I think Jews (and others) really did get sent to camps where many died from typhus throughout the war, then starvation as the German state collapsed. We have photos of their bodies at Buchenwald, for example (which had no gas chamber).
I also think there were some executions, mostly by bullets, such as after the Warsaw uprising.
But in terms of industrial genocide I think it's just war propaganda, show trials, etc.
I think there's also a degree of non-German-speaking prisoners who heard terrible rumors and interpreted what they saw in light of those rumors (eg delousing vs execution chambers).