Quick summary of corpse disposal and the question of corpses/remains at Auschwitz-Birkenau:
DENTAL METALS. On the basis of a Himmler order (23 September 1940), dental gold was already being removed from the mouths of the corpses of inmates dying in KLs - in this manner, gold for dental work of SS members was accumulated. With the initial transports bringing Jews to Birkenau for murder in 1942, Office IV B 4 (Eichmann) forward to the Auschwitz command Himmler’s dentail-gold-removal order. On 19 October 1943 a WVHA order directed that henceforth such dental gold be delivered from KLs to the Reichsbank. These practices were followed also in Birkenau. The dental metals were removed from the corpses of Jews killed in the gas chambers before their corpses were incinerated in the crematoria. The Birkenau crematoria had rooms for the melting down of gold, platinum, and silver teeth. The later diversion of these dental metals to the Reichsbank was due to an oversupply to the SS resulting as of fall 1942. Teeth were extracted from corpses by “dentists” who worked as part of the Birkenau Sonderkommando, In mid-1944 40 prisoners worked as “dentists.” The dental metal was melted into bars in the SS-Revier at Auschwitz and packed into crates. Partial records on quantities of this metal exist.
HAIR. The hair of prisoners who were registered into Auschwitz was shorn at the time of their entry to the camp. In August 1942 the WVHA ordered that KL commands see that hair shorn from prisoners thenceforth be collected to “be reprocessed into felt for industrial use and spun into thread,” with the intent that “combed and cut women’s hair will be made into felt socks for submarine crews and felt hose for the railways.” By early 1943 the KLs but not Auschwitz were directed to send cut hair to the following companies: Alex Filzfabrik AG, Paul Riemann, and Färberei AG; it is possible that Auschwitz received separate, individual instructions about what to do with hair. Data have been found for hair cut from Majadnek inmates but, again, not those of Auschwitz. As to victims of mass gassings, unlike at the Einsatz Reinhard camps, at Birkenau hair was shorn from the corpses of murdered females; the collection of hair from gassed females was apparently on Himmler’s order. Hair shorn in the crematoria was dried in lofts of those structures, a task carried out by the chimney detail of the Sonderkommando. SS inspections of the dried hair were conducted. On 6 February 1943 Pohl reported to Himmler that from Majdanek and Auschwitz 3000 kilograms of “Frauenhaare” had been sent to the Economics Ministry. After the war 7000 kilograms (over 7 tons) of hair were found in warehouses in the camp (this was estimated to be hair shorn from about 140,000 people). Post-war tests were conducted on samples of this hair at the Forensic Institute of Crakow and found to have detectable amounts of prussic acid, as did objects (clips, pins, etc) found with the hair. Teppichfabrik G. Schoeffler AG, a firm near Oswiecim, was discovered to have 1,950 kilograms of hair also at the war’s end. A sample of this hair was analyzed by the Forensic Medical Department of Jagiellonian University; the hair had measurable quantities of prussic acid. It is believed that hair from Auschwitz was also sent Haaverwertungbetrieb and Bremer Wolkämmerei (Greek coins were in the bags that brought this hair to the factory). Felt, thread, haircloth, socks and hose for submarine crews, bomb fuses, hawsers and ropes for ships, and mattresses are thought to have been manufactured from the Auschwitz hair.
BONES AND ASHES. At Birkenau there were crematoria for the incineration of corpses - as well as pits for corpse burning when the capacity was required. Initially, the bodies of those gassed in the so-called little white and little red houses were buried nearby; starting fall 1942, following a visit by Himmler that summer and with assistance from Blobel, the camp SS began to exhume and cremate the corpses of these victims, burning over 100,000 corpses by the end of November. The work was executed by Sonderkommano members and the ashes were distributed into the Sola and Vistula rivers - “dropped into the river current at various points so that they would not accumulate.” (Bunker 2 - the little white house - was pressed back into service, and renamed Bunker 5, during May 1944 for the Hungarian action and new cremation pits dug at that time. For the Hungarian action, several pits were also dug near Crematoria 5, under Möll’s direction, for open-air burning to help with the large volume of dead during 1944; the famous open-pit cremation photo taken by Sonderkommando members - David Szmulewski and Stanislaw Jankowski - was from this area.) In the crematoria, quantities of bone remained after cremation. This material was collected and ground using mallets and special mortars (sledgehammers and a steel plate for the bone that was in Möll’s Crematoria 5 cremation pits). The ash/bone remains were stored temporarily in pits near each crematorium, later to be removed and discarded in various ways (ash remaining in these pits was covered over before evacuation of the camp): “buried in pits, dumped into the waters of the Sola and Vistula rivers and the fish ponds near the Birkenau camp, used to fill in low ground and marches, and spread as fertilizer on the farms belonging to the camp. . . . [H]uman remains were also used in building and repairing the roads in camp, for making walkways near the houses where the staff lived, and as insulating material in various camp buildings.” According to Höss, the intent was to disperse the evidence. Some crushed bone was sold to “Strem,” a company that delivered the remains to the Rendziny factory for use in fertilizer production. Fat from the corpses burnt in the open air was used to feed the fire in the corpse burning pits (this process was also credited to Möll). A small number of corpses was provided to SS doctors for experimentation. In fall 1944, in the vicinity of the bunkers, the “ashes were removed from the pits and the whole site was levelled.” Nevertheless, in 1965 a geological study of the area was conducted, and 303 bore holes dug - “Human ashes, bones and hair were found in 42 of the holes.” ("In 1965, Hydrokop, a chemical mining enterprise based in Krakow, was commissioned by the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum to carry out geological tests at Birkenau aimed at determining the locations of incineration pits and pyres.")
Summarized from Chapter XII in
Auschwitz: 1940-1945, vol. II, published by the Auschwitz Museum; data provided by Höss and taken from WVHA reports is provided on pp 416-418, addressing quantities and the disposition of hair and dental metals. Also pp 134-175, Vol. III; Strzelecki,
The Evacuation, Dismantling, and Liberation of KL Auschwitz,, pp 51-57, 111-118, 229-232; Pressac,
Auschwitz: The Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, pp 165, 179-180, 253, 389, 420, 422-424; Dwork & van Pelt,
Auschwitz, pp 313-353
From Camp SS man
Otto Moll's testimony (Nuremberg, 16 April 1946), correcting Höss and assuring the court that he'd not worked in the gas chambers but "only" getting rid of corpses:
First, I was used in work in connection with the excavation of the mass graves. Hoess must know that. He is in error if he said that I worked in the buildings where the gassing was carried out. At first I was used for the excavation of the mass graves and he must remember that. Hoess, do you remember Swosten, Blank, Omen, Hatford and Garduck [sic]? Those are the people who worked in the building at the time when you alleged I worked there and I was working on excavations. Surely Hoess remembers that. . . . I was responsible to see that the corpses were burned after the people were killed. I was never responsible for the actual supervision of the killing. It was always the officers or the physicians who were present at the time. As my commandant, at the time, Hoess should be able to confirm this.
