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)

Auschwitz-Birkenau Aerial Photographs

The following is a compilation of published aerial photographs (with close-ups) of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex. I have also listed visible features relevant to mass extermination and figures on Jewish mass transports (derived from the so called Glaser list) to those days with aerial photographs of sufficient quality and before the halt of the extermination in October 1944.

In the context of Holocaust denial, it is noteworthy that the known aerial photographs show only few seconds of Birkenau from high altitude on few days in 1944, thereof only two days with excessive mass killings taken place (31 May and 8 July 1944 - as opposed to four other days in June and August with "mild" activity and "only" one or two Jewish transports arriving). At such frequency, the photographs cannot directly depict the actual magnitude of mass killing on a certain day or even over a period. And yet, more or less static features constantly present or only slowly changing over time such as open air incineration area, thick security and camouflage screens and discolouration at the gas introduction openings on the gas chambers' roofs, as well as repeated heavy smoke from an incineration trench located close to the crematorium 5 gas chambers (also belching smoke on Sonderkommando ground photos) provide more than just a glimpse on the extermination machinery.

A useful resource of information on the various photos compiled by the late Harry Mazal can be found here (just some of the scale figures need to be corrected).

Other blog postings related to the Auschwitz-Birkenau air-photos:

The Auschwitz Open Air Incineration Photographs as Evidence for Mass Extermination

Personal Movement in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Compound on 25 August 1944 Aerial Photographs

The Gardens at the Crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau

John Ball's Air Photo Evidence on Auschwitz

Germar Rudolf doubles down on John Ball's Babiy Yar lie.

John Ball's blatant lie about Babiy Yar was exposed by me here back in 2006.

Long story short, Ball lied about the place where the shootings took place in the ravine and "analyzed" the wrong area of the aerial photo. Here, once again, is the photo with Ball's picture overlaid. No witness has claimed shootings took place there. Ball deceptively omitted most of the ravine, including the places where the shootings did take place.

Ball's lie was republished under Germar Rudolf's editorship numerous times.

Ball's book is the volume 27 of the "Holocaust Handbooks" series and is already in its 5th "corrected and updated edition".

There's a note:

The first three editions of this book bore John C. Ball as the author of this work. On Jan. 29, 2015, John requested not to use his name for new editions, but allowed us the use all of the photographic and texual material as we see fit.
The first edition appeared in 1992 under the title Air Photo Evidence: Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen, Belzec, Babi Yar, Katyn Forest— World War II photos of alleged mass murder camps! Does evidence confirm or dismiss eye witness stories? Were gas chamber marks put on by CIA workers?, self-published by the author, Ball Resource Services Ltd., Delta, BC, Canada. The second edition of January 2015 has the same title as the current one and is a marginally corrected reprint of the first edition with a preface similar to the present one plus a number of footnotes added. The third and fourth editions (January 2015, March 2017) resembled the current one closely, except for some updates, corrections and material added.

Naturally, the lie is still in the book:

Wrong! This location is not alleged to have been used for shootings or cremations.

Fake news! Entirely wrong location.

A blatant lie! "8" is not the location "where between 33,771 and 100,000 bodies were said to have been exhumed and cremated".

Rudolf is well aware of our blog, so he has no excuse whatsoever.

Needless to say, this lie fully discredits not only the hoaxer John Ball (about whose other exploits you can read here, here and here) but also the fraud Germar Rudolf, known for his use of numerous fake PhDs in absence of a real one.

The Gardens at the Crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau

In his contemporary manuscript, Marcel Nadjari, a prisoner of the Jewish Sonderkommando in Auschwitz-Birkenau, provided the following description of crematorium 2/3 (he was usually employed at the latter):

"It is a big building with a wide chimney and 15 ovens. Below a garden there are two big endless rooms in the basement. The one serves for undressing and the other is the death chamber, where the people enter naked and after filled with about 3000 people, it is closed and they gas them, where they gave up the ghost after 6 to 7 minutes of martyrdom."

(Contemporary Handwritten Letter of Auschwitz Sonderkommando Prisoner Marcel Nadjari Deciphered, my emphasis)

Personal Movement in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Compound on 25 August 1944 Aerial Photographs

The mosquito aircraft targeting the Buna area in the late morning of 25 August 1944 had at least two vertical (but slightly shifted) cameras still on when passing over the nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau site. The cameras were taking pictures every few seconds. Given the height & speed of the aircraft and the comparable short interval time, the frames of each camera are largely overlapping and objects on the ground were captured three times by each camera. With image processing programs, animated gif files can be created revealing the movement of groups of people or single vehicles, which took place within those few seconds.  

The Series of Aerial Reconnaissance Photographs of 25 August 1944 of Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the blog posting John Ball's Air Photo Evidence on Auschwitz, I had pointed out that there is a second set of aerial photographs from Auschwitz-Birkenau of 25 August 1944 other than those analyzed by John Ball. I had designated the former as "RAF photographs" and the latter as "USAF photographs" (later I changed this to from "British archives" and "US archives" respectively as the photographs were taken by the South African Air Force as pointed out by the Lesser Bunny). I claimed that both sets of photographs were made by different aeroplanes. This was an educated guess based on the fact that both series show approximately the same place taken at the same time and because the different set seemed to have been released by different countries. But there is actually an alternative explanation, it's possible and more likely that there was one aeroplane carrying two differently oriented cameras. Anyway, whether two planes with one cam each or one plane with two cams, the two series of photographs, thereof only one analysed and published by CIA aerial experts, both showing the same features at the Birkenau compound debunks Ball's claim that the photos have been tampered with by the CIA. 

Now, the Lesser Bunny spammed HC blog's comment section that he supposedly exposed my "nonsense about two different planes photographing Birkenau in tandem on August 25, 1944". However, he replaces my (as I noted above, arguably not most likely) explanation by a claim which is even worse.

John Ball's Air Photo Evidence on Auschwitz

A new edition of John Ball's Air Photo Evidence (hereafter APE3) is out and has been published as Holocaust Handbooks volume 27 by Germar Rudolf. The book is a "corrected and expanded edition with contributions by Germar Rudolf and Carlo Mattogno". Jett Rucker was "carefully proofing this edition", and Carlo Mattogno provided a "critical and constructive peer review" (APE3, p. 7).

Actually, most of Ball's flaws were not or not adequately corrected. Instead, Rudolf added some of his own. Previous critiques of Ball's work are ignored, and fresh photographic evidence from British archives rebutting Ball's major claim of retouching of the photographs from the U.S. National Archives are not considered either in this context. The expansions, e.g. on the "holes" and the Bunker 2 extermination site mainly consist of illustrations and photos recycled from previous Holocaust Handbooks. In other words, Air Photo Evidence clearly meets the Holocaust Handbooks publication standard.

But if one does not mind the text in between, the pdf is a nice collection of aerial photographs of Auschwitz free of charge. Plus, there are several hitherto unknown documents on the erection of the "camouflage" fences at the crematoria from Mattogno actually supporting the mass extermination activities at these sites.

Index of Published Evidence on Mass Extermination in Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau

The following is a list of evidence on large scale killings in the Auschwitz camp complex, in particular - but not limited to - homicidal gassing. The aim is to highlight the range, diversification and scale of the published evidence on mass extermination in Auschwitz.

The Auschwitz Open Air Incineration Photographs as Evidence for Mass Extermination

The Auschwitz open air cremation photographs (both the Sonderkommando ground photos as well as the aerial photographs) are examined if they provide evidence for mass extermination in Auschwitz-Birkenau - without resorting to testimonial evidence. The non-incriminating Revisionist interpretation of the photographs is discussed and checked against the available evidence.

That plume was actually even larger

New RAF photos of Birkenau are now available at http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk

That famous 23.08.44 photo released several years ago is actually just one of many frames depicting open-air incineration in Birkenau on that day, and the plume of smoke is actually much larger than the part depicted on the frame released back then. Go to http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/database/record.php?usi=006-001-003-072-C and http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/database/record.php?usi=006-001-003-155-C