The Mass Murder

The truth about the "Estate 16"

The report describes in detail the organised mass murder of the prisoners from the nearby ghettos as well as from the extermination site in Maly Tracjanec. The camp inmates were initially kept in the dark about what happened to the sick, weak and thus incapacitated prisoners after they were transferred to the "Estate 16". The prisoners sometimes learned the truth about what happened at this place through the eyewitness accounts of a work crew that had been deployed in the forest of Blahauščyna near the mass graves located there.

In the meantime we had learned that there were no "other estates" in the vicinity of Minsk and that all the people from the transports, as well as those from the ghetto, had come to the so-called "Estate 16". [It] housed thousands of people who were shot and gassed to death in gas vans. Often a work crew from our camp went to the forest near the 'Estate 16'. They often told of having encountered box vans and open trucks driving in that direction. Once, at the entrance to the forest, they even saw a dead man lying in his leggings, who had probably jumped out of a moving truck to save himself and was then shot by the escort crew. [...]"[1]

Observation of the mass murders and elimination of traces

In October 1943, under the supervision of "Sonderkommando 1005", work began to remove the traces of the mass murder of people from the camp and the ghettos around Minsk. By December 1943, the mass graves of the "Estate 16" were opened again in order to burn the bodies of the murdered people buried there. For this purpose, on Himmler's order, the "Sonderkommando 1005 Mitte" (Special Commando 1005 Centre), which had been set up for the removal of traces in Belarus, was specially created. In October 1943, this unit had its headquarters in the Maly Trascjanec camp [2] In the meantime, the murder of further victims continued.

"Day after day the S.K. 1005 went to the following interesting work. On the 'Estate 16' the pits were opened, the corpses dragged out, wood was brought up and now the fire could be seen day and night for 2 months." [3]

The process of the cover-up is also evident from the interrogation of Otto Drews:

“The bodies were pulled out of the graves with hooks. [...] The pyre consisted alternately of a layer of wood and a layer of corpses" [5]

In order to be able to continue killing undisturbed, the execution site was then moved to the immediate vicinity of the forced labour camp in Maly Trascjanec. At the end of 1943, a corpse incineration plant was set up in the forest of Šaškouka south of the camp, where the remains of the people murdered there could be burned immediately and thus disposed of. It is estimated that a total of 50,000 victims were killed there.[4]

Even though the view of the plant was probably supposed to be shielded from the outside by board fences, the camp inmates were still able to observe what was happening there, according to Seiler:

"After every trace of what had happened was erased and the gentlemen were increasingly disturbed by partisans while they were at work, the Estate 16 was moved to our camp. Box vans now came every day. From the barracks one could watch Herr Rieder and his helpers unseen." [5]

Description of the mass murders by gas vans

As a result, the camp prisoners increasingly witnessed the mass murders by gas vans, the shootings and the subsequent disposal of the bodies in the incineration plant near the camp:

"Sometimes the box van, which was always accompanied by a passenger car [...] brought one or 2 living men or women, who had the task of dragging the dead out of the van. Of course, when the job was done, they were shot immediately. A bucket of tar, an incendiary bomb - and within a few minutes a thick black smoke darkened the sky and an acrid smell spread through the camp. But soon the box vans ended and men, women and children were brought in open trucks, with bundles packed, sometimes even still eating – no one seemed to suspect that this would be their last trip. And Herr Rieder "worked" with his machine gun. [6]

However, some of the prisoners in the camp were not only direct eyewitnesses to this mass extermination. People were conscripted into forced labour for the work on this incineration plant, which consisted, among other things, of erecting the wood piles needed for burning the corpses.[7]

Sources:

[1] Seiler report, p.7.

[2] Cf: Winfried R. Garscha: Die Erforschung der Vernichtungsstätte Maly Trostinec, in: Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes(Hg.): Deportation und Vernichtung- Maly Trostinec, Wien 2019, p. 71.

[3] Seiler report, p.8.

[4] Cf.: Kat. Wanderausstellung „Malyj Trostenez. Geschichte und Erinnerung“ 2016-2019, p. 145.

[5] Seiler report, p.8.

[6] Ibid., p.9.

[7] Cf.: Winfried R. Garscha: Die Erforschung der Vernichtungsstätte Maly Trostinec, in: Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes(Hg.): Deportation und Vernichtung- Maly Trostinec, Wien 2019, p. 72.