An exchange between Dr. Fredrick Toben and Jamie McCarthy
An open letter to the Director of the Adelaide Institute, Dr. Frederick Toben
by Jamie McCarthy, Nizkor
Hello, Dr. Toben. I have just stopped by your home page:
http://www.adam.com.au/~fredadin/adins.html [now at www.adelaideinstitute.com] …and I would like to make two initial comments on behalf of the Nizkor Project. Our home page, by the way, is: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/ (now www.nizkor.org)
My first comment:
You make a claim in your very first sentence that I would like to see documented. You write about the “allegation” that four million Jews were killed at Auschwitz. Now, you and I both know that the figure of four million people is one which has not been borne out by research, and has been rejected by historians for quite some time, going back to Reitlinger in the 50s (and perhaps earlier, I don't know).
But in all my investigation of Holocaust history, I have yet to encounter the claim that four million Jews were killed at Auschwitz.
The four-million figure was created by the Soviets, derived from “rectified coefficients,” and kept alive by their Polish puppet state until the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was maintained that about one million Jews were killed at Auschwitz, plus about three million Poles and Soviet POWs, in an effort to spread the myth of Auschwitz as a Polish and Communist, not a Jewish, place of mourning.
Yet you claim that it is an “allegation” that “four million [Jews] alone” were killed “at the Auschwitz concentration camp.” Would you please present your documentation showing where this was alleged?
There are other claims on your home page that I think should be documented, but this one struck me as especially in need, because it was in the very first sentence.
My second comment:
You write that Professor Deborah Lipstadt “claims that mortuaries were converted into homicidal gas chambers.” I was not aware that this was her claim; I was under the impression that Jean-Claude Pressac advanced this theory and was more or less alone in his belief. But perhaps she has endorsed Pressac's claim. I don't know.
In any case, you go on to write that you have made a request of her and the “Holocaust Museum” — presumably the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. You write that you have asked them to provide you “with copies of such conversion plans,” for the mortuaries, the morgues — and that you are “still waiting for them to provide [you] with these plans.”
Well, I'm happy to announce that your wait is over. There are quite a few plans which document the conversion process, according to Pressac in his 1988 work, Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers.
It should be pointed out that Pressac's theory about the morgues having had non-homicidal intent at the outset, and only having had criminal intent designed into them in summer 1942, is considered rather controversial, and has yet to be adopted by the historical community. It is more widely believed that the designers had criminal intent from the outset. Nevertheless, I will present his theory and allow you to make up your own mind. It is somewhat irrelevant, because your question, of course, is whether those facilities had criminal intent at all, not when the earliest date is that such intent can be proven.
Nizkor has digitally scanned two of the most important of those plans from their reproduction in Pressac's book, and has made them available on the world-wide web. I would like to present you with the URLs.
At these first URLs, you will find a detail of the central part of Krema II at Auschwitz-Birkenau, as drawn in the blueprint known as Bauleitung Drawing 932. This was drawn on January 1, 1942. According to Pressac, it contains no proof of criminal intent. It shows a corpse-chute leading down into the basement, to directly in front of the room labelled “morgue,” so that the bodies could be slid down into that chamber. It shows double-doors to that “morgue” opening inward. And it shows no opening leading to the morgue from the outside.
Here we have the detail of that critical section of Bauleitung Drawing 932, showing the corpse chute, the doors opening inward, and no other entrance nearby: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/ba u-0932-detail.jpg
Here we have a transcript of Pressac's commentary on that blueprint: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/ba u-0932-commentary
At these next URLs, you will find an overview and two details of the same part of Krema II, but this time as rendered in the blueprint known as Bauleitung Drawing 2003. This one was drawn on December 19, 1942. The double doors for the “morgue” have been changed to open outward instead of inward. The corpse-chute into the basement has been removed (and this is confirmed in the blueprint for the ground floor: the space above it is another room, so it is really gone). And there are stairs that have been added.
Pressac's main question is: why was the corpse-chute replaced by stairs – how were the corpses then supposed to get into the morgue?
The answer is: the “corpses” walked down the stairs.
Of course, at the time, they were not corpses — yet.
A few minutes after they entered the “morgue,” the “corpses” tried to get out, and pressed up against the locked door. A few minutes after that, they were indeed corpses. They were then removed through the same door they came in, which, on the new plans, opened outward to facilitate that removal. They were then put onto the elevator next to that door, which goes up to the furnace level.
In short, with only the previous blueprint and this next one, we have the plans you asked for: plans for the conversion of a morgue into a room for killing.
Here we have an overview of the basement floor of Bauleitung Drawing 2003: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/ba u-2003-keller.jpg
Here we have a detailed view of the critical section, showing the doors opening outward, the corpse-chute removed, and the stairs added: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/ba u-2003-keller-detail.jpg
Here we have a detailed view of the same section of the ground floor, confirming that the corpse chute was indeed removed: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/ba u-2003-erdgeschoss-detail.jpg
And here we have Pressac's commentary on that blueprint: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/ba u-2003-commentary
In conclusion:
Dr. Toben, you write on your home page:
If I offend anybody because I show poor taste in my sometime blunt and honest questioning, then I apologize.
Since you realize that the nature of this matter is offensive to many people, I hope you will forgive me if I am also blunt. I must ask a question that may seem offensive, especially since you and I don't know one another:
Is your questioning really honest, Dr. Toben?
An honest researcher on an “intellectual adventure,” having been shown the plans he asked for, would remove his request for those plans, and begin the analysis process.
And if you are willing to begin such analysis, I would like to ask you to share your opinion of these plans with me. I'm fairly well-versed in the history of the Birkenau Krema and their homicidal gas chambers in particular, and I hope you and I might discuss them.
And, of course, you would remove your request for those plans, on your home page, because to keep that request in place would imply that you had not seen them, which would be dishonest. That goes without saying.
So — if you are interested, we can discuss the plans, and the other proofs of criminal intent which Pressac mentions at the bottom of his commentary on drawing 932: the gas-tight door, the gas detectors, the separation of the “morgue” drainage system from the main drainage system, the wire mesh Zyklon insertion devices, and the dummy showerheads. As well as the various other pieces of physical evidence that prove or corroborate the fact that the “morgue” was in fact a homicidal gas chamber.
Are you interested, Dr. Toben?
This open letter has been posted to alt.revisionism, and archived at Nizkor as: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?people/t/toeben.fredrick/open-letter 960608
http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi-bin/ftp.pl?orgs/australian/adelaide-institute/o pen-letter-960608
It has also been emailed to Dr. Toeben at [email protected] , and Cc'd to the other three major Holocaust-denial [sic] sites on the web (Greg Raven's IHR web site, Bradley R. Smith's web site, and Ernst Zündel's [sic] Zündelsite) and to my colleagues at Nizkor.
An Open Letter to Jamie McCarthy
by Dr. Fredrick Toben, Adelaide Institute
Dear Mr McCarthy,
Thank you for your 8 June communication which I found very interesting. Isn't it amazing that fifty years after the event there are still issues which are alive and far from settled – and that we can actually participate in a Holocaust debate. How wrong people like Professor Deborah Lipstadt are when they claim that “there is nothing to debate about the Holocaust”.
Only recently I remarked about the Kuwaiti claim, made during 1990 before Desert Storm was unleashed, that Iraqi soldiers had perpetrated unspeakable acts of violence upon helpless victims in a Kuwaiti hospital – throwing babies out of incubators and taking the incubators to Iraq. It is now common knowledge that an American advertising agency schooled the daughter of an US-based Kuwaiti diplomat to say such things before the US Congress. Luckily for the sake of historical truth, the incubator story was soon exposed for what it was – war-time propaganda. Yet, it served its purpose, namely to draw the USA into the Gulf conflict. So, too, it is with the horror stories about Nazis having made soap out of Jewish cadaver and lampshades out of Jewish skin. Yet I wonder why this kind of war-time propaganda has persisted for so long. Why does the media not vigorously expose such stories for what they are? Even to this day I can think of a number of people who still believe the war-time soap and lampshade propaganda to be based on facts. It is only if we can fearlessly ask questions about the alleged Jewish-Nazi Holocaust, then we will get to the truth-content of those allegations which state that Germans gassed millions of people in homicidal gas chambers.
Only a few days ago I received information about a court case in Tubingen, Germany, involving the publisher, Wigbert Grabert, and author/publisher Udo Walendy. I believe that Walendy has received a prison sentence while Grabert has escaped that fate with a DM30,000 fine. What was their crime? It appears that they doubt the orthodox homicidal gassing story – and that is a criminal offence in Germany. Also, in the latest 'Historische Tatsachen' Walendy questions the long-held belief that all Auschwitz prisoners had numbers tatooed on their arms, forearms, wrists, etc. He claims there is no proof of this ever having been done. Imagine, if this is true, then how many people do we personally know who have spent fifty years of their lives trading on that tatooed number on their forearm! I passed this information on to John Sack ( Eye for an Eye) who is now pursuing this matter. I am certainly interested to find out whether Walendy is making wild claims . Hoever, I do not think it is wise to use legal means wherewith to silence anyone making silly claims, and I would not like any government or private authority stop me from looking into such matters. Anyone who makes wild claims about something as controversial as has Walendy will soon be exposed as either being a fabricator or a truth seeker. Would you agre with me, Mr McCarthy?
You see, Mr McCarthy, it does not make sense to me that the German government authorities are persecuting through prosecution these people who dare ask questions about incidents and events of World War II . That's exactly what we are doing here per our Email service engaged in an exchange of views and opinions, yet in Germany we would be subject to judicial surveillance. Mind you, Mr McCarthy, you have an advantage over me. What you say is already legally protected because you have accepted the view that homicidal gassings did occur at Auschwitz and elsewhere. I am not so convinced – as yet. Please let me explain why I still have a nagging doubt about the so-called official version of what happened during the second world war at Auschwitz.
(1) The fact that doubters are not convinced of the homicidal gassing story produces a violent reaction from Jewish-Zionist pressure groups – and from the various government agencies whose parliaments have passed laws outlawing doubt on the topic. For example, in Canada it was the 'false news' law which Sabina Citron used to start the Zundel Trials. In Germany it was initially a provision of the defamation law which saw the absurd situation arising where Dr Wilhelm Staglich, Gunter Deckert, Pastor Manfred Junger,et al, were accused of “defaming the memory of the dead”. Usually any defamation action is extinguished upon the death of the plaintiff who begins an action. Not so when the defamation law was used in Germany. We then saw people coming out of the woodworks who claimed to be speaking on behalf of the dead. Naturally they did this in the hope of being handsomely rewarded for their expressed concerns. Financially it was worth millions of dollars. Now, of course, in Germany it is not necessary to rely on defamation alws anymore. This anomaly has been rectified in Germany and elsewhere with the introduction of specific 'Holocaust denial' legislation. In Australia we have the Zionist lobby working very hard on getting such legislation passed through the various state and federal parliaments. It's done under the guise of the 'Racial Vilification/Hatred Bill'.
To my mind defamation law exists to protect a person's reputation from wrongful accusations. Unfortunately not all jurisdictions accept that truth is an absolute defence against defamation. Public figures, however, claim they are deserving of extra protection – which is a nonsense claim. We saw this kind of nonsense reach its height with the doings of British publisher, Robert Maxwell, who silenced his critics by throwing writs at them. So, if you do not have the financial clout, then you are out!
But in the long run the truth will come out because it is too much of an effort to have to support, by legal means, those processes which are corrupt. Yet, now in Europe various governments have made it a criminal offence to doubt matters concerning the allegation that Germans gassed millions of people. Why should we, Mr McCarthy, have a view of history supported by the force of a law? Isn't this exactly what the Marxist ideologues did in eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union? Imagine, to have a special law which states that 'Holocaust denial' is off-limits, is a criminal offence? If someone denied that the earth was round, we would just laugh at that person's display of ignorance. Yet, when someone like 30+year-old German industrial chemist Germar Rudolf writes 'The Rudolf Report' – which is a detailed scientific analysis of the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwits – then he has his career ruined and, together with wife and two young children, is now on the run. A court had imposed on him a 15-month prison sentence for distributing his report, and as he failed to turn up at the Grabert trial in Tubingen, there is now an arrest warrant out for him. All this does not make sense to me, Mr McCarthy.
Why would the German legal establishment use a sledge hammer to protect at all costs an orthodox version of the Auschwitz homicidal gassing story? This is an historical debate which can be settled if we are mature enough to listen to what others have to say. I have a firm belief about this story – that there were no gassings at Auschwitz. However, should after fifty years by some miracle new evidence come along and conclusively prove that homicidal gassings did occur at Auschwitz, then I would write about that too. But let's not have people muzzled because they dare to become HOLOCAUST HERETICS.
Let me say in passing that my training in philosophy – Sir Karl Popper's theory falsification and C.S.Peirce's fallibilism – prevents me from accepting anything controversial as being true without my having done some personal thinking and research about the matter. So, Mr McCarthy, let me put your mind at rest about my intellectual integrity. After all, this is what you are alluding to when you ask me in your 8 June communication: “Is your questioning really honest, Dr Toben?” Yes, indeed it is. But not only, Mr McCarthy. I am also fearless in my questioning. Mr Brockschmidt and I have deliberately sought out those who support the homicidal gas chamber story. It was a little disconcerting to be rejected by those who could not answer our probing questions. In 1994 Professor Deborah Lipstadt visited Australia. We made the special effort to make the 1,600 Km Adelaide-Melbourne return trip so that we could ask her probing questions. She even signed her book for us with “May Truth Prevail”! It was during her seminar that she informed us that the conversion plans for the Auschwitz mortuaries were now available. Similarly, British historian, David Irving, and American author, Michael Collins-Piper, also confronted Lipstadt about those plans. Why, if the plans prove the homicidal gassing story, did Lipstadt not take up Irving's offer of $1,000 to produce those plans? It is not good enough for Lipstadt to travel the world and claim that the conversion plans prove the homicidal gas chamber story without having with her these plans – and discussing them in the way you now wish to do. More of this a little later.
(2) The Jewish death figures are a real problem and your criticism of what we have on our website highlights this problem very well. Permit me to give you a chronology , from 1996 backwards to 1964, wherein I detail my personal connection with the 6:4 million death figure as it presented itself in the public domain. I hasten to add that what you say is quite correct, i.e. The 6:4 million death figure can be argued about. Greg Raven of the IHR informs that it was once claimed that of the six million Jewish deaths, two million were in the Eastern territories and four million were in the concentration camps. Even the 1990 removal of the plaques claiming that four million persons died at Auschwitz has not definitively solved the problem. Blaming the former Soviet and Polish Communist governments, as you do in your explanation, is a total cop-out by those who have known for decades that the four million figure was wrong from the beginning. There are Revisionist works which mention a far lower number. I think Rassinere mentions a very low number – but such numbers were ignored by so-called mainstream historians. Why, Mr McCarthy? Even the six million total Jewish deaths figure is urgently in need of revision.Yet for some historians this number is set in concrete and anyone who dares question it is immediately labelled 'antisemitic', a hate monger', a neo-Nazi, a racist, etc. Why, Mr McCarthy?
I am reminded of the entry under 'Oswiecim' in the Reader's Digest 'Universal Dictionary' of 1988 : “Town of southern Poland….it lies near the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where, between 1942 and 1945, some 4,000,000 people, mostly German and east European Jews, were systematically put to death by the Nazis.”
Permit me now to tabulate my Personal Chronology:
- 1996 – as recently as 7-9 June in ADELAIDE , at the so-called conservative Samuel Griffith Society seminar, during a dinner conversation the 6:4 million death figure was mentioned. Much to the disbelief at our table, of five of the eight persons present, I stated that the current death figures for Auschwitz stood around 710,000 to 800,000 (Pressac).
- 1995 – At a European history conference at the University of New South Wales, SYDNEY, Dr Stephen Wheatcroft reduced the Auschwitz death figures to 1.5 million – much to Professor Hans Mommsen's disbelief. Wheatcroft claims to be Australia's expert on the Ukraine. He denies the Bolshevik-Jewish-Soviet connection which gave rise to the Ukrainian famine.See Adelaide Institute newsletter No. 30.
- 1994 – at the Professor Deborah Lipstadt seminar in MELBOURNE I canvassed a few individuals about the 6:4 million figure. It would have been foolish to have pursued the matter among this group because they were all 'true believers'. It was at this meeting that Professor Lipstadt predicted that a force from within the Jewish community would lead to dissent and disunity on the Holocaust.See Adelaide Institute newsletter No. 20.
- 1993 – on a visit to WELLINGTON and CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, I met a cross-section of New Zealanders who generally held to the 6:4 figure. Any depth of knowledge on this topic managed to focus on the fact that the death figures referred to Jewish deaths. No-one I came across had heard of Franciszek Piper's 1993 published book 'Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz', published by the Auschwitz Museum in Poland. Therein we find a figure of 1.1 million total deaths at Auschwitz. What bothers me with these figures is that Piper claims that 200,000 of the total deaths were registered, while the remainder was unregistered. When I pointed this out to Dr Wheatcroft, he claimed that the Germans immediately herded the unregistered into the homicidal gas chambers. That is why there were so many unregistered deaths, of which to this day there is no trace! This is pure nonsense because nearly a million people do not just disappear into thin air – unless they never existed in the first place. Only on Friday 21 June I saw a TV item about the Belorussian government uncovering a mass grave from World War II in which the victims had been shot in the neck – the typical Soviet Union style of execution. I'm awaiting confirmation of this news item because I could not find any mention of it on our other four TV channels, nor did I find anything in the newspapers. Perhaps you know something about it. If it is a genuine news item, then we can again say that we can go to the Auschwitz site and find the evidence of mass killings and burnings by excavating the whole complex, etc. Such reasoning leads me to believe that the Piper methodology used to arrive at the death figure for Auschwitz is unsound. I cannot accept such methodological approach in reaching a 900 000 death figure because it is possible to look at physical evidence rather than rely on mere speculation.
Further, at the conference no-one had heard of 'The Rudolf Report' wherein its author, Germar Rudolf, claims that the homicidal gassings were a physical and technical impossibility. I actually find this a little hard to believe that the experts in the field are not aware of what Revisionists are doing to push the Auschwitz argument further along. If they are not aware of what Revisionists are doing, then they are incompetent; if they remain silent about them, then these histrians are corrupt. Also at a MELBOURNE seminar, at which Professor Yehuda Bauer was guest speaker, the 6:4 million figure was still about . In fact, some persons claimed that it was a 6 + 4 = 10 million Jewish deaths figure. One participant, who invited me to his home for tea, claimed that he easily escaped from Germany to Switzerland where he qualified as an architect. His qualifications were accepted by the Victorian Education Department for whom he worked until his retirement.
During 1993 Professor Bauer also made an interesting public comment about the 'Wannsee Conference'. For him it is “a silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of Jews was arrived at.” So, Mr McCarthy, isn't it a fact that for too long people have read into documents what wasn't really there at the beginning?
- 1992 – on a visit to Parliament House, CANBERRA, A.C.T.. I was struck by the solid belief in the 6:4 million figure. This in spite of the fact that all parliamentarians received from John Bennett, Australian Civil Liberties Union, a copy of 'The Leuchter Report'. We may be disturbed by Leuchter's claims about being an engineer, Mr McCarthy, but that is of secondary importance. The fact is that he was the first person to physically do something about verifying or falsifying claims made about the Auschwitz homicidal gas chambers. I could not understand the frenzy with which his critics lashed out at him – hounding him in Germany because of what he said. But that's the problem, isn't it. He said some pretty startling things. For example, he claimed that “All things considered, killing six million persons by means of gassing would have taken 68 yars”, and “If the matetr were in fact as claimed, then executions would still have to be taking place today, and would have to continue until the year 2006”. If Leuchter's claims are outrageous, then he discredits himself, and so his claim that “The poison substance Zyklon-B was not used on people at Auschwitz”, need not be feared,i.e. if it is false.
Canberra is also the only city in Australia with a legal pornography video industry. The other Canberra vice is that its youths have a high drug addiction rate.
- 1989 – during a visit to Launceston, Hobart, and Port Arthur, Hobart, Tasmania, the usual response from tourists and from locals was the 6:4 million death figure. As far as I could ascertain, the figure referred to Jewish deaths alone. It was obvious to most persons I met that the second world war had been fought by Hitler to 'specially kill the Jews'. Why did the media not correct this distorted picture? It is a perversion of historical fact to represent the second world war as an exclusively antisemitic, and anti-Jewish war – the elimination of European Jewry. I see such claims as being a perversion of historical facts. What has to be borne in mind is that the Nazis and Zionists collaborated in establishing the State of Israel. This explains why the Zionists and the Nazis collaborated so well on the task of moving European Jews into Palestine. Mr McCarthy, have you read Leni Brenner's book on this topic? It's called 'Zionism in the Age of the Dictators'. During this year Professor Yehuda Bauer was again busy correcting the Asuchwitz picture, claiming the four million figure was wrong. The Auschwitz death book registers, obtained from the former Soviet Union archives in Moscow, listed 74,000 deaths. None of this information has been pumped into the public domain as have the alleged attrocity stories. Why not? I am reminded that as late as 1994 Professor Lipstadt loudly proclaimed that there is nothing to debate about the Holocaust. Mr McCarthy, it is good to see that you have opened yourself to a debate – admittedly carrying the orthodox Holocaust line.
- 1988 – in BRISBANE, Queensland at the World Expo Fair, the 6:4 figure was alive and hotly defended by those who were enjoying the atmosphere in an 'all German' beer tent. I met one businessman who knew something about Zundel's second Holocaust trial. Mr John Bennett in MELBOURNE single-handedly had distributed copies of 'The Leuchter Report' to all Australian media outlets, libraries, politicians and prominent Australians.
- 1987 At Deakin University, WARRNAMBOOL, students and staff whom I randomly canvassed about the 6:4 million death figure, claimed it referred to Jewish deaths. At HORSHAM, Victoria, during British historian David Irving's visit, the 6:4 million figure was held to be true by most people present at the meeting. Irving's book 'Churchill's War' upset some persons who could not imagine that Churchill had a very dark side to his character.
- 1986 – in country Victoria during business trips, the 6:4 million death figure made vague sense to some. My general impression was that few people cared about the death figures. What was commonly held was that the Germans killed many Jews during World War II in homicidal gas chambers. However, the gas chamber and the creamtory ovens were fused into the 'gas oven'. Pictures of crematory ovens were understood to be gas ovens. Generally, though, country living had its own problems without having to worry about an event that happened in Europe over forty years ago. On the radio journalist and broadcaster, Mark Aaarons, began to crank up a waning interest in the war crimes concept by broadcasting a series of programs which dealt with Nazi atrocities commited in eastern Europe.
- 1985 – during a visit to LONDON I noticed business associates shied away from discussing the 6:4 million deaths figure. However, during a visit to one of the pubs the ensuing discussion did raise a vague 4 million death figure. No one had heard of Professor Raul Hilberg mentioning on 16 January, at the Zundel Trial, that there was no blueprint nor a basic plan which accompanied the destruction of European Jewry.
- 1984 – in SINGAPORE and KUALA-LUMPAR, Malaysia, talking to all racial groups yielded no definitive figure for Jewish deaths. The first Zundel trial in TORONTO did not feature in any conversation.
- 1983 – during an English Language conference in CANBERRA, A.C.T., the 6:4 million deaths figure was alive. One person wished to eliminate the ratio and claim that 10 million Jews died in Europe during the second world war. Inevitably when, during seminar sessions, the death figures for Auschwitz were mentioned, it was assumed that the four million referred to four million Jewish deaths. I also opposed the view that because of Auschwitz literature had lost its meaning. The soap and lampshade stories were still accepted as founded on fact rather than on propaganda.
- 1982 – during a visit to AMSTERDAM and PARIS, the general conversation among locals and tourists was a strong belief in the 4 million deaths figure for Auschwitz. I heard people say quite specifically that this figure referred to Jewish deaths at Auschwitz.
- 1981 – At MINNA, Nigeria, among educated and traditional Nigerians, little interest was shown for the Jewish-Nazi Holocaust. Too many still remembered the Nigerian civil war and its legacy, namely that it did not stop the “bribery and tribary and corruption at the top”. Other Nigerians recalled how their forefathers were shipped to America by Jewish-owned slave trading ships.
- 1980 – during a visit to CAPE TOWN and JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, a lively discussion about the Jewish death figure was not unusual. At the universities I found both extreme views represented: under a million and over ten million Jewish deaths. It all depended whether you spoke to an Afrikans or English-speaking person, and then it mattered whether the person was Jewish or not. At that time many Jews had still not left South Africa. There was a saying in Southern Africa at that time: “When the Jews leave, there is still time time. When the Indians leave, it's too late.”
- 1979 – at NAIROBIE and in Kenya generally, especially among German tourists, the 6:4 million deaths figure was a topic of conversation. In the markets the locals didn't care about Auschwitz. In June, Pope John Paul II had blessed the four million victims at AUSCHWITZ, and Dr Wilhelm Staglich's book: THE AUSCHWITZ MYTH was published in Germany. In France, Professor Robert Faurisson stated to LA MONDE: “The Hitler gas chambers never existed. The genocide of the Jews never took place. Hitler never gave an order or permission that nayone should be killed because of his race or religion. The alleged gas chambers and the alleged genocide are one and the same lie. This lie, which is largely of Zionist origin, has made possible an enormous political and financial fraud whose principal beneficiary is the State of Israel.” Now we know that both Faurisson and Staglich have suffered terribly for daring to express their views about Auschwitz. It is not good enough for me to hear the excuse that because these HOLOCAUST HERETICS have offended the millions dead, they deserve to be persecuted. What is your view on this matter, Mr McCarthy?
- 1978 – at the University of Rhodesia, SALISBURY – now Harare, Zimbabwe – among staff and students the 6:4 million deaths figure floated about. It was alive among those students who had Jewish connections. Few, if any, non-white students had any interset in the topic. There were more serious matters to consider than worry about what happened in Europe during the second world war.
- 1977 – during a visit to WINDHOEK and SWAKOPMUND, South West Africa – now Namibia – I received from the Europeans (especially the tourists from Germany) a split response. There were those who believed the 6:4 million deaths figure referred to Jewish deaths only. Then there were a few characters who told me “the whole gas chamber story is rubbish”. These 'characters' had served in the German army during the war. Professor Arthur Butz's THE HOAX OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY was published but it received no mention in South West Africa among the people I met during my stay there.
- 1976 – during a visit to MADRID, BARCELONA, etc. the whole issue concerning Jewish deaths was not alive among the people I met. There was interest in hammering the nasty communists and lamenting Franco's death.
- 1975 – at the University of STUTTGART, especially during faculty meetings (Geisteswissenschaften) a particular Dr Rothschild would strut about the room accusing all sorts of people for being Nazis or neo-Nazis. Faculty members usually cowered in silence while Rothschild ranted and raved in his attempt to “expose Nazis in academia”. Anyone who attempted to contradict him would quickly be silenced with the 6:4 million deaths figure. Perhaps Dr Rothschild was aware of the fact that Richard Harwoood had just published his DID SIX MILLION REALLY DIE?
- 1974 – at the Univeristy of OXFORD the 6:4 million deaths figure was well entrenched among staff and students. It was considered bad taste to cast any doubt on the orthodox view that “millions and millions of Jews were gassed by the Germans during the second world war”.
- 1973 – at CLUJ UNIVERISTY, Rumania, any questioning of W.W.II history quickly evoked the official communist line that Nazi Germany had killed many millions of people in an aggressive war. On a particular day I had an interesting experience at the University cafeteria. I was late for breakfast and as I sat down at a table a very slim male student sitting with a very fat female student stared at me. I responded with a smile. Upon this the young man jumped out of his seat and cried out: “I don't like you!”
I expressed silent astonishment and began my breakfast. Upon this the student jumped out of his seat and with finger pointed at me cried out again, “I don't like you. You're a Jew.” He then ran out of the cafeteria. Later I was consoled by some of his friends who advised me that the student had been badly treated at his home in Gaza by Israeli police. No one I met at CLUJ or in BUCHAREST mentioned or even knew that Thies Christophersen had published his AUSCHIWTZ: TRUTH OR LIES.
- 1972 – in MUNICH during the Olympic Games, the Israeli sports team massacre fuelled memories of the Jewish-Nazi Holocaust. The 6:4 million deaths figure was part of any discussion after the massacre and much public sympathy flowed to the relatives of those killed at Munich. At DACHAU I viewed the alleged gas chamber, then at a bus stop I met an old lady who told me that no-one had ever been gassed by the Nazis. She claimed that Dachau had been re-built after the war and “many things aren't right there.” At TEL AVIV and JERUSALEM and elsewhere in Israel, I felt the official Holocaust line hanging in the air – especially among the older citizens. The young were too busy making sense of the present. At the Tel Aviv University I had a disussion with a number of people. One person who had just arrived in the country from New York, proposed a settlement to the Middle East conflict: “America in Israel and Russia in Egypt”, he excitedly proclaimed, “will solve all problems.” A young man born in Israel contradicted him. “We don't want outsiders to settle our disputes with the Arabs. We feel like them, we think like them, we speak like them. They are our brothers,” he exclaimed. The New Yorker left the discussion in a huff. [I again predict that as soon as Israel has safe borders, the homicidal gas chamber story will fall by the wayside.]
- 1971 – on a visit to LENINGRAD – now St Petersburg – KIEV and MOSCOW, I heard little of the Jewish death figures but more of the Soviet Union's heavy losses during the war. Interestingly, there was no mention of the Jewish-Bolshevik slaughter of millions or Stalin's reign of terror. All the evil had come from Hitler and his Nazis – according to the official state ideology.
- 1970 – in VANCOUVER, Canada, on the beaches I found that talk centred around the worry of finding the money to finance drug habits. Similarily in SAN FRANCISCO no-one cared about anything that was a day old. It was the moment that mattered – but not for me!
- 1969 – at the University of AUCKLAND, New Zealand, a vague figure of 6:4 may have been about. It was more of an indefinite “millions” expressed in such emotional terms that any further rational thought became impossible.
- 1968 – in the South Island of New Zealand, at DUNEDIN, INVERCARGILL, etc. I found little interest in the Jewish death figures. It was commonly held that millions of people died during the second world war. There was no great public interest in things specifically Jewish. No one I came across was familliar with Gerald Reitlinger's THE FINAL SOLUTION.
- 1967 – at Victoria University of WELLINGTON, New Zealand, some interest was found in discussing death figures. What was generally accepted as fact was that the Germans had been very cruel to the Jews during the second world war. “Many Jews had been killed by the Germans”, was a claim I heard from Jews who had themselves come from Russia via China to New Zealand.
- 1966 – in SYDNEY, I gained the impression that very few people were interested in the specific Jewish component of the suffering caused by the second world war. In the clubs it was more of an anger directed at the Japanese for having caused suffering to Australian soldiers.
- 1963 – 65 while at the University of MELBOURNE, not once did I hear about the gassings of Jews. Surprisingly, not even as a member of the Jewish Club did I hear anyone discuss the 6:4 million deaths figure. That there were general war deaths and terrible attrocities committed during the war, in particular at the various concentration camps, was accepted as a given fact. Any accusations flowing from this fact and levelled at the Germans, was accepted by them. However, it was possible to reduce the guilt felt by pointing to attrocities perpetrated by the Allies. The uniqueness of the Jewish-Nazi Holocaust had not established itself within the public domain, as it has thirty years late, in 1996.
And so, in spite of: a) the Adolf Eichman hanging in Jerusalem in 1962; b) the appearance of Paul Rassinier's LE DRAME DES JUIFS EUROPEANS in 1964; c) the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, which began on 3 April 1964, the actual 6:4 million deaths figure was not readily available within our community in Australia.
Perhaps we ought also to recall that Pope Paul VI visited Israel and the then divided city of Jerusalem in January 1964. Who still recalls that it was then 28 year-old King Hussain of Jordan who personally directed the Pope's Alitalia flight into Amman Airport?
My concern with the Auschwitz death figure lies in the unwillingness of historians to grasp the nettle and come clean on this issue. It is a total cop-out now to blame the Soviet-Polish political bureaucracy for having held to the four million deaths figure for so long. Even the total number of six million Jewish deaths needs to be drastically revised. Why is this not being done by so-called reputable historians? Australia's own Dr Stephen Wheatcroft claims that numbers don't matter when you talk about the homicidal gas chamber killings. He is wrong to make such statements because he thereby blocks enquiry on a very important topic: How many people died in so-called homicidal gas chambers? Some Revisionists, like Professors Butz and Faurisson state that no-one died in homicidal gas chambers because the Germans did not operate such chemical slaughterhouses.
It would be ideal to have an open public discussion on this topic. Whether my contribution will advance the numbers problem is debatable. What I have done in the above Chronology is to bring my personal, subjective reasoning processess into play. Certainly for myself, I have clarified the issue. I have concluded that the Jewish deaths number is not six million – and we need to open the archives which have remained closed to so-called Revisionist historians. Why?
(3) Your next detailed communication concerns itself with the Blueprints of Genocide.
I have now viewed the material found at:
http://www.almanac.bc.ca/cgi bin/ftp.pl?camps/auschwitz/documents/pressac/bau-
1.0932-detail.jpg
2.0932-commentary
3.2003-deller.jpg
4.2003-keller.detail.jpg
5.2003-erdgeschoss-detail.jpg
6.2003-commentary
I am familiar with the Pressac plans which I viewed at the University of Melbourne library with Associate, Mr Geoffrey Muirden, and at the University of Adelaide library with Associate, Mr David Brockschmidt.
We had no problem in concluding that these plans do not prove that the mortuaries were converted into homicidal gas chambers. I cannot accept your argument, Mr McCarthy, that at the architects' trial in Austria, the prosecution could not properly read these plans 'of genocide'. Plans speak for themselves – unless, of course , we wish to read into them a function which the architects never contemplated.
I am happy to say that Professor Robert-Jan van Pelt has also advised me that his book on Auschwitz, co-writen with Deborah Dwork: 'Auschwitz: 1270 to the present', to be published in August 1996, has reproduced these blueprints.
Unfortunatley, Mr McCarthy, these plans do not prove to me that a mortuary was turned into a homicidal gas chamber. What is visible on the plans should speak for itself. Pressac's commentary cannot prove that either. For example, statements such as: 'a chute was replaced by stairs' or 'the doors were changed from opening inward to outward, airtight doors with a peep-hole were installed', do not prove anything. So what, Mr McCarthy? Carlo Matogno claims that the exhaust system was renewed and a newer but less powerful system replaced the older more powerful eshaust system. It doesn't add up, and this is where I see Michael Shermer's convergence theory not offering convincing proof. I would rather approach this with Sir Karl Popper's principle of theory falsification rather than adopt Shermer's method because the latter's method leads to dogmatic-ideological structures. Why? Because a good dialectically schooled mind can prove anything! Our search becomes a word-game, a mental process which does not make contact with the real physical world. How many angels fit on a pin-head? was a favourite scholastic exercise designed to solve the universal problem – but it didn't prove whether angels actually existed in this world. We need to get back to some physical contact with the real world. That is why Dr Michael Shermer could not rise to the occasion afforded him by Proffessor Robert Faurisson's challenge: 'draw me or show me a homicidal gas chamber'. I believe that we must use the plans that you have of the mortuary – which you believe is proof of a conversion – then re-construct from them an actual model. Once we have this model constructed, Mr McCarthy, then we can use eyewitness testimony to reconstruct actual gassing exercises. This whole process would naturally be a simulation. As a guide we would use not THE LEUCHTER REPORT but rather the far more sophisticated RUDOLF REPORT.
See our website for material relating to Germar Rudolf:
http://www.adam.com.au/~fredadin/adins.html [now at http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/trr/; ed.]
It would be of critical importance to have an international panel of scientists who would be prepared to go through with such an experiment. Mr McCarthy, I believe that THE RUDOLF REPORT actually proves the homicidal gassing story is false. But let me not be dogmatic about my belief either. I must confess that I am not an industrial chemist and I do not have the expertise to evaluate the techinical data any experiment would generate. However, I am well versed enough in research matters to know when someone is fiddling the books about an experiment so that a desired outcome is achived. I do not care whether the experiment will prove or disprove the homicidal gas chamber hypothesis. I want this fifty year nonsense conflict of whether Germans did or did not kill people in homicidal gas chambers to come to an end – and it can be brought to an end. you have made a great contribution to the Holocaust debate. So has ADELAIDE INSTITUTES's Mr David Brockschmidt when he challenged Skeptic's editor, Professor Michael Shermer's convergence theory. [Adelaide Institute newsletter No. 22]
I believe that we are wasting valuable time by discussing the details. Pressac wrote his book and he could not prove the existence of homicidal gas chambers. Faurssion wrote a condemnatory critique of Pressac's book and had to face court charges. Where is the logic in all this kind of behaviour, Mr McCarthy? Pressac is permitted to write books about the homicidal gas chamber allegations and when Faurisson refutes such claims, he is hauled before the French courts. We must re-construct the actual homicidal gas chambers. In this way we are also responding to Professor Robert Faurisson's challenge: 'Show me or draw me a gas chamber'. Shermer flippantly rejected Faurisson's challenge. Mr McCarthy, we are at a point in the Holocaust Debate where we can actually draw upon some physical evidence – the plans. The next step is to use these plans, not merely talk about them, but rather let the plans talk to us. Any architectural plan will speak for itself – and I am anxious to hear what these plans have to say.
What bothers me about these plans is that they are still held in the Russian archives and have not been made available to the general public. No mainstream historian has grasped them and it was left to a non historian, an industrial chemist, J.C. Pressac to publish them in a book which is not available in the general bookstores. You have made these plans available by scanning them from Pressac's book into the net. For that you must be congratulated.
In conclusion, Mr McCarthy, let me say again that I wish we can begin to make these plans talk and not have people talk about them. I would like to see mainstream historians use them when they tackle the homicidal gas chamber debate rather than regurgitate worn arguments from those who support or reject the homicidal gas chamber story.
I am looking forward to August when the latest book about Auschwitz will be published by W.W.Norton, New York. It's called AUSCHWITZ: 1270 TO THE PRESENT and is written by Deborah Dwork and Professor Robert-Jan van Pelt. Let's hope it will be more definitive than Pressac's work. Above all, let's hope it will be available in the bookshops.
Sincerely,
Fredrick Toben
Further Response to Jamie McCarthy
Dear Mr McCarthy
I have just had time to review my response to your open letter and I note that I failed to account for the years 1991 and 1990. Perhaps you can post the following on your site:
1991 – during the Australian War Crimes Trials at Adelaide, the minimum figure still stood at 6:4 million Jewish deaths. This despite the fact that The Advertiser had the previous year carried a tiny item in its pages wherein it was announced that the Auschwitz concentration camp commemorative plaques carrying the 4 million death figure had been removed.
1990 – within Melbourne's legal circles the 6:4 death figure was generally held to be true. Only those lawyers who had made contact with their colleague, Mr John Bennett, would have been aware that “the figures and the story kept on changing”.
In July, the plaques carrying the 4 million figure were removed and Professor Shmuel Krakowski, Yad Vashem, admitted that the sopa story was not true. None of this information filtered through into Australian society at large. certainly within the education sectors the 6:4 million figure still stood.
Mr McCarthy, I would welcome from you the next question or questions. After all, as soon as I posted you my last response Rabbi Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre became active with his hounding hate-talk. We are now being investigated by our Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission because our Zionist Federation of Australia has lodged a complaint against us. Note that Rabbi Cooper came in with his complaint before the latter.
I now have a question for you, Mr McCarthy:
Now do you evaluate what Israel Shahak writes in his Jewish History, Jewish Religion – The weight of three thousand years?
I do hope you will oblige me with a detailed response so that I too can post your response on our site.
Sincerely
Fredrick Toben
Adelaide Institute
POBox 3300
Norwood – 5067
Australia
[email protected]
Dear Mr McCarthy
Further to my letter of a few hours ago, I now note that in my chronology I also failed to account for 1988 :
1988 – in Brisbane at the World Expo Fair the 6:4 million figure was alive and hotly defended by those who were enjoying the atmosphere in an 'all-German' beer tent. I met one businessman who knew something about Zundel's second Holocaust trial.
Meanwhile, Mr John Bennett in Melbourne single-handedly seeded all Australia's media outlets, libraries, politicians and other prominent Australians with copies of The Leuchter Report.
Mr McCarthy, I also checked on your site: http://www.almanac.bc.ca/other-sites/correspondence, but I could not find my letter there. Perhaps I have the wrong URL. Please advise on this matter. Fortunately for those who are following your letter site, the CODOH site has given our correspondence some prominence.
I do hope that you will also oblige me with a response to the various questions I have asked of you throughout my letter to you.
Sincerely,
Fredrick Toben
Adelaide Institute
POBox 3300
Norwood 5067
Australia
[email protected]
Fredrick Toben replies to Jamie McCarthy's response of 2 September 1996
In the realm of the doubters: a fireside monologue addressed to Mr Jamie McCarthy of Nizkor – never forget – Project
6 October 1996
Dear Mr McCarthy
I have now had time to consider your response and I must apologize for the number of typographical errors you found in my material. For these errors I shall not blame a typist, my secretary nor my webmaster. All the same, I do not think the substance of my response has suffered therefrom.
I must also apologize for being a little late with this response. I have just returned from a stay in the country – a most delightful experience to once again be exposed to the elements. I find this a most humbling experience because the natural forces are still 'doing their thing' without my presence having any effect on them. Also, animal and bird life reveals itself to be instinct-driven. When on the farm ,I walked along the airstrip and passed a large gum tree wherein a magpies had built their nests. With their fledglings not quite able to protect themselves from their natural enemies, the adult magpies would attack anything that ventured too close to the home-base. These birds will defend to the death their territory and their young. Interestingly, once the external enemy disappears they begin to squabble amongst themselves. Oh, so human!
This reminded me of the situation currently prevailing in Germany. There, Gunter Deckert, a patriot who believes he has the right to defend his home territory, has been imprisoned because he doubts the official version of the Holocaust I is not prepared to be dictated to in such matters and he asks probing questions about the Auschwitz concentration camp which others find offensive. His refusal to shut up and stop challenging the official Auschwitz dogma has landed him behind bars.
Now, when there is no external enemy, all those who are dialectically schooled – and not imbued with the Kantian Categorical Imperative – will have to find one, invent and setup an enemy. This is why the dialecticians are, in my view, somewhat primitive and culturally unsophisticated. They need the thrusting – which is good in itself – but only if this is modified and tempered by a cultural appreciation which ultimately has as its goal a search for truth – in our case, a search for truth in history.
There is no sense in scoring against individuals, for example, against you, Mr McCarthy. I was tempted to call you all sorts of names when I realized you had sunk to the level where labeling your opponents rather than looking at their arguments becomes a prime motive.
You have called us antisemitic – that's really sad because by doing this you have closed your mind to impulses which could help you to discover deeper truths about the alleged homicidal gas chambers.
I could call you an anti-German racist and a German-hater because that is exactly what you are doing by holding on to the homicidal gas chamber story – without proof!
But I shall not label you a hater because I thereby short-circuit our interaction – and that will not help us to find the truth.
Have you read John Dipple's 'Bound Upon A Wheel Of Fire – Why so many Jews made the tragic decision to remain in Nazi Germany' ? His argument is that German Jews had reached assimilation to the point of invisibility. Secularization and an aging factor was causing the Jews to die out in Germany. It was Hitler who reactivated their sense of Jewishness. This is a most interesting premise because it opens up the argument about the influence Zionism had on what happened during World War II.
Further, I have become aware of the controversy raging between the Polish and Jewish communities in America and Australia where the former is claiming that Eichmann, Goebbels, Himmler, etc. all had Jewish ancestry. So what you ask? Well, if the dying out of the group is a fact, then somehow a revival mechanism needs to be activated so that a new breeding program can begin which will ensure the survival of the group. I am deliberately not using race in this instance because in my view the Jewish people are not a race. Hence the use of the term Semitic – or antisemitic – presents definitive problems for me. It includes the whole Arab peoples as well. As David Irving recently popularized in Australia through his media interview: An antisemite is someone who is not liked by the Jews.
The Story Keeps On Changing
For half a century the Allies and their German collaborators have attempted to hold on to the premise that Germany committed massive war crimes. Here is how Professor Robert Faurisson put it to me on 17 September 1996:
What Is War?
War is butchery
Who is the victor?
The best butcher.
How can the best butcher then
criticize the other butchers
who don't measure up to his
excellence?
The only valid criticism to make of
Germany's role in the war is that it was
either a good or bad butcher.
To bring moral-ethical considerations
into the judgment, denies the fact that
war itself is a crime.
The best criminal cannot criticize others
for not being good criminal!
If there is no victor crime, then there is
no Nazi crime;
If there is no Nazi crime, then there is
no German crime.
Mr McCarthy, can you accept the above thoughts as making a valid points in our discussion?
I view the above as highlighting your one-sided project : Nizkor – never forget – Project. Surely, if you are truly concerned about justice, then surely you ought to begin to investigate the crimes committed by Jewish Pole, Solomon Morel, against German prisoners of war. Have you read John Sack's An Eye for an Eye? If not, why not?
We intend to broaden then whole war-crimes debate – your 'never forget' message – to include the crimes committed by the Allies. If we do not do this, then your work as well as ours will rightly be seen to be biased and anti-intellectual – and intellectually dishonest. If we do not talk to those who have an opposing point-of-view, then we are ideologues who believe in the mutual back-slapping feel-good society. I do not want to be a part of such movements.
For half a century the world has talked about German war crimes, the most serious one being the allegation that Germans systematically exterminated European Jewry in specially constructed huge chemical slaughterhouses called homicidal gas chambers.
In the recent past – early 1990s – non-historians such as Pressac, Fleming and van Pelt, have claimed that they could prove the thesis of the homicidal gassings. They used the mortuary construction plans of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Krematorium II, and claimed that therein specific conversions proved conclusively that the Germans converted the mortuary into a homicidal gas chamber.
Of immediate interest to us is the fact that this so-called new evidence has been around for a long time. All that was needed to bring it into the public's gaze was for non-historians like Pressac, Fleming and van Pelt to come along and correctly interpret these construction plans.
This, to my mind, is stretching the limits of anyone's rational credibility lust a little too far. After half a century we are now led to believe that the final clinching proof that homicidal gas chambers existed, has finally surfaced in the form of plans that have been around for almost half a century!
I believe, Mr McCarthy, that we can justifiably dismiss such claims. I am saying this in the knowledge that anyone is free to believe that Germans exterminated European Jewry in homicidal gas chambers . We are free to believe anything. But it's a different matter when such a claim moves from a mere belief to an assertion that it is a proven fact, an historical fact. Then it is up to those who make such an assertion to unequivocally prove their claims.
It is not good enough to point to an entry in an inventory of Krema II which, according to my source is a hand-written entry, that lists a 'gas-tight door with a peep-hole'.
Here, again, Professor Faurisson's simple dictum is so telling:
“Show me or draw me a homicidal gas chamber.”
To my knowledge this, to date, has not been done. Instead, what we do have is another one of those reports which move the argument away from the talk-fest atmosphere and place it firmly into the realm of forensic science.
Germar Rudolf, the young industrial chemist who is now a political refugee from his native Germany on account of having written The Rudolf Report [The 120-page Report is available to anyone who can read German [since 2003 also available in English; ed.]].
Following on from Leuchter – and contrary what you have said about The Leuchter Report – Rudolf confirms the essence of Leuchter's evidence, namely that had the mortuaries been used as homicidal gas chambers, then there ought to be traces of Zyklon-B found in the walls, as is the case in buildings where the delousing chambers were used.
Interestingly, those who have criticized Leuchter – are not experts in the field of chemical analysis. I must confess that I lack expertise in this field, but Germar Rudolf doesn't. His argument, however, is convincing. Have you read his report, Mr McCarthy? If not, why not?
The Jewish-Nazi Holocaust discussion has now reached another watershed with this Rudolf Report – and anyone who clings to the homicidal gas chamber story must effectively refute the 120-page report. From memory, I think, about just as many professors of chemistry in Germany confirm that Rudolf's findings cannot be faulted. Naturally these professors would not comment on the implication his report has on the homicidal gassing story. It is not surprising, therefore, that the German judiciary began to hound Germar Rudolf and his wife and two young babies out of Germany into political exile. That's the consequence faced by German Holocaust heretics Any comment on that, Mr McCarthy?
The Four Million Figure
A more recent example of how the story keeps on changing is, of course, the four million deaths claim for Auschwitz concentration camp. In my response to you I referred to the entry in The Reader's Digest Universal Dictionary of 1988.
As late as 1990 the late Heinz Galinski, head of the Jews in Germany, claimed that four million people died at Auschwitz – Allgemeine Judische Wochenzeitung, 26 July 1990, p.1.
Similarly, German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, stated that four million people died at Auschwitz – Die Welt, 27 January 1995, p.3.
You claim that I have tied together the 6:4 million figure in a “rhetorical trick”. No, Mr McCarthy, I don't have to rely on tricks – that would tax my energy too much because to date I have always put things the way I see them. I would have to become like those who are defending the IT HAPPENED story. We at Adelaide Institute do not defend lies and fabrications because that would rob us of energy. After I complete this response , I shall enjoy listening to some Mozart, Beethoven and Wagner – much more delightful than working on this material.
The fact that the homicidal gas chamber story is now aired on the Internet will benefit us all. Remember how the survivor eyewitness accounts used to be wildly all over the place? Now the views are being standardized through instant communications. That is why perhaps Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Elie Wiesel, opted for the wrong version of the IT HAPPENED story when it was in its infancy during the 1950s. Do you recall this so-called credible witness claiming in his 1958 novel La Nuit, that the Germans killed people by burning them in open pits?
The other version of how the Germans killed their prisoners was by boiling them in water, through electricity and, of course, by gassing them. So, as late as 1958 the gassing story had not emerged as the clear victor in the field of competing versions. That was to happen at the 1962 Jerusalem Eichmann Trial and the 1964 Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial.
Today the other three versions have almost been forgotten and the current version has as its premise that huge chemical slaughterhouses existed. Interestingly, Max Freilich, one of Australia's leading Zionists wrote his memoirs in 1967, Zion in our Time, and he mentions the whole matter in general terms only:
“But for the Jews of Europe it was a year (1943) of mass murder, of the gas chambers and of the carrying into effect of the avowed genocide policy of the barbaric Hitler regime” p.112
Bergen-Belsen is mentioned but I could not find any mention of Auschwitz. What I did find was the mention of the 'Transfer Agreement' (Haavarah) between the German government and the World Zionist Executive:
“The agreement made it possible for German Jews to transfer their assets on their emigration to Palestine”.
Only recently at the University of Adelaide we heard a retired history professor, Dr Heinz Kent, deny that there ever existed such an Agreement!
What do you think of Elie Wiesel as a credible witness? I would be pleased to have your critical comments on this man's writings. It was this man who in a letter to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 November 1986, stated that historians must not give up the concept that the Nazi-Jewish Holocaust was a unique event in history. Earlier that year, on 8 April 1986, West German Chancellor, Dr Kohl, also stated that the uniqueness of the murder of millions of Jews must never be forgotten, repressed or trivialized. President von Weizsacker expressed similar sentiments. Now, after the politicians Kohl and Weiszacker had had their say, it was the turn of court historian – whom David Irving has called a liar and a falsifier – Professor Eberhard Jackel, then at the University of Stuttgart. In a letter to Die Zeit, dated 12 September 1986, he stated ( my translation):
“…that the national socialist's murder of the Jews is unique because never before had a state with the express authority of its leader made public that a certain ethnic group, including old people , women, children and infants be killed ( restlos zu toeten), and that, using all available state powers, the decision be carried out in practice.”
Notice that it was only after the politicians and the court historian had made their public utterances that 'the power behind the throne' came to have his say – in the guise of Elie Wiesel. That's how it's done, Mr McCarthy – and David Irving has now exposed the pattern by having gained this proof in writing.
Fortunately others are also now waking up, especially many Germans are now not frightened any more to speak out and even go to prison or pay hefty fines. This repressive method of silencing people will not hold back an open debate on this most interesting topic. If people are fined, imprisoned or forced into political exile all because of refusing to be silenced, then the political authorities have a great problem on their hands. The only way to solve it is by permitting open and unrestricted debate of the topic.
Interestingly, it was establishment historian, Professor Ernst Nolte, who began the 1986 debate in Germany. On 6 June 1986 the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung printed an article of his wherein he dared to suggest that German historians widen their rather restricted historical focus of pre-World War II and World War II. This would, so he claimed, liberate the historians from the one-sided nature of the historical debate which in his view was too black-white.
He pointed out that the claim of uniqueness could be offset by looking at the Bolshevik-Stalinist-Gulag Holocaust. Inevitably, neo-Marxist professor, Jurgen Habermass. Heir to the Frankfurter Schule of Ardorno and Horkheimer – the gurus of German reeducation – opposed any such discussion. Interestingly, Habermass, like Pressac, van Pelt, Lipstadt, Fleming, et al., are all non-historians. I don't know about you, Mr McCarthy – are you historically trained?
This propagation of a one-dimensional view of World War II history we oppose because it creates dogmatic world views that run counter to scientific enquiry, and therefore is anti-intellectual.
To date the only material that is available to German historians is that which incriminates them. It is not even permitted to point out the good things that happened under the National Socialists. Yes, Mr McCarthy, I hear and see you frown in glee – but does my saying this make me a Nazi sympathizer?
I couldn't care less what you call me because you have already labeled me, thereby indicating to the world that you have problems in working yourself independently through contentious material towards a balanced view of things.
This one-sided view, of course, stems from your =never forget= dogma. I hasten to add that no one should forget their dead and this means that Germans have a right to remember the blessed memory of those millions of dead ( and living) German soldiers and civilians who served their state during World War II. A nation that does not honor its dead will do no honor to its perception of its own history. It is the ability to know your own dark and light sides that matters. To date the German historical record is totally twisted – and it is twisting the minds of the German people who are ever willing to open their wallets to those who continue to make unjustified claims on them.
Anti-German Racism and Hatred at The University of Adelaide
As a brief aside let me mention the fact that your material was distributed on the final day of a five part session called Hitler's Germany: Will History Repeat?
Dr Heinz Kent's sessions were nothing but anti-German. racism and hatred One participant, Mr Fred Steiner, our local Holocaust-Auschwitz survivor, even asked me why I had not as yet replied to your questions. I invited him to help out my webmaster, something he declined with a smile.
So, Mr McCarthy, you are providing a valuable service for those who believe in the gassing story.
Unfortunately you also mislead. How can you label Mr David Brockschmidt's letter to World Jewry as an example of antisemitism? Have you read the Babylonian Talmud? If not, why not?
1. Specific response to your 2 September 1996 letter
It worries me to see a recorded death figure which claims these deaths are 'unrecorded', i.e. the victims were herded straight into the homicidal gas chambers. Under the pretext of going into a shower – which is a fact – these people were asked to undress – which is another fact – and then were packed tightly into the homicidal gas chamber – which is an unproven assertion.
We claim that even if these victims' deaths were not recorded, then we can go back to railway transportation documents. If these are missing, then we can go back to the local community records. To this day all Germans have their residence recorded at their local police station.
To claim, as some historians do – Piper, et al, – that the 900,000, approx., unregistered death figure is accurate, is a bad joke!
I now ask: Where is the proof that one million people, approx., were gassed at Auschwitz?
Further, hot on the heel of this question is my other one: Where is the proof that six million Jews were killed during World War II?
If the “emotional” four million has been reduced – since 1990 – then surely the original six million ought to be lowered to two million.. Or am I to believe that the original six million figure was actually ten million?
You see, Mr McCarthy, such numbers games does not convince me that very much is true about this whole sorry story.
This is why I value our instant communications network. If an error creeps into someone's work, then this will become known very soon.
We must, however, be aware of the fact that in today's world we have people who have a vested interest in propagating all sorts of things – because a financial grant is attached to them towing the official line. An example of this is the AIDS issue. Professor Peter Duesberg's claims that Gallo's research findings were never properly refereed by his peers, and that his HIV=AIDS hypothesis was quickly adopted by the health bureaucracy, and thereby raised to an official dogma . Anyone who now wishes to challenge this dogma will soon find out that funding is only available to those who believe in the HIV=AIDS hypothesis. Dissenters are not welcomed at conferences either because if the premise of the hypothesis is questioned, then perhaps Duesberg's thesis may gain some ground and solve the problem of AIDS. What is his theory all about? The condition referred to as AIDS is a result of high levels of drug toxicity which breaks down the body's immune system. A simple solution which would, however, raise questions about a person's lifestyle – and that's not on, is it?
So, too, the claim that Germans killed millions of people in homicidal gas chambers. This claim needs to be rigorously looked at without fear of persecution.
Is this persecution, as you claim Mr McCarthy, necessary to prevent the rise of Nazism? What was Nazism all about, Mr McCarthy? Can we not objectively look at it – without immediately linking it to Wagner's music and from there to Auschwitz?
Let's look at some of the good points of National Socialism without you labeling us antisemite, as you already have.
Ernst Zündel, who unashamedly has looked at the good aspects of National Socialism and doesn't mind if someone labels him a Nazi, has had to suffer because of his belief. Why? What has he done to people that justifies such criminal treatment? Just because he is a Holocaust Heretic? Mr McCarthy, there are people who have tried to kill Mr Zündel. Why? What is his message that so upsets people? Is he in possession of a truth that people fear because they have been living on a lie for too long?
Similarly with David Irving. Forget the character bit. I'm not interested in his personal life nor in how he has been framed by individuals using government agencies to get at him. What is so disturbing about his message – what is it that has governments around the world fearing his physical presence? Where is his ammunition, Mr McCarthy? What is he killing? In my view he is killing lies – and that's a worthy and noble thing to do.
What if all this is a massive hoax, Mr McCarthy? The compassion barometer seems to rise as the level of compensation rises. Would you have the courage to come out into the open and admit to yourself that all this business is, as Professor Buts believes, a gigantic hoax ? Could you admit to yourself that you had been fooled all these years into believing that the story of the gassings was true? Too many people stick to their belief systems, especially when old age hits them and their mental capacities fade. To believe is comforting while to think is a painful activity.
The above thoughts adequately justify why we ought to lift the taboo on this vexed historical topic – and open up the archives where the truth still lies. It is silly to give Professor Gerald Fleming and a handful of researchers a look into the archives on Auschwitz. This immediately opens up the claim that the authorities are hiding something and that files have to be sanitized.
Also Mr McCarthy, it is not helpful for you to use in your research the words antisemitic, anti-Jewish, haters, etc. By labeling your perceived enemy thus, you are blocking intellectual impulses which could very well open up your perception of a problematic topic.
2. The Irving $1,000 offer
I don't know whether British historian David Irving's offer is still open. Note, though, he is asking for conversion which neither Pressac nor you have provided.
To my knowledge no reputable historian is willing to touch these plans, then pass them off as actual conversion plans. Do you know any historian who has made specific reference to these plans? See my response to this matter below.
3. Misleading claims on Adelaide Institute Homepage
Yes, Mr McCarthy, your claim that homicidal gas chambers existed at Auschwitz is just that – your claim. It is your word against mine – and you offer no compelling evidence to support your claim. It does not help your argument to brand your opponents as antisemitic and Holocaust-denier.
I shall ask our webmaster to insert a link to this correspondence at the point where we claim that to date the plans of the conversion have not been forthcoming. We cannot accept what you offer as plans that prove the homicidal gassing story. You will have to do better than that.
4. Response to my questions
Your self-appointed role as guardian, to spy out neo-Nazis, racists, antisemites, haters, etc. is pure sanctimonious hypocrisy. Why? Because you are not being objective in your quest for truth. The whole issue has been elevated into the realm of a dogma where you dictate what is to be believed and who is the devil in this quest.
By using the buzzwords – antisemitism and Holocaust-denial – you are attempting to smear legitimate research. It reminds me of the dictator who fears free-thinking individuals. A dictator hates free thought and free speech and therefore has to rely on psychological terror tactics to keep the dogma in place.
You display a high level of intolerance , Mr McCarthy, because you begin with the premise that gassings occurred. Now, Germar Rudolf, the industrial chemist, is not at all political. But I think he is a patriotic German who wants the historical record to be balanced out. His scientific training has enabled him to look at the whole gassing story with an objectivity that is lacking on the polemicists and the dogmatists who cannot tolerate a divergence from the orthodox path.
Scientists always append an error to any results they come up with. The humanities should do this via the principle of fallibilism, and those who do not are dogmatists who are quite happy to peddle some kind of ideology.
You share no doubt in your belief that the homicidal gas chambers existed and that millions of people were killed therein.
You also claim to know why a legal persecution of those questioning the gassings is necessary because the Germans “know what it (National Socialism) leads to”.
My Question to you: To what does it lead to, Mr McCarthy? Your answer, I suppose, and all those who nurture anti-German racism and hatred, howl in unison: It leads to the Auschwitz homicidal gas chambers, stupid!
Well, does it? That claim needs to be proven and historians and people like us must make every effort to reopen the premise on which such assertions rest. The whole issue is now in the scientists' court and we should dissuade judiciary bodies from becoming involved in it. Thanks to Ernst Zündel and his dedicated team of helpers the legal scene proved to be friend to those who question the official Holocaust dogma. The German judiciary is very sick because it offends against so many basic democratic principles as it relentlessly pursues the Holocaust heretics. One of the basic ones is the freedom of research.
5. Udo Walendy – “purveyors of self-published newsprint pamphlets don't draw much attention”.
I am amazed by the hubris contained in this statement. Can you point to any Walendy publications where he has been wrong?
The forgery business in this historical debate begins with those stupid eyewitness accounts. It is time that the liars be brought into court and prosecuted for telling all those lies about the Germans. Wouldn't that be interesting to see! So many of them have made a handsome living out of this business. Again thanks to Zundel's trials they have largely stopped telling lies. We had the same in Adelaide when the War Crimes Trials began. It was just too incredible to see a witness, after being asked to identify the accused, point into the general body of the court at a man who turned out to be an American tourist who happened to be visiting Adelaide! There was also the fact that Mark Aarons, the initiator of renewed interest in persecuting so-called war criminals, had gone off to Ukraine with some photos of the to-be-accused, and shown them to the villagers!
These people are never punished and it reminds me of the Demjanjuk case where the legion of false witnesses never once were persecuted for perjury. Why not, Mr McCarthy? And don't say this is mere rhetoric. Get your mind into gear and think about what I have just stated.
I think that Udo Walendy has his integrity intact, especially after the Tubingen court imposed a prison term on this old man.
“Revisionism's aim is to mislead”
Mr McCarthy, do you really believe this? How can you make such a claim without feeling ashamed for your self? Are you seriously saying that revisionists are dishonest in their endeavors to balance the historical picture? If you are, then you are presenting a view of history which is set in concrete. All good historians are revisionists. They have to be because views are based on incomplete information – and as new information comes to hand, then the picture is redrawn.
Only the dogmatists and the ideologues do not revise their work and this applies to those who embrace the never forget ideology. Such people are busy forcing their views on the weak in the head and strong in the heart.
Rhetorical Questions
I have views on all sorts of things – as you can see from you response – and I believe it is legitimate for me to ask you questions on anything I like. It is your freedom to decide whether to respond or not.
Censorship is for the young who need protection from perverse ideas, etc. But when you get to my age, then it is silly to fear asking questions. Cowards are not needed in this enterprise. Often the hater is also a coward – I, Mr McCarthy, am neither a coward nor a hater. As I mentioned elsewhere, I am guided by the Kantian Categorical Imperative – my wonderment of the stars above and a respect for the moral law within keep me balanced. I don't need the slave mentality of them-us, the dialectic process to keep me going.
In this respect it is important to recall how David Irving has been smeared and defamed by so many people. The whole American publishing industry has been shamed by him . This happened when St Martin's Press pulled the plug on his Goebbels, Mastermind of the Third Reich.
Have you read the book, Mr McCarthy? If not, why not? It has nothing to do with a celebration of Nazism, etc. But why are people so fearful of opening themselves to his views on history? It does not lead to Auschwitz!
In any case, we shall one day look at the way in which Zionists and Nazis collaborated and cooperated. That will throw more spanners in the works of those who claim a one-dimensional view of history.
Subjective Chronology
If you cannot see the significance of this personal report, then I am very sorry. I thought it important to highlight how the story of the death figure keeps on changing – and now we have a “four million emotional figure”!
Piper still claims that there are about 900,000 unregistered deaths at Auschwitz. I wonder when we shall see this figure being revised, as ought the six million figure in the light of the four million to one million. approx., reduction.
For my own personal record I would like to insert here the dates which I inadvertently failed to include in he original chronology
- 1988 – in Brisbane at the World Expo Fair the 6:4 million figure was alive and hotly defended by those who were enjoying the atmosphere in an 'all-German' beer tent. I met one businessman who knew something about Zundel's second Holocaust trial. Meanwhile, Mr John Bennett, in Melbourne single-handedly distributed The Leuchter Report to all Australian media outlets, libraries, politicians and prominent Australians.
- 1990 – within Melbourne's legal circles the 6:4 death figure was generally held to be true. Only those lawyers who had any direct contact with their colleague, Mr John Bennett, would have been aware that the “figures and the story keep on changing”. In July the plaques at Auschwitz were removed and Professor Shmuel Krakowski of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, admitted that the soap story was not true. None of this information filtered through into society at large. Why not?
- 1991 – during the Australian War Crimes Trials at Adelaide, the minimum figure was still 6:4 million Jewish deaths, this despite the fact that The Advertiser had the previous year carried a tiny item announcing the removal of the commemorative plaques at the Auschwitz concentration camp whereon the four million deaths figure was engraved.
McCarthy brings out the storm troopers: antisemitism and Holocaust-denial
Unfortunately using such buzzwords will not make us submit to your version of events. Far from it, it may intimidate someone like Marlon Brando and force him to apologize for telling the truth. How can you apologize for telling the truth? That's weird!
You cannot paralyze me with such terror tactics, Mr McCarthy I have divested myself of all material possession so that I cannot be harmed in that way.
I suggest that you also throw away these crutches of antisemitism and Holocaust-denial because they are conceptual prisons for your mind. Walk tall, like a real man who values his intellectual integrity as he fearlessly pursues truth.
Mr McCarthy's anti-German racism and hatred?
Let me repeat our claim: Anyone who states that homicidal gassings occurred at Auschwitz is leveling serious allegations against the German people, namely that during World War II they
- planned,
- constructed, and
- used huge chemical slaughterhouses to kill millions of people, in particular they exterminated European Jewry.
Anyone who knows how a bureaucracy works will realize that such a massive undertaking leaves behind it an extensive paper trail. It is not enough to draw our attention to an inventory list wherein a handwritten entry states that a gas-tight door with a peep-hole was ordered.
You must know that any Freemason Lodge has an entrance door with a peep-hole. Are you suggesting that Freemasons exterminate people within their temple? Or, similarly, in our law courts we see doors linking the courtroom with the judges' chambers containing a peep-hole. Some of the modern courtrooms have done away with the peep-hole and introduced small windows instead.
The Rudolf Report
For almost fifty years there has been no conclusive proof presented as evidence of those wild claims that Germans horribly killed their war prisoners. Basic war massacres, etc. are thereby not denied. War is war – unfortunately. But the wildly subjective eyewitness accounts which contradict one another now serve as examples of exaggerations flowing from feverish minds.
Germar Rudolf's report is an objective forensic investigation and anyone who believes in the gassing story cannot get past this report.
Further, Carlo Mattogno in his book Auschwitz The End of a Legend – A critique of J C Pressac, 1994, I..H.R. is also clear and concise on this matter of gassings.
I suggest Mr McCarthy, if you have not read the above works, then it is high time that you do. But, be warned. If you begin to harbor any doubt about the IT HAPPENED story, then your career at Nizkor is finished. I am lucky in this respect because I am not defending any series of events. I am merely asking uncomfortable questions about an historical event which has become a taboo topic. Like other revisionist researchers I would like to see myself as a pioneer and go where the timid fear to tread. To date, however, I have not really made any original contribution to the debate about the Auschwitz story – this final intellectual adventure of the twentieth century!
Interpreting the Crematoria Plans
[with reference to Germar Rudolf's Das Rudolf Gutachten]
Unlike you, Mr McCarthy , I am not defending any premise of the IT HAPPENED story and thus the following is what I take to be a common sense interpretation of the so-called 'conversion plans'. I have not laced my account with a pathological hatred for anything Nazi-German, as do Professors Gerald Fleming, Deborah Lipstadt, et al.
- The need for mortuaries ( Leichenkeller) to be well-ventilated was recognized by the Germans who planned such facilities at the Auschwitz concentration camp. The buildup of gases in decomposing corpses is slowed down in a cool atmosphere, and today's crematoria construction takes this into account.
- From the beginning of its operation as a concentration camp, the camp administrators expected epidemics to produce many deaths – which was the case in 1942. Hence the fact that Auschwitz had mortuaries cannot be regarded as proof of “criminal intent.”
- By constructing underground mortuaries – below ground level – the planners ensured that the rooms remained cool at a consistent temperature. As well, by placing them below ground, the mortuary building had limited contact with the crematoria buildings.
The plans indicate that corpses need to be stored in a cool place.
- The premise that the mortuaries were planned and used as homicidal gas chambers, wherein Zyklon-B was used as a killing agent, cannot be sustained.
It is difficult to heat underground rooms whose walls are always moist. Effective gassings could not have taken place in such rooms because cold air reduces the evaporation rate of Prussic blue from its carrier.
Further, the moisture content heightens the absorption rate of the gas as it penetrates the walls of the rooms; hence the reason for finding Prussic blue stains in the delousing chambers.
Thus in an hypothetical gassing, more gas is needed in cool-moist rooms. But we note that during the war, the disinfectant gas, Zyklon-B, was a scarce resource.
Pressac agrees that originally these mortuary rooms were not designed as homicidal gas chambers. Further, he claims that 95% of Zyklon-B was used for disinfection purposes and only 5% for homicidal gassings.
I have not yet worked out how much this 5% of what quantity is. If Piper claims that about a million people were gassed at Auschwitz, then this 5% figure becomes important.
- The design of Kremas II and III was derived from an earlier 1941 plan for a new crematorium planned for Auschwitz I, the Stammlager.
In this plan the entrance is on the side of Mortuary I, i.e. between Mortuary I and II we have stairs and a corpse chute.
Owing to the high groundwater level at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it was necessary to raise the foundations of these mortuaries.
The entrance also had to be shifted to the opposite side, offering stairs to the office rooms of mortuary II and stairs at the end of mortuary II.
- The fact that during Winter 1942/42, after Stalingrad, resources were scarce, explains why there is no corpse chute for mortuary II. The Auschwitz administration simply did not have the resources to do a proper job, as is evident if one looks at the construction of Krematorium III, IV and V.
- The original entrance to the mortuary was not used because it offered no direct road access, as would have been the case had the building been constructed at Auschwitz I, the Stammlager.
The construction of the steps indicates a hasty improvisation of the Stammlager plans to the Birkenau site.
- Today the entrance steps at the end of the mortuary of Krematorium II and III is interpreted as the entrance used by the victims of the gassings.
Mortuary II is considered to be the undressing room and it is this room which, according to Pressac, is proof of the “criminal intent” of those who planned the mass killings.
However, having an undressing room in a mortuary is quite normal because autopsies require that the corpses be undressed. Corpses are also cremated without clothes. The question we would like to ask is this: Are there autopsy reports available from corpses that were prepared in Krema II and III?
- Pressac claims that the missing corpse chute is proof that the mortuary was changed into a homicidal gas chamber because “corpses don't walk stairs”.
However, it must be remembered that by 1943-44 about 200 daily deaths – of all natural and epidemic causes – were recorded at Auschwitz. Pressac needs to explain how these 200 dead arrived at the mortuaries. The obvious answer is that they were carried on stretchers to the mortuaries.
The absence of a corpse chute does not prove anything. According to Pressac it could indicate that in building the facilities some corners had to be cut on account of material shortages, especially after the Stalingrad defeat.
- The mortuary construction is of concrete and steel, and as the doweling technique was still quite poorly developed, in order to fix pipes and lamps to concrete walls and ceilings, pieces of conic-shaped wood were cemented into the ceiling.
Pressac uses this as an example of proof that these wooden pieces were to have shower heads fixed to them when, in fact, they were to carry electric power lines.
Germar Rudolf rightly states that Pressac's interpretation “speaks volumes of his incompetence”.
- The fact that the drainage system for Kreamtoria II and III was changed from the original plan does not prove anything. We have to remind ourselves that these buildings were originally designed for Auschwitz I, the Stammlager.
What the plans prove is that they were adapted to the changed physical conditions at Auschwitz-Birkenau – Auschwitz II.
Further, the fact that Mortuary I has a separate drainage system indicates the foresight of the planners. In this way any highly infected water was treated separately from the rest of the complex.
- It is claimed that in the inventory of Mortuary I of Krematorium II and III, there is listed an order for gas-tight doors, size 100 x 192 cm. It appears in the inventory index on page 430 for Krema II – and then it is a hand-written entry “gas-tight door”. Most probably it is a door for the disaffection chambers.
Further, in the plan of Krematorium II there appears a door size of 190 x 200 cm, and so the gas-tight door would not fit into the door frame.
It is now important to investigate the site and find out whether the door frame has been reduced in size. This task, however, requires some excavation work at the site.
- The reference to the “gas-tight door” in the documents refers to hatches and doors, and it must be borne in mind that when talking about doors, we are generally talking about wooden doors made of boards. Also, the hatches had a round felt seal and so it is wrong to imagine the doors and hatches to be made of heavy steel.
Similarly, the barrack windows were not “gas-tight” because often there was a considerable gap between the frame and the brickwork, and hence it would have been quite drafty. So, too, with the doors. All of this material was naturally produced by prisoners in the concentration camp workshop. It is difficult to imagine that homicidal gassings would succeed in rooms which had wooden doors. A consideration of whether these doors opened inward or outward becomes an irrelevancy.
- Pressac claims that the planned heating of the mortuaries confirms that they were to be converted into homicidal gas chambers because mortuaries are not heated. He conveniently ignores the fact that corpses must be protected from frost, and so a minimum heating of the room is essential during winter months.
- Pressac also claims that the open pipes were removed so that the victims could not do it. Another explanation is that the pipes were removed because there was no heating in winter and this avoided the pipes from bursting during frosty nights.
- The claim that Zyklon-B was introduced into the mortuaries through holes in the roof – three or four holes – cannot be upheld because there simply is no physical proof of these alleged holes ever having existed.
The latest version from Pressac and Nizkor is that the exhaust-ventilation system was used to blow the gas into the alleged homicidal gas chamber. This version lacks credibility – but we would be interested to hear how the dialecticians explain its workings.
- There is also a claim made about Krematorium II having a wire basket or nets contraption for Zyklon-B use. It is listed in the inventory – but again written by hand. Such a contraption could possibly have been used to push – or pull – corpses into the crematory ovens.
We do know that German craftsmanship has always been of the highest order and German creativity has always been realized through practical application. In other words, the hand and the mind are working as one. Such minds do not need slaves to get the physical work done! I am reminded that the XP-86 and the current US Stealth bomber are based on a German war-time design. In fact, this whole matter of German wartime aviation research has led me to conclude that it would be in order for Germans to make claims on those who plundered their high-tech know-how during and after the war. It reminds me of the joke about two rockets , one a US and the other a USSR, passing through a cloud layer on their way into space. One rocket says to the other: “Now we can talk German again!”
And so, Mr McCarthy, I end my response to you. Please understand that we cannot accept the plans that you offer as those which prove that the Germans converted the mortuaries at Auschwitz-Birkenau into homicidal gas chambers. I repeat my earlier claim that the plans ought o speak for themselves – and they do not prove anything about homicidal gassings. To date I prefer the interpretation given of these plans by Germar Rudolf who has no political ax to grind other than that of the scientist who dared look at the vexed Auschwitz problem – and for that he has already paid a heavy price. Your interpretation does not convince – except only in that you prove to me your vindictive nature which has a pathological hatred for anything German.
All those who go along with your nasty interpretation are somehow motivated by a sick desire to see homicidal gas chambers where there were none. That is very sad for me to see. I thought you would have had an open mind on this matter.
To date no reputable historian has, to my knowledge, looked at these plans and confirmed your interpretation. Dr Gerald Fleming, Professor Deborah Lipstadt, professor Robert-Jan van Pelt, et al, all claim something that is not proven.
I demand hard evidence – and I shy away from any attempts at character assassination of those who, like Fred Leuchter, pioneered the scientific investigation of the Auschwitz site. I couldn't care less if Professor Lipstadt was a thief and Dr Fleming was a murder ; I would put to one side this aspect of their person and focus on their expertise, i.e. what new material they had brought into the Auschwitz discussion, in particular that material which directly related to the interpretation of the material surrounding the claim that mortuaries were converted into homicidal gas chambers.
Cannot you do the same for once – leave the character assassinations for once and get on with the job of working on the real project? Why is David Irving hounded by the Jewish bodies in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and the US? What is his crime? Associating with extreme right wing groups? Why don't you concentrate on the things that he says about Hitler, Goebbels, et al? instead of avoiding the issue by becoming personal. David Irving makes sense about all sorts of things – and he was fined in Germany for telling the truth! Fancy, such punishment! The German legal system is truly sick and in great need of some help.
So. Mr McCarthy, perhaps we can continue to explore issues in such a light, i.e. we leave the smearing and name calling because that is so infantile.
Sincerely Fredrick Toben
Go to: Fredrick Toben's 1996 Christmas Correspondence With Jamie McCarthy
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Editor’s comments: Response to an open letter by Jamie McCarthy