PART THREE
CHAPTER 2
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Critical
study of the testimonies of
doctors BENDEL
and NYISZLI
concerning the Birkenau
Krematorien and the homicide gassings |
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The testimonies of
Doctors Miklos NYISZLI and Charles Sigismund or Paul BENDEL
or
A
demonstration of the impossibility of relying on raw testimony |
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| Account by Doctor Paul BENDEL taken from
“TEMOIGNAGES SUR AUSCHWITZ”, Editions de l’Amicale
des déportés d’Auschwitz, 10 rue Leroux, Paris 16, 1946.
Extracts from pages 159 to 164. |
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Translation
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THE KREMATORIEN
“The Sonderkommando” |
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Each concentration
camp had a crematorium for “local” needs. While some of them such
as Mauthaus and Dachau, had gas chambers (1), none of them had Krematorien
to match those of Auschwitz-Birkenau in terms either of size or number of
victims. German technical and organizational abilities were here given full
play, and in fact they surpassed themselves.
For long months(2),
I had the doubtful privilege of being attached as doctor to the four
Krematorien (3) of Auschwitz-Birkenau that were ceaslessly working to
exterminate all those whom the Master Race considered unworthy to
live.
These Krematorien were tended by nine hundred deportees who
formed what was called the Sonderkommando. This kommando formed a world apart,
separated from the other prisoners (living first in closed barracks and later
in the Krematorien themselves) and directly under the control of the Political
Section.
If one of its members fell ill, it was absolutely forbidden to
take him to the camp hospital and he had to be treated on site. We were three
doctors assigned to this task.
The Sonderkommando has often been called
“the death squad” and nothing could be more true. Those selected for
it could under no circumstances avoid it.
Their death sentence had just
been pronounced and, except in the case of a miracle, would be carried out
sooner or later.
Of the nine hundred members of the Sonderkommando, two
hundred were gassed on 7th September 1944 and five hundred shot before my eyes
on 7th October 1944 during a revolt that was unique in the annals of the camps,
and one hundred left on 27th November 1944 for an unknown destination: no trace
of them has ever been found. Just a few isolated individuals managed to survive
this massacre after countless adventures.
The Sonderkommando to which I
belonged was the third one, the previous two having been exterminated at
intervals of a few months. Such eyewitnesses could not and should not be left
alive. Parallel to the prisoner Sonderkommando, there was also an SS
Sonderkommando, three men per Krematorium (not counting the guards). They
enjoyed special privileges in terms of money, alcohol etc. There were four
Krematorien, a fifth, known as the Bunker, being nothing but a farmhouse
transformed into a gas chamber “to serve the cause”. Separated from
one another by a few hundred meters, they were camouflaged(4) in what
was known as Birkenau. If you look for this name on the map you will not find
it. And yet it was the tomb of hundreds of thousands of victims, from all over
Europe.
A double track railway brought the deportees right to the gates
of the twin Krematorien 1 and 2 [II and III]. With their spacious rooms, fitted
with telephone and radio. the ultra-modern dissecting room and their
museum (5) of anatomical exhibits, they constituted, as an SS-man
unashamedly told me, “the best ever done in this line”.
The
foundations of these imposing red-brick buildings were laid in March
1942(6). Thousands of prisoners(7) worked on them and died during
their contruction.
Completed in January 1943(8), their
inauguration was honored by the presence of Himmler(9) in person, an
indication of the importance attached to this “work” by the Nazi
leadership.
The convoy of the condemned entered via a wide stone
stairway into a big underground room that served as an undressing room. The
order was given that everyone had to bathe and then go for disinfestation. Each
person attached his things together and, supreme illusion, placed them on a
numbered hanger. From there, completely naked, he went through a narrow
corridor into the gas chambers proper (there were two). Built of reinforced
concrete, they had such low ceilings that they gave the impression on entering
that they were falling on you.
In the middle of these chambers,
descending from the ceiling, were two mesh tubes with external valves through
which the gas was introduced. Through a small peep-hole in the double door of
solidoak, the SScould observe the horrible agony of all these
unfortunates(10). The bodies were subsequently removed by the
Sonderkommando men and placed in a lift that took them up to the ground floor,
where there were sixteen furnaces (11). Their total capacity was in the
order of two thousand bodies in 24 hours (12).
The twin
Krematorien 3 and 4 (IV and V), more commonly known as the “forest
Krema” (they were located in a pleasant clearing) were of more modest
dimensions, and their eight furnaces could handle one thousand bodies a
day.(13) At the time I entered the Sonderkommando, the throughput of these
furnaces had been deemed insufficient (14) and they were replaced by
three cremation pits, each 12 meters long, 6 wide and 1.5 deep. The capacity of
these pits was enormous: one thousand (15) persons an hour. This was
further increased by installing a conduit to channel human fat to a recovery
pit.(16)
It was in Krematorium 4 (V) that I had my first sight of
what the Sonderkommando men were forced to do.
One day in June
1944(17), at 6 o'clock in the morning, I joined the day shift (150 men) of
Krematorium 4. It was a fine day. The men watched for my reactions. A childlike
shyness prevented them from encouraging me. I tried to hide my apprehension as
much as I could. At last I was going to see what the new men on the Krematorium
had been telling me about for days. The guards were waiting. And then we were
off.
About a hundred meters from the Krematorium we could see white
smoke rising into the air(18). The men were silent. I dared not ask any
questions.
Finally we arrived and the men were detailed off to their
tasks. There as a spectator, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to know
the origin of that smoke. And so, behind the Krematorium, I saw the pits where
the remains of the previous evening's convoy were in the final stages of being
consumed A few meters away, men were at work around heaps of ashes, reducing
into a very fine powder what remained of the three thousand people(19)
who had passed this way on the previous day.
At 11 o’clock, one of
the members of the Political Section arrived by motorcycle to announce that
another convoy was on the way. The head of the Krematorium appeared and gave
orders. The pits were to be cleared out and logs were to be put in place and
soaked with fuel.
It was midday when the long column of women, children
and old men came into the yard of the Krematorium. They were from the Lodz
ghetto. We could sense that they were overwhelmed, exhausted and
frightened.
The supreme head of the Krematorien, Herr
Hauptscharführer Mohl, a big brute with a face like Bébé
Cadum, climbed on a bench to tell them that they were going to take a bath and
then hot coffee would be waiting for them. They applauded: the poor people
already felt reassured A few children cried that |
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