On 27 January 2010, the tenth “Holocaust Remembrance Day”, Elie Wiesel was invited into Montecitorio Hall, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies of the Italian Republic where he had the opportunity to give a brief speech. The president of the Chamber, Gianfranco Fini, introduced him as “the most authoritative living witness of the horrors of the Shoah among the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps”.[1] But is he really a witness?

Is Elie Wiesel an impostor?

On 3 March 2009, a Hungarian website published an article entitled Még mindig kísérti a haláltábor (The extermination camp is still tempting)[2] and outlining important revelations by Miklós Grüner, a former deportee to Auschwitz. The article was translated and appeared the following day under the title Auschwitz Survivor Claims Elie Wiesel is an Impostor[3]. The text reads as follows:

«In May 1944 , when Miklos Gruner was 15, he was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau with his mother and father as well as both a younger and an elder brother. He says that his mother and his younger brother were immediately gassed after their arrival in the camp. Then he, his elder brother and their father had an inmate number tattooed on their arms and were sent to perform hard work in a synthetic fuel factory linked to IG Farben where the father died six months later. After that, the elder brother was sent to Mauthausen and, as the young Miklos was then alone, two elder Jewish inmates who were also Hungarians and friends with his late father took him under their protection. These two protectors of the young Miklos were the Lazar and Abraham Wiesel brothers.

In the following months, Miklos Gruner and the Wiesel brothers became good friends. Lazar Wiesel was 31 years old in 1944. Miklos never forgot the number Lazar was tattooed with by the Nazis: A-7713. In January 1945, as the Russian army was coming, the inmates were transferred to Buchenwald. During the ten days this transfer took, partly by foot, partly by train, more than half of the inmates died and amongst them was Abraham, the elder brother of Lazar Wiesel. In April 8, 1945, the US army liberated Buchenwald. Miklos and Lazar were amongst the survivors of the camp. As Miklos had tuberculosis, he was sent in a Swiss clinic and therefore was separated from Lazar. After recovering, Miklos emigrated to Australia while his elder brother, who also survived the war, established himself in Sweden.

Years later, in 1986, Miklos was contacted by the Swedish journal Sydsvenska Dagbladet in Malmo and invited to meet “an old friend” named Elie Wiesel… As Miklos answered that he doesn`t know anyone with this name, he was told Elie Wiesel was the same person Miklos knew in the Nazi camps under the name Lazar Wiesel and with the inmate number A-7713… Miklos still remembered that number and he was therefore convinced at that point that he was going to meet his old friend Lazar and happily accepted the invitation to meet him at the Savoj Hotel in Stockholm on December 14, 1986. Miklos recalls:

“I was very happy at the idea of meeting Lazar but when I confronted the so-called ‘Elie Wiesel’, I was stunned to see a man I didn`t recognize at all, who didn`t even speak Hungarian or Yiddish and instead he was speaking English in a strong French accent. Therefore our meeting was over in about ten minutes. As a goodbye gift, the man gave me his book entitled ‘Night’ of which he claimed to be the author. I accepted the book I didn`t know at that time but told everyone there that this man was not the person he pretended to be!”

Miklos recalls that during this strange meeting, Elie Wiesel refused to show him the tattooed number on his arm, saying he didn`t want to exhibit his body. Miklos adds that Elie Wiesel showed his tattooed number afterward to an Israeli journalist who Miklos met and this journalist told Miklos that he didn`t have time to identify the number but… was certain it wasn`t a tattoo. Miklos says:

“After that meeting with Elie Wiesel, I spent twenty years of research and found out that the man calling himself Elie Wiesel has never been in a Nazi concentration camp since he was not included in any official list of detainees”.

Miklos also found out that the book Elie Wiesel gave him in 1986 as something he has written himself was in fact written in Hungarian in 1955 by Miklos’ old friend Lazar Wiesel and published in Paris under the title “Un di Velt hot Gesvigen”, meaning approximately “The World Kept Silent”. The book was then shortened and rewritten in French as well as in English in order to be published under the author`s name Elie Wiesel in 1958, under the french title “La Nuit” and the English title “Night”. Ten million copies of the book were sold in the world by Elie Wiesel who even received a Nobel Peace prize for it in 1986 while – says Miklos – the real author Lazar Wiesel was mysteriously missing…

“Elie Wiesel never wanted to meet me again”, says Miklos. “He became very successful; he takes 25 thousand dollars for a 45 minutes speech on the Holocaust. I have officially reported to the FBI in Los Angeles. I have also complained to governments and media, in the US and Sweden with no result.

I have received anonymous calls telling me I could be shot if I don`t shut up but I am not afraid of death any more. I have deposited the whole dossier in four different countries and, if I died suddenly, they would be made public. The world must know that Elie Wiesel is an impostor and I am going to tell it, I am going to publish the truth in a book called “Stolen Identity A7713”.”»

Miklós Grüner’s declarations have been repeated many times, but have not caused any major research effort. We will thus scrutinize them critically but soberly.

First of all, some biographical data on Elie Wiesel:

Born on 30 September 1928 at Sighet in Romania, the son of Shlomo and Sarah Frig, the daughter of Dodye Feig, deported to Birkenau on 16 May 1944.[4]

The most important point to be verified is the reliability of the accuser. What can be considered established on the subject of Miklós Grüner is the fact that he was at Buchenwald in May of 1945. In a “Concentration Camp Inmates Questionnaire” of the Military Government of Germany, we have an entry giving his name, and the date of his birth – 6 April 1928 – also conforms. The ID number is handwritten in the upper left hand corner: 120762.[5]

Document 1: Questionnaire concerning Miklós Grüner. Buchenwald, 6 May 1945. (Click on the picture to view it in full size).

However, the key person here is Lázár Wiesel. Fortunately, the file card concerning his stay at the Buchenwald camp also exists and allows us to verify Miklós Grüner’s assertions. This file card [6], has in its upper left hand corner the handwritten entry “Ung. Jude” (Hungarian Jew), in the center, “Ausch. A 7713”, i.e. “Auschwitz A-7713”, the former Auschwitz ID number, and, on the right, “Gef.-Nr.:123565”, (Detainee number 123565, the new Buchenwald ID number). This detainee was born on 4 September 1913 (Lázár Wiesel’s year of birth according to Miklós Grüner) at Maromarossziget and was the son of Szalamo Wiesel, who was at Buchenwald, and of Serena Wiesel née Feig, interned at KL Auschwitz. The stamp “26.1.45 KL. Auschwitz” indicates that Lázár Wiesel was registered at Buchenwald on 26 January 1945 coming from Auschwitz.

Document 2: Personal file card for Lázár Wiesel (KL Buchenwald). (Click on the picture to view it in full size).

Note: Maromarossziget [Máramarossziget in Hungarian], now Sighetu Marmaţiei (in Rumanian) is the same place which Elie Wiesel calls Sighet.[7]

The name “Szalamo” is the same as “Shlomo”, while “Serena” is phonetically close to “Sarah”.

The following table summarizes the results of the above verification:

Miklós Grüner is perfectly right: Elie Wiesel has taken on Lázár Wiesel’s identity.

Another accusation levelled by Grüner concerns the origin of Elie Wiesel’s book “La Nuit” (in English “Night“). In the Hungarian version of the article mentioned in note 2, it is said that the book was published in Hungarian in Paris in 1955 by his friend Lázár with the name of Eliezer and the title “A világ hallgat” (And the world remained silent). In the English version of the article, mentioned in note 3,
the title, instead, is in Yiddish and reads “Un di Velt hot Gesvigen” (And the world remained silent).

A search for the title in Hungarian gave no result, whereas the Yiddish book is, indeed, documented. It is registered in the Bibliography of Yiddish Books on the Catastrophe and Heroism [8], n. 549 a p. 81. The entry, in Yiddish, states: Eliezer Wiesel, Un di Welt hot geschwign (And the world remained silent). Buenos Aires, 1956. Central Association of Polish Jews in Argentina. Series Das poilische Jidntum, vol. 117, 252 pages. There is an English translation of this book, which corresponds to chapter VII of “La Nuit”. We will discuss it further along in this article.

Michael Wiesberg provides some noteworthy details on this subject:

«Wiesel has often mentioned the story of how this book came about. Naomi Seidmann has noted that Wiesel himself, in Alle Flüsse fließen ins Meer [All rivers run to the sea] has drawn attention to the fact that, in 1954, he gave the Argeninian publisher Mark Turkow the original manuscript of “La Nuit”, written in Yiddish. According to Wiesel, he never saw it again, but Turkow strongly denies this. This manuscript was published at Buenos Aires in 1955 under the title Und di Velt hat Geshveyn (And the world remained silent). Wiesel asserts to have written it in 1954 while on a cruise in Brazil. However, in an interview, he declared that it was only in May of 1955, after an encounter with François Mauriac [9], that he decided to break his silence. “And in that year [1955], in the tenth year, begins my story. It was then translated from Yiddish into French and I sent it to him. We were very, very good friends until his death”.

Naomi Seidmann, in her research on “La Nuit”, brought to light that there are considerable differences between the Yiddish and the French versions, with respect to the length, the tone, the argumentation and the topics treated in the book. She attributes these differences to the influence of Mauriac who can be described as a very particular person”»[10]

In this respect, hence, the least that can be said is that the origin of the book is quite uncertain and misty.

Is Elie Wiesel a false witness?

This having been stated, we have yet to establish whether Elie Wiesel is also a false witness on the subject of Auschwitz.

We will examine his “eye-witness account” as it is set out in his “masterpiece” (Fini), “La notte”.[11] As early as 1986 Robert Faurisson wrote an article entitled Un grand faux témoin: Élie Wiesel [12] (A prominent false witness: Elie Wiesel). More recently, Thomas Kues has written a further article entitled Una donnola travestita da agnello [13] (A weasel in sheep’s clothing). Both authors approach the subject in general terms; now the time has come for a more through analysis. We must stress that the overall tone of the account in question is that it tells a story rather than describing something factual; Elie Wiesel goes to great lengths to avoid any verifiable details and what he says about Birkenau, about Auschwitz, about Monowitz or about Buchenwald is so vague that his story might have taken place, just as easily, somewhere in Siberia or in Canada.

Quotes are from Elie Wiesel Night, His Record of Childhood in the Death Camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, Penguin Books edition (Translated from the French by Stella Rodway), New York 1981.

a) Deportation

Elie Wiesel does not specify the date of his deportation to Auschwitz. His narrative starts, though, with reference to a specific date: “On the Saturday before Pentecost [“Shavuòth” in the Italian edition], in the spring sunshine, people strolled, carefree and unheeding, through the swarming streets.” (p.22-23). In 1944, this festival fell on 28 May 1944 [14], a Sunday. The day in question was thus 27 May. The first transport of Jews left Sighet on the following day, hence, on 28 May. “Then, at last, at one o’clock in the afternoon, came the signal to leave” (p.27). Elie Wiesel then speaks of “Monday” (p. 29), the dawn (p.29), the day after tomorrow (p. 29) saying, at the end, “Saturday, the day of rest, was chosen for our expulsion” (p. 33) He then speaks about the traditional Friday evening meal and goes on to say: «The following morning, we marched to the station […]» (p. 33, which means that the trip to Auschwitz began on Saturday, 3 June 1944.

The duration of the trip is not given, but transports from Hungary usually took three or four days to reach Auschwitz-Birkenau. Elie Wiesel spent the night at Birkenau and was moved to Auschwitz the following day where he was given the number A-7713, which was tattooed on his arm (p. 54). Yet, according to him, “it was a beautiful April day” (p. 51).

This schedule is pure invention. If he did leave Sighet on 3 June 1944 he could not have arrived at Auschwitz in April. Moreover, the ID number A-7713 was given out on 24 May, the day on which 2,000 Hungarian Jews were assigned the numbers A-5729 through A-7728 [15]. According to Randolph L. Braham, a Jewish transport left Máramarossziget on 20 May 1944.[16] Allowing four days for the journey, this was the transport of Lázár Wiesel who was assigned the ID number A-7713 precisely on 24 May 1944. But apparently, Elie Wiesel was unaware of all these things.

b) Arrival at Birkenau

Elie Wiesel writes:

«But we had reached a station. Those who were next to the windows told us its name: ‘Auschwitz.’ No one had ever heard that name» (p.37).

«Toward eleven o’clock, the train began to move. We pressed against the windows.The convoy was moving slowly. A quarter of an hour later, it slowed down again. Through the windows we could see barbed wire; we realized that this must be the camp» (p. 39).

«And as the train stopped, we saw this time that flames were gushing out of a tall chimney into the black sky» (p. 39).

«In front of us flames. In the air that smell of burning flesh. It must have been about midnight. We had arrived – at Birkenau, reception centre for Auschwitz» (p. 39).

From the geographical point of view, this tale is nonsense. The spur towards Birkenau left the main track at a station, (the so-called “old ramp”) some 500 meters from the camp – as the crow flies – and then ran obliquely to the east of the camp fence. The spur was about 700 meters long.

There were four crematoria at Birkenau, named II, III, IV and V. The chimneys of the crematoria closest to the “old ramp” (II and III) were some 1,400 m away, in a straight line, and the other two (IV and V) about 1,800 meters. Over the last 400 m, the spur ran perpendicularly to the camp fence, which means that crematoria II and III could not be seen from the windows of the train, being situated straight ahead, as they were; the others were hidden behind at least 12 rows of barracks and had, moreover, two chimneys each.

As far as I know, no other witness ever spoke of having seen the chimneys of the crematoria from the deportation trains, and for good reason.

Document 3: Aerial photograph of the Birkenau camp, taken on 31 May 1944 (NA, 60PRS/462, D 1508, Exp. 3056). The circles mark the crematoria; (left to right) II, III, IV, V. The building in the shape of a “T”, marked “ZS” is the Central Sauna. “EG” is the entrance building (Eingangsgebäude). The arrow (at bottom) marks the railway spur. (Click on the picture to view it in full size).

Elie Wiesel’s arrival at the camp is described only vaguely in his account; he takes great care to skirt any detail that might be verifiable. Aside from the “chimney” which will be discussed later, he speaks only of “barbed wire” (p. 39), then, inside the camp, of a crossroads (p. 40), a “ditch” (p. 43), “another large ditch” (p. 43), a “barrack” (p. 45), and “another barrack” (p. 48).

There is no mention of all the things which attracted the attention of the real deportees, as is shown in the photographs of the so-called Auschwitz Album [17] (which were taken a few days after the arrival of Lázár Wiesel’s convoy: The entrance building (Eingangsgebäude) with its archway through which the trains entered the camp, the ramp (the so-called Judenrampe or Jewish ramp) with its three railway tracks inside the camp, the fences, the innumerable rows of barracks on either side, the long roads which split the camp lengthwise and crosswise, the drainage ditches, the watch-towers, the water basins for fire-fighting, or crematoria II and III at the far end of the ramp.

Document 4: Entrance building (Eingangsgebäude) of the Birkenau camp © Carlo Mattogno

Then the tale becomes a little more specific:

«A barrel of petrol at the entrance. Disinfection. Everyone was soaked in it. Then a hot shower. At high speed. As we came out from the water, we were driven outside. More running. Another barracks, the store. Very long tables. Mountains of prison clothes. On we ran. As we passed, trousers, tunic, shirt, and socks were thrown to us» (pp. 47-48).

This is pure invention: At the time, Birkenau had four disinfestation and disinfection installations (Entwesungs- und Desinfektionsanlagen). The main one was the so-called Zentralsauna (Entwesungsanlage, BW 32) in the shape of a T near the western fence of the camp with its three hot-air disinfestation chambers (Heissluftentwesungskammern), three steam autoclaves (Dampf-Desinfektionsapparate), shower hall complete with undressing room and dressing room, barbershop; there were two more such installations, designated as BW 5a and 5b, located in sectors BIb and BIa, similarly furnished with a shower hall, undressing room and dressing room, but one of them had a disinfestation gas chamber working with Zyklon B, the other one had two hot-air disinfestation chambers. Moreover, BIIa, the Gypsy camp, had 8 electrical disinfestation devices (elektrische Entlausungsapparate).[18] In the first three installations, with their undressing rooms (Auskleideraum) and dressing rooms (Ankleideraum) all stages of the operation took place indoors. The disinfection procedure did not make use of petrol. But of all these things, Elie Wiesel did not have a clue.

We should also mention, at this point, the little tale of the “good” detainee who went around among the new arrivals, telling them to make themselves older or younger than their real age, in order to avoid being “gassed”. Elie Wiesel, who was not yet 15, was told to say that he was 18, while his father, who was fifty, was advised to say “forty” (p. 41) This is a foolish story, because each transport was accompanied by a transport manifest which contained, i.e., the last name, first name and date of birth for each of the new arrivals which means that any such pious lie would be discovered immediately upon registration. It is also nonsense from the point of view of the holocaust historians, because, according to a publication of the Auschwitz Museum, all children below ge 14 were systematically gassed [19], whereas there was no age limit for adults. In the Auschwitz death registers (Sterbebücher) for 1943 we have 4,166 entries for persons between 51 and 90 years of age (no such registers are extant for 1944).[20]

c) “The” flaming chimney

Elie Wiesel had no idea of how many crematoria there were at Birkenau, what they were like and where they stood. Even though, at one point, he speaks of “six crematoria” (p. 78) he always talks about “the” chimney as if their had been only one, without identifying the crematorium. Actually, there were six chimneys at Birkenau: which one was spouting flames?

He dwells on a single strange phenomenon: «Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? (Yes, we did see the flames.)» (My italics) (p.41). Now, at last, we know where the chimney was: “over there”!

The tale of the flaming chimneys was very popular in the 1950s, when Elie Wiesel wrote “Night” (1958). Nowadays, nobody treats the matter seriously, not even Robert Jan van Pelt who made an effort to prove that smoke came out of the chimneys of the crematoria… period.[21] Actually, there is no technical basis to this tale, as I have shown in a specific article.[22]

Document 5: A convoy of Hungarian Jews at the Birkenau camp – End of June, 1944. The arrows show crematoria II and III, without “flames” or smoke (from: L’Album d’Auschwitz, p. 51)

d) The “cremation pits”

We have here the most frightening part of his “eye-witness account”:

«Not far from us, flames were leaping up from a ditch, gigantic flames. A lorry drew up at the pit and delivered its load – little children. Babies! Yes, I saw it – saw it with my own eyes… those children in the flames. (Is it surprising that I could not sleep after that? Sleep had fled from my eyes.)

So this was where we were going. A little farther on was another and larger ditch for adults.

I pinched my face. Was I still alive? Was I awake? I could not believe it. How could it be possible for them to burn people, children, and for the world to keep silent? No, none of this could be true. It was a nightmare… Soon I should wake with a start, my heart pounding, and find myself back in the bedroom of my childhood, among my books…

My father’s voice drew me from my thoughts:

‘It’s a shame… a shame that you couldn’t have gone with your mother… I saw several boys of your age going with their mothers…’

His voice was terribly sad. I realized that he did not want to see what they were going to do to me. He did not want to see the burning of his only son.

My forehead was bathed in cold sweat. But I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it…

‘Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible, even these crematories…’

His voice was choking.

‘Father,’ I said, ‘if that is so, I don’t want to wait here. I’m going to run to the electric wire. That would be better than slow agony in the flames.’

He did not answer. He was weeping. His body was shaken convulsively. Around us, everyone was weeping. Someone began to recite the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I do not know if it has ever happened before, in the long history of the Jews, that people have ever recited the prayer for the dead for themselves.

‘Yitgadal veyitkadach shmé rabai… May His Name be blessed and magnified…’ Whispered my father.

For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?

We continued our march. We were gradually drawing closer to the ditch, from which an infernal heat was rising. Still twenty steps to go. If I wanted to bring about my own death, this was the moment. Our line had now only fifteen paces to cover. I bit my lips so that my father would not hear my teeth chattering. Ten steps still. Eight. Seven. We marched slowly on, as though following a hearse at our own funeral. Four steps more. Three steps. There it was now, right in front of us, the pit and its flames. I gathered all that was left of my strength, so that I could break from the ranks and throw myself upon the barbed wire. In the depths of my heart, I bade farewell to my father, to the whole universe; and, in spite of myself, the words formed themselves and issued in a whisper from my lips: Yitgadal veyitkadach shmé rabai… May His Name be blessed and magnified… My heart was bursting. The moment had come. I was face to face with the Angel of Death…

No. Two steps from the pit we were ordered to turn to the left and made to go into a barracks» (pp. 43-45).

Where does all this take place? As usual, Elie Wiesel takes care not to furnish any kind of reference point as to the location. According to the holocaust historians, the “cremation pits” were located at two sites: one was outside of the camp, across from the Zentralsauna at the alleged “Bunker 2” [23] and another was in the northern yard of crematorium V. We must exclude the first site, because otherwise Elie Wiesel would have had to mention their leaving the camp and walking several hundred meters in open terrain.

What about the other site?

In the study Auschwitz: Open Air Incinerations [24], I have shown, on the basis of an analysis of all available aerial photographs of Birkenau, that the story of the “cremation pits”, as far as their number, their size or their purpose are concerned, is not borne out by the reality on the ground. The only documented site of any kind of cremation that may have existed at Birkenau was a space behind crematorium V, it covered an area of some 50 square meters – whereas, if we follow the holocaust propaganda, the alleged extermination of the Hungarian Jews is said to have required “cremation ditches” with an area of about 5,900 square meters altogether – as we can see from this photograph:

Document 6: Aerial photograph of Birkenau taken on 23 August 1944 – Northern yard of Crematorium V. The smoking site is very small, as can be seen from the size of crematorium V which was about 13 meters wide. (Click on the picture to view it in full size).

We must remember, moreover, that in order to reach this point it would have been necessary to pass crematoria IV and V which surely would not have escaped the eye of as acute an observer of chimneys as Elie Wiesel – there were four chimneys, after all. What is more, there were no barracks in the vicinity, there was only crematorium V. Finally, the nearest wire fence against which our witness wanted to throw himself (on the north side) ran along on the far side of a drainage ditch.

Wiesel’s tale is not only historically unfounded, it is also absurd, because if Wiesel had really come within two steps of a real “cremation pit” – which would have had to be run at a temperature of about 600 degC to be effective – he would have been killed by the intense heat.

The scene of the truck unloading children into a “cremation pit” is also one of the ludicrous propaganda arguments of the post-war era. It was illustrated by one of David Olère’s drawings in 1947 which was then to inspire a number of later “eye-witnesses”.[25]

Wiesel’s story thus turns out to be both false and absurd, but it is also a blatant subterfuge: if he and his father had really been “selected” for work, why were they taken anywhwere near the “cremation pit”? So that they would discover the “terrible secret” of Auschwitz and spread their story to other camps?

It is obvious that we have here nothing but a simple trick used by Wiesel to style himself as an “eye-witness” of a horrific but purely fictitious event.

e) The transfer to Auschwitz

After a night spent in a barrack of the Gypsy camp, Elie Wiesel was moved to the Auschwitz main camp. Here too, the description is exceedingly vague:

«The march had lasted half an hour. Looking around me, I noticed that the barbed wires were behind us. We had left the camp.

It was a beautiful April day. The fragrance of spring was in the air. The sun was setting in the west.

But we had been marching for only a few moments when we saw the barbed wire of another camp. An iron door with the inscription over it:

‘Work is liberty!’

Auschwitz» (pp. 51-52).

He does not even seem to have noticed passing through the archway of the Birkenau entrance building. Along the way, he notices nothing, neither the bridge across the railroad tracks, nor the long tree-lined road leading to the main camp. On the other hand, he immediately sees the inscription “Arbeit macht frei” (but does not render it in German), as could anyone who ever heard of Auschwitz.

Needless to say that he makes sure not to provide us with an even sketchy description of the new camp. On arrival, he was taken to Block 17 about which he does not tell the reader anything, for obvious reasons.

«In the afternoon we were made to line up. Three prisoners brought a table and some medical instruments. With the left sleeve rolled up, each person passed in front of the table. The three ‘veterans,’ with needles in their hands, engraved a number on our left arms. I became A-7713» (pp. 53-54).

Even this facet is false. I have already spoken of the fraudulent ID number. Here, Tadeusz Iwasko informs us that

«The new arrivals (Zugang) were taken to the bathhouses which, at Auschwitz I, were located in block no. 26».[26]

Elie Wiesel keeps quiet about all the preparatory operations prior to admission, which he is obviously unfamiliar with:

«Registration took place immediately after the bath and the consignment of the clothes; it involved the filling-out of a form (Häftlings-Personalbogen) giving personal data and the address of the nearest relatives. […]. The detainee was then assigned a serial number which would be used instead of his name throughout his stay at the camp. Registration ended with this number being tattooed on his lower left arm».[27]

He goes on to speak of the evening roll call:

«Tens of thousands of prisoners stood in rows while the SS checked their numbers» (p.54) (my italics)

The Auschwtz camp strength, however, was far lower. On 12 July 1944, the camp held about 14,400 detainees.[28]

f) The transfer to Monowitz

After having spent three weeks at Auschwitz (p. 55), Elie Wiesel was transferred to the Buna camp (p. 59), also called Auschwitz III, at Monowitz. Here, again, we have no verifiable particulars.[29] What little details he gives us are all fanciful. He starts out right away with a contradiction:

«Our convoy included a few children ten and twelve years old» (p. 58).

Perhaps these youngsters, too, had told the Germans that they were eighteen years of age, so that they would be spared the gas chambers?

Then «[…] we were installed in two tents» (p. 58), as if Monowitz did not have the 60 barracks which Primo Levi told us about:

«Our Lager is a square of about six hundred yards in length, surrounded by two fences of barbed wire, the inner one carrying a high tension current. It consists of sixty wooden huts, which are called Blocks, ten of which are in construction. In addition, there is the body of the kitchens, which are in brick; an experimental farm, run by a detachment of privileged Häftlinge; the huts with the showers and the latrines, one for each group of six or eight Blocks. Besides these, certain Blocks are reserved for specific purposes. First of all, a group of eight, at the extreme eastern end of the camp, forms the infirmary and clinic; then there is Block 24 which is the Krätzeblock, reserved for infectious skin diseases; Block 7 which no ordinary Häftling has ever entered, reserved for the “Prominenz”, that is,the aristocracy, the internees holding the highest posts; Block 47, reserved for the Reichsdeutsche (the Aryan Germans, ‘politicals’ or criminals); Block 49, for the Kapos alone; Block 12, half of which, for use of the Reichsdeutsche and the Kapos, serves as canteen, that is, a distribution centre for tobacco, insect powder and occasionally other articles; Block 37, which formed the Quartermaster’s office and the Office for Work; and finally, Block 29, which always has its windows closed as it is the Frauenblock, the camp brothel, served by Polish Häftling girls, and reserved for the Reichsdeutsche»[30]

When compared to this text, Elie Wiesel’s non-description can only be qualified as pathetic.

When he spoke at Montecitorio, Elie Wiesel boasted of having known Primo Levi:

«At a certain point, both of us were assigned to the same barrack, but he was not there during the death-march towards the [railroad] cars which took us to Buchenwald, he stayed in the hospital» (my italics)[31]

However, Primo Levi was assigned to Block 30 [32], then to Block 45 [33] and finally to Block 48.[34] Which Block was Wiesel’s? The answer is not as simple as that. Initially, Wiesel speaks of «the orchestra block»[35] which was, indeed, near the door of the camp (p. 60), then he mentions Block 36 a couple of times: «with all my might I began to run to block 36» (p. 84), «I ran to block 36» (p. 87) without telling us whether he eventually stayed there, finally he says clearly that he stayed in Block 57 (p. 96). In fact, Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi were never housed in the same barrack. A little white lie right in the middle of Montecitorio, right smack in the face of so many listeners!

The little tale of ripping out gold teeth from the mouths of living detainees (p. 63) and the ensuing closure of the dental station (Zahnstation) is unfounded. Gold teeth were removed from corpses and the Zahnstation, located in Block 15 and run by the SS, was never closed down.

Elie Wiesel then goes on to tell us about a detainee “selected” for death in the “gas chamber”:

«When the selection came, he was condemned in advance, offering his own neck to the executioner. All he asked of us was:

‘In three days I shall no longer be here…. Say the Kaddish for me.’

We promised him. In three days’ time, when we saw the smoke rising from the chimney, we would think of him. Ten of us would gather together and hold a special service. All his friends would say the Kaddish.

Then he went off toward the hospital, his step steadier, not looking back. An ambulance was waiting to take him to Birkenau» (pp. 88-89) (my italics)

Our “eye witness” had either forgotten that he was at Monowitz where there was no crematorium or had such a keen eye that he could see the smoke from “the chimney” (one of six, the choice is yours) at Birkenau, something that would be rather improbable in view of the fact that the two camps were 5 km apart as the crow flies and the town of Auschwitz stood between them.

Also, sending an ambulance to take a detainee to the gas chamber would really be an example of “Sonderbehandlung“, a very “special treatment”!

On the subject of “selections”, Elie Wiesel asserts that «the notorious Dr. Mengele» was present at one of them (p. 85); but Mengele was Lagerarzt of the Gypsy camp (BIIe) at Birkenau and certainly had other duties than to go to Monowitz and carry out “selections” there. Mengele, incidentally, is the only physician mentioned by Elie Wiesel, and is also the one who received him at Birkenau (p. 42); the name is very well known among those who never even came near Auschwitz.

Our eye-witness even mentions an occurrence that one can verify: an allied air-raid.

It took place «one Sunday» (p. 70), he remembers the day very well because he had decided «[…] to stay in bed late in the morning» (p. 70) «The raid lasted over an hour” (p. 72) and he comments: «To see the whole works (la fabbrica in the Italian edition, p. 62) go up in fire – what revenge!» (p. 72) (my italics).

In reality, the raid took place on 13 September 1944, which was a Wednesday, it lasted 13 minutes, from 11:17 through 11:30 (a.m.) and destroyed only part of the installations. Actually, at Monowitz there was not only one plant but quite a few.

We will not go into minor silly statements, such as the death sentence pronounced «in the name of Himmler […]» (p.74) and move on to his stay at the camp hospital (probably inspired by Primo Levi’s account). It took place «in mid-January» when his right foot swelled up because of chillblains and he had to be operated on. He had to move into the hospital and immediately noticed that «it was indeed true that the hospital was very small […]»(p. 90). Actually, it consisted of only nine Blocks, two for recovery (13 and 22), two for surgery (14 and 16), one for internal medicine and dentistry (15), two for internal medicine (17 and 19), one for out-patients and reception(18) and one for infectious diseases.[36]

g) The transfer to Buchenwald

We do not have to go into the motivations for Wiesel’s decision to leave with the Germans rather than wait for the Soviets to arrive, because, in its literary context, it is psychologically explained by the (unjustified) fear that all those remaining behind in the camp would be shot.

Leaving aside the evacuation march itself and the ride on the train, we will consider the details of the arrival at Buchenwald, keeping in mind only the duration of the whole trip: three days’ stay at Gleiwitz (p. 107), plus one day for the march from Monowitz, and «ten days, ten nights of travelling» (p. 111) for a total of at least 14 days. On arrival at Buchenwald we have the usual fogginess – no part of the camp can be identified in any way. Wiesel speaks of showers «On the third day after our arrival at Buchenwald» (p. 118) but avoids any kind of detail regarding the registration procedure. We have already seen that Miklós Grüner and Lázár Wiesel who really did go to Buchenwald were respectively assigned the ID numbers 120762 and 123565.

If Elie Wiesel had in any manner wanted to speak of the registration which he had to go through like everyone else, obviously, he would have had to say something about two ID numbers. Worse still, there is no record of a person by the name of Elie (or Eliezer) Wiesel in the Buchenwald files.

Let us take a look at the account of his arrival at Buchenwald to see whether it agrees with the documents.

He states that he went to have a shower «on the third day after our arrival at Buchenwald» (p. 118) and that this had occured on «January 28, 1945» (p.123), which means that he left Monowitz on 11 January and arrived at Buchenwald on 25 January. Actually, there were three convoys of deportees from the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex which went to Buchenwald [37] in January of 1945:

No convoy left on 11 January, no convoy took longer than 8 days to arrive. The one arriving on 26 January had both Lázár Wiesel and Miklós Grüner on board, as we can see from the ID numbers assigned to them – 120762 and 123565.

As has been mentioned above, the original Yiddish text from which Elie Wiesel took chapter VII of his book (the account of the journey from Gleiwitz to Buchenwald) has been translated into English by Moshe Spiegel under the title “The Death Train”[38]. The two texts are very similar, except that in the first book the number of detainees loaded into Elie Wiesel’s car is not 100 but 120.[39] Moreover, there is a mention here of the number of cars on the train: 25.[40] On the other hand, the number of detainees in Elie Wiesel’s car still alive on arrival at Buchenwald is the same for both: 12 (p. 101).[41] This means that, in this car, there was a mortality of 88 or 90%, respectively. But the entire convoy would have had a similar death rate:

«The journey lasted ten interminable days and nights. Each day claimed its toll of victims and each night paid its homage to the Angel of Death».[42]

On the day of the arrival at Buchenwald, there were 40 deaths.[43]

Thus, initially, there would have been (25 x 100 ~ 120 =) 2,500 ~ 3,000 detainees altogether on this train, with most of them dying on the way.

On the other hand, it is known from the train manifests, that the transport which reached Buchenwald on 26 January comprised, on departure, exactly 3,987 detainees [44]; if 3,927 of them were registered at Buchenwald on arrival there were 60 deaths, or a mortality of 1.5 percent, along the way.

Taking all these aspects into account, one can see that the description given by Elie Wiesel for the journey from Gleiwitz to Buchenwald cannot be true.

In short, Elie Wiesel was never interned at Birkenau, nor at Auschwtz, nor at Monowitz, nor at Buchenwald.

As far as Elie Wiesel’s father Shlomo is concerned, while his name [45] does appear in the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names [46] at Yad Vashem, this information was provided on 8 October 2004 by Elie Wiesel himself!

One last remark: It is asserted that Elie Wiesel’s presence at Buchenwald is borne out by the fact that he appears on a photograph showing a group of detainees at this camp:

«Photo by Harry Miller of slave laborers in the Buchenwald concentration camp after U.S. troops of the 80th Div. entered the camp. Taken on 16 April 1945. Miklos Grüner (Haft-Nr. 120762) is on the left at the bottom, while Elie Wiesel (Haft-Nr. 123565) is on the next row up, seventh along, nearest to the third pillar from the left».[47]

However, the interpretation that the face of the person shown on this photograph is Elie Wiesel’s is based solely on his own statement to the effect that he recognized himself. As to “his” ID number – 123565 – that number belonged to Lázár Wiesel!

Carlo Mattogno [48]

[1] See the shorthand minutes in:
http://www.camera.it/cartellecomuni/Leg16/files/pdf/opuscolo_giorno_della_memoria.pdf
[2] In: http://www.haon.hu/hirek/magyarorszag/cikk/meg-mindig-kiserti-a-halaltabor/cn/haon-news-FCUWeb-20090303-0604233755
[3] In http://www.henrymakow.com/translated_from_the_hungarian.html
[4] Elie Wiesel, section on “Early life”,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel
[5] NARA, A 3355, RG 242.
[6] Idem.
[7] Sighetu Marmaţiei, in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sighetu_Marma%C5%A3iei
[8] YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1962.
[9] François Mauriac wrote a preface for Elie Wiesel’s book.
[10] Michael Wiesberg, Unversöhnlich – Elie Wiesel zum 80. In: Grundlagen, Sezession 25, August 2008, p. 25.
[11] Giuntina, Firenze, 1986.
[12] In: R. Faurisson, Écrits Révisionnistes (1974-1998) , vol. II, De 1984 à 1989. Édition privée hors commerce, 1999, pp. 606-610. Online: http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/archFaur/1986-1990/RF861017.htm (French); http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/wiesel.shtml (English).
[13] Elie Wiesel: la donnola travestiata da agnello, in:http://andreacarancini.blogspot.com/2010/01/elie-wiesel-la-donnola-travestita-da.html
[14] http://www.hebcal.com/hebcal/?year=1944&v=1&month=5&yt=G&nh=on&nx=on&i=off&vis=on&set=on&c=off&geo=zip&zip=&m=72&.cgifields=nx&.cgifields=nh&.s=Get+Calendar
[15] Liste der Judentransporte, Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, microfilm no. 727/27.
[16] R.L. Braham, A Magyar Holocaust. Gondolat Budapest-Blackburn International Inc., Wilmington, 1988, p. 514.
[17] L’Album d’Auschwitz, Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1983.
[18] These installations have been well described by Jean-Claude Pressac in: Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989, pp. 53-85.
[19] Auschwitz. Il campo nazista della morte. Edizioni del Museo Statale di Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1997, p. 122.
[20] Thomas Grotum, Jan Parcer, “EDV-gestützte Auswertung der Sterbeeinträge”, in: Sterbebücher von Auschwitz, State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ed. K.G. Saur, Munich, New Providence, London, Paris 1995, vol. 1, p. 248.
[21] R.J.van Pelt, The Case for Auschwitz. Evidence from the Irving Trial, Indiana University Press, Bloomington/Indianapolis 2002, p. 504.
[22] «Combustion Experiments with Flesh and Animal Fat on cremations in pits in the alleged extermination camps of the Third Reich», in: The Revisionist, Vol. 2, Number 1, February 2004, pp. 64-72.
[23] But no photograph shows the presence of smoke in this area.
[24] Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2005.
[25] See also my study Le camere a gas di Auschwitz. Studio storico-tecnico sugli “indizi criminali” di Jean-Claude Pressac e sulla “convergenza di prove” di Robert Jan van Pelt, Effepi, Genoa 2009, p. 552.
[26] Auschwitz. Il campo nazista della morte, op. cit., p. 52.
[27] Idem, p. 54.
[28] D. Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989, p. 821.
[29] Except the mention of the barrack of the camp orchestra.
[30] Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz. The Nazi Assault on Humanity (re-titled edition of If This Is a Man), Collier, New York 1961, p. 27.
[31] http://www.camera.it/cartellecomuni/Leg16/files/pdf/opuscolo_giorno_della_memoria.pdf
[32] Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, op.cit., p. 33.
[33] Idem, p. 51.
[34] Idem, p. 116.
[35] The Block for the orchestra was not counted with the other barracks of the camp, numbered 1 through 60.
[36] Irena Strzelecka, Piotr Setkiewicz, «Bau, Ausbau und Entwicklung des KL Auschwitz und seiner Nebenlager», in: W. Długobordki, F. Piper, Auschwitz 1940-1945. Studien zur Geschichte des Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslager Auschwitz, Verlag des Staatlichen Museums Auschwitz-Birkenau 1999, Bd. I, p. 128.
[37] Het Nederlandsche Roode Kruis, Auschwitz, Deel VI, ‘s-Gravenhage, 1952, p. 39.
[38] In: Jacob Glatstein, Israel Knox and Samuel Margoshes (Eds.), Anthology of Holocaust Literature, A Temple Book, Atheneum, New York 1968, pp. 3-10.
[39] Idem., p. 10.
[40] Idem., p. 9.
[41] Idem., p. 10.
[42] Idem., p. 5.
[43] Idem., p. 10.
[44] Andrzej Strzelecki, Endphase des KL Auschwitz, Verlag Staatliches Museum in Oświęcim-Brzezinka 1995, pp. 338-229. Reproduction of two pages of the original transport manifest.
[45] He is listed there as Shlomo Vizel, son of Eliezer and of Nisel, born at Sighet and died at Buchenwald on 27 January 1945. The year of his birth is not indicated.
[46] http://www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome
[47] Elie Wiesel’s identity crisis, in:http://christopherhitchenswatch.blogspot.com/2009/03/elie-wiesels-identity-crisis.html
[48] The Italian original of this article, Elie Wiesel: «Il più autorevole testimone vivente» della Shoah?, dated 3 February 2010, is found online at: http://ita.vho.org/056_Elie_Wiesel.htm (This English translation contains some minor revisions made for it by the author).

The grandson of a Holocaust survivor has purchased the diary of Dr. Josef Mengele, which was put up for sale in the United States, a Connecticut-based auctioneer said Tuesday.

The buyer, an East Coast Jewish philanthropist who remained anonymous, paid an undisclosed sum for the 180-page journal, which he intends to donate to a Holocaust museum, said Bill Panagopulos of Alexander Autographs. [...]

Entries in the journal begin in June 1960 in South America, where Mengele found refuge after World War II. They include statements on the need to sterilize people with “deficient genes.”

Mengele, who was notorious for the brutal experiments he performed on camp inmates, outlined in the diary his impressions and thoughts on culture, religion, history and biology, developing the racial doctrine which served as the Nazi regime’s ideological basis.

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147455.html

The real questions are, of course, what Mengele had to say about the alleged mass gassings at Auschwitz, and when his writings are to be made available to public scrutiny.

For more on the Mengele case, see the following review of Gerald Posner and John Ware’s 1986 book Mengele. The Complete Story:

http://www.codoh.com/review/revmengele.html

Dear Dr. Neander,

Thank you for your letter of February 3rd. First let me assure you that you are welcome to any assistance I can give you in keeping the facts about Irene Zisblatt and the entire “Auschwitz experience” in order. (See 2nd paragraph at:
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/02/response-to-c-yeager.html#_ftnref2)
As a self-described independent scholar who has moved to Poland from Germany (I gather) and lives in Cracow, close to the Auschwitz-Birkenau (A-B) Memorial Museum, you obviously have a desire to be, or believe that you are, an “expert” on A-B. Very good, since we certainly need real experts to help us deal with the many, many falsehoods and perversions promulgated about this place since at least 1941, but especially after 1945.

You and I have agreed that Mrs. Zisblatt (by the way, she is no more “Mrs.” Zisblatt than I am Mrs. Yeager, so I will just call her Zisblatt and you may call me Ms. Yeager) has written a fantasy with her book, The Fifth Diamond. Of course, that means you also agree that the account she gives of her Auschwitz experience in Steven Spielberg’s documentary film, The Last Days, is also fantasy (a very important and potent point). As you have previously stated, the main theme of her book and of her testimony in the film is her ingesting, defecating, retrieving and ingesting again, over and over during her year spent in camps and on what she terms a “death march,” four diamonds given her by her mother before they entered Birkenau. Thus you agree that Zisblatt is lying in a very bold way about her experience, although you prefer to call her a “confused old lady” with a “dysfunctional memory” who “deserves our pity.” Hmmm, I dare say Zisblatt probably prefers my description of her as liar to yours as object of pity.

But more on that later. I want to follow your comments in a chronological order, so I’ll speak first about Stehzelle. You “prove” the existence of such torture by referring to the Auschwitz archives, saying that out of 275 reports you counted 28 reports that speak of Stehzelle given as punishment. This you expect to be accepted at face value. Yet, the entire holocaust legend is based on false reports, forgeries and lying and/or coerced witnesses. Therefore, a holocaust skeptic such as I am does want to see some physical evidence or unquestionably genuine documentation, which you have not produced.

My reference to the Auschwitz Wikipedia page, where Stehzelle is discussed, was not meant as “gospel” but had a purpose. If the most popular, most-relied upon quick source of information on the Internet cannot give a single real source of documentation for such cells, but instead dissimulates, it just shows how confused the entire subject is. It may have skipped your notice, but Maximilian Kolbe was not in a standing cell at the end, but in a regular cell, yet his detention in this cell was used at Wikipedia as evidence of the existence of “standing cells.” Going to the A-B website, one finds no archival information such as you say you have, but only a panoramic photo of the same reconstruction that I showed a photo of in my critique of your original article. And the Auschwitz archives are not The Gospel either.

It is also possible that “standing cell” was not what was described by some witnesses, who do like to go overboard in their descriptions. Why, for instance, do we only have reconstructions today, as seen in the photo mentioned above taken in Block 11 at Auschwitz, with those ridiculous tiny doors that adults would find it extremely hard to get through (and how did they get sick or unconscious people out, not to speak of dead ones?), and that are NOT shown to regular tour-goers who are not taken into the basement? It is typical that there are a lot of words written and spoken about things like Stehzelle, but no desire to show anything real to the public. Why? Because when the more intelligent of the public can look things over for themselves, they begin to see the improbabilities and impossibilities of the story that’s been given out.

It’s also of note that “standing punishment” has been around for a long time—it was called Field Punishment No. 1 by the British Army in WWI (soldiers referred to it as “the crucifixion”); the French Legionnaires called it “the Silo.” By the 1920’s it was routine police torture in America. In the 1930’s, Stalin’s NKVD used forced standing to coerce confessions for show trials. South African and Brazilian police made prisoners stand on cans or bricks, which caused excruciating pain to the feet. In 1956 the CIA commissioned two experts to study the effects of enforced standing. They found that the ankles and feet swell to twice their normal size within 24 hours; large blisters develop, and it gets worse from there.[1] It follows that it’s unlikely those so punished could work after spending over one day in such a cell.

With such wide usage, it’s no wonder it became a favorite story at the German concentration camps. No, I do not automatically accept the story that Commandant Liebenhenschel had the standing cells allegedly erected by Commandant Hoess torn down. I do not consider myself a scholar, Dr. Neander, as you do. I am an intelligent person who likes to use a common sense approach (anathema to holocaust scholars!). I think it is very telling that all alleged standing cells were torn down prior to the camp liberation or immediately afterward, leaving us with no physical record. In the case of Dachau, it was the U.S. Army itself that tore them down without taking any photographs. This makes no sense, since they were eager to find all evidence of Nazi crimes and publicize them. An intelligent person has to conclude that the standing cells at Dachau, today represented by a diagrammatic exhibit, are just another false publicity story. Would you not conclude that yourself, Dr. Neander?

This is all there is as evidence of Stehzelle at Dachau. The sign says prisoners were kept in these cells for as much as 72 hours at a time (3 days!). A Dachau exhibit reports that a Soviet prisoner, Yuri Piskunov, was confined to one of these cells for 10 days (!) in October 1944, but with no mention of his crime. According to the CIA study I cited, he would not have survived, but Piskunov was still alive when this exhibit opened in 2000. (photo by litlnemo at flickr)

Stehzelle drawing

More evidence? Drawing from a “survivor” of the so-called “Standing Cells” shows how belief is generated from fantasy. From http://www.dachautour.com/

Moving on, you also make the comment that your original statement in your “Diamond Girl” article — “On the other hand, according to her story, Chana obviously did not have health problems with ingesting feces, as the Stehzelle episode shows. During the five days in this dungeon, the girls relieve themselves into the ankle-deep water in which they stand and drink the same water repeatedly (47), without becoming sick.” — was meant ironically, and I was unable to detect this. I doubt very much that I was the only reader who was unable to detect any irony in your wording and presentation of this idea. One would have to be a mind-reader to do so, and scholarly articles do not demand such mind-reading (well, Raul Hilberg does expect us to believe in mind-reading among the Nazi “final-solutionists,” which just shows that he is not a true scholar). Yet, even though you fault me for not picking up your ironies, you have misread or “mystified” several things that I wrote.

For instance, I was not “criticizing” you for not confronting the three main versions of Zisblatt’s story—her book, her Surviviors of the Shoah testimony, and the Spielberg film—and all the unacceptable discrepancies between them, in my first response to you: “Holocaust Scholar Finds ‘Fifth Diamond’ to Be a Work of Fiction.”[2] I only pointed that out so the reader would know there was an even bigger problem with Zisblatt’s integrity as a holocaust survivor than what you presented in your article. I accept your position that you wanted to keep your critique to a manageable length—that is certainly understandable—although the other reasons you give are less convincing. You say that the book cannot be altered anymore and is the product of thorough reflection as opposed to “the contingencies of an interview or a film scene shot live.” I have to object that the (Shoah) interview was taped, with opportunity to change and correct if desired; the film also must have given opportunity for several takes and was carefully prepared for. I don’t think there is any wiggle-room for claiming she was not able to say what she really meant to say. Therefore, we cannot divorce Zisblatt’s book from her Shoah testimony and especially from the film, The Last Days, and from all her public talks; they must be taken as a whole in the long run. I am not saying you are avoiding this; I don’t think, at this point, that you are.

Another instance: You are misrepresenting my words when you say that by “smoothing over” I meant you did not mention everything that was erroneous in Zisblatt’s narrative. That is not at all what I wrote. My words of “smoothed over” were clearly in regard to several of Zisblatt’s errors that you made light of or excused; thus they were in reference to what you DID say—not to what you did not say. An example is her incorrect timing for her arrival at Birkenau, putting herself there a full month before Jews from her area arrived there. She was very clear in Shoah testimony and book (written 10 years later) that all Jews in her town were deported by two days after Passover. This is not something that she would be confused about. Yet you call my criticism of survivors unable to assign correct dates to their memories an unreasonable expectation on my part. You then launch into a lecture of moral outrage at my “ignorance” of how impossible it was for concentration camp inmates to have any sense of time, and suggest I read “some good (non-revisionist) literature” about concentration camp life. This is typical holocaustian tactics of going on the offence rather than defend one’s position.

Do you suggest I read the most famous concentration camp literature of all — Night and other books by Elie Wiesel? How about Deborah Lipstadt’s works, or Danuta Czech? There are so many books to choose from, I wouldn’t know where to start. Perhaps you could direct me to the ones you most recommend.

Dr. Neander, do you deny that prisoners at A-B were able to subscribe to newspapers that were delivered to them in the camp? Do you deny that they received mail from family and friends, which certainly had dates on it? Do you deny there was a network of rumor and talk of all sorts, including an underground that managed to send radio messages to London? Let’s get real here. Even poor Zisblatt with her dysfunctional memory says they “somehow” knew when Jewish holidays came up and fasted for Yom Kippur for 24 hours, dumping their soup into the dirt, even though they were “starving.” How heroic! They were punished for that by the SS, she says, who deprived them of soup for the next five days. Contradictory to that, she also says she lost her faith in God and disassociated herself from her religious beliefs as soon as she found herself in the camp—survival became her only goal. How does that fit with choosing to fast when you’re starving?

So when you say that “for the average prisoner even the possession of paper and pencil — to take notes, to write a diary — was a ‘crime’ punishable by severe flogging, Stehzelle, or, if the SS man had a bad day, by killing on the spot” it is you that is showing ignorance, not I, by exaggerating beyond belief.

You continue in this vein when you still insist that “All the atrocities reported by Zisblatt did happen, somewhere, sometime” (tearing Jewish babies in half and throwing them in a river or into burning pits or banging their heads against trucks, or skinning prisoners with “smooth skin” to make lampshades, or putting anti-fertility chemicals into the soup?) and that “There can be no doubt that a multitude of criminal medical experiments” were performed on prisoners. (You also use the phrase “doubtless” many times, which any debater knows is a mark against you because it is used in place of proof or solid argument.) Now, I did not say that the medical experiments you refer to are absolutely untrue; I just know that it is necessary to doubt the simplistic, broad-brush claims you make about them.

Taking the camp doctors you mention one by one, let’s fact check your claims to be a scholar against what you’re now calling my “deep ignorance.”

1)  Dr. Sigmund Rascher, contrary to what you say, was never sentenced to death by an SS court; he was not even put on trial in an SS court or any other court. Rascher and his wife were arrested by the Munich police in April 1944 and put into a Munich jail for a crime that had nothing to do with his “experiments” at Dachau, but for Kindesunterschiebung, the kidnapping of two infants that they claimed Mrs. Rascher had given birth to. This was a very serious crime in Germany. They were also charged with financial irregularities and scientific fraud. Rascher was later moved to the Dachau prison bunker in preparation for being sent to the South Tyrol as part of a prisoner-exchange [3]; his wife to Ravensbruck. They were “executed” right before liberation under unclear circumstances that are too complicated to go into, but were not according to SS procedure. As a doctor, Rascher used Dachau for his investigations into the effects of high altitude on German pilots, commissioned by Himmler for the Luftwaffe. According to the post-war testimony of his assistant Walter Neff (who was also a prisoner), 180 to 200 prisoners, only one a Jew, were provided—the great majority of whom had already been condemned to death by German courts. Forty of them were Russian POWs who were also subject to death because they were Communist Commissars (the “Commissar Order”) and 10 were ‘volunteers.’ Again according to Neff, about 70 to 80 of these prisoners died.[4] Himmler is said to have told Dr. Rascher that the subjects who survived should be pardoned to life imprisonment.[5] If so, this is another indication that the prisoners turned over for this experiment were condemned to death already. It’s also noteworthy that three of the doctors who worked with Rascher on the Luftwaffe high altitude experiments were acquitted at the Nuremberg “Doctor’s Trial” in 1947.[6]

To put this in perspective, let me remark that the Nazi justification for these experiments was that this was done in an effort to save the lives of German pilots. Please remember that the “good” Americans claim their “experimental” atomic bombing of Japanese cities was justified because it saved American servicemen’s lives. These hundred thousand plus of Japanese citizens had not been condemned to death by a court for criminal activities, but they were condemned by the American President and Military Command in absentia! The moral seems to be: killing to save American lives can be justified, but not German lives—victor’s justice. Also, America confiscated the results of the experiments they found by Dr. Rascher and used them for the U.S. Air Force.[7] They also used the results of experiments at Buchenwald. Many of the doctors who did experiments in the camps were brought to America to continue their experiments.

2)  Dr. Waldemar Hoven was accused of being the commandant’s wife’s lover. According to the Buchenwald camp guidebook “Ilse (Koch) selected prisoners with tattooed skin to be killed by her lover, Dr. Waldemar Hoven, in order to make leather lamp shades to decorate her home.”[8] We know that is not true—it is one of the famous atrocity legends (lies)—so why believe anything in the Buchenwald guidebook, or Buchenwald archives either if they have them? (I was at Buchenwald and I could see how hard they try to make it seem like a much worse place than it was. They have something of an inferiority complex because they don’t have a gas chamber, poor things, so they’ve turned the crematorium into a shrine and invented the “killing room” in the basement below.) The prisoners didn’t like Ilse Koch and because there were so many complaints about them, both Hoven and Ilse Koch were tried by Dr. Konrad Morgen in his tough SS court. Ilse Koch was acquitted, but Hoven was convicted and sentenced to death for murder. He spent 18 months in prison at Buchenwald, but was then reprieved because of the critical wartime shortage of doctors. He remained practicing at Buchenwald. He was not sent to the Eastern front by Himmler, as you said.

Strangely, an official U.S. Army Report dated April 24, 1945 accused Dr. Hoven of being a communist ally who was charged with killing anti-communist prisoners in Buchenwald with lethal injections. He was prosecuted by the IMT at “The Doctor’s Trial” and executed in 1948. Who is to say of what he was really guilty?

3)  Dr. Carl Clauberg and Dr. Horst Schumann are accused by holocaust crazies without any evidence. In the few articles about them on the “world wide web,” there are no sources or exhibits to confirm the nonsense about Clauberg’s sterilization of women “experiments,” and the same goes for Schumann. Nothing on the USHMM or A-BMM sites except the same accusatory words. You speak of a thick paper trail, yet all that is found is one unverified letter to HH, that could very well be made up, and probably is because it sounds ridiculous. Dr. Clauberg was known to be a respected medical doctor in Germany.

So, Dr. Neander, do you repeat any holocaust rumors and character assassinations that come down the pike, with little concern for true scholastic rigor? And still you accuse me of ignorance of the “facts.” What actual facts have you presented? What is going on here is that holocaust “Exterminationists” can’t stand it that there were capable doctors, nurses, hospitals and infirmaries in all the main camps taking good care of the prisoners who were ill or injured, so they have to turn these doctors into “Frankensteins” who were only concerned with evil and crazy experiments. You are the one who should better inform yourself before making rash statements.

As for Zisblatt’s hateful attitude toward Germans, it speaks for itself throughout her book and testimonies. She also makes it clear that her hateful attitude is directed toward all Gentiles—there is not a decent one in any of her versions of her story. (Of course, to holocaust-obsessed people like Zisblatt, a “good Gentile” is only one who helps Jews; there is no other standard.) It is astounding that you defend this on the basis that a German woman would feel and write the same against the Soviet and Jewish-Allied “retribution” they experienced at the end and after the war. As you must know, German women who suffered horrendous experiences (some far worse than anything Zisblatt could have experienced) do not write books or make speeches about it in anywhere near the numbers that Jews do.[9[ Even this statement is overly generous—the ratio must be something like 1000 to 1. So yes, there is a great deal of resentment against “the Tribe”, not just from me, and it is well-deserved.

Thus, your efforts to continue to “smooth over” and “soften the blow” to Zisblatt are noticeable. You attempt to pass over to me the blame of wrongdoing by calling me “harsh and disparaging” in my attitude toward this woman who is involved in a “noble cause.” I do not agree with that, but still you are confusing things badly when you say I called her insane, mentally retarded, and a congenital liar. What I said, as you well know, was that she could not subjectively believe what she wrote was true (as you suggested) UNLESS she was insane, mentally retarded or a congenital liar, which I did not think she was. Therefore she must be seen as an egotist and a business woman marketing herself. Are those words too harsh, in your opinion, for what she had done and continues to do, Dr. Neander? Do you deny she is marketing herself and her fantasy story? Do you deny she is paid for many of her public appearances? Do you deny she loves the limelight and the attention? She began doing this in 1994 when she was 16 years younger than she is today, so you really can’t blame it on her old age. It would be distasteful to “market herself” as she is doing even if her story were true—that it is completely false makes it over-the-top disgusting.

And speaking of disgust … I wonder why you lower yourself to post your articles on a site with such low standards as “Holocaust Controversies?” Is that the only place that will accept them? Or are you one of the team? You appear to want to personally uphold good manners and proper forms, but the people you associate with there are anything but “proper.” They are name-callers and haters extraordinaire! Regular contributor Sergey Romanov seems overly reliant on four-letter words. Here are some he used to describe me after my article in response to yours was posted on Inconvenient History Blog: “neo-nazi scum,” idiotic paranoid,” “not very bright,” “dumb neo-nazi liar,”[10] and just yesterday a friend of theirs named Nathaniel called me an “ignorant fuck.” I would think you would not want to be associated with such language that reveals such immature behavior. I certainly don’t! Therefore, while I am willing to converse with you in the further exposure of Irene Zisblatt as the fraud that she is and in putting other myths about Auschwitz-Birkenau in their proper perspective, be informed that I will not reply to anything more that is posted at “Holocaust Controversies.” Good day to you, Sir.

[1] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20040514&slug=torture14

[2] http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/01/holocaust-scholar-finds-%e2%80%9cfifth-diamond%e2%80%9d-to-be-a-work-of-fiction

[3] In the last days of the war, the “prominent” prisoners from all the camps and prisons were sent to Dachau, from which they were then sent to the South Tyrol, allegedly as part of Himmler’s negotiations with Allies for a conditional surrender. Both Nerin E. Gun, a journalist and prisoner at Dachau, in his book The Day of the Americans, 1966, and veteran holocaust writer Gerald Reitlinger in his book The SS, Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945, say that Dr. Rascher was on that trip. Reitlinger wrote “Captain Payne-Best met Sigmund Rascher during the southward evacuation of the Dachau political bunker at the beginning of May 1945.” However, Payne-Best was a British intelligence agent who was arrested in 1939, given special treatment in camp, and whose book The Venlo Incident must be taken with that in mind. Gun wrote that Dr. Rascher was shot in Innsbruck, after the VIP prisoners had been turned over to Captain Payne-Best.

[4] Paul Berben, Dachau 1933-1945: The Official History, London: The Norfolk Press, 1975. pp. 125-135

[5] George J. Annas, Michael A. Grodin, The Nazi doctors and the Nuremberg Code: human rights in human experimentation. Oxford University Press US. 1995. pp. 71–73.

[6] “Dr. Hans Wolfgang Romberg, [mentioned above], was put on trial at Nuremberg in the Doctors Trial which started on December 9, 1946 and ended on August 20, 1947. Dr. Romberg was acquitted, as were Dr. Siegfried Ruff and Dr. August Weltz who were also involved in the Luftwaffe experiments at Dachau.”
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/experiments.html

[7] A. Scott Berg, Lindbergh, G.P.Putman, 1998

[8] http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Buchenwald/Atrocities.html

[9] Jewish survivors are encouraged to speak out, write books and even to embellish and fabricate (The Last Days “documentary” film is an example), and are rewarded (and given awards) for it, while the far more numerous German survivors have been discouraged to the point of ostracism if they should “complain” or “whine” about their sufferings. Once again, victor’s justice.

[10] http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/01/yeager-vs-neander.html

Joachim Neander claims that he is able to give the name of two prisoners who were gassed at Auschwitz. He notes that the “Bunkerbuch” on 5 September 1941 has recorded the death of three detainees, Fritz Renner, Bruno Grosman and Roman Drost, of which the first two are Germans. Since «they all died the same day when the first mass gassing was carried out in the basement of Block 11 (date Sep 5, 1941, according to reports that, shortly after the event, reached the Polish Government-in-Exile in London)» this shows that they were gassed. He adds that «Carlo Mattogno does neither take into consideration the “Bunker” ledger nor the Rögner report nor the accounts of the Polish prisoners who were involved in the September 5, 1941, “action”».[1]

The French historian Jacques Baynac has written:

«For the scientific historian, the testimony is not really history, but an object of history. A testimony does not have much weight, and weighs still less if not confirmed by a genuine document. The postulate of historical science thus is, to put it bluntly: no document(s), no verified fact.»[2]

A testimony, if not supported by a document, is worthless from the historical point of view, regardless of the notion of “converging testimonies”, as is shown by the example of the “converging” testimonal evidence for the Auschwitz 4 million victim figure.

However, in this case, as I have demonstrated in my study Auschwitz: The First Gassing. Rumor and Reality (Theses & Dissertations Press, available online:http://vho.org/dl/ENG/atfg.pdf) the testimonies are not only not supported by any documents, but all are moreover contradictory on all essential points, namely:

• on the location of the first gassing,
• on the duration of the first gassing,
• on the date of the first gassing,
• on the hour of the first gassing,
• on the preparations for the first gassing,
• on the physician present at the first gassing,
• on the perpetrator of the first gassing,
• on the nature of the victims of the first gassing,
• on the number of the victims of the first gassing,
• on the persons who removed the corpses,
• on the beginning of the removal of the corpses,
• on the duration of the removal of the corpses,
• on the fate of the corpses removed,
• on the technique of the gassing,
• on the duration of the agony of the victims,
• on the number of Zyklon B cans used for the gassing.[3]

The interpretation made by Joachim Neander is completely unfounded for two reasons:

1) He arbitrarily chooses the date September 5, 1941 among the various contradictory dates given by the self-styled “eyewitnesses”:

• Michał Kula: 14-15 August 1941
• Zbigniew Baranowski: 15 August 1941
• Walter Petzold: 9 October 1941;

Others – Henry Storch: spring of 1941; Maximilian Grabner: beginning of 1941; Hans Aumeier: November or December 1942.

Among these datings he chooses the one mentioned in «reports that, shortly after the event, reached the Polish Government-in-Exile in London» and which were published in the Polish Forthnightly Review on 1 July 1942. But why should this date be more reliable than the others? Danuta Czech, in her Kalendarium, has explicitly stated 3 September 1941 as the starting date of the alleged gassings. Why is this date unreliable according to Joachim Neander? The answer to this is simple and brings us to the second reason.

2) It is true that these three prisoners were listed as dead in the “Bunkerbuch” on 5 September 1941, but it is also true that they were locked up there the same day. Now, according to Danuta Czech, the “first gassing” began on 3 September and ended the day after that with the death of all the victims; on 5 September there was thus no “gassing” but only an evacuation of the bodies. Neander knows the Kalendarium, since he drew from it (the entry for 6 September 1941) the information regarding the three prisoners confined in the Bunker.[4] In addition, his statement that «Carlo Mattogno does neither take into consideration the “Bunker” ledger» is false, since I have written on the matter:

«The “Bunkerbuch” does not provide us with any information regarding the alleged homicidal gassing of September 3-5, 1941. On September 5, three detainees are registered as having entered: Fritz Renner (ID 11179), Bruno Grosmann (ID 15083), and Roman Drost (ID 10992). They die on the same day (in the register of the Bunker, next to their names, there is the note “ver.”[storben] = deceased). On September 5, the civilian Ladisław Maślak, who had entered the Bunker on August 10, is also entered as having died. The cause of death is not indicated for these four detainees».[5]

In this context Adolf Rögner’s statement that

«in the prison, there were still 2 Germans, they were not released … The 1st Camp Physician had told them they would be released early if they agreed to participate in a short treatment».

has no value. It can not refer to the two German prisoners mentioned above, because they entered the Bunker of Block 11 on 5 September 1941 and died there the same day – what sense does it then make that «there were still 2 Germans, they were not released»? Moreover, in the brief quote made by Neander, Rögner does not indicate the names of the detainees nor the date. He therefore does not have any indication that it refers to Fritz Renner and Bruno Grosman in relation to 5 September 1941.

Equally untrue is the statement that I did not mention «the accounts of the Polish prisoners who were involved in the September 5, 1941, “action”». In this regard I have gathered, from all available sources, over forty such accounts, a number vastly superior to that given by Danuta Czech.[6]

In conclusion:

• there is no evidence that the Bunker of Block 11 in Auschwitz was ever used for a homicidal gassing;
• the dating 5 September 1941 for the alleged event is merely one of the conflicting dates provided by the witness accounts;

therefore the deaths of Fritz Renner and Bruno Grosman in the Bunker on September 5, 1941 does not prove anything and the two can not be considered as “gassed”.

Carlo Mattogno

[1] http://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5909

[2] J. Baynac, «Faute de documents probants sur les chambres à gaz, les historiens ésquivent le débat», in: Le Nouveau Quotidien, 3 September 1996, p. 14.

[3] Auschwitz: The First Gassing. Rumor and Reality, pp. 69-90.

[4] D. Czech, D. Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989, p. 120.

[5] Idem, p. 106.

[6] Idem, pp. 31-68.
]]> http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/02/rebuttal-to-joachim-neander/feed/ 0 http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/02/the-fuhrerbefehl-according-to-the-wjc-in-1945-all-jews-must-die-but-not-before-going-through-suffering-and-agony/ http://www.revblog.codoh.com/2010/02/the-fuhrerbefehl-according-to-the-wjc-in-1945-all-jews-must-die-but-not-before-going-through-suffering-and-agony/#comments Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:46:04 +0000 Thomas Kues http://www.revblog.codoh.com/?p=707 By Thomas Kues

In 1945, the World Jewish Congress prepared a report on the “Criminal Conspiracy” against the Jews perpetrated by the Third Reich for the authorities in charge of bringing about the International Military Tribunal. Of this report, the chapter “Charge Eight: Mass Annihilation, part II” is of special interest. The document, which is found among the records of the World Jewish Congress at the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, can be read online, courtesy of the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum website:

What did the World Jewish Congress want the “international justice” to believe about the supposed Nazi extermination conspiracy? In what way did they describe the origin and the implementation of it in form of the infamous “death camps? What were the sources behind the report?

On p. 109 we read:

“In March 1942, Heinrich Himmler paid a visit to Poland. During his stay in Poland he issued an order to the effect that 50% of all Polish Jews had to be exterminated by the end of that year. In July 1942 Himmler came to Poland again. According to the Polish underground sources, he declared at a Nazi meeting in Warsaw that:

1) Hitler had personally told him that the Jews had commenced the war and should, for that reason, be punished.

2) the Jews are the scum of the earth and must be converted to dust.

3) All Jews must die, but not before going through suffering and agony.

A special “Vernichtungskommission” was organized, with Commissar Fey as Chairman and a large office in Warsaw. This commission had to supervise the work of Jewish extermination in Poland; its members continuously visited different parts of the country and directed the mass slaughter of the Jewish population. Chairman Fey was directly responsible to Himmler.”

While the first of the three statements ascribed to Hitler is clearly based on speeches made by the Führer at the outbreak of the war, the other two statements are typical Greuelpropaganda fantasies casting Hitler as the Devil incarnate. It is all to easy to picture Adolf having a tantrum in front of a sycophantic Reichsführer-SS while giving the infamous, never-proven Führerbefehl (unaware that a member of the Polish resistance, posing as a Sachertorte-carrying waiter, is taking mental notes).

Also, if the supposed mass exterminations were part of a “conspiracy”, would it make much sense to have a “Vernichtungskommission” (Extermination Committee) housed in a “large office in Warsaw”? What happened to the alleged code language? And who was “Commissar Fey”? Is this an error for Robert Ley, the head of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (DAF)? (No “Fey” appears on the “Preliminary List of War Criminals” drawn up by the WJC the same year – Ley does, though).

The biblical undertone of the report appears most clearly on p.111:

“The fleeing Germans [after Stalingrad] surpassed even themselves and reached such depths of cruelty and destructive fury that they beggar any description and any imagination. The Jews should never be able to enjoy the defeat of their worst enemies, or, as Hitler put it, the Jews should never celebrate another Purim (Jewish festival commemorating defeat of Haman’s plot) in his memory.”

As for the Hitler quote, what the Führer actually said in this speech (according to The New York Times January 31, 1944) was that, unless Germany was victorious, “Jewry could then celebrate the destruction of Europe by a second triumphant Purim”. Thus Hitler’s words were not a threat of physical extermination, but a warning about the consequences of a German defeat.

The “report” gets into high gear when it reaches the description of the “death factories”. Here follows the discription of the supposed mass killings at Belzec (pp. 115-116):

“The Jews were crammed into special chambers with metal bars on the floor and walls; then the chambers were filled with water and a powerful electric current sent through these bars. Besides, there was in Belzec a special building with several gas chambers, and the German scientists zealously experienced there on Jews with all kinds of poisoning gases they invented or improved. The children, if healthy, were used as involuntary blood donors for the German Army. Mostly these children were bled white to such a degree that they died shortly afterwards. Special factories produced in Belzec soap and shoes, out of Jewish fat; yet, this business was never really profitable, probably because of the Jews being in the third year of an acute starvation period and there was not much fat left on their bodies. [...]
   The weak point of Belzec was the way the bodies were disposed of… They, or their remains, were loaded on railway cars and transported to a spot where a group of Jews already prepared a grave, whereupon this whole group was instantly executed. After a few months of operating in high gear, all the fields along the railway were filled with mass graves. Lumps of gored blood and decomposed remains of human bodies were spread everywhere around the graves, and the stench became so intensive, that the peasants of nearby villages deserted their farms and land, and the whole population of Belsec left this sinister town.”

Here the WJC authors tries to include every ludicrous atrocity story spread about Belzec during the war: electrocution chambers, gas chambers (utlizing various unnamed poison gases), children emptied of their blood, human soap, trains of death (the story of Jan Karski sans quicklime killings)… The idea that shoes were also produced out of the victims seems to be a new addition. No wonder, by the way, that the Belzec soap & shoes business “was never really profitable” – how good would shoes made out of human fat be? Needless to say, there are no indications whatsoever that the town of Belzec was emptied of its population – but apparently the spies of the underground resistance did not bother to verify this claim, although the town was and is easily accessible by train or car.

Next Sobibór is briefly described (p. 116):

“In the death camp of Sobibur the process of killing was still more perfected. A special brick building was constructed there, and as soon as about 800 people passed into this building, the heavy doors were locked and an electric engine in an adjoining ving pumped poison gas into it. As a rule, in fifteen minutes all the people were dead; then the floor in the building slid apart automatically and the bodies fell into the basement, from where they were taken in special carts to woods and buried there.”

This description is almost certainly a summary of a testimony left on August 10, 1944 by the former Sobibór inmate Ber (Dov) Freiberg, which was later included in Vassili Grossman and Ilya Ehrenburg’s Black Book (Holocaust Library, New York 1981, p. 439). The bizarre claim of the collapsible gas chamber floor appears in a number of early Sobibór testimonies.

Regarding the third Aktion Reinhardt “death camp” the report concludes that

“Tremblinka [sic] had a much greater “productive capacity” than Belsec or Sobibur. It had first three gas chambers, then two were added, and it was able to cope with as many as 20,000 people a day.” (p. 117)

Here we run into a paradox apparent also in the Höss “confession”, namely that Auschwitz had a smaller “killing capacity” than Treblinka, despite the former being constructed as more “efficient” than the latter. On pp. 118-119 we read:

“In July 1942 Heinrich Himmler paid a visit to the camp and laid down plans how to make Oswiecim the largest death factory the Germans ever established. Four new large crematoriums, each connected with a gas-chamber, were built, able to cremate 500 people in an hour, 12,000 in a continuous work of 24 hours. And still, despite this amazing productivity, so many people were killed on some days in Oswiecim, that huge pyres of corpses had to be kindled there. Not less than 4,000,000 people perished in Oswiecim, not less than 1,800,000 of them were Jews.”

It is worth noting that the only victim figure of an “extermination camp” presented is that of Auschwitz.

Finally we note the following statement regarding Majdanek, found on p. 118:

“On November 3rd, 1943, Majdanek had a great day: 18,400 people were killed in this single day. In the official report sent on this day to Berlin, the camp authorities wrote: “The difference between the number of prisoners confined in the camp in the morning and in the evening, is the result of a special annihilation of 18,000 persons.”

This refers to the alleged so-called “Operation Harvest Festival” (Aktion Erntefest). As far as I have been able to determine, the quote from an “official report” concerning the “special annihilation” (no Tarnsprache used there!) is a complete fabrication either on part of the WJC or (perhaps more likely) Soviet propagandists.

The WJC report on the “Mass Annihilation” lack any reference to sources, but it is apparent that its authors have simply lifted their “information” from various Polish and Soviet “reports” on alleged German war crimes. Its primary value consists in the insight it provides into the dissemination of the “Holocaust” propaganda. It begs disbelief that a major international organization such as the WJC produced – at the end of the war – an unsourced “report” teeming with blatant absudities and internal contradictions, if in fact the alleged mass extermination really had taken place. It is even more astounding that WJC officials deemed this report worthy of being submitted to international judicial authorities. This in turn shows that the men behind the “Holocaust” propaganda often did not make the effort to produce authentic-sounding or even realistic descriptions of the alleged crime – such effort was not generally necessary, since the claims were not actually tried by the “International Military Tribunal”, but rather regarded as their own evidence, as far as they were found in some report submitted by the Soviet prosecution.