Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

188 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
sonnel at that time, as well as on testimonies of former detainees
heard as witnesses, and on the irrefutable opinion provided by the
expert, Dr. Scheffler. […] In Himmler’s honor, a group of pretty
young Jewish women was brought in from some labor camp and
gassed to provide Himmler with a show.”
By saying that the victims had been brought in from “some labor
camp,” the court circumvented the difficulty of saying where the women
actually came from. There was a good reason for that: while most of
the witnesses claim that the victims came to Sobibór from Lublin,
Moshe Bahir stated that they came from Trawniki, and for Toivi Blatt
they hailed from Wodawa. 537 Blatt, incidentally, caused a stir during
the Hagen trial when he placed on the witness table two braids allegedly
found on the former Sobibór camp site. 538
Finally, we have to talk about the inglorious part Erich Bauer played
in the run-up to the Hagen trial. Once the abolition of the death penalty
had saved him from the guillotine, Bauer attempted to obtain his freedom
by blaming his former comrades. Among other things, he drew a
map of the Sobibór camp for the Hagen court, including the “gas chamber,”
539 and he stated: 540
“I estimate that the number of Jews gassed at Sobibór was about
350,000. In the canteen at Sobibór I once overheard Karl Frenzel,
Franz Stangl and Gustav Wagner. They were discussing the number
of victims in the extermination camps of Beec, Treblinka and Sobibór
and expressed their regret that Sobibór ‘came last’ in the
competition”
It is said that traitors reap money but no gratitude, but in this case,
Bauer reaped neither. After thirty-one years behind bars, at the age of
seventy-nine, Bauer died in jail in 1980 541 – because two liars named
Samuel Lerer and Esther Raab had decided to nominate him Gasmeister
and because a court had decided to believe every syllable they uttered.
After all, they had testified under oath!
537
538
539
540
541
Cf. chapter 2.5.
Heike Kleffner, Miriam Rürup, “Das vergessene Vernichtungslager Sobibór: Überblick
über die juristische Verfolgung der NS-Täter und die Wahrnehmung in der Öffentlichkeit,”
Frankfurter Rundschau, 7 Nov. 2003 (www klick-nachrechts.de/ticker/2003/11/Sobibór
htm)
A. Rückerl (ed.), op. cit. (note 36), p. 158-161.
E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Reiss, op. cit. (note 278), p. 232.
J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 71), p. 247.