KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (146 page)

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Authors: Nikolaus Wachsmann

BOOK: KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps

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57
. For the May date, see Pressac,
Krematorien
, 49. This seems the most plausible dating, given the broader historical context. By contrast, many historians favor an earlier date, March 20, 1942, for the first
gassing in bunker 1, relying on the work of Danuta Czech. However, the two sources used by Czech (
Kalendarium
, 186–87) do not support her conclusions, a concern also raised by Schulte (“Vernichtungslager,” 64, n. 121). The first of Czech’s sources, the so-called memoirs of Rudolf Höss, is notoriously unreliable as regards dates. The second source, the account by Pery Broad, actually contradicts
Czech’s dating, as Broad only arrived in Auschwitz in April 1942 and initially served with the Guard Troop, which would not have allowed him to closely observe murders in the Birkenau bunkers. It was only from around June 1942, after Broad was transferred to the political department (which
was
closely involved with the gassings) that he could have watched the extermination process close-up (
DAP
, Vernehmung P. Broad, April 30, 1959, 3424–25). Gassings in crematorium I apparently stopped in autumn 1942 (Piper,
Mass Murder
, 133).

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