“..valuables found were placed in a special suitcase. It was not ..SS men who searched through ..corpses. They just attentively watched ..Ukrainians doing it. After ..bodies had been searched ..they were placed in trenches in layers. They were placed very tightly in layers facing down in such a way that someone’s head touched someone else’s feet. They had not been stripped of their underwear. ..trench was 6 metres deep ..6 ..7 metres wide. ..at ..top.” Michal Podchelbnik.
Those Jews of Europe, prior to Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, and who documented their Evidence for us, did so unaware that Hitler had defined their presence as intrusive, unwarranted and ultimately unessential. That overall assessment, and not just here at Chelmno, where the following Testimony of the Truth, for what emerged finally as a Death Camp’s place within The Holocaust, forms an Evidence history will acknowledge. The Jewish People knew something immeasurable was emerging, a terrible sense of wrong that was being correlated and orchestrated, but unsure how dark the period would be. Before 6,000,000 Jews of Europe failed to Survive, the Jewish People lived with the idea that all Civilisation could allow for anyone to stoop to the depths proposed by Hitler. However, what The Holocaust has proved, after the initial confining and the emerging Catastrophe for those Murdered Jews of Europe, is the range of irrefutable and documented Evidence that is the proof which is Truthful. Part of that assessment amounts to only a proportion of the Catastrophe we know!
Belzec 600,000
Birkenau (Auschwitz) 1,100,000
Chelmno 152,000
Majdanek, 200,000
Sobibor 250,000
Treblinka 900,000
Sub-Total 3,202,000 Jews Murdered in The Death Camps alone!
Here we have the relevant information garnered from many sources as to the commissioning of Hitler’s Final Solution in the 6 Death Camps Hitler had established in Poland. Those who doubt the Truth, are both an irrelevance with an assertion that affords nothing other than distortion and a methodology which seeks to exonerate Hitler from the midst of The Holocaust. For History to be wrong on this, 6,000,000 Jews would still be alive and 50/70 Million people would not form the death toll for WWII. The Evidence that has been gifted to us, and from many of those still within The Holocaust, lends us the dimension of proof we never owned!
For whatever reason? History chose Me or I chose The Holocaust to find the commentary required by Humanity to speak humanely of those Jews. In that certainty that 6,000,000 Jews of Europe were selected, systematically and maliciously, that they were Slaughtered is their space to find our Humanity which we all have but lost?
“..extermination camp was made up of ..so called ‘castle’ and ..camp in ..woods. ..castle was a fairly large stone building at ..edge of ..village of Kulmhof. It was there that ..Jews who had been transported by lorry or railway were first brought. ..When a lorry arrived ..following members of ..ss Sonderkommando addressed ..Jews ..Camp Kommandant Bothmann ..Untersturmfuhrer Albert Plate from North Germany ..Polizeimeister Willy Lenz from Silesia ..Polizeimeister Alois Haeberle from Wuerttenberg. They explained to ..Jews that they would first of all be given a bath and deloused in Kulmhof and then sent to Germany to work. ..Jews then went inside ..castle. There they had to get undressed. After this they were sent through a passage way on to a ramp to ..castle yard where ..gas van was parked. ..back door of ..van would be open. ..Jews were made to get inside ..van. This job was done by 3 Poles ..who I believe were sentenced to death. ..Poles hit ..Jews with whips if they did not get into ..gas vans fast enough. When all ..Jews were inside ..door was bolted. ..driver then switched on ..engine ..crawled under ..van and connected a pipe from ..exhaust to ..inside of ..van. ..exhaust fumes now poured into ..inside of ..truck so that ..people inside were suffocated.” SS Scharfuhrer Theodor Malzmueller.
In sure and certain hope that I have found the deepest meaning and understanding for mending what the past can reach through the present to afford us a better future, I encounter Survivors who know best the lessons of the History I have been engaged in! So from those deafened and muted bystanders who witnessed the terms of The Holocaust, as it occurred, they now lend us their statements. For the commissioning act of such depravity engaged by those Perpetrators immersed fully in the atrocity of The Holocaust, we hear their testimony. From those Survivors who were so steeped in the terror, horror and the abject despair that is The Holocaust, we have a coming together of all strands of a very detailed and compiled historical Evidence. The proof is substantive, it is an accumulation of what we know is The Holocaust. Here at the proximity to Chelmno, as it is with all 6 of the German Death Camps within Poland, there are to be found monuments to what Hitler actually accomplished. These too add to the testament of what a World knew, witnessed and now acknowledges. Here, amongst the inscribed words on a plaque at Chelmno is a request which reads:
“..Witnesses of our suffering who live in this area ..once again we plead with them to announce our Murder to ..world.”
Truth is that ultimate response to those who might doubt any aspect of The Holocaust’s happening! Those demands for the support of an irrelevance, simply to the carve from the fact their own forgery, is immoral. It is a mediocrity which is certain and that without such deceit, there is no contention other than the lie it wishes to confuse and add disgrace to history. No one can discredit the truth of The Holocaust that has ensured History has the credibility they will not alter with their dishonesty.
Those who doubt the Truth are irrelevant. There is a remunerative that they seek which is required for them to continue their efforts on behalf of a discredited and irrational hatred. The Truth has the substance of all manner of Evidence, while those who lie about any aspect of its emergence or perpetration have but a fraud to prop it up. Truth has nothing to fear from those who dispel its veracity, while their lies are refuted by utterances, by knowledge and by the adversity of those who managed to Survive so that we too will know, History will know the Truth.
160,000 Polish Jews
20,000 Austrian, Czech, German and Luxembourg Jews
4,300 Gypsies.
History has all the evidence that is required. What we have need of is more of the detail that will enhance what we already know. Part of a plaque which seeks to commemorate what happened to those Jewish People, and others, Murdered at the Death Camp Chelmno, affords us some of the specific detail of what The Holocaust encloses. It is a simple inscribed account of the scale of an atrocity which warrants more than a mere accounting. It is devoid of any Humanity as it details, in numbers, those People who are Remembered, as a statistic and not of what went humanly wrong here. Those Jews, as they were delivered to eternity, were abandoned at Chelmno and then are extricated toward a dumping ground, having been first gassed in ‘Gassing Vans.’ This is but a formative site which deals in the Destruction of those Jews Hitler had condemned in his Final Solution, a teaching school for the mechanised and industrial Slaughter of that Hitler resolve.
“..I saw them myself ..Chelmno ..Treblinka ..Sobibor ..Belzec.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Hoess.
Firstly, there is NO ‘holocaust’ other than that one experienced by the 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, those Men, Women and Their Children of the Jewish Faith, Slaughtered in The Holocaust. I am well aware of the Jewish concern for the name given over to the systematic, selective, industrialised and mechanised Murder apparatus assembled to Destroy this many Jewish People.
But while History seeks to endorse such a unique position for a People so devastated by an intolerance we were largely indifferent toward, we must accept, that ours is a duty to Recall, Remember and Record this Jewish passage through our time. Also, while we surely abandoned these Jews in their direst hour of need, we cannot allow for the dilution of a term which not only registers this Catastrophe for the Jews of The Holocaust in Europe, but positions them with all of History.
“.In respect of ..Jewish question ..make a clean sweep. ..world war is here ..annihilation of ..Jews must be ..necessary result. This question is to be regarded without sentimentalism. We are not here to have sympathy with ..Jews ..but ..with our German people. If ..German people have sacrificed 160,000 dead in ..eastern campaign ..authors of this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives.” Adolf Hitler.
Neither can we just simply register little more than our disgust as the Perpetration progressed. We are the witnesses, albeit remotely, to what were Hitler’s isolating terms and all the way to what was his final resolve, which was The Final Solution. Secondly, there is nothing I can say, think or do that is other than a correction of what has been an enormous omission on our part. We stood so idly by as a grave wrong was done to these the Jews of Europe, the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, Men, Women and Their Children of The Holocaust. I was not there but this document is given, not as an excuse to what was allowed to happen nor to simply accept what was done in terms of a vast hatred, but to acknowledge that wrong and accept responsibility for that wrong. The fact that there were those like me, Christians of sorts, who should have found the moral courage demanded of their own God to assist, help, alleviate and even prevent the eventual disaster, is a warrant for my efforts.
“..bones ..ground with ..hand operated grinder on a cement surface near ..woods. ..ground bones ..carried out of ..woods ..more or less every 2nd. night ..together with ..ash.” Szymon Shrebrnik.
That the suffering of the Jews of our Communities was witnessed by all too many, neighbours and close associates, proved too great for the many as the shocking facts of what must have been known are realised! That this abandonment is clearly evidenced, and as the Catastrophe amounts to a termed Genocide of such enormous proportions, and as History had yet to contemplate its extraordinary dimension, we are burdened by its sheer weight of despair and the magnitude of its commissioning. In that depth of despondency, History too has failed to come up with the exacting terms of any form of reference that will satisfy any sort of comprehension. To reach an understanding which is required to not only legislate for the wrong done, but to formulate a relevant corrective for the omission of Justice requires our re-examining. It is an ugly truth that while civilisation fought a World War, the Second in our History, Humanity was being destroyed by Hitler.
“.. I reported ..at Litzmannstadt ..they gave me an account ..a special unit ..Reichsfuhrer ..detailed ..under the command of ..SS Police Leader ..Warthegau. ..given ..description where Kulm was. ..came from ..Head Office of Reich Security ..mission ..of Gruppenfuhrer Mueller ..report to ..Mueller. ..saw ..room ..possibly five times ..size of this one. ..Jews inside ..required to undress and after ..completely closed truck arrived ..doors ..opened and it came up to ..platform ..naked Jews ..go inside. .. truck was closed and began to move. ..I rode after ..truck ..and there I saw ..most horrible thing that I had ever seen in my life. It drove up to a long ditch ..doors were opened ..bodies ..thrown out.. ..into ..ditch. ..a civilian ..removing teeth with pliers.” SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann.
These 6,000,000 Jews of Europe who had their Humanity stripped away from them in the Death Camps, within the Concentration Camps, inside the Ghettos and in the deepest recesses of the Killing Sites are owed more than my words can infer. Eichmann gives us his evidence of what he witnessed at Chelmno on orders from Mueller, so as to give us a clearer indication of how Hitler’s operation was proceeding. These vassals of all that Hitler demanded would be clearly jostling for position in order to curry favour and inform with der Fuhrer. Remember too, that all of this resolution was under Hitler’s expressed tutelage and clearest demand. It was funnelled down through the ranks from Hitler to Himmler, and then onto Heydrich and Eichmann. To make the jostling for position an effort in diffusion, that channelling from Hitler would arrive at Mueller’s desk, and also for him to ensure that Eichmann was detailed to fix what concerns he might have personally had about the commissioning of The Final Solution.
“..When our inmates returned from ..woods in ..evening ..they said that they had been burying Jews from Klodawa in a common grave in ..woods. They removed ..corpses from large black vans ..in which ..Jews had been poisoned with exhaust fumes. ..corpses were in underwear ..in ..van there were some towels and pieces of soap. This convinced me that Jews ..having undressed ..were given towels and soap and led to ..basement ..where ..they were supposed to take a shower. 3 or 4 of those working in ..wood that day did not return as they had been working badly and had been shot. ..following day I volunteered to work in ..woods. While I was leaving ..I saw a large van with its back end up against ..palace. ..door was open. A footbridge made it easier to get into ..vehicle. What drew my attention was a wooden grate on ..van floor ..just like those in a bathhouse.” Michal Podchelbnik.
But this burgeoning reality was opened up to a World way before a series of Court cases was orchestrated. These show trials, disguising the fact that the exacting and truthful detail of the onslaught and annihilation of the Jewish People was already known to much of the World, does not afford what a clear Justice demands. The exact detail of the aggression against the Jewish People, as it progressed and manifested itself into this awful dimension of atrocity and destruction, was somewhat subdued by a doubt and even the incredulity of those who were remote from its immediacy and occurrence. While it was clearly suppressed by those who sought to disguise or shield us from its enormity, there is much that has yet to be explained by those who knew, whose closer proximity afforded them a grandstand seat.
The shocking Truth as it finally emerged, and with that initial assessment of the overall Catastrophe for the Jewish People, must redefine our failed response. Also, and there needs to be a reassertion of the figures, through which the certainty is not altered by the probability, which might exist, that the weight of the Catastrophe is far graver than we had formerly assessed?
“..All my family was transported from Wolclawek. Me ..my father ..brother were sent to a camp in ..City of Poznan. After 2 years ..we were transferred to ghetto Lodz ..while my father and brother ..who were very weak ..because of ..work in ..camp ..were sent to ..Ruckzug ..meaning ..extermination camp ..with other 7,000 human beings. I was selected by ..commander of ..camp and since then I work here. All ..other people from my transport were exterminated ..all of them ..habitants of ..ghetto really believed they were going to a place of work ..and there ..their situation will improve. Now I was left alone and I wait to ..day when I go to heaven. One favour I ask of you ..dear people ..tell my sisters ..my brother and 2 brothers in law ..who live in Russia ..what was my fate. ..names of ..sisters and brother are ..Zurawski from Wloclawek ..36 Lodzka Street. ..brother’s in law are called Szaja Noyman ..Jacub Weintraub from Wloclawek.” Mordechai Zurawski.
There are those though who remained in such close proximity to the exact detail of the perpetration, outside the Death Camps and alongside the Killing sites, who owe more than their failed statements attest to. That they too have much that needs to be explained and expressed must be scrutinised for their imperfections.
For the case of Chelmno, what has been acknowledged by the IMT, is that 340,000 Murdered Jews were gassed here. The account merely augments a figure that is barely 5% of the full estimation of all those Jews of Europe who were finally Murdered to satisfy Hitler’s hate filled demands. The Holocaust evidence is a case of criminality so grave, that any term endorsed to explain it, would barely harbour all of Humanity’s contempt for its commissioning, for its barbarity and for its completion!
“..secret extermination camp in Chelmno ..where over 340,000 Jews were done away with in ..death vans ..was both founded by and directly subordinate to ..Gestapo and was known as ‘Sonderkommando Kulmhof’.” Part of the IMT Indictment.
While this is what the World was made fully aware of at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, and then from within the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem, it does not make salutary reading and is unedifying in its brutal realisation. As details concerning this Death Camp at Chelmno have been well documented, I simply wish to add toward that knowledge of what was known, and as it was known by those who knew of it and should have known of its perpetration! The trial transcripts clearly identify a systematic onslaught against the Jewish People. That this was fully acknowledged by History and corroborated by all those who were key to the detail we have now been made fully aware of, makes us aware of the deeper concern for civilisation.
“..We shall ..take the Jewish Question toward its total solution. ..total elimination.”
das Schwarze Korps. (November 1938).
With this, and subsequent visits to other Death Camp establishments, we learn what gave Hoess the detail he sought so as to bring about a more radical solution to the task he would undertake at Auschwitz. That radical solution would be the usage of static Gas Chambers of industrial dimensions, as opposed to Gassing Vans. His usage of Zyklon ‘B’ Gas in an enormously mechanised way, displaced the use of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, as he had witnessed it at Chelmno. Hoess would then have attached to these gassing facilities the purpose built Krematoria, which were a device to not only obliterate all traces of the crimes committed at Birkenau, but was also used in an attempt to shield from view the very evidence required by History to accuse and endorse Humanity’s disgust. Here, and so as to immediately obliterate the traces of the crimes being committed in their 100’s of 1,000’s at Birkenau, Hoess was all but thorough. The Death Camp branch of Auschwitz, would require forensically sourced methods that could be used to deliver to us what the Blueprints of Genocide could barely disguise. History though was not to be outdone by even the efforts of those like Hoess and the SK ‘1005’ specialist Blobel.
“..After we had heard ..account from Vilna ..on ..one hand ..and ..Chelmno on ..other ..we believed that this was being done systematically. I must say that in ..previous years ..even we could not picture to ourselves that a nation in ..20th. century would indeed execute a death sentence on an entire people. We asked ourselves more than once ..They are degrading us ..they are suppressing us ..are they truly thinking of destroying all of us? We did not believe it. ” Zivia Lubetkin.
The Truth will finally win out, and the Evidence that has been placed before the courts of time allows us the task of bringing forth an attempted comprehension and that we are rightly aghast that this much Hitler was allowed to achieve. That truth was here at Chelmno, it was present at Auschwitz and is certainly presented by Birkenau. It was evidenced clearly for those like Zivia Lubetkin who could all too easily relate to that particular ‘death sentence on an entire people’.
While Chelmno remains silent almost, in terms of what was made aware to us all in respect to what Auschwitz and Birkenau relay back to us, Chelmno has not been totally silenced. The following appraisal is what was presented before The Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem. So for the purpose of exactness, I have detailed the Transcript as it is presented to History before an Israeli Court. Allow this transcript, which forms part of the very basis of the Evidence that exists of what Chelmno was, what Chelmno had been intended for and what Chelmno had indeed become, to let you to know and at least appreciate, that there is this clear lack of comprehension which The Holocaust demands we acquaint ourselves with.
“..Another truck arrived and ..whole procedure was repeated. This lasted all day long. I noticed that more trucks arrived at ..grounds than left. I came to ..conclusion that trucks leaving Chelmno must have had larger carrying capacity.” Michal Podchelbnik.
CHELMNO, in German Kulmhof, in the vicinity Lodz, was erected from the very outset solely as an Extermination Camp. At this place, people were not employed in any way or utilised for labour, they were slaughtered immediately. The SS commander would tell the new arrivals that they were being taken to work and that before their departure they would have to wash and hand over their garments for disinfection. They would be escorted to a building in which they undressed. On the walls were prominently placed signs reading: ‘To The Doctor’ or ‘To The Wash Room’. The Jews would then be ordered to go out naked, or with nothing but a shirt on their bodies and enter grey vehicles marked ‘Sonderwagen’ each one of which held 80 to 100 people. These, they were told, would take them to the ‘washplace’. When the doors were closed, the engine was switched on and the victims killed by exhaust fumes. Once the screams had died down the vehicle moved off to the nearby forest where Jewish forced labourers, Waldkommando, would remove the bodies. After the teeth had been extracted and the rings removed, they would throw the bodies into prepared pits. The Waldkommando worked with their legs in chains. They were put to death from time to time, and new forced labourers chosen from the transports.
The exterminations at Chelmno began at the end of 1941. Here too, within a few months, furnaces were built to burn the bodies. The ashes were removed and after the bones had been ground down, they were buried in pits or thrown into the river. In April 1943, the Extermination Camp ceased operating and the furnaces were demolished. In 1944 it became apparent that the work was not yet completed; the camp was re-established and new furnaces installed. Once again they operated in accordance with the well worn procedure: death by gas and the burning of the bodies. A number of months later, the business of slaughter was completed. The killers dismantled the camp, obliterated the evidence of their murders and set about executing the forced labourers, now called ‘Sonderkommando’ who had been engaged in burning the bodies. A few of them resisted and 2 succeeded in escaping. 2 of the only 4 survivors of this camp who were left alive to tell the world of its horrors. According to a conservative estimate, some 340,000 Jews were exterminated at Chelmno. These were mainly from the Lodz area, Posen and Warsaw, in addition to Jews from Germany, Austria, France, Luxembourg and Holland who had passed through the Lodz Ghetto. Here, too, the effects and clothing were looted.
On 9 January 1943, the ‘German People’s Winter Aid Campaign’ wrote to the German administration of the Lodz Ghetto complaining that a part of the clothing sent from Chelmno had not been adequately cleaned, and that the ‘Jewish Badge’ had not been removed from one of the coats. Since the garments were intended for German settlers, so the communication stated, such neglect was not to be tolerated, as it brought discredit to the ‘Winter Aid Campaign’: ‘das Winterhiffiswerk damit in Miskredit komml’.” From The Trial Transcripts of Adolf Eichmann before an Israeli Court in Jerusalem.
“..Waldkommando told us that they were building two furnaces in ..wood. They did not know what purpose they would serve. ..furnaces were very primitive they stood on a cement foundation and were narrow at ..bottom ..gradually becoming wider at ..top. ..approximately 3 metres ..tall. ..width was about ..same. ..fire grate was made of narrow gauge railroad railings. There was neither a chimney nor a special trench for better draught. Later I was in ..woods a few times so I could see ..furnaces. ..Runge and Kretschmer were responsible for ..construction of ..furnaces. ..construction process lasted about 2 weeks. Jews building ..furnaces were sometimes killed for entertainment.” Szymon Shrebrnik.
I am not a Lawyer, so I cannot give a definitive assessment as to what those rules of the Law of Evidence are that should be applied. However, in the case of The Holocaust, where there is the enormity of those Crimes which were committed Against all of our Humanity, and all which that involves, those Laws demand a graver response than has been previously established and are still forthcoming. To me, the Law is for the protection of us all by all who seek it. If the Law should fail but one person, we are all losers in a system which cannot act judiciously and as such, it fails us all. With the assortment of evidence that equates to an unequivocal response to what International Law required, all of this was to be somehow met in the shadow of the 6,000,000 Murders of Jews. As with all the Laws of Mankind, be they Ethical, Moral and Equitable, these Laws would have to be rethought to deal in what now would be termed a ‘Genocide’. It is clear even from what The New York Herald Tribune declared, and the New York Times evinced, and yet sought to conceal in the inner pages, that millions of Jews were being destroyed.
“..New York Herald Tribune ..front page story on ..massacre of ..million Jews. ..horrifying ..article contains hard facts. ..outraged to have found such a brief article about ..killings in Chelmno buried ..page five ..NYT on June 27. ..Even worse ..only a two-inch article about ..Bund Report ..same day in NYT. ..Why is ..plight of ..Jews in Europe getting so little attention?” Hannah Rosen.
It is apparent that we knew back then that Chelmno meant more than just a death knell for the Jews of Lodz. With the Indictment of the World being spelled out in cold relief, and though it had moved from the inner pages of the World’s media, the murdered Jews of Europe would eventually have their case heard. But that very case, which was set before the IMT on November 20th. 1945, cannot be deemed as prudent in judicial terms as all that, given the weight of burden for Humanity’s overall loss of integrity. For the 6,000,000 Murdered Jews who had been moved toward a formal declaration of some intent, a show case trial was not to prove other than an expedience. Through this search for a just resolve, which drew upon the propensity of many Nations’ own Justice systems to equate a universal Justice with terms that they could themselves barely comprehend, Rafael Lemkin came closest to discerning the depth to which Hitler, German and his Reich had plunged with terming what had happened to the Jewish People, a ‘Genocide’.
“..complete solution of ..Jewish question in ..German sphere of influence in Europe.” Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering.
Here too in Nuremberg, with the deliberate selection of far too few of those who could have been accused of any and all Crimes against the Jews of Humanity, Justice was to lose out! A test case which still ensued, and which offered the World an insight into the hell the Jews had been plunged into over a sustained 12 year period, could not cope with the dimension of that Justice which History sought for the Jews. For these defendants, who stood arraigned before the Court, were charged with various Crimes against Peace, with War Crimes and then with the heinous Crimes against All of Humanity. Finally though, and incorporated within these indictments, a Conspiracy to commit those very Crimes was assessed from within a Common Plan. As the World watched on, Humanity was prostrate as it lay exposed to what Hitler and these all too few lackeys of a pseudo ideology managed to achieve.
That they achieved so much is written in terms of 6,000,000 Murdered Jews, 500,000 Murdered Gypsies and the colossal overall assessment that 50 to 70 Million people died, were killed and Murdered as a consequence of Hitler’s sought after War. However, there were those present who knew and had delivered to the bureaucracy of what Hitler demanded who availed of a silence which would not disturb the truth of what was done in Hitler’s name.
“..12 ..13 vans a day arrived in ..woods. On this basis I figured that about 1,000 people were gassed every day. Jews who carried ..corpses from ..van had to remove ..wooden floor grate from ..vehicle and clean ..car thoroughly. ..valuables were also placed in ..suitcase. ..towels and pieces of soap were collected separately and driven back on daily basis.” Michal Podchelbnik.
That this chosen hierarchy of a failed 1,000 year Reich were set before a mystified World which looked in awe at what Humanity could do, does make for Justice, it fails it! That these defendants were a seeming and token presence that was offered up by way of some form of Justice for any of the 6,000,000 deliberately targeted for Destruction and Systematically Destroyed, is indefensible. There were those amongst the indicted who should have exemplified the military conduct of a Centuries old tradition that had previously blended respect amongst combatants. However, that soldierly code had simply been cast aside in favour of the more debased nature of excesses of a total war. The criminal intent that was mixed in with what Hitler had openly declared would be the Slaughter of Innocents, mostly Jews, was assisted in great part by the very logistics and supply lines that motioned the Wehrmacht ever forward.
Here in this Court at Nuremberg there were Jew haters and antisemites amongst the indicted.
“..Himmler told me that before ..beginning of ..Russian campaign Hitler had spoken of this mission to a conference of ..Army Groups and ..Army Commanding Generals ..and had instructed ..Commanding Generals to provide ..necessary support.” SS Gruppenfuhrer Otto Ohlendorf.
Those, who could neither conceal their hatred, nor wished to do so, sat in amongst those less belligerent voices who stealthily distanced themselves from the more ravenous reaches of Hitler’s Final Solution, but remained enmeshed in the final reaches of that Hitlerite resolve to Destroy all of World Jewry. But there was plenty of evidence that was presented, even from those who undertook to deliver to Hitler what the exacting detail of The Final Solution had so closely meant. Also, with all that Hitler demanded in ways of War and the carnage it brought, complicity and duplicitousness had been adhered to by all those here indicted. There is a symmetry within all Testimony which makes it all appear similar, and while details of atrocity might alter in expression, they remain relentless in their exact persecution and perpetration. Details of the event will always appear uniform even in their wildest complexity. That is the nature of the finite detail added to by those pursuing Hitler’s demands. That said, any given Testimony of The Holocaust might appear to mirror events of a similar nature within the context of the commissioning of those events. The Holocaust testimonies are all equally remarkable in their absolute and extraordinary commentary upon man’s inhumanity to his fellow Man, Woman and Their Children had achieved.
“..corpses were haphazardly piled one on another as high as half way up ..side of ..van. Some of those murdered died holding their loved ones in their arms. ..corpses generally did not look bad. I did not notice anyone with their tongue sticking out of their mouths or with any unnatural bruises. ..bodies were still warm. I could not smell any gas. Some were still alive. In such cases SS men killed them by shooting them in ..back of ..head. After ..van had been emptied of ..bodies ..it returned to Chelmno.” Michal Podchelbnik.
The recollections of Testimony are both preserving of an exact detail that we all must demand for History. They are also then very revealing of a destructive intent which those who were the intended targets, Testify to its genesis and perpetration. These, though they have left this specific detail to those who Survived it, must relive and endure each and every moment they recall what was inflicted upon them, as we call upon them to deliver their Truth. While all Testimony, Witnessed, Perpetrated and Acknowledged was presented in open Court, there are certain conditions which must prevail and are required to provide the physical evidence necessary in Law. This is necessary so as to provide for us all the final status of that proof. This normally presents to testimony the physical evidence involved, which in the cases of Murder will introduce the actual body as that physical and verifiable corroboration. In absence of such ‘body of proof’, there will be a reliance upon those other elements of physical evidence, which today contains all aspects relating to the physical demonstration of what DNA can now provide.
“..When ..Soviet Army was advancing quickly ..one night we were ordered to leave ..granary in groups of 5…Lenz ordered us to lie down on ..ground. He shot everybody in ..back of ..head. I lost consciousness and regained it when there was no one around. All ..SS men were shooting inside ..granary. I crawled to ..car lighting ..spot and broke both headlights. Under ..cover of darkness I managed to run away. ..wound was not deadly. ..bullet went through ..neck and mouth and pierced my nose and then went out.” Szymon Shrebrnik.
However, lacking what very evidence DNA provides, testimony has now been offered and constitutes a perspective in relation to what can be proven, and we have much that affords us a forensic testament of all the evidence that we require.
Even with the absence of that entire 6,000,000 ‘body of proof’ of evidence, there becomes the reliance upon any and all documentation that is related to the extent of the crime we are concerned with, and that enormous crime is The Holocaust. We have garnered much from what was not destroyed in Hitler’s race to conceal his Crimes. Remember too, that while Hitler placed an ideological expression upon those Crimes, which was clearly manifested and degraded in terms of a Mass Murder that had all the attributes of a clear and larcenous intent. That said, and with all accusations listed together, there are three aspects of that overwhelming Evidence which constitutes the final proof of what we have become knowledgeable of.
That Evidence stems from the Witness whose Testimony is irrefutable. It emerges from the many Perpetrator Evidences that stand the test of time. It is likewise, the verified Truth from those Jews who left behind more than a mere footnote to this awful crime, and to the many who still managed to Survive the extraordinary attempt to fully destroy them.
“..solution of ..Jewish question ..is ..business of ..Fuhrer ..not ..individuals.” SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler.
Of course, all examination of such documentation, those verbal orders which were stated, and their detailed expectation so clearly expressed, are inter-linked with the many diaries of even those Perpetrators who present their account to posterity. Also, there are those many Diaries of the Jewish victims no longer alive to add a more rounded dimension to what they experienced. Along with these are the oral and written Testimonies of both the Perpetrators and the 1,000’s of Victims who form the vast and atrocious account that is The Holocaust. Then we have an accumulation of those Facts from all who participated in the Crimes, the criteria of which make the Evidence both prolific and abundant. There are also the countless Verbal accounts of the Perpetration, from as many of those various agencies and agents who are participants, simple bystanders or curious onlookers in the escalation toward the final annihilation.
“..About 30 workers including me were loaded into 2 vehicles ..a truck and a bus ..and driven to ..woods near Chelmno. ..escorted by about 30 SS men. In ..woods there was a trench serving as a mass grave for ..murdered Jews. We were ordered to dig ..trench further. ..we were given shovels and pickaxes.” Michal Podchelbnik.
Those who stood along the sidelines, who are made aware of the terms of the Destruction that is being undertaken, have not been reluctant purveyors of that Truth! To top all of these, and from all of these exposed and categorised assessments, we have the endless reams of Court Transcripts which are a finite detail of the very Evidence that has been placed before the bar of time. We have the very means to indict more thousands than have been indicted, and from these transcripts, we have the very names of all those who undertook to pursue a course which deviated from any civilising path.
The straying nature of such a vicious hatred, took the World from the enlightenment and into a retarded expression which has so darkened all of our History. The very light that still manages to become dimmed as we look through the passage of The Holocaust era, has yet to rekindle what the terms of The Holocaust have clearly extinguished. Of all of those corresponding Evidences, all of which will be what prevails as the final verification of the exact truth of The Holocaust, is damning in its simplest form.
“..Both crematoriums were built in ..same clearing in ..woods several metres from each other. ..located at ..entrance of ..clearing and vehicles drove past them when they arrived at ..place. ..furnaces were covered with branches ..so they would not be noticed. ..corpses were searched through by a Jew called Vidland ..who took off rings and pulled out gold teeth. He was supervised by Piller. Each furnace was operated by 12 Jewish workers ..who placed ..corpses between layers of chipped wood. Before setting them on fire ..gasoline was poured over ..pile of bodies. ..capacity of 1 furnace was more or less ..same as 1 van. Runge operated 1 crematorium and Kretschmer ..other. Lenz was their superior. It took approximately 1 hour for ..corpses to burn. Then a new pile of bodies were added.” Szymon Shrebrnik.
The Holocaust therefore, as it is measured even in the minds of those of us whose endeavour is still barely able to comprehend it all, strive to do so to Remember, to Recall and to do justice to the memory of those we have truly failed. However, the detail will not be wholly an account in mere statistical form. We will not have the inhuman of what Hitler demanded nor those hushed expressions of his minions who sought out for Hitler the solution that would prove final for these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe. It will be filled with 6,000,000 Human tremors of such seismic proportions, its resonance rocks the very foundations of Civilisation through to this day and on into tomorrow. Bearing in mind, that against all of this Evidence presented, there is our own innate and incapable ability to ensure that those persons mandated to act judiciously on our behalf, and for Humanity’s cause, are actually able to do so. For the World to enact a Justice that would represent the cost to any of any one of those 6,000,000 Murdered Jews of Europe, those very People no longer alive and available to even adjudge the strength of the indictment let alone the eventual verdict’s failings, who can judge on their behalf?
“..I worked 10 days in Chelmno. ..process of exterminating Jews was repeated every day. ..woods were not fenced in at that time. There were no furnaces for burning corpses either. I witnessed ..extermination of Jews from Bugaj and ..Izbica. On Friday they brought gypsies from Lodz. On Saturday ..1st. transport from Lodz ghetto arrived. At ..time of ..arrival ..our labour group underwent selection. ..weakest 20 Jews were killed and replaced with Jews from Lodz”. Michal Podchelbnik.
There are countless Witness testimonies of what more than corroborates the already established evidence. That evidence, which fully secures for posterity the truth and veracity in our History, is closely termed within the confines of The Holocaust itself. There is also much of what has been established from all the Survivoral Evidence that has been delivered to us thus far. That so many Jews of Europe, who Survived and have given over their knowledge of what we are still becoming aware of, all of which will act to broaden out that acceptance of what we have come to know is The Holocaust.
All physical evidence is contained in what we know Hitler conceived of. All pertinent evidence is contained in what Hitler planned and exacted against the Jewish People. All that the Law might require, so as to establish these relevant and verifiable facts of the case, have been gifted by Hitler’s own failure to perceive that the 1,000 year Reich would not last and the Truth of what Hitler had buried throughout Europe would rise to accuse him of the fullest dimension and terrifying ordeal for the Jews of Europe that is The Holocaust.
“..Where ..Jewish Question is brought up in public ..there may be no discussion of a future overall solution. It may ..be mentioned that ..Jews are taken in groups for appropriate labor purposes.” Martin Bormann.
In view of all that has been stated and all of what has been consistently written about and all of this Evidence has proved pertinent to The Holocaust, we have come no closer to comprehending for ourselves what these effects of Hitler’s personal hatred had on so many innocent Jewish People. From all of that Evidence that has been amassed, it would appear that little more evidence is further required which might add to the overall assessment of the intolerable weight of atrocity that has been made. However, so much remains that is still absent from the narrative of what 6,000,000 Jews of Europe fully had to contend with, endure and fail to live past. As it is with individual and especially personal grief, there are individual reasons to judge them all separately. As far as there can be, there are those 6,000,000 expressions of shock and horror which need to be explored, explained and come to terms with. What met with these Jewish People, as they were force marched toward their doom, can only ever be speculated with and given newer expression.
“..August 2nd. 1942 I was transported from ..City of Sziradz to Ghetto Lodz. With me were my brother Geniek and my father ..while my mother ..my sisters Kadzia and Estera and 3 children of Estera were left behind ..in a church in Siradz. After a few days I learned that all who were in that church ..were driven in trucks to ..wood between Kolo and Dabie and there poisoned by gas and burnt in big crematoria which were specially built for this purpose. During a few weeks there was curfew ‘Sperre’ in ghetto Lodz ..and 20,000 were taken from it to that wood and they too were gassed and burnt. Among them my father. ..same thing happened in all ..region towns. After 2 years ..cemetery of .. ghetto and ….people died there like flies ..ghetto ..was spread with corpses of about 100,000 innocent men because they could not defend themselves. ..rest were sent to labor camps. We already knew then what kind of work it was. I work as a tailor but my brother could not bear ..tortures taking place in ..wood and he fell. I have another brother in Russia ..Avraham Szlamokowicz ..I doubt if I’ll live to see him again. I have a little request from those who will find this notebook. I ask them to say a few words to ..people of Sziradz ..Zielinski ..Kuziczki ..Olandra ..Westodolski ..ask from them that if my brother will return from Russia they will tell him our story ..and that God will pay them their proper punishment. I myself cannot do anything because here we are all chained.” Yacov Szlemokowicz.
We cannot even approach the purely personal psychology and mindset of these Jewish People as they met with such a radical effrontery and what fear must mean. As to what the sense of terror which met with so many human lives was, our own trepidation can not enact the scenario which placed these Jews before The Death Camps or The Killing Sites of a Hitler want. We cannot know either the abject despair of a People unless we have their full knowledge, and from all of those 6,000,000 Jews of Europe, Men, Women and Their Children. For all of those Jews who were fully consumed in the conflagration, the sheer vastness and scale of the atrocity all adds to our complete lack and appreciation for what outrage confronts us. After all that has been proven in relation to the Slaughter of the 6,000,000 Jews of The Holocaust, we accommodate so little of their own disdain for our clear abandonment of them. That said, it is evident that the validation, which is anything that has been presented to support what these facts assert, have been so ridiculously lied about, the test of History is a warrant to promptly contest any suggestion other than what Hitler managed in the Slaughter of these 6,000,000 Jews of Europe.
“..As soon as ..ramp had been erected in ..castle ..people started arriving in Kulmhof from Litzmannstadt in lorries. ..people were told that they had to take a bath ..that their clothes had to be disinfected and that they could hand in any valuable items beforehand to be registered. When they had undressed they were sent to ..cellar of ..castle and then along a passageway on to ..ramp and from there into ..gas-van. In ..castle there were signs marked “to ..baths”. ..gas vans were large vans ..about 4-5 meters long ..2.2 meter wide and 2 meter high. ..interior walls were lined with sheet metal. On ..floor there was a wooden grille. ..floor of ..van had an opening which could be connected to ..exhaust by means of a removable metal pipe. When ..lorries were full of people ..double doors at ..back were closed and ..exhaust connected to ..interior of ..van.” SS Scharfuhrer Walter Burmeister.
Whatever the Evidence garnered and gained from the slightest piece of information all the way through to the Transcripts of the Trials of the Accused, be it from Perpetrators, Participants or even bystanders, there is a direct proof of the truth of all that has been raged against these Jews. What has already been catalogued is voluminous in such tomes so immense, they fill a World’s Library.
Also, the direct link to circumstantial evidence which, when added to enormity of the Evidence we have, gives another consistent dimension to the Truth we have obtained. While it is essential that we deal in laws that are Governed by International agreement, so that no one Country can so lightly dismiss their own culpability in the tenets of The Final Solution, we acknowledge the constraints of adjoining all Laws. That atrocity, which fully delivered an eventual resolve for Hitler which is termed The Holocaust, is an accusation of History, Civilisation, Community and Humanity. With those human Laws established, and which became the agreed Juris Prudence of all Trials for all post World War II endeavours, there is an effort to judge the wrong doings of Mankind.
“..I heard a truck door slam followed by an outburst of screaming and banging on ..truck’s walls. Then I heard ..engine start and after 6 ..7 minutes ..when ..screams fainted and died ..truck left ..palace grounds. Next we were ordered to go to a large room upstairs. On ..floor we could see men’s clothes and women’s coats and shoes scattered about.” Michal Podchelbnik.
The attempt at that initial judgement was first witnessed on November 20th. 1945 with the setting up of these Nuremberg Trials of the Major War Criminals as they began. Here, the former seat of Hitler’s mass rallies was no match for the Hitlerite propaganda of former times, though it had the World spell bound at the time!
Nuremberg’s worrying assessment is that, and though there were some 1,500,000 Germans who were in such close proximity to the very Crimes these Criminals were being indicted for, they did not perceive the injustice of so few having been indicted? Those many German people cannot then simply deny any knowledge of what occurred. It has to be remembered that of that speculated number of those Germans assessed as knowing, 500,000 of these were key to the operation of the Nazi Party and as such, indictable under the auspices of these Military Tribunals. The trial of these major war criminals by the International Military Tribunal began at 10:00 a.m. here in Nuremberg, Germany.
“..4 to 5 corpses were placed on ..first layer on ..bottom ..on ..last ..upper layer there were as many as 30 bodies. Then ..bodies were buried under a 1 metre thick layer of earth. I noticed a few times that after a night ..earth had been dug up in some places ..exposing ..corpses buried on ..previous day.” Michal Podchelbnik.
Evidence thus provided, which included both documentary and physical evidence, and the overwhelming testimony of those who were never meant to Survive what Hitler intended, does not sit well alongside the most uniquely, unparalleled atrocity in all history. For those Survivors, who had amassed an incredible amount of detailed knowledge of what the World needed to know, have provided an indelible mark of proven record. Most of this record, which adjudged Hitler, and his cronies, not only Guilty of War Crimes but with Crimes Against Humanity. These are the facts of the case and they are compelling enough for History to know the wrong done, the Intolerance shown and the Indifference shown all adding to the asserted acceptance which allowed all of this to happen. As part of my journey toward Remembrance for these Jews of The Holocaust, I dwell much in their past. It has become somewhat of a duty to the memory of all those 6,000,000 Jews of Europe engulfed by the Catastrophe that is The Holocaust.
“..When I worked there ..length of ..trench ..grave was over 10 metres. About 1,000 people were buried a day ..which filled 3 to 4 metres of trench.” Michal Podchelbnik.
However, as I actually reside in the present, it is within their past that I have chosen to find the example of how best to live and how best to preserve for the future, the lives of others. The future will best belong to all of those who have learned the positive lessons from another People’s past. For the example which has been set by the deadly terms of The Holocaust, this should teach the many that Genocides have no place amongst the best of humanity. In the state of flux that existed, much evidence of the crimes which Hitler sought to deliver on a World stage was garnered, gathered and kept. The body of the victim has long since disappeared, but the evidence of what was the deciding factor in their fate, Hitler’s will to destroy them, remains for History to decipher, detail and register. We only need to flesh out the more elaborate detail belonging to all those 6,000,000 Murdered Jews whose Testimony will always escape us.
“..When we arrived we had to report to ..Camp Kommandant ..SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Bothmann. SS ..Haupsturmfuhrer addressed us in his living quarters ..in ..presence of SS Untersturmfuhrer Albert Plate. He explained that we had been dedicated to ..Kulmhof Extermination Camp as guards and added that in this camp ..plague boils of humanity ..Jews ..were exterminated. We were to keep quiet about everything we saw or heard.” SS Scharfuhrer Theodor Malzmueller.
Though we will never know the immensity of their pain, grief or suffering, we can attempt to empathise with their tragedy. What 6,000,000 Jews knew could accumulate the necessary particulars of which just might give a clearer indication as to comprehending an atrocity of this nature. There is a myth which Hitler put to the German people, even as the German Army progressed first into Poland, and that was the wrongful accusation that there was a Jewish conspiracy to link with a Communist threat. That link with Bolshevism, Communism or even Marxism was no more true than the sustained myth that the Jews, and not Christ, was the rightful instigator of the Crucifixion. In Poland, with as many as 3,500,000 Jews targeted for eventual Destruction, barely 20,000 of these were ever anything to do with the Communist Party. Their allegiance had always been to Poland, as Jews yes, but as Polish Jews!
“..beginning of 1942 a Jew escaped from Chelmno and came to Warsaw. ..he told us that there ..in Chelmno ..Jews were being driven out of ..city in trucks and put to death by gas.” Zivia Lubetkin.
So while it is true that the Hitlerite canard made full use of a supposed Communist threat, no presentation was met that Communism was other than a Party that would settle the equivalence in all People. Of course, today, we are well aware that in all systems there will be those who will consider themselves more equal, than others and will act according to the diktats which Hitler progressed. But it was as a political enemy of the German people that Hitler sought to drag the whole of World Jewry deeper into that political and ideological deceit. This is much of the reason why the German people of the day grasped all that Hitler urged and acted in accord and with a borrowed hatred. For those today, who would see things differently and would even seek to exonerate Hitler from the midst of the Catastrophe for the Jewish People, they do so at the price paid by Allied Service personnel and Civilians, dead defending our rights against Hitler’s wrongs.
“..We and ..Jews from Izbica were loaded into a truck and taken to Chelmno. Let me point out that all ..Jews in ..vehicle were well built ..strong ..capable of doing even ..toughest work. ..car rolled into ..palace grounds in Chelmno. ..whole terrain was surrounded by a recently erected 2.5 ..3 metre high fence made of wooden boards. ..fence had no gaps. ..gates were opened and ..truck drove into ..grounds and stopped in front of ..palace.” Michal Podchelbnik.
But here in Poland, where it was decided that the destructive capacity for European Jewry would be stage managed, the Death Camp system was fashioned. It is no consequence therefore, that the six Death Camps established by Hitler here in Poland, measured their endeavour on an industrial scale. At Chelmno, sometimes referred to as Kulmhof, and is possibly the least known of these industrial killing establishments managed The Holocaust of some 152,000 Jews alone. For that reason I would wish to use my emphasis on this Death Camp as a kind of litmus test. As to what was not only known of these Death Camps, during their operational existence, History is now fully versed in their apparatus of destruction. What emerged so as to deliver the real evidence of what was perpetrated here has been detailed as we have been reading through these passages. That Evidence goes too for the more infamous of these Death Camps, Auschwitz/Birkenau, which disposed over more than 1,100,000 Jews and countless others within its confines.
“..3 ..larger one ..2 smaller ones. ..larger van could hold up to 170 people ..the smaller ones ..100 ..120. ..van doors were locked with a bolt and a padlock. Then ..engine was started. ..exhaust fumes entered ..interior of ..van and suffocated those inside. ..exhaust pipe went from ..engine along ..chassis and into ..van ..through a hole in ..floor ..which was covered with a perforated sheet of metal. ..hole was located more or less in ..middle of ..chassis. ..van’s floor was also covered with a wooden grate ..just like ..one in ..bathhouse. This was to prevent ..prisoners ..clogging ..exhaust pipe.” Szymon Shrebrnik.
Those others, Poles, Gypsies, the undesirables of Hitler’s fevered imagination, those designated enemies of Hitler’s Reich and anyone who looked at Hitler sideways, met an end here which added a newer dimension to what we had formerly known was barbaric. As Treblinka could not mask the Destructive capacity which dissolved the existence of more than 900,000 Jews, science has entered the fray. Sobibor could not secrete totally its capacity to do away with and Mass Murder of 250,000 Jews sent there. Majdanek dealt with the Annihilation of possibly 200,000 Jews, though this figure is being examined more closely at this moment. Belzec cannot disguise the Slaughter of 600,000 Jews nor its capacity to do so. Clearly though, we do need to differentiate between those 1,000’s of Camps which had little interest in whether the Jews who entered them came out alive.
“..van in which ..victims were gassed could take 80 ..90 people at a time. During my stay in Chelmno ..2 ..used simultaneously. In addition ..there was another van ..largest of ..3 ..but it was out of order and remained in Chelmno in ..yard.” Michal Podchelbnik.
As with The Death Camps, whose sole intention was to ensure the Jewish People who entered them, never came out alive, Death was meted all around to any Jew caught in Hitler’s web of hatred! To that extent we need to remind ourselves that at Belsen 50,000 Jews were Murdered, left to rot while all around the 1,000 Reich was crumbling. At Buchenwald 56,500 Jews were Murdered, at Dachau 35,000 Jews were Murdered and at Stutthof there where 65,000 Jews who were Murdered. All this added to a defining total which der Einsatzgruppe clearly added to with their shooting and Murder of 1,250,000 Jews along the lines of Wehrmacht communications, supply and logistics. In the midst of what I have gathered from the very informed, the participation was not as causal an effect of what emanated in these Death Camps as die Endlosung der Judenfrage suggests, but it was a massive force of destruction. It was a directive of Hitler’s which at its point of ‘aktionen’ would not have been swayed by any lack of experience in those Hitlerite demands.
“..I don’t accuse anyone that did not hide or help a Jew. We cannot demand from others to sacrifice their lives. One has no right to demand such risks.” Pola Stein.
That said, the guilt of any and all who Participated, Perpetrated or were seemingly active in The Holocaust Slaughter of The Jews, must NEVER be minimised. We also need to emphasise that whilst there was a Polish collaboration with Hitler’s terms for the Destruction of European Jewry upon Polish soil, Polish antisemitism played its part only at the urging, behest and demand of Hitler and his Reich. While that is certainly true, there are other Nations just as culpable in their negotiations with Hitler to rid their states of their Jews.
It is equally important to insist however, that we must never look the other way, that we are proactive in terms of assistance. We must simply record that the wrongs done can not be managed in our name and we certainly must never have assisted in the Slaughter programme. As evidence has been crucial, and even while we attempt to comprehend what The Death Camps ensured, at Chelmno, also known as Kulmhof, this Camp ushered in the period of the Extermination programme of Hitler’s Final Solution. A rather savage and crude operation, Chelmno exemplified extermination in the most primitive stage of Hitler’s requirement.
“..Since December 1941 97,000 have been processed ..using 3 vans. ..well known explosion in Kulmhof (Chelmno) must be treated as a special case. ..caused by faulty practice. Special instructions ..given ..to avoid such accidents. ..instructions ..ensure ..considerable increase in ..security. Further operational experience ..indicates ..following ..alterations ..appropriate. ..vans are normally loaded with 9-10 people per square meter. ..large Saurer special vans this is not possible because although they do not become overloaded their maneuverability is much impaired. ..reduction in ..load area appears desirable. ..can be achieved by reducing ..size of ..van by c. 1 meter. ..difficulty ..cannot be overcome by reducing ..size of ..load. ..reduction in ..numbers will necessitate ..longer period of operation ..free spaces will have to be filled with CO. ..smaller load area ..completely full requires ..much shorter period of operation. ..connecting hoses between ..exhaust ..van frequently rust through ..are corroded ..by ..liquids which fall on them. To prevent this ..connecting piece must be moved so ..gas is fed from ..top downwards. ..experience shows that when ..rear door is closed ..cargo presses hard towards ..door. ..makes it difficult to latch ..door. ..noise always begins when ..doors are shut ..because of fear ..darkness.” Willy Just.
Though mechanised in its form, it never approached the scale of Treblinka, nor the industrialised capacity of Auschwitz/Birkenau. Chelmno still became responsible for an immeasurable Jewish Destruction, mainly of those Jews of the Lodz Ghetto. Of course there were other Jews from other areas brought to Chelmno, Jews from different regions and every conceivable area where Jews had peaceably sought to live. There were Gypsies who were also Murdered here amongst others.
Death occurred here and was by means of the gassing vans which had experienced an enormous accomplishment within the Euthanasia Programme Hitler orchestrated. Once der Einsatzgruppe had sought to alleviate its own immediate response, their ‘Gassing Vans’ were brought back from the Eastern Front to compliment the overall ‘Killing Operations’. Here at Chelmno, there were to be no Krematoria and Hitler’s dark secret would eventually become evident. A reliance upon the efforts of Blobel’s SK ‘1005’ would ensure that the mass graves, where the Chelmno Murdered Jews were deposited in the woods, would not be allowed to yield much of its evidence. But that Evidence is available!
“..doubt was gnawing at our hearts all ..time. We had been living in this way for years. And when we received this information from Vilna and Chelmno within a short time ..when we sent our messengers to towns and villages in Poland and tales of disaster began to arrive from each place ..under a different disguise ..in Vilna because ..Jews were cooperating with ..Communists ..in Chelmno they did not disclose at all that this was extermination.” Zivia Lubetkin.