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...In
Lublin, SS Gruppenfuehrer Globocnik was waiting for us.
He said: This is one of the most highly secret matters there
are, perhaps the most secret. Anybody who speaks about it is
shot dead immediately. Two talkative people died yesterday.
Then he explained to us that, at the present moment -
August 17, 1942 - there were the following
installations:
1.
Belzec, on the Lublin-Lvov road, in the sector of the Soviet
Demarcation Line. Maximum per day: 15,000 persons (I saw it!).
2.
Sobibor, I am not familiar with the exact situation, I did not
visit it. 20,000 persons per day.
3.
Treblinka, 120 km. NNE of Warsaw, 25,000 per day, saw it!
4.
Majdanek, near Lublin, which I saw when it was being built.
Globocnik
said: You will have very large quantities of clothes to
disinfect, 10 or 20 times as much as the "Textiles
Collection," which is only being carried out in order to
camouflage the origin of the Jewish, Polish, Czech and other
items of clothing. Your second job is to convert the
gas-chambers, which have up to now been operated with exhaust
gases from an old Diesel engine, to a more poisonous and
quicker means, cyanide. But the Fuehrer and Himmler, who were
here on August 15, the day before yesterday, that is, gave
orders that I am myself to accompany all persons who visit the
installations. Professor Pfannenstiel replied, "But what
does the Fuehrer say?" Then Globocnik, who is now Higher
SS and Police Leader in Trieste on the Adriatic Coast, said:
"The whole Aktion must be carried out much
faster." Ministerial Director Dr. Herbert Lindner
[Linden] of the Ministry of the Interior suggested,
"Would it not be better to incinerate the bodies instead
of burying them? Another generation might perhaps think
differently about this?" Then Globocnik, "But,
Gentlemen, if we should ever be succeeded by so cowardly and
weak a generation that it does not understand our work, which
is so good and so necessary, then, Gentlemen, the whole of
National Socialism will have been in vain. On the contrary,
one should bury bronze plaques [with the bodies], on which is
inscribed that it was we, we who had the courage to complete
this gigantic task." Hitler said to this, "Well, my
good Globocnik, you have said it, and that is my opinion,
too."
The
next day we moved on to Belzec. There is a separate little
station with two platforms, at the foot of the hill of yellow
standstone, due north of the Lublin-Lvov road and rail line.
To the south of the station, near the main road, there are
several office buildings with the inscription "Belzec
Office of the Waffen-SS" [Military Unit of the
SS]. Globocnik introduced me to SS Hauptsturmfuehrer
Obermeyer from Pirmasens, who showed me the installations very
much against his will. There were no dead to be seen that day,
but the stench in the whole area, even on the main road, was
pestilent. Next to the small station there was a large barrack
labeled "Dressing Room," with a window that
said "Valuables," and also a hall with 100
"Barber's Chairs." Then there was a passage 150 m.
long, in the open, enclosed with barbed wire on either side,
and signs inscribed "To the Baths and Inhalation
Installations." In front of us there was a house, the
bathhouse, and to the right and left large concrete flower
pots with geraniums or other flowers. After climbing a few
steps there were three rooms each, on the right and on the
left. They looked like garages, 4 by 5 m. and 1.90 m. high. At
the back, out of sight, there were doors of wood. On the roof
there was a Star of David made of copper. The front of the
building bore a notice "Heckenholt Institution."
That is all I saw that afternoon.
Next
morning, a few minutes before 7 o'clock, I was told that the
first train would arrive in 10 minutes. And in fact the first
train from Lvov arrived a few minutes later. There were 45
carriages with 6,700 persons, of whom 1,450 were already dead
on arrival. Through small openings closed with barbed wire one
could see yellow, frightened children, men, and women. The
train stopped, and 200 Ukrainians, who were forced to perform
this service, tore open the doors and chased the people from
the carriages with whips. Then instructions were given through
a large loudspeaker: The people are to take off all their
clothes out of doors and a few of them in the barracks,
including artificial limbs and glasses. Shoes must be tied in
pairs with a little piece of string handed out by a small
four-year-old Jewish boy. All valuables and money are to be
handed in at the window marked "Valuables," without
any document or receipt being given. The women and girls must
then go to the barber, who cuts off their hair with one or two
snips. The hair disappears into large potato sacks, "to
make something special for the submarines, to seal them and so
on," the duty SS Unterscharfuehrer explained to
me.
Then
the march starts: Barbed wire to the right and left and two
dozen Ukrainians with rifles at the rear. They came on, led by
an exceptionally pretty girl. I myself was standing with
Police Captain Wirth in front of the death chambers. Men,
women, children, infants, people with amputated legs, all
naked, completely naked, moved past us. In one corner there is
a whimsical SS man who tells these poor people in an unctuous
voice, "Nothing at all will happen to you. You must just
breathe deeply, that strengthens the lungs; this inhalation is
necessary because of the infectious diseases, it is good
disinfection!" When somebody asks what their fate will
be, he explains that the men will of course have to work,
building streets and houses. But the women will not have to
work. If they want to, they can help in the house or the
kitchen. A little glimmer of hope flickers once more in some
of these poor people, enough to make them march unresisting
into the death chambers. But most of them understand what is
happening; the smell reveals their fate! Then they climb up a
little staircase and see the truth. Nursing mothers with an
infant at the breast, naked; many children of all ages, naked.
They hesitate, but they enter the death chambers, most of them
silent, forced on by those behind them, who are driven by the
whip lashes of the SS men. A Jewish woman of about 40, with
flaming eyes, calls down [revenge] for the blood of her
children on the head of the murderers. Police Captain Wirth in
person strikes her in the face 5 times with his whip, and she
disappears into the gas chamber....
PS-1553.
*
Gerstein wrote down his evidence on May 26, 1945. |
