Remembering Auschwitz Part 3
(Rudolph) Hoess attended the next gassings in Block 11: ‘Protected by a gas mask, I watched the killing myself. In the crowded cells death came instantaneously the moment the Zyklon B was thrown in. A short, almost smothered cry and it was all over.’ (Rees, Laurence. “Auschwitz: A New History” 2005, pg 90)
For the last few days, I have mulled over if I wanted to keep walking down this dark road and sharing the horrors of Auschwitz that I discovered by reading this New History by Laurence Rees. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our little bubbles to distract us from the evil unfolding around us. The weather is beautiful in Poland. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day is this weekend. March Madness begins next week. Yet, one country next to where I am currently deployed, innocent people are being murdered for no reason. While bombs falling from the sky are no where as cruel as marching people into a gas chamber and using a poisonous gas to suffocate the victims, it is still murder. What Russia is doing to Ukraine’s population is unacceptable. What Israel is doing to the Palestinian population is downright evil. So yeah, as the world continues to burn, I think it is important that we look at how just over 80 years ago, Eastern Europe allowed hell to come to Earth.
As I discussed in the first two posts, the Nazi’s and much of Eastern Europe had developed a powerful hatred for all Jews. But the Jews were not the only ones the Nazi’s sought to exterminate. The Nazi’s had been mass murdering Soviet prisoners of war, German/Polish/Slovaks with disease or disabilities, even killing the Polish nobility, clergy, and intelligentsia. Initially, the Nazi’s committed mass murder by having the victims dig their own graves, then German soldiers would simply shoot the victims. This was not efficient for several reasons. For one, it diverted much needed ammo for the war that was raging in the East against Russia. Another problem was that these killing fields were always out in the open and hard for the Nazi’s to conceal as they would be able to do in the sealed basements of the gas chambers. But also, as Rees writes:
the policy of killing in the East was to be extended to include Jewish women and children…There could be no pretence that a baby was an immediate threat to the German war effort, but a German soldier would now look at that little child and pull the trigger. (Auschwitz: A New History, 2005, pg. 79)
Putting a bullet into the head of a child was wearing on the Nazi soldiers carrying out the task. Not enough for them to revolt and turn against their leadership, just enough for them to seek a less disturbing way to kill their victims. And their solution, was only less disturbing for the killers. It was horribly painful for the victims.
Enter Zyklon B, cyanide crystal pellets that had been used to kill insects around the camp. Rees writes that Rudolph Hoess’s (Hoess was the commander at Auschwitz) deputy reasoned “If Zyklon B could be used to kill lice, why could it not be used to kill human pests?” (Pg 89). So Hoess watched as Soviet Prisoners were among the first to be exposed to this new method of murder, and as we read at the top of the post, Hoess claimed they were killed “instantaneously”. However, as we will see from eye witnesses, their deaths were anything but instantaneous.
Common Sense Reborn 