Why Producer Gas Wasn’t Used (Rebuttal of "Holocaust Encyclopedia")

Holocaust deniers often fixate on fringe technicalities or imagined inconsistencies to avoid confronting the overwhelming documentary, testimonial, and forensic evidence. One of their rhetorical questions goes something like this: "If gas chambers were real, why didn't the Nazis use producer gas?" 

Well, challenge accepted.

 

"Russian Insider" Lies about the Spread of Holocaust Denial in Hungary and Poland

"Only 17% of Hungarians Believe the 'Holocaust' Happened, 21% in Poland"

Would you believe this headline? I mean that Holocaust denial - one of the world's least appealing and alluring conspiracy theories - gained such a momentum in Hungary and Poland (two countries that saw a large part of its Jewish population systematically mass exterminated by the Nazis during the Second World War) that only a small minority still believe the Holocaust happened? Seriously?

Source of the claim: the antisemtic web site "Russian Insider". Enough said.

Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: Producer Gas

 Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans

Part I: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant (update 1, 2)
Part II: Producer Gas

 Part III: The Ford Gas Wagon (update)
Part IV: The Becker Letter (update)
Part V: The Rauff Letter to the Criminal Technical Institute (update 1, 2, 3, cf. on Mattogno & here)

Part VI: The Turner Letter

Part VII: The Schäfer, Trühe & Rauff Telexes

Part VIII: The Einsatzgruppe B Activity & Situation Report (cf. on Mattogno)

Part IX: The Just Memo

Part X: The West-German Trials Against Members of Einsatzkommando 8

Part XI: Einsatzgruppe D in Simferopol

Part XII: Material Evidence

Part XIII: Misreading the Fine Print 

Lacking sufficient concrete evidence to show the Holocaust did not happen and to build their own narrative, Holocaust deniers are forced to resort to their personal incredulity as a main line of attack: the Germans wouldn't have done it this way. Therefore it didn't happen. It's always fascinating to see with what incredible certainty Holocaust denier think to contradict historical facts established by multiple, corroborating sources by just presenting their poorly substantiated incredulity. A prime example is a claim that the Germans would have used the exhaust of producer gas generators instead of engine exhaust for homicidal gassing.

Kollerstrom and the 1948 Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on the Holocaust

Nicholas Kollerstrom presented the three-volume Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities During the Second World War (hereafter 1948 ICRC report) as a highly relevant source on the fate of the European Jews during World War 2 and on Auschwitz even as an "authentic eyewitness account" (Kollerstrom, Breaking the Spell, p. 233) supporting his Holocaust denial. But this publication is not an "eyewitness account", last on Auschwitz, it's a report compiled by people of the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1948 based on (usually not referenced) other sources. The report was never studied by Kollerstrom, it does neither really say what he claims, nor is it a historically reliable and competent source on the fate of most Jews during the war. In short, this episode illustrates the disturbingly low level of research and study in Breaking the Spell.

Kollerstrom's Deception on the Visit of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Auschwitz

The British Revisionist Nicholas Kollerstrom has been nominated for the most blatant example of a denier deception. There are undoubtedly many good candidates out there, but Kollerstrom is in a good position with this contribution (submitted by iwh and called to my attention by Jeff_36 of the Skeptics Society Forum).

Kollerstrom claimed that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) inspected shower units in Auschwitz. However, the passage he quoted from an ICRC report to support his claim doesn't refer to Auschwitz, but to camps for civilians from belligerent nations such as those for Germans in the Near East. The only known visit of an ICRC delegate to Auschwitz consisted of nothing but a 30 - 45 min talk to an SS man in the commandant's office of the main camp in late September 1944.

Kollerstrom's Rabid Antisemitism

Kollerstrom seems to be channeling Streicher in this post:

The poor Jews, what they had to put up with in the German labour camps, why they actually had to WORK! Yes they had to do MANUAL LABOUR! so deep was their suffering that it became transmitted through their genes, as Jewish science has shown:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -find.html
at New York’s Mount Sinai hospital led by Rachel Yehuda.
"“The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents,” "

Verily, the suffering of God's chosen People has been transmitted even unto the great- grandchildren viewtopic.php?t=8929

Tattoo Denial

When the usual methodological and historical ignorance characteristic of Holocaust denial gets further reduced to virtual complete historical ignorance and meets some more spitefulness, you get Tattoo Denial. It denies or - in its slightly less silly variant - doubts that Jewish and Soviet prisoners were crudely tattooed their prisoner number in Auschwitz. It's main advocate used to be Carlos Porter, a number of sceptic species can observed right now in the CODOH thread Doubts about Tattoos by the book author Nick Kollerstrom (by the way, the CODOH moderator Hannover delivers a particular thrilling performance in this thread when he reveals that his attention span is less than it takes to read and grasp a single book page). The failure of most Holocaust deniers in this thread to spot some historical truth related to the Holocaust even when its right infront of them says volumes about how defective and irrational the methods, arguments and concepts of this movement are also in general and how common sense is lacking or completely masked by ideological beliefs.

I attach seven German sources on the tattooing of Jewish and Soviet prisoners by the Germans to this posting:

• three testimonies of former Auschwitz SS men (Pery Broad, Wihelm Boger, Hans Stark) of the Political Department, whose admission office was responsible for the tattooing of prisoners 
• four contemporary German document: two orders by the German Armed Force High Command to mark Soviets POWs and two reports on the escape of Auschwitz prisoners with tattooed prisoner numbers

Reply to Nicholas Kollerstrom on the Auschwitz Death Books

The Revisionist Nicholas Kollerstrom, the author of the book Breaking the Spell, has recently commented on my blog post Open Letter to Nick Kollerstrom on the Auschwitz Death Books. Here's my reply to him.

Revisionist Article on Hydrogen Cyanide Chemistry Rejected by Peer Reviewed Journals

Germar Rudolf and Nick Kollerstrom recently released an article Differential Exposure of Brickwork to Hydrogen Cyanide during World War Two in Richard Widmann's non-peer reviewed Revisionist journal "Inconvenient History". The paper was previously rejected by the peer-reviewed journals "Analyst" and  "Chemistry - a European Journal".

Open Letter to Nick Kollerstrom on the Auschwitz Death Books

Dear Nick,

We (that is me) are glad to hear that you have expressed your commitment for free speech and against "arresting people for their beliefs”, and trust that this is not limited to your own beliefs but meant universally, also applying to, say for example, denial of crimes committed against Germans.

We entirely support the concern that spreading historical claims should not be punished in an open society – and would like to add – also when these are utterly absurd, offensive to members of the society and mainly a vehicle of political extremism (such as Holocaust denial).