NOTES ON A VISIT TO AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU BY MARTIN LUTHER, UNDER STATE SECRETARY, REICHS MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

[Handwritten; 11 pages]

14 July 1943

At last, after almost a year of repeated requests, I am given permission to undertake a full tour of inspection of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, on behalf of the Foreign Ministry.

I land at Krakau airfield from Berlin shortly before sunset and spend the night with Governor-General Hans Frank, State Secretary Josef Buhler and their staff at Wawel Castle. Tomorrow morning at dawn I am to be picked up from the castle and driven to the camp (journey time: approximately one hour) where I am to be received by the Commandant, Rudolf Hoess.

15 July 1943

The camp. My first impression is of the sheer scale of the installation, which measures, according to Hoess, almost 2 km. X 4 km. The earth is of yellowish clay, similar to that of Eastern Silesia — a desert-like landscape broken occasionally by green thickets of trees. Inside the camp, stretching far beyond the limits of my vision, are hundreds of wooden barracks, their roofs covered with green tar-paper. In the distance, moving between them, I see small groups of prisoners in blue-and-white striped clothing -some carrying planks, others shovels and picks; a few are loading large crates on to the backs of trucks. A smell hangs over the place.

I thank Hoess for receiving me. He explains the administrative set-up. This camp is under the jurisdiction of the SS Economic Administration Main Office. The others, in the Lublin district, fall under the control of SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Odilo Globocnik. Unfortunately, the pressure of his work prevents Hoess from conducting me around the camp personally, and he therefore entrusts me into the care of a young Untersturmfuhrer, Weidemann. He orders Weidemann to ensure I am shown everything, and that all my questions are answered fully. We begin with breakfast in the SS barracks.

After breakfast: we drive into the southern sector of the camp. Here: a railway siding, approx 1.5 km. in length. On either side: wire fencing supported from concrete pylons, and also wooden observation towers with machine-gun nests. It is already hot. The smell is bad here, a million flies buzz. To the west, rising above trees: a square, red-brick factory chimney, belching smoke.

7.40 am: the area around the railway track begins to fill with SS troops, some with dogs, and also with special prisoners delegated to assist them. In the distance we hear the whistle of a train. A few minutes later: the locomotive pulls slowly through the entrance, its exhalations of steam throw up clouds of yellow dust. It draws to a halt in front of us. The gates close behind it. Weidemann: “This is a transport of Jews from France.”

I reckon the length of the train to be some 60 freight cars, with high wooden sides. The troops and special prisoners crowd round. The doors are unbolted and slid open. All along the train the same words are shouted: “Everyone get out! Bring your hand-baggage with you! Leave all heavy baggage in the cars!” The men come out first, dazed by the light, and jump to the ground -1.5 metres — then turn to help their women and children and the elderly, and to receive their luggage.

The deportees” state: pitiful — filthy, dusty, holding out bowls and cups, gesturing to their mouths, crying with thirst. Behind them in the trucks lie the dead and those too sick to move — Weidemann says their journey began four nights ago. SS guards force those able to walk into two lines. As families separate, they shout to one another. With many gestures and calls the columns march off in different directions. The able-bodied men go towards the work camp. The rest head towards the screen of trees, with Weidemann and myself following. As I look back, I see the prisoners in their striped clothing clambering into the freight cars, dragging out the baggage and the bodies.

8.30 am: Weidemann puts the size of the column at nearly 2,000: women carrying babies, children at their skirts; old men and women; adolescents; sick people; mad people. They walk five abreast down a cinder path for 300 metres, through a courtyard, along another path, at the end of which twelve concrete steps lead down to an immense underground chamber, 100 metres long. A sign proclaims in several languages (German, French, Greek, Hungarian): “Baths and Disinfecting Room”. It is well-lit, with scores of benches, hundreds of numbered pegs.

The guards shout: “Everyone undress! You have 10 minutes!” People hesitate, look at one another. The order is repeated, more harshly, this time, hesitantly but calmly, they comply. “Remember your peg number, so you can recover your clothes!” The camp trusties move among them, whispering encouragement, helping the feeble-bodied and the feeble-minded to strip. Some mothers try to hide their babies in the piles of discarded clothing, but the infants are quickly discovered.

9.05 am: Naked, the crowd shuffles through large oak doors flanked by troops into a second room, as large as the first, but utterly bare, apart from four thick, square columns supporting the ceiling at twenty-metre intervals. At the bottom of each column is a metal grille. The chamber fills, the doors swing shut. Weidemann gestures. I follow him out through the empty changing room, up the concrete steps, into the air. I can hear the sound of an automobile engine.

Across the grass which covers the roof of the installation bounces a small van with Red Cross markings. It stops. An SS officer a doctor emerge wearing gas masks carrying four metal canisters. Four squat concrete pipes jut from the grass, twenty metres apart. The doctor SS man lift the lids of the pipes pour in a mauve granulated substance. They remove the masks, light cigarettes in sunshine.

9.09 am: Weidemann conducts me back downstairs. Only sound is a muffled drumming coming from the far end of the room, from beyond the suitcases the piles of still-warm clothes. A small glass panel is set into the oak doors. I put my eye to it. A man’s palm beats against the aperture I jerk my head away.

Says one guard: “The water in the shower rooms must be very hot today, since they shout so loudly.”

Outside, Weidemann says: now we must wait twenty minutes. Would I care to visit Canada? I say: What? He laughs: “Canada” — a section of the camp. Why Canada? He shrugs: nobody knows.

Canada. 1 km. north of gas chamber. Huge rectangular yard, watchtower in each corner surrounded by barbed wire. Mountains of belongings — trunks, rucksacks, cases, kitbags, parcels; blankets; prams, wheelchairs, false limbs; brushes, combs. Weidemann: figures prepared for RF-SS on property recently sent to Reich — men’s shirts: 132,000, women’s coats: 155,000, women’s hair: 3,000kg. (’a freight car’), boys” jackets: 15,000, girls’dresses: 9,000, handkerchiefs: 135,000. I get doctor’s bag, beautifully made, as souvenir — Weidemann insists.

9.31 am: Return underground installation. Loud electric humming fills the air — the patented “Exhator” system, for evacuation of gas. Doors open. The bodies are piled up at one end [Illegible] legs smeared excrement, menstrual blood; bite claw marks. Jewish Sonder-kommando detachment enters to hose down corpses, wearing rubber boots, aprons, gas masks (according to W., pockets of gas remain trapped at floor level for up to 2 hours). Corpses slippery. Straps around wrists used to haul them to four double-doored elevators. Capacity of each: 25 [Illegible] bell rings, ascend one floor to …

10.02 am: Incineration room. Stifling heat: 15 ovens operating full-blast. Loud noise: diesel motors ventilating flames. Corpses from elevator loaded on to conveyor belt (metal rollers). Blood etc into concrete gutter. Barbers either side shave heads. Hair collected in sacks. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, etc dropped into metal box. Last: dental team — 8 men with crowbars pliers — removal gold (teeth, bridgework, fillings). W. gives me tin of gold to test weight: very heavy. Corpses tipped into furnaces from metal pushcarts.

Weidemann: four such gas chamber/crematorium installations in camp. Total capacity of each: 2,000 bodies per day = 8,000 overall. Operated by Jewish labour, changed every 2-3 months. The operation thus self-supporting; the secret self-sealing. Biggest security headache — stink from chimneys flames at night, visible over many kilometres, especially to troop trains heading east on main line.

Re: the utilisation of cut hair.

In response to a report, the Chief of the SS Economic Administration Main Office, SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Pohl, has ordered that all human hair cut off in concentration camps should be utilised. Human hair will be processed for industrial felt and spun into thread. Female hair which has been cut and combed out will be used as thread to make socks for U-boat crews and felt stockings for the railways.

You are instructed, therefore, to store the hair of female prisoners after it has been disinfected. Cut hair from male prisoners can only be utilised if it is at least 20 mm. in length.

The amounts of hair collected each month, separated into female and male hair, must be reported on the 5th of each month to this office, beginning with the 5th September 1942.