By: listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca To: Fredric Rice Re: GET AUSCHWITZ AUSCHWITZ.FAQ1 Date: Tu
By: listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
To: Fredric Rice
Re: GET AUSCHWITZ AUSCHWITZ.FAQ1
From: listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
Date: Tue, 17 Jan 95 02:44 PST
Cc: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
Archive AUSCHWITZ: file auschwitz.faq1, part 1/1, size 43582 bytes:
Newsgroups:
alt.revisionism,soc.history,soc.answers,alt.answers,news.answers
Subject: HOLOCAUST FAQ: Auschwitz-Birkenau: Layman's Guide (1/2)
Summary: Research guide to the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex
Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
Followup-To: soc.history
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.edu
Keywords: Auschwitz
Lines: 783
Archive-name: holocaust/auschwitz/part01
Last-modified: 1994/11/12
This FAQ may be cited as:
McVay, Kenneth N. (1994) "HOLOCAUST FAQ: Auschwitz-Birkenau: Layman's
Guide" Usenet news.answers. Available via anonymous ftp from
rtfm.mit.edu in pub/usenet/news.answers/holocaust/auschwitz/part01 (and
~/part02). 27 pages.
The most current version of this FAQ is posted every 45 days in the Usenet
newsgroups alt.revisionism, soc.history, soc.answers, alt.answers and
news.answers, and archived as
pub/usenet/news.answers/holocaust/auschwitz/part01 (and ~/part02) in
the anonymous ftp archive on rtfm.mit.edu.
Auschwitz: A Layman's Guide to Auschwitz-Birkenau
1.0 Introduction & Editorial Notes............................. 1
1.1 Copyright Notice......................................... 2
1.2 Geographic Description................................... 2
2.0 Gas Chambers............................................... 2
2.1 Krema I.................................................. 3
2.2 Krema II, III, IV, and V................................. 5
2.3 Zyklon B................................................. 6
3.0 Crematoria.................................................11
4.0 Compiling the estmates on numbers exterminated.............12
4.1 How many people died at Auschwitz?.......................13
5.0 Administration.............................[See Part Two]..15
5.1 Command Staff............................................15
5.2 Medical Staff............................................17
5.3 Selection................................................17
5.4 Tattooing................................................18
5.5 Medical Experimentation..................................19
5.5.1 Clauberg...............................................21
5.5.2 Mandel.................................................21
5.5.3 Mengele................................................21
5.5.4 Oberhauser.............................................22
5.5.5 Schumann...............................................22
6.0 Research Sources & Other Useful Appendices.................23
6.1 Recommended Reading......................................24
6.2 Abbreviations Used in Citations..........................26
6.3 Glossary.................................................26
6.4 Works Cited..............................................27
[Auschwitz]
[Page 1]
1.0 Introduction & Editorial Notes
A January, 1993 newspaper article (Foner - see below) presents a
series of lies and distortions regarding events at the Auschwitz
concentration camp as historical fact. The article illustrated an
increasing effort on the part of world-wide neo-Nazi political
organizations to deny that the collective events commonly known as
the Holocaust did occur. Conot addressed the need for a continuing
effort to combat such material in his introduction (Justice at
Nuremberg):
Speaking to the Nuremberg tribunal in his opening address,
"Justice Jackson remarked; `What makes this inquest significant
is that these prisoners represent sinister influences that will
lurk in the world long after their bodies have returned to
dust.'
These influences, in fact, have regenerated like a poisonous
weed. Anti-Semitism and the euphemistic catchwords that led to
`the Final Solution of the Jewish Question' have reappeared hand
in hand. A world-wide cult has arisen claiming that the
Holocaust never happened. A hundred books, booklets, and
pamphlets have been printed alleging that the slaughter was
imaginary or exaggerated, and is but a Jewish invention.
All of this might be dismissed as the frustrated thrashing about
of a radical, irrational fringe were it not for the haunting
parallels to the pre-Hitler era, and the continuing employment
of Nazi propaganda methodology. A leader of the French
neo-Nazis, for example, asserts that those Jews who died had
merely been victims of the wartime food shortage. The Nazis
had, in fact, originally planned to starve the Jews to death,
allocating 186 calories per capita daily for their sustenance,
but had abandoned the scheme for more direct methods after the
ensuing epidemics had decimated not only the Jews but threatened
to spread to the relatively well-fed German population.
Similar in nature is the assertion that Zyklon B gas was
employed only as a disinfectant at Auschwitz. This had been the
case until the fall of 1941, when an enterprising SS officer had
concluded that if Zyklon B killed lice it could kill people just
as well. Thereafter, the gas had been used, first to murder
thousands of Soviet prisoners of war, and then hundreds of
thousands of Jews - nearly all of them women, children, and old
people unfit for `extermination through work.' Hitler's dictum
that `the magnitude of a lie always contains a certain factor of
credibility, since the great masses of the people ... more
easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one' has once
more come into vogue.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 2]
The most effective means to combat such distortions is to make
the facts accessible, and, with them, expose the statements for
what they are. At Nuremberg, General Telford Taylor, the
prosecutor of more war criminals than any other man, said: `We
cannot here make history over again. But we can see that it is
written true.' (Conot, xii-xiii)
This article is presented in that spirit, and in lasting memory of
those who were ruthlessly destroyed during the Holocaust. It is the
result of the combined effort of many, and contains data from myriad
sources. I would like to acknowledge the contributions from Danny
Keren (dzk@cs.brown.edu) in particular, and the subscribers to the
Holocaust Research Information List in general. Without their
contributions, this document could not have been written.
The appearance of a quotation mark within a proper name indicates
that the previous letter should be read as an umlaut, although some
quoted material appends a trailing 'e' instead. (I.e. Hoess and
Ho"ss reference the same name.)
The documents cited in this work which are available from our list
server are often noted in the form (Request archive filename). In
order to retrieve any document so noted, simply send an email message
to listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca and include the command GET ARCHIVE
FILENAME in your message.
Example: You read (Request eichmann eichmann.005) and send:
GET EICHMANN EICHMANN.005 to listserv.
1.1 Copyright
This post, as a collection of information, is Copyright 1993, 1994 by Ken
McVay, as a work of literature. Non-commercial distribution by any
electronic means is granted with the understanding that the article
not be altered in any way. Permission to distribute in printed form
must be obtained in writing. The removal of this copyright notice is
forbidden.
1.2 Geographic Location
AUSCHWITZ: (Polish: Oswiecim) Located approximately 60km (37mi)
west of Krakow, in Eastern Upper Silesia, which was annexed to
Nazi Germany following the defeat of Poland, in September, 1939.
Site of Nazi death camp. The first camp was built shortly after
Poland's defeat, in a suburb of Oswiecim (Zasole), and held
about 10,000 prisoners. The second site, known as Auschwitz II,
or Birkenau, was built 3km from the original camp, in March of 1941.
2.0 Gas Chambers
"There was a sign 'to disinfection'. He said 'you see,
they are bringing children now'. They opened the door, threw
the children in and closed the door. There was a terrible cry.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 3]
A member of the SS climbed on the roof. The people went on
crying for about ten minutes. Then the prisoners opened the
doors. Everything was in disorder and contorted. Heat was
given off. the bodies were loaded on a rough wagon and taken to
a ditch. The next batch were already undressing in the huts.
After that I didn't look at my wife for four weeks." (From the
testimony of SS private Boeck (Langbein, quoted in Pressac, 181))
2.1 Krema I - The Experimental Gas Chamber
David Cole has produced a videotape which filmed the director of the
Auschwitz State Museum admitting that the gas-chamber known as "Krema I"
was constructed after the war ended, on the direct order of Stalin.
Foner (Foner, Samuel P. "Major Historical Fact Uncovered" SPOTLIGHT
Vol. XIX, Number 2, January 11, 1993) tells us:
The videotape on which Piper makes his revelations was taken in
mid-1992 by a young Jewish investigator, David Cole. It has
just been released, on January 1, 1993, although Cole announced
his project at the 11th International Revisionist Conference at
Irvine, California last October.
The small gas chamber of Krema I was used for gassing for a short
time, and then converted into an air-raid shelter; after the war,
it was reconstructed to look as it did when it was used for
gassing, as Dr. Piper notes in his letter of response to the Cole
video. The text of Piper's letter is a bit stilted, as Polish is
his native language, but his intent, and the facts, are quite clear:
Cole maintains that I first time admitted the allegedly
unknown fact the Nazis adapted the crematorium in question
in which the gas chamber were located for air-raid shelter,
the fact allegedly unknown even for Museum guides. It is
un truth. See enclosed copies of pages from the books
which constitute the fundamental reading for Auschwitz
guides. In book by T-an Sehn "Concentrat Camp
Ogwiqcim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz-Birkenau)Warsaw 1957, You may
read on the page 152-"In May 1944 the old Crematorium I in
the base camp was adapted for use as an air raid shelter.
The Fact is also confirmed in the book by Jean Claude
Pressac "Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas
chambers, published by The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New
York 1989(515 Madison Avenue. On the page 157 you may
read: "With part of the building converted to an air raid
shelter, this is the state in which the SS abandoned
Krematorium I in January 1945" Repeating what Pressac had
written I told what was the nature of the adaptation works
carried out by the Nazis and what one had to do to remove
those changes in order to regain the previous appearance.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 4]
They are all "Pipers revelations. In spite of the fact
that such secondary restoration works had to be done there
is an undisputable reality that the gas chamber in question
is housed in the same builldin which has been existed from
prewar times till now. (Request holocaust/poland/auschwitz
piper.letter for the entire letter from Dr. Piper to the
Daily Texan regarding the Cole video.)
Breitman offers the following as background information to the
development of Zyklon B as a killing device, and (more specifically)
to the early use to which Krema I was put:
Auschwitz had been receiving trainloads of Soviet commissars and
other POW's who were subject to liquidation. Ho"ss's men had
shot previous shipments of Russian prisoners, but on September 3
Ho"ss's enterprising subordinate Hauptsturmfu"hrer Fritsch
thought of an expedient new method based on the camp's own
experience. The buildings, many of them former Polish army
barracks, were full of insects, and the camp administration had
previously brought in the Hamburg pesticide firm of Tesch and
Stabenow to get rid of them. Two experts had fumigated
particular buildings with a patented insecticide, Zyklon B, a
crystalline form of hydrogen cyanide that turned gaseous when
exposed to the air. (Ho"ss, "Commandant of Auschwitz," 175.
Interrogation of Ho"ss, 14 May 1946, NA RG 238, M-1019/R 28/63)
On September 3 Fritsch decided to experiment. First he crammed
five or six hundred Russians and another 250 sick prisoners from
the camp hospital into an underground detention cell. Then the
windows were covered with earth. SS men wearing gas masks
opened the Zyklon-B canisters to remove what looked like blue
chalk pellets about the size of peas, creating a cloud of poison
gas. After they left, the doors were sealed.(Ho"ss, Commandant
at Auschwitz, 173. See also Yehuda Bauer, "Auschwitz," in
Ja"ckel and Rohwere, eds., Der Mord an den Juden, 167-68) Ho"ss
wrote later that death was instantaneous. Perhaps that was what
he was told. But he was not present to witness the event; he
was away on a business trip. Other sources indicate that even
the next day not everyone was dead, and the SS men had to
release more insecticide. Eventually all the prisoners died.
When Ho"ss returned to Auschwitz, he heard about the successful
experiment. On Eichmann's next visit to Auschwitz, Ho"ss told
him about the possibilities of Zyklon-B, and, according to
Ho"ss, the two decided to use the pesiticide and the peasant
farmstead for extermination.(Ho"ss, Commandant, 175. From the
History of KL Auschwitz, New York, 1982, I, 190)(Breitman, 203)
SS-Unterscharfu"hrer Pery Broad described a gassing in Krema I while
giving testimony (Museum, 176):
".... The `disinfectors' were at work. One of them was
SS-Unterscharfuehrer Teuer, decorated with the Cross of War
Merit. With a chisel and a hammer they opened a few
innocuously looking tins which bore the inscription `Cyclon, to
[Auschwitz]
[Page 5]
be used against vermin. Attention, poison! to be opened by
trained personnel only!'. The tins were filled to the brim
with blue granules the size of peas. Immediately after opening
the tins, their contents were thrown into the holes which were
then quickly covered. Meanwhile Grabner gave a sign to the
driver of a lorry, which had stopped close to the crematorium.
The driver started the motor and its deafening noise was louder
than the death cries of the hundreds of people inside, being
gassed to death."
Mu"llers eyewitness account of gassings in Krema I, in April, 1942, is
recounted in Hilberg's "The Destruction of the European Jews,":
The Auschwitz procedure evolved in stages. In April 1942,
Slovak Jews were gassed in Crematorium I, apparently with their
clothes on. Later, deportees from nearby Sosnowiec were told
to undress in the yard. The victims, faced by the peremptory
order to remove their clothes, men in front of women and women
in front of men, became apprehensive. The SS men, shouting at
them, then drove the naked men, women and children into the gas
chamber.
In The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Jozef Buszko (Jagiellonian
University, Krakow) writes: "The first, relatively small gas chamber was
built in Auschwitz I. Here the experimental gassing using Zyklon B gas
first took place, on September 3, 1941. The victims were 600 Soviet
prisoners of war and 250 other prisoners. After that experiment, the
firm J. A. Topf and Sons received a contract to build much larger,
permanent gas chambers connected with very large crematoria in
Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the mass exterminations were mainly carried
out. Altogether four such installations -- II, III, IV, and V -- were
built in Birkenau." (Encyclopedia, Vol. I, 113)
2.2 Krema II, III, IV, and V - The Birkenau Gas Chambers
Foner continues: "What Piper said, in effect - and on camera - was that
the explosive Leuchter Report was correct: No homicidal gassings took
place in the buildings designated `homicidal gas chambers' at
Auschwitz."
(As to the "Leuchter report", we refer you to the Leuchter Report FAQ,
- Request leuchter leuchter.faq1 and leuchter.faq2)
Foner omits mention of the larger gas chambers of Kremas II-V, in which
over a million people were murdered. Hilberg (Destruction) provides the
following:
[Auschwitz]
[Page 6]
At Birkenau, illusion was the rule. It was not always simple
or possible, inasmuch as at least some of the deportees had
observed the sign "Auschwitz" as the train passed through the
railway yards, (Wiesel, 36) or had seen flames belching from
the chimneys, or had smelled the strange, sickening odor of the
crematoria. (Lengyel, 22) Most of them, however, like a group
from Salonika, were funneled through the undressing rooms, were
told to hang their clothes on hooks and remember the number,
and promised food after the shower and work after the food.
The unsuspecting Greek Jews, clutching soap and towels, rushed
into the gas chambers. (Mu"ller, 80-81) Nothing was allowed to
disturb this precarious synchronization. When a Jewish inmate
revealed to newly arrived people what was in store for them, he
was cremated alive. [Mu"ller, 80) Only in the case of victims
who were brought in from nearby ghettos in upper Silesia
(Sosnowiec and Bedzin) and who had had intimations of Auschwitz
was speed alone essential. These people were told to undress
quickly in their "own best interest." (Mu"ller, 69-71)
And finally, consider these remarks, from the SS Doctor Kremer, made
during a hearing held on 18 July, 1947. (Klee, 258)
I remember I once took part in the gassing of one of these
groups of women [from the women's camp in Auschwitz]. I cannot
say how big the group was. when I got close to the bunker I saw
them sitting on the ground. They were still clothed. As they
were wearing worn-out camp clothing they were not left in the
undressing hut but made to undress in the open air. I concluded
from the behavior of these women that they had no doubt what
fate awaited them, as they begged and sobbed to the SS men to
spare them their lives. However, they were herded into the gas
chambers and gassed. As an anatomist I have seen a lot of
terrible things: I had had a lot of experience with dead bodies,
and yet what I saw that day was like nothing I had ever seen
before. Still completely shocked by what I had seen I wrote on
my diary on 5 September 1942: "The most dreadful of horrors.
Hauptscharfuherer Thilo was right when he said to me today that
this is the 'anus mundi', the anal orifice of the world". I
used this image because I could not imagine anything more
disgusting and horrific.
2.3 Zyklon B
"Two German firms, Tesch/Stabenow and Degesch, produced Cyclone
B gas after they acquired the patent from Farben. Tesch
supplied two tons a month, and Degesch three quarters of a ton.
The firms that produced the gas already had extensive experience
in fumigation. "In short, this industry used very powerful
gases to exterminate rodents and insects in enclosed spaces;
that it should now have become involved in an operation to kill
off Jews by the hundreds of thousands is not mere accident."
[Auschwitz]
[Page 7]
(Hilberg, Commandant, 567) After the war the directors of the
firms insisted that they had sold their products for fumigation
purposes and did not know they were being used on humans. But
the prosecutors found letters from Tesch not only offering to
supply the gas crystals but also advising how to use the
ventilating and heating equipment. Ho"ss testified that the
Tesch directors could not help but know of the use for their
product because they sold him enough to annihilate two million
people. Two Tesch partners were sentenced to death in 1946 and
hanged. The director of Degesch recieved five years in prison."
(Feig) (See also Breitman, 203-204, for a discussion of the early
involvement of Heerdt-Lingler)
From the statement of Hans Stark, registrar of new arrivals,
Auschwitz (Klee, 255):
At another, later gassing -- also in autumn 1941 -- Grabner*
ordered me to pour Zyklon B into the opening because only one
medical orderly had shown up. During a gassing Zyklon B had to
be poured through both openings of the gas-chamber room at the
same time. This gassing was also a transport of 200-250 Jews,
once again men, women and children. As the Zyklon B -- as
already mentioned -- was in granular form, it trickled down over
the people as it was being poured in. They then started to cry
out terribly for they now knew what was happening to them. I
did not look through the opening because it had to be closed as
soon as the Zyklon B had been poured in. After a few minutes
there was silence. After some time had passed, it may have been
ten to fifteen minutes, the gas chamber was opened. The dead
lay higgledy-piggedly all over the place. It was a dreadful
sight.
* Maximillian Grabner, Head of Political Department, Auschwitz
Zyklon-B is a powerful insecticide which serves as a carrier for the
gas Hydrocyanic acid, or HCN. It usually comes in the shape of small
pellets or disks. (See Breitman, 203, for more detail about the
early use of the gas at Auschwitz) HCN is the cause of death
following the application of Zyklon-B. While interacting with iron
and concrete, it creates Hydrocyanic compounds, which Leuchter
admitted were found in the ruins of the gas chamber in Krematoria II.
His finding was confirmed by findings of the Polish government.
HCN is *extremely poisonous* to humans. It is used in execution gas
chambers in the US; the first was built in Arizona in 1920.
Holocaust denial often includes the claim that Germany in the 1940's
could not handle the "technical difficulties" inherent in using HCN
for execution - "difficulties" that were easily solved in 1920.
Moreover, the Germans had a lot of experience with HCN, as it was
extensively used for delousing.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 8]
There were two types of gas chambers in Auschwitz: those used for
delousing clothes ("delousing gas chambers") and those used for
killing people on a massive scale ("extermination gas chambers").
The delousing gas chambers were a standard feature, and were left
intact by the SS (the extermination gas chambers were dynamited in an
effort to conceal criminal traces).
Holocaust denial asserts that because more Hydrocyanic compounds were
found in the delousing chambers in Auschwitz than in the ruins of the
extermination gas chambers, mass murder using the gas could not have
taken took place within, because the reverse would be true.
HCN is much more effective on warm-blooded animals, including humans,
than it is on insects. The exposure period (to HCN) is much greater
in delousing operations than in homicidal gassings. This means that
a much lower concentration is necessary to kill people than to get
rid of lice, etc. In delousing, concentrations of up to 16,000 ppm
(parts per million) are sometimes used, and exposure time can be up
to 72 hours; while 300 ppm will kill people in fifteen minutes or so.
Therefore, the HCN in the extermination chambers hardly had time to
form compounds on the walls. While some claim that the gas
would need a lot of time to kill, because it would have to spread all
over the chamber, it simply is not true; the gas chambers were not
that large (those in Krematoria II and III were about 210 square
meters), and the Zyklon-B was dropped from four openings (still
visible in the ruins of the gas chambers). Since the concentration
used was higher than the lethal one, death was very swift.
Furthermore, the delousing chambers are intact while the
extermination chambers were blown up (a .GIF picture of the one of
Krema II is available). Therefore, their walls have been exposed to
the elements for the last 50 years. The ruins of the gas chamber of
Krema II are covered with about 3 feet of water during certain
periods of the year; HCN compounds easily dissolve in these
surroundings. Nonetheless, so much gassing took place that some of
the compound remained.
Summarizing, the walls of the extermination gas chambers were in
contact with HCN for a much shorter time then those of the delousing
chambers, and for the last 45 years were exposed to surroundings
which dissolve the compounds, while the delousing rooms were not.
Therefore it is obvious that less traces of compounds would remain in
them.
This fact - that all, or most, of the compounds would vanish during
45 years of exposure - is clearly stated in the report written by the
experts of the Cracow Institute of Forensic Research. (Request
leuchter leuchter.faq1 and leuchter.faq2)
[Auschwitz]
[Page 9]
Holocaust deniers once claimed that the gas chamber in Krema I was
left intact, and therefore its walls were not exposed to the
elements. But - as they admit themselves - the gas chamber of Krema
I was used only for a short time, and than it was changed to an
air-raid shelter. After the liberation of the camp, it was
reconstructed to its original shape. This, and the fact that "only"
about 10,000 people were murdered inside it (compared to 350,000 and
400,000 in Kremas II and III) explain why relatively small amounts of
cyanide compounds remain. As for Kremas IV and V, they were
completely destroyed by the SS before the Soviets liberated the camp.
Finally, cyanide compounds were found on the ventilation grills of
the extermination chambers, proving beyond doubt that gassing did
take place inside them.
The claim that it would have been impossible to use the gas chambers
for killing, because they were too close to the furnaces, and the gas
would explode, is often found in Holocaust denial literature, and is
one of the assertions of the Leuchter report.
The concentration of HCN necessary to cause death is nearly 200 times
lower than that which causes explosion. Although the SS used a
concentration higher than the lethal one, it was far below that
causing explosion.
As a reference, one can look at "The Merck Index" and the "CRC
handbook of Chemistry and Physics", or consult any manual dealing
with toxicity and flammability of chemicals. For HCN, a
concentration of 300 ppm (parts per million) kills humans within a
few minutes, while the minimal concentration that can result in an
explosion is 56,000 ppm.
Another common claim is that it takes 20 hours to air a room which
has been disinfected with Zyklon-B, and therefore the eyewitness
accounts giving a time of 20-30 minutes from when the gassing started
to when the bodies where carried out is impossible, because the
people carrying out the bodies would perish.
If one disinfects a building in ordinary commercial use, it should
not be reentered within 20 hours. That figure, however, has no
meaning in relation to the extermination chambers, because they were
forcibly ventilated. Fifteen minutes were enough to replace the air.
When ventilation was not used, the Sonderkommando (prisoners used as
forced labor) who took the bodies out had gas masks on. The Germans
had plenty of experience with gas, especially HCN, which was widely
used for delousing. They knew how to work with it without getting
hurt. It is absurd to use the 20 hour figure in this context, which
does not assume forced ventilation and takes a huge safety factor
into account. The SS didn't care much for the safety of the
Sonderkommando who had to enter the gas chambers to take the corpses
out.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 10]
Furthermore, what makes ventilation difficult and lengthy is the
presence of rugs, furniture, curtains, etc. Needless to say, these
were not present in the gas chambers - there was just bare concrete,
making ventilation fast and efficient.
If the "20 hours ventilation period" above was true, this would mean
that the corpses of people executed using cyanide gas in US gas
chambers would remain tied to the chair 20 hours after they were
killed...
Another common claim is that the "alleged" extermination chambers are
actually morgues, and that Zyklon-B was used in them as a disinfectant.
This claim stems from the fact that Hydrocyanic compounds were found
on the ventilation grills of the gas chambers in Krematoria II and
III (the chemical analysis was carried out by Dr. Jan Robel of the
Cracow Forensic Institute in December 1945, and was part of the
evidence in the trial of Auschwitz commander Ho"ss). This proves
that gassing did take place in that chamber. Zyklon-B cannot kill
anaerobic bacteria - it kills only aerobic organisms. That means it
would be useless for disinfecting corpses.
In closing, consider the testimony of SS private Hoeblinger:
(Langbein)
I was detailed to the transport service and I drove the Sanka
[abbreviation for Sanitatskraftwagon/medical truck] which was to
carry the prisoners....
Then we drove to the gas chambers. The medical orderlies
climbed a ladder, they had gas masks up there, and emptied the
cans. I was able to observe the prisoners while they were
undressing. It always proceeded quitely and without them
suspecting anything. It happened very quickly.
Note Pvt. Hoeblinger's mention of gas masks - some Holocaust deniers
insist that the SS-men dropping the gas would be killed by it, which
leads one to speculate about their reading ability.
Finally, the undeniable evidence that the SS ordered Degesch to
remove the indicator odor, mandated under German law, which was added
to the Zyklon B in order to provide a warning to human beings that
the lethal stuff was nearby. I believe this demonstrated clear
criminal intent - the SS would hardly have removed the indicator odor
if they had intended, as the denial set insists, to use the gas only
on insects and corpses... (Request holocaust farben.001 for more
information about this demand from the SS. Borkin, 123)
Recommended reading:
Barrington,J.H., ed. The Zyklon B Trial: Trial of Bruno Tesch and
Two Others. London, 1948, and Borkin (see Work Cited).
[Auschwitz]
[Page 11]
Harmon, Brian. Technical Aspects of the Holocaust: Cyanide, Zyklon-B,
aand Mass Murder. (Request holocaust/auschwitz cyanide.001), 1994
United Nations War Crimes Commission. Law Reports of Trials of War
Criminals. Vol. 1, London, 1947. See pp. 93-104
3.0 Crematoria
Konnilyn Feig provides an overview of the operation of the
crematoria, and describes the process by which the stoking gangs
sorted bodies into combustability catagories as the result of earlier
experiments by the SS staff to reduce fuel consumption. In this
effort, they had the assistance of the firm of Topf and Sons, who had
built the crematoria. (Request auschwitz auschwitz.01)
In essence, well-nourished corpses were burned with emaciated ones in
order to determine the most efficient combination. Three to four
bodies were burned at a time, and different kinds of coke were used,
then the results were recorded:
Afterwards, all corpses were divided into the above-mentioned
catagories, the criterion being the amount of coke required to
reduce them to ashes. Thus it was decreed that the most
economical and fuel-saving procedure would be to burn the bodies
of a well-nourished man and an emaciated woman, or vice versa,
together with that of a child, because, as the experiments had
established, in this combination, once they had caught fire, the
dead would continue to burn without any further coke being
required. (Mu"ller, 60-61; Klarsfield, 99-100)
The need for large-scale efficiency, to cope with the astounding
number of corpses produced by the gas chambers, eventually led to the
design and construction of new crematoria, and daily capacity rose
from as low as six hundred forty eight per day (Mu"ller's 1942
figure) to a high of over ten thousand (Ho"ss, Gricksch), but, as
Feig tells us, the SS eventually had to employ large pyres and pits
to dispose of the mounting pile of corpses:
As early as June 13, 1943, all was not well with the new
installation. ... Eventually the ovens seemed to
fall apart. Crematorium Four failed completely after a short
time and Crematoria Five had to be shut down repeatedly. (TWC,
V:624) (Between 1945 and 1962 Polish officials found five
manuscripts written by Sonderkommando members before their
deaths. The published manuscripts and documents relate to the
specific process of extermination at Birkenau, and provide
detailed descriptions of the crematoria and gas chambers.)
The scientifically planned crematoria should have been able to
handle the total project, but they could not. The whole complex
had forty-six retorts, each with the capacity for three to five
persons. The burning in a retort lasted about half an hour. It
took an hour a day to clean them out. Thus it was theoretically
[Auschwitz]
[Page 12]
possible to cremate about 12,000 corpses in twenty four hours or
4,380,000 a year. But the well-constructed crematoria fell far
behind at a number of camps, and especially at Auschwitz in
1944. In August the total cremation reached a peak one day of
24,000, but still a bottleneck occurred. Camp authorities
needed an economic and fast method of corpse disposal, so they
again dug six huge pits beside Crematorium Five and reopened old
pits in the wood. Thus, late in 1944, pit burning became the
chief method of corpse disposal. The pits had indentations at
one end from which human fat drained off. To keep the pits
burning, the stokers poured oil, alcohol, and large quantities
of boiling human fat over the bodies.
4.0 Compiling Estimates of the Numbers Exterminated
When the extermination camps failed to achieve their objective, the
total extermination of European Jewry, by the end of 1942, Heinrich
Himmler commissioned a statistical report in order to determine what
'progress' had been made.
In January of 1943, Dr. Richard Korherr, a noted statistician who was
outside SS circles, working with Adolf Eichmann and camp commanders,
began compiling reports and figures to present to Himmler. As
Breitman relates,
Korherr's job was complicated by the fact that, even in a report
designed for Himmler, he was not supposed to spell out the facts
in black and white. It was easier to state how many Jews were
still alive than what had happened to the others. To be sure,
Korherr could state that through various means the Jewish
population in the Reich and the Government General had
diminished by 3.1 million between 1933 and 1942. In spite of
his generous use of the term "evacuation," however, which
Himmler seconded, to mislead those who would read the document
in later years, Himmler had to correct Korherr's wording in one
place. Where Korherr had written of the "special treatment" of
the Jews, Himmler had insisted on either the "transportation of
the Jews from the Eastern provinces to the Russian East" or the
"sifting of the Jews through the camps." These were among the
officially approved terms to camouflage the realities of the
Final Solution. (Korherr's reports in NA RG 238, NO-5193 and
5194, Himmler's correction of wording in Brandt to Korherr, 20
April 1943. NA RG 238, NO-5196. Raul Hillberg, The Destruction
of the European Jews {Chicago, 1961}, 2nd expanded ed., 3 vols.
{New York, 1985},I, 322-23, reviews the whole range of Nazi
terms that veiled the realities.) (Breitman, 242)
Note that Himmler was successful in his attempts to camouflage
reality to the degree that present-day Holocaust denial insists that
Jews were simply "relocated to the East," and not exterminated.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 13]
Eichmann's interrogation regarding the total number of victims
supports Fleming's figure of about five million killed (Request
eichmann eichmann.005), while figures compiled by Yehuda Bauer, of
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, are somewhat higher. Bauer's figures are in
the right-most column:
German Reich (boundaries of 1938) 130,000 125,000
Austria 58,000 65,000
Belgium 26,000
Belgium & Luxembourg 24,700
Bulgaria 7,000
Czechoslovakia (boundaries of 1938) 245,000 277,000
France 64,000 83,000
Greece 58,000 65,000
Hungary & Carpatho-Ukraine 300,000 402,000*
Italy 8,000 7,500*
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia 200,000
Luxembourg 3,000
Netherlands 101,800 106,000
Norway 677 760
Poland (boundaries of 1939) 2,700,000
Polish-Soviet area 4,565,000
Romania (boundaries prior to 1940) 220,000 40,000
USSR (boundaries prior to 1939) 800,000
Yugoslavia 54,000 60,000*
-----------------
4,975,477 5,820,960
* May be underestimated
4.1 How many people died at Auschwitz?
Foner's Spotlight article makes the following assertions regarding the
number of people killed at the camp:
Like most Americans, since his youth Cole had been instructed
in the "irrefutable fact" that homicidal gassings had taken
place at Auschwitz. The number of those so executed - also
declared irrefutable - was 4.1 million.
Then came the Leuchter Report in 1988. This was followed by a
"re-evaluation" of the total deaths at Auschwitz (down to 1.1
million). As a budding historian - and a Jew - Cole was
intrigued.
Previous to 1992, anyone who publicly doubted the 4.1 million
"gassing" deaths at Auschwitz was labeled an anti-Semite,
neo-nazi skinhead (at the very least). Quietly, because of
revisionist findings, the official figure was lowered to 1.1
million. No mention of that missing 3 million.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 14]
Foner's assertions are simply not true; although it is correct to note
that the Polish Communist government did claim that four million people
were exterminated at Auschwitz, historians (Feig, Reitlinger, Hilberg,
et al.) have never supported that figure. Consider the estimates
provided by Buszko at the end of his article on Auschwitz, which appeared
in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust:
Of the 405,000 registered prisoners, 65,000 survived
Of the 16,000 Soviet POW's, 96 survived
Various estimates suggest 1.6 million were murdered
Buszko's article, and the above estimates, appeared in the 1990 edition
of the Encyclopedia, which clearly puts the lie to Foner's comment that
"anyone who publicly doubted the 4.1 million ..." figure "previous to
1992..." was "...labeled an anti-Semite..." Buszko is not only a Jewish
historian, but Polish as well.
Leon Poliakov, the author of the well-documented "Harvest of
Hate," which was, we note, first published in _1956_, provides
the following information, which clearly demonstrates that Foner's
contention, cited above, is an outright lie:
After some thirty months of intense activity, the Auschwitz
balance sheet showed close to two million immediate
exterminations (this figure can never be fixed exactly), (8) to
which one must add the deaths of some 300,000 registered
prisoners - Jews for the most part, but not entirely - for whom
the gas chamber was only one of any number of ways by which they
might have perished. (Poliakov, 202)
(8) In his affidavits, Hoess spoke of two and a half million,
'a figure set officially,' he wrote, under the signature of
[Eichmann], in a report to Himmler. This figure has been
accepted by several authors, and it appears in the verdict at
the trial of the major war criminals. However, there is no
reason for accepting without question the statistics attributed
to Eichmann, which may err on either side. Adding the number of
victims to those deported from different countries gives a lower
figure, although we have little data, for example, on the number
of Polish Jews sent to Auschwitz. An approximate figure in the
neighborhood of two million seems closer to the truth."
(Ibid.)
Feig also provides evidence of the false nature of Foner's comment when
she notes that `Ho"ss testified that the Tesch directors could not help
but know of the use for their product because they sold him enough to
annihilate two million people.' Feig's book was published in 1981.
[Continued in Part Two]
Auschwitz: A Layman's Guide to Auschwitz-Birkenau
Part Two
5.0 Administration.............................................15
5.1 Command Staff............................................15
5.2 Medical Staff............................................17
5.3 Selection................................................17
5.4 Tattooing................................................18
5.5 Medical Experimentation..................................19
5.5.1 Clauberg...............................................21
5.5.2 Mandel.................................................21
5.5.3 Mengele................................................21
5.5.4 Oberhauser.............................................22
5.5.5 Schumann...............................................22
6.0 Research Sources & Other Useful Appendices.................23
6.1 Recommended Reading......................................24
6.2 Abbreviations Used in Citations..........................26
6.3 Glossary.................................................26
6.4 Works Cited..............................................27
[Auschwitz]
[Page 15]
According to Snyder, Adolf Eichmann reported to Himmler, in 1944, that
four million had been killed in the camps, and another million had been
shot or killed by mobile units. (Encyclopedia of the Third Reich.
1989) Eichmann's report, which referenced _all_ the camps (most of which
were in Poland), may have been the source of the Polish Communist
government's figures. (Snyder is a Professor of History at the City
College and the City University of New York.)
During the war crimes trials, Ho"ss was was asked if it was true that
he had no exact numbers because he had been forbidden to compile them,
and he agreed. He also agreed that Adolf Eichmann had told him that
that more than two million people had been exterminated there.
(von Lang, 120)
The Institut Fuer Zeitgeschicthe, Munich, provided the following
capsulated paragraph about Auschwitz in a March, 1992, letter of
inquiry. (Request auschwitz IFZ.report)
The extermination camp in Birkenau, established in the second
half of 1941, was joined to the concentration camp Auschwitz,
existing since May 1940. From January 1942 on in five gas
chambers and from the end of June 1943 in four additional large
gassing-rooms gassings with Zyklon B have been undertaken. Up
until November 1944 more than one million Jews and at least 4000
gypsies have been murdered by gas. (IFZ)
While it is admittedly difficult to compile exact figures, since the
Nazis did not maintain registration records for those who were to be
exterminated immediately upon arrival at Auschwitz, it seems accurate
to assert that the number of Jews killed fell somewhere between one
and one-point-six million.
Jews were not the only victims of the Auschwitz killing machine -
estimates that from 200,000 (Gilbert, 22, Kendrick, 184) to 500,000
(Bubenickova, 190, Yoors, 34) Gypsies were ultimately destroyed are
noted by Laska. Himmler signed the decree sending all of them to
Auschwitz in 1942. In addition, an unknown number of homosexuals were
sent to Auschwitz and executed.
The Leuchter Report, which Foner alludes to extensively in his Spotlight
article, has been thoroughly refuted. For detailed information about the
report, see the Leuchter FAQ, published regularly in this newsgroup.
5.0 Administration
5.1 Command Staff
Fritsch, Hauptsturmfu"hrer (Credited with the first use of Zyklon-B
as means of exterminating human subjects. See Breitman, 202)
Grabner, Maximillian. Head of Political Department
[Auschwitz]
[Page 16]
Ho"ss, Rudolf Franz (1900-1947). Ho"ss joined the Nazi party in
1922. In 1923, he was implicated in a murder and imprisoned to serve
a life sentence. He was released as a result of a general
amnesty, in 1928. After training during service at Dachau and
Sachsenhausen, he was rewarded for his loyalty with a promotion to the
rank of SS-Hauptsturmfu"hrer (see Glossary) and the commandant's job
at Auschwitz, where he remained until December of 1943, when he was
promoted to chief of the Central Administration for Camps. (Sachar.
Request auschwitz hoess.01, auschwitz hoess.02, auschwitz hoess.03)
According to Snyder, " He performed his job so well that he was
commended in a 1944 SS report that called him "a true pioneer in this
area because of his new ideas and educational methods."
Ho"ss was captured in May, 1945, and was a key witness at Nuremberg
(Kaltenbrunner, I.G. Farben et al). During this period, he wrote
his autobiography, "Commandant of Auschwitz: Autobiography of Rudolf
Hoess." (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1959) His statement is available
in the original German text, and in English translation. (Request
holocaust/auschwitz hoess.statemen)
According to Sachar, he, "...took pride in his exemplary family life,
the devotion to his children and his pets. He recalled, wistfully,
how he had been obliged to tear himself away from a Christmas
gathering to attend to duties at the gas chambers. The daily death
quota then was still a mere 1,500, but he was eager to make sure it
was met. When one of his lieutenants was condemned to death for his
part in the Auschwitz murders, Hoess and his family lamented `Such a
compassionate man, too. When his pet canary died, he tenderly put
the body in a small box, covered it with a rose, and buried it under
a rose bush in the garden.'(Ho"ss, 25)(Sachar)
During his trial, the evidence "...repeated...what he had written..."
in his autobiography. "He described, with the dispassion of a robot,
how he had gradually stepped up executions, beginning with a few
hundred a day and then, as methods were perfected, rising to 1,200.
By mid-1942, facilities had been sufficiently enlarged to dispatch
1,500 people over a twenty-four-hour period for the smaller ovens,
and up to 2,500 for the larger ones. By 1943, ... a new daily peak
of 12,000 was achieved. Hoess described the final routines of the
extermination process. These were assigned to squads of Jewish
prisoners, the Sondercommandos. They marched the victims to the gas
chambers, helped to undress them, removed the corpses after the
gassing, extracted gold from their teeth and rings from their
fingers, searched the orifices of their bodies for hidden jewelry,
cut off the hair of the women, and then carted the bodies to the
crematoria. Usually after several weeks of such service they were
executed, first because they were Jews but also so that they would
not be witnesses if ever testimony were required." (Sachar)
Ho"ss was tried in Warsaw, in March, 1947, and condemned to death.
(Hanged on April 7 at Auschwitz.)
[Auschwitz]
[Page 17]
Kramer, Josef. Commandant at Birkenau.
Mandel, Maria. Head of the women's camp at Auschwitz after serving
at Ravensbruck.
5.2 Medical Staff
Testimony from German court records relating to the trials of SS men
charged with medical killing at Auschwitz is now available from our
archives. The source for this data, Nauman, is listed in Section 6.1,
Recommended Reading. (Request holocaust/auschwitz auschwitz.010)
Clauberg, Karl. Pursued his experiments on live specimens in
Auschwitz. Involved in sterilization projects there. (Laska, 222)
Dr. Wladyslav Dering. Dering was a Polish prisoner
Dr. Entress
Gebhardt, Karl. Involved in vivisection projects at both Ravensbruck
and Auschwitz. Shot as war criminal in 1948. (Laska, 225)
Hantl
Klehr
Kremer, Johannes Paul. Vivisection. Hanged. (Klee, 258)
Mengele, Josef (1911- ?). Mengele was appointed chief doctor at
Auschwitz by Himmler in 1943. He joined Drs. Klein, Koenig, and
Thilon in running the selection process. Bibliography: Gerald L.
Posner and John Ware, "Mengele: The Complete Story", New York,
McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1986.(Snyder) Mengele is believed dead,
but his fate remains unknown. (See the 1991 "Children of the Flames,"
for citations regarding Mengele's experimentation on twins)
Oberhauser, Herta.
Scherpe
Schumann, Horst.
5.3 Selection
In a report entitled "Resettlement of Jews," SS-Sturmbannfu"hrer
Gricksch provided the following information for SS-Col. von Herff
and Reichsfu"hrer-SS Himmler, after inspection between the 14th. and
16th. of May, 1943. (Fleming, 142)
The Auschwitz camp plays a special role in the resolution of the
Jewish question. The most advance methods permit the execution
of the Fuehrer-order in the shortest possible time and without
arousing much attention. The so-called "resettlement action"
runs the following course: The Jews arrive in special trains
(freight cars) toward evening and are driven on special tracks
to areas of the camp specifically set aside for this purpose.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 18]
There the Jews are unloaded and examined for their fitness to
work by a team of doctors, in the presence of the camp
commandant and several SS officers. At this point anyone who
can somehow be incorporated into the work program is put in a
special camp. The curably ill are sent straight to a medical
camp and are restored to health through a special diet. The
basic principle behind everything is: conserve all manpower for
work. The previous type of "resettlement action" has been
thoroughly rejected, since it is too costly to destroy precious
work energy on a continual basis.
The report then describes the fate of those unlucky enough to have
been considered incurably ill or unfit for slave labour, and provides
some details with regard to the killing process. (Request auschwitz
Gricksch.rpt).
The results of this "resettlement action" to date: 500,000 Jews.
Current capacity of the "resettlement action" ovens: 10,000 in
24 hours.
5.4 Tattooing
Buszko (see above), writing in the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,
explains why some prisoners were tattooed, while others were not:
Prisoners were registered and received numbers tattooed on
their left arm upon leaving the quarantine in Birkenau for
forced labor in Auschwitz or in one of the subcamps. The same
procedure applied to those prisoners who were directed straight
to Auschwitz I: 405,000 prisoners were registered in this way.
[Ed. Note: Buszko later notes that only 65,000 of those so
registered and tattooed survived. knm] Not included in any
form of registration were the vast majority of the Auschwitz
victims, those men and women who, upon arrival in Auschwitz II,
were led to the gas chambers and killed there immediately.
Also not included in the registration were those prisoners who
were sent to work in other concentration camps not belonging to
the Auschwitz system. ... Still another group of unregistered
prisoners were those who were designated for execution after a
short stay in the camp. That group consisted mainly of
hostages, Soviet army officers, and partisans." (Encyclopedia,
Vol. I, 110-111)
[Auschwitz]
[Page 19]
5.5 Medical Experimentation
Several of the seventy or more medical-research projects conducted by
the Nazis between the fall of 1939 and spring of 1945 were conducted
at Auschwitz. These projects involved experiments conducted with
human beings against their will, and at least seven thousand were so
treated, based upon existing documents and personal testimonies;
there were undoubtedly many more for which no documentation or
personal testimony remains.
About two hundred German medical doctors were involved in the
concentration camp experiments, conducting 'Selektionen,' medical
services, and research. They maintained close professional ties with
the German medical establishment, and used the universities and
research institutes in Germany and Austria in their work.
Dr. Ernst Robert Grawitz, SS Chief Medical Officer, received all
requests for authority to perform experimentation, and obtained two
opinions before passing them to Himmler with his recommendation.
Grawitz used Dr. Karl Gebhardt, Himmler's personal physician, for
one opinion, and Richard Glu"cks and Arthur Nebe for the other. He
then passed his report to Himmler, who took great interest in the
experiments and often interfered with them.
There were three broad classes of experiments. The German Air Force
conducted experiments at Dachau (and elsewhere) dealing with survival
and rescue, including research into the effects of high altitude,
freezing temperatures, and the ingestion of seawater.
Medical treatment constituted a second class, and involved research
into the treatment of battle injuries, gas attacks, and the
formulation of immunization compounds to treat contageous and
epidemic diseases.
Finally, there were racial experiments, including research into
dwarfs and twins, serological research, and skeletal examination. It
is this class of horrors that returns us to Auschwitz.
(Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, 957-958)
During his interrogation of Adolf Eichmann, Israeli police Captain
Avner Less brought up the subject of Eichmann's complicity in medical
'research' projects which had been approved by the Reichsfu"hrer-SS,
Heinrich Himmler, and read three documents to him. What follows is
the text of Less's interrogation at that point...
[Auschwitz]
[Page 20]
LESS: I have some photostats of documents that were submitted in
the first Nuremberg war crimes trial, the trial of the
physicians. The sender of this letter is the business manager
of Ahnenerbe. I'll read it to you. "Berlin, November 2, 1942.
Secret. To SS-Obersturmbannfu"hrer Dr. Brandt. Dear Comrade
Brandt: As you know, the Reichsfu"hrer-SS gave orders some time
ago to the effect that SS-Hauptsturmfu"hrer Prof. Dr. Hirt
should be supplied with everything he requires for his research.
For certain anthropological investigations -- I have already
reported to the Reichsfu"hrer-SS on the subject -- 150 skeletons
of prisoners or Jews are needed, and these are to be made
available by the Auschwitz concentration camp." Etc. etc. It's
signed: "With comradely greetings, Heil Hitler, Yours, Sievers."
The second document is a report by this Professor Hirt. "Re:
Procurement of the skulls of Jewish-Bolshevistic commissars for
scientific research at the University of Strassburg." I quote:
"Extensive skull collections from nearly all races and people
are in existence. It is only of Jews that so few skulls are
available to science that work on them admits of no secure
findings. The war in the East now offers us an opportunity to
make good this deficiency. In the Jewish-Bolshevistic
commissars, who embody a repulsive and characteristic type of
subhuman, we have the possibility of acquiring a reliable
scientific document by acquiring their skulls. The smoothest
and most expeditious way of obtaining and securing this
provision of skulls would be to instruct the Wehrmacht to hand
over all Jewish-Bolshevistic commissars immediately to the
military police. The person charged with securing this material
(a young physician or medical student belonging to the Werhmacht
or better still to the military police) is to prepare a
previously specified series of photographs and anthropoligical
measurements. After the subsequently induced death of the Jew,
whose head must not be injured, he will separate the head from
the trunk and send it, immersed in a preserving fluid, in
well-sealed lead containers made especially for this purpose, to
the designated address."
And now the next document. A letter of June 21, 1943. From
Ahnenerbe. Top secret. "To Reich Security Headquarters IVB4,
Attention: SS-Obersturmfu"hrer Eichmann. Re: Skeleton
collection. With reference to your letter of September 25,
1942, and the consultations held since then regarding the
above-mentioned matter, we wish to inform you that Dr. Bruno
Beger, our staff member charged with the above-mentioned special
mission, terminated his work in the Auschwitz concentration camp
on June 15, 1943, because of the danger of an epidemic. In all,
115 persons, 79 male Jews, 2 Poles, 4 Central Asians, and 30
Jewesses, were processed. These inmates have been placed, men
and women separately, in the concentration-camp sick quarters,
and quarantined. For the further processing of these selected
persons, immediate transfer to Natzweiler concentration camp is
desirable and should be effected as quickly as possible in view
[Auschwitz]
[Page 21]
of the danger of infection in Auschwitz. A list of the selected
persons is appended. You are requested to send the necessary
instructions."
And now for the last document. "The Reichsfu"hrer-SS Personal
Staff, Field Headquarters, November 6, 1942. Secret. To Reich
Security Headquarters IVB4. Attention: SS-Obersturmfu"hrer
Eichmann. The Reichsfu"hrer-SS has ordered that Dr. Hirt, head
of the Anatomy Department in Strassburg, should be supplied with
everything needed for his research. In the name of the
Reichsfu"hrer-SS, I therefore request you to help establish the
projected skeleton collection. per. proc.
SS-Obersturmbannfu"hrer Brandt." (von Lang, 169-171)
Thus the German government's full complicity in the crimes committed
at Auschwitz under the guise of "medical research" is clear, with a
chain of evidence reaching all the way to Himmler.
5.5.1 Clauberg
Professor Carl Clauberg performed experiments into sterilization at
both Auschwitz and Ravensbru"ck. This was done on Hitler's
initiative, as he had been convinced by several doctors that mass
sterilization could provide a powerful weapon against Germany's
enemies during total war.
Clauberg injected chemical substances into wombs during normal
gynochological examinations. Thousands of Jewish and Gypsy women were
subjected to this treatment. Clauberg sought to answer Himmler's
query about how long it would take to sterilize one thousand women,
and eventually informed him that, using methods he developed, a staff
of one doctor and ten assistants could do the job in a single day.
The injections totally destroyed the lining membrane of the womb and
seriously damaged the ovaries of the victims, which were then removed
and sent to Berlin to test the effectiveness of the method.
(Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, 964)
5.5.2 Mandel
... after Ravensbruck ... was the head of the women's camp at
Auschwitz; the prisoners referred to her as `the beast.' For her
share in the selections for the gas chambers and medical
experiments and for her torture of countless prisoners, she was
condemned to death in 1947 as a war criminal. (Laska)
5.5.3 Mengele
Mengele promoted medical experimentation on inmates, especially
dwarfs and twins. He is said to have supervised an operation by
which two Gypsy children were sewn together to create Siamses twins;
the hands of the children became badly infected where the veins had
been resected. (Snyder)
[Auschwitz]
[Page 22]
Cohen tells us: "The only firsthand evidence on these experiments
comes from a handful of survivors and from a Jewish doctor, Miklos
Nyiszli, who worked under Mengele as a pathologist. Mengele subjected
his victims - twins and dwarfs aged two and above - to clinical
examinations, blood tests, X rays, and anthropological measurements.
In the case of the twins, he drew sketches of each twin, for
comparison. He also injected his victims with various substances,
dripping chemicals into their eyes (apparently in an attempt to
change their color). He then killed them himself by injecting
chloroform into their hearts, so as to carry out comparative
pathological examinations of their internal organs. Mengele's
purpose, according to Dr. Nyiszli, was to establish the genetic cause
for the birth of twins, in order to facilitate the formulation of a
program for doubling the birthrate of the 'Aryan' race. The
experiments on twins affected 180 persons, adults and children.
Mengele also carried out a large number of experiments in the field
of contageous diseases, (typhoid and tuberculosis) to find out how
human beings of different races withstood these diseases. He used
Gypsy twins for this purpose. Mengele's experiments combined
scientific (perhaps even important) research with the racist and
ideological aims of the Nazi regime. which made use of government
offices, scientific institutions, and concentration camps. From the
scanty information available, it appears that his research differed
from the other medical experiments in that the victims' death was
programmed into his experiments and formed a central element in it."
(Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, 964)
5.5.4 Oberhauser
Dr. Herta Oberhauser killed prisoners with oil and evipan
injections, removed their limbs and vital organs, rubbed ground
glass and sawdust into wounds. She drew a twenty-year sentence
as a war criminal, but was released in 1952 and became a family
doctor at Stocksee in Germany. Her license to practice medicine
was revoked in 1960. (Laska, 223)
5.5.5 Schumann
Himmler, writing to SS-Oberfu"hrer Brack, on August 11, 1942,
expressed an interest in sterilization experiments involving
the use of x-rays (Request auschwitz sterilization). In April
of 1944, he received a report of the work of Dr. Horst Schumann
"on the influence of X-rays on human genital glands" at Auschwitz.
The report included the following statement:
Previously you have asked Oberfuehrer Brack to perform this
work, and you supported it by providing the adequate material in
the concentration camp Auschwitz. I point especially to the
second part of this work, which shows that by those means
castration of males is almost impossible or requires an effort
which does not pay. As I have convinced myself, operative
[Auschwitz]
[Page 23]
castration requires not more than 6 to 7 minutes, and therefore
can be performed more reliably and quicker than castration by
X-rays.
Schumann set up an X ray station at Auschwitz in 1942, in the woman's
camp Bla. Here men and women were forcibly sterilized by being
positioned repeatedly for several minutes between two x-ray machines,
the rays aiming at their sexual organs. Most subjects died after
great suffering, or were gassed immediately because the radiation
burns from which they suffered rendered them unfit for work. Men's
testicles were removed and sent to Breslau for histopathological
examination. The frequently following ovariotomies were performed
also by the Polish prisoner, Dr. Wladyslav Dering. Dering once bet
with an SS man that he could perform ten ovariotomies in an
afternoon, and won his bet. Some of his victims survived. Dering
was declared a war criminal but eluded justice and for a time
practiced medicine in British Somaliland. (Laska, 223. Encyclopedia,
Vol. 3, 965)
6.0 Research Materials & Sources
Vera Laska notes that there are over ten-thousand printed sources
relating to Auschwitz alone, and offers this guidance for those pursuing
Holocaust research:
Yad Vashem Martyrs' and Heroes' Memorial Authority in Jerusalem
is a depository of documents and memoirs on the Holocaust,
mostly in German, Hebrew and Yiddish. It also issues the Yad
Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and
Resistance. (The 1991 Yad Vashem English publications guide is
now included in the Holocaust Almanac bibliographies. Request
holocaust biblio.5)
The Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris and
the Wiener Library in London are major sources of information.
The Wiener Library's catalogue series published a bibliography,
Persecution and Resistance Under the Nazis (London: Valentine,
Mitchell, 1960). ...
In the United States the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
(1048 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10028) houses several
collections of ghetto documents and related primary source
materials. It publishes the YIVO Annual of Jewish Social
Science. Since 1960, Yad Vashem and the YIVO Institute have
been engaged in preparing a multivolume bibliographical series
on the Holocaust; one of the volumes, Jacob Robinson, ed., The
Holocaust and After: Sources and Literature in English
(Jerusalem: Israel University Press, 1973) is most helpful.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 24]
The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (823 United Nations
Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10017) supplies teaching materials at
reasonable prices, for instance The Record - The Holocaust in
History, 1933-1945, published in cooperation with the National
Council for Social Studies in 1978.
The Library of Congress and the National Archives are rich
sources for researchers, containing among others the
transcripts of war crime trials. This in itself is an immense
documentation; for instance, the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial of
twenty-three defendents alone takes up 11,538 pages in nineteen
volumes. Indexes can be consulted about various concentration
camps. ...
In addition to the massive amount of information Laska notes, additional
bibliographic sources are available through the Holocaust bibliographic
files available on oneb.almanac.bc.ca and elsewhere. In
particluar, see the list of major research centres listed in
HOLOCAUST/EDUCATION RESEARCH.CNTRS, which was added to our archives
in December, 1994.
6.1 Recommended Reading
Our Holocaust archives are available via InterNet Gopher. To access
this service, use the command "gopher jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il".
Select #4, "Electronic Jewish Library," then select #2, "Holocaust
Archives."
Suggested reading related to Auschwitz, from the Encyclopedia of the
Holocaust and elsewhere:
Brugioni, Dino A., and Robert G. Poirier. The Holocaust Revisited: A
Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex.
(Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.) February 1979.
The paper includes aerial photographs of the Auschwitz-Birkenau
complex in operation during WWII. A summary of their analysis
is included in the paper. These photos corroborate eyewitness
accounts/Nazi documentation on camp operations.
You can obtain a copy from the US gov't through the following
sources:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
or:
Photoduplication Service
Library of Congress
Washington, D.C. 20540
Use the report number(#st 79-10001) and the document number
(NTISUBE28002) to speed service along. The document # is
particularly important.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 25]
Brewster, Eva. Vanished in Darkness. Edmonton: NeWest Publishers
Limited, 1984. (First-person account of life within Auschwitz)
Friedman, P. "Crimes in the Name of Science," in "Roads to Extinction:
Essays on the Holocaust." Edited by A.J. Friedman. Philadelphia, 1980
Gilbert, M. Auschwitz and the Allies. New York, 1981
Gutman, Y., and A. Saf, eds. The Nazi Concentration Camps:
Structure and Aims; The Image of the Prisoner; The Jews in the
Camps. Proceedings of the Fourth Yad Vashem International
Historical Conference. Jerusalem, 1984
Ho"ss, R. Commandant of Auschwitz. London, 1959
Ja"ckel, Eberhard, and H. David Kirk, trans. David Irving's Hitler.
Port Angeles, Washington: Ben-Simon Publications, 1993
Kielar, W. Anus Mundi: Fifteen Hundred Days in Auschwitz-
Birkenau. New York, 1980
Kudlien, F., ed. A"rzte im Nationalsoczialismus. Cologne, 1985
Lagnato, Lucette Matalon and Sheila Cohn Dekel. Children of the
Flames. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1991 (Mengele's
experimentation with twins at Auschwitz)
Langbein, H. Auschwitz-Prozess: Eine Dokumentation. 2 Vols.
Vienna, 1965
Langbein, H. Menschen in Auschwitz. Vienna, 1972
Lifton, R.J. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychiatry
of Genocide." New York, 1986
Levi, P. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity. New
York, 1981
Lukowski, J. Bibliografia obozu koncentracyjnego Oswiecim-
Brzezinka. 5 vols. Warsaw, 1970
Mark, B. The Scrolls of Auschwitz. Tel Aviv, 1985
Mitscherlich, A., and F. Mielke. Doctors of Infamy: The Story of
Medical Crimes. New York, 1949
Mu"ller, Filip. Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers.
New York: Stein and Day, 1979
[Auschwitz]
[Page 26]
Nauman, Bernd. Auschwitz: A Report on The Procedings Against Robert
Karl Ludwig Mulka and Others Before the Court at Frankfurt. New York:
Frederick A. Praeger, 1966
Proctor, R. Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis.
Cambridge, Mass., 1988
Social Studies School Services offers an extensive list of teaching
materials dealing with the Holocaust, and Auschwitz. For a list of
books, videotapes, and photo histories, request holocaust ssss.books-1 and
holocaust ssss.video from our list server. Of particular interest are
the videotapes "Kitty: Return to Auschwitz," "Nazi Concentration
Camps," the official film record of the Nazi death camps as photographed
by Allied liberation forces in 1945, and "Holocaust: Liberation of
Auschwitz."
6.2 Abbreviations Used in Citations
The following abbreviations may be used throughout this document:
IFZ.........Institut fu"r Zeitgeschichte, Munich
IRR.........Investigative Repository Records
NA..........United States National Archives
RG 59.......NA Diplomatic Records
RG 84.......Washington National Records Center, Diplomatic Post Records
RG 153......Washington National Records Center, Records of the
Office of the (Army) Judge Advocate
RG 165......Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs,
Washington National Records Center
RG 208......Office of War Information Records, Washington National
Records Center
RG 226......Office of Strategic Services Records
RG 238......War Crimes
EC Series
NG........Microfilm T-1139
NI........Microfilm T-301
NO Series
NOKW Series
PS Series
RG 242......NA Record Group 242 - Captured German Records
RG 319......Records of the Army Staff
T...........NA Microfilm Series
If you note any that are not explained above, please let me know,
and I will try to run them down for you.
6.3 Glossary
Ahnenerbe: [Ancestral Heritage], The Institute for the Scientific
Study of Ends and Purposes, located in Berlin. (Request
eichmann eichmann.006)
[Auschwitz]
[Page 27]
Einsatzgruppen: Battalion-sized, mobile, armed units of police,
primarily Security Police and SD officials, which were used
to attack and execute perceived enemies in conquered territories.
(Brietman, 311)
Einsatzkommando: Company-sized component of the Einsatzgruppen
(Ibid., 311)
Gauleiter: Supreme territorial or regional party authority(-ies)
(The term is both singular and plural). The Nazi Party divided
Germany and some annexed territories into geographical units
called Gaue, headed by a Gauleiter. (Ibid., 311)
General Government: The Nazi-ruled state in central and eastern
Poland. Headed by Governor Hans Frank. (Ibid., 311)
Final Solution: Euphemism for the extermination of European Jewry
SD (Sicherheitsdienst): The SS Security Service
Selektionen: (Selection) The process by which newly-arrived prisoners
were divided into those capable of work, and those deemed unfit
for work, i.e. those to be exterminated immediately.
Sonderkommandos: Division of Einsatzgruppen, generally smaller than
Einsatzkommando, but also a more general term for special
commando units assigned particular functions. (Ibid., 311)
Military rank - here's a list from Breitman (314) which lists SS
ranks and the Western military equivalent:
Oberstgruppenfu"hrer General
Obergruppenfu"hrer Lieutenant General
Gruppenfu"hrer Major General
Brigadefu"hrer Brigadier General
Oberfu"hrer between Brigadier & Colonel
Standartenfu"hrer Colonel
Obersturmbannfu"hrer Lieutenant Colonel
Sturmbannfu"hrer Major
Hauptsturmfu"hrer Captain
Obersturmfu"hrer First Lieutenant
Unterscharfu"hrer Corporal
Rottenfu"hrer Private, First Class
Sturmann Private
SS-Mann no equivalent
6.4 Works Cited
Borkin, Joseph. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben. New York:
The Free Press, 1978, and London: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Breitman, Richard. The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final
Solution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 28]
Bubenickova, Ruzena. Tabory utrpeni a smrti. (Camps of Martyrdom and
Death) Prague: Svoboda, 1969
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg.
New York: Harper and Row, 1983. ISBN 0-06-015117-X
Encyclopedia - See Gutman
Feig, Konnilyn G. Hitler's Death Camps. LOC D810.J4 F36, 1981
Fenelon, Fania, with Marcelle Routier. Playing For Time.
New York:Athenium, 1977. ISBN 0-689-10796-X
Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution. Berkeley, 1984
Foner, Samuel P. "Major Historical Fact Uncovered" SPOTLIGHT
Vol. XIX, Number 2, January 11, 1993)
Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust, Maps and Photographs.
New York: Mayflower Books, 1978.
Gutman, Israel, ed. in Chief, et al. Encyclopedia of the
Holocaust. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1990. ISBN 0-02-
896090-4 (set) (Referenced in this FAQ as "Encyclopedia")
Ho"ss, Rudolf. Commandant of Auschwitz: Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess.
(As quoted in Sachar)
Hilberg, Raul. Commandant of Auschwitz (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicholson, 1959)
Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Holmes & Meier,
1985. See 967-976.
IFZ. The Institut Fuer Zeitgeschicthe, Munich, as quoted in their
letter to Dr. Keren, March, 1992 (Request auschwitz IFZ.report)
Kenrick, Donald, and Grattan Puxon. Destiny of Europe's Gypsies.
New York: Basic Books, 1972, as cited in Laska
Klarsfield, Serge. The Holocaust and Neo-Nazi Mythomania, as quoted
in Feig.
Klee, Ernst, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, eds.
`The Good Old Days' -- The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and
Bystanders. Forward by H. Trevor-Roper. The Free Press, A division of
Macmillan, Inc, 1988, ISBN 0-02-917425-2
Langbein. Der Auschwitz Prozess. Vol. I, as quoted in Pressac.
[Auschwitz]
[Page 29]
Laska, Vera, ed. Women in the Resistance and in the Holocaust: The
Voices of Eyewitnesses. London: Greenwood Press, 1983. LOC 82-12018,
ISBN 0-313-23457-4
Lengyel, Olga. Five Chimneys. Chicago: Ziff-Davis, 1947, as cited in
Hilberg.
Mu"ller, Filip. "Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas
Chambers", as cited by both Feig and Hilberg. Museum w Oswiecimu.
"KL Auschwitz seen by the SS Hoess, Broad, Kremer," 2nd. ed., 1978
Naumann,. Auschwitz.
Poliakov, Leon. Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the
Destruction of the Jews of Europe. Syracuse University Press.,
1956.
Pressac, J. C. Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers.
New York: Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989
Rogers, Perry M., ed. Aspects of Western Civilization
Sachar, Abram L. The Redemption of the Unwanted. New York:
St. Martin's/Marek, 1983.
Snyder, Dr. Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. (New York: Paragon
House, 1989.)
von Lang, Jochen, in collaboration with Claus Sibyll. Eichmann
Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police.
Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, 1983
Wiesel, Elie. Night. (New York, 1969), as cited in Hilberg.
Yoors, Jan. A Journal of Survival and Resistance in World War II.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971, as cited in Laska
E-Mail Fredric L. Rice / The Skeptic Tank