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

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 391
12. Conclusions
12.1. The Moral Responsibility of the Camp Personnel
Our conclusions are absolutely clear: Sobibór was not an extermination
camp; it had no “gassing building” and hence no homicidal gas
chambers. Some 10,000 people may have died there; such a figure
would amount to one twenty-fifth of the figure of 250,000 victims
widely quoted in the literature, or to one seventeenth of the figure of
170,000 given by J. Schelvis in the revised edition of his book, or to
one fifteenth of the “minimum number” of 150,000 victims assumed by
the Hagen court in 1966.
If our thesis is correct – and we are convinced that it is – and if Sobibór
was a transit camp for Jews being moved into areas further east,
we must obviously reassess the moral responsibility of the camp personnel,
from the commanding officer on down to the Ukrainian guards
who constituted the lowest echelon of the chain of command. It goes
without saying that even in such a case the personnel involved did execute
orders that constituted a gross violation of human rights, for no-one
can argue against the fact that the deportation and expropriation of
people on the sole basis of them being members of an ethnic or religious
group and not for any individual wrongdoing is indeed a most serious
transgression against human rights. On the other hand, these
people were acting under orders, the execution of which they could not
refuse without possibly endangering their own lives. It was not up to
them to decide whether such orders were lawful or not, but the manner
in which they executed them certainly was. Thus, the moral responsibility
of the camp personnel hinges on the question as to whether or not
they treated the detainees – during their short stay in the camp – as humanely
as was possible under the prevailing circumstances, or whether
they humiliated them; whether they made things bearable for the working
Jews, or whether they did their part to create a little hell of their
own for these people.