Witness to Genocide: Kurt Gerstein's Report on Belzec

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:05][music] >> Considering that the Operation Reinhard death camps had relatively few survivors, especially when compared with the behemoth of annihilation that was Auschwitz, it is truly remarkable of just how much one can piece together the timelines of Sobibor and Treblinka, primarily through the convergence of survivor testimony.

[00:00:30]Of course, it is not just survivors that historians rely upon for piecing together the puzzles of Sobibor and Treblinka, as both camps have fairly ample perpetrator testimony also. But the most notable example probably being that of SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Stangl.

[00:00:48]Bełżec, however, pales in comparison to both Sobibor and Treblinka in terms of its number of survivors, and consequently number of perpetrator accounts.

[00:00:59]Although the cumulative reasoning is more complicated, the primary factor in why Sobibor and Treblinka have a greater abundance of primary sources is because both camps had successful revolts.

[00:01:11]Ergo, more people survived, resulting in a far greater number of first-hand accounts available to historians.

[00:01:19]In some cases, like that of Thomas Toivi Blatt, who survived Sobibor, they even directly aided historians by giving interviews or helping to produce documentaries, films, Escape from Sobibor comes to mind, as well as giving talks at schools and universities, or by writing autobiographies.

[00:01:39]Both Sobibor and Treblinka had a handful of Blatt-esque survivors, and while I haven't got the time to list all of them, their countless recollections, interviews, and work with historians have been nothing short of invaluable.

[00:01:54]Alas for Bełżec, the camp had only two notable survivors.

[00:01:59]Although there is evidence that others escaped the camp, our two primary survivor accounts come from Chaim Herszman and Rudolf Reder.

[00:02:08]In particular, Reder's memoirs, simply titled Belzec, are rather detailed and have been exceptionally useful for historians.

[00:02:17]But, regardless of how useful it is, Reder's account is only from his perspective and only takes into account his time and at the camp from mid-August 1942.

[00:02:31]Hence, the lack of survivor testimony has necessitated the importance of bystander, collaborator, and perpetrator accounts to a far greater extent than considering Belzec, with probably the most notorious of these being the Gerstein report.

[00:02:47]Now, whether or not one considers Kurt Gerstein to be a bystander, collaborator, or perpetrator is really at their own moral discretion and is not the focus of this documentary, which is a deep dive into Belzec, not Gerstein.

[00:03:03]One thing I would say about Gerstein, however, is that he was distinctly rebellious as far as SS men go and had an absolutely fascinating and rather tragic life story.

[00:03:14]But, I digress, as for the purposes of this documentary, we are solely interested in the content of Gerstein's report and the ramifications of his visit to Belzec.

[00:03:25]Kurt Gerstein initially joined the NSDAP, or Nazi Party, in 1933 and in that same year joined Ernst Röhm's SA, or Sturmabteilung.

[00:03:37]Like lots of Christians, Gerstein was initially drawn to Nazism's emphasis on traditional family values and their rejection of the Weimar era's degeneracy.

[00:03:47]Although Hitler had a strained relationship with organized religion, he did make attempts to market Nazism in the late 1920s as a Christian movement, despite his strong beliefs in social Darwinism.

[00:04:00]Although Gerstein initially had few qualms with Nazism, his fundamental disagreements with the regime became more pronounced in 1936.

[00:04:08]With Robert Kuwalek claiming that it was Nazism's anti-Christian policies that pushed Gerstein to be more vocal in his opposition to the regime.

[00:04:16]Shortly after such criticisms, he was exiled from the party in 1936, ending his career as a mining engineer, before he was later arrested in 1938.

[00:04:27]After Gerstein's father interceded for him, Kurt was released and later rejoined the NSDAP, initially joining the Wehrmacht in the October of 1939, before being reassigned to the Luftwaffe in July 1940, before eventually applying to a join the Waffen SS in the December of 1940.

[00:04:47]Exactly why Gerstein wished to serve in the Waffen SS, considering that he disagreed so strongly with the Nazi ideological policy at the time, is interesting to consider.

[00:04:57]According to both Robert Kuwalek and Saul Friedlander, Gerstein joined the Waffen SS to infiltrate the organization.

[00:05:05]Something that which Gerstein himself claimed he did to learn more of what was happening with Action T4.

[00:05:12]You see, in February 1941, Gerstein received news that his sister-in-law, Berta Ebeling, had died in a psychiatric clinic of {quote} natural causes, {unquote}.

[00:05:24]During an interview with French interrogators in the June of 1945, Gerstein claimed that he learned of the truth of Action T4 prior to his sister-in-law's death.

[00:05:34]As the Protestant bishop of Stuttgart had informed Gerstein that disabled people were being murdered at the four hospitals of Grafeneck and Hadamar.

[00:05:42]Although Gerstein rationalized that his sister-in-law, who had been interned for mental illness had not died of quote natural causes unquote at Hadamar but had instead been murdered there.

[00:05:55]Therefore, Gerstein joined the Waffen SS against the will of lots of Christians in his community in order to uncover and record the truth about Action T4.

[00:06:05]Gerstein himself record this motivation at the beginning of his infamous report.

[00:06:11]Quote, what I heard at the beginning of the killing of the mentally ill persons of Grafeneck, Hadamar and other sites, I decided to make every effort to look into the matter of these ovens and chambers in order to learn what had happened there.

[00:06:24]This was all the more relevant as my sister-in-law by marriage, Bertha Ebeling, was killed at Hadamar.

[00:06:31]With two references from Gestapo officers who had worked on my case, I easily succeeded in joining the SS.

[00:06:38]Unquote.

[00:06:40]However, it was not Action T4 that Gerstein would find himself in the midst of but something far more prolific and arguably more radical.

[00:06:50]Operation Reinhard.

[00:06:54]Upon his joining of the Waffen SS, Gerstein was assigned to a medical unit with his primary function initially being the maintenance of the water filtration equipment for the troops guarding the POW and concentration camps across the Reich.

[00:07:08]Indeed, Gerstein himself record this assignment during his report.

[00:07:13]Quote, I completed the training in a course together with 40 physicians.

[00:07:18]I constructed mobile and stationary disinfection facilities for the troops, for POW camps and concentration camps.

[00:07:25]With this, I had great success and was from then on undeservedly considered as a kind of technical genius.

[00:07:32]Indeed, it turned out well at least to some extent by getting the horrible epidemic of typhus in 1941 in the camps under control. Unquote.

[00:07:42]Note that when Gerstein says disinfection here, it is not a euphemism, but genuine.

[00:07:49]Typhus was a major issue during the early 1940s, especially in Eastern Europe.

[00:07:55]Anything to prevent its spread would have been greatly appreciated by the SS, hence they held Gerstein in high esteem.

[00:08:03]In particular, uh Gerstein had made great use of Zyklon B, also known as Prussic acid or hydrogen cyanide, during his disinfection work.

[00:08:13]Given a success with Zyklon B, Gerstein was promoted to SS Obersturmführer and became head of the health engineering department in the January of 1942, roughly 2 months prior to Operation Reinhard's zero hour.

[00:08:28]Gerstein himself then recalled the timeline from his promotion to the origins of the August 1942 visit.

[00:08:36]Quote, "In January 1942, I became head of the Department of Health Engineering.

[00:08:41]In this function, I took over the whole technical disinfection service, including disinfection with highly toxic gases.

[00:08:49]In this capacity, I was visited on June the 8th, 1942, by the then unknown SS Sturmbannführer Günther.

[00:08:58]Günther arrived in civilian clothing.

[00:09:01]He gave me the order to immediately obtain 100 kg of Prussic acid for a very secret Reich order and drive with it by car to an undisclosed location, which would only be known by the driver.

[00:09:15]Then, some weeks later, we drove to Prague.

[00:09:18]I understood little of the nature of the order, but accepted it because there was an accidental opportunity to do something which I had longed for for a long time, to be able to view inside these places.

[00:09:31]In addition, I was recognized as an authority and considered so competent as an expert on Prussic acid that in every case it would have been very easy for me to declare on some pretext that the prussic acid was unsuitable because of decomposition or the like in order to prevent its use for the real killing purpose.

[00:09:50]Together with us we traveled, merely by chance, Professor Fannenstiel, SS Obersturmbannführer, Professor of Hygienics at the University of Marburg." Unquote.

[00:10:03]Gerstein's mentioning of SS Sturmbannführer Günther [clears throat] is rather interesting as the aforementioned Fannenstiel was adamant that Günther was not present during their tour of Belzec.

[00:10:14]However, one could interpret Gerstein's words here as not necessarily including Günther during his visit, but only as the messenger to instigate the affair.

[00:10:25]When Gerstein claimed that "we drove to Prague", he could have referred to the driver and not Günther.

[00:10:32]Although it is perfectly possible that Günther did accompany them, and because he was, as Gerstein put it, "then unknown", upon his presence given that he was a relatively unknown entity at the time.

[00:10:48]Gerstein then continued with his report.

[00:10:51]Quote, "Then we drove by car to Lublin where the SS Gruppenführer Globocnik awaited us.

[00:10:58]In the factory in Kolin, I had intentionally intimated that the acid was destined for the killing of human beings.

[00:11:05]A man appeared in the afternoon who was very interested in the vehicle and, after being noticed, promptly fled back at breakneck tempo.

[00:11:14]Globocnik said, "This whole affair is one of the most secret things of all in this time.

[00:11:19]One could say the most secret of all.

[00:11:22]Whoever talks about it will be shot on the spot.

[00:11:26]Only yesterday two blabbers were shot."

[00:11:28]Unquote.

[00:11:31]It is certainly true that Aktion Reinhardt was one of the most secretive operations in Nazi Germany's history and for good reason given its depravity.

[00:11:41]However, as will be evidenced shortly, Globocnik was a bit of a bullshitter.

[00:11:47]Not to make light of such an appalling situation, but from what I read about Globocnik over the years, he was evidently someone who really enjoyed the high stakes secrecy and status that came along with his role. And he thoroughly enjoyed informing others as to the importance of his work.

[00:12:03]Indeed, if one skips a little ahead in the Gerstein report, they find this outlandish claim from Globocnik to Gerstein while the former was discussing Gerstein's assignment to Belzec.

[00:12:13]Quote, "The day before yesterday, the Führer and Himmler were here.

[00:12:19]On their order, I have to personally take you there.

[00:12:22]I am not to issue written certificates or admittance cards to anybody."

[00:12:27]Unquote.

[00:12:30]To immediately address the elephant in the room, Globocnik's claim that Hitler would have been present in Lublin in mid-August 1942 is highly unlikely.

[00:12:40]Primarily for two reasons.

[00:12:43]Firstly, Globocnik's implicit notion that Hitler would have concerned himself with the minutiae of Operation Reinhardt is laughable given that the Führer showed little to no interest in micromanagement outside of military affairs during the course of the war.

[00:12:58]Simply put, the final solution and Operation Reinhardt more specifically were delegated to Himmler and were not the direct concerns of the Führer.

[00:13:08]Secondly, and even more pressingly, was that Hitler was preoccupied with Operation Blue, the Wehrmacht's push towards the Caucasus during the middle of August 1942.

[00:13:19]The notion that he might have left his Ukraine headquarters at Wehrwolf to make a quick trip to Lublin to discuss Operation Reinhardt during a major crux in the war is rather ridiculous when one thinks about it.

[00:13:32]I'll go Globocnik is almost certainly lying here, presumably as a means to show off to Gerstein as to just how important he is, as well as to emphasize the secrecy of Gerstein's mission.

[00:13:44]By mentioning Hitler and Himmler's presence, Globocnik was trying to intimidate Gerstein, presumably in an attempt to ensure his silence following his visits to Belzec and Treblinka.

[00:13:55]Evidently, however, Globocnik's scare tactics didn't work as Gerstein not only spoke of Action Reinhard to others in the Reich, but also to the Allies.

[00:14:05]The ultimate security breach.

[00:14:08]So, while it was almost certainly a falsehood that Hitler visited Lublin in mid-August 1942, the fact of whether or not Himmler visited a day or two prior to Gerstein is debatable.

[00:14:20]As I discussed in greater detail in my documentary on Himmler's tours of the Nazi death camps, link in the video description, it is possible that the Reichsführer SS visited the camp in mid-August 1942 as part of his inspection of the Lvov Ghetto.

[00:14:36]I'll go Globocnik's reference to Himmler having visited, {quote} the day before yesterday, {end quote} is actually entirely plausible and far more likely than his claim that Hitler had visited.

[00:14:49]Now, whether or not Himmler did or didn't visit does not affect the actuality of Gerstein's visit, which started with a briefing from Globocnik in Lublin on the details of Operation Reinhard.

[00:15:02]Gerstein recalled this in his report.

[00:15:05]{quote} We are running three facilities, namely number one Belzec, at the country road and railway line from Lublin to Lemberg at the demarcation line with Russia. Maximum output, 15,000 persons daily.

[00:15:22]Number two, Treblinka, 120 km northeast of Warsaw, maximum output, 25,000 persons daily.

[00:15:32]Number three, Sobibor, also in Poland.

[00:15:37]I don't exactly know where.

[00:15:39]Maximum output, 20,000 persons daily.

[00:15:43]Number four, then in preparation, Majdanek in Lublin.

[00:15:48]Unquote.

[00:15:51]Gerstein's summation of the Aktion Reinhardt facilities, while accurate in naming and location, was inaccurate on maximum killing capacities.

[00:16:00]Yitzhak Arad, among other historians, have convincingly argued that Gerstein's claim here is flawed, primarily because the SS Obersturmführer made two false assumptions.

[00:16:13]Assumption number one, Gerstein assumed that Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka's gas chambers were operating on a 24-hour basis to allow for maximum killing capacity.

[00:16:25]However, this is false, as we know that the Aktion Reinhardt facilities stopped admitting victims from the late evenings, and only started up again the following morning.

[00:16:36]Assumption number two, Gerstein's model assumes a seamless, rapid processing that is maintained at an unrealistically high rate.

[00:16:46]Although Belzec and Treblinka certainly had very busy days, the notion that each transport could be processed so quickly is unrealistic.

[00:16:55]Depending upon where the transport originated from, how many people were on it, and whether or not the chambers were faulty at all, would all impact the average processing time of a transport.

[00:17:06]But, I digress, and Gerstein continued his account of the Aktion Reinhardt facilities with his explanation for the original impetus behind his visit.

[00:17:16]Quote, "Globocnik consulted me alone and said the following, 'It is your task in particular to disinfect the extensive amounts of textiles.' Unquote.

[00:17:27]Gerstein then continued detailing what actually transpired after his visits to the camps in regards to disinfection.

[00:17:35]Quote, 'Thereafter I discussed with the most efficient companies the possibility of disinfecting such amounts of textiles.

[00:17:42]It consisted of an accumulated stock of approximately 40 million kilograms, 60 complete freight trains, in the existing laundries and disinfection facilities.

[00:17:53]However, it was absolutely impossible to place such large orders.

[00:17:58]I used all these negotiations to make known in a skillful way, or at least to intimate, the fact of the killing of the Jews.

[00:18:06]In the end, it was sufficient for Globocnik that everything was sprinkled with a bit of Deternolin so that it at least smelled of disinfection.

[00:18:15]That was then carried out.' Unquote.

[00:18:19]Like Fan and Schaer alluded to in his 1945 testimony, the major impetus behind their trip to Lublin and Belzec was the issue of disinfecting the stolen apparel from the victims of the extermination camps, with the Zyklon B versus Exhaustion debate being seemingly more of an afterthought.

[00:18:38]Nevertheless, Gerstein was expected in his role as Reich expert on Zyklon B to give his opinion to Globocnik after first witnessing Wirth's exhaustion method as to whether or not Hess's murder crystals would be a necessary implementation in the Reinhardt camps.

[00:18:55]Ergo, on August the 18th, 1942, Gerstein, accompanied by Fan and Schaer, made his fateful visit to Belzec.

[00:19:06]Gerstein recalled his arrival into Belzec as follows.

[00:19:10]Quote, 'The next day we drove to Belzec.

[00:19:13]A small special station had been created for this purpose at a hill hard north of the road Lublin to Lemberg in the left angle of the demarcation line.

[00:19:22]South of the road, some houses with the inscription Sonderkommando Belzec der Waffen SS were present.

[00:19:29]That day, I didn't see any corpses. Just the smell of the whole region was stinking to high heaven in the hot August, and millions of flies were everywhere.

[00:19:39]Near to the small double-track station was a large barrack, the so-called cloakroom with a large counter for valuables.

[00:19:47]Then followed the barber's room with approximately 100 chairs.

[00:19:51]Then, an alley in the open air below birches fenced in to the right and left by double barbed wire with the inscription to the inhalation and bathrooms.

[00:20:02]In front of us is a sort of bathhouse with geraniums, then a small staircase, and then to the right and left three rooms each, each 5 by 5 m, 1.9 m high, with wooden doors like garages.

[00:20:15]On the roof, a clever little joke, the Star of David.

[00:20:19]In front of the building, an inscription, the Hackenholt Foundation. Unquote.

[00:20:26]Much like both of Finkelstein's accounts, Gerstein affirms that they did not witness a gassing in Belzec on the day of their arrival, just likely August the 18th, 1942, but rather the day after, on August the 19th, 1942.

[00:20:41]Gerstein and Finkelstein's convergence on this point is interesting, as it implies that both men stayed the night in the camp, likely implying that they arrived in the late afternoon or early evening of August the 18th.

[00:20:54]Furthermore, Gerstein's description of there being exactly six gas chambers aligns with both Finkelstein and Reder's account of Belzec's extermination area, as does his allusion to the emphasis of the word inhalation on the sign directing the victims to the gas chambers.

[00:21:11]Then, the following morning of August the 19th, 1942, Kurt Gerstein recalled his infamous account of Belzec's extermination process.

[00:21:20]Quote, "The next morning, shortly before 7:00 a.m., someone announced to me, 'In 10 minutes, the first transport will come.'

[00:21:28]In fact, the first train arrived after some minutes from the direction of Lemberg or Lvov.

[00:21:35]45 wagons with 6,700 people, of which 1,450 were dead on arrival.

[00:21:43]Behind the barred hatches, children as well as men and women looked out, terribly pale and nervous, their eyes full of the fear of death.

[00:21:53]The train comes in.

[00:21:54]200 Ukrainians fling open the doors and whip the people out of the wagons with their leather whips.

[00:22:01]The shoes were carefully bound together because on the almost 25-m tall heap, nobody would have been able to find matching shoes again.

[00:22:10]Then, the women and girls to the barber, who, with two or three scissor strokes, cuts off all of their hair and collects it in potato sacks.

[00:22:19]"That is for special purposes in submarines, for seals or the like," the SS Unterscharführer, who was on duty there, says to me.

[00:22:27]Then, the procession starts moving.

[00:22:30]I myself stand together with Hauptmann Wirth on top of the ramp between the gas chambers.

[00:22:35]Mothers with babies at their breast come forward, hesitate, and then enter the death chambers.

[00:22:41]At the corner, a strong SS man stands who, with the voice like a pastor, says to the poor people, "There is not the least chance that something will happen to you.

[00:22:50]You must only take a deep breath in the chamber. This widens the lungs. The inhalation is necessary because of all the illnesses and epidemics."

[00:23:00]On the question of what would happen, he answered, "Yes, of course the men have to work, building houses and roads, but the women needn't work. Only if they wish, they can help in housekeeping or in the kitchen."

[00:23:13]For some of these poor people, this gave them a glimmer of hope, enough to go the few steps into the chambers without resistance.

[00:23:21]The majority are aware. The smell tells them of their fate.

[00:23:25]So, they climb the small staircase and they see everything.

[00:23:29]Mothers with little children at their breasts, little naked children, adults, men, women, all naked.

[00:23:37]They hesitate, but eventually enter the death chambers, pushed forward by those behind them or driven by the leather whips of the SS.

[00:23:45]The majority, without saying a word, a Jewess of about 40 years of age with flaming eyes calls down vengeance on the head of the murderers for the blood which is shed here. She gets five or six lashes with the riding crop in her face from Viert personally, and then author disappears into the chamber.

[00:24:03]Many people pray.

[00:24:05]I pray with them. I press myself in a corner and shout loudly to my God and their God.

[00:24:10]How gladly I would have entered the chamber together with them. How gladly I would have died the same death as them.

[00:24:16]Then, they would have found a uniformed SS man in their chambers.

[00:24:20]The case would have been understood and treated as an accident. One man quietly missing.

[00:24:26]Still, I am not allowed to do this.

[00:24:29]First, I must tell you what I'm experiencing here." Unquote.

[00:24:35]Gerstein's account here speaks for itself.

[00:24:38]Harrowing.

[00:24:42]He then continued, detailing exactly what happened next.

[00:24:46]Quote, "The chambers fill. 'Pack well,' Viert had ordered.

[00:24:50]The people stand on each other's feet, 7 to 800 on 25 square meters and 45 cubic meters.

[00:24:58]The SS physically squeeze them together as far as is possible.

[00:25:02]The doors close.

[00:25:04]At the same time, others are waiting outside in the open air, naked.

[00:25:08]Someone tells me, "The same in winter."

[00:25:11]"Yes," I say, "but they would catch their deaths of cold."

[00:25:15]"Yes, exactly why they are here," says an SS man to me in his low German.

[00:25:20]Now I finally understand the whole installation is called the Hackenholt Foundation.

[00:25:25]Hackenholt is the driver of the diesel engine, a little technician, and also the builder of the facility.

[00:25:32]The people are brought to death with the diesel exhaust fumes.

[00:25:35]But the diesel doesn't work.

[00:25:38]Hopfmann Virt comes.

[00:25:39]One can see that he feels embarrassed that this happened today when I am here.

[00:25:44]That's right. I see everything.

[00:25:47]And I wait.

[00:25:48]My stopwatch honestly registered everything.

[00:25:52]15 minutes, 70 minutes. The diesel doesn't start.

[00:25:56]The people are waiting inside the gas chambers in vain.

[00:26:00]One can hear them sobbing, crying.

[00:26:03]Hopfmann Virt hits the Ukrainian who is helping Unterscharführer Hackenholt 12, maybe 13 times in the face.

[00:26:10]After 2 hours and 49 minutes, the stopwatch registered everything. The diesel starts.

[00:26:17]Until this moment, the people have lived inside these four chambers.

[00:26:21]4 * 750 people in 4 * 45 cubic meters.

[00:26:27]Again, 25 minutes pass. Right, many are dead now.

[00:26:32]One can see through the small window in which the electric light illuminates the chambers for a minute.

[00:26:37]After 28 minutes, only a few are still alive.

[00:26:40]Finally, after 32 minutes, everyone is dead. Unquote.

[00:26:47]Once again, a particularly detailed and deeply uncomfortable account of Belzec's extermination process is presented to us here by Gerstein.

[00:26:56]In this part of the report just narrated, Gerstein alludes to a particularly cruel aspect of Operation Reinhard's killing process.

[00:27:02]Those who were forced to wait outside the gas chambers for their turn.

[00:27:07]Indeed, it was this part of Aktion Reinhard that I found the most uncomfortable when first learning about it in school and was for me easily the most horrifying part of Escape from Sobibor which made a deep impression upon as a rather brash teenager.

[00:27:23]This practice that people were often forced to wait outside the gas chambers, quite literally staring death in the face as they heard their kin suffer a prolonged death that they would shortly endure was like something from Dante's Inferno.

[00:27:37]In my personal opinion, out of all of the horrors of the Second World War, this specific aspect of the Reinhard camps is among the worst.

[00:27:45]Especially when one considers that quite often children and mothers with their babies were subject to this torment.

[00:27:53]Other than Gerstein's noting of this practice at Belzec, it was also remarked upon by perpetrators to be the cases at Sobibor and Treblinka, too.

[00:28:01]It is primarily for this reason that the men were almost always gassed first as they would be far more dangerous in a situation where they felt that they had nothing to lose, especially younger men without children or family.

[00:28:15]Abhorrence aside, this particular section of the Gerstein report is also intriguing for its potential temporal convergence with another potential witness to this specific gassing on August the 19th, 1942.

[00:28:28]And no, I'm not talking about Fanensteil.

[00:28:32]Rather, historians like Michael Tregenza have theorized that it is possible that the gassing described by Kurt Gerstein on August the 19th, 1942 was the exact same one described by Rudolf Reder who had arrived in Belzec only two days prior on August the 17th, 1942.

[00:28:51]This potential convergence, which I find fascinating, is a serious possibility and would be a remarkable coincidence if it were the case.

[00:28:59]But, before I explore this theory, first consider Reder's account that likely alludes to this exact gassing.

[00:29:07]Quote, "We knew that the nicest house next to the railway station in Belzec was occupied by the commandant of the camp.

[00:29:14]He held the rank of Obersturmführer.

[00:29:17]No matter how hard I try, I cannot remember his name.

[00:29:21]It was short.

[00:29:22]He did not often come to the camp except on special occasions.

[00:29:27]He was tall and thick-set, over 40 years old with a real boorish air, a real bully, and a complete pig.

[00:29:35]One day, the death machine went out of order.

[00:29:38]When he was informed, he came on horseback and ordered an immediate repair.

[00:29:43]He did not allow the gas chambers to be open and let the people out.

[00:29:46]Let them asphyxiate slowly and die in agony for a few hours longer.

[00:29:51]He crouched beside the engine, yelling and shaking with fury.

[00:29:55]Although he seldom came to the camp, for the other SS men, he was a terror.

[00:29:59]He lived alone, attended by an asker who did all sorts of work and brought daily records from the camp. Unquote.

[00:30:08]What is crucial about Reder's account here, particularly in regards to its potential convergence with Gerstein, is who we interpret this Obersturmführer to be.

[00:30:18]Given [snorts] that Reder referred to the man as the camp commandant, he could only have been one of two men.

[00:30:23]Either Christian Wirth or his successor, Gottlieb Hering.

[00:30:28]Reder mentioned the SS rank of Obersturmführer, a title that both Wirth and Hering held at one point in time and both eventually surpassed.

[00:30:37]However, this rank is more likely to be Gottlieb Hering, who held the title of SS Obersturmführer until Himmler's promotion or some other Reinhardt camp SS in early 1943, by which point Reder had long escaped Belzec.

[00:30:53]Ergo, in the time that he was present in the camp, Hering would have always been an SS Obersturmführer.

[00:30:59]Christian Wirth, on the other hand, was an SS Hauptsturmführer during his time as overseer of the Aktion Reinhardt death camps, and it is not clear at which point during his period as commandant of Belzec that he was promoted to this rank.

[00:31:14]But it was presumably around the time of said promotion.

[00:31:18]Prior to his promotion to this role, however, he was also an SS Obersturmführer. But this would have only have been briefly, if at all, when considering the temporal parallel to Reder's time in the camp, given that Reder arrived on August the 17th.

[00:31:34]However, Reder's description of the man matches Wirth perfectly.

[00:31:40]He was indeed old, tall, and thick-set, and he seldom made personal visits to Belzec following the initial weeks of the camp's operation, only coming on {quote} special occasions, {unquote}, as Reder referred to here.

[00:31:54]Of course, Gerstein's visit was certainly a special occasion, hence the presence of Wirth.

[00:32:00]But Reder made absolutely no allusion to the presence of Gerstein or any special visitors, for that matter, during this recount.

[00:32:07]However, if this was the visit of Gerstein, then Reder might not even have realized that they were special guests, as he had only been in Belzec for a couple of days by this point, and possibly viewed them as just regular SS officers working in and around the camp.

[00:32:24]Reder's description of the man as a {quote} bully, {unquote}, and a {quote} pig, {unquote}, also aligns perfectly with Wirth, who was recorded regularly to beat and bully his own staff, as well as being crude and facetious about what he was participating in, which will only be further evidenced as we continue with the Gerstein report.

[00:32:44]Other than beating inmates, Wirth also used to beat his own staff, like Kurt Franz and Lorenz Hackenholt, as well as traffic keys like Edward Własiuk.

[00:32:55]Robin O'Neil specifically noted that Wirth used to bully one of the lower-ranking SS men at Belzec, a man named Heinrich Babel, who Wirth used to refer to as the idiot.

[00:33:07]Another strong point of convergence in Reder's account is how he worded his recollection of, quote, "One day the death machine broke down," unquote, implying that this was not a regular occurrence, thereby making the possible temporal overlap even more likely.

[00:33:24]Gerstein also referred in his account that, quote, "Hauptmann Wirth came," unquote, after he had described the engine breaking down, aligning nicely with Reder's description of the, quote, "Obersturmführer," unquote, coming down on his horse after the engine broke down.

[00:33:42]Of course, in Gerstein's account, Wirth was present the whole time, but only interfered with the engine when it failed to start.

[00:33:50]In Reder's, he made it sound like he came down by horse from outside the camp, but it is possible that Wirth was simply out of Reder's eye line prior to his intervention with the exhaust steam engine. Wirth could well have arrived at the camp by horse that morning also, hence why Reder refers to it as such.

[00:34:08]Furthermore, and these are the parts I find most compelling in support of this theory, was how Reder referred to the man to be frothing with anger and fury, and at how the doomed victims suffered a prolonged asphyxiation inside the gas chambers as the engine failed to start.

[00:34:23]Reder's reference to how the man, quote, "Crouched beside the engine, yelling and shaking with fury," unquote, aligns well with Gerstein's description of how Wirth was infuriated and embarrassed and began to beat Hackenholt's assistant, Edward Glasjuk.

[00:34:39]Losing one's temper, lashing out, and frothing were all hallmarks of Christian Wirth.

[00:34:46]As for the prolonged suffering parallel, Gerstein recorded that the Jews suffered for 2 hours and 49 minutes inside the gas chambers, while Reder referred to the victims suffering for, {quote} "a few hours longer", {unquote}. Once again, almost perfectly aligning with Gerstein's report.

[00:35:04]In my personal opinion, I do believe that both Kurt Gerstein and Rudolf Reder are describing the exact same gassing procedure here, which, if true, is a remarkable case of convergence.

[00:35:18]One could possibly claim that Reder was not referring to Wirth, given that he would not have been an SS-Obersturmführer at the time, and was instead referring to Gottlieb Hering.

[00:35:29]However, Reder's recollection of exact rankings and branches of the SS are not accurate, as he frequently referred to the SS as the, {quote} "Gestapo", {unquote}, in his recount. And I would wager that Reder either misheard or misconstrued Wirth's rank, or conflated it with another.

[00:35:48]Alternatively, one could say that even if it was Wirth, it needn't have been the exact same instance in which Gerstein was present.

[00:35:56]But, I find this unlikely.

[00:35:59]Firstly, Reder implies this instance was unusual, given that it was distinct and memorable enough for him to note upon.

[00:36:07]He also says, {quote} "one day", {unquote}, in his memoirs, which implicitly tells the reader that this was a distinct event.

[00:36:16]If it wasn't, then Reder would have likely said something like, "sometimes" or "on occasion", for instance.

[00:36:23]Secondly, and this is even more crucial to the point, was that the Wirth was seldom present in Belzec during the vast majority of Reder's time in the camp as he had been a relocated to Lublin shortly after Reder's arrival to fulfill his role as overseer of Aktion Reinhard.

[00:36:40]Sure, Wirth still visited Belzec from time to time, but his now sporadic presence further reduces the odds of this just being another instance of Wirth being present as the exhaust fume diesel engine broke.

[00:36:53]Finally, and most importantly, was that the rest of Reder's description is uncannily similar to the contents of Gerstein's.

[00:37:01]For me, there are too many glaring parallels in their descriptions for this to be a mere coincidence.

[00:37:07]Belzec wasn't open that long and Wirth was seldom in the camp for the vast majority of Reder's time in Belzec other than around the time of Gerstein's visit.

[00:37:17]Hence, I am almost certain that if Reder was referring to Wirth, which I believe that he was, then it was this exact incident to which he was referring.

[00:37:29]But, interesting as this theory is, I digress from the main topic at hand, the content of the Gerstein report.

[00:37:36]Hence, I will now proceed to comment upon the final part of his fateful report starting with his post-gassing description.

[00:37:45]Quote, "From the other side, men from the work command open the wooden doors.

[00:37:49]They had been promised, even Jews, freedom and some 1/1000 of all the valuables found for their terrible service.

[00:37:58]Like with salt pillars, the dead stand inside pressed together in the chambers.

[00:38:04]In any event, there was no space to fall or even to bend forward.

[00:38:09]Even in death, one can still tell the families.

[00:38:12]They still hold hands tensed in death so that one can barely tear them apart in order to empty the chamber for the next batch.

[00:38:20]The corpses are thrown out wet from sweat and urine, soiled by excrement, menstrual blood on their legs.

[00:38:28]Children's corpses fly through the air.

[00:38:30]There is no time.

[00:38:31]The riding crops of the Ukrainians lashed down on the work commands.

[00:38:35]Two dozen dentists open mouths with hooks and look for gold.

[00:38:39]Gold to the left, without gold to the right.

[00:38:43]Other dentists break gold teeth and crowns out of jaws with pliers and hammers." Unquote.

[00:38:49]Gerstein's reference to the dentist teams is unsurprising, given that they were commonplace at all of the action Reinhardt facilities.

[00:38:57]However, his reference to the notion that the Totenjuden were promised freedom, or that they would [clears throat] be given a thousandth share of the valuables, is odd.

[00:39:05]How could one possibly measure or a portion of thousands of the valuables, anyway? And why would this benefit the Jews?

[00:39:12]They couldn't trade or purchase anything inside Belzec, unless the SS were implicitly admitting to the presence of a Treblinka inmate black market.

[00:39:21]Furthermore, I would imagine that if this freedom lie was peddled to them, that hardly any of them would be foolish enough to fall for it, given that they'd experienced the forefront of a highly secretive genocide.

[00:39:34]Nevertheless, Gerstein then continued, "Quote, among all this, a Wirth was running around.

[00:39:41]He was in his element.

[00:39:42]Some workers searched the genitals and anuses of the corpse for gold, diamonds, and valuables.

[00:39:49]Wirth called me to him.

[00:39:51]'Lift this can full of gold teeth.

[00:39:53]That is only from yesterday and the day before yesterday.'

[00:39:57]In an incredibly vulgar and incorrect diction, he said to me, 'You won't believe what we find in gold and diamonds every day. But see for yourself.'

[00:40:06]The naked corpses are carried on wooden stretchers to the pits, only a few meters away, measuring 100 by 20 by 12 meters.

[00:40:14]After a few days, the corpses swelled up, and after a short time collapsed, so that one could throw a new layer of bodies upon them. Then, 10 cm of sand was spread over the pit, so that a few heads and arms still arose from it here and there.

[00:40:29]At such a place, I saw Jews climbing over the corpses and working.

[00:40:33]One told me that by mistake, those who had arrived dead had not been stripped.

[00:40:38]Of course, this had to be done later because of the valuables, which otherwise they would take with them into their graves.

[00:40:45]Neither in Belzec nor in Treblinka was any trouble taken over registering or counting the dead.

[00:40:51]The numbers were only estimates of a wagon's content." Unquote.

[00:40:57]Gerstein's description of Wirth being, "quote, in his element, unquote," is one of the most depraved and bizarre descriptions I've ever read about Christian Wirth, which is truly saying something.

[00:41:10]Wirth's childlike glee as he ran around the extermination area, showing off the plunder to a horrified Gerstein, is like something from a Stephen King or H.P.

[00:41:18]Lovecraft novel.

[00:41:20]Indeed, this was not the only time that Wirth was recorded to have treated the extermination area with such flippant vulgarity.

[00:41:28]As Stangl recorded, that while he was touring Treblinka with Wirth in September 1942, Wirth remarked upon the following while the two were in the extermination area.

[00:41:37]Quote, "I remember Wirth standing there, next to the pits full of blue-black corpses.

[00:41:43]It had nothing to do with humanity.

[00:41:46]It could not have.

[00:41:47]It was a mass, a mass of rotting flesh.

[00:41:51]Wirth said to me, 'What shall we do with all this garbage?'

[00:41:55]Unquote.

[00:41:57]Once the whole procedure was over, and Wirth was done showing Gerstein Belzec's extermination process, Gerstein was said to leave Belzec.

[00:42:06]However, before he left, Gerstein recalled the following.

[00:42:09]Quote, "Wirth asked me not to propose changes in Berlin regarding his facilities and to let it remain as it is, being well-established and well-tried."

[00:42:20]"I supervised the burial of the prussic acid because it had allegedly decomposed." Unquote.

[00:42:28]As has been discussed prior, Wirth was very proud of his invention of the exhaust stream gas chamber and did not want Globocnik interfering into what he presumably considered to be his area of expertise.

[00:42:41]It's rather ironic that he said this, too, given that the gassing that Gerstein witnessed was a massive disaster, as the victims suffered for hours due to a faulty engine.

[00:42:51]One must also take into consideration that Wirth did tinker with Zyklon B during the camp's experimental phase, which I discussed at quite a length earlier in the documentary.

[00:43:02]During such experiments, Wirth presumably rationalized that although Zyklon B crystals were more effective and faster, they were costly to produce, deliver, and store. Furthermore, if the supply routes of Zyklon B were cut off for whatever reason, Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka's gas chambers would be toothless.

[00:43:21]Hence, he settled on the more primitive, yet more accessible, exhaust fume method.

[00:43:27]Following Gerstein's tour of Belzec, he left for Treblinka, possibly with Wilhelm Pfannenstiel, to inspect the sanitary facilities and extermination procedures at that extermination camp.

[00:43:38]Once he was finished at Treblinka, traveled back to Berlin via Warsaw.

[00:43:42]On his way back to the German capital, Gerstein decided to disclose what he had seen at Belzec.

[00:43:48]On the Warsaw to Berlin night train, he met the secretary of the Swedish Embassy in Berlin, Baron Göran von Otter.

[00:43:57]Overcome with emotion, Gerstein recounted his visit to the Belzec camp and urged him to deliver this account to the Swedish government and the Allies.

[00:44:06]The Baron was shaken by Gerstein's words.

[00:44:09]Von Otter apparently then drafted a report that went unheeded.

[00:44:13]The Swedes never passed any of this information onto the allies before the end of the war.

[00:44:19]It is still unknown whether after the war this report was used in any way.

[00:44:24]Von Otter claimed that he had sent this document to Stockholm.

[00:44:28]But to this day no Swedish historian has been able to locate it.

[00:44:33]But Kurt Gerstein did not limit himself to only informing Swedish diplomats.

[00:44:39]In Berlin he attempted to make contact with various institutions and individuals.

[00:44:44]He tried to attract the attention of a Swiss delegation and seeking spiritual guidance wished to contact Otto Dibelius, the Protestant Bishop of Berlin.

[00:44:55]However, the latter meeting never took place.

[00:44:58]Until the end of the war Gerstein's undertaking was met with no success and his reports were only disseminated after his tragic death on July the 25th, 1945 in the Cherche-Midi prison in Paris.

[00:45:13]Despite his seemingly noble intentions, the French viewed Gerstein as a {quote} possible war criminal, {unquote} given his rank and suspected involvement in the Holocaust.

[00:45:24]Ergo, on July the 20th, 1945 he was placed in solitary confinement pending a military tribunal.

[00:45:32]However, on July the 25th, 1945 Gerstein was found hanged in his cell with his death officially noted as a suicide.

[00:45:41]However, whether or not this was a genuine suicide or a homicide is still debated.

[00:45:49]Thanks for watching.

[00:45:51]I hope you found part seven of this series on the Belzec extermination camp to be both informative and interesting.

[00:45:58]If you missed out on parts one to six and would like to learn more, then simply find the link to the playlist in the video description.

[00:46:05]Also, please make sure to like and subscribe so that you don't miss out on the notification for part eight of this series.

[00:46:12]If you have any questions, please let me know in the comment section down below.

[00:46:17]Other than that, have a great day and I'll see you next time.