SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 29
from the official picture and contains so many embarrassing passages
that even those editors who normally deal with such matters knew better
than to make the book known beyond the reach of the Portuguese
language.
According to his own indications Szmajzner was deported from Oppeln
in Upper Silesia to Sobibór in May of 1942 and worked there as a
goldsmith, making jewelry for the “Szarfuehrer” (Szmajzner’s spelling)
and other SS personnel. For a long time he did not know what was
going on in camp III, but one day he received the following message
from his friend Abrão (Abraham) who worked in that section:
“Dear brother. I asked you to recite the Kaddish not only for
your parents but for everyone. You should know that, of all the Jews
passing through camp 1 and moving on into camp 2, hardly anyone
is alive today. Out of all the transports that have arrived so far, only
a small group still exists in order to do the daily tasks; by pure
chance, I belong to this group.
Once these thousands of Jews have passed through the gate
which you spoke of, they cross a long corridor and enter camp 2. At
that point their few remaining belongings are taken away, they must
undress completely, and they are led to a large barrack under the
pretext of having to take a bath. Hundreds of people enter this place
at the same time.
Once the barrack is full, the door is closed and then hermetically
sealed. Then a large Diesel engine is started up; its exhaust pipe
passes through a hole in a wall, so that the exhaust gases go inside
until all of them have suffocated.” (p. 152f)
A Diesel engine as the murder weapon has been accepted by official
historiography for the Be��ec and Treblinka camps, but not for Sobibór.
In this case most of the witnesses prefer not to specify an engine type,
whereas the late U.S. political scientist Raul Hilberg expressly assigned
a gasoline engine to this camp. 33 U.S. revisionist Friedrich P. Berg has
shown in a detailed study that Diesel exhaust gases are most unsuitable
for the mass murder of people in view of their high oxygen and low
carbon monoxide content. Gasoline engines would be far more efficient.
34
33 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 3rd ed., Yale University Press,
New Haven/London 2003, p. 936.
34 Friedrich P. Berg, “Diesel Gas Chambers – Ideal for Torture, Absurd for Murder,” in:
Germar Rudolf (ed.), Dissecting the Holocaust, 2 nd , ed., Theses & Dissertation Press,
Chicago 2003, pp. 435-469.