
between the two furnaces which would then form a “Heizgrub”). In the
gas chambers in the western part, the gas-tight door found in
Krematorium V has no peephole, whereas Sonderkommando members
describe the doors as having them. The form of the grids inside the
Zyklon-B introduction openings through which the gas was diffused
and the way in which the pellets were recovered for re-use have
never been described.
The number of victims killed in
Krematorien IV and V depends on the length of time the Krematorien
were used, and our knowledge is very uncertain here. What is more,
it is absolutely impossible to calculate the cremation capacity of
the ditches dug near Kr V. On the basis of the data available, it
can be said that Krematorium IV [Document 15] could
theoretically have “treated” 20,000 people in 40 to 50 days, a
figure to be reduced in view of the repairs carried out before its
final breakdown and which is likely to be closer to 6,000. In its
initial period of operation in 1943, Krematorium V could have
eliminated 30,000 in 2 months. but the true figure is probably no
more than 15,000. In the summer of 1944, the number of victims
cremated in the ditches was probably 50,000 or more. The great
majority of deaths occurred then, the number “treated” in 1943 being
much smaller. The total number of victims for Krematorien IV and V
in 1943 was probably about 20,000. The number of victims for
Krematorium V in the summer of 1944 cannot be calculated and is
certainly under-estimated. |
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| Completed on 28th June 1988 |
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Document 12a
Sketch by D. Olčre, 1945.
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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