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was written in all languages: “Put shoes into the cubbyholes and tie them together so you will not lose them. After the showers you will receive hot coffee.” Here the poor victims undressed themselves and went into the chamber, There were three columns for the ventilators, through which the gas poured in. A special work detail with truncheons drove the people into the chamber. When the room was full, small children were thrown in through a window.
Moll grabbed infants by their little legs and smashed their skulls against the wall. Then the gas was let into the chamber. The lungs of the victims slowly burst, and after three minutes a loud clamoring could be heard.
Then the chamber was opened, and those who still showed signs of life were beaten to death.The prisoners of the special work details (Sonderkommandos) then pulled the corpses out, took their rings off, and cut their hair, which was gathered up, put in sacks, and shipped to factories. Then they arranged the corpses in piles of ten each.
After Moll had counted them, they were taken to the ovens, or if the crematoriums were insufficient, thrown into fire trenches.106 The prisoners of the special work details (Sonderkommandos) then pulled the corpses out, took their rings off, and cut their hair, which was gathered up, put in sacks, and shipped to factories. Then they arranged the corpses in piles of ten each.
After Moll had counted them, they were taken to the ovens, or if the crematoriums were insufficient, thrown into fire trenches.106 The interest in the camps generated by Belsen and Buchenwald and the various references appearing in the Western press to Auschwitz offered the Polish government-in-exile a good opportunity to present the atrocities of Auschwitz to the Western public.
The first substantial report to appear after the liberation of Auschwitz was entitled “Polish Women in German Concentration Camps,” and it was published in the May 1, 1945, issue of the Polish Fortnightly Review. The article consisted of two eyewitness testimonies, some statistics, and a note on medical experiments in the women’s camp.
The first testimony was entitled “An Eyewitnesses’s Account of the Women’s Camp at Oswiecim-Brzezmnyka (Birkenau) — Autumn, 1943, to Spring, 1944,” and like all the other articles published in the Polish Fortnightly Review, it was anonymous. It is, however, clear that it was written shortly after the beginning of the Hungarian Action. The 168 • The Case for Auschwitz Footnotes:106. Document 159, “Experiences of a Fifteen-Year-Old in Birkenau,” in The Buchenwald Report, ed.
Hackett, 349.107. Stäglich, The Auschwitz Myth, 115-116. 168 • The Case for Auschwitz Footnotes:106. Document 159, “Experiences of a Fifteen-Year-Old in Birkenau,” in The Buchenwald Report, ed. Hackett, 349.107. Stäglich, The Auschwitz Myth, 115-116. Footnotes:106. Document 159, “Experiences of a Fifteen-Year-Old in Birkenau,” in The Buchenwald Report, ed. Hackett, 349.107. Stäglich, The Auschwitz Myth, 115-116. 106.
Document 159, “Experiences of a Fifteen-Year-Old in Birkenau,” in The Buchenwald Report, ed. Hackett, 349.107. Stäglich, The Auschwitz Myth, 115-116. 107. Stäglich, The Auschwitz Myth, 115-116.