"Most of us fought in the ranks of the guerrilla detachments before the Red Army came, but I was never able to learn what happened to our Sashko."

The executioners will not succeed in hiding the traces of their crimes. The uprising and mass flight from Sobibur frustrated the plans of the Hitlerite cannibals. According to the German scheme, the prisoners were to be destroyed to a man. After the uprising, afraid that their crimes would be brought to light, the Germans burned the barracks at Sobibor, blew up the brick gas chamber, leveled the ditches with earth and planted pines over the vast territory of the death factory, where some two million people perished according to the estimates of the prisoners themselves.

The executioners took much pains to cover the traces of their crimes. In vain. Living witnesses who escaped death are here to tell the world the terrible truth about Sobibor. They will name the executioners in front of the judges. They will lead the judges to the site of the death factory, and under the layer of sand spread there by the Germans will find the charred earth, the gas-smelling brick and the milled human bones.

Europe, liberated from the fascist scum, will compile lists of the people shipped by the Germans to Poland and destroyed there. On the day of judgment the peoples of the world will present these lists to the Germans as incriminating evidence. This day is not far off.

Auschwitz

The Auschwitz Report

The Auschwitz Report was based on the testimony of four escapees from Auschwitz. Alfred Wetzler and Walter Rosenberg (later known as Rudolf Vrba) escaped from Auschwitz on 7 April 1944. In Slovakia they testified to local Jews about the camp. Additional information on AuschwitzBirkenau was given by Czeslaw Mordowicz and Arnost Rosin, who fled later on 27 May 1944.

The original statements in the Slovakian language were prepared for the Jewish Council in Zilina, Slovakia. The report was then sent to the Hungarian Zionist Relief and Rescue Committee in Budapest but arrived in late April-too late for an effective warning before deportations from Hungary commenced. The report was disseminated in Hungary, Slovakia, and Turkey. By the end of June, when two copies of the report reached Switzerland, it was publicized in Swiss, British, and other Western newspapers. A summary of this report was sent by the World Jewish Congress to the American, British, and Czech governments on 24 June. The Czech government circulated excerpts of the report in early July, sending memoranda to the British and American governments. The story was also carried by several Western newspapers, including PM. This report was the first comprehensive eyewitness account of systematic killing operations at Auschwitz to reach the West and to receive widespread coverage.

The full report did not arrive in Washington until 1 November 1944. On 26 November the complete report was released to the press by the War Refugee Board without securing approval from the Office of War Information (OWI). Elmer Davis, the director of OWI, thought that the report could be a German provocation and opposed its publication. One of the two main authors of the report, Rudolf Vrba, fought in the Slovakian revolt in 1944 and after the war immigrated to Canada, becoming a prominent research chemist there.

The report reprinted here is from Washington, D.C., National Archives, Record Group 208, Office of War Information, NC-148, Entry 18–20 A–E, Box 12. For further reading see John Conway, "The First Report about Auschwitz," Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 1 (1984): 133–152, and Rudolf Vrba and Alan Bestic, 44070: The Conspiracy of the Twentieth Century (Bellingham, Wash.: Star and Cross, 1989), originally published as I Cannot Forgive (New York: Grove Press, 1964).

Foreword

Two young Slovak Jews-whose names will not be disclosed for the time being in the interest of their own

safety-have been fortunate enough to escape after spending two years in the concentration camps of Birkenau, Auschwitz and Lublin-Majdanek, where they had been deported in 1942 from Slovakia.

One of them was sent on April 13, 1942 from the assembly camp of Sered directly to Auschwitz and then to Birkenau, while the other was sent from the camp of Novaky to Lublin on June 14, 1942 and, after a short stay there, transferred to Auschwitz, and later, to Birkenau.

The following report does not contain everything these two men experienced during their captivity, but only what one or both together underwent, heard, or experienced at first hand. No individual impressions or judgments are recorded and nothing passed on from hearsay.

The report starts with the story of the young Jew who was removed from Sered. The account of his experiences in Birkenau begins as the time the second Jew arrived there and is, therefore, based on the statements of both. Then follows the individual narrative of the second Jew who was sent from Novaky to Lublin and from there to Auschwitz.

The declarations tally with all the trustworthy yet fragmentary reports hitherto received, and the dates given with regard to transports to various camps agree with the official records. These statements can, therefore, be considered as entirely credible.

I. Auschwitz and Birkenau

On the 13th April, 1942 our group, consisting of 1,000 men, was loaded into railroad cars at the assembly camp of Sered. The doors were shut so that nothing would reveal the direction of the journey, and when they were opened after a long while we realized that we had crossed the Slovak frontier and were in Zwardon. The train had until then been guarded by Hlinka men, but was now taken over by SS guards. After a few of the cars had been uncoupled from our convoy, we continued on our way arriving at night at Auschwitz, where we stopped on a sidetrack....

Upon arrival we were placed in rows of five and counted. There were 643 of us. After a walk of about 20 minutes with our heavy packs (we had left Slovakia well equipped), we reached the concentration camp of Auschwitz.

We were at once led into a huge barrack where on the one side we had to deposit all our luggage and on the other side completely undress, leaving our clothes and valuables behind. Naked, we then proceeded to an adjoining barrack where our heads and bodies were shaved and disinfected with lysol. At the exit every man was given a number which began with 28,600 in consecutive order. With this number in hand we were then herded to a third barrack where the so-called registration took place. This consisted of tattooing the numbers we had received in the second barrack on the left side of our chests. The extreme brutality with which this was effected made many of us faint. The

particulars of our identity were also recorded. Then we were led in groups of a hundred into a cellar, and later to a barrack where we were issued striped prisoners' clothes and wooden clogs. This lasted until 10 A.M. In the afternoon our prisoners' outfits were taken away from us again and replaced by the ragged and dirty remains of Russian uniforms. Thus equipped we were marched off to Birkenau.

Auschwitz is a concentration camp for political prisoners under so-called "protective custody." At the time of my arrival, that is in April of 1942, there were about 15,000 prisoners in the camp, the majority of whom were Poles, Germans, and civilian Russians under protective custody. A small number of prisoners came under the categories of criminals and "work-shirkers."

Auschwitz camp headquarters controls at the same time the work-camp of Birkenau as well as the farm labor camp of Harmense. All the prisoners arrive first at Auschwitz where they are provided with prisoner's immatriculation numbers and then are either kept there, sent to Birkenau or, in very small numbers, to Harmense. The prisoners received consecutive numbers upon arrival. Every number is only used once so that the last number always corresponds to the number of prisoners actually in the camp. At the time of our escape, that is to say at the beginning of April, 1944, the number had risen up to 180,000....

All the prisoners, irrespective of category or nationality, are treated the same. However, to facilitate identification, they are distinguished by various coloured triangles sewed on the clothing on the left breast under the immatriculation number. The first letter indicates the nationality of the prisoner. This letter (for instance "P" for Poles) appears in the middle of the triangle. The coloured triangles have the following meaning:

The Jewish prisoners differ from the Aryan prisoners in that their triangle (which in the majority of the cases is red) is turned into a David's star by adding yellow points.

Within the enclosure of the camp of Auschwitz there are several factories: a war production plant, Deutscher Aufrüstungswerk (DAW), a factory belonging to the Krupp works and one to the Siemens concern. Outside the boundary of the camp is a tremendous plant covering several square kilometers named "Buna." The prisoners work in all the aforementioned factories.

The prisoners' actual living quarters, if such a term may at all be used, inside the camp proper cover an area of approximately 500 by 300 meters surrounded by a double row of concrete posts about 3 meters high which are connected (both inside and outside) with one another by a dense netting of high-tension wires fixed into the posts by insulators. Between these two rows of posts, at intervals of 150 meters, there are 5 meters high watchtowers, equipped with machine guns and searchlights. In front of the inner high-tension circle there is further an ordinary wire fence. Merely touching this is answered by a stream of bullets from the watchtowers. This system is called "the small or inner chain of sentry posts." The camp itself is composed of three rows of houses. Between the first and second row is the camp street, and between the second and third there used to be a wall. . . . The camp entry road cuts across the row of houses, while over the entrance gate, which is of course always heavily guarded, stands the ironic inscription: "Works brings freedom."

At a radius of some 2,000 meters the whole camp is encircled by a second line called "the big or outer chain of sentry posts" also with watchtowers every 150 meters.... Escape through these sentry posts-and many attempts have been made is practically impossible. Getting through the inner circle of posts at night is completely impossible, and the towers of the outer chain are so close to one another (one every 150 meters, i.e. giving each tower a sector with a 75-meter radius to watch) that approaching unnoticed is out of the question. The guards shoot without warning. The garrison of the outer chain is withdrawn at twilight, but only after it has been ascertained that all the prisoners are within the inner circle. If the roll call reveals that a prisoner is missing, sirens immediately sound the alarm....

The men in the outer chain remain in their towers on the lookout, the inner chain is manned, and a systematic search is begun by hundreds of SS guards and bloodhounds. The siren brings the whole surrounding countryside to a state of alarm, so that if by miracle the escapee has been successful in getting through the outer chain he is nearly certain to be caught by one of the numerous German police and SS patrols. The escapee is furthermore handicapped by his clean-shaven head, his striped prisoners's outfit or red patches sewn on his clothing, and the passiveness of the thoroughly intimidated inhabitants. The mere fact of neglecting to give information on the whereabouts of a prisoner, not to speak of extending help, is punished by death. Provided that the prisoner has not been caught sooner, the garrison of the outer chain of sentry posts remains on the watch for three days and nights after which delay it is presumed that the escapee has succeeded in breaking through the double circle. The following night the outer guard is withdrawn. If the escapee is caught alive, he is hanged in the presence of the whole camp; but if he is found dead, his