|
DR C S BENDEL is called in and
having been duly sworn in is examined by MAJOR DRAPER as follows:
|
| Q. |
What is your full
name? |
| A. |
Charles Sigismund
Bendel. |
| Q. |
What are you by profession?
|
| A. |
A doctor. |
| Q. |
Are you at present living in
Paris? |
| A. |
Yes. |
| Q. |
When did you first enter a
concentration camp? |
| A. |
10th December 1943. |
| Q. |
When did you leave the
concentration camp for the last time? |
| A. |
6th May 1945. |
| Q. |
Over that period what camps were
you in? |
| A. |
Buna-Monowitz, Auschwitz,
Birkenau, Mauthausen. |
| Q. |
Why were you originally
interned? |
| A. |
For political and racial
reasons. |
| Q. |
Were there any gas chambers at
Auschwitz as opposed to Birkenau? |
| A. |
There was one gas chamber in
Auschwitz.
[In fact there were 24 known gas chambers, but only
one was homicidal, that in Krematorium I] |
| Q. |
How many gas chambers were there
at Birkenau? |
| A. |
Four crematoria and one Bunker.
|
| [The witness indicates
the places in which there were gas chambers, the number of which he
did not know, as a more precise question could have revealed]
|
| Q. |
For how long did you work at
Birkenau? |
| A. |
From 1st January 1944 to 18th
January 1945. |
| Q. |
What was your employment at
Birkenau? |
| A. |
I was a doctor. |
| Q. |
Who were you attending as a
doctor? |
| A. |
The inmates. |
| Q. |
What special work were the
internees of Birkenau doing? |
| A.. |
The normal inmate worked in the
camp on whatever work could be found to give some sort of illusion
of work |
| Q. |
Who looked after the crematoria
in Birkenau? |
| A. |
The so-called Sonderkommando, a
special task force. |
| [The witness is
talking about the Sonderkommando-SS, made up of 3 SS NCOs per
Krematorium] |
| Q. |
How many men were there in all
working on the Sonderkommando at Birkenau? |
| A. |
900 men. |
| Q. |
Were they all Häftlinge
[prisoners]? |
| A. |
Yes. |
| Q. |
While you were at Birkenau, how
many human beings were gassed in the crematoria? |
| A. |
In Birkenau or in the crematoria
during the time I was in the crematoria? |
| Q. |
During the whole time you were
at Birkenau. |
| A. |
About one million. [Getting on
for 300,000 would be more accurate] |
| Q. |
That was from February 1944 to
January 1945? |
| A. |
Yes, one million. |
| Q. |
In that time a
million? |
| A. |
Yes. |
| Q. |
How were they
killed? |
| A. |
They were gassed. |
| Q. |
What sort of gas? |
| A. |
Prussic acid. |
| Q. |
Did it have a name? |
| A. |
Zyklon-B. |
| Q. |
Do you know the total number of
people exterminated at Auschwitz during the whole period of the
camp's existence? |
| A. |
More than four millions. |
| [The witness could not
possibly have known the number of victims. He is repeating the
figure generally accepted at the time, but which has now been
determined more precisely, in particular by Georges Wellers and Raul
Hilberg (one million for this latter historian)]
|
| Q. |
What was the greatest number of
people ever gassed at Birkenau in one day while you were there?
|
| A. |
During the month of June the
number of gassed was 25,000 every day. |
| [Or in other words
750,000 dead in the 30 days. The former camp commandant, Hoess,
reports that the maximum figure reached was a little over 9,000 in
24 hours as the result of delays having caused five convoys to
arrive on the same day. The witness is inventing things]
|
| Q. |
With gas? |
| A. |
With prussic acid. |
| |
|
| (Page 29)
|
| |
|
| Q. |
Did you ever see this prussic
acid gas that was being used? |
| A. |
I have seen the tins. I have
opened some of the bodies of those people who had been
gassed. |
| Q. |
Would you indicate to the court
whether any of those tins in front of the court are of a similar
type to those to which you are referring? |
| A. |
Yes.
(Witness indicates
Exhibit 4 and the smaller tin of Exhibit 2). |
| [We have no
description of these exhibits. They were Zyklon-B cans of different
sizes. The product came in cans of 200g. 500g, 1 kg and 1.5kg.
Further on in the interrogation, the term “"medium.” is applied to
Exhibit 4 and “small”, to Exhibit 2. Thus 2 would be 200 or 500g and
4 would be 500g or 1 kg] |
| Q. |
Are the labels on these tins the
same as the labels on the tins you have been telling us
about? |
| A. |
I remember
“Zyklon-B.”. |
| Q. |
Have you yourself ever watched
this gassing process? |
| A. |
Yes. |
| Q. |
How many people could be put
into one crematorium at a time? |
| [Confusion between
“Krematorium” and its gas chamber(s)] |
| A. |
In Crematoria 1 [II) and 2
[III], 2,000 into each; Crematoria 3 [IV] and 4 [V), 1,000 each: and
into the Bunker [2/V], 1,000. |
| Q. |
How were they put in — tightly
packed or not? |
| A. |
In the beginning they started
gassing incoming groups above the number of 300; up to the number of
300 they were shot, above the number they were gassed. |
| Q. |
Later how was it done?
|
| A. |
There were two [basement] rooms
in each crematorium. In Crematoria 1 and 2 [II and III] one put
1,000 people into one room, so it was 2,000 at a time in both gas
chambers. |
| Q. |
What size were the chambers?
|
| A. |
Each chamber was 10 metres long
and 4 metres wide. The people were herded in so tightly that there
was no possibility even to put in one more. It was a great amusement
for the SS to throw in children above the heads of those who were
packed tightly into these rooms. |
| [The Leichenkeller 1
(gas chambers) of Krematorien II and III were 30 m long, 7 m wide
and 2.41 m high, and the Leichenkeller 2 (undressing rooms) were 50
m long, 7.93 m wide and 2.44 m high, according to surviving
Bauleitung drawings 932 and 933. Taking into account the division of
Leichenkeller 1 into two. we obtain two chambers 15 m long, 7 m wide
and 2.41 m high. In the witness's memory, the size of the gas
chambers has diminished by one third to one half. The concentration
of people per square metre is increased accordingly]
|
| Q. |
Were the people dressed or
undressed at the time? |
| A. |
They were naked. |
| Q. |
How high was the room in
relation to an ordinary person? |
| A. |
You had the impression that the
roof was falling in on your head; it was about 5ft 8ins. |
| [Subjective estimate —
see previous comment] |
| Q. |
After the people had been pushed
inside, what happened next? |
| A. |
When the people were there
inside, one locked the doors. For about two minutes you heard
shoutings and screams. |
| Q. |
How was the gas
inserted? |
| A. |
There were two methods of
infiltrating the gas. In Crematoria 1 and 2 [II and III], it came
from the roof and it came straight down until it touched the floor.
|
| [Correct. The poison,
fixed on silicon pellets, was poured into mesh columns, from which
it diffused] |
| Q. |
How many tins of gas did it need
to exterminate a thousand people in a gas chamber? |
| A. |
I have the impression that two
tins were sufficient for one thousand people. |
| Q. |
Which size, the middle size, the
large size or the small size? |
| A. |
The medium size. (Witness
indicates Exhibit 4) |
| [Two cans of 500g or 1
kg to kill 1.000 people piled up on 105m²corresponds to the
introduction of 1 or 2 kg HCN in a volume of 250m³. Before the
Nuremburg Tribunal, Hoess had stated that it took 6 cans of 1kg
(6kg) to gas 1,500. Only the Leichenkeller 1 of crematorium II and
III, with 210m² of area and 500m³ of cubic volume, was actually able
to contain that human mass. So gas, was used according to Bendel at
a concentration of HCN from 4 to 8g/m³ and, according to Hoess, one
to 12g/m³. A concentration of 0.3g/m³ being enough to kill a man
instantly, the quantity indicated by Bendel was 13 to 27 times the
lethal dose, the one given by Hoess 40 times. These high percentages
brought on an “overkill” ensuring a “flash” death]
|
| Q. |
How many were gassed in May and
June 1944? |
| A. |
About 400,000. |
| [200,000 would be more
accurate] |
| Q. |
In August of 1944? |
| A. |
From the 15th July to ist
September, 80,000. |
| [The Lodz ghetto, the
last in Poland, contained 70,000 Jews who were “resettled” in
Auschwitz between 15th August and 18th September] |
| Q. |
What was the big period of the
exterminations? |
| A. |
It was May, June or
July. |
| Q. |
What did they do with the
clothing of the prisoners who had been gassed? |
| A. |
There was a special working
party and their duty was to collect those clothes. The clothes were
sent to Auschwitz to be disinfected. |
| [Not to the main camp,
but to Kanada I situated between the main camp and the station]
|
| Q. |
Can you give any idea of the
quantity of such clothing which would be available? |
| A. |
I do not know about the
quantity, but I know about the disinfectant room where these clothes
have been disinfected. |
| |
|
| (Page 30)
|
| |
|
| Q. |
How large was the room and how
much clothing was in it? |
| A. |
It was a very little room. I
know it because 200 men of my own Kommando were gassed in that room.
|
| [The witness is
speaking of the gas chamber or perhaps one of the two disinfestation
gas chambers of Kanada I. There is no relation between the smallness
of the room and the 200 men gassed, an incident that is not
confirmed. See Part I, Chapter 4 “Kanada 1”] |
| Q. |
What quantity of clothing was
stored there? |
| A. |
Clothing belonging to about five
to six hundred people. |
| Q. |
When was disinfection of
barracks and clothing carried out in that camp? |
| A. |
During the whole period from
10th December 1943 until the 18th January 1945 I remember only one
disinfection of barracks. |
| Q. |
What method was
used? |
| A. |
This time when I saw it — I
repeat once — it was done by gas. |
| Q. |
Did they ever do disinfection of
clothes or of barracks by any other method than than gas at
Auschwitz and Birkenau?
|
