by Carlo Mattogno
· Paper Presented to the Ninth International Revisionist Conference.
Introduction
The story of the Auschwitz gas chambers begins, notoriously, with the
experimental gassing of approximately 850 individuals, which supposedly took
place in the underground cells of Block 11 within the main camp on September 3,
1941.
Danuta Czech in Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager
Auschwitz-Birkenau (Calendar of Events in the Concentration Camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau), describes it in the following way:
"3.9. [September 3] For the first time, experiments in mass murder
through the use of Cyclon B [sic] gas were conducted in the concentration camp
of Auschwitz.
By order of the SS, the hospital attendants brought approximately 250 sick
inmates from the prison hospital to the underground cells of Block 11.
Approximately 600 Russian prisoners of war were also brought there (officers
and political commissars were selected from the prisoner of war camps according
to the operating order [Einsatzbefehl] n.8 of 17.7.41). After they were placed
in the cells of the bunker, the underground vents were covered with earth, some
SS poured the Cyclon B gas and the doors were closed.
4.9.[September 4] Rapportführer Palitzsch, equipped with a gas mask, opened
the cell doors of the Bunker and noticed that a few prisoners were still alive.
He therefore poured an additional amount of Cyclon B gas and closed the doors.
5.9. [September 5] During the evening 20 prisoners from the punishment
company (Block 5a) and hospital attendants from the prisoners' hospital were
brought to the courtyard of Block 11. First they were told that they had been
called for a special assignment, and that no one was to discuss what they would
see under pain of death. Then they were promised that after the assignment they
would receive a substantially larger food ration. In the courtyard of Block 11,
there were the officers: Fritzsch, Mayer, Palitzsch, the Lagerarzt Entress [1]
and others. Gas masks were given to the prisoners, and they were ordered to go
to the underground cells and to bring the cadavers that had been gassed out to
the courtyard. There, the uniforms were taken off the Russian prisoners of war
and the cadavers were thrown onto motor carts. The cadavers of the gassed
inmates wore prisoners clothing. The transportation of the cadavers to the
crematorium lasted until late night. Among those that had been gassed were 10
prisoners who had been shut up in the Bunker because of the escape of prisoner
Nowaczyk."[2]
This account, in support of which Danuta Czech gives no documentary proof,
is nonetheless accepted with an exemplary lack of criticism by all
Exterminationist historians. This is even more surprising in that the alleged
gassing in Block 11 of Auschwitz would constitute the very beginning of the
process that would subsequently lead to the gas chambers of the crematoria of
Birkenau. The intermediate steps of that process were the mortuary chambers of
Crematorium I of the Main Camp and the so-called "Bunkers" 1 and 2 of
Birkenau. The Block II "gassing," then, by the canons of
Exterminationism, initiated the greatest murder operation of all times.
In this necessarily brief presentation, we will examine the beginning of
the myth of the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau by critically analyzing the
few available sources about the history of the first gassing. At the same time,
we will offer a significant example of the historiographic methodology used by
the compiler of the Kalendarium of Auschwitz.
We will begin with the exposition of these sources.
I. The
Sources
1. The Sources from the War Period (1941-1942)
The first reference to the initial gassing at Auschwitz is found in a note
of October 24, 1941:
"At Oswiecim (Auschwitz), at the beginning of October, 850 Russian
officers and non-commissioned officers (prisoners of war) who were brought
there have been subjected to die by gas in order to experiment with a new type
of war gas that is to be used on the Eastern Front [jako probe nowego typu gazu
bojowego, ktory ma byc uzyty na froncie wschodnim]."[3]
Until the middle of 1942, in the sources, the account of the first gassing
does not appear to fall under a systematic extermination plan, but constitutes
a simple scientific experiment among many others.
In one account compiled by a Czech teacher fleeing the Protectorate of
Bohemia and Moravia in May of 1942, one reads:
"The worst reputation is enjoyed by the concentration camp at Oswiecim
near Cracow. Not only are the victims of German cruelty tortured and mishandled
in the usual German fashion, but the efficacy of German poison gases is even
tried on them and other experiments are made with them."[4]
On July 1, the Polish Fortnightly Review published a more detailed
account of the first gassing, with not insignificant discrepancies in detail
when compared to the note of October 24, 1941, but always in accordance with
the theme of experimentation with toxic gases on the prisoners:
"Among the other experiments being tried on the prisoners is the use
of poison gas. It is generally known that during the night of September 5th to
6th last year about a thousand people were driven down to the underground
shelter in Oswiecim, among them seven hundred Bolshevik prisoners of war and
three hundred Poles. As the shelter was too small to hold this large number,
the living bodies were simply forced in, regardless of broken bodies. When the
shelter was full, gas was injected into it, and the prisoners died during the
night. All night the rest of the camp was kept awake by the groans and howls
coming from the shelter. Next day other prisoners had to carry out the bodies,
a task which took all day. One hand-cart on which the bodies were being removed
broke down under the weight."[5]
2. The Sources from the Postwar Period
Four witnesses, as far as we can determine, have confirmed the reality of
the first gassing by giving specific descriptions: Josef Vacek, eye-witness;
Rudolf Höss, indirect witness; Zenon Rozanski, eye-witness; Wojciech Barcz,
eye-witness. To these is added the report of inquiry by the Polish Commission
of Investigation on German crimes at Auschwitz.
A. THE WITNESS JOSEF VACEK
On the 8th of May, 1945, the former Auschwitz inmate Josef Vacek (detention
number 15514) declared at Buchenwald the following:
"At the beginning of September, Russian prisoners of war were brought
to the camp. There were more than 500. In addition to them were 196 sick
inmates selected by the SS Doctor Jungen, [6] who were gassed along with the
Russian prisoners of war in the gas chambers [7] of Block 11. We hospital
attendants who brought them there were told that they were going to be taken
away by transport and that they were going to be brought there only momentarily
until the train would leave. The following night, when everyone already was
sleeping and no one was allowed to leave the Block area, I was called, along
with 30 hospital attendants, and for 3 nights we transported the bodies to the
crematoriums."[8]
B. THE WITNESS RUDOLF HÖSS
While he remained under British arrest, Rudolf Höss ignored the first
gassing. In his sworn testimony of March 14, 1946, the most detailed of this
period, although he mentions the gassing in the old crematorium as relating to
the Soviet war prisoners, he says only:
"At the same time transports of Russian POWs arrived from the area of
the Gestapo Leitstellen Breslau, Troppau and Kattowitz, who, by Himmler's
written order to the local Gestapo leaders, had to be exterminated."[9]
Only after his extradition to Poland did he speak about the first gassing.
In fact, in the "Autobiographical Notes" of Cracow, Rudolf Höss wrote
in this regard:
"Even before the mass extermination of Jews began, the Russian
politruks and political commissars were liquidated in almost all of the
concentration camps, in the years 1941 and 1942. According to a secret order by
the Führer, in all the prisoners of war camps, special Gestapo units selected
the Russian politruks and political commissary who were sent to the nearest
concentration camp to be liquidated. This measure was explained by saying that
the Russians immediately killed every German soldier who belonged to the Party
or was a member of a Party organization, particularly the SS, and that the
political functionaries of the Red Army had the duty, in the event of being
taken prisoners of war, to create disorders in the prisoner of war camps, and
other places of work, in any possible way, and to sabotage even work itself.
At Auschwitz too, these Red Army political functionaries arrived destined
for extermination. The first groups, if not too large, were killed by firing
squads.
But during one of my absences, my deputy, Schutzhaftlagerfahrer Fritzsch,
used a gas for this purpose, and to be precise, a mixture of prussic acid,
Cyclon B. which was currendy being used in the camp for the disinfection of
parasites and which was available there in large quantities. When I returned,
Fritzsch related to me what he had done, and the gas was utilized also for the
subsequent convoys of prisoners. The gassing took place within the detention
cells of Block 11. I myself, protecting my face with a gas mask, observed the
killing. Death would take place in the overloaded cells, immediately after the
emission of the gas. A brief scream, soon suffocating, and everything was
finished."[10]
In his written account, "The final solution to the Jewish question in
Auschwitz," Rudolf Höss returned to the first gassing and gave a fuller
description of its background and execution. Because his account has been
elevated to the status of historical truth about Auschwitz, we will cite it at
length:
"During the summer of 1941 -- at the moment I cannot cite the exact
date -- I was suddenly called to Berlin by the Reichsführer, through his
assistant. Contrary to the usual, Himmler received me without any assistants
being present, and, in substance, told me the following: the Führer has ordered
the final solution of the Jewish question, and we of the SS must follow these
orders. The extermination centers currently in the East are absolutely not in
any condition to deal with this grand projected task. I have therefore selected
Auschwitz because its position is excellent from the point of view of
communications, and because its area can be easily isolated and camouflaged. To
this end, I had thought of appointing a high SS official; but in order to avoid
difficulties due to incompetence from the very beginning, I have abandoned the
idea. The task will, therefore, be assigned to you. It is a hard and difficult
task requiring total personal commitment, whatever future difficulties there
might be. You will receive further details from Sturmbannführer Eichmann of the
RSHA, whom I will send to you shortly -- all officers who in one way or another
will participate in this task will be informed by me in due time. You have the
duty to maintain the most absolute secrecy regarding this order, even from your
superiors. After your meeting with Eichmann, send the plans for all required
installations to me immediately.
"The Jews are the eternal enemies of the German people, and must be
exterminated. All Jews on whom we can put our hands during this war must be
killed, without exception. If we are not be able to destroy the biological
basis for Jewry now, one day the Jews will destroy the German people. Immediately
after receiving so ominous an order, I returned to Auschwitz, without even
bothering to report to my superiors in Oranienburg. Soon Eichmann came to see
me at Auschwitz He laid out for me the plans for the various countries. I
cannot any longer remember the sequence exactly.
"In any case, Auschwitz was going to be responsible above all for
Eastern Upper Silesia and for the other areas bordering and part of the
Government General. At the same time, and then subsequently, depending on the
possibilities, it would be the turn of the German Jews and those from Slovakia;
finally the Jews from the West, from France, Belgium and Holland He also gave
me the approximate number of transports that would arrive, but these too I am
unable to recall.
"We therefore began discussing the procedures necessary to carry out
the extermination plan. The method would have to be the use of gas, since it
surely would be impossible to eliminate the masses that would be arriving by
shooting them; and, besides that, it would be above all a very difficult and
arduous task for the SS soldiers to follow through the assignment since even
women and children would be present.
"Eichmann spoke to me about executing by means of vehicle exhaust,
which was, until then, the method used in the East. But it was a method not
suitable in Auschwitz, considering the large number of people anticipated.
Killing through the use of carbon monoxide gas filtered through the showers in
the bathrooms (i.e., the method to exterminate the mentally sick in certain
institutions of the Reich) required an excessive number of buildings; besides,
obtaining such quantities of gas, sufficient for such large numbers of people,
was very problematic. On this issue, it was, therefore, not possible to arrive
at a decision. Eichmann promised to inquire as to the existence of a gas which
could be easily produced and did not require special installation of equipment,
and that he would relate this information to me. We went to inspect the camp to
identify the most suitable location and concluded that the most appropriate for
this use would be the building located on the northwest corner of the future
3rd sector of buildings, Birkenau [the sector BIII of Birkenau camp-C.M.]. It
was a location not easily accessible, protected from the curious by trees and
hedges, and still not too far from the railroad. The cadavers could be buried
in long and deep ditches on the adjacent meadow.
"At that particular moment we had not yet thought of cremation. We
calculated that the large existing rooms, once modified for gassing purposes,
could be used to kill up to 800 individuals at the same time, by using
appropriate gas. These estimates were later confirmed by actual practice.
Eichmann could not yet tell me when we could begin with this assignment in as
much as everything was in the planning phase, and Himmler had not yet given the
order to begin. Eichmann, therefore, returned to Berlin to refer the substance
of our discussion to Himmler. A few days later, by means of a courier, I sent
Himmler a detailed plan on the situation, as well as an accurate description of
the installations to be used. Regarding this matter, I have never received an
answer or a decision from him. Later, Eichmann told me once that he [Himmler]
agreed to everything. At the end of November, a meeting of the entire Jewish
affairs section was held in Eichmann's office in Berlin, at which I had been
invited to participate. There Eichmann's representatives from individual
countries discussed the current status of the various operations and the
difficulties being encountered, such as housing for the prisoners, the
allocation of transports and trains, the determination of dates, etc. When we
were to begin operations was not communicated to me, nor had Eichmann yet found
the appropriate gas.
"In the fall of 1941, through a secret order issued to all prisoner of
war camps, the Gestapo separated all the Russian politruks, the commissars and
certain other political functionaries, and sent them to the nearest
concentration camp to be liquidated. Small transports of these people
continually arrived at Auschwitz, then were shot in the gravel quarry near the
Monopol building, or in the courtyard of Block 11.
"Due to an official absence of mine, my deputy Hauptsturmführer Fritzsch,
on his own initiative, used the gas in order to kill these prisoners of war; he
filled the underground cells full of Russians, and, protected with gas masks,
ordered the Cyclon B gas to enter the cells, which caused the immediate death
of the victims. The Cyclon B gas was currently being used in Auschwitz by the
firm Tesch & Stabenow for disinfection, and therefore the administration
kept enough on hand. At the beginning, this poisonous gas, a prussic acid
compound, was used only by Tesch & Stabenow technicians, and with strict
precautions, but later, certain personnel attached to the sanitary services
were instructed in its use by the same firm, so it was they who used the gas
for disinfection purposes.
"On the next visit of Eichmann, I mentioned to him the use of Cyclon B
and we decided that it would be the gas that we would use in the imminent mass
slaughter.
"The killing of the Russian prisoners of war with Cyclon B. which I
have already mentioned, continued, but no longer in Block 11 because, after the
gassing, the entire building required aeration for at least two full days. The
mortuary chamber of the crematorium next to the hospital was used as a gas
chamber soon as the doors were made gas-tight, and a number of openings were
made on the roof to allow the gas in." [11]
C. THE WITNESS ZENON ROZANSKI
In a book published in 1948, the former prisoner of Auschwitz, Zenon
Rozanski, described the first gassing in detail, as follows:
"On a September day, after we had finished work, they didn't bring us
back to our Block 11; instead they brought us to the unfinished pavement of
Block 5. To excuse the incomprehensible change, the Blockalteste explained it
in terms of the other Block being disinfested. Since the fifth Block was in the
area where the common camp was located, this change was received with general
enthusiasm. Here we were safe from the appearances of the Kapos during
roll-call, and besides, the lack of dividing walls allowed our comrades of the
common camp to give us a little food. After a very uneventful roll-call, the
Kapos, the Stubenaltesten and the squad leaders formed a cordon that separated
our Block from the rest of the camp; nonetheless many comrades received
conspicuous amounts of 'left-over food.'
"The day after, we received the news that an entire transport of
Russian prisoners of war had been brought to block 11. This event was
interpreted in various ways. Some said that the 'Punishment Company' would be
disbanded, others knew from 'knowledgeable sources' that the Russians would be
assigned to our Block, and still others put on a mysterious expression which
conveyed the impression that they knew much but couldn't say anything. However,
one thing was sure: that day too, we would not return to the '11.'
"The morning of the third day, Wacek, the Stubendienst, before leaving
for work, with an expression of somebody who was putting on airs, ordered those
prisoners who were well-built and still appeared healthy, to fall out of the
ranks. I, too, found myself among the twenty that had been selected. The
company went to work, but we remained in the Block. None of us knew what it was
all about. After about half an hour, Wacek caught up with us.
"You'd better watch out. You have been left in the camp and will
receive another "blow" [that is, another surprise-C.M.] at dinner.
But you will immediately go to do a "special job." This will give you
the chance to arrange something, but you have to keep your mouth shut.
Understand?"
"No one, without doubt, had understood him; however, we all answered
in unison: Yes, certainly!"
"We waited in line for another fifteen minutes, until Gerlach came up.
This one inspected us very carefully, nodded his head and addressed himself to
us as obscurely as Wacek: 'In a few minutes you will be attending to a
confidential assignment. If any of you utter even one word of what you see,' --
at this point Gerlach made a very expressive movement with his hand around the
neck -- 'Kaputt!... only a little pile of ashes at the crematorium! You will
receive more food than you need ... Understand?'
"We continued not to understand. Only one thing seemed clear: the
assignment given us could cost our lives. This was understood by everyone.
However, the promise that we would receive additional food kept reassuring us.
That was important.
"After some minutes we crossed, in double file, the door to main Block
11. In the courtyard there were Deputy Camp Commander Fritzsch;
SS-Obersturmführer Mayer; Camp Rapportführer; SS-Hauptscharführer Palitzsch;
the Lagerarzt, SS-Obersturmführer Entress [l2]; SS-Oberscharführer Clair;
SS-Unterscharführer Stark; the Kriminalassistent of the local political
section, Woznica; and our two Blockführer Gerlach and Edelhardt.
"Wacek gave the prescribed order: 'Off with your hats!' and reported to
Mayer: 'Twenty prisoners assembled for work detail!' He exchanged some words
with the Rapportführer, and then said something to Wacek. The Stubenalteste
yelled: Tes, sir,' and turned to address us: 'Each of you will receive a gas
mask. Make sure to wear it properly and don't make it necessary for others to
be called to pull you out. Understand?' -- 'Yes, sir.'
"Near the wall there was a large crate with gas masks. These were
distributed very quickly. After three minutes, we were ready with gas masks on.
The SS-Oberscharführer Clair again made sure that everyone was wearing his gas
mask properly.
"Everything took place so quickly that we didn't even have tirne to
think. We only kept looking at each other, dumbfounded, totally ignorant of
what was happening. Our men in uniform were also wearing gas masks. Wacek and
Bunkerkapo Pennewitz were running very nervously back and forth several times
to the Block, where they were talking with Palitzsch, who kept shaking his head
irritatedly; the two would come back running and in this way they kept going
back and forth.
"Finally, all of the SS drew their pistols out. The barrel of an
automatic pistol glinted in Palitzsch's hands. 'They want to shoot us,' was our
first thought.
"We felt a knot in the throat, and our eyelids began burning. The air
inside the gas mask began getting heavy, allowing you to breath only with much
effort. Instinctively we all pushed toward each other. One began taking the
mask off. For this, he is pistol whipped and falls on the ground. Time moves
terribly slowly.
"They are not shooting us! Not yet ... maybe they won't shoot us at
all? This thought reassures me; I look around. The SS are still holding their
pistols ready to shoot, but they are not shooting. Palitzsch gives a hand sign
to Wacek. Let's go! Let's do it!' The Stubenälteste comes up to us on the run.
"'Have no fear, follow me!' He is going toward the Block. I find
myself almost at the very rear of our group. The barrel of a 'firing
instrument' belonging to the man behind me touches my back. I quickly step
forward and walk just behind Wacek. He goes down to the stairs. For one moment
we stop ... everyone ... Bunker! But the SS don't allow us time to think. At
the rear of the group someone is already down on the ground. 'Hurry! Hurry!'
"Wacek stays in front of the door to the Bunker. He has an ax in his
right hand: he grabs it with his left hand and with his right pulls a key from
his pocket. He seems to be having difficulty finding the keyhole, because he is
taking so long. From the rear of the group Palitzsch yells: 'Faster!' Finally
he does it. The key is inserted.
"Wacek grabs the door handle. Instinctively I hold my breath. I wet my
lips, which in the meantime have become totally dry. What will happen now?
Wacek goes back. He again moves the ax to his right hand. What does all this
mean? What is the purpose of the ax here? Why is he fearful? For the second
time he grabs the door handle now with his left hand.
"He brings his right hand up while he is holding the ax as if he is about
to give a stunning blow. I am cold and suddenly I am overtaken by fear. But
this fear is something different than the one before. Now it's not fear for
myself, no, now it is an uncontrollable fear of being in front of the door. My
heart beats faster and faster, under the elastic band of the gas mask I feel
each heart beat distinctly. Wacek pushes on the door handle, goes back a couple
of feet and forcefully opens the door. The door is open and this very moment I
feel my hair standing straight up. About three feet away from me there are men
on top of each other, I don't know how, in a terrible state, with eyes sticking
out of their sockets, scratched, stained with blood, motionless... Those
leaning toward the door, bent in a singularly stiff manner, fall toward us and
pile up very heavily, their faces on the cement floor, right in front of our
feet. Bodies ... bodies that stand up, completely stiff. They fill the entire
hallway of the Bunker. They are stacked in such a manner that they cannot fall.
For a moment I don't feel well. But Wacek's voice brings me back. 'Done!' he
yells through the gas mask to Palitzsch, and lets the ax fall on the floor.
Very well! Let's take them out!'"
"Now I can think clearly once more, and understand everything. The
bodies are wearing Red Army uniforms. Must be that load of prisoners that had
been spoken about yesterday at work. They have all been pushed inside the
Bunker and gassed. It is because of this that we have had to use gas masks. The
mystery is now clear! Wacek grabs the first body under his arms and passes it
to us.
"So! This is it!,' it dawns on me now, 'Our work is then the removal
of those who have been gassed from the Bunker.'
"'Fall in line!,' yells Wacek again, 'Form a chain!' The 'chain' was
normally a method by which one could quickly pass bricks being unloaded from a
freight car from person to person. But while I had loaded bricks, it had never
dawned on me that I could load bodies in the same fashion.
"We worked until late night. After emptying the Bunker, we were
ordered to completely undress the bodies and place their clothing in designated
piles. The next day the clothing ended up stored in the clothing storeroom and
there the quantity of clothing increased significantly. We counted 1,473
Russian uniforms and more than 190 camp uniforms. These had belonged to the
patients of the Camp Hospital that had been selected by Dr. Entress as being
'unable to work' and on that 'occasion' were gassed together with the Russian
prisoners ...
"After completing the Work,' the twenty of us were brought a huge
cauldron containing 50 liters of soup, and at the same time each of us received
half a loaf of bread. The cauldron was returned to the Block almost full.
"At Auschwitz this was the first time that gas was used to liquidate
prisoners." [13]
D. THE WITNESS WOJCIECH BARCZ
The testimony that follows was given by Wojciech Barcz, internee at
Auschwitz from June 16, 1940 (I.D. number 754), during a West German radio
transmission on Auschwitz presumably broadcast during 1963:
"The first gassing took place during the fall of 1941, a few months
after hostilities [began] against the Soviet Union.
One day we hospital attendants from the infirmary received orders to
transport the very sick to the cells of the Bunker of Block 11. They were
locked up in these cells. Around 10 p.m. we heard a large group being pushed by
the SS toward the Bunker. We heard yelling in Russian, orders from the SS, and
heavy blows.
Three days later, we hospital attendants received, in the middle of the
night, the order to go to Block 11. There, we evacuated the bodies from the
cells of the Bunker. Thus, we were able to see that, in these cells a large
number of Russian war prisoners, along with the very sick whom we had
transported, had been simply gassed. The spectacle offered to us when we opened
the doors of the cells was similar to that experienced when one opens an
overstuffed suitcase. The bodies fell all over us. I estimate that in a small
cell there were at least 60 bodies, so crowded that, even though dead, they
couldn't fall and kept standing up. One could see that they had tried to reach
the exhaust vent, through which, after all, the toxic gas had been poured. One
could see all the signs of a horrendous agony.
We hospital attendants had to place the bodies on trucks, by which they
were removed outside the camp, and then buried. Those of us involved in this
work were absolutely convinced that we would be massacred right next to the
ditches or would be killed later as witnesses to the secret, as was normally
the case at Auschwitz. Instead, nothing happened. Later on I learned that among
the SS there were continuous surprises and incongruities."[14]
E. THE REPORT OF THE POLISH INVESTIGATION COMMISSION
In a publication issued in 1946, the Central Commission for investigation
of German Crimes in Poland presented the following account of the first
gassing:
"All of these methods used in killing were not enough to absorb all
superfluous prisoners, and, above all, they could not resolve the problem of
freeing themselves of hundreds of thousands of Jews. This method was tried out
in the summer of 1941 in the coal- cellars of Block XI on about 250 patients
from the hospital blocks and about 600 prisoners of war. After the victims had
been put there, the windows of the cellars were covered with earth, and
afterwards an SS man in a gas-mask poured the contents of a can of cyclon on
the floor and locked the door. Next afternoon Palitzsch, wearing a gas-mask,
opened the door and found that some of the prisoners were still alive. More
cyclon was accordingly poured out, and the doors locked again, to be reopened
next evening, when all the prisoners were dead."[15]
* * *
We now proceed to the critical analysis of all the sources so far
mentioned, examining all that they claim concerning the date, the place, the
time required, the number of victims, the evacuation of the bodies, and the
technical procedures followed during the first gassing.
II. Critical
Analysis of the Sources
1. The date of the first gassing.
According to the Kalendarium of Auschwitz, the first gassing was
carried out-on September 3, 1941. This date is not only unsupported by a single
document, it is categorically contradictory to all the available sources --
which are additionally in total contradiction to each other -- and in
particular to the testimony of Rudolf Höss, considered fundamental by the
Auschwitz Museum and by the entire Exterminationist historiography.
An annotation of July 2, 1942 traces back the first gassing as having
occurred in June 1941:
"The first (pierwsze) utilization of gas chambers took place in June
1941 (w VI. 1941 r.). A transport of 1,700 'incurably sick' was formed and sent
(ostensibly) to the sanatorium of Dresda, but in reality to a building
transformed into a gas chamber (do budyrdcu przebudowanego na komore
gazowa)." [16]
Witness Michal Kula declared that the first gassing took place on August
15. [17] According to an article in the Polish Fortnightly Review, it
took place during the night of September 5th to 6th"; according to witness
Vacek, "beginning of September" (Anfang September); and
witness Rozanski testifies that it was "on a day in September (an einem
Septembertage)." The historian Filip Friedman inclines to September
15: "The first victims were gassed on September 15, 1941 in Block II
[sic], in a former munition store building. A number of Russian prisoners, 600
to 700, and several hundred Polish prisoners were used for this first
experiment."[18]
According to the annotation of October 24, 1941, the first gassing occurred
"on the beginning of October" (w poszatkach pazdziernika).
The Polish Investigation Commission generically suggests the summer, while
the witness Barcz inclines toward autumn (im Herbst) 1941.
Lastly, the testimony of Rudolf Höss implies that the first gassing did not
take place before the end of November of 1941. In effect, bat the end of
November," when the conference was held in Eichmann's office in Berlin, he
had not yet been successful in finding "suitable gas." Only after
this conference did the Lagerführer Fritzsch, on his own initiative, carry out
the first gassing. It wasn't until Eichmann's later visit to Auschwitz that
Höss reported to him on the experiment, and the two decided to use the Zyklon B
for the projected mass slaughter.
Therefore, the date of the first gassing is absolutely indeterminate and
fluctuates over a span of six months between July and December of 1941.
2. The Location of the Gassing
The Kalendarium entry for July 1942 declares that the first gassing
occurred "in a building (do budynku) transformed (przebudowanego)
into a gas chamber," therefore not in the basement of Block 11, which had
not undergone any architectural modification (this is the significance of the
verb "przebudowywad") into a gas chamber, and which, besides,
according to the Auschwitz Museum, was used as such one single time.[19]
The article in the Polish Fortnightly Review mentions the "underground
shelter" of Auschwitz, while the Polish Investigation Commission speaks of
the "coal cellars" of Block 11.
The witnesses Rozanski and Barcz both locate the first gassing in the
Bunker of Block 11, but for the one, the victims were gassed in the corridors,
for the other, in the cells. Therefore, the sources examined are in reciprocal
contradiction concerning the location of the first gassing; moreover, those
sources which agree on the basement of Block 11, are also in reciprocal
contradiction as to exactly which part of it.
3. The Duration of the Gassing
Rudolf Höss declared that, on the occasion of the first gassing
accomplished by his deputy Fritzsch, the Zyklon B Provoked the immediate
death" (den sofortigen Tod) of the victims. [20]
The article in the Polish Fortnightly Review reports instead that
"all the prisoners died during the night. All night the rest of the camp
was kept awake by the moans and screams originating from the shelter."
Finally, the Polish Investigation Commission asserts that "next
afternoon" some prisoners were still alive, "therefore further cyclon
was poured out and the doors again tightly closed, to be reopened the next
evening, when all the prisoners were dead."
Therefore, all the victims died immediately, or during the night, or two
days later.
4. The Victims of the Gassing
The Kalendarium entry of October 24, 1941 asserts that the victims
of the first gassing were "850 Russian officers and non- commissioned
officers". Rudolf Höss, too, mentions exclusively Russian prisoners of
war, stating that Fritzsch "had the cells located in the cellar [of Block
11] filled with Russians." The article in the Polish Fortnightly Review
speaks of 700 Russian prisoners of war and 300 Poles.
Some sources agree about the fact that the victims were a mixture of
Russian prisoners of war and sick inmates, but are in reciprocal contradiction
as to their numbers and totals which are: for witness Vacek, approximately 500
Russian prisoners of war and 196 sick inmates, totaling 696 victims; for
witness Rozanski, 1,473 Russian prisoners of war and 190 sick inmates, totaling
1,663 victims; for the Polish Investigation Commission, 600 Russian prisoners
of war and 250 sick inmates, totaling 850 victims.
Finally, the Kalendarium entry for July 2, 1942 maintains that the
victims were drawn exclusively from sick inmates, and precisely "1,700
'incurably sick.'"
Therefore, the sources examined are in contradiction as to the total
numbers of victims (from 696 to 1,700) and regarding their categories (only
Russian prisoners of war, only sick inmates, Russian prisoners of war and sick
inmates together).
5. The Selection of the Sick Inmates for Gassing
The sources which include the sick inmates among the victims are in
contradiction also as to the SS doctor who ordered their selection from the
hospital blocks for gassing. This doctor is Doctor Schwela, according to Danuta
Czech; Doctor Jungen, according to witness Vacek; and Doctor Entress, according
to witness Rozanski.
6. The Evacuation of the Gassed Cadavers
A. THE PERFORMERS OF THE EVACUATION
A. THE PERFORMERS OF THE EVACUATION
Witness Vacek swears to have carried out the removal of the gassed cadavers
"together with 30 male hospital attendants" (mit 30
Krankenpflegern); witness Rozanski declares instead to have evacuated the
cadavers with a group of "20 people" (zwanzig Mann) of the
penal company.
B. THE BEGINNING OF THE REMOVAL
The removal of the cadavers of the gassed started "the next day"
according to the article in the Polish Fortnightly Review; "the
next night" (nächste Nacht) according to witness Vacek; "on
the morning of the third day" (am Morgen des dritten Tages), which
is at most two days after the gassing, according to witness Rozanski; and
finally "three days later ... in the middle of the night" (drei
Tage später Ömitten in der Nacht) from witness Barcz.
C. THE DURATION OF THE REMOVAL
Removing the cadavers of the gassed took "all day" according to
the Polish Fortnightly Review article; "Three nights" (drei
Nächte lang) according to witness Vacek, and "until late in the
night" (bis spät in der Nacht) according to witness Rozanski.
D. THE FATE OF THE CADAVERS AFTER REMOVAL
While witness Vacek declared that the cadavers of the gassed were brought
"to the crematory" (ins Krematorium) to be burned, witness
Barcz asserts that they were brought "out of the camp" (aus dem
Lager), where they were buried" (vergraben).
In conclusion, the examined sources.are in reciprocal contradiction as to
the numbers and the category of the performers of the corpse removal (20
persons, 30 persons; hospital attendants, inmates of punishment company); as to
the start of the removal (the day after, two days after, three days after the
gassing); as to the duration of the removal (an entire day, three nights); as
to the fate of the cadavers (burned in the crematory, buried outside the camp).
Even more serious, these sources are based essentially on the eyewitness
testimonies of three former inmates who pretend to describe the same incident,
in which each claims to have participated personally!
7. THE GASSING PROCEDURE
There exist neither eye-witness testimony nor documents on the actual
gassing process. The description furnished by the Polish Investigation
Commission is therefore false, for this reason alone. The Commission's
description is also contradicted on a point by witness Barcz, who affirms that
the Zyklon B was thrown into the cells of the Bunker, not from the door, but
from the small windows. Finally, the description is technically absurd.
In this context, we limit ourselves to pointing out that the survival of
some victims after a whole day of gassing, as asserted by the Polish
Commission, is an impossibility. In fact, a concentration of 0.3 mg of cyanide
to a liter of air -- which is 0.3 grams per cubic meter -- is fatal in a few
minutes for a human being. [21] Regarding this concentration, the lethal dose
would be 8 mg, according to Haber's formula. [22] This means that for a
hypothetical gassing of 60 people -- the number indicated by Wojciech Barcz --
in one of the cells of the Bunker of Block 11 of Auschwitz, considering that
the volume of air actually available was approximately 11 cubic meters, a
little more than three grams of cyanide would have been sufficient to kill all
the victims in a few minutes. In several minutes the heat from the bodies of
the victims themselves would have enabled the liquid cyanide found in Zyklon B
to vaporize to a gaseous state.
It is clear, however, that during a hypothetical experimental gassing,
necessarily performed in an awkward manner, it would have been practically
impossible to administer such a meager dosage of hydrocyanic acid. It is also
clear that a larger amount, which would have been easier to handle, would have
had lethal results even sooner.
The gas concentration normally used for disinfesting a room is 10 grams per
cubic meter. This is the only actual benchmark available to the hypothetical
perpetrators of the gassing. [23] It turns out that this concentration,
corresponding to a total dosage of about 110 grams in a cell of the Bunker,
would mean virtually instant death for a human being.
Therefore, the Polish Investigation Commission report is technically
absurd. This is also admitted by the Auschwitz Museum itself, which maintains
that victims' deaths occurred only 15 to 20 minutes after the emission of the
Zyklon B in the gas chambers -- underground, like the cells of the Bunker -- of
the crematoriums II and III of Birkenau. [24]
In summation, the story of the first gassing is neither supported by
documents nor by direct testimony; the sources are indirect, contradictory and
absurd. The only eyewitness testimonies available refer exclusively to the
evacuation of the corpses, and are in contradiction as well.
In conclusion, the story of the first gassing at Auschwitz is historically
groundless. This is further corroborated by the sworn testimony of a primary
eyewitness, of importance both because of the position he held at Auschwitz in
the second half of 1941, and because of the authority he currently possesses as
director of the Auschwitz Museum: Kazimierz Smolen.
Smolen was deported to Auschwitz on July 6, 1940 (am 6 Juli 1940)
and in July 1941 was employed as "recorder" (Schreiber) at the
"Political Section" (Politische Abteilung) which is near the
Gestapo office of the camp. In this position he was one of the better informed
prisoners as to what was happening at Auschwitz. This is what he affirmed in
sworn testimony which he gave in Cracow on 15 December 1947, regarding the fate
of the Russian prisoners of war:
"At the beginning of October 1941 (anfangs Oktober 1941) the first
(die ersten) transports of Russians arrived at Auschwitz. Because I was already
at that time employed at the Political Section as a recorder, I had to handle,
together with my companions, the admission of the new arrivals. In the course
of a week there arrived 10,000 Russian prisoners of war from 'Stalag'
VIII/B/Lamsdorf, and a number which I don't remember anymore from another
'Stalag', Neuhammer near Quais.
The prisoners of war arrived in camp in terrible physical condition, were
half dead with hunger, full of lice, and had to undress naked outside of the
camp. Although it was already very cold, the prisoners had to take a cold
disinfecting bath and were then conducted into the camp wet and naked. In the
camp of Auschwitz there were 9 Blocks separated from the rest of the camp by an
electrified fence and at the entrance door was posted the sign 'Labor Camp for
Prisoners of War'. The camp for Russian prisoners of war consisted of the
following Blocks: Block 1, Block 2, Block 3, Block 12, Block 13, Block 14,
Block 22, Block 23, Block 24. The Blocks 3,23,24 had the first floor. These
were designated 3a, 23.
SS-Oberscharführer Hans Stark directed the admission of prisoners of war,
and I, as a recorder of prisoners, participated in that task with several
inmates."
After having minutely described the procedures of incorporation, Smolet
continues:
"The admission of the 10,000 prisoners of war went on for about three
weeks. In the meanwhile, about 1,500 had died, and we forwarded their green
cards to Berlin together with their identification badges.
In November 1941 (im November 1941) a special committee of the Gestapo
came. They were from the main office of the State Police of Kattowitz and were
led by Doctor Mildner. This committee was composed of the chief of the main office
of the State Police, Doctor Mildner, and of three men of the Secret Services
who knew Russian perfectly. The directorate of the camps assigned several
inmates to interpret for the three men from the Secret Servlce. Another inmate
and I were assigned to the Gestapo special committee by the Political Section.
Consequently I had the opportunity to observe all the activity of the Special
Committee."
So far Smolen.
The Gestapo special committee was in charge of interrogating, one by one,
all the Russian prisoners of war and of classifying them into three groups:
1.
"politically
intolerable," a group including the subdivision "fanatical
Communist";
2.
"politically not
suspicious";
3.
"fit for
reconstruction" (Wiederaupbau).
Smolen goes on:
"300 prisoners of war were selected as particularly important
commissars and political functionaries and received the notation
"fanatical communist." These prisoners were taken immediately to the
interrogation room of Block 24a, which had been converted to a Bunker. In the
Bunker they were received by Oberscharführer Stark, who removed their old
prisoners numbers, substituting new numbers for the old ones. These new numbers
ranged from "Aul" to "Au300." The prisoners with "Au"
numbers got their numbers tattooed on the left side of the chest and were kept
completely isolated from the other prisoners of the Russian camp.
The activity of the special committee finished after one month (nach einem
Monat), and as far as I remember, the distribution of the prisoners among the
above-mentioned groups was the following:
·
Group Au300 prisoners
·
Category A700 prisoners
·
Category B8,000 prisoners
·
Category C30 prisoners
By virtue of my activity at the Political Section, I know that the 300
prisoners labeled "Au" were executed (exekutiert wurden) in quite
small groups (in kleineren Gruppen). The conditions of the Russian camp were so
bad that on the average 250 prisoners died each day. About 8,000 had perished
or had been executed (exekutiert) up to February 1942. The rest, 1,500
prisoners of war, were transferred to the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Thus, an
external camp rose at the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau; this external camp was
enlarged by small transports which, however, altogether did not add up to more
than 2,000 prisoners. In the middle of 1942, all of the Russian prisoners of
war, except 150, had died or had been executed."
At the end of his sworn statement, Kazimierz Smolet summarizes the crimes
perpetrated by the Nazis in Auschwitz against the Russian prisoners of war:
"Recapitulating, I declare: the conditions of life in the camp were,
for the Russian prisoners of war at Auschwitz, substantially worse than the
conditions in the concentration camps. The Russian prisoners of war received
less and worse food, above all less bread, and they could neither write nor use
the room with wash boards [sic]. It is therefore understandable that in less
than two months the camp was deserted. In addition to this, there is the fact
that often selections were carried out in which those unable to work were
executed in groups of hundreds. Both the inmates classified as "Au"
and the others who were to be put to death were either killed with a shot in
the neck, or gassed (vergast) in Block 11 (im Block 11)." [25]
This is the only allusion by Kazimierz Smolet to the gassing in Block 11,
which allusion, among other things extremely vague and laconic, clearly betrays
its character: rumor reported by the witness only because of an obligation to
report the latest gossip. In fact, two points in Smolen's testimony demonstrate
incontestably the historical groundlessness of the report of the first gassing
set forth by Danuta Czech in the Kalendarium of Auschwitz.
First of all, if the gassing in question had really happened, Kazimierz
Smolen could not have been in the dark about it, because of the duty in the
political section of Auschwitz with which he had been charged at the time, and
in particular owing to his assignment to the special committee presided over by
Mildner. Smolen, on the contrary, could have talked about it with a wealth of
details, in view of the fact that he devoted a whole page of his sworn
statement to such an irrelevant subject as the formalities of matriculation of
Russian prisoners of war.
This witness's ignorance appears even more incredible considering that,
according to the Polish examining magistrate Jan Sehn, the first gassing was
performed only in accord with the decisions of the special committee:
"In November 1941, a special committee composed of three Gestapo
officers arrived at Oswiecim [Auschwitz] from Kattowitz. This committee
interrogated the prisoners and divided them into four groups in compliance with
an order from the chief of the RSHA (Central Security Office of the Reich)
dated July 17, li41. They were classified according to the secret files
containing information about Soviet militants in administration and the
[Communist] party. This committee itself decided as to the classification. We
add that the fact of being recorded in the first two groups meant a death
sentence.The first group -- about 300 prisoners -- were all shot either in the
gravel pits or in the courtyard of Block 11. The order of execution was given
by the second Lagerführer at the time, SS-Obersturmführer Seidler.
On the initiative of the first Lagerführer, SS- Hauptsturmführer Karl
Fritzsch, the prisoners assigned to the second group (about 900) and those who
were chosen from the subsequent convoys were killed with the gas Zyklon B.
Fritzsch filled the underground of Block 11 with prisoners, and then, after
having put on a gas mask, threw the poison inside. The Block then had to be
aired for two days."[26]
The fact that Kazimierz Smolen, even at the end of 1947 knew nothing about
the gassing in the Bunker of Block 11 demonstrates, therefore, that this
gassing never happened.
Questioned by this writer about this point, Kazimierz Smolen, through a
spokesman, declared:
"As regards the testimony given by the former inmate of the KL
Auschwitz Kazimierz Smolen at the Nuremberg trial, as you certainly know, he
answered the concrete questions asked by the Tribunal (odpowiadal On na
konkretne, przez Sad postawione pytania), so he could not report in detail and
exhaustively all the events that he had observed."[27]
This justification is definitely unsustainable. In fact, in the
above-mentioned sworn statement, Smolen did not answer "concrete
questions," as is usual during an interrogation, but freely expatiated on
the theme of the fate of the Russian prisoners of war in Auschwitz in the years
1941-1942, dwelling, in particular, upon the crimes committed against them. His
claim not to have described the first gassing because he had not been asked
that specific question is, therefore, clearly captious, as confirmed by his
fleeting mention of the prisoners "gassed in Block 11." With regard
to this, either he did answer a concrete question, and thus did not know
anything about the first gassing, or he did not answer a concrete question, and
thus his answer is false.
In the second place, because the "first transports of Russians"
arrived at Auschwitz at the beginning of October 1941 [emphasis added],
it is false that 600 Russian prisoners of war could have been gassed there on
September 3.
Moreover, the first gassing was an execution of men condemned to death
selected by the committee presided by Mildner, which arrived at Auschwitz
"in November 1941" and concluded its work "after one
month." Consequently, the first gassing could in no way have occurred
before December.
Furthermore, since the number of prisoners of war selected by this
committee and, until December 1941, assigned to the "Au" group of the
condemned was 300, it is therefore a fortiori false that 600 were gassed
on September 3.
Finally, the historical absurdity of the first gassing in Block 11 is
indirectly confirmed by three researchers of the Auschwitz Museum, in their
long study devoted to the register of the Bunker of Block 11, which appeared in
Number one of the Hefte von Auschwitz (1959). This register, the Bunkerbuch,
contains the names of all of the inmates imprisoned in the Bunker between
January 9,1941 and February 1, 1944. It is clear that if the first gassing had
actually happened, the register should have preserved some trace of it. Now,
these three scholars limit themselves to a fleeting two-line allusion to the
alleged gassing (p.10), and, while publishing fifty-one pages from the
Bunkerbuch, on pages 46-68, they in fact refrain from reproducing the page
regarding the records of the beginning of September. This fact demonstrates
that that page -- requested in vain from the Auschwitz Museum by this writer --
either contains no trace of the first gassing, or even contains elements that
contradict it, such as, for instance, records of admissions of inmates to the
Bunker between September 3 and September 7, that is, between the beginning of
the gassing and the end of the ventilation of the Bunker.
The historical absurdity of the first gassing has been -- established; the
various versions of that gassing have been shown to be not merely groundless,
but mutually contradictory. The way remains to be examined, in which Danuta
Czech elaborated those versions in her own version, which is supposedly
definitive. In other words, it is the historiographic methodology of the
compiler of the Kalendarium that remains to be examined in order to
show, among other things, what methodological criteria have been employed for
the compiling, and what scientific value is to be ascribed to this essential
source of the Exterminationist historiography.
The account of the first gassing presented by Danuta Czech in the Kalendarium
of Auschwitz is the result of the extrapolation and of the indiscriminate
fusion of sources which are all in total reciprocal contradiction.
Danuta Czech derived the number and category of the victims, as well as the
description of the gassing, from the report of the Polish Investigation
Commission; on the other hand, she deduced the account of the evacuation of the
bodies from the testimony of Zenon Rozanski, adding elements derived from other
sources.
Besides, in the description of the gassing, she arbitrarily modified the
text of the Polish report, changing the "coal cellars" to
"underground cells" (Kellerzellen) and "an SS-man"
into "SS-men" (SS-Männer).
In the description of the evacuation of the gassed corpses, Danuta Czech
substituted "the evening" (am Abend) for "the
morning" (am Morgen) of Rozanski's version, extrapolating that
information from the report of the Polish Investigation Commission which says
"next evening." The evacuators of the corpses, who according to
Rozanski were only 20 inmates of the punishment company, became, in the report
of Danuta Czech, 20 inmates of the punishment company "and hospital
attendants" (Pfleger). This information was derived from the testimony of
Josef Vacek, who however declared that the 30 evacuators were all hospital
attendants.
Finally, Danuta Czech derived the presence of Doctor Entress at the
evacuation of the bodies from the testimony of Zenon Rozanski, while in fact
this officer was not yet in Auschwitz at the beginning of September. [28]
From the "Annotations" of Rudolf Höss Danuta Czech derived only
the duration of the airing of the Bunker: two days. As a matter of fact, the Kalendarium
reports that the punishment company returned to Block 11 on September the 8th
after it had been cleaned and aired. In other words, the punishment company
returned just after two days of airing, September 6 and 7. Thus, considering
that Danuta Czech said that the gassing ended on September 5, the victims'
agony consequently lasted two days, while according to Rudolf Höss they died
immediately.
It is not possible to specify the sources of the report of the Polish
Investigation Committee upon which is founded the description of the gassing
presented by Danuta Czech. The only certain thing is that the number of the
victims -- 850 people, of whom 600 were Russian prisoners of war and 250 sick
inmates -- originated from the note dated October 24, 1941, in which they are,
however, only "Russian commissioned and non-commissioned officers,"
without sick inmates.
The Polish Investigation Committee did not know the "Annotations"
of Rudolf Höss, dated November 1946. This fact is understandable because that
committee made the inquiry in 1945 and published the results the following
year, presumably before Höss was extradited to Poland on May 25, 1946.
Indeed, Danuta Czech, who conducted her researches in the late fifties, did
not mention the "Autobiographical Notes." This also is
comprehensible, because the testimony of Höss about the first gassing
strikingly contradicts the report of the Polish Investigation Committee.
The source for the date of the gassing proposed by Danuta Czech - September
3, 1941 -- does not appear in any of the documents examined. The closest date
is that in the article of the Polish Fortnightly Review: the night of
5-6 September.
Besides being arbitrary, the date proposed by Danuta Czech is also
contradictory. The following record appears in the Kalendarium of
Auschwitz a few pages after the account of the gassing; the month is November
and there is no indication of the day:
"A special committee of the Gestapo of Kattowitz arrived at Auschwitz.
It was composed of three persons and presided by the chief of the Gestapo of
Kattowitz, Doctor Rudolf Mildner. This committee, which was operating in
compliance with Einsatzbefehl no.8 of 17 July 1941, carried out a selection of
the Russian prisoners of war according to the following groups:
1.
Fanatic Communist about 300
2.
Group A: Politically
intolerable 700
3.
Group B: Politically not
suspicious about 8,000
4.
Group C: Fit for
reconstruction about 30
The inmates belonging to the groups Fanatic Communist" or
"A" were doomed to extermination. The activity of this committee went
on for at least one month."[29]
The registration just mentioned is entirely derived from the sworn
statement of Kazimierz Smolen previously cited. It will be remembered that in
that statement Smolen maintained that "the first transports" of
Russian prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz "at the beginning of
October," and that Mildner's committee arrived "in November"
1941 and concluded its work "after one month," thus in December. The
victims of the first gassing can therefore be no one other than the Russian
prisoners of war condemned to death by the above-mentioned committee - to be
exact, according to Jan Sehn, those assigned to Group "B." Consequently,
that gassing could not be happening on September 3.
Here is one more example, therefore, of indiscriminate fusion of
contradictory sources and previous elimination of the contradictions in order
to create among such sources an agreement completely fictitious.
One last observation. In order to be able to affirm that the first gassing
took place on September 3, Danuta Czech arbitrarily anticipated the arrival at
Auschwitz of the first Russian prisoners of war. In fact, the first
registration of the Kalendarium that concerns them dates back to July
and mentions the arrival of "a few hundred Soviet prisoners," who
subsequently were all murdered with small-caliber guns, with shovels, and with
picks. [30] Danuta Czech did not indicate either the day of arrival, or the source
of the information.
The second registration is dated September 3, and is relative to the 600
Russian prisoners gassed. Danuta Czech did not indicate the source of the
information in this case either Seven registrations follow between October 7
and November l5. [31] tThe one of November 15 is the last transport in 1941.
The total of the Russian prisoners of war transferred to Auschwitz in that
period is 9,983 people. This figure is practically Identical to that indicated
by Kazimierz Smole^. Also the date of the first transport coincides with that
indicated by this witness, i.e. the beginning of October. Therefore, Russian
prisoners of war did not arrive at Auschwitz before that date.
This is also confirmed by the fact that Danuta Czech reported the source
regarding the transports made since October 7. That source is the file (Kartochek)
of the Russian prisoners of war which, as a matter of fact, was initiated on
October 7. However, the compiler of the Kalendarium was not able to
indicate any source for the two previous transports, and this fact is very
meaningful. Besides, considering that the first page of the "book of
deaths" (Totenbuch), that is the death register of the Russian
prisoners of war, recorded the first deaths under the date October 7, it is
necessary to conclude, until one has proof to the contrary, that the first two
transports recorded by Danuta Czech before October 7 are invented.
This is a meaningful example of the historiographic methodology with which
the Kalendarium of Auschwitz has been compiled.
By now, nothing remains but to draw the conclusions.
The story of the first gassing in the cells of the Bunker of Block 11 of
Auschwitz is historically groundless. It is supported neither by documents nor
by eyewitness testimonies. The few eyewitness testimonies available all refer
exclusively to the evacuation of the corpses from the Bunker and are all in
reciprocal contradiction concerning all the essential points.
The first gassing is therefore not history, but myth. This myth was shaped
by the Polish war propaganda in October 1941.
The first version of the myth, which predominated until the middle of 1942,
did not yet include the first gassing in the extermination process which would
bring about the creation of the gas chambers of Birkenau. Instead, according to
the first version, the first gassing is still a simple scientific experiment to
verify the effectiveness of a gas for future wartime use.
The essential elements of this first version are contradictory.
The note of 24 October 1941 speaks of 850 Russian prisoners of war gassed
in Auschwitz, without specifying where, "at the beginning of
October." The article of the Polish Fortnightly Review corrected
the number of the victims and the date of the execution: approximately 1,000
persons, among whom 700 Bolshevik prisoners of war and 300 Poles" gassed
" the night of 5-6 September." The location is still unspecified: the
"underground shelter" of Auschwitz. The note of 2 July 1942 situated
the history of the first gassing within a general extermination process by
means of gas chambers, which involved the Jews deported to the camp. The first
gassing was presented as a starting point of this process, but was described in
an even more contradictory fashion: the date was moved back to June, the number
of the victims was increased to 1,700; all sick inmates; without Russian
prisoners of war; and finally the place of the execution became,
anachronistically, an actual gas chamber. In this way, after having given life
to the legend of the gas chamber, the myth disappeared.
The anonymous "Polish Major" is the author of one of the reports
on Auschwitz published in November 1944 by the War Refugee Board. In his
detailed report about the facts of 1941, while devoting a special paragraph to
the Bunker of Block 11, he completely ignored the matter of the first gassing.
[32] It was moreover ignored both by the witness Stanislaw Jankowski in his
deposition of 13 April 1945 [33] and by the Soviet Commission of Investigation
in its report of May 7. [34] As late as the end of 1947, one of the more
informed witnesses, Kazimierz Smolen, did not say anything about it.
The myth reappeared suddenly on the 8th of May in the testimony of Josef
Vacek. The myth was still in full literary evolution, but finally acquired a
conclusive element: the location of the execution, which became Block 11. Now
nothing remained but to determine the other elements, starting with the
location of the gassing. At first the version prevailed that the gassing was
performed in a single room which Josef Vacek anachronistically called the gas
chamber of Block 11. Some months later, on July 13, Perry Broad introduced
another definitive element: the cells of the Bunker. To be exact, he spoke of a
single cell, in which forty Russians were gassed on an unspecified day; he did
not even indicate the year. From his comment, it appears that he incontestably
was talking about the first gassing: "it was the complete success of the
first test for the most hateful crime planned by Hitler and his confidants, and
partly carried out in a terrifying and irrevocable fashion. From that moment,
the atrocious tragedy began, which victimized millions of human beings who
until then had lived happily and innocently." [35] In 1959 Hans Stark,
direct superior of Smolen in Auschwitz, inspired by that version, declared he
had heard from the SS of Auschwitz that the first gassing of prisoners had been
experimented with for the first time "in the fall of 1941 in a cell (in
einer Zelle) of Block 11." [36].
The report of the Polish Investigation Commission which carried out its
inquiry in 1945, is the first attempt at historiographical systematization of
the myth, which was raised by that committee to the rank of historical antecedent
and necessary presupposition of the extermination process by means of gas
chambers. That Commission inserted two other definitive elements: the number of
the victims - 850 -- evidently inferred from the note of 24 October; and the
description of the gassing, evidently invented because it is both technically
absurd and not founded on any eyewitness testimony. The date instead remained
still indeterminate: the summer of 1941.
In 1946, Rudolf Höss completely ignored the first gassing for as long as he
was in the hands of the English. Only after his extradition to Poland did he
speak about it, in the so-called "Annotations" of Cracow of November
1946 and February 1947. The version that appears in them is in total
contradiction to the version proposed by the Polish Investigation Commission;
however, the myth acquired one more of the missing elements: the cells of the
Bunker.
In 1948, Zenon Rozanski furnished the final version of the myth with the
description of the evacuation of the corpses, but this description is in total
contradiction to the declaration of Vacek and Barcz.
In 1959, Jan Sehn, basing himself on the "Autobiographical Notes"
of Rudolf Höss and on the sworn statement of Kazimierz Smolen, related the
first gassing to the activity of the special commission presided over by Rudolf
Mildner and, as a result, moved the first gassing to December 1941.
In the same year, the conclusive version of the myth appeared in the Kalendarium
of Auschwitz; by cleverly manipulating the sources, Danuta Czech extrapolated
from and indiscriminately blended testimonies in total reciprocal
contradiction. Besides, Czech arbitrarily added the date September 3, careless
of the contrary testimony of Kazimierz Smolet. which was otherwise utilized
with abandon.
By then the myth had been concocted and was ready to be served to the
Exterminationist historians, who are easily satisfied and favorably disposed to
swallow, in an uncritical way, all that is offered them in the Kalendarium
of Auschwitz, which is celebrated as the quintessence of factuality on that
concentration camp!
Notes
1.
According to another
publication of the Auschwitz Museum, Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Karl Hermann
Entress filled the position of camp physician (Lagerarzt) at Gross-Rosen from
January 3 to December 10, 1941. On December 11 he was transferred to Auschwitz
with the same office, which he held until October 20, 1943. Therefore, on
September 5, 1941, he was not yet at Auschwitz. Auschwitz vu par les SS.
Edition du Musee d'Etat a Oswiecim, 1974, p. 318.
2.
Hefte von Auschwitz. Wydawnictwo Panstwowego Muzeum w Oswiecimiu, 2, 1959, p. 109.
3.
Zeszyty oswiecimskie. Numer specjalny (1). Wydawnictwo Panstwowego Muzeum w Oswiecimiu, 1968,
p.11.
4.
Foreign Office papers, FO
371/30837 5365, "Conditions in Czechoslovakia," pp. 157-158.
5.
Polish Fortnightly Review, London, n. 47, July 1, 1942, p. 2.
6.
According to Danuta Czech, the
order to select the sick inmates was not given by Doctor Jungen, but by the
SS-Hauptsturmführer Doctor Siegfried Schwela: "Schwela had probably been
appointed Standortarzt after August 1941 because it is by exercising that
office that I gave the orders on September 3, 1941, of selecting from the
Blockhospitals n. 21 and 28 all the very sick inmates and of transferring them
to the Bunkers of Block 11" (Contribution a l'histoire du KL Auschwitz,
Edition du Musee d'Etat a Oswiecim, 1978, note 10, A- 9)
7.
The gas chamber of Block 11
never existed. The underground of this building was provided with 28 larger
cells and 4 smaller ones, none of which has been declared by the Auschwitz
Museum to be the gas chamber of the Block.
8.
Der Mord an den Juden im Zweiten
Weltkrieg. Entschlussbildung und Verwirklichung. Edited by Eberhard Jäckel und Jurgen Rohwer. Stuttgart, 1985, p. 167.
9.
NA1210/D-749a, p. 2 of the
English translation.
10.
Comandante ad Auschwitz.
Memoriale autobiografico di Rudolf Höss. Einaudi, Torino, 1985, pp. 128-129.
11.
Idem, pp. 171-174. Regarding
the testimony of Rudolf Höss, see: Robert Faurisson, "Comment les
Britanniques ont obtenu les aveux de Rudolf Höss, commandant d'Auschwitz,"
in Annales d'Histoire Revisionniste, no. 1, Spring 1987, pp. 137-152;
Carlo Mattogno, Auschwitz: le "confessioni" di Höss, Edizioni La
Sfinge, Parma 1987.
12.
See note 1.
13.
Zenon Rozanski, Mutzen ab --
Eine Reportage aus der Strafkompanie des KZ. Auschwitz. Verlag "Das andere
Deutschland," Hannover 1948, pp. 40-44.
14.
Wojciech Barcz, "Die erste
Vergasung," in: Auschwitz: Zeugnisse und Berichte, H. G. Adler, Hermann
Langbein, Ella Lingens-Reiner (Hrsg.). Europaische Verlagsanstalt, Koln-Frankfurt am Main, 1979, pp. 17-18.
15.
Central Commission for
Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. German Crimes in Poland,
Warsaw, 1946, vol. 1, p. 83.
16.
Zeszyty oswiecimskie, op.cit., p. 47.
17.
Nationalsozialistische
Massentotungen durch Giftgas. Eine Dokumentation. Edited by Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, Adalbert Ruckerl et al. S.
Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1983, p. 205.
18.
Filip Friedman, This Was
Oswiecim: The Story of a Murder Camp, London, 1946, p. 18.
19.
Auschwitz vu par les SS, op.cit., note 113 on p. 96.
20.
Kommandant in Auschwitz.
Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen des Rudolf Höss. Edited by Martin Broszat. DTV, Munchen 1981, p.
159.
21.
S. Fumasoni -- M. Rafanelli, Lavorazioni
che espongono all'azione di acido cianidrico e composti del cianogeno,
Edizioni I.N.A.I.L., p. 8.
22.
Dizionario di chimica GIUA. Utet, 1947, pp. 312-313.
23.
NI-9098, p. 31.
24.
Auschwitz: Guide of the Museum. Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Katowice, 1979, p. 29.
25.
NO-5849.
26.
Hefte von Auschwitz, 2, p. 109.
27.
Letter from the Auschwitz
Museum to this author, May 4, 1988.
28.
See note 1.
29.
Hefte von Auschwitz, 2, p. 113.
30.
Hefte von Auschwitz, 2, p. 106.
31.
Hefte von Auschwitz, 2, pp. 111-114.
32.
Executive Office of the
President. War Refugee Board. Washington, D.C. German Extermination
Camps-Auschwitz and Birkenau. Part 2, pp. 14-19.
33.
Declaration of Stanislaw
Jankowski, in, Hefte von Auschwitz, Sonderheft 1, 1972.
34.
URSS-8.
35.
Auschwitz vu par les SS, op. cit., pp. 181-182.
36.
Interrogation of April 23, 1959.
Zentrale Stelle Ludwigsburg, AR-ZZ 37/58 SB 6, p. 948.
From The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1989 (Vol. 9, No. 2),
pages 193-222.
About the Author
CARLO MATTOGNO was born in Orvieto, Italy in 1951. He has done advanced
linguistic and exegetical studies in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Sanskrit Mr.
Mattogno is a specialist in textual criticism, and has published a number of
Revisionist studies in Italian, including Il rapporto Gerstein: anatomia
di un falso and Auschwitz: due false testimonianze.
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