The Case for Auschwitz by Robert Jan Van Pelt

Author:Robert Jan Van Pelt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Published: 2017-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

Johann Paul Kremer, 1945. Courtesy Archive Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oswiecim.

After his arrest, Kremer was extradited to Poland, and he became one of the defendants in the Auschwitz Trial held before the Supreme National Tribunal in Cracow in November and December 1947. During his pretrial interrogation Kremer was asked to elucidate the various entries of his diary. On August 18,1947, he stated that “by September 2,1942, at 3 A.M. I had already been assigned to take part in the action of gassing people.”

These mass murders took place in small cottages situated outside the Birkenau camp in a wood. The cottages were called “bunkers” in the SS-men’s slang. All SS physicians on duty in the camp took turns to participate in the gassings, which were called Sonderaktion [special action]. My part as a physician at the gassing consisted in remaining in readiness near the bunker. I was brought there by car. I sat in front with the driver and an SS hospital orderly sat in the back of the car with oxygen apparatus to revive SS-men, employed in the gassing, in case any of them should succumb to the poisonous fumes. When the transport with people who were destined to be gassed arrived at the railway ramp, the SS officers selected from among the new arrivals persons fit to work, while the rest—old people, all children, women with children in their arms and other persons not deemed fit to work—were loaded onto lorries and driven to the gas chambers. I used to follow behind the transport till we reached the bunker. There people were driven into the barrack huts where the victims undressed and then went naked to the gas chambers. Very often no incidents occurred, as the SS-men kept the people quiet, maintaining that they were to bathe and be deloused. After driving all of them into the gas chamber the door was closed and an SS-man in a gas mask threw the contents of a Cyclon tin through an opening in the side wall. The shouting and screaming of the victim[s] could be heard through that opening and it was clear that they were fighting for their lives. These shouts were heard for a very short while. I should say for some minutes, but I am unable to give the exact length of time.145

Three days later Kremer witnessed another gassing and dutifully recorded it in his diary.

September 5, 1942. At noon was present at a special action in the women’s camp (Moslems)—the most horrible of all horrors. Hschf Thilo, military surgeon, was right when he said to me today that we are located here in the anus mundi. In the evening at about 8 P.M. another special action with a draft from Holland. Men compete to take part in such actions as they get additional rations—⅕ litre vodka, 5 cigarettes, 100 grammes of sausage and bread. Today and tomorrow (Sunday) on duty.146

In Poland, Kremer again gave a full explanation of this entry. On July 17, 1947, he testified that “the action of gassing emaciated women from the women’s camp was particularly unpleasant.

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