‘In the dressing room of the crematorium peoples’ blood stained and battered heads and faces proved that there was scarcely anyone who had been able to dodge the truncheon blows in the yard.  Their faces were ashen with fear and grief…Only a few days ago had not Lagerfuhrer (Johann) Schwarzhuber promised them, on his word of honour as an SS leader, that they and their families would be going to Heydebreck (an I.G. Farben plant)…Hope and illusions had vanished.  What was left was disappointment, despair and anger…They began to bid each other farewell.  Husbands embraced their wives and chidren.  Everybody was in tears.  Mothers turned to their children and caressed them tenderly.  The little ones …wept with their mothers and held on to them.  But …when several S.S.leaders – among them Lagerfuhrer  Scwarzhuber and Dr Mengele – appeared in the doorway of the changing room, those standing near flew into a rage.  Suffering and sorrow gave way to unrestrained hatred for those men…After a while I heard the sound of piercing screams, banging against the door, and also moaning and wailing.  People began to cough.  Their coughing grew worse from minute to minute, a sign that the gas had started to act.  Then the clamour began to subside and to change to a many-voiced dull rattle,, drowned now and then by coughing…It seemed to me that today death came more quickly than usual.  Barely ten minutes had passed since the introduction of the gas crystals when there was quiet in the chamber.’  Eye witness account by a member of the Sonderkommando at Aushwitz