Kremas II, III, IV, and V

"What Piper said, in effect - and on camera - was that the explosive Leuchter Report was correct: No homicidal gassings took place in the buildings designated 'homicidal gas chambers' at Auschwitz."

At Birkenau, illusion was the rule. It was not always simple or possible, inasmuch as at least some of the deportees had observed the sign "Auschwitz" as the train passed through the railway yards, (Wiesel, Elie. Night. NY: Bantam Books, 1982.) or had seen flames belching from the chimneys, or had smelled the strange, sickening odor of the crematoria. (Lengyel, Olga. Five Chimneys : A Woman's True Story of Auschwitz. IL: Academy Chicago Pub., 1995.) Most of them, however, like a group from Salonika, were funneled through the undressing rooms, were told to hang their clothes on hooks and remember the number, and promised food after the shower and work after the food.

The unsuspecting Greek Jews, clutching soap and towels, rushed into the gas chambers. (Müller, Filip. et al. Eyewitness Auschwitz : Three Years in the Gas Chambers. [No publisher listed], 1979, pp. 80-81.) Nothing was allowed to disturb this precarious synchronization. When a Jewish inmate revealed to newly arrived people what was in store for them, he was cremated alive. (Müller, 80) Only in the case of victims who were brought in from nearby ghettos in upper Silesia (Sosnowiec and Bedzin) and who had had intimations of Auschwitz was speed alone essential. These people were told to undress quickly in their "own best interest." ( Müller, 69-71)

And finally, consider these remarks, from the SS Doctor Kremer, made during a hearing held on 18 July, 1947. (Klee, Ernst, Willi. Dressen, Volker Riess. The Good Old Days: The Holocaust As Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders. NY: The Free Press, 1992, p. 258.):

I remember I once took part in the gassing of one of these groups of women [from the women's camp in Auschwitz]. I cannot say how big the group was. when I got close to the bunker I saw them sitting on the ground. They were still clothed. As they were wearing worn-out camp clothing they were not left in the undressing hut but made to undress in the open air. I concluded from the behavior of these women that they had no doubt what fate awaited them, as they begged and sobbed to the SS men to spare them their lives. However, they were herded into the gas chambers and gassed.

As an anatomist I have seen a lot of terrible things: I had had a lot of experience with dead bodies, and yet what I saw that day was like nothing I had ever seen before. Still completely shocked by what I had seen I wrote on my diary on 5 September 1942:

"The most dreadful of horrors. Hauptscharfuherer Thilo was right when he said to me today that this is the 'anus mundi', the anal orifice of the world".

I used this image because I could not imagine anything more disgusting and horrific.

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