Birkenau

After a number of weeks of painful work at the Buna plant, a terrible typhus epidemic broke out. The weaker prisoners died in hundreds. An immediate quarantine was ordered and work at the Buna stopped. Those still alive were sent, at the end of July 1942, to the gravel pit but there work was even still more strenuous. We were in such a state of weakness that, even in trying to do our best, we could not satisfy the overseers. Most of us got swollen feet. Due to our inability to perform the heavy work demanded of us our squad was accused of being lazy and disorderly. Soon after, a medical commission inspected all of us they carried out their job very thoroughly. Anyone with swollen feet or particularly weak was separated from the rest. Although I was in great pain, I controlled myself and stood erect in front of the commission, who passed me as physically fit. Out of 300 persons examined, 200 were found to be unfit and immediately sent to Birkenau and gassed. 

These 238 were murdered by delay. The State Department had replaced cables-of-suppression with involved clearance procedures for cablegrams. By the time we finally pushed through the exchange, the 238 had been shipped back to the gas chambers of Birkenau. These 238 had been gassed by order of men who pleaded at their trials that they "did not know."... 

The men knew the cart went to Birkenau. No one ran around the site completely naked, so everyone knew what it meant when the cart came back with clothes on it. They were called "selections" I heard hundreds use the words.. . . The fear of extermination was used by the foremen to spur the inmates to greater efforts the injured and the sick failed to seek medical treatment for fear of being sent to the gas chambers. 

Soon after Otto Ambros first went to Oswiecem, Birkenau was established to house the people of the town whom Ambros had recommended to be "evacuated" and placed in a new concentration camp. In those days the main camp — still predominantly for political prisoners — was kept as "pure" as possible by having the Jews and Poles in the main camp transferred to Birkenau. The first killings at Birkenau were the explosive result of the mistreatment of Birkenau inmates enroute to and from the main camp and to and from the buna plant. From the center of the buna plant to the center of Camp Birkenau was almost five miles, and their return at night was extremely painful and dangerous. Over the whole distance they dragged tools, firewood, heavy caldrons, and the bodies of those who had died or been killed during the working day. Others who could not maintain the brisk pace of the march were knocked down and beaten to death. 

Inmates who were brought to the hospital every day with extremely serious injuries or with fractures were without exception sent to Birkenau. 

The worn-out inmates were selected in the block or directly by the gate for gassing in Birkenau. A prisoner who was worn out was known as a Musselman. Musselmans were a permanent feature among the prisoners.. .. the same trucks which had taken the prisoners from the Monowitz hospital building came back immediately with the same things which the selected prisoners had worn. 

Professor Waitz, who was working in Monowitz as an internee doctor, advised me against seeking admission to the sick bay so as not to run the risk of being selected, i.e., to be sent to Birkenau. I made friends with an I.G. man named Malzer and discussed our prison existence with him. He knew.. . . The Amsterdam chemist Beinima worked in the chemistry squad. He was very ill (jaundice and tuberculosis) and was chosen to be picked out. 

The laundry I distributed had been taken from those who were gassed at Birkenau. I know this because I saw the numbers of the prisoners who used to be at Monowitz and were transported away. The clothes were old and often blood-stained. The clothing was often returned within three hours. 

A. All my comrades who came with me failed to return, and anyone who had gone to Birkenau failed to return. Foreman Montpellier told me, "You are an Aryan the Jews will all go up in the air," and that was in the presence of Dr. Spaenig fa Farben engineer]. 

Q. Mr. Witness, isn t it a fact that two or three times a week, open trucks drove along the I.G. Farben plant, going from Monowitz to Birkenau with inmates who were no longer able to work ... 

Q. Wasn t it common knowledge among the inmates that those inmates no longer able to work were being sent to Birkenau to be gassed ... 

The best witness the defense could inveigle into swearing that the Farben directors couldn t have known about what went on at Birkenau was a Waffen SS doctor. Minskoff cross-examined him ... 

Q. Doctor, your office was located less than a thousand yards from the Birkenau death house isn t that right ... 

Q. And how far was your office from the railroad which brought the unfortunate victims into Birkenau ... 

Q. Now, Mr. Witness, you testified that persons in Germany didn t know about these things. Could you tell the court about the civilians that lived in Auschwitz and smelled these chimneys each day and saw the railroads come into Auschwitz Did they know about the gassings at Birkenau ... 

Q. Over a period of two years, over four and a half million came through this little railroad next to your office into Birkenau, right through Auschwitz, isn t that true ... 

Q. And didn t these civilians, who weren t surrounded by any SS "secrecy," see all these persons coming in through Auschwitz to Birkenau in crowded trains ... 

S. Well, Mr. Witness, apart from what those civilians might have didn t those who had constant contact with other civilians who worked on and near the railroads, know of the gassings and of persons being brought to Birkenau ... 

Q. All right, I will withdraw the question. Now, isn t it a fact that during me time you were in Auschwitz, Allied planes dropped leaflets over Auschwitz informing the population what was going on in Birkenau ... 

On April 20 and 21, 1988, Leuchter took the stand as an expert witness in the courtroom in Toronto. He reported about his research and developed his conclusions. The atmosphere in the courtroom was tense. Leu-chter s testimony was straightforward and at the same time sensational According to Leuchter, there had never been any possibility of mass extermination of human beings by gassing in Auschwitz, nor in Birkenau, nor in Ma-jdanek 26... 

F. A. Leuchter, An Engineering Report on the alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau andMajdanek, Poland, Samisdat Publishers Ltd., Toronto 1988, 195 pp. Ger. Der erste Leuchter Report, ibid., 1988 (online ihr.org/books/leuchter/leuchter.toc.html). 

Between January 18 and March 10, 1972, two architects responsible for the design and construction of the crematoria in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Walter Dejaco and Fritz Ertl, were put on trial in Vienna, Austria.84 During the trial, an expert report on the possible interpretation of the blueprints of the alleged gas chambers of the Auschwitz and Birkenau crematoria was presented to the court. The report concluded that the rooms in question could not have been gas chambers, nor could they have been converted into gas chambers.85 Thanks to this first methodologically sound expert report on Auschwitz, the defendants were acquitted. 

Auschwitz, the Stammlager or main camp close to the town of Auschwitz itself, and the Birkenau camp some 3 km to the northwest of the town. May it not lead to more persecution and ostracism of its author than he already has experienced.87... 

This present writer has the original copy, it was sent to him from Israel. One half-page article is entitled Amidst the Killing, Children Sang of Brotherly Love . In 1943, 10-year-old Daniel K. arrived in Auschwitz. Now a university professor, he looks back at a different face of the death camp , runs the introduction. Professor K. writes The Chorale from [Beethoven s Ninth Symphony] was... performed by a Jewish children s choir at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943... I was a member of that choir... I... remember my first engagement with culture, with history, and with music—in the camp... ... 

Kalendarium derEreignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945, Rowohlt Verlag GmbH, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989. 

According to eyewitness accounts, a homicidal gas chamber is supposed to have existed in the crematorium of Auschwitz I this location still exists today, intact, but has been the object of serious manipulation, as we shall see. Additional homicidal gas chambers are said to have existed in the Birkenau camp, Auschwitz II, located approximately three kilometers away. These gas chambers were allegedly located in the four crematoria of that camp, as well as in two farmhouses outside the actual camp itself, modified for homicidal gassing purposes. 

Fig. 10 Map of the surrounding vicinity of Auschwitz during the Second World War. The boundary lines of the terrain of the IG Farbenindustrie factories were entered later, and are only an approximate indication of the factory terrain. The terrain of Birkenau concentration camp corresponds to the planning situation of 1945, which was, in fact, never completed.

Fig. 12 Map of POWcamp Auschwitz ll/Birkenau, approximately 2 km northwest of the main camp, construction situation as of the end of 1944. The shaded buildings still exist, some of them, however, only in the form of ruins or foundations (crematoria ll-V), the rest having been torn down by Polish civilians for building materials after the war. According to the information brochure of the Auschwitz State Museum, 1991.

On April 18, 1943, Wirths reports to the Commandant, with warning reference to the sewer system in Birkenau, and concludes that [...] great danger of epidemics is inevitable, 145... 

When one considers that there were other HCN disinfestation installations in Birkenau in addition to this one that the deliveries to Birkenau camp also supplied the related labor camps (more than 30 in number) and the fact that inmate barracks were also occasionally fumigated with this insecticide,158 it will be seen that the quantities of Zyklon B delivered to Auschwitz camp can actually be explained by normal debusing activities. 

See also the HoB order relating to the avoidance of accidental poisoning during the disinfestation of barracks, reproduced by J.-C. Pressac, op. cit. (note 67), p. 201. For each barracks with a volume of approximately 40m A 2m 3.5m > 1,500 m3, this means a requirement of 15 kg Zyklon B the 100 barracks in Birkenau camp alone would require 1.5 tons ... 

D.D. Desjardin, My Visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, May 30-31, 1996 , Interview mit F. Piper, online codoh.com/newrevoices/nddd/ndddausch.html. 

When Auschwitz was transformed into a museum after the war, the decision was taken to concentrate the history of the whole complex into one of its component parts. The infamous crematoria where the mass murders had taken place lay in ruins in Birkenau, two miles away. The committee felt that a crematorium was required at the end of the memorial journey, and crematorium I was reconstructed to speak for the history of the incinerators at Birkenau. This program usurpation was rather detailed. A chimney, the ultimate symbol of Birkenau, was re-created ... 

This argument of the usurpation is packed with dynamite, because it suggests that the events alleged to have taken place in crematorium I, events described by eyewitnesses Rudolf HoB, Pery Broad and a few others actually never took place at this location. But this undermines the credibility of all other eyewitnesses from the very outset, including those from Birkenau. We wonder if the authors are aware of this ... 

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