SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

58 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
2.5. Heinrich Himmler’s Visit to Sobibór
Documentary evidence allows us to say that the Reichsführer SS,
Heinrich Himmler, visited the Sobibór camp on two occasions. The first
visit – about which we know little more than that it was extremely short
– took place on 19 July 1942. 82 The date of the second visit is not
known precisely, although it did take place in March of 1943. On 13
April 1943 the head of SS and police of the Lublin district, Odilo Globocnik,
noted in a letter to SS-Gruppenführer Maximilian von Herff
that, on the occasion of his stay (in Lublin) in March, Himmler had inspected
“installations of ‘Aktion Reinhard.’” 83 On the same date, a person
whose signature on the corresponding document is illegible sent a
letter to SS-Obersturmführer Kuno Ther saying, i.a.: 83
“The Reichsführer SS, after visiting the Sobibór camp, basically
approved the promotion of the deserving Führers [i.e. SS officers]
and men.”
Hence, Himmler’s visit to Sobibór must have taken place in March
of 1943. The document itself does not supply any more detailed information
about the visit.
Orthodox historians do not get tired of claiming, on the basis of “eye
witnesses” that Himmler attended a mass gassing of Jewish women and
girls on the occasion of his second visit to Sobibór. The volume Documents
and Materials, which appeared in 1947, has this to say: 84
“Himmler visited Sobibór, as he did the other death camps. In his
honor, 300 (other testimonies have 500) Jewish girls were gassed;
they had been specially brought to the camp for this festive occasion.
Himmler himself stood behind a little window and watched the girls
as they were dying from the poison gas.”
The same volume contains the testimonies by Leon Feldhendler and
Zelda Metz, who also speak of this non-event. Here is Feldhendler’s account:
“A special event for the camp was Himmler’s visit in March of
1943. Two hundred women had been brought in from Lublin for this
day. They were locked up in a special barrack for two days, waiting
to take part in a spectacle for the supreme henchman. […] The bath
82 According to the schedule for the visit, there was only a total of one hour and a half for
Himmler to be taken from Che�m to Sobibór and to inspect the camp;
www holocaustresearchproject.org/ar/sobibor/docs/rfss%20visit%20programm.jpg.
83 www holocaustdenialontrial.com/en/trial/defense/browning/550#browning_553p64n157
84 N. Blumental (ed.), op. cit. (note 22), p. 199.