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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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Page 483 |
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| In the “boiler room” [B, Ofenraum / furnace room, also known as
Heizraum / hajcownia], we put the corpses on a trolley with a high
platform that ran on rails installed between he furnaces. This
trolley went from the door [D] of the bunker [E, Leichenhalle /
morgue], where the corpses were, on a turntable [F. Drehscheibe /
szajba] that crossed the "boiler room", on broad rails [C]. From
these there ran narrower rails [G] on which the trolley itself
fitted, leading to each muffle. The trolley ran on four metal
wheels. Its strong frame was in the form of a box, and to make it
heavier we weighted it with stones and scrap metal. The upper part
was extended by a metal slide over two meters long. We put five
corpses on this: first we put two with the legs towards the furnace
and the belly upwards, then two more the other way round but still
with the belly upwards, and finally we put the fifth one with the
legs towards the furnace and the back upwards. The arms of this last
one hung down and seemed to embrace the other bodies below.
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[This number is possible only with skeletal corpses,
as Henryk Tauber formally states below. With “normal” adult
bodies, it would be difficult to charge more than two or three ar
a time. But, when a witness such as Alter Fajnzylberg, alias
Stanislas Jankowski, states in a deposition of April 1945
concerning his stay in Krematorium I: “In one of these openings
(muffles) there was room for TWELVE corpses, but we put no more
than five because that way they burned more rapidly(!) ”, one is
justified in denouncing a figure that is pure propaganda. Whoever
has visited Auschwitz as an ordinary tourist and, after a silent
prayer, has seen or examined the four gaping mouths of the two
reconstmcted furnaces of Krematorium I will understand me without
any further explanation. We find here the famous multiplying
factor of four used by Dr Miklos Nyiszli (a normal cremation
capacity of three corpses multiplied by four corner to
twelve)] |
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The weight of such a load sometimes exceeded that of the
ballast, and to order to prevent the trolley from tipping up and
spilling the corpses we had to support the slide by slipping a plank
underneath it. Once the slide was loaded, we pushed it into the
muffle. Once the corpses were introduced into the furnace, we held
them there by means of a metal box that slid on top of the charging
slide, while other prisoners pulled the trolley back, leaving the
corpses behind. There was a handle at the end of the slide for
gripping and pulling back the sliding box. Then we closed the door
[of the muffle]. In Krematorium I, there were three, two-muffle
furnaces, as I have already mentioned. Each muffle could incinerate
five human bodies. Thirty corpses could be incinerated at the same
time in this crematorium. At the time when I was working them, the
incineration of such a charge [5 corpses in one muffle] took up to
an hour and a half, because they were the bodies of very thin
people, real skeletons, which burned very slowly. I know from the
experience gained by observing cremation in Krematorien II and III
that the bodies of fat people burn very much faster. The process of
incineration is accelerated by the combustion of human fat which
thus produces additional heat.
All these furnaces were
located in a hall that I have called the "boiler room". Near the
entrance to this hall, there was one furnace [H] with its hearth [I,
firebox] facing the entrance door [M ] and the muffles towards the
interior of the hall. The two others faced in the opposite
direction, muffles towards the entrance door and hearths towards the
back of the hall. They were at the other end of the room. These
furnaces were coke-fired. They were built, as could be seen by the
inscriptions on the doors of the furnaces, by the firm “Topf &
Söhne” of Erfurt. The trolley for transporting the corpses was also
supplied by this firm. |
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[These precise details may appear superfluous to a
current visitor to Krematorium I, for he will see exactly what
Henryk Tauber described, but at the end of May 1945, the date of
this deposition, the interior of Krematorium I was still arranged
as an air raid shelter. The initial state of the premises had to
be established with the help of prisoners’ memories. This made it
possible to reconstitute the interior, two of the furnaces being
rebuilt using the metal parts still remaining and a chimney being
erected]. |
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Behind the “boiler room” there was a small coke store [J] with a
little office beside it [K. Schreibstube / szreibsztuba] and then on
the right the store for the urns [L] containing human ashes. The
entrance door [M] which now leads to the hall that I call the
“boiler room” was put in later [Document 7]. When I was
working in Krematorium I, that door did not exist. We used to enter
through the corridor (Vorraum) to the “boiler room” through the door
[N] to the left of the entrance [P]. There were two [other] doors of
this type [on the right of the entrance]. The first door [P], on the
right of the corridor, opened on an auxiliary store [Q, room
originally designated “Aufbahrungsraum / laying out room]” where the
spare fire bars were kept. The men from small transports, brought by
truck, used to undress there. When I was working at Krematorium I,
they were shot in the bunker [E] of the crematorium (the part of the
building where they gassed people was known as the “bunker”). Such
transports arrived once or twice a week and comprised 30 to 40
people. They were of different nationalities. During the executions,
we, the members of the Sonderkommando, were shut up in the coke
store. Then we would find the bodies of the shot people in the
bunker. All the corpses had a firearm wound in the neck
(Genickschuss). The executions were always carried out by the same
SS man from the Political Section [Politische Abteilung] accompanied
by another SS from the same Section who made out the death
certificates for those shot. Capo Morawa was not with us in the coke
store during the shoootings. I don’t know what he did during this
time. We carried the still warm and bloody bodies of the shot people
from the bunker to the “boiler room”. The second door [R] on the
right of the corridor led to a small room [S, initially designated
Waschraum/(corpse) washing room] where the human ashes were put. We
passed through this room to reach the bunker [E] proper, used during
my time there for shooting the victims and which previously had been
used for gassing people. In December 1942, 400 prisoners of the
Sonderkommando were gassed there. The prisoners who worked before me
in Krematorium I, where I had met them, told me that. I worked in
Krematorium I from the beginning of February 1943 to 4th March 1943,
or just over one month. During all this time, we were put in bunker
[cell] 7 of block XI. We were in fact 22 Jews there, because at the
beginning of February, two dentists, Czech Jews, were sent to join
us, coming front Birkenau. The seven Jews I had met working in
Krematorium I were also locked in block XI, but in another cell,
Capo Morawa and the Poles Jozek and Wacek who worked with him, lived
in block XV, which was open [block II was a prison, unlike block 15,
where entry, exit and movement inside were unrestricted]. Besides
the two Czech Jews, four Poles came to join our group during that
month: Staszek and Wladek, whose family names I have forgotten, and
Wladyslaw Biskup from Cracow and Jan Agrestowski from the commune of
Pas in the Warsaw region. I remember their names well, because I
wrote letters to their families in German for them. These last four
Poles were [also] housed in block XV. When we left for work the old
Kommando that had preceded us at Krematorium I was called “Kommando
Krematorium I” . Our group, that is the 22 Jews from block XI and
the four Poles who were detailed to it, was called “Konmmando
Krematorium II”. We did not understand why there was this separate
designation. Later on, we understood that we had been sent there for
one month’s practical training in Krematorium I in order to prepare
us for working in Krematorium II
I would emphasize
that the crematoriums and the Kommandos who worked in them came
under the Political Section. The personal records of the prisoners
working in these Konnnandos were kept in the Political Section. Our
sick were not sent to the [camp] hospital, but to an infirmary set
up for us in a closed block. The block we occupied was isolated. In
Auschwitz [the main camp], this was closed block XI. Authorization
to leave the Kommando and transfer into another did not depend on
the Arbeitdienst [labour service], but on the Political Section. Our
doctor was Pach, a French Jew. He was a good specialist who also
looked after the SS, which enabled him, thanks to them, to get out
of the Sonderkommando block and install himself in another. When the
Political Section heard of this, he was sent hack to our infirmary,
even though he had lived for some months in an open block. During my
training in Krematorium I, Untersturmführer [SS Second Lieutenant]
Grabher and Oberscharführer [senior staff-sergeant] Kwakernak were
the overseers for the Political Section. I remember Morawa having to
ask Grahner to give him another prisoner because one of our group
had died. Grahner replied that he could not give him one “Zugang”
[new arrival], but if he [Morawa] killed four more Jews, he would
supply five “arrivals”. He also asked Mietek [Murawa] what he beat
us with. Mietek showed him a stick. Grahner took hold of an iron
fire bar and said he should hit us with that. At the end of the
first day’s work in Kremtatorium I, five of my group declared they
were sick and stayed in the block. The next day, pulling the bodies
out of the bunker of Krematorium I, we found their naked corpses
without any traces of bullet wounds. I suppose they must have been
given jabs [intra-cardiac injection of a 30% solution of phenol]. A
month later, of 22 Jews, there remained only 12. On 4th March 1943,
my group, including one Wladyslaw Tomiczek of Cieszyn and the four
Poles I have already mentioned (Biskup and the others), was
transfered to Birkenau and installed in closed block II of sector
BIb. I learned later that Tomiczek had already worked in the
crematorium [Kr I] in 1941. He was an old hand, with a prison number
of 1400 and something, and before being detailed to our group in
March 1943, he worked for a while in the mill and the abattoir [or
butchery, the Polish “rzeznia” having both meanings], where, with 49
other people, he was arrested on suspicion of engaging in
clandestine activities. All were incarcerated in Auschwitz block XI
and condemned to death by the SS tribunal. Untersturmführer Grabher
recognized Tomiczek just before the execution and transferred him to
our group. In Birkenau. Tomiczek worked as Capo of the Kommando
employed in Krematorium II, and later on in Kremtatorium IV. In the
month of August 1943, I think it was, Tomiczek was summoned to the
Political Section, from where that very day Oberscharführer
Kwakernak brought his corpse that we incinerated in Krematorium V.
Although Tomiczek’s head was wrapped in a sack, we identified him by
his large size. Kwakernak personally supervised the introduction of
his body into the furnace then went off. We then opened the door of
the furnace, unwound the sack and recognized his face very well. He
was a good man, hard working, decent with us, and we had told him
about our clandestine activities.
On 4th March 1943. we were
taken under SS guard to Krematorium II. The construction of this
crematorium was explained to us by Capo [Julius] August [Brück. See
Document 8], who had just arrived from Buchenwald where he
had also been working in the crematorium. Krematorium II had a
basement where there was an undressing room (Auskleideraum) [2 — see
Document 9] and a bunker, or in other words a gas chamber
(Leichenkeller / corpse cellar) [1]. To go from one cellar to the
other, there was a corridor [3] in which there came from the
exterior a [double] stairway [4, 4'] and a slide for throwing the
bodies [corpse chute, 5] that were brought to the camp to be
incinerated in the crematorium. People went through the door of the
undressing room [2a] into the corridor [3], then from there through
a door on the right [la] into the gas chamber [1]. A second stairway
[6] running from the grounds [north yard] of the crematorium gave
access to the corridor [3]. To the left of this stairway, in the
comer [of the corridor], there was a little room [7] where hair,
spectacles and other effects were stored. On the right there was
another small room [8] used as a store for cans of Zyklon-B [here,
the description could lead to confusion. It should be borne in mind
that Tauber is describing the disposition of rooms 7 and 8 as they
appear to somebody in the basement]. In the right corner of the
corridor, on the wall facing the door from the undressing room,
there was a lift [9] to transport the corpses [to the furnace roots
on the ground floor]. People went front the crematorium yard to the
undressing room via a stairway [10], surrounded by iron rails. Over
the [entrance] door there was a sign with the inscription “Zum Baden
und Desinfektion,” (to bath and disinfection), written in several
languages. In the undressing room [2], there were wooden benches and
numbered clothes hooks along the walls [Document 10]. There
were no windows and the lights were on all the time. The undressing
room also had water taps [5] and drains for the waste water. From
the undressing room people went into the corridor through a door
[2a] above which was hung a sign marked “Zum Bade” [to the bath],
repeated in several languages. I remember the word “banya” [Russian
for “steam bath”] was there too. From the corridor they went through
the door on the right [1a] into the gas chamber. It was a wooden
door, made of two layers of short pieces of wood arranged like
parquet. Between these layers there was a single sheet of material
sealing the edges of the door [3] and the rabbets of the frame were
also fitted with sealing strips of felt. At about head height for an
average man this door had a round glass peephole [see Document
11]. On the other side of the door, i.e. on the gas chamber
side, this opening was protected by a hemispherical grid [see
Documents 12 and 13]. This grid was fitted because the people
in the gas chamber, feeling they were going to die, used to break
the glass of the peep-hole. But the grid still did not provide
sufficient protection and similar incidents recurred. The opening
was blocked with a piece of metal or wood. The people going to be
gassed and those in the gas chamber damaged the electrical
installations, tearing the cables out and damaging the ventilation
equipment. The door was closed hermetically from the corridor side
by means of [two] iron bars (see Document 11] which were
screwed tight [by means of two angled bolts which screwed through
the catches onto the bars, which were themselves fitted with
handles]. The roof of the gas chamber was supported by concrete
pillars running down
the | |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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