Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minute 38 - end)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

Minutes 0 - 10

Minutes 10 - 16

Minutes 16 - 22
Minutes 22 - 38
 Minute 38 - end

Camp Sections in Auschwitz-Birkenau

[38 min] We find crematorium 2 in satellite view. It's at the edge of this huge community, cause it's of those for cremating the bodies of those who die there. The community called Birkenau was the population centre of Auschwitz. 100,000 people mostly Jewish. One would assume that these are able bodied men selected for labour. This building is the entrance building right here. We see dismantled housing in the background, salvaged after the war for materials. The BBC documentary shows what it might have looked like before. 

Interviewer: "When you arrived at Auschwitz after this nine day journey, can you describe for us the very first thing you remember when that door opened up  to the wagon?"

Gabbai: "The first thing I remember is that the SS said schnell schnell."

[39 min]

Gabbai: "We got into line and Mengle was there making this selection, always with those two fingers. Most of the fingers were to the right which is going directly to the crematorium and to left...he was selecting 10 % of the young of every transport 10 % went to work the other direct to the crematorium. And I knew that after a while."

One would assume that these are barracks for able bodied men selected for labour, so it's surprising to find out that the majority of barracks are women and medical. These are women, these are medical. This is a family camp for Jewish families from the Czech republic. This is the gypsis camp. This is men's quarantine and just this small section was the men's camp.

[40 min] The selection to live or die story doesn't fit with the division of barracks in the population centre of Auschwitz.

The following camp sections supposedly contradict the systematic extermination of the unfit European Jews in Auschwitz:

Female's camp

The argument implies that women are not capable of work. This definitely deserves a nomination for the most stunning and idiotic claim made by denierbud throughout the video.

Actually, the SS leaders and policymakers were more pragmatic and considered able-bodied Jewish women suitable for forced labour, even for the construction of underground fighter factories:

"My dear Pohl! Of course, the Jewish women are to be employed. One will have to worry only about good nourishment. Here the important thing is a supply of raw vegetables. So don't forget to import plenty of garlic from Hungary."

~ Heinrich Himmler to Oswald Pohl, 27 May 1944, from Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, p. 1001.

It is no surprise that a large number of Jewish women were imprisoned and sent through Auschwitz-Birkenau.


Hospital's camp

The policy of immediate killing of Jews considered unfit for work referred to Jews freshly deported to Auschwitz with RSHA transports and selected at the ramps in Auschwitz. It did not apply to Jews who were already registered in the camp and became unfit for work.

"Obergruppenführer Pohl was forced to resort also on Jews who became unfit for work because of the increasing use of prisoners for the armament industry pushed by the Reichsführer-SS. It was ordered to treat and feed all unfit Jews, who could have become healthy and fit again within six weeks, particular well. Previously, all unfit Jews had been gassed with the next transport or killed by injection if they were laying sick in the hospital blocks."

~ Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß, manuscript the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, from the Auschwitz trial DVD, my translation.

Jewish Family's camp

The genesis of the so-called Family Camp of Jews deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau in September and December 1943 seems not entirely cleared up yet, but it is likely related to attempts of the SS to camouflage and delude the fate of the European Jews. The exclusion of unfit deportees from Theresienstadt from the usual extermination procedure was an exception from the rule.

Their later mass murder shows the rule was only temporarily suspended. The September 1943 transports were liquidated on 8 March 1944 (for a detailed discussion of this incident see Miroslav Karny, Fragen zum 8. März 1944, Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente, issue 9, 1999, p. 9 ff.), the unfit people deported in December 1943 were killed in July 1944 (Der Ort des Terrors, volume 5, p. 115).

Excessive Cremation Capacity

[41 min] We pull back from Birkenau to see the greater Auschwitz area and overlay with a map of the US Holocaust Memorial website. Those minority of inmates who did work in Birkenau walked a mile in the morning to the SS workshops and armament industries here. The whole Auschwitz area was around 22 square miles. Crematorium 2 had a mirror facility called crematorium 3 these two buildings are the same in mirror formation. That seems like way to many cremation ovens and body storage space, but Carlo Mattogno explains: "The increase in cremation units at Birkenau depended on two concomitant factors...The first was the order given by Himmler during his visit of Auschwitz on July 17 and 18, 1942 to bring the camp capacity up to 200,000 detainees."

[41 min] We see plans to expand the camp that were never completed. Mattogno gives the second reason of why there are so many ovens. The second was the mortality of the detainees. August 1942 was the month with the highest death rate iin the history of the Auschwitz camp, caused by a terrible typhus epidemic. Some 8,600 detainees died during that month, almost twice as many as died the month before (about 4,400 deaths); there were peaks of 500 deaths per day. The average strength of the camp at the time was little more than 40,000 inmates. Just imagine what could have occurred with a strength of 200,000 detainees! The ovens would therefore have to be able to cope with any future emergencies." Here is crematorium 2 and 3. Here we have a complex for killing lice, the small bugs that spread typhus. 

[42 min] These two buildings are for people giving showers upon arriving. And for fumigating cloths with Zyklon-B, tour buses over here help us to see how big this desinfestation facility is. But the Germans obviously didn't do enough and are responsable for this Typhus tragedy. Because they put the Jews here in the first place.

The capacity of the crematoria was - anticipated and practically - at least 3000 - 4000 corpses per day (see the previous posting). Such rates are utterly excessive for "natural deaths" of a carefully and in advance planned camp of 200,000 prisoners, who were mostly living under good conditions prior to their detention. Anticipating such a death rate in the planning phase indicates sinister intentions, either by mass deaths due to poor treatment or directly by killing.

According to the explanatory report of 30 October 1941, the future crematorium 2 with its expected capacity of 1440 corpses per day was initially intended for 125,000 Soviet POWs. The death rates among Soviet POWs were generally very high, which was caused by the poor treatment but also by systematic killings carried out among Soviet POWs specifically in concentration camps: 

"The executions [of "politically unacceptable elements" among Soviet inmates, see operation order number 8] are not public and have to be carried out in the next concentration camp without attracting attention."

~ Operation order number 9 of Heydrich, 21 July 1941, Klein, Die Einsatzgruppen in der besetzten Sowjetunion, p. 340, my translation.

In fact, at the time the explanatory report was set up, Auschwitz had already carried out mass killings of Soviet POWs as well as of sick prisoners (see also Dr. Joachim Neander responds to Carlo Mattogno regarding the September 1941 gassing in Block 11 of Auschwitz).

Now, if a cremation capacity of 1440 corpses per day was considered sufficient for poorly treated 125,000 Soviet POWs subjected to systematic killings, it is unlikely that a higher ratio cremation capacity to prisoners was anticipated for poorly treated Jewish prisoners also with a high mortality rate but supposedly not subjected to any systematic killings.

But then already the two crematoria 2 and 3 should have been sufficient for a strength of 200,000 Jewish prisoners, and at least the construction of crematoria 4 and 5 remains unexplained both by a high death rate and the planned camp expansion. The excessive cremation capacity in Auschwitz is, however, well explained within the framework of the systematic extermination of Jews considered unfit for forced labour.

It should also be noted that the high death rate in Auschwitz in summer 1942 was not only from natural deaths but included killings and mass killings in particular among Jews. The fact that the death certificates issued in Auschwitz for the deceased prisoners were systematically falsified  (see also Evidence on the systematic falsification of death causes in Auschwitz) is usually conveniently ignored by Holocaust deniers.

Insight into the Extermination Sites I

[42 min]

Gabbai: "They put the railroad cars on the steps where the chambers to undress was just in the crematorium. Everybody was coming direct, you know. When I was there, 600,000 people mostly from Hungary, from Budapest I remember 70,000 from Lodz, Holland, beautiful people, it's undescribable."

[43 min] According to the story, crematorium 2 is not related to Birkenau, rather it's for gassing Jews all over Europe. But then why have it to be so close to this primarily Jewish community. This is the women's food preparation building. One of the women looks out the window and sees some mysterious guy dumping something into an opening or looks past this underground room and sees 2000 people ? to go down the narrow stairway into the undressing room never to emerge again. These trees were not there during the war as an American air photo of August 25 1944 shows us. Auschwitz had a recreational soccer field for the inmates, which is bad design to put next to a top secret genocide operation.

[44 min]

Cahn: "Of course what we did is for the weekends we got together a group of us together and we made a soccer team, we played soccer."

Interviewer: "It's amazing that there has been a soccer team that there be enough energy left to do something like that."

Cahn: "Well, I don't think we were quite as energetic as we were the other regular team, but we did something to, it kept our mind off the problems we had." 

So a Jewish man is playing soccer after work. He looks to see 2000 people waiting to descend into the undressing room of crematorium 3. Here is another perspective. These are gypsy barracks. A gypsy looks out his window accross the soccer field. Here is the soccer field.

First of all, Jewish people were not expected to leave either Auschwitz-Birkenau or some other concentration camp alive. Therefore, any considerations among the SS planners about what they could have seen was only of limited relevance in this context. 

Secondly, the SS men in charge of Auschwitz did have the option to enforce a block's closure during a gassing operation, as it was in fact done in the Auschwitz main camp previously. The SS did have the power to ban anybody nearby the crematoria if it was considered necessary.

Thirdly, the SS was planning to plant trees around the crematoria obviously to obscure the view on them:

"According to an order of the Auschwitz commandant SS-Obersturmbannführer Höss, a green belt has to be erected at the crematoria I and II in the POW camp as a natural conclusion to the camp."

~ letter Bischoff to Caesar, 6 November 1943

Fourthly, in summer 1944, when the Hungarian Jews were murdered in Auschwitz, a thick “camouflage fence” made of “reed matting” was erected around the crematoria (memo Jothann of 17 June 1944, Auschwitz 1940-1945, Volume 3 p. 183), as can be also seen on the aerial photographs 31 May 1944 and later. 

Insight into the Extermination Sites II

[44 min] With 22 square miles to work with and so nobody in Auschwitz-Birkenau would find out.

[45 min] Why not have crematorium 2 and 3 about a half mile away behind these trees. And then to transport Jews from all over Europe to get gassed why not built the last part of the rail line coming from this side.

Well meant is not the same as well done.

Denierbud's preferred position is just 800 m from the riverbank, where civilians could have had an unobscured view on the extermination facilities. In fact, civilians were already able to observe some of the activity at the Bunker extermination sites further away and partly shielded by vegetation, which was a problem actually known to the SS in Auschwitz (see also the Broad report).

Thus, the location proposed by denierbud did not reduce but increase the problem of secrecy towards the outside world, in particular since his own design of an enormous blast furnace fed by a conveyer belt is just yelling for attention. Terribly bad design. It is worth to mention that the crematoria actually used for the mass extermination were much more discrete.

Telling the Outside World During the War

[45 min] Narrator: "Fueled partly by these prejudices, Höß prepared for the arrival of the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 2 miles away from Auschwitz main camp. He oversaw the completion of a railway line allowing new arrivals being brought directly into Birkenau."

Right through the middle of the camp. bad design heaped upon bad design. But how many of the Birkenau inmates could have told the outside world. To answer that we come to Dr. Franciszek Piper, he was the senior curator of the Auschwitz State Museum, shown here in 1991.

[45 min] David Cole asked him some interesting questions.

Cole: "Who initially came up with the figure of 4 Million people died in Auschwitz." 

Piper: "??? estimates by Soviets."

But we are interested in a book Piper wrote where he said that in 1943 19,859 Auschwitz inmates were transfered to other camps and 139 escaped. And in 1944, a 163,000 were transfered from Auschwitz, 500 were released and 300 escaped. This large number is because people were constantly coming in Auschwitz and then leaving for other camps.

Narrator: "Fueled partly by these prejudices, Höß prepared for the arrival of the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau. 2 miles away from Auschwitz main camp. He oversaw the completion of a railway line allowing new arrivals being brought directly into Birkenau."

[47 min] So how many people could have told the outside world. A 183,798.

Those prisoners transferred were usually just sent to another concentration camp and remained in German capture. They could not have told the outside world.

Those released were mostly from the Auschwitz main camp not from Birkenau, where these extermination sites were located, and even if there were previously imprisoned in Birkenau, one can assume that the German authorities kept an eye on them and that they would have been immediately detained again when they really tried to tell the outside world.

Some escaped prisoners indeed reported about the atrocities in Auschwitz, and they are one reason we know about these. But their successful escape was obviously not anticipated by the SS.

Loss of Reality

[47 min] From bad design, to how small it is, how crowded it would be, to all the lies about cremation, it's clear that Auschwitz gas chambers are a myth.

Actually, the video clip did not come close to provide a single coherent, consistent, founded and reasonable argument showing that the Auschwitz gas chambers are a myth.

Quote Mining

[47 min] And the strategy to keep the myth in place...

Lipstadt: "Ultimately and with this I conclude, our objective should be to create a society where denial of the genocide is seen as so outrageous, and so despicable that anyone who engages in it would be rendered a pariah."

The full speech of Deborah Lipstadt can be found here, and she is advocating and practising the strategy to fight Holocaust denial by arguments:

"Most importantly, however, genocide denial laws suggest that we do not have the facts and the documentation to prove that these people are liar. We defeated David Irving...in the courtroom not with law but with facts. We followed the footnotes and demonstrated...Irving's work on the Holocaust was a tissue of lies. Our defeat of Irving is far more powerful commentary on his work because it is rooted in facts..."

~ Deborah Lipstadt, Holocaust denial and freedom of speech.

Already in 1993, she published the book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory", which was also addressing Holocaust denier arguments.