Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: The Tube (Belzec) Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Belzec Archive/File: holocaust/poland/reinhard/belzec belzec.schluch Last-modified: 1993/03/05 "After undressing, first the men and later the women with the children were taken through the "tube" to the gas chambers. SS Unterscharfu"hrer Schluch testified: 'My post in the "tube" was close to the undressing barrack. Wirth briefed me that while I was there I should influence the Jews to behave calmly. After leaving the undressing barracks, I had to show the Jews the way they were convinced that they were really going to the baths. After the Jews entered the gas chambers, the doors were closed by Hackenholt himself or by the Ukrainians subordinate to him. Then Hackenholt switched on the engine which supplied the gas. After five or seven minutes -- this is only an estimate -- someone looked through the small window into the gas chamber to verify whether all inside were dead. Only then were the outside doors opened and the gas chambers ventilated....After the ventilation of the gas chambers, a Jewish working group under the command of their capos entered and removed the bodies from the chambers. [...] The Jews inside the gas chambers were densely packed. This is the reason that the corpses were not lying on the floor but were mixed up in disorder in all directions, some of them kneeling, according to the amount of space they had. The corpses were besmirched with mud and urine or with spit. I could see that the lips and tips of the noses were a bluish color. Some had their eyes closed, others' eyes rolled. The bodies were dragged out of the gas chambers and inspected by a dentist, who removed the finger-rings and gold teeth....After this procedure, the corpses were thrown into a big pit." <1> [Regarding the disposal of bodies into the pit, Franz Stangle is quoted...] "Wirth was not in his office, they said he was in the camp....I asked what was the matter. The man I was talking to said that one of the pits had overflowed. The had put too many corpses in it and putrefaction had progressed too fast so that the liquid underneath had pushed the bodies on top up and over, and the corpses had rolled down the hill. I saw some of them -- oh, God, it was awful...." <2> <1> Yad Vashem Archives, TR-10/517 (The trial of Josef Oberhauser) Landgericht, Munchen, Band 8, p1512 <2> Gitta Serini, Into the Darkness, London, 1974, p.112. Excerpted from....---------------------------------------------- BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987. ISBN 0-253-3429-7 ---------------------------------------------------------------- German court documents, provided by Danny Keren, add these comments about the 'tube' used at the Reinhard death camps - in this case, Treblinka: Following are some verbatim quotes from the German court's ruling as to how the murders took place: **************************************************************************** From that stage on both male and female victims received the same treatment. So that these people would not have the time to think or offer resistance, they were driven through the "tube" by guards stationed there, who struck out at them with canes, whips, rifle butts and with their fists to hurry them along. The victims had to run through the "tube" four and five abreast, completely naked and with arms raised; this was the way in which they were herded into the gas chambers. The capacity of each gas chamber was utilized down to the last square centimeter. Under a rain of constant blows and abuse so many people were sqeezed into the chamber that no one was able to move any more. Often, infants and young children would simply be tossed into the rooms above the heads of the adults standing in the chamber. When it was no longer possible to sqeeze additional people into the chambers, the doors were sealed and the German squad leader ordered the Ukrainian in the engine room (he might say "Ivan, water!") to switch on the engine, whose exhaust fumes were then conducted into the chamber [In a different place, it is specified that engines of captured Soviet tanks were used]. The killing process itself lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. After that time the engine was shut and someone went to the doors to listen for signs of life in the chambers. If no sign of life could be detected, the command was given to open the trap doors on the outer walls, and the transfer of the corpses began. On occasion some victims showed signs of life even after the gassing had been completed. Such people would be shot on the platform or perhaps on the way to the ditch or the cremation grill. The shooting was done either by the German squad leader or by one of the Ukrainian guards. Others shot at the mass graves included newcomers who could not be pushed into the already overcrowded gas chambers, but who were too few in number to warrant the expense of a separate gassing operation. ***************************************************************** Passed on September 3, 1965 in the trial of Kurt Franz and nine others at the court of Assizes in Dusseldorf (First Treblinka Trial) (AZ-LG Dusseldorf: II 931638, p. 49 ff.), and the trial of Franz Stangl at the court of Assizes at Dusseldorf (Second Treblinka Trial) on December 22, 1970 (pp. 111 ff.,AZ-LG Dusseldorf, XI-148/69 S.) ***************************************************************** Individual files are now available via listserv. Send your request to: listserv@oneb.almanac.bc.ca, and include the single word 'index' for a list of available articles.
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.