“All have entered. A gruff order was heard. ‘Will the S.S. and special commando leave the chamber.’ The doors were closed and the lights were turned off from outside.

“At that exact moment, the noise of a car was heard. It was a luxurious car, bearing the sign of the International Red Cross, which arrived. An S.S. officer and a non-com of the health service got out. The non-com held four boxes made of a green metal in his hands. He walked up in the grass where, after about 30 meters, he came to the cement chimneys that stuck out of the ground. After putting on a gas mask, he lifted the cover of the chimney which was also concrete. He opened one of the boxes and dumped its contents – a bluish granular substance – into the opening of the chimney. The substance was ‘cyclon’ or chlorine in granulated form which produced a gas as it came into contact with air. This granular substance fell to the bottom of the chimney without scattering and the gas it produced escaped through the perforations, filling within a few moments the room where the deportees were packed. In five minutes, it had killed everyone.

“This is what happened for each convoy. Red Cross cars brought the gas from outside. It was never stored in the crematoriums. It was an infamous precaution, but more infamous yet was the fact that the gas was brought by a car bearing the International Red Cross sign.

“To be certain of their business, the two gas executioners waited another five minutes. Then they lit cigarettes and left in their car. They had just killed 3,000 innocent people.

Christian Bernadac, author of The Naked Puppets – Auschwitz, Ferni Publishing, 1978 (citing Miklos Nyiszli; A Doctor at Auschwitz, Julliard, 1961)