The so-called Franke-Gricksch report on the "resettlement action" in Auschwitz is the most detailed and explicit contemporary Nazi document on the mass murder of Jews in an extermination camp. The document describes the process of mass killing in Auschwitz-Birkenau, including how "the unfit [Jews] go to the basement of a biggish house" and "are put to sleep" by "certain substances" introduced "by lowering containers into pillars from above" before "the corpses are incinerated". Previously, only a crude post-war copy of the report has been made public. We have located and now publish for the first time a war-time carbon copy made by the staff of the SS Personnel Main Office.
The Document
(BArch R 187/539, p. 24-25)
Umsiedlungs-Aktion der Juden
Eine besondere Aufgabe hat das Lager Auschwitz in der Regelung der Judenfrage. Modernste Massnahmen ermöglichen hier in kürzester Zeit und ohne grosses Aufsehen die Durchführung des Führerbefehls.
Die sogenannte "Umsiedlungsaktion" der Juden läuft folgendermassen ab:
Die Juden kommen in Sonderzügen (Güterwagen) gegen Abend an und werden auf besonderen Gleise in eigens dafür abgegrenzte Bezirke des Lagers gefahren. Dort werden sie ausgeladen und durch Aerztekommissionen in Anwesenheit des Lagerkommandanten und mehrerer SS-Führer erst einmal auf Arbeitsfähigkeit untersucht. Hier kommt jeder, der noch irgendwie in den Arbeitsprozess eingebaut werden kann, kommt [sic!] in ein besonderers Lager. Vorübergehend Erkrankte kommen sofort in das Sanitätslager und werden durch besondere Kost wieder gesund gemacht. Grundsatz ist: Jede Arbeitskraft ist zu erhalten. Die "Umsiedlungsaktion" älterer Art wird völlig abgelehnt, da man es sich nicht leisten kann, wichtige Arbeitsenergien laufend zu vernichten.
Die Untauglichen kommen in ein größeres Haus in die Kellerräume, die von aussen zu betreten sind. Man geht 5 - 6 Stufen herunter und kommt in einen längeren, gut ausgebauten und durchlüfteten Kellerraum, der rechts und links mit Bänken ausgestattet ist. Er ist hell erleuchtet und über den Bänken befinden sich Nummern. Den Gefangenen wird gesagt, dass sie für ihre neuen Aufgaben desinfiziert und gereinigt werden, sie müssten sich also alle völlig entkleiden, um gebadet zu werden.
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Um jegliche Panik und jede Unruhe zu vermeiden, werden sie angewiesen, ihre Kleider schön zu ordnen und unter die für sie bestimmten Nummern zu legen, damit sie nach dem Bad auch ihre Sachen wiederfinden. Es geht alles in völliger Ruhe vor sich. Dann durchschreitet man einen kleinen Flur und gelangt in einen grossen Kellerraum, der einem Brausebad ähnelt. In diesem Raum befinden sich drei grosse Säulen. In diese kann man - von oben ausserhalb des Kellerraumes - gewisse Mittel herablassen. Nachdem 300 - 400 Menschen in diesem Raum versammelt sind, werden die Türen geschlossen und von oben herab die Behälter mit den Stoffen in die Räume gelässen [sic]. Sowie diese Behälter den Boden der Säule berühren, entwickeln sie bestimmte Stoffe, die in einer Minute die Menschen einschläfern. Einige Minuten später öffnet sich an der anderen Seite eine Tür, die zu einem Fahrstuhl führt. Die Haare der Leichen werden geschnitt[en] und von besonderen Fachleuten (Juden) die Zähne ausgebrochen (Goldzähne). Man hat die Erfahrung gemacht, das[s] die Juden in hohlen Zähnen Schmuckstücke, Gold, Platin usw. versteckt halten. Danach werden die Leichen in Fahrstühle verladen und kommen in den 1. Stock. Dort befinden sich 10 grosse Krematoriumsöfen, in welchen die Leichen verbrannt werden. (Da frische Leichen besonders gut brennen, braucht man für den Gesamtvorgang nur 1/2 bis 1 Ztr. Koks.) Die Arbeit selbst wird von Judenhäftlingen verrichtet, die dieses Lager nie wieder verlassen.
Bisheriger Erfolg dieser "Umsiedlungsaktion": 500 000 Juden.
Jetzige Kapazität der "Umsiedlungsaktion"-Oefen: 10 000 Juden in 24 Stunden.
TRANSLATION
Jewish resettlement action.
The Auschwitz camp has a special task in the settlement of the Jewish question. The most modern methods make it possible to implement the Führer Order very quickly and discreetly. The so called “resettlement action” for the Jews proceeds as follows:
The Jews arrive in special trains (goods wagons) towards evening and are taken by a special line to a special area of the camp. There they are unloaded and examined by a medical board in the presence of the Camp Commandant and several SS leaders in the first place to see if they are fit for work. Here anybody who can be integrated into the work process in any way is sent to a special camp. Those with some temporary ailment are sent immediately to the quarantine camp and are brought back to health through a special diet. The basic principle is: keep as many prisoners as possible for labor. The “resettlement action” of the old sort is completely rejected, for it is not permissible to systematically destroy substantial labour capacities.
The unfit go to a biggish house, into the basement rooms, which are accessible from the outside. They descend 5 or 6 steps and come to a long, well built and ventilated basement, fitted with benches on the right and left. It is brightly lit, and above the benches are numbers. The prisoners are told that they are to be disinfected and washed ready for their new tasks. They therefore have to undress completely to be bathed. In order to avoid any panic or disorder, they are told to arrange their clothes neatly and leave them under a number so that they can find their things again after the bath. Everything proceeds in complete calm. They then go through a small corridor and arrive in a big basement room that resembles a shower room. In this room, there are three big pillars. Into these it is possible from above, outside the basement, to lower certain products. After 300 to 400 people have gathered in this room, the doors are closed and from above the containers with the products are lowered into the pillars. When the containers reach the floor of the pillars, they produce certain substances that put the people to sleep in one minute. A few minutes later, the door on the other side is opened, leading to a lift. The hair of the corpses is cut off and the teeth are broken out (gold teeth) by qualified people (Jews). It has been observed that Jews have hidden jewels, gold, platinum, etc. in hollow teeth. After this the corpses are loaded into the lift said go to the first floor. There, there are 10 big crematorium furnaces in which the corpses are burned. (As fresh corpses burn particularly well, the whole process requires only ½ to 1 Zentner of coke). The work itself is carried out by Jewish prisoners who will never leave this camp.
The result to date of this “resettlement action”: 500,000 Jews. The present capacity of the “resettlement action” furnaces: 10,000 in 24 hours.
Provenance
The US historian Charles W. Sydnor wrote in the postscript of Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945:
"The Franke-Gricksch Memorandum, entitled "Umsiedlungsaktion der Juden" and originally discovered by this author in 1976, is a verbatim typed copy, in German, made from one of the carbon copies of the original at the time the carbon was first found, in the autumn of 1945, by a documents analyst of the U.S. Army, assisting in the process of assembling and evaluating materials for possible use as evidence in the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. The carbon copy has never been relocated, and quite possibly is still buried in the mass of unindexed Nuremberg trial materials. The original of the Frank-Gricksch Memorandum, written for and submitted to the chief of the SS Personnel Office, Maximilien von Herff, has never been found.
The typed copy made from the carbon, found by this writer in a collection of private papers, was given along with the entire collection to the Tauber Institute at Brandeis University and is now deposited there."
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| Figure 1: Typed post-war copy of the Franke-Gricksch report, from Pressac, Technique and Operation of the Auschwitz Gas-Chambers, p. 238. |
The British historian Gerald Fleming dedicated a section in his book Hitler and the Final Solution to discussing the historical context of the document. He cited Lipman's typewritten copy, but also stated that "one of three carbon copies from Alfred Franke-Gricksch's report ... is in author's possession." Fleming never published the carbon copy of the report. The Holocaust denier Brian Renk claimed in 1991 that he contacted Fleming about the carbon copy, but was only sent a photocopy of the typewritten copy as a reply. Whether true or not, it is not feasible to verify the formal authenticity of a document only known from a person's words.
In 2005, the British Holocaust denier David Irving joined the debate on the Franke-Gricksch report. According to his description, he did see the report at the former Berlin Document Center (BDC) in the 1980s (by the way, it is one of Irving's secrets as to why a document saying that "the most modern methods make it possible to implement the Führer Order very quickly and discreetly" does not personally implicate Hitler!). His reference (from memory) "238-I and II" looked like a reference to a file in the so-called Schumacher collection (thanks to our Nick Terry for this hint). Bruno Schumacher was an employee of the BDC, who collected all sorts of documents of various provenance on the National Socialist period.
With this in mind, we tried our luck in the Schumacher collection at the Bundesarchiv Berlin, which had incorporated the BDC files. A promising candidate turned up in the archive's search engine in the file R 187/539, with a document described as "resettlement action, camp Auschwitz, memo, without date". Its former BDC reference 240-I might be what Irving misremembered as 238-I. Indeed, the document turned out to be the report on the mass extermination of Jews reproduced above.
Historical Context
In late 1948, Alfred Franke-Gricksch of the former SS Personnel Main Office dictated to his wife a note on a meeting with the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler at his Headquarters in Lötzen in East-Prussia in Spring 1943 (Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, p.153). According to this "diary", Himmler summoned Franke-Gricksch and his superior Maximilian von Herff because of increasing suicides and requests for front duty among SS leaders of "certain camps" in the East.
Von Herff believed "that some of the leaders in these camps cannot cope with the emotional burden and that they should, therefore, be taken to the front". Himmler denied the request to rotate the staff with the words that "you don't know the matter". He explained that "as you now have to go to these camps, you should also be informed of their task", namely carrying out Hitler's decision "to exterminate the biological centre of Judaism once and for all".
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| Figure 2: Alfred Franke-Gricksch, born 30.11.1906, promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer on 20.4.1943 and to SS-Obersturmbannführer on 1.9.1944 (BDC SSO file) |
Von Herff believed "that some of the leaders in these camps cannot cope with the emotional burden and that they should, therefore, be taken to the front". Himmler denied the request to rotate the staff with the words that "you don't know the matter". He explained that "as you now have to go to these camps, you should also be informed of their task", namely carrying out Hitler's decision "to exterminate the biological centre of Judaism once and for all".
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| Figure 3: Maximilian von Herff, born 17.4.1893, promoted to SS-Gruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS on 31.1.1943 and to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS on 20.4.1944 (BDC SSO file) |
Himmler further emphasised that the execution of this "task does not tolerate any waste of time and must be carried out by all means, smoothly and without much attention" as "secrecy is the deciding factor in this case" and this "task, which is extremely difficult, must be performed by each and every one of them in an untainted manner". These words of Himmler - though only passed on by Franke-Gricksch - sound like his authentic speech as they reflect real concerns of the SS leadership (see also What's There to Hide? Camouflage and Secrecy of Nazi Extermination Sites).
The visit of the head of the SS Personnel Main Office and his adjutant to the East is well documented.
On 22 April 1943 von Herff informed the Higher SS and Police Leader of the General Government, Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, of his plan to "carry out an official trip to the General Government in the first week of May [1943]" in order "to meet the [SS] leaders of the individual agencies". His adjutant Alfred Franke-Gricksch accompanied him. They intended to inspect Auschwitz concentration camp on 4 May 1943 (see Figure 5 below; Tuviah Friedman previously published the letter).
According to a lengthy trip report also written by Franke-Gricksch, the journey started with a flight from Berlin to Cracow on Tuesday 4th May 1943 and the inspection of Auschwitz in the afternoon (see Appendix A; we are grateful to Stephen Tyas for providing the images). The further sequence of the stations - Cracow, Lemberg, Lublin, Radom, Warsaw - is corroborated by a "travel itinerary" of Krüger's staff of 7 May 1943 (Figure 4).
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| Figure 4: Travel itinerary of the economy department of the Higher SS and Police Leader of the Generalgouvernement dated 7 May 1943 (BArch NS 19/1794, p.38). |
The two SS officers from the SS Personnel Main Office reached Warsaw on 14 May and received "a detailed report on the battles in the ghetto" (trip report in Appendix A).
According to Franke-Gricksch's post-war narrative, v. Herff had told Himmler to be "very happy if we make positive or negative notes for the personnel files of certain leaders to help them, after completion of the task by appropriate transfers". Indeed, there exist assessment notes from the trip in the personnel SS officer files of the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß, the SS and Police Leader of Lublin Odilo Globocnik and the SS and Police Leader of Galizien Fritz Katzmann.
The so-called Final Solution of the Jewish Question was a significant task for Auschwitz concentration camp. For example, on 22 May 1943, a memo on a meeting between Hans Kammler and the Auschwitz SS reads that "in addition, there has recently been the Solution of the Jewish Question, for which the prerequisite for the accommodation of initially 60,000 inmates had to be made, which within a short time will grow to 100,000" (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 16, Doc. 70).
The otherwise lengthy report of Alfred Franke-Gricksch on his trip to Auschwitz (Appendix A) is quite short, not to say silent on the role of the large Birkenau camp for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. The omission can be well understood if this delicate issue had been split off into an own report entitled "Resettlement Action of the Jews".
Carbon copy
Franke-Gricksch's above-reproduced account on mass extermination in Birkenau is a carbon copy, which is evident from the blurred contours of the letters. There were no additions made to the document after its creation (apart from the handwritten archival numbering). Thus, the top sheet fully included its content - but not necessarily vice versa (i.e. it is possible that the first sheet was signed, dated or commented after separated from its carbon copies).
The nature of a carbon copy is explained in appendix B to this posting. Just keep in mind that a carbon copy was written at the same time and by the same person and with the same strokes as the top sheet.
Typewriter
In the absence of a stamp, handwritten notes, pre-printed letterhead, etc., it seems challenging to verify a document's formal authenticity. There are, however, still a few more things that can provide valuable insights into the origin of a source, like the paper, the ink or the lettering of the typewriter.
In this case, the typewriter could be the key to verify the authorship of the document, since several letters lack strokes usually expected of the characters of this font. But the truncated letters are meaningless without a sample of known origin with the same combination of properties.
Since the report on the "resettlement actions of the Jews" was reportedly written by Franke-Gricksch about a trip together with his superior von Herff, we looked through their BDC files and those from their agency, the SS Personnel Main Office. The SS officer file of von Herff includes a typed copy of the letter to Krüger of 22 April 1943 (Figure 5). The document exists in two duplicates and displays the same characteristic letters as the report on Auschwitz.
Figure 6 compares the letters of the Franke-Gricksch report (no. 1) with two copies of the writing to Krüger (no. 2 and 3) and two other documents from von Herff's and AFG's BDC SS officers files (no. 4 and 5) written with different typewriters for comparison.
As can be readily seen, the letters "i", "m", "n" and "u" appear defective in the Franke-Gricksch report and the letter to Krüger. While truncated letters can be occasionally found in other documents as well, it is the exact combination and characteristics of the defective letters, which point to the same typewriter. Another common feature is that the typewriter lacked capital Umlaute (Ä, Ö, Ü), Eszett (ß) and the sig rune (or the author decided not to use it).
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| Figure 5: Copies of a letter v. Herff to Krüger of 22.4.1943 from v. Herff's BDC SSO file (BArch R 9361-III/530593). |
Figure 6 compares the letters of the Franke-Gricksch report (no. 1) with two copies of the writing to Krüger (no. 2 and 3) and two other documents from von Herff's and AFG's BDC SS officers files (no. 4 and 5) written with different typewriters for comparison.
As can be readily seen, the letters "i", "m", "n" and "u" appear defective in the Franke-Gricksch report and the letter to Krüger. While truncated letters can be occasionally found in other documents as well, it is the exact combination and characteristics of the defective letters, which point to the same typewriter. Another common feature is that the typewriter lacked capital Umlaute (Ä, Ö, Ü), Eszett (ß) and the sig rune (or the author decided not to use it).
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| Figure 6: Comparison of the letters of the various documents. The boxes indicate the defective letters of the typewriter used for the Franke-Gricksch report and the copy of the letter to Krüger. |
To be on the safe side, we had photographs of the documents examined by a qualified expert on typescripts. According to this expert opinion, both the report on Auschwitz (document "A") and the Krüger letter (document "B") were written with the font AR 1 from the company Ransmayer & Rodrian with a layout in use since 1930. The analysis concludes the following:
"The matching system features and type features justify the conclusion that the documents "A" and "B" were with a great probability [mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit] written with one and the same typewriter. A higher probability statement was not possible because the examined documents were not available as originals."
(expert opinion of 3 April 2019 by Bernhard Haas, Sachverständiger für Maschinenschriften, provided to the author)
Style
The minimalistic formal style of the report is found in other notes from their trip to Auschwitz and the General Gouvernement (duty trip report and the assessment notes on Höß, Globocnik and Katzmann, which all lack letterhead, date and signature).
Figure 7 are further examples of reports written by Franke-Gricksch without many formalities.
The command of language is compatible with that of Franke-Gricksch in other correspondence (see the correspondence in his BDC SSO file BArch R 9361-III/524709). For instance, the Auschwitz report makes grammatically correct use of parentheses, including the relatively rare case of an independent sentence. Franke-Gricksch showed the same use in a letter to Rudolf Brandt of 17 October 1941.
Figure 7 are further examples of reports written by Franke-Gricksch without many formalities.
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Figure 7: Top: First page of a report by Franke-Gricksch; the last page is signed by him. Bottom: Last page of a report by Franke-Gricksch. From his Handakte at the SS Personnel Main Office, BArch NS 34/15.
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The command of language is compatible with that of Franke-Gricksch in other correspondence (see the correspondence in his BDC SSO file BArch R 9361-III/524709). For instance, the Auschwitz report makes grammatically correct use of parentheses, including the relatively rare case of an independent sentence. Franke-Gricksch showed the same use in a letter to Rudolf Brandt of 17 October 1941.
Perspective
The first paragraph deals with the increasing lack of labour force in the Third Reich and the change of the extermination policy to meet the demands of the armament industry. The author points out the "basic principle" to "keep as many prisoners as possible for labor", even caring for "those with some temporary ailment" with "a special diet". It is now regarded as "not permissible to destroy systematically substantial labour capacities" as in the past. The statement also implies the view that it was perfectly permissible to kill those Jewish, which were found unfit for work in the long term. The systematic mass murder was considered justified within the framework of the Nazi ideology.
The author writes about the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of people, but carefully avoids terms and images that may discredit this policy and practise. The whole operation including the mass killing is termed a "resettlement action" - a common phrase among the Nazi authorities used to camouflage (morally and towards outsiders) the extermination of the Jews (see Appendix C). The Jewish prisoners carrying out the gruesome work "will never leave this camp" - another way to say they are liquidated. The killing capacity of 10,000 people per day is wrapped into the technical phrase "present capacity of the 'resettlement action' furnaces".
The murderous activity inside the crematoria is alleged to have been as pleasant as possible. The victims enter a "well built and ventilated basement, fitted with benches" and "brightly lit". They are told to get "disinfected and washed ready for their new tasks" and "everything proceeds in complete calm". Before they really notice it, they are put "to sleep in one minute". The picture - based on the (mis)conception of the Nazi Mass Euthanasia with a clean and sudden death - was denying the agony of the victims during the mass gassings with Zyklon-B.
The report pays almost no attention to the executioners - with two exceptions. Implicitly, by noticing that "the work itself is carried out by Jewish prisoners", it assures that the SS men stay away from the most dreadful work and especially the corpses. But the author did not dare to address the issue of what the SS staff was doing. Perhaps he still felt uncomfortable with their role but knew there was nothing to do about it anyway. Himmler already denied the transfer of SS leaders to the front because of the mental strain in certain camps in his earlier briefing for the trip at his Headquarters in Lötzen in East-Prussia.
The other appearance of the SS in the report is that of "the Camp Commandant and several SS leaders" during the selection at the ramp. The observation and terminology make total sense for an officer of the SS Personnel Main Office. The "SS leaders" were precisely the group of people Franke-Gricksch was interested in his job. For the same reason, he and v. Herff requested "to meet the [SS] leaders of the individual agencies" in the letter to Krüger of 22 April 1943.
In short, the report clearly describes the mass extermination of Jewish people in Auschwitz from a perpetrator's point of view.
A detailed analysis of the reliability of the report can be found in Appendix C.
The document portrays the primary trend of the Nazi extermination policy towards the Jews, the increasing focus on forced labour while ruthlessly killing unfit people regarded as so-called useless eaters.
Its implementation in Auschwitz is outlined with numerous details of the extermination process, which are supported by other sources. The author traces the path of the victims: they arrive in freight cars (so-called special trains) in a separate area of the camp, those unfit for work are sorted out and sent to a biggish house. They use steps to enter the undressing basement with benches and hooks and are funnelled into the killing cellar through a corridor. The poison substance is introduced from the top of the roof through columns. The Jewish prisoners working at the site remove hair and gold teeth from the corpses, which are brought to the ground floor by an elevator. The corpses are incinerated in coke-fired crematoria ovens on the ground floor.
The level of detail displayed by the author reflects extensive insider knowledge and is only comparable to that provided by SS men, Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners and other prisoners who became eyewitnesses in the crematoria. In contrast to that, reliable information about the extermination sites was barely known outside of the inner circle (see also Knowledge of Mass Extermination Among Hungarian Jews Returning from Auschwitz).
It should be mentioned, however, that the report contains several inaccuracies, some of which can be explained as a result of simple memory lapses, inattentiveness, poor view, exaggerations of the tour guide, others need a more sophisticated explanation.
The most severe mistake appears to be the description of the victims being removed from the gas chamber through a door at the opposite side of where they entered the gas chamber. Even if - and it's a big if - the gas chamber of crematorium 2 had already been divided into two and if Franke-Gricksch had noticed that door between two gas chambers, it could not have escaped him that the victims were taken out from the same door they had previously entered the chamber if he witnessed the scene.
Therefore, one can presume that a break occurred during the visit, as pointed out by the Auschwitz researcher Jean-Claude Pressac. If the SS visitor left the basement before the gas chamber was opened, and returned to the basement later on through a different entrance (or did not return at all), one could explain his confusion concerning the clearing of the gas chamber as a misunderstanding.
Another issue is whether Franke-Gricksch did witness an actual gassing or only the empty crematorium. So far, there seems to be no evidence to support Jean-Claude Pressac's belief that the Greek transport had not arrived yet when the SS officers from Berlin inspected the place. If the train had already been in Auschwitz, it is conceivable that Höß would have ordered to take out a few hundreds of victims from it to crematorium 2 for a show gassing for his visitors. However, neither is there evidence that the SS officers observed the operation of the killing site.
What is remarkable is that numerous details in the report are consistent with and correspond to those of the manuscripts written by the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß after the war (first published in German in 1958 and earlier in Polish in 1951, see Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, 2000, p.14). A striking example is a description in both accounts that they found valuables hidden in hollow teeth of some victims - a detail not mentioned in many other testimonies on the subject (the only exception known to me is Benedikt Kautsky's memoir Teufel und Verdammte, 1946).
The substantial overlap in content supports that an SS officer guided by the Auschwitz commandant authored the report. It is also no surprise that after the war Höß remembered especially well exactly those details on mass extermination, which he used to tell his visitors to the camp.
The author writes about the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of people, but carefully avoids terms and images that may discredit this policy and practise. The whole operation including the mass killing is termed a "resettlement action" - a common phrase among the Nazi authorities used to camouflage (morally and towards outsiders) the extermination of the Jews (see Appendix C). The Jewish prisoners carrying out the gruesome work "will never leave this camp" - another way to say they are liquidated. The killing capacity of 10,000 people per day is wrapped into the technical phrase "present capacity of the 'resettlement action' furnaces".
The murderous activity inside the crematoria is alleged to have been as pleasant as possible. The victims enter a "well built and ventilated basement, fitted with benches" and "brightly lit". They are told to get "disinfected and washed ready for their new tasks" and "everything proceeds in complete calm". Before they really notice it, they are put "to sleep in one minute". The picture - based on the (mis)conception of the Nazi Mass Euthanasia with a clean and sudden death - was denying the agony of the victims during the mass gassings with Zyklon-B.
The report pays almost no attention to the executioners - with two exceptions. Implicitly, by noticing that "the work itself is carried out by Jewish prisoners", it assures that the SS men stay away from the most dreadful work and especially the corpses. But the author did not dare to address the issue of what the SS staff was doing. Perhaps he still felt uncomfortable with their role but knew there was nothing to do about it anyway. Himmler already denied the transfer of SS leaders to the front because of the mental strain in certain camps in his earlier briefing for the trip at his Headquarters in Lötzen in East-Prussia.
The other appearance of the SS in the report is that of "the Camp Commandant and several SS leaders" during the selection at the ramp. The observation and terminology make total sense for an officer of the SS Personnel Main Office. The "SS leaders" were precisely the group of people Franke-Gricksch was interested in his job. For the same reason, he and v. Herff requested "to meet the [SS] leaders of the individual agencies" in the letter to Krüger of 22 April 1943.
In short, the report clearly describes the mass extermination of Jewish people in Auschwitz from a perpetrator's point of view.
Reliability
A detailed analysis of the reliability of the report can be found in Appendix C.
The document portrays the primary trend of the Nazi extermination policy towards the Jews, the increasing focus on forced labour while ruthlessly killing unfit people regarded as so-called useless eaters.
Its implementation in Auschwitz is outlined with numerous details of the extermination process, which are supported by other sources. The author traces the path of the victims: they arrive in freight cars (so-called special trains) in a separate area of the camp, those unfit for work are sorted out and sent to a biggish house. They use steps to enter the undressing basement with benches and hooks and are funnelled into the killing cellar through a corridor. The poison substance is introduced from the top of the roof through columns. The Jewish prisoners working at the site remove hair and gold teeth from the corpses, which are brought to the ground floor by an elevator. The corpses are incinerated in coke-fired crematoria ovens on the ground floor.
The level of detail displayed by the author reflects extensive insider knowledge and is only comparable to that provided by SS men, Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners and other prisoners who became eyewitnesses in the crematoria. In contrast to that, reliable information about the extermination sites was barely known outside of the inner circle (see also Knowledge of Mass Extermination Among Hungarian Jews Returning from Auschwitz).
It should be mentioned, however, that the report contains several inaccuracies, some of which can be explained as a result of simple memory lapses, inattentiveness, poor view, exaggerations of the tour guide, others need a more sophisticated explanation.
The most severe mistake appears to be the description of the victims being removed from the gas chamber through a door at the opposite side of where they entered the gas chamber. Even if - and it's a big if - the gas chamber of crematorium 2 had already been divided into two and if Franke-Gricksch had noticed that door between two gas chambers, it could not have escaped him that the victims were taken out from the same door they had previously entered the chamber if he witnessed the scene.
Therefore, one can presume that a break occurred during the visit, as pointed out by the Auschwitz researcher Jean-Claude Pressac. If the SS visitor left the basement before the gas chamber was opened, and returned to the basement later on through a different entrance (or did not return at all), one could explain his confusion concerning the clearing of the gas chamber as a misunderstanding.
Another issue is whether Franke-Gricksch did witness an actual gassing or only the empty crematorium. So far, there seems to be no evidence to support Jean-Claude Pressac's belief that the Greek transport had not arrived yet when the SS officers from Berlin inspected the place. If the train had already been in Auschwitz, it is conceivable that Höß would have ordered to take out a few hundreds of victims from it to crematorium 2 for a show gassing for his visitors. However, neither is there evidence that the SS officers observed the operation of the killing site.
What is remarkable is that numerous details in the report are consistent with and correspond to those of the manuscripts written by the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß after the war (first published in German in 1958 and earlier in Polish in 1951, see Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, 2000, p.14). A striking example is a description in both accounts that they found valuables hidden in hollow teeth of some victims - a detail not mentioned in many other testimonies on the subject (the only exception known to me is Benedikt Kautsky's memoir Teufel und Verdammte, 1946).
The substantial overlap in content supports that an SS officer guided by the Auschwitz commandant authored the report. It is also no surprise that after the war Höß remembered especially well exactly those details on mass extermination, which he used to tell his visitors to the camp.
Conclusion
The document presented at the beginning of this article can be considered an authentic note of the SS officer Alfred Franke-Gricksch (AFG) on mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz-Birkenau written as a result of his trip to the East for several reasons:
1. The note fits into the gap left by AFG's lengthy trip report (Appendix A) on the subject of Solution of the Jewish Question in Auschwitz-Birkenau.
2. Its formal style corresponds to that of other notes on the trip, its linguistic style corresponds to that of AFG.
3. It was created with a typewriter that was most likely also used for the copy of a letter authored by AFG a few days before his trip to the East.
4. The report describes the mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz from a perpetrator's point of view.
5. The interest shown in the "SS leaders" is characteristic for AFG and matches the purpose of his trip to the East.
6. The level of detail reported is consistent with an eyewitness of the site. The description of the actual killing process could be hearsay, but in that case, it would have been obtained from the accompanying SS staff (i.e., the Auschwitz commandant).
7. The significant correspondence between the content of the report and the testimony of the Auschwitz commandant suggests that the latter was the report's major source of information as a tour guide.
7. The significant correspondence between the content of the report and the testimony of the Auschwitz commandant suggests that the latter was the report's major source of information as a tour guide.
Maximilian von Herff is quoted from his post-war diary that "the extermination of the Jews was the beginning of our misfortune. Here men had to appear and stop it".
The two SS officers appeared at the camps but did not stop it. On the contrary, Franke-Gricksch's impression, as noted in his report, was glossing over the extermination of the Jews.
The two SS officers appeared at the camps but did not stop it. On the contrary, Franke-Gricksch's impression, as noted in his report, was glossing over the extermination of the Jews.
_______________________________________________________________________
Appendix A: Franke-Gricksch's Trip Report on the Journey to Poland, 4 to 16 May 1943
Appendix B: Carbon Copies
Appendix C: Reliability of the Franke-Gricksch Report on the Jewish Resettlement in Auschwitz
"Jewish Resettlement Action" (Umsiedlungs-Aktion der Juden)
...and its linguistic variants with Aussiedlung/Evakuierung were commonly used Nazi euphemisms to disguise the extermination of the Jews in correspondence and speech.
For instance, Einsatzgruppe C proudly reported on the Babi Yar Massacre that "the 'resettlement measure' [Umsiedlungsmaßnahme] against the Jews was approved throughout by the population. The fact that in reality the Jews were liquidated was hardly known until now" and that "more than 30,000 Jews showed up, who still believed into their resettlement until shortly before the execution thanks to an extremely clever organization".
A commando order of 5 February 1943 by the commander of the Security Police and SD in White Ruthenia described a "resettlement site" [Umsiedlungsgelände] as "two pits", with squads of ten men assigned to each pit and two men "handing out the cartridges" (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 8 Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten II, p. 581).
A commando order of 5 February 1943 by the commander of the Security Police and SD in White Ruthenia described a "resettlement site" [Umsiedlungsgelände] as "two pits", with squads of ten men assigned to each pit and two men "handing out the cartridges" (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 8 Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten II, p. 581).
"Jewish resettlement" was widely used in the context of the extermination of the Jews in the General Gouvernement.
On 7 April 1942, Richard Türk of the Civilian Administration spoke of the "Jewish resettlement action [for the time-being] of the SS and Police Leader [Globocnik]" (Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord, p. 271).
On 7 April 1942, Richard Türk of the Civilian Administration spoke of the "Jewish resettlement action [for the time-being] of the SS and Police Leader [Globocnik]" (Faschismus, Ghetto, Massenmord, p. 271).
The men assigned to the extermination camps had to sign duty notes that "through SS-Hauptsturmführer Höfle as head of the main department "Einsatz Reinhardt" at the SS and police leader in the district of Lublin, I have been informed and instructed in detail ... that under no circumstances I am permitted to send any information to the outside of the circle of employees in the "Einsatz Reinhardt" verbally or in writing about the course, the execution or events of the Jewish resettlement [Judenumsiedlung] ... that the events of the Jewish resettlement [Judenumsiedlung] are subject to a "Secret State Affair" in the sense of the classified regulation" (see doc. 8 here).
On 18 July 1942, Heinrich Himmler ordered the Higher SS and Police Leader Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger "that the resettlement [Umsiedlung] of the entire Jewish population of the General Government shall be carried out and completed by 31 December 1942 ... no persons of Jewish origin are allowed to remain in the Generalgouvernement ... total cleanup is necessary". The order was forwarded to the RSHA and the Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums on 29 July 1942. Himmler's Personal Administrative Officer, Richard Brandt, summarized on the carbon copy of the accompanying letter that "the resettlement action [Umsiedlungsaktion] shall be finished until 31 December 1942" (BArch NS 19/1757, p. 1-2).
The train schedule order for August 1942 informed that "until further notice, a special train with resettlers [Umsiedler] runs daily from Warsaw Danzig train station to Treblinka and the empty train back..." (train schedule order of August 1942, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 9, doc 111)
A report of the Police Battalion 133 on the "Jewish resettlement actions" [Aktionen der Judenumsiedlung] describes how a "transport was delivered without significant incident to Belzec", except of 300 decrepit, infested, infirm and no longer transportable Jews who have been executed" mostly "shot dead by a carbine or rifle" (Report of Kompanieführer Pol.Bat. 133 of 14 September 1942, Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 9, doc. 137).
The SS also used the term in the context of Auschwitz:
On 6 February 1943, the head of the SS-WVHA, Oswald Pohl, submitted a "report on the utilization of textile waste from the Jewish settlement [Judenumsiedlung]" (BArch NS 19/225, p. 17).
On 6 February 1943, the head of the SS-WVHA, Oswald Pohl, submitted a "report on the utilization of textile waste from the Jewish settlement [Judenumsiedlung]" (BArch NS 19/225, p. 17).
A radio signal from the SS-WVHA to Auschwitz of 2 October 1942 granted a driving permit "for picking up materials for the Jewish settlement [Judenumsiedlung]" (namely Zyklon B).
 |
| Source: Digitale Bibliothek 101, Der Auschwitz-Prozess. |
The assessment of Heinrich Kühnemann stated that he "was used exclusively in the course of the 'Resettlement of the Jews' [Judenaussiedlung], where he was assigned to the task of supervising, sorting out and removing the effects of Sonderkommando I and Crematorium II." (Perz & Sandkühler, Auschwitz und die "Aktion Reinhard" 1942 - 45. Judenmord und Raubpraxis in neuer Sicht, in: Zeitgeschichte 26 (1999) 5, p. 296)
The Auschwitz camp leader Hans Aumeier drew up a report on Auschwitz after the war with the following statement on the treatment of Jews:
(deposition of 8 October 1945)"Resettlement of the Jews [Aussiedlung der Juden].
Under this designation, the extermination of the Jews took place in Auschwitz and other places. The order for this probably comes from the Führer or rather the Reichsführer-SS personally."
In the so-called Auschwitz Album compiled by an SS man, the processing of Jewish transports is labelled "resettlement of the Jews from Hungary" [Umsiedlung der Juden aus Ungarn]:
 |
| Source: Das Auschwitz Album, Wallstein-Verlag, p. 16. |
The more common term was "solution" or "final solution", still "settlement" of the Jewish question was part of the Nazis' language. For instance, during a meeting of the staff of Hitler's deputy it was noted on 20 December 1934:
"Germany sees a final settlement of the Jewish question [Regelung der Judenfrage] only at the moment when the complete spatial separation between the Jewish and the German people are achieved."
On 23 October 1941, Paul Wurm of the Stürmer wrote to the "Jew specialist" at the Nazi Foreign Office, Franz Rademacher, that "on my return from Berlin I met an old party member who works on the settlement of the Jewish question [Regelung der Judenfrage] in the East. Soon, a lot of the Jewish vermin will be destroyed through special measures."
The Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories wrote to the Reichskommissariat Ostland on 18 December 1941 that "on the Jewish question, it should now be clear through oral discussions. Economic issues should fundamentally be not taken into account when it comes to the settling [Regelung] of the problem" (Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 7, doc 221).
"Special trains" [Sonderzüge]
...was a term employed to describe also the Jewish transports to the East, for example:
- telegram of 14 July 1942 mentions "special Jewish trains [Judensonderzüge] from Belgium, France, Holland ... for labour to Auschwitz" (source)
- train schedule order for August 1942 mentions that "until further notice daily a special train [Sonderzug] with resettlers runs from Warsaw Danzig train station to Treblinka and the empty train back..." (as cited above).
"Freight trains" [Güterzüge]
Transport of Hungarian Jews arriving in Auschwitz-Birkenau:
 |
| Source: Das Auschwitz Album, Wallstein-Verlag, p. 107. |
At the time Franke-Gricksch visited Auschwitz, the Jewish transports were unloaded on a sidetrack of the railroad line passing through the area of interest of Auschwitz ("old ramp") (there was only one such "district"). He would have likely seen or heard about the unloading process at this place.
There are other possible explanations for the statement (especially for the plural in districts):
- He did observe narrow gauge rails in Birkenau used for transporting building material to the building sites and imagined the rest himself.
- He could have heard about the project to build an unloading terminal in Birkenau and supposed it was about to get finished soon. Already in 1941, it was envisaged to extend the rail line into the "POW camp Birkenau". The project was, however, only completed in 1944 for the destruction of the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz.
 |
| Plan showing the rail line into Birkenau, presumably dated 1941, from Bartosik, The Origins of the Birkenau Camp, document 100. |
"Medical Comission" [Ärztekommission]
...was a term that originated from the Nazi (concentration camp) "euthanasia":
 |
| Source. |
Wilhelm Boger of the Auschwitz Gestapo also called the SS doctors at the ramp a "medical commission" [Ärztekommission] (see next point).
"There they are unloaded and examined"
Wilhelm Boger, Auschwitz Political Department:
On the ramp was the prisoner's reception commando with the associated SS escort guards and the medical commission. After the arrival of the train, the prisoners had to get out. Subsequently, the doctors came into action. The inmates were assigned to work, and the non-working people were taken by truck to the crematoria for gassing.
(Auschwitz trial DVD, S. 3295)
SS photographs of the extermination of the Hungarian Jews in Summer 1944 picture the selection process ("Aussortierung") at the ramp in Birkenau:
"SS Leaders" [SS-Führer] |
| Source: Das Auschwitz Album, Wallstein-Verlag, p. 24. |
It is not the most common term to describe the SS men at the ramp among witnesses of Auschwitz. However, it makes perfect sense that Franke-Gricksch mentioned the word which was often employed by him in his correspondence. It is consistent to his job in the SS Personnel Main Office that he noted the presence of "SS leaders" - along with the camp commandant and the "medical commission" (SS doctors) - at the ramp.
The leader of the Schutzhaftlager Hans Aumeier wrote the following about the SS staff at the ramp:
"The incoming transports were sorted by the camp doctors as soon as the prisoners were unloaded, and they selected those to be gassed. They had instructions to select cripples, sick and unfit above over 55 years, and from then on, children under 11 to 12 years of age were also sent for gassing. Each time a different leader of the detention camp was assigned to the transport as a responsible security officer, who had the task of taking over the guard chain for transport, of allocating the block leaders for unloading, and taking the inmates from the unloading point by truck to the camp or the bunkers."
(deposition of 25 July 1945)
"Those with some temporary ailment are sent immediately to the quarantine camp and are brought back to health through a special diet. Every workforce is to be sustained. The 'resettlement action' of older kind is completely rejected, because one can not afford to destroy important work energies on an ongoing basis"
The "'resettlement action' of older kind" could be a reference to the first half of 1942 when transports with Polish Jews were entirely liquidated in Auschwitz (see Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau). The Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß recounted this as follows:
(Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 245)"Originally, according to the RFSS order, all Jews transported to Auschwitz by Eichmann were to be exterminated without exception. This was also the case with the Jews from the Upper Silesia region, but even with the first transports of German Jews came the order to select all working Jews, men and women, and use them in the camp for the armaments industry."
On the other hand, according to the German historian Christian Gerlach, "possibly this alluded to practices in August 1942; there were relatively few deportation trains whose passengers were all immediately killed but a larger number where the quota was above 90%" (Gerlach, The Extermination of the European Jews, p. 199).
The Nazi leadership aimed towards exploiting Jewish workforce for the armament industry and spare those considered fit for work for the time being. For example, on 16 September 1942, the head of the SS-WVHA, Oswald Pohl, reported to Himmler on a meeting with Speer in Auschwitz that
On 2 March 1943 the later Auschwitz commandant Arthur Liebehenschel instructed the then commandant Rudolf Höß:
"....Reich Minister Prof Speer wants to ensure the short-term use of 50,000 Jews who are fit for work in existing closed businesses with existing accommodation. We will take the labor necessary for this purpose primarily in Auschwitz from the eastward migration so that our existing operational facilities are not disturbed by a constant change of the workers in their achievement and structure. The Jews fit for work destined for the eastward migration will, therefore, have to interrupt their journey and carry out armaments work."(BArch NS 19/14, p. 99 [stamped pagination])
On 2 March 1943 the later Auschwitz commandant Arthur Liebehenschel instructed the then commandant Rudolf Höß:
"As known there, the Jewish transports from Berlin begin on 1 March 1943. It is again pointed out that these transports contain about 15,000 perfectly able, healthy Jews who have worked in the Berlin armaments industry so far. Their work capability is to be emphasized by all means."
(Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Band 16, Document 59 [p. 232])
On 8 July 1943, a transport of Jewish inmates to be used as forced labourers arrived in Auschwitz from concentration camp Lublin:
"This morning, the transport with inmates from Lublin arrived at 6 pm with 1500 prisoners, including 5 dead and 2 gunshots wounded. The prisoners were bathed immediately after arrival and deloused and then examined on their health status and their ability to work by the responsible camp doctors in the men's and women's camp.(Blumental, Dokumenty i Materialy, Tom I, p. 140)
Of the 750 male inmates, only 424 were selected as fit for work, while the rest of 326 inmates were not fully able to work for the intended use in the labor camp Buna
Of the 750 female inmates, 80 inmates are said to be unfit for work by the camp doctor, which accounts for about 10% of those transferred. Approximately 10% are covered with scabies, and of the remaining prisoners, a large part cannot be used for heavier work. There are a number of pictures attached, showing the inmates' poor physical condition. The report of the camp garrison doctor is also enclosed."
On 14 February 1944, the new commandant of Auschwitz Liebehenschel reminded the Auschwitz SS staff that
"...as has been said many times, everything must be done to preserve the working capacity and labor of the prisoners."
(Standort- und Kommandanturbefehle des Konzentrationslagers Auschwitz 1940-1945, p. 411)
"The unfit" [Untauglichen]
The figures of unfit Jews selected at the ramp were recorded by the Political Department and reported to the RSHA in Berlin (see Auschwitz SS Men Confessing on Tape: Josef Erber). In the case of transports from Berlin and Theresienstadt, the Auschwitz SS forwarded the record of how many unfit Jews had been taken out from the arrivals and how many had been killed to the WVHA:
The term "gesonderte Unterbringung" was a default euphemism for extrajudicial killings in Auschwitz, see also "Separate accommodation" in Auschwitz: a code word for extrajudicial executions and Auschwitz-Birkenau Selection List of 21 August 1943.
The so-called Auschwitz album has two sections on women/men "no longer fit for work":
It is most telling that the Jewish people selected as unfit for work can be last seen near the crematoria on the photographs of the Album. There is not a single photo which would indicate that they survived their arrival in Birkenau (unlike those people selected for work, which the SS photographer pictured after the hygienic treatment).
"biggish house" [größeres Haus]
This was crematorium 2 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which the Auschwitz commandant apparently showed to his SS visitors. As Jean-Claude Pressac notes "on 4th May 1943, only Krematorium II was complete and operational, while Kr III was not yet ready".
Franke-Gricksch could have seen and may have been told about crematorium 3 at the other side of the road. It is in accordance with his take-home message that the victims are tricked into their fate and do not suffer that he does call the crematorium what he presumed how an ignorant person and victim would see it, a biggish house.
The Auschwitz Album pictures the groups of Jews selected as unfit for work lining up or waiting near big buildings - the crematoria.
At crematoria 4 & 5:
At crematoria 2 & 3:
While Auschwitz was a centre of selecting forced labour, its other function was to exterminate those considered unfit for work. On 16 December 1942, the Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller suggested Himmler to deport 45,000 Jews from Bialystok and Theresienstadt to Auschwitz yielding some 30,000 to 35,000 unfit Jews:
"In the number of 45,000 is included the unfit addendum (old Jews and children). When an appropriate scale is applied, at least 10,000 to 15,000 workers can be obtained by the selection of the arriving Jews in Auschwitz."
(Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Band 16, Document 45 [p. 210])
The figures of unfit Jews selected at the ramp were recorded by the Political Department and reported to the RSHA in Berlin (see Auschwitz SS Men Confessing on Tape: Josef Erber). In the case of transports from Berlin and Theresienstadt, the Auschwitz SS forwarded the record of how many unfit Jews had been taken out from the arrivals and how many had been killed to the WVHA:
 |
| Sterbebücher von Auschwitz 1, Dokument 56. |
The so-called Auschwitz album has two sections on women/men "no longer fit for work":
 |
| Source: Das Auschwitz Album, Wallstein-Verlag. |
"biggish house" [größeres Haus]
This was crematorium 2 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which the Auschwitz commandant apparently showed to his SS visitors. As Jean-Claude Pressac notes "on 4th May 1943, only Krematorium II was complete and operational, while Kr III was not yet ready".
Franke-Gricksch could have seen and may have been told about crematorium 3 at the other side of the road. It is in accordance with his take-home message that the victims are tricked into their fate and do not suffer that he does call the crematorium what he presumed how an ignorant person and victim would see it, a biggish house.
The Auschwitz Album pictures the groups of Jews selected as unfit for work lining up or waiting near big buildings - the crematoria.
At crematoria 4 & 5:
At crematoria 2 & 3:
"Basement rooms..." [Kellerräume]
Construction drawing of the crematorium with its basement rooms in cross-section:
...which are accessible from the outside [die von aussen zu betreten sind]
Sketch of the central construction office Auschwitz showing the future direct access to the undressing cellar from the outside:
Google satellite image of the crematorium 2 ruin with steps down the undressing basement marked with a circle:
...which are accessible from the outside [die von aussen zu betreten sind]
Sketch of the central construction office Auschwitz showing the future direct access to the undressing cellar from the outside:
Google satellite image of the crematorium 2 ruin with steps down the undressing basement marked with a circle:
"...descend 5 or 6 steps..." [5 - 6 Stufen herunter]
The number of steps to the undressing room was 10 according to Pressac. The Sonderkommando prisoner David Olere has shown a similar figure in his drawing of crematorium 3:
 |
| Source: David Olere. Un Peintre Au Sonderkommando a Auchwitz, 1989, p. 47. |
"...and come to a long, well built and ventilated basement, fitted with benches on the right and left. It is brightly lit, and above the benches are numbers. The prisoners are told that they are to be disinfected and washed ready for their new tasks. They therefore have to undress completely to be bathed. In order to avoid any panic or disorder, they are told to arrange their clothes neatly and leave them under a number so that they can find their things again after the bath. Everything proceeds in complete calm."
Construction drawing of the elongated undressing cellar with access steps:
Work schedule sheet noting that work has been done "on ventilation in undressing cellar" of crematorium 2:
 |
| Source: Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust, p. 459. |
 |
| Source: Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust, p. 458. |
The extermination process took place in Auschwitz as follows. The Jews destined for extermination were led, as calm as possible, to the crematoria. In the undressing room they were told in their language by the prisoners of the Sonderkommando employed there that they are now bathing and delousing, that they should put their clothes neatly together and, above all, remember the place so that they could move their clothes quickly after the delousing could find again. The prisoners of the Sonderkommando themselves had the greatest interest in making the process quick, calm and smooth.(Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 257)
And from a different perspective by Miklos Nyiszli, who performed work for the SS doctors in the crematorium:
"At the crematorium, they descended 10-12 concrete steps and entered an empty, underground room with a capacity of 2000. The first row stopped instinctively at the entrance, but once they read the signs 'Disinfection' and 'Bath' printed in all major languages, they were reassured and descended the steps. They were immediately ordered to undress; there were benches and numbered clothes hooks along the walls of the room. As part of a careful misinformation strategy, the SS reminded everyone to memorize their number to make sure they would find their clothes after the bath without problem."
(Miklos Nyiszli, 28 July 1945, deposition)
The undressing scene as pictured by the Sonderkommando prisoner David Olere:
"They then go through a small corridor..."
Construction drawing with the corridor between undressing room and gas chamber (with added labels and arrows):
"...and arrive in a big basement room that resembles a shower room"
The undressing scene as pictured by the Sonderkommando prisoner David Olere:
 |
| Source: David Olere. Un Peintre Au Sonderkommando a Auchwitz, 1989, p. 52. |
"They then go through a small corridor..."
Construction drawing with the corridor between undressing room and gas chamber (with added labels and arrows):
"...and arrive in a big basement room that resembles a shower room"
Transfer inventory of crematorium 3 with "14 showerheads" along the "gas-tight door":
Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß:
"After the undressing, the Jews went into the gas chamber, which was provided with showers and water pipes and completely made the impression of a bathroom."(Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 257)
A forensic investigation of the ruins of the crematorium 2 in Birkenau did find "a small disk 8 cm in diameter embedded in the path less than one meter to the east of the gas chamber. The disk shows many small perforations (more readily seen on the reverse side) in a manner consistent with the front plate of a showerhead. The holes are of such a minuscule size - many do not seem to perforate the plate at all - that it is unlikely that much, if any, water could have flowed through them" (Daniel Keren, Jamie McCarthy, and Harry W. Mazal, The Ruins of the Gas Chambers: A Forensic Investigation of Crematoriums at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau, published in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Oxford University Press, Volume 18, Number 1, Spring 2004, available online here).
"In this room, there are three big pillars. Into these it is possible from above, outside the basement, to lower certain products."
There had been four (instead of three as stated by Franke-Gricksch) wire-mesh columns in the gas-chamber into which Zyklon-B pellets were lowered from the top of the roof (see also Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 2: Gas Introduction at the Crematoria). According to Pressac:
The explanation of this error is that Franke-Gricksch must have just gone a few paces into Leichenkeller 1, not down to the end, and thus noticed only three of the four columns.(Pressac, Technique and Operation of the Auschwitz Gas Chambers, p. 239)
"After 300 to 400 people have gathered in this room, the doors are closed and from above the containers with the products are lowered into the pillars. When the containers reach the floor of the pillars, they produce certain substances that put the people to sleep in one minute."
German documents referred to the homicidal gas chamber of crematorium 2 as "gassing cellar" and "gas cellar":
 |
| Close-up photo from Van Pelt, The Case For Auschwitz, p. 210. |
The killing process was described by Höß as follows:
The maximum capacity of the gas chamber was at the order of 2000 - 3000 people, according to testimonies.
The gas chamber had only a single door to the anteroom. Pressac explained this mistake as follows:
One minute to "put the people to sleep" could be the official claim to gain acceptance for the killing method, but that did not correspond to reality inside the gas chamber. A sudden silence after a few minutes is what some ear-witnesses reported from the outside.
"A few minutes later, the door on the other side is opened..."
A gassing time of about 20 min is usually presumed to make sure that everybody was dead. The ventilation was turned on, but the Sonderkommando prisoners could have entered the gas chamber with gas masks already at this point.
There was no exit door on the other side, but the victims were pulled out through the same door as they entered alive. At some point, the Auschwitz SS installed a separating wall with a door in the gas chamber to cope with smaller transports more easier, but it is questionable that such was implemented as early as May 1943. Furthermore, it would not explain why this door was the exit to the elevator.
Jean-Claude Pressac explained this error as follows:
"...leading to a lift"
Construction drawing with elevator next to the gas chamber door. On 13 March 1943, the prisoner's metal workshop completed "1 goods lift with a minimum payload of 300 kg. including the fitting of suitable winches, cable and motor and the guide rail" for crematorium 2.
"The hair of the corpses is cut off and the teeth are broken out (gold teeth) by qualified people (Jews). It has been observed that Jews have hidden jewels, gold, platinum, etc. in hollow teeth"
The scene as pictured by Sonderkommando prisoner David Olere...
... and described by the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß:
The doors were now quickly screwed tight, and the gas was immediately thrown by the disinfectors available into the introduction hatches through the ceiling of the gas chamber in a duct to the ground. This caused the immediate emission of the gas. Through the observation hole in the door, one could see that those closest to the introduction duct immediately dropped dead. It can be said that death was instantaneous for about a third. The others began to stagger, scream and gasp for air. But the screaming soon turned into a rattle, and in a few minutes all lay. After 20 minutes at the latest, no one moved anymore. Depending on the weather, humid or dry, cold or warm, depending on the nature of the gas, which was not always the same, on the composition of the transport, many healthy, elderly or sick, children, the effect of the gas lasted five to ten minutes. The unconsciousness appeared after a few minutes, depending on the distance from the introduction duct. Screaming, older, sick, weak and children fell faster than healthy and younger.(Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 257-258)
The maximum capacity of the gas chamber was at the order of 2000 - 3000 people, according to testimonies.
The gas chamber had only a single door to the anteroom. Pressac explained this mistake as follows:
This is probably due to confusion with the double door of Leichenkeller 2 leading to the corridor, through which he had just come before having a quick look over the threshold of Leichenkeller 1.(Pressac, Technique and Operation of the Auschwitz Gas Chambers, p. 239)
One minute to "put the people to sleep" could be the official claim to gain acceptance for the killing method, but that did not correspond to reality inside the gas chamber. A sudden silence after a few minutes is what some ear-witnesses reported from the outside.
"A few minutes later, the door on the other side is opened..."
A gassing time of about 20 min is usually presumed to make sure that everybody was dead. The ventilation was turned on, but the Sonderkommando prisoners could have entered the gas chamber with gas masks already at this point.
There was no exit door on the other side, but the victims were pulled out through the same door as they entered alive. At some point, the Auschwitz SS installed a separating wall with a door in the gas chamber to cope with smaller transports more easier, but it is questionable that such was implemented as early as May 1943. Furthermore, it would not explain why this door was the exit to the elevator.
Jean-Claude Pressac explained this error as follows:
"This can be explained only if there was some kind of break in his visit to the crematorium that caused him to lose his bearings somewhat. His error becomes comprehensible if we assume the following itinerary: descent from the outside to the undressing room [Leichenkeller 2], walk through its entire length to the double door at the far end, through this into the short corridor and then the vestibule, from which he took a few steps into the gas chamber [Leichenkeller 1], whose operation was then explained to him. He emerged from the basement via the northern stairway into the yard. then entered the ground floor of the crematorium through the north entrance and was shown into the furnace room. Here the virtues of the Topf furnaces were extolled, probably while he was standing before Furnace 1. Then he took the corpse lift down to the basement, in front of the entrance to the gas chamber (where, not recognizing the vestibule he had passed through some time before, he thought this was ANOTHER door to the gas chamber). He probably went back up to the ground floor on the corpse hoist and left the Krematorium through the main, north, door. The “break” thus occurred when he emerged from the basement by the northern stairway, instead of more logically taking the corpse hoist directly up to the furnace room."(Pressac, Technique, p. 239)
"...leading to a lift"
Construction drawing with elevator next to the gas chamber door. On 13 March 1943, the prisoner's metal workshop completed "1 goods lift with a minimum payload of 300 kg. including the fitting of suitable winches, cable and motor and the guide rail" for crematorium 2.
"The hair of the corpses is cut off and the teeth are broken out (gold teeth) by qualified people (Jews). It has been observed that Jews have hidden jewels, gold, platinum, etc. in hollow teeth"
The scene as pictured by Sonderkommando prisoner David Olere...
 |
| Source: David Olere. Un Peintre Au Sonderkommando a Auchwitz, 1989, p. 55. |
"The Sonderkommando removes the gold teeth of the corpses, and they cut the women's hair."(Rudolf Höß, Die Endlösung der Judenfrage, quoted in Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 258)
See also this posting on the German documents showing how the Nazis generally collected and used human hair from concentration camps.
On the use of gold teeth see the following document by the SS-WVHA to Heinrich Himmler of 8 October 1942:
"The dental scrap gold from deceased inmates will be delivered to the medical office on your orders. It is used there for our men's dental treatment purposes. SS-Oberführer Blaschke already has a stock of over 50 kg of gold; this is the estimated precious metal requirement for the next 5 years. I do not consider it suitable for collecting more gold for this purpose, either for safety reasons or for the sake of utilisation. I ask for confirmation that the dental scrap gold arising from the normal output of the concentration camps will be delivered to the Reichsbank against credit."
(Tuchel, Die Inspektion der Konzentrationslager, p. 151)
The Auschwitz commandant confirmed that gems had been found hidden in teeth:
This was also mentioned by the prisoner Benedikt Kautsky:
The practice of extracting the gold teeth was common for other extermination sites as well.
Oskar Dirlewanger, commander of an infamous penal unit of the SS, testified before internal SS investigators that he killed Jews sentenced to death with poison and broke out their gold teeth for the use of his men:
(Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 255)"Even in the filled teeth, one found gems of immense value."
This was also mentioned by the prisoner Benedikt Kautsky:
"These [valuables] were often concealed in clothes or shoes, in the seams, between the soles, some Jews had diamonds cemented into hollow teeth. A lively trade in gold teeth and bits was a matter of course; they examined all the corpses and broke out their gold teeth."(Kautsky, Teufel und Verdammte, 1946, p.96)
The practice of extracting the gold teeth was common for other extermination sites as well.
Oskar Dirlewanger, commander of an infamous penal unit of the SS, testified before internal SS investigators that he killed Jews sentenced to death with poison and broke out their gold teeth for the use of his men:
"I had noticed that the Jews carried a great deal of gold in their mouths, while for my SS men, only Krupp steel was available for dental repairs. I wanted to remedy these mistakes by having the Jews injected with strychnine, which should result in immediate death."(see Dirlewanger to an SS Investigator on Poisoning of Jews)
In Minsk, the Nazis removed the gold teeth prior to execution as borne out by German documents.
Letter of the head of the SD prison to the Generalkommissar of White Ruthenia:
Letter of the head of the SD prison to the Generalkommissar of White Ruthenia:
"Subject: Jewish actions(Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933-1945, Band 8, Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebieten II, p.615)
Reference: oral report on May 31, 1943
On April 13, 1943, the former German dentist Ernst Israel Tichauer and his wife Elisa Sara Tichauer (born Rosenthal) were taken to the judicial prison by the SD (Hauptscharführer Rübe). Since then, the gold bridges, crowns and seals have been removed or broken up among the German and Russian Jews who have been delivered. This happens every one to two hours before the action in question. Since April 13, 1943, 516 German and Russian Jews have been executed. However, after a precise determination, the gold items were taken down only in two actions, namely on 14/4/43 at 172 and on 27/4/43 at 164 Jews. About 50% of the Jews had gold teeth, bridges or seals. Hauptscharführer Rübe from the SD was personally present each time and also took the gold stuff with him. This was not done until April 13, 1943."
Memo of the commander of the security police and service White Ruthenia Eduard Strauch of 20 July 1943:
I can stress again that they blame my men and me with barbarism and sadism while merely doing our duty. Even the fact that Jews, who were to be specially treated, had their gold teeth properly removed by medical specialists had been an issue for discussion. Kube countered that this kind of treatment was unworthy of a German man and a Germany of Kant and Goethe. If the German reputation in the world was undermined, then it was our fault. Apart from this, it was also true that my men would satisfy their desires with these executions.(BArch NS 19/1770, p. 10)
"After this the corpses are loaded into the lift said go to the first floor"
The author meant "ground floor" with "first floor".
The scene as pictured by Sonderkommando prisoner David Olere...
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| David Olere. Un Peintre Au Sonderkommando a Auchwitz, 1989, p. 57. |
"After that, they were brought up with the elevator in front of the now heated ovens."(Rudolf Höß, Die Endlösung der Judenfrage, quoted in Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 258)
"There, there are 10 big crematorium furnaces in which the corpses are burned."
A contemporary view of the oven room of crematorium 3 (with 14 out 15 oven openings visible):
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| Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Digital Collection. |
The Auschwitz researcher Jean-Claude Pressac explained this error as follows:
"Franke-Gricksch probably did not go the whole length of the furnace room, but stood at the western entrance in front of the first furnace and listened to the explanations given. It could be that the figure ten was the total he was given for the capacity of Krematorien II and III together (10 three muffle furnaces)"
Also, Franke-Gricksch might have remembered 5 ovens with double-muffles (Höß committed the same mistake in a post-war interrogation)
"As fresh corpses burn particularly well, the whole process requires only ½ to 1 Zentner of coke"
Fresh corpses from a gas chamber are still warm and require indeed less fuel than older corpses stored in a morgue.
On 4 November 1941, the oven builder Topf & Söhne explained to the Auschwitz construction office that "frozen bodies go to the cremation, which requires more fuel":
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| Source: Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust, p. 436. |
"The work itself is carried out by Jewish prisoners who will never leave this camp"
The Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß:
"All the work in the extermination process was carried out by Jewish Sonderkommandos."(1st quote from his manuscript the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, Auschwitz trial DVD; 2nd quote from his "autobiography" in Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 195)
"Equally strange was the whole behaviour of the Sonderkommandos. They all knew quite well that when the actions were ended, they would meet the same fate as the thousands of their racial comrades, whose destruction they helped considerably."
The vast majority of the about one thousand Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners were indeed liquidated in Auschwitz, and only a small number of about 100 SKs managed to survive (Friedler, Zeugen aus der Todeszone, p. 307) because of the hesitant behaviour of the Auschwitz SS in the last weeks of the camp.
As Geheimnisträger (bearer of secrets) doomed to death, the Sonderkommando prisoners were separated from the rest of the camp inmates, both in terms of accommodation (either in their block or the crematoria) and appearance. While ordinary Auschwitz prisoners were dressed in blue/grey striped uniforms (with exceptions like the so-called Kanada-Kommando sorting the effects taken from the deported Jews), the Jewish Sonderkommando had to wear dark trousers with light shirts as apparent from the secretly taken Sonderkommando photographs from Summer 1944:
A report from the local police station in Auschwitz of 7 October 1944 reads that "prisoners escaped from concentration camp Auschwitz II from the Sonderkommando (crematorium), mostly Jews ... characteristics: close-cropped, tattooed number on the left forearm. Clothing partly civil with red stripes".
"The result to date of this “resettlement action”: 500,000 Jews."
The figure of 500,000 "resettled" Jews is exaggerated as about 330,000 Jews had been deported to Auschwitz until May 1943 according to the data in Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz aufgrund der Quellen und der Erträge der Forschung 1945–1990.
Interestingly, around the same time, a figure of 500,000 killed Jews circulated among prisoners allegedly based on information obtained in the Political Department. The escaped Auschwitz prisoners Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba reported in April 1944:
"At the beginning of the year [1943], the political department in Auschwitz received 500,000 release forms... but they were filled in with the data of those gassed and were deposited in the archive."(Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Band 16, document 108, p. 371)
The figure also made its way into secret reports of the Nazi news agency Internationales Institut für die Aufklärung über die Judenfrage monitoring foreign news on the Jews in Poland:
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| Source: BArch R 58/7222. |
Another point: the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß may have felt like boasting about the Auschwitz death toll to catch up with the reports on those of the Aktion Reinhardt camps Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor.
In his post-war manuscript on the Final Solution of the Jewish Question, Höß provided more or less decent totals for the Jewish deportations to Auschwitz. According to him, he learnt the figures "from Eichmann or his staff" - quite possible only in 1944.
The death toll of 500,000 up to May 1943 is far too low for a post-war forgery with much higher figures floating around at the end and after the war. The Soviets claimed some 4 Million deaths for Auschwitz. The Auschwitz escapees Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler reported that 1.765 million Jews were gassed in Auschwitz between "April 1942 to April 1944".
"The present capacity of the “resettlement action” furnaces: 10,000 in 24 hours."
According to the Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß, the crematoria had the following maximum cremation capacities.
"As I said earlier, crematoria I and II were able to burn about 2,000 bodies within 24 hours, more was not possible without causing any damage, and facilities III and IV should be able to burn 1500 bodies within 24 hours, to my knowledge these numbers have never been reached there. "(Rudolf Höß, Die Endlösung der Judenfrage, quoted in Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 259)
In addition to the crematoria (completed or almost finished), the Bunker 2 extermination site (a former farmhouse converted into homicidal gas chambers with open-air cremation trenches) still existed at the time. In Höß's calculation, the site could account for 3,000 victims per day. Thus, the camp commandant could arrive at a maximum capacity of 10,000 people per day.
Or in his own words for the Nuremberg prison psychologist Gustave Gilbert:
"In Birkenau there were five installations - two large crematoria, each of which had a capacity for receiving 2,000 persons in the course of 24 hours. That is to say, it was possible in one gas chamber to put to death up to 2,500 persons; in five double ovens heated with coke it was possible to burn at the most 2,000 bodies within 24 hours; two smaller installations could eliminate about 1,500 people, with four bigger double ovens to each of them. Furthermore, there was also one open-air installation - that is, an old farmhouse was sealed and turned into a gas chamber, which could also contain 1,500 persons at one and the same time. The incineration was carried out there in an open pit on wood, and this was practically limitless.In my estimation, it was possible to burn there, in 24 hours, up to 8,000 persons in this way. Hence it was possible to exterminate and eliminate up to 10,000 people within 24 hours in the installations described above. As far as I am aware, this number was attained only once in 1944, when delays occurred in the arrival of trains, and consequently five transports arrived together on one day."
A killing capacity of 10,000 daily was apparently his standard figure towards visiting SS leaders. He passed on the same to Adolf Eichmann (though Eichmann was insecure about the statement here):
"In Auschwitz I had to look at those installations yet once more. I told Hoess this and as a consequence he ordered a field car. We rode in the field car through some area - I didn't know my way around in Auschwitz. This was a section - far from the headquarters. I had been there on my business several times only in the headquarters, near the main entrance, I had never been further inside - I also did not have any inclination to do so - and then I saw large buildings, large buildings, this was already in the guise of a factory, the enormous chimney, and Hoess said to me: "Yes," he said, "here there is a capacity of 10,000 - yes 10,000."..The crematoria in Birkenau did achieve cremation rates far higher than those in civilian crematoria. This was enabled by the technique of multiple cremations, overlapping of cremation cycles, breaking up charred corpses with stoking tools and incomplete cremations.
When the crematorium 2 was planned in 1941, the Topf company estimated a capacity of 1440 adult male corpses per day (Birkenau constructed as POW camp at the time). The figure made its way into the well-known draft of a letter by the central construction office Auschwitz to the SS-WVHA of 28 June 1943:
Considering the large proportion of children, the Auschwitz SS could have easily calculated with 2000 corpses per day for gassing victims.
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| Source: Schüle, Industrie und Holocaust, p. 460. |
Appendix D: The Franke-Gricksch Report and Holocaust Deniers
The Franke-Gricksch report challenges virtually everything a Holocaust denier believes in. It demonstrates the mass murder of Jews, the intent, the means, the scope. It's the quickest way to end Holocaust denial. Hence, the document must be dismissed according to one of the fundamental denier principles: "It's forged, or we're busted!".
Vincent Reynouard, video clip Ce SS qui, en 1943, aurait décrit l'extermination des Juifs
Rebuttal:
Vincent Reynouard And The Franke-Gricksch Report (Part 1)
Vincent Reynouard And The Franke-Gricksch Report (Part 2)
Vincent Reynouard And The Franke-Gricksch Report (Part 3)
Mike Peinovich, on twitter
Rebuttal:
Irregular Musings on the Unicellular Denial. #3. Chris Crookes and Mike Peinovich.
Brian Renk, The Franke-Gricksch 'Resettlement Action Report': Anatomy of a Fabrication
Note that Renk has not been active as Holocaust denier for many years and his latest publication dates 2001.
There is no evidence that a carbon copy of the original report was ever "found" in the SS officer's career file. Nor is there any evidence that this elusive "carbon copy" is in the National Archives, or even that such a document ever existed. The only version of this report that seems to exist anywhere is Lipman's typescript "copy" of an alleged extract from the missing report.The carbon copy was found and is reproduced in this article.
On the "capacity" of 10,000 people per day:
He [Pressac] does not explain, though, why there should be propaganda falsehoods in a confidential, internal SS report.
Apart from the fact that the figure can be estimated on the crude assumptions made by the Nazis like Höß (see Appendix C), if Renk really does not comprehend the reason why one SS officer would boast towards another, he should ask himself whether doing something else rather than "analysing" historical documents would not better match his intellectual skills.
Pressac concedes that the "Resettlement Action" reports claim that 500,000 Jews had already been killed by May 1943 is not true. The real figure, he asserts without evidence, was "probably somewhere between 200,000 and 250,000." Pressac fails to convincingly explain just why the killers would want to exaggerate their grisly toll by at least two-fold.
Same here. Note that it appears that Höß regarded the business of mass extermination as a kind of competition between himself and the other extermination camp commandants. The figure may have been crudely estimated for it is known that they were not allowed to keep records.
For example, Pressac does not even try to explain how Jewish "Sonderkommando" members could have begun their gruesome work of hauling bodies from the "gas chamber" only "a few minutes" after the killings without themselves promptly falling victim to the residual poisonous vapors.
The original term is "einige", which is an indefinite amount, but less than many. Its size also depends on what "reference" the speaker has in mind. For somebody without any time, already 5 min could be "einige". For somebody thinking on a scale of hours, the same term could describe 30 min.
The gassing time was on the order of 20 min (without ventilation), and the Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners could have entered the gas chamber with gas masks. It is certainly possible that Franke-Gricksch meant such period with "einige Minuten", especially if he did expect a longer time.
Contrary to the claim in the "Resettlement Action" report (and by various "eyewitness") that the lethal substance (supposedly Zyklon) was lowered or dropped into the chamber through hollow pillars, anyone visiting the site of the extant ruins of this chamber (Leichenkeller I) can easily verify that the pillars there are not hollow, but are made of solid, steel-reinforced concrete.
Now Renk is really getting silly (I mean, even more than before). The "pillars" or "columns" are nothing else than the well-known wire-mesh columns leading from the roof down to the floor of the gas chamber. They are mentioned as "wire-mesh slide-in devices" as well as "suspension device, "angle iron guide" and "framework of gauge rail spanned around with wire-mesh" in contemporary German documents. One can easily verify in the ruins of crematorium 2 the existence of corresponding holes in the gas chamber's roof.
See also Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 2: Gas Introduction at the Crematoria.
See also Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 2: Gas Introduction at the Crematoria.
Nor does he attempt to account for the report's mention of a "special rail track into an area of the camp specifically set aside for this purpose." This can only refer to a rail spur from the main Auschwitz (Vienna-Krakow) rail line into the Birkenau camp. In fact, work on this Birkenau rail spur did not even begin until January 1944.[12]AFG could have referred to the special line for the special transports just East of Birkenau.
In this letter, Renk also wrote the following:
To this day, no original German report of 1943 has been presented bearing the name or signature of Alfred Franke-Gricksch, nor Alfred Franke. If Ekkehard's story is true, any wartime document should bear the nom de plume "Franke".
That we are indeed dealing here with H-denial's "expert" on Alfred Franke-Gricksch becomes clear from the fact numerous wartime documents do not bear the name "Franke" but Alfred Franke-Gricksch (like those here and here available online at least since 1999). Also, his signature did read "Franke-Gricksch" at the time, as is evident from this document (BArch R 9361-III/524709):
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Next: Carlo Mattogno, The Real Case for Auschwitz, p. 225-228.
His [Pressac] whole reasoning is grounded on the assumption that the document in question is authentic, although there is no proof for this, and hence his analysis aims merely at explaining the “mistakes” in the “report,” instead of checking into the veracity and, ultimately, the authenticity of the document itself. In other words, he pre-empts what he is going to find out.
Okay, let's take it slowly. Here is a source. Which pretends to be a note by an SS leader. On the mass extermination of Jews in Auschwitz.
A quick check of the authenticity (with the evidence available to Pressac at the time, i.e. in 1989):
- The document is about someone's trip to Auschwitz, which indeed took place at the time. Check.
- It recounts the event from a perpetrator's point of view. Check.
- The document describes the mass extermination with numerous details, far beyond what was circulating as rumours among outsiders. Check.
Some of the details are inaccurate or false. Now the key question: Is it possible to explain the mistakes assuming that the source is authentic? If yes: check. If not, it might indicate that the source is not genuine.
Thus, Pressac's exercise to explain the report's errors is not avoiding "checking into the veracity", but it's the exact opposite of that. It is an essential part of the process of checking its authenticity.
Of course, Mattogno will never allow himself to understand this, as it is the central pillar of his Holocaust denial that he can dismiss any source on Nazi atrocities if it just contains something he considers as inaccurate, uncertain or contradictory. Just offering plausible explanations knock down this shaky pillar of denial - a skill Jean-Claude Pressac had mastered on Auschwitz.
Another serious error on Pressac’s side is the fact that he attempts to attribute the erroneous figures in the documents at times to Franke-Gricksch’s SS guide, at other times to Franke-Gricksch himself.
It is not an "error" but a matter of fact that "erroneous figures" can result from either the sender or receiver.
But, for some strange reason, the “report” does not mention the seven concrete pillars holding up the ceiling of the room.The concrete pillars of the basement are an irrelevant feature for its function as gas chamber. It's one of the least things a SS visitor would note in a report.
it is altogether unbelievable that, when describing the alleged extermination of Jews, the guide would not have called things by their proper names, like dropping the very name of the installation, crematorium, which the document refers to as a “house.”
Whoever described Mattogno as "a specialist in text analysis and critique" should be punished with reading all of his two dozen "Holocaust handbooks" (just kidding, that would be too cruel). But it's an irony to read this about somebody who cannot even perform a simple "textual analysis" of a trivial sentence like "the unfit go to a biggish house".
Just because AFG did describe the crematorium as "biggish house" it does not mean that the tour guide did not tell him it was a crematorium. Mattogno just makes this up.
Perhaps the tour guide introduced the building as a "house" and only revealed it was a crematorium in the furnace room. Perhaps the guide said something like: "The building we're about to enter may look like a biggish house, but it's actually a crematorium". Perhaps the guide said nothing at all. Of course, the SS visitor had to recognize he was inside a crematorium at the latest when he saw the furnace room. We don't know exactly when he got this information.
But what it is clear is that the author of the report did not want to use the term and decided to describe the site as "biggish house". His possible motive? The report describes the mass extermination in the most positive way, for the victims as well as, implicitly, for the perpetrators. The reason for calling the crematorium a "biggish house" might have been to emphasise that the victims do not realise from the outside they are really led to their slaughterhouse.
But what it is clear is that the author of the report did not want to use the term and decided to describe the site as "biggish house". His possible motive? The report describes the mass extermination in the most positive way, for the victims as well as, implicitly, for the perpetrators. The reason for calling the crematorium a "biggish house" might have been to emphasise that the victims do not realise from the outside they are really led to their slaughterhouse.
Not even Zyklon B is ever mentioned in this “report,” according to which the killing was done with “certain agents” or “particular substances which made the people fall asleep within a minute,” saying that “the containers with the substances are lowered into the columns.”
AFG was not obligated to mention the exact killing agent in the report. Given that death by Zyklon-B in the Nazi gas chambers can be considered quite horrible, he might have even deliberately chosen to circumscribe the killing agent instead.
Furthermore, any supposed forger with the detailed knowledge shown in the report would have known more likely than AFG that Zyklon B/cyanide was said to have been employed in Auschwitz.
People knew after the war - in fact, already during the war - that the Nazis used "Zyklon" and cyanide at Auschwitz. The killing agent was, for instance, mentioned already in the escape report of Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba ("The containers with this content carry the inscription: 'Cyklon for pest control' and the nameplate of a Hamburg factory. These containers contain - as proven - a cyanide preparation, which turns into gas at a certain temperature"). Therefore, the lack of a mention of Zyklon B is not evidence against the authenticity of the report, but if anything it rather supports the authorship of a one-time SS visitor.
People knew after the war - in fact, already during the war - that the Nazis used "Zyklon" and cyanide at Auschwitz. The killing agent was, for instance, mentioned already in the escape report of Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba ("The containers with this content carry the inscription: 'Cyklon for pest control' and the nameplate of a Hamburg factory. These containers contain - as proven - a cyanide preparation, which turns into gas at a certain temperature"). Therefore, the lack of a mention of Zyklon B is not evidence against the authenticity of the report, but if anything it rather supports the authorship of a one-time SS visitor.
But in the account there is no mention of any “interruption,”
D'oh! It's an account of the process of mass extermination based, among other things, on impressions gathered during a guided tour - not a point-by-point description of this tour.
Without even taking into account that Franke-Gricksch must have been aware of the arrangement and the orientation of Leichenkeller 1 – either because he had entered Leichenkeller 2 from the outside yard where one could see the upper part of Leichenkeller 1 emerging from the ground, or because in the “report” the introduction columns for the sleeping agent introduced “from above, from the outside of the basement” are mentioned. Hence Franke-Gricksch would never have imagined another door at the far end of that room where there was only a wall and soil!
Franke-Gricksch did not have to know from merely entering the undressing room and walking inside the basement that "there was only a wall and soil" in the back of the gas chamber.
It is not clear if the gas chamber was even visible from the steps of the undressing room (or masked by earth banks, vegetation), it is even less clear that AFG paid any attention to the possibly camouflaged semi-basement at some 60 m distance and it is entirely unknown if AFG would have recognized that structure he may have caught just a glimpse of as the same basement he was shown as the gas chamber later on.
The explanation of the 10 ovens (item 6) makes no sense either, because if Franke-Gricksch had not seen one or several of the ovens farthest away when standing near the first, then he would have given a figure less than 5 for the ovens, or, for the muffles, a multiple of 3, e.g. 9 or 12 (as each oven had 3 muffles), but certainly not ten.
Unless AFG misremembered 2 instead of 3 muffles.
The mistake would be nothing unusual. Two people, who had seen the furnace room far more often than AFG, Otto Moll and Rudolf Höß, both gave wrong figures of the number of ovens in their interrogations. Höß even "corrected" Moll's twelve ovens with his mistaken figure ("Moll is slightly wrong in regard to the figures he quoted on the furnaces. The two large units were made up of five double furnaces each and the others of four double furnaces each."). If these two guys could be mistaken about the exact number and composition of furnaces of the crematoria, no doubt then that the one-time, short-term visitor AFG could be as well.
When it comes to the cremation capacity of the furnaces in Crematorium II – 10,000 corpses in 24 hours – Pressac falls back on what he calls propagandistic exaggerations by the camp SS.
I thought Mattogno was a bit brighter than to consider that somebody would claim a cremation capacity of 10,000 alone to a crematorium 2. Taking into account the extermination capacities reported by witnesses, the figure can only be understood as the total of all extermination sites in Birkenau. Mattogno knows this, so we are dealing here with flawed reasoning of bad faith.
This chronological impossibility, together with the gross mistakes of the “report” and its incredible ignorance of elementary terms such as “crematorium” or “Zyklon B” shows clearly that it is a fabrication using testimonies of former detainees, which even betray the propaganda effort
Just why - curious minds want to know - does Mattogno not dare to show which "testimonies of former detainees" exactly had been used to "fabricate" the report?
Is it perhaps the same reason why he does not dare to show what exactly happened to all those hundreds of thousands of Jewish people considered unfit for work by Nazis that were sent to Auschwitz (or any other extermination site)? Because he cannot deliver?
The whole section ends with the quote, so Mattogno does not reveal what is supposed to be wrong with the statement that some Jewish victims had - very small - jewels hidden in hollow teeth.
In fact, it is a striking piece of evidence that the report was indeed authored by Franke-Gricksch with Rudolf Höß as his tour guide, because the Auschwitz commandant wrote about the same in his autobiography:
In fact, it is a striking piece of evidence that the report was indeed authored by Franke-Gricksch with Rudolf Höß as his tour guide, because the Auschwitz commandant wrote about the same in his autobiography:
"Even in the filled teeth, one has found gems of immense value."(Broszat, Kommandant in Auschwitz, p. 255)
________________ Changes
6 October 2019: Correction on Figure 7, see also this comment. The previous version is documented here.
16 October 2019: changed "most likely" into "with a great probability" in the translation of the quote from the expert opinion.
29 January 2020: deleted the sentence "Von Herff is pictured on a photograph taken during the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto" as it was pointed out that von Herff is not shown in the photo.
2 May 2020: added rebuttals of Reynouard and Peinovich to Appendix D
17 May 2021: Correction: "Transfer inventory of crematorium 2 3 with "14 showerheads" along the "gas-tight door."
I want to be the first:
ReplyDeleteFAN-TAS-TIC!
Thank you!
Same here, and glad that this is one of the most viewed HC articles.
ReplyDeleteHow many views has this article?
ReplyDeleteIt is the most-viewed in the past month, with nearly 4,000 views in two weeks.
ReplyDeleteSome of our 'reference' posts attract 2,000 views every month even many years after publication, while other posts on popular misconceptions like shrunken heads/soap/hair:
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/11/nazi-shrunken-heads-human-skin.html
also get high hundreds of views a month 21 months on.
This article will tick over at a lower rate in the medium to long term, as it concerns a document that isn't so well known, unless one is very familiar with Auschwitz, and unsurprisingly a lot of our traffic comes from google searches. But it's a substantive reference point, so we'll see how well it does in the long term.
off-topic denier conspiraloon spam deleted. We don't mind deniers commenting here, but we do expect comments to be relevant to the post above, see our comments policy:
ReplyDeletehttp://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/p/comments-policy.html
You people promote people that get great pleasure from these horrid stories, it’s really sick considering most of your called facts are hearsay, and rumor, shame on you all…
DeleteOne comment I read mentions 10,000 people gassed in a day what a joke….it’s not humanly possible….
I'm glad that this Nazi document proving Nazi gassings pisses you off, Joe.
DeleteThe question of human possibility (possibility without miracle or black magic) is actually somewhat intriguing with '10,000 people gassed in a single day' ... but it was a comment.
DeleteI would say, a gas chamber could be used once a day, perhaps twice. The chambers of Auschwitz would hardly have an immediate capacity of 5000.
Especially not as Jo Wajsblat mentions one chamber with a capacity of 50. You'd need 100 of those.
Parece mentira que aquellos que se consideran historicistas rigurosos en el debate acerca del llamado "holocausto" presten credibilidad y le brinden veracidad a un documento apócrifo, de fuente primaria dudosa, sin fechas, sin firmas, sin muestras originales escrutadas y sobretodo plagado de giros idiomáticos anglicistas en su redacción, que mas alumbran a signarlo como un "documento original" fabricado como muchos en que se basó el libro de Presacc.
ReplyDeletePara el que quiera ahondar en dicho ver:
http://www.jrbooksonline.com/cwporter/cfgrep1.htm
Oh dear, here we have a dogmatic denier who didn't bother to actually read the article. How typical.
ReplyDeleteNote that we *prove* that the document we have located is authentic, it obviously doesn't contain any anglicisms (and that's how we know the denier above didn't even bother to read the article), and Porter's arguments are debunked in the appendix (since he doesn't bring anything new to the table to what Mattogno and Renk provide).
Holocaust deniers are so intellectually deficient...
Some chimp at CODOH:
ReplyDelete"Hieldner
Valued contributor
Re: another fake document: 'Resettlement Action Report'
Post5 hours 44 minutes ago (Thu Sep 12, 2019 5:45 pm)
Note that according to Brian Renk’s article, Franke-Gricksch was never enlisted in the Waffen SS under this name."
Funny how many of them insist on commenting *without reading*.
Renk is fully exposed in Appendix D and this "argument" in particular shows him to be nothing but a crude ignoramus:
"we are indeed dealing here with H-denial's "expert" on Alfred Franke-Gricksch becomes clear from the fact numerous wartime documents do not bear the name "Franke" but Alfred Franke-Gricksch (like those here and here available online at least since 1999). Also, his signature did read "Franke-Gricksch" at the time, as is evident from this document (BArch R 9361-III/524709):"
That's Holocaust denial for you, folks!
Same applies to the Lamprey that posted Renk-based article as a counter-argument to the debunking *of these very non-arguments* by Renk.
ReplyDeleteThat's the best they can do, folks.
Silly mr piper...
DeleteThinking cause David is a yidd too...
Would be ok to tell the world on camera...
That the alleged gas chamber...
Was built in 1948....
Now explain why you would do that...
When you have your hands on all the evidence...??
Better still let's discuss how little Annie used a biro before it was invented...??
DeleteYou believe little Annie's story surely mundane....
I had a look at Anne Frank centre site, with photographs of manuscripts.
DeleteSeemed more like written in fountain pen than written in ball point.
BIC produced fountain pens well before producing the latter, so could there be a mix up as to what product of the company it was?
Either way, her diary is no proof she was gassed. And I mean even if genuine.
The brain-damaged neo-Nazi chimp above spouted the mindless denier talking points without realizing all of them have been debunked:
ReplyDeletehttp://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/06/debunking-david-coles-auschwitz-video.html
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2017/05/rebutting-twitter-denial-most-popular.html#annefrank
You people make disparaging attacks on people as “ brain dead” that don’t agree with you but in reality if I was you I’d look in the mirror…. God will deal with the liars…
DeleteAh, but Joe, you're a perfect b-d specimen.
DeleteOIO, any further spam from you not discussing the Franke-Gricksch Report will be deleted without notification.
ReplyDeleteHolocaust "revisionism" is one giant circus as we can all see here.
ReplyDeleteSo are those images just supposed to be a 2-page excerpt of a larger report? I see the 2nd page has a "- 2 -" at the top but also they have "24" and "25" written on the top right. So would they be page 24 and 25 of a more complete report? Are you going to post the rest of the report in another blog post?
ReplyDeleteI'm not aware and don't think that there is a larger report on the extermination of Jews. The handwritten page numbers 24 & 25 are those of the file compiled by the Berlin Document Center employee Bruno Schumacher after the war.
DeleteGricksch's [German] wikipedia page labels it "Franke-Gricksch Report 1943 (auszugsweise Abschrift)" so an excerpted copy. Also, on the copy typed by Lipamn, it says it is "Part of a report..."
DeleteYou provide figure 7 which is also not titled, dated, or signed either. However, I think in this case it probably is actually just a section of a larger report, and that it just wasn't entirely typed out because this was the more incriminating part that was to be used for the Nuremberg trials.
Why do I think this? I reasoned that: How else would Lipman (or whoever found it) have known it was a report by Franke-Gricksch, or the date of the report [or the time period it is describing], since clearly there is no name or date on the two pages? The document in the archive you mention titled it "resettlement action, camp Auschwitz, memo, without date" so it's like they didn't even know what the date was.
So, am I wrong to state that the date and author of these two page report is inferred solely by the 3-line message at the top of the copy we have had? The copy says it is part of a report from 4-16 May, 1943. That's what confused me at first, because then I looked at Appendix A and it said that it was a report from the same period (4-16th May, 1943) and it has a section on Auschwitz, but it doesn't described the gassings. I thought those 2 pages was just an excerpt of that other report, but then noticed the page numbers.
My thought is, maybe the 2-page report was some sort of addendum added to the end of the longer report, where the longer report was not so much of a secret but those 2 pages, which are clearly incriminating, were solely "on a need to know basis" and, therefore, not spread around with the longer report (or were destroyed after reading). I could also be wrong, but I am not aware of any facts that would contradict this theory
Well, yes that's pretty much what I think.
DeleteI should have elaborated more on this point, in the last paragraph of the section on context:
"The otherwise lengthy report of Alfred Franke-Gricksch on his trip to Auschwitz (Appendix A) is quite short, not to say silent on the role of the large Birkenau camp for the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. The omission can be well understood if this delicate issue had been split off into an own report entitled "Resettlement Action of the Jews"."
As you say, Lipman most likely learnt about date of the trip and author from the long trip report, i.e. both documents were originally found in the same file. The reports - or at least one set of carbons, in case there were more than one - had been separated: the British dossier only knows about the long trip report, while Schumacher put only the "Resettlement Action" report in his file (a mixed compilation of various Nazi correspondence). It would be extremely interesting to relocate the original long trip report (we only know the translation from the British for now) and to compare the used typewriter with that of employed for the "Resettlement Action" report. The odds are good that Franke-Gricksch typed them on the same.
While you mentioned Figure 7, I did a mistake here. These are first and last page of different reports by Franke-Gricksch. The last page of the first report is signed by AFG. For the second report I cannot tell at the moment how the first page looks like.
ReplyDeleteBut also in this case it can be said that AFG did start/finish some of his reports without formalities.
Now corrected in the posting (previous text is saved here )
DeleteWell done Hans. You've completely demolished your colleague's wishful thinking about FG having authored a further appendix on mass-killing in AR.
ReplyDeletehttps://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=2065230#p2065230
After spending two days with Globocnik FG wrote:
either this generation of ours succeeds in clearing up the Jewish problem completely and to its last consequences or, if their liquidation is not completely achieved, the Jewish people will rise again after this wave of oppression. Some individual cases may appear hard or even brutal but seeing these people in large masses and knowing how dangerous their passive attitude is to the life of the nations, one comes to the conclusion that this problem has to be cleared up completely to free the world once and for all of this pestilence."
Chilling. More contemporary evidence of the genocide the nazis committed in B,S,T.
The AU appendix is almost certainly a crude forgery, as I detailed on the AHF thread, cobbled together in Nuremberg in late-1947.
The best you've got is your expert's opinion that the documents were likely, but not definitely, typed on the same typewriter. And, as is your wont, you haven't mentioned a word to your readers about the lack of a similar appendix on AR.
There's some obvious files in TNA that no one appears to have ever checked r.e. the FG report and the alleged appendix: those containing docs on the capture, interrogations, and interment of von Herff,
btw, you didn't post p.4 from Tyas.
BROI: "The AU appendix is almost certainly a crude forgery, as I detailed on the AHF thread, cobbled together in Nuremberg in late-1947."
ReplyDeleteYou have not detailed that it is "almost certainly" a forgery. You have pointed out that some items in the report appear in other sources after the war. This is nothing unusual but expected also for an authentic Auschwitz report. It is also expected that you will find some random, numerical coincidences like "300-400" people, which Nyiszli clearly assigned NOT to the crematoria. Just as strange is that the alleged forger with all his post-war material enabling him to write on Auschwitz did not know about Zyklon-B.
By the way, Nyiszli wrote that those 300-400 undressing in the farmhouse, who were actually from a group of 500 to be killed, were shot in the neck and burnt alive in the burning pit, not gassed. It is unlikely that anyone could mistaken this description "for being about Krema II". But a forgery hypothesis does not need to make much sense, I suppose?
DeleteIt's a perfect definition of *denial* - the authenticity of the report now confirmed forensically, the Rabbit can now only close his eyes and ears and stomp his lil feet, referring back to his musings that had already been debunked even before the report's authenticity was finally confirmed.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course there could have easily been a further report on AR, nothing has changed in this regard.
"You have not detailed that it is "almost certainly" a forgery."
ReplyDeleteYou misread me. I detailed that it was almost certainly cobbled together in Nuremberg during late-1947.
It kinda goes without saying that it's "almost certainly a crude forgery".
Lets look at the top Auschwitz expert's handling of this important document.
Van Pelt never mentions "the most detailed and explicit contemporary Nazi document on the mass murder of Jews in an extermination camp" in:
- His "award winning" BBC documentary "Blueprints of Genocide" [1994]
- His book Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present [1996]
- His expert report for the Irving-Penguin/Lipstadt trial [1999]
- His 5 days of testimony at said trial [2000]
- His book The Case for Auschwitz [2002]
- His articles in the Neue Studien [2011]
Despite clearly knowing of its existence:
- Gerald Fleming, who published the text in 1982, features heavily in the documentary
- He cites and discusses Pressac's A:T&O, which features facsimiles of Lipman's transcription, many times in his report and in CfA
- He cites and discusses a JHR article that states "it is a postwar fabrication" in his report and in CfA
If it wasn't "almost certainly a crude forgery" then van Pelt wouldn't have spent 25 years studiously avoiding even mentioning it.
"... we tried our luck in the Schumacher collection at the Bundesarchiv Berlin, which had incorporated the BDC files. A promising candidate turned up in the archive's search engine in the file R 187/539, with a document described as "resettlement action, camp Auschwitz, memo, without date". Its former BDC reference 240-I ..."
Will your discovery be on roll 1 or roll 1B of the microfilms that were filmed and given to an archive in NYC way back in 1959?
https://www.archives.gov/files/research/captured-german-records/microfilm/t457.pdf
"According to a lengthy trip report also written by Franke-Gricksch ... (see Appendix A; we are grateful to Stephen Tyas for providing the images)."
ReplyDelete- Hans, 11 Aug 2019
Why didn't you use Nick's?
"Nick Terry examined it and has photos"
Sergey, 1 Oct 2016
Still no convincing arguments for forgery, BRoI. Whether van Pelt or another historian did or did not use a document that at the time survived only as a postwar transcription doesn't tell us anything about the authenticity or lack thereof of a copy that is clearly typed up in the same manner as many other wartime Nazi documents.
ReplyDeleteBArch R 187/539 is not mirrored in the Sammlung Schumacher collection at NARA, or the Yad Vashem copy of the older Bundesarchiv Sammlung Schumacher microfiching. I have checked both, and also looked in some other NARA collections that are related to the BDC non-personnel files, as well as the BDC files for F-G and Herff, without coming across the document.
The Bundesarchiv finding guide listing for R 187/537 makes it clear that this file is actually from another archivist working in parallel to Schumacher, whose files are now merged into 'Sammlung Schumacher'. I have a few ideas as to which of the NARA microfilmed BDC file collections this might correlate to, but didn't get around to checking them.
The 1959 copies in T457 wouldn't necessarily capture all of the archiving work done by Schumacher and others, which was as I understand it ongoing through to the 1960s.
The F-G report carbon copy is also incidentally not in the Ludwigsburg files of documents copied from Sammlung Schumacher, confirming that R 187/537 isn't a strict Schumacher file. The Ludwigsburg Schumacher copies include docs that *are* in NARA T580, such as the originals of the Globocnik reports on Aktion Reinhard.
BRoI: "Why didn't you use Nick's?"
ReplyDeleteHans received the pics from Steve Tyas before the issue arose. And quite possibly because they were freshly transferred rather than requiring rummaging around older folders passed around the group. I have been asked several times by Sergey for files I copied for him years back :-)
Following up on the Schumacher vs other collection issue, R 187/537 was previously Sammlung Reese, R 187/540, BDC Research O. 240 I. There is a serendipitous coincidence in numbering with Sammlung Schumacher 240 I and II, but Sammlung Schumacher lacks the O. prefix to its file numbering.
ReplyDeleteOr rather it's more normally spelled out as Ordner or Ord. 240 I in the case of Schumacher. The 'BDC Research' and 'Sammlung Reese' parts are in any case decisively different, but the similarity was enough to prompt a search of R 187, which has now merged the Reese and Schumacher collections.
ReplyDelete"The 1959 copies in T457 wouldn't necessarily capture all of the archiving work done by Schumacher and others, which was as I understand it ongoing through to the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteAs he died in 1957 it's unlikely that he personally would have added further documents to his files after they were microfilmed in 1959.
If it isn't on microfilm 1 or 1B, whether in BDC 240 I or 240 II, then Schumacher never saw it.
Fair point, but also now irrelevant since the document was in Sammlung Reese, now merged with Sammlung Schumacher.
ReplyDelete"I have been asked several times by Sergey for files I copied for him years back."
ReplyDeleteWho could doubt your word about TNA docs!
https://holocausthistorychannel.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/a-case-of-shabby-plagiarism-by-holocaust-controversies/
It is interesting that a Holocaust historian didn't think a few words from a 1943 SS report by a direct witness to OG's work in Lublin was worth including in the WP.
"either this generation of ours succeeds in clearing up the Jewish problem completely and to its last consequences or, if their liquidation is not completely achieved, the Jewish people will rise again after this wave of oppression. Some individual cases may appear hard or even brutal but seeing these people in large masses and knowing how dangerous their passive attitude is to the life of the nations, one comes to the conclusion that this problem has to be cleared up completely to free the world once and for all of this pestilence."
Best update the article then, Hans. Need a few words on this Reese person, and better delete the part about Schumacher, who's now irrelevant according to Nick.
ReplyDelete> I detailed that it was almost certainly cobbled together in Nuremberg during late-1947.
ReplyDeleteBut you haven't, as already shown at AHF.
> If it wasn't "almost certainly a crude forgery" then van Pelt wouldn't have spent 25 years studiously avoiding even mentioning it.
If I didn't know that you were capable of such braindead illogical non sequitur bullshit, I would have said you were being deceptive, but I already know you're capable of this and worse, so you're just being dumb as usual. Obviously, before our authentication of the document it was extremely suspect, and in any case not useful against deniers. I would have advised against using it before we showed its authenticity which you cannot address.
> Why didn't you use Nick's?
Why should we have? (Correction to Nick's comment: I received the files from Steve and sent them to Hans).
Btw, I have "lost"/misplaced quite a few files throughout the years. I'm pretty sure I also had the report from Webb. I am still searching for some important photos I once received from the Auschwitz museum. Such is life.
> I have been asked several times by Sergey for files I copied for him years back :-)
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, can you please find the Morgen stuff?
"the authenticity of the report now confirmed forensically"
ReplyDeleteTwo lies in your short statement.
1. The expert only looked at Hans' photos; he can't "forensically" examine a document in a photo. He says as much in the email Hans quotes, and his methods of forensic examination are detailed on his website.
http://schriftexperte.de/arbeitsweise/
2. "Confirmed" is not a synonym for "most likely", nor for "probability".
I'm not quoting an e-mail, but a written "Gutachten" (expert opinion) sent to me in paper form.
DeleteOf course, I could have also requested an analysis of the originals. But paying an expert's travel, stay and work at Bundesarchiv Berlin is far beyond my budget and stands in no relation to the possible gain. Moving from "most likely" to "extremely likely" or "certainly" is not worth a fortune. Especially since style, context, perspective, content of the doc already do the job. And anyone who still believes in a forgery after this posting, won't change his mind by an even stronger expert opinion anyway.
Unsurprisingly, both accusations of lying turn out to be lies themselves.
ReplyDeleteExperts don't express "certainty", only conclusions of more or less likely. Sure, we could have achieved an even higher likelihood by having him microscopically examine the originals but that is simply not necessary, as the likelihood following from the expert's report (given the fact of not only the same font, which is trivial, but of specifically same 4 defective letters - calculating the ballpark probability of that having occurred in two different typewriters by chance is not difficult) is already sufficiently beyond the reasonable doubt (a further test would simply move the plank even higher).
Since the Rabbit has to defend his blind faith, he will do what he usually does when cornered: pathologically lie while accusing others of being liars.
A recent example of such behavior is exposed here:
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=2081564#p2081564
Dear Mr. ****
ReplyDeleteOn 11 August 2019, an article was published by a group of Holocaust researchers headed by Dr. **** ****, a history lecturer at the University of ******.
Their article states that you examined photographs of two documents thought to have been written on the same typewriter, and quotes from your "expert opinion" dated 3 April 2019, as following:
[...]
Despite the unambiguousness of your your statement, the group has published the following statement:
"the authenticity of the report now confirmed forensically"
Do you agree with their claims that you 1) "forensically" examined the letters in the photos; 2) confirmed "the authenticity" of the report [meaning that the documents were unquestionably written on the same typewriter]?
--------------------------
I wonder what he'll say?
Based on this Institute of Contemporary History article, he doesn't opine *indubitably* even when he's handled original documents and had the typewriter to test.
https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/heftarchiv/2009_2_4_beierl.pdf
> he doesn't opine *indubitably*
ReplyDeleteBecause no credible expert does, dummy.
As I have *just* explained above. You can't read, your have no idea how experts work and you lied once again: "the group has published the following statement:" - the group did no such thing. As I wrote many times before and will, undoubtedly, have to write many more times in the future, you're a pathological liar.
Something I wrote internally, anticipating this would come up. (The original German formulation is "mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit").
ReplyDeleteSergey Romanov
Jun 26#194
There should be a very short discussion of the meaning of "probably" in experts' reports. They never exhibit 100% certainty, so "with a high probability" is as factual as it goes and would be accepted by any court.
BRoI: "It is interesting that a Holocaust historian didn't think a few words from a 1943 SS report by a direct witness to OG's work in Lublin was worth including in the WP."
ReplyDeleteWP, p.237: "this chapter has not touched on many quite important incidents and sources – in part deliberately."
There were many sources available to us in 2011 that we didn't include in the WP, some even more obvious, eg the Kolomea-Belzec reports, which I copied within the same 12 months as the long F-G report, several years before the WP.
Incidentally I don't recall anyone writing on Aktion Reinhard or the Holocaust in Poland in the 2010s using that quote from the long F-G report, although it would sit very well alongside many other sources from 1942-44 echoing the same sentiments (Bouhler to Bormann in 1942 also speaking of 'last consequences', Himmler remarks, Hans Frank remarks, etc).
I don't doubt that the document is authentic, but i really wonder what is it you find so important in it.
ReplyDeleteIs it the two last sentences quite unrelated with the body of the report?
Is it something else?
Personally, i can quite understand why Van Pelt did not feel obliged to use it.
Not only are the basic information contained in this report well known, but their rendition is approximate to say the least.
Reading it, it feels like the selection taking place at the Judenramp did they best to select everyone that could work, and even those not in shape, by sending them to special healthcare accommodation to get them better and able to work. That from now on the focus was to recruit whoever could work, and that some old way of exterminating was from now on somehow out of date. The feeling reading it is that recruitment was now the priority, and that only the really unusable would have to be exterminated.
And then the report goes on describing how the really unusable, in this case 300 to 400 Jews, (from a transport?) was sent to krema 2 or 3 to be gassed, while those facilities could actually kill 4 times as much.
So yes, there is a new policy, only the really unusable are going to be killed as it is from now on out of question to spoil any potential work force, and the report conclude by saying that so far 500.000 have already been killed and that the current, but quite in contradiction of the so called new policy, killing capacity was of 10.000 a day.
So the report claims that: " Die "Umsiedlungsaktion" älterer Art wird völlig abgelehnt, da man es sich nicht leisten kann, wichtige Arbeitsenergien laufend zu vernichten", while in the end boasting that 10.000 "work energy" could be destroyed daily at the day of the writing.
So yes, what do you see so important in this report?
It doesn't add anything new to the historiography but it obviously blows denial out of water. And if the selection percentages were not say 95% any longer but 75% killed, like during the Hungarian action, that's still the huge majority.
DeleteBalsamo, it's in the introduction:
Delete"...the most detailed and explicit contemporary Nazi document on the mass murder of Jews in an extermination camp..."
There are surely more reliable and detailed testimonies on micro-issues of the mass extermination in Auschwitz (or any other extermination camp), and if you take for instance somebody like Rudolf Höß there are also more detailed and reliable accounts from higher perspectives. But these are post-war, post-Nazi state, or not official Nazi sources. So basically it is the origin of the document AND its explicit and detailed character which makes it quite unique.
If you regard this as "important" is another matter. From the point of view of a Holocaust historian it is probably not so important, except if you are interested in how the an extermination camp was perceived by a high-level Nazi closely after his experience.
From the point of view of anti-Holocaust denial, it certainly is quite an important document to show that the evidence on extermination camps is also based on explicit Nazi documents (my recently posted Kulmhof document would be another example, but not as detailed as the Franke-Gricksch report).
Thanks Sergey, yes in this perspective. I tend to forget deniers.
ReplyDeleteThere a a couple of very interesting things in this report. The first would be the announcement of the change of policy.
The term used - völlig abgelehnt - is quite srong and powerful, too powerful if it only refers to some change in the number of people to be selected for work.
The second is that the report described what the New "Umsiedlungsaktion", and it actually consider the selection for work as part of it, apparently in opposition to an "old way" which consisted only of killing the Jews.
Another term used strikes me, it is " noch irgendwie" when describing who is to be selected. The way it is translated does not make justice to its maximalist sense. It really means that everyone who could still somehow be used in the work process are to be selected and sent to a special camps (which one?) and if sick sent to hospital and given special food to get cured and put back to work.
This is not how one would describe a process in which 75% of a transport would still be killed.
Quite the contrary, he seems to consider that those are really hopelessly useless are to sent to the gas chamber, as even the sicks if potentially usable after being cured are to be spared.
It seems that the author has been told a lot of bullshits during his tour.
But if he really understood the new "Umsiedlungsaktion" this way, the addition that the camp had a capacity of disposing 10.000 corpses a day seems even more out of place. As if we understand how he sees the Aktion, based on selecting as many workable Jews as possible, a selection that is fully integrated into the new definition Aktion, such a capacity is almost irrelevant.
And when in the end, he gives Hoess numbers, does he consider them through the new policy or the old one?
So what is he thinking when speaking about the old way? It is not clear. But given that the report is based on a discussion with Hoess, one might have the impression that Hoess was opposing his way (Auschwitz-Birkenau) to the old way, recently abandoned, that is the AR camps.
Again, no contradiction if understood in the 95% vs. 75% way figuratively speaking (you can't squeeze out the no longer squeezable since the majority was still simply unable to work, so your remark on how this doesn't describe the process is baseless). At about the same time (end of April) Himmler ordered a change in what inmates are to be sent to 14f13 - from now on even bed-ridden ones were to be spared and given work, only the mentally ill were to be killed. This parallels the FG report. Every Arbeitskraft was to be spared.
DeleteYou might have misunderstood when i said his description is baseless.
ReplyDeleteRead the German text, three or four times, notice the word used.
His description of the execution of those 400 people is absolutely baseless, as the whole execution is presented as nice journey to heaven. The People are invited to step down a few stairs, into a well arranged well lighted comfortable cellar, with fresh air, and all the equipments for people to sort their stuff, and they are gently led to a room where they a painlessly put to sleep within a second.
The gassing of Jews becomes a process "die in einer Minute die Menschen einschläfern.", nice for a Nazi to call Jews Menschen by the way...they are not killed by poisoning, but gently put asleep within a minute.
My wording is probably ill chosen, but yes, it seems pretty baseless to me.
Yeah, ill-chosen. The basic description of the sequence is confirmed dozens of times over from eyewitnesses; the gloss about being put to sleep is *also* confirmed in several other contemporary Nazi documents re euthanasia (the 1942 film script) and gas vans. Indeed, the use of 'einschlaefern' is a marker for Nazi authenticity here since similar language was used elsewhere re other gassings. It was undoubtedly a self-delusion on the part of whoever told F-G what the process was like, but a genuine self-delusion.
DeleteBalsamo, I refer you to what I wrote in the posting:
Delete"The author writes about the mass killing of hundreds of thousands of people, but carefully avoids terms and images that may discredit this policy and practise. The whole operation including the mass killing is termed a "resettlement action" - a common phrase among the Nazi authorities used to camouflage (morally and towards outsiders) the extermination of the Jews (see Appendix C). The Jewish prisoners carrying out the gruesome work "will never leave this camp" - another way to say they are liquidated. The killing capacity of 10,000 people per day is wrapped into the technical phrase "present capacity of the 'resettlement action' furnaces".
The murderous activity inside the crematoria is alleged to have been as pleasant as possible. The victims enter a "well built and ventilated basement, fitted with benches" and "brightly lit". They are told to get "disinfected and washed ready for their new tasks" and "everything proceeds in complete calm". Before they really notice it, they are put "to sleep in one minute". The picture - based on the (mis)conception of the Nazi Mass Euthanasia with a clean and sudden death - was denying the agony of the victims during the mass gassings with Zyklon-B.
The report pays almost no attention to the executioners - with two exceptions. Implicitly, by noticing that "the work itself is carried out by Jewish prisoners", it assures that the SS men stay away from the most dreadful work and especially the corpses. But the author did not dare to address the issue of what the SS staff was doing. Perhaps he still felt uncomfortable with their role but knew there was nothing to do about it anyway. Himmler already denied the transfer of SS leaders to the front because of the mental strain in certain camps in his earlier briefing for the trip at his Headquarters in Lötzen in East-Prussia.
The other appearance of the SS in the report is that of "the Camp Commandant and several SS leaders" during the selection at the ramp. The observation and terminology make total sense for an officer of the SS Personnel Main Office. The "SS leaders" were precisely the group of people Franke-Gricksch was interested in his job. For the same reason, he and v. Herff requested "to meet the [SS] leaders of the individual agencies" in the letter to Krüger of 22 April 1943.
In short, the report clearly describes the mass extermination of Jewish people in Auschwitz from a perpetrator's point of view."
Balsamo, the description "baseless" referred to your particular claim, please try to read more carefully in the future.
DeleteGuys,
ReplyDeleteI never wrote that the report was not describing how the krema or the broad extermination process worked. I know very well the sequences. This is of course not the part that is baseless.
As i wrote, the most interesting part is the text in itself, how it is written, the words chosen, the emphasis on this so called new policy, and how this new policy is described and presented to the recipient of the report, Von Herff.
To be clear, i do not deny the authenticity, i do not deny that it is a additional proof that A-B was an extermination camp. And beyond the case of A-B, this report is also a proof that there was a more global policy of systematic and indiscriminate extermination outside the camp.
So yes the document is more important than it looks like at first glance.
When you read the report in German a couple of times, many time in a row, you sense that the author is trying to pass a message to the recipient of the report, some kind of reassurance that the dirty policy of the past was over, and that today the new policy as applied at Auschwitz Birkenau is a complete rupture with the past.
ReplyDeleteThis is a first lie since Treblinka was still in activity and would be for some months.
The former policy, that is the former "evacuation of the Jews" is clearly described as a policy of systematic extermination, no code word, but a systematic destruction of work forces.
It is quite obvious that Von Herff knew about this old policy, hence his concerns of the strain imposed on the SS personnel.
My perception is that Franke described A-B in opposition to the AR camps, and others exterminations operation in the East. The new policy in operation at A-B, as described by Franke, was almost all about selecting work forces, instead of systematic indiscriminate killings, while of course the killing of those beyond repair would still continue, but in much better and humane conditions. And most important, the whole process was working by itself without the implication of the SS whose role was limited to assist the doctors during the selections, while the killing machine was almost exclusively operated by the inmates.
This is kind of true, if one does not take into account, the killings that took place at the Bunkers, where the role of the SS was essential.
Just an example, in the description of this new Final Solution, to use more common term, the term "evacuated" no longer applies exclusively to those who were killed. Since the new evacuation policy is about selecting as many Jews as possible, logically, those selected to work should be also understood as "evacuated", which was of course not the case in so called the old one.
Frank does not just write, those who are fit to work would be selected and sent to special camps, but he uses a very vague terms that extend what fit could mean, usable in anyway seems to be enough, as even those who are sick would be considered for selection, sent to hospital, given special food to get them back on track...
This is where things are getting even more baseless, right? If the word is ill chosen, it nevertheless sounds nice to my ears. Of course, instead of baseless I could have said full of exaggerations, and even blatant lies.
Considering these lies, the first question would be: do they come from Hoess? Did Franke take the initiative to embellish what the real fate of the Jews arriving at Auschwitz was?
ReplyDeleteWas the objective the calm worries that Von Herff might have had regarding the strain on the SS? Of course, but why lying?
Did Frank also visit Treblinka and Sobibor to meet the SS there?
The nazi's attempt to cloak the final solution was badly bungled from the start by the entire nazi network. Hitler's rabid public anti semitic outbursts alone brought the nazi movement under high magnification by many of the nations of the time. The Nuremberg laws REALLY piked the interest of the globes population but the attack on Poland & subsequent Jewish ghettos really put a pinch on the nazi's secrecy program. Once France & Great Briton were slapped senseless by Germany the deportations started & so did the stories from witnesses regarding these atrocities. Escapes, witnesses, lose lips & code breaking by the allies doomed the secrecy of the final solution. The einsatzgruppen activities were well known to the allies by the end of 1942 thanks to the Kriegsmarine letting a British destroyer borrow an enigma machine...& code books! An escape from both the Belzec & Sobbibor death camps & two escapes from the Auschwitz complex painted a colorful image for the Allies & got the nazi party listed as a criminal organization globally. Pride, lust for power, exagerrated capabilities, lack of resources, lose lips, corruption, overconfidence & a lack of common sense REALLY helped the nazi's to make the final solution stand out like a 6000 ft tall Christmas tree on a clear moonless night!
ReplyDeleteI am Japanese.
ReplyDeleteI understand that this document is the definitive proof of the existence of the gas chamber.
I've known about this material for a long time.
I can also understand the contents of the document.
However, my English is not very good, so I cannot explain it well.
Translation software has its limitations and has not produced the results I expected.
Can someone please explain it to me in Japanese?
Best regards.
P.S. I converted this text from Japanese to English with a translation software.
I thought this report would bring the denialists to their knees, so I introduced it to some of the denialists, but they just decided that it was a fabrication.
ReplyDeleteBut if it's a fabrication, it doesn't add up. The denialists don't even understand that.
Hans, thanks for introducing the report. But it didn't seem to make any sense. They seem to be fine as long as the Holocaust is a fabrication.
By the way, I'm Japanese, but apparently I'm the only Japanese person active on the internet who is an anti-denialist. Sad: ......
Hi.
ReplyDeleteSorry I’ve missed something.
But some deniers raise questions about the Griksch Report because of this line “ The Jews arrive in special trains (goods wagons) towards evening and are taken by a special line to a special area of the camp.”
They argue that the report is dated in -43 and the railway track in to Birkenau and the ramp didn’t started construction until January 44, and was completed and ready for use in may -44.
I don’t doubt the report but some people do and I’m used to that these people often use foul play…
So, is there any explanation for this.
Cheers
Dr Tinnitus
Did you read the article above where this issue had been addressed from the start?
DeleteI'm reminded, the one surviving prosecutor was similarily sanguine about NS self accusations (perhaps more direct ones) in reports from the East Front.
ReplyDeleteHe took such reports until he had counted one million, on paper, and then proceeded to prosecute in order of education level and rank ...
I noted "gewisse Mittel" ... if the NS was faking the news, he had reasons to be that imprecise.
ReplyDeleteI don't think showers with three large hollow pillars match any other description of gas chambers.
The amount of people killed at once doesn't match the testimony of Jo Wajsblat, who claimed that a total of 650 boys were divided into thirteen batches and he in the last batch - of fifty, please to note that! - was saved bc Mengele had a tantrum. Btw, I am not disputing any part of the claim that he watched himself.
Actually, as explained in the article, the hollow pillars (the wire-mesh columns) are very well-attessted (three is a memory or perception error).
DeleteThe article is long, and I did not catch that part, under what heading?
DeleteIn Appendix C: Reliability of the Franke-Gricksch Report on the Jewish Resettlement in Auschwitz, see screenshot here.
DeleteLink to the article on wire mess columns:
Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 2: Gas Introduction at the Crematoria
Thank you very much.
DeleteI had previously only heard of:
* introduction through a window high up which on Faurisson's inspection opened from the inside
* through showers, one main witness being when such gas showers DIDN'T function leading to surviving witnesses - however they knew the showers were going to gas them when they didn't in fact.
- Little windows (opening to the outside) to introduce the gas was used at Bunker 1 and 2 and crematoria 4 and 5.
Delete- gas through showers is a false rumor:
"Another recurring misconception was that the poison gas was introduced into the gas chambers via pipes and shower heads, whereas actually a carrier material soaked with hydrogen cyanide (Zyklon-B) was thrown into the gas chambers manually via openings in the wall or roof (see also Rebuttal of Mattogno on Auschwitz, Part 2: Gas Introduction at the Crematoria)
[...]
In conclusion, reliable details of the mass extermination sites were not common knowledge among prisoners in Auschwitz. Most Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz in 1944 had no or only generic or superficial knowledge on what was going on beyond the camouflage fences. Those who went into more details were mixing it up with false rumours. Only very few Hungarian Jewish prisoners, who gained access to the high security sites as members of the section and demolition detail, could accurately describe the sites and their operation without resorting to false rumours. Although the Hungarian Jews were living and working only up to few meters to few hundreds of meters from the crematoria, detailed and reliable knowledge on the extermination sites, which reached them was scarce and distorted. The most common false rumours were the distribution of soap & towels, the injection of poison gas through showers - both obviously inferred from the fact that the gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms - and the tilting of the gas chamber's floor to remove the corpses.
Unfortunately for Holocaust deniers, this result is boosting the credibility of the early Sonderkommando witnesses - the authors of the Sonderkommando handwritings, Henryk Tauber (or Shlomo Dragon or Stanislaw Jankowski), Miklos Nyiszli, Charles Bendel and David Olere - as well as the early SS witnesses such as Pery Broad, Hans Aumeier and Rudolf Höß. If rumours on details of mass extermination were so scarce and different to what they reported, then their independent but reliable and consistent accounts cannot be satisfactorily explained by rumour propagation, but only by first hand experience."
https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2015/08/knowledge-of-mass-extermination-among.html
Thank you, Mr. Metzner!
DeleteThis means, witness from Jewish captives is, while probably honest, not well informed and not eyewitness, usually.
WTF this isn't like some whodunnit murder trial. The fact that you're pouring so much into a single document that has a significant bearing on the plausibility of this mass extermination - THAT should give you pause.
ReplyDeleteAlso 1976?
You say that like there's no other documentation and other corroborating evidence of mass murder outside of this, which of course there is.
Deleteso this is the best argument against denial? who cares who wrote it or when it was written or what other documents it can be matched to -- is this document proof that something happened? no. one must presume something happened and that the something is what is described in this document, and there is no non-documentary, non-eyewitness proof of that, is there. this document is detailing an outline plan of something: that's it. if you're that desperate to arrive at a conclusion that you call this document the best argument against denial, I will gladly continue denying until you find some after-the-fact forensic evidence any gassings occurred, and that still hasn't been presented as late as 2023. now, that's embarrassing, guys. step it up...
ReplyDeletePathetic copesplanation rant.
Delete"Who cares about who wrote it and when it was written yada yada yada" We do, obviously. Things like that are the things that prove the document to be authentic.
"one must presume something happened and that the something is what is described in this document, and there is no non-documentary, non-eyewitness proof of that, is there. this document is detailing an outline plan of something: that's it."
Right, it's almost like the entire blog is dedicated to this. You're acting like this is only publication ever made here. It's not the best argument, its an argument.
"I will gladly continue denying until you find some after-the-fact forensic evidence any gassings occurred,"
Markiewicz, Sehn have proved that already. If you will only take "muh forensic evidence" as evidence, then you might as well deny every other event in human history. "Napoleon? I want to see his boot footprints and fingerprints in all the locations he was at for me to believe it's true!"
"now, that's embarrassing, guys. step it up..."
The guy who has a 20 inch pole up his rear that reads "only forensic evidence is relevant" is telling people to step it up. The irony.
Hello.
ReplyDeleteI am a Japanese who has posted before. I would like to say that this text is a re-translated text into English using a translation software.
Now, I have the following post in the CODOH forum.
https://forum.codoh.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=116&p=94295&hilit=Franke+Gricksch#p98896
In it, the contributor states:
>My guess is that the 'Resettlement Action Report' is a translation of the American English manuscript into German.
>The text states that the location of the incinerator is ' the 2nd floor'.
>It is very puzzling to common sense to think that very heavy incinerators would be on the 2nd floor.
>I suspect this is the result of the translation into German of the words in the manuscript that were 'first floor' in American English.
This is because the original German text reads as follows:
"Danach werden die Leichen in Fahrstühle verladen und kommen in den 1. Stock. "
What do you think about this claim?
I am not familiar with German floor number notation, so I am not sure.
This contributor is a person who distributes Holocaust denialism videos in Japanese.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation with the above.
https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/40-docwazta.pdf Mattogno responds (rather poorly imo) to this article. Among other things he completely forgets that in the longer FG report FG actually does talk about an ongoing genocide, albeit with no reference to gassing.
ReplyDeletewhy documents are watermarked? publish version without watermarks, pls
ReplyDeleteI want to share this document and I can link your blog