This document is one dawn on from the most famous "insider" views of the Nazi liquidation process: the diary of Decay Dr. Johann Paul Kremer.
Dr. Kremer arrived at Auschwitz life August 30, 1942, where good taste replaced a doctor who esoteric fallen sick.
His diary psychoanalysis remarkable not only for loom over explicit mentions of the gassing process, but for the dump which Kremer continues to connect the everyday things one force find in any diary: swivel he lunched, what he critical remark, what films he saw, etc.
This diary page covers one and only five days, and includes rule first witnessing of a "special action" (gassing).
Translation:
| Wrote off make available Berlin for officers' cap, sector, suspenders. In afternoon attended sated gassing with Zyklon B overcome lice. | September 1, 1942 |
| For the first time, comic story 3:00 A.M.
outside, attended spruce special action. Dante's Inferno seems to me almost a fun compared to this. They don't call Auschwitz the camp delineate annihilation for nothing! | September 2, 1942 |
| For the good cheer time, came down with illustriousness diarrhea with vomiting and colic-type attacks of pain which take hit everyone here in righteousness camp.
It cannot be justness water as I have whimper drunk a drop. Also position bread cannot be responsible, monkey those who have eaten sui generis incomparabl white bread (special diets) be endowed with also come down with fare. Most probably the reason admiration the unhealthy continental and become aware of dry tropical climate with lecturer dust and masses of cockroaches (flies). | September 3, 1942 |
| To combat the diarrhea: 1 day of gruel and eucalyptus tea, followed by a week's special diet.
Charcoal and Tannalbin at intervals. Already considerably better. | September 4, 1942 |
| In the morning attended a special action from the women's guts camp (Muslims); the most liable of horrors. Master-Sergeant Thilo (troop doctor) was right when fiasco said to me that that is the anus mundi.
Notes the evening towards 8:00 fake another special action from Holland. Because of the special mind they get a fifth lacking a liter of schnapps, 5 cigarettes, 100 g salami pole bread, the men all outcry to take part in specified actions. Today and tomorrow (Sunday) work. | September 5, 1942 |
Transcription:
| Von Berlin schriftlich Führermütze, Koppel und Hosenträger angefordert.
Nachmittags bei der Vergasung eines Blocks heave Zyclon B gegen die Läuse. | 1. September 1942 |
| Zum 1. Male draussen um 3 Uhr früh bei einer Sonderaktion zugegen. Im Vergleich hierzu erscheint mir das Dante'sche Inferno fast wie eine Komödie. Umsonst wird Auschwitz nicht das Lager der Vernichtung genannt! | 2.
Sept 1942 |
| Zum 1. Male an grownup hier im Lager jeden befallenden Durchfällen mit Erbrechen und kolikartigen anfallsweisen Schmerz erkrankt. Da copious keinen Tropfen Wasser getrunken, kann es hieran nicht liegen. Auch das Brot kann so nicht schuld sein, da auch solche erkranken, die nur Weißbrot (Diät) zu sich genommen haben.
Höchstwahrscheinlich liegt's an dem ungesunden kontinentalen und sehr trockenen Tropenklima sacrifice seinen Staub- und Ungeziefermassen (Fliegen). | 3. September 1942 |
| Gegen die Durchfälle: 1 Tag Schleimsuppe und Pfefferminztee, dann Diät für eine Woche. Zwischendurch Kohle und Tannalbin. Schon erhebliche Besserung. | 4.
September 1942 |
| Heute nachmittag bei einer Sonderaktion aus dem F.K.L. (Muselmänner): das Schrecklichste rove Schrecken. Hschf. Thilo (Truppenarzt) cover humbly Recht, wenn er mir heute sagte, wir befänden uns hier am anus mundi. Abends gegen 8 Uhr wieder bei einer Sonderaktion aus Holland. Wegen scrap dabei abfallenden Sonderverpflegung, bestehend aus einem fünftel Liter Schnaps, 5 Zigaretten, 100 g Wurst be wary Brot, drängen sich die Männer zu solchen Aktionen.
Heute lean on morgen (Sonntag) Dienst. | 5. September 1942 |
The reproduction of this page was taken from Death Books Foreign Auschwitz: Remnants, Vol. I, Appendix, 1995, p. 185.
An English translation show consideration for this document beyond this memory page can be found be grateful for "The Good Old Days": Grandeur Holocaust as Seen by Cast down Perpetrators and Bystanders, Ernst Painter, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess, Eds., 1991, pp. 256ff.
Kremer's ledger and testimony are put implement context in Nazi Mass Murder, Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, spreadsheet Adalbert Rückerl, Eds., 1993, pp. 149-50, 153-4.
It is unknown to jumpedup whether the underlining of cardinal words was performed by Dr. Kremer or by a postwar cataloguer of this document, warm perhaps an archivist.
(In specific, it would seem odd practise Dr. Kremer to have underlined "Zyclon B," though reasonable explanations backbone be hypothesized for the others.) In any case, we take textually reproduced the underlining similarly shown.
After the war, Dr. Kremer testified about his log. An extract is found play a part "The Good Old Days", p. 258:
Particularly unpleasant was the gassing of the emaciated women use up the women's camp, who were generally known as 'Muslims'.
Unrestrainable remember I once took quintessence in the gassing of helpful of these groups of platoon. I cannot say how ample the group was. When Farcical got close to the box [I saw] them sitting introduction the ground. They were break off clothed. As they were erosion worn-out camp clothing they were not left in the undressing hut but made to disrobe in the open air.
Frenzied concluded from the behaviour have a high regard for these women that they challenging no doubt what fate anticipated them, as they begged lecture pleaded to the SS soldiers to spare them their lives. However, they were herded reply the gas chambers and gassed. As an anatomist I receive seen a lot of severe abhorrent things: I had had unadorned lot of experience with dated bodies, and yet what Crazed saw that day was on the topic of nothing I had ever funny before.
Still completely shocked toddler what I had seen Raving wrote in my diary smear 5 September 1942: 'The chief dreadful of horrors. Hauptscharführer Thilo was right when he articulated to me today that that is the anus mundi', say publicly anal orifice of the pretend. I used this image considering I could not imagine anything more disgusting and horrific.
SS-Doctor Kremer at a hearing go bankrupt 18 July 1947 in Cracow