Belzec Mass Graves and Archaeology: My Response to Carlo Mattogno (5,1)

(1) - Introduction and 1. Nature and Purpose of Kola’s Archaeological Investigation

(2) 2. Location and Form of the Mass Graves

(3) 3. Corpses Found

(4,1) 4. Volume of the Mass Graves, Human and Wood Ashes
4.1 The Capacity of the Graves

(4,2) 4. Volume of the Mass Graves, Human and Wood Ashes
4.2 Wood Requirements
4.3 Duration of the Cremations

(4,3) 4. Volume of the Mass Graves, Human and Wood Ashes
4.4 The Soil removed from the Graves
4.5 The Ash

(4,4) 4. Volume of the Mass Graves, Human and Wood Ashes
4.6 The "Actual" Surface Area of the Graves
4.7 Density of Corpses in the Graves



5. Alternative Explanations [342]

In section 5 of my original article[343], I addressed Mattogno’s inability to provide an explanation other than mass murder as concerns the fate of the 434,508 deportees to Belzec mentioned in the Höfle report. Understandably uncomfortable with this issue, Mattogno in his response intersperses his pathetic attempts to provide innocuous explanations for incriminating documents and supposed indications of possible alternatives with a lot of beating-about-the-bush and changing the subject.



The latter is actually the first thing Mattogno does in section 5 of his response, as he "most of all" emphasizes that I omitted his "arguments regarding the archeological findings (building structures) reported by Kola". This omission is supposed to be "serious" because Prof. Kola did not find "even the slightest trace of the two presumed gas chamber buildings". I’m supposed to have remained silent on this issue because I know that I cannot refute Mattogno.

Mattogno’s capacity for wishful thinking is amazing indeed, as are his obvious self-importance and inability to read. The subject matter of my original article, as I clearly pointed out right at the beginning[344], was "the mass graves found at the site of the former Nazi extermination camp at Belzec by Prof. Kola’s archaeological team between 1997 and 1999, and with Carlo Mattogno’s considerations, taken from the English version of Chapter IV: Belzec in Polish Archaeological Research (1997-1999), subchapters 1 to 4, of Carlo Mattogno’s book Belzec in Propaganda, Testimonies, Archaeological Research, and History [large PDF] , about whether these archaeological findings are compatible with the historical record of the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people at that camp". If my article was about the mass graves and their compatibility with the historically established mass murder of hundreds of thousands of people deported to Belzec, why should it have concerned itself with Prof. Kola’s investigation of the camp buildings and Mattogno’s related claims?

However, as Mattogno claims this issue to be oh-so-vital and his considerations to be oh-so-irrefutable, I’ll take a look at what the fuss is all about. My readers may forgive the digression.

Prof. Kola considered two building relicts as possibly pertaining to gassing installations, the buildings "D" and "G". The former has some features that suit the description of the wooden gas chamber building used in the first phase of the camp’s operation, provided by eyewitness S. Kozak. However, it was excavated in the camp’s western part, "whereas, according to S. Kozak's report the gas chamber described by him could have been placed several meters towards the south from that place". What is more, building D "could have only been an adaptation of the existing building equipped with a garage canal", whereas "the witness mentioned erecting the hut with the destination of being a gas chamber"[345]. Building "D" was thus not the gas chamber building of the camp's 1st phase, in Prof. Kola’s opinion. Based on further findings and planigraphy analysis, Prof. Kola concluded that "the gas chamber in the first stage of the camp existence must have been situated south-east from building D". As to building "G", it was a wooden building with the size 15x3.5 m, the remains of which are located in the central part of the camp where, according to Prof. Kola’s assessment, the location of the gas chambers in the camp’s second phase should be sought. Based on the building’s matching the presumed location of these gas chambers, Prof. Kola concluded that the traces of this building "can be hypothetically regarded as the remains of the 2nd stage gas chamber", dismissing as unreliable the information provided by survivor eyewitness Rudolf Reder whereby this gas chamber building was made of concrete[346].

As concerns Prof. Kola’s conclusions regading the location of the first-phase gas chamber building "south-east from building D", Mattogno gleefully claimed that "there is not a trace of any structure in that area" [347]. How does he know? One thing Mattogno conveniently failed to mention, in exulting about Prof. Kola not having found traces of gas chamber buildings matching eyewitness descriptions, is that Prof. Kola did not investigate all objects and structures in the camp area, as he expressly points out in his book [348] (emphases mine):

The archaeological works at the Bełżec camp area taken up by The Council of Protection of Memory of Struggle and Martyrdom had originally the only aim to locate the mass graves by probing drills. The method, which in a minimum degree touched anthropogenic structures, enabled us to obtain the basic knowledge on the subject. Revealing the other structures, coming from the camp building, which traces were not visible on the surface, because of the complete decomposition during the camp closing 1943, opened a chance to widen the research programme. Archaeology could be helpful to reconstruct the camp building and establish the functions of located objects. Relicts of 8 buildings were examined, some of them with their cellar parts buried in the ground. They are, however, only few of all the objects of the camp. The further interpretation is possible only after more detailed excavation. In the light of the studies no traces of the gas chamber from the 1st stage of the camp functioning were found. The traces of a wooden building in the central part of the camp can be hypothetically regarded as the remains of the 2nd stage gas chamber.

If, as stated here by Prof. Kola, the examined relicts of 8 buildings were "only few of all the objects of the camp", how can one exclude the hypothesis that traces of one or both gas chamber buildings could still have been found by "more detailed excavation" in other places in the camp area? Whence, especially, did Mattogno derive his joyfully proclaimed conclusion that "there is not a trace of any structure" in the area south-east of building D, where Prof. Kola hypothesized it to have been? I'm looking forward to Mattogno’s explanation.

Prof. Kola's conclusion as concerns building "G" is hardly sustainable because Reder’s description of the second phase gas chamber building as having been made of concrete is corroborated by the descriptions of other eyewitnesses including those who testified at the Munich Belzec trial from January 18 to 21, 1965, as pointed out by Mattogno[349]. Prof. Kola seems to have been so enamored with his hypothesis that he preferred to dismiss Reder's description as "unreliable" to considering the likelier possibility that he was wrong himself. On the other hand, Mattogno’s reasoning in this respect[350]:

To recapitulate: On the one hand, the archeological findings contradict the testimonies and the judicial findings, making them inadmissible; on the other hand, Kola’s hypotheses regarding the functions of "Building G"[177] are in disagreement with the testimonies and the judicial findings. However, if we are to accept the official thesis, we cannot free ourselves from these sources: Either the gas chambers did exist the way the witnesses have described them, or they did not exist at all. And because the archeological findings contradict the witnesses, the gas chambers of the second phase of the camp never existed.

is a showpiece of "Revisionist" illogicity (to put it politely). To the extent that archaeological findings contradict eyewitness testimonies, either of the two are wrong, that’s all. If it’s the eyewitness testimonies that are wrong, this does not mean they are "inadmissible". It only means that they cannot be relied on as concerns the particular details proven wrong by archaeology, and arguably that their reliability as concerns other details is also questionable bar corroboration by other evidence. However, the description of the gas chamber building in the camp’s second phase as a concrete rather than a wooden building comes from several eyewitnesses independent of each other, and there’s no reason to assume that all these eyewitnesses were wrong about the essential features of homicidal gassing at Belzec. Thus the likelier conclusion to be derived from this contradiction is that Prof. Kola's hypothesis regarding building "G" is wrong and building "G" was either the first gas chamber building or no gas chamber building at all. This, in turn, would mean that either Prof. Kola sought the gas chamber building in the wrong place (a distinct possibility because his investigation did not cover all objects in the camp area, as pointed out above) or that the SS understandably went to great lengths to remove all traces of the gas chamber buildings that might allow for their location and identification. Why such thorough erasure should not have been possible Mattogno does not explain, instead offering a silly argument at incredulity[351]:

Obviously, he relates that fact to the efforts of the SS to erase any vestiges of the alleged gassing structures, but who can seriously believe that they could have succeeded in making the buildings, foundations and all, disappear without a trace? Unless the SS had sensed that over half a century later Kola and Robin O’Neil would come looking for them with their manual drill!

Archaeologists investigating the place half a century later were certainly not the SS-men’s concern, but Soviet or Polish forensic investigators employing archaeological means to identify the gas chamber buildings are likely to have been. Mattogno obviously forgot to think before writing the above nonsense.

So, were these the irrefutable Mattognian arguments that I’m supposed to have remained silent about because I knew them to be irrefutable? Apart from having a reading problem that kept him from understanding what the subject matter of my original article was (see above), Mattogno seems to be suffering from serious delusions of adequacy.

In Mattogno's hilariously bizarre reasoning, my article about his claims regarding archaeological investigations of the mass graves and the problems of body disposal at Belzec should furthermore have addressed his fellow "Revisionist" Friedrich Berg’s ubiquitous technobabble regarding the improbability of using diesel exhaust for gassing, which is regurgitated in Mattogno & Graf’s Treblinka book[352]. Next Mattogno might complain about my not having also addressed his wisdom about the crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau in this context. He doesn't push his silliness quite that far, but apparently I’m supposed to have commented the whole of his Belzec book, or then he can think of no better way to delay the embarrassing discussion about the fate of the Belzec deportees than to list the titles of the respective subchapters of his book and "briefly reiterate their contents". My readers may again forgive the digression as I comment these "contents" in the following, or then blame it on Mr. Mattogno.

Mattogno:

1) Planning and Construction of the Eastern 'Extermination Camps': "extermination camps" constructed without a precise planning and a specific budget;

My comment:
No design and no budget? Not that the relatively simple and primitive structures of the AR camps (which were rather efficient and did their job satisfactorily, however) would have required much of either, but how on earth does Mattogno know there was none? The documentation pertaining to the organization of these camps was almost wholly destroyed, as mentioned in Globocnik's letter to Himmler dated 5 January 1944 [353]. Maybe Mattogno can tell us why he thinks it was considered necessary to destroy all data pertaining to Aktion Reinhard(t), if it was just the innocuous resettlement operation he claims it to be. Incidentally, the same document contains several indications that the allegedly non-existing "specific budget" for the AR camps did actually exist (emphases added):

The equipment which was provided for this action from seized goods, which however are to be considered as Reich property, have been removed completely.
[...]
Provisional balance sheet of the Action "Reinhardt" till, Lublin, for 12/16/1943

The following money and stocks were brought to the German Reich during the course of the Action "Reinhardt", Lublin, during the period 4/1/1942-12/15/1943 inclusive:

Cash:

* Cash in hand Income: RM 17,470,796.66
* To the Reichsbank Berlin, Reichsmark notes and coins RM 3,979,623.60
* To the Reichsbank Berlin, Zloty notes and coins RM 5,000,461.00
* To the SS economist, Cracow RM 60,416,181.37
* Loans for SS industrial concerns RM 8,218,878.36
* Income from title 21/E RM 656,062.40
* Total RM 85,741,903.28

Cash:

* Personal taxes, title 21/7a Expenditure RM 96,207.28
* Expenditure in goods (of which about 40% for J-Transports title 21/7b) RM 11,765,552.62
* Counterfeit money (Zloty notes) RM 28,062.64
* Total RM 11,889,822.54

Totals

* Income RM 85,741,903.28
* Expenditure RM 11,889,822.64
* Net income RM 73,862,080.74
* [Totals] RM 86,741,903.28 RM 86,741,903.28

Are we asked to believe that the provision for the action of "seized goods" that were "Reich property" and the "expenditure in goods" of 11,765,552.62 Reichsmarks (which was largely exceeded by the plunder taken from the victims - mass murder was excellent business) was not governed by a budget?

Mattogno:

3) Diesel engine or Gasoline Engine?: the inadequacy of the exhaust gas from a Diesel engine for extermination purposes, compared to that of a gasoline engine;

My comment:
Small things worry small minds, don’t they? If, as Mattogno and his brother-in-spirit Fritz Berg claim, diesel exhaust was inadequate for mass murder, the logical conclusion in view of the evidence is that gasoline exhaust was used instead and that witnesses who spoke of diesel exhaust must have mistakenly assumed that a diesel engines actually used for other purposes (like power generation) was the gassing engine. This conclusion is furthermore corroborated by the fact that eyewitnesses to gassings at Chelmno, Belzec or Sobibor who either operated the gassing engine or were otherwise familiar with it (as opposed to casual witnesses who knew the engine only from brief observation if not just from hearsay) clearly mentioned a gasoline engine[354]. This means that the whole discussion about the supposed unsuitability of diesel exhaust for homicidal gassing has not relevance whatsoever.

Mattogno:

4) The 'Struggle' between Engine Exhaust Gases and Hydrogen Cyanide Gas: the choice of Diesel exhaust as killing method in spite of the knowledge that it was inadequate compared to Zyklon B;

My comment:
The gas was in all probability that of a gasoline motor, see above, and the organizer of the AR camps, Christian Wirth, preferred this method over Zyklon B, if only because he had been the one who developed it (even mass murderers have their vanity). What's the deal supposed to be?

Mattogno:

5) The 'Mission' of Kurt Gerstein: the absurd episode of an SS official sent to replace, because of its inadequacy, the Diesel exhaust gas used as method of extermination in the eastern extermination camps with prussic acid (HCN), returning without carrying out his mission and without leaving any report of his undertaking;

My comment:
First of all, what is supposed to be absurd about Himmler or Globocnik having intended to substitute killing by exhaust fumes (which were probably not diesel but gasoline fumes, see above) with killing by Zyklon B?
Second, what's supposed to be absurd about this idea having been abandoned for some reason, e.g. because Wirth – a subordinate, for sure, but one essential to the working of the whole operation – insisted that his method was better?
Third, how do we know whether or not Gerstein reported about his unsuccessful undertaking? We know because that's what he told the French Examining Magistrate who interrogated him, arguing that "Hauptmann [Captain] Wirth had such a personal position with Himmler that he could say to me that I didn’t have to trouble myself about this matter any more, and I obeyed him in this."[355]. That's not necessarily an implausible claim, and contrary to what M&G try to sell their readers on the same page it is corroborated rather than contradicted by Gerstein's other statement they quote ("Wirth asked me to propose no sort of change in the gas chambers and killing methods used up to now, since it all had worked out and proved to be best. Remarkably, I was never asked about that sort of thing in Berlin."). So what Wirth told Gerstein can be paraphrased as follows: "I'll solve this with Himmler, you need not worry about it, all I'm asking of you is that you propose nothing contrary to what I'm going to tell the Reichsführer". No contradiction there at all. But let's assume that Gerstein lied to his interrogator, for the obvious reason of protecting himself by claiming no further involvement of his in the matter: would this get Mattogno & Graf a banana? I don’t think so.

Mattogno:

6) Russian Engines or German Engines?: the absurd use of old Russian Diesel engines for the alleged extermination, which, if broken, would have required either the capture of intact Russian tanks or the request to Stalin for spare parts;

My comment:
It’s not like there had been any shortage of engines from captured Soviet tanks in Wehrmacht stores, is it? Of course the Belzec staff did not have to capture Soviet tanks engines. All they had to do was file a request for handing over such engines from a Wehrmacht store of vehicle parts, and there’s no reason why such request should have been refused if the Wehrmacht didn’t usually install such engines in their own vehicles but rather used them to salvage spare parts or for non-military applications.

Mattogno:

7) Gas Chambers or Asphyxiation Chambers?: the absurdity of constructing gas chambers where the victims are gassed to death within approximately 30-40 minutes, while asphyxia would have killed them in approximately 20-30 minutes;

My comment:
The assumption underlying Mattogno's calculations that this statement is based on [356] is that the gas chambers were airtight like a gas-tight air-raid shelter. However, the garage doors through which the bodies were extracted in the new gas chambers of Treblinka[357] probably allowed more air to enter than a gas-tight air-raid shelter's gas-tight entrance, and at least in regard to the old Treblinka gas chambers openings in the roof are mentioned[358] Wiernik, expressly mentioned an outlet on the roof with a hermetic cap in the old gas chambers[359]; this is likely to have been a device for regulating the pressure in the gas chamber as the gas was led in (see next comment). At the old gas chambers in Belzec, the SS seem to have vainly tried to make the unloading doors airtight[360].
But this assumption is not the only thing that his wrong with Mattogno & Graf's calculations. Also mistaken is the assumption (based on a 1931 source) that a 10 % concentration of carbon dioxide is immediately fatal. First of all, Mattogno & Graf seem to have misunderstood their source, when they took its statement "With 8-10%, corresponding to 144-180 mg/liter, loss of consciousness rapidly ensues and death follows from cessation of breathing with cyanosis" as meaning that death immediately occurs from exposure to 8-10 % of carbon dioxide. What the source obviously says is that exposure to this concentration leads to unconsciousness, and that this unconsciousness (and not the carbon monoxide) eventually leads to death because the person stops breathing and develops cyanosis, a condition related to a lack of oxygen in the blood. In other words, what this source is telling us is that if a person is left lying unconscious from exposure to the mentioned concentrations of carbon dioxide, the person will eventually die. What it does not tell us is that a person will drop dead as soon as it is exposed to CO2 concentrations of 8-10 %.
A source more recent than the one used by Mattogno confirms this understanding and furthermore shows that unconsciousness is a possible but not a necessary consequence of exposure to carbon dioxide concentrations in this range[361].
A table in this source lists "Acute Health Effects of High Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide":

Table 37

As we can see, people may be exposed to carbon dioxide concentrations of 7 - 10 % for one hour without becoming unconscious or near unconscious, and the most common symptoms in short-term exposure (2.5 to 10 minutes) are "headache and dizziness".
Another fallacy of Mattogno & Graf's calculations is their arguing on both sides of their mouth as concerns the 2nd phase gas chambers of Treblinka. They proclaim that a concentration of 400 to 700 people in 32 square meters, i.e. ca. 13 to 22 per square meter, was "an absolute impossibility"[362]. And assuming the ridiculously unrealistic body sizes and weights postulated by Mattogno [363] they are probably right. But then they base their calculations on what they have themselves proclaimed "an absolute impossibility"...
If we assume the maximum occupation considered possible by the Düsseldorf Court (700 people in 32 square meters) with a realistic average weight of 34 kg for an adult+adult+child group[364], Mattogno & Graf's own calculation method leads us to the following results:
The volume occupied by the bodies of the victims is (700×34÷1,000=) 23.8 m3; thus a volume of (64–23.8=) approximately 40 m3 is available. In one minute the victims produce (700×0.3=) approximately 210 liters or 0.21 m3 carbon dioxide. The minimum lethal concentration of 17 % carbon dioxide according to my aforementioned source, that is, (40×0.17=) 6.8 m3 or 6,800 liters, is consequently attained in (6,800 ÷ 210 =) about 32 minutes. With 550 people the time would be 41 minutes, and with 400 people it would be 57. And that's assuming that the gas chambers were airtight, which the above-mentioned evidence suggests they were not.
But the main fallacy in Mattogno & Graf's reasoning is their having failed to take into account a simple fact: however long it would have taken for the victims' exhalation inside the chamber to create a lethal concentration of carbon dioxide, the introduction of a gas much richer in carbon dioxide than human breath would considerably shorten that time. If the gas chambers had been airtight and filled with 700 people, meaning that the minimum lethal concentration of CO2 would be reached within half an hour, it can be safely assumed that this lethal concentration would be reached in a much shorter period of time when engine exhaust was introduced. There are several eyewitness testimonies pointing to a shorter duration of the gassing period in the AR camps' gas chambers than that assumed by the Düsseldorf County Court at the 1st Treblinka trial[365]. These data suggest that witnesses mentioning the longer gassing time of 30-40 minutes assumed by the Düsseldorf court were actually recalling a process that included not only the gassing proper but also events prior to it, eventually the entire gassing process from the moment when the victims started being introduced into the gas chambers to the moment when the order to open the exit doors to take out the bodies was given. It is also possible that there was a problem with the engine on the occasions observed by witnesses mentioning longer times, or that the SS at Treblinka allowed for a considerable safety margin. This would not have been an unreasonable precaution, for the reaction to and tolerance of high amounts of CO2 varies from individual to individual[366]. This means that a concentration that is fatal for one person within a certain time frame may not be fatal for another within that same time frame, as is suggested by the fact that my above source gives not a single threshold value but a threshold range (17 - 30 %) for fatal CO2 concentration. Differences in individual susceptibility are also observed as concerns carbon monoxide poisoning[367]. These differences in individual reaction to and tolerance of high concentrations of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide would also have made killing-by-simple-suffocation, had the Nazis considered it, an option fraught with uncertainties that made the addition of a toxic gas for good measure recommendable. But it is not likely that the Nazis even considered the option of killing their victims by "natural" suffocation, also because (strange though this may sound considering practical experience), death by gassing was supposed to be a "humane"[368]. Considerations of "humanity" aside, the introduction of a toxic gas with high concentrations of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide made the people in the gas chambers die faster than they would have died from simple suffocation; it is idiotic to claim otherwise. And with such a large number of arriving deportees to be "processed" every day[369], the speed of killing was an essential issue, an every minute saved in gassing a given batch of people and making room for the next batch a gain to be sought. So yes, introducing exhaust gas into the chambers made sense from the killers' point of view, more so than letting the victims die of "natural" suffocation, even if the rooms were airtight and suffocation would have occurred within the relatively short times resulting from M & G's calculations. It was theoretically more "humane". It made the killing go faster. And it provided a better guarantee that everyone in the gas chambers would be stone dead when the doors were opened.

Mattogno:

8) The Problem of Air Pressure in Gas Chambers: the overpressure generated by the Diesel engine (working as a compressor) would either have made the gas chambers explode or balanced out the engine, disabling it within minutes.

My comment:
The claim that overpressure would have caused the engine to die off or the gas chamber to explode is based on the assumption that the chamber was hermetically sealed. The Nazis were aware that overpressure could be a problem and had developed a simple method to cope with it, which is described in detail, in connection with the mass killing in gas vans at Chelmno extermination camp, in Willy Just’s letter to Walter Rauff dated 5 June 1942[370]. It stands to reason that a similar simple device to regulate excess pressure could have been easily implemented in the gas chambers of the AR camps, and indeed something in this direction is suggested by Yankel Wiernik's mention of an outlet on the roof of the old Treblinka gas chambers (see above). There's no reason why the second-generation gas chambers at Treblinka or the gas chambers at the other two AR camps shouldn't have been simlarly equipped.

Still reluctant to stop beating about the bush and address what section 5 of my article is about – alternative explanations for the fate of the deportees to Belzec, or the absence thereof – Mattogno follows up his above-commented "reiterations" with some irrelevant babbling about "inexplicable contradictions" between the "two key 'eyewitnesses'" Gerstein and Reder[371], in that a) the former spoke of a diesel engine whereas the latter mentioned a gasoline engine, and b) the former attributed the victims’ death to the exhaust gas whereas the latter "asserts that the exhaust gases of his gasoline engine were vented not into the gas chambers, but into the open air".

Actually the first of the "inexplicable" contradictions can be explained very easily by the fact that Gerstein was a casual observer who may well have mixed up a diesel motor used in the camp for some other purpose with the gassing motor. Reder, on the other hand, was an insider familiar with the gassing engine because he carried the gasoline for that engine. He must have known better what kind of motor the gassing motor was. What is more, his description of the gassing motor as a gasoline motor is corroborated by another witness, Polish electrician Kasimierz Czerniak, who helped to establishing the motor room in 1942. Czerniak described a petrol motor of approximately 200 or more PS, from which exhaust fumes were led away over ground pipes. Confusion with a diesel engine is out of the question because diesel fuel is called olej napedowy in Polish[372].

As to the second "inexplicable" contradiction: The possibility of a translation error aside, Reder may have misunderstood the killing mechanism and for some reason wrongly assumed that the exhaust from the gassing engine was not introduced into the gas chamber. This would be an observation or recollection mistake such as often occur in eyewitness testimonies, which doesn’t exclude this eyewitness’s observations being correct in other respects, especially where corroborated by other eyewitness testimonies like concerning the type of engine. Much ado about nothing.

Mattogno ends his detractions from the subject matter at hand (at least for the time being) by stating that what he has "demonstrated" in chapter V of his "study"[373] must be "considered in the light of the above facts and the discussion of Muehlenkamp’s critique found below" – without explaining, however, how my criticism of his alternative scenario (or his feeble supposed indications of such scenario) could logically be affected by the irrelevant fuss he makes about supposed "absurdities" regarding the organization of the AR camps and the killing mechanism.

That said, Mattogno finally proceeds to addressing section 5 of my original article and further demonstrating that he has no plausible let alone an evidence-backed alternative explanation for size of the mass graves, the fact that the bodies were cremated and the fate of the 434,508 documented deportees to Belzec. Mattogno’s arguments in this respect will be the subject of the next and final section of this riposte.

Notes

[342]Controversie, Pages 55-63; see also the English translation, which I use for quoting Mattogno’s response.

[343] Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research - Part 5 and Conclusion.

[344] Carlo Mattogno on Belzec Archaeological Research - Introduction and Part 1.

[345] Kola, Belzec, page 66.

[346] As above, page 69.

[347] Mattogno, Belzec, page 96.

[348] As note 346.

[349] Mattogno, Belzec, page 93.

[350] As above, page 94.

[351] As above, page 96.

[352] Mattogno & Graf, Treblinka, pages 121 to 125.

[353] "Document 4024-PS: [Economic Development of Action Reinhardt], Part 01-09 [partial translation]": "There is one additional factor to be added to the total accounting of "Reinhardt" which is that the vouchers dealing with it must be destroyed as soon as possible after the data have already been destroyed by all other works concerned in this matter."

[354] See Sergey Romanov’s article Why the "diesel issue" is irrelevant and the collection of testimonies in my RODOH thread Testimonies about Engines used for Homicidal Gassing.

[355] Mattogno & Graf, Treblinka, page 130.

[356] As above, pages 133/34.

[357] ARC page Autocad reconstruction of the Treblinka gas chambers.

[358] As above: "’It was dark in-side. No light. Even the openings in the roof * did not let any light in...’ (Rosenberg, at the Demjanjuk Trial, p.124)" (emphasis added).

[359]Quoted on the ARC page The Gas Chambers at Treblinka: "A gas chamber measured 5x5 m and was about 1.90 m high. The outlet on the roof had a hermetic cap" (emphasis added).

[360] O’Neill, Stepping Stone, Chapter 8: "Despite all their efforts, the construction team was unable to make the unloading doors airtight.[36] According to Werner Dubois, on each gassing operation in the wooden barrack, sand had to be piled against the outer door to try to rectify this problem. After the gassing, the sand had to be removed to allow access to the corpses.[37]"

[361] APPENDIX B – Overview of Acute Health Effects to the United States Environmental Protection Agency's article Carbon Dioxide as a Fire Suppressant: Examining the Risks (emphases added):
"Exposure to 7 to 10 percent carbon dioxide can produce unconsciousness or near unconsciousness within a few minutes (Schulte 1964, CATAMA 1953, Dripps and Comroe 1947). Other symptoms associated with the inhalation of carbon dioxide in this range include headache, increased heart rate, shortness of breath, dizziness, sweating, rapid breathing, mental depression, shaking, and visual and hearing dysfunction that were seen following exposure periods of 1.5 minutes to 1 hour (Wong 1992, Sechzer et al. 1960, OSHA 1989). In a study of 42 human volunteers, following inhalation of 7.6 and 10.4 percent carbon dioxide for short periods of time (2.5 to 10 minutes), it was reported that only about 30 percent of the subjects complained of difficult breathing (dyspnea), although respiration was vigorously stimulated (Lambertsen 1971, Dripps and Comroe 1947) . In this study, the most common symptoms were headache and dizziness (Lambertsen 1971, Dripps and Comroe 1947). Other symptoms described included mental clouding or depression, muscle tremors or twitching, tingling or cold extremities, and exhaustion (Lambertsen 1971, Dripps and Comroe 1947). Confusion to the point of unconsciousness was reported in several subjects at both concentrations (Lambertsen 1971) . Increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide up to 7.5 percent for a period of 20 minutes had no significant effects on accuracy of reasoning and short-term memory, although speed of performance of reasoning tasks was significantly slowed at the higher levels (Sayers et al. 1987). Exposure to a concentration of 6 percent carbon dioxide can produce hearing and visual disturbances within 1 to 2 minutes (Gellhorn 1936, Gellhorn and Spiesman 1935). Acute exposures (minutes) to 6 percent carbon dioxide affected vision by decreasing visual intensity discrimination in 1 to 2 minutes (Gellhorn 1936) and resulted in a 3 to 8 percent decrease in hearing."

[362] Mattogno & Graf, Treblinka, footnote 377 on page 133.

[363] 70 kg for adults, 25 kg for children, 55 kg on average for an adult+adult+child group – see section 4.1 of this riposte.

[364] As above.

[365] According to survivor witness Abraham Goldfarb, the gassing process in the Treblinka gas chambers lasted 20 - 25 minutes (Kogon et al, Massentötungen, page 181). Outsider witness Dr. Pfannenstiel recorded a gassing time of 18 minutes in the Belzec gas chambers in August 1942 (as before, page 174). According to SS witness Erich Fuchs, a test gassing of 30-40 women at Sobibor lasted 10 minutes before the women were dead (as before, page 159). Peter Petrowitsch Browzew, a Ukrainian guard at Belzec, spoke of 10 to 15 minutes (Browning, Evidence, Part V, section 5.4.3. And according to SS witness Karl Alfred Schluch, the gassing time in the Belzec gas chambers was 5 to 7 minutes (Kogon et al, Massentötungen, page 167).

[366] See note 361.

[367] Josef Bailer, "Die ‘Revisionisten’ und die Chemie", in Bailer-Galanda et al, Die Auschwitzleugner, page 134.

[368] Indications in this direction can be found, for instance, in Becker's letter to Rauff of 16.05.1942 (Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression - Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Off., 1946, Vol III, p. 418, online excerpt, emphasis mine: "The application of the gas is not undertaken correctly. In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent. By doing that the persons to be executed suffer death from suffocation and not death by dozing off as was planned."; see also Pressac, Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, page 177: "Even though it may sound shocking, death by gassing was used as a relatively "humane" method of mass execution. The SS were so aware of this that "special treatment" without gas was in their eyes wrong."

[369] Up to 12-15,000 in Treblinka according to Suchomel, as note 337.

[370] Reproduced in Kogon et al, Massentötungen, pages 333 to 337; online transcription and translation. Just explained that "In order to facilitate the rapid distribution of CO, as well as to avoid a buildup of pressure, two slots, ten by one centimeters, will be bored at the top of the rear wall. The excess pressure would be controlled by an easily adjustable hinged metal valve on the outside of the vents."

[371] Quote marks around "eyewitnesses" because they are supposed to have lied or hallucinated from beginning to end except where their accounts serve Mattogno’s argument, as we have seen.

[372] Peter Witte, quoted on ARC page Gas Chambers Introduction.

[373] "Chapter V: Documented History of the Belzec Camp" – Mattogno, Belzec, pages 97-108.


(5.2) 5. Alternative Explanations (continuation)