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THE STRUTHOF
ALBUM STUDY OF THE
GASSING AT NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF
by Jean-Claude Pressac
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Page 35 |
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Extracts from deposition by JOSEF
KRAMER made at Luneburg [in the British Occupied Zone] on the 6 December 1945
in the presence of Captain Paul André: (This deposition has been
translated into English from the French text, which is itself a translation of
Kramer’s German deposition.)
In the middle of 1943, I received
a written order from Berlin to execute the people who had been sent from
Auschwitz, and to deliver their remains to the Institute of Anatomy at the
Municipal Hospital of Strasbourg.
As to means of execution, the written
order instructed me to get in touch with Anatomy Professor Hirt. So I went to
see this professor and informed him of the orders I had received. Hirt advised
me to execute the people in question by means of gas. I answered that there was
neither a gas chamber nor any gas in the camp.
Then Hirt gave me a
glass bottle closed with wax [and hence with a hydrophilic content]. It
contained a substance consisting of small white granules, which looked like
soda. Hirt told me that I could produce a toxic gas by adding water to the
bottle’s contents. He also gave me specific instructions regarding dosage.
I told him that I had at my disposal a construction manager [Bauleiter],
Untersturmführer Heider, who had been sent to me from Oranienburg.
So then I had the gas chamber built [in fact, simply adapted] by
some prisoners.
Some time later, a first transport arrived with 26 (or
rather with 30] women, 20 to 50 years old. They stayed in the camp for 8 days.
During that time, they were not mistreated and they were not fed any better
than the other prisoners. I had no special instructions regarding these people.
After waiting for 8 days, in the middle of August 1943 [the week from the
7th to the 14th], I had these women taken to the gas chamber at 9
o’clock in the evening. They were stripped in the ante-room.
I
then placed a handful of the substance in a hole made in the floor [where
there was a small porcelain basin]. I made the women enter the gas chamber
and I locked the door. It was then that the women started to cry and scream.
From the outside, I poured water into a funnel prepared for this purpose. The
water flowed through a pipe, equipped with a tap, into the hole containing the
small granules. After half a minute, all cries in the chamber ceased. I must
state that I did not observe the death process through the window.
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THE STRUTHOF
ALBUM STUDY OF THE
GASSING AT NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF
By Jean-Claude Pressac
|
Back |
Page 35 |
Forward |
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