The first crematorium and the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz

Transcript of the podcast

From the beginning of the existence of the German Auschwitz camp, the bodies of murdered prisoners were incinerated. The first crematorium on the grounds of the camp was opened in August 1940, and of course, prisoners of the camp had to work there. The situation for this workgroup changed when the killing of people in gas chambers began in the camp. The Sonderkommando was then formed. I spoke to the doctor Igor Bartosik of the Memorial Research Center about the beginnings of this special work unit.

Looking at the beginnings of Auschwitz, the idea of planning the camp with crematorium is not a typical thing.

It is absolutely unique. Auschwitz is the first concentration camp that was constructed in such a way as to have an independent camp crematorium on its territory. The first plans for the crematorium at Auschwitz is a cost estimate from late April 1940. The construction of the crematorium is listed as one of the items with several thousand Deutschmarks, earmarked for this purpose. It is also evident from the outset that it was intended to be a camp with a high mortality rate.

What challenges did it also pose to the camp administration in this bureaucratic world of Third Reich that Auschwitz should manage a crematorium?

That is a very interesting point, because, according to the German regulations, the operation of a crematorium, even on the camp site, was under control of the local registry office. It was thus a formal obstacle to the construction of the crematoria at the concentration camps until 1939.

The camp commanders were not particularly interested in being subjected to that much control from any external bodies.

Most certainly, and besides, the regulations themselves made it impossible. The only way these crematoria could be established within the concentration camps, was for the camps to set up their own independent civil registry offices, thus fulfilling the legal requirements, since the existing crematoria in Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Auschwitz, for example, operated under the auspices of the local camp civil registry office. In other words – all the rules have been complied with here. As for crematoria that began operating on the sites of concentration camps, the first such crematorium was commissioned in Buchenwald at the end of 1939. It is related to the fact, that several transports of Poles, mainly arrested from Upper Silesia, arrived at Buchenwald and were cramped into barracks. The sanitary conditions are inadequate, these people become ill, epidemics break out, and that is when the Buchenwald commandant is confronted with the reality, that there are plenty of corpses. The procedure employed up to that point was to transport corpses of dead prisoners to the local crematorium in Weimar. This option was impossible in this case, which is why a crematorium was built, basically bypassing the regulations enforced at the time. It was a mobile crematorium with a top oil-fired furnace, well it was a mobile furnace, so there was no need to go through the whole chain of setting up a stationary crematorium on the site of the concentration camp. It presumably made him realize that if the number of prisoners in this concentration camp system continued to increase, the mortality rate was bound to rise. So, regulations had to be drawn up to avoid dependence on municipal crematoria. Consequently, in February 1940, a special decree was issued by Himmler, under which crematoria could be established in the concentration camp premises with independent registry offices.

On June 14, 1940, when the first Polish prisoners arrived, the crematorium was not there yet.

The first traces we discovered in the documentation from this period dated back to the end of May 1940. It was already evident, that the crematorium, or rather the crematorium furnace, would be supplied by the Topf company. The first document, dated May 25, 1940, already indicated that this company would install the device. Subsequent letters, that arrived in Auschwitz, over the next dozen or so days, deal with the question of what kind of device it would be. Topf already suggested the use of a stationary crematorium with a coke-fired oven. Though the documents mention the oil-fired furnaces had previously been used, it is nevertheless specified here that the furnace would be a coke-fired one. There is a recommendation to build a sufficiently high chimney and the issue of choosing the building which is to become the crematorium. As it is known, a pre-war warehouse for potatoes, cabbage and firefighting equipment were stored according to the accounts of soldiers stationed in this area at the end of 1939, that is before the outbreak of the war, became the first crematorium building.

What transpired in the camp in terms of construction works, what do we know about the construction of the crematorium and how did the camp function in terms of prisoners’ corpses until the commissioning of the crematorium?

As far as the construction of the crematorium itself is concerned, the sources of information are, above all, the construction reports of the then Auschwitz Bauleitung. We know that the building plan was ready in mid-June and construction materials were gradually transported into the camp. The Topf company delivered metal parts and furnace equipment towards the end of June and early July 1940, while the Topf company’s foreman arrived soon and began assembling the furnace. The interesting thing is that it is for the time being a major research puzzle. There is no documentation at all about the construction of the chimney. The only indication from Topf is that the chimney must be a square shape, with a stokehole diameter of 50x50 centimeters and a height of 10.4 meters. However, there is no trace neither in reports nor in accounts or any other documentation, regarding who physically built the chimney. This is also a curiosity. The crematorium was commissioned in mid-August 1940. A report dating from mid-August mentions, that the installation was ready for use and would be put to use any time soon. A letter from the beginning of September 1940 says, that the crematorium was already in operation. So, according to this document, the commissioning probably took place after August 15, 1940. How did they manage until then? We know from accounts, that the few corpses of prisoners who died in the camp at the time were incinerated at the municipal crematorium in Gliwice.

Who manned the first crematorium. Because we know from history, that the SS men also used prisoners for this work. Was this the case in Auschwitz?

As far as the first crematorium personnel is concerned, the person we are 100% certain was in charge of it, was Wacław Lipka, who later worked his way up from the crematorium staff to the Sonderkommando throughout the entire existence of Auschwitz camp. We also know from accounts from this period, that these were prisoners who only worked in the crematorium temporarily. The accounts mention among others, a prisoner from the first transport, Roman Obodziński, there were also a few other people, who after working there for some time, were transferred to other commandos. The first Kapo of this commando was German criminal prisoner, Theo Locke, who by the was also later reassigned to other jobs.

What was the situation of this group of prisoners, who worked in the crematorium? After all, they weren’t an isolated group of prisoners, as we will discuss in a little while. The situation was even different from that when the Sonderkommando was created, associated not only with cremation of corpses, but also with the extermination that was unfolding in Auschwitz.

The creation of this crematorium crew, which consisted of a few people at the time, probably three, four people, it was a normal commando, that functioned within the structure of the camp administration. These prisoners lived in the standard open block, they had contact with the other prisoners and weren’t attached to this work in any way. It was possible to move on to other jobs. There was even a case, described by one of the prisoners, Michalik, that a relative of his who was afraid of the winter, so he searched for some indoor work, saw an opportunity for a job in the crematorium and was accepted. However, after several days of what was, to say the least an unpleasant and difficult job, he again asked his relative to transfer him somewhere else, because he couldn’t cope with the job. He succeeded, and not was not only moved to another commando, but also later deported from Auschwitz. It shows that at that time, it was a normal camp commando, just like the locksmith, carpenter, or transport commando, where people could be simply employed or resign. It wasn’t yet the moment where they were the “Geheimnisträger”, that is the bearers of the secret, people bound to the job for life.

In the beginning, the crematorium at Auschwitz had one two-muffle furnace, which was later developed. This furnace could incinerate an estimated 70 to 100 corpses per day. However, the autumn of 1940 was a period that prisoners spent in the campgrounds when the weather conditions resulted in several deaths and illnesses. So, in November 1940, there was a need to expand the crematorium installation. An alarming letter was sent to the Topf company, requesting that another furnace be brought in as soon as possible and installed and put into operation. Finally, the entire procedure of ordering, delivering the furnace, paying the bill, and bringing in the former almost three months. Eventually, the second crematorium furnace was commissioned in January 1941.

Today, when visitors to the site walk through the preserved building, they see the second room and the first gas chamber in Auschwitz. Can we in any way find out in documents or accounts by former prisoners, why the SS men in Auschwitz decided at some point to use toxic gas, which turned out to be the cyclone gas to murder people?

I can say that the initiative or idea of using poison gas to kill, in my opinion, may have led to the famous liquidation action, the killing of the prisoners of Auschwitz in Sonnenstein. One can presume that the camp commandant or political department were fully aware that the people transported to Sonnenstein would be killed by poison gas. In the summer of 1941, when the order was given to liquidate smaller or larger groups of political commissars in the nearest concentration camp, the decision was taken to use poison gas, instead of firing squads, to avoid problems that might arise, when people were led to their deaths at gunpoint. The gas was Cyclone B, which had previously been used in Auschwitz as a disinfectant. Yes, as confirmed in one of our publications, the first use of Cyclone B was in June 1940, during the disinfection of the blocks. On the other hand, in the book “Beginnings of the Extermination”, we reproduced a document that they expect to late July 1941, that mentions a meeting at the camp commandant’s office. What’s interesting is that the members of Politische Abteilung participated in this meeting and an officer, who came from Berlin, among other things exalted the virtues of Cyclone B as a sanitizing agent. Frankly speaking, we have some doubts, because we would have rather seen for example the medical department of the camp at this meeting than officers from the Politische Abteilung or perhaps the report mentioned the disinfecting properties of this preparation. On the other hand, we suspect that the subject of using this preparation to murder people may also have been discussed during the meeting. Indeed, there is no mention of this in the minutes, but given the presence of the officers from the Politische Abteilung, one can presume that such an issue may have been raised. In any case shortly afterwards this gas was used.

And the key location for these events is the basement of Block 11.

Yes, the basement of Block 11, beginning of September 1941 and the killing of Soviet prisoners of war and Polish prisoners from the camp’s infirmary.

What do we know about this experiment?

Yes, of course we know that the trial use of Cyclone B to kill the people crammed into the cellars of Block 11 happened between 3rd and 5th of September 1941. The first alarming sign for the prisoners in the camp was that Block 11 has been emptied from its penal company prisoners. The subsequent patients from the camp infirmary were led to the underground block. Later an announcement of Lagersperre was made that is the camp was closed. It was forbidden to leave the blocks or look out from the windows. The next thing was arrival of Soviet prisoners of war, which took place in the evening. The block was then closed, and silence reigned in the camp, except for the fact, that at that very moment the SS men set to work, filling the cells with prisoners, POWs, and systematically flooding them with Cyclone B. The experiment continued for a long time. I mean it seems that the mere killing of people with Cyclone B didn’t last that long. The bigger problem for the SS was how to properly ventilate the building, because according to the instructions, accompanying the use of the Cyclone B in confined spaces, they had to ventilate the building for 24 hours. That is, given the toxicity of hydrate cyanide, it is most likely, that after pouring it systematically into these individual cells, these people probably died there more or less quickly. However, later ventilation of the building had to last for a specified time before the extraction of corpses could begin. It should also be taken into account that the emptying of these cells could only take place in the evening hours, when again the announcement I mentioned later, the Lagersperre, could be made within the camp, so that there would be as few witnesses to the extraction as possible. Therefore, this action practically stretched over several days.

The experiment was a success, meaning that the SS men achieved their goal and so that Cyclone B could be used for a such large-scale operations. The basement of Block 11 couldn’t be a gas chamber for many reasons, therefore, the first gas chamber had to be created in the camp.

The crematorium ovens were located at the opposite end of the camp, so the transport of corpses would take too long. The second thing was the question of ventilation. However, the basement had many nooks and crannies and removing these fumes of poison’s gas later would undoubtedly take time.

And the choice of location was a room right next to the crematorium?

Yes. That is in the so-called Leichenkeller, the morgue.

How was it prepared to function as a gas chamber?

According to the source materials, the book titled “The Beginnings of the Extermination of Jews in KL Auschwitz” contains a document we found only a few years ago. But the fundamental document, it is an order placed with the camp’s locksmith shop on 25th September, 1941, containing the instruction to immediately create four “luftdichte Klappen”, hermetic gas-tight flaps for crematorium one. It was certainly when the morgue of crematorium one was being converted into a gas chamber. There is no other alternative for the use of four hermetic gas-tight flaps in crematorium number one. This was the moment recalled in the memoirs of Broad, that four holes were made in the ceiling of the morgue room and were used to introduce Cyclone B pellets into the room. That would be the end of September 1941. Reports also mention the isolation of the building that was supposed to serve as a gas chamber. I mean, 1941 was the time when, well, there were different accounts from prisoners, but I personally assume that there was a makeshift wooden fence, with a single gate, leading to the courtyard of the building. It was adapted relatively quickly as a place of mass executions. One could also use the term “extermination”. Of course, this applied to the Soviet prisoners of war. On the other hand, the courtyard, which was only provisionally secured in spring of 1942, when the systematic transport of Jews began, was rebuilt. The courtyard was surrounded by a concrete wall, similar to that which surrounds the camp today, on the side of Soła River or from the south the Theatergebäude and equipped with two gates. We know that this was constructed in the spring of 1942.

Did the commissioning of the gas chamber in Auschwitz in the autumn of 1941 signify a change for this group of prisoners that worked in the crematorium as a normal work group, when the gas chamber suddenly appeared next to these crematorium ovens that is a completely different area of the camp’s operation?

I don’t know. I simply do not know. I can only surmise, that the opening of the gas chamber on the crematorium grounds was undoubtedly a breakthrough for the status of the prisoners employed to incinerate corpses. Why do I think so? Well, all the information I have been able to access, indicate that from about of summer of 1941 onwards there was no longer a case of prisoner working in the crematorium area, and later transferred to another work site, so it would suggest that these people, at this point, became a closed circle and were treated as keepers of the secret, insiders, who should no longer be transferred to other jobs. They continued to live in the camps, in what is called the “open block”, they are not barricaded in the basement of Block 11, locked up in some cell, but surely, moving to other jobs within the camp probably became impossible.

Today, when we look at the history of Auschwitz and the gas chambers, and the development of the entire extermination system, we naturally associated it with the mass extermination of the Jews. However, the beginnings of the Auschwitz gas chambers are much more complicated, when we look at why the SS-men decided to use Cyclone B after all. When we consider the first experiments and victims, that is prisoners from the camp infirmary and Soviet prisoners of war, or at how was the first gas chamber was used in the camp, the history gets much more complex and can we find that moment, somewhere, where we shall be speaking of Auschwitz as an extermination center, or are these two processes of using Cyclone B, to kill people on a mass scale and the planned mass murder of the Jews as an organized extermination process, two stories that go on in parallel and at some point converge somewhere in the history of Auschwitz. I know that the issue is also quite complicated due to the lack of source material, but where can we look for the answer to this question?

Looking at the extermination history of Auschwitz, I think we slightly underestimate the role of crematorium number one. It is the first facility, that didn’t yet have such a developed extermination infrastructure, as the subsequent crematoria at Birkenau, but undoubtedly already had a developed method. The method was to lead people into a closed room under some pretext, then, they can be killed pretty quickly with poison gas, that is easy to use, as Cyclone B is first and foremost cheap, quite widely available, can be easily brought into camp and is infernally effective. Moreover, crematorium number one was also an opportunity to dispose of a large number of corpses. Obviously, for the extermination process, and the capacity of crematorium number one, then the two existing ovens were not enough.

However, there is a surviving document from mid-September 1941, in which the Auschwitz Commandant Office writes an alarming telegram to the Topf company in Erfurt, which installs equipment for incinerating corpses and the ventilation system in crematorium number one. The telegram states, with an exclamation mark, that another incineration system was urgently needed. So, it is evident, that they were aware it wasn’t a one-off action, where several hundred people were transported here and killed with Cyclone B, but these activities, as Höss mentioned in his memoirs in relation to Soviet prisoners of war, but these activities would continue. By late September the decision was taken to build the furnace, a few weeks later talks began with Topf, to construct a large crematorium, equipped with a new model of crematorium furnaces. That is the famous “three-muffle furnaces” and two underground morgues. As could be assumed, one of them was intended as a gas chamber. This plan had been in place, as far as formal matters were concerned, since October 1941, so it could be said, that they were very quickly moved from the testing phase, to the creation of an installation that could serve in extermination purposes. It overlaps a little with the issue of the Holocaust, because we know, that precisely speaking, the first steps leading to the large scale killing of the Jewish population took place in the end of 1941. Take for the example the creation of the extermination center in Chełmno. The first actions leading to the creation of the extermination center in Bełżec, admittedly, we can discuss the anticipated scale of this extermination.

In our most recent historical research, we assume that this stage, late 1941, and the first half of 1942 was still an extermination operation carried out on the local scale, that is to say, it was not yet a general plan to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe, but the extermination of those, who, for some reason were not economically efficient in the eyes of the German authorities. Please note, that the first transport of Jews sent for extermination to crematorium one were most probably Jews brought here from the Schmelt labour camps. The German authorities’ idea was to transport Jews from the Zagłębie region or Upper Silesia to labour camps, to build, among other things, motor base. And there, they will gradually work, and when they lose strength, become ill, well, something had to be done with them. Surely, none of these leaders of the German state at that time thought of treating these people, bringing them back to health and putting them to use again. The only thought was: How to dispose of them? Sending them back to ghetto is no solution because there are no conditions for them to undergo any kind of recovery there. So, what do they do with them? Subject to what we could call a kind of euthanasia, in other words, extermination. And this is where Auschwitz enters the sphere of the extermination of Jews. It was precisely at the turn of 1941/1942. The first transports were not very numerous, as these were not in the thousands yet. It could be hundreds of people brought here to Auschwitz and killed in the first crematorium, in the first gas chamber mentioned earlier.

The SS-men apparently came to a quick conclusion, that the equipment already operating on a mass scale would not meet the expectations in terms of the need for immediate development. It is a prolonged evolution, as you can see. Up to the summer of 1942, they didn’t even realize, what they would have to face, what Himmler’s order would be. The first quarter of 1942, so the arrival of transports of Jews from the Schmelt operation camps mentioned above, they were slaughtered here in crematorium number one. Later, a makeshift gas chamber was set up on the grounds of Birkenau. However, the construction of the crematorium with five muffled ovens proceeded slowly. The decision to build such a crematorium was made, as I said, in the beginning of November 1941, and a contract was signed with Topf company. Initially, the crematorium was envisioned at the Auschwitz site, more or less within the confines of SS administration building, between crematorium one and Höss' residence. The idea was somewhat insane. I can't imagine how they intended to place this large crematorium on this site, however the plan was in heads of the building management until February 1942. The breakthrough moment only came with Kammler’s visit in 1942. He ordered that the crematorium planned for Auschwitz I to be moved to Birkenau at its construction began there.

However, the first works didn’t begin until well into the summer of 1942, nearly half year later. Practically, nothing happened within half a year in terms of erecting this large crematorium estimated to incinerate about 1500 corpses a day. It was indeed a completely different crematorium, from the one operating in Auschwitz I.

Yes. We must remember, however, that the proposition put forward by Dr Piotr Setkiewicz and to which I agree with 100%, is that the first transport, that arrived here in the spring of 1942, were significantly more than the original transports of Jews working in the area of operation Schmelt camps. It was a mixed population, as it included women, children, hundreds, if not thousands of people. These large transports were subjected to selection. Some of the people were led to gas chamber, which existed on the grounds of Birkenau, the so-called “Bunker 1” or “Little Red House” on the edge of later 3rd building section. The second group, on the other hand, was brought to crematorium number one. These people were divided into two parts, the capacity of the gas chambers that operated in crematorium one may be estimated at 600-700 people. The one in Birkenau was similar, somewhere around 700-800 people. So these transports were split into two parts. That was how it functioned in the period, let’s say, from May to June 1941. So again, these were somehow makeshift solutions. These solutions were still somewhat provisional, and I would like to remind you, that the second, later crematorium in Birkenau had not yet been built. So it is evident that, come to think of it, if Höss had known from the beginning of 1942 that he would have to deal with the order to exterminate thousands of people per day, surely, the construction of this crematorium would have been accelerated or commenced. As far as the delivery of equipment for cremating corpses was concerned, parts of the furnaces and the ventilation installations will filled his obligations relatively fast. Waybills exists, which prove that the parts of these ovens arrived at Auschwitz at mid-April 1942, so if construction work had been underway, it would have been possible, practically speaking, to install the equipment in the new crematorium. The first crematorium was expanded at the same time to include one more furnace. This also occurred at the beginning of 1942, when the third furnace was added. Consequently, the crematorium acquired the capacity to incinerate about 350 corpses a day.

Nevertheless, it still wasn’t an operational design to handle the enormous number of people murdered each day at Auschwitz. And somehow, this provisional expansion of the system in Birkenau is progressing as we later have a second house and a second gas chamber.

Yes, but why? I must admit that we had already began a concrete work on the histories of the gas chambers and crematoria in Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is a project that I am conducting with Dr Łukasz Martyniak, and I believe we can answer the question as to why a second provisional gas chamber was built at the Birkenau site. It was related to the failure of crematorium number one. The crematorium chimney cracked due to overexploitation in the first months of 1942, so practically speaking, the crematorium should have been shut down. There is a rather interesting correspondence between the camp administration and the Central Bauleitung, where each of them tried to shift the responsibility. The Central Bauleitung writes, that the crematorium is unfit for use and that its operations need to be discontinued immediately as the chimney may collapse at any moment. On the other hand, the camp administration replied, that this could not be done now and that a new chimney had to be built urgently. It is clear, that the responsibility for possible building disaster, that is the collapse of crematorium chimney is being shifted. However, the building continued to be used until July 1942, after which the operation of the crematorium was suspended for a few weeks and the second gas chamber was put into operation on the grounds of Birkenau.

We will discuss the development of the extermination system in Birkenau separately, because I believe it is vital to examine this complicated process, which will also take more time. To conclude, I would like to return to the group of prisoners, who operated the crematoria. As we saw at the outset, it was a commando like any other. Later on, one could see the change, when the gas chamber was built next to the crematorium and there was no longer a way out of the crematorium world. We also see how it changes, when the prisoners are exploited in this organized extermination, as Birkenau slowly starts to take over the extermination operation. Do you see any fundamental change here?

Yes, one can see a radical change. In the spring of 1942, namely April, was when a group, of several and later several dozens of Jewish prisoners were assigned to operate crematorium one at Auschwitz I. The group included, among others, a later witness, Philip Müller, who survived this group. The group was known as Kommando Fisch, after Iurai Fisch, a Slovak Jew, who was a kind of Kapo, who supervised the work of Jewish prisoners. According to Philip Müller’s account, this group formed in April 1942, was primarily responsible for incinerating the corpses of Jews sent to the first crematorium. They were also tasked with cleaning the clothes they left in the crematorium courtyard, since there were no changing rooms, these people undressed outdoors. So, they were the ones, who above all, fulfilled these functions, connected with the service, no that’s a wrong word, with receiving the first transport of Jewish people, sent to their deaths in the crematorium. Polish prisoners were still present at the site of the crematorium, however, according to Philip Müller's account, they didn't participate in receiving Jewish transports. It meant, that they were only brought in during the day, when the corpses of prisoners from the morgue in Block 28 or Block 11, if there was a major execution, were taken to the crematoria. At the same time, a Sonderkommando was set up in Birkenau, which we can confirm existed from around 23rd of April 1942. A surviving document indicates that burnt lime and cement was issued for the Sonderkommando in Birkenau. The Sonderkommando primarily consisted of Slovak Jews who were transported to Auschwitz in April of 1942. They were the first Sonderkommando who later operated the gas chambers, the so-called “The little Red House” or Bunker one.

Of course, this is all indirect evidence. We can see a certain change in the policy of the camp administration, as regards the functions of the camp and operation of the gas chamber. They created this crew themselves.

Yes, it is an evolution. It is a constant evolution, at least in reference to years 1941 and 1942 which is what we are talking about at the moment. It was not until the summer of 1942, that the extermination begun on a large scale, when the groups formerly known as the “Special Commando”, Sonderkommando were singled out, which already functions within the structures of Politische Abteilung. The Sonderkommando was set up solely for extermination work. Those selected for this work were treated as bearers of secret and condemned to death in advance.