Bunker 2 Extermination Site in Auschwitz-Birkenau in Contemporary Photographs

The Auschwitz State Museum has published a 26-page booklet dedicated to Bunker 2 in Auschwitz-Birkenau (Bartosik & Martyniak, "Biały domek". Historia zagłady w bunkrze II, 2017). As already suggested by the front cover, the gassing facility known as Bunker 2 (in some accounts also Bunker 5) has been spotted on a photograph taken by the SS - AFAIK its only appearance in a contemporary ground photograph (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Construction site in Auschwitz-Birkenau, 1943 (Yad Vashem Archives, Photo Archives, Album FA157/344, Item 66393)

Bunkers, dugouts, Mattogno's honesty.

In "Carlo Mattogno, the failed Dragon-slayer" I wrote in regard to Mattogno's claim that the term "Bunkers" (in relation to the first two extermination installations in Birkenau, Bunker 1 and Bunker 2) was invented by the Poles and forced on Hoess:

The problem for Mattogno is that Hoess did mention the term "Bunker" before he was transferred to Poland. Here's a quote from the joint interrogation of Otto Moll and Rudolf Hoess at Nuremberg on 16 April 1946, by Lieut.-Colonel Smith W. Brookhart, as published in R. Overy, Interrogations. The Nazi Elite in Allied Hands, 1945, 2001, p. 394:

Q. How does that figure strike you, Hoess?
A. It is impossible for him to know the exact figures, but they appear to me to be much too small as far as I can remember today. The people buried in the two big mass graves of the so-called dugouts one and two, amounted to 106,000 or 107,000 people.
[...]
Q. Hoess, what do you think would be the correct figures?
A. Moll, in my opinion, cannot possibly have any idea of the number of killings in the dugouts where he was working and responsible. At any rate, they were far, far too low - that is, Moll's figure.

Obviously "dugouts one and two" are Bunkers 1 and 2, and the translator was clueless about what Hoess meant. And why would that be if there was such a grand conspiracy? So much for Mattogno's claim about Hoess.

In his response Mattogno characterized my explanation as follows:

He argues that Rudolf Hoess used the term "Bunker" before his extradition to Poland (contrary to what I said) and cites an interrogation of the former commandant of Auschwitz on April 16, 1946 where, however, the term "Bunker" does not appear but rather "dugouts one and two". Romanov said: "Obviously "dugouts one and two" are Bunkers 1 and 2, and the translator was clueless about what Hoess meant." The explanation is quite feeble. The fact is that the text does not mention the term "Bunker", and here we are speaking precisely about terminology.
During the interrogation of 1 April 1946 Hoess spoke of "two old farms", and on 11 March 1946 of "two old farmbuildings". These terms correspond to the German Bauernhäuse, so that the term "dugouts" is explained more by an inappropriate translation of Bauerhaus than that of "Bunker".

In my response I explained, citing dictionaries:

"Dugout" is one of the direct English translations of the German term "Bunker". Indeed, the very English word "bunker" in the military sense of "dugout" came from German [...] Hence, in context, it is obvious that originally Höss used the term "Bunker" which for a native English speaker made sense as a dugout.

Lo and behold: in his subsequent book Commandant of Auschwitz - Rudolf Höss, His Torture and His Forced Confessions (Nov. 2017, p. 227) Mattogno adopts my "quite feeble" explanation without any further ado!

Most likely, Höss had used the term “bunker” earlier on April 16, 1946, when he spoke about “dugouts” 1 and 2 [...] The term in question, “dugout,” is in fact the English equivalent of the German word “Bunker,” whose primary meaning is “concrete shelter” (“betonierter Schutzraum”; Brockhaus…, p. 86), such as a fortress or an air-raid shelter.

No acknowledgment of his previous conspiracy theory about Poles forcing the term on Hoess (he concocts an entirely new one instead, which is even less convincing) and no acknowledgment that he was wrong about my explanation being "quite feeble" either.

Carlo has shown his true face again.

Mattogno's Bunker 5 Follies.

"Bunker 5" was a name given in 1944 to the gas chamber complex earlier known as "Bunker 2". One plausible hypothesis states that "5" in the name meant the 5th extermination complex after the 4 Birkenau crematoria (that, according to one of the two numbering systems in use, were numbered from 1 to 4).

Mattogno's "Bunkers" Conspiracy Theory

Carlo Mattogno claimed in his book The Bunkers of Auschwitz that the alleged fact that the term "bunkers" does not appear in the earliest testimonies of Henryk Tauber, Szlama Dragon and Rudolf Höss means something ominous:

The first thing to note is that Dragon, at the time of the Soviet deposition, did not yet know the terms ‘Bunker 1’ and ‘Bunker 2,’ allegedly used even by the SS. (p.75) 

What strikes us here in this respect, is the use of the term “bunkers I and II.” As we have already seen, the term ‘Bunker’ was coined at Auschwitz during the Judge Jan Sehn’s investigation no later than April 1945. (p.135) 

During the trial session of March 11, 1947, Hoess finally adapted himself to the Polish ‘truth’ and its terminology, speaking explicitly of ‘Bunker 1’ and‘Bunker 2’: [...]
The obvious difference between the British and the Polish versions of Hoess’ ‘confessions’ is thus further proof of the fact that they expressed the propaganda orientation of the respective interrogators. (p.139)

In my partial response "Carlo Mattogno, the failed Dragon-slayer" I characterized this attempt at muddying the waters as follows:

Mattogno concocts a whole conspiracy theory - the term "Bunker" was invented by the Poles and adopted by the witnesses. Then it was forced upon even the witnesses who were in the Western Allies' hands, like Aumeier and Hoess.

A seemingly reasonable reading of Mattogno's own words, right?

How Reliable is the Statement of Maximilian Grabner?

The post-war statement scripted by the former head of the Political Department in Auschwitz Maximilian Grabner in Vienna, probably in late September 1945, was recently published by Sergey. In this posting, the reliability of his testimony will be assessed in some more detail. As a result, Grabner is a fairly reliable witness on most of the Auschwitz history touched by him, including atrocities. Only anything tangent to his own role and fate in the camp has been distorted and perverted to serve his purpose and discharge himself from any misconduct.

A point for point dissection of his testimony can be found in the appendix. This exercise is meant to assist in gauging the reliability and credibility of his account. A trained historian may do such en passant while studying the source, but it's use full to remind Holocaust deniers that corroboration forms a bond between evidence that needs to be broken first else it is greatly enhancing their mutual strength and that pointing out a few deliberate or undeliberate mistakes in a lengthy testimony (of which typically only some are real mistakes, while others are simply made up by denier's historical ignorance and personal incredulity) is not sufficient to dismiss it as uncredible, nor does it explain anything.

Statement of Maximilian Grabner

Here we publish for the first time the statement of Maximilian Grabner as it appears in GARF f.7021 (files of the Soviet Extraordinary Commission), op.108, d.34, ll.29-33.

Several preliminary remarks are necessary.

1. Completeness.

We're publishing the complete typed German text as it appears in the file (with most obvious typos corrected; name spelling irregularities are left intact), which is entitled "Copy of a record made by Obersturmführer Grabner by his own hand". This, however, was not the final version of Grabner's statement. In the files of the Auschwitz Garrison trial we see the same statement with several more pages of material after the last entry reproduced here (NTN 136, vol. 53a, pp. 111ff.).

Both versions stem from the files of the investigation of Grabner's crimes by the Vienna police. Although a typed copy, Grabner's statement in GARF has his signature on each page.

German Documents Confirm Bunker Sites and Body Disposal Activity of Birkenau Sonderkommando

Recently published contemporary German documents (Bartosik, Martyniak, Setkiewicz, The Beginnings of the Extermination of Jews in KL Auschwitz in the Light of the Source Materials, 2014) hammer another nail in the Revisionist coffin as they support the historical reality of the Bunker 1 and 2 sites in Auschwitz-Birkenau and that their Sonderkommando (special detail) was engaged in body disposal (the historical reality of the Sonderkommando of the crematoria was previously confirmed by a German document).

Carlo Mattogno, the failed Dragon-slayer

(Last revised: 30.01.2010)

Long sections of Carlo Mattogno's book The Bunkers of Auschwitz [PDF] are devoted to the critique of various testimonies of Auschwitz Sonderkommando Shlomo Dragon and his brother Abraham.

First, let's take a look at Mattogno's comparison of Shlomo Dragon's Soviet and Polish testimonies. Since I have examined the original Soviet testimony and have the text before me, I'm in a good position to analyze Mattogno's analysis.

The first thing I want to state is that all the citations from Dragon's testimony in Mattogno's book, given in footnotes in original Russian, are indeed authentic. Mattogno's translation of some of them is another matter, as we shall see shortly...