Holocaust Almanac: "...perfectly orderly fashion..."
Kenneth McVay OBC
Last-modified: 1993/02/21
From a report entitled "Resettlement of Jews" written by
SS-Sturmbannfuehrer Alfred Franke-Gricksch for SS-Col. M. von Herff and
RF-SS H. Himmler, after inspection of Auschwitz camp on 14-16 May 1943.
'..the unfit go to cellars in a large house which are entered from outside.
They go down five or six steps into a fairly long, well-constructed and
well-ventilated cellar area, which is lined with benches to the left and
right. It is brightly lit, and the benches are numbered. The prisoners
are told that they are to be cleansed and disinfected for their new
assignments. They must therefore completely undress to be bathed. To
avoid panic and to prevent disturbances of any kind, they are instructed to
arrange their clothing neatly under their respective numbers, so that they
will be able to find their things again after their bath. Everything
proceeds in a perfectly orderly fashion. Then they pass through a small
corridor and enter a large cellar room which resembles a shower bath. In
this room are three large pillars, into which certain materials can be
lowered from outside the cellar room. When three- to four-hundred people
have been herded into this room, the doors are shut, and containers filled
with the substances are dropped down into the pillars. As soon as the
containers touch the base of the pillars, they release particular
substances that put the people to sleep in one minute. A few minutes
later, the door opens on the other side, where the elevator is located.
... Then the corpses are loaded into elevators and brought up to the
first floor, where ten large crematoria are located. (Because fresh
corpses burn particularly well, only 50-100 lbs. of coke are needed for
the whole process.) The job itself is performed by Jewish prisoners, who
never step outside this camp again'.
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Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the gas chambers, by Jean-Claude
Pressac, published by the Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, Library of congress
Catalogue Card Number 89-81305. p. 238
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