The “Discovery” of “Bunker 1” at Birkenau: Swindles, Old and New

Seven buildings in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camps are claimed to have been equipped with one or more homicidal gas chambers. Five of those buildings were the former Auschwitz crematoria. One smaller crematorium was located in the Auschwitz main camp, and four big crematoria were erected in the huge sub-camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. Since the end of World War Two, it was claimed that the gas chambers in those crematoria were the locations of the biggest mass slaughter that ever took place in human history. Allegedly of minor importance were two former farm houses outside of the immediate perimeter of the Birkenau camp that are said to have been converted into gas chambers as well. A sudden turn happened in the middle of 2002, when a German mainstream journalist published a thesis according to which the Auschwitz crematoria did not, after all, serve as locations for mass slaughter. In his view, the two farm houses were the real location of this atrocity.[1] Though this thesis was badly flawed,[2] it came in quite handy that just a year prior to the publication of this journalist's provocative thesis news spread through Europe's media that finally, after over 55 years, the actual location of one of these farm houses had been located-meaning that so far, no traces of this ominous farm house were known. The following article proves that the 2001 media reports about the alleged discovery of this farm house were nothing but an unfounded hoax, produced by unscrupulous researchers and the media who are always eager to discover some 'Nazi' relics.

The 'Discovery'

According to the Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau[3] two Polish farm houses at Birkenau were converted into 'homicidal gas chambers' by the camp administration prior to the construction of the four crematoria. The 'Red House,' known as 'Bunker 1,' is said to have been put into operation on 20 March 1942, and the 'White House,' or 'Bunker 2' is said to have been put into operation on 30 June of the same year. “Bunker 1” is said to have been destroyed in 1943, and no traces of it are said to remain. The destruction of 'Bunker 2' is said to have taken place at the end of 1944, but the foundation walls of the house referred to as 'Bunker 2' and which are said to have been used for this purpose, are still in existence and can still be seen, even today.

On November 20, 2001, the Italian daily paper Corriere della Sera published an article by Gian Guido Vecchi[4] on page 35 entitled “Shoa. L'inferno cominciò in una casa rossa” (Shoah: Hell Began in a Red House). The article claims that a certain Marcello Pezzetti discovered the location of the alleged 'Bunker 1' of Birkenau at precisely this location. A private house occupied by a Polish family is said to have stood on the spot until only a few months ago, but that the house has since been torn down. According to Marcello Pezzetti, the house in question was none other than 'Bunker 1' (“[the author] wondered how anyone could live in a gas chamber with a clear conscience”).

This is absurd, since the alleged 'Bunker 1' was destroyed in 1943.

The 'discovery' is said to have taken place in the summer of 1943, when “Schloma” (correctly: Schlomo; in Polish, Szlama) Dragon, his brother, and Eliezer “Esisenschmidt” (correctly: Eisenschmidt) are said to have taken 'discoverer' Pezzett to the house which appears to the left of the small photograph on the above mentioned page of the Corriere della Sera.

Who is Marcello Pezzetti?

Marcello Pezzetti is a researcher for the CDEC (Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea, Centre for Contemporary Jewish Contemporary Historical Documentation) in Milan. He is chiefly known for his activity as an adviser during the filming of several Holocaust films (Spielberg's Schindler's List and Benigni's La vita è bella) as well as for the release of the CD Destinazione Auschwitz (Destination Auschwitz). The latter is a sort of video game for the purpose of brain-washing the younger generation. Among Italian journalistic circles, which make a great deal of space available to him for the presentation of his arguments, Marcello Pezzetti is considered “one of the world's best-known experts on Auschwitz and the Shoah”, something which he himself, tragically, also appears to believe!

The first announcement of the 'Discovery'

Marcello Pezzetti had already announced the remarkable 'discovery' of alleged 'Bunker 1' at Birkenau four years ago. Pages 94-97 of the February 26 edition of the Italian weekly paper Panorama, carried an article by Valeria Gandus under the title “Operazione memoria” relating to the UNESCO decision to include the former Auschwitz concentration camp

The journalist announced that the remains of Crematoria II and III of Birkenau were constantly:

For this reason, UNESCO cooked up a program, which

Fig. 1: First page of the report by Mrs. Józefa Wisińska (click to view full-size)

Fig. 2: Topographic sketch by Mrs. J. Wisińskas, attached to the report. The sketch shows conditions in 1941. The upper side corresponds to the western side.

Fig. 3: Caption of sketch (click to enlarge)

The object of the project is obvious. Revisionist researchers are to be prevented from accessing the ruins of both these alleged extermination installations to prevent in-depth research into the highly significant question of the 'chemistry of extermination' and the existence of the alleged Zyklon B introduction holes. Fred Leuchter and Germar Rudolf have obviously put the fear of God into the official purveyors of history.

The journalist furthermore tells us that

This is followed by the announcement of the extraordinary 'discovery':

At that time this extraordinary 'discovery' hardly attracted notice, but today things look differently, since this time the Holocaust Industry had its hand in the matter.

Let us first examine how the historical value of this 'discovery' was readapted. The following includes several findings from a current study on the alleged 'Bunker' of Birkenau, a study which is not yet completed.

The historical value of the 'discovery'

Let it be stated first of all, that the 'Bunkers' of Birkenau never existed as extermination installations. On the contrary, the Birkenau camp was surrounded by several Polish houses, some of which were torn down, while others were taken over by the Auschwitz camp administration, given a “Bauwerk” number and name, and used for the intended purposes. For example, the Polish house to which the number 44 was assigned was designated “Bauwerk 36c”, converted accordingly, and made available to SS-Sturmbannführer Cäsar, the head of the agricultural operations, as a dwelling house. Other buildings were left in an unconverted condition, but not taken over by the camp administration and remained unused. Two of these houses were finally given the designations 'Bunker 1' and 'Bunker 2,' but only as the result of a laborious literary procedure which began in August 1942, continued between 1942 and 1944, and finally took concrete form in February 1945 thanks to Szlama Dragon.

But the problem which is of concern to us here is of quite another nature. The location of 'Bunker 1' indicated by Marcello Pezzetti is in complete contradiction to the only source available to official historiography. This is a report given on August 5, 1980, by a Mrs. Wisińska, and made available to the Auschwitz Museum, taken down by Franciszek Piper, and published in the anthology “Oświadczenia” (Testimonies), volume 113, pp. 77-78 (see Fig. 1).

Mrs. Wisińska stated that her family had lived in the immediate vicinity of the Birkenau Camp before WWII. In 1941, the house, owned by her uncle Józef Harmata (as well as by her son-in-law Gryzek), was confiscated and converted into 'Bunker 1' by the Germans. In 1949, Mrs. Wisińska returned to the property which had belonged to him. The house owned by her uncle (alleged 'Bunker 1') no longer existed. A few meters away from the location where it had existed, a house was later built which at that time belonged to a Mr. Stanisław Czarnik. Mrs. Wisińska appended a topographic sketch of the location to her report (see Figs. 2 and 3), showing the exact positions of the old house owned by J. Harmata (alleged 'Bunker 1') and the new house owned by Mr. Czarnik.

Fig. 4: Photograph of the alleged house owned by Mr. Czarniks taken by Franciszek Piper on September 20, 1985. Below: The courtyard between this house and the adjacent house is easily visible in my photograph (Fig. 6, next page; click to enlarge).

Mrs. Wisińska obviously had no proof that the house owned by her uncle J. Harmata and her son-in-law Gryzek was converted into any 'Bunker 1' by SS men stationed at Auschwitz. This was quite obviously suggested to her by the Auschwitz Museum, which, in 1978, in an official camp plan of Birkenau, had already indicated the exact location of the alleged 'Bunker 1' on an official map of Birkenau camp at the exact location indicated by Mrs. Wisińska in 1980, and needed this fictitious, subsequent 'proof' in order to justify itself. That the choice fell on a member of the Harmata family is explained by the fact that the judgment of the Höß Trial (2 April 1947) states that the Polish houses converted into 'Bunker 1' and 'Bunker 2' had belonged to the peasants Wiechuja und Harmata living in Brezinka (Birkenau). But the names of these two peasants were arbitrarily chosen from among people who had lived in the area and whose houses had been taken over by the SS, so as to conjure up fictitious 'proof' of the location of the 'Bunker.' In their specious reasoning, the judges equated 'Bunker 1' with the house owned by the Wiechuja family, and 'Bunker 2' with the house owned by the Harmata family. In so doing, they followed the findings of the expert Roman Dawidowski in his report dated September 26, 1946. In contrast, Mrs. Wisińska stated that the house converted into alleged 'Bunker 1' had belonged to the Harmata family and not the Wiechuja family, which amounts to further proof that the identification of the two 'Bunkers' with the houses of the two families was completely specious.

On September 20, 1985, Franciszek Piper produced four photographs of a house which had, according to him, belonged to Mr. Czarnik. One of the photos, bearing the archive number “neg. no. 21225/3” in the inventory of the Auschwitz Museum, shows a frontal view of the house in question (see Fig. 4), which is identical to the photograph appearing in the above mentioned article (see Fig. 5). But this house, also photographed by myself in August 2000 (see Fig. 6), is located on the other side of the street which now runs outside and along the western barbed wire perimeter of the camp (see Fig. 7), while the house owned by J. Harmatas (alleged “Bunker 1”), as clearly shown by the topographic sketch drawn by Mrs. Wisińskas, was located further to the east, inside the camp's barbed wire perimeter and only a few meters north of the sewage treatment installation, which can still be seen today.

The house indicated by Marcello Pezzetti is located west of another symbol which cannot be overlooked: namely the monument to Soviet prisoners of war. This monument is located approximately 200 meters west of the sewage treatment installation and, therefore, west of the location where the house owned by J. Harmatas (alleged 'Bunker 1') formerly stood, close to the western fencing of the camp and the street running along this line (see Fig. 7). Access to this monument is by way of an old barred gate. If one walks from there to the right or north, the house in question is located approximately 100 m away.

Fig. 5: Photograph of the same house taken by F. Piper
and published in the “Corriere della Sera.”

Fig. 6: Photo taken by myself in August 2000.

Fig. 7: My photograph, taken in August 2000, showing the street (from south to north) to the house in question. The building stands to the left rear (to the west), in front of the last tree on the edge of the street. To the right rear (in the East), the barbed wire perimeer of Birkenau camp is visible; in the clearing visible in the foreground is the gate providing access to the monument to the Soviet prisoners of war.

This house, which, according to Mr. Pezzetti, stood on the ruins of 'Bunker 1' or was even exactly identical with 'Bunker 1,' lies, as the crow flies, more than 300 m away from the location of the house owned by J. Harmatas, and, therefore, the former location of alleged 'Bunker 1.'

Based on the above, three conclusions can be drawn:

1. That a house (owned by Mr. Czarnik) was located only a few meters away from the house formerly owned by J. Harmats ('Bunker 1'), is in no way a discovery made by M. Pezzetti, but rather, a revelation by Mrs. Wisińskas.
2. The identification of the Czarnik house with the house in the photograph in the article in the Corriere della Sera had already been made by F. Piper eight years before the article by M. Pezzetti.
3. The identification of this house with 'Bunker 1' is incorrect, since the house in the photograph taken by F. Piper and M. Pezzetti, as well in as my own photograph, cannot be identical to the house owned by Mr. Czarnik and cannot, therefore, have been located on the ruins of 'Bunker 1.' It cannot, therefore, be the Czarnik house indicated by Mrs. Wisińskas.

M. Pezzetti's 'discovery' therefore lacks all historical value.

Marcello Pezzetti's 'Witnesses'

M. Pezzetti reports that in 1993, Szlama Dragon, his brother Abraham, and Eliezer Eisenschmidt had led him directly to the house where 'Bunker 1' allegedly stood. But as will be seen below, Szlama Dragon was interrogated in 1945, first by the Soviets and then by the Poles, and had, at that time, shown himself unable to give any information on the location of 'Bunker 1.' How can one then seriously believe that Szlama Dragon could, with complete certainty, find a location which he had been unable to find 48 years earlier? The matter becomes even more unbelievable when the witness, at the 26^th session of the Vienna Trial against the architects of the Auschwitz crematoria Walter Dejaco and Fritz Ertl (March 2, 1972), after confusing Crematorium I with 'Bunker 2' on the previous day (!), found himself compelled to admit:[5]

By a first-class miracle, therefore, Szlama Dragon remembers something 48 years later, which he had forgotten after 30 years, and which he didn't know three years later!

Szlama Dragon's brother Abraham did not appear as a witness at either the Höß Trial or the trial of the Auschwitz guard personnel. Even later, he made no sworn statements and wrote no reports of any kind as to his experiences. The same is true of Eliezer Eisenschmidt. Both told their stories in the 1990s for the first time![6] In the interview published at that time, the Dragon brothers testified that they had worked at “Bunker 2” for one single day, in December 1942.[7] Szlama furthermore claimed to have worked there for only two days in 1944.[8] That's all! Neither Szlama nor Abraham were ever taken to alleged 'Bunker 1'. How could they identify it in 1993 with such certainty?

Eliezer Eisenschmidt, on the other hand, testified to having worked six full months at 'Bunker 1,'[9] but was nevertheless unable to provide even a vague indication of its location.[10] But that's not all: he was not even aware of the designation 'bunker' for the alleged 'gas chamber;' rather, he believed that the “bunkers” (plural) were identical to the alleged “cremation pits”:[11]

In his book mentioned above, Gideon Greif reports that in the summer of 1993, during Szlama Dragon's interrogation at the ruins of alleged 'Bunker 2,' “a friend from Italian television” had come and shown him a page from Szlama Dragon's affidavit drawn up in Polish in 1945. Based on this document, the Italian had wanted to find the location of the “cremation pits”. Greif told him to ask S. Dragon himself, who was, after all, on the spot. The Italian is said to have been “speechless”.[12] But E. Eisenschmidt was also in Birkenau in the summer of 1993,[13] so that the “friend from Italian television” obviously was no other than Marcello Pezzetti. On this occasion, he then spoke with three 'survivors' and 'discovered' the alleged 'Bunker 1'-but why doesn't Greif mention this 'discovery' with a single word?

Map of Birkenau, taken from “Auschwitz.”[14] The “Bunker 1” north of the sewage treatment plant in construction sector III is marked with the letter “I,” which is explained as follows in the caption: “First provisional gas chamber.”

Greif's book reproduces the map of Birkenau[15] which already appeared in the Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau (p. 27), in which the “1st provisional gas chamber” is indicated at the same spot (and with the same symbol) as in the book Auschwitz. Nazi Extermination Camp.[16] I will have more to say about this book below. The “gas chamber” was allegedly located north of the sewage treatment installation of Bauabschnitt (construction section) III, on the spot indicated by Mrs. Wisińska. But if it is true that Szlama Dragon, Abraham Dragon, and Eliezer Eisenschmidt had already indicated the exact location of 'Bunkers 1' as early as 1993 (naturally in the presence of Greif, who had asked them to come to Birkenau in order to interview them), why doesn't he mention it with as much as one single word? And why didn't the three witnesses correct the map of Birkenau reproduced in the book?

M. Pezzetti claims that the three witnesses had led him, without being asked, “starting out from Crematorium III” to the above mentioned Polish house. This is a mere allegation, about which every person who is only moderately familiar with the topography of Birkenau can only laugh, since the zone around the camp had changed enormously between 1943 and 1993.

If the story of the meeting between these four men is correct, the three pitiful old men simply took M. Pezetti wherever he wanted to go!

The views of the Auschwitz Museums on the 'discovery'

On November 20, 2001, Le Monde published a short article by Henri Tincq, entitled “Le mystère enfin levé de la première chambre à gas d'Auschwitz-Birkenau” (The Secret of the First Gas Chamber of Auschwitz-Birkenau Finally Solved), which was nothing but a pale repetition of the article in Corriere della Sera. Via the Paris daily, news of the 'discovery' finally found an echo in the European and American press. The Auschwitz Museum also heard of M. Pezzetti's 'discovery' from Le Monde and answered it with an article written by Jerzy Sadecki, entitled “Auschwitz-Birkenau. 'Le Monde' Reveals a Secret That Never Was”, in the Polish newspaper Rzeczpospolita (Republic). In it, Jerzy Wróblewski, Director of the Museum, and Franciszek Piper had their say. I quote the most important excerpts from the article, which I found in English on the website of the Auschwitz Museum:[17]

The swindles of the Auschwitz Museum

The Auschwitz Museum therefore claims to have made the alleged 'discovery' itself, but does not dispute that the house referred to by M. Pezetti stands on the spot where 'Bunker 1' once stood. But Wróblewski und Piper can only defend this claim with risible arguments.

Wróblewski alleges:

This is completely untrue. None of the eyewitnesses interrogated by the Soviets immediately after the liberation of Auschwitz was able to indicate the location of 'Bunker 1,' neither on the terrain nor on topographical maps. This is true in particular for Szlama Dragon, the star witness to the alleged 'Bunker,' who was interrogated on February 26, 1945, by the Soviets and later, on May 10 and 11 of the same year by the Poles. He was never able to identify the location where 'Bunker 1' had stood. Quite the contrary. Regardless of the presence of Dragon and other witnesses, the Soviets were so uncertain as to this structure that it appeared in quite a different location on the map drawn up on March 3, 1945, by Engineer Nosal for the Soviet Investigating Commission:[18] outside the camp, approximately 300 m away from the north barbed wire perimeter of construction section III of Birkenau, i.e., approximately 500 m north of the location marked by the Auschwitz Museum on its official maps (beginning with the one in the book Auschwitz: Nazi Death Camp) and approximately 500 m north of the location indicated by M. Pezzetti. The expert Dawidowski limited himself to accepting the location on the map drawn up by Nosal. This constitutes further proof that the Harmata and Wiechuja families had nothing to do with the houses converted into the alleged 'bunkers.'

None of the witnesses trotted out in the trials of Höß and the camp guards held in 1947 were able to identify the location of the alleged 'Bunker 1,' and this is also true of the witnesses who made statements about this building at a later time.

Wróblewski and Piper finally refer to the

It is true that the above mentioned book (published in 1978 and not 1977) contains a map of Birkenau indicating the location of 'Bunkers 1' but the bunker is not located outside the camp, where first Franciszek Piper and then Marcello Pezzetti claims to have 'discovered' it, but rather, north of the sewage treatment installation, at the exact spot indicated by Mrs. Wisińska (see Fig. 8)!

Fig. 8: First Gas Chamber Discovered:

“Paris – The first constructed gas chamber of the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was discovered. It is a Polish farm house which had been confiscated in 1942.”

Brainwashing of the public by the German tabloid “Bild,” November 20, 2001. On the same day, the same sensational news was announced in Italian, French, and German media. A coincidence?

Thus, both representatives of the Auschwitz Museum did not make an error in good faith, but they lie consciously.

The swindle is completed by Franciszek Piper with the following statement:

Here, Piper refers to the report drawn up by Mrs. Wisińskas and taken down by himself personally on August 5, 1980. But as already mentioned, this woman indicated an entirely different location of 'Bunker 1,' “to the meter”, so that F. Piper is lying in this case as well.

It is true that F. Piper, in his already mentioned work, Auschwitz 1940-1945. Studien zur Geschichte des Konzentrations- und Vernichtungslagers Auschwitz (Auschwitz 1940-1945: Studies on the History of Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp) published a 'plan' of 'Bunker 1,'[19] but this contains no reference to the topographical location of the house and, moreover, in regards to structure, orientation, and size of the house, not only contradicts the plan of the house sketched by Mrs. Wisińska in 1980, but also the plan drawn by Engineer Nosal in 1945, based on information from Szlama Dragon!

Marcello Pezzetti is no better than Piper. In the Corriere della Sera article, he turns Mrs. Wisińska's report into a:

This is pure fantasy. The fact is that according to various German plans of the area of Birkenau, including the extremely important plan of October 5, 1942, east of the future Construction Section III of the camp, within 500 m of the barbed wire perimeter, there were only six structures corresponding exactly to the structures indicated on the plan sketched by Mrs. Wisińskas (apart from Building no. 6, a stall, which does not appear on the plan). In the area in which, according to Mario Pezetti, the house built on the ruins of 'Bunker 1' stood, no building ever existed at that time!

This is irrefutable evidence that the 'discovery' of alleged 'Bunker 1' was not a pardonable error, but, rather, a vulgar swindle.

'Discovery' as a business

It is obvious that there are propagandistic and economic grounds for the alleged 'discovery.' With relation to the house which, according to Marcello Pezzetti, stood on the ruins of 'Bunker 1,' the Corriere della Sera writes:

The very title of an article published in the Bollettino della Comunità Ebraica di Milano reveals the true purpose of Marcello Pezzetti's miraculous marvellous 'discovery':[20] “Shoà [sic]: la prima camera a gas di Auschwitz diventa museo” (Shoah: The First Gas Chamber of Auschwitz Becomes a Museum). The contribution begins with the following piece of news:

The new house, the article continues, has been built thanks to the generosity of the Jewish cardiologist in order to “dedicate thought” to 'Bunker 1'”:

Therefore, the house that “the family” (which of the two families was it?) moved into in 1947 was no less than 'Bunker 1.' As a mitigating circumstance it may be assumed that this gigantic piece of idiocy was suggested to this anonymous journalist by Marcello Pezzettia, who is quoted in this article as follows:

Marcello Pezzetti finally reports as to the shameful methods by means of which he succeeded in forcing the family-“who had no intention of leaving the house”-to leave the house. After eight years of pressure from the “local political authorities”, “the new Director of the [Auschwitz] Museum, Stefan Wilkanowicz”, and, finally, from the “Officials of the Vatican in France for Relations with the Jewish World”, as well as thanks to money from the “French philanthropist Richard Prasquier, the Chaiman of the Yad Vashem of France,” the family finally capitulated and agreed to move to a new house 500 meters away. In the meantime, Marcello Pezzetti himself did not remain inactive. He in fact unashamedly admits that the members of the Polish family had, if at all, “welcomed the move as the end of a nightmare”,

The pitiful family was psychologically tormented by the 'visitors' in this manner, i.e., with the crudest violation of their property rights, “for years”, to soften them up and force them to leave their house. Marcello Pezzetti adds that the new house was officially paid for by the Polish government,

The money invested in this transaction by the “French philanthropist” was unquestioningly repaid with interest and compound interest, thanks to the propagandistic exploitation of this new pavilion by the Holocaust Industry. We can be certain that the first commercial transaction will be a video film-to be sold in the millions-on the 'discovery' of 'Bunker 1.' There is no doubt that the 'discovery' will even help the Auschwitz Museum increase its sales.

There is also a significant ideological-propagandistic objective to the 'discovery': it comes at a time when a severe crisis is building up around the official historiography. After the collapse of the hot-air balloon blown up by Jean-Clause Pressac,[22] the official historiography has nothing else to offer than a sterile rehash of arguments that are already threadbare, and is making no scientific progress at all. After the collapse, from Pressac, van Pelt, and Fritjof Meyer,[23] it is caught up in its own mediocrity, and no longer knows what to do to counter revisionist criticism.

The swindle with 'Bunker 1' is therefore becoming the new media weapon against revisionism.

Notes

This article first appeared in German in Vierteljahreshefte für freie Geschichtsforschung, 6(2) (2002), 139-145. A badly edited English version with the wrong author, no footnotes, no documents, and no appropriate illustrations appeared in The Barnes Review, 9(2) (2003), pp. 29-34. Translated by Carlos Porter.