Operation Reinhard Gas Chambers: Methods of Murder

Reports of multiple methods of murder:

There were, in fact, many theories about the method of murder in the Operation Reinhard death camps during the war. Among those that pertain to Treblinka are:

• An article in the New York Times on August 8, 1943. In the article, it was claimed that the method of murder was steam. The story was based on a report written by the Jewish resistance movement in the Warsaw ghetto, entitled “Liquidation of Jewish Warsaw.” This report also contained a detailed description of Treblinka. The resistance movement report made its way from the Polish government-in-exile in London, to the Black Book of Polish Jewry, and then to The New York Times.[2]
• The diary of Eugenia Szajn-Lewin. Szajn-Lewin kept a diary in the Warsaw ghetto between July 1942 and April 1943. In her diary, she wrote that the method of murder was steam-heated air. She also wrote that when the victims were dead a floor flap dropped down and the bodies fell into a pit.[3]
• The testimony of Samuel Rajzman, a survivor of Treblinka, in March 1945. Rajzman claimed that the victims were suffocated by sucking air out of the rooms.[4] Razjman also mentioned “Cyclon-gas” [Zyklon-B] and other poisonous chemicals as possible methods of murders.
• The writings of Emanuel Ringelblum. Ringelblum was a historian in the Warsaw ghetto. He recorded that the method of killing was gas, steam, and electricity.[5]

Facts about the method of murder in Treblinka:

None of the reports mentioned above invalidates the reliable evidence showing that the method of murder at Treblinka was engine exhaust, which poisoned and suffocated victims. There were reasons for erroneous reports:

• Second-, third-, and fourth-hand accounts. In the case of The New York Times article, their information was third- and fourth-hand. The sources in Poland (the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto, the Polish underground, and the Polish government-in-exile) were trying to get information about Treblinka out to the world. They included the best information they had at the time. However, their sources had to speculate about the method of murder since almost everyone who entered the extermination area of Treblinka did not survive to tell the real situation.
• Rumors. In the case of Szajn-Lewin and Ringelblum, they were merely repeating a rumor. A “rumor” is “a story or statement without confirmation as certainty as to facts.”[6] Based on this definition of a rumor, their accounts do not rise to the level of evidence. Rather, both reports illustrate the level of fear and lack of knowledge the Jews of Warsaw had about their fate if they were “resettled.” Even Samuel Rajzman, a survivor of Treblinka, did not work in the extermination area. Rajzman claimed that he received his information from a camp doctor. The doctor also told Rajzman that this killing method was only a rumor he heard, not an eyewitness account.[7]

Limited information about the Operation Reinhard camps, both during and immediately after the war:

Wartime reports of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka consistently identified them as extermination camps. For example, the Polish underground army filed a confidential report in April 1942, which included their careful observations of Belzec. They learned that between March 17 and April 13 about 52 transports arrived in the camp. Each transport had approximately 18 to 35 cars with a total average of 1,500 people. The trains entered the camp, remained there for half an hour, and came out empty. No Jews left the camp, either by day or by night. No food was supplied to the camp. After each transport, about two box cars of clothing were transported from the camp to the railway storage building. In one area of the camp, three barracks could be seen. According to the report, these were clearly not enough barracks to accommodate the numbers of Jews entered the camp. Within the vicinity of the camp, a strong odor could be detected on warm days. Based on this information, they drew the reasonable conclusion that the Jews who entered the camp were being murdered and buried there. The report stated, “It is unknown by which means the Jews are liquidated in the camp. There are three assumptions: (1) electricity; (2) gas; (3) by pumping out the air.”[8]

Likewise, uprisings occurred in Sobibor and Treblinka in August and October 1943, respectively, during which time there were a large number of escapees. Between their escape and the end of the war, those who made it to safety began to testify about what they had seen inside these camps and more detailed information began to emerge.

In the decades after the war, some of the German perpetrators were arrested and tried. During their trials, more information came to light. Further, the sites were probed by Polish and Russians investigators after the war and their findings began to circulate as well. Thus, evidence emerged slowly and steadily over many years. This was especially true as more eyewitness came forward, as more high-profile trials took place, and as scientific studies of the sites began.

In short, the confusion of war meant that sources of information about the method of murder in Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor were rumors or guesses. None of these accounts negate the more solid evidence we have today, based on eyewitnesses (both Jews and perpetrators), site investigations, and documents.[9]

More evidence regarding the method of murder in Treblinka:

Rather than taking fourth-hand newspaper accounts, rumors, and guesses as evidence, the eyewitnesses testimony of Jewish survivors and Nazi perpetrators is crucially important. What do eyewitnesses say about the the method of murder? 

Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, the SS physician who inspected Belzec and Treblinka with Kurt Gerstein, testified: “When the people were closed in the chambers, the gas from an engine was piped in.”[10]

Franz Hödl, an SS guard in Sobibor, testified: “There was a gas chamber with an attached room for an engine. The exhaust gases were directed into the chambers to gas the Jews . . . The people were forced into these rooms from the corridor.  After the gassing the outside doors could be opened and the bodies removed.”[11]

Karl Schluch, an SS guard at Belzec, testified: “After the Jews entered the gas chambers, the doors were closed . . . Then Hackenholt switched on the engine which supplied the gas. After five or seven minutes—and this is only an estimate—someone looked through the small window into the gas chamber to verify whether all inside were dead.”[12]

Pavel Leleko, an Ukrainian guard at Treblinka, testified under oath: “Eight chambers out of the ten existing in the gas chamber building were used to poison people. In the two remaining ones, there were two powerful German engines, about 1.5 [5 feet] meters high—two engines in all. Each engine fed gas to four gas chambers.”[13]

Yankiel Wiernik, a survivor of Treblinka, stated: “There was not much space in the gas chambers.  People were smothered simply by overcrowding.”[14]

The common thread in the testimony, even the rumors: 

The common element in most of the testimony is that an engine was used. Steam-heated air, sucking air out of the chamber, pumping in toxic exhaust gases, and even generating electricity, all of these require an engine, a generator, or some source of power. The common theme of an “engine” means that Mattogno’s claim about supposed contradictions is not such a mass of “hopeless confusion.” The speculation is rather consistent in following way: all of the reports and rumors confirm that systematic murder was taking place, and the Nazis and their collaborators where probably using efficient, machine-based methods. In fact, Rajzman’s conclusion that suffocation was the means of murder is not wholly wrong. It is reasonable to conclude that at least some of the victims died of suffocation, due to close quarters in the small gas chamber rooms.

Conclusion:

Mattogno’s so-called testimony “confusion” is easily attributable to wartime hearsay or educated guesses. The reports and the guesses actually had some common threads, as mentioned above. These sources do not rise to the level of primary evidence, but they must be understood contextually, which makes their errors entirely understandable. Likewise, we do have dependable eyewitness testimony that has emerged over time, from Nazi perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, and Jewish survivors. This testimony comes from eyewitnesses who actually observed the process of murder at Treblinka, finally confirming that the method of murder was engine exhaust.