Selected Quotes from Auschwitz

My life's principle, which I was taught very early on,

was to desire and to strive to achieve ethical values.

Adolf Eichmann

I am not the monster that I am made out to be. I am the

victim of an error of judgment.

Adolf Eichmann

I have already said that the top echelons, to which I did

not belong, gave the orders, and they rightly, in my

opinion, deserved punishment for the atrocities which

were perpetrated on the victims on their orders. But the

subordinates are now also victims. I am one of such

victims. Adolf Eichmann

I never had the power and the responsibility of a giver

of orders. I never carried out killings, as Höss did.

Adolf Eichmann

What about the women and children? I made up my

mind to find a clear solution here too. I did not feel I

had the right to exterminate the men while allowing the

children to grow up and take revenge upon our sons and

grandsons.

Heinrich Himmler

...the reasons behind the extermination programme

seemed to me right. I did not reflect on it at the time...

Rudolf Höss

We discussed the ways and means of effecting the

extermination. This could only be done by gassing,

since it would have been absolutely impossible to

dispose by shooting of the large number of people that

were expected; and it would have placed too heavy a

burden on the SS men who had to carry it out..

Rudolf Höss

The bodies could be buried in long, deep pits in the

nearby meadows. We didn't think about burning them at

this time. We calculated that in the space available in

the farmhouse, approximately eight hundred people

could be killed using a suitable gas after the building

was made airtight.

Rudolf Höss

Experience had shown that the prussic acid called

Cyklon B caused death with far greater speed and

certainty, especially if the rooms were kept dry and

airtight with the people packed closely together, and

provided they were fitted with as large a number of

intake vents as possible.

Rudolf Höss

Protected by a gas-mask I watched the killings myself.

In the crowded cells death came instantaneously the

moment the gas was thrown in. A short, almost

smothered cry, and it was all over.

Rudolf Höss

The whole operation, including assistance given during

undressing, the filling of the bunker, the emptying of

the bunker, the removal of the corpses, as well as the

preparation and filling up of the mass graves, was

carried out by a special detachment of Jews, who were

separately accommodated and who, in accordance with

Eichmann's orders, were themselves liquidated after

every big action.

Rudolf Höss

Those who were to ill to be brought to the gas-

chambers were shot in the back of the neck by a small

calibre weapon.

Rudolf Höss

Once a women with four children, all holding each

other by the hand to help the smallest ones over the

rough ground, passed by me very slowly. She stepped

very close to me and whispered, pointing to her four

children "How can you murder these beautiful, darling

children? Don't you have any heart?"

Rudolf Höss

During bad weather or when a strong wind was

blowing, the stench of burning flesh was carried for

many miles and causing the whole neighborhood to talk

about the burning of Jews.

Rudolf Höss

Crematoria II and III both had underground undressing

rooms and gas-chambers in which the air could be

completely changed. he bodies were taken to the ovens

on the floor above by means of a lift. These gas-

chambers could hold about 3.000 people, but this

number was never reached since the individual

transports were never as large as that.

Rudolf Höss

"You will now bathe and be disinfected, we don't want

any epidemics in the camp. Then you will be brought to

your barracks and get some hot soup..." Everything was

extremely tidy. But the specific smell made some of

them uneasy. They looked in vain for showers.... The

hall meanwhile was getting packed.... Suddenly the

door was closed... Those inside heard heavy bolts being

secured.... A deadly paralyzing terror spread among the

victims... The Cyclon B acted swiftly... Some two

minutes later the screams became less and less loud...

Two minutes more and Grabner stopped looking at his

watch There was complete silence... The guards were

called off, and the cleaning squad started to sort out the

clothes, so tidily put down in the yard of the

crematorium...

Pery Broad

The women went in first with their children, followed

by the men who were always fewer in number. This

part of the operation nearly always went smoothly, for

the prisoners of the special detachment would calm

those who betrayed any anxiety or who perhaps had

some inkling of their fate. As an additional precaution

these prisoners of the special detachment and an SS

man always remained in the chamber until the last

moment.

Rudolf Höss

It could be observed through the peep-hole in the door

that those who were standing nearest to the induction

vents were killed at once. It can be said that about one-

third died straight away. The remainder staggered about

and began to scream and struggle for air. The

screaming, however, soon changed to the death rattle

and in a few minutes all lay still. After twenty minutes

at the latest no movements could be discerned.

Rudolf Höss

The special detachment now set about removing the

gold teeth and cutting the hair from the women. After

this, the bodies were taken up by lift and laid in front of

the ovens, which had meanwhile been stoked up.

Rudolf Höss

As strange as that was, so was the general behavior of

the Sonderkommando. All of them knew with certainty

that when it was over, they themselves would suffer the

same fate as thousands of their race had before them, in

whose destruction they were very helpful. In spite of

this they still did their job with an eagerness and in a

caring, helpful way during the undressing, yet they

would also use force with those who resisted

undressing.

Rudolf Höss

While dragging the bodies, they ate or smoked. Even

the gruesome job of burning the bodies dug up after

being in mass graves for a long time did not prevent

them from eating. It often happened that Jews from the

Sonderkommando discovered close relatives among the

bodies and even among those who went into the gas

chambers. Although they were visibly affected there

never was any kind of incident.

Rudolf Höss

Eichmann expected to receive from Hungary... about 3

million Jews. The arrests and transportation's should

have been completed by 1943, but because of

Hungarian government's political difficulties, the date

was always being postponed...

Rudolf Höss

The next country on the list was Romania. Eichmann

expected to get about 4 million Jews from there.

Negotiations with the Romanian authorities, however,

were likely to be difficult...

Rudolf Höss

In the meantime Bulgaria was to follow, with an

estimated 2,5 million Jews. The authorities there were

agreeable to the transport, but wanted to wait on the

results of the negotiations with Romania...

Rudolf Höss

The course taken by the war changed all those plans...

Rudolf Höss

Himmler was dissatisfied with the extermination

methods in Auschwitz. First of all they were to slow.

Rudolf Höss

Auschwitz achieved its climax in the spring of 1944.

Long trains from Hungary were incessantly arriving at

the Birkenau subcamp. All Hungarian Jews were to be

exterminated in one sweep... A new railway siding with

three lines of rails, leading up to the new crematorium,

made it possible to have one train unloaded while

another one was arriving...

Pery Broad

It is tragic that, although I was by nature gentle, good-

natured, and very helpful, I became the greatest

destroyer of human beings who carried out every order

to exterminate people no matter what.

Rudolf Höss

How I envy my comrades who were allowed to die an

honest soldier's death. Without realizing it, I became a

cog in the wheel of the huge extermination machine of

the Third Reich. The machine is smashed, the motor

has perished, and I must perish with it. The world

demands it.

Rudolf Höss

My path through life is now coming to a close. Fate has

worked out a truly sad ending for me. How fortunate

were the comrades who were allowed to die an honest

soldier's death. Calmly and composed I look toward the

end. From the beginning I was completely clear about

the fact that I would perish with the world to which I

had pledged myself with all my body and soul when

that world was shattered and destroyed.

Rudolf Höss

At the end it is difficult to have to admit to myself that I

have chosen a very wrong path and, because of it, I

have brought about my own destruction.

Rudolf Höss

And so there is only a pile of rubble left from our world

from which the survivors have to build a new and better

world with great difficulty. My time has come.

Rudolf Höss

Sätila 2008, Lennart Grebelius