On receiving these grave instructions, I returned forthwith to Auschwitz, without reporting to my superior at Oranienburg.
Shortly afterward Eichmann came to Auschwitz and disclosed to me the plans for the operations as they affected the various countries concerned. I cannot remember the exact order in which they were to take place. First was to come the eastern part of Upper Silesia and the neighboring parts of Polish territory under German rule, then, depending on the situation, simultaneously Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia, and finally the Jews from the West: France, Belgium, and Holland. He also told me the approximate numbers of transports that might be expected, but I can no longer remember these.
We discussed the ways and means of effecting the extermination. This could only be done by gassing, since it would have been absolutely impossible by shooting to dispose of the large numbers of people that were expected, and it would have placed too heavy a burden on the SS men who had to carry it out, especially because of the women and children among the victims.
Eichmann told me about the method of killing people with exhaust gases in trucks, which had previously been used in the East. But there was no question of being able to use this for these mass transports that were due to arrive in Auschwitz. Killing with showers of carbon monoxide while bathing, as was done with mental patients in some places in the Reich, would necessitate too many buildings, and it was also very doubtful whether the supply of gas for such a vast number of people would be available. We left the matter unresolved. Eichmann decided to try and find a gas which was in ready supply and which would not entail special installations for its use, and to inform me when he had done so. We inspected the area in order to choose a likely spot. We decided that a peasant farmstead situated in the northwest corner of what later became the third building sector at Birkenau would be the most suitable. It was isolated and screened by woods and hedges, and it was also not far from the railroad. The bodies could be placed in long, deep pits dug in the nearby meadows. We had not at that time thought of burning the corpses. We calculated that after gas proofing the premises then available, it would be possible to kill about 800 people simultaneously with a suitable gas. These figures were borne out later in practice.
Eichmann could not then give me the starting date for the operation because everything was still in the preliminary stages and the Reichsführer SS had not yet issued the necessary orders.
Eichmann returned to Berlin to report our conversation to the Reichsführer SS.
A few days later I sent: to the Reichsführer SS by courier a detailed location plan and description of the installation. I have never received an acknowledgment or a decision on my report. Eichmann told me later that the Reichsführer SS was in agreement with my proposals.
At the end of November a conference was held in Eich-mann’s Berlin office, attended by the entire Jewish Section, to which I, too, was summoned. Eichmann’s representatives in the various countries reported on the current stage of the operation and the difficulties encountered in executing it, such as the housing of the prisoners, the provision of trains for the transports and the planning of time-tables, etc. I could not find out when a start was to be made, and Eichmann had not yet discovered a suitable kind of gas.
In the autumn of 1941 a secret order was issued instructing the Gestapo to weed out the Russian politruks, commissars, and certain political officials from the prisoner-of-war camps, and to transfer them to the nearest concentration camp for liquidation. Small drafts of these prisoners were continually arriving in Auschwitz and they were shot in the gravel pit near the Monopoly buildings[106] or in the courtyard of block II. When I was absent on duty my representative, Hauptsturmführer Fritsch, on his own initiative, used gas for killing these Russian prisoners of war. He crammed the underground detention cells with Russians and, protected by a gas mask, discharged Cyclon B gas into the cells, killing the victims instantly.
Cyclon B gas was supplied by the firm of Tesch & Stabenow and was constantly used in Auschwitz for the destruction of vermin, and there was consequently always a supply of these tins of gas on hand. In the beginning, this poisonous gas, which was a preparation of prussic acid, was only handled by employees of Tesch & Stabenow under rigid safety precautions, but later some members of the Medical Service were trained by the firm in its use and thereafter the destruction of vermin and disinfection were carried out by them.
During Eichmann’s next visit I told him about this use of Cyclon B and we decided to employ it for the mass extermination operation.
The killing by Cyclon B gas of the Russian prisoners of war transported to Auschwitz was continued, but no longer in block II, since after the gassing the whole building had to be ventilated for at least two days.
The mortuary of the crematorium next to the hospital block was therefore used as a gassing room, after the door had been made gasproof and some holes had been pierced in the ceiling through which the gas could be discharged.
I can however only recall one transport consisting of nine hundred Russian prisoners being gassed there and I remember that it took several days to cremate their corpses. Russians were not gassed in the peasant farmstead which had now been converted for the extermination of the Jews.
I cannot say on what date the extermination of the Jews began. Probably it was in September 1941, but it may not have been until January 1942. The Jews from Upper Silesia were the first to be dealt with. These Jews were arrested by the Kattowitz Police Unit and taken in drafts by train to a siding on the west side of the Auschwitz-Dziedzice railroad line where they were unloaded. So far as I can remember, these drafts never consisted of more than 1,000 prisoners.
On the platform the Jews were taken over from the police by a detachment from the camp and were.brought by the commander of the protective custody camp in two sections to the bunker, as the extermination building was called.
Their luggage was left on the platform, whence it was taken to the sorting office called Canada situated between the DAW and the lumberyard.[107]
The Jews were made to undress near the bunker, after they had been told that they had to go into the rooms (as they were also called) in order to be deloused.
All the rooms, there were five of them, were filled at the same time, the gasproof doors were then screwed up and the contents of the gas containers discharged into the rooms through special vents.
After half an hour the doors were reopened (there were two doors in each room), the dead bodies were taken out, and brought to the pits in small trolleys which ran on rails.
The victims’ clothing was taken in trucks to the sorting office. The whole operation, including assistance given during undressing, the filling of the bunker, the emptying of the bunker, the removal of the corpses, as well as the preparation and filling up of the mass graves, was carried out by a special detachment of Jews, who were separately accommodated and who, in accordance with Eichmann’s orders, were themselves liquidated after every big action.
While the first transports were being disposed of, Eichmann arrived with an order from the Reichsführer SS stating that the gold teeth were to be removed from the corpses and the hair cut from the women. This job was also undertaken by the Special Detachment.
The extermination process was at that time carried out under the supervision of the commander of the protective custody camp or the Rapportführer. Those who were too ill to be brought into the gas chambers were shot in the back of the neck with a small-caliber weapon.
An SS doctor also had to be present. The trained disinfectors (SDG’s) were responsible for discharging the gas into the gas chamber.
106
Buildings in the base camp, where articles of clothing and equipment for the SS rank and file were stored.
107
After Auschwitz had been built, the German Armaments Works (DAW) built a branch factory inside the camp, where a labor force of up to 2,500 prisoners was employed.