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The Holocaust History Project.
The Holocaust History Project.

Body Disposal at Auschwitz: The End of Holocaust Denial.

Notes

Abrreviations Used

AA
Auschwitz Archives From Moscow

AM
Archiv der Gedenkstatte Konzentrationslager Mauthausen

APMO
Archiwum Panstwowego Muzeum w Oswiecimiu. Archives of the Auschwitz State Museum.

BA doc.
Bundesarchiv document. File NS 4 Ma/54

JHR
Journal of Historical Review. This is the semi-official journal of Holocaust denial.

Mattogno and Deana
Carlo Mattogno and Franco Deana, The Crematoria Ovens of Auschwitz and Birkenau http://www.codoh.com/found/fndcrema.html

NMT
Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Trials of War Criminals (Washington D.C. 1947) 15 Vols.

Pressac, Auschwitz
Jean Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (NY:1989)

  1. For a comprehensive analysis of the demographics of the Auschwitz deportations see Franscizek Piper, "Estimating the Number of Deportees to Auschwitz-Birkenau" 21 Yad Vashem Studies (1991)

  2. See John C. Zimmerman, Holocaust Denial: Demographics, Testimonies and Ideologies, Forthcoming, Chapters 1-4 for an analysis of the demographics of Holocaust denial. This book will be published in the year 2000 by the University Press of America.

  3. Robert Faurisson, "The Mechanics of Gassing", 1 JHR No. 1 (Spring 1980),23-30; "The Problem of the Gas Chambers", 1 JHR No. 2 (Summer 1980),103-114; The Gas Chambers of Auschwitz Appear to Be Physically Inconceivable", 2 JHR No. 4 (Winter 1981), 311-317; "The Gas Chambers: Truth or Lie?", 2 JHR No. 4 (Winter 1981),322-327. For an analysis see Nadine Fresco, "Denial of the Dead", 28 Dissent (Fall 1981), 467-483.

  4. Fred Leuchter, The Leuchter Report: The End of A Myth (Toronto:1988).

  5. Fred Leuchter, "The Leuchter Report: The How and Why", 9 JHR No. 2 (Summer 1988), 134-135.

  6. The Leuchter Report.

  7. The report initially appeared in the Polish journal Z Zagadnien Sqdowych z XXX 1994, pp. 17-27. An English translation appears at http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/ orgs/polish/institute-for-forensic-research/. The Institute has given me permission to reproduce the report in an appendix in the source cited in note 2 herein. (Cyanides were found probably as salts; these are no longer hydrocyanic acid although they were converted back to hydrocyanic acid for analysis. See Dr. Richard Green's "Leuchter, Rudolf and the Iron Blues" at http://www.holocaust-history.org/ auschwitz/chemistry/blue/.

  8. The Leuchter Report, Appendix 1, p. 16.

  9. Jean Claude Pressac, "Deficiencies and Inconsistencies in the Leuchter Report", and "Additional Notes: Leuchter's Videotape", in Shelley Schapiro, ed. Truth Prevails: Demolishing Holocaust Denial: The End of the Leuchter Report (NY: 1990),40,46,63-68.

  10. Carlo Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend (Newport Beach:1994)

  11. Mattogno and Deana (See source note abbreviations.)

  12. Chapter 9 of the source cited in footnote 2 herein.

  13. Chapter 10 of the source cited in footnote 2 herein.

  14. See Franciszek Piper, "Gas Chambers and Crematoria", in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bloomington:1994), 157-182 for an overview.

  15. See ibid., 158-160.

  16. See the source cited in note 7 herein.

  17. The eyewitness testimony and documents are discussed in Chapters 5, 6 and 9 of the source cited in footnote 2 herein.

  18. Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, (10th ed.:1997),58,373-375.

  19. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 25,26,44.

  20. Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle (NY:1990),429.

  21. Butz, Hoax, 118; Mattogno, Auschwitz:The End of a Legend 24-25.

  22. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend 24.

  23. Ibid, 22

  24. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 208.

  25. Ibid, 275.

  26. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 664. This figure does not include about 20,000 Hungarian Jews who were not registered and were in the process of being deported to other concentration camps.

  27. Piper, "Estimating the Number of Deportees and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp",63; Kazimierz Smolen, "The Concentration Camp Auschwitz," in Kazimierz Smolen and Dauta Czech, eds. From the History of K L Auschwitz(NY:1982),12.

  28. Piper, ibid., 97-99 for a summary of the data presented earlier in the study.

  29. Thomas Grotum and Jan Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries", in Auschwitz State Museum, Death Books From Auschwitz (London:1995) Vol. 1, 212-213.

  30. See the table in Jean Claude Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz: La Machinerie Du Meurtre De Masse (Paris:1993),145.

  31. Bernd Naumann, Auschwitz (NY:1966), 138.

  32. Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries", 220-221.

  33. Lucie Adelsberger, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story (Boston:1995), 52-53.

  34. Ella Lingens Reiner, Prisoners of Fear (NY:1948),64. She also notes (p. 78) the recovery of another prisoner from the disease.

  35. Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys (NY:1983), 146. First published in 1947.

  36. Petro Mirchuk, In the German Mills of Death( NY:1976), 56. First published in 1957.

  37. Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries", 222.

  38. Ibid. , 219.

  39. Wieslaw Kielar, Anus Mundi: 1500 Days in Auschwitz-Birkenau (NY:1980), 160-161. First published in 1972. On the practice of killing sick prisoners see Hermann Langbein, "The Auschwitz Underground", in Gutman and Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 489-490. Langbein was a prisoner in Auschwitz.

  40. Grotum and Parcer, Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries",219-220; Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 171.

  41. Lingens Reiner, Prisoners of Fear, 63.

  42. Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis...", 221.

  43. Pery Broad ,"The Reminiscences of Pery Broad", in Jadwiga Bezwinska and Danuta Czech, eds. K L Auschwitz Seen By the SS (NY:1984), 168.

  44. Naumann, Auschwitz, 129.

  45. Christian Gerlach, "Failure of Plans for an SS Extermination Camp In Mogilev, Belorussia", 11 Holocaust and Genocide Studies No. 1 (Spring 1997), 61-62; Götz Aly, Final Solution: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews (NY: 1999), 224.

  46. Pressac, Auschwitz , 187, 191,193.

  47. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 102,112,120,131.The morgue registries cover the period from October 7, 1941 to August 31, 1943. The entries were made by individual body bearers. Auschwitz Chronicle, 94,fn.

  48. Robert Jan Van Pelt, "A Site in Search of a Mission", in Gutman and Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp", 119.

  49. Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries",212.

  50. See the table in Pressac, Auschwitz, 144.

  51. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 127.

  52. Danuta Czech, "Origins of the Camp, Its Construction and Expansion,"in Franciszek Piper and Teresa Swiebocka, eds., Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp (Oswiecim:1996), 31-32.

  53. Henryk Swiebocki, "Disclosure and Denunciation of SS Crimes," in Piper and Swiebocka, Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp, 251

  54. See Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle,146 where the date given is March 20, 1942.

  55. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 198.

  56. Text in Bezwinska and Czech,eds., K L Auschwitz Seen By the SS, 214-231.

  57. Ibid., 214, fn.50. Explanation given in court for the September 2, 1942 entry. Kremer explained that "outside" as used in his diary refers to taking place inside the second of two bunkers which were in the wooded area of Birkenau "outside" of the camp, not the outdoors, as deniers have tried to assert. Deniers argue that if the "special actions" took place outdoors then they could not have been gassings. I showed the original German entry to three native German speakers, all of whom informed me that the definition of "outside" [draussen] as being outside of the camp is not inconsistent with the entry itself. Original entry is in Hefte von Auschwitz, 1971, Vol. 13, p. 41.Photocopy of the original handwritten entry in Death Books From Auschwitz, Vol. 1, Appendix p. 185. See chapter 4 of the source cited in note 2 herein for a comprehensive discussion of Kremer's diary. My thanks to Judith Jenner, Karola Raab and Martina Badhaus, all of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for examining this entry for me.

    Franz Hossler, to whom Kremer refers in the entry, was executed after the war because of his role in mass murder at Auschwitz.

  58. Naumann, Auschwitz, 160.

  59. Robert Faurisson, "The Confessions of SS Men Who Were at Auschwitz," 2 JHR No. 2 (Summer 1981) 123-125. Pierre Vidal-Naquet has thoroughly debunked Faurisson on this point in A Paper Eichmann: Anatomy of a Lie, 1980, chapter 8, available on the web at http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/VidalNaquet92a/part-8.html. One of the arguments deniers have used in relation to Kremer's diary entries is that he would have stated outright that he witnessed the gassings rather than have used the code word "special actions" if these actions were gassings. In fact, we now know that Kremer was very careful about what he recorded in his diary. The Auschwitz death books show Kremer's signature on more than 10,000 death certificates for the period of time covered in his diary. However, nowhere in his diary does he ever so much as mention signing a death certificate. Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries", 227 give a breakdown how many death certificates each doctor signed.

  60. The original German and English translation are reproduced in Pierre Vidal Naquet, Assassins of Memory (NY:1992), 113-114.

  61. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 204.

  62. Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein, and Adalbert Ruckerl, Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas (Yale:1993), 150,152,161,163,165-167. See also chapters 5 and 6 of the source cited in footnote 2 herein.

  63. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 429-430.

  64. Text in ibid., 210. Mattogno cite in Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 47. Pressac discussion in Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 63.

  65. This special action does, however, discredit Faurisson's argument (note 59 herein) that "special action" had to do with delousing clothes and trains because of the typhus epidemic. The memo specifically separates the delousing from the special action. It states: "During the month of December, work had to be interrupted several times for delousing and disinfestation. Also, starting on 16th December, for security reasons, there was a special action among all the civilian workers". Thus, the delousing is clearly separate from the "special action."

  66. See Pressac, Auschwitz,95,108. See also the chart of the crematoriums in the various concentration camps in Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 97.

  67. A breakdown of the monthly figures for 1941 to 1944 are in Hans Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzetrationlagers Mauthausen: Dokumentation (Wien:1974), 128,129 under column III.

  68. Table in Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 144. Pressac interpolates 1500 into each missing death book. Information on Soviet POWs in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 131.

  69. AM, File B/12/31 for the period from September 26 to November 12, 1941.

  70. Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen, 129.

  71. Piper, "Gas Chambers and Crematoria", note 14 herein p. 175

  72. Pressac, Auschwitz, 145.

  73. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 211.

  74. "Aktenvermerk Betr: Stromversorgung und Installaton des KL und KGL" in AA file 502-1-26 reel 20.

  75. See John C. Zimmerman, How Reliable Are the Hoess Memoirs, http://www.holocaust-history.org/, 6,7. See also chapter 1 of the source cited in footnote 2 herein where many examples of the term "special treatment" as meaning murder are cited from contemporaneous German reports of the period.

  76. Translation and photocopy of the original in Jean Claude Pressac with Robert Jan van Pelt, "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz", in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds. The Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 230-231. Mattogno argued that this document was a forgery because the type of gas detector mentioned in the memo was not the one which would have been used to detect prussic acid. Auschwitz: The End of a Legend,66. However, Pressac also realized that this was not the same type of gas detector which would have been used to detect prussic acid. Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 73. Rather, he saw the significance of the document as constituting "another leak of the existence of a lethal gas chamber in Crematorium II..." "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz," 230. The letter only shows that Topf was ignorant as to the type of gas detector which would be needed. The real problem for Mattogno was to explain why the oven builders would know it to be necessary to have such a device for a crematorium which several weeks earlier was stated to have a "gassing cellar". Since he could not find any such explanation, he reverted to the familiar denier tactic of labeling anything which cannot be explained as a forgery.

    Mattogno apparently realized the problem with his forgery thesis since in a subsequent article on this document he claimed that it was not a forgery but the alteration of an existing document to make it say something other than what it did. As usual, he presented no evidence for his latest peregrination. Carlo Mattogno, The "Gasprufer" of Auschwitz (http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcgvpruf.html), 2

  77. Photocopy in Eugen Kogon,et.al, Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History on the Use of Poison Gas, 248. Translation on p. 247; Pressac, Auschwitz, 446,450

  78. Haunverfugung Nr.108, May 5, 1943, AA, File 502-1-17, reel 19.

  79. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 216. Mattogno, The"Gasprufer" of Auschwitz, 8, places the outbreak in early July. Prisoners contracted typhus both before and after the epidemic.

  80. Mattogno's argument in Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 25. July negotiating information in Czech, "Origins of the Camp, Its Construction and Expansion", 34. Elsewhere, Czech identifies July 1 as the date the Bauleitung began to contact companies to bid on the building contracts for the crematoriums. Auschwitz Chronicle, 190. Expansion information in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 218.

  81. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 50 for the expansion proposal. For background information on the ovens see Pressac, "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz," 189-197.

  82. Evelyn Le Chene, Mauthausen: History of a Concentration Camp (London: 1971) 184-189. I have subtracted prisoners transferred out of the camp to reach these percentages.

  83. Erlauterungsbericht Zum Bauvorhaben Auschwitz O/S, July 15, 1942 AA, File 502-1-222, p. 2 reel 34. The registered male population of the camp was 21,421 on August 1, 1942 and 22,391 on December 1. The female population is not known on August 1. It was 8232 on December 1. The total camp population was 11,703 on January 19, 1941. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle,127, 208, 275, 276. Thus, the camp population had essentially remained static during the typhus epidemic. Camp population for August 1943 in a report by the head of the German concentration camp system in PS 1169, NMT, Vol. 5, p. 382. Deaths of registered prisoners in Pressac, Les Crematoires d' Auschwitz, 145.

  84. Pressac, "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz," 190-191.

  85. Rudolph Jakobskotter, "Die Entwicklung der Einascherung bis zu dem neuen elektrisch beheizten Heiblufteinascherungsofen in Erfurt", 64 Gesundheits-Ingenieur, Hefte 43 (October 25, 1941), 582-583,587. For the type of oven used in the concentration camps see Pressac, "The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz," 190-191.

  86. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 30.

  87. Pressac, Les Crematoires d' Auschwitz, 79-80.

  88. Topf letter of April 4, 1943 to the Bauleitung in APMO, BW 30/34 p. 43

  89. See the discussion at note 116 herein.

  90. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 30.

  91. AM, File B/12/31

  92. Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen: Dokumentation, 128-129, 160.

  93. Letter from Frau Gresens of the Bundesarchiv to the author dated December 8, 1998.

  94. Mattogno and Deana, 9 and footnotes 60-64 on p. 38 where he cites documents from this file for 1943 and 1944 dealing with the Mauthausen ovens.

  95. BA docs. 175-215 for the period September 1941-November 1941. Worker time sheets comprise Docs.188,192,196 and 213.

  96. AM, File N/7/8; BA docs. 205,208

  97. Topf letter of August 20, 1943 in AA File 502-1-313 reel 41; letter of June 13, 1944 and bill from December 23, 1943 in AA File 502-1-327, reel 42; billing information from 1943 in AA File 502-1-79, reel 23; various billing documents for 1942 in AA File 502-1-222, reel 34.

  98. Pressac, Auschwitz, 95.

  99. Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslager Mauthausen, 160.

  100. Mattogno and Deana, 26.

  101. Augustus Cobb, Earth Burial and Cremation (NY:1892), 133

  102. Ibid. , 109-110.

  103. A yearly breakdown appears in The Urn, Vol. 11, No. 5, June 1893, p. 4. The stillborn children are referred to as embryos.

  104. William Eassie, Cremation of the Dead (London:1875),106-108; See also Scientific American , Vol. 30, May 9, 1874, p. 295 and Vol. 117, 1917, p. 22.

  105. H.R.Haweis, Ashes to Ashes (London:1875), 101

  106. Mattogno and Deana, 7,8

  107. Statement by Mr. L.G.A. Leonard of TABO Cremators at Verbatim Conference of the 1975 Annual Conference organized by The Cremation Society of Great Britain (Eastbourne:1975), 83. My thanks to Dan Keren for providing me with the transcript of these proceedings, which is not available in the United States.

  108. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 136

  109. Transactions of the Cremation Society of England (London: 1885),60

  110. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, In 1926: Standing on the Edge of Time (Cambridge:1997), 62.

  111. Oscar Overton, "The International Development of Cremation," First Joint Conference of Cemetery and Crematoria Authorities (Brighton:1932), 50-51.

  112. Los Angeles Times,April 13, 1983, pp. 1, 24, 25.

  113. From the ten hour PBS series Blood on the Snow aired in the summer of 1998.

  114. Mattogno and Deana, 25. On the dates that each of the crematoria came into service see Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 352 and 364-365 for K II, 357 for K IV, 368 for K V and 426 for K III. While K II did not officially come into service until March 31, there was a test gassing there on March 13.

  115. APMO, BW 30/34, p. 17

  116. Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (NY:1996), 331-332.

  117. APMO,Dpr.-Hd/11a, Nr.1600 and Nr. 1617, p. 96 of the Hoess trial.

  118. The engineer's report in BA doc. 188 for October 9 to 15, 1941 shows repairs on the Gusen double muffle oven for a total of 30 hours, 10 hours per day, from October 13 to 15. For the same three day period there were 75 cremations (23, 19 and 33) AM, File B/12/31. BA doc. 188 states that there are repairs taking place on one of the ovens. This means that, assuming only one of the ovens was operational, it could still function while the other was undergoing repairs. Alternatively, it is possible that the oven being repaired was also incinerating corpses when work was not being done on it.

    The report for the period from November 6 to 9, 1941, BA doc. 213, shows oven work for November 6 (4 hours), 7 (4 hours), 8 (4 hours) and 9 (8 hours). On those days there were 57, 94, 72 and 34 cremations respectively. AM, File B/12/31.

  119. Mattogno and Deana, 25.

  120. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 442.

  121. Transcript in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (Berkeley:1994, 2nd ed), 202,206,207. Note that the earlier edition of this work does not contain these transcripts. Predictably, deniers have attempted to discredit these transcripts on the basis that the Soviets forced the Topf engineers to say what they did. But in fact, a close reading of these transcripts suggests that the opposite is true. The engineers were directly contradicting a report filed by the Soviet authorities with the War Crimes Tribunal which claimed that these ovens could burn 9000 per day, which is twice the Bauleitung estimate of June 28, 1943. The Soviets never acknowledged any limitations on the on the ovens as the engineers did. This may account for the fact as to why these transcripts were not released until the period of Glasnost (openness) in the Soviet Union in 1989. Soviet report USSR-008 in German in International Military Tribunal, Trials of Major War Criminals (Washington D.C, 1947), Vol. 39, 241-261. See p. 261 for the part of the report that alleges that the ovens could burn 279,000 per month.

  122. Ibid. , 205. Prufer said that two bodies were simultaneously incinerated in his presence.p. 207.

  123. Filip Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers (NY:1979), 124

  124. Zundel was tried and convicted for spreading "false news" (Holocaust denial) under a law that, on appeal, was struck down by the Canadian Supreme Court. The testimony is only being quoted to establish its lack of accuracy in connection with Holocaust denial. I do not approve of laws which prohibit hate speech.

  125. Robert Lenski, The Holocaust on Trial (Deacatur:1989),251. However, he went on say that the 46 ovens could handle a total of 184 bodies per day or four per oven.p. 252. This book is a denier account of the trial.

  126. The Leuchter Report,10. Information for Kremas II through V. Leuchter placed the capacity of Krema I at 18 per day, bringing the total to 156.

  127. Mattogno and Deana, 2.

  128. AM, File B/12/31

  129. Ibid.

  130. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 71-72. Text of the original German in Reimund Schnabel, Macht Ohne Moral (Frankfurt :1957), 346.

  131. Text in Pressac, Auschwitz, 136.

  132. Lenski, The Holocaust on Trial, 251,254.

  133. Pressac, "Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz", 189-190. The date was July 14, 1941.

  134. Text of a letter he wrote on November 15, 1942 in Pressac, Auschwitz, 99.

  135. Pressac, "Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz" 212.

  136. AM, File B/12/31 contains the cremation information. Mattogno claim in Mattogno and Deana, 19.

    The information for November 7 shows that operations began at 11:15 A.M. The last cremations occurred at 5 A.M. on November 8. There is no time specified for how long these 5 A.M. cremations lasted. However, the November 8 cremations began at 7 A.M. This means that the November 7 cremations lasted from 11:15 A.M. on November 7 to 7 A.M. on November 8, or 19 hours and 45 minutes .

    Mattogno's claim that the November 8 cremations took 24 hours and 30 minutes is based on his placing these cremations as beginning at 1 A.M. In fact they began at 7 A.M. He should have known this since the November 7 cremations were still taking place at 1 A.M. on November 8, a fact clearly shown in the time sheets. The November 8 time sheets show operations beginning at 7 A.M. The last operation began at 1:30 A.M. on November 9. It is not known how long this 1:30 operation lasted. But it is not likely that it lasted longer than two or three hours since six loads of coke were used. Topf repair sheets from this date show that 4 hours of work were done on the ovens on November 8. BA doc.213. This means that the ovens were down for four hours on November 8. This must have occurred between 7 A.M. and 4 P.M. on November 8 because the time sheets show that only 8 loads of coke were used during these 9 hours. However, a total of 35 loads of coke were for the November 8 operation, 21 of which were used for the 9 1/2 hours from 4 P.M. on November 8 to 1:30 A.M. on November 9. We can thus calculate the total time usage on November 8 as between 16 and 17 hours. 7 A.M. to 1:30 A.M.= 18 1/2 hours. Add two or three hours for the 1:30 operation and subtract four hours for the repairs. This time usage would be consistent with the time taken for cremations on rest of the dates for October 31 to November 12, especially the November 7 information. My thanks to Dan Keren for calling Mattogno's error to my attention.

    It is also instructive to note that Mattogno was aware of the four hours of work done on the Gusen ovens on November 8 because he had examined the repair sheet. Therefore, he must have known that the ovens had to have been shut down for at least four hours, meaning that they could not have functioned for the time period he was alleging.

  137. Marsalek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen, 105. Bauleitung figures for June 28, 1943 in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 429.

  138. Nico Rost, Concentration Camp Dachau (Brussels:nd, but appears to be late 1940s or early 1950s), 28.

  139. Paul Berben, Dachau, 1933-1945 (London:1975), 7.

  140. Pressac, Auschwitz, 224 gives a monthly breakdown of the figures.

  141. Coke figures in Pressac, Auschwitz, 224. Prisoner deaths in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 151,208.

  142. Death book totals in Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries", 213. For slightly different numbers see Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 145.

  143. Action Report, December 1993, 3 . My thanks to David Irving for sending me a copy of this newsletter.

  144. Mattogno and Deana, 1.

  145. AM, File B/12/31

  146. Mattogno and Deana, 29.

  147. Ibid., 29. The 21,580 is actually greater than the amounts shown in the death books even when interpolations of 1500 are made for each of the missing death books for this period of time. See Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 145. However, Mattogno used other sources to increase the number of registered deaths. Actually, Czech had done this in the Auschwitz Chronicle. She had established that the deaths of registered female prisoners in 1943 was greater than the amounts reported in the death books.

  148. AM, File B/12/31

  149. Ibid.

  150. Mattogno and Deana, 14-15.

  151. Photocopy of the memo in Pressac, Auschwitz,224.

  152. Mattogno and Deana, 27.

  153. Ibid., 21. In a recent article Mattogno argued that the report could have been an alteration of an existing document. However, he opted for the view that the letter was an error which was corrected by a subsequent version. Since he could not find the "correct" version of the letter or had any evidence that there ever was a different version, he suggested that the "correct" copy was suppressed by the Soviets who captured these documents. He writes: "The fact that the copy of the correct version of the 28 June 1943 does not exist in the Zentralbauleitung archives could obviously depend upon the selection of the documents made by the Soviets." Carlo Mattogno, The Auschwitz Central Construction Headquarters Letter Dated 28 June 1943: An Alternative Interpretation, 8. (http://www.codoh.com/granata/) One of the reasons he needed to make this argument is that he had already acknowledged that it was common practice for the Bauleitung to issue corrections to mistakes made in prior correspondences, but he could find no correction for the June 28 document. Indeed, this "correct" version of the letter seems to exist in his mind only.

  154. Gordon J. Horowitz, In the Shadow of Death: Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen (NY:1990), 67.

  155. Hugo Erichsen, Cremation of the Dead (Detroit:1887), 32

  156. Transactions of the Cremation Society of England (London:1915), 15.

  157. Los Angeles Times, April 13, 1983, pp. 1, 24, 25.

  158. Deposition in Jadwiga Bezwinska and Danuta Czech, eds., Amidst a Nightmare of Crime (NY: 1992), 41.

  159. Broad, "Reminiscences of Pery Broad," 184

  160. Filip Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers (NY:1979), 98-99.

  161. Kogon, et.al. Nazi Mass Murder, 167.

  162. David Wyman, ed. America and the Holocaust (NY:1990), Vol. 12, p. 18 who reproduces the full text of the report. Text is also reproduced in Michael Berenbaum, ed., Witness to the Holocaust (NY:1997), 262-283.

  163. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 345. My thanks to Mark Van Alstine for calling this to my attention.

  164. Mattogno and Deana, 19-20.

  165. BA doc. 213 for work done from November 6 to 9, 1941. The claim made by Mattogno that the engineer stayed there during this period "to tune the oven and supervise its operation" is without foundation. Mattogno and Deana, 26. The report states "oven work in progress" . There is no other documentation dealing with the nature of the work. In fact, the work that Mattogno referred to appears to have taken place from October 23 to 29, immediately after the ovens were overhauled. The report states: "Mauthausen Furnace finished, test instituted. Control and firing work." BA doc.196. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Topf would have returned one week later to do more tests. Mattogno did want to admit that the ovens were burning so many bodies while still undergoing repairs. The fact that repairs were continuing while such high outputs were being achieved suggests that perhaps the ovens had not reached their full potential. During the testing period for the ovens from October 23 to 29, 103 bodies were burned. AM B/12/31.

  166. Pressac, Auschwitz., 483, 484,489.

  167. Ibid., 489, 495.

  168. Ibid., p. 495.

  169. Ibid.,489

  170. Ibid., 483, 495

  171. Jakobskotter, source cited in footnote 85 herein, p. 587.

  172. Mattogno and Deana, p. 1. Mattogno went on to claim that the necessary procedure to accomplish this is not the one identified by eyewitnesses. However, he did not explain what the "correct" procedure is and how it differed from the eyewitness accounts.

  173. Pressac, Auschwitz, 494.

  174. Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 99.

  175. John Mendelsohn, The Holocaust (NY:1982), Vol. 12, p. 114. The full text of Hoess's testimony is reproduced in this volume.

  176. Rudolph Hoess, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz (NY:1992), 45

  177. Pressac, "Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz," 208.

  178. Pressac, Auschwitz, 489.

  179. Mattogno and Deana, 29.

  180. Photos in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 358,363,368,426,601,619,639,802; Pressac, Auschwitz, 340,342,343,347,366,369,416,418,425,501.

  181. Photo in Pressac, Auschwitz, p. 251. My thanks to Dan Keren for calling this photo to my attention.

  182. Photocopy with an English translation at http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/labor-force/19440728/.

  183. Hoess,Death Dealer, pp. 38-39.

  184. Broad, "The Reminiscences of Pery Broad", 182.

  185. Pressac, Auschwitz, 488.

  186. Ibid., p 495.

  187. Tadeusz Paczula, "Office Procedures in KL Auschwitz," in Death Books From Auschwitz, Vol. 1, 33.

  188. Ibid., 29, 30, 38.

  189. D-728 in Office of the Special Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression(Washington, D.C. 1947), Vol. 7, p. 175.

  190. Joanne Reilly, Belsen:The Liberation of a Concentration Camp (NY:1998), 25.

  191. Jozef Marszalek, Majdanek: The Concentration Camp of Lublin (Warsaw:1986),142-143.

  192. Photos are reproduced in Eric Markousen and David Kopf, The Holocaust and Strategic Bombing (Boulder:1995), 163-164. My thanks to Dan Keren for calling these photos to my attention. They may be accessed at http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/ places/germany/dresden/images/dresden-pyre-01.jpg and 02.jpg.

  193. Kogon, et.al. Nazi Mass Murder, 133-136; Yitzhak Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps (Bloomington:1987), 170-178.

  194. NO 064 in NMT, Vol. 5, p. 715.

  195. Robin O'Neill, "Belzec: The Forgotten Death Camp", 28 East European Jewish Affairs, No. 2 (Winter 1998-9), 52. O'Neill was part of the original excavation team.

  196. Photocopy of the report dated October 24, 1942 at http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/ camps/aktion.reinhard/treblinka/images/ostrow2.jpg. I am grateful to Dan Keren for calling this document to my attention. Dr. Keren thanks the Militararchiv in Frieburg for providing him with a copy, Dr. Ulrich Roessler for calling this document to his attention and Gord McFee for translating the document.

  197. Arad, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, 174.

  198. Coke figures in Pressac, Auschwitz, 224; Deaths of registered prisoners in Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 145 where numbers for six missing death books are interpolated. Non interpolated numbers in Grotum and Parcer, "Computer Aided Analysis of the Death Book Entries," note 29 herein pp. 212-213. The death books for the period February 24 to March 22, show 1492 deaths. I have only allocated 1000 to the March figures.

  199. Figure comprises 2397 prisoners in the death books for March 1942 and 580 Russian POWs not in the death books. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 151. Czech was able to isolate the March totals. Russian POWs were not listed in the death books.

  200. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 208.

  201. Mattogno and Deana, 32.

  202. Soviet POW deaths in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 112, 120, 131.Deaths of other prisoners extrapolated from death book information in Pressac, Les Crematoires d'Auschwitz, 144-145.

  203. Mattogno and Deana, 33.

  204. Czech,Auschwitz Chronicle, 242.

  205. See John C. Zimmerman, How Reliable Are the Hoess Memoirs? http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/hoess-memoirs/

  206. Hoess, Death Dealer, 32.

  207. Erlauterungsbericht zum Bauvorhaben Auschwitz O/S , AA file 502-1-222, p. 38, reel 34.

  208. Pressac, "Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz", 223

  209. "Bauvorhaben: der Zentralbauleitung der Waffen SS und Polizei Auschwitz,die im Jahre 1943 gebaut werden sollen." March 5, 1943, AA file 502-1-79, p. 2, reel 23; "Gesshafsverteilungsplan der Zentralbauleitung der Waffen SS und Polizei Auschwitz und der unterstellten Bauleitungen" (1944) AA file 502-1-50, p. 6, reel 21.

  210. NO 4634, memo dated June 15, 1944 in NMT, Vol. 4, p. 1166

  211. Mattogno and Deana, 32.

  212. Bezwinska and Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, 43.

  213. Broad, "The Reminiscences of Pery Broad,"182-184

  214. Bezwinska and Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, 46-47.

  215. Pressac, Auschwitz, 171-172.

  216. Ibid., 489.

  217. Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 49-50.

  218. Wyman, ed. America and the Holocaust, Vol. 12, p. 18.

  219. Kogon, et,al., Nazi Mass Murder, 150-151.

  220. Pressac, Auschwitz, 174,181.

  221. Mattogno and Deana, 29.

  222. Pressac, Auschwitz, 172.

  223. Hoess, Death Dealer, 37.

  224. Mendelsohn, The Holocaust, Vol. 12, p. 114

  225. Mattogno and Deana, 33

  226. Naumann, Auschwitz, 279-280.He did not identify the method of extermination.

  227. NO 4466 in NMT, Vol. 5, p. 625.My thanks to the National Archives for providing me with a photocopy of the original. This memo speaks of Kremas I - IV. However, these are Kremas I - IV in Birkenau, which are usually referred to as Kremas II- V in most literature and other Bauleitung memos. Therefore, Krema I in the memo is actually Krema II in Birkenau. The actual Krema I was in the main camp, not Birkenau. This memo refers to the Birkenau crematoriums.

  228. See the discussion at notes 115 to 118 herein.

  229. Note 116 herein.

  230. Wyman, ed., America and the Holocaust, Vol. 12, p. 18

  231. NG 2233 in NMT, Vol. 13, p. 348.

  232. Document T/1163 in Hungarian in The Trial of Adolph Eichmann (Jerusalem:1992) on microfiche in Vol. 9.

  233. Photocopies of these documents are in Randolph Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account(NY:1963), Vol. 2, pp. 588,590,592,600,610,611,615,617,620.

  234. Ibid, p. 443

  235. Randolph Braham, The Politics of Genocide (NY: 1994, 2nd ed) Vol. 1, p. 674

  236. Text of public statement made on August 23, 1944 in Jeno Levai, Eichmann in Hungary(NY:1987),141

  237. This information was drawn from Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 626-685. There appears to be some overlap in these figures.

  238. Butz, Hoax of the Twentieth Century, 158.

  239. Carlo Mattogno, The "Gassed People" of Auschwitz: Pressac's New Revisions (codoh.com/gcgv/gcnewrev.html: 1995) 5,6

  240. See chapter 3 of the source cited in note 2 herein.

  241. See ibid .

  242. NO 1990 in NMT, Vol. 5, pp. 388-392; Original German text is PS 1166 in International Military Tribunal, Trials of Major War Criminals (Washington, D.C. 1947), Vol. 27, pp. 46-49. The report clearly states that the 612,000 arrivals are to arrive at "the concentration camps". However, Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 687 incorrectly identified this document as referring only to Auschwitz. Braham, The Politics of Genocide, Vol. 2, p. 793, relied on the error. The error, however, was the translator's. The original German language edition cited it correctly. Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau (Reinbek:1989), p. 850. Only the Jewish deportees arrived at Auschwitz while the non Jews were sent to other camps.

  243. This conclusion is drawn from the information in Czech's, Auschwitz Chronicle pp. 626-685 which shows about 26,000 registered and 20,000 in transit to other camps.

  244. Carlo Mattogno, "The Myth of the Extermination of the Jews: Part I, "8 JHR No. 2 (Summer 1988), 159. Mattogno mistakenly cited the report as stating that only 50,000 Hungarian Jews were interned.

  245. Mattogno, The "Gassed People" of Auschwitz

  246. Hoess, Death Dealer, 45.

  247. Pressac, Auschwitz, 496

  248. Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 133

  249. Bezwinska and Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, 46,50,62. The reference on p. 50 is to the pits at the White Bunker because he mentions that these pits existed before the arrival of the Hungarian Jews. The pits at Krema V, mentioned by Feinsilber on p. 62, were dug expressly for the Hungarian operation. Those at the White Bunker, as discussed earlier, had been dug in 1942.

  250. Wyman , ed. America and The Holocaust, Vol. 12, p. 36

  251. Miklos Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (NY:1993),84- 87. First published in Hungarian in 1947 and translated into English in 1960. A copy of the original Hungarian edition is at UCLA. On p. 88 he mentions that there were two such pyres burning bodies.

  252. Eugen Kogon et.al. , Nazi Mass Murder, 170-171.

  253. Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 132.

  254. Bezwinska and Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, 58.

  255. Pressac, Auschwitz, 496.

  256. Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, 41.

  257. Photocopy of the report with an English translation is at http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/labor-force/19440728/. Document provided by Dan Keren via the Auschwitz State Museum.

  258. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 699. The number dropped to 212 on October 9, 1944. Czech, 712. This shows that the 900 number was far in excess of what was needed for body disposal. Even the 212 is too high for normal need.

  259. List in Braham, Politics of Genocide, Vol. 2, pp. 1403-1405. The lists are not complete as to number of transports and deportees.

  260. Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 781.

  261. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 649-653.

  262. NG 5619. Text in Jeno Levai, Eichmann in Hungary (NY:1987), 108-109.

  263. Braham, Politics of Genocide, Vol. 1, p. 674.

  264. Dino Brugioni and Michael Poirier, The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz- Birkenau Extermination Complex (CIA:1979), 6.

  265. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 32

  266. Photo reproduced in Gutman and Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, p. 341

  267. Dino Brugioni, "Auschwitz-Birkenau", Military Intelligence (January-March,1983), 53.

  268. Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things (NY:1997), 236

  269. Mattogno, The "Gassed People" of Auschwitz, 10

  270. Bauleitung completion document for Krema II in Pressac, Auschwitz, 231

  271. Bill from Topf dated August 20, 1943 in AA file 502-1-313, p. 2, reel 41. The item is a Mull-Verbrennungs-Ofen.

  272. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 72.

  273. Mattogno and Deana, 33

  274. Hoess, Death Dealer, 32

  275. Mark Van Alstine to the author in a communication dated April 13, 1999.

  276. The photo is labeled as National Archives # RG 373- GX/DT/TM. It will be the subject of a future analysis on holocaust-history.org, the website of the Holocaust History Project. My thanks to Mark Van Alstine for analyzing it for me.

  277. Mattogno, Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, 20

  278. Dr. H. Frolich, "Zur Gesundheits auf den Schlachteldern," Deutche Militaraztliche Zeitschrift, Vol. 1, (1872) pp. 100,102. My thanks to Dr. Tony Cocco of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, for obtaining this article for me.

  279. Ibid.,99

  280. Erichsen, Cremation of the Dead, 138.

  281. Hoess, Death Dealer, 32; Pery Broad, "Reminiscences of Pery Broad ",182; Testimony of Szlama Dragon, in Kogon et.al, Nazi Mass Murder, 151; Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 49; Testimony of Madame Vaillant-Couturier, a prisoner at Auschwitz and a member of France's Constituent Assembly when she testified at the war crimes trials in 1946. International Military Tribunal, Trials of Major War Criminals (Washington, D.C.1947), Vol. 6, p. 216

  282. Reilly, Belsen: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp, 25

  283. Marszalek, Majdanek: The Concentration Camp of Lublin, 142-143.

  284. Arad, Belzec, Sobibor , Treblinka, 172-174

  285. Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 136,137.

  286. Kogon et.al., Nazi Mass Murder, 171.

  287. Mattogno and Deana, 32,33

  288. Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account, 84-89; Dragon testimony in Kogon et.al., Nazi Mass Murder, 151; Broad, "Reminiscences of Pery Broad",182; Hoess, Death Dealer, 32 who mentions using wood to pile the bodies on.

  289. Pressac, Auschwitz, 422; Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 639

  290. Gutman and Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 354; Death Books From Auschwitz, Vol. 1, Appendix, p. 192; Hoess, Death Dealer, plate; Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle,639; Dwork and van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present, 342; Bezwinska and Czech, Amidst a Nightmare of Crime, 57; Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things, 232; Piper and Swiebocka, Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp, plate; http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/auschwitz/images/burning-pit.jpg

  291. Teresa Swiebocka, Auschwitz: A History in Photographs (Bloomington:1993) 174-175. For the conditions under which this photo was taken and the participants see the testimony of sonderkommando Alter Fajnzyberg in Swiebocka, pp. 42-43.

  292. Muller, Eyewitness Auschwitz, 136.

  293. Hoess, Death Dealer, 37

  294. Braham, The Politics of Genocide (2nd ed. 1994), Vol. 2, pp. 1403-1405

  295. Piper, "Gas Chambers and Crematoria," note 14 herein, pp. 162, 169

  296. See the photo in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 368

  297. Photo in Swiebocka, Auschwitz: A History in Photographs, 174-175

  298. John Ball, Air Photo Evidence (Canada:1992), 64,71,76.

  299. Ibid.,48

  300. Ibid., 63

  301. These are reproduced in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 63 (Krema II), 358 (Krema IV, fence in background), 426 (Krema III, fence clearly visible), 639 ( burning pit area of Krema V). The Krema V fence is more clearly visible in Swiebocka, Auschwitz: A History in Photographs, 174-175. Photos of Kremas IV and III with fence also in Dwork and Van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present, 332, 333.

  302. Memo of April 23, 1943 entitled "Konzentrationslager Auschwitz" in AA file 502-1-11, reel 19; See also APMO, Dpr.- Hd/11a, Nr.386, May 7, 1943, p. 93 and Nr.516, June 17, 1943, p. 94 for fence building around Krema III.

  303. Letter by Pohl to Himmler dated April 5, 1944, NO 021 in NMT, Vol. 5, 385-386.

  304. Aktenvermerk: "Betr: Besprechung anlasslich des Besuches...", June 20, 1944 in AA file, 502-1-21, p. 2, reel 19

  305. Hoess ,Death Dealer, 37

  306. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, 64,71

  307. John Ball, Air Photo Evidence http://www.codoh.com/found/fndaerial.html 18.This is an update of the source cited in the prior note.

  308. Ball analysis of the July 8, 1944 photo in http://www.air-photo.com/english/julypic.html.

  309. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, 64

  310. Bauleitung completion document for Krema II in Pressac, Auschwitz, 231 showing a separate fuel storage room.

  311. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, 36

  312. My thanks to Mark Van Alstine for measuring the distance.

  313. Mattogno and Deana, 33. My thanks to Mark Van Alstine for identifying the geographic area that Mattogno mentions.

  314. John Ball, Air Photo Evidence (codoh.com), 18. This is an update of his book.

  315. The CIA report does not take into consideration Krema I in the main camp, which was closed down in July 1943. Therefore, Kremas II-V in Birkenau are identified as Birkenau Kremas I -IV in literature which does not take the main camp crematorium into account.

  316. Brugioni and Poirier, The Holocaust Revisited, 11

  317. Pressac, Auschwitz, 484. Tauber's description mentions "four small chimneys through which the gas was thrown..."

  318. Ibid.,436. Deniers were critical of this finding because the document mentions these devices in connection with Corpse Cellar II of Krema II, while the photo shows the openings over Corpse Cellar I, which had been identified in the Bauleitung letter of June 29, 1943 as a "gassing cellar".Text in ibid., 211. However, deniers have ignored the fact that Pressac was able to show that the worker who wrote the report made an inversion error. The document which places these devices in Corpse Cellar II also states that in Corpse Cellar II there are ten lamps and three taps while in Corpse Cellar I there are 16 lamps and 5 taps. However, an earlier drawing states that there are 16 lamps and three taps in cellar I. Thus, Pressac concluded that there was an invoice error in the document. Considering that the photo shows the openings over Corpse Cellar I, Pressac's conclusion was quite reasonable. Ibid.,429-430

  319. Brugioni and Poirer, The Holocaust Revisited, 7

  320. Ibid.,9

  321. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, 46-47

  322. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, (codoh.com), 11-16

  323. John Morris, Where Is John Ball (http://www.nizkor.org/features/ball-challenge/)

  324. Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things, 233.

  325. Text in Appendix 4 of the source cited in note 2 herein. Lucas also informed me that he had analyzed Ball's claims about the Treblinka extermination camp photos for the German publication Der Spiegal. To date, his findings on this topic do not appear to have been published.

  326. Ball, Air Photo Evidence, forward which precedes the Table of Contents.

  327. Hugh Trevor Roper,ed., Hitler's Politisches Testament : Die Bormann Diktate vom Februar und April 1945 (Hamburg:1981), 122.

   

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