Archive/File: camps/auschwitz auschwitz.010 Last-modified: 1993/12/18 From: dzk@cs.brown.edu (Danny Keren) Newsgroups: soc.history,alt.censorship,alt.activism,alt.revisionism,alt.discrimination,alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.correct,alt.journalism.criticism,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,soc.college,misc.headlines Subject: Polish Doctors Tell of Murder of Children at Auschwitz (was: Re: AN Followup-To: alt.revisionism Date: 8 Dec 1993 06:42:04 GMT (Four Polish witnesses, three of them doctors, and two SS men, testify about murder with phenol injections in Auschwitz. Among the murdered were 120 children from the village of Zamosc). One of the common killing methods in Auschwitz was by phenol injections. All the following testimonies are excerpted from "Auschwitz: the Proceeings Against Mulka and Others" by Bernd Nauman. The SS men who usually did the killing were Hantl, Scherpe, and Klehr (who also participated in the gassing operations). Testimony of Professor Fejkiel from Cracow (Poland) who was arrested by the Nazis and imprisoned in Auschwitz between October 1940 and January 1945 (p. 153-4): ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The witness reports that the experiments to kill prisoners with injections were begun in 1942. "First they tried benzine, but that turned out to be impractical. I know of a case where death did not occur for forty-five minutes. They looked for a quicker method. The second medium was hydrogen; then came phenolic acid". First it was administered intravenously, then directly into the heart: "I assume that the intravenous method took too long". "Do you know who killed, where the murders took place, and how many people were the victims of such injections?" "I will begin with the number killed: I assume that about 30,000 people were killed in this fashion". First came infirm Jews, then other hospital patients, then people not hopitalized, including prisoners "which the Gestapo sent in a round- about way". "Who did the killing?" "At first Dr. Entress himself, then Klehr, and then - in this order - Scherpe and Hantl. Hantl did it rarely. We thought of Hantl as a decent man and were surprised that he did it". Testimony of SS men Klehr (p. 71): ------------------------------------------ "How did you kill these prisoners?" "Well, like before. With a shot of phenol into the heart". SS men Schepre is asked about the murder of the Zamosc children (p. 79): ----------------------------------------------------------------- According to testimony by numerous witnesses during the pretrial hearing, at least 119 children were murdered with phenol injections in the closing days of February, 1943. Force was used to get them into the executioner's chair, and Scherpe himself gave them the lethal injection into their hearts. It was so horrible that the "medic" ran away in desperation. The next day his colleague Hantl, a co-defendant, murdered the remaining 80 children. "You broke down and couldn't go on?" the judge asks. "That is exaggerated. It isn't true". Scherpe no longer wants to admit what he himself said earlier, that the children, panic-stricken, had screamed. "That is not so. I didn't say that. It is also not true. They suspected nothing. They probably thought they were being inoculated". The last boy waiting outside began to cry and called for his companions who didn't return. And that was the only indication the defendant had that the children may have feared death. Polish physician, Dr. Klodzinski, testifies about the murder of the Zamosc children (p. 152): -------------------------------------------------------------------- "In the afternoon came the order to kill the children. They were led into the washroom, and told to undress and line up. And then Scherpe came; I still remember that". Klodzinski speaks of the dead silence in Block 20 at that moment; nothing was heard except thumps "- it was a muffled sound" - as the heads and bodies of the slain children fell to the floor of the washroom. "Suddenly Scherpe came out of the room and said 'I can't anymore', and left. After a while Hantl took his place and and murdered the remaining children". Warsaw physician Dr. Glowacki testifies (p. 137-8): --------------------------------------------------- "How many in your opinion were selected by the defendant [klehr] on his own authority?" "He certainly selected and killed more than 10,000". [...] But the witness saw how Scherpe "personally administered injections in Block 20. It happened during the murder of children from the vicinity of Zamosc. There were so many of them that they had to line them up between the barracks. Some of the children wee led into the area of Block 20, where Scherpe killed them while the others were still playing outside. There were more than 100". He remembers this case so well because Scherpe had suddenly paused. "We thought he was conscience-stricken and that was the reason he broke off in the middle of murdering the children. I clearly remember him stopping. He left, and we never saw him again after that. Hantl took over. Hantl finished the murder of the children". Stanislaus Glowa testifies (p. 183-186): ---------------------------------------- Glowa, like many of the witnesses who preceded him, tells of the "experimental gassing" at the end of 1941 in Block 11, of the slayings with phenol, first at Block 28 and then in Block 20 of the prisoner hospital. "Klehr, Scherpe and Hantl regularly took part in the killings with phenol. But I would like to point out at this time, for the sake of justice, if I had to set up a scale of responsibility, that the last- named behaved like saints compared to Klehr". [...] The court also hears this witness tell of the fate of 120 boys from the Polish village of Zamosc. Their parents had been killed, and the children were brought to Auschwitz, where, after a few weeks, it was decided to kill them as well. Work-detail leader Palitzch brought them into the courtyard of the hospital on a February morning in 1943, where the played and were given food by older prisoners. "They were hungry and frightened and told of having been beaten. All of us felt sorry for them. Again and again they asked: 'Will we be killed? Why?'. They had to wait a few hours to the end". Prisoner-clerk Glowa sat in the aisle of hospital building 20, where almost daily he crossed of the names of patients "injected" by Klehr from the list of inmates. Not far from where he sat was the curtain behind which the victims had to stand in the corridor until a prisoner took them into the "examination room" where Klehr was waiting for them with his phenol injection. "Scherpe and Hantl came in that afternoon, and they worked for a long time. In order to shorten the terrible torment of the children, I would take them to the curtain and tell them they are going to be bathed. The first ones had screamed with terror in the room". "Do you have children"? Glowa asks in a breaking voice, and then continues: "It was horrible. Why did they kill us? That is why I helped, to shorten the torment. After it was over I saw Hantl in a state of complete collapse".The court at Frankfurt sentenced Klehr to life in prison, Scherpe to 4 years and 6 months, Hantl to 3 years and 6 months. Since Hantl had served his sentence in confinement awaiting trial, he left the court a free man. -Danny Keren.
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