Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli

killer had been prevented by some intervening obstacle from raising his gun any higher. But this was a matter for the inquest to decide.
    I saw that my remarks satisfied the members of the commission, for they announced that in the future all cases requiring an autopsy would be sent here. They found this a very satisfactory arrangement. Thus I became, with this one autopsy, the coroner for the KZ in charge of all matters pertaining to forensic medicine in the Gleiwitz district.

XIII
    EARLY ONE MORNING I RECEIVED A phone call ordering me to report immediately to the “pyre” for the purpose of bringing back to number one crematorium all the medicines and eyeglasses that had been collected there. After being sorted and classified they would be shipped to various parts of Germany.
    The pyre was located about five or six hundred yards from number four crematorium, directly behind the little birch forest of Birkenau, in a clearing surrounded by pines. It lay outside the KZ’s electric barbed wire fence, between the first and second lines of guards. Since I was not authorized to venture so far from the actual confines of the camp, I requested some sort of written permission from the office. They issued me a safe conduct good for three persons, for I planned on taking two men with me to help carry the material back to the crematorium.
    We set off in the direction of the thick twisting spiral of smoke. All those unfortunate enough to be brought here saw this column of smoke, which was visible from any point in the KZ, from the moment they first descended from the box cars and lined up for selection. It was visible at every hour of the day and night. By day it covered the sky above Birkenau with a thick cloud; by night it lighted the area with a hellish glow.
    Our path took us past the crematoriums. After showing the SS guards our safe conduct, we passed through an opening cut in the barbed wire and reached an open road. The surrounding countryside—a patchwork of bright green, grassy clearing—seemed peaceful. But soon my watchful eyes discerned, about a hundred yards away, the guards of the second line, either lounging on the grass or sitting beside their machine guns and police dogs.
    We crossed a clearing and came to a small pine forest. Once again we found our way blocked by a fence and gate strung with barbed wire. A large sign, similar to those on the crematorium gates, was posted here:
    ENTRANCE IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE, INCLUDING SS PERSONNEL NOT ASSIGNED TO THIS COMMAND.
    In spite of this sign, we entered without the guards even asking us for our pass. The reason was simple: the SS guards on duty here were from the crematoriums, and the 60 Sonderkommando men who worked at the pyre were also crematorium personnel from number two. At present the day shift was on. They worked from seven in the morning till seven in the evening, when they were replaced by the night watch, which also consisted of 60 men, taken from number four.
    Passing through the gate, we reached an open place which resembled a courtyard, in the middle of which stood a thatched-roof house whose plaster was peeling off. Its style was that of a typical German country house, and its small windows were covered with planks. As a matter of fact, it no doubt had been a country house for at least 150 years, to judge by its thatched roof, which had long since turned black, and its often replastered, flaking walls.
    The German State had expropriated the entire village of Birkenau near Auschwitz, in order to establish the KZ there. All the houses, with the exception of this one, had been demolished, and the population evacuated.
    What, in fact, must this house have been used for? Had it been meant to be lived in? In that case partitions must have divided the interior into rooms. Or had it originally been one large room, without partitions, meant to be used as a hangar or storeroom? I asked myself these questions, but was unable to