4. Description of Birkenau camp.
When we arrived at Birkenau, one large kitchen, capable of handling 15,000 people, and two other buildings had already been completed and one additional house was under construction. All these buildings were enclosed by ordinary wire fence. The last-mentioned buildings were used for the reception of prisoners and were built according to the same plan. Each was about thirty meters long and eight to ten meters wide. The walls were scarcely more than two meters high, the roof reaching the disproportionate height of five meters. Such a building resembles a stable with a hayloft perched on top. Since there is no ceiling, the inside height is about seven meters. An inside wall, with a door in the center, divides each house lengthwise into two parts. The house-walls and the dividing wall support balconies running lengthwise at a height of 80 centimeters above each other. These balconies are divided into small cells with three persons to each cell. There are layers of cells on each wall. The dimensions given [sic.] show that the cell is not long enough to permit a person to lie down stretched out and is just high enough to enable him to sit up. Since the height of a cell is 80 centimeters, it is impossible to stand up in it. Approximately 400 to 500 persons are billeted in each house or, as they call it, block.
The Birkenau camp at this time covered an area of 850x1600 meters. Like Auschwitz, a small or inner guard belt surrounds it. Beyond this inner belt a new, much larger camp was under construction. Upon completion, it was to be incorporated in the camp already functioning. We do not know the purpose of these large-scale preparations. As at Auschwitz, the Birkenau camp is surrounded at a distance of 2 kilometers by an outer belt of guard-posts. The guard system is similar to that of Auschwitz.
5. Arrival of 12,000 Russian POWs and 1300 French Jews Previous to April 1942.
The buildings that we found in Birkenau upon our arrival had been built by 12,000 Russian POWs who were brought there in December 1941. They worked under such inhuman conditions during the extraordinarily cold weather that nearly all had died by the time we arrived. They had been given numbers from 1–12,000, but this was outside the numbering system for other inmates. When additional Russian POWs arrived, they did not receive subsequent numbers like other prisoners, but were allotted numbers between 1 and 12,000 vacated by deceased Russian POWs. It was impossible, therefore, to estimate by means of this numbering system the total number of Russian POWs received at the camp. Russian POWs were assigned to Auschwitz and Birkenau for punishment only.
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