SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

266 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
cries emerging from the gas chambers, when the people realized that
they had been tricked and were persuaded that they had been
brought there not to bathe but for their destruction, could not be
heard.
In the building with gas chambers there was a wide corridor, on
one side of which were 4 chambers. In the four chambers the floor,
ceiling, and walls were of concrete; they had 4 special shower-heads
that were intended not to supply water, but for the entry of exhaust
gases, through which the people in the chambers were killed.
Each chamber had two doors: internal on the corridor side
through which the people would enter the chamber and external that
opened outwards and through which the bodies would be removed.
The doors – the internal and the external – were closed hermetically
and fitted with rubber strips that did not allow the gas to escape
from the chamber.
Behind the rear wall of the building was located on a base, under
an awning, a strong motor that would begin to work the moment the
chambers were full and the doors were closed hermetically.
From the motor led a pipe that went through the ceiling of the
building corridor with the gas chambers. From the pipe would
emerge into each chamber a metal pipe, ending with a shower head
that was used in bath-houses for the supply of water. Through this
system the exhaust gases from the motor would be led into the
chamber.”
Razgonayev’s layout of the building – a small number of chambers
placed in a row – corresponds to that commonly alleged for the first gas
chamber building, although the number of chambers, four, is not mentioned
by any other witness, either in connection with the first or the
second building. 798 In the long interrogation protocol there is no mention
whatsoever of the gas chamber building being replaced or enlarged,
yet the witness states that the Ukrainian guards were posted along the
way to the gas chambers, and he even affirms: 283
“During the time of my service as a guard and afterwards as an
chief guard at the Sobibór camp, I saw the process of extermination
of people with my own eyes.”
798 There can be no doubt that Razgonayev is speaking of four chambers in total, as later in
the interrogation he mentions that the funneling of victims into the gas chamber building
“would continue until all 4 chambers were full.”