The number of Hungarian Jews gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz

[This is a shorter updated version of an earlier article published by me elsewhere.]

Traditionally historians have assumed that about 400,000 Hungarians Jews were gassed in Auschwitz immediately upon arrival, i.e. about 90% of all Jews deported out of Hungary.

In 2002 book Das letzte Kapitel German historians Christian Gerlach and Goetz Aly introduced (but did not publish) a document which helps us to better assess the number of Hungarian Jews who had been deported to Auschwitz but were not immediately gassed upon arrival (most of the latter were selected as fit for work and temporarily spared).

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.

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 4: So Where Did They Go? “Resettlement” to the East (2). “Resettlement” for MGK.

"Resettlement" for MGK

In attacking the work of Holocaust historians regarding the death camps, MGK deride them for “creating a historiographical picture out of selected pieces of eyewitness testimony and a handful of arbitrarily interpreted documents.”[34] Unfortunately, the trio’s resettlement thesis is guilty of exactly that, as will be shown throughout the remainder of this chapter. Contrary to their finger pointing at historians’ selective use of witness testimony, for example, MGK are brazen enough to spin witness accounts of the death camps and gas chambers as evidence of transit camps.[35] Indeed, despite their recognition of “the necessity of comparing the witness accounts with available material evidence,” MGK fail to properly use either type of evidence in their own propositions.[36] They also exhibit not only ignorance of the realities behind the Eastern front, where they think some two million Jews could easily be resettled into, but they also ignore several documents which clearly dispel such notions.

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.

So Much For The 'Extortion Racket'

So much for the Holocaust as extortion racket. An article in The Forward proves otherwise. Last week, the Hungarian government finally agreed a compensation scheme for surviving relatives of Hungarian Jews murdered during the Second World War. The amount? For each relative that died, just $1,800. An earlier program paid out just $150 per parent and $70 per sibling.

And how much is your life insurance?

Contrary to popular myth, the deportation of Hungarian Jews in the spring and early summer of 1944 was a crime carried out largely by the Hungarian government, not the German occupation force. Eichmann and his helpers were on hand to 'supervise', but the men in uniforms who herded Hungarian citizens onto a mix of German and Hungarian trains belonged to Hungarian Gendarmerie. So the fact that payments of some small kind have been finally made acknowledges this responsibility.

Because of property expropriations made by Eastern Bloc countries on a class basis, as well as the expropriation of property owned by ethnic Germans expelled after 1945, many East European countries have been extremely reluctant to compensate survivors for loss of their homes and businesses. Many Hungarian Jews will have received compensation payments as survivors of Nazi slave labour camps.

Yet as German historians Christian Gerlach and Götz Aly showed in their 2002 book Das letzte Kapitel, the proceeds of 'Magyarisation' were the main motivation for the Horthy regime to cooperate with the SS in deporting over 430,000 Hungarian Jews before the transports stopped in July 1944. Gerlach and Aly's claims have been substantianted by the work of Hungarian historians, who strongly emphasise material greed as the prime cause of Hungarian complicity in genocide.

Aly has since gone on to stir up controversy over the conclusions of 2005's Hitlers Volksstaat, which argues that the expropriation of Jewish property across Europe helped fund part of the Nazi war effort. By levying burdensome occupation costs, the Nazi regime brought about a 'sparing of the German taxpayer' (Schonung des deutschen Steuerzahlers - the phrase was Göring’s from November 1941). In today's terms, the amount of money seized by Nazi Germany was much less than the amount paid out in compensation by the Federal Republic of Germany since 1954.

Quite aside from exposing Denier claims of 'Holocaust greed' as fiction, the Hungarian case poses another interesting challenge to Denier myths. The 'Hungarian Action' from May to July 1944 brought over 430,000 Jews on more than 140 trains to Auschwitz, of whom 110,000 were selected as slave labourers and transported onwards to practically every single concentration camp in occupied Europe. Over 320,000, however, were selected for the gas chambers and murdered.

Proving a rightful claim to the Hungarian government's compensation scheme will be the work of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also known as the Claims Conference. I've seen their research staff at work; it is a job which requires considerable documentation and proof. And therein lies the rub.

No matter how hard Holocaust Deniers try, no amount of fancy aerial photo-interpretation, disputing of eyewitnesses or claims of forensic improbability will get around the fact that the trail for hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews went cold at Auschwitz. Where did they go? Hungary was a Soviet ally after 1945. No, they did not emigrate; they were murdered.

Of 825,000 Jews in 'Greater Hungary' before 1944, approximately 500,000 died, at Kamenets-Podolsk in 1941, inside Hungarian Army forced labour battalions and during the occupation, as well as in Auschwitz or other German concentration camps. Around 300,000 survived, the majority of these escaped deportation. Today, after border changes and emigration, especially in the wake of the 1956 Uprising,there are less than 100,000 Jews in Hungary. But by no means all will be able to make a claim. Since the claims are being paid only for those whose relatives died, many tens of thousands of Jews who resided in Budapest, which was not as affected by the deportations as provincial Hungary, will be automatically excluded.

It will be interesting to see what the take-up rate for this compensation scheme turns out to be. So much, methinks, for the extortion racket.

«Evidence for the Presence of "Gassed" Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories» (2)

Comments on the article

Evidence for the Presence of "Gassed" Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories, Part 1


By a "Revisionist" who calls himself Thomas Kues (hereinafter "TK")

Part 1

Part 2

Names of Jewish Gassing Victims (2)

Names of Jewish Gassing Victims (1)


Since my previous blog I have added proof submissions regarding Jewish gassing victims at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec and Chełmno.

Knowledge of the Final Solution in Nazi Satellite States: 1) Hungary

This series of articles updates information that was presented in the Critique here regarding attempts by the Nazis, from the Wannsee Conference onwards, to extend the Final Solution across all territory in which the Nazis had administrations or allies. This first piece, on Hungary, begins before Wannsee due to the fact that Jews deported from Hungary were murdered at Kamenets Podolsk in August 1941. These early murders colored much of what followed, because there could be no doubt that the Nazis harbored genocidal designs on at least some categories of Jews. The events that unfolded in 1942-44 were therefore guided by the willingness of otherwise of Hungary's leaders to collude in extermination, and this in turn depended on whether the Hungarians felt it was in their economic and strategic interests to block the deportations to death camps.

Knowledge of Mass Extermination Among Hungarian Jews Returning from Auschwitz

How wide spread, detailed and reliable was knowledge of mass extermination among prisoners in Auschwitz?

I have systematically searched through more than 1000 (from more than 3500) protocols obtained by the Hungarian "National Committee for Attending Deportees" (DEGOB), which represent the testimony of 1449 Hungarian (and few Slovak) Jews returning from deportation. These testimonies were made early after the war mostly in June and July 1945, which is a crucial point as knowledge can be expected to change (in any direction) with increasing time after the event.

The vast majority of Hungarian Jews deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, more than 93%, did not or only generically report on mass extermination in the camp. The rest was limited to few details or recollected false rumours circulating among the inmates. The studied testimonies do not remotely reach the level of knowledge and reliability displayed by former Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners or some SS men in 1944-1946. The striking difference between the accounts of ordinary prisoners and insiders like the Jewish Sonderkommando prisoners is powerful confirmation of the veracity of mass extermination in Auschwitz.

The Kamenets-Podolsky Massacre

Photographs of mass executions by Nazi mobile killing squads, shown by the poster "Northman" on the RODOH thread The einsatzgruppen reports, real or propaganda? (specifically here and here), led to an intense discussion with apostles of the "Revisionist" faith. One of the "Revisionist" participants, noted for both his verbosity and the repetitiveness of his feeble arguments, was my old acquaintance "k0nsl", who on another RODOH thread vehemently denied being the person he had been identified as by EXPO.

[Caution: links lead to graphic images.]
The (main) bones of "k0nsl"’s contention were a photo of a mass grave in the Bikernieki forest near Riga, shown in the blog Photos from the German East, and one of the three photos in the Yad Vashem photo archive linked to below, which are also linked to in the blog June 22, 1941:

USSR, dead bodies in a mass grave.
USSR, dead bodies in a mass grave. 
USSR, dead bodies in a mass grave.

Interviews on American Freedom Radio

Yesterday between 17 and 19 hours local time, Kevin Barrett interviewed "Revisionist" author "Thomas Dalton" and then Andrew Mathis and me on America Freedom Radio. The record of these interviews is available on Kevin Barrett's page on AFR.

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 4: So Where Did They Go? “Resettlement” to the East (1). The Excruciatingly Slow Evolution of the Revisionist “Resettlement” Thesis.

So Where Did They Go? “Resettlement” to the East

The Excruciatingly Slow Evolution of the Revisionist “Resettlement” Thesis  

As with their fixation on physical evidence (graves and gas chambers), the denier “hypothesis” of Nazi resettlement of Jews through transit camps is a relatively recently phenomenon as it underwent an excruciatingly slow evolution through Revisionist writings. Arthur Butz was the first Revisionist to detail such an argument, writing in 1976 that instead of an extermination program, “the German policy was to evacuate the Jews to the East.”[1] Butz primarily drew this conclusion from the minutes of the Wannsee Conference[2], a few wartime newspaper articles[3], and the 1943 document referencing Sobibor as a transit camp.[4] In sketching out this supposed resettlement policy, Butz speculates that the destinations of the deportees (whom he counts one million non-Polish Jews) were stretched along a connected line in the occupied Soviet territories, including areas such as Riga, Minsk, Ukraine, and the Sea of Azov.[5] The ultimate fate of these deportees varied, according to Butz, but his work suggests that the majority were either assimilated into the Soviet Union, or emigrated to the United States and Israel.[6] 

Rebutting the "historical" appendix to David Cole's book "Republican Party Animal".

A post on David Stein/Cole's book Republican Party Animal, or rather on the historical appendix to it in which he explains his views on the Holocaust.

Short intro: Cole used to be a hardcore Holocaust denier in the early 1990s, shot a comical video about Auschwitz which became a hit among the deniers (the deceptions of this video are fully exposed here). He reinvented himself as a Republican event organizer in Hollywood and there was a moderately large scandal when his cover got blown up.

He tells about this event and many others in his "tell all" book. He moderated his historical views considerably, coming to the conclusion that extermination camps did exist. His shtick had always been being a Jewish denier. Now it's a drunken ex-denier who kinda saw the light, but is still an asshole towards both sides. He condemns total hardcore denial, but also claims that Auschwitz wasn't an extermination camp at least from 1943 on and the well-documented gas vans didn't exist.

In fact, Cole didn't find anything new or big about the Holocaust, he simply takes the extremely well-known documents like the Korherr report and interprets them with varying degrees of plausibility, while ignoring the documents that contradict his other positions. All banal, nothing notable. But for some reason some see his position as the "golden middle", or something. Nonsense. This deeply confused and superficial individual has nothing new or interesting to add to the Holocaust historiography.

In the appendix to his book Cole tries to lay out his views. Let's take a look at a couple of points.

Friedrich Jansson proudly presents …

... a report by US government official whereby "Ausrottung" does not imply killing. Or so Jansson interprets the official’s statements.

More «Evidence for the Presence of "Gassed" Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories» (2)

Part 1

Lithuania

TK postulates that any French Jews in Lithuania prior to the transport from Drancy to Kovno and Talinn on 15 May 1944 must have reached that destination via Auschwitz-Birkenau or Sobibór, the documented destinations of most deportees from France. As pointed out in part 1, deportations of Auschwitz concentration camp inmates as laborers would be a plausible explanation if one is to assume that witnesses were not simply misled by rumors or otherwise mistaken or saying something that Soviet interrogators (according to historian Andrew Ezergailis, quoted by TK, the Soviets falsely claimed that 240,000 Jews had been sent to Latvia and murdered there) wanted to hear.

«Evidence for the Presence of "Gassed" Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories» (3, 3)

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Evidence for the Presence of "Gassed" Jews in the Occupied Eastern Territories, Part 1


By a "Revisionist" who calls himself Thomas Kues (hereinafter "TK")

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 (1)

Part 3 (2)

Part 3 (3)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" (Minutes 10 - 16)

Viewer's Guide to "Auschwitz - The Surprising Hidden Truth" 

Minutes 0 - 10

Minutes 10 - 16
Minutes 16 - 22

Minutes 22 - 38
Minutes 38 - end

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard. Chapter 2: Nazi Policy (5). The Europe-Wide Final Solution, January 1942–March 1943.

The Europe-Wide Final Solution, January 1942 – March 1943

The Wannsee Protocol[194] is silent on the fate of non-working Jews. Given that the document claims to be concerned with resettlement, this is a case where silence implies intent to kill. The fate of the working Jews also makes this inference the only plausible one:

Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labour in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)

There is policy continuity between these paragraphs and Wetzel’s discussion of “Vergassungsapparate” (the Protocol can only be read as stating that unfit Jews will receive the same treatment as the “final remnant”) but at Wannsee the discussion had clearly shifted to include all of Europe’s Jews.

One Hundred Nazi Extermination Remarks, 1939-1944 (Chronological List: 1-65)

1) Wetzel and Hecht, 25.11.39: "We are indifferent to the hygienic fate of the Jews. Also for the Jews the basic principle is valid, that their propagation must be curtailed in every possible way." [Die Frage der Behandlung der Bevoelkerung der ehemaligen polnischen Gebiete nach rassenpolitischen Gesichtspunkten, 25.11.39, NO-3732].

2) Goebbels 31.1.41: "Mit Bouhler Frage der stillschweigenden Liquidierung von Geisteskranken besprochen. 40000 sind weg, 60000 müssen noch weg. Das ist eine harte, aber auch notwendige Arbeit. Und sie muß jetzt getan werden. Bouhler ist der rechte Mann dazu" [source].

More Than One Hundred Nazi Extermination Remarks, 1939-1944 (Full Chronological List)

1) Wetzel and Hecht, 25.11.39: "We are indifferent to the hygienic fate of the Jews. Also for the Jews the basic principle is valid, that their propagation must be curtailed in every possible way." [Die Frage der Behandlung der Bevoelkerung der ehemaligen polnischen Gebiete nach rassenpolitischen Gesichtspunkten, 25.11.39, NO-3732].

2) Koppe, 18.10.40: "[The] so-called Sonderkommando Lange, assigned to me for special tasks, was detached to Soldau in East Prussia from 21 May to 8 June, 1940, as per agreement with the Reich Main Security Office [RSHA]. During this period, it successfully evacuated 1,558 mental patients from the Soldau transit camp" [source].

3) Goebbels 31.1.41: "Mit Bouhler Frage der stillschweigenden Liquidierung von Geisteskranken besprochen. 40000 sind weg, 60000 müssen noch weg. Das ist eine harte, aber auch notwendige Arbeit. Und sie muß jetzt getan werden. Bouhler ist der rechte Mann dazu" [source].