Convergence or Divergence?

[25]

Provan’s analysis of the air photos is consistent with that of revisionist researcher John Ball.[26] He notes that the necessary holes are said to have been covered “at ground level” (that is, above the layer of earth heaped onto the roof – not at roof level), and surrounded by low covers, according to Myklos Nyiszli and other self-professed eyewitnesses. Yet, as Provan correctly observes, if these areas (he calls them “smudgey marks”) on the air photos “are shadows [cast by the low chimneys], the height has been calculated as about 3 meters, using the known height of the Krematorium chimney, and the length of its shadow as a reference.” (three meters is about nine feet, ten inches.) Indeed, Provan “agrees with Ball that some of the marks which show up on the August 25, 1944, reconnaissance photograph are in fact drawn in,” and notes that “some of the photographs of Auschwitz-Birkenau show roof marks where no Zyklon B vents are supposed to be.”[27]

Provan fails, however, to alert his readers to the key problem, noted by Jean-Claude Pressac, posed by the marks on this and several other air photos:

According to the American aerial photograph of 24th August 1944, the four introduction points were located along a line running the length of the room in the eastern half. In the present ruins, two of these openings are still visible at the southern end but in the western half.

Nobody up to now seems to have been concerned by this contradiction, nor to have explained it.[28]

According to van Pelt and Provan, basing themselves on Tauber’s testimony, two of the holes should be located on the western half of the roof. As Pressac observes, however, this and the other air photos invariably display the four disputed marks on the Leichenkeller roof “along a line running the length of the room in the eastern half.” Here one must recall Henryk Tauber’s statement: “The roof of the gas chamber was supported by concrete pillars running down the middle of its length. On either side of these pillars [emphasis added] there were four others, two on each side.”

If Tauber’s testimony is correct, then the aerial photos should show two dots on each side of the longitudinal central support beam. But as Pressac has noted, the Tauber statement and the air photos contradict each other: the areas van Pelt identifies as holes on the air photos are staggered slightly, but are all on the east of the central support beam; Tauber testified that two were on the west side of the beam. The two sources of evidence do not converge.

Of the marks on the air photos, Provan writes: “No matter what one thinks of the authenticity of the smudgey marks, it is impossible to view them, whether authentic or not, as ‘vents.’” Thus, in Provan’s words, air photos “cannot be used to prove or disprove that the underground rooms were gassing facilities.”[29] Van Pelt has been able to point to no evidence that contradicts Provan.

‘Genocide by Telepathy’ Revisited?

Having noted the absence of photographic evidence for the Zyklon roof holes, Provan makes an important concession. Regarding the value of the documentary and photographic evidence in Auschwitz and Allied records for demonstrating the holes, he writes: “[T]he eyewitness testimony concerning the underground gas chamber of Krema II is the main evidential basis for historians of the Judenausrottung (extermination of the Jews). The other forms of evidence used to support the eyewitness accounts of holes in the roof of the gas chamber are unable to supply proof that these Zyklon B introduction holes existed.”[30]

While such findings might daunt a researcher of lesser persistence and imagination, Provan has discovered a rationale for the absence of the holes from the construction documents and photos: the need for secrecy that surrounded the Auschwitz gassing operation. Provan cites Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, who testified at Nuremberg on April 1, 1946: “I immediately got in touch with the chief of a construction unit and told him that I needed a large crematorium. I told him that we were going to receive a large number of sick people, but I did not give him my real reason.”[31]

Provan suggests that Karl Bischoff, chief of construction projects at Auschwitz-Birkenau, was not told of the building’s “real purpose” until after the building’s completion, if ever. Provan believes this explains why the holes were broken through the roof only after the building was completed, in contradiction to van Pelt’s thesis.

Provan’s suggestion creates many problems in place of the single problem he is trying to solve. During the same interrogation cited by Provan, Höss claimed to have sent the plans for the gas chamber in Leichenkeller 1 of Crematorium II to Himmler “after we had completed our plans,” and “after I had changed them in accordance with the real purpose of his instructions,” whereupon “they were approved.” If Höss’s story about the holes, taken in its totality, is true, then new drawings, amended drawings and plans, and on-site specifications for new construction and alterations to planned facilities would have all been necessary. Putting holes in the roof of Leichenkeller 1 would have required construction specifications outlined by and for the engineers, construction foremen, fabricators, and installers upon construction. These designations would also have been mentioned in numerous correspondences in the Zentralbauleitung (main construction office) files. They are not. Where are the drawings that were changed “in accordance with the real purposes of [Himmler’s] instructions”? And why not, in view of all the above, include the holes in the original construction of the roof? Formwork would have been constructed and placed differently, the placement of the rebar grids would have been modified to allow for holes and to compensate for loss of strength in the surrounding areas of the roof, and the support beam and columns would also require engineering modifications to compensate for loss of strength at the all-important slab-column junctures (with several tons of soil, snow, and rainwater also requiring careful engineering considerations).

Most importantly, the waterproof membrane would have required special attention and modification before holes and their alleged chimney surrounds could have been incorporated into the roof construction. Simply placing the membrane (bituminous felt) under the thin, permeable concrete topcoat and then through (what would later become) the edges of the holes would have been disastrous. And beyond that, the supposed wire mesh devices described by witnesses would have required extensive design and installation requirements.

Provan is mistaken in stating that the drawings to be consulted “would only include details for a crematorium, not a homicidal gassing facility.” How, for example, would secret drawings or plans for “wire mesh pillars” sent only to Himmler have been transmitted to Michal Kula in the metalwork shop months after these items had been deemed necessary? How could Kula have built these elaborate objects without such a drawing? Is this another example of what Robert Faurisson has called “genocide by telepathy”?[32]

Here Provan is also at cross purposes with Pressac. The French researcher has labored through the Auschwitz records and at the Auschwitz sites to unearth, in the absence of hard evidence, supposed “criminal traces” of the gas chambers from bits of hardware, carpentry, and construction records. Much of Pressac’s work here has been embraced by van Pelt. As I have written elsewhere, however, the idea of recognizable criminal traces creates a big problem for Provan’s interpretation:

If the crematoria architects did not know what the “real” purpose of the building was, then all of the so-called “criminal traces” of Pressac, such as the alleged removal of the corpse chute [sic], the word “Vergasungskeller” appearing in a civilian firm’s worksheet, the design of the ventilation system, and all provisions for gas-tightness, etc., must then also have necessarily been understood by the architects as non-homicidal in purpose. If the holes were deliberately excluded from an alleged criminal conversion as a matter of secrecy, then no aspect of the alleged criminal conversion could have preceded the completion of the building’s construction. Either the building was adapted for criminal use prior to completion or it was not. If it was, there should be evidence of “Zyklon B holes” in the construction photographs [and drawings] of 1943, but there is not.[33]

In Provan’s opinion, holes were subsequently “knocked” or “punched” through the solid concrete after the concrete roof was poured. He refers to the testimony of Rudolf Höss regarding the conversion of the Leichenkeller of Krematorium I at the Auschwitz main camp as evidence for an alleged homicidal conversion. However, the problem arises that Krematorium I was built and used as a morgue, and is alleged to have only later been converted for homicidal usage in 1941. Krematorium II was also supposedly designed for non-homicidal usage, but, according to van Pelt, was designated for homicidal adaptation in August 1942, more than 5 months prior to the concrete pour of the Leichenkeller roof.[34]

To summarize, it would have made no sense to knock holes through a solidly poured concrete roof, or to build alleged chimney-surrounds for the wire mesh devices after the holes were created. Provan theorizes that the concrete was first poured, then some time later broken away where required, then poured again to create “chimneys.” These “chimneys” would have required special waterproofing at their bases, to keep the rainwater and melting snow of January–February 1943 from seeping through the holes. As has been noted above, all of this could have been accomplished in one operation by setting wooden formwork to create the necessary chimneys and apertures during the construction of the roof.

There is no evidence that any of this was done, just as there are no openings that would have accomodated the wire pillars described by Michal Kula.

In this context, Provan’s invocation of an ill-defined and improbable commitment to secrecy by Höss (is the commandant supposed to have jack-hammered the holes himself by moonlight?) as the warrant for otherwise unaccountably slipshod methods emerges as more rationale than explanation.

Provan’s Eyewitness Problem

In contrast to Van Pelt and other historians of Auschwitz, who have been content to rely on excerpts from a handful of testimonies, Provan has presented sixteen mostly contradictory witness statements on the alleged holes and their attributes. He attempts to reconcile these testimonies with investigations he conducted at the site, although oddly enough in No Holes he starts from the testimony, and then proceeds to his on-site investigation.

Provan discounts seven of the testimonies as “of lesser value,” deeming nine of them to be “of greater value.” It must be stated that his analysis of these testimonies is not always clear, and his criteria seem to have left ample room for circularity. While some of his testimonies of “lesser value” can be easily impeached (Janda Weiss’ claim that small children were thrown into the subterranean Leichenkeller through a non-existent window), others seem to be excluded for failing to match facts not yet established. Thus, Provan discounts the testimony of Filip Friedman because Friedman places the hollow pillars in the “four corners of the Leichenkeller, which is not true.”[35]

Interestingly, Provan did not include the deposition of Michal Kula, who described 70 cm “wire mesh pillars,” in the testimony he analyses. He thus ignores one of van Pelt’s two star witnesses, although he has included witnesses that describe such oddities as Weiss’s non-existent “windows through which the Nazis could toss children,” the throwing of “gas bombs,” or what Provan calls “things impossible to see [from outside the crematorium].”[36] The reason for this omission seems obvious. Kula specifically stated that he constructed the “wire mesh pillars,” but the dimensions he gave (3 meters high x 70 cm squared) are impossible to reconcile with the absence of anything like holes of that size on the Leichenkeller roof, as the failed efforts of van Pelt and (as we shall see below) Provan abundantly demonstrate.

Having omitted Kula’s testimony, Provan considers the statement of Karl Schultze, a Topf employee who is said to have installed the ventilation system in Leichenkeller 1 on March 11–13, 1943, to be of great importance. In 1946, Schultze was asked about the “internal arrangement of the gas chamber.” He described it as follows: “The building was eight meters wide and thirty meters long. Inside it was completely empty. The height came to 2.6 meters. In the ceiling were four square openings, 25 × 25 centimeters.”[37]

It must be noted that Schultze gave accurate outside dimensions for the building, which he could only have been gleaned from the architectural drawings (the inside dimensions were 7 meters wide and 2.4 meters in height), rather than personal observation. Provan seems unconcerned that Schultze’s statement contradicts the claim that wire mesh pillars had been installed (“inside it was completely empty”). Nor does Schultze mention the alleged “concrete chimneys.” These are remarkable omissions of observation, considering the lateness of the known dates on which the ventilation system was installed (mid-late February 1943).

Evidently what matters to Provan is that he has found a witness who gave dimensions for smaller holes (25 × 25 cm), holes that could possibly be shown to have existed in the roof.

[38]

[39]

The case for the number and location of the alleged Zyklon holes of Crematorium II, as well as for their existence, depends on testimony, as Provan acknowledged. At the Irving-Lipstadt trial, van Pelt presented a large number of documents to the court, in an attempt to validate the testimonial evidence. Judge Gray recognized “the force of many of Irving’s comments upon some of those categories [of evidence]. He [Irving] is right to point out that the contemporaneous documents, such as drawings, plans, correspondence with contractors and the like, yield little clear evidence of the existence of gas chambers designed to kill humans”. Gray also wrote that “the photographic evidence for the existence of chimneys protruding through the roof of morgue 1 at crematorium 2 is, I accept, hard to interpret.”

The key witness, for both van Pelt and Provan, is Henryk Tauber. Tauber asserted that there were four holes, two west of the Leichenkeller central roof beam, and two east of it. The “smudges” or “dots” on the air photos are staggered, slightly zig-zagged. If Tauber’s testimony and the air photo dots are to be accepted together, then the existing holes must traverse the longitudinal central support beam, with two on each side. Provan has identified two successive apertures, both east of the roof beam. As Pressac noted, however, the Tauber statement and the air photo features contradict each other insofar as the air photos show areas identified as holes staggering slightly only on the east side; Tauber claimed that two were on the west side of the beam. These two sources of evidence, as Pressac recognizes, do not “converge.” Provan’s on-site investigations have done nothing more than highlight this irreconcilable discrepancy. He has selected openings in the roof next to support pillars which are no different than another opening beside a pillar that cannot have been, on the basis of his evidence, the location of a “Zyklon B introduction port.” Charles Provan, through his labors on site at Leichenkeller 1, has also shown conclusively that “wire mesh pillars” of the dimensions (70 cm square) described by Michal Kula and Henryk Tauber could not have have existed, which is also a problem for van Pelt.

It is a pity that Provan seems not to have consulted Pressac’s 1989 book to corroborate the significance of his observations. There Pressac published a photo, which he took from inside the Leichenkeller, of the area surrounding the second support pillar.[40] No witness or researcher has suggested that a Zyklon B port was located here. Nor would it make sense to suggest that. Significantly, Pressac’s photo clearly shows the same characteristics that Provan observes at 1, 3, and 5. The concrete at the juncture of the supporting pillar and the central roof beam has been shattered by explosive charges. The roof has shifted to the east slightly, and a square hole has been created in the roof directly above and to the east of the pillar. Two pieces of rebar connect the hole to the support pillar. It is obvious that the square aperture in this area of the roof was created during the explosion, exactly as at pillars 3 and 5, and as at pillar 1 in the opposite direction (in the latter area, the roof shifted westward during the explosion). The roof lifted and settled, and the 20cm roof slab was broken apart, probably along rebar lines. There is no mystery here: the violent displacement of the roof created apertures.

Conclusion

On the matter of the missing roof holes of Leichenkeller 1 of Crematorium II, Justice Gray recognized that “Irving’s argument deserves to be taken seriously,” and that “in the end, the task for an historian is to weigh the evidence of the absence of the signs of holes in the roof of the morgue against the opposing evidence that there were chimneys running through the roof.”[41]

This paper is not merely the product of a gracious acceptance of Gray’s historical challenge, for it seeks not only to weigh the evidence for and against the presence of the holes, but also the manner in which advocates of the holes have advanced that evidence. We have demonstrated that at nearly every instance in their evaluation of the admittedly slender evidence for these critical openings, van Pelt, Provan, Pressac, and Shermer have differed among themselves on what they have found. Van Pelt has scoured the ruins of the crematorium roof, and found nothing. Provan has done likewise, and says he’s found the holes. While each claims smaller holes than testified to by the key witness, the man who swore he manufactured the wire mesh pillars that went through the roof holes, van Pelt accepts his testimony, and then distorts it; Provan disregards it. Van Pelt claims that the holes were made when the roof was poured; Provan claims they were broken through weeks later. Van Pelt sees holes and chimneys in contemporaneous photographs where Provan sees none. Their colleague Pressac notes that aerial photos show the holes on a part of the roof at odds with van Pelt and Pressac’s witness testimony; Pressac, like van Pelt, misses that the marking on the air photo cannot show the chimneys or the holes. Shermer has tilted the photo so the holes will seem to be in line with the testimony favored by van Pelt and Provan.

It is Shermer who has made a mantra out of “convergence of evidence.” He found a willing echo from the Lipstadt expert in the London court. To survey the surreal divergence of these Holocaust savants in their diverse fumblings for the missing holes, as they warp and twist each bit of fact and fancy to substantiate the holes, is to understand that for them, at least, “convergence of evidence” stands for contrivance of evidence.

If Zyklon holes in the roof of Leichenkeller 1 had been there, as described by the most important witnesses within months after the capture of Auschwitz, indisputable evidence of their existence would still be discernible there today. But there is none, and the efforts of the most qualified exterminationist expert and the most diligent exterminationist amateur to account for the absence of that evidence, and of any contemporaneous evidence other than statements from a Soviet show trial and its successors, has produced nothing but a tragicomedy for the Holocaust industry. In fact, there were no Zyklon holes at Crematorium II of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the absence of those humble openings leaves the Auschwitz myth as blasted as the concrete, and as contorted as this rebar, in the ruins of the morgue there today.

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Notes

[1]	Steve Lipman, “Holocaust Denial Trial: Do We Care?,” Jewish Week, February 24, 2000. Deborah Lipstadt is the author of Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (NY: Free Press, 1993). Penguin Books Ltd was the other principal defendant in Irving’s libel suit.
[2]	Transcript, Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred Leuchter, Jr., 1999, a documentary film directed by Errol Morris.
[3]	Arthur Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century (Newport Beach, Cal.: Institute for Historical Review, 1993), p. 14.
[4]	The Hon. Justice Gray’s Judgment on Tuesday 11th April 2000 in the High Court of Justice 1996 I. No. 113, Queen’s Bench Division (David John Cawdell Irving vs. Penguin Books Limited & Deborah E. Lipstadt), Section 13.127. Available on-line at http://www.fpp.co.uk/ (internet). Hereinafter: Judgement.
[5]	Michael Shermer, “Proving the Holocaust,” Skeptic 2, no.4, pp. 41–43. Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying the Holocaust: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000), pp. 31–35, 117–119, 133–137, and 249–251. Expert Opinion of Robert Jan van Pelt, D. Lit., Professor of Architecture at the University of Waterloo Ontario, Canada, on Instructions of Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya, Solicitors, for the Purposes of Assisting the Queen’s Bench Division in the High Court in London in the Case between David John Cawdell Irving, Plaintiff, and Penguin Books Limited and Deborah E. Lipstadt, Defendants (copyright 1999 by Robert Jan van Pelt), part four {cf. note 7, 9}, “Chapter VII: Auschwitz and Holocaust Denial,” pp. 3–5. Hereinafter: van Pelt expert report. MS-Word document courtesy of David Irving.
[6]	Judgement, Section 7.92.
[7]	Van Pelt expert report, “Chapter IX, The Leuchter Report,” p. 295. It should be noted that van Pelt, in the sentence quoted, properly distinguishes between the alleged wire mesh devices and chimneys; Justice Gray seems to have conflated them in the summary from his Judgement quoted above.
[8]	In the High Court of Justice 1996 I. No. 113 Queen’s Bench Division, Royal Courts of Justice, London. January 28, 2000. P-129, P-130. Hereinafter: Transcript.
[9]	Van Pelt expert report, “Chapter IX, The Leuchter Report,” p. 295. Also, see Judgement, 7.118: “The Defendants accept that the physical evidence remaining at the site of Auschwitz provides little evidence to support the claim that gas chambers were operated there for genocidal purposes. The explanation, according to the Defendants, is that, after the revelations in the Allied media concerning the gas chambers at the camp at Majdanek in late 1944, Himmler ordered the dismantling of the extermination installations in the crematoria atAuschwitz.”
[10]	“Gas Chambers Did Not Exist – Historian,” BBC online, January 26, 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_619000/619619.stm. The BBC’s report is a close paraphrase of Irving’s remarks in Transcript, January 25, 2000. P-187.
[11]	Charles D. Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust? A Study of the Holes in the Roof of Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium 2 at Birkenau (Monongahela, Penn., 2000), pp. 24–31. Also on-line at: http://www.revisingrevisionism.com/
[12]	Transcript, January 26, 2000. P-84. “Sonderkommando” (special detail) designated, among other units, the prisoner contingents which worked in the crematoria.
[13]	Van Pelt expert report, “Chapter IV, Attestations 1945–46,” p. 44.
[14]	Ibid, p. 45.
[15]	Ibid.
[16]	Transcript, January 25, 2000. P-181, P-182.
[17]	Pressac, Jean-Claude, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (New York: Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989), p. 487.
[18]	Transcript, January 26, 2000. P-6–16.
[19]	PMO [Auschwitz State Museum] neg. no. 20995/494, Kamann series. Published in Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique, p. 340. See also Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, pp. 17-18, and Ernst Gauss (Germar Rudolf), ed., Dissecting the Holocaust (Capshaw, Ala: Theses and Dissertation Press 2000, p. 346–347. As Rudolf suggests, the three objects on the roof may have been construction materials.
[20]	PMO neg. 20995/506 Kamann series. In Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique, p. 335. See also Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, pp. 18–19. Also on-line at http://www.air-photo.com/
[21]	“We know that the modifications, at least from the plan we saw there, the modifications of the design were decided – I mean certainly for the hanging of the door in that new staircase was in December the building had been – that the genocidal programme in Auschwitz had been adopted in August, the roof was probably being finished in December, so there was no reason to hack through the roof. They could immediately have made the holes in the roof as they were constructing it.” (Irving-Lipstadt Trial transcript, Day 11, PP-127–128.) Van Pelt refers to the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung drawing 2003 of December 19, 1942, Auschwitz State Museum, box BW (B) 30/2, file BW 30/12, in Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (NY: Norton, 1996), plate 17. Van Pelt, Pressac, and Gerald Fleming have argued that the apparent elimination of the corpse chute indicates (only) live bodies walking into the basement rooms, a poor analysis, suggesting the victims of “natural death” could not have been brought into the underground morgues. Interestingly, the only material features noted for the entire basement section (Kellergeschoss) are the subject of the drawing itself, i.e.the basement entrance on the streetside (Verlegung des Kellerzuganges an die Strassenseite), and the elevator (Aufzug). There are many subsequent construction drawings from 1943 showing the inclusion of the corpse chute and other basement details. See Auschwitz 1270 to the Present: Critical notes by Carlo Mattogno (note 11) at: http://www.russgranata.com/irving-eng.html (internet).
[22]	Transcript, January 26, P-17
[23]	Transcript, January 28, P-109–113.
[24]	Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, p. 18.
[25]	Transcript, January 26, P-27.
[26]	John C. Ball, Air Photo Evidence (Toronto: Samisdat, 1994). See also http://www.air-photo.com/
[27]	Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, pp. 13, 14. Provan attributes the alteration of the photo evidence to a benign didacticism on the part of the CIA authors, one of whom was an expert of faked photography during his career with the agency.
[28]	Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique, p. 436.
[29]	Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, pp. 13, 30.
[30]	Ibid., pp. 29–30.
[31]	Ibid., p. 15. Provan’s allegation contradicts Dwork and van Pelt, Auschwitz, p. 316: “Himmler ordered the expansion of Auschwitz-Birkenau to 200,000 inmates and instructed Eichmann to fill the camp with Jews capable of work.” (Based on a plan of 15 August 1942, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, box BW (B) 2/1, file BW 2/10). Also, “Bischoff drew up a master plan for the transformation of Auschwitz-Birkenau into a 200,000 inmate labor pool for the armaments industry,” ibid., p. 321.
[32]	Robert Faurisson, “Genocide by Telepathy, Hilberg Explains,” JHR 18, no. 1 (Jan.–Feb. 1999).
[33]	Brian Renk, “Additional Comments on the Provan booklet No Holes? No Holocaust? A Study of the Holes in the Roof of Leichenkeller I of Krematorium II at Birkenau” at: http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gcgvholes2.html. For a brilliant analysis of Pressac’s “criminal traces,” see Robert Faurisson, “Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (part 1),” JHR 11, no. 1 (spring 1991), pp. 46–59.
[34]	Renk, “Additional Comments,”
[35]	Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, p. 10.
[36]	Ibid., p. 10
[37]	Ibid, p. 4. From Der Spiegel, no. 40, 1993, p. 162 (“Protokolle des Todes”).
[38]	Provan, No Holes? No Holocaust?, appended photographs. Also at http://www.revisingrevisionism.com/
[39]	Ibid, p. 29.
[40]	Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique, pp. 353.
[41]	Judgement, 13.83.

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Bibliographic information about this document: The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 20, no. 5+6 (September/December 2001), pp. 33-51
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