SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 261
2,284,000 Jews then living in the five districts of the General Government”
as part of Aktion Reinhardt. To realize this objective, the SS
planners are said to have built a single extermination camp – Be��ec –
with a gassing installation absolutely ridiculous in view of its task: three
gas chambers having a total of 96 square meters, which, according to
Uwe Dietrich Adam, could accommodate at most 600 persons (or, if we
follow the Be��ec trial sentence, 100 to 150 persons). 778 This means that
the SS expected to conduct (2,284,000÷600=) 3,806 gassing operations!
At Sobibór, which was built to overcome the deficiencies of Be��ec,
the SS likewise set up three gas chambers, but they were even smaller,
36 square meters altogether, or, if we follow the sentence of the Sobibór
trial at Hagen, 779 three chambers each 4 by 4 meters, or 48 square meters
altogether!
Only slowly and painfully the SS is said to have realized that “the
gas chambers turned out to be too small, the ‘output’ of the Sobibór
camp was too low,” 780 and hence they ostensibly decided to build
another three chambers of the same size, 4 by 4 meters, 781 to reach a total
of 96 square meters.
At Be��ec the old gas chambers are alleged to have been torn down
and substituted by six new ones, each 4 by 5 m 782 for a total of 120
square meters.
At Treblinka, the last of the claimed eastern extermination camps to
be set up and said to have been built on the experience gained at Be��ec
and Sobibór, the same mistake was made again: once again three small
gas chambers are claimed, 4 by 4 meters 783 = 16 square meters each,
with altogether 48 square meters, exactly like those at Sobibór, which
had turned out to be too small! And, as at Be��ec, the first gas chambers
were replaced by 6 or 10 (!) new chambers, 8 by 4 meters each. 784 Furthermore,
to make things even more absurd, the old gas chambers at
Be��ec were torn down instead of being left intact or repaired in order to
ensure a higher extermination capacity.
778
Cf. chapter 9.2.
779
A. Rückerl (ed.), op. cit. (note 36), p. 163.
780
Ibid., p. 172.
781
Ibid., p. 173.
782
Ibid., p. 133.
783
Ibid., p. 203.
784
Ibid., p. 204.