Still lying about Wiernik... and others.

In 2006, in the article Lying about Wiernik I exposed Mattogno and Graf's mendacity by showing that their accusations of plagiarism against Yankiel Wiernik were completely unfounded - they failed to prove that the map included in an early edition of his book was claimed to have been drawn by him (yet they still made the false claim of plagiarism) and they further falsely claimed that Wiernik claimed to have drawn his map in 1943 (he made no such claim) and by omitting the part where he explicitly says he drew it in 1944.

In a 2007 article If they're the best, what about the rest? I exposed Mattogno and Graf's dishonest omissions of eyewitness descriptions of openings on the roofs of the Treblinka gas chambers that would have been used to avoid overpressure in the chambers (even if some witnesses were unsure about their function). I pointed out that they ignored the cache of the 1944 Treblinka survivor statements given to the Soviets even while using some sketches from the same file. This alone tells everything one needs to know about their level of "research".

In the failed response (The "Extermination Camps" of "Aktion Reinhardt", 2013) to our debunking of denial on Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor Mattogno returns to the topics of these posts insofar as they were discussed in our critique.

P. 885:

On p. 306 Myers begins to shine light on his critique:
Myers offers here another sample of his obvious bad faith. He fails to mention that Wiernik speaks about “a hermetic cap” on the roof of the “gas chambers” only in relation to the first gassing building, but not in relation to the second.

“In his Treblinka account with Graf, Mattogno criticized Wiernik for failing to include a vent opening to remove engine exhaust from the gas chambers; instead, they believe the Soviets fabricated such an opening into their drawings to make the gassing claims more technically plausible. Unfortunately, such a conclusion can only be supported through sloppy research and ignorance. Treblinka worker Abraham Goldfarb, who took part in the gas chamber construction at Treblinka but who has been entirely ignored by MGK, stated for the new chambers that ‘there was a separate opening in the roof’ for the removal of gas, while also noting that the older gas chambers had a similar vent. Wiernik himself wrote that the new gas chambers had an ‘outlet on the roof’ with a ‘hermetic cap,’ with the cap clearly being removable to ventilate out exhaust gas from the chambers. While Mattogno criticizes Wiernik for failing to provide for an exhaust vent, they quote the relevant testimony from Wiernik in the same book. Such sloppiness is inexcusable.”

While the attribution of the cap to the new gas chambers in our critique is a mistake (probably arising from Wiernik mentioning 10 new gas chambers in the previous sentence), that's a secondary point. The main point is this: Wiernik outright mentioned a hermetic cap on the roof for the old gas chambers. Mattogno and Graf knew about this, yet in their Treblinka book still wrote:

Since the Soviet judge understood significantly more about engineering than that witness, he enhanced the drawing with another element, which would have been indispensable for a hypothetical mass killing with engine exhaust fumes, but of whose necessity Wiernik had not been aware: the openings for the removal of the gas, i.e. of the air-gas mixture.

Without mentioning Wiernik's hermetic caps in the same paragraph. The point stands as before. Mattogno and Graf lied.

Further:

He refers in fact to p. 70 of our book about Treblinka (footnote 132 on p. 306) in which Wiernik’s description of this building is quoted, but not to the next page in which the description of the second building is quoted. Goldfarb’s testimony, as seen previously, also refers to the first building. “Such sloppiness is inexcusable.”

Here Mattogno lies outright, since as I pointed out in my article linked to above, Goldfarb explicitly mentioned the openings in the ceiling in both sets of gas chambers and for the new ones he explicitly identified its function:

For removal of the gas from the chamber there was a separate opening in the roof.

I concluded in this article:

So Jurovskij did not just imagine these openings for gas removal! Now re-read what M&G wrote. Don't they appear as ignorant conspiraloons in light of these facts?

Well, yes, they still do.

P. 888 of the "response", on Wiernik's alleged plagiarism:

Coming back to the suspicion of plagiarism, first of all, according to the Wiernik’s description, the first gassing facility contained four rooms in total, three “gas chambers” and one “elektrownia” (“power station plant”) which, according to the American translation, “operated alongside these chambers,” but the Polish text (a machine written account of 22 pages which made up for all later narrations) says: “the power station plant was located along the chambers [wzdłuż komory znajdowała się elektrownia]” and not behind one of them as appears in his drawing. The fifth room, no. 27, the one “with dentists sorting teeth taken from the dead,” is never mentioned.

A patent falsification: Wiernik choosing to describe only four rooms in his text is not the same as "according to the Wiernik’s description, the first gassing facility contained four rooms in total". Thus there is no contradiction between his text and his sketch.

Mattogno's confusion is in itself confusing. Obviously, the power station plant couldn't be located on the long side of the building since on both long sides there were doors. So when Wiernik writes about the power plant located "along" the chamber (note that he uses singular "chamber", not plural in the excerpt Mattogno quotes), he may not be using the best word (it's not a precise technical report after all), but he can only mean what Mattogno names "behind" the chamber. There is no contradiction whatsoever.

Mattogno's mendacious "suspicion of plagiarism" has failed so far.

Secondly, in Wiernik’s sketch, close to the bottom-right corner of room 26 (Illustration 8.14) there is a small circle which, according to the caption, represents a “well.” This is mentioned in the report about the “steam rooms,” but not in Wiernik’s description, who therefore took this small detail from this source as well.

Non sequitur. Logical fail. Wiernik not describing something as mundane as a well in his text but placing it on his sketch does not confirm any plagiarism in any way, shape or form. Moreover, it wouldn't be plagiarism even had Wiernik's memory been stimulated in this regard by the sketch appended to the November 15, 1942 report. It appears that Mattogno doesn't even understand what plagiarism is.

The report 15 November 1942 contains all elements of his plagiarism: the type of building (“a brick construction”), the number and layout of the rooms, the presence of pipes in them, the presence of a Diesel engine.

Mattogno lies about Wiernik's plagiarism which he has been unable to establish, and hopes that repetition will do the trick. Both Wiernik and the November 1942 report describe the same building, so pointing to the bare-bones descriptions of the building as evidence of plagiarism is laughable. Moreover, notice Mattogno's deceptive trick - Wiernik's text does not say the motor was a diesel.

Pp. 888-9:

The issue of the “hermetic cap” deals the final blow to Wiernik’s credibility. A handwritten draft of his report exists titled “Report of a Jew, an escapee from Treblinka, Jankl Wiernik, living in Warsaw at Wołyńska street 23, 53 years old [Relacje Żyda, uciekiniera z Treblinki, Jankla Wiernika, zamieszkałego w Warszawy przy ul. Wołyńskiej 23, lat 53],” in which the first gassing building is described as follows:

“Plać zabudowany 13 komorami gazowymi (kąpiel). Komora gazowa 2m wysokości 7m długości i 7m szerokości. Z jednej strony [normalne] drzwi wejściowe. Po stronie przeciwnej – klapa którą się otwiera po zagazowaniu ludzi, tamtędy też wyciąga się trupów. Na dachu klapa bezpieczeństwa używana w wypadku uśmiercania ludzi chlorem. Po rzucenia odpowiedniej ilości chloru klapą zamyka się hermetycznie.”
“13 gas chambers (bath) were built in the place. A gas chamber is 2 m high, 7 m long and 7 m wide. On one side [normal] entry doors. On the opposite side – a flap gate which opens after the gassing of the people; from there corpses are extracted. On the roof a safety valve used in case of killing people with chlorine. After throwing in the proper amount of chlorine the lid closes hermetically.”

At that time Wiernik had not yet decided what the alleged method of extermination was, hence he picked up rumors of killings with chlorine spread even about Sobibór, which was also echoed by the witnesses Szymon Goldberg and Samuel Rajzman for Treblinka.

It cannot be excluded that some other chemical (that some witnesses identified - not necessarily correctly - as "chlorine") was experimented with for gassings. We know after all that even gas vans were experimented with at Belzec, so why not also some other chemical substance?

Even if this hypothesis turns out to be incorrect (and I don't see how Mattogno can prove that it is), this would only indicate a wrong assumption on Wiernik's part, nothing more. He still mentioned the ceiling openings and Mattogno and Graf still made their mendacious claims about the witnesses not mentioning such openings.

Notably, above Mattogno complained that Wiernik only mentioned such caps for the old gas chambers. Yet he himself now quotes Wiernik's early text which clearly describes the new gas chambers (7x7 m) and thus attributes the cap to them too. In fact, in this early text Wiernik describes all 13 gas chambers at once, and while this is not too precise, he uses the dimensions of the "majority" gas chambers (the 10 new ones) in his description of all gas chambers.

In his later texts he would divide the descriptions (5 x 5 m for the old chambers, 7 x 7 m for the new chambers). In regard to this Mattogno writes:

In the published Polish report, the passage which interests us goes asfollows:

“Wielkość komory wynosiła 5x5 m., razem 25 m. kw, wysokość 1,90 m. Wylot na dachu z hermetycznym zamknięciem i wloty rury, podłoga terakotowa pochyla ku rampie.”
“Chamber size was 5 × 5 m, altogether 25 sq.m., height of 1.90 m. On the roof an outlet with a hermetic cap and inlet pipes, the terra-cotta floor slanting toward the ramp.”

There are several elements worth noting in this text. The first refers to the dimensions of the gas chambers, which are 5 m × 5 m × 1.90 m in the typed version, while the handwritten text says 7 m × 7 m × 2 m. All this comes from a reworking of the data contained in the report of 15 November 1942, which mentions (for the second gassing building) “gas chambers” of 35 m² each 2 meters high. Wiernik has therefore taken this height and has broken the surface in 5 m × 7 m (= 35 m²), and, in the final version, the respective single digits have been allotted to the first (5 × 5) and to the second (7 × 7) gassing building, allowing himself a little freedom on the height (1.90 m instead of 2 m).

None of this is based on fact, all of this is sheer speculation by the lying paranoiac. This second text refers specifically to the 3 old chambers, whereas the earlier text referred to all the 13 chambers (while giving the dimensions of the 10 new chambers). There is not a slightest sign of any "reworking of the data contained in the report of 15 November 1942". The report does not mention the linear dimensions of the chambers, Mattogno's claim that "Wiernik has therefore taken this height and has broken the surface in 5 m × 7 m (= 35 m²), and, in the final version, the respective single digits have been allotted to the first (5 × 5) and to the second (7 × 7) gassing building" is pure fantasy. The word "therefore" is completely out of place here, it's not a logical conclusion from the data, it's almost literally something that Mattogno pulled out of his butt!

The second element is the terra-cotta floor (“podłoga terakotowa”) of the “gas chambers,” which is equally copied from the 15 November 1942 report: “The floor in the chambers has a terra-cotta inlay [Podłoga w komorach wyłożona jest posadzką terakotową].” Wiernik’s plagiarism is therefore an indubitable fact.

Or they simply saw the same terracotta floor! Just as Abraham Krzepicki did in 1942 (A. Donat, The Death camp Treblinka, 1979, p. 105):

The floor was covered with orange terra cotta tiles.

Once again Mattogno outright invents plagiarism where there is none.

It is notable that terracotta tiles were found in the gas chambers area during the recent archaeological digs at Treblinka.

Source: C. Sturdy Colls, M. Branthwaite, "'This is Proof'? Forensic Evidence and Ambiguous Material Culture at Treblinka Extermination Camp", International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2017, 22(3).

P. 890:

As shown above, Jurowski’s sketch of the first gassing building originates from the drawing in Wiernik’s booklet, and this also applies to the description given in Goldfarb’s witness testimony.

Needless to say, nothing close to it has been shown "above".

Pp. 890-1:

As for the second building, Jurowski’s plagiarism is even more obvious. The findings of the preliminary investigation had in fact concluded the alleged existence of 12 gas chambers of 6 m × 6 m, in which the victims had been killed by pumping out the air.
During the second investigation no witness described the second gassing building in a manner consistent with Jurowski’s design, and therefore one must naturally ask what his source was. In order to clarify the question, we must return to the issue of Wiernik’s plagiarism concerning the second gassing building in relation to the first.

Here Mattogno is outright lying once again. Abraham Goldfarb on 21.09.1944 (GARF 7445-2-134, p. 30):

Поднимаясь по ступенькам вы входите в длинный коридор, от которого вправо и влево расположено по пять камер с той только разницей, что с левой стороны рядом с последней камерой, маленькая комната для мотора.
Climbing up the stairs you enter a long corridor, from where to the right and left there are five chambers each, with the only difference that on the left side next to the last chamber [there is] a small room for the engine.

Mendel Korytnicki on 23.09.1944 (GARF 7445-2-134, p. 56b):

К этому времени уже было готово и функционировало первое здание "бани", состоящее из трех камер, второе, десятикамерное находилось в стадии строительства.
By that time, the first "bathhouse" building, consisting of three chambers, was ready and functioning, and the second, ten-chamber building was under construction.

The liar goes on (p. 891):

A comparison of Illustrations 8.15, 8.16 and 8.17 shows the relation of the plan enclosed in the booklet A Year in Treblinka (Ill. 8.16) and of  Wiernik’s plan published in 1945 (Ill. 8.17) with that of the 1942 report (Ill. 8.15), and also the relation of Jurowski’s plan (Ill. 8.18) with that published in A Year in Treblinka (Ill. 8.16). Because the original plan has no eleventh room for the engine, Jurowski took a chunk of the corridor to accommodate the engine (Ill. 8.18), and the same thing was later done by Wiernik.

Actually, as was pointed out to Mattogno in 2007, Yurovsky's plan is based on Goldfarb's testimony. And indeed, Goldfarb described just the engine room seen on the plan.

So we see the room on the plan not because "the original plan has no eleventh room for the engine" but because Yurovsky's plan was based on Goldfarb. Mattogno is committing the very same mendacious "mistake" that was pointed out to him in my article!

And note how he falsely accusess even Yurovsky of plagiarism now. Seems like this very sick mind sees imaginary plagiarists in every corner...

P. 891:

At the Eichmann trial, Wiernik declared under oath: “[Attorney General] – After the War, immediately following the War, you drew a sketch of Treblinka? [Witness Wiernik] – Yes. This is it. I drew it. I prepared it when I was still underground, after my liberation in 1943. I drew it.” Therefore Wiernik would have drawn up his plan already in 1943 (and not in 1944).

And once again Mattogno is lying. He is simply repeating the very same claim that was debunked by me in 2006. As I have already pointed out, Mattogno has completely failed at basic English and Wiernik did not claim to have drawn the sketch in 1943. Rather:

He claimed to have drawn it after his liberation (which happened in 1943), while still in underground. I.e., M&G can't comprehend English.

Furthermore, Mattogno deliberately ignored Wiernik's explicit dating of the sketch:

Later in the testimony Wiernik was asked more questions about the sketch T/1300:

Judge Halevi: [to witness] When you were a member of the Armia Ludowa, was it then that you drew this sketch?
Witness Wiernik: I prepared it when I was working in Warsaw in the Tashitza Palace. The SS was there on the one side, and I was a night watchman against air attacks - I also have a certificate about that. I used to sit there at night. Nobody disturbed me, and I gradually made that sketch.
Q. Do you remember in what month and what year you drew this sketch?
A. It was in 1944. It took a long time. I also wrote A Year in Treblinka. In 1944, it was already in America, via the underground.

So he explicitly said that he drew it in 1944. I.e., M&G didn't even read his rather short testimony in full.

And they still haven't - all those years later! They chose to lie instead.

P. 891:

Myers further writes that “nowhere in the text of his account does Wiernik refer to the map illustration.” In his booklet Wiernik wrote:
“I, for one, resolved to give the world a description of the inferno and a sketch of the layout of that accursed hell hole.”
The earliest typewritten Polish text we have is much more simple and precise:
“Naszkicowałem plan miejsca zbrodni, by światu pokazać.”
“I have sketched a map of the crime scene to show to the world.”

And? Where is the reference specifically to the sketch based on the November 1942 version? The point stands: nowhere in the text of his account does Wiernik refer to the November 1942 version. Moreover, Mattogno hides the context of the second excerpt:

Chcieliśmy żyć. Ja za cel sobie obrałem żyć, by to opisać. Naszkicowałem plan miejsca zbrodni, by światu pokazać. To dodało mi mocy do walki z tymi szatanami.
We wanted to live. My goal was to live in order to describe it. I drew up a plan of the crime scene to show to the world. It gave me the power to fight these devils.

Note that Wiernik is talking specifically about the preparations to the August 2 revolt. So if we are to take his past tense ("drew up a plan") literally, then he is talking about some sketch he made in the camp, so not about the 1944 sketch we are discussing in the first place. Quite possibly this was meant to convey his wish to draw up such a sketch in the future (as is evident from later editions). Whatever the case, this doesn't prove that the 1944 sketch existed at the time of the first publication of the book.

P. 891:

But the most extraordinary matter is the fact – obviously omitted by Myers – that the Polish original brochure by Wiernik, which was used for the translation, does not contain any map at all!

Which, if at all relevant, would simply further confirm that there is no evidence that Wiernik was referring to the sketch based on the one attached to the November report.

P. 892:

Here we must point out another of Myers’s tricks. On p. 307 he presents these two plans (reproduced as Illustrations 8.19 and 8.20) with the following caption: “Compare the map included in Wiernik’s 1944 report (left) with the map Wiernik testified to drawing (right).” In reality the plan published on pp. 24f. of Wiernik’s booklet is the one which appears in Illustration 8.21.
The plan published by Myers, however (Ill. 8.19), has been clumsily tampered with, cutting out the second gassing building completely!
Worse than that, even the Wiernik plan published by Friedman and used by Myers (Ill. 8.20) was cut, as is apparent from Illustration 8.22, which reproduces the plan recognized by Wiernik as his own during the Eichmann trial. This partial image corresponds perfectly to that published by Filip Friedman in 1946 (Ill. 8.22a).

The liar Mattogno ascribing mendacious "tricks" to us? It is to laugh. Any trivial reverse image search would have shown Mattogno that the image we used comes from http://www.zchor.org/treblink/wiernik.htm. A slight technical oversight, for sure, but while it would have been better to use a more complete image, it doesn't help Mattogno and Graf in the slightest because every single point stands. And Mattogno never explains what has been "cut" from the second image, which more or less corresponds to the image at http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/t/Image150.gif - from his own book.

OK, let's use the images from Mattogno's own Treblinka book for the comparison:

Here is what we wrote:

Wiernik did testify during the Eichmann trial to drawing a map of Treblinka in 1944, which was subsequently published in 1945; Mattogno claims that with this map “the plagiarism shows up even more glaringly,” but do not provide any details or reasoning behind their statement. A simple comparison of the two maps [...] shows anything but plagiarism.[137]  

[137] Among other points, Wiernik’s 1944 map has more buildings in the reception area, more buildings in the extermination area, slightly different positioning of various buildings and the path to the gas chambers, has cremation grates and differently numbered buildings, and does not have any signs of orientation. The maps also look to be drawn by two different people.

Surprise, surprise: every single point still stands. Mattogno's plagiarism accusation is still a lie debunked by this simple comparison.

Note how Mattogno doesn't address the actual point that was made.

P. 893-4:

In this context, the question of whether the plan enclosed in the American edition of the Wiernik’s book has been designed by him or by others becomes entirely secondary for two reasons: first, as I documented above, Wiernik has undoubtedly plagiarized the plan of the 15 November 1942 report; second, the plan drawn up by Wiernik (Ill. 8.22 and 8.22a) clearly follows that of the report in question, so that his “testimony” depends both discursively and graphically on the 15 November 1942 report.

Watch the exposed liar backtrack! Suddenly, his initial plagiarism accusation "becomes entirely secondary"! No, it doesn't, because Mattogno and Graf did make this accusation and they made it on false grounds. It is thus of primary importance for judging Mattogno and Graf's own credibility. (Needless to say, contrary to Mattogno, he didn't establish any plagiarism or dependency between Wiernik and the November 1942 report/sketch).

P. 899:

To summarize, Myers’s position is hopeless: on the one hand Wiernik’s plagiarism is indubitable, and on the other the question of authorship is inescapably bad. If the Treblinka sketch published in his booklet was drawn by himself, this constitutes another confirmation of his plagiarism. However, if it was not drawn by him, then Myers must explain, preferably with some evidence, why Wiernik, in his 1944 booklet, did not include a map referenced in the text which he had drawn in 1943 – or for what reason the editors did not publish it.

As we have already seen, the map was drawn by him in 1944, not 1943, as to why the map (if it even existed at the time of the book's publication - see the discussion above) wasn't printed in the first edition, first of all, who cares at all, second, if there was a map at all, it was quite possibly a purely typographic difficulty, maybe the underground didn't - at this particular moment - have the time and/or the resources necessary to include elaborate drawings like Wiernik's sketch (the first edition of the book is extremely simply made). Whatever the reason was, once again, who cares and how is it relevant?

To summarize, so far the only evidence Mattogno has provided is of his own lies in regard to Wiernik's alleged plagiarism. He couldn't provide any evidence of his accusations and in process he lied even more than in the original book, already debunked by us. Both Mattogno's defence and his attack have failed. He's an incompetent wannabe pseudoresearcher and a mendacious pseudohistorian.