Auschwitz-Birkenau
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[back] Auschwitz-Birkenau
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As the years went on, Auschwitz by and large receded into the background.
A decade after the war, the public knew virtually nothing about it.
This may be attributed partly to the fact that the Soviets did not permit
outsiders to inspect the grounds of the Auschwitz complex. What is more, none
of the German and Austrian soldiers interned at Auschwitz, which served for
several months as a Soviet prisoner of war camp, found any traces of the alleged
mass murders, not even in Birkenau, supposedly the actual extermination
camp, and so reported after their release. Of course, remnants of the crematoria
were there to be seen, but the quantity of rubble did not match what would have
been left behind by crematoria of the size required for the mass extermination
of several thousand people per day.
One may well ask: If this allegation were true, why
then did not the Soviets immediately exhibit the camp to journalists from all
over the world and place the evidence of the alleged mass murders under
international control? I shall leave it to the reader to answer this question
for himself. [emphasis added]
The Auschwitz Myth by Wilhelm Stäglich
I think that in Auschwitz from 1940 to 1945 something like 150,000 people died. It was an enormous camp, of course. But all the same, this is very many deaths. Most of them died in 1942 because of the typhus epidemic. Many Germans died of typhus in 1942, including the most important doctor in Auschwitz: he himself died of typhus. German women of the SS died of typhus. This is already an enormous figure. So we don't need to exaggerate. Transcript of the Recording of a Talk Given in Stockholm on December 4th, 1992
In 1945 the Allies should have asked specialists on American gas chambers to examine the buildings, at Auschwitz and elsewhere, which were supposed to have been used to gas millions of people. Since 1977, I have had the following idea: when one deals with a vast historical problem like that of the reality or the legend of the Holocaust, one must strive to get to the core of the problem; In this case the central problem is Auschwitz and the core of that problem is a space of 275 square meters: the 65 square meters of the "gas chamber" of crematorium I at Auschwitz and, at Birkenau, the 210 square meters of the "gas chamber" of crematorium II. In 1988, my idea remained the same: let us have expert studies of those 275 square meters and we will have an answer to the vast problem of the Holocaust! I showed the jury my photos of the gas chamber at the Maryland State Penitentiary in Baltimore as well as my plans for the Auschwitz gas chambers and I underlined the physical and chemical impossibilities of the latter ones. The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT FAURISSON
Ken Wilson, a specialist in aerial photographs, had shown that the homicidal "gas chambers" of Auschwitz and Birkenau did not have gas evacuation chimneys, which would have been indispensible. He also showed that I had been right in accusing Serge Klarsfeld and Jean-Claude Pressac of falsifying the map of Birkenau in the Auschwitz Album (Seuil Publishers, 1983, p. 42). Those authors, in order to make the reader believe that groups of Jewish women and children surprised by the photographer between crematories II and III could not go any farther and were thus going to end up in the "gas chambers" and those crematories, had simply eliminated from the map the path which. in reality led up to the "Zentralsauna," a large shower facility (located beyond the zone of the crematories), where those women and children were actually going. The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT FAURISSON
The evidence shows that Auschwitz-Birkenau was, in fact, established primarily as a camp for Jews who were not able to work, including the sick and elderly, as well as for others temporarily awaiting assignment to other camps. [1992] Pages From The Auschwitz Death Registry Volumes Long-Hidden Death Certificates Discredit Extermination Claims by Mark Weber
Thies Christophersen had been in charge of an agricultural research enterprise in the Auschwitz region in 1944. He visited the Birkenau camp several times to requisition personnel there and never noticed the horrors usually described. On the witness stand he repeated point by point what he had written about the camp, starting in 1973 with a 19-page report (Kritik, Nr. 23, pp. 14-32). The Austrian-born Canadian Maria Van Herwaarden was interned at Birkenau starting in 1942. She saw nothing, either close up or from a distance, that resembled mass murder, although she confirmed that many of the inmates had died of typhus. The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT FAURISSON
In 1946 Burg attended the Nuremberg trials at times when matters involving Jews were being raised. During one of these attendances he met Ilya Ehrenburg and a Jewish publisher who had been in Auschwitz for several years. Burg asked the publisher whether he had seen any gassing institutions for human beings and he said no. Ehrenburg, who had been the head of propaganda for the Red Army during the war, told Burg he had been to Auschwitz but he too had not seen anything of gassings. Burg had discussed this information with Zündel in general. (25-6857, 6858) Burg could not understand the emphasis on gassings. (26-6904) [Joseph G. Burg] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
After the war, Burg heard a lot about the allegations that
people were gassed at Auschwitz and Majdanek. He proved that it was either out
of stupidity or propaganda. Up to now, he pointed out, no document had been
found showing who gave the order for gassings, who built them and where they
were built. The German authorities especially had been called the "super-bureaucracism."
It therefore couldn't be that after all these years not a document could be
found. (25 6840)
....Burg testified that he spoke to hundreds of people who serviced and operated
the crematoria but the people who operated gas chambers were impossible to find.
Nobody had published anything in which it was claimed that he worked in a
gassing institution for human beings. There was literature about gassing that
was completely contradictory. Why? Because it was all made up. These opinions
were published in his books. (25-6840)
....In every camp there were crematoria. It was a practical issue. People died.
When the Germans occupied the eastern territories, the huge camps were
established and there were larger and more crematoria as the war progressed.
Epidemics broke out causing an increased number of deaths. The question of
crematoria was one of hygiene: the process was more hygienic than burial and
took less space. (26-6897, 6898)
....Like all other activities in the camp, the inmates looked after the
crematoria. It was the most difficult work because of the heat and the lifting
of corpses into the ovens. The inmates worked very often in three shifts around
the clock. (26-6998) These workers did it voluntarily. They were asked by the
Jewish council or the Jewish police. It was important to ask how the Jewish
council or police co-operated with the German SS. (26-6900)
[Joseph G. Burg] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst
Zündel -- 1988
Burg testified that there was no liquidation in the concentration camps. The healthier people were used for free labour. Burg pointed out that even a golden cage was a limitation of freedom and even a crime, but the invention of gassings came from sick minds. Burg wanted to prove that even at Birkenau, where gassings allegedly occurred, Jewish men and women could get special treatment. An example was Benedikt Kautsky, a Jew who was a spiritual personality in the Socialist-Marxist world movement. Kautsky was in Birkenau during the war doing office work. His mother, aged 79, was also sent to Birkenau. When she became sick she got a separate room and a special diet ordered by the doctor. This was "special treatment," given so the woman's life could be prolonged if not cured. She died when she was 80 years of age. When he was liberated, Dr. Kautsky returned to Vienna, Austria where he continued his scientific work. (26- 6893, 6894) In 1946, immediately after the liberation, Dr. Kautsky was one of the first to publish a book. It had the German title Teufel und Verdammte (Devil and Damned). Burg testified that the book was the truth and had historical value. However, the whole edition was burned. One and a half years later, he published another edition in which he rewrote portions and made changes. But he didn't completely rewrite it. There was no documentation about gas chambers and Kautsky himself admitted he never saw a gas chamber himself. (26-6902) [Joseph G. Burg] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
After the war the Allies said no mass-murders occurred at walled-camps like
Mauthausen, yet the mass-murder of thousands-a-day were kept secret for over one
year in camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek, surrounded by see-through
wire-fences, roads, and towns, where it would have been impossible to keep
mass-murders secret for even one day.
In 1945 Soviet propagandists made a mistake by alleging
secret mass-murders at visible camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, instead of at
camps like Mauthausen where the walls would have allowed secrecy. Years later
when they realized their mistake it was too late to change as Auschwitz had been
promoted as the largest, most important mass-murder camp.
http://www.air-photo.com/english/
All photographs of heaps of corpses were taken in Western camps around the end of the war, such as Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and Buchenwald, where historians now agree no mass murders took place. Significantly, there are no such photographs taken at the camps in which mass murder is alleged to have occurred (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno, Majdanek.) These eastern camps were all in areas which came under Soviet control at war's end. It is very telling that the Soviets released no pictures of mass graves or heaps of corpses and allowed no journalists, medical professionals, or other experts to examine the camps. Since the end of the 1980s. FAQ about Revisionism by Germar Rudolf
In 1977 he wrote to Albert Speer and arranged a meeting which took place for one hour in Heidelberg, West Germany. Speer had been the minister responsible for armaments and war production during the war. This meant he had been involved with Auschwitz since Auschwitz was an industrial centre. Nielsen asked Speer if there were gas chambers in Auschwitz. Speer replied that the first time he learned about gas chambers was during the Nuremberg trials. [Ernst Nielsen] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
Over the years, Holocaust historians and standard Holocaust studies have
consistently maintained that Jewish prisoners who arrived at Auschwitz between
the spring of 1942 and the fall of 1944, and who were not able to work, were
immediately put to death. Consistent with the alleged German program to
exterminate Europe's Jews, only able-bodied Jews who could be "worked to death"
were temporarily spared from the gas chambers. Holocaust historians also agree
that no records were kept of the deaths of the Jews who were summarily killed in
the camp's gas chambers because they were too old, too young or otherwise unable
to work.
...However, Auschwitz camp death records — which were hidden away for more than
40 years in the Soviet Union — cast grave doubt on these widely accepted claims.
...The death registry volumes fell into Soviet hands in January 1945 when Red
Army forces captured Auschwitz. They remained inaccessible in Soviet archives
until 1989, when officials in Moscow announced that they held 46 of the volumes,
recording the deaths of 69,000 Auschwitz inmates.
....Consistent with the Sterbebuch records, other German wartime
documents show that a very high percentage of the Jewish inmates at Auschwitz
were not able to work, and were nevertheless not killed.
...For example, an internal German telex message dated September 4, 1943, from
the chief of the Labor Allocation department of the SS Economic and
Administrative Main Office (WVHA), reported that of 25,000 Jewish inmates in
Auschwitz, only 3,581 were able to work. All of the remaining Jewish inmates —
some 21,500, or about 86 percent — were unable to work.
....This is also confirmed in a secret report dated April 5, 1944, on "security
measures in Auschwitz" by Oswald Pohl, head of the WVHA agency responsible for
the concentration camp system, to SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Pohl reported that
there was a total of 67,000 inmates in the Auschwitz camp complex, of whom
18,000 were hospitalized or disabled. In the Auschwitz II camp (Birkenau),
supposedly the main extermination center, there were 36,000 inmates, mostly
female, of whom "approximately 15,000 are unable to work."
.....The evidence shows that Auschwitz-Birkenau was, in fact, established
primarily as a camp for Jews who were not able to work, including the sick and
elderly, as well as for others temporarily awaiting assignment to other camps.
[1992] Pages From The Auschwitz Death Registry Volumes
Long-Hidden Death Certificates Discredit Extermination Claims by Mark Weber
Since 1985 it is even less possible. In January-March 1985, the trial of Ernst Zündel, who was accused by a Jewish association and by the Crown of spreading Revisionist literature, took place in Toronto (Canada). Rudolf Vrba testified as a Crown witness. (He lives now in British Columbia). Affirmative and self assured as long as he answered the questions of the Crown, he suffered a spectacular rout when cross-examined by Ernst Zündel's lawyer, Doug Christie. For the first time since 1945 a Jewish witness to the alleged gassings in Auschwitz was asked to explain his affirmations and his figures. The result was so terrible for R. Vrba that finally the Crown itself gave a kind of coup de grace to its key witness. That unexpected event and some others (like the leading specialist of the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, being caught red-handed in his lies) really made of the "Toronto Trial" the "Trial of the Nuremberg Trial." [1986] How the British Obtained the Confessions of Rudolf Höss by Robert Faurisson
Bruno Baum, a former communist inmate in Auschwitz, was allowed to brag in summer 1945 in a Soviet newspaper: "The whole propaganda which started about Auschwitz abroad was initiated by us [German communist inmates] with the help of our Polish comrades." (Deutsche Volkszeitung, Soviet paper in occupied East Germany, 31 July 1945). Thus, it is not surprising to learn that during several trials in Germany, it emerged that the testimony of witnesses from eastern Europe had been orchestrated by communist authorities. THE HOLOCAUST CONTROVERSY The Case For Open Debate An Introduction by Germar Rudolf
Close-up slides of the aerial photographs indicated that the alleged gas chamber in Auschwitz I was about 30 metres from the SS hospital building. (18-4260) Felderer was told by people in the town of Auschwitz that during the war people could obtain special permission to take tours of the camp on special days. [Ditlieb Felderer] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
Auschwitz-Birkenau. The few air photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau known to date from the period of December 1943 to February 1945 show no signs of fuel depots, smoke from chimneys or open fires, burning pits or pyres. The photos were altered: Zyklon B input hatches, groups of inmates, and walls around crematoria were retouched onto the photo negatives. Insofar as they still exist, photos of good quality are being kept from the public. One must assume that any actual mass murder activities would not have escaped the notice of the air photo interpreters. This would have resulted in the bombing of the camp - which, however, was carefully refrained from. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL
Museum officials eventually admitted to Felderer that the entire "gas chamber" at Auschwitz I was rebuilt in various stages to "help" tourists understand what occurred. (18-4298) Felderer concluded that there had never been any gas chamber at Auschwitz I and that the building had been nothing more than a crematory and morgue, later altered in 1943 to an air-raid shelter with a surgical room. Felderer advised Zündel of his conclusions. (19-4356) [Ditlieb Felderer] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
Also included in the private collection were gas masks and filters used by the Germans while fumigating the camp with Zyklon B. Felderer indicated that Zyklon B was sold in Sweden prior to the Second World War as an insecticide to kill lice, rats and bugs. In Auschwitz, it was used for the same purpose. Piper told Felderer that the camp had copies of the special instructions which the exterminators followed during the fumigation process, such as how the gas mask was to be worn, the complications of the gas and the required airing of the room. Felderer was very curious as to why the gas masks and other related items were not in the main display at Auschwitz. His conclusion, which he related to Zündel, was that when one talked about gassing, one did not want the people to realize that there were technical problems involved with it. Instead, one wanted to portray to the people that there was really nothing much to it and that it could be done very quickly. (18 4317, 4318) [Ditlieb Felderer] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
Felderer discovered two delousing buildings in Birkenau, which he testified,
were probably kept secret and off-limits to the public because they explained
the so called "selection" procedure at the ramp by Dr. Mengele and other camp
doctors. Males were sent to delouse in a separate building from the women and
children. (19-4378 to 4381) The selection procedure also involved a visual
determination of the health of incoming prisoners. It was in the interest of the
camp authorities not to spread disease. If people were sick and needed to be
treated, the camp had hospitals. (20-4765 to 4768)
The Auschwitz Museum today did not deny that incoming
prisoners were deloused. Hair was cut off from both males and females because it
harboured lice. It was also saved and used for various manufacturing needs
during the war. (19-4381) Hair on display at Auschwitz today, however, was
depicted as being the hair of gassed victims. (19-4381, 4382)
[Ditlieb Felderer] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
Felderer showed a slide of inmates fencing. This photograph was another which came from the Dürrfeld records in the American archives. Dürrfeld believed that the camp had been a decent place where inmates could, in their free time, pursue sports such as fencing, boxing and swimming. To Felderer, the idea that Auschwitz was also a death camp, as well as a place where sporting events were carried on, was ludicrous. (19-4406, 4407) [Ditlieb Felderer] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
Wilhelm Stäglich. During the Second World War
he served from mid-July to mid-September 1944 as an Ordonnanzoffizier
(orderly officer) on the staff of an anti-aircraft detachment stationed near the
Auschwitz camp. As part of his duties, he maintained contact with the SS camp
command, and had unlimited access to the Auschwitz main camp, where the command
was headquartered.
Disturbed by the obvious discrepancies between what he had
witnessed during the war at Auschwitz , and the portrayal of the camp that
emerged at war’s end, he resolved -- after years of silence -- to speak out, and
to undertake a serious investigation of this important subject.
As punishment for some revisionist essay, he was dismissed as
a judge in 1975 by court order, and forced into early retirement with a
reduction of his pension.
Wilhelm
Stäglich
One qualitatively excellent sequence of photos from June 26, 1944 breaks off just before Auschwitz. While it is possible that the cameras were turned off immediately after the plane flew over the main point of interest, namely the synthetic rubber plant in Monowitz, it seems more probable that these photos of excellent quality and resolution were in fact removed before the public could view them. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL
Rudolph told Zündel that to cremate anyone took two hours. Thus, to cremate 6 million people in 16 ovens working 12 hours a day would take 171 years. No crematory could work 24 hours a day for even three months. After three months they would collapse because of the internal temperature of 1,200 degrees Celsius required to burn the human body. Rudolph told Zündel that the extermination allegation was technically impossible. At first, Zündel was skeptical. He attempted to find out if Rudolph had made any errors but there were none. [Tijudar Rudolph] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988
The Auschwitz Lie by Thies Christopherson
One of Weisenthal's victims who still languishes in prison in West Germany is
the attorney, Manfred Roeder. Weisenthal was enraged because Roeder had dared
to write the preface to the famous revelations contained in the brochure, "The
Auschwitz Lie", by Thies Christopherson. Christopherson had spent the entire
war at Rajsko, the ancillary camp at Auschwitz, and therefore could be trusted
to know what he was writing about. Weisenthal says, "I don't know what induced
Christopherson to dispute that there had been gas chambers at Auschwitz",
implying that Christopherson had been bribed to make these statements. The fact
that Christopherson was merely reporting his own observations at the scene
caused Weisenthal to explain it as "mental derangement", a favorite ploy of the
Zionist conspirators, which can always be upheld if a friendly Zionist
psychiatrist can be found nearby.
Because of Roeder's preface, Weisenthal says "I therefore wrote to the
Chamber of Lawyers in Frankfurt and demanded that disciplinary proceedings be
instituted against Roeder (Free speech, anyone'?). When no action was
forthcoming. Weisenthal sued him; the case was promptly thrown out. However,
Weisenthal finally brought more legal actions until Roeder was placed on
probation for seven months in February 1976. He was later framed as having been
associated with a group called the German Action Group, and on June 28, 1982, he
was sentenced to thirteen years in prison on charges that he was the leader of a
"terrorist association". He remains in prison today, one more victim of
Weisenthal's Jewish thirst for vengeance against all gentiles.
Victims By Eustace Mullins
He never saw a prisoner die at Auschwitz-Birkenau, nor did he believe the
Jews were treated any differently from the rest of the prisoners.......Christophersen
attended concerts in Auschwitz on Sundays where there was a weekly concert held
under the camp gate by internees who were professional musicians. Anyone could
listen to the concert who was walking around. (20-4960) ....Christophersen
was never under any prohibition not to discuss things at Birkenau with anyone in
civilian life. (20-4965) Although he lived 500 metres from the railroad to
Auschwitz- Birkenau, he never noticed anything with regard to the transports
which struck him. (20-4964) His wife visited him frequently in Auschwitz and
that his mother also came. (20-4941)
....Christophersen knew Birkenau had crematories and
had seen them from the outside. (20- 4947) But he never saw smoke or flames
shooting out of the chimneys nor did he ever smell the alleged stench of human
bodies. (20-4948) He did not know the number of crematories. (21-5005) He only
heard about the gas chamber allegation after the war. (20-4949)
[Thies Christophersen] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst
Zündel -- 1988
Richard Baer (b. 1911) was commandant of Auschwitz I from
May 11, 1944 and of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) from the end of 1944 until the
evacuation of the camp in January 1945. After the war he lived near Hamburg
under the assumed name Carl Neumann, working as a forester. He was arrested on
December 21, 1960, and soon became the main prosecuted at the Frankfurt
Auschwitz trial, then in preparation. Baer however never testified before the
court, since he died in his prison cell in June 1963. The cause of death is
variously given by historians as “natural causes” or “circulatory ailments,” but
the autopsy did not rule out “ingestion of an odorless, non-corrosive poison”
(cf. W. Stäglich, Auschwitz: A judge looks at the evidence, pp. 233-5).
According to a brief article in the French right-wing newspaper Rivarol
Baer had denied any knowledge of homicidal gas chambers during his pre-trial
interrogations.
Josef Kramer (b. 1906) was the commandant of Birkenau from May
to December 1944. In a lengthy statement made by Kramer to his British captors
on May 22, 1945, he explicitly denied the existence of gas chambers at Birkenau.
Kramer was sentenced to death at a trial concerning his time as commandant of
the Bergen-Belsen camp. He was hanged on December 13, 1945.
Friedrich Hartjenstein (b. 1905) was together with Kramer in charge of
Birkenau from the end of November 1943 to the beginning of May 1944. He was
sentenced to death twice: first by a British tribunal on June 5, 1946, the
second time by a French tribunal on July 2, 1954. None of the sentences were
related to his activity at Birkenau. He allegedly died of a heart attack in his
Paris prison cell on October 20, 1954. A Brief List of the
Conveniently Deceased by Thomas Kues
The Importance of Arolsen Recently, British newspapers carried the story of Eugene Black, a Jewish “Holocaust survivor” living Leeds. Mr. Black had made the shocking discovery that his two sisters, who he for sixty years had believed were gassed in Auschwitz in May 1944, had in fact been killed several months later, when Allies air force bombed a German factory near Buchenwald.
The German soldier in the field never enjoyed such pleasant quarters as did
the labor camp workers. Otto Friedrich, a senior editor of Time Magazine, wrote
an article in Atlantic Monthly, Sept. 1981, which he stated was based
entirely on the writings of survivors of the camps, and which could hardly be
accused of painting a rosy picture of their existence. In "The Kingdom of
Auschwitz", Friedrich writes, "Auschwitz was a society of extraordinary
complexity. It had its own soccer stadium, its own library, its own soccer
stadium, its own library, its own photo lab, and its own symphony orchestra ...
There was no reason that a death camp should have a hospital at all, yet the one
at Auschwitz grew to considerable size, with about twenty doctors and more than
three hundred nurses."
Friedrich ignores the implications of his own writing, that a "death camp"
with a large modern hospital is not a death camp at all, but a health camp. All
of the camps had their own symphony orchestras, an amenity which was not
provided by any of the twenty two military stations at which this writer served
in the United States Air Force throughout World War II. Friedrich also writes
that Auschwitz had its own brothel for the workers. And a photo lab, in which
the inmates could develop their snapshots of the millions of Jews being herded
into the gas chambers ? No such photos have ever been exhibited. Later in his
article, Friedrich writes that Auschwitz actually was developed throughout the
war into a vast industrial complex, with a network of thirty-four outlaying
camps, which provided workers for cement plants, coal mines, and a steel
factory. I.G. Farben operated a huge synthetic rubber plant there.
[1981] THE HOLOCAUST
EXPLAINED By Eustace Mullins
When I wrote my ["Auschwitz Lie"] report, I was criticized on the grounds
that, although I was in the camp and saw nothing of mass gassings, that fact did
not necessarily mean that there were none ...
I have received thousands of letters and calls. Many of those
who contacted me can confirm my statements, but are afraid to do so publicly.
Some of those are SS men who were brutally mistreated and even tortured in
Allied captivity.
I also immediately contacted those who claimed to know more about mass gassings.
My experiences were precisely the same as those of French Professor Paul
Rassinier. I have not found any eyewitnesses. Instead, people would tell me that
they knew someone who knew someone else, who talked about it. In most cases the
alleged eyewitnesses had died. Other supposed eyewitnesses would quickly begin
to stammer and stutter when I asked a few precise questions.
... Our writings may be banned. We may be thrown into prison. Our mail may be
inspected. We may be attacked with fire and bombs. Our homes may be searched. We
may be kept from obtaining employment or fired from our jobs. We may be
slandered, ridiculed and persecuted like the early Christians. But we will
suffer and endure it all, and our enemies will thus achieve precisely the
opposite of what they intend. Their actions make others interested in what we
do. I believe in truth and justice, and I know that one day they will prevail.
Thies Christophersen by Mark Weber
Herwaarden was transported to Vienna and from there to Auschwitz. There were
about twenty other women on the train travelling from Vienna to Auschwitz. She
could not say if any were Jewish. They received food on the train. A gypsy told
Herwaarden that they were going to be gassed when they arrived at Auschwitz.
They arrived in the camp on 2 December in the afternoon. (25-6625, 6626, 6627)
That night the SS people came and
took them to Birkenau. They were taken to a cold, windowless room and told that
they had to take a cold shower. They handed over their clothes and all hair was
shaved, both head and pubic. Herwaarden was "terribly scared" when she went into
the shower room because "they said gas would be coming from the top but it was
only water." They received soap, but the water was cold. When they finished,
they received their numbers and prisoners clothing and were taken to the
barracks. Herwaarden was listed as an Aryan. (25-6628, 6629)
......She saw very many prisoners die in the camp from
diseases and also people who took their lives on the electric fence. But she
never saw any prisoners killed by anyone in the camp. Of 1,000 Germans who had
arrived in March of 1942, there were only three left when Herwaarden arrived in
December. They had all died of black fever. There was nothing to do against the
disease, although Herwaarden and other prisoners got very painful injections so
that they couldn't get the disease. She thought the SS tried to stop the typhus
but nothing was successful. (25-6636, 6637, 6647) The bodies were taken away in
wheelbarrows, but she did not know how they were disposed of. (25-6638)
Herwaarden never saw a crematorium at Birkenau. It was a big place. (25-6645)
....Herwaarden was next taken to Auschwitz to be a
cleaning woman in the women's SS building. There were twenty girls who did the
cooking and cleaning and the laundry. Herwaarden was in this building when
Auschwitz was bombed. The air pressure broke all the windows. (25-6639, 6640)
.....Herwaarden confirmed many of the observations of
Thies Christophersen quoted in Did Six Million Really Die?. In the period of
time she was in the camp, she saw no indication of "millions" of people; nor did
she ever see any indication of a mass murder or extermination of Jews. While
gassings were talked about at the camp, she personally never saw anything of the
sort. There was a terrible smell in the camp, however, and she confirmed that
there was a horseshoe place on the way from Birkenau to the tree plantation.
Herwaarden agreed that she had difficulty getting people to believe what she saw
in Auschwitz-Birkenau: "Many don't believe that." (25-6643 to 6647)
.....Herwaarden was given a uniform with a half red
and half black triangle. The red was political because the man she had relations
with was Polish. The black was anti social. She emphasized that there were many,
many Germans in the camp who had the same sign that she had. Jews had a star.
(25-6649) [Maria
Van Herwaarden]
The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988