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

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J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 257<br />

chambers at Beec measured 8 by 4 meters or 32 square meters each<br />

for a total <strong>of</strong> 96 square meters.<br />

Stangl’s reference to Hartheim castle is worth a closer look. Hans<br />

Maršálek writes the following about the layout <strong>of</strong> the alleged Hartheim<br />

gas chambers: 761<br />

“Then the victims were led into the gas chamber. It consisted <strong>of</strong> a<br />

room measuring 6.60 by 4.20 meters. The floor originally consisted<br />

<strong>of</strong> wooden boards, was then given a layer <strong>of</strong> concrete, and finally<br />

lined with red tiles. There were tiles as well up the walls to a level <strong>of</strong><br />

1.70 meters. In the center <strong>of</strong> the ceiling there was a water pipe with<br />

three shower heads. Alongside three <strong>of</strong> the walls there was a tube<br />

(15 mm in diameter) with many perforations. This is where the poison<br />

gas came from; a physician in the room next door always supervised<br />

its feed from a steel bottle.”<br />

The number <strong>of</strong> victims put to death in this alleged gas chamber <strong>of</strong><br />

6.60m×4.20m = 27.72 square meters is said to have been 18,269. 762 At<br />

Sobibór, on the other hand, for the gassing <strong>of</strong> hundreds <strong>of</strong> thousands <strong>of</strong><br />

Jews, three gas chambers <strong>of</strong> a total <strong>of</strong> 36 square meters are alleged to<br />

have been planned!<br />

As far as the gassing technology is concerned, the descendance <strong>of</strong><br />

those at Beec and at Sobibór from the gas chambers <strong>of</strong> the euthanasia<br />

institutions is furthermore inconsistent, because for the latter carbon<br />

monoxide gas in cylinders is reported to have been used, whereas for<br />

the former there allegedly was a switch to exhaust gas from an engine,<br />

Diesel at Beec, gasoline at Sobibór. Who decreed when, where, and<br />

why such an essential departure from the original way <strong>of</strong> operation?<br />

For the first gas chambers at Beec this new gassing technology is<br />

not documented; to be more precise, no kind <strong>of</strong> technology is documented<br />

here at all. As far as Sobibór is concerned, mainstream <strong>Holocaust</strong><br />

historiography suddenly brings in an engine for the gassings,<br />

based more on an act <strong>of</strong> faith that the local gas chambers were identical<br />

to those <strong>of</strong> Beec than on anything else. The defendant Erich Fuchs declared<br />

in this regard: 763<br />

“Some time in the spring <strong>of</strong> 1942, on orders from Wirth, I drove<br />

a truck to Lemberg to pick up a ‘gasoline engine,’ which I then<br />

761<br />

762<br />

763<br />

Hans Maršálek, Die Vergasungsaktionen im Konzentrationslager Mauthausen. Dokumentation,<br />

Wien 1988, p. 26.<br />

Willi Dressen, “Euthanasie,” in: E. Kogon, H. Langbein, A. Rückerl et al. (eds.), op. cit.<br />

(note 45), p. 62.<br />

Interrogation <strong>of</strong> 2 April 1963, in: J. Schelvis, op. cit. (note 70), pp. 118-119.

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