History Forum / General / General Topics / July 2008

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
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  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
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  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.
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  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
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  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