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

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

“In the month <strong>of</strong> February, 1943, Himmler visited Sobibór a<br />

second time. […] Two days after the visit I heard a conversation between<br />

Beckmann and Bredov. One said to the other that the visit was<br />

designed to mark the completion <strong>of</strong> the first million Jews destroyed<br />

at Sobibór.” (p. 155f)<br />

As we have already mentioned, up to the end <strong>of</strong> 1942 exactly<br />

101,370 Jews had been deported to Sobibór – but deported is not synonymous<br />

for annihilated.<br />

If we follow Bahir, the deadly gases were fed into the gas chamber<br />

by means <strong>of</strong> the pipe work <strong>of</strong> a shower; the chamber had a collapsible<br />

floor, which was opened after each gassing so that the corpses could fall<br />

into the cars waiting below. 40<br />

The account given by the witness Hella Felenbaum-Weiss is also in<br />

blatant disagreement with the <strong>of</strong>ficial version <strong>of</strong> Sobibór:<br />

“One day, a convoy brought to the camp prisoners in striped pyjamas.<br />

They were extremely thin, and their heads were shaved;<br />

women and men looked alike and they could hardly walk. Rumors<br />

spread that these people, about 300 <strong>of</strong> them, came from Majdanek<br />

where the gas chambers were out <strong>of</strong> order. When they alighted from<br />

the train, they literally collapsed. SS Frenzel met them and poured<br />

chloride on their heads, as though they were already dead. The arrival<br />

<strong>of</strong> another convoy distressed me in the same way. It was<br />

thought to come from Lvov, but nobody knew for sure. Prisoners<br />

were sobbing and told us a dreadful tale: they had been gassed on<br />

the way with chlorine, but some survived. The bodies <strong>of</strong> the dead<br />

were green and their skin had peeled <strong>of</strong>f.” (p. 50)<br />

Thus, the victims were not gassed in gas chambers but gassed along<br />

the way before they ever arrived, and it was not done by means <strong>of</strong> exhaust<br />

gases but with chlorine! As we have seen, this murder tool was also<br />

mentioned in the testimonies by Leon Feldhendler and Zelda Metz<br />

immediately after the war. The origin <strong>of</strong> this version <strong>of</strong> the gassing<br />

myth becomes clear when we read the sentence “SS man Frenzel went<br />

towards them and poured chlorine over their heads as if they were already<br />

dead”: The corpses <strong>of</strong> dead detainees were indeed treated with<br />

chloride <strong>of</strong> lime (not: “chlorine”) before they were buried in the mass<br />

graves to prevent the spread <strong>of</strong> diseases. This, by the way, has been<br />

40<br />

Cf. chapter 3.

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