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The
day after our arrival at the crematorium (Kr I) an SS Unterscharführer
(sergeant) whose name I forget gave us a pep talk. He warned that we were going
to have to do unpleasant work to which we would have to accustom ourselves, and
which after a certain time would present no more difficulty. He spoke Polish
the whole time. Never during all his speech did he once mention the fact that
we would have to burn the bodies of human beings. As soon as he finished the
speech, he ordered "Los, an die Arbeit!" (OK, get to work!) and started beating
our heads with a bludgeon. With Mietek Morowa, he drove us towards the bunker
(Leichenhalle, or morgue) of Krematorium I, where we discovered some hundreds
of corpses. They were in heaps, one on top of the other, dirty and frozen. Many
of them were covered in blood, their skulls crushed, others had their stomachs
open, probably as the result of autopsy. All were frozen and we had to separate
them from one another with axes. Beaten, and harassed by the Unterscahfuhrer
and Capo Morawa, we dragged these corpses to the "hajcownia" (German-Polish
term meaning "boiler room"), where there were three furnaces, each with two
muffles. I designate as "muffle", in conformity with the nomenclature used by
the Soviet Commission, the corpse incineration hearths.
In the "boiler
room" we put the corpses on a trolley with a high platform that ran on rails
installed between the furnaces. This trolley went from the door of the bunker,
where the corpses were, on a turntable that crossed the "boiler room" on broad
rails. From these there ran narrower rails 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 metres 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. The weight of such a load sometimes exceeded
that of the ballast, and in 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.
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 there, 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 with its hearth facing the
entrance door and the muffles towards the interior of the hall. The two others
faced in the opposite direction, muffles towards the entrance doors 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 & Sohne of Erfut. The
trolley for transporting the corpses was also supplied by this firm.
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