Chelmno Extermination Camp
weber.ucsd.edu
"The number of people killed at Chelmno can not be calculated from reliable data or railway records as the camp authorities destroyed all the evidence." (*1)
"The furnaces were blown up by the camp authorities on April 7, 1943. Two new ones were, however, constructed in 1944, when the camp activities were resumed. The witnesses Zurawski and Srebrnik, and the captured gendarme Bruno Israel, who saw them in 1944, describe them as follows:
They were built deep in the ground and did not project above its surface; and were shaped like inverted cones with rectangular bases. At the top on the ground level the furnaces measured 6 x 10 m (2O x 33 ft.) and they were 4 m (13 ft.) deep. At the bottom by the ash-pit they measured 1.5 x 2 m (95 x 6 in. ft.). The grates were made of rails. A channel to the ash-pit ensured the admittance of air and permitted the removal of ashes and bones. The sides of the furnace were made of firebrick and faced with cement. In the furnace were alternate layers of chopped wood and corpses: to facilitate combustion, space was left between the corpses. The furnace could hold 100 corpses at a time, but as they burned down, fresh ones were added from above.The ashes and remains of bones were removed from the ash-pit, ground in mortars, and, at first, thrown into especially dug ditches; but later, from 1943 onwards, bones and ashes were secretly carted to Zawadki at night, and there thrown into the river."
(*1) This is light of the Holocaust claimed by some to be the most carefully documented atrocity in human history. The new ones were built close to the end of the war. We must assume that the first apparatus was not as efficient as the second.
The apparatus described seems laborious and not conducive to mass execution. Ever try burning a mass that is comprised of 65% water? It is a slow process.
Add to that that all the ashes would need to cool and that evidence as well was washed down the river. In other words, there is no evidence and that leaves openings for embellishment.
"The ashes and remains of bones were removed from the ash-pit, ground in mortars, and, at first, thrown into especially dug ditches; but later, from 1943 onwards, bones and ashes were secretly carted to Zawadki at night, and there thrown into the river."
Ground in mortars also?
"All the witnesses agree that the average number of persons brought to the camp was at least 1000 a day. There were times when the number was larger, but 1000 may be accepted as a reliable average - exclusive of those who were brought in cars. These latter were not a negligible proportion, coming as they did from numerous small towns."
All?
That in itself is suspect. When do witnesses all agree on the details?
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