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02-27-2006, 07:47 PM
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Final Destination Treblinka
Ziel Treblinka / "Final Destination Treblinka" (provisional draught)
By Stephen Potyondi 27 February 2006 As part of the greater Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe, the Treblinka concentration camp was second only the the more famous Auschwitz-Birkenau in terms of deadliness. With thousands of trains stocked to the gills with Polish Jews converging on it day after day for over months on end, its facilities orchestrated the annihilation of at least 800,000 of them, and quite likely more. All this we know from what remains of eyewitness testimony and physical evidence despite Nazi efforts to destroy both, and most especially train schedules whose 'final destination' declarations take on a macabre connotation with the understanding of what really occurred at the end of the line. Before continuing, it must be noted that this paper is not intended to be an exhaustive exegesis of Treblinka. I have written it to demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that Treblinka was an extermination camp devoted to the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Jews within the framework of the Final Solution. Any shortcomings of detail, therefore, must needs be remedied by other treatises. Massive and systematic executions at the Treblinka camp fell under the aegis of Aktion Reinhard (alternatively 'Einsatz Reinhard' and 'Aktion Reinhardt'), a facet of the 'Final Solution of the Jewish Question' (Endlösung der Judenfrage) devoted to physically exterminating the Jews of the Generalgouvernement of former Poland. A brief treatment is therefore in order. Its principal organiser and commander was Odilo Globocnik,a ranking member of the Schutzstaffel from 1 September 1934 onward and a recurring name in this history. On 9 November 1939, Heinrich Himmler, overseer of both the newly annexed Polish territories and director of the Final Solution, appointed Globocnik to the position of SS and police chief for the Lublin district (SS- und Polizeiführer für den Distrikt Lublin). Globocnik demonstrated very early that he was a fervent supporter of Himmler's “General plan for the East” (Generalplan Ost) to resettle the Lublin area with volksdeutsche and to extirpate its Jews to that end. So much so that on 17 July 1941, he was appointed as Plenipotentiary for the Construction of SS and Police Strongpoints in the new Eastern Area (Der Beauftragte des Reichsführers-SS für die Errichtung der SS- und Polizeistützpunkte im neuen Ostraum).1 His zeal is attested to by his contemporaries, including Jakob Sporrenberg, Globocnik's successor as Lublin SSPF after the former's departure for Trieste in 1943, among others.2 Rudolf Höß, kommandant of Auschwitz, wrote in his Krakow jail cell that Globocnik had concocted: Quote:
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It was at some point very soon after this, in either the late summer or autumn of 1941 that the order to begin Aktion Reinhard(t) was received. No official document containing such an order has ever been recovered; however, its inception may be inferred circumstantially. Höß writes in his memoirs that in the summer of 1941 he personally received an order from Himmler to "prepare a site for mass extermination”7 because “The existing extermination camps in the East are not in a position to carry out the large 'Aktionen' which are anticipated. I have therefore earmarked Auschwitz for this purpose.”8 Although either the wording or the date of this statement isn't accurate as there were no extermination camps in 1941, it is inconceivable that Globocnik was not informed of the decision regarding the 'Aktionen' being prepared for. Furthermore, during his trial, Eichmann submitted that Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Central Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) in charge of "carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question"9 informed him two or three months prior to the Unternehmen Barbarossa (22 June 1941) that Hitler had ordered the physical annihilation of the Jews.10 Later, Heydrich told Eichmann "to drive to Globocnik. The Reichsführer has already given him corresponding orders. Look, see how far he has gone with this project."11 Belzec, earliest of the Aktion Reinhard(t) death camps, was in experimental operation by November or December of 1941 and the first use of gassing vans is attested to from 8 December.12 The order, therefore, must have appeared sometime before this. An entry from Reich Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels on 27 March 1942 illustrates all the implications of the Aktion.13 Quote:
To move forward to the Treblinka death camp. There were two and a half million Jews in Poland at the end of 194114, far more than could have been killed using the firing squad tactics of the Einsatzgruppen15 or recently experimented-with gas vans.16 As Governor Hans Frank stated in a remark to a session of the GG government on 16 December 1941, “We cannot shoot these 3.5 million [sic] Jews, we cannot poison them. Yet we'll be able to take measures to destroy them that will somehow result in success.”17 The answer was found in stationary execution camps designed to kill en masse using gas chambers. Dieter Wisliceny, Hauptsturmführer SS and subordinate of Adolf Eichmann from 1940 to 1944 “as expert for AMT IV A 4 in Slovakia dealing solely with the Jewish question”18, elucidated in 1946: “According to Eichmann's own statements to me, Globocnik was the first to employ gas chambers for mass extermination.”19 Among these first employments was Treblinka-II, a concentration camp built between May and July of 1942 in the north-eastern part of the Generalgouvernement, in a remote and sequestered location ten kilometres from Malkinia Gorna, a railway junction on the main Warsaw-Bialystok line.20  In apprehension of Treblinka's completion, Victor Brack – who had supplied the T4 labour for the earlier Aktion Reinhard(t) projects, including Belzec and Sobibor – wrote to Himmler regarding additional personnel for accelerated operations due to to begin in late July on account of the anticipated purging of the Warsaw ghetto.21 Quote:
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i) The “Wohnlager” or Living Camp; ii) The “Auffanglager” or Receiving Camp; iii) The “Totenlager” or Death Camp, i.e. the extermination area; features among others sworn to be "absolutely correct" by Lager-Kommandant Franz Stangl in 1970.25 The extermination area was generally referred to as the 'upper camp' and the rest as the 'lower camp.'  According to eyewitnesses and camp personnel, the living camp, composing the 'left' or northernmost portion of Treblinka contained barracks for the Totenkopf SS guards and Ukrainian Trawniki who operated the facilities, along with storehouses, infirmaries, a kitchen, utility shops (carpenter, tailor, etc.) and the like. The receiving camp (SW portion) consisted of a counterfeit train station and sorting square (Sotierplatz) where shipments of Jews were first admitted to the camp. It also contained a small area in the south-eastern corner called the 'Lazarett' where invalids and Jews otherwise unable to be herded into the gas chambers were shot instead.26 Finally, the 'upper' death camp (SE quadrant) contained the gas chambers and burial pits. All these sections were hidden from one another by tree branches woven through barbed wire fences.27 Unlike other camps, there were no permanent, large-scale residence facilities for Jewish arrivals; they were told that they were at a transit camp and were killed almost immediately after admittance.28 Soon after the camp's inauguration, it was discovered that it had insufficient capacities to kill the number of Jews arriving from the Warsaw Ghetto and elsewhere every day. At the end of August or beginning of September, therefore, a new set of gas chambers was erected just west of the old ones.29 Additional details can be seen in the following composite30: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y19...di/diagram.jpg At nearly the same time as the camp's opening - a week later - each man involved was made to sign non-disclosure forms by Globocnik's second in commant Höfle, swearing them to absolute secrecy about the project even after its termination.31 Quote:
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i) People were being taken to Treblinka at a rate of 5,000 per day since 22 July 1942; ii) Treblinka was the final destination of these transports A glimpse of their fates can be gleaned from a posterior document, The Stroop Report of 1943. It is relevant insofar as its references to "T-II" (Treblinka death camp) tell us that Jews were sent there to be "destroyed," i.e. Killed.35 Quote:
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Lublin-Majdanek 24,733 Belzec 434,508 Sobibor 101,370 Treblinka 713,555 Total 1,274,166 In the original version of the report, Korherr used the term "Sonderbehandlung", i.e. "special treatment", with regard to the Jews mentioned in this section of his report. This term, which was a bureaucratic euphemism for killing commonly used in the context of the Final Solution43, must have become too worn and thus transparent by the time Korherr submitted his report to Himmler, for which reason Himmler’s adjutant Karl Brandt, in a letter dated 10 April 1943 required Korherr to refrain from using the term "Sonderbehandlung" and to word the quoted paragraph as it was finally worded.44  Quote:
 It reads: “OK Ostrow reports that the Jews in Treblinka are not sufficiently buried and therefore an unbearable smell of corpses befouls the air.”45 Ostrow, it should be noted, was 20 kilometres from Treblinka. At least over 800,000 Jews (and likely far more as many train records are incomplete or lack head counts) were shipped to Treblinka in the space of a year for 'special treatment'; 'evacuation'; 'liquidation'; 'resettlement'; murder, with only a handful ever seen again. Such creative language had long been used to attempt to disguise killing operations of Jews in the east, most notably by the Einsatzgruppen but also by the Gendarmerie.46 In this light, a decision arrived at in Lublin on 17 October 1941 by Hans Frank and Odilo Globocnik among others helps us date the birth of the extermination programme, theorised about above.47 Quote:
As SS-Sergeant and camp guard Franz Suchomel put it, "Treblinka was a primitive but efficient production line of death. Understand? Primitive, yes. But it worked well, that production line of death."49 We know that Jews were being sent to their deaths, but the question of how remains. Much allusion has been made up to this point to use the use of gas chambers. Eichmann, in a paper entitled "Götzen" he submitted for his defence, wrote that "Globocnik had established gassing camps at Treblinka and Belzec upon instruction from Himmler and Krüger."50 Reference to the testimony of those present best describes what was occurring inside the camp all the while. Testimony of SS-Unterscharführer Willi Mentz: Quote:
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A significant portion of witness testimony about the murders converges on the point of collection of Jewish valuables both before and after gassing. Unlike other extermination centres, Aktion Reinhard(t) camps did not report to Heydrich's RSHA but rather to the Economics and Administration Office or WVHA ("Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt").57 On 15 June 1941, in anticipation of the imminent Operation Barbarossa, the "Nürnberger Gesetze" (Racial Laws) became valid in the eastern occupied territories, article two of which stated: Quote:
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By this time, it was well-known in Allied government circles that the Germans were mass-murdering Jews in the camps, prompting initiatives to conceal and eradicate all traces of the Final Solution in Poland.68 Aktion 1005 was the result, a Sonderkommando effort to exhume and cremate the contents of the mass graves in the east headed by SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel. Another concern was the health hazard posed by such extensive extermination operations, especially that of the “insufficiently buried” Jews at Treblinka whose stench must have been intolerable. Consequently, following a visit by Heinrich Himmler to Treblinka in February or March of 1943, the decision was made to cremate the bodies that had been buried.69 ”At Treblinka there were no crematoria with furnaces, but there was a primitive arrangement of grates made from rails placed on supports of reinforced concrete, which could hold 2,500 corpses. Mechanical excavators were used for digging the pits and later for the exhumation of the corpses.”70 In December 1959, at the time of his arrest, a photo album entitled "Die schönsten Jahre meines Lebens" was discovered by west-German investigators in the flat of Kurt Franz, assistant commandant of Treblinka. The album shows numerous photos of Treblinka, such as of a brick tower, of the bakery building, of the menagerie and zoological garden and of the commandant of Treblinka, Franz Stangl. Comparison with an aerial photo and the maps drawn by survivors of Treblinka and Stangl and with eyewitness descriptions indicates that the pictures to follow are showing the extermination site.71 During his trial, Kurt Franz stated that “It was during that period [August 1943] that the original camp was demolished. Everything was levelled off and lupins were planted...”72 The following is a photograph of one of the Menck & Hambrock type "Mb" excavators used during this operation, the buildings and trees in the background matching most closely with a picture taken from the 'concealed burial pit' towards the old gas chambers in a north-westerly direction with either the water pump shelter or the guard house slightly obscuring the view.73  An open burial pit74: Once the industrial machinery was no longer needed for exhuming bodies, it was sent away. “In the waybills for the wagons sent from Treblinka at the time of the final 'liquidation' of the camp three excavators are mentioned. One of them was dispatched from Treblinka on June 29, 1943, to the firm of Adam Lamczak, Berlin-Neukölln, Willy Waltherstrasse 30-3 Tr.”75 United States Reconnaissance air photographs reveal that by 15 May 1944 (and probably long before then), physical traces of the camp were all but eradicated.76 Odilo Globocnik wrote to Himmler on November 4, 1943: "On October 10, 1943: I concluded Operation Reinhard which I had conducted in the General Government and have liquidated all camps."77 Upon their arrival in 1945, the Soviets found a moon-like wasteland of recent excavations by scavengers complementing other scars in the landscape left by the obliteration of the camp's building foundations. Most tellingly, they found among the upturned soil innumerable human remains.78  In November of 1945, Rachel Auerbach, member of the Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, visited the site and reported, Quote:
 81In 1959, Third Reich historian Martin Gilbert visited the camp and came away with this recollection: “From Treblinka village we proceeded for another mile or two, along the line of an abandoned railway through a forest of tall trees. Finally we reached an enormous clearing, bounded on all sides by dense woodland. Darkness was falling, and with it, the chill of night and a cold dew. I stepped down from the cart on to the sandy soil: a soil that was gray rather than brown. Driven by I know not what impulse, I ran my hand through that soil, again and again. The earth beneath my feet was coarse and sharp: filled with the fragments of human bone.”82 If there is a dearth of primary documents surrounding an operation of such magnitude, it is because of assiduous efforts by Odilo Globocnik and others to cover their tracks: "[w]ith regard to the complete final accounts of 'Operation Reinhard' I must add that all vouchers should be destroyed as soon as possible, as has been done in the case of all other documents pertaining to this operation."83 Anything that he or Himmler might have missed was combed over by subsequent Nazi officials: "All files, particularly the secret ones, are to be destroyed completely. The secret files about ... the installations and deterring work in the concentration camps must be destroyed at all costs. Also, the extermination of some families, etc. These files must under no circumstances fall into the hands of the enemy, since after all they were secret orders by the Fuhrer."84 That the few we have left survived at all can only be attributed to bureaucratic confusion in the face of imminent collapse before the inexorable march of the Red Army. Likewise, our paucity of eyewitness testimonial can be attributed to the fact that the vast majority of witnesses to the exterminations were killed by them. If the hundreds of thousands of Jews supposedly resettled to the east really had been sent to Russia, we would today have no end of confessions to that effect. As it stands, the fragmentary evidence we hold before us, though incomplete, paints an undeniable picture of a ruthless industrial slaughterhouse performing its task with heartless efficiency in broad strokes. Confronted with this bleakness, I am reminded of my Shelly: Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. An unfair testament to the countless who lost their lives, but perhaps the dead find solace in the downfall of their own Ozymandias. 
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02-27-2006, 07:47 PM
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Footnotes:
1. PRO (Tyas), HW 16/32: message transmitted 5 September 1941 2. Interrogation of Jakob Sporrenberg, December 16/17, 1949, AGK SAL 193/4, fol. 996. See also the December 15, 1960, interrogation of Konrad G., who directed Whermacht counterintelligence in Warsaw, Zentrale Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg (ZStL) 208 AR-Z 74/60, fol. 447, and the 1960 statement of a former Wehrmacht intelligence officer, Hans W., October 21, 1960, Niedersächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Hannover (HStA), Nds, 721 Hild, Acc 39/91, no. 28/55, fols. 141 f. 3. Rudolf Höß on Globocnik, January 1947, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich (IfZ) F 13/6. 4. TAL/IMT: Statement of Viktor Brack, 15 September 1946. 5. TAL/ZStL, Belzec Case: Statement of Josef Oberhauser. 6. Shirer, William. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Crest, 1960. p. 1277 7. Höß, Rudolf. Death Dealer: Memoirs of the Camp Kommandant at Auschwitz. New York: Prometheus Books, 1992. p. 206 8. Ibid. p. 164 9. Letter from Goering to Heydrich concerning solution of Jewish question, 31 July 1941. Document NO-2856. Trials of War Criminals Before the Nurenberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, Volume IV, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. pp. 132 - 133. Available online at: http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.co...xhibit194.html 10. YVA: Eichmann Trial: Transcript. Interrogation notes by Captain Avner Less (Israeli Police), 30 May 1960, tape No. 5, 172. 11. Ibid. 12. The gassings that occurred in Chelmno were by the use of gas vans which collected the Jews, drove them to the forest during which time they were killed on the journey with the exhaust fumes from the vehicles. In a secret directive from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) in Berlin dated 8.6.1942, recommended 9-10 Jews per sq. m. in the gassing vans at Chelmno (Kulmhof) in the Warthegau. Available online at: http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people....letter.060542 13. Goebbels, Josef; Lochner, Louis P. (ed. and translator). The Goebbels Diaries. New York: Popular Library, 1948. p. 175-76. Available online at: http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/...ml#1942-mar-27 14. Reproduced in John Mendelsohn, ed., The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. Vol. 11: The Wannsee Protocol and a 1944 Report on Auschwitz by the Office of Strategic Services (New York: Garland, 1982), 18-32. Available online at: http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar.../h-wannsee.htm 15. Report of HSSPF, 26.12.42, and Report to the Führer No. 51, 29.12.42, signed by H. Himmler, in: Bundesarchiv, NS 19/2566. 16. See Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume I - Chapter XII. Top Secret document dated 16, May 1942, addressed to SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, 8 Prince Albrecht-Strasse, Berlin, from Dr. Becker, SS Untersturmfuehrer. (501-PS) Available online at: http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/resour...t/DOCPER11.HTM 17. Präg and Jacobmeyer, Diensttagebuch, p. 458. 18. Affidavit of Dieter Wisliceny, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression. Volume VIII. USGPO, Washington, 1946. p.606-619. Available online at: http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Wisliceny.htm 19. Dieter Wisliceny, “Bericht: Die Bearbeitung der jüdischen Probleme durch die Sicherheitspolizei und den SD bis 1939,” November 18, 1946, IfZ Fa 164 (Wisliceny), p. 8. 20. Donat, Alexander (ed.). The Death Camp Treblinka: A Documentary. New York: Holocaust Library, 1979. p. 146 21. Document NO-205, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 1: United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et.al. (Case 1: 'Medical Case'). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1949. pp. 721-722. Available online at: http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/p...kletter_de.jpg 22. Translated by Roberto Muehlenkamp. Reproduced in Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka. p. 255 23. National Archives, GX120 frame 125, May 15, 1944. Available online at: http://www.holocaust-history.org/Tre.../Figure2.3.jpg 24. LG Düsseldorf vom 3.9.1965, 8 I Ks 2/64 25. AZ-LG Dusseldorf, XI-148/69 S., 1970. http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/maps.html 26. German Crimes in Poland. Volume I. Published by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Warsaw, 1946. p. 99 27. Willi Mentz as quoted in E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess. The Good Old Days. New York, The Free Press, 1988. p. 245-247("The two parts of the camp were separated by barbed wire fences. Pine branches were used so that you could not see through the fences. The same thing was done along the route from the "transfer" area to the gas chambers...") 28. Ibid. ("When the Jews had got off, Stadie or Maetzig would have a short word with them. They were told something to the effect that they were a resettlement transport, that they would be given a bath and that they would receive new clothes. They were also instructed to maintain quiet and discipline. They would continue their journey the following day. Then the transports were taken off to the so-called "transfer" area. The women had to undress in huts and the men out in the open. The women were then led through a passageway, known as the "tube", to the gas chambers.") 29. Decision of the Düsseldorf County Court (8 I Ks 2/64), 1968. ("Schon bald nach der Betriebsaufnahme stellte sich heraus, dass die Kapazität des alten Gashauses nicht ausreichte, um die täglich anfallenden Judentransporte reibunslos zu liquidieren. Man begann daher Ende August/Anfang September 1942 mit dem Bau eines neuen grossen Gashauses, das mehr und grössere Gaskammern enthielt und nach etwa einmonatiger Bauzeit in Betrieb genommen werden konnte.") 30. Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, p. 318-19. 31. ' Einsatz Reinhard' secrecy pledge, 18.7.42, printed in: Faschismus--Getto--Massenmord: Dokumentation über Ausrottung und Widerstand der Juden in Polen während des zweiten Weltkrieges, ed. by Tatiana Berenstein, Artur Eisenbach, Bernard Mark and Adam Rutkowski (East Berlin, ), p. 500. (bei der Durchführung von Arbeiten bei der Judenumsiedlung im Rahmen des "Einsatzes Reinhard" beim SS- und Polizeiführer im Distrikt Lublin.... ein ausdrückliches Photografier-Verbot in den Lagern des "Einsatzes Reinhard") Also available online at: http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holo...t2/doc123.html 32. Nürnberg Document NO-5574, Order by Himmler On July 19, 1942, for the Completion of the "Final Solution" in the Government-General. Available online at: http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holo...t2/doc124.html 33. Eksterminacja, pp. 300-302. Order available online at: http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holo...t2/doc128.html 34. Translation by Roberto Muehlenkamp. Nürnberg Document NO-2207, Ganzenmüller to Wolff, 28.7.42. ("Geheim Sehr geehrter Pg. Wolff! Unter Bezugnahme auf unser Ferngespräch vom 16.7.1942 teile ich Ihnen folgende Meldung meiner Generaldirektion der Ostbahnen (Gedob) in Krakau zu Ihrer gefälligen Unterrichtung mit: “Seit dem 22.7. fährt täglich ein Zug mit je 5 000 Juden von Warschau über Malkinia nach Treblinka, ausserdem zweimal wöchentlich ein Zug mit 5 000 Juden von Przemysl nach Belzec. Gedob steht in ständiger Fühlung mit dem Sicherheitsdienst in Krakau. Dieser ist damit einverstanden, dass die Transporte von Warschau über Lublin nach Sobibor (bei Lublin) so lange ruhen, wie die Umbauarbeiten auf dieser Strecke diese Transporte unmöglich machen (ungefähr Oktober 1942)” Die Züge wurden mit dem Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspolizei im Generalgouvernement vereinbart. SS- und Polizeiführer des Distrikts Lublin, SS-Brigadeführer Globocnik, ist verständigt. Heil Hitler! Ihr ergebener gez. Ganzenmüller") In reply, Wolff wrote Ganzenmüller on August 13, 1942: "Hearty thanks, in the name of the Reichsführer SS, for your letter of July 28, 1942. With great joy I learned from your announcement that, for the past fourteen days, a train has gone daily to Treblinka with 5,000 ‘members of the chosen people’ (Angehörige des auserwählten Volkes).[...]” 35. Juergen Stroop, The Stroop Report: The Jewish Quarter of the Warsaw Ghetto is no More!. Translated from German and Annotated by Sybil Milton. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979. sec. II, p. 75. Available online at: http://www.holocaust-history.org/wor...tm/strp075.htm 36. Ibid., sec. II, p. 3. 37. August/September report of the Warsaw district governor to Bühler, in YVA, O-53/113/348-61. 38. Raul Hilberg, Sonderzüge nach Auschwitz (Mainz, 1981), p. 183-86, 198-202, 208-212, 216-17, 222-23, 228. See also: Biuletyn Zydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute), Warsaw, No. 3/1952, No. 21/1957, No. 3/1959, No. 59/1966, No. 61/1967.; "Luach Hashoa (Holocaust Calendar) of Polish Jewry" prepared by Rabbi Israel Schepansky and published by "Or Harnizrach," New York, 1974.; Pinkas Hakehillot (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities), Poland, Vol. 11, Eastern Galicia, and Vol. III, Western Galicia, published by Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, in 1980 and 1984. Available online at: http://www.holocaust-info.dk/treblin...portations.htm ; German Crimes in Poland. Volume I. Published by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Warsaw, 1946. p. 102-04. (“The average number of wagons in a transport was 50 through sometimes, as the railway records showed, it was as many as 58. The total number of wagon-loads of victims from August 1, 1942, to May 15, 1943, may be taken, with some certainty, to have been 7,550. In the later period, from the railway records; the list of the wagons for August 17, 1943; a telegram of August 18, 1943; and a document entitled Fahrplanordnung Nr. 290 sent from Treblinka station by the Reichsbahndirektion Königsberg, the number of train-loads could be established quite accurately. In the above-mentioned Fahrplanordnung we read among other things: Zur Abbeförderung von Aussledlern verkehren folgende Sonderzüge von Bialystok nach Malkinia. Ziel Treblinka, from which it may be concluded that after the revolt the following train-loads, were brought in: on Aug. 27, 1943, 41 wagons; on Aug. 19, 35 wagons; on Aug. 21, two transports of 38 wagons each; on Aug. 22, two transports of 39 wagons each; and on Aug. 23, one transport of 38 wagons; i. e. a total of 266 wagons. As an average number of persons per wagon we may take 100 (the majority of witnesses deposed that it was more than 150). According to this calculation the number of victims murdered at Treblinka amounts to at least 731,600.”) 39. Report of OFK 365, 19.3.42, in National Archives, T-501/215/97. (Innerhalb der jüdischen Bevölkerung Lembergs hat eine merkliche Beunruhigung Platz gegriffen mit Rücksicht auf eine begonnene Aussiedlungsaktion, durch die etwa 30,000 ältere und sonstige, nicht im Arbeitsprozess stehende Juden Lembergs erfasst und, wie angegeben, in die Gegend von Lublin verbracht werden sollen. Inwieweit diese Evakuierung einer Dezimierung gleichzusetzten sein wird, bleibt abzuwarten.) 40. Report of OFK 365, 17.10.42, in National Archives, T-501/216/1129. (Die Umsiedlungsaktionen gehen unvermindert weiter. Das Judentum ist über sein Schicksal unterrichtet. Bezeichnend ist der Ausspruch eines Mitgliedes des Lemberger Judenrates: Wir tragen alle unseren Totenschein in der Tasche--es ist nur der Sterbetag noch nicht ausgefüllt.) 41. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, V15 N3, Winter 2001 pp.468-470. "A New Document on the Deportation and Murder of Jews during "Einsatz Reinhardt" 1942" by Peter Witte and Stephen Tyas. ("13/15. OLQ de OMQ 1005 83 234 250 Geheime Reichssache! An den Befehlshaber der Sicherheitspol., zu Händen SS Obersturmbannführer HEIM, KRAKAU. Betr. 14-tägige Meldung Einsatz REINHART. Bezug: dort. Fs. Zugang bis 31.12.42, L 12761,B 0, S 515, T 10335 zusammen 23611. Stand ... 31.12.42, L 24733, B 434508, S 101370, T 71355, zusammen 1274166. SS und Pol.führer LUBLIN, HOEFLE, Sturmbannführer.") 42. John Mendelson (Hrsg.) The Holocaust, Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes. New York/London 1982. Translated by Roberto Muehlenkamp at: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=397 Links to the original German also available at: http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/k...rherr-lang.php ; http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/k...aksimile-lang/ 43. EM No. 124, 25.10.41. 44. My translation. Léon Poliakov/Joseph Wulf Das Dritte Reich und die Juden. Ullstein 33036, S. 240ff. Available online at: http://www.ns-archiv.de/verfolgung/k...ng-himmler.php 45. War Diary of the Oberquartiermeister, Mbfh Polen, 1.5..41-31.12.43, in National Archives, T-501/219/461. ("OK Ostrow meldet, dass die Juden in Treblinka nicht ausreichend beerdigt seien und infolgedessen ein unerträglicher Kadavergeruch die Luft verpestet.") 46. Report of Gendarmerie district leader Brest, 8.11.42, in BA, R 94/7. (Am 15. und 16.10.42 wurde in Brest-Litowsk die Judenaktion durchgeführt. Anschliessend erfolgte auch die restlose Umsiedlung der Juden im Kreisgebiet Brest-Litovsk. Im ganzen sollen bis jetzt etwa 20,000 Juden umgesiedelt worden sein. ...Einsatz bei der Aktion gegen die Juden in der Stadt und im Kreisgebiet Brest-Litowsk vom 15.10.42 ab. Bis jetzt sind etwa 20,000 Juden erschossen worden.) 47. Archiwum Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni przeciw Narodowi Polskiemu w Warszawie (Archive of the Main Commission on Investigating the Crimes Against the Polish People; AGK), Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939-1945, Vol. XIII/1, pp. 951 f. (hereafter, AGK Diensttagebuch). The German Stadthauptmann was the principal official in the municipal administration. 48. Bogdan Musial, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement. Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939-1944 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 1999), p. 127 f. 49. SS Unterscharführer Franz Suchomel, interviewed on hidden camera for the film Shoah. Transcript from the book of the same name, Claude Lanzmann, 1985, p. 54. 50. http://www.mazal.org/various/eichmann.htm ("In Treblinka und Belzek hatte Globocnigg auf Befehl Himmlers und Krügers, Vergasungslager errichtet.") 51. Mentz quoted in E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Good Old Days, p. 245-247 52. Stangl quoted in Yitzhak Arad. BELZEC, SOBIBOR, TREBLINKA - the Operation Reinhard Death Camps. Indiana, University Press, 1987, p. 184 53. Matthes quoted in Ibid. p. 121. Notes 51-53 are available online at: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...linkatest.html 54. Testimony of Rudolf Höß taken at Nuremberg Germany, on 1 April, 1946, 1430 to 1730 by Mr. Sender Jaari and Lt. Whitney Harris. Also present: Mr. George Sackheim, Interpreter: Piilani A. Ahuna, Court Reporter. Available online at: http://www.mazal.org/archive/H%D6SS/TEXT/HOS1-027.htm and following. 55. Kurt Franz quoted in E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Good Old Days, p. 247-49. ("After the uprising in August 1943 I ran the camp more or less single-handedly for a month; however, during that period no gassings were undertaken.") 56. German Crimes in Poland, p. 102 57. This is made clear by the first sentence of Dr. Viktor Brack's report to Himmler of 23 June 1942 which demonstrates that the T-4 SS garrison earmarked for Aktion Reinhard(t) work was in the pay of the KdF (Kraft durch Freude) and was not connected with the RSHA. 58. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 2, Chapter 15. 1422-PS; Thirteenth regulation under Reich Citizenship Law, 1 July 1943. 1943 Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, p. 372. . Vol. IV, Pg.14. Available online at: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6298 59. NO-060, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1950. pp. 704-705. 60. Opinion and Judgement of the United States Military Tribunal II, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). US Government Printing Office, District of Columbia: 1950. p. 980-992. Available online at: http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/05/NMT05-T0980.htm and following 61. Ibid. 62. Document NO-2714, Pros. E. 555, Ibid. 63. Opinion and Judgment of the United States Military Tribunal II: General Findings, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). p. 958-980. 64. Document NO-1257, in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). p. 699-704. 65. Ibid. 66. Document NO-2003, Ibid. p. 709-712. 67. Document NO-2754, Ibid. p. 713-714. 68. Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (New York: Public Affairs, 2005), p.815. ("Despite Germany's efforts to suppress information about its mass-murder policies, evidence of them trickled steadily out to the West. A report came from the Polish government in exile in June 1942 that 750,000 Polish Jews (one-quarter of the total pre-war Jewish population of the country) had been killed. When Roosevelt's old sometime ally from New York politics, Rabbi Stephen Wise, head of the American Jewish Congress, prevailed upon Justice Felix Frankfurter to visit and remonstrate with the President in September 1942, Roosevelt blandly assured him that he thought most of the deportations were for forced labor rather than extermination. He must have known this to be untrue, and was either trying not to disconcert his old 'friend' or was inexplicably reluctant to take the issue on fully.") 69. German Crimes in Poland, p. 106 70. Ibid., p. 98 71. Bay, Charles A. Appendix A – Identifying the Kurt Franz Camera. http://www.holocaust-history.org/Treblinka/appendixa/ 72. Franz quoted in E. Klee, W. Dressen, V. Riess, The Good Old Days, p. 247-249 73. http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/pic/bmap9.jpg 74. Reproduced in Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, p. 263 75. German Crimes in Poland, p. 98-9 76. National Archives, GX120 frame 125, May 15, 1944. Blown up version available online at: http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/pic/bmap8.jpg 77. Nuremberg Document 4042-PS 78. Photos taken by Novosti Press during a Soviet investigation in 1946. Collection available online at: http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/lasttracks.html 79. German Crimes in Poland, p. 96-7 80. Weber, Mark and Allen, Andrew. Treblinka. The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1992 (Vol. 12, No. 2), pages 133-158. Available online at: http://ihr.org/jhr/v12/v12p133_Allen.html 81. Reproduced in Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, p. 267 82. Quoted in “Reconstruction of Treblinka: Geography of the Locale” http://www.holocaust-history.org/Tre...graphyp2.shtml 83. Odilo Globocnik, "Top Secret" memo, 5 January 1944. Source: NO 064 in NMT, Vol. 5, p. 715. 84. 15 March 1945, secret order issued by Sprenger, the Gauleiter and Commissioner for Reich Defence. Source: D-728 in Office of the Special Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C. 1947), Vol. 7, p. 175.
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Moderator Note: This is the formal debate thread. It is now incumbent upon the critics of the Holocaust to submit their formal initial submission. We shall then proceed to rebuttals. Order in the court.
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03-04-2006, 06:04 AM
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I didn’t want to leave it too much longer before providing a response to Potty’s disseration above, Here is then is Part the First of my response; a second part will follow later in the weekend, and there may well be further interventions in the meantime by one or more of the nominated participants in this discussion, namely Potty, Sulla, or Basil.
I’m assuming that Fade or one of the other admins will be managing access to the thread in line with our earlier offline discussions. This is not btw intended to be in the form a ‘formal’ debate, due to severe limitations on the time available for research (on my side) and on administrative disagreements between the parties. So there will be no judges involved, and probably no identifiable end-result either. Quote:
A good effort Potty. No, more than that, a decidedly fine effort. But now let’s proceed this explore this magnum opus in some closer detail. It’s somewhat evident that Potty is a major fan of the “convergence of evidence” school of argumentation popularised by noted ‘historian’ Robert J. van Pelt during the Lipstadt trial in 2000. However it is equally clear that, like many other aficianados of that school, Potty is very picky when selecting items of evidence on which to converge. There being so many sources to draw on, it is only natural to want to settle only on those points in a statement or document where they each conveniently converge, and to ignore those where they inconveniently diverge. Part of our task here will be to perform a ‘gap analysis’ to use a good old marketeering buzzword, drawing the two strands together as it were. In the interests of brevity, I have truncated quite a lot of Potty’s original material, but hopefully have left sufficient trace so that interested readers may refer back to the correct section in the original post, as necessary. If I have been too aggressive in that, I apologise in advance. Quote:
I’m assuming this is intended as part of a ‘scene-setting’ introduction rather than an expression of strict numerical accuracy, but still we need to view it more as a matter of your own personal supposition unless, that is, you can provide an approved official tally listing Jewish deaths by location. What’s that you say? There are many ‘official tallies’. Indeed there are. Michael Tregenza, for example, continues to maintain that Belzec was responsible for more than one million deaths, and yet others maintain that the Einsatzgruppen finished off many more than that. That would place both ‘events’ higher up the list even than Treblinka. But let’s pass over that for now. Quote:
Hardly ‘thousands’ of trains but I know what you are getting at. It seems you have settled on ‘at least 800,000’ as the tally for Treblinka, fair enough, let’s work with that. Quote:
I hope that in due course you will be able to show us exactly what these train schedules demonstrate and will provide a source where we can inspect the documents for ourselves. We can then better judge whether the documents have any macabre connotations. As a general point going forward, I’d suggest it is more instructive to have any document in its original form and language, wherever possible. I have noted that many of your source references are in translations kindly provided by Yad Vashem, the Holo-History project, Nizkor, or deathcamps.org, and that many references either terminate at those organisations or at books and reports that are either difficult to obtain, or are not in the public domain. In the case of the latter it does kind of beg the question as to how you managed to (a) come across them in the first or (b) were able to satisfy yourself that what you are quoting actually appears in the place that you are citing. But let’s pass over that for now. Quote:
The Communist Polish Commission’s 1945 report notwithstanding, the complete absence of any forensic evidence from the alleged site of the murder of 800,000 human beings when all such evidence, even according to the exterminationist argument, remains in situ awaiting discovery is far more than a mere shortcoming of detail. This is analogous to a police murder investigation focusing exclusively on the business of taking witness statements and extracting confessions from the alleged perpetrators while ignoring the presence of the victim’s remains that all the witnesses and even some of the perpetrators insist are still present at the crime scene. Quote:
It is certainly correct AFAIK to state that no contemporary German document has been found that characterises Einsatz/Aktion Reinhard(t) as a scheme to exterminate all the Jews in the G-G, or anywhere else for that matter. Circumstantial inferences are all that can be made. There still seems to be considerable debate even among mainstream historians as to exactly what ER/AR was intended to accomplish; whether it was designed principally as a scheme for mass extortion engineered by the WVHA, or one for mass extermination as is frequently attributed to the RfSS, or as some combination of the two. Nor is really clear precisely who was really in charge or even who, if anybody, it was named after. Quote:
This is actually quite an important quote, since it tells us that the party leadership was evidently not thinking in terms of immediate, total liquidation of the Jews in the G-G. Quote:
Finally! Quote:
You might consider including the remainder of Brack’s letter to Himmler. Suffice to say, it details Brack’s observation that among the ten million or so Jews in Europe, at least 2 to 3 million of them could be put to useful work. He goes on to recommend that Himmler consider the castration of these work-Jews through X-radiation and offers the services of his organisation in implementing such a plan. Brack, at least, even at this late stage – a month before the opening of Treblinka II – was clearly not privy to the Master Plan to murder every Jew in Europe. BTW this is not an original document but a poorly rendered transcript. It should be headed “Geheime Reichssache” not “Geheime Reichsache”, I’m guessing it’s from the IMT, they can be pretty sloppy. And was Brack really on such close terms with HH as to sign his correspondence “ihr” Viktor Brack – well I suppose at least it wasn’t “dein”? Quote:
As you note, this materiel is intended for a work-camp. I can't help wondering why there would any need for such a euphemism in a private interoffice memo like this. And why indeed is there no security classification, not even “Geheim”? Quote:
According to most of the later plans, including the one I link to below which was constructed by the experts at deathcamps.org, the area of T-II was considerably smaller than 24,000 sq m (24 Ha). In fact their current plan indicates that the size of the whole camp within the fenced perimeter was about 110,000 sq m, or 11 Ha. Assuming that 1/3 is still claimed to be correct for the Totenlager, that would amount to approx 3.75 Ha, or about 9.4 acres. This does rather constrain the scale of the activities that might have occurred in that space, a theme which I shall develop further later. http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/pic/map12.jpg Quote:
This composite, which I think originates with Donat differs in significant details from earlier as well as later plans. In particular the relative size and layout of the Totenlager; it might have actually been more helpful if you could have settled on one specific plan and had stuck with it. But with so many to choose from it’s easy to see how that might be a challenge, since they all have appealing features (that old covergence thing again). Quote:
The trail here appears to end at Yad Vashem, with an ongoing paginal reference to a book (presumably in Polish) entitled Eksterminacja. Searches on Y.V. however just return one to the starting point. Do we have a link to the original form in German? And Are we aware that any of these forms been found that were completed and signed by any the personnel supposed to have been attached to AR? There should have been 120 or so such forms completed and signed. Quote:
To the extent that it is not braggadocio or hyperbole, the 5,000 daily rate is I believe only supposed to have been for the preceding 14 days. And I don’t see any mention of a final destination in this correspondence. Quote:
There appears to be only one reference to “T. II” in the German version of the Stroop Report. I thought I had seen a second, but can’t locate it anymore. I’m also unaware of any other contemporary German documents that use this designation of T. II. Quote:
Please indicate where in this section of the Stroop Report there is any indication where these 310,322 Jews were deported to, and that they were exterminated. Quote:
Train records of the time? Please identify these records, and provide a source where we can view them. It’s also unclear where your total of 817,290 derives from. If it is Arad’s deportation list as referenced in your link at footnote 38, then the total should be 881,390. You have provided a number of references to the 1946 report of Polish Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, including in your footnote 38. Interestingly both Arad and the Commission arrive at roughly the same totals for numbers transported to Treblinka although they use significantly different methodologies, and seem at times to be counting different things. Arad, for example lists only two transports arriving from Bialystok in August 1943, with a total of 7,600 Jews, while the Commission quotes a Gedob Fahrplanordnung that apparently lists seven transports to Treblinka for the same period, with a total of 26,600 deportees. I’m guessing that most believers in the standard account these days would tend to put more weight on Arad’s figures, since he has apparently had access to documents not available to the Commission in 1946. But then what are Arad’s sources? Well, in a secondary link he attributes a number of sources which are more or less nebulous and probably a this point in time unverifiable, Judenrat censuses, for example. One source that he does not cite however is the one mentioned by Graf and Mattogno in Treblinka: Extermination Camp or Transit Camp? (available for free download at vho.org, or hard copy ISBN 1 59148 000 0), as outlined on pp 103-4: Quote:
To satisfy myself about Graf and Mattogno’s assertion, I consulted Martin’s book in the 1993 hardback edition. Here then is one of the maps taken almost at random from the dozens that deal with deportations to Treblinka, in this case for deportations from the Radom District in the second half of August, 1942.  I invite readers to compare the deportation statistics on this map with those for the same period and region in Arad’s table. Judging by the almost complete correspondence between Martin and Arad, it appears Graf and Mattogno called it correctly. To be fair to Martin, sources are indicated for the statistical data presented in a good number of his maps, particularly for deportations from Western Europe to Auschwitz, but there are few if any traceable source references for his Treblinka maps. Quote:
Perhaps another way to view this seemingly baffling anomaly is by means of a present-day analogy. Suppose, for example, that the US federal authorities decided to replicate Eisenhower’s highly successful ‘Operation Wetback’ scheme to round up and deport all illegal Mexicans in California. It’s likely that a large number of such illegals would be apprehended in the agricultural areas in the Central Valley, let’s say Fresno County. Now it is pretty obvious that an unimportant outlying area like Fresno would not have the facilities to ‘process’ large numbers of deportees, nor any facilities to transport them internationally. So what would likely happen? Well, let’s assume that in anticipation of this operation, the Feds had requisitioned one of the several unused military facilities in the SF Bay Area, say the Alameda NAS or Moffett Field, as a centre for processing the deportees prior to their expulsion, and then evacuating them in military transports. This being the case, deportees originating in the Central Valley could well find themselves travelling north, that is away from Mexico, before retracing their steps in returning south. So something that might on first glance appear to be irrational, could prove on closer inspection to have been done for sound operational reasons. Quote:
I’d like to see the rest of this report, but will note in passing that, according to your footnote, it was written four months prior to the opening of Treblinka. Quote:
Again, it would be interesting to have a link to the complete message, but this fragment appears to be more descriptive of the mindset of some of the Jewish inhabitants rather than making their fate ‘abundantly clear’. And now on to what we might consider the Main Event, the “Höfle Telegram” Quote:
This document invites comment on a number of different levels. First, taking it at its face-value and assuming that it means exactly what you obviously take it to mean, it is a record of arrivals of something at four destinations labelled L, B, S and T. As far as I can see it does not mention either Jews, the G-G, or Treblinka, but I agree that is a reasonable inference that each of those factors are involved based on the identity of the individual shown as the sender. To me one of the more curious aspects of the report is that, although the telegram is quite clearly identified as being a fortnightly update (14-tägige Meldung) this is the only such report that has emerged so far. It follows then that, if this is indeed a periodic report on AR activities, there would have been 25 or more other, similar fortnightly reports compiled by Globocnik’s office. What do we suppose is the most likely explanation for their absence from the Bletchley Park intercept files? A secondary comment, but perhaps worthy of note, involves the entry “T 10335”. Assuming this refers to at least two, maybe more, transports of Jews arriving at Treblinka in the second half of December 1942, it is curious that Arad, in his exhaustive deportation lists referenced above, does not list any transports arriving after December 15th. Indeed, I seem to recall one of the witnesses mentioning a lull in the extermination activities over this period in observance of what he called the “Gentile Holidays”. On reflection it may have been one of Lanzmann’s interviewees in “Shoah”, perhaps Richard Glazar. There is a further slight anomaly concerning arrivals total from Bialystok which I shall return in the discussion on the Korherr report, below. I think this document is so important that it deserves the closest scrutiny. David Irving, as you probably know, states that he has seen the original at the National Archives (PRO) in England and pronounces it ‘probably genuine’ although he notes that the folder in which it is placed has been tampered with, and that the pages have been unstapled, and reinserted in the incorrect order. I’d go further and suggest that the importance of this document is such that it would behoove its promoters to prevail upon the PRO to volunteer it for forensic analysis so as to verify its authenticity. I’d also suggest that the document and the complete file in which it rests be examined by an expert in Bletchley Park intercept practices and protocols, someone who is in particular an authority on how signals were reconstructed from discrete fragments (the Höfle telegram consists of three such fragments). The recent imbroglio over the forgeries that purported to prove that British government agents murdered Heinrich Himmler lends great strength to this argument. For those interested here are a few links describing the bogus ‘Himmler’ documents, how they came to light, and how they were verified to be forgeries. Files on Himmler 'murder' exposed as fake Faking our History Forgeries exposed by a hunch and by science 'You expect everything in PRO to be real. It's a disaster' I have visited the PRO a number of times in recent years in pursuit of my primary research interest (The Ypres Salient in WW I) and have quite frankly been both shocked and astonished at the almost total lack of security that has been apparent up until the quite recent past. Suufice to say, in the period during which I frequeneted the PRO anyone walking in off the street couls obtain a reader’s pass simply on presentation of a British driver’s license – which does not have to be yours, since they do not carry a photograph - following which one can request to check-out any of the many thousands of original files and documents accessible for public use. Having collected the file or files and retired to a quiet corner of the cavernous reading hall, it would be mere childs-play to disassemble the file, remove or insert documents, and then return the file to the issuing counter without anyone in the PRO being any the wiser. I haven’t been back to the PRO for a while, but would not be surprised to find that security is considerably tightened up now, not just because the Himmler debacle but also in the aftermath of the London bombings. Quote:
Perhaps. Quote:
The correspondence between Höfle and Korherr is indeed most serendipitous. It is doubly auspicious that its full implications were first explored by its diligent discoverers in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, a journal of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. [quoteThe "camps in the Warthegau" was Chelmno and the "camps in the General Government" were the aforementioned Aktion Reinhard(t) camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka and the Lublin-Majdanek camp, the latter obviously because it was considered more practical to send Jews from Lublin to Majdanek as soon as that camp had extermination facilities instead of sending them to far-away Belzec or Sobibor.[/quote] Did Majdanek actually have any purpose-built ‘extermination facilities’ to speak of? I didn’t think even establishment historians make that claim anymore. And Belzec at least was not that far-away. Quote:
Fine, except that Korherr lists a separate total for Bialystok (see below), which makes sense since the Generalkommisariat Bialystok was not administratively part of the GG. Is Höfle’s signal to be interpreted as including all deportations to the AR camps during 1942, or just those from the GG? The signal mentions Zugang bis 15.12.42, which I am taking to read as ‘admitted up to 15.12.42’. Arad maintains btw that 92,250 Jews were deported from Bialystok to Treblinka up to 15.12.42. Quote:
Quote:
It’s worth noting at point Korherr’s letter to Der Spiegel vehemently protesting that his famous report Der SPIEGEL, Nr. 31, 25. Juli 1977, S. 12 : DER bekannte, rassisch verfolgte Schriftsteller H. G. Adler, früher in Prag, jetzt in London, hat 1960 im Vorwort zur zweiten Auflage seines außerordentlichen Buches "Theresienstadt 1941--1945" geschrieben: "Es sei auch ausdrücklich festgestellt, daß die Bezeichnung Herrn Dr. Korherrs als 'SS-Statistiker' ... nicht stimmt, da er der SS nie angehörte und für sein Verhalten in den Jahren des Nationalsozialismus rehabilitiert ist." Der SPIEGEL veröffentlicht leider die Behauptung des englischen Historikers Irving, ich hätte im Frühjahr 1943 auf Himmlers Order die Zahl der Opfer des Judentums berechnet. Tatsächlich wurden diese Angaben vom Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) fix und fertig samt Text mir geliefert mit der Auflage, keine Zahl und kein Wort ändern zu dürfen. Die Angabe, ich hätte dabei auch aufgeführt, daß über eine Million Juden in den Lagern des Generalgouvernements und Warthegaus durch Sonderbehandlung gestorben seien, ist ebenfalls unzutreffend. Ich muß gegen das Wort "gestorben" in diesem Zusammenhang protestieren. Es war gerade das Wort "Sonderbehandlung", das mich zu der telephonischen Rückfrage beim RSHA veranlaßte, was dieses Wort zu bedeuten habe. Ich bekam die Antwort, es handle sich um Juden, die im Bezirk Lublin angesiedelt würden. Braunschweig Dr. Richard Korherr Translation The well-known, racially persecuted writer H.G. Adler, previously resident in Prague, now in London, wrote in the foreword to the second edition to his extraordinary book Theresienstadt 1941-1945 in 1960: "It has definitely been determined that the designation of Dr. Korherr as SS-statistician...is not true, because he never belonged to the SS and has been rehabilitated insofar as his behaviour in the National Socialist years is concerned." Unfortunately, Der Spiegel is publishing the claim of the English historian Irving that in the spring of 1942, at Himmler's order, I calculated the number of Jewish victims. In fact, these figures along with the text were delivered to me in completed form by the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) with the order that not one word or figure was to be changed. The statement that I had claimed in this regard that more than a million Jews had died as a result of special treatment in the camps in German-occupied Poland and in the Warthegau is also incorrect. I have to protest against the word "died" in this context. It was precisely the term "special treatment" that motivated me to inquire of the RSHA by telephone what this term meant. I received the answer that it referred to Jews who would be settled in the District of Lublin. Dr. Richard Korherr Braunschweig It’s worth noting also, if only in passing, that the naughty word does pop up again in page 10 of the ‘long version’. Perhaps it might not have been such such a naughty word after all, but a matter a bureaucratic punctiliousness. I’d also suggest that durchgeschleust might be better understood as ‘channeled through’ rather ‘sifted through’. A further interesting detail is the use of die Lager im Warthegau meaning camps (plural) in the Warthegau. You are implying that this refers to Chelmno/Kulmhof only, but I wonder what else might have been being referred to here. Auschwitz-Birkenau perhaps? I’m aware that A-B was not administratively within the Warthegau, but the numbers attributed to A-B elsewhere in the report seem awfully low if the standard account is to be followed. Quote:
This document is slightly incongrous to say the least. First, it’s quite unclear how an observer 20 km away could have been able to pinpoint the source of the odours with such accuracy. Also given that the existence of the Treblinka extermination centre was supposed to be a state secret it’s actually quite remarkable that a lower-level Wehrmacht district commander should be aware of what was transpiring there, or even more so, empowering his staff to send a written complaint up the chain of command. Or that those compiling the Quartermaster’s official diary should have included this piece within it. Typical sloppiness on the part of German military bureaucracy, I suppose. Have there been other similar exciting finds, I wonder, or just this one? And where, btw, does this item originate and when did it first surface? I often find that the timeline of discovery can be quite significant. Quote:
Are you saying there are train records showing that at least 800,000 Jews were shipped to Treblinka? If so, where are they (the records)? Quote:
Now that’s strange. Most standard accounts make the case quite strongly that the bureaucratic agreement to embark on the Final Solution was not reached until the Wannsee conference, some three months later. Did Frank and Globocnik have perhaps some inside communications channel directly to Himmler or Heydrich that would have allowed them to jump the gun as you suggest? According to Christopher Browning, who relies on an entry in Goebbels’ diary which gives an account of Hitler’s address to the Reichs- and Gauleiter in his private apartment, even the Führer did not give his nod of approval until December 12 (“The Origins of the Final Solution”, p. 407). So Frank and Globus must have been very well connected indeed. Quote:
It’s a little hard to respond intelligently to statements not knowing whether it is something that you have sourced yourself or just cut and paste from somewhere else. Have you actually read the item cited at # 48, “Bogdan Musial, Deutsche Zivilverwaltung und Judenverfolgung im Generalgouvernement. Eine Fallstudie zum Distrikt Lublin 1939-1944 (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag, 1999)”, or are you taking someone else’s word that this is what it says, and what it means? I’m going to have to pause it here since we are now getting into murkier waters of transcripts of movie soundtracks and of West German court depositions that are not in the public domain, and I need a stiff one anyway. A gin and tonic that is  End of Part the First.
__________________
Clarkson for PM! You know it makes sense. Review my Manifesto for World Domination here.
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#5
03-06-2006, 01:35 AM
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Here as promised, and in the better late than never category, is Part the Second
I was originally intending the following to be my final offering in this discussion, but I’m going to reserve the option to post a third section, as necessary. There are a number of areas that we have not had an opportunity to properly air, including the murder weapon (diesel exhaust, apparently), the physics and mechanics of the mass burials, cremation of the cadavers, and disposal of the remains. Not to mention the whole knotty area of diverging witness testimonies. There’s always a possible as well that our tribunes for the standard account may come up with something that requires a response. If nothing else, I’ll probably finish my contribution to the discussion with a summation about my personal assessment of what really happened at Treblinka, but that can wait until everyone else who wants to has had a turn. I won’t be responding to remarks from the gallery in this thread. Quote:
If we are going admit soundbites from a movie soundtrack into the case, we should also credit Abraham Bomba, the Barber of Treblinka, with the following: Quote:
Quote:
This would appear to be a fairly low cost admission for Eichmann to make, and quite possibly one that would not be unwelcome for the prosecution. Helpful witnesses are always preferred. And it leads quite nicely into a general point that I wanted to make concerning the postwar West German trials of those accused of Nazi warcrimes. Quote:
In my mind the whole historiography of the West German trials is unsatisfactory. None of the trial transcripts are in the public domain (a few of the verdicts are available in German) so it is impossible for a non-specialist to determine how the trials were really conducted. It’s unclear for example, to what extent if at all the prosecution witnesses were cross-examined by the defence, or whether their depositions were simply read into the record. It’s also unclear to what extent the famous legal principle of Offenkündigkeit was invoked to preclude the accused from making statements that challenged received wisdom. Certainly by the time of the 1964 (Franz et al) and 1970 (Stangl) Düsseldorf trials a large number of other trials, as well as the entire IMT proceedings, had previously been completed and these would have collectively established in the legal canon a catalogue of NS crimes that were now held to be offenkündig, or self-evident and therefore immune from challenge. Consequently Franz, for example would have no more been able to claim that the Nazis had not gassed millions of Jews during WW II than he would have been allowed to dispute the final score in the 1954 World Cup final. All this kind of raises the spectre of earlier show trial formats, of both the Soviet and Nazi varieties. Given the hopelessness of their situation, it is hardly surprising that all the accused without exception threw themselves at the mercy of the court and appeared to go out of their way to assist the prosecution. It was probably thought that things would go much better for you in terms of sentencing and later treatment if you confirmed everything that the prosecution wanted to lay out but insisted you had spent the whole period in question guarding the potato shed. If this is felt to be too far-fetched, consider the recent bizarre behaviour of David Irving at his recent trial in Austria. This is an area in which I personally would like to do much further research. I’m going to skip over the Höss testimony since similar comments apply, and I don't think it adds any particularly interesting different dimension. Although I will say that Höss’ statements generally have more recently have come under much closer critical scrutiny since the details emerged about the brutal treatment he was subjected to whilst in custody. Quote:
Heydrich of course was already dead by the time Treblinka is supposed to have come into ‘full production’ or even opened, but I do take the point. I take it you would also then concur that if AR was indeed a WVHA operation that would tend to support the notion that its principal purpose was economic rather than exterminatory. Quote:
Nasty stuff, but its relevance to the discussion is unclear, except as part of a general scene-setting exercise. I don’t know anyone who disputes that the Nazis intended to fleece the Jews of anything they could get their hands on before expelling them from their living-space. Quote:
I think it’s the case that the WVHA took a keen interest in expropriating the assets of Jews in the Reich, and elsewhere, long before the war even started. Quote:
It is course impossible to identify which items were stolen from Jews whilst still in the ghettos, or which were items left behind when they were removed from their home towns, or items that were taken from them on arrival at the final destination, wherever that was. It stands to reason though that the latter would have comprised the smallest proportion by quantity if not by value. Quote:
That all seemed to be ploughing much the same furrow. Quote:
Blobel and SK 1005 had little to do with eradicating the traces of the Final Solution in Poland, and certainly nothing at all to do with AR. Quote:
Some curious aspects about this: (a) What is the evidence for Himmler having visited Treblinka in 1943? It is known he met with Globus in Lublin, and is supposed to have then travelled to Sobibor in a special train, but as far as I am aware there is no evidence for a visit to Treblinka except for the testimony of a single prisoner (Arad p. 166). (b) Given that the RSHA went to a great deal of effort to provision the KL system with crematoria, and also a number of external facilities as well, it frankly strains credulity that they would not install comparable facilities for an operation that was expressly designed for mass murder. (c) Similarly, Blobel and SK 1005 were said to have been commissioned to start eliminating the mass graves in Russia and the Ukraine in June 1942, before Treblinka even opened. Curious then that, given the apparent sensivity of the SS management on the subject, Treblinka should be permitted to embark on a mass burial exercise which is said to have continued right up until Himmler’s visit in 1943. (d) According to Arad (p. 167) Himmler was surprised to learn on his visit that the 800,000-odd bodies had not been cremated as he had ordered but buried instead. Did heads roll as a consequence of this stunning display of incompetence and insubordination? No, on the contrary, most of Germans there received promotions very soon after Himmler’s supposed visit, including both Stangl and Franz (the latter attaining officer rank for the first time). [quote] ”At Treblinka there were no crematoria with furnaces, but there was a primitive arrangement of grates made from rails placed on supports of reinforced concrete, which could hold 2,500 corpses. Mechanical excavators were used for digging the pits and later for the exhumation of the corpses.”70 Not those ruddy excavators again?!? I though we’d done them in the other thread in which you passed to baton to Sulla and his little band of "helpers" [sneer quotes are appropriate on this occasion]. Oh well. Quote:
Actually I believe the album was entitled “Schöne Zeiten”, but nevermind. A few points concerning the Album: (a) It contains photographs from a number of locations, not just Treblinka. Including Franz posing in front of palm trees on the Dalmatian coast, as well other places in Poland and Germany. (b) It’s still perplexing that an SS NCO who had, according to your earlier narrative, signed an agreement obliging him to acknowledge that “….there is an absolute prohibition on photography in the camps of Einsatz Reindard” should have felt quite at liberty to swan around this most secret of facilities taking snaps for his personal album. And we’re not talking about a little Minox that could be concealed up your coat-sleeve, but a rather hefty Voigtländer bellows camera with a 105 mm lens. [See Potty’s link at footnote # 71 below]. (c) And not only Franz, if we are to believe the interpretations of later viewers of the album, the camp commandant Stangl is implicated in this state crime of violating the secrecy agreement, as are as any number of SS men who appear in one picture or another. Including this group of merry men who are nonchalantly perched on the mid-air grab bucket of an excavator that we are told was engaged in the grisly task of exhuming Jewish corpses. Not wearing masks are even face-cloths against what must been an awful stench, if it could be so objectionable 20 km away in Ostrow. In reality, without a signed attestation from Franz, or an accompanying caption in his own hand identifying the specific location, most of these pictures could have been taken almost anywhere in northern Germany or Poland. Except for those with the palm trees of course. Quote:
The commentary does not match the footnote reference. Quote:
The preceding sentence to the above (on p. 247 of the “Good Old Days”) reads: “After the [prisoner’s] uprising in August 1943 I ran the camp more or less single-handedly for a month; however during that period no more gassings were undertaken” The revolt occurred on August 2nd (Arad p. 286). However Arad states that two transports from Bialystok arrived on August 18/19 (Arad p. 396). What happened to them? Was Franz lying? Quote:
How can we be sure that: (a) This picture wasn’t taken at Sobibor? They were supposed to have used excavators there as well, and Franz was stationed at that camp before transferring to Treblinka. (b) The picture wasn’t taken at T-I or somewhere else in northern Poland? The expected response would a reference back to the holocaust-history.org narrative from which Potty lifted much of this section of his exposition, and on which he has come to rely as a crucial underpinning for the entire story. That would then present me with another opportunity to display the following photograph from the same source, along with the accompanying expert analysis from the specialists at the HHP.  Quote:
The analysts quite confidently state that as well as the ‘probable’ ash-heaps we are definitely viewing Jewish workers operating a bone-crushing apparatus. Of none of this is actually discernible in the accompanying photograph, but it clearly provides the ‘best fit’ for the total narrative. We can take it as read that the rest of this crucial source displays a similar dismally poor level of scientific rigour and detachment. A line from The Mikado comes to mind: Pooh-Bar is appearing before the Mikado to beg for mercy, and he tries to explain that the cock-and-bull tale that he and KoKo have concocted is “Merely corroborative detail intended to lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative“ Quote:
So it would appear. Do we know where it is? Quote:
According to the Stationmaster at Treblinka Station, the liquidation of the camp lasted until 19 November. It seems most likely that the heavy equipment would have been among the last items to be shipped out. Also isn’t it probable that the excavators used for gravel extracton at the T. I camp would also have left via the Treblinka station, and would have been identified as originating there on any waybill? Btw, where can we see a copy of the waybill for the June 29 shipment? Quote:
To the extent they were there in the first place. Can’t see the lupins btw. Quote:
Surprised to see such large-sized remains, weren’t they supposed to have been crushed to powder? Quote:
Ah yes, I was hoping Ms. Auerbach would be making a cameo appearance. Let’s see now… - ..in the north-eastern part..- It’s not clear what the NE part refers to, but all other accounts and maps place the Totenlager and the grave sites in the SE section, and the Lazarett in the SW section. The NE part is where the vegetable garden is supposed to have been. - ..a surface covering about 2 Ha (5 acres)..- 2 Ha is larger than the total area of the Totenlager which was indicated to be about 1.4 Ha according to the 1945 Polish survey (See Graf p. 91 and 321-4). It is interesting to note that the area of the camp given over to the extermination activity has progressively grown in size from 1.4 Ha in 1945 to around 3.5 Ha, even though the total camp area is unchanged. - ..remains of decomposing tissues..- Two years after they were buried? - ..numerous human skulls..- What happened to the bone-crushing apparatus that we were shown in the photo above? Quote:
Large bones, why they stiil there? Half-rotted corpses, fully dressed corpses, partially decayed remains in November 1945? It seems the SS performed an extremely sloppy job of cleaning up the camp two years previously, and there must also be something in the local soil that significantly slows the usual process of decomposition and skeletisation. Unless, of course the bodies were not really there when the camp was liquidated, and were only buried at a later date. Quote:
So it should be relatively easy to replicate Sir Martin’s experience, right? … Quote:
This sounds awfully like it might have been lifted from a screenplay by Ilya Ehrenberg. Quote:
Confronted with all these conumdrums, I am reminded of my Sherlock Holmes: “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” End of Part the Second - Next!
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#6
03-12-2006, 07:44 AM
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Is this debate over?
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#7
03-12-2006, 07:45 AM
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It's Sulla's turn to reply, and he's preparing his response. He's been busy this week buying a car.
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#8
03-21-2006, 04:44 AM
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Not to clutter the thread, but I presume the revisionists have won this one by forfeit?
__________________
 "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw
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#9
03-21-2006, 05:39 AM
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Quote:
I'll be posting my reply tonight.
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#10
03-23-2006, 05:39 AM
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Part I
Quote:
In our evaluation of Dan Dare's post, I'm afraid that as usual, what he calls 'personal supposition' is the ONLY standing statement of events. Of course, it isn't supposition at all. Its a historical fact recognized by the historical community as a whole. I must admit, I'm a bit confused about what he contests. And I think even those in agreement with him might be too. Because there is only one party here making a statement about what happened at Treblinka. Reading Dan's post, I don't know what he believes. I don't know what history he's willing to accept. Was there a Totenlager at all, for example? Were there Jews at Treblinka, period? Even a reader in agreement with Dan might be puzzled as to where he stands on it. Such a reader might ask himself, why the need for confusion? I can tell that reader that confusion is essential to the opposition's case. Were Dan to STATE his denial of an event, outright, he would have to explain the evidence. Then we follow that chain. Dan would have to explain who forged it, and then who cross referenced the forgeries with the witnesses. Then Dan would have to tell us who coordinated the forgeries and false witness statements with the Russians, Americans, and British. Then Dan would have to tell us who coerced the perpetrators. Then who ordered the entire affair. Then who continues to coordinate these elaborate schemes with the ENTIRE academic community. Then who hides this organization from the public eye. And that, my friends, is a bridge too far. It is easier to just question, rather than make a statement. But the reader should never lose sight of the fact that one side is putting forth a narrative of events, statements of fact, and submitting evidence. One side is prepared to have its mountains of evidence and position opened to scrutiny and discussion. One side has answers to questions. Quote:
As with all historical events involving hundreds of thousands or millions of people, there are always differences in figures. Thats how estimates work. Quote:
Really? I'd like to see that sourced. Quote:
The Einsatzgruppen were not an extermination camp, and thus obviously not within the scope of Potyondi's reference. Quote:
All the sources I've read put the figure between 400,000 and 600,000 at Belzec. Including Hoefle, I'll add.  Quote:
Unpublished documents: At least 62,000,000 pages, these include documents of the Nazi bureaucrats and their counterparts throughout Europe; personal documents of the Jews such as letters, passports, diaries and memoirs, as well as the documentation of the Jewish organs and institutions; lists detailing confiscation of assets, deportations or lists of victims or survivors; legal documentation from proceedings against Nazi criminals and collaborators, and much more. The documentation is in all European languages. Opening hours: Sunday-Thursday 8:30AM-5:00PM Books and files must be ordered by 3:00PM Opening hours of the Hall of Names in the Museum: Sunday-Thursday 9:00AM-5:00PM Fridays 9:00AM-1:00PM Researchers who cannot come to Yad Vashem are welcome to contact us by e-mail at holocaust.resources@yadvashem.org.il It is recommended to add your snail-mail address, for the event that we find documentation and wish to send reproductions of it. We hope your search or query will be successfully resolved. http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_yad/...e_archive.html For one. There are plenty of sources for Nazi bureacracy. Quote:
It sounds as though you're doubting the veracity of these documents. Though we can't possibly know, since you didn't cite one which you find questionable or ask for a source on a particular piece here. We can't alleviate your concerns when you won't be specific. So we'll reject this, for now. Quote:
There was a forensic investigation that you just brushed over. The Polish Commission examined the site. The Soviets passed it as well, and took photographs.  The photo was taken by Soviet Forces (Novosti Press), during their investigations in 1945. Bones, pieces of clothes and thousands of personal belongings of the victims were digged out by the local population when they searched for valuables. The photo was taken in 1945.  The photo was taken in 1945. A picture of upturned earth at the site.  Human remains at Treblinka, 1945.  And more.  And more.  And so on.... Quote:
No. Its more like a case where the authorities stumble over the body and the killer, with a gun and hacksaw in hand. The killer shrugs as they lead him away. Later at his trial he confesses. They send the killer to the hangman and bury the victim. Then fifty years later, a twelve year old kid appears at the police department saying that he doesn't believe that the victim died at all because he doesn't like the victim's grandson. The police tolerate this for a few minutes then tell him to leave them alone, because they have real work to do and don't have time for crazy 12 year old kids. Then the kid yells to anyone who will listen that a massive conspiracy exists in the town, fabricating the hacksaw, the gun, the victim's body, and framing the killer. This conspiracy controls the police department, the court, and the local newspaper. Its all under the control of the victim's grandson, fabricating his grandfather's death. He tells the townfolk that guns don't work, hacksaws don't cut through bone, and the victim lived out his days hiding in a bunker 3 miles below the town. Thats what this is like. Quote:
State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated that the General Government would welcome it if the final solution of this problem could be begun in the General Government[/u], since on the one hand transportation does not play such a large role here nor would problems of labor supply hamper this action. Jews must be removed from the territory of the General Government as quickly as possible, since it is especially here that the Jew as an epidemic carrier represents an extreme danger and on the other hand he is causing permanent chaos in the economic structure of the country through continued black market dealings. Moreover, of the approximately 2 1/2 million Jews concerned, the majority is unfit for work. State Secretary Dr. Bühler stated further that the solution to the Jewish question in the General Government is the responsibility of the Chief of the Security Police and the SD and that his efforts would be supported by the officials of the General Government. He had only one request, to solve the Jewish question in this area as quickly as possible. --Wannsee Protocol http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanngerm.html  Quote:
Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action [u]doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.) In the course of the practical execution of the final solution, Europe will be combed through from west to east. Germany proper, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be handled first due to the housing problem and additional social and political necessities. The evacuated Jews will first be sent, group by group, to so-called transit ghettos, from which they will be transported to the East. --Wannsee Protocol http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/eurodocs/germ/wanngerm.html Nothing inferential about it. Evacuation is execution. Germany and the Protectorate first, then the General Government. Quote:
There is a debate about whether it was intended to kill certain groups of Jews first, or if it was intended to be a mechanism for killing Jews indiscriminately, or if it was enlarged in scale to kill more Soviet Jews after Barbarossa. There is no debate among historians that it was established with the intention to kill. Quote:
Globocnik and Hoefle, though the people from the T4 Euthanasia project still were under the Chancellory, I believe. These aren't mysteries. Quote:
It was almost certainly named after Heydrich, considering the timing and nature of his death. Quote:
I'll repeat: The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.) --Wannsee The intention was always the destruction of the Jewish population of Europe. Buehler himself says that he is eager to begin the 'evacuation' of the Jews in the General Government because: of the approximately 2 1/2 million Jews concerned, the majority is unfit for work. That is the purpose of the Aktion Reinhardt camps. Quote:
More importantly, Brack's suggestion is that they DON'T KILL THEM with the rest. Among the approximately 10 million European Jews I think there are at least 2-3 million men and women very fit for labour. Given the difficulties we face because of our need for workers, I am of the opinion that we should withdraw these 2-3 millions from the action and keep them alive. --Viktor Brack SS-Oberfuehrer To Reichsfuehrer SS and Chief of the German Police, Heinrich Himmler http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/brackletter_en.htm Quote:
You're mischaracterizing the nature of the Final Solution. If we view the plan laid out by Heydrich, it goes as follows: With regard to the issue of the effect of the evacuation of Jews on the economy, State Secretary Neumann stated that Jews who are working in industries vital to the war effort, provided that no replacements are available, cannot be evacuated. SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich indicated that these Jews would not be evacuated according to the rules he had approved for carrying out the evacuations then underway. The Nazis had every intention of keeping slaves AND engaging in mass slaughter. They aren't exclusionary. And as is made clear here its all dependant on the war, which the Nazis had every intention of winning. As you mentioned yourself, castration for these workers was the alternative to KILLING them in the same manner the 7-8 million 'non-essential workers' Brack refers to would be dealt with. This is to ensure the extinction of European Jews. The workers would have almost certainly be done away with in the same manner after a successful completion of the war. Quote:
Since you cited the document yourself as evidence of your position, I assume you're not suggesting its a fabrication. Quote:
Probably, considering his work in the Chancellory. Quote:
Because mass murder is a distasteful topic that the upper echelons of the Party don't want spread around. That or the recipient isn't privy to the specifics. Quote:
Why would there be? Quote:
Whats the constraint? They're not HOUSING 800,000 people. They're killing them and burying them. Assuming eight victim's bodies per square cubic meter, in pits 50 meters long, 25 meters wide and 7.5 meters deep, you would need about five acres. Quote:
Well Dan, we are a bit constrained by this medium. Websites teaching about the Holocaust can't be expected to produce every single document ever captured in Germany. However, as I pasted above, Yad Vashem does have the documents for order if you're interested. But I imagine its not much different than this: Sergeant Weisse Gott[fr]ied Duty note 1.) I am aware, and I was today reminded of the fact, that I will be punished with death, if I steal for myself Jewish property of any kind. 2.) Most importantly, I will maintain unconditional secrecy during the measures to carry out the Jewish evacuation, and also vis-à-vis my comrades. 3.) I pledge myself to commit my entire person and my capacity for work toward the swift and smooth execution of these measures. Auschwitz May 24, 1944  To be continued. Last edited by Sulla the Dictator : 03-23-2006 at 05:58 AM.
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