SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 253
Majdanek. 746 This procedure was so complicated that, on 14 May 1943,
Kammler sent out three pages of instructions for the “simplification of
administrative procedures” concerning the rules then in force. 747
The camp was therefore planned and built within the framework of
responsibilty and authority of Amtsgruppe C of SS-Wirtschafts-
Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA, Economic-Administrative Main Office),
just in the same way as Auschwitz-Birkenau was. This makes
Hilberg’s thesis even more nonsensical that the alleged extermination
camps of Aktion Reinhardt were built in the absence of a competent
central authority and without a specific budgetary reference.
This also means that the camp had to be equipped with all elementary
hygienic systems for the benefit of the SS supervisory force. Among
other things, there had to be at least a water supply, a sewage disposal
system, one or several washing barracks, toilet facilities, a sick bay, delousing
or disinfestation facilities with bath, all the more so if Sobibór
really was an extermination camp. The daily arrival of victims in precarious
hygienic conditions and the presence of an enormous number of
corpses in a very limited area would otherwise have increased the risk
of spreading infectious diseases enormously.
Jan Piwonski, who worked at the Sobibór railway station, declared
on several occasions to Claude Lanzmann that in late March and early
April of 1942 barrack elements arrived at Sobibór by rail: 748
“And a little bit later, train cars came from time to time with
parts for the barracks. […] And the Jews unloaded the cars and
brought the material for the barracks over there by the camp.”
Sobibór was therefore probably equipped with standard types of barracks
found in all concentration camps, for example the “Pferdestallbaracke”
type 260/9 (which measured 40,76m×9,36m), type IV/3
(19,95m×8,14m), type 501/34 (42,30m×12,50m), the “Schweizerbaracke”
(28,20m×6,20m), the Baracke type VII/5 (33,15m×8,14m), type
RAD IV/3 (59,55m×8,14m) etc. This also suggests that the construction
of Sobibór was, first of all, Kammler’s responsibility.
746 The respective documentation is kept at WAPL, file ZBL. As far as Auschwitz is concerned,
cf. the source given in the preceding footnote.
747 Addressed to all construction groups of SS-Wirtschafter attached to the Höheren SS und
Polizeiführern in den besetzten Gebieten, Bauinspektionen, Zentralbauleitungen und
Bauleitungen der Waffen-SS und Polizei (hence including the SS-Wirtschafter attached
to Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer im Generalgouvernement, as well as to the Bauinspektion
der Waffen-SS und Polizei Reich Generalgouvernement and to the Bauleitung at
Zamo��); WAPL, ZBL, 268, pp. 94-97.
748 J. Piwonski op. cit. (note 221), pp. S3 and S5.