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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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and the burning of the bodies in the birch wood
forest was stopped, and everything now took place in the four crematory ovens
specially built. (...) "At present," he continued, "there are four crematory
ovens in operation at Birkenau, two large ones, I and 11, and two small ones,
III and IV. Those of type I and II are composed of three parts: (A) the room
with the ovens, (B) the big hail, (C) the gas chamber. (5, p. 17). He then gave the description of the procedure of
gassing which may thus be summarized: the victims were brought into the hail
(B) where they undressed, then went into the gas chamber (C) where they were
killed with "Zyklon B". Finally, their corpses were transported to the ovens
(A) and incinerated. He added: "The crematory ovens I and IV operate on nearly
the same principles..." (5, p. 17).
Vrba devoted a third of his short report to the camp of Maidanek and
the rest to Birkenau. He simply spoke several times of those who were "executed
by gas." (5, p. 29 30).
The report
of the two Jews who had escaped on May 27, 1944, related the effect produced at
Birkenau by the escape of Vrba and Wetzler seven weeks before, emphasized the
"selections" (5, p. 34), the "executions
by gas" (5 , p. 34) and the
"incinerations." They added, concerning the very numerous convoys of Hungarian
Jews who arrived at Auschwitz in the spring of 1944:
"It was necessary to increase the size of
the "Special Commando" to 600 men and, after two or three days, it was enlarged
to 800... Three crematory ovens operated day and night (at this time the fourth
was being repaired), and as the capacity of the ovens was not sufficient, large
pits thirty meters long by fifteen meters wide were dug out... in the
"Birchenwald" where bodies were burned night and day" (5, p. 34) . Three-quarters of the report of the
Polish Commander was devoted to the fate of the non-Jewish Poles who during the
first two years of the existence of Auschwitz were the only prisoners. However,
a special chapter of it described the destiny of the Jews: "selections" (5, pp. 4648) after which "all those who were
not fit to work were brought to the Birch Forest (Trzinski) and executed by
means of hydrocyanic gas (5, p. 48) in
"shanties with special gases" after having been obliged to "entirely undress"
and go into "the building until it was completely full." Then, when "all the
exits were hermetically sealed..." specially trained units of the SS cast
hydrocyanic bombs through the ventilation shafts..." (5, p. 48 49). Later "the crematory ovens had
been finished" (...) and "the execution by gas and the incineration took place
at record speed. The arrivals of corpses became so great that one was
occasionally obliged to resort to the old method of incineration in the open
air" (5, p. 49).
Before proceeding
farther in our study, it is perhaps useful to recall that all of these reports
were edited at the time when the outcome of the war was uncertain, the landing
in Normandy had not yet taken place, when in the East there was still fighting
on the Russian soil and in all Europe Jews were dying en masse or hiding to
escape death. The future reparations on the part of the future and
unforeseeable Federal Germany negociated [sic] by the inexistant [sic] and
unimaginable State of Israel
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The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The
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