The high groundwater level made it impossible to burn the corpses

One of the arguments used by negationists to deny the possibility of burning the bodies of Auschwitz victims on piles of wood is that the water table in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau is too high.

Facts: 

When the mass murder of Jews began in Birkenau in the spring of 1942, the bodies of the victims were not burned, but buried in mass graves. Later (from August 1942), due to the rising number of transports of Jews deported to Auschwitz for mass extermination, the SS authorities decided that the bodies shall be burned on piles of wood, and, in the long term large crematoria shall be built.

The method of outdoor cremation was carried out as follows:

• ditches were dug 1.5 to 2 metres deep,
• thick logs were placed at the bottom to form the base of the pyre, on top of which the firewood was placed, and on top that the bodies of the victims were arranged,
• the flames were fuelled by oil production waste, methanol and the fat accumulating into the bottom of the pyre.

Negationists emphasise the current high water table in the former Birkenau camp area since most of the drainage ditches fill up with water even after a light shower. They therefore assume that the digging of pits in the Birkenau camp, let alone the burning of bodies there, would have been impossible. This view, however, does not consider that at the time of the camp’s existence, a network of drainage ditches approximately 15 kilometres long was there, which regulated the groundwater level efficiently. Today, this system is no longer functioning at all in some places and only to a certain extent elsewhere, which is why the water table is higher now than during the camp’s existence.

Cross-section of a typical drainage ditch in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Source: Archives of the Auschwitz Museum

A calculation of the dimensions presented in this plan shows that the above drainage ditch would have been 2.5 metres deep.

Plan, March 1943, of the network of drainage channels in the Birkenau camp, which also extended to the areas where the bodies were burned in cremation pits. Source: Archives of the Auschwitz Museum.

Spring of 1945. Drainage ditch next to the crematorium V yard, where the bodies of victims were burned in cremation pits. Despite the rainy season, the water level is visibly low, indicating the effectiveness of the drainage system. Source: Auschwitz Museum

Spring of 1945. Drainage ditch next to the crematorium V yard, where the bodies of victims were burned in cremation pits. Despite the rainy season, the water level is visibly low, indicating the effectiveness of the drainage system. Source: Auschwitz Museum.

The Auschwitz Memorial Archive contains photographs of the construction of the Central Sauna building showing a deep, several-metre-long excavation. If there had not been an effective drainage system and the groundwater level had been as high as it is today, water or mud would be seen at the bottom of this excavation.

Source: Auschwitz Museum

Photographs taken by Allied airmen flying over the Auschwitz camp in 1944 were first published in the 1970s. The target of the Allied aerial reconnaissance mission was the IG Farbenindustrie AG chemical factory built on the eastern outskirts of Auschwitz town (Oświęcim). The pictures of KL Auschwitz were taken inadvertently.

The photographs, among them some taken in August 1944, show an area including crematorium V and a burning cremation pile (due to its limited cremation facilities, the bodies of many of the crematorium V victims were burned on piles of wood next to the building).

Fragment of an aerial reconnaissance photograph of part of KL Auschwitz taken in August 1944. Visible here are cremation pits next to Birkenau crematorium V and a column of smoke rising from the burned corpses. Source: National Archives and Records Administration.

The very same place appears in another photograph, most probably taken in mid-July 1944 by Sonderkommando prisoners who had been forced to work at the crematorium. The picture, taken from inside the gas chamber, depicts a burning cremation pyre and the corpses of victims being prepared for immolation. The negatives of the photograph secretly taken by the crematorium prisoners were smuggled out of the camp by the Polish resistance movement.

Photograph illegally taken by Sonderkommando prisoners in the summer of 1944. Visible here is the yard behind crematorium V and the burning of corpses in cremation pits. Source: Archives of the Auschwitz Museum