Sophia Litwinska (&Charles Sigismund Bendel)
[back] Eye Witnesses

The most absurd aspect of these trials is that any "eyewitness" was able to tell the most shameless lies without the least fear of being contradicted, let alone being charged with perjury.
    That this is literally true is demonstrated by the extravagant statements about Auschwitz by one Sophia Litwinska during The Belsen Trial. She stated that she had been "selected" for the gas chamber" - together with 3,000 other Jews at the Auschwitz hospital - on Christmas Eve, 1941 or several days before, although, according to the historians of the Auschwitz Museum, neither "selections" nor "gassings" of Jews had begun at that time. In the "gas chamber," Sophia Litwinska saw "fumes coming in through a very small window at the top", which is absurd because Zyklon B, the gas allegedly used to "exterminate" the Jews, is stored as a solid in hermetically sealed cans. Our "eyewitness" was exposed to the gas "a minute or two perhaps", and then something extraordinary happened:
"At that moment I heard my name called. I had not the strength to answer it, but I raised my arm. Then I felt someone take me and throw me out from that room. Hoessler put a blanket round me and took me on a motor cycle to the hospital, where I stayed six weeks." Thus, in the middle of a "gassing" someone - without even a gas mask! -is supposed to have entered the "gas chamber" to summon Sophia Litwinska and carry her out! Two false testimonies from Auschwitz, The Journal of Historical Review, Spring, 1990; vol. 10 no. 1: p. 25