"Vittnesmål" om "utrotningsläger och gaskammare"

The execution ditch had been covered over with dirt, but blood was gushing out of the ground "like a geyser" due to pressure from the bodily gasses of the deceased.

Vrbas mest graverande osanningar, del 1.

A. When I was working in Kanada, in November 1942, I have been taken to the dumping truck to Krematoria I in Auschwitz. The Krematoria I in Auschwitz was on yard -- that yard on the lefthand side had, to my recollection Krematorium I, and to the righthand side there was a hospital for S.S. The best would be, again, if I show it on a -- do I have permission?

Q. What I would really like to do is

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deal with the diagram we have in our hands. This is Birkenau we are dealing with.

A. Yes.

Q. I asked you if you had been in Krema I in Auschwitz when people were being gassed, and I think the answer is no. Correct?

A. The answer is no. I went there for collecting their clothes from the gas chamber in Krematorium I.

Q. From the gas chamber?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you inside?

A. Yes.

Q. What did the gas chamber look like?

A. It was originally a garage which connected the S.S. barracks with that small crematorium.

Q. Mm-hmmm.

A. And there were garage doors.

Q. Mm-hmmm.

A. And the roof was reinforced with earth. The inside was dark. The door was opened ---

Q. How wide were the doors?

A. Like a good garage door, and two side opening to two sides.

Q. Mm-hmmm.

A. We went in under the pretext that we are collecting -- not under the pretext, under the order to collect the clothes which were there.

Consequently, as I understood, the people had to undress before they went into that gas chamber.

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Q. You are telling us ---

A. Then they were gassed, and then, because there were clothes in the yard in front of the hospital, they were shoved in the gas chamber before they were taken out. So I understand that was my job at that time, so I collected the clothes.

Q. The clothes were in the gas chamber.

A. Right.

Q. Yes.

A. So we collected the clothes from there, and at that moment I saw through the window of the crematorium a friend of mine from Slovakia, Phillip Mueller.

Q. Who was he?

A. Phillip Mueller.

Q. Phillip Mueller in Auschwitz I?

A. . In Auschwitz I crematoria.

Q. Yes.

E. It was full, it was full. I went away to my car. I got in and started driving - I drove to Lvov. I had no orders to go to Lvov...even this I remember now but apparently the road passed through Lvov. Somehow I came to Lvov and saw the first encouraging picture, after the awful things I had seen there: This was the railway station building, which had been erected to mark the Sixtieth Anniversary of the reign of the Emperor Franz Josef - and seeing that I personally was overwhelmed with joy regarding this period of Franz Josef, possibly because I had heard an abundance of wonderful things in my parents' home about this period or about events that occurred during this period... - my relatives on the side of my step-mother were, at this time, as you would say, of a high social standing...It was painted yellow.

This chased away for the first time - I still remember this today otherwise I wouldn't have realized this, that this sixtieth jubilee...that the figures of this Jubilee were engraved on the wall of this station building - those terrible thoughts which had not yet departed from me since Minsk. I came there, and visited the local commander of the State Police...please... I was...perhaps I even had an order, perhaps not, perhaps I went there only out of curiosity, and I paid a visit there to the commander since I was passing the place, and said to him: "Yes," I said to him "this is terrible, what is going on there," I said to him, "these young men are being brought up as sadists." This is exactly what I said, incidentally, to Mueller as well - later on.

I also said so to Guenther, I said it to everyone; I even said it to Suhr, I said it to all of them. I also said this to Hunsche... I did not have... I told this to everyone and I said: "How can it be possible? Simply fire away at a woman and children? How can this be possible?" I said: "This cannot be possible, these people must become crazy or sadists, and they are our own people." And then he said to me: "Exactly so, this is also happening with us here, they shoot here, too. Do you want to see it once? Do you want to see it once?" I said: "No, I don't want to see anything." He said "Anyhow we are going to pass by." Then I saw something else which was terrible: there was a pit, perhaps it was already closed. There welled up like a geyser blood...how should I say this...a jet of blood. I have never seen anything like it. As far as I was concerned this assignment was enough and I drove to Berlin and related this to Gruppenfuehrer Mueller.