Globocnik then said: “You will have to handle the sterilization of very
large quantities of clothes, 10 or 20 times the amount of the clothing
and textile collection, which is only arranged in order to conceal the
source of these Jewish, Polish, Czech, and other clothes. Your other
duties will be to change the method of our gas chambers (which are run
at the present time with the exhaust gases of an old Diesel engine),
using more poisonous material, having a quicker effect: prussic acid.
But the Fuehrer and Himmler, who were here on August 15, the day before
yesterday, ordered that I personally should accompany all those who are
to see the installations.”
Then Professor Pfannenstiel asked: “What does the Fuehrer say?” Then
Globocnik, now Chief of Police and SS, from the Adriatic Riviera to
Trieste, answered: “Quicker, quicker! Carry out the whole program!” And
then Dr. Herbert Linden, Ministerialdirektor in the Ministry of the
Interior said: “But would it not be better to burn the bodies instead of
burying them? A future generation might think differently of these
matters!” * * * Globocnik replied: “But, gentlemen, if after us such a
cowardly and rotten generation should arise that it does not understand
our work which is so good and so necessary, then, gentlemen, all
National Socialism will have been for nothing. On the contrary, bronze
plaques should be put up with the inscription that it was we, we who had
the courage to achieve this gigantic task. And Hitler said: ‘Yes, my
good Globocnik, that is the word, that is my opinion, too.’”
The next day we left for Belcec, a small special station of two
platforms against a hill of yellow sand, immediately to the north of the
Lublin-Lvov road and railway. To the south, near the road were some
service houses with a signboard: “Belcec, Service Center of the Waffen
SS.” Globocnik introduced me to SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Obermeyer from
Pirmasens, who with great restraint showed me the installations. No dead
were to be seen that day but the smell of the whole region, even from
the main road, was pestilential. Next to the small station there was a
large barrack marked “Cloakroom,” and a door marked “Valuables.” Next to
that, a chamber with a hundred “barber’s” chairs. Then came a corridor,
150 meters long, in the open air and with barbed wire on both sides.
There was a signboard: “To the baths and inhalations”! Before us we saw
a house, like a bathhouse, with concrete troughs to the right and left
containing geraniums or other flowers. After climbing a small staircase,
we came to 3 garage-like rooms on each side, 4 × 5 meters in size and
1.90 meters high. At the back were invisible wooden doors. On the roof
was a Star of David made out of copper. At the entrance to the building
was the inscription, “Heckenholt Foundation.” That was all I noticed on
that particular afternoon.
Next morning, a few minutes before 7, I was informed that in 10 minutes
the first train would arrive. And indeed, a few minutes later the first
train came in from Lemberg [Lvov]; 45 cars, containing 6,700 persons,
1,450 of whom were already dead on arrival. Behind the little
barbed-wire openings were children, yellow, half scared to death, women,
and men. The train stopped; 200 Ukrainians, forced to do this work,
opened the doors and drove all the people out of the coaches with
leather whips. Then, through a huge loud-speaker, instructions were
given to them to undress completely and to hand over false teeth and
glasses—some in the barracks, others right in the open air. Shoes were
to be tied together with a little piece of string handed to everyone by
a small Jewish boy of 4 years of age; all valuables and money were to be
handed in at the window marked “Valuables”, without receipt. Then the
women and girls were to go to the hairdresser who cut off their hair in
one or two strokes, after which it vanished into huge potato bags “to be
used for special submarine equipment, door mats, etc.”, as the SS
Unterscharfuehrer on duty told me.
Then the march began. To the right and left, barbed wire; behind, two
dozen Ukrainians with guns. Led by a young girl of striking beauty they
approached. With Police Captain Wirth, I stood right in front of the
death chambers. Completely naked, they marched by, men, women, girls,
children, babies, even one-legged persons, all of them naked. In one
corner, a strong SS man told the poor devils in a strong deep voice:
“Nothing whatever will happen to you. All you have to do is to breathe
deeply; it strengthens the lungs. This inhalation is a necessary measure
against contagious diseases; it is a very good disinfectant!” Asked what
was to become of them, he answered: “Well, of course the men will have
to work, building streets and houses. But the women do not have to. If
they wish they can help in the house or the kitchen.” Once more, a
little bit of hope for some of these poor people, enough to make them
march on without resistance to the death chambers. Most of them, though,
knew everything, the smell had given them a clear indication of their
fate. And then they walked up the little staircase—and behold the
picture: Mothers with babies at their breasts, naked, lots of children
of all ages, naked too; they hesitate, but they enter the gas chambers,
most of them, without a word, pushed by the others behind them, chased
by the whips of the SS men. A Jewess of about 40 years of age, with eyes
like torches, calls down the blood of her children on the heads of their
murderers. Five lashes in her face, dealt by the whip of Police Captain
Wirth himself, drive her into the gas chamber. Many of them say their
prayers; others ask, “Who will give us the water for our death?” Within
the chambers, the SS press the people closely together; Captain Wirth
had ordered “Fill them up full.” Naked men stand on the feet of the
others. 700-800 crushed together on 25 square meters, in 45 cubic
meters! The doors are closed!
Meanwhile the rest of the transport, all naked, waited. Somebody said to
me: “Naked, in winter! Enough to kill them!” The answer was: “Well,
that’s just what they are here for!” And at that moment I understood why
it was called the Heckenholt Foundation. Heckenholt was the man in
charge of the Diesel engine, the exhaust gases of which were to kill
these poor devils. SS Unterscharfuehrer Heckenholt tried to set the
Diesel engine going, but it would not start! Captain Wirth came along.
It was obvious that he was afraid because I was a witness of this
breakdown. Yes, indeed, I saw everything and waited. Everything was
registered by my stop watch. 50 minutes—70 minutes—the Diesel engine
did not start! The people waited in their gas chambers—in vain. One
could hear them cry. “Just as in a synagogue,” says SS Sturmbannfuehrer
Professor Dr. Pfannenstiel, Professor for Public Health at the
University of Marburg/Lahn, holding his ear close to the wooden door!
Captain Wirth, furious, dealt the Ukrainian who was helping Heckenholt
11 or 12 lashes in the face with his whip. After 2 hours and 49
minutes—as registered by my stop watch—the Diesel engine started. Up
to that moment the people in the four chambers already filled were still
alive—4 times 750 persons in 4 times 45 cubic meters! Another 25
minutes went by. Many of the people, it is true, were dead by that time.
One could see that through the little window as the electric lamp
revealed for a moment the inside of the chamber. After 28 minutes only a
few were alive. After 32 minutes all were dead! From the other side,
Jewish workers opened the wooden doors. In return for their terrible
job, they had been promised their freedom and a small percentage of the
valuables and the money found. The dead were still standing like stone
statues, there having been no room for them to fall or bend over. Though
dead, the families could still be recognized, their hands still clasped.
It was difficult to separate them in order to clear the chamber for the
next load. The bodies were thrown out blue, wet with sweat and urine,
the legs covered with excrement and menstrual blood. Everywhere among
the others were the bodies of babies and children. But there is no
time!—Two dozen workers were busy checking the mouths, opening them
with iron hooks—“Gold on the left, no gold on the right!” Others
checked anus and genitals to look for money, diamonds, gold, etc.
Dentists with chisels tore out gold teeth, bridges, or caps. In the
center of everything was Captain Wirth. He was on familiar ground here.
He handed me a large tin full of teeth and said: “Estimate for yourself
the weight of gold! This is only from yesterday and the day before! And
you would not believe what we find here every day! Dollars, diamonds,
gold! But look for yourself!” Then he led me to a jeweler who was in
charge of all these valuables. After that they took me to one of the
managers of the big store, Kaufhaus des Westens, in Berlin, and to a
little man whom they made play the violin. Both were chiefs of the
Jewish worker units. “He is a captain of the Royal and Imperial Austrian
Army, and has the German Iron Cross 1st Class,” I was told by
Hauptsturmbannfuehrer Obermeyer.
The bodies were then thrown into large ditches about 100 × 20 × 12
meters located near the gas chambers. After a few days the bodies would
swell up and the whole contents of the ditch would rise 2-3 meters high
because of the gases which developed inside the bodies. After a few more
days the swelling would stop and the bodies would collapse. The next day
the ditches were filled again, and covered with 10 centimeters of sand.
A little later, I heard, they constructed grills out of rails and burned
the bodies on them with Diesel oil and gasoline in order to make them
disappear. At Belcec and Treblinka nobody bothered to take anything
approaching an exact count of the persons killed. Actually, not only
Jews, but many Poles and Czechs, who, in the opinion of the Nazis, were
of bad stock, were killed. Most of them died anonymously. Commissions of
so-called doctors, who were actually nothing but young SS men in white
coats, rode in limousines through the towns and villages of Poland and
Czechoslovakia to select the old, tubercular, and sick people and have
them done away with shortly afterwards in the gas chambers. They were
the Poles and Czechs of category No. III, who did not deserve to live
because they were unable to work. Police Captain Wirth asked me not to
propose any other kind of gas chamber in Berlin, but to leave everything
the way it was. I lied—as I did in each case all the time—and said
that the prussic acid had already deteriorated in shipping and had
become very dangerous, that I was therefore obliged to bury it. This was
done right away. The next day, Captain Wirth’s car took us to Treblinka,
about 75 miles NNE of Warsaw. The installations of this death center
scarcely differed from those at Belcec, but they were even larger. There
were eight gas chambers and whole mountains of clothes and underwear
about 35-40 meters high. Then a banquet was given in our “honor,”
attended by all the employees of the institution. The
Obersturmbannfuehrer, Professor Pfannenstiel, Hygiene Professor at the
University of Marburg/Lahn, made a speech: “Your task is a great duty, a
duty useful and necessary.” To me alone he talked of this institution in
terms of “beauty of the task”; “humane cause”; and speaking to all of
them he said: “Looking at the bodies of these Jews, one understands the
greatness of your good work!”
* * * * *
TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NO-365
PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 507
UNSIGNED DRAFT LETTER FROM DR. WETZEL TO ROSENBERG, 25 OCTOBER 1941,
DEALING WITH BRACK’S COLLABORATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF GAS CHAMBERS
FOR THE EXTERMINATION OF JEWS
“Draft” [penciled notation]
Reich Ministry for the Occupied Territories
Referent AGR. Dr. Wetzel
Berlin, 25 October 1941
Secret
Re: Solution of the Jewish Question.
To the Reich Commissioner for the East.
Re: Your Report of 4 October 1941 Concerning Solution of the
Jewish Question.
Referring to my letter of 18 October 1941, you are informed that
Oberdienstleiter Brack of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer has declared
himself ready to collaborate in the manufacture of the necessary
shelters as well as the gassing apparatus. At the present time, the
apparatus in question are not on hand in the Reich in sufficient number;
they will first have to be manufactured. Since in Brack’s opinion the
manufacture of the apparatus in the Reich will cause more difficulty
than if manufactured on the spot, Brack deems it most expedient to send
his people directly to Riga, especially his chemist Dr. Kallmeyer, who
will have everything further done there. Oberdienstleiter Brack points
out that the process in question is not without danger, so special
protective measures are necessary. Under these circumstances, I beg you
to turn to Oberdienstleiter Brack, in the Chancellery of the Fuehrer,
through your Higher SS and Police Leader, and to request the dispatch of
the chemist Dr. Kallmeyer, as well as of further aides. I draw attention
to the fact that Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, the Referent for Jewish
questions in the RSHA, is in agreement with this process. On information
from Sturmbannfuehrer Eichmann, camps for Jews are to be set up in Riga
and Minsk to which Jews from the old Reich territory may possibly be
sent. At the present time, Jews being deported from the old Reich are to
be sent to Litzmannstadt [Lodz], but also to other camps, to be later
used as labor in the East, so far as they are able to work.
As affairs now stand, there are no objections against doing away with
those Jews who are not able to work—with the Brack remedy. In this way
occurrences would no longer be possible such as those which, according
to a report presently before me, took place at the shooting of Jews in
Vilna [Vilnyus] and which, considering that the shootings were public,
were hardly excusable. Those able to work, on the other hand, will be
transported to the East for labor service. It is self-understood that
among the Jews capable of work, men and women are to be kept separate.