At Auschwitz, Father Christmas Is a Swine and a Thief

It's just become known that the metallic sign with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei", set above the gate of the main camp at Auschwitz, was stolen two days ago, under the blind eye — in the blackest night at 4 a.m., wouldn't you know! — of a surveillance camera.

Straight away the question of motive arises, for, of course, the object simply isn't tradeable; nor can one imagine some Texas billionaire ready to pay a fortune just to hold it in secret.

And nobody imagines either that there can be anything inside the camp worth trying to steal…

But no, you're wrong there: some very significant thefts have been committed at Auschwitz: the "gas chambers", for example, were most certainly stolen quite some time ago and the camp museum authorities have seen fit to put make-shift ones in their place: so it is that, at Auschwitz-I, they explain that they had to rebuild the structure that once served as a "gas chamber". When some well-informed people voiced their astonishment upon seeing that the substitutions could never have been suited to carrying out mass killings, museum director Mrs. Oleska responded coolly: "I know… There's no time for that… We'll see to it later on."

Personally, on hearing such an answer, I seriously wonder whether the museum authorities aren't parties to the crime that's bereft Auschwitz-I of its gas chamber.

But, you'll tell me, there's still another "gas chamber" at Birkenau! And no, you're mistaken: that one was stolen too! And in its place is to be seen just a depository (morgue): besides, by no means could that "substitution place" ever have served the purpose of killing people. Here again, it's preposterous to try to present the enclosure as having been used for extermination by gas, and all the more as the thieves also cynically stole the holes through which the pellets of Zyklon B insecticide were poured, pellets that many witnesses saw, with their own eyes, being dropped precisely through those holes in the roof.

What can the "gas chamber" thieves possibly do with what they've taken? And with the holes they stole along with it? This case of the stolen holes is bound to be a true horror for the justice system!

This looting on the holy site of Auschwitz is unconscionable. Our indignation is not feigned! Action must be taken now.

But even before the search for the vanished objects or structures — an assuredly difficult undertaking — I propose a radical solution: rebuild identical copies of the "gas chambers" (with the stolen holes, to be reconstituted), and at the same time verify their functioning and dependability. That can't be too difficult since we possess original blueprints (which were flushed out by Robert Faurisson in 1976). Of course, in those drawings of the Bauleitung, "gas chambers" do not feature expressly. But we've got so many testimonies that it will be easy to reconstitute them and so have exact replicas: it will be enough to ask witnesses of the first order like Elie Wiesel to authenticate them, with the wise support of experts like Serge Klarsfeld and numerous others.

And that way the tourists will at last be able to say, on returning from their pilgrimage to Auschwitz: "You know, I really saw, with my own eyes, two gas chambers in their original state! I saw the Zyklon B pellets being poured in. And I also heard some gripping commentaries. Enough to button the lips of those revisionists…"