Chapter IV:
The Alleged Extermination Facilities
in Treblinka:
An Historical and Technical Analysis

These theses, proposed by a scholar who devoted his magnum opus[277] for the most part to the conflict with the bureaucratic-administrative structure of the Third Reich, are quite simply absurd.

No one who knows the complex structure and manner of functioning of the National-Socialist economic-administrative offices,[278] can seriously believe that camps of any sort whatever would have been able to arise and develop in the General Gouvernement without having been precisely planned and presented with a specific budget.

Regarding construction activities, the General Governor of occupied Poland was, via several intermediates, ultimately subject to Reichsminister Albert Speer, who was the German plenipotentiary for the regulation of all constructions. Speer instructed his local deputy, the SS-Administrator at the office of the Höherer SS- und Polizeiführer (Senior SS- and Police Chief) in the General Gouvernement, who, in turn, instructed the plenipotentiary for the regulation of all constructions in the General Gouvernement.[279]

The SS-Administrators appointed to each Senior SS- and Police Chief (HSSPF)[280] were responsible "for administration of all economic affairs of the SS departments and SS units in the sphere of their respective HSSPF", and indeed specifically "for budgetary, treasury, and accountancy, legal affairs [such as leases, insurance affairs, and the like], preliminary examination, financial commitments, engine transport, management of raw materials, building, economic undertakings, and concentration camps."[281]

In practice, the SS-Administrator represented simultaneously Reichsminister Speer and the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA, Economic Administrative Main Office). In accord with the structure of this office, the scope of the work of the SS-Administrator was subdivided into five groups, of which Group C - Construction bore the responsibility for constructions.

Finally, four SS- and Police Chiefs, one for each district: Warsaw (Arpad Wigand), Lublin (Odilo Globocnik), Radom (Carl-Albrecht Oberg), and Lemberg (Fritz Katzmann) were under the Senior SS- and Police chief in the General Gouvernement.

All construction work carried out in the General Gouvernement in the year 1942 followed normal bureaucratic practice, which appeared to be as follows: instructions from the Department Group C "Constructions" of the SS-WVHA, in correspondence with the directives of Reichsminister Speer, went over the SS-Administrator to the Central Construction Offices and Construction Units, which were in charge with accomplishing the actual constructions.

This applies also to the labor camp Treblinka I. Politically and administratively seen, the labor camp Treblinka I was subordinate to the SS and Police Chief in the Warsaw district, Arpad Wiegand. This man in particular had received the assignment to construct this camp. This is clear from three documents concerning the delivery of various materials - pipes, nails etc. - for the camp Treblinka I.

The first of these three documents is a letter dated June 19, 1942, of the SS- Unterscharführer (sergeant) Dr. Irmfried Eberl at the office of the SS- and Police Chief in the Warsaw district. The letter is addressed to the Commissioner for the Jewish residential district and begins with the sentence:[288]

The second of these documents is a letter whose date is illegible, but which probably likewise falls in June of 1942. It was directed by Heinz Auerswald, Commissioner for the Jewish residential district in the office of the Governor of the Warsaw district, "to the Chairman of the Jewish Council of Warsaw" and begins as follows:[289]

In the third of these documents, a letter of June 26, 1942, of Dr. Eberl to the Commissioner for the Jewish residential district of Auerswald on the subject "Work Camp Treblinka", it reads at the beginning:[290]

The "labor camp Treblinka" was established by ordinance of the Governor of the Warsaw district of November 15, 1941. The order for building the camp, in which its purpose is also stated, was published on December 16, 1941, in the Amtsblatt für den Distrikt Warschau Generalgouvernement (Official Gazette for the Warsaw district of the General Gouvernement) no. 11-12 on p. 116.[291]

Thus the "Sonderkommando Treblinka" possessed a very institutional character and consequently was a component of the administrative structure of the General Gouvernement. Politically, it was subordinate to the SS- and Police Chief in the Warsaw district and to the Senior SS- and Police Chief in the General Gouvernement (Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger), administratively to the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS and Police at Warsaw as well as to the SS-Administrator.

Now how can the expressly primitive character of these camps be explained? In reality, this question is falsely formulated, for the primitiveness of the three camps does not emerge from any kind of documentation, but merely from witness statements. We have graphically seen in the preceding chapters what sort of value ought to be attached to these. Thus, the primitive character of the camps is no objectively proven fact, but simply a subjective reconstruction. On the contrary: since the camps were constructed in conformity to the usual economic and administrative conventions, as they were applied to the other camps, they could not be primitive at all, and one comes inevitably to the conclusion that the subjective reconstructions based upon testimonies of witnesses cannot reflect the reality.

With these unreal reconstructions, the unspeakably primitive character of the crucially important buildings, for whose sake the camps are supposed to have allegedly been built - namely the killing and corpse cremation facilities - is glaringly obvious. We begin with the killing installations, and we will confine ourselves strictly to Treblinka.

The data given by the official historiography is, in reality, based almost entirely upon the witness testimony of Jankiel Wiernik, who for his part, as we explained in the second chapter, fell back upon the description of the steam chambers in the report of November 15, 1942.

But even with respect to the structure, indeed, even with respect to the number of the alleged gas chambers of the second installation - likewise based upon witness statements - variations exist, which are not given a whisper of mention in the official historiography.

In Chapter III we cited the witness testimony of Abe Kon, according to whom the second killing facility contained 12 gas chambers. The Soviet report concerning Treblinka of August 24, 1944, in which 12 gas chambers are correspondingly mentioned, is based upon this testimony.[298] As already seen, the current official version speaks of 10 chambers. The witnesses Willi Metz and Otto Horn, who had worked in 'Camp II', declared that the installation had 6 gas chambers.[299] Jankiel Wiernik wrote that at his arrival in Treblinka there had been three gas chambers and that two more were added during his stay in the camp even before the construction of the second extermination facility,[300] so that there had been 15 and not 13 gas chambers in total.

The witnesses are also not in agreement about the location of the small observation windows in the gas chambers. In the front-line report of TASS of September 11, 1944, it says:[306]

On the other had, the Polish-Soviet protocol of September 15, 1944, asserted:[307]

E. Rosenberg also claims that this little window was located on the roof of the gas chambers.[308]

According to the key of the illustration, the figures and letters show the following facilities:

In addition, there is still a note without number or letter on the drawing: "Gas pipe into the chambers."

The second drawing bears the description "Plan of the Building no. 2 of the Treblinka Camp, in which the killing of people of Jewish nationality occurred."[310]

The picture legend furnishes the following designations:

A note without number or letter also appears in this drawing: "Pipe which led from the engine to the chambers." A small tractor is here likewise drawn in Room 12.

These two drawings without a doubt depict two facilities with gas chambers, which are fed by engine exhaust gases (or, to put it more accurately, by the exhaust gases from a tractor). But none of the witnesses questioned by Judge Jurowski mentioned such a version of killing. As we pointed out in Chapter II, to be sure they spoke of an engine, but this served merely to operate the pump, by which the air was said to have been sucked out of the chambers and not for filling the chambers with exhaust fumes. This vacuum version was then officially stated in the Soviet report concerning Treblinka of August 24, 1944, as well as in the Polish-Soviet protocol of September 15, 1944. What, therefore, was Judge Jurowski's source?

The answer is simple: Jankiel Wiernik 's expositions of May 1944, because the Soviet investigating judges were in possession of a copy of his text, which is explicitly mentioned in the Soviet report of August 24, 1944. As will be recalled, Wiernik had simply transformed the steam chambers of the report of November 15, 1942, into engine exhaust gas chambers and even copied the drawing of the camp enclosed with that report. On this plan[311] the two alleged killing installations are drawn in, the first with three and the second with ten chambers, whose structure is practically identical with those of the two drawings of Judge Jurowski. But because Wiernik had forgotten to append to the ten gas chambers of his second drawing an eleventh room, in which the engine was installed, Judge Jurowski saw himself forced to draw in the tractor (engine) at the end of the corridor, between chambers 5 and 10. He painstakingly adopted Wiernik 's drawings, yet nonetheless attempted to bring a minimum of order to them and in doing so drew equipment within the installations, which Wiernik had not mentioned. Since the Soviet judge understood significantly more about engineering than that witness, he enhanced the drawing with another element, which would have been indispensable for a hypothetical mass killing with engine exhaust fumes, but of whose necessity Wiernik had not been aware: the openings for the removal of the gas, i.e. of the air-gas mixture. We will come back to this important point in Section 8.

It is clear from all this that Judge Jurowski was technically too well-versed to swallow the nonsense told by the witnesses, but as Soviet military judge he accepted the story of the mass extermination in engine exhaust gas chambers and imbued it with a certain degree of plausibility by virtue of his drawings.[312]

In his excellent study The Diesel Gas Chambers: Idea for Torture - Absurd for Murder,[99] Friedrich P. Berg investigated the present version of the mass murder in the alleged eastern extermination camps - gassing by means of diesel engine exhaust gases - from a technical standpoint. He particularly emphasizes that according to the laws of toxicology, a person who is exposed to a concentration of 0.4% carbon monoxide (CO) (i.e. 4,000 parts CO per million parts of air), dies in less than one hour. Since the time, in which death occurs, is directly proportional to the percentage of CO, it requires correspondingly a concentration twice as high, thus 0.8%, in order to bring about death within less than a half-hour. Of the two main types of diesel engines, which existed in the forties, Berg examines the one whose exhaust gases contain a larger percentage of CO, that is, the engine with an undivided combustion chamber. In running at idle, this engine produces about 0.03% CO, but under full load approximately 0.4%. Berg says in this regard:[313]

But a diesel engine cannot continually run at full load, since it would soon break down due to the accumulation of solids compounds on the cylinder walls. On the other hand, a diesel normally operates with a large air surplus. At idle, with an air-fuel ratio of 100:1, the engine emits 18% oxygen, which is insignificantly less than the oxygen content of the air (21%) and suffices for survival. During a homicidal gassing, the oxygen content of the air must be so low that the victims suffocate from lack of oxygen, i.e., at a level of approximately 9%. This is attained by producing an air-fuel ratio of 25:1, which is reached at about 3/4 of full load.

If the second gassing installation of Treblinka measured a total of 640 m³ and was able to accommodate 3,200 people, Berg concludes from his calculations that the effective volume of air contained in it amounted to 400 m³, if assuming a body volume of 75 liters per person.

If one rounds the maximum number of revolutions per minute to 2,000, since a four-stroke engine empties its piston chamber only every second revolution, it emitted (1,000 × 38.86 =) 38,860 liters or 38.86 m³ of exhaust gases in one minute. Thus, the engine would have exchanged the entire content of air of the gas chambers in (400 ÷ 38.86 =) in something under 10 minutes. The gas chambers had to have openings for the removal of the air-gas mixture; otherwise they would have collapsed from the increased pressure. Berg begins by assuming that it requires 20 minutes under these circumstances until roughly the same percentage of CO is reached in the gas chambers as in the exhaust gases themselves, i.e., realistically, 0.22 vol.% at full load and an air-fuel ratio of 20:1.

As Berg stresses, experiments with guinea-pigs showed the following:[314]

Had the SS-men wished to carry out mass gassings with engine exhaust gases, Berg argues, they would surely have resorted to a gasoline engine, whose exhaust gases normally contain 7% by volume of carbon monoxide and 1% by volume of oxygen. With corresponding adjustment of the carburetor, the carbon monoxide content can be increased up to 12%. But that would not even have been the 'best' source of CO available during World War II: Due to a lack of gasoline, the German government passed laws that made it compulsory to equip all diesel-driven vehicles with producer gas generators, which generate a gas with up to 35% of CO from wood or coke. Hundreds of thousands of these truly poisonous generators operated in wartime Germany and in the occupied territories, and this technology was well-known to all major German politicians at that time, as Berg shows. It is thus more than justified when Berg concludes:[315]

The next question is, whether the Germans in 1941 would have had the knowledge that a gasoline engine would have been far more efficient for the mass killing of human beings in gas chambers. The answer is unequivocally yes. We present a single example.

In 1930, the Reich Office of Health and the I.G. Farbenindustrie company joined forces to perform a series of toxicological and hygienic experiments with combustion products of engines. E. Keeser, Professor and Doctor of Medicine, V. Froboese, Ph.D., and R. Turnau, Ph.D., from the Reich Office of Health, participated in the research project, and as representatives from the I.G. Farbenenindustrie of Oppau and Ludwigshafen E. Gross, Professor and M.D., E. Kuss, Ph.D., G. Ritter, Ph.D., and Professor W. Wilke, with a doctorate in engineering. The result of the study was published as a monograph under the title Toxikologie und Hygiene des Kraftfahrwesens.[316]

The experiments were performed exclusively with gasoline engines because their exhaust gases were regarded as far more harmful than those of diesel engines. First, the scientists conducted preliminary experiments with three different engine types: Hanomag 2/10 HP, Adler 6/25 HP, and Benz 10/30 HP. The average composition of the exhaust gases was as follows:[317]

In subsequent experiments, the researchers chose the Adler engine. Regarding the working conditions of this engine they remarked:[318]

After an analysis of six different kinds of gasoline, the scientists performed twelve main experiments. With respect to the emission of CO, the highest values were recorded at idle:[319]

The technique employed in conducting the experiments was very progressive for that time.[321] The researchers were carrying out toxicological tests, in which they constructed sophisticated miniature gas chambers. In particular, they performed preliminary tests, about which they wrote:[322]

The actual experiments were conducted with five types of gasoline and lasted 120 minutes each. White mice and guinea pigs served as experimental animals. The researchers explained:

Thus, the experiments began with an air/exhaust gas mixture with a CO content of 0.3%. In these experiments, which lasted 120 minutes, ataxia and narcosis appeared in the guinea pigs, but not yet death.[324]

This study, whose findings we condensed down massively, has an impressive bibliography of no less than 240 expert papers.[325] It is now easy to conclude that the story of the diesel engine exhaust gas chambers is not only incredible, but borders on the absurd: whoever seriously defends it is like someone who wishes to claim that during the Second World War the Reich government preferred fighting with weapons of the stone age, although it had at its disposal a broadly diversified arsenal of the most modern weapons of that time!

This comparison is by no means a lame one, since according to the official historiography the planning and construction of the alleged extermination camps in eastern Poland was a matter of state, and the extermination of the Jews in these camps is supposed to have been one of the chief goals of the Third Reich.

Among the many absurdities of the so-called 'Gerstein Report', a very important one concerns his alleged mission, which Y. Arad summarizes as follows:[326]

Later, Arad explains that Gerstein had "submitted a written report of his mission when he was incarcerated in an American^[[330]^] army prison at the end of the war in April-July 1945",[326] cites an excerpt from this 'report', and concludes:[331]

This tale related by Arad is totally absurd. First of all, let us summarize Gerstein's mission in the way he described it:

On March 10, 1941, Gerstein joined the SS[333] and was assigned to the SS-Führungshauptamt (SS Main Operations Office), Amtsgruppe D, Sanitätswesen (Office Group D, Sanitation) of the Waffen-SS, Hygiene Department.[334] Owing to his success in the field of hygiene, he was soon promoted to Leutnant and then to Oberleutnant[335] - two ranks, which did not exist in the Waffen-SS.[336] In January[337] or February[338] of 1942, he was named Head of the Technical Disinfection Service of the Waffen-SS. In this capacity, Gerstein received a visit on June 8, 1942, from SS-Sturmbannführer Günther of Department IV b 4 of the SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, SS Main Office of Imperial Security),[339] who entrusted him with the task, a mission for the German Empire under utmost secrecy, of taking charge of 100 kg,[340] - no, 260 kg[341] - of a substance which at the same time was prussic acid (HCN)[342] and potassium cyanide (KCN),[343] and of bringing this by car[344] - no, by a truck[345] - to a location that only the driver knew.

Günther 's task offered Gerstein the opportunity of inspecting the alleged eastern extermination camps. But according to the document "Killing Institutions in Polen,"[346] Gerstein had not been innocently selected by the RSHA for his super-secret mission, but instead had himself taken the initiative: by making himself useful to SS officers in Poland, he won their confidence and succeeded in obtaining permission to visit the 'killing institutions.'[347]

On June 8, therefore, Gerstein is given a mission by Günther orally, which 48 hours later, on June 10, is confirmed in writing.[348] Nine weeks later, Gerstein and the driver leave for Kolin by Prague, in order to load the toxic substance. "By accident,"[349] Gerstein takes Prof. Pfannenstiel along, an SS-Sturmbannführer,[350] - no, an Obersturmbannführer[351] - which means that Pfannenstiel had nothing to do with Gerstein 's mission.

It is worth suggesting here that the working methods of the RSHA with respect to the extermination of the Jews were extremely bizarre, to say the least: Günther entrusted Gerstein with the task of "immediately" taking charge of the toxic substance "for an extremely secret mission for the Reich,"[357] but Gerstein permits himself an unusually long time and only gets around to going on the trip more than two months later, without any RSHA official having raised any objection about this. But that's not enough: even more oddly, the RSHA had revealed the alleged secret to a simple driver and furthermore to an outsider (Pfannenstiel), but not to the person directly concerned, namely Gerstein!

The goal of Gerstein 's mission was to convert the operational method of the gas chambers from diesel exhaust gases to prussic acid,[358] but in blatant contradiction to this Gerstein explained:[359]

Consequently, he must have discovered that killing-method, which had previously been indicated to him by the RSHA, and was proposing precisely that substance, which the RSHA had already selected itself!

In Kolin, however, Gerstein did not pick up Zyklon B - which was produced there - but instead liquid prussic acid in 45 bottles, "after showing an order from the RSHA",[360] in other words, at the command of the RSHA, which is strikingly odd, since liquid prussic acid, a rather dangerous chemical, had not been used in Germany for extermination of vermin since the introduction of the 'tub procedure' after World War One and later of Zyklon B.[361]

Thereupon Globocnik explained to him what his main mission was:[365]

The absurd answer did not satisfy Mattei, and he probed further:[367]

"Therefore, according to your own admission, you received an important mission in Berlin in your capacity as technician, a mission which was so important that you had to carry it out as a state secret, you visited three camps and were given an audience by a General, who, in view of the purpose of your mission, considered it necessary to communicate to you the remark of the two great Nazi leaders.^[[368]^] How can you persist in wanting to convince us that you:

1. Did not fulfill the goal of your mission at all;

2. Gave a report to no one;

3. No one put any sort of questions to you concerning this?"

Gerstein answered:

This defensive strategy was demolished by Gerstein himself when he stated:[369]

Thus, Christian Wirth did not have such great influence with Himmler after all! This is also 'confirmed' by the allegation that Wirth was afraid of Gerstein:[370]

Gerstein 's tale is based upon three premises:

1. The extermination of Jews in the eastern camps was a secret matter of the Reich, indeed, it was the most secret matter of all.

2. It had therefore been planned at the governmental level of Himmler, through Department IV B4 of the RSHA (Eichmann).

3. The execution of the extermination plan had been entrusted to Globocnik, who was directly responsible to Himmler for it.

The RSHA allegedly gave Gerstein the task to change the way the gas chambers functioned. Therefore, the order had to have been issued by Himmler. Himmler had supposedly done this because the system employed at that time - diesel engine exhaust gases - was unsatisfactory. Globocnik had been in full agreement with it, and only he would have been able to inform Himmler about the inefficiency of this method of extermination.

According to Michael Tregenza, Globocnik ordered the restructuring of Treblinka after an inspection performed on August 19, 1942, and entrusted this task to Christian Wirth as "Inspector of the SS-Sonderkommando 'Operation Reinhard.'"[371]

We therefore return to our question at the outset:

Why would such an inefficient murder technique have been chosen at the governmental level for the execution of a plan, which concerned such a secret matter of the Reich?

Gerstein belonged to the SS Main Operations Office, Office Group D, Sanitation, of the Waffen-SS, Hygiene Department. Why did the RSHA turn to this office in order to change the killing-system then in operation, yet did not inquire about a more effective one? If the use of engine exhaust gases had been planned, why did the RSHA not contact the Reichsgesundheitsamt (Reich Office of Health) in Berlin at that time and the research laboratories of I.G. Farbenindustrie company, which, as we have seen, had substantial experience in this field at its disposal?

If the RSHA had decided to use prussic acid in the gas chambers, why did it commission Gerstein to pick up liquid prussic acid instead of Zyklon B?

And finally, if the diesel exhaust gas chambers proved to be so inefficient, why had their operational method not been changed?

Thus, the 'Gerstein Report', which Y. Arad describes as "one of the first and most important documents relating to Operation Reinhard"(sic),[372] is not only devoid of any sort of evidentiary weight, but on the contrary, it also sheds light upon the complete absurdity inherent to the entire story of the 'eastern extermination camps.'

But we have not reached the end of absurdities yet. How can one believe, in all seriousness, that for the execution of such an important government program as that of a 'secret Reich matter' old Russian diesel engines would have been used?[373] Where did the SS intend to procure spare parts for repairs when the inevitable wear and tear occurred?

But there is a yet more basic problem. In Chapter II we spoke of the electric power supply of Treblinka, which consisted of an engine and an electric generator driven by it. We have further seen how, according to the witness Wiernik, the alleged gas chambers were operated by the exhaust gases of this engine.

Aside from the ludicrousness of a mass killing by means of diesel exhaust gases, how plausible this is, is shown by Friedrich Berg:[374]

According to the witness Wiernik, it was just that engine of the electric power supply that was used in Treblinka in the gassings. This engine was thus doubly important; first, because it had to produce the carbon monoxide for the gassings, and second, because it generated the electrical energy indispensable for the needs of the camp. In fulfilling the second function, the engine had to be in operation 24 hours every day. How can one conceive of the notion that the RSHA and the SS-WVHA could have been satisfied with a Russian engine for the fulfillment of this double function? The whole story sounds all the more silly in view of the fact that the emergency electric supply of the Auschwitz camp was equipped with an obviously new German diesel engine since November 1940. By commission of the local SS Central Construction Office, the firm of Georg Grabarz compiled a detailed estimate, of which we have photocopied the first page.[375] The costs for the engine amounted to 28,140 RM, that for the generator 24,464 RM, and the entire costs, including accessories and costs of transport, 56,218 RM.[376]

According to the verdict of the Düsseldorf Jury Court of September 3, 1965, already cited, the gas chambers of the first killing installation measured 4 m × 4 m × 2.60 m each, thus 16 m² and 41.6 m³, and could each hold 200 to 350 people. Those of the second killing installation were 8 m × 4 m × 2 m, thus 32 m² and 64 m³ in size, and could accommodate 400 to 700 persons.[377]

The time period, during which a stay in gas-tight air-raid shelter (equipped with neither a ventilation nor an air-exchange system) is possible without danger to health and life, can be calculated on the basis of the following formula:

t = v/20n (10-0.4) = 0.48 (v/n)

in which t stands for the time spent in the shelter, v for the volume of the room in cubic meters, n is the number of occupants of the room. The constant 20 designates the number of liters of carbon dioxide exhaled by a person within an hour, and 0.4 refers to the liters of carbon dioxide present per cubic meter of air. Lastly, 10 is the highest possible permissible concentration of carbon dioxide (per m³) in the shelter.

By heeding this formula, the suffocation of the occupants of the shelter can be avoided. It is well known that an adult normally exhales 4% carbon dioxide (CO₂). Though this gas is not toxic, a concentration beyond a certain point leads to death through asphyxiation. On average, a standing adult breathes eight liters of air per minute and in doing so uses 0.360 liters of oxygen; during slow walking, however, his consumption of oxygen climbs to 0.65 liters per minute and the air exhaled during the same period is increased to 14 liters. Since in breathing four parts of carbon dioxide are produced for 5 parts of oxygen, the person in the first instance produces

(0.36 × 4/5 =) 0.288 liters of carbon dioxide per minute and in the second case

(0.65 × 4/5 =) 0.520 liters of carbon dioxide per minute.[378]

In regard to the effects of carbon dioxide upon people in relation to its concentration, two specialists, Flury and Zernik, write:[379]

Thus a carbon dioxide concentration of 10% leads to death in a few minutes, while at the same time the oxygen content has fallen to 8.5% (21%-(10%×5÷4)). In what time period would there have been such a concentration in the alleged gas chambers of Treblinka?

Since there were also children among the alleged victims - perhaps a third of the entire number[380] - and since the rate of respiration of the hypothetical victims would naturally have been accelerated by excitement, fear, and terror, we start our calculations with the assumption of an average carbon dioxide volume of 0.300 liters per person per minute[381] or 18 liters per person per hour, and with the average weight of each victim assumed to be 55 kg.[382]

The number of victims per gas chamber amounted to 200 to 300, thus an average of 275. The volume occupied by the bodies of the victims amounted to ((275×550)÷1,000=) 15.1 m³; therefore, there was a volume of (41.6-15.1=) 26.5 m³ of air available. In one minute the victims produced (275×0.3=) approximately 82.5 liters or 0.0825 m³ carbon dioxide.

The lethal concentration lies at 10% carbon dioxide, which corresponds to (26.5×0.1=) 2.65 m³ or 2,650 liters. This thus occurs in (2,650÷82.5=) about 32 minutes.

The number of victims per gas chamber amounted to 400 to 700, therefore an average of 550. The volume occupied by the bodies of the victims is (550×550÷1,000=) 30.2 m³; thus a volume of (64-30.2=) approximately 34 m³ is available. In one minute the victims produce (550×0.3=) approximately 156 liters or 0.165 m³ carbon dioxide. The lethal concentration of 10% carbon dioxide, that is, (34×0.1=) 3.4 m³ or 3,400 liters, is consequently attained in (3,400 ÷ 165 =) about 21 minutes.

According to the witnesses, the victims are supposed to have died from the gas after approximately 30 to 40 minutes, but death from asphyxiation would have already occurred after about 20 or 30 minutes. What good purpose, therefore, was served by the construction of diesel gas chambers?

But we still are not yet done with the absurdities. Rachel Auerbach writes:[383]

This illuminates a gross error in planning, which would have been committed by the SS if these claims were correct. The second gassing installation allegedly had 10 gas chambers with a total volume of 640 m³, while the first had merely three gas chambers with a total volume of 124.8 m³. Therefore the volume of the second was approximately five times greater than that of the first. In order to kill the victims in the same time as in the first installation, the SS would consequently have had to install five engines in the second instead of a single one.

In his report published in 1944, Wiernik had only written:[384]

Quite clearly, Wiernik 's claim was pure atrocity propaganda: he wanted to create the notion that death in the new facility was even more cruel than in the old one, because the SS was using a defective engine (or perhaps even had intentionally damaged it!), and on that account the victims had to endure a torture such as the Devil incarnate would not have been able to invent a more diabolical one!

If, as Wiernik maintains on the other hand, 10,000 to 12,000 people per day were gassed in Treblinka,[385] - or even, at times, 20,000[386] - then this certainly does not comport with the inefficiency of the gas chambers, which was described by the same witness.

According to the official historiography, the gas chambers possessed no opening for the removal of the gas. As we have seen in Section 2, the Soviet Investigating Judge Jurowski inserted an opening for gas outflow in the ceiling in both of his drawings of the gas chambers of Treblinka. In 1947, Elias Rosenberg stated for the record:[387]

This small window, therefore, had nothing to do with any system for gas removal. But such a window, or, to be more exact, such an opening for the purging of the air-gas mixture would have been absolutely indispensable for a mass killing by the use of the exhaust gases of a powerful engine. Graduate engineer Arnulf Neumaier emphasizes that diesel engines emit their combustion gases with a pressure of 0.5 atmospheres (which corresponds to 500 g/cm²), and explains:[388]

In the first installation, such a pressure would have exerted a force corresponding to the weight of 80 metric tons upon the ceiling of each chamber, of 52 metric tons on each of the walls, of 8.1 metric tons upon the entrance door and of 22.5 metric tons upon the door serving for the removal of the bodies. If the masonry of the walls withstood this powerful pressure, then the engine, approaching a state of equilibrium between the pressure of the interior of the chambers and the pressure of the engine exhaust gases, would have broken down.

When would this equilibrium be reached? The gas pressure in a hermetically sealed container or room doubles if the amount of gas in it is doubled (provided the temperature is constant).

A diesel engine works like a compressor. Under the parameters of the data given previously, an engine of 38,860 cubic centimeters (38.86 liters) at 2,000 RPM emits 38.86 m³ of gas per minute with an outlet pressure of 0.5 atmospheres.

The effective air volume amounts to (26.5×3=) 79.5 m³ in the first and (34×10=) 340 m³ in the second installation. Under these conditions, a pressure of 0.5 atmospheres would be attained if a volume of exhaust gas had been blown into the rooms, which corresponded to half of their effective volume, therefore (79.5÷2=) 39.75 m³ in the first and (340÷2 =) 170 m³ in the second installation. This would have taken (38.25÷38.86=) less than a minute in the first installation, but (170÷38.86=) a little more than four minutes in the second.

If the alleged gas chambers were actually hermetically sealed, the gassing procedure under the circumstances described by the witnesses would therefore have come to a standstill through breakdown of the engine after scarcely a minute in the first facility, and after a little over four minutes in the second facility, if the walls of the building had not already collapsed before that. But probably the doors would simply not have withstood the pressure and would have been pushed off their hinges.

According to official historiography, about 860,000 of the 870,000 Treblinka victims were buried before their cremation.[389]

How many graves were there, and how large were they? The Düsseldorf Jury Court conceded at the trial of 1964-1965 that it had discovered no accurate information about this. In its verdict it says:[392]

But according to the witness E. Rosenberg, who is the sole person to give 'exact' details, the mass graves measured 120 m × 15 m × 6 m,[393] which, if one assumes a top layer of 0.5 m, gives an effective volume of (120×15×5.5=) 9,900 m³. Consequently, each grave could contain (9,900×8=) 79,200 bodies, which agrees almost exactly with the comment above of the Düsseldorf Court.

In accordance with this, if 860,000 bodies were really buried in Treblinka before their cremation, there must have been (860,000÷79,200=) 11 graves of this size, the total surface area of which amounted to (120 × 15 × 11 =) 19,800 m².

According to the plan of Treblinka produced at the Düsseldorf trial of 1964-1965, the mass graves were located without exception inside of 'Camp II,' where there were, besides, the following facilities: the old gassing installation, the new gassing installation, the two cremation grates and the barracks for the Jewish Sonderkommandos. But, as pointed out in Chapter II, the whole of 'Camp II' had an area, which was far less than the theoretical area of the graves, that is, 14,000 m².

'Camp II' had the shape of an irregular quadrilateral; its sides measured 188, 110, 174, and 52 meters. It therefore could theoretically accommodate merely three graves of the dimensions given above. Due to the presence of the five facilities mentioned, however, of which three (the two cremation grates and the new gassing installation) were allegedly lined up with one another on an east-west axis, 'Camp II' could barely enclose a single one such mass grave for 79,200 bodies. Where, then, were the remaining 780,800 bodies buried?

In the plan mentioned, just five mass graves are drawn in 'Camp II,' which further complicates things, since each grave would then had to have had a far greater area than stated above.

As shown in Chapter III, in the year 1944 the Soviets found three mass graves in the proximity of Treblinka I, and the Poles a further 41 in 1946. The latter possessed a total area of 1,607 m². Not a single mass grave was discovered on the camp area itself, although this had a greater area than Treblinka II: approximately 18 hectares.[395]

The graves were located in the forest of Maliszewa, about 500 m away from the camp. This was due to obvious considerations of hygiene and sanitation.

According to the official version of history, the existence of huge mass graves is confirmed by the presence of three excavators in the camp, which at first are supposed to have been employed for the excavation of the graves and later for exhuming the corpses. Two photos are often published in support of this claim, in which excavators - allegedly at a location in Treblinka II - can be recognized. One of these photos is reproduced in the work of Y. Arad with the caption:[399]

The other, better-known photograph appeared, inter alia, in the work of Gitta Sereny, where the caption claims that the excavator served to transport the corpses out of the trenches onto the grates.[400] This photo was also published in the book The Good Old Days with the caption:[401]

Samuel Willenberg's book contains a picture of said excavator in action, dumping a load of - soil. The picture bears the caption:[402]

R. Czarkowski has published the same snapshot with the comment "Excavator for the excavation of the graves for the victims."[403] Furthermore, it is supposed to follow from German documents - never published, however - that on June 29, 1943, an excavator from Treblinka was sent to the Adam Lamczak firm in Berlin; two more excavators were supposedly shipped to Lublin or Poniatowa or Trawniki in November 1943 (the exact date and exact place of destination are not named).[404] It apparently occurred to nobody that in reality these excavators could have been stationed in Treblinka I, where they found employment in the mining of gravel in the pit there. The sole 'proof' for the presence of these machines in Treblinka II are two drawings produced by S. Willenberg in the 1980s, in which one sees a part of the camp with an excavator in the background![405]

Y. Arad describes the early history of the alleged burning of bodies in Treblinka as follows:[406]

This claim is untenable just as much from the standpoint of the witness testimony as it is historically invalid. Rajzman had stated in particular at his first interrogation on September 26, 1944:[408]

Rajzman came to Treblinka on September 27, 1942, which means that the cremation of bodies must have already begun in September of that year and not first in March 1943.

On the other hand, the story of the Himmler visit to Treblinka is devoid of any sort of historical basis and is not even supported by a vague documentary reference. It is a simple invention of the witnesses in order to make their tales of enormous cremations in Treblinka appear credible, which for their part are supposed to lend credibility to their description of a gigantic mass extermination in the camp. But historically viewed it is all sheer nonsense.

According to official historiography, Himmler, at a point in time when Auschwitz, allegedly the largest of the German 'extermination camps,' began its murderous activity, is supposed to not have had the idea yet of building crematoria for the incineration of corpses: the victims of the so-called 'bunkers' of Birkenau are supposed to have simply been buried in mass graves, which had been excavated in the 'Birkenwald' (birch forest). Himmler is supposed to have ordered the cremation of bodies in Auschwitz after his second visit there on July 17 and 18, 1942.[409] As a result of this alleged Himmler order, the incineration of the bodies under the open sky is supposed to have begun on September 21, 1942.[410]

But already in the month before his visit to Auschwitz, Himmler is supposed to have ordered the SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, through the Chief of the Gestapo, Heinrich Müller, to eradicate all traces of the mass graves:[411]

Or to put it differently, we understand it only too well: the witnesses of the different camps had not managed to get together to agree on an identical starting date for Himmler's decision to eradicate all traces by cremation!

Had Treblinka been a 'pure extermination camp,' then it would have been the sheerest insanity not to construct crematoria. All important concentration camps - Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Flossenbürg, Neuengamme, Groß-Rosen, Niederhagen, Ravensbrück - were equipped with stationary or mobile crematorium furnaces. Lublin/Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau, which supposedly functioned simultaneously as concentration and extermination camps, possessed several crematoria: the former camp had two of them with seven muffles altogether,[416] the latter five crematoria with a total of 52 muffles, even though not all at the same time.[417] Why should Himmler not even have provided for the building of a single furnace for an alleged pure extermination camp?

The situation sounds all the more crazy, as on December 4, 1941, Himmler himself had ordered through the SS Main Office for Budget and Buildings "4 pieces of Topf 4-muffled double cremation furnaces" from the Topf firm in Erfurt for the White Russian city Mogilew, which was then under German military administration[418] and where the transit camp for POWs no. 185 under the command of Major Wittmer was located.[419] But on December 30, 1941, merely half a furnace (four muffles) was shipped to Mogilew; two others were then installed in the crematoria IV and V of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and 11/2 more ovens (12 muffles) remained temporarily in storage at the Topf firm for Himmler 's disposal.[420] On August 16, 1943, the SS-Administrator at the Senior SS- and Police Chief's office in the General Gouvernement delivered a memo to all Central Construction Offices of the General Gouvernement (occupied Poland) as well as to the Construction Office of Radom, in which they were informed that Office CIII of the SS-WVHA had available "11/2 cremation furnaces = 12 muffles" and asked that notification be given by September 1, if the officials named required them.[421] We know only the response of the Construction Director of Trawniki, a subcamp to Majdanek, who wrote:[422]

Since there had been confusions about payments of invoices of the Topf firm, the SS-Administrator of Group C/Construction also addressed the office of the Senior SS- and Police Chief of Central Russia, since the ordering of the "4 pieces of Topf 4-muffled double cremation furnaces" was intended for the Construction Inspection Office of Central Russia.[423]

Let us summarize: By December 1941, the problem of the cremation of bodies had emerged in the concentration and prisoner-of-war camps. Crematoria were built in Mogilew, in Majdanek, and in all the larger concentration camps, but not in the alleged three pure extermination camps!

The SS paid the sum of 1,400,000 RM for the four crematoria of Birkenau,[424] but for crematoria in the camps allegedly devoted exclusively to the extermination of Jews, the SS sacrificed not a single penny, although this extermination of Jews is supposed to have been one of the main goals, if not the main goal itself, of NS policy!

Can anyone really take such nonsense seriously?

The matter of the missing crematoria is all the more grotesque, as the problem of cremating the corpses would have been tremendous, if the official version of Treblinka corresponded to the facts. The Jewish US-historian Konnilyn G. Feig comments the following in this regard:[425]

Before we continue, we must correct the figures given here. If 700,000 bodies weighed 35,000 tons, then the average weight of a body was 50 kg and it occupied a volume of approximately 0.05 m³; thus, the entire volume was 35,000 m³ and not 69,000 m³.

In our calculations, we are assuming the number of bodies to be 870,000 as given by Y. Arad and the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust and assume the average weight to be 45 kg, since the corpses would have been buried for many months, leading to a loss of weight by desiccation. Thus, the total weight of the bodies would have amounted to 39,150,000 kg and the volume occupied by them would have been 39,150 m³.

Feig goes on to say:[426]

In order to increase the efficiency of the grates, Floss introduced an important innovation to them. As Jean-François Steiner claims, whom Feig quotes, Floss had discovered during his experiments in particular that

Therefore, "it was evident that the ideal body was the old body of a fat woman," and Floss had the bodies distributed according to these criteria.[426]

Feig is thus not embarrassed to repeat the crackpot claims of some witnesses, that women's bodies burned spontaneously and served as fuel for the cremation of the rest of the bodies.[427] Hardly less ridiculous is the claim that the bodies of old men burn better than those of young men. In actuality, the truth is exactly the opposite: in the bodies of men weakened by age the combustible materials - fats and proteins - are already partly used up by the process of aging.

But this is in essence a secondary issue. The main problem lies in the primitiveness of the burning technique. Can anyone in possession of his five senses actually accept the scenario that the Commandant of Treblinka, disregarding the experiences with cremation accumulated by the SS in Auschwitz, engaged in amateurish experiments in executing an order personally issued by Himmler himself, as though the cremation of 870,000 were a local problem, to be solved by make-shift methods?

No less abstruse is the notion that Himmler, who had at his disposal the best German engineers and technicians in the field of cremation - those of the firm of J.A. Topf & Söhne (Erfurt), Hans Kori (Berlin) and Didier Werke (Berlin), who had supplied the crematoria furnaces to all the German concentration camps - sent a nobody by the name of Herbert Floss to Treblinka!

The technique of cremation employed in Treblinka was described as follows in the verdict of the Düsseldorf Jury Court at the trial of 1964-1965:[428]

According to the plan of Jankiel Wiernik from the year 1945 as well as that presented at the trial in Düsseldorf,[429] two such cremation facilities were in fact constructed. The cremation is supposed to have taken place in the time period between April and the end of July 1943,[430] so that nearly all 860,000 bodies are supposed to have been incinerated within 122 days, i.e. 7,000 per day on two grates, or 3,500 per day per grate.

How large was such a grate? In the version of Wiernik 's work One year in Treblinka published by A. Donat, one reads:[431]

The particulars given here are clearly the fruit of a later insertion, since in the American translation of Wiernick's writing compiled in 1944 it simply says:[433]

If one takes into consideration the fact that 3,000 bodies take up a volume of about (3,000×0.045 =) 135 m³, the claim, according to which the shovel of the excavator could be loaded with 3,000 bodies at a time, will evoke only amusement. The length of the grate (100 to 150 m) contradicts the trial documents. According to Arad, the grate was 30 m wide,[434] but this too contradicts the verdict of the Düsseldorf Jury Court, according to which the grate consisted of "5 to 6 train rails of about 25 to 30 m in length." Since emaciated bodies, which easily disintegrated, were burned on both grates, the gap between two rails had to be small and could at most be permitted to amount to 50 to 60 cm, so that one can assume a width of the grate of approximately three meters. The width given by Feig - one meter - is obviously impossible.

Thus, the two grates cannot have been larger than 30 × 3 × 0.76 m each. As already explained, each grate must have burned 3,500 bodies every single day for 122 days. Let us now examine the consequences of this.

The surface area of one grate amounted to 90 m². In view of its structure, the bodies could only be placed cross-wise on it; it is therefore to be assumed that for one meter of length of the grate - which corresponds to three square meters - four bodies can be placed, two respectively to the right and left of the central axis. We are assuming, however, for each body a theoretical average surface area of the size of a rectangle of 1.75 m × 0.50 m, which also includes the necessary intervening space for the passage of the products of combustion. On the entire grate, then, there is space for a layer of (4 × 30 =) 120 bodies. If we start with a height of 30 cm per layer of bodies, if one placed 3,500 bodies at the same time on the grate, the result would be (3,500÷120=) 29 layers of bodies with a total height of (29×0.3=) 8.7 m!

According to the witness Henryk Reichmann, five to six grates were built, each of which was able to accommodate 2,500 bodies at a time.[435] The witness Szyja Warszawski specified that each grate measured 10 m × 4 m.[436] It follows from this that one could accommodate a layer of 46 bodies on each grate, and 2,500 bodies - picture this - would result in 54 layers, or a hill of bodies 16 m high!

Even had the SS managed the feat of piling up 29 or even 54 layers of bodies on the grate, the train rails would have deformed under the load as well as from the heat, and the body-mountain would have soon caved in.

The space available beneath the grate was (0.76 m × 90 m² =) 68.4 m³. The weight of a cubic meter of normally stacked firewood lies between 340 and 450 kg. Let us assume the highest value here; then (68.4×450 =) 30,780 kg of wood can fit in the 68.4 m³. Arnulf Neumaier refers to an article, which appeared in the November 27, 1986, Schenectady Gazette, New Delhi, according to which 6,433 tons of wood is required for the daily cremation of 21,000 bodies in India, which corresponds to a wood requirement of 306 kg per body.[437] The author of the present chapter (Carlo Mattogno) has performed cremation experiments with animal flesh, which produced the following results:[438]

• Quantity of wood needed for the cremation of one kilogram of animal flesh: 3.5 kg of seasoned wood (plus 0.1 liter of ethyl alcohol).

• Time required for the incineration of one kilogram of animal flesh: approximately 6 minutes.

• Amount of wood burned per square meter per one hour (until flames extinguish): approximately 80 kg.

• Wood ashes resulting: approximately 8% of the total weight.

• Specific weight of wood ashes: approximately 0.34 g/cm³.

On the basis of this data one can calculate that the cremation of one body of 45 kg requires approximately 160 kg of seasoned wood. Consequently, in order to incinerate 3,500 bodies, (3,500×160=) 560,000 kg of wood is necessary, but there was room for merely 30.780 kg under the grate, therefore seven times less than required. Therefore, no more than (30.780÷3,500=) 8.8 kg of wood would have been allotted to one body, a ridiculously insufficient amount.

Let us even suppose that it were feasible in some way or other to constantly pack new wood under the grate. In what period of time would the 560,000 kg of wood have been consumed by burning?

In fires with fixed grate and more natural ventilation, 150 to 190 kg of seasoned, chopped wood can be burned per square meter of grate per hour.[439] But this applies only to an actual cremation apparatus with burning chamber, grate, a more adjustable air supply for burning, and chimney. With a pyre in the open, these values decline markedly. We therefore assume a sustainable value of 80 kg per square meter in our experiment.

This means that in one hour (90×80=) 7,200 kg of wood could be burned under the pile of bodies in one hour. In order to burn the 560,000 kg of wood necessary for incineration of the bodies, (560,000÷7,200=) approximately 78 hours is required, thus more than three days. If one adds the time needed for cooling down of the pyre, one cremation session can take place every five days. Therefore, the 122 cremation sessions of 7,000 bodies each - which is the prerequisite for the disposal of 860,000 bodies using two grates - requires a time period of (122×5=) 610 days.

The burning time computed here corresponds to (78÷29=) 2.5 hours per layer of bodies. In the case of a pyre with 29 layers of bodies, however, this time period is not sufficient, as a comparison with the crematorium furnace of the Gorini type shows: with this furnace from the 19 century, the body lay upon a grate, beneath which a wood fire of 100 to 150 kg burned. With this type of furnace, a cremation lasted from one-and-a-half to two hours.[440]

In the case of the pyre previously described, the flames and the products of combustion come in direct contact only with the layer of corpses lying directly on the grate and exert their effects upon any layer lying above that with an intensity quickly dwindling toward the vanishing point, so that a burning-time of 2.5 hours per level is totally unrealizable.

If we assume the value determined in our experiment of 160 kg of wood per 45 kg of organic substance, the quantity of wood necessary for the incineration of all bodies amounts to (870,000×160=) 139,200,000 kg or 139,200 metric tons. The ashes from combustion resulting from this would have been (139,200×0.08=) approximately 11,100 metric tons and occupied a volume of (11,100÷0.34 =) approximately 32,600 m³.

The ashes resulting from cremation of a body weigh approximately 5% of the body weight and have a specific weight of approximately 0.5 g/cm³.[441] Thus, from 870,000 bodies having an average weight of 45 kg, a mass of (870,000×45×0.05÷1,000=) approximately 1,950 tons of ashes results, which has a volume of (1,950÷0.5=) 3,900 m³. The total weight of the wood ashes and the ashes from incineration of the bodies therefore amounts to (11,100+1,950=) approximately 13,000 metric tons, which occupy a volume of (32,600+3,900=) 36,500 m³. To what location was this enormous quantity of ashes brought?

Y. Arad writes:[442]

From where did the administration of the Treblinka camp obtain the 139,200 metric tons of wood, which were required for the incineration of the bodies?

According to the witnesses, trees in the nearby forest were felled for the wood supply. The work was performed by a "Holzfällerkommando" (wood-felling unit).[445] But the witness reports are extremely vague about the details, which one can well understand. During a period of 122 days, this party would have had to chop with axes and hatchets, saw up and haul into the camp (139,200÷122=) 1,140 tons of wood every day! This means that every day it had to fell, disbranch and saw up at least 760 trees and transport the load on 76 trucks with 15 metric tons each. This is decidedly too much, especially if one considers that this wood-felling party is supposed to have consisted, according to R. Glazar, of merely 25 men.[87]

The plan drawn by Jankiel Wiernik in 1945 shows a large forested zone in the northeast sector, not far from the two grates in the southeast sector. From whence came, then, the 139,200 tons of wood, the acquisition of which required approximately 92,800 trees?