Birkenau Extermination Camp
by Dr. Charles S. Bendel
The huge Birkenau extermination complex was established in
October 1941, not far from the extermination camp at Auschwitz.
At first I lived in the camp with the other prisoners, but later
on [I worked] in the crematorium itself. The first time I
started work there was in August 1944. No one was gassed on that
occasion, but 150 political prisoners, Russians and Poles, were
led one by one to the graves and there they were shot. Two days
later, when I was attached to the day group, I saw a gas chamber
in action. On that occasion it was the ghetto at Lodz - 80,000
people were gassed.
Would you describe just what happened that day?
I came at seven o'clock in the morning with the others and saw
white smoke still rising from the trenches, which indicated that
a whole transport had been liquidated or finished off during the
night. In Crematorium No. 4 the result which was achieved by
burning was apparently not sufficient. The work was not going on
quickly enough, so behind the crematorium they dug three large
trenches 12 meters long and 6 meters wide. After a bit it was
found that the results achieved even in these three big trenches
were not quick enough, so in the middle of these big trenches
they built two canals through which the human fat or grease
should seep so that work could be continued in a quicker way.
The capacity of these trenches was almost fantastic. Crematorium
No. 4 was able to burn 1000 people during the day, but this
system of trenches was able to deal with the same number in one
hour.
Will you describe the day's work?
At eleven o'clock in the morning the chief of the Political
Department arrived on his motor-cycle to tell us, as always, that
a new transport had arrived. The trenches which I described
before had to be prepared. They had to be cleaned out. Wood had
to be put in and petrol sprayed over so that it would burn
quicker. About twelve o'clock the new transport arrived,
consisting of some 800 to 1000 people. These people had to
undress themselves in the court of the crematorium and were
promised a bath and hot coffee afterwards. They were given
orders to put their things on one side and all the valuables on
the other. Then they entered a big hall and were told to wait
until the gas arrived. Five or ten minutes later the gas
arrived, and the strongest insult to a doctor and to the idea of
the Red Cross was that it came in a Red Cross ambulance. Then
the door was opened and the people were crowded into the gas
chambers which gave the impression that the roof was falling on
their heads, as it was so low. With blows from different kinds
of sticks they were forced to go in and stay there, because when
they realized that they were going to their death they tried to
come out again. Finally, they succeeded in locking the doors.
One heard cries and shouts and they started to fight against each
other, knocking on the walls. This went on for two minutes and
then there was complete silence. Five minutes later the doors
were opened, but it was quite impossible to go in for another
twenty minutes. Then the Special Kommandos started work. When
the doors were opened a crowd of bodies fell out because they
were compressed so much. They were quite contracted, and it was
almost impossible to separate one from the other. One got the
impression that they fought terribly against death. Anybody who
has ever seen a gas chamber filled to the height of one and half
meters with corpses will never forget it. At this moment the
proper work of the Sonderkommandos starts. They have to drag out
the bodies which are still warm and covered with blood, but
before they are thrown into the ditches they have still to pass
through the hands of the barber and the dentist, because the
barber cuts the hair off and the dentist has to take out all the
[gold-filled] teeth. The Sonderkommandos try to work as fast as
possible. They drag the corpses by their wrists in furious
haste. People who had human faces before, I cannot recognize
them again. A barrister from Salonica, an electrical engineer
from Budapest - they are no longer human beings. During the time
this is going on [the Sonderkommandos] continue to shoot people
in front of these ditches, people who could not be got into the
gas chambers because they were overcrowded. After an hour and as
half the whole work has been done and a new transport has been
dealt with in Crematorium No. 4.
from John Carey (ed), Eyewitness to History, New York: Avon,
l987, pp. 604-606.