Trial by the district courts in Klagenfurt, Vienna, Salzburg and Linz against members of the HSSPF Lublin, Volume 17: Testimonies by German perpetrators and a Jewish survivor regarding the Belzec extermination camp, 1961

Documentation from trials conducted in Landesgericht Klagenfurt (the Klagenfurt District Court), Landesgericht Wien (the Vienna District Court), Landesgericht Salzburg (the Salzburg District Court) and Landesgericht Linz (the Linz District Court) against members of the HSSPF (Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer-Higher SS and Police Leader) Lublin: Trial against Hermann Hoefle; Testimonies by German perpetrators and a Jewish survivor regarding the Belzec extermination camp, 1961 An abridged summary of File No. 25 VR 3123/71 (former 27c VR 852/62) Testimony of Heinrich Karl Johann Gley: Posted to Belzec, 1943; transferred to Trieste, 1944; transferred back to Berlin; transferred to the Waffen SS in Prague to work as a trainer, 02 August; taken captive in Bilsen by the US Army at the end of the war; released in Muenster, 29 December, 1947; Staff member in the Euthanasia Program in Grafeneck, 1940-early 1941; his responsibilities were limited to supervising the transports and handing over of the patients to the doctors; the patients were later killed in the gas chambers by the so-called Brenner (burner); Prior to their transfer to Grafeneck, the patients were held in hospitals in the Southern German area; The staff in Grafeneck was informed about the procedures in Grafeneck. Gley stated in the interrogation that he had a serious moral dilemma during his service in Grafeneck, but he continued to fulfill his duties because he feared the consequences from the leadership for refusal to participate; Grafeneck was shut down in 1941, and the personnel were transferred to other T4 institutions; transfer of the witness to Sonnenstein, where he had the same tasks, until August-September. Activities at the Belzec camp: most often supervision of a Jewish Arbeitskommando doing jobs outside the camp; claim that no Jew was killed while operating outside; statement that these outside assignments were popular, because the inmates had the chance to carry out deals with goods with the Ukrainian population. Termination of the mass gassing by the end of 1942; decision by the camp administration to transfer the last 500 Jews to the Sobibor camp by train after the liquidation of the camp; successful escape by a considerable number of Jews during the transfer; sketches of the camp; descriptions of the location of the mass graves; assignment to oversee a forced labor commando carrying rails and heavy stones to the camp for construction work, later used to burn the corpses of the Jews, 1943; start of the liquidation of the camp, summer 1943; Drawings and very detailed descriptions regarding the camp areas, the camp personnel and the locations of the mass graves. Description of the procedure for gassing the Jews. (pp. 5-31) Note about the defendant Georg Michalsen, added 30 January 1961 in Ludwigsburg: For a long time Michalsen was expecting to be arrested, and his wife was not at all surprised when he finally was detained. She did not even ask the police why her husband had been arrested. One explanation could be that he participated in various Aussiedlungsaktionen (resettlement "Aktions") against the Jews and that he knew about their destinations. (p. 32) Protocol of the interrogation of Kurt Franz (Koch), while being held in pre-trial detention in Duesseldorf, 14 September 1961: Arrival at Belzec as a cook, 1942; Description of the locations of the buildings in Belzec and the quartering of the personnel; Claim that in his time there were no Jews held back for labor in Belzec. Work as a cook for only 3 days; order from Christian Wirth to take over the position as trainer for the new crew. Before they built gas chambers in which the Jews could be gassed, the Nazis used a grey colored truck whose exhaust was directed into the back section of the truck, where the Jews were held, for this purpose. The idea for the truck may have come from Hackenholt, who was credited with proposing special innovations for transforming the vehicle. Transfer to Treblinka; Description of the extermination process in Belzec. Arrival of the train transport with the deported Jews; short positive speech given by the camp commander to make the Jews feel secure; relaxation of the Jews and belief in his lies; undressing; collection of valuables; gassing; breaking gold fillings out the teeth of the corpses; The first gassings at Belzec might have taken place in April 1942; the first Jewish victims were from surrounding area of the camp; train transports started only later; a transport usually contained approximately 1,500 Jews; two transports per week arrived in Belzec; a total of approximately 50,000 Jews were murdered in Belzec. Claim by the witness that he was transferred away by Wirth because of his refusal to work in the upper part of the camp where the gassing was carried out; Liquidation of Treblinka, October 1943; order to march to Italy; wounded in battle, summer of 1944; return to Italy, January 1945; deployment in Trieste; arrested a couple of times, but repeated escapes. (pp. 33-59) Protocol of the interrogation of retired University Professor Dr. Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, a physician, born in Breslau, 12 February 1890; the interrogation was held in Marburg, 25 April 1960; Personal history: Served as an Air Force Officer during World War I; appointed Chief Medical Officer of the Reserve, 1939; professor in the Department of Hygiene and Bacteriology at the University of Marburg and Director of the Hygiene Institute in Marburg, 1930-1939; request from the Waffen SS to serve as a hygiene consultant, late in 1939; inspection of the sanitary facilities of the Waffen SS in the whole eastern area, including making suggestions for improvements and for fighting against epidemics; sent to Lublin to see a concentration camp with a 150,000 people capacity, which had been built just outside the city, 1942; visit to the camp area and consultations with the camp administration regarding the sanitary facilities. Eye witness to an execution in Belzec, 19 August 1942; at that time, the camp had approximately 1,000 Jewish prisoners; he had to see the execution in order to give advice about the hygienic situation during the killing process, so that the German soldiers would not be harmed by diseases; his description: The prisoners arrived on a transport by train; security guards surrounded the camp to prevent Jews from escaping; the Jews were brought into a building where they were told by Jewish functionaries that they would have to take a bath for delousing, and that they would have to undress, because they had to go to another place to inhale material intended to prevent the transmission of diseases over the air. Then the men were taken to one barrack, and the women and children to another. There, their hair was shorn, and they were told to undress. After they had undressed, they had to cross naked from the hut into the extermination center. Up to this point, the people still did not know about their fate. The Jews had to enter the room, into which the exhaust gases from a 10-horse power engine were pumped in through pipes. There were six such extermination chambers in the building. The rooms were without windows, equipped with electric light, and 2 doors for each room. The whole building had only one exit for carrying the dead bodies outside. There was a glass peep-hole in the wall beside the window. A short time after the engines were started, the windows got fogged. Once the people were trapped in the room, the engine was turned on and valves to the gas chambers were opened, so that the gas could flow into the room. After the engine was running, the light was shut off in the chambers. Before the light was extinguished, it was pretty quiet in the chambers. Once it was shut off, the people started to panic. Only then did they realize that something bad was going to happen with them. They started praying and shouting for help. After about 12 minutes there was silence in the chambers. The Jewish personnel (stronger Jews who were chosen for this job) then opened the doors which lead to the outside and pulled the bodies out of the chambers with a long hook. In front of the building they examined the bodies again and searched for objects of value in the body orifices. They broke out golden teeth and collected them in cans. These activities were executed by the Jewish Special Working Commando. From there they carried the corpses to the mass graves located near the camp facilities. When the bottom row of the pit was full, they poured gasoline or other flammable fluid over the bodies; another layer of earth was thrown over the bodies, and then they placed new bodies in the same pit. During the questioning Dr. Pfannenstiel said that he had wanted to stop these procedures. For this reason he reported them to the Reichsarzt (Physician of the Reich) in Berlin, who apparently did not know anything about the extermination of Jews. The Reichsarzt promised to appeal to the highest position in the Reich and let Hitler know what was going on. Two months later, the camp was liquidated. This question still remains whether the appeal lead to the liquidation. (pp. 60-66) Interrogation of Hans Otto Gustav Girtzig , a qualified merchant, married and retired, born April 23, 1905: A member of the SS from 1931-1932; in the general SS from 1933; transfer to the Gau leadership in Brandenburg on a full-time basis, 1937; enlistment for the SS disposal squad in Breslau where he was trained to be a forager, September 1939 ; transfer to Grafeneck, 27 July 1939; there were about 20 nurses employed at Grafeneck; activities there were a secret matter of the Reich; the staff was told of the secrecy and sworn in; Oberhauser and Schwarz worked in the crematorium in Grafeneck; the administration was housed in the actual castle and the institution was 300 to 400 meters away; the Institute was built as a long barrack, where only the physicians who dealt with the people were allowed to enter. The Grafeneck Institute was considered to be a State Institute and was subordinated to the Charitable for Hospital Care in Berlin; the witness was transferred to Hartheim near Linz, 1940; there the euthanasia was administered by Dr. Lohnauer; from there he was transferred to Minsk in Russia to the Moebelfabrik Hospital in Minsk, Russia, early January 1942; Transfer to Belzec, autumn 1942, late September or early October; Supervisors of the Jewish Arbeitskommando (Jewish labor units) Glez, Schluch, Barbel, Kamm and others; Camp I was the working camp; there was no SS commander there, only a chosen Jewish leader who was responsible for the camp; the whole camp was surrounded by dense woods; Girtzig belonged to the Lutheran Church; he knew that the Jews were being killed by exhaust gasses; the running engines could be heard quite well throughout the whole camp; the bodies were burned; the smoke and the smell spread over the whole area; a train car usually held approximately 80 people; there were days where up to three trains arrived, but also periods of 8-14 days in which no transport arrived. Hackenholt operated the gassing engine, alone or with the help of Ukrainians; Hackenholt had built the engine; the working personnel in the crematoria consisted only of Jews; the Jews in Camp I had no connection to those in the Camp II. The staff was constantly instructed, especially by Hering, to treat the prisoners well; Schmidt was employed in Camp II; he lead the Jewish working groups, and he was involved in the killing of Jews; transfer of the all the SS personnel from Belzec to Trieste, Italy, autumn 1943. (pp. 67-84) Protocol of the interrogation of Heinrich Karl Johann Gley in Muenster, November 23, 1961; The Belzec camp consisted of two parts, the main camp and the so-called settlement. The entire camp complex was within a high forest. In the main camp there were 7,000-8,000 Jews (men, women, children) and in the "settlement", which was connected by a solid road to the main camp, approximately 5,000 Jews. In the main camp there was a massive building, which was earlier supposed to be an armor shop, it was used as the main accommodation of the Jews. The Jews produced military clothing in the camp, under the administration of the Director, General Toebbens. However, not all Jews were employed in the factory; some were assigned to labor outside the camp. Stories of Jewish spies, who worked for Hering, inside the camp. In November 1943, two police officers appeared in the camp and said that they had orders to liquidate all Jews in the camp without exception. They also said that the entire camp area was surrounded and sealed by a police unit consisting of 1,000 to 1,500 policemen. The German camp personnel was not allowed to leave their houses. The Jews were brought to trenches where they were shot, and their bodies fell inside the graves. Hering was allowed to choose 200 of the stronger Jews to clean up, to carry the rest of the dead bodies and to bury them in mass graves. These 200 Jews were not killed that day, but a few days later. A few days later Gley was ordered to go with a new Jewish Arbeitskommando to Ponjatowa to burn dead bodies. The whole activity lasted approximately 8-14 days. Work units in the camp: Transport of clothes to the Lockschuppen (an old hut inside the camp); sorting and bundling; loading; building barracks; kitchen services; fence repair; digging pits, and more. This work was carried out by the Jewish inmates under the supervision of Jewish Kapos. To maintain safety, order and discipline, there was a unit consisting of volunteer soldiers. Kley was forced to carry out the executions of Jews who were not able to walk. The transports arrived at Belzec in a terrible state. The transports traveled for days. The Jews did not have food, water or fresh air in the train cars. When the train cars were opened, Jews tumbled out and some remained on the floor. It can be assumed that the Jews were healthy when they were forced to enter the trains, but during the deportation many of them died; After the dead and half dead were removed, Heering ordered the German personnel to shoot the Jews who were still living. Krey stated with certainty that not one of the camp personnel ever conducted an execution without orders. Only Heering, Oberhauser or Wirth gave the orders to shoot; no one else. However, no one was exempt from shooting Jews. The question of refusal to follow the execution order is rejected with the argument that the staff would have been punished by the commander and that could have led to their execution. (pp. 85-109) Interrogation of Heinrich Unverhau, Munich, 21 July, 1960; He was in Grafeneck; his duty was to transport the mentally ill people to Grafeneck; Description of the gassing facility; description of the job of Oberhauser; move to Hadamar, 1941; description of the camp facilities in Belzec; Description of the arrangements in the camp; Description of the personnel and the jobs done by Jews, such as hairdresser, dentist, and more; description of the cruelty of Wirth and Oberhauser; Description of what happened when a Jew escaped during transport. (pp.110-119) Protocol of the interrogation of Robert Emil Franz Xaver Juehrs, Frankfurt am Main, 11 October 1960; Description of the camp buildings and their functions; Description of the process when a new transport arrived; The following people were assigned to shoot Jews: Jiermann, Dachsel, Gley, Juehrs and Feix; statement by Juehrs that NOT ONE of the SS personnel was innocent. Shooting of Jews after incoming transport, placing them in mass graves. Statement by Juehrs: "Schmidt killed out of pure bloodlust"; Description of an execution which he carried out; Information about the train transport; approximately 300,000 Jews were murdered in Belzec; the total number could also be 500, 000; transfer to the Dorohucza labor camp, March 1943; forced labor by the inmates digging peat; Dorohucza was approximately six miles away from Trawniki. Admission by the defendant that he shot Jews with a machine gun. He always targeted the head; Description of the Arbeitskommando in Dorohucza; Liquidation of the camp; (pp. 120-152) Interrogation protocol of Hubert Gomerski in the Butzbach/Hessen penal institution, 03 May 1961: Transfer to Hartheim, 1940; liquidation of Hadamar. (pp. 153-157) Interrogation protocol of Arnold Oels in Hannover, 30 May 1961. (pp. 158-160) Interrogation protocol of Vahle Wilhelm Kurt in Munich, 29 May 1961: His real last name is Heinz Kurt Bolender, but he changed it after the war. Drawing of the Sobibor camp. (pp. 161-180) Interrogation protocol of Roman Robak in Munich, 08 August 1960. Personal testimony: detention in Belzec; escape; Description of the camp; Description of the killing process (gas chamber); Description of the mass graves; Christian Schmidt was the worst one in the camp; every day he shot approximately 20–30 people. (pp. 181-189) Interrogation protocol of Karl Dubois in Schwelm 16 September 1961: Transfer to Belzec, 1942 Word sketch of the Belzec camp; Description of the camp personnel; Description of the work of the Leichentraeger (people who carried the dead bodies); Description of the gas chamber; Description of the size of the transports; (pp. 191-217) Statement by Georg Brammer as a witness for the prosecution against Hermann Hoefle in Salzburg, 28 December 1961; (pp. 221- 223) Hearing of the witness Karl Bertram against Hoefle Hermann. (pp. 239-240)