Just a bit of deception from the Associated Press -- so what else is new? Here
is the deceptive statement:
QUOTE BEGIN
"The watchmen had no access to
the second or third zones," Danilchenko said, according to the transcript.
"Exclusively, Germans carried out the guard duty" in those areas.
QUOTE
END
But what Daliltschenko says in that newly-discovered protocol is that
Jews were in charge of Zone 3 which is where the gassing took place, and where
the bodies were burned.
Here is that entire protocol:
QUOTE
BEGIN
Notarized Translation
Protocol of Witness Interview
January
25, 1985 City of Lisakowsk
The deputy prosecutor of the district
Kustanajsk, Judicial Council W.A. Goldorf, interviewed the witness in the case
of Karl Frenzel, on request of the prosecution of the USSR and following the
request for assistance of the district court Hagen, in consideration of article
44-49, 147-151 STOP of the Republic of Kasachstan, in the building of the
prosecutor of the city of Lisakowsk:
Ignat Terentjewitsch Daniltschenko,
born in the year 1923 in the village of Gretschino, county of Zaritschanskij,
district Dnepropetrowsk, Ukrainian, citizen of the USSR, Middle School educated,
retiree, resident of the city of Lisakowsk, 1 Mikrorayon 21, apartment
15.
In accordance with the STOP of the SSR Kasachstan, I.T. Daniltschenko
has been advised that he can be requested to respond to questions relating to
various circumstances in this matter, and that he is obligated to respond in
truth, report all knowledge pertaining to the matter, and respond to the
question at hand. He was further reminded of his responsibilities in case of a
refusal to respond, and relative to false witness accounts, in accordance of
article 187 of the STGB of the SSR.
Page 2
Question:
Daniltschenko, you will be questioned in Russian. Will you require a translator
for this hearing?
Response: I speak Russian fluently and will therefore not
need a translator. I will respond in Russian.
Signed (-)I.T.
Daniltschenko
Start of the Hearing: 9:45 AM
I.T. Daniltschenko
response to the questions:
In the year 1942 I participated in battles against
the German conquerors at the peninsula of Kartschin, as a member of the soviet
army. I was wounded there in 1942 (Kontusion) and became a POW. I was brought to
the POW camp in the city of Rowno, where I was treated at the hospital. I spent
two or three months at the hospital. After my recovery, I was sent to the camp,
where I had to line up for duty at one point. Among the POW’s, about 150 or more
people were selected and taken by 4 or 5 large vehicles to a camp at the
outskirts of the city of Trawniki in Poland. We had to report to duty at the
camp and were told, that we would be trained for internal guard service. Were
further told that whoever did not want to participate in the training, should
step out of the line, but nobody did.
Page 3
We were trained for
three months in Trawniki. Among the prisoners who participated in the training
were many nationalities from the Soviet Union: Russian, Ukrainian, white
Russian, Kazhaks, etc. They had formed three or four groups of troops, each one
at 100 or less men. We were taught conversational German as well. We performed
guard duty in this camp as well. After the training was complete, 4 men,
Iwtschenko, Gontrscharow, Djatschenko, and myself, were sent to the polish city
of Libarto to guard the saw mill. Our supervisor was German, I do not know his
first and last name. The company employed free people, polish citizens. We
stayed at the saw mill all of the winter of 1942/43.
In the spring or
summer of 1943, I can’t remember exactly now, the four of us, that is
Gontscharow, Djatschenko, Iwtschenko, and myself, were brought to camp Sobibor,
which was located in the territory of Poland, in order to perform guard duty.
This was a death camp, in which Jews were killed, who had been brought there
from Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Czechoslovakia, western Ukraine, USSR,
basically from all over Europe. The camp was located in a large pine forest near
the train station, from which a track led into the camp. The camp area, as far
as I remember now, took up about 3 square km, so the length was about 800m,
Page 4
and the width about 400 metres. The camp was fenced in
with several rows of barbed wire, and the outer row had a height of about 3 m.
Along the fence on the outside there were guard towers, at which us guards had
to work guard duty. The camp comprised of three zones. The first zone, which had
all the guards, or the “service zone” this is where the guards lived in two
barracks. The Germans lived in a separate barrack, they were separated by groups
– those who worked guard duty with us on the towers, and those who serviced the
2nd and 3rd zone. We were about 100 – 120 men, and there were about 50 German
men. The 2nd zone was where the workers of the 2nd zone lived, and which housed
the so called “transit barracks” for the temporary stay of people who were to be
killed. The 3rd zone housed workers, only Jewish men, who serviced the 3rd zone.
This is where the gas chamber was, the so called “bath” in which people were
killed by means of engine exhausts. This 3rd zone also was used to burn the
corpses.
Question: Can you draw the plans of the entire camp with view to
the zones?
Response: Since I served guard duty at the towers and could see
the camp zones from above, I can draw the plan from memory (plan is
enclosed).
Page 5
Question: During which time did you work as a guard
in camp Sobibor?
Response: As I said earlier, they had sent the four of us to
Sobibor in approximate spring or summer 1943, I can’t exactly remember the
month.
And it was about late 1943 or beginning of 1944, I remember well, it
was winter and there was snow on the ground, when I was sent from this camp with
a group of guards, 50 men, to the city of Flossenburg, in the German territory,
in order to guard a concentration camp and airplane factory. I have spent less
than a year at camp Sobibor.
Question: What was the purpose of camp
Sobibor?
Response: Camp Sobibor was a death camp. It was used, to kill people
of Jewisch nationality. During my stay at this camp, nothing else happened,
outside of people being killed. I do not know if people of different
nationalities besides Jews, having been killed. I personally know that only Jews
have been killed there.
Quesiton: What was the process of delivery and
the destruction of the prisoners like? How often did the transports of victims
arrive? At what time was the number of such transports the highest, and when the
smallest, how many prisoners were killed daily?
Page 6
Response: The
prisoners were brought to camp Sobibor by train, in enclosed cargo rail cars and
also with automobiles. After I arrived at camp Sobibor, trains arrived regularly
with prisoners, about one or two within a 24 hour timeframe. There were cases
where up to three transports arrived. But there were also cases, in which there
were no prisoner transports during one or two day periods at all.
The
transports consisted of various numbers of rail cars, 20- 25, but also 5-6. Each
waggon held approximately 40-50 people. So I believe that within 24 hours about
1000 people arrived, and perhaps sometimes it was more or less than that.
In
addition, prisoners were brought in by automobile. There were also 5-6 vehicles
with prisoners within 24 hours, and there were cases in which there were only
2-3. Each vehicle brought in 20-25 prisoners, and all these victims were killed.
Toward the end of my stay in Sobibor the trains as well as automobile transports
with prisoners became fewer. Apparently the proximity of the approaching soviet
front had something to do with this.
There were two gates in zone one. One
was used to bring in the wagons with the prisoners, the other one for vehicles
with the prisoners. The rail cars were emptied via a ramp – a raised platform
next to the train track. During unloading of the people, there were only German
guards attending. Our guard troop was standing behind a wire in the first zone,
and watched, to ensure
Page 7
there was no panic and disorderly
conduct among the victims. The guards only had guns, and only received pistols
when they were scheduled for duty at the transit point. After the ramp, the
prisoners were lead through a small gate in the 2nd zone, where there was an
overhead cover. This is where the victims were “processed”, meaning belongings
were taken away, they were shaved, completely undressed, and then taken to the
3rd zone. If there were too many people with a single transport, a portion of
the victims were sent to a barrack “for further transit” into the second zone,
where they remained until their destruction. In the 3rd zone they forced the
naked people into the so called “bath”, which in reality was the gas chamber,
consisting of 6 chambers. Each chamber fit about 250 people. Then the doors of
the “bath” were closed hermetically, and people were killed by means of diesel
engine exhaust fumes.
From what I learned through reports of other guards,
there were apparently two diesel engines from soviet KW tanks used. Following
the destruction of the people, workers from the 3rd zone opened the gas chamber
doors, packed the corpses onto little carts, and transported them in the same
zone onto a ramp made of train tracks. That is where the corpses were burnt. The
time in which the corpses burned was visible if you had duty on the tower.
During the burning of the corpses one could see flames, and smell the burning
flesh. If the wind direction changed towards the tower during the
burning
Page 8
of the corpses it was difficult to breathe. Vehicles,
which brought in prisoners, also arrived at the camp. The difference was that
they were led through the gate in the first zone to the ramp.
The second
zone, where prisoners were “processed”, meaning their belongings were taken and
they were undressed prior to moving on to the gas chamber, also saw executions
by shooting those, who could not continue on by themselves. I must say that our
guards were not allowed entry into the 2nd and 3rd zone, because there were
exclusively Germans working there as guards.
Question:
How many
German SS soldiers were there in the camp? Do you remember any of
them?
Response: As I said earlier, there were about 50 German men in camp
Sobibor. Not only can I not remember their names, but I also did not know them
at all, we addressed them by rank only. It is true, I remember that our guard
troop was controlled by a German named Kurt. I remember this and know it only
because he was our immediate supervisor. I know, camp leader was a Germany in
the rank of a “Hauptsturmfuehrer” (Captain) I do not know his name either. I am
not aware who of the German had specific functions. We considered each German
“Gerr”, meaning Mister.
Page 9
I did know the camp leader, the
Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain), or better I have seen him. He was tall, good
looking, and about 40 years of age. I have never spoken to him during duty. Now
I would not recognize him.
Question: Have you known the German SS man
Karl Frenzel? If you have known him, what function did he have at the
camp?
Response: I do not recognize either the last name Frenzel, nor the
first name Karl. I never knew such a German. In zone one, us guardsmen lived in
separate barracks from the Germans, and they did not have any contact to us. We
lived apart and ate apart. I know that they usually used rubber bats during the
unloading of the trains. There was absolutely no disorder during the unloading.
I don’t know what happened once the prisoners were moved to zone 2, since the
guard troops, which I belonged to, had no access to this zone. I learned about
the process during the delivery of prisoners and their destruction – as I
reported earlier in my interview – because I saw it while serving guard duty on
the towers , and was able to see the camp zones from above or while I was on
duty behind the ramp zones during unloading of the people. I did not witness
firing squad execution of prisoners who could no longer move by themselves,
Page 10
because the “hospital” where the shootings took place, was
not visible from the towers. Other guards did talk about the shootings. One
could assume when these executions happened, because while I was on guard duty
on the towers I saw how workers from the 3rd zone transported corpses on small
carriers from the second zone and stacked them onto the piles for burning. I
don’t know exactly what the Germans from the guard troop and also from the
administration of the 2nd and 3rd zone did in detail.
Question: Who else
in the German group, besides the camp leader, the Hauptsturmfuehrer (Captain),
and your immediate supervisor Kurt, had any functions at the
camp?
Response: the German themselves were split amongst them. Some
participated in the unloading of the prisoners, others serviced the 2nd and 3rd
zones. I don’t know which of them had what functions.
Question: Who of
the Germans particularly mistreated the prisoners, killed them?
Response:
Since I had no access to the 2nd and 3rd zone, I can not say who exactly
mistreated the prisoners and killed them.
Question: What did they do at the
camp with those who could no longer work and were sick?
Page
11
Response: As camp Sobibor, this factory of mass destruction of people, was
used to kill healthy people, the more they also killed sick and those who could
no longer work. If a person would arrive as a prisoner in this camp, he would
not leave there alive.
Question: Tell us Daniltschenko, what do you know
about the riot of the prisoners at camp Sobibor?
Response: I said before
already, they moved 50 of us late 1943 or beginning of 1944 from camp Sobibor to
Flossenburg, which was before the riot. Therefore I do not know anything about
it.
Question: Tell us, what do you know about the firing squad execution
of the “Waldkommando” (forest command team) and the dutch?
Response: I do not
know anything about this activity.
Question: Could you and would you like
to travel into the city of Hagen, in western Germany, in order to make a
statement before the district court?
Response: My health has lately
deteriorated. In February 1984 I had a stroke, after which I often need medical
assistance. Based on my health I am now considered disabled stage II. Therefore
it will be difficult for me to do such a trip.
Page 12
If this would
be considered absolutely necessary, I would decide for such a trip.
End
of the interview: 4:35 PM
The interview was performed with rest
periods.
I have read the protocol in person. To the best of my knowledge
the statement has been recorded correctly using my words. I have nothing to
correct or to add.
Signature of witness: (-) I.T.
Daniltschenko
Signatures: Deputy Prosecutor for the district Kustanajsk,
W.A. Waldorf, Judicial Council
Original is notarized: Deputy Lead of the
Administration P.I. Rjachowskica
QUOTE END