SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

258 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
transported to Sobibór. […] It was a heavy Russian gasoline engine
(probably a tank or tractor engine) of at least 200 HP (8-cyl. Vengine,
watercooled). We set the engine up on a concrete base and
connected the exhaust to the pipe. Then I tested the engine. At first it
did not work. I repaired the ignition and the valves successfully, and
the engine finally started up. The chemist whom I knew from Be��ec
went into the gas chamber with his measuring device to test the gas
concentration. Then a trial gassing was conducted.” (Emph. added)
According to the Holocaust historiography, at Be��ec “during the
first ‘trial,’ 764 a Diesel engine of 250 HP was mounted outside in order
to produce the carbon monoxide and feed it into the pipes,” 765 and a Diesel
engine was later ascribed also to the allged gas chambers of Treblinka.
766
In his study “The Diesel Gas Chambers: Ideal for Torture – Absurd
for Murder” 767 Friedrich Paul Berg has established that a Diesel engine
produces at most 0.4% of CO, whereas a gasoline engine with a suitable
setting of the carbuarator can produce up to 12% of the lethal gas. The
“chemist” who allegedly had already carried out experiments and measurements
at Be��ec cannot have been unaware of this. It is therefore incomprehensible
why a Diesel engine should have been left in place at
Be��ec and a similar engine was allegedly also set up in Treblinka after
this purported Sobibór experiments. We must not forget that the gas generators
using wood or coal which were widely installed and used during
the war in all kinds of vehicles of the Axis powers (Generatorgaswagen)
produced a gas that was extremely rich in CO, between 18 and
35%, 768 but for some strange reason there is no mention in the testimonies
that the SS ever thought of using this widely available source for
the generation of carbon monoxide, in spite of the fact that the toxicity
of the gas produced by these generators was clearly indicated for safety
reasons on all such generators.
What is even more mysterious is the alleged use of CO in the camps
in the east and of HCN (hydrocyanic acid) 769 at Auschwitz. Kurt Gers-
764 But according to J. Oberhauser, as we have seen above, the first series of experiments
was done by means of Flaschengas (bottled gas).
765 Enzyklopädie des Holocaust, op. cit. (note 15), vol. I, entry “Be��ec,” p. 176.
766 Ibid., vol. III, entry “Treblinka,” p. 1428.
767 In: G. Rudolf (ed.), op. cit. (note 34), pp. 435-469; this is an updated version of the article
“The Diesel Gas Chambers – Myth Within a Myth,” The Journal of Historical Review,
5(1) (1984), pp. 15-46.
768 Ibid., pp. 459f.
769 The active ingredient of Zyklon B.