Belzec/Kola – Going to Extremes to Sell the Lie

BELZEC: The Nazi Camp For Jews In The Light Of Archaeological Sources. Excavations 1997-1998, by Andrezej Kola

This book appears to be the ultimate culmination to the gradual appearance of accounts that reported on alleged archaeological studies done at the alleged mass extermination camp Belzec between 1997 and 1999. The book is written by Andrezej Kola, professor of Archaeology in Poland at the University of Torun. On the cover some antiquated images of the Star of David on some kind of material. The book measures about 7 x 10 inches and is 85 pages long.

From 600,000 to 1,000,000 victims are said to have been mass exterminated at Belzec. The first report on the alleged investigation to appear was some three years ago as an Associated Press news article written by Alan Elsner. Elsner who is associated with Holocaust institutions claims to have lost relatives at Belzec. Elsner employed a number of literary tricks, like writing between the lines which blended one statement to another to make it look like events and people would be associated. He even blended his initial reporting on the study into his comments about a upcoming visit by the Polish Premier who was going to meet with then President Clinton to make it all look like there was a connection.

The next thing to hit the circuit was less widely released. In fact it seems to have first hit the Holocaust trail as a file in NIZKOR . That would be a letter or such from a Robin O'Neill who is attached to some Judaic studies department at a school in England. In that letter O'Neill claimed to have had a number of 90 minute video tapes of the study adding on that he was hoping someone would show up to edit them. That was over three years ago and nothing forthcoming yet. In another couple of years and nothing forthcoming there can be no credible excuses for it. The only photograph the book of topic has on the actual probing operation is a photo of two guys in civies one with his pants rolled up handling a thin rod as a core sampler. One other place that has something is a website that shows two photos, each one of a stake in the ground captioned that they mark places were a probe was made.

• http:// holocaust-info.dk/belzec/belzec_today/image5.htm
• http:// holocaust-info.dk/belzec/belzec_today/image6.htm;

[Both links are now defunct; ed.]

Then we got a treatment from a Michael Tragenza supposed to be a historian from England. That one was almost totally dedicated to listing the dimensions and scope of some 33 mass graves they say they found at the location via taking core samples which Kola's book focuses on. Kola only refers to Tregenza twice in his book each time in a footnote to say Tregenza used a metal detector.

Anyone who has recognized the revisionist conclusions would have to marvel at the energy and commitment persons will go through in order to perpetuate the lie.

The publication is sponsored and published by 'The Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom' and the 'United States Holocaust Memorial Museum' which therefore would connect the corruption directly to those two organizations.

It begins with a foreword by Miles Lerman, Chairman Emeritus, United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

He starts off, “For us, who have survived the horrors of the Holocaust, Belzec represents one of the most painful locations to this tragedy” and ends the paragraph, “This place is one of the most tragic burial grounds of out civilization.”

In the second paragraph he seems to have to admit, “And yet, of the six extermination camps, Belzec seems to be the most forgotten. It is the camp with the least available information and the smallest number of survivors, who still wait to be satisfactorily commemorated. There is no comprehensive scientific study about what happened here.”

We could get the idea from what Lerman says that there have been 'comprehensive scientific' studies at other camps but that's not the case.

It appears that Lerman's overall driving point would be to give an excuse for why the alleged study was initiated in the first place, to set the stage for a comprehensive memorial and not to establish verification that the Holocaust is true. He says, in order to find a suitable place for the memorial they were out “to exclude areas with human remains” so they wouldn't “violate the memory” of those they were to commemorate. According to Lerner, the whole thing was done in order to find out where there weren't any mass graves. Holocaust narrative can be downright funny at times.

Right away we get into Kola's commentary under 'The range of the studies'. He starts off, “The death camp for Jews in Belzec, regarded as one of the biggest death camps made by Germans during World War II has not been fully described in historical literature until now.” He then gets around to saying, “Until recently the general knowledge on the way the camp in Belzec had functioned, was based on report of few witnesses, mainly inhabitants of nearby Tomaszow-Lubelski and Belzec itself, whose evidences were enclosed in an investigation record taken after World War II.”

That would be where Kola first refers to some report of a study said to have been carried out just after the war in October of 1945. He goes on to say, “During the prosecutors investigation executed in 1945, the area of the camp, closed down by Germans in December 1942 was inspected, the place of supposed mass graves was dug out and judicial-medical examinations of the body remains, excavated during the works were made.” Here Kola refers to footnote 3 found at the bottom of the page where we are given a little more details on the supposed study and report. That it was carried out between Oct. 10 and Oct.13 of 1945, which would be a four day period. He includes as to what took place, “protocol of excavating the cemetery … together with the protocol of the inspection and court medical opinion.”

Since Lerman had said there were “no comprehensive scientific studies” done to the place we have to wonder what this 1945 investigation was all about.

This 1945 report is not to be found in any of the vast quantities of Holocaust literature and Kola only refers to it fleetingly. He ends up his paragraph referring to the maps that are associated with the 1945 report, “Basing on those facts [1945 study] the attempt of reconstruction of the camp was undertaken, suspecting two phases of its existence from half of March 1942 till December of the same year (fig.2, 3,).” The figures are two maps “according to E.Sztrojt” one showing the “first phase” and the other showing the “second stage“. Kola goes on to say, “The reconstruction is quite different from the camp plan made on the base of R.Reder report (probably the only survivor for the camp) fig.4.” The maps by the two different people are like night and day, bearing absolutely no resemblance to each other and even contradicting Kola's own map of the findings which he shows later on. (Sztrojt's maps show for the 'first stage' the gas chamber down near the bottom of the hill and the one for the 'second stage' shows the gas chamber further up the hill. In each one we can see a line drawn from the gas chambers going up the hill to one large block identified as the mass graves.)

Check out this website for the maps by Reder and Kola and a few others. Sztrojt's map would be the one listed as from Arad's book
http://www.deathcamps.org/belzec/maps.html