Hello there. Ready to look into another testimony? Take your seats. Tonight’s guest of honor is Errikos Sevillias. Let’s go.

Sevillias was deported from Athens to Auschwitz and then Birkenau in 1944 at the age of 43. His memoir Athens-Auschwitz was published first in English in 1983 (Lycabettus Press, Athens) and then in Greek in 1995 (Αθηνα-Αουσβιτσ, Vivliopōleion tēs “Hestias,” Athens). His account is generally believable. Simple, clear, and with no verbalisms. After his stay in Birkenau, he was transferred to Breslau which proved to be much worse as he had to work at night shifts in the freezing cold. He suffered severely from hunger, frostbites and lice, as there were no cleaning measures (in Birkenau he received clean clothes every week). Upon liberation, he was 32 kg and at the brink of death. He slowly recovered and returned to Greece. So let’s see what he has to say about the extermination claims.

The Selections

On his second day in Auschwitz he asked another prisoner about the selection he had went through the previous day:

“After I ate, I went out with my son-in-law to find out what happened to the others who had come with us, and I asked one of the Greeks who had been there for a long time. I said to him, ’You, as old, should know where did they send the others who came with us’. He laughed bitterly and told me: ’If you wish to know, look there, that big chimney with the big flame. They all went there, the old, the sick and the mothers with the children’. I could not understand a thing, new as I was. And he told me, ’There are the crematories, that is the place where they kill and then burn whoever is unfit for work. And they send all the mothers who have little children’. When I heard it I froze out of horror and started crying painfully for my little nephew who had gone with them.” (p. 60)

Once again we see the rumor factory at work. From one prisoner to the next, everyone repeated what they had heard. So Sevillias, for the rest of his internment, every time he witnessed a selection he thought that those selected had been sent to the crematory.

The Gas Chambers

On gas chambers Sevillias has no personal experience. His information is derived from his son-in-law who supposedly worked at Crematorium II or III. Here is his description:

“Every day they killed thousands of people. When they were bringing them in the crematorium, they would put them in a large underground room that had around the walls numbered hangers and they would say to them: ’Now you have to take off your clothes and each of you place it on a hanger remembering the number, so you can find them when you exit the shower’. They were telling them this so that they would not suspect what awaits them, but they were all shaking from fear. When they had undressed, a door opened leading to another room – about 8 x 8 meters – and they ordered them to go in. When the first would enter and see that there were no showers but four empty walls, they realized that their time has come and started crying and shouting. The rest, hearing the cryings, would not enter, they resisted. Then the Germans would beat them mercilessly with a whip and they necessarily went int. But as they were too many and they could not fit, they squeezed them to the point that they had to raise their arms up to fit; that is because they were always more than a thousand persons and it was almost impossible to fit. In the end they would grab the little kids left and throw them above the heads of the adults. When finally everyone was in, they would seal the door and channel a poisonous gas into the room, that killed them within three minutes.” (p. 79)

Not only he has no idea what kind of gas they used or how, but his description of the gas chamber is totally wrong. The room in question was actually 30 x 7 meters in size, with four concrete pillars, and according to official history, four wire mesh columns and fake shower heads. So whoever provided him with this information, had never set foot in the basement.

The Crematories

Now here’s the description of the cremation ovens:

“They were not any different than the usual ovens, only they were much larger, they were about 80 meters in length and in every two meters there was an opening. In front of each opening there was a worker; he took the bodies left by the little rail cars as they passed by and threw them in the oven. This went on until they were none left. Within two hours more than a thousand people had been killed and thrown in the ovens and the gas room was ready for new victims, and then more and more. Sometimes the four crematories operated day and night, because ten or fifteen thousand people happened to arrive a day, who had to be all executed.” (p. 80)

Ovens 80 meters long? An opening every 2 meters? So it was not just the basement. The informant had never even been near a crematorium. And here’s the most interesting information:

“When the corpses they had put in the ovens were completely burnt, the fat from them was sent through pipes in a pit behind the oven. From there they would put it in barrels and take it on cars. Where they went and what they did with it, I did not know.” (p. 81)

The Revolt

Finally, Sevillias has to offer some interesting information regarding the alleged Sonderkommando revolt (which he places on October 6). According to official history, on October 7, 1944, the Sonderkommando in Birkenau revolted attacking the SS with machine guns, axes, knives and grenades. Up to 300 Greek Jews are said to have participated in the revolt, most of them killed. Some escaped but later captured, others didn’t make it in time so they had to fortify themselves in Crematorium IV which they set on fire (or blew up according to others). As they were buried under the rubble they sang the national anthem. The SS casualties were 3 dead and 12 injured.

The problem is that there doesn’t seem to exist any documentary confirmation for the above except for testimonies. Sevillias also doesn’t seem to be aware about any of this. As he writes, on October 5 his son-in-law told him that they would attempt a mass escape tomorrow afternoon. Here’s what followed:

“On October 6 I went as usual to work, and at some point that I saw him through the wires he told me that everything was fine. When noon had passed, we started waiting anxiously for the signal. We were all nervous, but we had all made up our minds. But at 2 o’clock, as we were working, we heard many cries from the crematorium. This worried me, and in a moment we saw the internal workers coming furiously out with axes on hand, cutting the wires and running away from the crematorium. We were at a loss not knowing what to do, and we stayed there still.” (p. 94)

Then the Germans arrived shooting anyone moving. Many prisoners were killed and the escape failed. Sevillias learned later that the operation had been betrayed by another prisoner hoping for a reward. When the workers in the crematorium realized this, they grabbed the axes and tried to run away but the Germans caught up with them.

Now what is quite interesting is that the above seems to be confirmed by an escape report of the Gestapo published by the Auschwitz Museum. The hour is exactly the same mentioned by Sevillias, the only difference being the date (September 7) which of course the survivors could have got wrong. The report says:

“Towards 14:00 hours today a larger number of detainees belonging to the Sonderkommando (crematory), mostly Jews, escaped from K.L. Auschwitz. Part of the escapees were shot during the pursuit, which was commenced immediately. The search operation continues.”

Summary

This witness can be considered mostly credible as what he personally experienced agrees with the evidence, while what is clearly false is unverified information from others. And once again, the testimony does not offer reliable information about mass killings in gas chambers.