What the Soviets knew about Auschwitz - and when. Part V: the destruction of the Hungarian Jews.

On 15.07.1944 the director of 1st Directorate of NKGB, the Soviet intelligence, Pavel Fitin wrote to Aleksandr Shcherbakov, a Central Committee secretary and the head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army and the Soviet Information Bureau:

ЦК ВКП(б)
товарищу Щербакову

Нами из Варшавы от нашего корреспондента получена информация следующего содержания:

"В лагере Освенцим немцы отравляют газами венгерских евреев по 10-15 тысяч в день и жгут их на кострах. Проверено точно, реагируйте."

Начальник I Управления НКГБ
Союза ССР
(ФИТИН)

CC AUCP(b)
to comrade Shcherbakov

We received the following information from our correspondent in Warsaw:

"In the camp Auschwitz the Germans are poisoning 10-15 thousand Hungarian Jews a day with gas and burning them on pyres. Definitely verified, react."

Head of the 1st Directorate of NKGB
USSR
(FITIN)

Source: RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 250, l. 89.

Thus the Soviet intelligence learned about the mass destruction of the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz either while it was still going on (depending on when exactly Fitin got this information) or shortly thereafter.

Up to 09.07.1944 about 434,000 Jews were deported from Hungary, most of them to Auschwitz, where about 320,000 of them were found unfit for work and gassed on arrival, and the rest were either registered in the camp or left in the area for the transit Jews (who resided in the camp but were not registered there, awaiting transfer to labor camps). Most of the latter Jews were transferred for work in other camps, but many eventually perished (incl. through gassings) in Auschwitz.

So far I have been unable to find anything in the central press, like Pravda or Izvestiya, about this destruction. Whether this was due to scarcity of information, low importance assigned to it or A. Shcherbakov's reputed antisemitism is hard to say.

Previous << Part IV: deniers and Boris Polevoi's article.

What the Soviets knew about Auschwitz - and when. Part IV: deniers and Boris Polevoi's article

Even before studying these books, I read the German translation of an article I also had got from Vogt. It had appeared in the Soviet Communist Party's newspaper Pravda on February 2, 1945, one week after the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army. (Four years later, in Moscow, I got hold of the Russian original.) The author of that article, Soviet Jewish reporter Boris Polevoi, who had visited Auschwitz immediately after its liberation, wrote about an "assembly line killing installation where hundreds of people were killed simultaneously with electrical current". Polevoi also mentioned gas chambers in the eastern sector of the Auschwitz camp. Nowadays, nobody claims that the German made use of electric current to kill people, and according to the official Holocaust version, the Auschwitz gas chambers were at Birkenau, west of the main camp, and not in the eastern sector. Having read this article, I knew that the revisionists were right: The gas chamber and mass extermination story had been fabricated by propagandists, and the first versions did not tally with the later ones.

On that day, April 29, 1991, I decided to dedicate my life to the struggle against the most monstrous fraud ever concocted by human brains.

Thus the turning point for Juergen Graf was Boris Polevoi's article about Auschwitz. I don't know why Graf calls Polevoi Jewish (I haven't found any evidence of this), and why his ethnicity should matter. We can examine the supposed significance of his article on its own "merits".

Read more!



Polevoi's article in Pravda. Click to enlarge. Courtesy of Carlo Mattogno.
In the "revisionist" circles the article has been "discovered" by Robert Faurisson and translated into English by "Samuel Crowell" (Alan Buel Kennady) and can be found here. "Crowell" describes its significance for "revisionists" thus:

What is most striking about this press report is that it is totally at variance with the version of Auschwitz that we have come to know, substituting the traditional atrocity record with another, completely imaginary one. That the first non-anonymous observer at the Auschwitz camp could be so far from the current narrative speaks not only to the inaccuracy of this initial report, but also to the artifice of all subsequent ones.

This is the usual "revisionist" modus operandi. If some journalist or even scholar makes a mistake, count it against the "Holocaust story". If the interpetation is wrong, then the underlying facts must be wrong too!

Fortunately, we have enough Soviet documents to decisively debunk this "revisionist" drivel. I have cited many of them in this series and noted that they generally correspond to the established version (taking into account the usually inevitable mistakes, exaggerations, etc.). The Red Army was getting more or less accurate information about Auschwitz. So did the Soviet intelligence services. Obviously, Polevoi's incorrect description doesn't matter.

There is another report about Auschwitz written at the same time - the report of Komsomol'skaja pravda correspondent Sergey Krushinsky, who travelled to Auschwitz with Polevoi. I'm not sure if Krushinsky's report has been published, but that is of no consequence - deniers should have found it in archives, e.g. in USHMM. A copy of the report that I have is addressed to major-general Yashechkin, but it is written as if it were a newspaper article. It is misdated, but we know from another report of Krushinsky to Yashechkin on 31.01.1945 that he was in Auschwitz on January 29 and 30. In a short 31.01.1945 report Krushinsky notes, among other things, that:

Inmates are in a state of ignorance about the most painful questions - order of dismissal from the camps, return to their Motherland, etc. Since all of these people are more or less mentally ill, the wildest rumors are floating around here, and even the German libel according to which in Majdanek the sick inmates have been exterminated by the Soviet troops, is remembered here.

Some of these rumors might have been a source of Polevoi's description, in addition to his rich fantasy and also misunderstanding of what people might have been saying.

In a longer (misdated) report to Yashechkin Krushinsky cites several testimonies of inmates, and a part of his description of the extermination process in crematoria mostly corresponds to what we know now about the gassings in crematoria II and III:

A group of prisoners was driven into a chamber. The door was hermetically sealed, gas was introduced. After 8 minutes ventilation of the chamber and cremation of corpses commenced.

Here the gas was used which is known under a name "Zyklon B". This is a product of prussic acid. Several cans of this poisonous material were left in storerooms, and inmates who worked on the destruction of the plant of death before the camp evacuation [i.e. the members of crematoria Abbruchkommando - SR] remember how the chambers were equipped. Cans of gas were thrown in through an opening in the roof and smashed on the floor. So that the inmates wouldn't be able to go for the smoking material to slow the spreading of the gas, cans didn't fall freely, but inside metal mesh columns.

Although his description of the Zyklon-B introduction columns is not entirely correct (actually Zyklon-B was not thrown on the floor, but rather poured into the inner movable part of the column, so it could have been withdrawn afterwards), the mention of such a detail is remarkable.

As Krushinsky noted, numerous rumors were floating around, and he himself reported some of them as facts (e.g. he briefly described a gas chamber built above a crematorium, in which the bodies after gassing were thrown down through openings to the ovens). The accuracy of information would depend on the "degree of separation" of the person reporting the rumor from the primary source. Obviously, the longer the "distance" between the two, the more information will tend to be distorted. Thus incorrect rumors don't discredit Krushinsky's report - parts taken from eyewitnesses (immediate witnesses) like the bit about the columns from members of Abbruchkommando have more credibility than a rumor about an absurd gas chamber from an unnamed source.

From the reports of Krushinsky and Polevoi we can see that these Soviet correspondents were confronted with a mass of information of differing credibility upon their arrival to Auschwitz. They "sorted" and reported it according to their own biases, intuition, common sense, and, yes, propaganda purposes. Krushinsky's report with all its faults is several times more credible than Polevoi's, but the latter was published in the main Soviet newspaper, and thus attracted the attention of deniers, who didn't fail to create much hype around its blatant mistakes, ignoring (or, rather, being completely ignorant of) the more credible Red Army and NKGB internal reports.

Indeed, were he acquainted with the documents published in this series, "Crowell" wouldn't have written the following:

There is one major surprise to this narrative: first, it is completely different from the report of the Soviet Special Commission on Auschwitz. That report, in turn, would show the influence of the War Refugee Board (WRB) Report of November 26, 1945[sic!]. An obvious inference is that the Soviet Auschwitz narrative was revised subsequent to this report to make it harmonize with the various anonymous messages which comprised the WRB report. Nevertheless, Polevoi's report shows other influences and connections.

Of course, the "Soviet Auschwitz narrative" wasn't revised, and the report of the Commission of the Political Department of the 1st Ukrainian Front, which investigated Auschwitz from 1 to 5 February, 1945, generally corresponds to the later Extraordinary Commission report.

Pompous post-modernist blather should not hide the fact that deniers simply didn't do a good research on the topic.

As usual.

[I'd like to thank Dr. Joachim Neander for supplying me with the documents used in this installment.]

Previous << Part III: the Liberation reports.

Next >> Part V: the destruction of the Hungarian Jews.

What the Soviets knew about Auschwitz - and when. Part III: the Liberation reports.

As the Red Army soldiers moved towards Auschwitz, liberated its sub-camps, liberated Auschwitz itself, the reports were being sent to the head of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian front, major-general Yashechkin, describing the information the Red Army was receiving on the way to Auschwitz and in the camp itself. As you will see, the information is fragmentary, sometimes inaccurate (as is only to be expected), but still it corresponds fairly well to what we know about this extermination camp. The reports have been published in Dokumenty obvinyajut. Kholokost: svidetel'stva Krasnoj Armii (compiled by Dr. F. D. Sverdlov; published by Kholokost foundation in 1996 in Moscow). The wrong spelling of the toponyms has been corrected in most cases.

To the head of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian front,
major-general Yashechkin

26 January, 1945

At the Libiaz station, which is to the south-west of Chrzanow, we have discovered a branch of the Auschwitz concentration camp with inmates who survived by chance. Among them are 30 Jews, the rest - Hungarians, French, Czechs, Poles and Russians - all who had managed to hide in coal mines, where the inmates had worked. The rest were killed by the Germans. In all, in this camp at the Libiaz station there were 920 inmates.

One of them, the Jew Lever, told the following: until Libiaz he had been in Auschwitz. 25 to 30 thousand Jews from many countries of Europe simultaneously resided there. They had been brought here continuously for four years. Everybody who couldn't work - women, elder, children, sick, was separated from the healthy males and immediately exterminated. They went to the separate barracks in the southern part of the camp, there they undressed, then in the special chambers they were killed by gases, and the corpses were burnt in crematoria. Altogether there were 12 ovens for this, which were working partially on electricity, partially on coal. He thinks that the number of the Jewish victims is approximately 400,000. In the last two years male inmates had also been subjects of extermination. The inmates were fed very poorly: once a day watery soup and 150-200 grams of bread. From the unbearable labor and poor nutrition people were becoming exhausted and died. Three times per week a doctor examined the inmates and those unfit for work were sent to the gas chambers.

Since October of 1944 Auschwitz camp was being evacuated to Germany and crematoria ovens were working especially tensely round the clock. In December of 1944 the ovens have been blown up by the Germans.

Head of the political section of the 60th army
major-general Grishaev

TsAMO RF, 60th army's fond, opis 10597, delo 151, listy 70-73.

To the head of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian front,
major-general Yashechkin

27 January, 1945

In the occupied Jaworzno a concentration camp has been discovered, which was created three years ago. The territory is fenced in by two rows of wire, with electrical current. In the camp mostly Jews brought from all the countries of Europe were being exterminated. Surviving inmates are dressed in striped hessian. Footwear - wooden stocks. On the left hand - brand-number. Inmates worked in mines, at electric power stations, miscellaneous hard jobs. Those unable to work were removed to the camps Birkenau and Aushvajs [Auschwitz], where they were killed, the corpses were burnt in crematoria ...

Head of the political section of the 59th army colonel Korolyov

TsAMO RF, 59th army's fond, opis 10442, delo 284, list 34.

To the head of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian front,
major-general Yashechkin

27 January, 1945

In the morning of January 27, 1945 our troops liberated Auschwitz and Birkenau - two largest concentration camps. The Germans had fled. At the time of liberation there were up to 10 thousand inmates in the camps.

Death camp Auschwitz, according to the testimonies of the locals, was founded in the spring of 1940. Inmates were being burnt in five crematoria. Many were hanged on the gallows. The camp is surrounded by several rows of wire with high voltage current. It was strenuosly guarded by SS soldiers. Commandant - SS captain Hoess. In July of 1940 the first transport from Warsaw came with 5-6 thousand Jewish inmates. During the period of a large influx of inmates they were being exterminated by 10-15 thousand persons per week in the gas chambers, and were burnt in the crematoria. When the railcars with the Jews entered the camp, on both sides of them stood German soldiers, who beat everyone with whips and ramrods, many - to death. The inmates were dying from hunger and thirst en masse. Each day one received up to 200 grams of bread and a cup of soup. In 1942 6 Poles escaped from the camp. In revenge, the Germans shot thousands of inmates. Each morning hundreds of undressed inmates were driven to the gas chambers. The Germans enjoyed the suffering of the unfortunate through the specially made windows. A sinister picture. The smoke from the ovens and stench spread around for ten kilometers.

Up to the beginning of 1945 all the Jews in the camp had been exterminated. The Germans, hiding the traces of crimes, blew up the camp, shot the witnesses.

Head of the political section of the 60th army
major-general Grishaev

TsAMO RF, 60th army's fond, opis 10597, delo 151, listy 82-83.

To the head of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian front,
major-general Yashechkin

28 January, 1945

Reporting:

Concentration camp Auschwitz ["Osventsim" in the Russian text], in German "Auschwitz", consists of 5 camps and a prison. Now several thousands of inmates from all the countries of Europe are left in them. Many inmates are on the adjacent roads. All are extremely exhausted, they cry, thank the Red Army. People - of many nationalities - but I have not met Jews. Inmates say that all of them were exterminated.

Each camp is a huge area behind several rows of barbed wire with current. In each - many barracks, in them - two rows of two-tiered plank beds. A picture terrible in its tragedy.

Head of the political section of the 60th army
major-general Grishaev

TsAMO RF, 60th army's fond, opis 10597, delo 151, list 85.

To the head of the political department of the 1st Ukrainian front,
major-general Yashechkin

29 January, 1945

The special commission has established the horrible villainies of the German fiends in the camp Auschwitz, which surpass all the atrocities known to us.

According to the testimonies of the liberated, in 4.5 years up to 4.5 million people were exterminated. There were days when 25-30 thousand people were exterminated, first of all the Jews from all the countries of Europe. Before the Red Army's arrival, about 8 thousand inmates were taken out to Germany. The Germans blew up ovens and scattered ashes in fields, pits with the burnt corpses were leveled.

Head of the political section of the 60th army
major-general Grishaev

TsAMO RF, 60th army's fond, opis 10597, delo 151, listy 201-202.

To the head of the political of the 1st Ukrainian front,
major-general Yashechkin

1 February, 1945

About Auschwitz concentration camp.

In 20-30 km radius on the territory of Dombrow coal region there are 18 branches of the concentration camp. Each - up to 10 square kilometers. In a camp - up to 80 barracks. A barrack - for 200-300 inmates. The main purpose of the camps - mass extermination of people, first of all Jews, brought from across Europe. Inmates - the free labor force at mines and synthetic fuel factories. In 4.5 years in these camps 4.5 million of people were exterminated. There were days when 8-10 transports with inmates arrived. 5-10% of healthy, fit for hard work were spared, the rest - exterminated. 4 crematoria had 10 chambers each, for suffocating people with gas, and up to 30 ovens for corpse incineration. Each chamber held up to 600 persons. Crematoria did not cope with the burning of corpses, and part of them were burned in 40x40 meter pits, [with the help of] pouring the fuel.

Simultaneousy there were 25-30 thousand persons in the camp. The regimen quickly led to exhaustion, dooming inmates to death. They worked for 12 hours and more. Beatings, tortures, humiliation, shooting at every turn. In Auschwitz camp 2 thousand inmates were liberated, in Birkenau - 2.5 thousand, in others 500-800 persons. The Jews are exterminated completely. 40% are so exhausted that they can't move. They haven't been fed for several days already.

Head of the political section of the 60th army
major-general Grishaev

TsAMO RF, 60th army's fond, opis 10597, delo 151, listy 165-171.

---

Sovinformburo message of 31.01.1945 contains the following information:

Recently our troops took the town of Oswiecim. After occupation of Poland the German-fascist scoundrels built in this region the largest concentration camp. This death camp consisted of five sections. Each of the sections occupies a large area, surrounded by barbed wire. Swiftly advancing units of the Red Army liberated many inmates of this camp. Former prisoner of Auschwitz Lukashev from Voronezhskaja oblast told: "The number of inmates in Auschwitz camp always ranged from 15 to 30 thousand persons. Children, ill and unfit for labor men and women the Hitlerites killed with gases, and the corpses were burned in special ovens. There were 12 of these ovens in the camp. Inmates fit for labor were forced to work in mines. Those weakened because of hunger, beatings and hard work were exterminated by the Germans. In four years in the camp the German-fascist villains tortured and killed many, many thousands of people.

Lev Bezymenskij in "Informatsija po-sovetski" (Znamya, 1998, no. 5) quotes yet more reports.
The first official document about Auschwitz has been written on the day of liberation, January 27. It has been signed by the Soviets Chelyadin, Tomov and Rossel', and by the former inmates - doctor Yakov Gordon from Vilnius, Prof. Steinberg from Paris, and doctor Epstein from Prague. Their conclusion:

During the camp's existence 4.5 to 5 million people were exterminated, those who were mainly destroyed were the Jews of all occupied countries, Russian POWs and those driven away to Germany for labor - Poles, Czechoslovaks, Belgians, Dutch.

On the same day the head of the political section of 322nd infantry division colonel Okhapkin informed the 60th army:

The camps were branches of the death camp Auschwitz... The task - to exterminate 6 million Poles and all the Jews of Europe. And this plan of extermination of completely innocent civilians they have accomplished.

One could cite more documents, but this is already more than enough for analyzing several ignorant claims made by the deniers.

Previous << Part II: reports of the captured Germans, 1943-1944.

Next >> Part IV: Deniers and Boris Polevoi's article

What the Soviets knew about Auschwitz - and when. Part II: reports of the captured Germans, 1943-1944.

Yet more "raw data": two testimonies about Auschwitz, given by the captured Germans.

The first one comes from the Kharkov trial in 1943. It is quoted by denier "Samuel Crowell" at Irving's site:

Prosecutor: Tell the court about your talk with Somann.

Heinisch: Somann told me that death caused by gas poisoning was painless and more humane. He said that in the gas van death was very quick, but actually death came not in twelve seconds but much more slowly and was accompanied by great pain. Somann told me about the camp in Auschwitz in Germany where the gassing of prisoners was carried out. The people were told that they were to be transferred elsewhere, and foreign workers were told that they would be repatriated and were sent under this pretext to bath-houses. Those who were to be executed first entered a place with a signboard with "Disinfection" on it and there they were undressed -- the men separately from the women and children. Then they were ordered to proceed to another place with a signboard "Bath." While the people were washing themselves special valves were opened to let in the gas which caused their death. Then the dead people were burned in special furnaces in which about 200 bodies could be burned simultaneously.

This testimony is essentially correct, inaccuracies stemming from the fact that it is hearsay.

The second testimony was given by the deserter from the 4th company of the 3th infantry regiment, Obergefreiter Heinrich Annis (spelling uncertain). He deserted on March 1, 1944 in Shtavin region. His description: "Born 1908, joiner, single, served in the guard batallion SS of the concentration camp Auschwitz (Upper Saxony [should be Silesia])". It has been published in Dokumenty obvinyajut. Kholokost: svidetel'stva Krasnoj Armii (compiled by Dr. F. D. Sverdlov; published by Kholokost foundation in 1996 in Moscow; archival reference: TsAMO RF, 50th army's fond, opis 9783, delo 110, list 289):

In the camp there are mostly Jews, and also Gypsies, small number of Russian POWs, small number of the German political prisoners. The number of the inmates is more than 100,000.

Camp Auschwitz consists of 2 sections, it is fenced in by the barbed wire in three rows. Inmates are being used for earthwork, road building, at the Essen plant evacuated from the West. I don't know how many products they get, but, of course, less than needed for one's support. When I arrived there with a friend, on the territory of the camp there was a horrible stench. The stench came from the crematoria, where the corpses of the killed inmates were being burned.

At the station each day 4 transports arrived, each consisting of 40 cars, 50 people in each. In my presence mostly Rumanian Jews were brought, then the Jews
from the other countries. All of them have been divided in three groups: 1) ill, 2) mothers with the children under 12, 3) physically healthy men and women. The ill were immediately sent to the gas chambers, where they were poisoned by the special gas. People from the third group dragged the corpses to the crematoria, where they have been burnt. Then the Jews from the second group were led to the gas chambers and they also were poisoned. The rest of the Jews from the third group were used for labor until the exhaustion, and then were also exterminated. Their corpses were dragged by the Jews from the third group, which were arriving with the new transports.

Belongings of the exterminated Jews were sorted: warm clothes were shipped to the army's warehouses, the rest - deep into Germany.

From the Jewish inmates nobody was returning.

I don't know much because I was in the guard troops only for three weeks, and then was sent to the front. SS-men told us very little, probably they feared responsibility for the crimes...

16.3.1944

Interrogation conducted by the deputy head of the intelligence section of the
50th army headquarters
lieutenant colonel Blinov

Again, the description of the extermination process is essentially correct. There is a mistake in this testimony - the Jews from the Rumanian territories annexed by Hungary began arriving during the Hungarian action, which started in May of 1944, and thus Annis was mistaken about nationality of the Jews. But he spent only a few weeks in Auschwitz, and was not told much by the SS, so this mistake does not discredit his testimony.

Previous << Part I: reports of the Ukrainian NKGB, 1944

Next >> Part III: the Liberation reports

What the Soviets knew about Auschwitz - and when. Part I: reports of the Ukrainian NKGB, 1944

This posting contains "raw data" for a future analysis of the topic. Below you will find three Soviet reports of late summer/early autumn of 1944, which describe the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

These important documents apparently have not been used by any Holocaust researchers. Prof. John Zimmerman has kindly helped me to get them from USHMM. USHMM archival references are RG-06.025*45, RG-06.025*46, RG-06.025*47. The originals are in the Central Archive of FSB.

The quality of the photocopies I received was not very good (cf. the image of the first page of the first report), especially the words written in capital letters are hard to see, but I managed to reconstruct some text (with guarantee of accuracy) from the damaged parts (which are, thankfully, few).


Click on the image!

The first report, 23.08.1944:

TOP SECRET

TO THE DEPUTY OF THE PEOPLE'S COMMISSAR OF STATE SECURITY OF USSR - COMISSAR OF STATE SECURITY OF 2ND RANK

com. KOBULOV

Moscow

SPECIAL MESSAGE
about extermination camp "BERKENAU" [sic]

Head of the operational-intelligence group of the 4th department of NKGB UkrSSR "SHTURM", active in "LVOVSKIJ" region of the city of Cracow informs that on Poland’s territory, 40 km south-east of Katowice, in the forest behind the town of Oswiecim /Auschwitz/, the concentration camp "BERKENAU" [sic] is located.

The camp occupies 5 [?] square kilometers and has 4 special ovens for burning of corpses.

In the crematoria work the Jews forcibly selected into the team "Sonder" under guidance of a senior chief of SS staff, sergeant major SS [surname unclear].

In 1941 at "BERKENAU" [sic] 12,000 Soviet POWs were imprisoned, who eventually were tortured and exterminated, save for 50-60 persons, who worked for the Germans. Soviet POWs were being killed by sticks, or suffocated, and then burned.

As of June 1944 there were up to 80,000 civilians and POWs of different nationalities in the camp, including Russians, Poles, Czechs, Frenchmen, Belgians, Gypsies, Jews.

Beginning in May of 1944 [unclear text] began mass incineration of the Hungarian Jews, exterminating more than 12,000 daily.

Because cremation ovens could not handle such an amount of victims per day, 4 huge pits were dug out, where people were also burned.

Jewish families together with belongings arrive in the camp by whole transports.

In the camp the arrived people are sorted, old people and children are being kept separately from men and women.

Under the guise of visiting a bath, the arrived people are being undressed, given soap and are directed to the "bath sections", where the doors are hermetically closed, after which ampoules with unknown liquid are being thrown in from above, which break and emit gas, and as a result of this after five-ten minutes [unclear word] suffocation happens.

After this the room is ventilated, the corpses are loaded into trolleys and are brought into the cremation ovens. Before the incineration the corpses are examined, golden teeth, crowns etc. are being pulled out.

At a distance of 200 meters from the cremation ovens an orchestra plays, to mute the shouts.

Germans remove stolen property from the camp daily, on a sanitary airplane.

According to the testimonies of former POWs, in 194[?] in the camp "BERKENAU" [sic] was burned general-lieutenant of the General Staff of the Red Army, doctor of technical sciences [surname unclear].

PEOPLE'S COMISSAR OF STATE SECURITY OF UkrSSR – COMISSAR OF STATE SECURITY OF THE 2nd RANK
/SAVCHENKO/

23 August 1944
Kiev

Some details are exaggerated or mistaken, but the brief description of the extermination process is confirmed by other evidence.

The second report, 31.08.1944:

TOP SECRET

REPORT

[of] PET'KO Ananij Silovich, b. 1918 in Gorbachevo-Mikhajlovka village, Makeevskij region, Stalinskaja oblast, Ukrainian, education - 7 grades, candidate for membership in VKP/b/ and

PEGOV Vladimir Jakovlevich, b. 1919 in Raznezhje village, Voratynskij region, Gor'kovskaja oblast, Russian, education - 8 grades, member of VLKSM - who [i.e. both of them] escaped in November of 1943 from the concentration camp "Auschwitz", located 3 km to the west of the town of Oswiecim /Poland/.

I. GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT CONCENTRATION CAMP "AUSCHWITZ"

Concentration camp "Auschwitz" is located 3 km to the west of the town of Oswiecim, on the eastern bank of river Vistula. External appearance of the camp reminds one of a military camp, with regularly placed wooden barracks, painted green. Territory densely built-up with barracks is about 2 x 3 km.

Around the camp, at the distance of 3-4 m from each other the reinforced-concrete 4 m high poles are installed. Between these poles from outside and inside there is a dense net of barbed wire. Under wire fence there is a foundation, made of reinforced concrete, 1.5 m deep. Along the line of the wire fence, at each 75-100 m there are watchtowers 20-25 m high. On each watchtower there is a guard armed with rifle and machine-gun.

On every second pole of the wire fence there are electrical lamps, which illuminate the camp at night-time.

The wire fence is always under the high-voltage electrical current - from 3 to 5 thousand volts.

The whole camp is divided into two parts - men's and women's. Men's camp is divided into:

[a, b, v, ... - letters of Russian alphabet]

a/ quarantine section;
b/ for Russians, Poles, Germans and others;
v/ for Italians and Frenchmen;
g/ for Czechs;
d/ for Gypsies;
e/ infirmary.

Quarantine section has 18 barracks, infirmary - 16 barracks. The remaining 4 sections have 40 barracks each.

Women's camp consists of two sections, 36 barracks in each. Children of all ages are in the women's camp.

Half of women's barracks are made of stone, with capacity of [?],000 persons.

Wooden barracks, men's and women's, are of one type and can accomodate 700-800 persons.

Between the mens' and womens' camps /the distance between them is 50 m/ passes a railroad and motor road, leading from the town of Oswiecim to the crematoria, which are located 50 m away from the camp in the western direction. There is also a motor road around the camp.

"Auschwitz" camp existed under Polish state, but then there were no crematoria and Polish political prisoners were contained in it. With the Germans' arrival the camp was expanded and improved.

Beginning with 1940, the POWs and civilians from all the countries occupied by the Germans were arriving in this camp without interruption. On average, in "Auschwitz" camp 150-200 thousand are accomodated.

Camp "Auschwitz" is also called the "death camp", because only those destined for extermination are sent there. From the Russians, in this camp arrive only those who have committed any offences /numerous escapes, murders, etc./

2. ROUTINE AND SECURITY

All those who arrived in the "death camp" immediately completely undress, hand over all their personal belongings, and then receive special camp clothes.

Except for Russian POWs, all doomed people have the same form of clothing, consisting of pants and jacket made of crude striped fabric /stripes are white and black or dark blue/. The shoes are wooden. The hat /peaked cap/ is from the same fabric as the suit.

Russian POWs wear Red Army uniform with big red cross on the blouse /on the back/ and painted-on red lines on pants near the stripe.

Administration and guards in the camp have unlimited rights. Anybody may kill as many prisoners without any reason as he wishes. Those murdering the most are encouraged by the administration. Guards consist only of SS and gendarmes. Everybody goes with a whip or a stick, and even without any reason attacks anyone not pleasant enough and beats him up until unconsciousness or death - as he wishes.

In each section of the camp the main superior is the so-called Rapportfuehrer, to whom Blockfuehrers are subordinated, who maintain order in blocks /barracks/.

Each week, on Fridays the selection of the weak for extermination is performed. For this purpose all inmates are lined up, everybody completely undresses, and SS officers give orders as to who they deem necessary to destroy, and those are being led aside. Those selected for extermination are accomodated in special barracks, and are not fed for several days, then they are brought to crematorium and burned.

Escapes from the camp are absolutely impossible, those are performed only when people are working outside the camp. If a guard discovers escape of even a single person, alarm is sounded with the help of a powerful siren. Then all the works are paused, people are lined up in columns and continue to stand in one place until the search for escapees is finished. The search takes one day, if during this time the escapees cannot be found, then the search is stopped. All the guards and many dogs take part in the search.

3. CREMATORIA

50 m away from the camp "Auschwitz" 4 crematoria are located. In them suffocation is performed, and then burning of people, not only from this camp, but also from a number of other camps, which are located in the regions near Auschwitz. Here also the inmates are brought for burning from the camp which resides in the town of Oswiecim itself.

The camp in Oswiecim is a fortress in which political prisoners of all nationalities reside. Most horrible acts of violence against the prisoners are performed there by Gestapo, and they [i.e. prisoners's corpses] eventually go to a crematorium.

Externally crematorium appears as a factory or a small plant, surrounded by fence and having a tall smoke-stack /20-25 m/.

In underground part of the crematorium there are two sections: undressing room and gassing room. In the above-ground part the crematorium itself resides, i.e. the ovens, which are fired with coke. Each crematorium has 5 ovens, 3 muffles in each oven. Into each muffle 3-4 corpses are introduced simultaneously. After kindling, duration of the cremation of a batch of corpses is 5 to 10 minutes, later the burning time is shortened. Crematoria work at full capacity twenty-four hours and anyway fail to burn all corpses.

4. PROCESS OF POISONING AND INCINERATION

Groups of doomed persons are brought in automobiles on the territory of crematorium, they're lined up in a column and an examination is performed - whether anyone has gold teeth or other valuables. Those found to have gold teeth or gold in other places, are directed to the "surgical rooms", where the gold teeth or other compounds are pulled out.

After the examination people go to a basement room - an undressing room, similar to an undressing room in a bath. Having undressed, they go into the next room - a bath, where there are taps and showers, but there never was any water. In this room there are 4 /four/ lattice-work columns, going through the roof of the building. After the "bath" is full of people /standing next to each other/, the doors are hermetically closed. Into the openings, which are on the top of the columns, some sort of powder-like substance is poured, which emits poisonous gas, and people begin to suffocate. Process of suffocation lasts for 10-15 minutes.

Then corpses are brought on special trolleys to the upper room and incinerated.

Daily, several transports with people arrive to the crematoria, passing the camp. Crematoria cannot deal with all the corpses of people murdered with gas, therefore near the crematoria special pits were constructed, in which the burning is performed, like on a pyre.

Serving personnel of the crematoria consists entirely of Jews and is changed every month. Previous serving personnel is also incinerated.

Suffocating and burning is performed simultaneously for men, women and children.

There were occasions when infants were alive after gassing, then they were finished off by the SS with sticks or simply by [hitting them against] the wall.

During the crematoria's work, the flames appeared out of chimneys, up to 15 m high. Corpse smell spreads across many kilometers around this horrible place.

After the escape, already far from the camp, we heard from locals that Germans wrote in newspapers that in Oswiecim region four brick factories had been built.

In 1943 in one of the crematoria there was the following incident: one American Jewish girl attacked Rapportfuehrer SCHILLINGER, kicked gun out of his hands, and then from the same gun she shot him, his assistant, and wounded one SS-man.

Everything that concerns the arrangement of the crematoria, process of poisoning and burning of inmates we learned partially from personal observations, partially from the stories of the serving personnel of the crematoria; although they were living in separate barracks, nevertheless their stories about the arrangement of the crematoria and process of killing and burning of people were known to all inmates, residing in "Auschwitz" camp.

As for the fact of existence of crematoria, this is not a secret for inmates, because one can go near them up to the distance of 10-15 m. We personally saw, going at a near distance, when the doors of crematoria were open, that near the ovens in trolleys there were heaps of corpses.

Besides that, 2 crematoria were being finished in autumn of 1943 [obviously, a typo for 1942], when we already had been in this camp. Construction works were performed by Russian POWs, who lived with us in the same barrack. Several times we were personally inside the incomplete crematoria and observed their internal structure.

5. ABOUT THE NEW CAMP

As far back as the summer of 1941 construction of the new camp began, which was on the same scale as the camp in which we resided, i.e. "Auschwitz".

Territory of the new camp adjoined the northern part of "Auschwitz" camp and was separated from it only by a motor road.

Construction was performed by the inmates of "Auschwitz" camp.

Besides, according to the stories of inmates who arrived from other camps, at a distance of 20-30 km from "Auschwitz" camp there is a number of small concentration camps, from which people are also brought for incineration.

6. ABOUT SEVERAL RKKA COMMANDERS AND OTHER PERSONS KNOWN TO US WHO RESIDE IN "AUSCHWITZ" CAMP

From the generals of the Red Army in Auschwitz camp, as far as we knew, there was no one. Whether any RKKA general was burned in crematorium we also do not know.

In the camp there were POWs from the numbers of middle- and high-ranking officers. We know lieutenant-colonel ANTIPOV, 35-38 year old, from Siberia, until capture had served in Pushkin tank division, was actively involved in our escape. Major OSIPOV Sergej, 40-45 years old, from Moscow. Professor MIRONOV Andrej Pavlovich, 40-45 years old, wrote many historical treatises. ZLOTIN Mikhail, b. 1916, engineer in flour-grinding industry, junior lieutenant of RKKA, escaped from the camp in October of 1943. We were involved in ZLOTIN's escape.

All above-mentioned persons conducted great explanatory work among camp inmates, organized group and individual escapes.

From the number of traitors among POWs we know: "[nickname unclear]" - served camp commandant and betrayed honest Soviet people.

"[nickname unclear]" - from Western Ukraine, not only denounced Soviet people, but personally strangled many people.

BARANOV Jakov, 26-27 years old, worked at bread dispensation, taunted Russians in many ways, decreased scanty bread ration which they were receiving.

"VAN'KA" - /"SPITZMAUS"/, 2[?] years old, short, Russian, who also denounced honest Soviet people.

"[nickname unclear]" - 27-28 years old, from Western Ukraine, sergeant-major according to rank, active assistant of Gestapo.

All of them were greatly trusted by the Germans.

REPORT RECEIVED BY:
SENIOR OPERATIONAL COMMISSIONER OF 4th DEPARTMENT OF NKGB UkrSSR
Senior lieutenant of State Security
/[surname unclear, possibly "Gubin"]/

31 August, 1944
Kiev

The most important document of the three. Despite several inaccuracies (like a short time of cremation or a maximum height of flames from crematoria chimneys), authors of the report accurately described the essential process of extermination in crematoria II and III (information about which they got from Jewish Sonderkommandos).

The description of extermination machinery was confirmed by the documents retrieved after the war, to which the Soviets, obviously, did not have access in 1944. Note correct description of the division of crematoria II & III morgues into the undressing room (Auskleidekeller in German documentation) and the gassing room (Vergasungskeller and Gaskeller in German documentation). Also note the earliest known mention of the four wire-mesh Zyklon-B introduction columns.

(Note: see this posting for more commentary.)

The third report, 06.09.1944:

Top Secret

TO THE HEAD OF THE 4th DEPARTMENT OF NKGB USSR
COMMISSAR OF STATE SECURITY OF THE 3rd RANK

[handwritten notice: "To the file on the camp "Auschwitz" [signature unclear]"]

com. SUDOPLATOV

Moscow

SPECIAL MESSAGE

Information of the head of operational-intelligence group of "LVOVSKIJ" about camp "Berkenau" [sic] sent to you on 23.7.1944 [unclear] 4/4/4609 is mostly corroborated by newly received information of the head of another operational-intelligence group "[unclear]", received by him from former POWs, captain JAKOVLEV Grigorij, [unclear name and surname], and other persons who escaped from "Berkenau" [sic] camp at the end of July, 1944.

According to the testimonies of these persons, in the camp "Berkenau" [sic] in 1941-42 more than [?]0,000 Russian POWs and also 150,000 Jews and political prisoners were tortured and burned on pyres.

From 16 May to 20 July of 1944 1,200,000 Hungarian and Rumanian Jews were exterminated in the camp.

From the end of July of this year whole transports with Jews from France, Yugoslavia and Greece, occupied by the Germans, began to arrive in the camp.

Adults are being poisoned in special gas chambers, and old people and children are being thrown into fire alive.

Information about general [surname unclear] is being checked and after receiving of new data about him from our operational-intelligence groups, we will inform you.

HEAD OF THE 4th DEPARTMENT OF NKGB OF UkrSSR
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL OF STATE SECURITY
/SIDOROV/

6 September, 1944
Kiev

This report speaks for itself. One can only comment on the exaggerated estimate of the Hungarian Jewish death toll (Jews from the parts of Rumania annexed by Hungary are also counted as Hungarian Jews). Most observers did not have an access to the exact information about the Hungarian transports, so there were different estimates, often exaggerated, and the number in the report is based on the estimate of 18,000 persons per day (actually, there were pauses in the extermination). That such an estimate originates in the camp is confirmed by a well-known witness, Sonderkommando Alter Feinsilber (Stanislaw Jankowski) who also testified about this number on 16.04.1945 (see J. Bezwinska, D. Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, New York, Fertig, 1992, p. 56).

Next >> Part II: reports of the captured Germans, 1943-1944.