Auschwitz

Post-War Testimony

1945-11-03 / Otto Moll’s 1945 Dachau Statement

Sworn statement of Otto Moll, taken at Dachau by U.S. investigators on November 3, 1945. At the center of his account is his role in the Kaufering subcamps of the Dachau concentration camp system during the final months of the war (end phase atrocities). On his earlier service at Auschwitz, Moll made a notably brief and misleading claim that “From 1941 until January 1945, I likewise managed a gardening unit of the Economic and Administrative Main Office in the Auschwitz concentration camp, in which concentration camp prisoners were also employed.”

Interrogation protocol dated April 15, 1946 Otto Moll Auschwitz testimony
Post-War Testimony

1946-04-15 / Testimony of Otto Moll, Head of Auschwitz Crematoria

Interrogation of notorious Auschwitz perpetrator Otto Moll, conducted on April 15–16, 1946. In his statements to U.S. prosecutors at Nuremberg, Moll acknowledged supervising the cremation of bodies at Birkenau in the Summer of 1944. He described the arrival of transports from Hungary, the selection process carried out by SS doctors, and the transfer of those deemed unfit for work to the crematoria. At the same time, he maintained that responsibility for the killings themselves rested with doctors and higher-ranking SS officials. He denied committing any atrocities.

Interrogation protocoll dated April 28, 1959 Hans Stark Auschwitz
Post-War Testimony

1959-04-28 / The 1959 Interrogation of Auschwitz SS Man Hans Stark

Interrogation of former SS-Untersturmführer Hans Stark of the Auschwitz Political Department, dated April 28, 1959, on atrocities committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. As a former member of the admissions department, Stark testified that “newly arriving transports that were designated for shooting were not to be registered, as would have been done with others, but were to be led directly to be shot.” He further described the early use of poison gas, stating that “the first gassing was carried out in the autumn of 1941 in the small crematorium. … A group of approximately 200 to 250 Jews was brought to the crematorium. They were men, women, and children of all ages. They were sent into the crematorium. I stood at the entrance and counted them. The gassings were carried out in such a way that the Jews were sent into a room which was then closed behind them. Then Zyklon B was poured through two openings in the roof”.

Contemporary Source

1943-02-06 / Pohl’s Report to Himmler: 825 Waggons of “Scrap Material from the Jewish Resettlement” in the Auschwitz and Lublin camps

Report by SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl, head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (SS-WVHA), to Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, dated 6 February 1943, on “the quantity of scrap material from the Jewish resettlement that has so far been shipped out from the Auschwitz and Lublin camps.” The report states that a total of 825 railway wagons of confiscated property were collected, sorted, and dispatched from the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps.

Interrogation of Richard Böck on Auschwitz dated November 2, 1960
Post-War Testimony

1960-11-02 / The 1960 Interrogation of Auschwitz SS Driver Richard Böck

In an interrogation conducted by West German authorities on November 2, 1960, former SS driver Richard Böck gave further testimony about his service at Auschwitz. He provided firsthand account of mass gassing at the Bunker extermination site in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Among other details, Böck stated that “after the entire transport—there must have been about 1,000 people—was inside the building, the gate was closed. Then an SS man, I believe he was a Rottenführer, came to our ambulance and took out a gas canister. With this canister, he went to a ladder that stood on the right side of the building, as seen from the gate. I noticed that he was wearing a gas mask as he climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he opened a circular metal flap and poured the contents of the canister into the opening”.

Gerstein report
Contemporary Source

1945-05-04 / The Gerstein Report: SS Officers Account on the Machinery of Extermination

On 4 May 1945, Kurt Gerstein completed a report describing his curriculum vitae and his inspection trip as SS-to the Aktion Reinhard extermination camps of Belzec and Treblinka, which took place between 17 and 19 August 1942. In this report, Gerstein provided an account of the extermination process, including the operation of the gas chambers. According to his testimony, he was sent to the camps in his capacity as an expert in disinfestation, first to assist with the disinfection of textiles collected during Aktion Reinhard and, second, to convert the gas chambers from engine exhaust to prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide).

Daily report dated March 2, 1943 on Auschwitz crematorium 4 gas chamber
Contemporary Source

1943-03-02 / Construction Report on Crematorium IV at Auschwitz-Birkenau: “Concreting the Floor in the Gas chamber”

Daily construction report from the firm W. Riedel & Sohn, dated 2 March 1943, detailing the work carried out on Crematorium IV at Auschwitz. The document records the number of workers present, the hours they worked, and the tasks completed that day—from plastering walls and fitting ventilation elements to “concreting the floor in the gas chamber.”

Contemporary Source

1942-10-25 / The SS Order to Conceal Auschwitz’s ‘Special Installations’ from a French Commission

In this secret directive (telex dated 25 October 1942), SS-Obersturmbannführer Arthur Liebehenschel instructed SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Aumeier that any inspection of the Auschwitz camp’s “special installations” for “special accommodation” (Sonderunterbringung) was strictly prohibited, and that “escape shootings” were to be avoided during the visit of a French construction commission inspecting the labor facilities of the Auschwitz complex.

Short version of KOrherr report
Contemporary Source

1943-04-19 / The Short Version of the Korherr Report: “European Jewry has probably lost almost half of its total population”

On April 19, 1943, SS statistician Richard Korherr submitted a shortened version of his Korherr Report – the SS’s statistical account of the “Final Solution of the European Jewish Question” – to the personal staff of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, for presentation to Adolf Hitler. In the report, Korherr estimated that “the reduction of Jewry in Europe from 1937 to the beginning of 1943 is to be estimated at 4½ million” and noted that “only part of the deaths of Soviet-Russian Jews in the occupied eastern territories could be recorded, while those in the rest of European Russia and at the front are not included at all.” He concluded that “European Jewry since 1933 has probably lost almost half of its total population,” of which “only about half has flowed to other continents.”

Auschwitz gassing cellar letter
Contemporary Source

1943-01-29 / The Gassing Cellar Letter on Auschwitz Crematorium 2

On January 29, 1943, the Central Construction Office of the Waffen-SS at Auschwitz reported to SS-Brigadeführer Hans Kammler on the near-completion of Crematorium II. Despite severe frost and construction difficulties, the ovens were tested and confirmed operational in the presence of Topf & Sons engineer Kurt Prüfer. The document also notes delays in the delivery of the ventilation system and explicitly refers to the use of the “gassing cellar” in the crematorium.

Scroll to Top