Belzec: Reder versus Gerstein

1. Diesel or Gasoline Engine?

The extermination system alleged for the Bełżec Camp evolved in Polish literature and in that of Western countries in two different directions. In the latter, the Diesel-engine version advocated by the “Gerstein Report” immediately prevailed.

On January 30, 1946, the deputy attorney general of the French Republic, Charles Dubost, presented document PS-1553 as RF-350 to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. It had been found by a collaborator of Dubost among the documents seized by the Americans (Joffroy, p. 266). PS-1553 was a group of documents among which, as explained earlier, Gerstein’s report dated “Rottweil 26 April 1945” and the twelve aforementioned Zyklon-B invoices were most-important. The “Gerstein Report” was accompanied by an “Assessment Report” dated “May 5, 1943 [recte: 1945]” by Major D.C. Evans and Mr. J.W. Haught, to the secretariat of the Combined Intelligence Objectives Subcommittee (CIOS), a London-based body that coordinated the U.S. and British intelligence services. The two authors of the Assessment Report described their chance encounter, in a requisitioned hotel at Rottweil, Germany, with Kurt Gerstein, who had given them his report of April 26, 1945.

During the trial, PS-1553 was at the center of a purely formal dispute on January 30, 1946 between the president of the Court and Dubost, which lasted into the afternoon session. Eventually, the document was accepted by the Court, but only the twelve Zyklon-B invoices were given great prominence. The “Gerstein Report” was relegated to the background; it was simply “added” to the invoices (IMT, Vol. VI, pp. 332-364). But already on July 4, 1945, the Parisian newspaper France Soir had published Gerstein’s imaginative “confession” under the headline “J’ai exterminé jusqu’à 11.000 personnes par jour” (“I exterminated up to 11,000 people a day”), as mentioned in Chapter 3.1., and its content was even broadcast on the radio (Joffroy, p. 248).

The report of April 26, 1945 was translated into German on January 14, 1947,[1] and this translation was partially read during the session of January 16, 1947, of “The Medical Case” (also called the Doctors’ Trial); Document PS-1553, presented as Exhibit 428, was admitted by the Court.[2] A partial English translation of the report was published in the Trials of War Criminals, specifically as Exhibit 428 (Vol. 1, pp. 865-870).

Document PS-1553 was subsequently submitted during the IG-Farben Trial. In the afternoon session of the session on November 26, 1947, Dr. Hans Seidl, who defended Walter Dürrfeld, raised two objections against the admission of the report, first because it was an unsworn statement, and also because the witness had disappeared without a trace. The president of the Tribunal rejected the first objection, but accepted the second.[3] However, he considered the twelve invoices on the supplies of Zyklon B contained in the document to be convincing,[4] but in the procedural documents, PS-1553 was published in full in photocopy, including the report of April 26, 1945.[5]

In 1949, Gerstein’s tale was discussed during the trial against G. Peters, and in 1955 during his appeal trial, as mentioned earlier.

During the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem (April 1961-May 1962), Document PS-1553 was accepted by the Court as T-1309, and an excerpt of the report was read out in the courtroom during the 67th session (June 6, 1961; State of Israel, Vol. III, pp. 1227-1229).

The verdict of the trial against Josef Oberhauser (January 18-21, 1965), accepted Gerstein’s story with regard to the alleged gassing procedure, and it sanctioned that the gassings were carried out by means of a Diesel engine.

For the purposes of the present study, we may leave it at that.

In the wake of the Gerstein Report, orthodox Holocaust historiography also accepted what Globocnik presumably told Gerstein in Lublin, namely that the gas chambers of the Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka Camps all operated “with Diesel exhaust gases.”

This was explicitly confirmed for Treblinka by the Düsseldorf Jury Court in the verdict of the trial against Kurt Franz (September 3, 1965; Rückerl, p. 203), while for Sobibór, the verdict of the Hagen Jury Court of December 20, 1966 (trial against the camp personnel) mentioned an engine without specifying the type (ibid., p. 163). The uncertainty of the Court probably depended on the fact that various defendants spoke of a gasoline engine (Benzinmotor), although in relation to the first alleged gassing building (Franz Hödl, in an interrogation of March 29, 1966, even spoke of the simultaneous presence of two engines, one gasoline and one Diesel, although the latter was allegedly not used[6]). The most-qualified witness, Erich Bauer, the alleged “Gasmeister” of Sobibór, declared, however:[7]

“Later the machine house was enlarged and a new engine – Diesel engine – installed.”

Therefore, Sobibór’s second gassing building was also equipped with a Diesel engine.

This, moreover, was always implied by orthodox Holocaust historiography, as Barbara Distel wrote again in 2008 in an authoritative collection of orthodox Holocaust papers (Distel, p. 378).

The 1984 article by U.S. engineer Friedrich Paul Berg “The Diesel Gas Chambers: Myth within a Myth,” which appeared in 1994 in an improved and expanded German translation in an anthology of revisionist articles (Berg 1994; 2019), demonstrated scientifically the utter ineffectiveness of Diesel engines for killing purposes, especially if compared with gasoline engines, and even more-so with producer-gas generators, which were used by hundreds of thousands of internal-combustion-engine vehicles in wartime Europe. These gas generators “smoldered” wet coal or wood and produced a gas mixture rich in highly toxic carbon monoxide that was then used to fuel the engine. Berg‘s paper upset the certainties of orthodox Holocaust historians, who could not continue to attribute such a degree of foolishness to the top ranks of the SS. They then tried to fend off the blow by erasing the Diesel engine from the historical record and putting the gasoline engine in its place. For this purpose, Reder’s testimony became crucial, since the Bełżec Camp, so to speak, is emblematic.

However, from a historiographical point of view, this solution created an even-more-serious problem, indeed an inextricable one with no way out, because the two main witnesses of this camp, Reder and Gerstein, openly contradict each other on the extermination system, one being an eyewitness supporter for the gasoline engine, the other for the Diesel engine: which of the two should be given preference, and why?

Denying this contradiction was impossible, even though that is exactly what Nella Rost Hollander tried to do, with lots of chutzpah:[8]

“These two testimonies are almost identical; therefore, they confirm each other.”

In order to overcome this evident dichotomy while keeping the petrol engine as the “truth”, it was necessary to discredit Gerstein. The operation to achieve this was started by Peter Witte as early as 2004:[9]

“According to his own oft-repeated statement (since 1944, first published in Kraków in 1946), Rudolf Reder, the only known survivor of the Bełżec Extermination Camp at the time, said he carried 4 to 5 kanistry benzyny (gasoline canisters) daily into the engine room of the gas chambers. There was located the ‘maszyna’, motor pedzony benzyna (a petrol-powered motor). His statement was supported by the Polish electrician Kasimierz Czerniak, who helped to install the engine room in 1942: he describes a gasoline engine with an estimated 200 or more HP, whose exhaust gases were discharged through pipes laid underground (October 18, 1945). A confusion with a Diesel engine can be ruled out, as Diesel fuel is called olej napedowy in Polish. The theory of a diesel engine for the gas chambers in Belzec goes back to the statement of Kurt Gerstein (1945), who, according to his own statement, did not see the engine, however, but merely heard it. Thus, it found its way into historiography without further evidence.”

Witte uttered two blatant lies, which I have underlined in the quote. First of all, from Gerstein’s account it is evident that he was for at least 2 hours and 49 minutes in front of the Diesel engine, which did not start, and he carefully timed the difficult starting procedure:

“Heckenholt is the operator of the Diesel engine, a small technician who is also the builder of the system. With the Diesel-exhaust gases, the people are supposed to be put to death. But the Diesel doesn’t work! Captain Wirth comes. You can see that he is embarrassed that this has to happen today when I am here. Yes, I see everything! and I wait. My stopwatch registered everything well. 50 minutes 70 minutes – the Diesel won’t start! The people wait in their gas chambers. In vain. You can hear them crying, sobbing. ‘Like in the synagogue,’ says Professor Pfannenstiel, his ear to the wooden door. Captain Wirth hits the Ukrainian who is supposed to help Unterscharführer Hecken­holt with the diesel 12, 13 times in the face with his riding whip. After 2 hours 49 minutes – the stopwatch registered everything well! – the Diesel starts.” (T-1310, p. 14: “Heckenholt ist der Chauffeur des Dieselmotors, ein kleiner Techniker, gleichzeitig der Erbauer der Anlage. Mit den Dieselauspuffgasen sollen die Menschen zu Tode gebracht werden. Aber der Diesel funktioniert nicht! Der Hauptmann Wirth kommt. Man sieht, es ist ihm peinlich, dass das gerade heute passieren muss, wo ich hier bin. Jawohl, ich sehe alles! und ich warte. Meine Stoppuhr hat alles brav registriert. 50 Minuten 70 Minuten– der Diesel springt nicht an! Die Menschen warten in ihren Gaskammern. Vergeblich. Man hört sie weinen, schluchzen. ‘Wie in der Synagoge’ bemerkt der Professor Pfannenstiel, das Ohr an der Holztür. Der Hauptmann Wirth schlägt mit seiner Reitpeitsche dem Ukrainer, der dem Unterscharführer Heckenholt beim Diesel helfen soll, 12, 13 mal in’s Gesicht. Nach 2 Stunden 49 Minuten– die Stoppuhr hat alles wohl registriert!– springt der Diesel an.”)

Gerstein was therefore present and saw everything, and since he was a “graduate engineer” (Diplomingenieur) and a “mining commissioner” (Bergassessor; T-1310, p. 1), it must be assumed that he could distinguish a Diesel engine from a gasoline engine. The second lie concerns the statement made by Kazimierz Czerniak during his interrogation of October 18, 1945, which we do well to quote from the Polish original (Libionka, pp. 188f.):

“During the operation of the death camp, the Germans took me to Bełżec and in the camp area took me to the power plant [do elektrowni], which was on the right side of the camp entering the camp from the road leading to Lwów. The power plant was installed in a hut. So, I had to connect the dynamo to the engine that powered the dynamo. I cannot give the voltage of the current. In the hut where the aforementioned machines were located, there was a control panel from which many cables departed.

In addition to this power plant, there was a second power plant in the camp area, built earlier, which was located in the vicinity of the aforementioned power plant. The voltage of the current from the earlier power plant was 220 volts, 20 amps. This current was used only for lighting the camp and the huts. This power plant was considerably smaller than the one built later. The motor of the small power plant had 15 hp, while the motor of the large power plant had a power of 200 hp. From this engine, pipes went underground [pod ziemią] to discharge the exhaust gases. I don’t know [nie wiem] where these pipes led. Then I noticed that, in addition to the two power plants, which were located in huts, there were still other huts. At the camp I saw Jews walking around who were working in the camp. The engine with a power of 200 HP was secured to beams placed on the floor of the hut.

After two weeks, I was again taken by SS to the Bełżec camp. Then I took the measures of the exchange of the narrow-gauge railway that led from the hut [od baraku] in which Jews were killed to the pits. At that point I had the opportunity to be near this hut [przy tym baraku]. I saw that from this hut three doors [troje drzwi] led to a wooden ramp [na rampę drawianą], and from this ramp started a narrow-gauge railway that forked in the upper part of the camp. These doors were locked with hooks and moved by rollers on rails. The blacks [SS men] told me laughing that this hut was a warehouse. I understood that in this hut there was the gas chamber [komora gazowa].”

The witness specified that this hut “was located at a distance of about 50 meters from the railway siding.” Three months later, he was again taken to the camp “to repair a car” [celem reperacji samochodu], which he did in the garage. Then he continued:

“I add that for the aforementioned engine with a power of 200 HP, I made a filter whose function was to remove the smoke from the gas and to discharge this gas elsewhere. I did the filter about two weeks after the day I mounted the dynamo to this machine.”

Czerniak further stated that “the 200-hp engine was gasoline-operated [był poruszony benzyną]” and that his third visit took place in the fall [jesienią] of 1942 (ibid., p. 189).

Keep in mind that Czerniak‘s testimony supposedly confirms Reder’s testimony regarding the use of a gasoline engine for the purpose of killing, so here I examine it above all from this perspective. The first observation is also the decisive one: the witness refers to the first alleged gassing building (a hut with three gas chambers, near the spur, served by a narrow-gauge railway to transport the bodies to the mass graves), while Reder speaks of the later, second building. I mention only in passing the various absurdities and contradictions of this testimony with respect to the orthodox Holocaust narrative:

1. There were two electric-power generators.
2. No engine dedicated to killing the victims existed.
3. The larger power generator was driven by a gasoline engine of 200 HP, from which exhaust pipes left underground, discharging the exhaust gases to an unknown location.
4. The two power generators were located close together.
5. There was a killing hut at a distance of about 50 meters from the railway siding, and this was about 260 meters from the opposite border of the camp.
6. Czerniakclaims that this hut was “the gas chamber,” but he does not explain from where he got that idea.
7. The claim that a “filter” was installed in order to purify the engine’s exhaust gasses is preposterous nonsense: were the SS men at Bełżec afraid that the victims’ bodies would be a little sooty?

Witte‘s explanation is therefore only a deceptive subterfuge in an attempt to solve an insoluble problem. In a “prestigious” mainstream work, a worthy colleague of Witte, Achim Trunk, accepted this nonsense as a fact without comment:[10]

“Gasoline-powered engines are attested to as the murder generators; but there is also some talk of Diesel-powered machines.”

In a note, he mentions Gerstein, but a few pages later, he forgets him again, writing instead (Trunk, pp. 34f.):

“Reliable sources show that gasoline engines were actually used in the ‘Aktion Reinhardt’ extermination camps. Rudolf Reder, one of the very few survivors of the Belzec Extermination Camp, spoke of a gasoline-powered engine that stood in a small room near the gas chambers. It consumed 80 to 100 liters of gasoline every day.”

To call a mendacious storyteller like Reder, who has blatantly contradicted himself and the foundations of orthodox Holocaust historiography in so many ways, a “reliable source” is truly outrageous. This also means in turn that Trunk did not consider Gerstein’s statements to be reliable, and in fact, in this context Trunk does not mention Gerstein at all. Poor Gerstein, who until 2000 had dominated the orthodox historiographical scene with regard to the “Aktion Reinhardt” camps: now he is thrown into the orthodox Holocaust dumpster as useless, if not downright harmful.

Out of ignorance or bad faith, no orthodox Holocaust historian has ever realized, let alone pointed out, that Reder’s gasoline engine could not have been an extermination tool, as seen earlier, and as will be repeated in this chapter. Having clarified this, we can now move on to expose this insuperable problem in detail.

2. “Discordant Concordance”

The relationship between Gerstein’s and Reder’s testimonies is at the same time paradoxical in terms of form – a real “discordant concordance” – but also enigmatic with regard to the common source.

Both accounts have many common elements, but they almost always appear deformed with substantial modifications, additions or omissions.

First of all, I quote Gerstein’s camp description:

“The other day, we drove to Belcec. A small special railway station had been created for this purpose on a hill north of the Lublin-Lemberg highway in the left corner of the demarcation line. South of the road were some houses with the inscription ‘Sonderkommando Belcec der Waffen-SS’. Since the actual head of the entire killing facility, Police Captain Wirth, was not there yet, Globocnec introduced me to SS Hauptsturmführer Obermeyer (from Pirmasens). That afternoon, he only let me see what he had to show me. I saw no dead that day, only the smell of the whole area in hot August was putrid, and millions of flies were everywhere. – Close to the small two-track station was a large hut, the so-called cloakroom, with a large counter for valuables. Then a small tree-lined road in the open under birch trees, lined to the right and left by double barbed wire, with inscriptions: To the inhalation and bathing rooms! ––

In front of us a kind of bathhouse, right and left in front of it, large concrete pots with geraniums, then a small staircase, and then right and left three rooms 5 × 5 meters, 1.90 m high, with wooden doors like garages. On the back wall, not quite visible in the dark, large wooden ramp doors. On the roof as a ‘clever little joke’ the Star of David!– An inscription in front of the building: Heckenholt Foundation!– I couldn’t see more that afternoon.– The other morning just before seven it is announced: The first transport arrives in ten minutes!– In fact, after a few minutes, the first train from Lemberg arrived. 45 cars with 6,700 people, 1,450 of whom were already dead upon their arrival. Behind the barred hatches, terribly pale and frightened children peered through, eyes full of fear of death, and furthermore men and women. The train arrives: 200 Ukrainians tear open the doors and whip the people out of the cars with their leather whips. A large loudspeaker gives further instructions: undress completely, including prostheses, glasses, etc. Hand in valuables at the counter, without vouchers or receipts. Tie the shoes together carefully (because of the collection of textiles.), because otherwise no one would have been able to find matching shoes in the heap 25 meters high. Then the women and young girls to the hairdresser, who cuts off all the hair with two or three strokes of the scissors and makes it disappear in potato sacks.” (T-1310, pp. 10-12: “Am anderen Tage fuhren wir nach Belcec. Ein kleiner Spezialbahnhof war zu diesem Zweck an einem Hügel hart nördlich der Chaussee Lublin-Lem­berg im linken Winkel der Demarkationslinie geschaffen worden. Südlich der Chaussee einige Häuser mit der Inschrift ‘Sonderkommando Belcec der Waffen-SS’. Da der eigentliche Chef der gesamten Tötungsanlagen, der Polizeihauptmann Wirth, noch nicht da war, stellte Globocnec mich dem SS-Hauptsturmführer Obermeyer (aus Pirmasens) vor. Dieser liess mich an jenem Nachmittag nur das sehen, was er mir eben zeigen musste. Ich sah an diesem Tag keine Toten, nur der Geruch der ganzen Gegen im heissen August war pestilenzartig, und Millionen von Fliegen waren überall zugegen. – Dicht bei dem kleinen 2-gleisigen Bahnhof war eine grosse Baracke, die sogenannte Garderobe, mit einem grossen Wertsachenschalter. Dann eine kleine Allee im Freien unter Birken, rechts und links von doppeltem Stacheldraht umsäumt, mit Inschriften: Zu den Inhalier- und Baderäumen !––

Vor uns eine Art Badehaus, rechts und links davor grosse Betontöpfe mit Geranien, dann ein Treppchen, und dann rechts und links je drei Räume 5 × 5 Meter, 1,90 m hoch, mit Holztüren wie Garagen. An der Rückwand, in der Dunkelheit nicht recht sichtbar, grosse hölzerne Rampentüren. Auf dem Dach als ‘sinniger kleiner Scherz’ der Davidstern!!– Vor dem Bauwerk eine Inschrift: Heckenholt-Stiftung!– Mehr habe ich an jenem Nachmittag nicht sehen können.– Am anderen Morgen um kurz vor sieben Uhr kündigte man an: In zehn Minuten kommt der erste Transport!– Tatsächlich kam nach einigen Minuten der erste Zug von Lemberg aus an. 45 Waggons mit 6.700 Menschen, von denen 1450 schon tot waren bei ihrer Ankunft. Hinter den vergitterten Luken schauten, entsetzlich bleich und ängstlich, Kinder durch, die Augen voller Todesangst, ferner Männer und Frauen. Der Zug fährt ein: 200 Ukrainer reissen die Türen auf und peitschen die Leute mit ihren Lederpeitschen aus den Waggons heraus. Ein grosser Lautsprecher gibt die weiteren Anweisungen: Sich ganz ausziehen, auch Prothesen, Brillen usw. Die Wertsachen am Schalter abgeben, ohne Bons oder Quittung. Die Schuhe sorgfältig zusammenbinden (wegen der Spinnstoffsammlung.), denn in dem Haufen von reichlich 25 Meter Höhe hätte sonst niemand die zugehörigen Schuhe wieder zusammenfinden können. Dann die Frauen und jungen Mädels zum Friseur, der mit zwei, drei Scherenschlägen die ganzen Haare abschneidet und sie in Kartoffelsäcken verschwinden lässt.”)

According to Gerstein, the tree-lined road in the open under birch trees [Birkenallee] was “some 150 meters” long (PS-2170, p. 4: “etwa 150 Meter”).

Before examining the convergences and differences between the Reder’s and Gerstein’s stories, we must keep in mind that Reder was deported to Beł­żec on August 17, 1942, while Gerstein arrived at the camp the very next day, so that Gerstein’s narrative should be perfectly comparable to Reder’s.

In this regard it should be noted first of all that Reder is completely unaware of Gerstein’s visit, which should have left quite an impression in his memory, both because he had arrived at the camp the day before, and because of the extraordinary presence of Wirth, the former commandant of the camp who on August 1, 1942 was appointed camp inspector of “Aktion Reinhardt” and also became commandant of the Lublin Labor Camp (Kuwałek, p. 58), and also for the even-more-extraordinary presence of Globocnik.

Since for Reder, the transports usually consisted of 50 railway cars with 100 people per car, Gerstein’s train (coming from Lwów, like Reder’s) had 45 cars with a total of 6,700 people, hence 149 people per wagon, which should have been an extraordinary event that Reder should have remembered; even more-astonishing was the number of deportees dead on arrival: 1,450! A really conspicuous mortality for “a 7-hour trip,” as Reder claimed (although his story points at 4 hours). Before 1946, however, Reder never mentioned inmates arriving dead at the camp. Only after coming into contact with the German judiciary, did he begin to “align” his tale with the official “truth” by making some concessions (such as the “hose” and the engine exhaust entering directly into the gas chambers):

“Every day, 3 transports of about 100 cars arrived, and in each car were about 100 people; when they arrived on the scene, some were already dead.” (26.1.56)

But not even this statement can be a confirmation of Gerstein’s story, according to which the average deaths were (1,450 ÷ 45 =) 32 per railway car, therefore, for Reder, 32 dead out of 100 deportees, a figure that cannot possibly be called just “some.” I will return to the question later.

As for the topography and structure of the camp, Gerstein immediately saw the hill (Hügel) of Bełżec, while Reder, in his three and a half months at the camp, never noticed it. Gerstein, for his part, did not notice the barrier screens placed inside (or maybe outside) the camp fence and “placed on top of each other, of two meters in height” (1946), therefore clearly visible.

I already observed earlier that Reder’s description of the killing building are in conflict with that of the current orthodox Holocaust narrative, which in turn strictly depends on Gerstein’s account. He mentions a hut “with the inscription ‘cloakroom’” (“mit der Aufschrift: Garderobe”), in which there is a large counter with the inscription “Deposit of money and valuables” (“Geld- und Wertsachen Abgabe”). Inside there was a room (“ein Zimmer”) with about 100 stools (Hocker), which was the barbers’ room (Friseurraum). This hut was separated from the killing building by “a road lined with birch trees of about 150 meters” (“eine Birkenallee von etwa 150 Meter”), “fenced in left and right by double barbed wire” (“rechts und links von doppeltem Stracheldraht umzäunt”) and bearing the inscription “To the inhalation and bathing rooms” (“Zu den Inhalier- und Baderäumen”; all in PS-2170, p. 4).

Reder never mentions the loudspeaker which gave instructions to the deportees, and he knew nothing about the “cloakroom” hut and its counter. For him, there was only a shack of 30 × 15 meters used exclusively for hair cutting.

Here we must underline the admirable German logistical organization of the pre-extermination procedure: a hut of 450 square meters contained about 100 stools (one on every 4.5 square meters), with only eight barbers in it. Evidently, among the 15,000 deportees who arrived every day in three transports, people who could shear off hair were very rare.

According to Reder, this hair-clipping hut was connected to the killing building by a small courtyard just wider than the hut and in the shape of a rectangular trapezoid. Where Reder “saw” only wooden-board fences, Gerstein saw a 150-meter-long corridor fenced in with barbed wire connecting the hair-clipping hut to the extermination building (the infamous “hose”), which in turn was completely unknown to Reder. This corridor was lined by birch trees (Birken in German, brzozy in Polish), which in itself is a peculiar claim, because there were only pines within the camp (Kiefern in German, sosny in Polish; see Chapter 2.5.).

For both witnesses, the killing building had an identical structure. Ignoring Reder’s insane 100 m × 100 m for the entire building, the measurements were:

• height 3 to 3.5 m, with a flat roof
• access staircase of three steps, 1 meter wide
• central corridor 1.5 meters wide
• access doors to the chambers 1 meter wide
• rear sliding doors on wheels, 2 meters wide
• chamber measuring either 5 m × 4 m or 5 m × 5 m (Gerstein’s data).

The dimensions mentioned by Reder therefore reconcile well with those mentioned by Gerstein, and this is decisive for the packing density of the victims in the chambers, as I will explain later.

However, even in this regard the descriptions of the two witnesses present striking “discordant concordances.”

Gerstein “saw” a sign with the words “Zu den Inhalier- und Baderäumen” at the entrance to the 150-meter corridor, while Reder “saw” a sign with the words “Bade und Inhalationsräume” directly “on the front attic wall saying” (1.11.44) of the killing building, or above its entrance door:

“The gas chamber was disguised as a bath house by way of a sign placed above the door with the words ‘Bade und Inhalationsräume.’” (26.1.56)

Gerstein observed “right and left in front of [the gassing building] large concrete pots with geraniums,” while Reder noticed only one (small) pot, and in a different spot:

“A large vase of colorful flowers was placed on the building’s facade.” (1946)

In an earlier statement, Reder had stated that “A vase of flowers hung under the sign” (1.11.44), meaning the sign saying “Bade und Inhalationsräume,” which was placed above the entrance door; therefore this “large vase” was also hanging above this door.

Strikingly, Gerstein did not see at all the two raised “ramps” that Reder saw on either side of the killing building.

Other “observations” by Gerstein that do not find the slightest confirmation in Reder’s stories are the Star of David on the roof of the killing building, and the inscription “Heckenholt-Stiftung” in front of it.

For Reder, there was a protective net covered with foliage above the building as anti-aircraft camouflage: the building

“had a flat roof covered with roofing felt, and above it again a wire-mesh roof covered with green foliage.” (1946)

Strikingly, Gerstein didn’t see this bulky display at all.

Reder states explicitly (but he also contradicted himself on this) that children (and the elderly) were not gassed, but rather “were carried on a stretcher, and unloaded at the edge of huge pits” (1946), where they were shot and killed. Gerstein instead “saw” “mothers with infants at their breast, small, naked children” entering the gas chambers (T-1310, p. 13: “Mütter mit Kindern an der Brust, kleine, nackte Kinder”).

I mentioned earlier that Reder knew nothing of such unusual events as the Gerstein’s visit to the camp in the presence of Globocnik and Wirth. One might think that this was due to his job as an excavator operator. However, he states that the team assigned to excavating the mass graves, after the killing of the victims, suspended its activity and was used for dragging the corpses instead, which also applied to Reder:

“After twenty minutes, the doors of the rooms were opened, and the workers – Jews – among whom I was as well, fastened the loop of a belt to the hand of a dead man [and] two of us dragged the corpses [to the place] where the dentists were and [who] extracted gold teeth from their mouths.” (22.9.1944)

“Since, as I mentioned, about 14,000 people were gassed every day and had to be buried, I and others were engaged not only in excavating the pits, but also in removing the corpses from the gas chambers and transporting them to the pits.” (26.1.1956)

For Reder, the gassing usually lasted 20 minutes on the clock, a time span that occurs in all his statements:

“The engine was running without interruption for exactly 20 minutes, after which Moniek gave the signal to one of the operators, and this engine was turned off.” (29.12.45)

“The machine ran for 20 minutes by the clock. It was turned off after 20 minutes.” (1946)

Gerstein, on the other hand, “clocked” 32 minutes, after the victims had been locked up in the gas chambers for 2 hours and 49 minutes – in which case they would have suffocated after just a few minutes of having been locked up, as indicated earlier, if one were to follow his literary fiction.

This would therefore have been an absolutely exceptional event. One of the many oddities of this story is that Reder mentioned a similar case, but in a completely different context:

“Once the killing machine broke down. Informed of this, he [the camp commandant] arrived on horseback, ordered the machine to be repaired, and did not let people out of the asphyxiation chambers; – they had to [wait to] die of asphyxiation for another couple of hours.” (1946)

In his delirious testimony of omnipresence, Reder provided a parallel account of the alleged event as follows:

“But when the machine broke down once, I was called too, because I was called ‘der Ofenkünstler’ [the furnace artificer]; I looked at it and saw glass tubes that were connected to the tubes that went into each chamber.” (1946)

And finally, with reference to the camp commandant:

“I saw him for the first time when the gassing device stopped working, and the people were half-gassed. He was called by phone at his home, and I saw that he gave orders.” (26.1.1956)

I have already dwelled on these “glass tubes.” I may add here that the story is rather insane: Reder was called to repair an engine because he was a stove specialist! Obviously, one cannot believe that there was no real qualified mechanic in Bełżec, since, according to Reder,

“From each transport, skilled workers, such as mechanics, carpenters, shoemakers, tailors, were chosen immediately after arrival.” (1945)

In summary, from Reder’s point of view, Gerstein’s visit should have been quite exceptional in three respects: the number of deportees and those dead on arrival, the presence of Gerstein, Wirth and Globocnik, and the extended duration of the gassing due to an engine malfunction. Despite all this, Reder never mentioned this visit. As for the second point, Reder remembered well having seen for the first time the camp commandant when the “machine” broke down, and even more-so he should have remembered the alleged event described by Gerstein.

Another contradiction concerns the engine tenders: according to Gerstein, they were SS Unterscharführer “Heckenholt” (actually Lorenz Hackenholt) assisted by a Ukrainian, for Reder, however, they were two “askari,” as he repeatedly stated. The following quote condenses them all:

“The actual machine was operated by two askari, fiends, always the same. I found them [employed] at this work and left them there [still doing it].” (1946)

The removal of corpses from the death chambers presents further insurmountable contradictions. Gerstein is completely unfamiliar with Reder’s 2-meter-high piles of corpses right outside the extermination building, and the corpse-transport system is also contradictory: while Gerstein talks about wooden stretchers or carts used to move corpses to the mass grave, Reder wrote about dragging them on foot through the sand using leather straps wrapped around the corpses’ wrists. On the way to the mass graves, Gerstein “saw” “two dozen dentists” (T-1310, p. 15; PS-2170, p. 6: “Zwei Dutzend Zahnärzte”) check the corpses’ mouths, while “other dentists” (ibid.: “andere Zahnärzte”) extracted gold teeth; for Reder, there were only altogether eight “dentists” (1946), or maybe ten (1945).

For Reder, the entire trip from the killing building to the mass graves (between 150 and 500 meters) was overhung by a camouflage net:

“Behind them [was] a sandy road along which the corpses were dragged. Over it, the Germans had built a roof made of taut iron wires, on which they had scattered green foliage. It was meant to protect the ground from aerial observation. This part of the camp under the leaf roof was obscured.” (1946)

Gerstein, on the other hand, reported nothing about this camouflage.

I will address the issue of mass graves later in detail. Here I note only that Reder had not even noticed that “millions of flies were everywhere”; indeed, since he “saw” 30 mass graves with three million corpses altogether, there should have been billions of flies.

The shoe mountain 25 or 35-40 meters high did not exist at all for Reder, who claims instead that the personal effects of the deportees were piled up in the camp warehouse.

Gerstein, on the other hand, did not notice that an orchestra was playing music all day long, nor did he notice the sand-extracting machine, which undoubtedly would have made a lot of noise. Reder, who claims to have operated this machine for two months straight and therefore knew it well, declared that it ran on gasoline. The ARC website (Aktion Reinhard Camps: www.deathcamps.org) states that the excavation machines used in Treblinka that were photographed by Kurt Franz, whose photos are reproduced on that website, were manufactured by the Menck & Hambrock Company of Hamburg. The website also contains the decrypt of a German radio message sent on June 2, 1943 by SS Sturmbannführer Wirth in the name of SS and Police Leader Lublin Globocnik regarding the rental of a clamshell excavator (Greifbagger) from the Lamczak Company of Berlin-Neukoelln (the machine was unusable and was sent back).[11]

Three types of grab excavators exist:

1. A shovel excavator (Löffelbagger; literally: spoon excavator), with the shovel mounted on a hydraulic arm allowing maximum digging force but limited range;
2. a dragline excavator (Eimerseilbagger, literally: bucket-rope excavator), which is a bucket suspended on wire ropes from a boom, which increases downward range but limits maneuverability of the bucket and the force it can exert on the ground; and finally
3. a rotary-bucket excavator (Schaufelradbagger; literally: bucket-wheel excavator) with a number of buckets attached to a large rotating wheel, huge machines used to extract massive amounts of soil/coal/ore from large quarries.

The type photographed at Treblinka was the drag-line excavator. The technical characteristics of these machines, with specific reference to the one produced by the Menck & Hambrock Company of Hamburg Altona, are reported in detail in a 1929 book. The available power sources were either steam engines (Dampfbagger), Diesel engines (Dieselbagger) or electric motors (Elektrobagger; Ritter, pp. 58f.).

Back then, as is the case today, most heavy construction machinery was powered by Diesel engines, which have a much higher torque at low rpms than gasoline engines, and they tend less to overheat, two very important characteristics for slow-moving or stationary machines imposing frequent drastic load changes on their engines. The same is true for large-size electricity generators, which are virtually never powered by gasoline engines.

This means that Reder was telling a lie, or that he was not even able to distinguish a gasoline engine from one of the three types listed above, which certainly does not increase his credibility regarding the gasoline engine of the killing building.

Finally, neither Reder nor Gerstein noticed the camp’s two electricity generators as seen by Czerniak.

The most-striking contradiction between Reder’s and Gerstein’s testimony concerns the murder weapon. While Gerstein “saw” a Diesel engine whose exhaust gases asphyxiated the victims, Reder describes a phantom “machine” that included a gasoline engine with a compressor, gas cylinders, wheels with spokes and glass tubes, whose exhaust gases did not asphyxiate the victims:

“These gases were discharged from the engine directly into the courtyard, not into the chambers. [Gazy te były odprowadzane z motoru wprost na dwór a nie do komór.]” (29.12.45)

Those who, like Witte, invoke Reder’s testimony to support their claim that gasoline engines were used as murder weapons are therefore either ignorant of the facts or disingenuous. And since the two key “eyewitnesses” contradict each other in such a radical way on this essential point, it follows that orthodox Holocaust historiography cannot affirm anything in this regard, since any position is a purely arbitrary choice, because they either have to make do with a Diesel engine whose inapt exhaust gases allegedly killed the victims, or with a gasoline engine whose exhaust gases were not used to kill them.

Another important topic concerns the color of the gassing victims. Trunk states that the Diesel engine prevailed “in the older literature,” but the more recent one leans towards the gasoline engine (Trunk, p. 32), and he describes the toxicological effects of the respective exhaust gases (ibid., p. 28):

“The victims of carbon-monoxide poisoning can usually be recognized by the red color of the mucous membranes, as hemoglobin saturated with carbon monoxide (and thus the blood as a whole) has a cherry-red color.”

This applies to gasoline engines. But how does he explain that some witnesses claim that the bodies of victims poisoned with carbon monoxide produced by engine-exhaust gases were blue? Here is Trunk‘s answer:

“If Diesel engines were used, it certainly would have taken much longer to die, because Diesel engines produce significantly less carbon monoxide. They also emit a significant amount of irritants. In this case, death may have been caused by a combination of carbon-monoxide poisoning (internal asphyxiation) and a lack of oxygen (external asphyxiation).”

In a footnote, he clarifies that “individual reports exist, according to which the corpses exhibited a bluish skin color,” which he explains by the “lack of oxygen as a cause of death” (ibid., p. 32).

Let’s examine what the corpses “seen” by Gerstein and Reder looked like.

Gerstein: “The bodies are thrown out, blue, wet with sweat and urine, the legs full of feces and menstrual blood.” (PS-1553, p. 7: “On jête les corps, bleus, humides de soudre [sueur] et d’urin, les jambes pleins de crotte et de sang périodique.”)

Reder: “The corpses found in the chamber did not show an unnatural color at all. They all looked like living people, mostly their eyes were open. Only in a few cases did it happen that the corpses were stained with blood.” (29.12.1945)

“[…] the corpses were standing upright, the faces as if dreaming, unaltered, not blue.” (1946)

Hence, while the corpses were blue according to Gerstein, they were not blue according to Reder, but for neither of them they were cherry-red.

Two conclusions can be drawn from this. The first is that neither witness ever saw any corpses gassed with carbon monoxide. The second is that Gerstein’s blue corpses are only reconcilable with a gassing using a Diesel engine, while the non-blue corpses without any unnatural discoloration as claimed by Reder are irreconcilable with any type of gassing, neither with a Diesel engine, nor with a gasoline engine, nor with suffocation due to a lack of oxygen. These findings make the orthodoxy’s gasoline-engine Holocaust schizophrenia based on Reder’s testimony even more acute.

As mentioned earlier, Robert Kuwałek relies heavily on Reder’s statements in his book, so he should be a firm supporter of the gasoline engine, but he is quite confused about it, because he writes (Kuwałek, p. 128):

“Therefore, even the simplest solution was the installation of a Diesel engine [silnika dieslowiego], for which only gasoline was needed [do którego potrzebowano jedynie benzyny].”

He devotes several anodyne pages to Gerstein (ibid., pp. 203-210), but does not point out any of the numerous absurdities contained in Gerstein’s various texts, indeed, he even tries to eliminate one, asserting that in Kolin he had picked up Zyklon B! (ibid., p. 206)

Kuwałek does not juxtapose Gerstein’s tale with Reder’s, thus hiding from his readers their striking mutual contradictions with this deliberate omission.

With regard to the brief, sketchy reference to exterminations in a report by Karl Yngve Vendel as quoted earlier, he dares to say that in it “there was a precise description of the killing of Jews in the gas chambers”! (ibid., p. 208) He is a worthy emulator of Witte, indeed.

As mentioned earlier, a comparison between the two testimonies also exhibits surprising concordances, some presented in very different ways, but others matching almost to the letter, and this is the most-enigmatic aspect of the whole story. One could surmise that both Reder and Gerstein witnessed some underlying, real events, but they “dramatized” them in their tales following different psychological patterns. But this can explain only to a small degree the huge divergences pointed out here. And in any case, there is another fact that radically precludes this explanation, namely the fact that they were “eyewitnesses” to physically impossible or blatantly false events.

Earlier I established that the measurements relating to the killing building provided by Reder are fully compatible with Gerstein’s, so that, in practice, both “saw” 750 people in a room of 20 or 25 square meters; regarding the number, Reder is even-more-specific: “the askaris counted 750 people for each room” (1946). In this regard, the agreement is almost literal:

Reder: “There were about 750 people in there; 6 times 750 people yields 4,500.” (1945)

Gerstein: “Up to this moment, the people in these 4 chambers are alive, 4 times 750 people in 4 times 45 cubic meters!” (T-1310, pp. 14f.).

Reder’s story, in a few lines, presents three other surprising concordances on false claims:

The first is the affirmation that the corpses in the chambers remained standing after their execution (a tale repeated by many “eyewitnesses”):

Reder: “the corpses were standing upright” (1946)

Gerstein: “the dead are still standing” (PS-1553, p. 7)

The second claim concerns observations pertaining to winter:

Reder: “the remaining women waited their turn near the hut, naked, barefoot, even in winter and in the snow.” (1946)

Gerstein: “of course naked also in winter, or in cold weather!” (PS-2170, p. 5; similar PS-1553, p. 6: “also in winter naked!”/”aussi en hiver nus!”)

Since the camp began its activity in early spring of 1942, both Gerstein and Reder arrived in Bełżec in August 1942, and Reder claims to have escaped in late November of that same year, how do you explain this reference to winter?

The third claim concerns the mass graves. Both witnesses described enormous mass graves of very similar dimensions: they measured 100 m × 25 m × 15 m for Reder, and 100 m × 20 m × 12 m for Gerstein.

As already mentioned in Chapter 2.15., the archaeological investigations conducted by Dr. Andrzej Kola resulted in the identification of 33 areas with disturbed soil which Dr. Kola called mass graves, with a total area of just 5,490 square meters and a volume of 21,310 cubic meters. The graves were of highly irregular sizes and shapes, and the deepest of them measured 5.2 meters, while the largest pit had a surface area of 432 square meters (24 m × 18 m).[12]

The mass graves described by Reder and Gerstein each had a surface area of 2,500 and 2,000 square meters, respectively, which is evidently a blatantly false figure, of which neither could have been an “eyewitness.” It is also very unlikely that both committed a simple error of estimation – and pretty much the same one to boot – by confusing a length of 24 m with 100 m, and a depth of just over 5 m with one of 12 or 15 m.

Reder adds another nonsense of his own: the blood that burst from the mass graves!

“the next day a sinister sea of ​​blood flowed to the edge of the pit.” (1945)

“and ominous, thick blood burst out of the pits and flooded the whole surface.” (1946)

Gerstein described the mass graves instead as follows:

“After several days, the corpses fermented and then, a short time later, they collapsed so that a new layer could be thrown on them. Then 10 cm of sand was scattered over it so that only a few heads and arms protruded.” (T-1310, p. 16: “Nach einigen Tagen gärten die Leichen hoch und fielen alsdann kurze Zeit später stark zusammen, so dass man eine neue Schicht auf dieselben draufwerfen konnte. Dann wurde 10 cm Sand darüber gestreut, so dass nur noch vereinzelt Köpfe und Arme herausragten.”)

Reder says that the corpses were piled up to “one meter above ground level” (1945, 1956) and adds:

“During the first days, a high mound of soil towered over such a pit. As time went by, this soil subsided, and the ground slowly leveled off.” (29.12.1945)

Gerstein presents his account as an eyewitness, because immediately afterwards he states that he “saw Jews climbing around on the corpses in the graves” (T-1310, pp. 16f.), but since this claimed event happened “after several days” (“nach einigen Tagen”), he cannot have observed it in person, as he left the camp the next day.

Another concordance on a falsehood concerns the influx of transport. Reder declared:

“The transports had 50 cars, 3-4 times a day” (1945)

In the Gerstein-based essay “Killing Facilities in Poland,” we read:

“Three to four killings are carried out per day […].”

As explained earlier, in actuality the influx was 0.69 transports per day, hence two transports every three days. How do we explain these concordances in Reder’ and Gerstein’s statements – particularly those on the absurd and the false? Was there an unknown common source or sources?

Regarding the genesis of the legend about the “extermination camps” as fabricated in Jewish and Polish clandestine reports during the war, we certainly known a lot, but not everything. There are probably interferences and interconnections that have escaped out attention. One concerns the claimed mass graves of Bełżec and Treblinka.

Reder first mentioned mass graves measuring 100 m × 25 m × 15 m in his interrogation of September 22, 1944. But more than a year before that, Jankiel Wiernik had made the exact same statement regarding Treblinka:[13]

“The mass grave was 100 m long, 25 m wide and 15 m deep,” (“Masowy grób miał 100 m długości 25 m szerokości 15 m głębokości,”)

and this cannot be accidental. Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls‘s archaeological survey of the area of the former Treblinka II Camp (the presumed extermination camp) revealed the presence of 11 areas with disturbed soil which she called “potential mass graves.” The two largest of them measured just 34 m × 12 m and 26 m × 17 m (Sturdy Colls/Brantwaite, p. 70).

In practice, both Wiernik and Reder committed the same perjurious lie in relation to two different camps: is it believable that this is a coincidence?

But there is another no-less-surprising “coincidence”: the capacity of the gas chambers – 700-800 people – is identical for Treblinka in a story by Samuel Rajzman as published in 1945 (Rajzman, p. 122):

“Each woman was shaved to the skin with clippers, then was sent to the bathhouse, which consisted of 10 chambers with a capacity of 700-800 people each.”

But the “coincidences” don’t end there. The size of the alleged gas chambers given by Gerstein – 5 m × 5 m × 1.90 m – are identical to those given by Jankiel Wiernik in his first text on Treblinka from early 1944 in relation to the first alleged gassing building:[14]

“When I arrived at the camp, there were already 3 gassing chambers [komory do zagazowywania]. During my stay, 10 more were added. The size of a room was 5 x 5 meters, a total of 25 square meters, the height of 1.90 meters. […] A hermetically sealable iron door [żelazne] led to each room.”

These figures then underwent a literary transformation. The number of gas chambers of the first building was doubled (3 + 3 = 6), and they were arranged like those claimed for the second presumed gassing building at Treblinka, which – as I documented in another study (Mattogno/Kues/Graf, pp. 784-798) – was a literary transformation of the system of steam chambers mentioned in a report of November 15, 1942: a structure with a central corridor and five chambers on each side.

It is worth noting that, in his 1943 report “Killing Facilities in Poland,” Gerstein did not report anything about such a structure:

“The corridor ends at an iron door of a stone building. The door is opened, and the 700-800 [people] sentenced to death are whipped into it until, crammed like herring in a barrel, they can no longer move.”

On the other hand, the iron door appears in Wiernik‘s aforementioned description.

What can be affirmed with certainty, therefore, is that since 1943 a tall tale was being bandied about which was based on the various myths there were interpreted and even dramatized by the various “eyewitnesses.”

A final enigma remains, though, which relates to the claimed inscription on the alleged killing building, which was “Bade und Inhalationsräume” for Reder, and “Zu den Inhalier- und Baderäumen” for Gerstein.

Kola published a photograph of a sign in Polish, allegedly found in the area of the Bełżec Camp, which contains instructions for deportees to hand over valuables, shoes, etc., including the final one to enter completely undressed “for bathing and inhalation” (“do kąpieli i inhalacji”; Kola, p. 12). Inhalation was a specific therapy for respiratory diseases.[15] In normal practice, bath houses and shower rooms are associated with disinfection and disinfestation, while here we have an incomprehensible combination of a hygienic measure (the bath house) with a therapy (inhalation). If assuming that the deportees were to be deceive about what was going to happen to them, one would expect words such as “bathing and disinfection rooms” (“Bade- und Desinfektions­räu­men”) or “bathing and disinfestation/fumiga­tion rooms” (“Bade- und Ent­we­sungs­räumen”), yet most certainly not “inhalation,” which makes no sense. Former Sobibór inmate Kurt Thomas reported that the alleged gassing building was referred to as “state disinfestation center” (“Staatliche Seuchenbekaempfungsstelle”),[16] a name perfectly congruent with both points of view, the orthodox as well as the revisionist one.

We need to keep in mind that the Bełżec Camp was intended for two large areas populated by Polish Jewry, the larger of which was the Galicia District, from which 251,700 Jews were deported to that camp, if we follow Kruglow (1989, p. 107), including about 60,000 from Lwów. Kruglow writes that the largest deportation from this city, involving some 40,000 people, began on August 13, 1942 (ibid., pp. 102f.). But already more than a month earlier, a German newspaper in Lwów had reported the establishment of a delousing facility (Entlausungsanstalt) for Jews “on Hospital Street at the corner of Emila-Byka-Street, in the middle of the current Jewish quarter, in which 1,500 people can be treated daily.” The procedure was described as follows: in the changing rooms (Entkleidungsräumen), people took off their clothes, which were disinfested in hot-air chambers (Heißluftkammern), while they themselves were treated with “Kuprex,”[17] a liquid disinfectant. Then they received their disinfested clothes in a separate, isolated part of the structure (“Fleck­fiebergefahr in Lemberg…”).

A month later, several thousand Jews deported to Bełżec had surely passed through the plant or in any case knew it, so they knew what to expect when entering such a facility. Trying to deceive them with writings such as “Bade und Inhalationsräume” or “Zu den Inhalier- und Baderäumen” requires attributing a considerable degree of stupidity to the SS, the same degree they must have had in giving Gerstein the kind of mission he claims to have had.

In his first declaration of September 22, 1944, Reder knew nothing yet about these inhalation rooms; in fact, he declared that the killing building was called “Bath and Disinfection” (Баня и дезинфекция/banja i dezinfektsja). In his statement of November 1, 1944, he merged the two themes, asserting:

“A Sudeten German, Stabsscharführer Franz Irmann, announced that we should first take a bath and undergo disinfection.”

But two sentences later, he introduced the expression “Bade und Inhalationsräume,” which is an obvious contradiction.

The origin of this expression, as regards the “inhalations,” remains an unsolved and perhaps unsolvable mystery, but considering it can assist in evaluating the testimony containing it.

Finally, Reder’s and Gerstein’s statements about the killing building remain to be examined in the light of Dr. Kola‘s archaeological investigations, which I have examined thoroughly elsewhere, to which I refer.[18] From an orthodox point of view, the result was a total failure, as Robert O’Neil shortly afterwards (O’Neil, p. 55) implied:

“We found no trace of the gassing barracks dating from either the first or second phase of the camp’s construction.”

In his 2000 book where Dr. Kola disclosed the results of his investigations, he tried to pass off the imprint in the soil of a building that was “undoubtedly built entirely of wood [całkowicie z drewna],” which he labeled “G” and which measured 3.5 m × 15 m, as the imprint of the second killing building. From the point of view of what witnesses have claimed, this is absurd for two reasons: First of all, because the building in question was said to have been made of concrete, and second of all, because the building had to measure either 11.5 m × 15 m (two sets of three rooms of 5 m × 5 m, separated by a 1.5-m corridor), 9.5 m × 15 m (4 m × 5 m rooms) or 11.5 m × 12 m (5 m × 4 m rooms). All these sizes are irreconcilable with those found: 3.5 m × 15 m.

Kola noted that Reder had mentioned a concrete structure and commented (Kola, p. 60):

“Research surveys carried out in this area showed no traces of any masonry or concrete structure, which undermines the reliability of this [Reder’s] report on this issue.”

But “this issue” is the fundamental and essential one: were there homicidal gas chambers at Bełżec, or were there not?

Endnotes