Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Maidanek: The Coverup Attempts (6 of 7) Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Nizkor Project http://www.nizkor.org Keywords: Lublin,Maidanek ------------------------------------------------------------pg 18-- VI. THE GERMAN BUTCHERS TRIED TO COVER UP THE TRACES OF THEIR HEINOUS CRIMES In the initial period of the existence of the Majdanek Camp the Germans buried the bodies of all those they shot and tortured to death. Later, and particularly in 1943 and 1944, they burnt the bodies, exhuming them from the pits in which the victims had been previously buried. Already in the beginning of 1942 two furnaces for burning corpses were erected within the precincts ofthe camp. Owing to the extremely large number of corpses that had to be dealt with, the Germans, in 1942, began to erect a large new crematorium with five incinerators. This crematorium was completed in the autumn of 1943. The furnaces were in continuous operation. The temperature in them could be raised to *** 1500=B0 C. To enable the largest possible number of corpses to he inserted into the furnaces thc corpses were dismembered, in particular, the extremities of the corpses were hacked off. The Committee of Technical Experts which carefully examined the construction of the furnaces found as folIows: "The furnaces were intended for the purpose of incinerating corpses and were calculated to work continuously. Each furnace was capable of holding four corpses at a time if the extremities were hacked off. The time taken to incinerate four corpses was fifteen minutes, which, working night and day, made it possible to incinerate one thousand nine hundred and twenty corpses in twenty-four hours. Judging by the large quantity of bones discovered in all parts of the camp (in pits, vegetable plots and under manure heaps), the Committee of Experts is of the opinion that bones were removed from the furnace before the time necessary for their complete incineration had expired, as a consequence of which the number of corpses incinerated in the twenty-four hours was far larger than one thousand nine hundred and twenty." ------------------------------------------------------------pg 19-- The Committee established that for a long time, particularly during the past two years, the Germans, in addition to burning corpses in special furnaces, widely resorted to the practice of burning corpses on bonfires within the precincts of the camp as well as in the Krembecki-Woods. On stacks of rails or on the chassis of automobiles, which served as grates, planks were placed; on the planks was placed a layer of corpses; then came another layer of planks and another layer of corpses, until from five hundred to one thousand corpses were piled up. An inflammable liquid was then poured over the entire pile and set alight. Each fire burnt for forty-eight hours. The witnesses Hospodarek and Matyasek, inhabitants of the village of Dziesiata (near the Majdanek Camp) and the village of Krembec, stated that they had seen gigantic bonfires in the camp and in the Krembecki Woods on which the bodies of the people who had been shot and tortured to death by the Germans were burnt. Within the precincts of the "Extermination Camp" and in the Krembecki Woods a large number of places was found where the burning of corpses had taken place. In one of the trenches within the camp the chassis of an automobile on which corpses had been burnt was discovered after excavation. After the exposure of the atrocities perpetrated by the Germans in the Katyn Woods, the Hitlerites set to work with increased energy to disinter the corpses from the pits and trenches, and burn them. The Committee of Medical Experts opened twenty pits of this kind; eighteen within the precincts of the Majdanek Camp and two in the Krembecki Woods. In some of the pits a large number of corpses were found which the Germans had not managed to burn. Thus, as the result of excavations made in pit No. 1 near the crematorium, forty two corpses were discovered; in pit No. 19 in the Krembecki Woods three hundred and sixty-eight bodies of men, women and children were found. 2* ------------------------------------------------------------pg 20-- In other pits a large number of completely decayed corpses and skeletons were found. In a number of pits a vast quanitity of bones was found. To conceal the gigantic dimensions of their wholesale massacre of human beings, the Hitler fiends buried the ashes in pits and trenches, scattered them over a large part of the camp vegetable plots, and, mixing the ashes with dung, used them as manure for the fields. Within the precincts of the "Extermination Camp" the Committee found over one thousand three hundred and fifty cubic metres of compost consisting of dung, the ashes of incinerated corpses and small human bones. The Hitlerites resorted to the grinding up of small bones in a special "mill." A detailed description of this mill was given by the witness Stetdiener, a Diesel mechanic by trade, whom the Germans compelled to work this "mill." Lieutenant General Hilmar Moser, of the German army, ex-Military Commandant of Lublin, stated the following: "I have no reasons for hushing or covering up the heinous crimes committed by Hitler, and I regard it as my duty to tell the whole truth about the so-called "Extermination Camp" the Hitlerites established along the Cholm Road, near Lublin. "In the winter of 1943-44 a large number of the prisoners-among whom, to my great indignation, were women and children-were exterminated there. "The number of killed was round about one hundred thousand. "Part of the unfortunate people were shot and part put to death by means of gas. "Furthermore, I was told more than once that condenmed people in the 'Extermination Camp' were compelled to perform extremely heavy work, far beyond their strength, and were goaded on by extremely cruel beatings. "I learned with indignation that before they were put to death the prisoners in this camp were tortured and tormented. ------------------------------------------------------------pg 21-- "Last spring an incalcuable number of corpses were exhumed and burned in furnaces specially built for the purpose, evidently with the object of wiping out the traces of the crimes committed by Hitler's orders. "These huge furnaces were built of bricks and iron and constituted a crematorium of a large capacity. Often the stench from the corpses reached the city, at least the east end of it, and consequently, even less informed people realized what was going on in that frightful place. . . . "The fact that the activities of the 'Extermination Camp' were directed by the Hitler government is proved by the visit Himmler himself paid to the camp when he came to Lublin in the summer of 1943." The Committee established the fact that in the crematorium alone over six hundred thousand bodies were burnt; on gigantic bonfires in the Krembecki Woods over three hundred thousand corpses were burnt; in the two old furnaces over eighty thousand corpses were burnt; on bonfires in the camp near the crematorium no less than four hundred thousand corpses were burnt. With the object of covering up the traces of their crimes the Germans killed the attendants, prisoners in the camp, of the gas chamber and crematorium. As a result of a thorough investigation of numerous affidavits by medical experts and material proof, the aforesaid Committee of Medical Experts under the chairmanship of Professor Szyling-Syngalewicz, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at the Lublin Catholic Univcrsity, found that: "During the whole period of four years that the Lublin Majdanek Camp was in existence, a deliberate and consistent system operated for the premeditated, wholesale extermination of people, both prisoners in the camp as well as people especially brought there for the purpose of extermination."
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