On July 28, 1941 a special commission created on Heinrich Himmlers orders arrived at Auschwitz to select prisoners within the framework of the Euthanasia Program for the incurably ill, extended in 1940 to Jews and in the middle of 1941 to prisoners of concentration camps. The committee inspected all invalids, cripples and incurably ill who had been chosen by the camp administration under the pretext of transferring them to another camp for easier work. Among the members of the special doctors committee was Dr. Horst Shumann. Since August 1939 he was the director of the Grafeneck Euthanasia Institute in Württemberg, and after its dissolution the director of a similar institution in Sonnenstein near Pirna. Most of the selected prisoners came from what was then called Block 15, the convalescent block (Schonungsblock), where sick and exhausted prisoners and those incapable of working were sent when an SS doctor no longer wanted to let them remain in the prisoners hospital. Some of these prisoners had registered voluntarily as a rumour had circulated in the camp that the chosen inmates would be transferred to a “sanatorium camp”. 573 prisoners, most of them Poles, were chosen. At the last moment, two German BV prisoners (criminals) who participated eagerly in killing prisoners were added to the transport: Johann Siegruth (the one-armed head Capo of the lumber yard) and Ernst Krankemann, the block master of Block 11 (Block 13 at that time) and Capo in the road construction work group (Strassenbau). The transport of 575 prisoners was sent to Sonnenstein under the supervision of Franz Hössler. From his report made to the camp commandant Rudolfowi Höss after returning to Auschwitz we know, that the prisoners were gassed in a bathroom where carbon monoxide gas was introduced through the showerheads.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 16:00:02 +0000
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