Archive/File: camps/auschwitz auschwitz.010
Last-modified: 1993/12/18

From: dzk@cs.brown.edu (Danny Keren)
Newsgroups: soc.history,alt.censorship,alt.activism,alt.revisionism,alt.discrimination,alt.conspiracy,alt.politics.correct,alt.journalism.criticism,talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,soc.college,misc.headlines
Subject: Polish Doctors Tell of Murder of Children at Auschwitz (was: Re: AN
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Date: 8 Dec 1993 06:42:04 GMT

(Four Polish witnesses, three of them doctors, and two SS men, testify
about murder with phenol injections in Auschwitz.  Among the murdered
were 120 children from the village of Zamosc).

One of the common killing methods in Auschwitz was by phenol
injections.  All the following testimonies are excerpted from
"Auschwitz: the Proceeings Against Mulka and Others" by Bernd Nauman.
The SS men who usually did the killing were Hantl, Scherpe, and Klehr
(who also participated in the gassing operations).

Testimony of Professor Fejkiel from Cracow (Poland) who was arrested
by the Nazis and imprisoned in Auschwitz between October 1940 and
January 1945 (p.  153-4):

----------------------------------------------------------------------                                       

The witness reports that the experiments to kill prisoners with
injections were begun in 1942.

"First they tried benzine, but that turned out to be impractical.  I
know of a case where death did not occur for forty-five minutes.  They
looked for a quicker method.  The second medium was hydrogen; then
came phenolic acid".

First it was administered intravenously, then directly into the heart:
"I assume that the intravenous method took too long".

"Do you know who killed, where the murders took place, and how many
people were the victims of such injections?"

"I will begin with the number killed: I assume that about 30,000
people were killed in this fashion".

First came infirm Jews, then other hospital patients, then people not
hopitalized, including prisoners "which the Gestapo sent in a round-
about way".

"Who did the killing?"

"At first Dr.  Entress himself, then Klehr, and then - in this order -
Scherpe and Hantl.  Hantl did it rarely.  We thought of Hantl as a
decent man and were surprised that he did it".


Testimony of SS men Klehr (p. 71):
------------------------------------------
"How did you kill these prisoners?"
"Well, like before. With a shot of phenol into the heart".


SS men Schepre is asked about the murder of the Zamosc children (p. 79):
-----------------------------------------------------------------

According to testimony by numerous witnesses during the pretrial
hearing, at least 119 children were murdered with phenol injections in
the closing days of February, 1943.  Force was used to get them into
the executioner's chair, and Scherpe himself gave them the lethal
injection into their hearts.  It was so horrible that the "medic" ran
away in desperation.  The next day his colleague Hantl, a
co-defendant, murdered the remaining 80 children.

"You broke down and couldn't go on?" the judge asks.
"That is exaggerated. It isn't true".

Scherpe no longer wants to admit what he himself said earlier, that
the children, panic-stricken, had screamed.

"That is not so.  I didn't say that.  It is also not true.  They
suspected nothing.  They probably thought they were being inoculated".

The last boy waiting outside began to cry and called for his
companions who didn't return.  And that was the only indication the
defendant had that the children may have feared death.


Polish physician, Dr. Klodzinski, testifies about the murder of the 
Zamosc children (p. 152):
--------------------------------------------------------------------

"In the afternoon came the order to kill the children.  They were led
into the washroom, and told to undress and line up.  And then Scherpe
came; I still remember that".

Klodzinski speaks of the dead silence in Block 20 at that moment;
nothing was heard except thumps "- it was a muffled sound" - as the
heads and bodies of the slain children fell to the floor of the
washroom.

"Suddenly Scherpe came out of the room and said 'I can't anymore', and
left.  After a while Hantl took his place and and murdered the
remaining children".


Warsaw physician Dr. Glowacki testifies (p. 137-8):
---------------------------------------------------

"How many in your opinion were selected by the defendant [klehr] on
his own authority?"

"He certainly selected and killed more than 10,000".

[...]

But the witness saw how Scherpe "personally administered injections in
Block 20.  It happened during the murder of children from the vicinity
of Zamosc.  There were so many of them that they had to line them up
between the barracks.  Some of the children wee led into the area of
Block 20, where Scherpe killed them while the others were still
playing outside.  There were more than 100".

He remembers this case so well because Scherpe had suddenly paused.
"We thought he was conscience-stricken and that was the reason he
broke off in the middle of murdering the children.  I clearly remember
him stopping.  He left, and we never saw him again after that.  Hantl
took over.  Hantl finished the murder of the children".

Stanislaus Glowa testifies (p. 183-186):
----------------------------------------

Glowa, like many of the witnesses who preceded him, tells of the
"experimental gassing" at the end of 1941 in Block 11, of the slayings
with phenol, first at Block 28 and then in Block 20 of the prisoner
hospital.

"Klehr, Scherpe and Hantl regularly took part in the killings with
phenol.  But I would like to point out at this time, for the sake of
justice, if I had to set up a scale of responsibility, that the last-
named behaved like saints compared to Klehr".

[...]

The court also hears this witness tell of the fate of 120 boys from
the Polish village of Zamosc.  Their parents had been killed, and the
children were brought to Auschwitz, where, after a few weeks, it was
decided to kill them as well.  Work-detail leader Palitzch brought
them into the courtyard of the hospital on a February morning in 1943,
where the played and were given food by older prisoners. 

"They were hungry and frightened and told of having been beaten.  All
of us felt sorry for them.  Again and again they asked: 'Will we be
killed?  Why?'.  They had to wait a few hours to the end".

Prisoner-clerk Glowa sat in the aisle of hospital building 20, where
almost daily he crossed of the names of patients "injected" by Klehr
from the list of inmates.  Not far from where he sat was the curtain
behind which the victims had to stand in the corridor until a prisoner
took them into the "examination room" where Klehr was waiting for them
with his phenol injection.

"Scherpe and Hantl came in that afternoon, and they worked for a long
time.  In order to shorten the terrible torment of the children, I
would take them to the curtain and tell them they are going to be
bathed.  The first ones had screamed with terror in the room".

"Do you have children"?  Glowa asks in a breaking voice, and then
continues: "It was horrible.  Why did they kill us?  That is why I
helped, to shorten the torment.  After it was over I saw Hantl in a
state of complete collapse". 




The court at Frankfurt sentenced Klehr to life in prison, Scherpe to 4
years and 6 months, Hantl to 3 years and 6 months.  Since Hantl had
served his sentence in confinement awaiting trial, he left the court a
free man.

-Danny Keren.

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