by Chris Webb
Rudolf Reder testified in Krakow on December 29, 1945, before the Main Commision for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, providing some further details on the gas chamber:
From the entrance a corridor which had three solid and tightly sealed single doors on either side, ran the length of the building. These doors led into windowless chambers, which at the far end wall, adjoining the loading ramps I described earlier, had double sliding doors. On the other side of the building, i.e. behind the wall at the far end of the corridor, there was a small room where the engines were.
I myself saw that in that small room there was a petrol-driven engine that looked very complicated. I remember the engine had a flywheel, but I could not make out any other specific construction or technical features. Two technicians, Russians from the armed camp staff, always operated the engine. I know only that the engine used up 4 cans of petrol each day, because that is how much petrol was brought to the camp every day. It was when the petrol was delivered to the engine room that I briefly had the opportunity to look inside the room........
The chambers were so crammed full of people that even after they had died, they were still upright. As soon as all the chambers had been crammed full, the doors were locked, the outside doors were closed by wedging them together, then the engine was started. Prisoner Moniek, a coach driver from Krakow, supervised the operation of the engine.
The engine would always run for precisely 20 minutes, after which Moniek would signal to one of the operators to switch it off. After it had been switched off, Moniek ordered other prisoners to open all the doors wide and drag the bodies out, two at a time, using belts tied around their wrists. The bodies were then taken to the mass graves that had been dug with machines some time earlier. On the way from the ramp to the grave, near the chamber, dentists extracted the gold teeth from the bodies.[76]
On June 13, 1942, the Polish Underground reported that the Jewish work brigade revolted in the extermination area. This will be covered in the section that deals with reports by the Polish Underground, later in the book.
During July 1942, the SS garrison was re-inforced by additional personnel from T4 and additional quarters for them was provided for them in a barracks next to the administration office in the SS compound. In addition to this, the Trawnikimänner contingent was expanded to cope with the increased number of transports. The death camp was enlarged, several more barracks were constructed, among them adjacent undressing barracks for men and women, as well as a “barbers” barracks. A second railway track was laid into the camp, to increase the capacity of handling more transports and the unloading ramp area was enlarged.[77]
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler issued an order on July 19, 1942, to Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, Higher SS Police Leader East, to complete the “resettlement” of the Jewish population of the Generalgouvernement within the framework of Aktion Reinhardt by the end of that year. Transportation difficulties became acute during the German offensive on the Eastern Front.
Himmler ordered SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolf, his chief of personnel staff to contact the secretary of state of the Ministry of Transport, Dr. Theodor Ganzenmuller, and resolve the problems. On July 28, 1942, Dr. Ganzenmuller replied to Karl Wolf at the Prinz Albrecht Straße 8, in Berlin:
Since July 22, a train load of 5,000 Jews has departed daily from Warsaw via Malkinia to Treblinka, and in addition a train load of 5,000 Jews has left Przemysl twice a week for Belzec.
GEDOB (Generaldirecktor der Ostbahn) is in constant contact with the Security Police in Krakow. It has been agreed that the transports from Warsaw through Lublin to Sobibor be suspended for as long as the reconstruction works on that section make those transports impossible (approximately until October 1942). These trains have been agreed upon with the commander of the Security Police in the General Gouvernement, and SS Brigadeführer Globocnik has been advised.[78]
Chapter VII
The Killing Frenzy
Visit of Kurt Gerstein and Wilhelm Pfannenstiel & The Deportations from Lvov—August 1942
On August 1, 1942, major changes took place at Belzec death camp. Commandant Christian Wirth was appointed to the post of Inspekteur der SS-Sonderkommandos-Abteilung Reinhard (Inspector of SS-Sonderkommandos) and set up a temporary office at the Julius Schreck Kaserne on Litauer Straße in Lublin, before moving to a permanent headquarters—a two-storey villa on Chelmska Street on the Alter Flugplatz (Old Airfield) camp. The ground floor rooms were used as offices, staffed by Wirth, Oberhauser—who came with Wirth from Belzec—and Willi Häusler, who came from Berlin and was responsible for salaries and administration, and a couple of secretaries. On the first floor was located a first–class dining room and living quarters for Wirth and his staff. The old airfield camp served as the main sorting depot for the clothing and belongings taken from the victims of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, in three old hangers.[79]
SS-Obersturmführer Gottlieb Hering replaced Wirth as the commandant of Belzec. He was well-known to Wirth, as he had served in the Stuttgart C.I.D. (Criminal Invesigations Department) with Wirth as well as in a number of T4 institutions throughout the Reich.
SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Gerstein, the chief disinfection officer in the Main Hygienic Office of the Waffen-SS, and SS-Obersturmbannführer Wilhelm Pfannenstiel—professor and director of the Hygienic Institute at the University of Marburg / Lahn—travelled to Lublin to advise on disinfection issues and to see whether Zyklon B could be used to improve the killing capacity.
Gerstein wrote a very detailed report of their visit to Belzec in August 1942 on May 4, 1945, in Rottweil, in southwestern part of Germany. Gerstein committed suicide before he could face trial, in his prison cell in Cherche-Midi in Paris, on July 25, 1945. His report and extracts of the testimony by Wilhelm Pfannenstiel follow, providing an almost unique description of Belzec death camp by non-members of the guard personnel:
The next day we went to Belzec. A small station had been built especially for this purpose on a hill just north of the Lublin—Lemberg Chaussee in the left corner of the demarcation line. South of the road some houses with the notice ‘Sonderkommando der Waffen–SS’. As Polizeihauptman Wirth, the actual head of the whole killing installations was not yet there, Globocnik introduced me to SS-Hauptsturmführer Obermeyer (from Pirmasens).[80] The latter only let me see that afternoon what he had to show me. I did not see any dead that day, but in the hot August weather the whole place smelt like the plague and there were millions of flies everywhere.
Right by the small two-track station there was a large shed, the so-called cloakroom with a large counter where valuables were handed over. Then there was a room containing about 100 chairs—the barbers room. Then an outdoor path under birch-trees, with a double barbed-wire fence on the left and right, with the sign ‘To the inhalation and bathrooms’. In front of us a sort of bath-house with geraniums, then a few steps, and then three rooms each on the right and left 5 x 5 metres, 1.9 metres high, with wooden doors like garages. In the rear wall, hardly visible in the darkness, large sliding doors. On the roof, as a ‘witty little joke’ the Star of David. In front of the building a notice: ‘Hackenholt Institute’. More than that I was not able to see that afternoon.
Shortly before seven the next morning I was informed: “The first transport is coming in ten minutes!” The first train from Lemberg did in fact arrive in a few minutes. Forty-five wagons containing 6,700 people, of whom 1,450 were already dead on arrival. Children were looking out from behind the barred windows, their faces dreadfully pale and frightened, their eyes filled with the fear of death, besides men and women. The train came into the station: 200 Ukrainians tore open the doors and drove people out of the wagons with their leather whips. A big loudspeaker gave further instructions: undress completely, take off artificial limbs, spectacles etc. Give up valuables at the counter without credit notes or receipts. Tie shoes together carefully, otherwise in the pile of shoes, which was a good 25 metres high, no–one could have found a pair that m
atched. Then the women and children went to the barber who cut off all their hair with two or three chops with the scissors and stuffed it into potato sacks. “That is put to some special use in U-boats—for caulking or something like that,” the SS Corporal on duty told me.
Then the procession started to move. With a lovely young girl at the front, they all walked along the path, all naked, men, women and children, without their artificial limbs. I stood with Hauptmann Wirth up on the ramp between the chambers. Mothers with their babies at the breast came up, hesitated and entered the death chambers. A sturdy SS man stood in the corner and told the wretched people in a clerical tone of voice: “Nothing at all is going to happen to you! You must take a deep breath in the chambers. That expands the lungs. This inhalation is necessary because of illnesses and infection.” When asked what was going to happen to them, he answered: “Well of course, the men must work, building houses and roads , but the women don’t have to work. Only if they want to, they can help with the housework or in the kitchen.” This gave some of these poor people a glimmer of hope that lasted long enough for them to take the few steps into the chambers without resisting.
The majority realized—the smell told them what their fate was to be! So they climbed the steps and then they saw everything. Mothers with babies at the breast, naked little children, adults, men, women—all naked. They hesitated, but they went into the gas chamber, pushed on by those behind them, or driven in by the leather whips of the SS. Most of them without saying a word. A Jewess of about 40, with eyes blazing, called down upon the heads of the murderers the blood being spilt here. Hauptmann Wirth personally gave her five or six lashes in the face with his riding-whip. Then she too disappeared into the chamber.
Many people were praying. I prayed with rhem. I pressed myself into a corner and cried aloud to my God and theirs. How gladly I would have gone with them into the chambers. How gladly I would have their death with them. Then they would have found a uniformed SS officer in their chambers. The matter would have been treated as a case of death by misadventure and dealt with: missing presumed dead, unheralded and unsung. But I could not do that yet. First I had to make known what I had seen here!
The chambers filled. Cram them well in—Hauptmann Wirth had ordered. Pepole were standing on each other’s feet. 700–800 on 25 square metres, in 45 cubic metres! The SS forced as many in together as was physically possible. The doors closed. Meanwhile the others were waiting outside in the open air, naked…. Now at last I understood why the whole installation was called the Hackenholt Institute. Hackenholt was the driver of the diesel engine—a minor technician who was also the builder of this installation. The people were to be killed with diesel exhaust fumes.
Gerstein recalled what happened next:
But the diesel did not work! Hauptmann Wirth came. He was obviously embarrassed that this had to happen on the very day that I was there. Yes I saw everything! And I waited. My stop-watch had recorded it all well. 50 minutes-70 minutes—the diesel did not start! The people were waiting in the gas chambers . In vain! We heard them weeping, sobbing…. Hauptmann Wirth struck the Ukrainian who was supposed to be helping Unterscharführer Hackenholt mend the diesel. The whip hit him in the face 13 or 14 times. After 2 hours 49 minutes—the stop-watch had recorded it all well—the diesel started.
Up till then people were alive in these four chambers, four times 750 people in four times 45 cubic metres. Another 25 minutes went by. True, many were now dead. One could see that through the little glass window through which the electric light lit up the chamber for a moment. After 28 minutes only a few were still alive. At last, after 32 minutes everyone was dead! Men of the work squad opened the wooden doors from the other side. They—Jews themselves—had been promised their freedom and a certain percentage of all valuables found in payment for the ghastly duty they performed.
The dead were standing upright like basalt pillars, pressed together in the chambers. There would not have been room to fall down or even to bend over. One could tell the families, even in death. They were still holding hands, stiffened in death, so that it was difficult to tear them apart in order to clear the chamber for the next load. The corpses were thrown out—wet with sweat and urine, soiled with excrement, menstrual blood on their legs. Children’s bodies flew through the air. There was no time to lose. The whips of the Ukrainians whistled down on the backs of the work squad. Two dozen dentists opened the mouths with hooks and looked for gold. Gold on the right, without gold on the left. Other dentists used pliers and hammers to break gold teeth and crowns out of the Jews.
The naked corpses were carried in wooden barrows just a few metres away to pits of 100 by 20 by 12 metres. After some days the putrefying bodies swelled up and then, a short time later, collapsed violently so that a new batch could be thrown on top of them. Then 10 centimetres of sand was strewn over it so that only a few single heads and arms stuck out. In one of these spots I saw Jews clambering about on the corpses in the pits and working. I was told by an oversight those who were already dead when the transport arrived had not been undressed. Because of the textiles and valuables, which they would otherwise have taken with them to the grave, this had of course to be rectified. Nobody took any trouble either in Belzec or in Treblinka to record or count those who had been killed. The figures were only estimates based on the capacity of the wagons.
The next day—the 19th August 1942—we went in Hauptmann Wirth’s car to Treblinka, 120 km, NNE of Warsaw. The installations was somewhat similar to that in Belzec except that it was larger. Eight gas chambers and veritable mountains of cases, textiles and underclothes. A banquet in the dining-hall was laid on in our honour in typical Himmlerite Old German style. The meal was simple, but there were masses of everything. Himmler himself had ordered that the men of these Kommandos should receive as much meat, butter and other things, particularly alcohol, as they wanted.
We then went by car to Warsaw…………[81]
Some historians have questioned the veracity of Kurt Gerstein’s account, but if you compare what he recounted with the testimony of Wilhem Pfannenstiel regarding Belzec, there are clear similarities. His testimony given on April 25, 1960, supports a great deal of what Kurt Gerstein wrote:
When I am asked about executions of Jews I must confirm that on 19 August 1942 I witnessed an execution of Jews at Belzec extermination camp….. during this first visit I was taken around by a certain Polizeihauptmann named Wirth, who also showed and explained to me the extermination installations in the camp. He told me that the following morning a new transport of about 500 Jews would be arriving at the camp, who would be channeled through these extermination chambers. He asked me whether I would like to watch one of these extermination actions, to which, after a great deal of reflection, I consented. I planned to submit a report to the Reichsarzt-SS about these extermination actions. In order to write a report I had however, first to observe an action with my own eyes. I remained in the camp, spent the night there and was witness to the following events the next morning.[82]
A goods train travelled directly into the camp of Belzec, the freight cars were opened and Jews whom I believe were from the area of Romania or Hungary were unloaded. The cars were crammed fairly full. There were men, women and children of every age. They were ordered to get into line and then had to proceed to an assembly area and take off their shoes. I stood a little to the side of this line and watched the proceedings together with Polizeihauptmann Wirth and Obersturmführer Gerstein.
The SS escorts took up guard positions outside the camp and Jewish functionaries from the camp gave the arriving transports to understand that they would now be examined and instructed them to undress so that they could be deloused and take a bath. They also told them they had to inhale in a certain room to prevent them passing on any illnesses through their respiratory tracts. I could not understand what the Jewish camp functionaries were saying but Herr Wirth explained it to me.
After the Jews had removed their shoes they were s
eparated by sex. The women went together with the children into a hut. There their hair was shorn and then they had to get undressed. The men went into another hut, where they received the same treatment. I saw what happened in the women’s hut with my own eyes. After they had undressed, the whole procedure went fairly quickly. They ran naked from the hut through a hedge into the actual extermination centre. The whole extermination centre looked just like a normal delousing institution. In front of the building there were pots of geraniums and a sign saying ‘Hackenholt Foundation’, above which there was a Star of David. The building was brightly and pleasantly painted so as not to suggest that people would be killed here. From what I saw, I do not believe that the people who had just arrived, had any idea of what would happen to them.
Pfannenstiel then recalled what happened next:
Inside the building, the Jews had to enter chambers into which was channeled the exhaust of a 100?—HP engine, located in the same building. In it there were six such extermination chambers. They were windowless, had electric lights and two doors. One door led outside so that the bodies could be removed. People were led from a corridor into the chambers through an ordinary air-tight door with bolts. There was a glass peep-hole, as I recall, next to the door in the wall. Through this window one could watch what was happening inside the room but only when it was not too full of people. After a short time the glass became steamed up.
When the people had been locked up in the room the motor was switched on and then I suppose the stop-valves or vents to the chambers opened. Whether they were stop-valves or vents I would not like to say. It is possible that the pipe led directly to the chambers. Once the engine was running, the light in the chambers was switched off. This was followed by palpable disquiet in the chamber. In my view it was only then that the people sensed something else was in store for them. It seemed to me that behind the thick walls and door they were praying and shouting for help.