SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

128 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
ficers visited the future camp site on three occasions during the autumn
of 1941. 367 According to Y. Arad there originally existed no plans to
burn the victims at the Reinhardt camps, and the commencement of
cremations at Sobibór in early autumn 1942 is said to have been caused
by local reasons. 368 This is claimed to mean that the people who decided
on the location of the camp were looking for a spot where the bodies of
several hundred thousand potential victims could be interred without
problem. But why then choose Sobibór, located in the middle of marshland?
The Hagen court, in the reasoning of its verdict at the end of the Sobibór
trial, stated: 369
“As early as the summer of 1942, a different reason had brought
about a partial change in the extermination mechanism: As a result
of the heat, the corpse pits that had already been filled bulged upwards,
releasing corpse water, attracting vermin, and filling the entire
camp area with a frightful stench. Furthermore, the camp command
feared an intoxication of the drinking water, which came from
deep wells in the camp building [sic].”
This was the motive which caused the camp officials to disinter and
burn the corpses. The danger of contaminating the ground water by the
products of decomposing corpses had been known for decades. In 1904
Max Pauly had summarized the medical knowledge of his time as follows:
370
“The decomposition [of the corpses] goes through several intermediate
stages, involving corpse alkaloids or ptomaines (cadaverines)
first discovered by Selmi of Bologna around 1870; they were
later studied by Brieger, Baumert and others, but are still far from
being completely known. Some of these substances are choline, neurine,
saprine, neuridine, cadaverine, putrescine, mydalëine, muscarine,
trimethyl amine, mydine. Some of them are extremely toxic and,
furthermore, have the dangerous capacity of increasing the recep-
367
Statement made by Jan Piwonski in Lublin on 29 April 1975, ZStL 643/71-4-441; quoted
in J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 27.
368
Cf. Y. Arad, op. cit. (note 49), p. 171.
369
A. Rückerl (ed.), op. cit. (note 36), p. 173. The last sentence reads in the original: “Die
Lagerleitung befürchtete außerdem die Vergiftung des Trinkwassers, das im Lagergebäude
durch Tiefbrunnen gewonnen wurde.” Rückerl may possibly be referring to the
camp kitchen or to a pump house.
370
Max Pauly, Die Feuerbestattung, Verlagsbuchhandlung von J.J. Weber, Leipzig, 1904,
pp. 19f., 24.