SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 75
of gas chambers (5) which disagrees with the numbers usually given today
for either of these buildings (3 and 6): 147
“Within this building, three adjoining cells having a floor area of
4 × 4 meters were hermetically separated. […] It turned out that
these gas chambers were too small, that the ‘output’ of the Sobibór
camp was too low. A construction crew from the Lublin base, under
the technical direction of the accused L[ambert] tore down the old
gassing building in part and replaced it by a new and larger [massiv]
brick building with twice the number of chambers. The cells –
each covering an area 4 × 4 and having an internal height of 2.20 m
– were arranged on both sides of the building, either in such a way
that they contained a central corridor or that they stood only in one
row. Each of the cells could hold some 80 persons, if they were
tightly packed. Construction work proceeded quickly within a few
weeks, thanks to the use of Jewish detainees as laborers; now six
chambers allowed killing 480 persons in one gassing operation.”
(Emph. added)
Hence, according to today’s orthodox view, there was no gassing
building with five gas chambers. We should perhaps stress at this point
that the second building equipped with six gas chambers measuring 4 ×
4 m each could accommodate 1,200 to 1,300 victims according to Y.
Arad. 148
The description of the two gassing buildings set out in the reasoning
of the Hagen trial sentence had nothing to do with witness accounts
concerning Sobibór. It is not difficult to retrace its origins. The first
building with its three gas chambers was copied from the account regarding
Be��ec given by Stanis�aw Kozak to the investigating judge
Czes�aw Godziszewski on 14 October 1945. We will discuss it later.
Kozak declared that at the end of October of 1941 he was forced by the
SS, together with some 20 inhabitants of the village of Be��ec, to work
in the camp. (Although M. Tregenza tells us they were well-paid volunteers.
149 ) Work began on 1 st November. These Polish laborers built three
barracks. The third one, the alleged extermination barrack, contained
three rooms 150 which were later taken arbitrarily to be “gas chambers” –
147
A. Rückerl (ed.), op. cit. (note 36), p. 163, 172f.
148
E. Kogon, H. Langbein, A. Rückerl et al. (eds.), op. cit. (note 45), p. 186.
149
C. Mattogno, op. cit. (note 11, Engl. ed.), p. 43.
150
The declaration by S. Kozak is shown in the book by C. Mattogno, op. cit. (note 11,
Engl. ed.), pp.45f.