Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Appendix D: The Belsen Trial
prisoners. All I had to do when a prisoner died was to inform Obersturmbannführer
Höss and he would deal with it. I had no administration in Auschwitz.
All the prisoners were known by numbers only. I had nothing to do with meting
out punishment in Auschwitz; that was all done through Höss. When I
came to Auschwitz there was no corporal punishment for women, but I have
heard it mentioned, and it was talked about in the camp, that there had been
corporal punishment for women before, and that it had been abolished. The
only way in which I was informed corporal punishment for women was not allowed
was that conversation in the camp to which I have referred. I cannot
remember with whom this conversation took place. If a case would have arisen
in which a woman would have committed one of the crimes for which a man
would have been beaten, I would have pointed out to the women guards that
corporal punishment could not be administered to women. The only authority
on which I could have placed this was that conversation shortly after my arrival.
Even if corporal punishment for women would have been allowed, I would
never have put it into practice, as such a thing is inconceivable to me. The
punishment administered to women, if they had committed any of the crimes
for which men were beaten, was that they were transferred to another working
party where they had a dirtier type of work or longer hours.
When a request for labor came from Berlin, the prisoners had to parade
before the doctor. I was very often present at these parades, but not always.
The examination took place by the prisoners filing by the doctor without undressing.
Then the decision whether a man or a woman was fit enough to be
sent to work was made. If, however, somebody had to be examined to ascertain
whether he was fit to receive corporal punishment, a proper medical examination
was carried out. The reason why no proper medical examination could be
carried out in the case of detailing people for labor was that the requests ran
into thousands and the doctor would have been busy for days. This method of
choosing people for work was the normal method applied in all concentration
camps. There was nothing unusual about it.
There were four or five cases of people trying to escape whilst I was there.
These attempts were made separately. Some of these prisoners got away. No
prisoners were flogged; there were no executions, shootings or hangings in my
part. I went through the camp frequently on inspections. The doctor alone was
responsible for certifying the cause of death if a prisoner died. The doctors
changed continuously. One of these doctors was Hauptsturmführer Mengele. I
carried out inspections of the bodies of people who had died through natural
causes in my capacity as Kommandant when I was wandering round the camp.
Whoever died during the day was put into a special building called the mortuary,
and they were carried to the crematorium every evening by lorry. They
were loaded on the lorry and off the lorry by prisoners. They were stripped by
the prisoners of their clothes in the crematorium before being cremated. The
clothes were cleaned and were re-issued where the people had not died of infectious
diseases. During my inspections I never saw prisoners who had died
through physical violence. When a prisoner died, a doctor had to certify the
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