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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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| CHAPTER TWO |
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The unrealized future of the
Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp
BIRKENAU 1945:
THE
EXTERMINATION STATION |
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BIRKENAU 1945 or THE UNREALIZED FUTURE:
PROJECT
FOR AN EXTERMINATION STATION |
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| Drawing 4054 [Document 1], which in the light of present
knowledge might be called the “extermination station”, is something
of an enigma. It depicts the very first stage of the definitive
arrangement of the “special” part of Birkenau. In “Commandant
of Auschwitz” (Pan Books, London 1961), Rudolf Hoess says on
page 217: |
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“The three railway tracks between building sectors I
and II [B.a.I and II] in Birkenau camp were to be reconstructed as
a station and roofed in and the lines were to be extended to
crematoria III[IV] and IV[V] so that the unloading could also be
hidden from the eyes of unauthorised people. Once again shortage
of materials prevented this plan from being carried out.”
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In fact, linking Krematorien II and III with Krematorien IV and
V by rail would appear to be rather difficult because of the
proximity of the second sewage treatment plant [Kläranlage II] and
the sewer evacuation channels crossing the area where the trains
would have to pass. No drawing for this project is known. However,
drawing 4054 confirms the intention of the SS to convert the
notorious Birkenau “ramp” into a true “reception station”.
Krematorien II and III are precisely shown on the
drawing, exactly as captured on the photographs in the
“Auschwitz Album”, taken in May-June 1944 and the
aerial photograph of 25th August 1944 [Documenl 2], with the
additional installations not shown on the initial drawings: in the
case of Kr II, a lean-to shed extending eastwards the roof over the
waste incineration furnace, in which goods with no market value
(personal papers and prayer books taken from new arrivals) were
stored awaiting destruction: in the case of Kr III, a smaller
construction having the same function built onto the east wall of
the waste incinerator wing. The access stairways to the
Leichenkeller 2 (undressing rooms) are drawn and clearly
visible.
The ambiguity of this drawing lies in the term
“Gemüsehalle / vegetable hall”. If each of the six buildings
alongside the railway had been labelled “Effektenhalle / hall for
effects”, the drawing would have become an extremely incriminating
piece of evidence against the SS, and I believe in fact it still is.
This camouflage of a drawing of installations whose purpose — a
posteriori, I hasten to add — leaves no doubt, would appear to be
the only example of such camouflage, for the Bauleitung NEVER
DISSIMULATED ANYTHING on its drawings of the Krematorien. The only
device used by the Bauleitung was to avoid indicating the true
function of some rooms (for example, the case, which is in fact
somewhat dubious, of drawing No 2036 of Krematorium IV, of Soviet
source). The only camouflage was by omission. Workers employed by
outside civilian contractors were in no way misled, which explains
their numerous incriminating “slips”.
It might be claimed
that the six “Gemüsehallen” were indeed stores for market garden
products generously sent by the WVHA [SS Economic Administration
Head Office] in order to supplement the rations of the Auschwitz
prisoners employed in various factories and mines that had sprung up
in the area. Three factors render this affirmation null and void. In
June 1944, the Reich was already too weak and drained to be able to
divert for the benefit of prisoners sufficient quantities of fresh
vegetables as to regularly fill SIX stores of 930m³. These Birkenau
halls were no Covent Garden. What do the two Krematorien at the end
of the platform symbolize? It would have been better, if the SS had
been trying to prove their humanitarian aims, not to show them on
the drawing. The silhouettes of the three lorries ON THE OTHER SIDE
of the hall and for which a road had to be built, call for no
special comment, in view of the contemporary photographs that show
them on the camp roads loaded with personal effects and heading for
the two “Kanadas”.
Two documents in file BW 30/32, conserved
by the PMO, are connected with drawing 4054. The Bauleitung
contracted out the design and building of the roof of the
“Abfertingungshalle / clearance hall” to the civilian firm Konrad
Segnitz of Beuthen. With a covering letter of 8th June 1944
[Document 4], Segnitz sent the Bauleitung the drawing of the
roof frame [Document 3] and the list of timber and other
materials required. Taking account of the delays in transmission,
the construction of this hall/warehouse must have been decided in
the first half of May, just before the “resettlement” of the
Hungarian Jews. Although chronologically associated with this
“Action”, the title given to this building by Messrs Segnitz,
“ABFERTIGUNGSHALLE FÜR TRANSPORTE / clearance hall for transports”,
is vague. Who or what is supposed to depart from this hall,
Hungarians fit for work leaving for the Reich or effects taken from
those declared unfit for work and destined to be gassed? Only a
member of the Bauleitung confronted with these drawings could tell
us, but this is no longer possible. The fact remains that, despite
its uncertain function, this building, even in the design stage, is
linked with the Hungarian action through its presence on drawing
4054 and the use of the word “Transporte”.
The drawing of
this “station” raises the question of what its future was to be.
Looking at these projects, Polish historians reply that after the
Jews it would have been the turn of other peoples considered to be
racially “inferior”. The gassing of humans is a plague that
developed and reached its height at Auschwitz, even though it did
not originate there. This plague infected other camps before or at
the same time, but never reached the same virulence as at
Auschwitz-Birkenau. At the time of the withdrawal in January 1945,
it affected the refuge camps, where centers were set up and tests
were carried out by former Birkenau “technicians”.
Whether
the Third Reich had emerged victor or defeated from the Second World
War, this vile epidemic was in decline by 1945. The Gaussian curve
can apply to many different types of event or phenomenon and depict
them satisfactorily. The horror had gone too far by May-June 1944.
The highest point on the curve had been reached. Escaped prisoners
had testified and, above all, made their stories public. Publicity
is incompatible with an essentially secret practice. Himmler was
aware of this and on 26th November 1944 he ordered the gassings to
cease. Whatever the situation had been at the end of the war, the
“Mills of Auschwitz” would never have been able to continue turning.
There are limits to everything, and even the darkest periods come to
an end. Unlike the Poles, I do not believe that the Krematorien and
their gas chambers would have gone on working very long. These
complexes were destined to be dismantled.
I shall end by
quoting Victor Méric, the author of the celebrated novel about the
next war [that of 39-45], “La Der des Der” [The war to
end all wars], written in 1930. Although this convinced pacifist was
completely wrong about the use of gas in 39-45, and overestimated
the role of bombers in the early years of the war, on page 39 of a
pamphlet published in 1932 by Editions Sirius, “La guerre qui
revient: FRAICHE and GAZEUSE”, he gives a quotation from
General von Altrich, who had written in a “Militär
Wochenblatt” [Military Weekly]: "THE NEXT WAR WILL BE
MUCH MORE A MASS EXTERMINATION OF THE CIVILIAN POPULATION THAN A
FIGHT BETWEEN TWO ARMIES", Méric claims on page 178 that: "The next
war, the war on civilians, is upon us. A vile butchery. The Massacre
of the Innocents."
These extracts have a premonitory note, of
which Victor Méric could have justly been proud after the war, while
at the same time being throughly disgusted by the human race. Two
common gasses, he would never have dared think of, carbon monoxide
produced by internal combustion engines, and hydrocyanic acid used
to combat lice, had killed at least a million people. He could not
foresee that most of the victims woud be Jews. |
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| * * *
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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