Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac - Eyewitness Auschwitz: Mass shootings
Summary: Transports of less than 200 people were often shot rather than
         gassed. One such mass execution is described here by the 
         survivor Filip Mu"ller.
Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Auschwitz,Dylewski,Palitzsch,Quackernack,Stark

Archive/File: holocaust/poland/auschwitz muller.005
Last-modified: 1993/09/16 
XRef: index auschwitz

   "The killing of innocent victims in the gas chamber was not the only
   means of mass murder in the crematorium of Auschwitz.  In the gas
   chamber of the crematorium - we used to call it the mortuary - they
   practiced another kind of execution, one that we had often witnessed
   at the black wall of Block 11.  If a transport of less than 200
   people arrived for liquidation then, as a rule, they were killed not
   by gassing but by a bullet through the base of the skull.  In that
   event Mietek and his two helpers led one doomed person after another
   to the panelled wall of the mortuary where they held them with a grip
   of steel.  As on the production line of a slaughter-house, members of
   the SS, such as Palitzsch, Stark, Dylewski and Ouackernack, put them
   to death with a shot through the base of the skull from their
   silenced small-bore rifles.  If it was Jews who were done away with
   in this manner, Mietek did not care.  Calm and composed he led them
   to their execution.  But tears were in his eyes if it was a batch of
   'Aryan' Poles he had to escort on their last journey.  After such an
   execution he would behave like a madman.  Trembling with rage and
   agitation he'd yell at us: 'You fucking Yid bastards, it's all your
   fault that my countrymen are being killed !  ' And then he'd fling
   himself on the nearest Jewish prisoner and beat him to death.  Often
   his two Polish companions tried to calm him down and stop him from
   going berserk.  But it was no good, and in the end they shut up
   because they feared that in his blind rage he might attack them.  

   ...

   The crematorium ovens were also used for the dead of other camp
   areas.  Each evening the corpses of those who had died in the camp
   hospital arrived on a trolley.  These were mainly Mussulmans.  That
   was the name given to prisoners who had spiritually and above all,
   physically, completely deteriorated.  They had become nothing but
   skin and bones.  Often their bones had rubbed through their thin
   parchment-like skin, resulting in inflamed and festering wounds.
   They had either died of exhaustion or they had been killed by a
   phenol injection.  Sometimes there were also victims of
   pseudo-medical experiments.

   The bearers who had to push the trolley from the hospital building to
   the crematorium yard were dressed in white.  Usually there were six
   or seven of them.  To unload, two climbed up on the trolley and threw
   the dead bodies on the ground.  One grabbed them by the wrists, the
   other by the heels.  They swung them to and fro a few times until
   they had gathered enough momentum."  Mu"ller, 44-45)

                              Work Cited

Mu"ller, Filip. Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers.
New York: Stein and Day, 1979

         

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