SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

130 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
This also applies to cemeteries where a rather limited number of
corpses is interred in coffins, dispersed over a rather large area, 374 although
they do not present the same degree of risk as mass graves with
an enormous number of corpses buried without coffins in a very limited
area.
One therefore cannot believe that the two chains of command controlling
the alleged extermination camps – Hitler, through the Führer
chancellery and Wirth, on the one hand and Himmler, via Globocnik
and Höfle, on the other – would have opted for a swampy area as the
spot to be used for the burial of tens or hundreds of thousands of
corpses, only to be forced to have them dug out again and incinerated at
the first signs of the inevitable phenomena caused by the decomposition
of the dead bodies.
It would not have required the mind of a genius to avoid this problem:
it would have been easy to choose a site more suitable for the cremation
of the corpses from the very beginning of the operation.
5.3. Fuel Requirements
5.3.1. The Percentage of Children among the Deportees
As we have seen in chapter 1, Schelvis comes to the following distribution
by country of origin for the Jews deported to Sobibór:
– from Holland: 34,313
– from France: 3,500
– from the town of Skopje: 2,383
– from Ostland: ca. 13,700
– from the General Government: ca. 54,500
– from Slovakia: 28,284
– from the Protectorate: ca. 10,000
– from Germany and Austria: ca. 23,500
The transport lists of the Westerbork camp show a total of 34,324
deportees sent to Sobibór, 5,855 of whom are labeled “K[inder]” 375
(children up to the age of 16), i.e. 17.05%. The two transports from
374 Ahmet S. Üçisik, Philip Rushbrook, “The Impact of Cemeteries on the Environment and
Public Health. An Introductory Briefing,” Waste Management WHO Regional Office for
Europe, European Centre for Environment and Health, Nancy Project Office,
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/euro/1998-99/EUR_ICP_EHNA_01_04_01(A).pdf
375 ROD, C[64]312.1.