The Holocaust Historiography Project
Auschwitz, by J.-C. Pressac
Document 2

Document 2:
Situation plan showing the probable location of Bunker 1 and the mass graves
Translation of inscriptions
(from tap to bottom and left to right):
· Bauabschnitt 2 für 60,000 Gef /
Construction stage II, for 60,000 prisoners
· Kläranlage / Sewage treatment plant
· Desinfektion u Entwesungsanlage /
Disinfection and delousing installation
· Effektanlager / Effects camp
· Appelplatz / Parade ground [for roll calls]
· Krematorium IV 1 Achtmuffelofen / 1 eight muffle furnace
· Krematorium V 1 Achtmuffelofen / 1 eight muffle furnace
· Blockführerstube / Block leaders' rooms
· Zone probable d'implantation du Bunker 1 /
Probable area of location of Bunker 1
· Vers les fosses / To the mass graves
· Bauabschnitt 3 3 für 60,000 Gef /
Construction stage III, for 60,000 prisoners

Additional details

I had a conversation, recorded on magnetic tape, with Mr. Benroubi. These additional details come either from his personal account, or in response to the questions he was asked. Arrival at the Bunker 1 gas chambers and reception of the victims:
“The children about 50 or 60 were holding were holding hands in ranks of five and arrived at the Bunker accompanied by about ten deportees in civilian clothes, glad to be with them The members of the Sonderkommando greeted them kindly. Some people had babies in their arms and the Sonderkommando helped them, advancing towards them some hundreds of meters before the gas chamber with a friendly attitude, like when you receive members of the family.”

“To give the deportees confidence and the make them enter the showers, i.e., the gas chambers, quietly, the Sonderkommando bandits were dressed in white and acted as if they belonged to the hospital service.”
On Bunker 1:
“The Bunker was a brick built house, with the windows filled in … We had to turn our backs to the Bunker when we picked up the corpses, never look at the gas chambers…”
And yet, if one dared a furtive glance:
“Twenty meters from me, there was a door still open, of the rolling or sliding type, and beyond it on one side a ground floor door through which we could see shower heads. From the back no writing was visible. The Sonderkommando took the people out of the gas chambers and twenty meters away made them into separate piles of women, then children and old men.”

“There was no odor around the gas chambers, nor the graves, despite the trickles of fat that oozed out of them.”
IV/ Declaration by Mr. Milton BUKI
(former given names Majlech Michal)
Declaration made before a notary on 15th December 1980 n Jerusalem under reference No. 623/80. Extracts concerning Bunker 1:
“On 10th December 1942, I … was arrested by the Germans and transported to Auschwitz where I arrived on the 12th of that month …

The next morning at 5 o 'clock, an SS officer accompanied by several men ordered us to go outside and took us to a brick farmhouse on the edge of a wood. In front of this house there were about 40 corpses of shot [?] men. We loaded these bodies onto trolleys mounted on narrow gauge rails. The door of the house was then opened by an SS man. We saw that the interior was full of corpses, some lying some standing and others hanging onto one another. About twenty minutes or perhaps half an hour after the door was opened, we were given the order to remove the bodies and load them on the on the trolleys.

The bodies were all naked and some had blue stains on them. We took the trolleys to a grave about 40 meters long and I think about 6 meters wide which was about 100 meters (actually 300 to 400] from the house. Before the grave there was another group of deportees who threw the bodies into the hole … We learned that we formed part of a group called a 'Sonderkommando' whose job was to transport the bodies of the gassed to the grave …

While, on the first occasion, we were taken to the house after the gassing had already taken place, later we were already there when the convoy arrived. Under these conditions I was able to see the whole process. The men, women and children were made to undress in a shed near the house. They were then obliged to walk very quickly or even run between two ranks of SS who had dogs. In this way they reached the open door of the house and went in. They were told that it was simply a shower for disinfection purposes, after which they would be admitted to the camp to work there under normal conditions. When the interior of the house was absolutely full, the door was closed. Doctor Mengele who was often [present] or another doctor replacing him, gave an SS man the order to inject the gas. To do this he climbed several steps by the side wall of the house and introduced through a little chimney [opening] the contents of the can that he opened with a knife. About twenty minutes after the injection of the gas the door was opened and the work of removing the bodies commenced about half an hour afterwards. After being taken back to Block 11, we could see the flames that consumed the bodies in the grave..”
This witness certainly never knew that he had worked at Bunker 1, but two details prove that he did: “a red brick cottage”, this is the red house and “a few steps” to climb for access to the opening where the Zyklon-B was introduced is a detail not reported by S. Dragon but confirmed by his drawing. The witness speaks of one gas chamber and one access door. Looking at the drawing of Bunker 1, it can be seen that an observer situated below and to the left would be able to see only one door (D1) and only one side opening for introducing the toxic gas (01). The gassing look place in chamber K 1. The period, December 1942, indicated by the witness for his time at Bunker 1 is correct. Before November 1942, the bodies were not incinerated, afterwards they were.
V/ The testimony of Moshe Maurice GARBARZ
Written with his son Elie and published by editions Plon in Paris in 1984 under the title «Un Survivant». Trapped like Mr Benroubi, Mr Garbarz escaped from the work at from the work at Bunker 1 in the same way its he did: through being detailed for the Jawischowitz coalmine. [Extracts from «Un Survivant»:
(1) DEPARTURE FOR THE MINE [page 119]
“By the seventh day, I had lost my last hope of escaping, it was finished, I was trapped … In the evening, for some unknown reason, we came back to the camp a little earlier. Perhaps our SS had a lot of work and preferred to avoid leaving us hanging about over there. We had hardly gone through the gate when the camp loudspeakers made an announcement: