How not to Help out Mattogno on Auschwitz

It was a bit surprising to see there was virtually no reaction in the (admittedly manageable) Revisionist community to the series Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz (not finished yet, but currently pending because of other projects), either from himself or at least from one of his cheerleaders.

It's not that we would expect them to engage in a constructive discussion - that would be a big surprise indeed -, but ignoring a detailed rebuttal of the latest state of Revisionism on Auschwitz does not exactly help when you are an obscure fringe group anyway (though I am not really unhappy with this as it enabled me to move on to the gas vans, which seemed to be the only remaining issue Holocaust deniers hadn't been thoroughly debunked yet).

Somebody named "Root Ofall", apparently a French Revisionist and supporter of Vincent Reynouard Vincent, has now provided a brief critique of Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 5: Construction Documents, F: Cremation with Simultaneous Special Treatment in the comment section. Such rare incident needs to be appreciated with its own posting. "Root Ofall" shows his good will to help out Mattogno, but as we'll see, sometimes well-meant is just badly done. 

There are some arguments against your thesis. But the most decisive is :

"The temporary elevator had not yet been installed. It was ordered by ZBL to Häftlingsschlosserei on January 26, 1943, but it was terminated only on March 13" (ATCFS, p.196).

Obviously, it should not be available for February 15, but it should be essential for mass gassings.

("Root Ofall" on Saturday, December 12, 2015)

First of all, it does not follow from the cited extract that it was known on 29 January 1943 (when the memo in question was written) that the elevator "should not be available for February 15".

Mattogno writes that it was ORDERED on 26 January 1943 and TERMINATED on 13 March 1943, but this says nothing about when its completion was EXPECTED on 29 January 1943. For all you know, it might have been expected to terminate the elevator by 15 February 1943, but was delayed because some material was missing or because of a change in priority since the ventilation wasn't ready yet anyway.

Secondly, even if the elevator was not expected to be installed by 15 February 1943 (for the sake of argument, because you still need to demonstrate this), the mass extermination could have nevertheless started by 15 February 1943 provided the ventilation had been installed. The corpses could have been transported from the basement to the oven room either via the stairs or via the space (plus provisional steps), where the elevator was to be installed. This is just a matter of men power, readily available in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Thirdly, even if the transport of corpses up to the furnace hall was limiting the extermination process without elevator (again, for the sake of argument), this would merely mean that a lower number of transports could have been exterminated, but not that mass extermination was not possible anymore. Say, if only half of the corpses could have been brought from the basement to the oven room per day, then the Germans could have still carried out one homicidal gassing every second day (instead of every day).

In summary, the elevator was neither essential for mass gassings nor did you show that by 29 January 1943 its installation was not anticipated for 15 February 1943, and therefore you did not provide anything to challenge my conclusion. Now, if this is already your "most decisive" argument, then I'm really curious about the others!

The "simultaneous special treatment" was a treatment of corpses in the ovens.

("Root Ofall" on Saturday, December 12, 2015)

But if so, the author of the memo meant to say that "a burning with simultaneous treatment of corpses in the ovens is made possible" by the power supply, which doesn't make much sense. Unless the author was mentally confused to write a reasonable sentence, the "special treatment" has to mean something else than the "treatment of corpses in the ovens", as this is already covered by "burning".

Mattogno knew from Sergey that his explanation is not really sound:

Romanov will find this explanation objectionable or tautological as he wants. In the absence of any other document, this is the best explanation I can offer.

(Mattogno, Il comitato di soccorso Zimmerman o gli olo-bloggers in (denigr)azione nel web)

The explanation I have proposed above may not be completely satisfactory, but it is the only one that can be deduced from the historical context into which Swoboda’s note fits.

(Mattogno, ATCFS, p. 198)

Of course, not completely satisfactory puts it very mildly, since one has to assume that the author Swoboda was not able to formulate a decent logical sentence. And it is exactly the claim that there is no other explanation that I have addressed here.

There is actually a more reasonable explanation. The "special treatment" referred to the operation of the gas chamber, which required electricity to drive the ventilation system (not only to extract the gas immediately after the gassing, but also during the entire process of clearing the room and cremating the corpses, which took the whole day). Swoboda was pointing out that the power supply to the crematorium will allow for the operation of the ovens and the ventilation system of the gas chamber at the same time, hence that "burning with simultaneous special treatment" is made possible, which was the minimum requirement for the crematorium to go into operation.

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changelog:
1 January 2016: corrected Reynouard's name