SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

324 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
bour camps in the Lublin district, and later French and Dutch Jews
deported to Majdanek in March 1943.”
Yet at the same time he stresses that “in the period when the gas
chambers were operating, from September 1942 till September 1943, no
cases of mass execution by shooting are known,” 993 which means that
the 12,761 victims of Einsatz Reinhardt must have been gassed. But not
even in the most important publication on Majdanek is there the slightest
trace of these gassings. 994
Hence, the 12,761 Jewish victims of Einsatz Reinhardt would have
been gassed and burned and/or buried at Majdanek within 14 days
without any witness having mentioned this and without leaving any documentary
or material traces: How can anyone honestly believe such a
story? It is also obvious that T. Berenstein and A. Eisenbach’s assertion
concerning the immediate killing of 4,000 Jews at Majdanek in November/December
of 1942 has no foundation; hence one cannot even
claim that at least part of the above 12,761 Jews were gassed.
Witte and Tyas have also skirted the absurdity of what we have been
told about Einsatz Reinhardt – the transportation of the 12,761 victims
to Majdanek – in the last two weeks of December of 1942. Their alleged
extermination would necessarily have taken place in full view of
all concerned, as compared to a mere 515 sent to Sobibór with its supersecret
camp III. If the former Jews had had to be killed, why would this
not have been done quietly at Sobibór? Just as strange is the fact that
during the said two weeks more Jews were sent to Majdanek than to
Treblinka: 12,761 as against 10,335. This would mean that the SS, in
spite of the availability of two camps for total extermination, would
have gassed these 12,761 deportees in a minor camp which had received
only 2% of all deportees up to 21 December 1942 (24,733 out of
1,274,166).
The most reasonable explanation would thus be that these 12,761
Jews transited through Majdanek before moving on, alive, to the East.
This obviously goes for all of the 24,733 Jews mentioned in the Höfle
message.
This conclusion also flows out of the Korherr report. Under paragraph
VIII “the Jews in the concentration camps” it says: 995
993 Ibid., p. 129.
994 Czes�aw Rajca, “Eksterminacja bezpo�rednia,” in: Tadeusz Mencel (ed.), Majdanek
1941-1944, Wydawnictwo Lubelskie, Lublin 1991.
995 NO-5194, p. 11.