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   “Nobody was gassed at Auschwitz.”: 60 Rightist Lies and How to   
   Counter Them Excerpt   
      
      
      
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   “In Auschwitz wurde niemand vergast.” (“Nobody was gassed at   
   Auschwitz.”: 60 Rightist Lies and How to Counter Them) Excerpt   
      
   These excerpts from “In Auschwitz wurde niemand vergast.”   
   (“Nobody was gassed at Auschwitz.”: 60 Rightist Lies and How to   
   Counter Them”), written by Markus Tiedemann and published by   
   the Verlag an der Ruhr, is being translated into English and   
   will appear some time next year.   
      
   Email Verlag an Der Ruhr for more information, or Kenneth   
   Kronenberg.   
      
   Lie #29 The Concentration Camps   
   “The concentration camps were used exclusively for re-education   
   and punishment. There were no gas chambers.”   
      
   This claim is made frequently by Holocaust deniers, and they   
   use a cleverly chosen assortment of documents to back up their   
   assertions. Often, young people who have visited a   
   concentration camp memorial site point out that there were no   
   gas chambers to be seen. Sometimes they will point to reports   
   by pre-1941 inmates or will cite the diagrams of Auschwitz I   
   (not the extermination camp Birkenau) in which no gas chambers   
   are to be seen.   
      
   When visiting a concentration camp, it is important to remember   
   that not all of them had gas chambers. Although Auschwitz and   
   Chelmno (Kulmhof) were built within the borders of the   
   so-called “Reich,” all the actual Nazi extermination camps   
   (i.e., camps devoted almost exclusively to mass murder) were   
   situated outside of Germany proper. For this reason, most young   
   Germans have never seen one of the death camps.   
      
   There were six main extermination camps:   
      
   Auschwitz-Birkenau (1,000,000+ deaths), Treblinka (974,000+),   
   Sobibor (250,000+), Belzec (600,000+), Chelmno (225,000+), and   
   Majdanek (250,000+).   
      
   What is repressed and largely forgotten is that there was an   
   entire system of concentration camps; along with the   
   extermination camps, there were labor camps and “transit”   
   camps, which, with all their subcamps, were dispersed   
   throughout Germany. Forced labor was always a hallmark of the   
   concentration camp system. At the beginning, the inmates were   
   used in construction; later in the armaments industry as well.   
   Selections were a feature at Birkenau (Auschwitz II) only and   
   were determined by the current need for labor. At the other   
   extermination camps, people were fed directly into the gas   
   chambers. At labor and “transit” camps, people were destroyed   
   by a combination of overwork and malnourishment. Although   
   executions were common, killings were not done on an industrial   
   scale as was the case at the extermination camps.   
      
   Those former inmates who told of “re-education,” forced labor,   
   and eventual release were certainly not lying. However, such   
   reports were made almost entirely by German political prisoners   
   who were interned in concentration camps during the period from   
   1933-1936 or at the very latest 1939-1940. Reports by others   
   crop up every now and then, but they are either complete   
   falsifications or distort the truth.   
      
   The purpose of the concentration camps changed dramatically   
   after 1941 from “re-education” and punishment of political   
   opponents; they became death camps for Jews, the Sinti and   
   Roma, prisoners of war, and those the Nazis considered   
   “subhuman.”   
      
   On November 9, 1938, the Nazis organized the Kristallnacht, the   
   nation-wide pogrom designed to terrorize Jews and pressure them   
   to emigrate. This pogrom was a reflection of their racial   
   ideology, which saw Jews as the most pernicious enemy of the   
   Germans, and represented a high point in the Nazis’ official   
   policy of terror. However, when Germany invaded the Soviet   
   Union in 1941, the Nazis were faced with the question of what   
   to do with the millions of Jews living in conquered territory.   
   Far from Germany and under cover of the fog of war, the Nazis   
   began implementing the systematic physical destruction of the   
   Jews. This “final solution” changed the existing camps into   
   facilities for the mass destruction of human beings. In   
   addition, new extermination camps were built (e.g., Auschwitz   
   II, also known as Birkenau in 1942).   
      
   But even if it were true that there were no gas chambers at the   
   extermination camps, the Nazis would still be guilty of mass   
   murder. In Chelmno, for example, hundreds of thousands of   
   people were murdered in mobile gas wagons. Mass shootings were   
   commonplace. At Belzec and Treblinka, the old and the infirm as   
   well as children were taken off the ramp and shot immediately   
   upon arrival.   
      
   In Germany, a favorite tactic of Holocaust deniers is to cite a   
   diagram of the plans to expand Auschwitz I, dating from about   
   1940, to deny the existence of gas chambers. This fraud is   
   often successful because most young people don’t know that   
   Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the actual center where most of the   
   gassing took place. In addition, the deniers are not above   
   bringing out diagrams that they themselves have concocted.   
      
   The first experiments with gassing did in fact take place in   
   Auschwitz I, in the cellar of Block 11 in September 1941. The   
   victims consisted of about 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250   
   sick inmates. About two weeks later, 900 Soviet war prisoners   
   were gassed to death in the mortuary cellar of the crematorium   
   in Auschwitz I. Gassings continued at Auschwitz I even after   
   Birkenau began processing victims.   
      
   Lie #46   
   “The Leuchter Report and the Remer Report represent expert   
   opinion.”   
      
   Before we go into the factual misinformation contained in these   
   “studies,” there is one criticism that can be made at the   
   outset. Neither Leuchter nor Germar Rudolf, who works for   
   Remer, are experts in the field they claim knowledge of.   
      
   Fred A. Leuchter has a Masters Degree in history and sells   
   execution devices to American prisons. In his publications, he   
   always claims to be an engineer. Rudolf is a certified chemist   
   in Stuttgart. In spite of what he claims, Leuchter has   
   absolutely no practical experience with gas chambers. Of the   
   six states that are supposed to have consulted with him, five   
   turned him down. Only in Maryland did Leuchter submit a single   
   draft for the renovation of a gas chamber. The plans were never   
   carried out because Maryland decided to execute death row   
   inmates by lethal injection.   
      
   Otto E. Remer was a general in the Wehrmacht and took part in   
   the arrest of the military officers who attempted to   
   assassinate Hitler on July 20, 1944. He is both sponsor and   
   financier of the Remer Report.   
      
   It is important to realize that neither of these studies can be   
   considered neutral analyses. Both were designed and written to   
   aid in the legal defense of accused Holocaust revisionists. In   
   the case of the Leuchter Report, the impetus came from the   
   right-wing radical literary critic Robert Faurisson who tried   
   to help his political friend Ernst Zündel, who was facing   
   prosecution in Canada (and was later convicted). Zündel himself   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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