Some 20% of post-war Polish territory is made up of former German lands; hence, some 20% of today’s Polish towns and cities once bore German names. All place names have long since been Polonized – all, except for one town, which displays bilingual entry signs: Auschwitz. Ethnically speaking, Oswiecim was never German. So why would the fiercely nationalistic Poles retain the Germanized name? Because it is big business. For the world at large, Auschwitz is synonymous with the Holocaust, and it represents the pinnacle of Nazi evil. Yet here we do not focus on the symbol which Auschwitz has become, but on the Auschwitz camp and its numerous satellite camps, such as Birkenau, Monowitz, Harmense, Raisko, etc.
By Nicholas Kollerstrom ∙ January 9, 2008
Ask anyone in the UK who has heard of the Leuchter Report and you can be fairly sure they will tell you the same thing: it has been ‘discredited.’ But –“behold, O Dionysus,” as Nietzsche would have said, “I sing a new song”: there are two different references we need to fully unpack the meaning…
By Joseph P. Bellinger ∙ September 29, 2008
Among Arabian myths, few stories have excited our imagination more than Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves. As Ali Baba recited the words “Open Sesame,” the sealed doors to a lair full of unimaginable riches mysteriously opened. In a similar manner, western politicians profanely invoke the secret word “Auschwitz” in the expectation that it will…
By Thomas Kues ∙ September 11, 2008
1.Introduction 1.1. Wetzler and Vrba Slovak Jew Alfréd Wetzler (1918-1988), who was deported to Auschwitz Birkenau in 1942, can best be described as the unknown sidekick to Rudolf Vrba (Walter Rosenberg). Together the two Slovak-Jewish “death camp” escapees wrote the so-called Auschwitz Protocol or Vrba-Wetzler Report, which in 1944 was published in English translation by…
By Thomas Kues ∙ July 7, 2008
Yehuda Bauer was born in Prague in 1926. In 1939, he and his family migrated to Palestine. After fighting in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Bauer completed a degree in history, and in 1960 he received his doctorate. Bauer was a founding editor of Journal for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and also served on the editorial…
By Maria Temmer ∙ January 1, 2008
For the German People 1. Introduction Former Auschwitz-Birkenau inmate Filip Müller is known as the only prisoner in the Sonderkommando (the alleged secret Special Command used in homicidal gassing facilities in the Third Reich’s concentration camp system) who is believed to have spent nearly his entire three years in concentration camps working the gas chambers…
By Nicholas Kollerstrom ∙ May 24, 2008
This essay will argue that well-designed cyanide gas chambers were indeed present at Auschwitz, and did work efficiently, but that they were operated for purposes of hygiene and disinfection, in order to save lives and not take them. Terrible mass mortality came about in the German labour-camps, especially towards the end of the war, but…
By Nicholas Kollerstrom ∙ January 3, 2008
How is it “hate” to suggest there is evidence that millions of people were not murdered?—Kurt Bechle, United States I am shocked that in what I always thought to be “liberal” and “open-minded” Europe, anyone could be convicted for voicing an opinion regarding history.—Dominique Amarante, United States The word Holocaust has to mean a fiery…
By Thomas Kues ∙ January 2, 2008
Slovakian Jew Rudolf Vrba (born Walter Rosenberg) is perhaps one of the most well-known Auschwitz eyewitnesses, this mainly due to his co-authorship with Alfred Wetzler (Josef Lanik) of the so-called Vrba-Wetzler Report, which was included in the New York War Refugee Board Report of 1944, as well as the publication in 1964 of a memoir…
By Thomas Kues ∙ February 5, 2008
Frank Stiffel is not a very well-known "Holocaust survivor". His testimony is rarely referred to by orthodox Holocaust historians, if at all. Still, his memoirs are of interest to those researching the alleged mass extermination of Jews during World War II. First, because Mr. Stiffel claims to have survived Treblinka as well as Auschwitz. Second,…
By Daniel D. Desjardins ∙ July 1, 2007
It has been some ten years since my critical analysis of Kenneth Stern's Critique of the Leuchter Report. This article takes a new look at that report, providing additional information and analysis.[*] I identified ten of Mr. Leuchter's 32 samples as deriving from sheltered locations: samples 4-6 from Krema II and samples 25-31 from Krema…
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