Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history
Subject: Maidanek: The Coverup Attempts (6 of 7)
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Nizkor Project http://www.nizkor.org
Keywords: Lublin,Maidanek

   ------------------------------------------------------------pg 18--
   VI. THE GERMAN BUTCHERS TRIED TO COVER UP
   THE TRACES OF THEIR HEINOUS CRIMES
   
           In the initial period of the existence of the Majdanek Camp the
   Germans buried the bodies of all those they shot and tortured to death.
   Later, and particularly in 1943 and 1944, they burnt the bodies, exhuming
   them from the pits in which the victims had been previously buried.
           Already in the beginning of 1942 two furnaces for burning corpses
   were erected within the precincts ofthe camp. Owing to the extremely large
   number of corpses that had to be dealt with, the Germans, in 1942, began to
   erect a large new crematorium with five incinerators. This crematorium was
   completed in the autumn of 1943. The furnaces were in continuous operation.
   The temperature in them could be raised to *** 1500=B0 C. To enable the largest
   possible number of corpses to he inserted into the furnaces thc corpses
   were dismembered, in particular, the extremities of the corpses were hacked
   off.
           The Committee of Technical Experts which carefully examined the
   construction of the furnaces found as folIows:
           "The furnaces were intended for the purpose of incinerating corpses
   and were calculated to work continuously. Each furnace was capable of
   holding four corpses at a time if the extremities were hacked off. The time
   taken to incinerate four corpses was fifteen minutes, which, working night
   and day, made it possible to incinerate one thousand nine hundred and
   twenty corpses in twenty-four hours. Judging by the large quantity of bones
   discovered in all parts of the camp (in pits, vegetable plots and under
   manure heaps), the Committee of Experts is of the opinion that bones were
   removed from the furnace before the time necessary for their complete
   incineration had expired, as a consequence of which the number of corpses
   incinerated in the twenty-four hours was far larger than one thousand nine
   hundred and twenty."
   ------------------------------------------------------------pg 19--
           The Committee established that for a long time, particularly during
   the past two years, the Germans, in addition to burning corpses in special
   furnaces, widely resorted to the practice of burning corpses on bonfires
   within the precincts of the camp as well as in the Krembecki-Woods.
           On stacks of rails or on the chassis of automobiles, which served
   as grates, planks were placed; on the planks was placed a layer of corpses;
   then came another layer of planks and another layer of corpses, until from
   five hundred to one thousand corpses were piled up. An inflammable liquid
   was then poured over the entire pile and set alight. Each fire burnt for
   forty-eight hours.
           The witnesses Hospodarek and Matyasek, inhabitants of the village
   of Dziesiata (near the Majdanek Camp) and the village of Krembec, stated
   that they had seen gigantic bonfires in the camp and in the Krembecki Woods
   on which the bodies of the people who had been shot and tortured to death
   by the Germans were burnt.
           Within the precincts of the "Extermination Camp" and in the
   Krembecki Woods a large number of places was found where the burning of
   corpses had taken place. In one of the trenches within the camp the chassis
   of an automobile on which corpses had been burnt was discovered after
   excavation.
           After the exposure of the atrocities perpetrated by the Germans in
   the Katyn Woods, the Hitlerites set to work with increased energy to
   disinter the corpses from the pits and trenches, and burn them. The
   Committee of Medical Experts opened twenty pits of this kind; eighteen
   within the precincts of the Majdanek Camp and two in the Krembecki Woods.
   In some of the pits a large number of corpses were found which the Germans
   had not managed to burn.
           Thus, as the result of excavations made in pit No. 1 near the
   crematorium, forty two corpses were discovered; in pit No. 19 in the
   Krembecki Woods three hundred and sixty-eight bodies of men, women and
   children were found.
   2*
   ------------------------------------------------------------pg 20--
           In other pits a large number of completely decayed corpses and
   skeletons were found. In a number of pits a vast quanitity of bones was
   found.
           To conceal the gigantic dimensions of their wholesale massacre of
   human beings, the Hitler fiends buried the ashes in pits and trenches,
   scattered them over a large part of the camp vegetable plots, and, mixing
   the ashes with dung, used them as manure for the fields.
           Within the precincts of the "Extermination Camp" the Committee
   found over one thousand three hundred and fifty cubic metres of compost
   consisting of dung, the ashes of incinerated corpses and small human bones.
           The Hitlerites resorted to the grinding up of small bones in a
   special "mill." A detailed description of this mill was given by the
   witness Stetdiener, a Diesel mechanic by trade, whom the Germans compelled
   to work this "mill."
           Lieutenant General Hilmar Moser, of the German army, ex-Military
   Commandant of Lublin, stated the following:
           "I have no reasons for hushing or covering up the heinous crimes
   committed by Hitler, and I regard it as my duty to tell the whole truth
   about the so-called "Extermination Camp" the Hitlerites established along
   the Cholm Road, near Lublin.
           "In the winter of 1943-44 a large number of the prisoners-among
   whom, to my great indignation, were women and children-were exterminated
   there.
           "The number of killed was round about one hundred thousand.
           "Part of the unfortunate people were shot and part put to death by
   means of gas.
           "Furthermore, I was told more than once that condenmed people in
   the 'Extermination Camp' were compelled to perform extremely heavy work,
   far beyond their strength, and were goaded on by extremely cruel beatings.
           "I learned with indignation that before they were put to death the
   prisoners in this camp were tortured and tormented.
   ------------------------------------------------------------pg 21--
           "Last spring an incalcuable number of corpses were exhumed and
   burned in furnaces specially built for the purpose, evidently with the
   object of wiping out the traces of the crimes committed by Hitler's orders.
           "These huge furnaces were built of bricks and iron and constituted
   a crematorium of a large capacity. Often the stench from the corpses
   reached the city, at least the east end of it, and consequently, even less
   informed people realized what was going on in that frightful place. . . .
           "The fact that the activities of the 'Extermination Camp' were
   directed by the Hitler government is proved by the visit Himmler himself
   paid to the camp when he came to Lublin in the summer of 1943."
           The Committee established the fact that in the crematorium alone
   over six hundred thousand bodies were burnt; on gigantic bonfires in the
   Krembecki Woods over three hundred thousand corpses were burnt; in the two
   old furnaces over eighty thousand corpses were burnt; on bonfires in the
   camp near the crematorium no less than four hundred thousand corpses were
   burnt.
           With the object of covering up the traces of their crimes the
   Germans killed the attendants, prisoners in the camp, of the gas chamber
   and crematorium.
           As a result of a thorough investigation of numerous affidavits by
   medical experts and material proof, the aforesaid Committee of Medical
   Experts under the chairmanship of Professor Szyling-Syngalewicz, Professor
   of Medical Jurisprudence at the Lublin Catholic Univcrsity, found that:
           "During the whole period of four years that the Lublin Majdanek
   Camp was in existence, a deliberate and consistent system operated for the
   premeditated, wholesale extermination of people, both prisoners in the camp
   as well as people especially brought there for the purpose of
   extermination."

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