XPost: alt.politics.liberalism, alt.society.liberalism, alt.poli   
   ics.democrats.d   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics   
   From: mars1933@hotmail.com   
      
   Auschwitz: Myths and facts   
   by Mark Weber   
      
   Nearly everyone has heard of Auschwitz, the German wartime   
   concentration camp where many prisoners-most of them Jewish-were   
   reportedly exterminated, especially in gas chambers. Auschwitz is   
   widely regarded as the most terrible Nazi extermination center. The   
   camp's horrific reputation cannot, however, be reconciled with the   
   facts.   
   Scholars challenge Holocaust story   
   Astonishing as it may seem, more and more historians and engineers   
   have been challenging the widely accepted Auschwitz story. These   
   "revisionist" scholars do not dispute the fact that large numbers of   
   Jews were deported to the camp, or that many died there, particularly   
   of typhus and other diseases. But the compelling evidence they present   
   shows that Auschwitz was not an extermination center and that the   
   story of mass killings in "gas chambers" is a myth.   
   The Auschwitz camps   
   The Auschwitz camp complex was set up in 1940 in what is now   
   south-central Poland. Large numbers of Jews were deported there   
   between 1942 and mid-1944.   
   The main camp was known as Auschwitz I. Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, was   
   supposedly the main extermination center, and Monowitz, or Auschwitz   
   III, was a large industrial center where gasoline was produced from   
   coal. In addition there were dozens of smaller satellite camps devoted   
   to the war economy.   
   Four million victims?   
   At the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal, the Allies charged that the Germans   
   exterminated four million people at Auschwitz. This figure, which was   
   invented by the Soviets, was uncritically accepted for many years. It   
   often appeared in major American newspapers and magazines, for   
   example. (note 1)   
   Today no reputable historian, not even those who generally accept the   
   extermination story, believes this figure. Israeli Holocaust historian   
   Yehuda Bauer said in 1989 that it is time to finally acknowledge the   
   familiar four million figure is a deliberate myth. In July 1990 the   
   Auschwitz State Museum in Poland, along with Israel's Yad Vashem   
   Holocaust Center, suddenly announced that altogether perhaps one   
   million people (both Jews and non-Jews) died there.  Neither   
   institution would say how many of these people were killed, nor were   
   any estimates given of the numbers of those supposedly gassed. (note   
   2) One prominent Holocaust historian, Gerald Reitlinger, has estimated   
   that perhaps 700,000 or so Jews perished at Auschwitz.  More recently,   
   Holocaust historian Jean-Claude Pressac has estimated that about   
   800,000 persons-of whom 630,000 were Jewish-perished at Auschwitz.   
   While even such lower figures are incorrect, they show how the   
   Auschwitz story has changed drastically over the years. (note 3)   
   Bizarre tales   
   At one time it was seriously claimed that Jews were systematically   
   electrocuted at Auschwitz. American newspapers, citing a Soviet   
   eyewitness report from liberated Auschwitz, told readers in February   
   1945 that the methodical Germans had killed Jews there using an   
   "electric conveyor belt on which hundreds of persons could be   
   electrocuted simultaneously [and] then moved on into furnaces. They   
   were burned almost instantly, producing fertilizer for nearby cabbage   
   fields." (note 4)   
   And at the Nuremberg Tribunal, chief U.S. prosecutor Robert Jackson   
   charged that the Germans used a "newly invented" device to   
   instantaneously "vaporize" 20,000 Jews near Auschwitz "in such a way   
   that there was no trace left of them." (note 5) No reputable historian   
   now accepts either of these fanciful tales.   
   The Höss 'confession'   
   A key Holocaust document is the "confession" of former Auschwitz   
   commandant Rudolf Höss of April 5, 1946, which was submitted by the   
   U.S. prosecution at the main Nuremberg trial. (note 6)   
   Although it is still widely cited as solid proof for the Auschwitz   
   extermination story, it is actually a false statement that was   
   obtained by torture.   
   Many years after the war, British military intelligence sergeant   
   Bernard Clarke described how he and five other British soldiers   
   tortured the former commandant to obtain his "confession." Höss   
   himself privately explained his ordeal in these words: "Certainly, I   
   signed a statement that I killed two and half million Jews. I could   
   just as well have said that it was five million Jews. There are   
   certain methods by which any confession can be obtained, whether it is   
   true or not." (note 7)   
   Even historians who generally accept the Holocaust extermination story   
   now acknowledge that many of the specific statements made in the Höss   
   "affidavit" are simply not true. For one thing, no serious scholar now   
   claims that anything like two and a half or three million people   
   perished in Auschwitz.   
   The Höss "affidavit" further alleges that Jews were already being   
   exterminated by gas in the summer of 1941 at three other camps:   
   Belzec, Treblinka and Wolzek. The "Wolzek" camp mentioned by Höss is a   
   total invention. No such camp existed, and the name is no longer   
   mentioned in Holocaust literature. Moreover, the story these days by   
   those who believe in the Holocaust legend is that gassings of Jews did   
   not begin at Auschwitz, Treblinka, or Belzec until sometime in 1942.   
   No documentary evidence   
   Many thousands of secret German documents dealing with Auschwitz were   
   confiscated after the war by the Allies. Not a single one refers to a   
   policy or program of extermination. In fact, the extermination story   
   cannot be reconciled with the documentary evidence.   
   Many Jewish inmates unable to work   
   For example, it is often claimed that all Jews at Auschwitz who were   
   unable to work were immediately killed. Jews who were too old, young,   
   sick, or weak were supposedly gassed on arrival, and only those who   
   could be worked to death were temporarily kept alive.   
   But the evidence shows that, in fact, a very high percentage of the   
   Jewish inmates were not able to work, and were nevertheless not   
   killed. For example, an internal German telex message dated Sept. 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, and   
   that all of the remaining Jewish inmates-some 21,500, or about 86   
   percent-were unable to work. (note 8)   
   This is also confirmed in a secret report dated April 5, 1944, on   
   "security measures in Auschwitz" by Oswald Pohl, head of the SS   
   concentration camp system, to SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Pohl reported   
   that there was a total of 67,000 inmates in the entire 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." (note 9)   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)