Newsgroups: alt.revisionism Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Hoess - "A True Pioneer" Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Auschwitz,Dachau,Hoess Archive/File: camps/auschwitz hoess.01 people/h/hoess.rudolf.ferdinand hoess.01 Archive/File: holocaust/germany/hoess hoess.01 Last-Modified: 1992/10/17 "HOESS, RUDOLF FRANZ (1900-1947)... In 1934 he was attached to the SS at Dachau ... 1940 given rank of SS-Hauptsturmfuehrer in command at the Auschwitz camp. [He] was responsible for the execution of more than 2.5 million inmates, not counting a half million who were allowed to starve to death. He performed his job so well that he was commended in a 1944 SS report that called him "a true pioneer in this area because of his new ideas and educational methods." He was sentenced to death at Warsaw and was executed several days later at Auschwitz. At the fulcrum of the extermination system in Poland were the camps at Auschwitz, Maidanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Belzec, and Sobibor.... Auschwitz was the most notorious of the extermination centers. At the height of its activity Auschwitz could house more the 100,000 men and women and could provide for the gassing and incineration of 12,000 prisoners a day.... The .. gas chambers could accommodate 2,000 prisoners at one time. Rudolf Hoess testified at Nuremberg: 'When I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Zyclon B which was crystallized prussic acid which we dropped into the death-chamber from a small opening. It took from 3 to 15 minutes to kill the people in the death-chamber, depending on climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited for half-an-hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special commandos ['Sonderkommandos' made up of prisoners who were partially trusted] took off the rings and extracted the gold teeth of the corpses.' 'We tried to fool the victims into believing that they were going through a delousing process. Of course, at times they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties. Frequently women would hide their children under their clothes, but we found them and we sent the children to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy, but the foul and nauseating stench from the continued burning of bodies permeated the whole area and all the people living around Auschwitz knew what was going on.'" (Snyder) "The gassing was carried out in the detention cells of Block 11. Proctected by a gas mask, I watched the killing myself. In the crowded cells, death came instantaneously the moment the Zyklon B was thrown in. A short, almost smothered cry, and it was all over.... I must even admit that this gassing set my mind at rest, for the mass extermination of the Jews was to start soon, and at that time neither Eichmann nor I was certain as to how these mass killings were to be carried out. In would be by gas, but we did not know which gas and how it was to be used. Now we had the gas, and we had established a procedure." (Museum, 92-95) Work Cited Museum w Oswiecimu. KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS Hoess, Broad, Kremer, Second edition, Museum w Oswiecimu, 1978. Snyder, Dr. Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich. New York: Paragon House, 1989. ISBN 1-55778-144-3
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.