The original drawings by an architect for expanding the Auschwitz death camp, including a gas chamber and a "corpse cellar," were published in the German newspaper Bild Saturday. Government officials have not commented on the report, but the newspaper published building sketches. It did not reveal how and where they were found.
Blueprint pictures clearly describe a room for a 1,200 square-foot "gas chamber" as part of a "delousing facility" to be added to the death camp in 1941. The reported documents sketches were among 28 blueprints that were obtained.
The publication of the sketches came on the eve of the 70th year since Kristallnacht, when Germany went on a rampage and burned synagogues and Jewish stores and killed or wounded Jews.
Government archives officials told another German newspaper that the blueprints represent "authentic evidence of the systematically planned genocide of European Jews."
Bild stated, "The documents refute once and for all claims by those who deny the Holocaust even took place."
Six million Jews died during the Holocaust following a 1942 decision by the Nazi regime to carry out the "final solution."