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CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR
CHRISTIE continued:
THE WITNESS: As I explained to you
as your question, or as the question of Mr Crown
Attorney, all prisoners, apart from the number, were
marked. The political prisoners were marked with a red
triangle. The Jews were marked with a red triangle
over which was overlaid a yellow triangle, so that the
whole thing, together, makes -- I don't have yellow
colour -- a Jewish star. This meant a Jewish prisoner.
Q. A Jewish political prisoner.
A. It meant
a Jewish prisoner. However, it was the habit , when
one spoke about prisoners, it didn't say there were
five hundred prisoners, but used the word
Schutzhäftlinge. This is a German Nazi euphemism which,
translated, means preventive imprisonment. And in my
original I have said that we were Schutzhäftlinge
which, due to the several translations, obviously, by
the time it was translated, meant political prisoners;
but notice that the word "political prisoners" is
written in quotation marks. So because Washington,
they didn't have a dictionary which didn't contain the
Nazi lingo, they translated freely as political
prisoners and put on it quotation marks, a sign that
they are not quite sure of the translation. And this,
you can see, I would like to present that -- to whom
should I present this evidence?
THE COURT: If
you are finished with that, you can come back to the
box, please. Now you can finish your answer.
THE WITNESS: You will agree with me that the word "political
prisoners" in this American translation is in
quotation marks, whatever that means.
Q. Yes, I
will agree with you. I will just ask you if you were a
political prisoner, and your answer is no.
A.
No. I was a Jewish prisoner.
Q. Your answer is
that it is a mistake by those of the War Refugee Board
in English?
A. Schutzhäftlinge into English,
and translated it into "political prisoners", and my
answer is that they didn't know how to translate it.
Q. Now, we are talking about the Gralinski book
about Fighting Auschwitz. Have you heard of this book?
A. I have heard about the book.
THE COURT:
Just a moment. You were asked, Doctor, whether you
were familiar with the book.
THE WITNESS: I am
not familiar with the book, but I heard about the book.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: I wonder if I can ask you if you
could address your mind to this particular statement
in the foreword to the book, and maybe I can quote it
to you.
A. Yes, please do.
Q. Okay. It
says:
"Escape from Auschwitz was more common
than from camps that were within German-speaking
territory. Over 600 escapers are recorded of whom
about one third got away."
Is that true or
false?
A. This means that Mr Gralinski is
saying in his book?
Q. I didn't say Mr
Gralinski said that. It is printed in the book by
M.R.D. Foot.
A. Yes.
Q. I want to know
if it is a false or true statement.
A. It might
be true or it might be false. Ask Mr Foot.
THE
COURT: We will adjourn till two thirty.
--- The
jury retires. 1:00 p.m.
--- The witness stands
down.
--- Luncheon adjournment.
-------------
--- Upon resuming.
--- The
jury enters. 2:35 p.m.
--- The witness returns
to the stand.
THE COURT: Go ahead, Mr Christie.
MR CHRISTIE: Thank you, sir.
Q. I'd like to
now produce and show to you what appears to be a
drawing that was made, I suggest, by you in your 1944
War Refugee Board Report; is that correct?
A.
Yes. I have shown it yesterday.
Q. Would you
look at each one and make sure that they are all
identical? Then I may ask another question.
A.
You say they are identical?
Q. I am suggesting
they are.
A. Okay.
Q. Okay? I've made
many copies.
MR CHRISTIE: Your Honour, may I
give one to each of the jurors?
THE COURT: Have
you seen these, Mr Griffiths?
MR GRIFFITHS: Yes,
Your Honour. I am familiar with the drawing. I have no
objection if my friend wishes to do that.
MR
CHRISTIE: It's just a diagram made, I think, in 1944.
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Yes. One of
them may be made an exhibit, and then they can be
distributed.
THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit 22.
--- EXHIBIT NO. 22: Diagram from War Refugee
Board Report.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: That's your best
recollection when you were giving your report to the
Czechoslovak authorities. Right?
A. Yes. That's
about how I recollected the situation.
Q. Would
you like to keep it?
A. Yes. Thank you.
Q. I'd like to distribute one of these to each member
of the jury.
THE COURT: Yes.
Q. MR
CHRISTIE: Now, you agree with me, sir, that that's
quite different than the evidence you presented in-chief
as your recollection of the camp; would you agree?
A. No. Not at all.
Q. Okay.
A.
That's untrue.
Q. I now produce and show to you
what appears to be a photographic kind of schema of
the camp as I believe you presented it on your
overhead projection. Was that not the way you
presented it before, sir?
A. That's right.
Except that this is dated 25th April, 1944, and this
is a later graph which I have taken out from the
literature, because it shows certain developments
which took place after my escape.
However, at
the same time, the two graphs are not significantly
different, considering that this is done by engineers
and this by an amateur from memory.
Q.
Recollection, yes.
A. Yes.
THE COURT:
The second document you showed him, Mr Christie, is
what?
MR CHRISTIE: Actually, Your Honour, I can
tell you that it is a photocopy out of the book, "Eye
Witness Auschwitz" by Filip Müller, "Three Years in
Gas Chambers", published Stein & Day, New York, 1979.
And with your permission I'd like to show that to the
jury as I have several copies of that as well.
THE COURT: As I recall it, Dr Vrba has identified it
as being, in his view, at least, accurate.
THE
WITNESS: Yes.
THE COURT: Is that correct,
Doctor?
THE WITNESS: I said that in my view
this has been done after my escape, this second map,
and with considerable changes which I was not aware my
map. However, the changes were not so significantly
different so that the pictures were a reasonable
semblance.
THE COURT: Yes. All right. Then you
can do that, Mr Christie.
THE WITNESS: It is
like looking, if I may add, of a picture of a three or
four-year-old child. You can recognize both, but it's
not the same.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
MR CHRISTIE: I then would offer this Madam
Registrar, this copy, and if I may I would like to
show copies of this to the jury.
THE COURT:
Exhibit 23.
--- EXHIBIT NO. 23: Map of
Auschwitz II-
Birkenau.
Q. MR CHRISTIE:
Now, if I could, Doctor ---
A. Yes, please.
Q I think maybe there is an extra one.
A.
Thank you very much.
Q. I'd like, if you would,
to put this one in your right hand, and the one that
you drew in 1944 in your left hand, so we can discuss
them in that way.
A. Yes.
Q Is that all
right, then? Okay. Now, looking at the right hand, sir,
I put it to you that the actual location of the
bathhouse is No. 9, called the Sauna.
A. Yes.
Q. You have indicated a bathhouse on the diagram
in that general area.
A. Yes.
Q. On your
diagram of 1944; is that right?
A. Right.
Q. Yeah. So at least as far as that is concerned,
we are not talking about something that wasn't there
at the time, are we?
A. I beg your pardon?
Q. When we talk about a bathhouse, we are talking
about only one in that area of the camp, which in the
righthand drawing is No. 9. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. And it seems to be drawn in your diagram in
1944. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. It is drawn in a
totally different place, though, isn't it?
A.
No, it's not drawn in a totally different place.
You've got, excuse me, you've got there quite clearly
on the righthand side shown that the two crematoria
and the one bathhouse are in one complex, and the same
you can see on my drawing, that the two crematoria and
the bath are in one complex.
In other words, my
drawing hasn't got the engineering precision of fifty
or sixty yards, but these two pictures both identify
that the two crematoria and the bath are enclosed in
barbed wire electric fences together.
Q. Yeah.
I put it to you that the area just below the number 9,
sauna, or bathhouse, is the area known as Kanada in
the drawing; isn't it?
A. That's right. And
that area was not there when I was escaping on 7
April, or at least, I couldn't see it because it is a
long time before my escape that I visited the
crematoria.
Q. Oh, you visited the crematoria.
A. Yes.
Q. When?
A. On several
occasions.
Q. Where did you go?
A. I
went to have a look between the two crematoria and
have a look what is happening there.
Q. Oh, yes.
And what was happening there?
A. I could see
people being taken into the crematoria.
Q. And
this is not the occasion when you were at Fred
Wetzler's mortuary. This is another occasion, is it?
A. Perfectly another occasion. There was occasion
when I was in -- Registrar in "BIIA", and my job was
to go to "BIID", and because I am a little bit of an
inquisitive nature, and also took a little bit of a
risk, I am simply pretended that I've got some
business there and walked on.
Q. Oh, so you
walked between the two crematoria.
A. That's
right.
Q. Between Krematorias I and II?
A. No. Between Krematoria III and IV.
Q. Oh,
between Krematoria III and IV, down the roadway.
A. That's right.
Q. They are marked 5 and 6
on diagram, aren't they, on the righthand diagram.
A. I think that the right, or the righthand
diagram, the crematoria are denoted as 4 and 5,
whereas in my diagram they are denoted as III and IV.
Now, this is because there were two types of
nomenclature of crematoria in Auschwitz. There was a
smaller crematorium in Auschwitz I.
Q. You saw
that one too?
A. I saw, yes. I was inside there.
Q. Were you inside that, too?
A. Yes, being
inquisitive, I was in there on occasion.
Q. And
were the people gassed at one time?
A. Just a
moment, please. Don't interrupt me. I would like to
explain to you the nomenclatures, because there is a
discrepancy between nomenclatures on your and my
graph.
Now, the habit was that when crematoria
were built in Birkenau, the prisoners called them I,
II, III, IV in the order in which they were built, but
the Bauleitung this means the Official Administration
of Builders took into consideration that there is
already one crematorium in Auschwitz and called the
new crematoria
II, III, IV and V.
Consequently, on my map what is called III and IV,
which is unofficial map because I gave it my own
nomenclature, there is a small difference between the
map, the more official map and which denotes the
crematoria on the northern side of the map as IV and
V, whereas I denote them III and IV.
Q. I'm
sorry, I don't think you've given me the answer to my
question as to whether you were in Krematorium No. I
in Auschwitz.
A. No, I was not in Krematoria --
oh, in Auschwitz.
Q. Yes.
A. Yes, I was.
Q. Were people being gassed there at the time?
A. No, they were not gassed, and there was a
particular occasion when I went into that crematoria
and ---
Q. I see.
A. There must have
been a particular reason, because it was not a walking
sort of distance.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. When I
was working in Kanada, in November 1942, I have been
taken to the dumping truck to Krematoria I in
Auschwitz. The Krematoria I in Auschwitz was on yard
-- that yard on the lefthand side had, to my
recollection Krematorium I, and to the righthand side
there was a hospital for S.S. The best would be, again,
if I show it on a -- do I have permission?
Q.
What I would really like to do is deal with the
diagram we have in our hands. This is Birkenau we are
dealing with.
A. Yes.
Q. I asked you if
you had been in Krema I in Auschwitz when people were
being gassed, and I think the answer is no. Correct?
A. The answer is no. I went there for collecting
their clothes from the gas chamber in Krematorium I.
Q. From the gas chamber?
A. Yes.
Q.
Were you inside?
A. Yes.
Q. What did the
gas chamber look like?
A. It was originally a
garage which connected the S.S. barracks with that
small crematorium.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. And
there were garage doors.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A.
And the roof was reinforced with earth. The inside was
dark. The door was opened ---
Q. How wide were
the doors?
A. Like a good garage door, and two
side opening to two sides.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. We went in under the pretext that we are collecting
-- not under the pretext, under the order to collect
the clothes which were there.
Consequently, as
I understood, the people had to undress before they
went into that gas chamber.
Q. You are telling
us ---
A. Then they were gassed, and then,
because there were clothes in the yard in front of the
hospital, they were shoved in the gas chamber before
they were taken out. So I understand that was my job
at that time, so I collected the clothes.
Q.
The clothes were in the gas chamber.
A. Right.
Q. Yes.
A. So we collected the clothes from
there, and at that moment I saw through the window of
the crematorium a friend of mine from Slovakia,
Phillip Mueller.
Q. Who was he?
A.
Phillip Mueller.
Q. Phillip Mueller in
Auschwitz I?
A. . In Auschwitz I crematoria.
Q. Yes.
A. And I was also very well
acquainted with his father.
Q. Yes.
A.
Consequently, there was sort of an affinity between us
because I took a little bit care of his father before
he died in Auschwitz. We came together from Maidanek.
I spoke with Phillip Mueller through the window.
Phillip Mueller explained to me ---
Q. Is this
the crematoria part, or the gas chamber part?
A. No. On the yard, between the -- on the yard in
front of the crematorium, in front of the gas chamber,
and in front ---
Q. Now, let's go to find on
the map on Auschwitz I where this is then.
THE
COURT: That's Exhibit 21, I believe, isn't it?
MR CHRISTIE: Yes, sir. I'm sorry. It is marked "F" for
identification. Maybe we can deal with that now.
Q. Would you like to show us on this map where the
crematorium was in Auschwitz I?
A. On this map,
which is not dated, it would be here, in this region.
Q. All right. Let's mark that.
A. And it is
marked something like KI.
Q. KI.
A. Yes.
In this region.
Q. Would you like to just mark
an arrow and mark it to that area there?
A.
Yeah. Not to that area there.
Q. Well, you do
it.
A. I will show you this area.
Q.
Okay.
A. Because I don't know the date of the
map, and how many building changes have been made
since.
Q. Sure.
A. So since I have saw
it in 1942 and since this map is not dated, there
might have been certain changes which I cannot clearly
recognize.
Q. But you are prepared to identify
that building.
A. But I would prefer to say
that the crematorium, here is the entrance to
Auschwitz, here is a Block 1, here is Block 22. Yes,
it was here in this region.
Q. Okay. So you
just draw a circle on there, then, eh?
A. Yeah.
And you can now mark it, please.
Q. So you want
to put a mark on it to identify it?
A. What
would you like me to write? Region of Krematorium I
and gas chamber I?
A. Yes. Go ahead.
Q.
And you don't mind if I add that this was as
recollected from November 1942.
Q. Put it down.
A. Because how it look in November 1943, I don't
know.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
THE COURT: Exhibit 24.
--- EXHIBIT NO. 24: Large map of Auschwitz I (Formerly
Exhibit "E")
Q. MR CHRISTIE: How do you explain
the fact that you've drawn on the diagram that I
showed you every crematorium the same shape in 1944,
when you drew the diagram upon your escape.
A.
Because I had only two days to write the whole report,
and to try to depict the crematoria.
There was
a great urgency with that plan, because the objective
of the plan was to get it to Hungary and to use this
whole report towards the Hungarian Jews of imminent
deportation.
Under that circumstance I didn't
lose much time with details like what is the
difference between Krematorium I and II and
Krematorium II and III, but I limited myself to depict
the position of the gas chambers and crematoria one
side, and the geographic position of the whole
murderous complex on the other side.
Q. Sure. I
now produce and show to you a diagram which came from,
I suggest, your War Refugee Report of 1944 in which
you depicted a crematoria. Correct?
A. That's
right.
Q. Is it accurate?
A. This I
cannot say. It was said that as we were not in the
large crematoria, we reconstructed it from messages we
got from members of the Sonderkommando working in that
crematorium, and therefore, that approximately how it
transpired in our mind, and in our ability to depict
what we have heard.
Q. That is what you
depicted, though?
A. Yes.
Q. And it is
accurately depicting what you depicted?
A.
That's right. It is accurately depicting what I heard
that it might look like.
Q. Okay. So you were
never inside any of the crematoria, then?
A.
Except for Krematorium I in Auschwitz.
Q.
Krematorium I in Auschwitz.
A. Yes.
Q.
So this wasn't a drawing of that. This was supposed to
be crematoriums, two types, I and II, in Birkenau.
Right?
A. That's right. And this was much more
important because Krematorium I in Auschwitz, at that
time was of minor importance. It had a capacity in
several hundred people a day. This one had a capacity
of two thousand people a day, and there were two of
them.
Q. Two thousand people a day?
A.
That's right. Capacity. And there were other two that
had a capacity of thousand people a day. This is all
written in my report.
Q. Yes. And in your
report you say twelve thousand people a day were
killed at Birkenau. Right?
A. You will have to
show me a passage before we draw some conclusions.
Q. I will. Let's deal with this. Can I ask you if
that accurately sets out what you reported at that
time?
A. Yes. In scheme.
Q. In scheme,
yes.
MR CHRISTIE: Could I file this, please,
Your Honour?
THE COURT: Yes. Exhibit 25.
MR CHRISTIE: I've got copies for the jury, if I
may.
THE COURT: Yes.
--- --- EXHIBIT NO.
25: Map of Krematorium I and II, Birkenau.
MR
CHRISTIE: And a copy for the witness.
Q. I put
it to you that you did say in your book in 1944 that
twelve thousand bodies were dealt with in twenty-four
hours.
A. Could you please show me which page?
Q. I don't know, because it's in the first chapter,
page ten my book, but you've got a hard cover edition.
A. First chapter?
Q. Do you remember saying
that?
A. Well, I do not have the whole book by
heart and I first would control what you are saying if
it is true.
Q. Okay.
A. Or how far it is
away.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. Would you please
kindly turn to the chapter you've got in mind?
Q. I think it is the first chapter. That is where you
were.
A. First chapter. Chapter 1.
Q.
Just before the Heinrich Himmler incident.
A.
Yes.
Q. Now, top of the page, Chapter 1, page
10:
"And so he gave orders for the greatest,
most efficient extermination factory the world has
ever known. For the modern concrete gas chambers and
the vast crematoria that could absorb as many as
12,000 bodies in twenty-four hours and, in fact, did
so. For the machinery that sucked in 2,500,000 men,
women and children in three years and puffed them out
in harmless black smoke."
Have you got that
paragraph? Do you recall writing that?
A. I
would like to see if there are no changes from your
version and mine.
Q. Okay. Now, it's before, "Commandant
Hoess's brand new toy".
A. Is it on the end?
Q. No. Before that.
A. Yes. You see, if you
don't find it in my original, then I will have doubts
about the papers which you present.
Q. I see.
A. With all respect to you.
Q. Sure. Now,
we will have to find it for you.
What I am
going to suggest to you is that your diagrams
presented at the time are certainly not consistent
with your knowledge related in your later book. Would
you agree? Do you understand the question?
A.
Yes. Please. I am listening to you.
Q. I said
your diagrams presented in 1944 are totally
inconsistent with the information you presented in
your later book. Would you agree?
A. No, it is
not true.
Q. All right. I now present and show
to you the portion of your book.
A. Yes.
Q. Dealing with the twelve thousand bodies a day.
A. Mm-hmmm.
Q Right there. Page 15.
A. Page 15. Right. Yes:
"For the modern
concrete gas chambers and the vast crematoria that
could absorb as many as 12,000 bodies in twenty-four
hours and, in fact, did so. For the machinery that
sucked in 2,500,000 men, women and children in three
years and puffed them out in harmless black smoke."
Q. Right. Now, you said in your book further on
that there were fifteen ovens that could burn three
bodies each simultaneously in twenty minutes.
A. Where is it written in the book?
Q. Next.
Two paragraphs down from the one that you just read.
A. Two paragraphs.
Q. Three paragraphs
down.
A. "And so he gave orders for the
greatest, most ...." "Heinrich Himmler visited
Auschwitz Camp again ....", next paragraph, "This time
I was glad to see him arrive ...."
THE COURT: A
little louder, please. I can't hear, Doctor. The jury
has to hear this and so do I. The jury is more
important than I am.
THE WITNESS: Next
paragraph:
"Once more we were lined up spic and
span ...." Next paragraph, "Though he conducted his
tour of the camp with his usual thoroughness ...."
Next paragraph, "He was to watch the world's first
conveyor belt killing ...."
Q. Okay. That's the
paragraph. It says in there:
"It was a truly
splendid affair, one hundred yards long and fifty
yards wide, containing fifteen ovens which could burn
three bodies each simultaneously in twenty minutes
...."
A. Yes.
Q. That is what you said
when you wrote your book.
A. Yes.
Q.
When you prepared your report to the War Refugee
Board, you described a gas chamber with a railroad
track leading to nine ovens. Right?
A. A
railroad track leading to several ovens ....
Q.
Just a moment. You drew the diagram to indicate nine
ovens.
A. Mm-hmmm.
Q. With four openings
each, or how many?
A. There are no openings
recorded.
Q. None, eh?
A. None.
Q. But you say in the report four openings each.
A. Do I say it in the report?
Q. Well, it's
in your report. Don't you remember?
A. Well, I
do remember. I've got a reasonably good memory, but if
I mention a report which I wrote exactly forty-two
years ago, I'd like to check on it, if you don't mind.
Q. Yes. But the point is, Doctor, that at the time
you made the report you were supposed to have a better
memory, I suggest, because of the closeness to the
event, than you had when you wrote the book.
A.
Not necessarily, because at the time when I wrote the
report I was not interested in the details too much,
but I was interested in getting the message that
crematoria exist, gas chambers exist, and the
henchmen's axe is prepared for a million Hungarian
Jews. So I gave some sort of depicting of geographic
situation as well as I could, some of my memory, like
this exhibit here. I saw things from inside and from
friends got some rough idea what is inside. I saw it
from outside. I added to it what it might look like,
and in principle it is that the message was right. The
crematoria were there. They had roughly the capacity
described in the report. The geographic position of
the crematoria was depicted with great exactness.
Q. In the Refugee Board Report I suggest to you
that it indicates that it took an hour and a half to
burn a body.
A. One moment. In which page?
Q. Well, first of all I ask you, do you not recall
writing that?
A. Well, I recall, and it is in
the files of the Crown Attorney, that there was a
German publication recently published by somebody very
similar to your defendant in which his paragraph was
grossly distorted and embellished with lies which I
have never written.
Q. Well, did you or did you
not say that it took an hour and a half to cremate a
body?
A. I will first find it. If I said so, if
you claim that I said it in my report, then find it.
Q. Look at page 14, last paragraph of your report,
War Refugee Board Report:
"Each opening can
take three normal corpses at once, and after an hour
and a half the bodies are completely burned."
Is that in your report now I found it for you?
A. "Each opening can take three normal corpses at once,
and after an hour and a half the bodies are completely
burned."
Q. Yeah.
A. Right.
Q.
Now, is that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. Why do you say in your book that it takes
twenty minutes with fifteen ovens and three bodies
each, in twenty minutes you can burn them all? Why do
you say two different things at two different times?
A. I beg your pardon?
Q. Why do you say two
different things at two different times?
A. I
say one thing. What is the second thing?
Q. One
thing was nine ovens.
A. Yes.
Q. The
other thing was three bodies in an hour and a half.
A. Yes.
Q. Now, in your book you say
fifteen ovens, and three bodies in twenty minutes.
A. I don't see those three bodies in an hour and a
half. Excuse me.
Q. All right. Well, we will go
over it again. The War Refugee Board Report made in
1944:
"Each opening can take three normal
corpses at once, and after an hour and a half the
bodies are completely burned."
A. Right.
Q. The book which we were reading together yours
is a different page than mine:
"....fifteen
ovens which could burn three bodies each
simultaneously in twenty minutes ...."
Now, do
you see the difference?
A. No.
Q. None.
You don't see the difference?
A. No, no. In
both cases I estimated that one crematorium of that
type can burn at full capacity two thousand people per
day.
Q. I am not talking about two thousand
people. I am talking about the number of furnaces
which in one case, in the WRB, is nine furnaces, and
in the book is fifteen ovesn. In the WRB it says nine
furnaces each having four openings, which is four
nines, as far as I can figure, is thirty-six, and
according to your book, made some fifteen, twenty
years later, fifteen ovens which could burn three
bodies each simultaneously in twenty minutes. You
can't see the difference?
A. No, I can't even
see where it is written.
Q. You can't see where
it is written one hour and a half the complete burning
of three bodies in the WRB, and you can't see that
that's different than saying you can burn three bodies
simultaneously in twenty minutes?
A. No. Will
you show me on my copy if you have it?
Q. Page
14, if you've got it, on your WRB report. Last
paragraph. All right? It says:
"Each opening
can take three normal corpses at once ...." You got it?
A. Each opening.
Q. Yes.
A. Can take
three normal corpses.
Q. At once.
A. At
once.
Q. ".... and after an hour and a half the
bodies are completely burned."
A. Yes.
Q. Now, your book which we discussed -- have you lost
your page?
A. Yes. One moment. This corresponds
a daily capacity of two thousand bodies.
Q. Yes.
Now, we go back to your book.
A. Yes.
Q.
And we read the paragraph where you said, "He was to
watch the world's first conveyor belt killing, the
inauguration of Commandant's Hoess' brand new toy". We
were over this quite a few times now. You lost the
part?
A. Yes. Okay.
Q. All right.
"It was a truly splendid affair, one hundred yards
long and fifty yards wide, containing fifteen ovens
which could burn three bodies each simultaneously in
twenty minutes ...."
A. Yes.
Q. Now,
fifteen ovens which could burn three bodies each
simultaneously in twenty minutes ....
A. Yes.
Q. So it seems from the time you were giving your
best recollection, shall we say, to the War Refugee
Board, it changed substantially to, from an hour and a
half, to twenty minutes. Right? Do you understand that?
A. Hour and a half.
Q. Yes. An hour and a
half becomes twenty minutes.
A. Is ninety
minutes.
Q. An hour and a half is ninety
minutes. Twenty minutes is twenty minutes. So there is
a difference of seventy minutes. A little problem?
A. One moment. I'm calculating something. I would
think that what I had in mind wasn't perfectly
formulated, but my experience was that knowledge, not
experience, but my knowledge was that three bodies
were being burned always simultaneously, and that this
took about an hour more. That's what I recall.
Q. Not twenty minutes.
A. Now, if you divide an
hour by three, because three bodies were burned, you
might come to the result of twenty minutes.
Q.
Okay. And as far as the difference between four times
nine are thirty-six ovens, and fifteen ovens, how do
you explain that difference?
A. Which
difference?
Q. Well, in the book, you agree,
you say it's fifteen ovens, and I suggest to you
that's exactly what it was fifteen ovens.
A.
Yes.
Q. Because you've had a chance to read
some of the literature from Phillip Mueller and others
you knew you the plans when you wrote your book. Right?
A. Well, I wrote the book twenty years before
Phillip Mueller did, so how could I consult Phillip
Mueller?
Q. Because the plans were known to
exist before you wrote your book.
A. That's
right.
Q. So you consulted the plans finally,
didn't you?
A. Well, if I had consulted the
plans, I would have published the book at that time,
but my intention was to keep the book as free as
possible from technical detail ---
Q. How about
facts?
A. --- and giving the fundamental facts.
The fundamental facts was that there were four
crematoria, that two were large and two were small,
that the large could consume two thousand people a day
and the small consumed a thousand people a day, and
that the theoritical capacity of all four crematoria,
provided there is no breakdown and provided that there
is constant influx of victims, is six thousand per day.
And that is exactly the same in the book and in the
report.
Q. Is it?
A. Yes.
Q.
Let's go back and find out, then, about that, because
I think you are wrong. Let's go back to the previous
paragraph in your book that we discussed where you say
twelve thousand bodies in twenty-four hours.
A.
Yes.
Q. Well, you say six thousand bodies in
the WRB Report, the paragraph that says and we've read
it once ---
A. One moment. Where is the twelve
thousand bodies?
Q. Well, we'll just have to go
back. Three paragraphs before the one we just finished
reading.
A. Yes. That's perfectly all right.
Q. Is it?
A. Yes.
Q. Tell me ---
A. Because when I was writing this book, as I
explained to you at the start, I was not writing only
what I saw, but I included also things which I heard
or learned from reliable sources.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. And we know that although the theoretical
capacity of all the crematorias are depicted in my
original report in '44, before the annihilation of
Hungarian Jews, could consume maximum only twelve
thousand victims a day, it became known later that
Hungarian Jews were transported at such a speed to
Auschwitz that some days up to twenty thousand units
were, if I may paraphrase the Nazi vernacular lingo
were processed. And this is perfectly true.
In
other words, I included into this twelve thousand not
just what happened during my time, but also during the
time following shortly my escape.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. And sufficiently information for a young person
who has never heard about such things to understand
that the murder was in many thousands. And I will
leave it to you to decide if it is five thousand four
hundred or seven thousand three.
Q. Why did you
say in 1944, at the time of your escape, on page 16,
at the bottom of the first paragraph:
"Thus the
total capacity of the four cremating and gassing
plants at Birkenau amounts to about six thousand daily"?
A. That's right.
Q. Then why did you say in
your book:
"For the modern concrete gas
chambers and the vast crematoria that could absorb as
many as 12,000 bodies in twenty-four hours and, in
fact, did so"?
A. What I had to add, that it
did so with the help of additional equipment which has
been build up in May and June 1944, after my escape.
You might blame me that I haven't this made quite
clear in this introductory chapter, but as I told you,
this book is an artistic sort of conveying of the
facts ---
Q. I am inteested ---
A. ---
and is sufficiently giving the picture of what
actually happened, without going into the fine
toothpoint number game of which I have seen is a
neo-Nazi literature ridiculous examples.
Q.
Well, is your book classified as fiction, or is it
classified as history?
A. My book is classified
as recollections of Rudolf Vrba, free recollection of
Rudolf Vrba as an educational book for young people
who should realize what Nazi depravity is able to. It
is not supposed to be a textbook of how to build
crematoria.
Q. Well, your explanation, then,
for the doubling of the numbers from the WRB to the
book you wrote later is basically that it was from
information acquired of the existence of some of the
apparatus.
A. Right, which has been added after
my escape.
Q. Yeah. With these new buildings.
A. No.
Q. No new crematoria?
A. No.
Q. Okay. Are they the six meter deep crematorium
pits? Is that what you mean?
A. New pits were
build.
THE COURT: Excuse me. Yes.
MR
GRIFFITHS: Your Honour, I hate to interrupt, but the
drawing of the crematoria that the jury has, we have
heard it was based on hearsay at the time from Dr Vrba,
not an eye witness. Now he is being cross-examined
about things that happened after he was there and
again he is not competent to talk about these things.
He wasn't there at the time. He may have acquired
information from books subsequently, but that really
isn't his function here, and I object to these
questions.
THE COURT: Mr Christie?
MR
CHRISTIE: I was trying to look at the realm of
credibility and the basis of statements made by this
witness in other circumstances. Often, this does
involve a fact. In this case I don't think it is
represented as hearsay, but now the War REfugee Board
Report is the subject of the cross-examination, and
it's not put forward as hearsay. In fact, if you look
at the front of it, it says, "Nothing passed on from
hearsay".
My friend knows that because he gave
me a copy. It says, "Nothing passed on from hearsay".
MR GRIFFITHS: That was not written by Dr Vrba what
my friend is describing. It is in a foreword.
MR CHRISTIE: Well, I took it that it was to be the
truth.
THE COURT: Any ruling that I could make,
gentlemen, would, on this subject, when the issue is
cross-examination, would, in my view, be dangerous and
might appear as if I were restricting the right to
cross-examine.
I have no intention of doing
that. You may proceed. Crown counsel may employ, if he
so wishes, his thoughts in this regard when his turn
comes to address the jury.
MR GRIFFITHS: Thank
you, Your Honour.
MR CHRISTIE: Thank you, sir.
Q. Do you adopt the War Refugee Board Report as
being true?
A. As being true as close to the
truth as I was able.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. With
best of my knowledge, ability and conscience and
responsibility to reproduce, while aided minimally
with other normally used aid. This means that the
report consists of a complex statistics which has been
produced in a clandestine way and manner by observing
the misdeeds of Nazis in Auschwitz, and under
conditions that, if something would transpire that I
am recollecting such a statistic, it would cost me at
least my life.
Q. Why would it cost you your
life?
A. Because anybody who was compiling
anything about Auschwitz was punished by death, to say
the least.
Q. You left Auschwitz, you say, on
April 7, 19 ---
A. It was considered espionage.
Q. You said you left Auschwitz on April 7, 1944.
A. Perfectly right.
Q. You said you left
with Alfred Wetzler.
A. That's right.
Q.
And at that time you were known as Walter Rosenberg,
according to you.
A. That's right.
Q.
And you, at that time, left in the nighttime.
A. I didn't say that it was in the nighttime on 7
April. I started my manouvres of my escape at two
o'clock p.m. on Friday, and left Auschwitz after nine
o'clock p.m. on Monday, the 10th.
Q. Of April
1944.
A. Of April 1944. In other words, it
wasn't ---
Q. What time?
A. 9:00 p.m.
Q. Just after dark.
A. I would say I waited
well after dark.
Q. So it was well after dark
on the 9th of April, 1944, when you left and you are
hiding in the woodpile.
A. That's right. When I
opened the woodpile.
Q. Did you carry lights?
A. Of course not.
Q. And no doubt, you'd
managed to acquire a watch.
A. Yes, I had a
watch.
Q. Aha. That is how you knew you crossed
the Czech border at ten o'clock on a given day, I
suppose.
A. No. By that time I didn't have the
watch any more.
Q. Well, you told us you
crossed the Czech border at ten o'clock one day.
A. That's right.
Q. How did you know when
you crossed the border?
A. Because when I was
crossing the border I knew that I am very close to the
border, and I didn't know if I am still on the Polish
or on the Czechoslovak side, but on both sides were
working farmers of the border, and to ask a farmer
what is the time in Polish, it is half past nine. I
continued my journey and I asked a farmer again, "What's
the time?" And he answers me in perfect Slovak, "It is
ten o'clock."
Q. I see. That's how we know you
crossed the border at ten o'clock.
A. Right. In
the morning on Friday 21st January.
Q. Of what?
A. On Friday, 21st April.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. I beg your pardon for that.
Q. So you
were travelling at night and you had a watch when you
left the woodpile which you hadn't when you crossed
the Czech border?
A. That's right.
Q.
And you had a compass, too?
A. No.
Q. No.
You were travelling in unfamiliar territory.
A.
Yes.
Q. In the dark.
A. Yes.
Q.
And you certainly didn't want to go near the camp.
A. Yes.
Q. And you didn't have a compass.
A. No.
Q. And you hadn't been over the
ground that you went over that night before, because
you had never been outside the inner circle, or the
outer circle of the guards.
A. That's right.
Q. But you were outside the outer circle.
A. That's right.
Q. And was it a moonlit night?
A. I appreciate that you can see the difficulties
of this manouvre.
Q. Well, you are so far ahead
of me, you know what the problem is, don't you?
A. I beg your pardon?
Q. You know what the
problem is, don't you?
A. No. I know what the
problems were that night, and I wonder which
particular one you were interested in.
A. Well,
just wait for the question before you give us the
answer. Would you agree that in those circumstances it
would be difficult to be sure precisely over what
ground you had passed?
A. Not quite.
Q.
Oh?
A. Because -- not quite sure, but not quite
unsure, either, because the camp Birkenau and this
again I could use a map, please. May I -- may I
project the trip how I went?
THE COURT: Well,
just a moment. You certainly can if you must answer it
that way and you should answer it that way. Mr
Christie, do you seek the answer?
MR CHRISTIE:
Yes. He has given it once, but if he wants to give it
again.
THE COURT: Well, I don't know about that.
That is why I am asking you.
Q. MR CHRISTIE:
Well, it seems to me you drew a diagram once where you
went. Isn't that right on the big screen over here?
A. No, I didn't do a diagram. I gave an indication.
Q. You moved your hand around and said ---
A. That's right.
Q. You said, "I went this way
and ---"
A. That's right.
Q. Without a
compass.
A. That's right.
Q. In the dark.
A. That's right.
Q. Over territory you had
never been before.
A. That's right.
Q. I
don't think I need to ask you to show us again.
A. Oh, yes, you should. You might learn something,
how one has to behave in a Nazi-occupied territory and
what one can do in order to beat the Nazis, no matter
how clever they are. You might learn something. I am
perfectly prepared to show it how it's done.
Q.
You consider you are still able to beat the Nazis at
everything, I suppose?
THE COURT: Apart from
what I consider that to be a supercilious exchange,
gentlemen, do you want the answer or don't you, Mr
Christie?
MR CHRISTIE: No. I am satisfied with
the answer.
THE COURT: Then it is your
cross-examination and you proceed with the next
question.
MR CHRISTIE: Thank you, sir.
Q. Let's go back to this diagram, sir, that you have
drawn in 1944. You agree that as far as the crematoria
is concerned, you've given us a diagram with a
railroad track.
A. Which diagram are you
talking about?
Q. This one that has the
crematoria in it. There.
A. Yes.
Q. You
have given us a diagram in 1944 with the railroad
track leading right to the ovens.
A. No, it
wasn't meant to be a railroad track.
Q. What
was it meant to be?
A. If you read carefully
that report, which I hope you did, you will find that
this is an indication of the fact that the bodies
inside the crematoria were shifted from the gas
chambers to the ovens using an inside narrow-gauge
rail with wagons on which the bodies were loaded in
the gas chamber, and then pushed to the ovens.
Q. Yeah.
A. And this was schematically depicted
this information as being inside the crematoria, a
narrow-gauge line for manual propulsion of little
wagons ---
Q. Rather than go too far, would you
just tell me, then, that you mean that all of the
furnaces and the gas chambers were on the same level?
A. No. This I couldn't assume, but I knew that
there were involved partially lifting of bodies on
lifts, and partially shifting of bodies to and from
the lifts and to and from the ovens on narrow-gauge
lines. This position of those lines was not known to
me and I have given the whole crematoriums the picture
in more or less a schematic which have sufficed at
that time, being such a great novelty.
Q. Have
you seen the plans, sir, of the crematoria?
A.
No, I have not.
Q. Okay. I'd just like you to
correct me if I am wrong, but is the calendarium on
the 11th of November, does it indicate that there were
eight boys born in the gypsy camp?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. Children were born in Auschwitz?
A. In fact, would you think it unusual that 3,000 or
more babies could be born in Auschwitz?
Q.
There were not only born there in this particular case,
they were also gassed there.
THE COURT: They
were ....
THE WITNESS: They were gassed there.
Yesterday you asked me if there were any children in
Auschwitz, and I assure you that there weren't, but
before I could specify to details, because if I go to
details I am accused of being longwinded and if I am
not going to details you will come up with some
missing detail, so now I want to explain it to you in
a complete detail sorry to be so longwinded.
It
will involve the deaths of eight or ten thousand
people, most of them children, and you will
understand, sir, what I have been missing yesterday
with two words when you interrupted me and I was
stopped from specifying certain exceptions.
I
would like this occasion, Your Honour, the permission
to show on the map the fate of those 3,000 childrens
to which the counsel is referring here.
THE
COURT: We will take a recess, before that is decided,
for fifteen minutes.
--- The jury retires. 3:30
p.m.
--- Short adjournment.
--- Upon
resuming.
--- The jury returns. 3:55 p.m.
THE COURT: I believe, gentlemen, there was a
question put and not answered concerning children in
Auschwitz. Is that correct?
MR CHRISTIE: Yes.
THE COURT: Would you like to go to the screen,
Doctor?
MR CHRISTIE: My specific question, for
the record, is whether the witness considered it
likely that there could be three thousand children
born in Auschwitz.
THE COURT: Yes, sir. Go
ahead.
THE WITNESS: So it was, as I yesterday
mentioned, a rule that all children or old people who
arrived to Auschwitz on the ramp, which I showed
yesterday, that rule had two prominent exceptions from
using, from sending the children straight into the
region of crematoria and gassing. There's two
exceptions.
The first exception took place on
September 7, 1943. As I had the honour to explain
yesterday, on June 8, 1943, this male camp, IB,
Birkenau IB, has been transferred to IID, and after a
short time in IID I was transferred to IIA as a
Blockschreibe, translated barrack scribe, in one of
the barracks there. Interestingly, at that time, the
camps "B", the camp IIB, camp IIC and camp IIE were
completely empty, and we didn't know what they are for.
Also, during the months that I was since June in this
camp, I have seen every day, as usual, the women,
children, old folk being trucked into this road which
was shorter than a mile, perhaps a kilometer long,
into this crematorium complex, or they went in front
of my eyes not here into the gate, but went down here
there was no other road at that time and down here,
and went into this block of Krematorium IV and V. On
September 7, 1943, I was woken up in the midnight ---
Q. MR CHRISTIE: That's September 7, 1943, you were
woken up at midnight. Did you ever make a note of this?
A. Will you please kindly leave your questions
when I finish?
THE COURT: Doctor, please listen
to me. I will decide when counsel can ask questions,
and if I don't say anything, you don't say anything.
THE WITNESS: I see.
THE COURT: You will
please answer his question and continue with your
narrative.
What was the question again?
MR CHRISTIE: I just wondered if he had made a note of
that at the time.
THE WITNESS: Mental note.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: And you escaped without a note,
either.
A. That's right.
Q. Go ahead.
September '43.
A. And because between Block 2A
and -- Camp IIA and Camp IIB there was nothing but an
electric fence, I could see that they are bringing in
families. These families were speaking in Czech
language. There were 4,500 people.
Q. You
counted them?
A. No, but I was one of the parts
of the people who were present, you know, in block
scribes, and I know immediately that the number went
up to 4,500 people being a block scribe myself and
having access to the Chief Block Scribe. The number
was roughly 4,500, but it might have been 4,700, in
this region. And here were two barracks and there's
people went into the camp with their luggage, with
their children, with their grandchildren, with
everything, and started something which was called
family camp.
THE COURT: Something what?
THE WITNESS: Family camp. It was a considerable
surprise and something completely new, and especially
interesting for me because people were from
Czechoslovakia. They were my countrymen and they were
for several years in the ghetto of Theresine where it
was still accumulated, as it was understood from them,
well over a thousand Jews who were become nervous over
the fate of deported people.
Q. You are talking
about the 7th of September, 1943, now? I just wanted
to confirm that.
A. Yes. Quite right.
Q.
The 4,500 people that arrived.
A. I guessed, to
my recollection, around 4,500 people.
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. In those barracks. And here up on Barrack 15
they made a special barrack for children. There were
approximately a hundred children there of age two to
ten, or two to twelve, and these children were
supplied with a special diet. This means they got milk
and they got white bread and sort of a human, more
human attitudes was prevailing in that camp,
especially because the women and the men were not
shorn; they could keep their hair, and cremation or
deportation camp was suddenly created.
Mind you,
the next day, as the next camp the children went here
and were here, were leaving and starting to create
their own life. This was going on until December, I
would say now, 21 or 22 when another transport, also
from Theresine, also having approximately 3,000 people,
here I might be mistaken but in the region of three or
four thousand, was added to this transport so that on
the whole we had in this family camp up to seven or
eight thousand people to start with.
In spite
of them being given a little bit better treatment and
they could keep their things, due to the general --
there were a lot of criminal Kapos and so on -- in
other words, the mortality was considerable, even in
spite of the better treatment.
Another thing
which was peculiar was that I've heard that they had
on their cards written, especially mark -- I have to
write this down ---
MR CHRISTIE: Your Honour, I
don't really mind the lecture, but I did ask a
specific question as to whether there was a likelihood
in his mind of three thousand children born in
Auschwitz. I really don't like to interrupt, but I
don't want to go on more than fifteen minutes on this.
THE COURT: Are you able to answer that question,
Doctor?
THE WITNESS: Yes. In fifteen minutes.
THE COURT: What is the answer to the question?
MR CHRISTIE: I don't want the answer in fifteen
minutes.
THE WITNESS: The answer to the
question is that these people were having -- please,
the picture -- they were having Sonderbehandlung,
which means special treatment after six months
quarantine.
Q. Okay. I assumed this is the
answer, because I would really like to get on with
another question.
THE COURT: You can return to
the box now, Doctor.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: You
specifically mentioned the 7th of September, 1943, and
I put it to you that on that date no transports
arrived from Theresienstadt, and no transports
involving 4,500 people or anything approaching that
number. Would you like to take a look? Now, we agree,
you are talking about the 7th of September, 1943.
A. Right.
Q. Okay. I put it to you that the
Calendarium does not indicate from Theresienstadt or
anywhere else a transport of 4,500 people on that day.
A. Well, it was not on the 7th September, but it
was recorded here on the 8th September, and it is
written here that on 8th September that there were
deported, brought to Auschwitz, five thousand Jews
from the ghetto in Theresien, out of the 2,293 men and
boys who received the numbers 146694 until 168986.
Q. Yes.
A. And the women and girls were
2,713 and were women and girls, and they got the
numbers 58471 up to 61183.
So I have made, to
summarize, an error of one day in my memory, and
instead of four thousand five hundred, the real number
is five thousand or six.
Q. Thank you very much.
So you say they were to be Sonderbehandlung in six
months.
A. Right.
Q. It doesn't sat that
in the Calendarium at all.
A. This is not my
fault what is missing from the Calendarium.
Q.
Well, with respect to this, particular people more
proficient than the notes you made at the time ---
A. Because previous to decisions of S.S. men and
---
Q. And they confided it into you?
A.
And they confided it into lower commissioned S.S. men,
and they were taking money from us and diamonds in the
crematorium and they were talking.
Q. And you,
as a prisoner, knew that.
A. I was that clear
to collect it.
Q. I see. Can we put the same
thing back on that the good Doctor had on a minute ago?
I will stay here and ask you the questions. You stay
here.
Using your pointer, because it happens to
be simple, you gave us this as the location for the
bath, sir.
A. Excuse me, please. Now, I am a
little bit confused. Are we talking about the family
camp or about baths?
Q. I am talking about the
baths.
A. So we are not talking about the
family camps.
Q. You can understand what I mean.
I am speaking about the bath.
A. I see.
Q. The baths ---
A. Nothing with family camp
any more.
Q. No. We are talking about baths.
A. Thank you.
Q. We understand each other.
A. I hope so.
Q. Well, the bath is located
this end of the camp; is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. There is only one bath we are talking about,
not ten baths we are talking about.
A. That's
right.
Q. Now, actually, the picture that you
prepared didn't have a bath marked or sauna on the
Phillip Mueller one.
A. Yes.
Q. So it
was really not actually there. This is just a rough
approximation. Right?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, if
you look at the Phillip Mueller diagram, I suggest to
you that the transported people had to go down there,
actually, between these two Krema where the road went
and to the bath, or they can go down this way through
the Scribe and down here and to the bath, on the
actual map that you agree is the correct one. That is
where they had to go, isn't it, to have a bath?
A. Those who were going to have a bath.
Q.
Right. And after everybody got off the train, that is
where they went, isn't it?
A. Well, I wouldn't
quite agree with you.
Q. No, I am sure you
wouldn't; but tell me, sir, if there was any other
bath in the camp, where do you put it now?
A.
That's correct.
Q. It is here, isn't it?
A. I can show it to you.
Q. Just tell me
before you get off the stand, is there some other bath
in the map that you drew in 1944?
A. In 1944,
yes, there was a bath in Camp IB.
Q. Right
there?
A. Right in that corner.
Q. And
when the camp was divided into these areas, this bath
was used, right?
A. Very likely.
Q. So
when you left the camp that was the bath you were
using?
A. In that region was the bath.
Q. You don't know where it was?
A. It was in
the region where the Krematorium I and Krematorium II
were positioned.
Q. Right. So you were in this
camp here?
A. Yes.
Q. You couldn't go
out there except to report to the Chief Scribe.
A. Pardon?
Q. You couldn't go out of this
area except to report to the Chief Scribe?
A.
Up to "D".
Q. Up to "D". You couldn't go here
or here or where?
A. Unless I risk something.
Q. Yes. Well, let me put it to you that these
people that got off the trains could very well have
gone to the bathhouse which we now recognize to be No.
9, and no other 9, in this picture of Phillip Mueller.
Right?
Yes.
Q. Thank you.
A. Some
of them actually went there.
Q. Well, you ---
A. And the rest went to the gas chamber.
Q.
Well, you, from your position, wouldn't be able to
tell us whether they went there or not, sir.
A.
Certainly I would. I will explain it to you later.
Q. Well, yes. You do that.
THE COURT: Do
you want him to do it now or later?
MR
CHRISTIE: If he could now, sir, is it too late?
THE COURT: Go ahead, Doctor.
THE WITNESS:
Then I would, if you kindly permit, Your Honour, to
return to the previous question about the children,
about the three thousand children.
Q. MR
CHRISTIE: No. You want to tell us if there is any
other way to return to the bath.
THE COURT: Is
there a connection, Doctor?
THE WITNESS: Yes,
there is a connection.
THE COURT: Then you may
give the answer.
THE WITNESS: Thank you.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: Do you want to look at the diagram?
Here is the pointer.
A. All those people, after
six months, the children, the grown-ups, the old and
the young, were on March 7 transferred to "IIA" where
I was Blockschreibe.
Q. March 7th of what year?
A. 1944.
Q. You are sure of the date?
A. I am quite sure it was the 94th birthday of the
founder of the Czechoslovakian leader ---
THE
COURT: The answer is yes, Doctor. Proceed, please.
THE WITNESS: On the night from 7th to 8th March,
these people who were transferred here, the first
transport from Theresienstadt who were here stayed
here one night in the Camp IIA, then trucks came and
they were taken to their execution from here; here
into the Krematoria III and IV were all children,
etcetera, etcetera, were gassed.
Q. I put it to
you, sir, that you didn't draw any lines for roads on
that map in 1944 because you didn't know where the
roads were in 1944.
A. I knew perfectly well
where the roads were in 1944, but my draftsmanship was
not very good, I assure you, and I accept the
criticism of that.
Q. I put it to you that
actually you were unsure as to where Krematoriums No.
I and No. II on that diagram were because you put them
on the same side of the railroad track area when, in
fact, they were on opposite sides.
A The
railroad track when I escaped Auschwitz wasn't even
there.
Q. It wasn't even there?
A. No.
It wasn't there on 7 April, 1944. And as I told you,
this whole map is giving only a rough scheme, without
detail, that there are four crematoria and bath, and
that they are in this region.
Q. Just let me
ask you this. In 1944 you couldn't provide us with the
detail, but in 1984 you are going to tell us about it.
Right?
A. That's right.
Q. You may go
back to your seat.
A. Thank you. May I add
something, Your Honour?
THE COURT: Up here
first, Doctor.
THE WITNESS: Yes. In 1944 ---
THE COURT: Just a moment. Just come up here first.
Now, then, Mr Christie, do you have any further
questions on this subject to put to this witness?
MR CHRISTIE: Not really, Your Honour, no.
THE COURT: The answer is no. If you want to add
something, I'm sure Crown counsel will make a note of
it and if it becomes appropriate at the time he will,
undoubtedly, ask you the question. In the event that
it is not, he won't and you may not.
Proceed.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: Did you ever go back to look at
the Auschwitz Museum of anything like that?
A.
In 1949, as a student in Prague, I was studying
chemical engineering and I was interested in a new
drug which was called paramine acetacelic acid.
Q. Please answer my question. Were you ever ---
A. Please don't tell me what to answer with what
words to choose.
Q. I don't have time to find
out what drug you discovered. I just want to know
whether you went to Auschwitz after the War or not.
Simple.
A. I was taken to Auschwitz as a
student on that occasion for my education.
Q.
All right. Did you go to Krema I, II, III or IV
according to the diagram?
A. No.
Q. You
didn't. All right. What partisan group were you in in
Bohemia after you escaped?
[A] I was in the
Czechoslovak party in group of Captain Milan Uher. He
was a sergeant when he started, and the brigade was
called Hurban Brigade.
Q. Thank you. Were you
in Prague at the time of the Prague revolution, May
5th and May 9th, 1945?
A. No, because my group
operated in Western Slovakia, and the operation of the
group were brought to a halt on 7 April, 1945, when
the Russian units reached us and send us immediately
into hospitals.
Q. Thank you. Do you speak
Czech?
A. I speak Czech, Slovak, Polish,
Hungarian, Russian, German and a little bit of
English.
Q. Yeah. Did you live in Prague after
1945?
A. That's right. I studied in Prague
chemistry.
Q. Which part of Prague?
A. I
lived in various places as a student for the first
four years, in digs, and it was every year another
place. Would you like all the addresses?
Q. No.
Thank you very much. Do you believe, sir, that it is
possible that a thousand children left Auschwitz and
went to Buchenwald? Among them was -- well, do you
believe that's possible?
A. Not to my knowledge.
And not during the time I was in Auschwitz.
Q.
I see. So not before April 7th, 1944?
A. That's
right.
Q. And after you arrived ?
A. Not
before 30 June, 1942 and not up to 7 April, 1944, not
to my knowledge.
Q. There were thousands and
thousands of people in that camp; right?
A.
That is quite right. The amount varied, of course,
from time to time. Depend how many died and how many
were added to it; and if it was called typhus or what
it was, or vermin.
Q. And you got typhus?
A. I got typhus only once. You don't survive two.
Q. Thousands of people got typhus?
A. In
1942 there was a typhus epidemic during which
thousands of people died from prisoners.
Q. You
don't know how many died, I suppose?
A. No, I
couldn't say because the death was mixed with
selection. They tried to ---
Q. Well, you say that
somebody selected groups of people and you went
through a typhus test of running twenty-five yards, as
you said in your book.
A. That's right. That's
right.
Q. But you don't know how many people
died of typhus in 1942.
A. No, but I would say
several thousand.
Q. Several thousand. Right.
You say also that your document, the War Refugee
Report, was used at the International Military
Tribunal, and I think you are right, in Document L022.
Is that correct?
A. That is quite possible.
Q. You don't know?
A. I wasn't on the
tribunal present.
Q. You weren't a witness.
A. No.
Q. You didn't testify then, and you
didn't testify at the Eichmann trial, even though you
were in Israel, I believe, at the time?
A. No,
I wasn't in Israel during the Eichmann trial. I was a
member of Scientific Staff of the Medical Research
Council of the United Kingdom.
Q. You didn't
testify at the American Military Tribunal or the
International Military Tribunal?
A. At which
tribunal, you mean, in which year?
Q. 1945,
'46.
A. No, I didn't.
Q. And in fact,
you didn't reveal your identity publicly as being
Walter Rosenberg until some time considerably later. I
think probably when you wrote your book; is that right?
A. I don't understand this question.
Q.
When did you reveal your identity as being actually
Walter Rosenberg, the escapee of Auschwitz on April 7,
1944?
A. In 1944, '45, after the War, my friend,
Wetzler, has written a report about Auschwitz for the
general public, and he wrote it in general terms and
under a pseudonym, Joseph Lanik.
Q. In fact,
there were two other Jews beside yourself who
participated in forming or writing the War Refugee
Report there was Mr Wetzler, yourself, Mr Rosen and Mr
Mordecai.
A. No. Mr Mordovitch not Mordecai.
Q. Well, none of them were identified in the
report, right?
A. In the report they were not
identified because against each of us there were
international warrants issued which were, a copy of it
is in Crown prosecutor's hand, in Crown Attorney's
hands, in Auschwitz and Allies reproduced, in which
these warrants say that the escape from Auschwitz,
that we should be caught for that, and in the case of
success Himmler should be notified immediately. So
under those conditions we didn't use our previous
names under which the warrants were issued.
Q.
And you never used that name again, ever, I gather.
A. Oh, no, of course not, because the warrant was
valid as long as was valid a German rule in Slovakia.
Q. Well, after the War that certainly didn't exist.
A. No. After the War that didn't exist, but under
the name of Rudolf Vrba I fought the Nazis and was
given under that name the medal for bravery, the Order
of Slovak National and the medal of honour of
Czechoslovak partisan for my services to my country in
fighting the inhuman enemy, and they were given to the
name Rudolf Vrba alias Walter Rosenberg. The document
is here.
Q. So that's the proof that you
actually are Walter Rosenberg.
A. That is the
proof that I was Walter Rosenberg before I changed my
name officially by an official act.
Q What
official act?
A. Official act of the Ministry
of Interior.
Q. Of Czechoslovakia.
A. of
Czechoslovakia, that it was incompatible with the
honour of a Czech soldier to have a German-sounding
name who murdered in the camp and robbed us. In other
words, it was an act of the de-Germanization of my
name.
Q. Well, your name was German, wasn't it?
A. Walter Rosenberg, a nice German name.
Q.
Well, isn't it the case that there was a German Major
who was involved in the escape and who has never been
identified -- sorry, a Polish Major?
A. He is
Professor Tabeau, doctor of medicine in the University
of Krakow. I can show you his picture, if you wish.
Please, Mr Crown, can I have the book which I
brought with me, because I might give him a wrong name.
Q. You need the book to be sure of the name?
A. Yes, because I didn't know him personally.
Q. Don't worry about it, I am not going to worry
whether you gave me the right name or not.
A.
Certainly.
Q. But can you tell me something
else, sir? Can you tell me if you, yourself, believe
what was written by him in that part of the report?
A. Mm-hmmm.
Q. You take that as true, too?
A. Well, I studied this part of the report the
first time in 1975.
Q. Yes.
A. It was
given to me in the Department of History. I didn't
know about this report or anything until 1975.
Q. You mean to tell me, sir, that this report, which
was sent to the President of the United States, didn't
have this portion on it when you completed it?
A. When I completed it, no.
Q. So it was added
by somebody else later, right?
A. This portion
came to the Office of the President of the United
States, to the office of Strategic Services, by
different ways about which I have no idea.
Q. I
see. And it became a famous document and made you a
famous person, right?
A. I don't know if you
would like to consider me famous.
Q. Well, it
made you, certainly ---
A. But the Bible says
that the fame doesn't last longer than grass, and I
don't like such words.
Q. I'm sorry, I didn't
mean to imply anything by calling you famous, but
isn't it true that you, at nineteen years of age,
having escaped from Auschwitz, became somewhat of a
celebrated person?
A. I am not aware that I
have been somewhat celebrated, because I went
immediately after I have done my job and notified the
proper authorities in Switzerland and in England and
in United States about the misdeeds of Nazis in
Auschwitz, I took up the gun and joined the fight of
all civilized people against an uncivilized enemy.
Q. Do you think the Polish Major's report is
correct when he talks about a hydrocyanic bomb being
thrown in the gas chamber?
A. I have studied
the report of the Major in 1975 and was asked by the
Department of History to give my opinion.
Q.
Yes, your opinion. I am interested in your knowledge
and your experience.
A. And in my experience
the report of the Polish Major was excellent as far as
Auschwitz I is concerned, but from reading the report,
I could see that he was not in Auschwitz II, in
Birkenau, and therefore knew Birkenau only from
hearsay.
Q. Yes. Well, now ---
A.
Therefore his information about the hydrocyanide bomb
was hearsay and obviously a distorted information.
Q. So that distorted information was inaccurate
but the rest of the report is correct?
A. His
report of the description of Auschwitz I I found
creditable.
Q. Right. I want to refer you to
your declaration sworn and exhibited in your book,
sworn on the 16th of July, 1961.
A. Yes.
Q. In which you say that your statistics compiled
during the War were part of the material of the
prosecution at Nuremberg under document NG1061.
A. Mm-hmmm.
Q. That's what you say.
A. Yes.
Q. You swore that to be true.
A.
Yes.
Q. And I put it to you that NG1061 has
nothing to do with Auschwitz, but is a letter from --
have you seen that document that you swore about?
A. I swore to the document of my document of the
Auschwitz report which we can call now Vrba-Wetzler
report, which Vrba and Wetzler together compiled.
Q. But I think in the affidavit that I showed you
---
A. And the affidavit was to the Israeli
Embassy, and I had to make an affidavit in a hurried
way and I was told that a number of the document in
which the Court in Eichmann is interested, and which
refers to my report, has got such a number.
Q.
Yeah.
A. So I put in such a number which they
suggested.
Q. All right. Let me correct you.
A. It might be an administrative error.
Q.
So because somebody told you it was the right number
to put in, you put it in and you swore it to be the
truth?
A. In that case I made an error in good
faith, that I can't see why it should distort the oath,
because nobody had any difficulty, during the Eichmann
trial, to find the document, in spite of the wrong
number of the document.
Q. Now, I want to just
go over one point with you. You say that when you left
Auschwitz you had nothing but a watch.
A.
That's right.
Q. Which you later lost. No
compass, no light.
A. I didn't lose it. I gave
it as a present.
Q. You gave it away. Now it,
in fact, the last page of your report, the War Refugee
Board Report itself, contains numerous statistics,
numbers, information of a detailed nature, doesn't it?
A. It does.
Q. Yes. And on the last page
you give what's called the careful estimate of the
figures, and you come to a total of 1,765,000, which
you now tell us you counted going into the area of the
two crematoria and never returned. Right?
A.
That's right.
THE COURT: Show him the document.
THE WITNESS: Quite right.
Q. MR CHRISTIE:
And I'm sorry if I haven't shown you this, but this is
the last page, isn't it, of the WRB Report?
A.
This page, this last page, has not been done by myself,
but when I have written the full report, the lawyers
who were there calculated what I have written in the
full report and made this final statistic.
Q.
So is that the same kind of information you provided
when you provided the wrong document number that the
lawyers gave it to you and then you say that's it?
A. I don't understand your question.
Q.
Okay. When we were discussing this document number you
referred to in your affidavit and swore that was the
document ....
A. Yes.
Q. You told me
that the lawyers or somebody gave you that information
and you stuck it into there and you made a mistake.
Right?
A. Well, it's not quite so, you see,
because a real number, NG -- a real number as I know
now might be NG 1062, so it might be a typing error.
Q. You think it is?
A. It might be.
Q. Well, I suggest to you it isn't. What do you say?
A. Well, that suggestion suits you better than me.
Q. Well, let me put it to you this way. The "NG'
stands for "Nazi Government", and nothing about
concentration camps came into that document at all.
A. So perhaps it was "NL".
Q. So you guess
and tell me it was something else?
A. So it is
quite possible that the typist made an error.
Q. So what I am asking is, do you swear by these
statistics here?
A. That they are right?
Q. Yes.
A. I would swear that within ten
per cent they are right.
MR CHRISTIE: May I
then exhibit this, then, Your Honour?
Q. You
swear that they are correct within ten per cent, and
they are the back page that you used in your report.
A. That's right. So I didn't make the final
statistics.
THE COURT: I wonder if the Doctor
write in correctly "within ten per cent", so that when
they are reviewed they won't necessarily be taken at
their face value.
THE WITNESS: This is
specified in the document, Your Honour.
THE
COURT: Is it?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE
COURT: Where? On the page that we are looking at?
THE WITNESS: Not on that page, but in the document
from which this document has been torn out.
THE
COURT: Doctor, I don't want to write it on myself. I
do not want a document coming in that you say is
within ten per cent unless the document shows it on
its face.
Q. If you want to write on there, as
long as I can get the photocopy back.
A. What
are you asking? What is the question? What is your
problem?
Q. I am asking you if you accept those
or swear those to be true, and you say within ten per
cent. So write on it, "within ten per cent", and we
will file it.
THE COURT: You don't have to do
that. If you don't want to do it, Doctor, please don't.
I will ask our Clerk to clip something onto it so that
when it comes time for the jury to look at that
document, if they wish to do so, they won't look at
the face -- they will look at the face and they look
at your evidence that it is within ten per cent right.
Do you see what I mean?
THE WITNESS: Yes,
Your Lord, and I would like also to turn your
attention that counsel didn't sort of inform us that
it is written here not 1,765,000, but approximately
1,765,000. So he tried to imply me an absolute count
when I made it clear that it was an approximate to the
best of my knowledge and ability.
THE COURT:
Madam Clerk, would you please mark that as the next
exhibit, and add to it these words that I will dictate
to you:
"According to the evidence of the
witness, correct within 10% of the figure."
Do
you agree to that?
THE WITNESS: Yes.
THE
COURT: Thank you.
THE WITNESS: If I may add,
Your Honour, that also, in the original, it was
written, "approximately".
THE COURT: Yes. It
says that right on the face of it.
THE WITNESS:
Yes.
THE COURT: Members of the jury, it's been
a long day. Have a good evening. Please keep an open
mind. The puzzle does not become clear until the last
word has been said. Please don't discuss the case with
anyone beyond your number. Ten fifteen tomorrow
morning, please.
--- EXHIBIT NO. 26: Document (estimate
of number of Jews gassed in Birkenau April 1942 to
1944).
--- The jury retires. 4:50 p.m.
---The witness stands down.
--- Whereupon the
hearing is adjourned to January 24, 1985.
January 24, 1985
--- Upon the hearing resuming.
--- The jury enters. 10:40 a.m.
RUDOLF VRBA
, previously sworn
CONTINUED
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR CHRISTIE:
Q.
Witness, you told us that you had been to what you
called the gas chamber in Auschwitz I and you had been
inside and saw some clothes. You told us that you saw
the crematorium in Birkenau. I am now going to
specifically ask you to name one specific instance in
which you saw one single Jew gassed. Tell us.
A. May I have, please, the map of Birkenau projected?
All the people who were brought to Birkenau in
order to be gassed during the time I was in building
Section 2a went to the crematorium either by this
route or entered -- did not enter the gate, went by
this route, went by this route, and entered these two
places. They was led into the crematoria. They were
ordered to enter that building, Krematorium II and ---
Q. Did you see them ordered from here -- did you
see them ordered from here?
A. No, I wouldn't
see them ordered from here.
Q. Did you hear
them ordered from here?
A. No, but I saw them
going in.
Q. Just a moment. You saw them going
in here from here?
A. That's right, because I
was quite frequently, not only here, but I was
frequently also here. I moved quite freely along these
roads, relatively freely.
Q. So you say ---
A. And in Auschwitz there was a habit that nobody
went where he wants, but everybody goes where he's
ordered to go. Consequently I made a logical
assumption that the people in the mind of Nazi
supervisors, they all decisions what to do to enter
the crematoria, and the crematoria they never left.
Q. You watched them come in and watched them not
coming out?
A. Yes. A quarter million people go
in and I never saw one civilian come out. So it is
possible that they are still there, or that there is a
tunnel and they are now in China; otherwise they were
gassed.
Q. You say you saw ---
A. I have
not been invited to be present.
Q. You say you
saw 1,765,000 people go into one of these four
buildings and not come out.
A. That's right.
Q. You watched them all go in and no one came out.
A. That's right.
Q. So I think, if you are
answering my question as to whether you saw anyone
gassed, the answer is no, but you say you saw
1,765,000 people go into those four buildings and not
come out.
A. That's right. And since there was
no way out of those buildings because they were
surround by electrical wires and by watch towers --
Q. Mm-hmmm.
A. --- and during the
twenty-one months and seven days, I never saw one
civilian walk out from these perimeter.
Q. You
never saw one civilian walk out.
A. That's
right.
Q. What is a civilian?
A. A
civilian is a person who is not a prisoner in the
camp, don't wear prisoner garb, don't have a
registration number, is brought into the camp and
disappears into one of those four buildings and is
never seen again.
Q. Well, I put it to you that
it is patently ridiculous for you to tell this jury
and this Court that you could see 1,765,000 people go
into those buildings on any day or all the days you
were in there, the four months you were in Auschwitz
and the seven months you were in Camp B on the top and
other times you were in Camp A on the far left, and
unless you maintain you were standing by the four
crematoria, I suggest to you it is ridiculous that you
say you saw 1,765,000 people going into those
crematoria.
A. It is your statement that it is
illogic, because when I was in Camp B, I was not
further away from here than a hundred yards, and when
I was in Camp A I saw them going in big truck either
this way or this way, a distance of not more than five
hundred yards; furthermore, I saw the trucks going
back from there, so that if I wasn't present exactly
when they marched into the crematoria,
I could
have observed it either from here or from here or from
those roads or from the ramp where I worked. Please,
can I have the ....
Q. How long were you in the
hospital?
A. Please let me finish.
Q.
You were going to tell us about the ramp where you met
the prisoners as they came off the train. How long
were you in hospital --
A. Moreover, the
distance from here to here is not bigger than about
three quarters of a mile. So if I see that the trucks
go with hundreds and hundreds of people in this
direction and come empty back, my logical conclusion
was what we all knew, and you can only blame me that
the S.S. didn't invite me in, like they invited
Himmler.
Q. Yes. Well ---
THE COURT: All
right, Doctor. You can come back now.
Q. MR
CHRISTIE: Doctor, you say that you were in the
hospital for a while what, a couple of weeks?
A. No.
Q. How long were you in the hospital
after your operation?
A. I would think that the
whole would last about ten days.
Q. Ten days.
All right. And you painted skis, I understand,
although you never told us about that before. Is that
true? You were painting skis for some time? That was
your job?
A. It is quite clear that I was in
Kanada. I painted skis in the first two months and was
in Buna in Auschwitz, and that my recollection is of
direct observation of the mass murder which took place
in Birkenau started.
Q. I just asked you if you
painted skis.
A. Don't confuse me, please.
Q. Did you paint skis?
A. Yes, I did paint
skis.
Q. How long did you paint skis?
A.
Two or three days.
Q. Two or three days?
A. Yes.
Q. How long were you in Buna?
A. Perhaps ten days. Perhaps three weeks.
Q. That's where you told us that the death rate was
ten per cent a week?
A. Roughly.
Q. Or
was it a day?
A. A day.
Q. Oh, that's
right, a day. What did you do in Buna besides twist
wire?
A. Carrying cement.
Q. Did you
carry cement all the time?
A. Yes.
Q.
You never twisted wire?
A. I did occasionally
twist wire. I worked on a building site.
Q. Yes,
I understand.
A. Various things. I did what I
was ordered to do because who didn't do what he was
ordered to do was dead.
Q. And if someone
didn't work he was killed, right?
A. Not
necessarily killed. There were the special German word
which was called Fertigmachen; this is a contribution
of the Nazis to the German language. This means to
beat somebody so long that he is not dead but he will
die translated it means to finish him off.
Q.
Now, did you say you were witness to a visit by
Heinrich Himmler in January 1943?
A. I was
witness to two visits by Heinrich Himmler one was in
July 1942 when I saw him from quite close.
Q.
Where?
A. In Auschwitz I. And the second visit
took place some time in '43, but I did not see him
directly. I saw his cavalcade, so if it was Hitler or
someone else sitting in the car of similar significant
dignitary ---
Q. Well, I put it to you that
Heinrich Himmler, in the Calendarium of the camp that
you so far accepted as accurate, visited on the 7th of
March, 1941, and the 17th of July, 1942, but he did
not visit the camp of Birkenau or Auschwitz in 1943,
as you allege in your book.
A. I was informed
at that time by the grapevine in the camp that Himmler
is coming to visit the camp again, and then there was
a cavalcade equipped as if it would be Himmler in
other words, the standard Mercedes and the standard
sycophants constantly around, but he didn't come to
shake hands with me and to introduce himself to me or
to say, "I am Himmler", or he didn't tell me, you know,
"Himmler didn't come this time but I am instead of his
and this is my name."
So you might be quite
right that that information might be not perfectly
exact, only close to exact.
Q. You prepared
also and agreed with the contents of the War Refugee
Board Report, and it says, and I show you page 38 and
I quote:
"According to the statement of a Jew
from a special kommando, Reichsfuhrer Himmler was said
to have visited Birkenau on the 16th or 17th of May."
A. Right.
Q. Right? And this is from the
War Refugee Board Report of which you were the
co-author.
A. Now, yesterday you have shown me
-- I have to check on this because yesterday you have
shown me a report which contradicted my statement ---
Q. Never mind yesterday. Just read that.
A.
--- of the 7th of September, and then it turns out on
the next page it was explained that it was on the 8th
of September. So I would prefer, dealing with you, to
check on every word.
Q. Do that. Page 38.
A. "According to the statement" ---
Q. "According
to the statement of a Jew from a special Kommando,
Reichsfuhrer Himmler was said to have visited Birkenau
on the 16th or 17th of May."
A. Yes, but here
it said in my testimony that I do not guarantee for it,
but I say, according to the statement, you know, it
was War time, and one had to collect each statement
very carefully if one wanted to inform a foreign
government of what is happening there. One can rely
only on your own two eyes with limited movement.
Consequently it was quite right of me to have
specified the same as with Wetzler, because we are the
author of this report both, what we saw directly and
what was according to some statement.
Q. Well,
in your book you say that you saw Heinrich Himmler
visit the camp in January '43; you were glad to see
him arrive not because of any faint hope that he would
improve your lot, etcetera; and now you say, well, it
could be and it might not be.
A. What?
Q. It might be Himmler and it might be somebody else.
A. Which passage are you reading now?
Q. I
read it yesterday from page 10 of the book that I have,
attributed to you, although it's not the hardcover
edition. Are you denying that is what you wrote in
your book?
A. Excuse me. This is first of all,
there is a considerable difficulty. I suggested
yesterday that the book should be shown first to the
jury in order that they can see through the
manipulations which you are making by tearing out
individual sentences out of its context.
I have
read quite a few of products of Neo-Nazi literature,
and this is standard method to take out one sentence
or two sentences completely off its context, quote
only this and not quote what was before and after and
twist those things and then say that because a
sentence is not perfectly logical, nobody was gassed.
Q. Dr Vrba, excuse me for interrupting your speech,
but all I wanted to deal with was whether you said
that in your book. If you feel that I have taken it
out of context, I will read the whole thing again.
A. Please read three paragraphs before and three
paragraphs after so I'll know what you are saying.
Q. All right. I will read three paragraphs before
that remark, and three after.
A. And can I have,
please, a copy?
Q. In your book, the hardcover
edition, I think my friend says it's page 15. In mine
it's page 10. In order to get three paragraphs before
the reference to Himmler, I will start in my page 9
with reading the statement:
"In fact he was far
from satisfied with what he had seen, but it was not
the appalling conditions which worried him. It was the
grossly inefficient methods which were being used to
exterminate the Jews who were beginning to arrive in
their thousands from all parts of Europe.
"The
gas chambers were no more than make-shift affairs. The
burning of the bodies in open trenches wasted valuable
fuel and caused the Germans who by that time occupied
the nearby Polish town of Auschwitz to complain of the
stench. To a former teacher of mathematics, the whole
business was just too haphazard for words. "And so he
gave orders for the greatest, most efficient
extermination factory the world has ever known. For
the modern concrete gas chambers and the vast
crematoria that could absorb as many as 12,000 bodies
in twenty-four hours and, in fact, did so. For the
machinery that sucked in 2,500,000 men, women and
children in three years and puffed them out in
harmless black smoke."
Heinrich Himmler visited
Auschwitz camp again in January 1943. This time I was
glad to see him arrive, though not because I still
nursed any faint hope that he would improve our lot
through benevolence or any sense of justice. His
presence was welcome to us all merely because it meant
that for one day there would be no unscheduled
beatings or killings.
"Once more we were lined
up, spic and span, with the sick in the rear and the
healthy well to the front. Once more the band played
and the heels clicked and the jack boots danced in the
luster shed by the master. Once more he inspected the
camp inch by inch running a podgy pedantic finger over
the mantlepiece of Auschwitz and examining it for dust.
And this time there was no Yankel Meisel to drop his
tiny personal grain of sand into the smooth machinery.
"Though he conducted his tour of the camp with his
usual thoroughness, it was, however, no more than an
aperitif for the meal that was to follow. The main
purpose of his visit was to see for himself the bricks
and mortar which had sprung from the plans he had
outlined in Auschwitz seven months earlier.
"He
was to watch the world's first conveyor belt killing,
the inauguration of Kommandant Hoess' brand new toy,
his crematorium. It was truly a splendid affair, one
hundred yards long and fifty yards wide, containing
fifteen ovens which could burn three bodies each
simultaneously in twenty minutes, a monument in
concrete, indeed, to its builder Herr Walter Dejaco."
Now, I read three paragraphs before the paragraph
in question, the three paragraphs after. Do you still
maintain there is any danger about the context?
A. No. I think the context ---
Q. Then I am
going to ask you a question. All right?
A. Yes.
Q. Good. Now, you say as a fact that Heinrich
Himmler visited the camp in January 1943. Yes or no?
A. I say that I was informed that he visited the
camp in January 1943, but I would like to turn your
attention ---
Q. I would like to turn your
attention to a question.
A. I am answering your
question.
Q. Well, I am asking you another.
A. You are asking me another question before I
answer the first question. Don't try and confuse me,
the Court and the jury. I cannot work this way. You
are in the court. I cannot work this way.
Q. I
am and so are you, sir. And I am asking you a question
as to whether you said it was a fact that Himmler was
in the camp in January 1943, and I want a simple
answer.
A. To my information he was there.
Q. All right. Did you write it as if it was a fact?
A. I wrote it that it was to my information a fact.
Q. Where does it say to your information it was a
fact?
A. This is understood in a book which
doesn't claim to have scientific significance, but it
is meant to give to a population which is not
versatile in all details of this complex mass murder.
Q. Yes. Thank you.
A. A general idea.
Q. Good.
A. But I would like to add, to
make your question more clear, the following:
Heinrich Himmler's visits were not always done in such
a public way that they could be recorded. For instance,
his first ---
Q. Was this one public?
A.
I can give you an example when others were not public.
Q. Well, this is the one I am asking about. Was
this public?
A. Well, probably it was not
published in general press.
Q. You said, "I was
glad to see him arrive".
A. Yes.
Q. Did
you say that in public?
A. All I can say is
that he didn't shake my hands, so I saw him on the
second occasion only from a distance of three or four
hundred yards, but as far as his first visit is
concerned, not only I saw him from a distance much
closer than you are from me, but his adjutant general,
Herr Berg (phonetic) who was the head of the German
spy organization, and his closest adjutant who
published a book after the War, after he was
imprisoned by the Allies, and in a book which has five
hundred pages, he claims that in July, in 1942, he was
every day, together with Himmler, but he was never in
Auschwitz. So it is characteristic for the murderers
that they try to obliterate their traces as much as
possible.
The fact that you don't have recorded
where Himmler was on a particular day doesn't mean
that my information was wrong.
Q. Well, I am
just interested in whether you claim your information
is right or wrong.
A. In the first case I saw
Himmler from three steps, and therefore I am quite
sure that I am right. In the second instance I saw him
from a larger distance, and therefore I can only say
that it is likely that I am right, or possibly that I
am right, because the information which I received
pointed to that , that it is him, and the general
cavalcade looked like Himmler's cavalcade which I saw
as the first occasion.
Q. You gave us to
believe that there was forty-six ovens in the
Krematoria No. II in your War Refugee Board Report in
1944. Isn't that right?
A. In the War Refugee
Board of 1944 I made it quite clear to you, and we
made it quite clear that that report, that we know the
exact location of the crematoria, but we were not
allowed to go inside because usually who was inside
didn't come alive out from there.
Consequently,
we had to rely on rough information which we got from
the Sonderkommando who worked inside; and to reproduce
a map without being trained in architecture, from
hearsay descriptions of the other eye witnesses, of
course, is not such a simple thing.
I think
that the War Refugee Report, or the Vrba-Wetzler
Report, if you wish to call it that, for which we two
are responsible, has given reliable information where
the crematoria are, and roughly how they are equipped,
without claiming that we were inside.
Q. Did
the people in the camp with whom you lived that is,
the secret international resistance group referred to
in some of your correspondence, regard you as a person
who is a volatile, impulsive individual, who is
unreliable?
A. Well, when I was of the opinion
that it is not possible further to wait ---
THE
COURT: Just a moment.
I wonder, Mr Christie, if
you could rephrase that. The way you have put it makes
it very difficult.
MR CHRISTIE: I appreciate
that. I am going to refer to a book in which this
statement is made.
Q. Is it attributed to you,
Dr Vrba?
A. First kindly explain to the jury
whose book it is.
Q. "Auschwitz and the Allies"
by Martin Gilbert.
A. Who is Martin Gilbert?
Q. Well, you mentioned him before in your evidence-in-chief.
Don't you know who it is?
A. No. Please explain.
Q. I am not interested in ---
A. Perhaps
the jury ---
THE COURT: Doctor, I don't have to
ask this jury to leave again while you and I have a
talk, do I?
THE WITNESS: I got the hint, Your
Honour.
Q. MR CHRISTIE: Now, if I ask you if he
says, and I quote:
"Now, together with a fellow
Slovak, Fred Wetzler, he contacted the secret
international resistance group within the camp and put
his plan of escape to David Szmuleuwski."
Do
you know who that is?
A. Yes. He was a general.
Q. One of the representatives of the resistance
leaders. Then there is a quote:
"I have been
told Vrba later wrote that, 'Due to my inexperience,
personal volatility, impulsiveness and other factors
the leadership dismissed my intentions as unreliable.'
"
Did you admit that about yourself?
A.
I didn't admit about myself.
Q. So that is a
misquote of you?
A. That is a distortion of
facts which you are here again attempt, because what
is written there is that I suggested that it is
necessary to escape from Auschwitz into the world, and
I attempted to do so, and the resistance organization,
after considering my request, said that it is unlikely
that I may succeed when others did not succeed who are
more experienced than I am, that I am risking
unnecessarily my life, and therefore my ideas are
probably motivated by impulsiveness.
Q. Well,
what it says here ---
A. He was wrong and I was
right, because I escape and I warned the world.
Q. You warned the world.
A. That's right.
Q. And it is true that, what is written here, that
they considered you volatile, impulsive and unreliable?
A. That's right, because they refused that moment
to assist me, considering that my enterprise to escape
from Auschwitz is completely hopeless, in contrary to
my views.
Q. Yeah. You were ---
A. The
proof of the pudding is, of course, in the eating, so
it was not as hopeless as they thought ---
Q.
You were nineteen years old?
A. --- otherwise I
wouldn't be here.
Q. And is it the case that
nobody who was in the camp at that time survived?
A. I beg your pardon?
Q. Is it the case
that nobody who was in the camp when you escaped
survived?
A. I don't understand your question.
Q. Is it the case that nobody who was in the camp
when you escaped survived?
A. Many survived who
were living still at the time.
Q. Thank you.
Now, you told us about Primo Levy being in the camp.
A. That's right.
Q. You know who Primo Levy
is?
A. Yes.
Q. He escaped.
A. Yes.
Q. He was a survivor?
A. Yes.
Q. He
was not in Auschwitz I or in Birkenau.
A. Right.
Q. He was in a satellite camp?
A. Yes.
Q. Now, people came to the Auschwitz ramp and went
to satellite camps such as Raisko.
A. Yes.
Q. There were other camps ---
A. One moment.
Raisko. No, I never heard about it.
Q. All
right. There were other satellite camps?
A.
There were twenty-seven satellite camps.
Q. So
all of the people who got off at the siding in
Auschwitz didn't have to go to Birkenau.
A.
This I can explain you quite clearly from a graph
which I have shown here before.
------------------------------
This is part 4 of the Testimony of Dr Rudolf Vrba,
transcript of the 1985 Ernst Zündel trial in
Toronto.
ABCD
part
3
part
5
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