15.4.46

of W.V.H.A. I held this position until the end of the war. Pohl, as Chief of W.V.H.A., and Kaltenbrunner, as Chief of R.S.H.A., often conferred personally and frequently communicated with each other concerning concentration camps."

You have already told us about the lengthy report which you took to Kaltenbrunner in Berlin, so I will omit the remainder of paragraph 5.

"6. The 'final solution' of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz in June, 1941. At that time, there were already three other extermination camps in the Government General: Belzek, Treblinka and Wolzek. These camps were under the Einsatzkommando of the Security Police and S.D. I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their extermination. The Camp Commandant at Treblinka told me that he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of half a year. He was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. He used monoxide gas, and I did not think that his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Cyclon B, which was a crystallised prussic acid which we dropped into the death chamber from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about half an hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special commandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses."

Is that all true and correct, witness?

A. Yes.

Q. Incidentally, what was done with the gold which was taken from the teeth of the corpses, do you know?

A. Yes.

Q. Will you tell the Tribunal?

A. This gold was melted down and brought to the chief medical office of the S.S. at Berlin.

Q. "Another improvement we made as compared with Treblinka was that we built our gas chamber to accommodate 2,000 people at one time whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each. The way we selected our victims was as follows: we had two S.S. doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched passed one of the doctors who would make 'spot' decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since, by reason of their youth, they were unable to work. At Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated. We followed a better policy at Auschwitz by endeavouring to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realised our true intention and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under the clothes, but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy but naturally the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and all of the people living in the surrounding districts knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz."

Is that all true and correct, witness?

A. Yes.