Work in the Moscow Archives

From 17 November to 16 December of 1995, I was in Moscow. Carlo Mattogno arrived on November 18. The purpose of our stay was the continuation of the research which we had begun during July and August of 1995 in the Moscow archives concerning Auschwitz and other National Socialist era concentration camps.

We were housed under good conditions by private persons. Because of not very pleasant outdoor conditions, such as slushy or frozen streets, the daily onset of early darkness, the endless travel in overcrowded subways, and the lack of proper physical excercise, after our research period ended, we were happy to be able to return to our respective homes and families. There are more pleasant months in Moscow than November and December!

1) Work in the Archive of the Russian Federation

In this archive many Soviet documents are stored regarding those camps which were freed by the Soviets: Soviet Commissions Reports; witness testimonies; a number of confiscated German documents of various camps, but not of Auschwitz. Since the main part of our work there had been accomplished during the summer, we only needed to spend one and a half days there this time.
The evaluating of this material will require a long time since most of it is printed in Russian. Because of a heavy work schedule, I personally have limited time for translating all this material, and Mattogno vetoed the involvememt of a third person; he currently prefers to acquire a working knowledge of the Russian language for himself. In my August report, I inquired whether anyone could recommend an appropriate Russian language co-worker, and although I received two friendly responses for which I am grateful, I cannot utilize these offers at this time, because of the above.

2) State Special Archives

At the “State Special Archives” we worked every day except on weekends and holidays. The archival staff personnel were all very cooperative, friendly, and kind; regarding this, one contributing factor might have been that their incomes may have been somehow related to their document price of one dollar per photocopy page! Financial support from the State is minimal, and from what the director said, there is concern that the archive may have to close. With support from friends to our Cause, we were financially able to obtain a copy of all the apparent and most important documents.

3) The Document Resources of the “Central State Special Archives”

There are approximately 90,000 pages of original documents concerning Auschwitz in this archive. Because so many carbon copies and duplicates have been made of some of them, there actually may be approximately 70,000 pages there. We planned to look through all of these 70,000 pages, and we actually did just that, before our time ran out. One may laugh and argue that we actually spent only a few seconds per page, but considering that one file consists of a hundred pages concerning the construction of horse stables, or another file is three hundred pages concerning the payroll of gardeners, then it is certainly sufficient to leaf through quickly in order to find out whether or not some other type of document would be among those others. The documents are organized in 650 files. Each page has been numbered twice, which shows that the entire inventory has been examined at least twice by the Soviets. Less than 5% of the documents are of any interest. From this archive, we brought a little more than 3,000 copies (plus about 1000 copies from the above-mentioned archive). Among them are maps and construction plans including those of crematories; some of which were presented by Pressac; some of which were not.

Pressac and Fleming have looked through only a small portion of the files, as is shown by the lack of the required signatures on the control logs. Pressac may have inspected 50 out of the 650 files; among those however, the most important ones.

4) The Value of the Documents

From the very beginning, one had to assume that the absolutely sensational was most probably not going to be found. Certainly documents which would have confirmed the gas chamber and extermination theses would have been triumphantly displayed long ago, and those which would contradict the legend too crassly, would undoubtedly have been culled, and either have been destroyed, or stored in a special archive. At any rate, the censors have performed incomplete work here, because all too many documents which are embarassing to the official theses have slipped their attention. Here are some examples:

We have copied a document which refers to a “Delousing-Chamber for a Crematorium”. With this, the mysterious letter about the “Vergasungskeller”, which has often been mentioned by the Exterminationists, would very well be clarified; and also one or another so called “criminal traces” of Mr. Pressac. That this delousing chamber was then actually established and in operation, is not provable. At the February 1994 Ottobrunn follow-up meeting, Walter Luftl reiterated the 1989 Carlo Mattogno hypothesis that such a chamber in Krema II could have at least been planned, because in 1943 there were insufficient disinfesting facilities, and such a room or chamber with a ventilating system could have provisionally served as such. We surmise that regarding such an installation plan of a disinfestation chamber in Krema II, a whole series of letters and documents would have been in existence, and were then culled by the censors. In this case, the document which fell into our hands would have escaped their attention.

We have in our hands data for many periods concerning the sick and chronically ill prisoners in Birkenau. According to the legend, these people were supposed to have been immediately exterminated because they were unable to work! We have other documents proving there were very strict regulations prohibiting the SS from maltreating the prisoners.

There was an exraordinarily high number of releases. Merely during a few days in June and July 1944, there were 186 releases of short-term prisoners which are documented; by projection, one arrives at many thousands. Mostly these pertain to Poles who had been sent to Birkenau for terms of from 4 to 10 weeks to undergo “education by work” because of infractions of breaking labor contracts, and then they were sent back to their factories after serving their sentences. We knew nothing about all these many releases until now; for 1944, Laqueur and the Kalandarium only give the release of the “Schindler-Jews”. Just imagine, all these prisoners were supposed to have been allowed to be living witnesses to the mass extermination of the Hungarian Jews and then thereafter go free to tell everywhere what they had seen!

Mattogno believes that he has found a great amount of valuable material for his special field: the crematories. He is currently evaluating.

5) Documents Sought But Not Found

Auschwitz was probably photographed by the Soviet Air Forces. We have searched in vain for such aerial photographs in, among other places, the military archives located in the desolate little town of Podolsk, East of Moscow. If such photographs exist, they must be in some unknown location. We searched also in vain for the 1944 crematory coke delivery orders. These would have been especially important because they would have made it possible for us to calculate the highest possible number of cremations. Perhaps these documents are stored in one of the ten or twelve other archives in Europe where scattered Auschwitz documents are kept.

6) Utilization of the Documents

The Carlo Mattogno large work on the crematories, is to be first published in Italy during 1996. His work on the “Gas Chambers” is planned to be published in 1997. From both of these works, a condensed version is to be published in German which will consist of 250 pages including an appendix. The Moscow documents will be integrated into his studies which now require alterations. Other than the fact that I will copy a dozen documents to use in a popular version of a scientific work which I have written together with a French friend to be published in the summer of 1996, Mattogno himself will not release the documents ahead of time to anyone. The reason for this is that on several occasions, some revisionists have adorned themselves with the laurels of others, and have utilized as their very own, documents given to them by Mattgono, and then have neglected to properly cite or recognize their source. By the way, concerning this, Robert Faurisson could also attest to this unfortunate practice. This should be discontinued, and the sooner, the better.

To those who are seriously interested in this topic, Mattogno will provide the opportunity to view the documents in Italy.

7) Other Remarks

The “Central State Special Archive” contains an enormous number of seized German documents from various areas; for instance, there are about 900 pages on file of the Ministry of the Occupied Eastern Territories. Because of our time limitations, we were not able to fully research all such topics. There would be a great amount of other fascinating research areas. Researchers who are interested, should be reminded that the future of the archive is uncertain. Accessibility is currently feasible, but one must present himself as an established researcher, or as an associate of an academic organization. I am at your service for particular information in this regard.

Without the financial support of many generous friends, our first stay in Moscow (July-August 1995) which was the prerequisite for the second visit, could not have materialized. Once again, heartfelt thanks to all donors!

As far as we can determine, not only do we know what kind of documents are in the archives, but we also know which ones are NOT in the archives. That, too, is important!

This circular letter may be passed on to interested parties.

Jürgen Graf [address outdated, omitted, ed.]

The late Russ Granata is responsible for any translation errors of this English version of the German text of Jürgen Graf.