... 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 "Barbers
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.