MAJOR WALSH: I quote:
“During July 1944 Hungarian Jews were being liquidated at the rate of 12,000 daily; and as the crematoria could not deal with such numbers, many bodies were thrown into large pits and covered with quicklime.”
I offer in evidence Document 3311-PS, Exhibit USA-293. This is an official Polish Government Commission report on the investigation of German crimes in Poland. The document describes the concentration camp at Treblinka; and from Page 1, Paragraph 3 and 4, I read as follows:
“In March 1942 the Germans began to erect another camp, Treblinka B, in the neighborhood of Treblinka A, intended to become a place of torment for Jews.
“The erection of this camp was closely connected with the German plans aimed at a complete destruction of the Jewish population in Poland, which necessitated the creation of a machinery by means of which the Polish Jews could be killed in large numbers. Late in April 1942 erection was completed of the first chambers in which these general massacres were to be performed by means of steam. Somewhat later the erection of the real death building, which contains 10 death chambers, was finished. It was opened for wholesale murders early in autumn 1942.”
And on Page 3 of this report, beginning with the second paragraph, the Polish Commission describes graphically the procedure for the extermination within the camp:
“The average number of Jews dealt with at the camp in the summer of 1942 was about two railway transports daily, but there were days of much higher efficiency. From autumn 1942 this number was falling.
“After unloading in the siding, all victims were assembled in one place, where men were separated from women and children. In the first days of the existence of the camp the victims were made to believe that after a short stay in the camp, necessary for bathing and disinfection, they would be sent farther east for work. Explanations of this sort were given by SS men who assisted at the unloading of the transports, and further explanations could be read in notices stuck up on the walls of the barracks. But later, when more transports had to be dealt with, the Germans dropped all pretenses and only tried to accelerate the procedure.