Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Maidanek: Asphyxiation by Gas (5 of 7) Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Nizkor Project http://www.nizkor.org Keywords: Lublin,Maidanek V. ASPHYXIATION BY GAS One of the most widespread methods of exterminating people resorted to in the Majdanck Camp was asphyxiation by gas. The Committee of Technical and Chemical Experts under the Chairmanship of Kelles-Krause, Engineer-Architect of the City of Lublin, and consisting of Engineer Major ------------------------------------------------------------pg 14-- Telaner, Docent; Grigoriev, B.M.E.; and Pelkis, B.M.E., found that the chambers erected within the precincts of tbe camp were mainly utilized for the purpose of the wholesale extermination of people. There were six such chambers in all. Some of them were adapted to the purpose of putting people to death by means of carbon monoxide; the others were adapted to the purpose of putting people to death with the aid of a poisonous chemical substance known as "Cyklon." Within the precincts of the camp were found five hundred and thirty-five canisters containing the substance "Cyklon B," and several containers with carbon monoxide. The chemical analysis revealed the following: "The contents of the canisters were tested for the presence of prussic acid by the reaction of the formation of Prussian blue with the aid of benzidino-acinate indicator paper and picric sodium. Samples were taken from eighteen canisters and forty-eight-separate reactions were produced. All the tests gave positive results showing the presence of prussic acid with the aforesaid reagents. . . . Thus, the contents of the canisters that were examined consist of the substance 'Cyklon B' which is a specially prepared kieselghur in the form of granules up to one cm., impregnated with liquid stabilized prussic acid. The contents of the canisters found in large numbers in the camp bearing the label 'Cyklon' are identical with 'Cyklon-B'. . . . Samples of the gas taken from the containers were tested for carbon monoxide with the aid of reactions to iodinc pentoxide and palladious chloride indicator paper. In all, sixteen tests were made with iodine pentoxide and ten were made with palladious chloride indicator paper. All the tests made with the aforesaid reagents gave positive reactions to carbon monoxide." On the basis of a precise calculation of a technical examination of the gas chambers, a chemical analysis of the carbon monoxide and the substance known as "Cyklon" the Committee of Experts found the following: "The technical and sanitary-chemical inspection of the ------------------------------------------------------------pg 15-- gas chambers at the Majdanek Concentration Camp wholly confirmed the fact that all these chambers, particularly I, II, III and IV, were intended and utilized for the purpose of the wholesale and systematic extermination of people by poisoning with the aid of poisonous gases such as: prussic acid (the substancc known as 'Cyklon'), and carbon monoxide." By utilizing all tbe chambers adapted for the purpose of poisoning simultaneously, it was possible to put to death one thousund nine hundred and fourteen persons at a time. It has been established that in these gas chambers were put to death all the prisoners who were exhausted by starvation and enfeebled by exhausting labour and the severity of the camp regime, all those unfit for physical work, all those who fell sick with typhus, and all others whom the Germans deemed it necessary to put to death. During the course of investigation numerous cases of the wholesale poisoning of prisoners in the gas chamhers of Majdanek were established. The witness Stanislawski informed the Commission of the following: "In March 1943, three hundred Poles were put to death in the gas chamber. On June 20, 1943, three hundred and fifty persons were stripped naked in field No. 1 and taken to the bathhouse. From there they were taken into the gas chamber, where they were asphyxiated. On October 14, 1943, two hundred and seventy persons were put to death in this way." The witness Zelent quoted the case of the asphyxiation by means of gas of eighty-seven Poles on March 15, 1944. Another witness, Jan Wolski, a Pole, formerly a prisoner at the camp, testified to the wholesale asphyxiation of people with gas. "In October 1942," he stated, "a large number of women and children were brought to the camp. The healthy ones were picked out for work, while the feeble ones, the sick and the children were asphyxiated in the gas chambers. ------------------------------------------------------------pg 16-- In March l943, another two hundred and fifty women and children were exterminated in the same chamber, and several days later another three hundred persons of different nationalities were exterminated in this same way. On May 16, or 17, 1943, one hundred and fifty-eight children of ages ranging from two to ten were brought to the camp in motor trucks. These children were put to death in the gas chanber. In June 1943, the camp administration collected all the sick prisoners of war and civilian prisoners to the number of about six hundred and put them all to death the gas chamber." Evidence concerning the wholesale asphyxiation of people by means of gases was given at the meeting of the Commission by German SS men who had served in the camp. Rottenfuhrer SS Hensche stated that on September 15, 1942, three hundred and fifty persons including women and children, were put to death in the gas chambers. Oberscharfuehrer SS Terner informed the Commission of the case which occurred on October 16, 1943, of the asphyxiation in gas chambers of five hundred persons, including many women and children. The selection of people to be put to death by asphyxiation was systematically made by the German camp doctors Blanke and Rindfleisch. The aforesaid Ternes stated: "In the evening of October 21, 1943, camp doctor Untersturmfuehrer SS Rindfleisch told me that that day three hundred children of ages ranging from three to ten were asphyxiated in the gas chamber with the substance 'Cyklon'." The corpses were systematically removed from the gas chamber to be incinerated in the crematorium, or on bonfires. The corpses were transported on special lorries hauled by tractors. This is testified to by numerous eyewitnesses. German prisoner of war, Rottensfuehrer SS Theodor Schollen, who served in the camp, stated: "I often saw this machine with trailers going to and fro ------------------------------------------------------------pg 17-- between the gas chambers and the crematorium. It came from the gas chamber loaded with corpses and went back empty." The Polish-Soviet Extraordinary Commission has established that in addition to the gas chambers, the Germans in Lublin utilized special automobiles known as "murder vans" for the purpose of putting people to death. The witnesses-Stetdiener, an ex-soldier of the Polish army, and Atrokhov, a Soviet prisoner of war, gave a detailed description of the machine in which the German fiends asphyxiated their victims with the aid of the exhaust gas from the engine. The discovery within the precincts of the camp of a number of corpses bearing the characteristic symptoms of poisoning by carbon monoxide confirms the fact that the Germans utilized carbon monoxide for the purpose of putting prisoners to death. The aforementioned Committee of Medical Experts expressed the opinion that: "The extermination of prisoners in the concentration camp was accomplished by different methods. In the initial period of the camp's existence the Hitlerites mainly resorted to wholesale shooting. Later, they also resorted to the wholesale poisoning of people in specially built gas chambers by means of powerful poisonous substances such as prussic acid (the substance known as 'Cyklon') and carbon monoxide." Thus, the evidence of numerous eyewitnesses, the findings of the Committee of Medical Experts and the Committee of Technical and Chemical Experts prove that for nearly three years the Hitler butchers in the Majdanek Camp Systematically carried out the wholesale asphyxiation with the aid of gases of hundreds of thousands of totally innocent people, including aged people, women and children. 2-1966
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