Archive/File: holocaust/poland/reinhard/sobibor fuchs.t01
Last-Modified: 1994/07/19

Testimony of SS Scharfuhrer Erich Fuchs, in the Sobibor-Bolender trial, 
Dusseldorf: 

(Quoted in "BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard 
Death Camps", Indiana University Press - Yitzhak Arad, 1987, p. 31-32). 

.....We unloaded the motor. It was a heavy Russian benzine
engine, at least 200 horsepower. we installed the engine
on a concrete foundation and set up the connection between the
exhaust and the tube.

I then tested the motor. It did not work. I was able to repair
the ignition and the valves, and the motor finally started 
running. The chemist, who I knew from Belzec, entered the gas
chamber with measuring instruments to test the concentration
of the gas. 

Following this, as gassing experiment was carried out.
If my memory serves me right, about thirty to forty women were 
gassed in one gas chamber. The Jewish women were forced to undress 
in an open place close to the gas chamber, and were driven into 
the gas chamber by the above mentioned SS members and the Ukrainian 
auxiliaries. when the women were shut up in the gas chamber I and 
Bolender set the motor in motion. The motor functioned first in neutral.
Both of us stood by the motor and switched from "Neutral" (Freiauspuff) 
to "Cell" (Zelle), so that the gas was conveyed to the chamber. At the 
suggestion of the chemist, I fixed the motor on a definite speed so 
that it was unnecessary henceforth to press on the gas. About ten
minutes later the thirty to forty women were dead.

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