The Rothstein canard

In a vain attempt to find a single Jewish prisoner transited through Belzec, Treblinka, Chelmno or Sobibor to the "Russian East" the Holocaust deniers turned to the electronic Holocaust names databases. In "Gassed at Treblinka and deceased in Minsk" Jean-Marie Boisdefeu claimed to have found one such person:

Finally, a taker

Yesterday I received the following e-mail message, in response to my 2011 Challenge to Supporters of the Revisionist Transit Camp Theory:

I, Jake O'connor, hereby accept your Challenge to Supporters of the Revisionist Transit Camp Theory as stated on the Holocaust Controversies blog site under [url of Challenge blog], and undertake to, within 365 days after this date, provide proof of at least one person identified by name who was transited through either of the camps Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór or Treblinka to the Nazi-occupied Soviet territories in 1942/43, in the manner more precisely described in the Challenge, to the Arbiter(s) chosen by me from among those mentioned in the Challenge. You will be immediately notified of the Arbiter(s) identity and the proof submitted to such Arbiter(s).»
I do not have a website/blog and have not engaged in online discussion about the holocaust before, but I can answer this challenge and as soon as they activate my RODOH account I'll post about it.

So Mr. Jake O’Connor thinks he can accomplish what no "Revisionist", including our usual customers Mattogno and Graf, has been able to accomplish in almost 72 years since the end of World War II. He thinks he can provide proof that at least one named Jewish individual was transported to Chełmno, Bełżec, Sobibór or Treblinka in the years 1942 or 1943, and then taken from there to a destination in the Reichskommissariat Ostland, the Reichskommissariat Ukraine or the Soviet territories under German military administration. He has undertaken to, until 25.03.2018, submit such proof to the Arbiter(s) chosen by him from among those mentioned in the Challenge.

Well then, good luck, Jake. And please send me the link to that RODOH post you’re announcing.

Update, 28.03.2017: Jake O'Connor's submission and my reply thereto can be read here.

"...it would be better if Jewish families did not leave Europe"

The quote in the title comes from Radu Lecca, who was interviewed for a Nazi newspaper, Der Neue Tag, published in Prague on January 3, 1942. Lecca confirms that the Nazis no longer wish to expel Jews from Europe because they would spread propaganda. Resettlement had thus been abandoned as Nazi policy. The quote was reproduced in Jewish News, No. 7; 19 May, 1942. Readers can click the scan below to enlarge the image.

Eric Hunt is No Longer a Holocaust Denier

[Update by SR: here is DenierBud (previously debunked by us) confirming that Hunt changed his mind on his own, without any coercion.]

The 'Revisionist' scene increasingly has a problem: while its videos, spam and other propaganda keep the flame alive on the far right and in at least some parts of the conspiracy theory world, the 'movement' seemingly cannot retain its activists. It's almost a year since Committe for Open Debate on the Holocaust founder Bradley R. Smith passed away, prompting zero newspaper obituaries and little acknowledgement from anti-defamation watchdogs, leaving the CODOH empire in the hands of the 'Holocaust Handbooks' publisher Germar Rudolf.

Despite revamping and rebranding many parts of the portfolio, it's been increasingly obvious for some time that the denier scene lacks enough researchers and writers to do more than put lipstick on an increasingly doddery pig. Worse still, the small number of newer stars drop out of the scene almost as fast as they become known, as happened for example with Thomas Kues and Friedrich Jansson. Or, like The Black Rabbit of Inlé, they openly admit that they no longer believe in the core tenets of 'Holocaust revisionism'.

The latest apostate? None other than video-maker Eric Hunt.

Demographics of Hungarian-Jewish Auschwitz Survivors Debunks Holocaust Denial

In Summer 1944, more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. According to Holocaust deniers, the people selected as unfit for work at ramp in Birkenau were not killed, but interned at other places. Don't ask where, as they have no idea where this is supposed to be. But if the Revisionist "transit camp" hypothesis were historically true, there should be literally train loads of evidence for it by now, starting from contemporary sources to countless testimonies. Yet, there is no evidence that the Hungarian Jews unfit for work were systematically brought away from Auschwitz and interned in alleged "family camps".

The "Revisionist" fantasies on the survival of unfit Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz is refuted by available demographic data, like that collected by Hungarian National Relief Committee for Deportees (hereafter as its Hungarian abbreviation DEGOB), which suggests a survival rate of close to or equal zero and strongly supports their systematic extermination by the Nazis.

Early 1943: Rosenberg Promises Total Extermination

The USHMM edition of Rosenberg's diaries contains, on pages 407-409, extracts from a speech made by Rosenberg just after Goebbels' Total War speech. The German text is in IMT XXXIX, pp.412-25 as part of exhibit USSR-170: 

We must not content ourselves with the Jews getting pushed around from one country to another and possibly still having a big Jewish ghetto here and there. Instead, our goal can only be the old one: the Jewish question in Europe and in Germany is only solved when there is no longer a single Jew on the European continent [Wir dürfen uns nicht damit begnügen, dass die Juden von einem Staat zum anderen geschoben werden, und dass vielleicht hier und da noch ein großes jüdisches Ghetto steckt, sondern unser Ziel kann nur das alte sein: Die Judenfrage in Europa und in Deutschland ist nur dann gelöst, wenn es keinen Juden mehr auf dem europäischen Kontinent gibt]. 

Rosenberg was thus repeating his declaration of November 18, 1941, but this time, with no possibility of the Jews being pushed militarily over the Urals, the method could only be direct killing.

Ausrottung, Kaufman and Volga Germans: Postscript

This Nazi news item from 10.9.41 leaves no doubts. It puts"resettlement" to Siberia into context.

Meanwhile this piece of Goebbels-ordered propaganda (see print here) literally did claim that "To justify the murdering of 80 million people, Nathan Kaufman is forced to ascribe irremediable criminal tendencies to the German people"; hence Rosenberg was lying at Nuremberg when he said "On the other side this word [ausrottung] has been used with respect to the German people and we have also not believed that in consequence thereof 60 millions of Germans would be shot."

Biological eradication (biologische Ausmerzung)

On page 118 of the Critique, I cited Rosenberg's briefing of November 18, 1941, taken from Christopher Browning's submission to the Irving-Lipstadt trial. Rosenberg spoke of the necessity of "a biological eradication of the entire Jewry of Europe" (eine biologischen Ausmerzung des gesamten Judentums in Europe) by measures that would "expel them over the Urals or eradicate them in some other way." Mattogno replied to this by stating that the "purely figurative meaning of “Ausmerzung des Judentums” (extirpation of Jewry)...designated the eradication of Jewry from the soil of the Reich and from the European soil." However, this can be refuted by two points.

Mattogno's Dishonesty: the Föhl Letter

In MGK's Riposte, p.546, Mattogno writes as follows:

 On 21 June 1942 Walter Föhl, Deputy Director of the Department for Population and Social Welfare of the General Government (stellvertretender Leiter der Abteilung Bevölkerungswesen und Fürsorge des Generalgouvernements), wrote a letter containing the following information:

“Wir nehmen jeden Tag Züge mit je über 1000 Juden aus ganz Europa an und verarzten sie hier, bringen sie mehr oder weniger provisorisch unter und schieben sie meist weiter, hinein in die weißruthenischen Sümpfe Richtung Eismeer, wo sie alle – wenn sie es überleben (und das tun die Juden vom Kurfürstendamm oder aus Wien und Preßburg bestimmt nicht) – gegen Kriegsende versammelt sind, nicht ohne einige Autostraßen fertig gebaut zuhaben. (Aber man soll darüber nicht sprechen).”

“Every day we receive trains, each with more than 1,000 Jews from all of Europe, giving them medical checks, accommodating them more or less temporarily and sending most of them on, into the White Ruthenian marshes toward the Arctic Ocean, where they will all be assembled by the end of the war – provided they survive (and the Jews from the Kurfürstendamm or from Vienna and Bratislava certainly won’t) – not without having built some roads. (But we are not supposed to talk about it).”

The only sane reading of Föhl's letter is that it is a sarcastic commentary on how three of the RSHA's former suggestions (deportation to the Pripet marshes, detention in Siberian camps and roadbuilding in the East) have now been replaced by extermination in the Aktion Reinhard camps, with the exception of the use of some fit Jews (a relatively small number) for work tasks such roadbuilding on the DG IV project. Föhl's sarcastic tone is clearly expressed in the absurd formulation "the White Ruthenian marshes toward the Arctic Ocean", whilst the real murderous intent is conveyed in the phrase "provided they survive (and the Jews from the Kurfürstendamm or from Vienna and Bratislava certainly won’t)," which also echoes the euphemistic language used at Wannsee concerning "natural reduction." Yet Mattogno, a supposedly educated man, says "This provides further evidence in favor of a real “resettlement [Aussiedlung].”" This tells us everything we need to know about Mattogno.

Nazi Policy Timeline: August 1941

This timeline is a work-in-progress and will be regularly updated and revised. Comments and suggested additions are welcome.

August 1st, a): Himmler order to the SS cavalry regiments: "Ausdrücklicher Befehl des RFSS. Sämtliche Juden müssen erschossen werden. Judenweiber in die Sümpfe treiben"; "Explicit order of the RFSS. All Jews must be shot. Jewish women to be driven into the swamp." (VEJ 7 Dok 51 p.228, n.10; Longerich, 3.1.1).

Nazi Policy Timeline July 1941

This timeline is a work-in-progress and will be regularly updated and revised. Comments and suggested additions are welcome.

July 2: Heydrich passes on a summary of his instructions to the four HSSPF. He explicitly lists “Jews in party and state positions” as a group to be executed, and also called for the incitement of pogroms, euphemistically dubbed "self-cleansing attempts", but "without trace" of German involvement (Klein, pp.323-328).

July 7th: Fritzsche depicts Barbarossa as a war in which "culture, civilization, and human decency make a stand against the diabolical principle of a sub-human world" and thus infers that "It was only the Fuehrer's decision to strike in time that saved our homeland from the fate of being overrun by those sub-human creatures, and our men, women, and children from the unspeakable horror of being their prey." (Official B.B.C. translation of radio speeches of Hans Fritzsche, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation, p.2069 and p.2070, 3064-PS, NCA, vol. V, p.879).

Nazi Policy Timeline January-June 1941

The evidence presented below clearly shows that that the USSR was chosen as the 'resettlement' destination for European Jews from January 1941 onwards. More importantly, the aim of resettlement was to decimate the Jews; decisions after June 22, 1941, were simply changing the nature of this mass murder to other means and to during the war with the USSR not after a final victory.

Three Hitler Speeches from 1942

January 30, 1942 [Domarus, p.2574]

We are fully aware that this war can end either in the extermination of the Aryan people or in the disappearance of Jewry from Europe. I said as much before the German Reichstag on September 1, 1939. I wish to avoid making hasty prophesies, but this war will not end as the Jews imagine, namely, in the extermination of the European-Aryan people; instead, the result of this war will be the annihilation of Jewry. For the first time, the old, truly Jewish rule of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” will obtain.  

Rosenberg on Reprisals

It seems clear to me that his diary entry of September 12, 1941 (pdf posted by Irving here), can only mean that Rosenberg wished for central European Jews to be killed in reprisal for the "murder" of Volga Germans. Note also that Rosenberg clearly sees Siberia as a place of murder for deportees not resettlement:

12.9.41 Als die Mitteilungen eintrafen, dass Stalin nun auch die noch verbliebenen 400 000 Wolgadeutschen nach Sibirien verschleppen, d.h. morden lassen wird, da ist in uns allen der Hass gegen Moskau erst recht wieder emporgestiegen. Ich gab Anweisung, für eine sehr scharfe Stellungnahme u. sandte sie formuliert an den Führer. Der sie noch verschärfte. Gestern liess ich einen Vorschlag ausarbeiten, durch Rundfunk nach Russland, England u. USA mitteilen zu lassen, dass wenn dieser Massenmord durchgeführt werden sollte, Deutschland die Juden Zentraleuropas dafür büssen lassen würde. Dies mit vollster Berechtigung, da soeben noch der Jude Schertok auf einer Palästinakonferenz erklärt habe, an dem Bündnis zwischen Moskau – London – Washington hätten die Juden besonderen Anteil, da sie stets dafür gearbeitet hätten.

The End of the Kues Transnistria Gambit

This excellent thesis by Eric Conrad Steinhart details how Sonderkommando R (commanded by Hoffmeyer and consisting of local ethnic Germans) killed tens of thousands of Jews in Transnistria in 1942. There were 134,000 ethnic Germans living in Transnistria and it was believed that Jews deported from Odessa were a typhus threat to these Volksdeutsche. Documents uncovered by Steinhart include a complaint from Gk Nikolayev to Erich Koch stating that unburied Jewish bodies were a health risk. Thus we have proof that Transnistria would not be a resettlement zone for Jews.

The Holocaust in Transnistria: Extracts from Ioanid

The following is taken from Ioanid, "The Holocaust in Romania", pp.187-193. On-line source is here. The section is entitled "The German Contribution" and deals primarily with the killing of Odessa and Berezovka Jews by units made up primarily of Volksdeutsche:

Mattogno Distorts Aly on Höppner

In his English translation of Chelmno [here], Mattogno tries to defuse Höppner's memos of 16.7.41 and 3.9.41. He systematically distorts Aly's summary of the memos, which appears in Endlösung [here]. Below I contrast Aly's account (from the English version of the book) with Mattogno's distortion.

Pits at a «Resettlement Site»

On 8 February 1943, the Belarusian city of Sluzk (Slutsk) in the Minsk region, which had already seen a massacre by Police Battalion 11 in October 1941, was the site of one of the mass killings described in the Koblenz Court of Assizes’ judgment of 21 May 1963.

Challenge to Supporters of the Revisionist Transit Camp Theory

[Updated on 16.03.2014 and 19.03.2014 to accommodate a change request by Eric Hunt expressed on the Skeptics Society Forum thread Reissue Muehlenkamp's Challenge so I can win.]

[Updated on 14.08.2017 to expand the choice of potential arbiters.]

This challenge was born out of an amenable conversation between my old friend Greg Gerdes and me on the threads $1,000.00 REWARD FOR THE NAME OF JUST ONE GASSED JEW and Transit Camp Challenge in the Revisionist Projects section of the Revisionist Workshop forum.

MGK's Distortion of a Source in Support of 'Resettlement'

In hopes of establishing an "affirmationist" revisionism, the trio of Mattogno, Graf, and Kues (hereafter MGK) have been proactive in their attempts to describe the 'true' fate of the Jews recognized the world over to have been gassed. While details are still hard to work out in their writings, the trio has fallen back on the idea of resettlement into certain areas of the occupied Soviet territories. One of the more prominent sources that MGK use to support their thinking is the American Jewish Yearbook, which Kues credits as one of the most comprehensive wartime sources regarding Jewish communities around the world.

To use this source for their own ends, MGK are forced to quote-mine their selected passages and ignore numerous other statements. Even in those selected passages, however, they have to distort a true reading of the text.