Rudolf Hoess, former commandant of the Oswiecim death camp, today testified at his trial before the highest Polish court that Heinrich Himmler, Gestapo chief, had ordered him to exterminate 6,000,000 to 7,000,000 Jews, but that he was unable to carry out this order because the crematory ovens could only reduce to ashes 10,000 persons a day. Hoess is charged with responsibility for the murder of 4,000,000, at least 75 percent of whom were Jews.
He stated that Oswiecim had been constructed specifically to destroy all the Jews in Europe and that plans for routing and handling millions of human being were drawn up by Adolph Eichmann, Himmler’s "expert" on Jewish affairs. He said Eichmann was the only man in the world who had exact figures on the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis.
Hoess reported that the gas chambers and ovens operated twenty-four hours a day until October, 1943, when, he said, Himmler ordered him to cease because negotiations were being carried on in Turkey and Switzerland with Jewish representatives. He declared that Himmler hoped to exchange Jews for arms to continue the war against the Allies.
Hoess’ testimony had a terrifying effect on the audience. Speaking calmly and quietly, the man who has been described as "the greatest mass murderer in history" recounted tales of burned bodies as though he was listing an inventory of merchandise in a shop.
When the prosecutor asked him whether he had a "bad conscience" concerning the murders, he replied: "Gestapo men have no human feelings; Gestapo men were trained at a special school in Dachau where all human feelings were stamped out of them. For showing pity to a prisoner, a Gestapo man was liquidated."
The only time he attempted to refute a charge against him was when the prosecutor declared that he would call two witnesses to prove that Jewish children were tossed into the ovens while still alive. This Hoess denied, insisting that they were all dead before being consigned to the flames.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
