Article Relates How Camera,
Smuggled Into Gas Chamber,
Recorded Horrors at Auschwitz
How a camera was smuggled into crematoria were located. The com-
the gas chamber at Auschwitz to mandant of the compound, Otto
take photographs that are serving Muhl, always searched entering
today as key pieces of evidence in workers personally. Szmulewski ar-
the trial of 20 Nazi war criminals ranged for underground members
at Frankfurt was revealed for the belonging to the Sonderkommande
first time this week in an article that worked in the crematory to
appearing in the Jan. 4 issue of damage the roof of a building. This
Congress Bi-Weekly, published by made it possible for Szmulewski to
the. American Jewish Congress. get into the sealed-off area.
"The camera was concealed in-
The man who suggested that a
camera be found to photograph side a clay drain pipe on the
the extermination scene was Jozef wagon that brought in the tools,
Cyrankiewicz, then an Auschwitz clay tiles and other roofing mate-
prisoner and underground leader, rials. Commandant Muhl made his
now prime minister of Poland. The usual personal search, but did not
man who took the photos, from a find the camera.
"In the attic of the building un-
hole in the roof of the gas cham-
ber itself, was David Szmulewski, der repair, Szmulewski broke open
now personal security chief to the the drain pipe and removed the
camera, concealing it inside his
Polish premier.
striped prisoner's shirt, with the
The article was written by S. L. lens peeping through a buttonhole
Shneiderman, a leading Yiddish he had enlarged with a knife.
journalist in New York, an ack- While the attention of the other
nowledged expert on Polish affairs members of the roofing crew was
and author of "The Warsaw elsewhere, he pointed the camera
Heresy."
through a small hole in the roof
In his article, "Photos From and focused upon the horrifying
the Auschwitz Hell" Shneider- sight of naked women and children
man told how he had learned being driven into the gas cham-
of the story of the camera from bers by armed SS men.
Erich Kulka of Prague, an
"He photographed this tragic
Auschwitz .survivor himself, who
procession from the front as the
testified at the current trials in
first row of women was enter-
Frankfurt and who is considered
ing the chamber. Then he photo-
the leading authority on the his-
graphed another part of the com•
tory of the Nazi death center.
pound where members of the
The shocking execution chamber Sonderkommande were carrying
photographs have been submitted dead bodies from the chamber
as evidence in the Frankfurt trial for cremation in fires burning in
of 20 Auschwitz officials—a trial open pits.
nqw going into its second year.
"A member of Szmulewski's cell
The story of the secret camera secreted the exposed film in his
in the death house at Auschwitz trousers. while the camera was hid-
begins in the spring of 1944. den in the same building for pos-
Shneiderman writes, "when the sible future use. The man with the
Nazis were accelerating the mass film carried it around for five
slaughter of Europe's Jews with days. until he was able to contact
Adolf Eichmann zealously supply- an underground courier from out-
ing trainloads of victims from Hun- side the camp. It was smuggled to
gary. Cracow, where it was developed."
"Leaders of the underground
The Congress Bi-Weekly writer
found that all of their efforts to sums up this part of his story as
convince Allied governments of the follows:
truth about Auschwitz were in vain.
later, a message came
" A week
No one would believe in the scope back
to the Auschwitz under-
of the Nazi crimes," the author ground: 'Three excellent photos.
continues, adding:
Send more!' This was impossible,
"The within
heads the
of camp
the under-
ground
reached as the camera's hiding place had
been discovered. But the purpose
the
conclusion
that photographic
proof
of the existence
of the gas of the clandestine operation in the
chambers and the crematoria death factory had been achieved.
Szmulewski's photos reached the
would have to be produced or outside world and exposed one of
the world would not accept even
the possibility that such things Third
the most
terrible secrets of the
Reich."
were going on.
The photos still stand. Shneider-
"The leadership of the under-
ground cell in Auschwitz
One pass-
man damning
declares, indictments
"as one of history's
n Birkenau
an most
of man's
ed on to the cell i
inhumanity to his fellow man."
order to get such photographs, no
matter what sacrifices had to be
Kremlin 'Sensitive'
made."
The death factory. Shneiderman to Criticism of Bias?
notes, was located in Auschwitz
LONDON (JTA)—A new effort
Two, known as Birkenau, a sealed-
off area that could not be pene- to counter pressures against the
trated. It was off-limits for even Soviet government in regard to the
the most trusted of Nazi person- , situation of Soviet Jewry has be-
come apparent in the Soviet press
nel. The narrative continues:
"Cyrankiewicz, an inmate clerk and other news and information
in Block II, headed the central media over the past two weeks, it
Auschwitz One cell. Szmulewski, was noted here by experts.
There had been. an increasing
a roofer by trade who frequent-
ly moved around the camp on number of items mentioning Jews
repair jobs, headed the Birkenau in important positions and the con-
cell. Upon receiving the order, tributions of Jews to science, the
Szmulewski met with under- arts and other spheres of Soviet
ground members employed in life. The campaign is apparently
the section of the camp where intended to indicate there is no
slave laborers sorted out the per- anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union
sonal effects of those who died as widely charged by critics in the
in the gas chambers. He instruct- West .
It is Soviet press practice never
ed them to look for a camera.
In a very short time they dis- to mention the nationality of peo-
covered a Leica in excellent con- ple of achievement and distinction,
dition, with a telescopic lens and and that policy is still adhered to
in regard to members of other mi-
some film.
"The next problem was to get nority groups in the Soviet Union.
the camera into the Birkenau corn-
British Solicitor General
pound where the gas chambers and
Sir George Jessel, a prominent
19th Century British jurist, became
the first Jew to participate in the
executive branch of the British
government when he was named
solicitor general in 1871.
C07,1666
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
6—Friday, January 8, 1965
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