by Chris Webb
At this point Franz explains his recruitment into the T4 organization:
At the end of the year 1939 I was ordered to Berlin. I had to report at the Führer’s office in the Voss Street, at the Reich’s medical leader SS-Standartenführer Brandt. Other than myself there were other SS members present, who had to report at the same time. Two of them also came from Buchenwald. Their names were Fritz Jirmann and Herbert Floss. According to my memory there were three SS members from Dachau present, and they were Gottfried Schwarz, one Niemann, called Jonny and one Oberhauser, called with first name Sepp. These names I can remember because we six were first quartered together in Berlin, and because in the time following we met here and there during our service.
At the service station in the Voss Street were present other than the Reichs Medical Leader other persons, but of which I can only recall a certain Blankenburg, who as much as I know had the uniform of an SA-Standartenführer. The others present had civilian clothing. Then we were shown a film, which was probably taken in several madhouses, and which contained pictures of mentally ill people with horrible body deformations. Mainly Brandt explained then, that these ill people were a burden for the German people. Brandt or someone else said that it was best to eliminate these ill people.
After this film and the explainations, we 6 SS members from Buchenwald and Dachau had to sign a red certificate, whereby we committed ourselves to keep quiet about everything we had heard and seen. We were told it was a secret Reich matter. This appeared in writing also on the red certificate. Then we were dismissed. If I remember well, there remained the civilians, and I suppose they were probably doctors. They too had to sign the red certificate. They might have been 10 or 12 gentlemen.
After, we left the room, we were approached by a gentleman who might have belonged to the service station or the Führer’s office. He was more than 1.90 tall and must have been a movie star, which became obvious from the later relation with him. The name could have been Schwennice, or something like that. He made an appointment with us for the next day, in order to buy civilian clothing for us. We then went with him to a department store, where for us six persons only one outfit of civilian clothings was brought for us, and paid by our escort.
On behalf of the Führer’s office we had been accommodated at a Pension at the Hallesche Ufer. We were also told about a place called Lukullus, where we had to eat. We were told we would receive notice when we were needed. Then it took a few weeks—it could also have been 2 or 3 months—until we heard something further. To my knowledge I was the first to be put to service.
Kurt Franz recalled his service in various T4 institutions:
I had to go to Grafeneck, which was nearby Munsingen in Württenberg. There was an institution in the stage of being established. The first thing I had to do was buy the mobile inventory for the kitchen. In the following time I, as kitchen chief had to take care of the feeding of 60–80 people, meaning for the doctors, nurses, female nurses, administration personnel etc.
Somewhat aside from the main building, barracks and ovens were erected. There later the sick people were killed and burned, which were brought by buses. How the killing process had been carried out I cannot say, I had nothing to do with it. I have only seen, that these chimneys of the cremation ovens smoked heavily. I would like to correct myself, there was only one chimney, but there were probably several ovens.
From Grafeneck I was then transferred to Aschach, by Linz, at the Danube. There on one of the properties of Fürst Starhemberg was also established an elimination institution. There the buses with the sick people went into an inner courtyard, so that one saw even less than in Grafeneck of what happened there. I myself worked there again as a kitchen chief. After training a cook there, I was further transferred to Sonnenstein by Pirna, where there was also an elimination institution. There too I worked as a kitchen chief.
For a very short time I was also at the madhouse in Brandenburg, where there too, sick people were eliminated. I cannot say, I was probably supposed to work there too as a cook. But according to my memory there I laid down ill, having a tumor in my nose. From Pirna, during the late summer of 1941 I was ordered to Berlin. In the Wilhelmstrasse 40 or 43 I managed a kitchen, in which ate some members of the Führer’s office and the service station of Tiergartenstrasse 4. I think that according to my memory in the Tiergartenstrasse there was the ‘Common Foundation for Institutional Care.’ I suppose there was some kind of connection and that the service station Tiergartenstrasse 4 was the central place for the carrying out of the total action.
Franz recalled his time in Poland, serving at Belzec and Treblinka death camp, as part of Aktion Reinhardt:
About March 1942 I received a marching order of the Waffen-SS (Führungshauptamt) and had to go to Lublin. I was told that I would there be put to work as a cook. In Lublin I had to report to the Higher SS– and Police Leader. After reporting in Lublin at the service station of the Higher SS- and Police Leader Globocnik, I had to march to Belzec. There a camp was being established. I heard that this was a camp, in which Jews were to be eliminated. This camp was indeed operated, while I was still there, as an elimination camp. The killing of the Jews was done by means of a gassing car. The cars looked like the vehicles of the parcel post. While I was still in Belzec, gas chambers were built. I was informed, that for these gas chambers there were engine rooms. They had allegedly left the engines running and then by means of gas pipes the gas was led to the gas chambers. I think that the Jews killed in Belzec were from Poland itself.
I was in Belzec until the end of 1942.* In Belzec—I had become in the meantime a SS-Scharführer—I first trained the members of the personnel militarily, since they had no knowledge about weapons at all. These people had some SS and some police uniforms. I recall that one of them told me that he had been a nurse. These people trained by myself had to participate at the carrying out of the elimination, by receiving the transports. At this the then camp commander SS-Sturmbannführer Christian Wirth was really always present. These people trained by myself had to make sure that the arriving Jews reached the gas chambers. For the servicing of the gas chambers there were some kind of specialists who had a special knowledge in engines.
After the arrival of the Ukrainian guard units, Wirth named me to lead them. They might have been about 40 guards. I trained these guards militarily and proceeded to organize their duties. The German commanding orders were known to the guards. Also among them were Volksdeutsche from Russia. The guards had to stand guard around the elimination camp. On some occasions they were used against Partisans.
When transports arrived in Belzec, the train went all the way into the camp. In the camp itself were the large pits, in which dead people were thrown in. The following jobs like opening the pits and taking out or in of the bodies, were performed by Jewish working commando’s. These working commando’s inside the camp were not guarded particularly. They received their orders from SS members who served inside of the camp. While the transports were arriving, and the killing action was performed, the camp was surrounded by guards.
In the beginning of 1943 I was transferred from Belzec to Treblinka.** Treblinka was a liquidation camp that was operating already for some time, when I arrived there. Treblinka was considerably larger than Belzec…………….. [50] [51]
In the case of the Trawnikimänner, their recruitment and role at the Aktion Reinhardt death camps is important to understand. One of the Ukrainian guards was Nikolai Petrovich Malagon, who was interrogated on October 2, 1979, in the city of Vinnitsa. His detailed account will adequately serve to illustrate the historical sequence of events:
During the Great Patriotic War, I participated with my military unit in the defence of the city of Kiev. In August 1941 I was wounded in the head and taken prisoner by the Germans, together with other soldiers from my unit. While a prisoner, I was first held in a POW camp in the city of Zhitomir. We were later transferred to a camp in the city of Rovno, and a day later we were transferred in rai
lroad cars to a POW camp in the city of Chelm (Poland).
We were held in this camp, for approximately two months. In roughly October or November 1941 we, the POW’s were assembled near the barracks and some man, unknown to me, wearing civilian clothes began to select prisoners for work. He selected a total of roughly 60–70 POW’s, including myself. This man did not tell us what kind of work we would be doing or where we would do it.
The selected POW’s and myself were hauled in three trucks to the village of Trawniki (Poland) and we were told that in this training camp, we would be trained as SS guards. When we arrived at the Trawniki training camp, there were already other POW’s there, as well as the camp administration. There was a total of approximately 300 trainees in the camp; these were organized into four companies. Three companies consisted of Ukrainian POW’s and one company consisted of Russian POW’s. I was in the 3rd Company. The commander of my company was Mayevskiy (I do not remember his first name and patronymic). He was Polish or German by nationality, since he spoke these languages well. His fate is unknown to me.
Our platoon leader was Komarkin or Komarik—I do not remember his precise name, a German by nationality, who died roughly in the spring of 1942 from heart disease. The squad leader was Broft, whose first name and patronymic I do not remember. He was a teacher by profession and was a Volga German. His later fate is unknown to me.
Two or three weeks after our arrival at the Trawniki camp, we took an oath of loyalty to Germany and were issued Belgian military uniforms. In January of 1942 the Germans selected 10 men from among the trainees, myself included, and sent us to the city of Zamosc (Poland), where we guarded an estate. Mayevskiy was the senior officer among us. We guarded this estate until the spring of 1942, and then we returned to the Trawniki training camp, where we finished our training course within 2–3 weeks. After this we were awarded the title of SS guards and issued identification. Our identification was printed on heavy paper (I do not remember the colour) and folded double. My photograph was attached to my identification and it had a text in German.
A short time later, as part of a group of guards consisting of 20–25 men whose names I do not remember, I was sent to the Lublin camp. We worked cleaning up the area at this camp and stayed there 5–6 days. From the Lublin camp we were sent to the city of Warsaw, where we stayed approximately three days. During these three days I once guarded the Jewish ghetto.
From Warsaw we, the guards, escorted a train filled with Jewish civilians to the Treblinka death camp. We were all armed with rifles and live ammunition. When we arrived at the Treblinka camp together with the prisoners, we handed them over to the camp guard. When we arrived at the camp, there were other guards there from the Trawniki school.
While at the Treblinka death camp, I met the guard Nikolai Marchenko (Authors Note: This should be Ivan Marchenko) who drove a gas chamber van (this is also incorect—Marchenko operated the engines in the static gas chambers), I do not know where he is at present. In the same camp I met the guard Ivan Demjanjuk. This guard was of average height and heavy build, spoke Ukrainian and had light brown hair. His speech was pure; he pronounced everything well. I did not know where he was from, since I did not talk to him about this. While I was at the Treblinka death camp, he worked there as a cook, preparing food for the guards. I could identify the guard whom I have named as Demjanjuk from photographs.
In February 1943 approximately 15 of us, the guards, were transferred to the Belzec camp (Poland). Ivan Demjanjuk remained at Treblinka. We were at Belzec for approximately five days and, since some of the guards escaped, we were once again returned to Trawniki, where we were given special insignia and then we were sent to the Auschwitz death camp. I served in this camp from March to April 1943. Then we were transferred to the Buchenwald death camp, where I served as a guard from April of 1943 through February of 1945.[52]
Returning to the German forces and the crucial role played by the T4 personnel, Viktor Brack, who was Philipp Bouhler’s deputy and Chief of Section II in the Führer’s Chancellery responsible for the T4 management of the euthanasia program testified at his post war trial about the transfer of T4 personnel to Aktion Reinhardt:
In 1941, I received an order to discontinue the euthanasia programme, in order to retain the personnel that had been relieved of these duties and in order to be able to start a new euthanasia programme, after the war, Bouhler asked me—I think after a conference with Himmler—to send this personnel to Lublin, and place it at the disposal of SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik.[53]
One of the SS members of the Belzec garrison, SS-Scharführer Erich Fuchs testified after the war about the transfer of T4 personnel to the Belzec camp:
Polizeihauptmann Christian Wirth conducted the Aktionen in Bernburg. Subordinate to him were the burners, disinfectors and drivers. He also supervised the transportation of the mentally ill and of the corpses. One day in the winter of 1941 Wirth arranged a transport of euthanasia personnel to Poland. I was picked together with about eight or ten other men and transferred to Belzec.
I don’t remember the names of the others. Upon our arrival in Belzec, we met Friedel Schwarz and the other SS men, whose names I cannot remember. They supervised the construction of barracks that would serve as a gas chamber. Wirth told us that in Belzec ‘all the Jews will be struck down.’ For this purpose barracks were built as gas chambers. I installed shower heads in the gas chambers. The nozzles were not connected to any water pipes; they would serve as camouflage for the gas chamber. For the Jews who were gassed it would seem as if they were being taken to baths and for disinfection.[54]
In late December 1941, Christian Wirth was appointed commandant of Belzec, and Josef Oberhauser, who was in charge of constructing the death camp, was appointed to the post of Wirth’s adjutant. The scene was set for a period of trial and error, where Wirth would perfect the process where industrialized mass murder became the deadly norm.
Chapter V
Descent into Mass Murder:
The First Phase March-June 1942
The primitive gas chambers were ready for use by the end of February 1942, after Christian Wirth had experimented with bottled carbon monoxide and the use of a converted parcel carrier to a gas van had all proved unequal to the task. SS-Scharführer Erich Fuchs testified that “A chemist, a civilian from Berlin, was brought in during the construction. He told me that he had once served with the navy. I admit he may have been known by the name of Dr. Blaurock.”[55]
This chemist from T4 was Dr. Helmut Kallmayer—Dr. Blaurock was a pseudonym—and his role in Belzec was to observe the various gasing experiments conducted by Christian Wirth, and to provide advice. Dr. Kallmayer also provided advice on the gassing facilities at the Sobibor death camp.
Mieczyslaw Kudyba, a Polish resident of Belzec, testified about the first experimental killing by gas in Belzec:
The Germans took out a group of Jews from Lubycze-Krolewska and brought them by car to the Belzec camp. One Jew from that group told me that he had been in the camp some time cutting pine trees. One day all the Jews were driven into a barrack. This Jew was able to hide and later to escape. While in hiding, he heard long screams from the barrack in which the Jews had been locked and then silence. This was the first experimental killing in Belzec. I heard that this Jew who escaped was later caught by the Germans and killed.[56]
At his trial in Jerusalem, Adolf Eichmann, the head of IV B4—the Jewish section of the Reich Main Security Office Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA)—testified that he visited Belzec and saw the gassing barrack under construction, but near completion. This would indicate the visit took place between January and February 1942, probably after the Wannsee Conference in Berlin on January 20, 1942, which was held to co-ordinate the various agencies in the quest to achieve the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question in Europe.”
To achieve the mass killing by gas, the exhaust from a captured Soviet tank engine was connected to the pipe system under the floor of the gas chambers, which had an outl
et inside each of the three chambers. The gas pipes and gas outlets were manufactured in the workshop owned by the Czerniak brothers at Saint Tekla Street (now Kopernik Street) in Tomaszow Lubelski.[57]
Michal Kusmierczak, a railway engine driver from Belzec, testified on October 16, 1945, about an experimental gassing that took place in February 1942:
The camp at Belzec was surrounded by wire and a hedge of fir trees and pines. At first, the gas chambers were built inside one of the barracks, later they had another barracks there. The first experiment at exterminating the Jews in the extermination camp was carried out on the Jews from Lubycza Krolewska. That was in February 1942. At that time about 50 Jews were killed.
One of the ‘Blacks’ explained to me that the Jews were killed by the exhaust fumes produced by a 250hp engine, or rather were suffocated; the engine was 30m from the gas chamber and hidden about 3m deep in the ground. A pipe led from the engine to the gas chambers. The exhaust pipe was 7 inches in diameter and from this there led 2 and a half inch diameter pipes. As soon as a transport arrived at the station, the engine was started up.[58]
An important document has survived, written by Dr. Richard Turk, the head of the Department of Population Affairs and Welfare in the Lublin district. Its main points were:
On March 7 I received a telephone call from the government in Krakow, from Major Regger, in which I was strictly requested, in connection with the resettlement of the Jews from Mielec to the Lublin distrct, to reach an agreement with the SS and Police Leader, and it stressed the highest importance of this agreement.
I arranged a conference with Hauptsturmführer Höfle for Monday, March 16 1942, and it took place at 17.30. In the course of this conference, Höfle outlined the following, which of course disguised the true meaning of Belzec: