On Rudolf Höss’s alleged visit to Treblinka

In the following article, I will take a look at the details regarding Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Höss’ alleged visit to “the pure extermination camp" Treblinka II, as described in six witness accounts ascribed to the former commandant. The first of these six is the infamous “confession" document, NO-1210, a deposition written in German and signed by Höss on March 14, 1946. The second one is the English language affidavit signed by Höss on April 5, 1946. This text was “remade" to appear as a translation from German to English. Both the original and the “remake" are labeled as PS-3868.[1] The third is the protocol of the pre-trial interrogation carried out on April 1 and 2, 1946 by interrogator Sender Jaari. The fourth is the text of an interview conducted by Jewish-American army psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn on April 8, 9 and 11, 1946. The fifth is the protocol of Höss’ testimony at IMT Nuremberg on April 15 the same year, which mainly consisted of a simple oral affirmation of the “remade" version of PS-3868, as read aloud to the witness. The sixth and last one is the autobiography entitled Kommandant in Auschwitz, supposedly written by Höss in a Polish jail cell 1946-1947.

1941 or 1942?

In paragraph 6 of PS-3868 (as read to Höss in court) we read the following lines:

I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz in June 1941. At that time, there were already in the General Government three other extermination camps: Belzek, Treblinka, and Wolzek.[2]

Aside from substituting “Wolzek" for Sobibor, Höss here gravely contradicts the standard Holocaust narrative (as well as established facts) by stating that there existed “extermination facilities" already in the summer of 1941. In fact, the first of the three Aktion Reinhardt camps, Belzec, opened in March 1942.[3] As well as clashing with exterminationist claims that the alleged genocide was decided on toward the end of 1941, this contradiction is too blatant to go unnoticed even by the protectors of official truth. It has thus been assumed by many historians that Höss was mistaken on the year and that we should read “June 1942" for the “June 1941" found in this text, as well as in Kommandant in Auschwitz (where we are provided with the somewhat vaguer “summer of 1941") and the protocol of the pre-trial interrogation (“the mid year of 1941").[4]

Instead of arguing further about this revision by historians of the exterminationist camp, I will proceed from their assumption that Höss received the extermination order in June 1942 and discuss this timeframe in relation to the details of the Höss statements.

Dating Höss’ alleged visit to Treblinka

When exactly does Höss claim to have visited Treblinka? In NO-1210 as well as PS-3868 the chronology of the alleged events is rather unclear, but it is implied that the visit took place during the summer months, following shortly on the reception of the Himmler order. We are told that Höss set up the “extermination building" at Auschwitz after visiting Treblinka, and also that “[m]ass executions by gassing [at Auschwitz] commenced during the summer" of that same year.[5] This would place the Treblinka visit no later than August 1942.

During the pre-trial interrogation, Höss stated that he had returned to Auschwitz after receiving the oral extermination order in Berlin and that he had stayed there for an unspecified period of time. In this account, however, it is implied that the trip to Treblinka took place after Eichmann’s visit to Auschwitz.[6] We are told that at the time of his visit to Treblinka “the action in connection with the Warsaw Ghetto was in progress".[7] Also, in PS-3868 we are told that the commandant at Treblinka “was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto".[8]

According to Yitzhak Arad, the first train with deportees headed for Treblinka II departed from Warsaw on July 22, 1942. The deportation trains to Treblinka then continued to run from the city of Warsaw until August 28 the same year. After a brief pause in the transports, another group of Jews from the ghetto was brought by train to Treblinka during the period September 3-12. A smaller transport also took place on September 21 the same year.[9] Thus Höss’ statement fit with the historiography of the Warsaw Ghetto deportations, provided that we substitute 1942 for 1941 – but as will be seen later, this fit creates a major contradiction with the official Treblinka narrative.

In the Goldensohn interview, the meeting with Himmler is said to have taken place “during the summer". Then “a few weeks later" Höss is visited by Eichmann who informs him about “the first transports from the General Government and Slovakia. The Treblinka visit is strongly implied to have taken place before Eichmann’s visit to Auschwitz: “Meanwhile, I had inspected the extermination camp of Treblinka in the General Government…"[10] In Kommandant in Auschwitz, the Berlin visit is likewise placed “during the summer". Instead of “a few weeks later" Eichmann visits “a short time later" (Kurze Zeit danach). The rest of the chronology is basically identical.

From an exterminationist viewpoint as that held by Orth, Breitman and Pressac, one may then conclude that the various statements left by Höss (or anyway ascribed to him) converge on the point that the Auschwitz commandant visited Treblinka between the end of July and September 21. Many exterminationists, for example the Internet based Holocaust Research Project, argue that Höss most likely visited the camp in September 1942.[11] Below I will show how this argument holds up in the light of what Höss himself stated regarding Treblinka.

The description of the alleged gas chamber building in Treblinka

How then does Höss describe the alleged “extermination facilities" at Treblinka? Below I quote a rather detailed statement from the April 9 Goldensohn interview:

Treblinka was a few barracks and a railroad line side track, which had formerly been a sand quarry. I inspected the extermination chambers there. These chambers were built of wood and cement; each was about the size of this cell [approximately eight feet by eleven feet], but the ceilings were lower than in this cell. Along the side of the extermination chambers, motors from old tanks or trucks were set up, and the gases of the motors, the exhaust, was directed into the cells, and this is how the people were exterminated. […] I estimated that in each chamber, which was about the size of this cell, but not as high, about two hundred people were shoved in at one time – pressed into the cell very close together. [… Men, women and children] were brought into the cells separately, that is, the men were exterminated in the same chambers but at different intervals. [… T]he door had to be jammed shut and the people pressed very close together, standing up. […] There were ten [gas] chambers, each made of stone and cement. There were no peek holes, just big doors covered with metal sheeting. The authorities at Treblinka would leave the people to be exterminated in these chambers with the motors running for one hour after they had started the motors, and then they opened the doors again. By that time all were dead. I don’t know how long it really took for the gas to kill them. [… The bodies] were removed by other internees.[12]

We are also told in this interview that Treblinka was located “on the Bug River" (which is factually correct) and that Höss visit to the camp lasted “a few hours".[13] During the pre-trial interrogation Höss said that he had stayed at Treblinka for “three or four hours."[14]

In PS-3868 the number of chambers is likewise given as 10 and the number of victims per chamber as 200.[15] Nothing is stated regarding the size and construction of the chambers, nor is anything said about how long time a gassing required, or how the allegedly used “monoxide gas" was produced.

The protocol of the pre-trial interrogation has Höss stating that Treblinka

[…] had chambers for about 200 people. Into these chambers the fumes from an exhaust machine came in. These motors had been taken from captured enemy equipment such as tanks, trucks and had been installed next to the gas chambers.[16]

Höss does not know the exact number of gas chambers, but tells the interrogator Jaari that “there may have been about ten chambers". We are further told that the chambers were built “next to a ramp", and that the train “drove right up to it" so the victims could be directly “unloaded right into the chambers“. This was necessary, we are told, since “the motors did not always work right".[17]

In Kommandant in Auschwitz we are told that there were “a number of gas chambers" (mehrere Kammern) which held “a couple of hundred persons" (einige Hundert Personen). As per the pre-trial interrogation, the building housing the chambers was built “immediately by the side of the railway tracks" (unmittelbar am Bahngleis). Regarding the killing agent and the gassing procedure we are told that

In an engine room adjacent to them [the gas chambers] were located various engines from larger trucks [grösserer Lastwagen] and tanks [Panzer], which had been taken out. Through pipes the exhaust from the motors [der Motoren] was led into the chambers, killing those inside. It took about half an hour until it was still inside the chambers. After an hour the chambers were opened, the corpses were pulled out, stripped naked, and burnt on a rack made of rails.[18]

This account is basically consistent with the earlier ones, but notably vaguer when it comes to the number of victims and chambers. No dimensions are given for the latter.

Höss’ Treblinka description vs. exterminationist historiography

What happens if we compare Höss’ account of the alleged Treblinka gas chambers with the prevalent historiography on this subject?

Let’s begin with the most crucial problem to appear: the issue of the first and second phase gas chamber buildings. Orthodox historians claims that there existed two buildings with homicidal gas chambers at Treblinka. The construction of the first of them is said to have been completed in the middle of July 1942. It was then taken into use for the first time on July 23, 1942.[19] This brick building allegedly contained three homicidal gas chambers, each measuring 4 x 4 meters and 2.6 meters high. The killing agent, according to Arad, was a diesel engine housed in a room attached to the building.[20]

If we are to believe the historians, a supposed urgent need to increase the absorptive capacity of the killing machine necessitated the construction of a new, larger gas chamber building at Treblinka, as is also claimed to have been the case earlier at Belzec and later at Sobibor. The construction allegedly began in early September 1942. According to witnesses, the building, made of concrete, housed either ten or six separate gas chambers, each measuring 4 x 8 meters with a height of 2 meters. The new gas chamber building was inaugurated in “the middle of October 1942". The old gas chamber building is said to have been in function during the construction work, but was later converted into a tailor’s shop.[21]

Now, if the first gas chamber in Treblinka was put in use on July 23, 1942, then Höss’ visit can not have taken place earlier than this date. However, it makes no sense that Höss would make a plan to visit an “extermination facility" not yet in function. Especially since the alleged purpose of the trip was to learn from the mistakes and inefficiencies of the extermination process there. Thus the visit could have taken place in mid-August at the very earliest. And if Höss’ statement from the pre-trial interrogation that he visited the camp during the “Warsaw" action is not to be thrown overboard, this narrows the possible timeframe to a period of about a month, from the mid of August until September 21, 1942. The visit could also not have taken place at the time of the smaller transports from Warsaw to Treblinka during the first quarter of 1943 (January 18-22, April 19 – May 15)[22] since at that time the alleged Zyklon B gassings at Auschwitz-Birkenau had, it is said, already claimed hundreds of thousands of victims, thus rendering the Treblinka visit purposeless.

As the attentive reader has surely already noticed, it is impossible to reconcile Höss’ description of a concrete building housing ten gas chambers with the above calculated timeframe, since during that period of time (according to the exterminationist historians) he would only have been able to inspect the first brick gas chamber building with its three small chambers.

Even if we assumed that Höss somehow mistook himself, and the Jews he saw gassed were not from the Warsaw Ghetto, but merely from the District of Warsaw, this would not help the story. If we are to trust Yitzhak Arad, only one transport from this district to Treblinka took place later than mid-October – that is, after the completion of the new gas chamber building – namely a small transport of Jews departing from Siedlce on November 30. Yet at that date, the gassings at Auschwitz Stammlager and outside Birkenau had been in full swing for at least half a year, according to our venerated historians.

Here we encounter another chronological crux, namely irreconcilability of the “1942 visit hypothesis" and the orthodox Auschwitz historiography. According to all of Höss’ accounts, the purpose of the visit to Treblinka had been to learn from the “mistakes and inefficiency existing in the Polish camp" in order to eliminate those same mistakes and inefficiencies when constructing the alleged extermination facilities at Auschwitz. The carbon monoxide of Treblinka was thus changed to Zyklon B and the victims efficiently fooled into believing that they were going to be deloused.[23]

Now, the problem is that the exterminationist historians claim that a gas chamber was functioning in Krema I of Auschwitz Stammlager by early 1942, or even December 1941, or already in September 1941, and that the alleged gas chambers of the two “bunkers" were put in use between March 20 and June 30, 1942.[24] Thus all the abovementioned (alleged) Zyklon B gas chambers at Auschwitz were supposedly already in function at the time Treblinka II started operating. Why then bother to make an excursion to the “inefficient Polish camp"? And if the trip actually took place, and after mid-October 1942, and for another reason than stated, what could then this reason have been, and why would Höss bother to make up a false purpose for the visit?

If we continue with our comparison of Höss’ statements and the orthodox historiography, we find several other anomalies, incongruities and impossibilities.

First another chronological dud. In PS-3868, Höss claims that the commandant at Treblinka had told him that “he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of one half year." Since Treblinka opened on July 23, 1942, this would place Höss’ visit at earliest in January 1943. On the other hand, this clashes with the notion that Höss made the visit not too long after a meeting with Himmler around midsummer 1942.

Second, the dimensions for the Treblinka gas chambers given in the Goldensohn interview, is utter fantasy coupled with the alleged number of victims per chamber. 200 people shoved into a room measuring “approximately eight feet by eleven feet", that is 2.5 x 3.5 meters would mean (200 / 8.75 =) 23 persons packed per square meter. As if this was not enough, the dimensions given by Höss contradict those of the official narrative. According to Arad, the ten chambers each measured 4 x 8 meters and could hold a total of 3,800 people.[25] How was it possible for Höss to mistake a 32 square meter large gas chamber for one of less than 9 square meters? Wouldn’t Höss, if the story was true, have indicated to Goldensohn that the chamber was at least twice the size of his cell?

Third, Höss contradicts himself regarding whether the victims at Treblinka undressed before they were gassed. In the pre-trial interrogation, it is said that “[t]hey had to undress before they were put into the chambers."[26] According to Kommandant in Auschwitz however, victims entered the chambers “still with their clothes on" (noch bekleidet) and after being gassed were pulled out and “stripped naked" (entkleidete sie).[27] To the knowledge of the author of this article, no other Treblinka witness has mentioned gassings of still dressed people.

Fourth, Höss states in the pre-trial interrogation that the victims were “unloaded right into the chambers" from the railroad platform. According to the orthodox view of Treblinka, the arrivals after deboarding their trains were led over a large “station square" to a fenced-in assembly square, where they stopped to undress in the open or in barracks, and then via a fenced-in and camouflaged pathway (“The Tube"), roughly 100 meters long, to the “Upper Camp" where the gas chambers were located.[28] Can being driven approximately 300 meters really be described as “unloaded right into the chambers"?

Fifth, Höss claims in both the pre-trial interrogation, the Goldensohn interview and Kommandant in Auschwitz that there were more than one, if not several, engines providing the gas chambers with exhaust gas. According to key witness Jankiel Wiernik, who claims to have built the second phase gas chamber building, a single “motor taken from a dismantled Soviet tank" was used the first gas chamber building, and he also speaks of the murder weapon of the new gas chamber building in singular ("The motor which generated the gas in the new chambers was defective").[29]

Sixth, according to what Höss said (or allegedly said) to Goldensohn, “there were no peek-holes" making the insides of the gas chambers visible, “just big doors covered with metal sheeting". However, according to historian Arad’s description of the new gas chambers, “[t]he doors contained a small glass window, through which the SS men and Ukrainians checked to see what was happening and ascertained whether the victims were already dead."[30]

In the paragraphs which follow, I will discuss other problematic aspects of the Höss accounts not related to the alleged Treblinka gas chambers per se.

The number of Treblinka victims

In PS-3868, the unnamed commandant of Treblinka reportedly told Höss that “he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of one half year." This is another passage irreconcilable with the orthodox narrative.

Yitzhak Arad writes that 312,500 Jews were killed in Treblinka between July 23 and August 28, shortly before construction work on the new gas chambers allegedly began.[31] This implies that 80,000 Jews had been killed there already by early August. According to the Höfle Telegram, 713,555 Jews were deported to Treblinka up until December 31, 1942. Thus at the time when Treblinka II had existed for half a year, it had allegedly exterminated almost ten times as many Jews as reported by the anonymous commandant of Höss’ account. This would hardly have rendered it an “ineffective" extermination facility. On the other hand, if we assume that the visit took place in early August, when Treblinka is alleged to have been inefficiently run by its first commandant, Dr. Irmfried Eberl,[32] then Höss would have witnessed the alleged first gas chamber building and not the second phase building described in the testimony. Thus Höss’ 1946 statement on the Treblinka victim figure collapses on itself.

The description of outdoor cremations at Treblinka

What, according to Höss, happened to the corpses of the Treblinka gas chamber victims? This issue is only treated in two of the accounts, namely the Goldensohn interview and Kommandant in Auschwitz. In the first account, we read the following description:

At first they [the corpses] were placed in mass graves in the sand quarries, and later when I inspected they had just started burning the corpses in open sand quarries or ditches and had begun to excavate the mass graves and burn those that had been buried.[33]

However, this statement is partially contradicted by what we find in Kommandant in Auschwitz:

After one hour the chambers were opened, the corpses were pulled out, stripped naked, and burnt on racks made of rails [einem Schienengestell]. The fire was fueled with wood, the corpses were then and there poured with the remains of petrol.[34]

Thus in April 1946 Höss claimed to have witnessed the burning of corpses “in open sand quarries and ditches". He also states that at the time of his visit the mass graves containing gas chamber victims were being opened. Then next he writes that the bodies were incinerated on racks made of railway gauge, using wood and petrol remains as fuel. Unless we suppose that the SS at Treblinka for some reason had placed these contraptions inside ditches or quarries, the two statements are contradictory, if not gravely so.

What is more important than the method here is the date of the alleged cremations. According to standard Treblinka historiography, the mass graves were dug up and all corpses, old as well as “fresh" ones, were incinerated on “grills" made of railway gauge and concrete fundaments starting March 1943, following an alleged visit to the camp by Heinrich Himmler.[35] Recently, there has been a claim from the exterminationist camp that outdoor incinerations on a smaller or experimental scale began earlier than that. This claim is mainly based on the testimony of Jewish witness Richard Glazar, who writes that he witnessed flames rising from the “upper camp" at an unspecified date in November 1942.[36]

The notion of cremations commencing in March 1943 simply cannot be reconciled with a visit by Höss at that time, since the first Birkenau crematoria and their alleged homicidal gas chambers would already have been operable by then, rendering the alleged purpose of the visit void.

Even if we assumed for a moment that Höss for some reason lied about the purpose, and that it really had to do with studying open air incineration of corpses, this would not be reconcilable with what we know for a fact about the cremation facilities at Auschwitz. At least as early as February 12, 1943, there existed advanced plans for an “open incineration site" or field oven at Birkenau, which would have been able to handle some 150 bodies simultaneously.[37] The plan never came to fruition, but its existence demonstrates that the Auschwitz Zentralbauleitung by early 193 had access to open air incineration technology far more advanced than the primitive contraptions allegedly used at Treblinka. It would make no sense to send the commandant of Auschwitz on a one-man study trip to Treblinka just in order to watch bodies being burned on a pyre made of railroad gauge.

What then about placing Höss’ visit in November 1942, at the time of the cremations alleged by Glazar? First of all is this contradicted by Höss’ own testimony. By November, “the action in connection with the Warsaw Ghetto" would be long since over. There would further have passed 4-5 months since the alleged Berlin meeting at “mid year", disjointing the internal chronology common to all of Höss’ witness accounts. Also, as has already been noted, the alleged gas chambers of Krema I as well as the two “bunkers" are said to have been functioning at this time. Furthermore, Danuta Czech in her Auschwitz Kalendarium allege that open air cremations at Birkenau were begun on September 21, 1942.[38] According to Czech’s claims, the SS managed to incinerate 170,000 corpses on pyres up until December 3, 1942.[39] Given such an effective mean of body disposal, why would Höss even bother to take a look at the pyres of an “ineffective Polish camp"?

A further note should be made here on the “sand quarries" mentioned in the Goldensohn interview. In the same text, Höss describes the location of Treblinka as follows:

Treblinka was a few barracks and a railroad line side track, which had formerly been a sand quarry.[40]

Now there indeed existed a sand quarry or gravel pit at Treblinka, but this was located at the labor camp Treblinka I, not at the “death camp" Treblinka II. The railroad spur which Treblinka II was located immediately to the east of ended just north of this large gravel pit, about 2 kilometers south of the “death camp". However, no witness has claimed that victims of Treblinka II were buried in this pit, which was in fact in operation as a part of the labor camp up until 1944. Even if the soil at Treblinka II is indeed composed to a large degree of sand, it seems strange that Höss would have mistaken the alleged mass graves, which according to Arad were large rectangular ditches measuring 50 x 25 x 10 meters, for sand quarries. And seen them with his own eyes he must, granted that the story is true, since the graves allegedly were located in close proximity of the gas chambers.[41]

The “1941 hypothesis", Höss, and Yitzhak Arad

There is sometimes still advanced the theory that Höss was not mistaken when he stated that he had received an extermination order from Himmler in Berlin in June 1941. One of the exterminationist arguments supporting this is involves the fact that Höss during his pre-trial interrogation stated that the Berlin meeting took place “before the date that the Russian campaign was launched", i.e. prior to June 22, 1941.[42] This “1941 hypothesis" if we may call it so, often try to explain away the already existing “extermination facilities" mentioned by Höss as sites in occupied Poland and USSR where German Einsatzgruppen carried out mass shootings.

The nestor of orthodox Aktion Reinhardt historiography, Yitzhak Arad, is apparently a proponent of this version of the hypothesis, since he quotes the Höss text Die «Endlösung der Judenfrage» im KL Auschwitz (included in Kommandant in Auschwitz), written in November 1946, on the alleged Himmler-Höss meeting without discussing the dating of the meeting to “the summer of 1941". The quote also follows directly on a passage discussing psychological drawbacks (for the executioners) in connection with the alleged mass shootings of Jews on German occupied USSR territory. Especially the alleged events surrounding Himmler’s visit to Minsk “in late summer 1941" is treated here. Following a witness quotation on the Minsk shooting, Arad writes the following words:

As a result of these drawbacks, the SS authorities, who were in charge of the Nazi extermination machine, began looking for additional methods and improved technical means that would enable them to carry out the killings more efficiently, more quickly, and with less effort. Rudolf Höss, the commander of Auschwitz, wrote in his evidence:[43]

Then follows the Höss quote. In this way, the reader of Arad is led to believe that the alleged Himmler-Höss meeting took place as a result of the aforementioned “drawbacks", and that the “existing extermination centers in the East" were identical to the mass shooting sites previously discussed by Arad, the

[…] mass-murder valleys in Ponar near Vilna, Fort IX at Kovno, Rumboli near Riga, Babi Yar at Kiev, Drobitzki Valley near Kharkov, in the Crimea, and at numerous other sites in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union."[44]

Not unexpectedly, Arad fails to mention that Höss later in the same text (written in Krakow November 1946) describes his alleged visit to Treblinka, implying that he had been there to study the killing agent. Arad also fails to mention that Höss in his pre-trial interrogation had stated that he was sure that the meeting with Himmler took place prior to Operation Barbarossa.[45] Thus Himmler can not have been referring to mass shooting sites in occupied USSR, if we are to believe Höss’ interrogation statement regarding the date of the meeting.

The possible counterargument that, given a summer 1941 date for the Berlin meeting, Höss might have visited Chelmno instead of the not yet existing Treblinka II to study carbon monoxide gassings is not feasible, since the alleged gassings (in “gas vans") at that camp are supposed to have begun on December 7, 1941, many months after the meeting. Moreover the exterminationist claim that homicidal gassings with Zyklon B commenced at Auschwitz already in September 1941, clashes with the notion of a “study trip" carried out by Höss, even if we substitute Chelmno for Treblinka, precisely because of the alleged opening date of the former camp (as well as the alleged experimental gassing at Mogilev in September 1941 and the “gas vans" which supposedly followed out of this experiment). Arad for example dates the first homicidal Zyklon B gassings at Auschwitz to September 3, 1941.[46] Given this date Höss could not have come up with the idea of Zyklon B as killing agent as a result of witnessing inefficient carbon monoxide gassings at the aforementioned places.

It is no wonder that the 1941 hypothesis has been abandoned by many if not most exterminationist historians.

Possible sources to Höss’ description of Treblinka

As I have demonstrated above, there exists ample evidence for Höss never having visited the alleged extermination camp Treblinka. If this is the case, from where then did his “knowledge" of the camp derive?

By March 1946, there already existed a number of reports on Treblinka in English and German which could have been used by Höss’ British, and later American, captors to stimulate his memory so to say.

First and foremost of these is Jankiel Wiernik’s booklet A year in Treblinka, which was published in English already in 1944.[47] Another one is Russian-Jewish journalist Wassili Grossmann’s pamphlet Treblinki Ad (The Treblinka Hell) which appeared in French and German translations during 1945.[48] Next there is the IMT witness testimony of Samuel Rajzman from February 27, 1946, as well as account written by the same witness in August 1944 that had been presented to the American Committee of Foreign Affairs in March 1945.[49] There is also the resistance report on Treblinka, dating from November 15, 1942 and translated into English already in 1943.[50] The report of the Polish examining magistrate Lukaszkiewicz was introduced at IMT (as Document USSR-340) on the same day that Rajzman testified.

Below I will point out from where some of the characteristic details of Höss’ Treblinka account may derive:

• The lack of peekholes in the gas chamber entrance doors may be derived from the November 1942 report, which state that the “execution chambers are without windows."
• The cremations in “open sand quarries or ditches" mentioned in the Goldensohn interview may derive from Grossman, who writes of a “furnace pit" no less than 6 meters deep.
• The Treblinka I sandpit is mentioned by Grossman in the beginning of his pamphlet, as well as in the report by Lukaszkiewicz.
• Grossman also mention that Treblinka is close to the Bug River.
• Wiernik, Grossman, Rajzman and the November 1942 all have 10 gas chambers for the new extermination building.

A possible explanation for how the Höss Treblinka account was achieved could be that the Allied interrogators provided their prisoner with a number of “facts" they had gleaned from the abovementioned publications, and that Höss wove these facts into his witness statements without being aware of the internal chronology of the Treblinka narrative, thus creating a witness account that, while containing certain details mentioned by said narrative, is completely at odds with it chronologically.

Conclusion

The former Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss’ various descriptions of an alleged visit of his to the “extermination camp" Treblinka makes up a tangled mess which is hard, if not impossible, to reconcile with the orthodox Holocaust narrative. If one part of the orthodox Treblinka narrative is thrown overboard in order to rescue the story of the visit, then invariably some aspect of Höss’ account is contradicted. Whatever date you ascribe to the alleged visit, a crucial part of the Treblinka story will clash with Höss’ statements, which also contradicts each other on several points. Or as pioneer revisionist Arthur R. Butz succinctly noted regarding Höss’ “confessions":

These are simply the sorts of contradictions that one should expect to emerge from a pack of lies.[51]

Notes

[1]

For more on this issue, cf. Robert Faurisson, “How the British obtained the Confessions of Rudolf Höss", The Journal for Historical Review, Vol. 7, No. 4, p. 389-403.

[2]

IMT, Vol. XI, p. 416.

[3]

Yitzhak Arad, Belzec. Sobibor, Treblinka. The Operation Reinhard Death Camps, Indiana University Press, Bloomingdale 1987, p. 29.

[4]

Cf. Karin Orth, “Rudolf Hoess und die ‘Endlösung der Judenfrage’: Drei Argumente gegen deren Datierung auf den Sommer 1941," in Werkstatt-Geschichte (1997), p. 45-57. Rudolf Höss, Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen, edited by M. Broszat, Deutschen Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich, 9th ed. 1983, p. 157. John Mendelsohn (Ed.), The Holocaust vol.12: The "Final Solution" in the Extermination Camps and the Aftermath, Garland Publishing, New York/London 1982, p. 72.

[5]

IMT Vol. XI, p. 416.

[6]

Mendelsohn, p. 86. “Eichmann had been in Auschwitz in the meantime and at that time I told him that I had to see this camp [Treblinka] and that I should advice them of my coming."

[7]

Ibid, p. 82.

[8]

IMT, Vol. XI, p. 416.

[9]

Arad, p. 392.

[10]

Leon Goldensohn, The Nuremberg Interviews. An American Psychiatrist’s Conversations with the Defendants and Witnesses (edited and with an introduction by Robert Gellately), Random House, New York 2004, p. 300.

[11]

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/hoess.html

[12]

Goldensohn, p. 300-301. The bracketed statement regarding the size of the prison cell is Goldensohn’s.

[13]

Ibid, p. 300-301.

[14]

Mendelsohn, p. 85.

[15]

IMT Vol. XI, p. 416-417.

[16]

Mendelsohn, p. 82-83.

[17]

Ibid, p. 83.

[18]

Höss, p. 167. My translation.

[19]

Arad, p. 43.

[20]

Ibid, p. 42.

[21]

Arad, p. 119-120.

[22]

Ibid, p. 392.

[23]

Cf. Mendelsohn, p.25, 87; Goldensohn, p. 100; IMT Vol. XI, p. 416.

[24]

Cf. Carlo Mattogno, Auschwitz: Crematorium I and the Alleged Homicidal Gassings, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2005, p. 13, 67-68, 80-81; C. Mattogno, The Bunkers of Auschwitz. Black Propaganda vs. History, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2004, p. 20-21.

[25]

Arad, p. 120.

[26]

Mendelsohn, p.83.

[27]

Höss, p. 167. My translation.

[28]

Cf. Arad, p. 39, 42.

[29]

Alexander Donat (Ed.), The Death Camp Treblinka. A Documentary, Holocaust Library, New York 1979, p. 158, 164.

[30]

Arad, p. 120.

[31]

Arad, p. 87.

[32]

Ibid, p. 87.

[33]

Goldensohn, p. 301.

[34]

Höss, p. 167. My translation.

[35]

Cf. Arad, p. 173-174.

[36]

Richard Glazar, Trap with a Green Fence, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1995, p. 29.

[37]

Carlo Mattogno, Auschwitz: Open Air Incinerations, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2005, p. 28-29.

[38]

Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau 1939-1945, Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1989, pp. 305f.

[39]

Ibid, p. 349.

[40]

Goldensohn, p. 300.

[41]

Arad, p. 42.

[42]

Mendelsohn, p. 74.

[43]

Arad, p. 8.

[44]

Ibid, p. 8.

[45]

Mendelsohn, p. 74.

[46]

Arad, p. 9.

[47]

Yankel Wiernik, A year in Treblinka, American Representation of the General Jewish Workers Union of Poland, New York 1944.

[48]

V. Grossman, L'enfer de Treblinka, B. Arthaud, Grenoble/Paris 1945; W. Grossmann, Peiklo Treblinki, Wydawnictwo Literatura Polska, Katowice 1945.

[49]

Hearings, House Foreign Affairs Committee, 79th Cong., 1st session on H.R. 93, March 22-26, 1945, pp.121-125.

[50]

This report was included in Jacob Apenszlak (ed.), The Black Book of Polish Jewry, American Federation for Polish Jews, New York 1943, pp. 141-147.

[51]

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century. The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, 3^rd revised and expanded edition, Theses & Dissertations Press, Chicago 2003, p. 135.