Underground Knowledge — A discussion group discussion

Excerpt from DEBUNKING HOLOCAUST DENIAL THEORIES: Two Non-Jews Affirm the Historicity of the Nazi Genocide:


MYTH #3: “Many Jews died in the camps as a result of harsh conditions, starvation, illness and disease as opposed to being gassed. That assertion doesn't make the end result any more tenable, but it does undermine the supposed history of the Holocaust.” –Anonymous Holocaust denier #3


Um…no. The fact that some of the three million who died in the concentration camps were killed by other means (besides gassing) does not remotely undermine Holocaust history. The gassings were simply one cause of the deaths, and nobody has ever suggested all those who died in the camps were gassed. Certainly, most were gassed, but not all.

Remember, the camps were not only designed to exterminate Jews and others deemed undesirable. They also served as labor camps whose inmates were often literally worked to death to support Germany’s war effort and help meet the insatiable needs of the Third Reich. And Nazi scientists conducted wide-scale medical experimentation on hundreds of thousands of victims inside the camps – horrific experiments, which few survived.

One of a frightening number of examples of influential people making statements against the historicity of the extermination camps and gas chambers is Lutheran pastor Herman Otten, who, at the Ninth IHR (Institute for Historical Review) Conference in 1989, made the following claim:

“There is no dispute over the fact that large numbers of Jews were deported to concentration camps and ghettos, or that many Jews died or were killed during World War II. Revisionist scholars have presented evidence, which ‘exterminationists’ have not been able to refute, showing that there was no German program to exterminate Europe's Jews, and that the estimate of six million Jewish wartime dead is an irresponsible exaggeration. The Holocaust – the alleged extermination of some six million Jews (most of them by gassing) – is a hoax and should be recognized as such by Christians and all informed, honest and truthful men everywhere.”

Another example of deniers stating the gas chambers are a myth was reported by German media outlet DW News on April 16, 2010. The article reported that “Ultra-conservative bishop Richard Williamson has been fined 10,000 euros for denying aspects of the Holocaust in an interview for Swedish television. He made the comments while on German soil.”

During the televised interview, the British Roman Catholic Bishop stated, “I believe that the historical evidence is strongly against, is hugely against, six million Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler.” Williamson added, “I think that 200,000 to 300,000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps, but none of them in gas chambers.”

Another denier, claiming to be neutral, wrote to us on social media with this curious comment: “We know for a fact that great numbers of Jews were rounded up and taken to camps, and that great numbers of them died there. But beyond these clear facts, it starts to get more blurry. There may be indications that these were primarily intended as purely work camps. During WW2 all the belligerent powers were short of labor, so that actually makes more sense. There are also problems with the evidence for gas chambers.”

On the contrary, there is an abundance of evidence for the gas chambers. That is why all mainstream historians agree the chambers are 100% verified and that a large percentage of those who died in the camps died from the result of either carbon monoxide or Zyklon B gas poisoning.

A good summary of the historically-proven facts about the gas chambers can be found on the Jewish Virtual Library site in an article headed “Gassing Victims in the Holocaust.” Skeptics be advised all of these facts have been confirmed in Nazi documentation no less, examples of which can be found later in this chapter.

Meanwhile, here’s a relevant excerpt from the Jewish Virtual Library:

“The systematic murdering of humans through gas during the Nazi rule was introduced for the first time from January 1940 on in the area of the ‘Euthanasia’, the extermination of the ‘lives not worthy to live’ of the handicapped, mental patients and the terminally ill, and from fall 1941 on was continued to a much larger extent by the pogroms of the operation groups of the security police and the SD in the seized eastern areas with the help of mobile gas vans.

“Beginning December of 1941 one proceeded in the camp Kulmhof (Polish Chelmno) to use stationary gas vans for the killing of Jews, and from the beginning of 1942 in different camps fixed gas chambers were built, or already existing buildings were restructured for this purpose.”

The article also makes an important distinction. “One needs to differentiate by the furnishing of such gas chambers and the gassing actions carried out within them between the mass gassings of Jews in the extermination camps built for that purpose and the gassings of smaller scale in individual, already existing concentration camps (whereby patients, seized forced laborers, war prisoners, and political prisoners among others were also victims).”

As mentioned, the Nazis themselves left sufficient documentation to verify the large-scale usage of gas chambers in the camps. This despite their efforts to destroy documentation and other evidence late in the war when they realized all was lost, and despite their determination to conceal the extent of the Holocaust from the German public.

The examples (of Nazi verification of the gas chamber exterminations) are too many to list, but here’s a few for the record:

A 1943 letter written by Auschwitz head architect Karl Bischoff ordered “three gas tight doors” for Crema 3 following “exactly the size and construction of those already delivered” for Crema 2.” Bischoff’s urgently-marked letter, which was addressed to the German Armament Works, specified the doors needed a spy-hole of double 8-mm glass “with a rubber seal and metal fitting.”

The Korherr Report is another strong piece of evidence. Written in March, 1943, by SS doctor Richard Korherr, it states 2.5 million European Jews had been “evacuated” for “special treatment.” (Note that the phrase special treatment is a coded Nazi term WW2 historians commonly agree refers to genocide within the camps, especially via gas chambers).

The Höfle Telegram, which was written in 1943 and discovered in 2000, is one of the few Nazi documents found that mentions and describes Operation Reinhard, the codename given to the top-secret German plan to mass-murder Polish Jews in Polish concentration camps.

SS-Officer Rudolf Höss, the longest-serving commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp, testified after WW2 that it was possible to kill 2,000 people per hour via the Zyklon B gas he introduced to the camp: “Technically [it] wasn't so hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers.... The killing itself took the least time. You could dispose of 2,000 head in half an hour, but it was the burning that took all the time. The killing was easy; you didn't even need guards to drive them into the chambers; they just went in expecting to take showers and, instead of water, we turned on poison gas. The whole thing went very quickly.”

Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squadron, SS), and one of the most senior and influential members of the Nazi Party, not only explicitly described the mass extermination of Jews that was underway in a speech he gave to other German officers on October 4th, 1943, in the city of Posen (now Poland), but also stated the genocide needed to be kept a total secret and never recorded.

Here are the relevant excerpts of Himmler’s 1943 speech as recorded in the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel For Prosecution of Axis Criminality, and as translated (from German into English) by the Nizkor Project. (Note that recovered Nazi audio recordings of this wartime speech are all over the internet for anyone to freely listen to):

“I also want to talk to you, quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30th, 1934 to do the duty we were bidden, and stand comrades who had lapsed, up against the wall and shoot them, so we have never spoken about it and will never speak of it. It was that tact which is a matter of course and which I am glad to say, is inherent in us, that made us never discuss it among ourselves, never to speak of it. It appalled everyone, and yet everyone was certain that he would do it the next time if such orders are issued and if it is necessary – I mean the clearing out of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. … Most of you must know what it means when 100 corpses are lying side by side, or 500 or 1,000 … This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written.”

The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Yad Vashem, lists an eyewitness account by SS Non-commissioned officer (SS-Unterscharführer) Perry Broad, who served at Auschwitz from 1942–1945.

In the following, Broad describes an occasion he witnessed Jews being murdered within one of Auschwitz’s gas chambers:

“A number of victims noticed that the covers had been removed from the six holes in the ceiling (of the gas chamber). They screamed in terror when a head, covered in a gas-mask, appeared at one of the holes. The ‘disinfectors’ went to work… Using a hammer and chisel, they opened some innocuous-looking tins which bore the inscription ‘Zyklon, to be used against vermin. Attention, poison! To be opened by trained personnel only.’ As soon as the tins were opened, their contents were thrown through the holes, and the covers were replaced immediately… about two minutes later, the screams died down, and only muffled groans could be heard. Most of the victims had already lost consciousness. Two more minutes passed, and Grabner (one of the SS men) stopped looking at his watch. Absolute silence prevailed.”


“In nature life always takes measures against parasites; in the life of nations that is not always the case. From this fact the Jewish peril actually stems. There is therefore no other recourse left for modern nations except to exterminate the Jew.” –Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany

Additional excerpt from DEBUNKING HOLOCAUST DENIAL THEORIES: Two Non-Jews Affirm the Historicity of the Nazi Genocide:

Testimonies confirming the existence of the gas chambers and the dreadful use they were put to have also been given by untold numbers of concentration camp survivors, by workers whose number include railroad crews, and by ‘corpse disposal prisoners’ known as Sonderkommandos who were tasked with disposing of the bodies of gassed victims and who, day after day, witnessed first-hand the extermination campaign; and last but not least are those German officers and guards whose post-war testimonials and confessions provide further proof.

Even the Allies expressed awareness of the Holocaust fairly early on in WW2.

For example, in December 1942, Britain’s Foreign Minister Anthony Eden condemned the ongoing mass murder of Jews after reading the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations drafted by the American and British governments on behalf of the Allied Powers.

Eden mentioned the “numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended, the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler's oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported in conditions of appalling horror and brutality to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi slaughterhouse, the ghettos established by the German invader are being systematically emptied of all Jews except a few highly skilled workers required for war industries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labor camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions.”


“I would like you to believe me. I saw the gas chambers. I saw the crematoria. I saw the open fires. I was on the ramp when the selections took place. I would like you to believe that these atrocities happened because I was there.” –Oskar Gröning, former member of the SS stationed at Auschwitz concentration camp


Now, the cornerstone of almost every Holocaust denier’s argument is the gas chambers – or, as they mischievously insist, the lack of gas chambers.

You’ll recall David Irving’s comment (quoted in chapter 1) about the Auschwitz gas chambers being as genuine as Disneyland. Unfortunately, he’s not alone in his belief. The deniers regularly trot out “evidence” in the form of erroneous information to attempt to prove their theory that the Nazis’ gas chambers either did not exist or were used for delousing or for other reasons that had nothing to do with the mass murders of human beings. Unsubstantiated theories all easily disproven.

Very few Holocaust deniers are scientists, and yet they insist on repeating scientific myths that have been debunked numerous times.

Common myths include:
-Hydrogen cyanide (in the form of Zyklon B) is either too explosive to use or else cannot be used to exterminate humans.
-There was no Prussian Blue (a sure sign of Zyklon B usage) on the gas chamber walls.
-Gas chambers are too difficult to ventilate.
-It’s not possible to kill millions of people in gas chambers in the course of a few years.

Given Holocaust deniers and all those with an irrational hatred of Jews cannot win any sane historical argument, and given the public (generally) have little scientific understanding, it’s not surprising deniers resort to using “scientific speak” to recruit followers to their erroneous belief systems.

Leftover cans of Zyklon B were found all over Nazi-occupied Europe after WW2. New York’s The Algemeiner newspaper mentions this in an April 2015 article titled “Holocaust Denial is Real – and Frightening.”

An excerpt from the article follows:

“Everyone – except the idiots of the world – knows the truth about Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi death camps, and the one where an estimated 1.3 million people were murdered. It is preserved as it was in January 1945 when the camp was liberated. The gas chambers at Birkenau were destroyed by the Nazis to remove evidence of their atrocities. But the reminders of the horrors are the plentiful human hair, shoes, suitcases, and eyeglasses of the victims. Above all, there are the empty canisters of Zyklon B poison, and evidence of documentation of the Nazi planning of the genocide, mostly – at least 90 percent – against Jews.”

When it comes to the actual usage of Zyklon B, deniers are correct in that it was originally created and used as a delousing agent in the concentration camps, but that does not disprove or diminish the fact that Zyklon B was also used to exterminate people.

To this day, the walls of one of the gas chambers at the Majdanek extermination camp – a site the Nazis failed to even partly destroy – has the tell-tale strong blue coloring that occurs when the cyanide fumes of Zyklon B react with iron.

As for hydrogen cyanide being too explosive to use, this is directly refuted by the Nazis themselves in their own literature regarding Zyklon B.

Nuremberg document NI-9912 reads: “Danger of explosion: 75 grams of HCN in 1 cubic meter of air. Normal application approx. 8-10 grams per cubic meter, therefore not explosive.”

The Nizkor Project, a venture run by B'nai B'rith Canada, which is dedicated to countering Holocaust denial, consulted scientists on Zyklon B and concluded: “There would have been no real danger of explosion even if there were a bonfire burning in the gas chamber while the execution was taking place.”

The use of poisonous gas to exterminate people predated the Holocaust. According to French historian Claude Ribbe, in the 19th Century Napoleon used sulfur dioxide in the enclosed holds of ships. In his book Le Crime de Napoléon, Ribbe reports up to 100,000 rebellious slaves were executed in these makeshift maritime gas chambers.

And the idea that gas chambers cannot be used to exterminate people is directly contradicted by their usage in the US where for decades they were used to carry out the death penalty in many states. In fact, gas chambers were built to exterminate prisoners in America from the 1920s onwards.

Mobile gas vans were invented in the Soviet Union. These Soviet gas vans, which the Nazis utilized later in the Holocaust, were used from 1936 onwards and were disguised as bread vans.

In more recent times, there have been reports of gas chambers being used to exterminate innocent people in North Korea. On February 1, 2004, The Guardian reported that “horrific chemical experiments” were being “conducted on human beings” in this militant republic.

Sobering excerpts from The Guardian article follow. (Note we have italicised references to gas chambers):

“In the remote north-eastern corner of North Korea…is Haengyong…This remote town is home to Camp 22 - North Korea's largest concentration camp, where thousands of men, women and children accused of political crimes are held.

“Now, it is claimed, it is also where thousands die each year and where prison guards stamp on the necks of babies born to prisoners to kill them.

“Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings.

“Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonising death while scientists take notes.”

Witnesses quoted in the above article include a “former military attaché at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing” who, the writer claims, “was also the chief of management at Camp 22.”

Vast amounts of physical evidence of the genocide that was the Holocaust have been recovered from the Nazi concentration camps. These include mass graves – uncovered at Treblinka, Sobibor and Auschwitz to name but three – the remains of human bodies inside and outside the camps, swathes of ash containing hair, bones, teeth and other body parts, and shoes, suitcases, eyeglasses, prosthetics and other personal belongings left behind by the victims. And, of course, there are the various examples of recovered extermination equipment – including the gas chambers themselves.

Crucially, much of this material has undergone independent forensic examination that further verifies the Holocaust.

Perhaps the most poignant item of evidence confirming the horrific numbers of victims the gas chambers claimed is the victims’ shoes. You will know what we are talking about if you’ve seen those unforgettable photographs of mountainous piles of discarded shoes – big and pathetically small.

The Soviets recovered 300,000 pairs of shoes from the Auschwitz and Majdanek camps alone. Some 20,000 pairs of adults’ and children’s shoes are estimated to have been collected daily during the exterminations, which matches the reported rate of gassings at Auschwitz.

Now, either the Nazis collected shoes to indulge a bizarre shoe fetish, or these shoes belonged to the innocents they murdered…

No points for guessing which is infinitely more likely to be true!

Another excerpt from DEBUNKING HOLOCAUST DENIAL THEORIES: Two Non-Jews Affirm the Historicity of the Nazi Genocide:

Besides all this physical evidence regarding the Nazis’ extermination measures, the universal post-war findings of historians, the testimonies from survivors and eyewitnesses, and the official documents and statements from the Nazis themselves, there have been numerous independent scientific reports on the actual gas chambers.

French pharmacist and former Holocaust denier Jean Claude Pressac initiated a forensic examination of the Auschwitz gas chambers in 1979. He was stunned when the verdict provided overwhelming scientific evidence confirming the chambers’ usage. A decade later, Pressac published a book in which he conceded that not only were Auschwitz’s gas chambers functional, but they were used to exterminate more than 700,000 people.

A thorough 1994 scientific study by the Polish Government revealed that “in spite of the passage of a considerable period of time (over 45 years) in the walls of the facilities which once were in contact with hydrogen cyanide the vestigial amounts of the combinations of this constituent of Zyklon B had been preserved. This is also true of the ruins of the former gas chambers.”

An article published on Quora and written by skeptic and historian Tim O’Neill, does an excellent job at outlining other scientific evidence for the Nazi extermination program including their gas chambers.

Titled “Is there physical scientific proof that Jews were gassed to death in Nazi concentration camps?”, O’Neill answers, “Firstly, we have archaeological evidence. While the Nazis tried to cover up their crimes by destroying the evidence of gas chambers and the other killing apparatus, blowing up the chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Bikenau for example, there is still solid evidence that corroborates the eye-witness accounts. Careful examination of the ruins of the Crematoria I and II gas chambers at Auschwitz and comparison with photographs and descriptions from witnesses confirms the existence of the holes in the roofs of the chambers by which the Zyklon B gas pellets were introduced. Holocaust deniers claim these holes don't exist and that these structures were not gas chambers, but examination of the ruins shows that the holes in question were in place before the attempted demolition of the chambers and were not the result of that action.

“Between 2010 and 2012 a British archaeological team uncovered extensive evidence that the Treblinka camp was indeed a mass murder centre. Ground penetrating radar detected three huge mass graves on the site, one of which is 26m (26 meters or 85 feet) long, 17m wide and at least 4m deep. Using aerial photos from the 1940s, GPS technology and modern remote sensing equipment, the archaeologists were also able to detect the brick remains of the gas chambers, which the Nazis had dismantled when they abandoned the site. Bone fragments and ash deposits on the site also clearly indicate the disposal of thousands of corpses at Treblinka, as attested by all witnesses.

“Secondly,” O’Neill concludes, “we have forensic evidence that clearly demonstrates that cyanide gas was used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Following claims by amateur hobbyist Fred Leuchter, which were touted by Holocaust deniers David Irving and Ernst Zundel as "proof" no Zyklon B was used to gas people at Auschwitz, the Institute for Forensic Research (IFRC) in Kraków undertook forensic examinations of the relevant areas of the five crematoria. After factoring in elements that Leuchter had not calculated for, the IFRC concluded that, in fact, there were expected traces of cyanide gas in all relevant areas and that this was not due to them having been fumigated against a typhus outbreak.”

Confirmation of the existence and usage of the gas chambers in the genocide of the Jews also passed the ultimate test in a court of law.

The aforementioned Holocaust denier David Irving attempted to sue American historian Deborah E. Lipstadt over comments she made about him in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. The UK libel case, known as Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt, was won by Lipstadt – and, more importantly, the case used extensive forensic examination of the gas chambers to disprove Irving’s Holocaust denial theories.

It’s worth noting that during this case, which occurred at the High Court of Justice in London, Judge Gray completely dismissed Irving’s claims that the Nazi gas chambers were an historic and scientific impossibility, by saying the “cumulative effect of the documentary evidence for the genocidal operation of the gas chambers” was not only “considerable” but also “mutually corroborative.”

Judge Gray also noted the eyewitness accounts and documentary evidence was “striking[ly]...consistent” and concluded that “no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt” the existence and wide-scale usage of the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

In summary, Judge Gray found Irving’s arguments to be “perverse and egregious” and also stated that Irving had “significantly misrepresented what the evidence, objectively examined, reveals.”

In his book, Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial, Sir Richard J. Evans, a Cambridge historian and the chief advisor for the defense in the Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt case, wrote: “Not one of Irving's books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about.”

There have been other court cases over the years that have used historical and scientific evidence to prove the historicity of every facet of the Holocaust as told by mainstream historians.

For example, in 1981, the notoriously anti-Semitic Institute for Historical Review (IHR) and its founder Willis Carto suffered a significant reversal as a result of a lawsuit filed by attorney William John Cox on behalf of his client, Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein. Newsweek and other media outlets reported that after painstakingly analyzing Carto’s and the IHR’s denial arguments, as well as scholarly evidence relating to Auschwitz and its multiple gas chambers, the court took “judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944.” The court concluded that “It is simply a fact.”

There is one final point we need to make in relation to the purposeful misrepresentation of facts surrounding the Holocaust. This being it is a common mistake for newcomers (to the Holocaust) to be swayed by deniers who fail to alert them to the fact that most of the remaining gas chambers are not in the same state they were during WW2 – a detail that is universally agreed on (by those in the know at least).

It is indisputable that some gas chambers, including those at Auschwitz, were in such a state of disrepair they had to be rebuilt if they were to be preserved for posterity. Majdanek, in Poland, is one of the only death camps remaining in its WW2 state. Its gas chambers are wholly intact. Others, including Treblinka and Sobibór, were completely destroyed, and still more were partially destroyed.

Unfortunately, this is not the most widely reported fact to come out of the Holocaust. In many ways, it’s a forgotten fact. We have even come across some reasonably experienced Holocaust researchers who did not realize Auschwitz’s gas chambers, for example, are primarily reconstructions of the originals that were in the main destroyed by the Nazis.

Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites of course love to play on this confusion, pointing out any anomalies that may exist in research concerning the gas chambers. One example being what remains of the chambers at Auschwitz have no obvious or easily detected signs that Zyklon-B gas was deployed within them. (Not obvious to the naked eye at least as it is at Majdanek where you can find the tell-tale blue-stained walls resulting from the Zyklon B gassings).

When quoting this Auschwitz example, the deniers mischievously overlook the fact that the chambers are not remotely in the same condition they were during WW2 when the exterminations took place. More to the point, some are not even the same chambers, realistic and authentic though they may be.

Also in the case of the Auschwitz chambers, deniers overlook, or, perhaps more to the point, fail to report that forensic testing by the aforementioned IFRC revealed Zyklon B gas was definitely used in this camp’s chambers.

An illustration of twisting this underreported factor of reconstructed gas chambers into supposed evidence of a hoax can be found in a February 1995 issue of the Japanese magazine Marco Polo. That issue published a Holocaust denial piece, written by Doctor Masanori Nishioka, which stated: “The 'Holocaust' is a fabrication. There were no execution gas chambers in Auschwitz or in any other concentration camp. Today, what are displayed as 'gas chambers' at the remains of the Auschwitz camp in Poland are a post-war fabrication by the Polish communist regime or by the Soviet Union, which controlled the country. Not once, neither at Auschwitz nor in any territory controlled by the Germans during the Second World War, was there 'mass murder of Jews' in 'gas chambers'.”

The fact that most of the chambers are not in their original state all goes back once again to the Nazis partly or completely dismantling concentration camps, and removing the remains of the deceased, to hide as much evidence as possible that millions had been exterminated.

One example of this was a top-secret Nazi order for the dismantling of the camps. Known as Sonderaktion 1005, which translates to Special Action 1005, it was a special order to conceal evidence of all murders by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland. Conducted in almost total secrecy, the Sonderaktion 1005 forced prisoners to unearth mass graves and burn the bodies. These prisoners were known as Leichenkommandos, which means corpse units.

Late in the war, the Nazis focused on destroying all evidence of the Holocaust, or the worst of it at least, which of course was the gas chambers in the concentration camps. Commandos dismantled the camps, and the gas chambers, records and documentation were (mostly) systematically destroyed.

However, as alluded to earlier, the one camp the Nazis could not reach in time was Majdanek. This Polish extermination camp would have been completely dismantled were it not for the advancing Soviet Red Army who arrived in time to prevent its destruction.

As a result, SS Officer Anton Thernes, deputy commandant of administration at Majdanek, could offer little defence when he was later prosecuted for war crimes, and the gas chambers at the camp remain one of the most intact examples of the Nazis’ hideous extermination facilities.

“Deniers have said for years that physical evidence is lacking because they have seen no holes in the roof of the Birkenau gas chamber where the Zyklon was poured in. (In some of the gas chambers the Zyklon B was poured in through the roof, while in others it was thrown in through the windows.) The roof was dynamited at war's end, and today lies broken in pieces, but three of the four original holes were positively identified in a recent paper. Their location in the concrete matches with eyewitness testimony, aerial photos from 1944, and a ground photo from 1943. The physical evidence shows unmistakably that the Zyklon holes were cast into the concrete when the building was constructed.” –Deborah E. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (BBC History article)

‘We will defend the Fatherland with streams of blood’: New extracts from Himmler's diary reveal how the SS chief justified ‘eliminating the Jews’... and then relaxed with a sauna, game of curling and tryst with his mistress

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...

Wannsee Conference - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee...

The Wannsee Conference (German: Wannseekonferenz) was a meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942 during World War II. The purpose of the conference was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question. The conference, called by Chief of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA) Reinhard Heydrich, was attended by representatives from several government ministries, including state secretaries from the Foreign Office, the justice, interior, and state ministries, and representatives from the Schutzstaffel (SS).

In the course of the meeting, Heydrich outlined the proposal of final extermination of European Jews in German-occupied Europe under the pretext of resettlement. The plan called for removing them from their home environment and deporting them by train to extermination camps in the General Government territory of occupied Poland, where they would be murdered out of sight primarily by gassing.

Soon after the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the unprecedented persecution of European Jewry was introduced, but the indiscriminate killings of men, women and children began in June 1941 after the onset of Operation Barbarossa against the Soviets. On 31 July 1941 Hermann Göring gave written authorization to Heydrich to prepare and submit a plan for a "total solution of the Jewish question" in territories under German control and to coordinate the participation of all involved government organisations. At Wannsee, Heydrich emphasised that once the mass deportation strategy was complete, the exterminations would become an internal matter of the SS. A secondary goal was to arrive at a definition of who was formally Jewish and thus determine the scope of the genocide.

One copy of the Protocol with circulated minutes of the meeting survived the war. It was found by the Allies in March 1947 among files that had been seized from the German Foreign Office. It was used as evidence in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials. The Wannsee House, site of the conference, is now a Holocaust memorial.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee...

Virtual reality helps net last Auschwitz criminals -- http://www.timesofisrael.com/virtual-...

Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial



History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier



Beyond Belief: The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 1933- 1945



Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory



Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers

Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz

This is a unique, eye-witness account of everyday life right at the heart of the Nazi extermination machine. Slomo Venezia was born into a poor Jewish-Italian community living in Thessaloniki, Greece. At first, the occupying Italians protected his family; but when the Germans invaded, the Venezias were deported to Auschwitz. His mother and sisters disappeared on arrival, and he learned, at first with disbelief, that they had almost certainly been gassed. Given the chance to earn a little extra bread, he agreed to become a 'Sonderkommando', without realising what this entailed. He soon found himself a member of the 'special unit' responsible for removing the corpses from the gas chambers and burning their bodies.

Dispassionately, he details the grim round of daily tasks, evokes the terror inspired by the man in charge of the crematoria, 'Angel of Death' Otto Moll, and recounts the attempts made by some of the prisoners to escape, including the revolt of October 1944.

It is usual to imagine that none of those who went into the gas chambers at Auschwitz ever emerged to tell their tale - but, as a member of a 'Sonderkommando', Shlomo Venezia was given this horrific privilege. He knew that, having witnessed the unspeakable, he in turn would probably be eliminated by the SS in case he ever told his tale. He survived: this is his story.

Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The Gas Chambers at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka -- Descriptions and Eyewitness Testimony http://www.holocaustresearchproject.o...

The intention of this article is to provide a brief description of all the gas chambers constructed at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka death camps constructed by the Nazis, as part of the Aktion Reinhard murder programme, during 1941 and 1942 in the General Government.

Rolf Mengele on meeting his father, Dr. Josef Mengele https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iudad...

Yes, good call Amazon! (let's not confuse "freedom of speech" with "hate speech", guys)...

Under pressure, Amazon stops selling Holocaust-denial books https://www.thejc.com/news/world/unde...

It is all so heartbreaking to think of. What a sad, sad time period.

Denial Movie Tie-in : Holocaust History on Trial

James wrote: "Denial Movie Tie-in : Holocaust History on Trial

"James, I have difficulty getting my head around this thread. Is it the figure of six million that some people argue against or what? Last December I took a city break to Krakow (highly recommended in itself) & from there toured Auschwitz & Birkenau....this is also highly recommended, especially for the far right quibblers.

Yes the anti-Semites argue in detail the Holocaust is greatly exaggerated and constantly nowhere near 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. In fact, an exhaustive recent study by the ADL showed 32-33% of the world's population (i.e. Billions of people!) believe the Holocaust that all mainstream historians agree upon is either an outright lie or else hugely exaggerated. And the core belief in all Holocaust deniers' arguments is of course the gas chambers, which they claim never killed anybody. Thus, it's important to verify the gas chamber exterminations.

For anyone new to learning about how much of a growing problem Holocaust denial is, feel free to check out the rest of the posts in this section: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_...

James wrote: "Yes the anti-Semites argue in detail the Holocaust is greatly exaggerated and constantly nowhere near 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust. In fact, an exhaustive recent study by the ADL showed 32-..."The gas chambers at Birkenau were blown up as the Ruskies closed in but at Auschwitz they still exist along with the ovens for cremation. I walked through these. Maybe six million didn't suffer this end but countless others died of starvation etc., or were shot & dumped into mass graves etc.,etc. Freaks may argue about the figures, but it's still a Holocaust.

Agreed, but it's surprising how many subscribe to these insane beliefs and deny absolute facts.

No historian ever claimed 6 million died in gas chambers. That's a misunderstanding. The Holocaust always included various types of deaths, as you imply...including death by purposeful starvation in ghettos (500,000) and a further 1.5-2million in the 'Holocaust by Bullets' - that part occurred in Ukraine, Lithuania and around Eastern Europe where Jews were rounded up in fields and shot in the head. Most of the rest died in extermination camps but not all in gas chambers either.

Note also that the gas chambers you walked thru in Auschwitz are mostly reconstructions built after the war based on the real AUSCHWITZ gas chambers which were destroyed. The Nazis successfully destroyed, either partially or in most cases fully, all of the gas chambers used in the Holocaust before the war ended to conceal their genocidal war crimes. They successfully destroyed all gas chambers except one: the chamber in the Majdanek death camp. The Russians arrived before they could destroy that one.

James wrote: "Note also that the gas chambers you walked thru in Auschwitz are mostly reconstructions built after the war based on the real AUSCHWITZ gas chambers which were destroyed. The Nazis successfully des..."That's news to me James. If they destroyed the gas chamber & ovens that I walked through at Auschwitz, they didn't make too good of a job of it.

They are mostly reconstructed chambers at AUSCHWITZ, Pete. Original chambers are in ruins in a slightly different part of AUSCHWITZ. You can see those pics online showing the rubble

Majdanek is the only chanber wholly in tact. You can still see the Zyklon B stains on the walls at Majdanek from all the gassings.

Good on you for making the effort to go thru AUSCHWITZ by the way - not everyone cares like that or respects history enough.

P.S. I have no idea why my phone keeps turning AUSCHWITZ into caps...sorry!

James wrote: Good on you for making the effort to go thru AUSCHWITZ by the way - not everyone cares like that or respects history enough."Well, history is my trip James. The guide told us that they get millions of people visiting per year. Mainly Euros, including Germans, as well as from Canada & US & of course from Israel.

Pete wrote: "Well, history is my trip James. The guide told us that they get millions of people visiting per year. Mainly Euros, including Germans, as well as from Canada & US & of course from Israel. ..."

Cheers Pete, and yes I know you're a keen student of history as your advanced knowledge of JFK's murder shows.

I feel the Holocaust is one of the most important historical events to study. A lot of interrelated historical events, including ancient ones (e.g. ancient anti-Semitic massacres right back to Biblical times), as well as interrelated political movements (perhaps even some developing now in the world!), all tie in with the Holocaust.

Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning

VIDEO: My courtroom battle with a Holocaust denier | Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt | TEDxSkoll https://www.goodreads.com/videos/1204...

From the YouTube video:

Historian Deborah E. Lipstadt spent years researching Holocaust deniers for one of her books, arguing that their racism, anti-Semitism, and prejudice had been disguised as rational discourse. But she never thought she would have to face one of them in court. Her talk tells the incredible story of her six year battle to defend the existence of the Holocaust in a courtroom, and proposes solutions for how to fight for the truth in a new era marked by “alternative facts.”

Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish & Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta. Her most recent book, Holocaust: An American Understanding (Rutgers, 2016) explores how America has understood and interpreted the Holocaust since 1945. Her previous book, The Eichmann Trial (Schocken/Nextbook 2011) published in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Eichmann trial, was called by Publisher’s Weekly, “a penetrating and authoritative dissection of a landmark case and its after effects.”

She has held and currently holds a Presidential appointment to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council (from Presidents Clinton and Obama) and was asked by President George W. Bush to represent the White House at the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. At the US Holocaust Museum Lipstadt chairs the Committee on Antisemitism & State Sponsored Holocaust Denial. She is currently writing a book, The Antisemitic Delusion: Letters to a Student, pub 2018.

To anyone who is still in denial of the Holocaust, or to others who are wanting even more evidence to counteract deniers, here's yet another German admitting to witnessing the "gassings" at Auschwitz and seeing all the dead bodies being constantly moved...

Reinhold Hanning, Former Auschwitz Guard Convicted a Year Ago, Dies at 95 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/wo...

Excerpt:

A contrite Mr. Hanning was convicted last June in a state court in the northwestern German city of Detmold.

“I am ashamed that I saw injustice and never did anything about it,” he told the court in a weak voice from a wheelchair, reading from a statement and speaking into a microphone, “and I apologize for my actions.”

Mr. Hanning joined the Hitler Youth at age 13 and the Waffen SS at 18. He was wounded by grenade splinters on the Eastern front in 1941 and assigned to guard duty in a tower at Auschwitz in early 1942. He remained there until June 1944.

“People were shot, gassed and burned,” he said in court. “I could see how corpses were taken back and forth or moved out. I could smell the burning bodies.”

The full NY Times article is worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/wo...

For many survivors who grew up in the German concentration camps, the memories of their stay would forever haunt them. Perhaps more tragically, younger survivors were less aware of any barbarity- for it was all they knew. And as this photo of a little child epitomizes, it's the only image they can fathom: https://www.goodreads.com/photo/group...

For all those deniers, I highly recommend two books:

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and Night by Elie Wiesel.

I believe these books would open the eyes of even the most bigoted.

Nice one Nick. Those are excellent books.

The most moving/damning example I have seen was an artificial hill at Auschwitz - effectively blood and bone from the crematoria. The sheer size of it was terrible, and interestingly, when i saw it it was a calm sunny morning and the hill was covered by quite beautiful red flowers.

Holocaust deniers are often the same ilk who will deny (or quibble about the numbers) killed by Soviet socialism (Stalin) and Chinese socialism (Mao). The insult is compounded by how the horrors really started or cranked up during the alliance of Soviet socialism and German socialism in 1939, invading Poland together, in a pact to divide up Europe. Even Soviet socialism played a part in that they denied the worst parts of the conspiracy between Soviet socialism and German socialism and their part in it all the way up to 1989, treating it as a "conspiracy theory." World History 1/8: Anarchaeology, Misanthropology, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Rex Curry, Socialist Crusades, Latest Dark Age, Modern Inquisitions, Holocaust & Wholecaust

Stalin was a complete sociopath. One of his quotes went something like, it is far better to kill ten innocent people than let one possibly guilty one survive. All the evidence I have seen is that both Hitler and Stalin were only playing for time with that treaty - Stalin knew he would have to fight Hitler - it was only a question of when, and in 1939 Stalin knew he was in no position to fight anybody. Stalin could not care less how many Russians died, as long as he wasn't one of them.

Ruby wrote: "I find it disgusting that people will concern themselves so deeply with arguing over the numbers, so adamant they are right, and more importantly others are wrong. We lose site of the real horror that has blackened our history (not just Germany but any country that was aware and did nothing) and we come full circle back to the roots of hate that grew into the atrocity of the Holocaust...."

Absolutely Ruby.
If we as a civilization cannot all acknowledge the Holocaust, and learn from it, then I'm honestly not sure what event could ever help us evolve.
Feels to me like we either all come together on our understanding on the Holocaust, and acknowledge the various parties (including passive bystanders) who allowed it to occur, or we will eventually repeat something this horrific again...

In my opinion, the real issue is to learn so that we know what to do to stop it if it ever threatens to raise its head again. We have to remember that in Germany it did not arise overnight, but there was a long lead-up, and only too many others did nothing while this was going on.

The book "WORLD'S DUMBEST CRIMINALS - Hitler, Stalin, Mao etc" is helpful on these topics. One of the best ways to deal with a Holocaust denier is to ask if he is also a denier of the larger socialist genocides (of which the Holocaust was a part). Stalin shares guilt for genocides of Mao, Hitler & himself. German socialism & Soviet socialism joined to launch the socialist WWII, invading Poland together, and onward. It led to genocide under socialists Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kims, etc.

Gas chambers discovered at Nazi death camp Sobibor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_ar...

Just want to applaud everyone who is working to counter the Holocaust deniers. So depressing that there are people who really want to excuse what undeniably happened.
We must fight this vile element in society so that history doesn't repeat itself.

The deniers should have to spend a few days in Auschwitz. Not having to do the labour - that would be too cruel, but just be forced to see what was left behind. I recall seeing a chalk drawing on a roof of one of the barracks labelled (in old high German script) "Königsgraben". Not exactly a work of quality artistry, but extremely moving.

Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers

Hmm - in terms of grammar, IN the gas chambers? Talk about chemical resistance.

Ian wrote: "Hmm - in terms of grammar, IN the gas chambers? Talk about chemical resistance."

You have a very good point there, Ian!
Once Zyklon B was released IN the gas chambers, you only had a few minutes of hell left!

To be fair, and in case our comments here galvanize more Holocaust deniers, I should spell out it's a poorly chosen book title, not evidence of any cover-up or historical errors!

And to be clear, I have seen clear evidence of the holocaust. I walked through Auschwitz back when Poland was firmly Communist and had just left it there with the gates open. Nobody would make a sham that big and do nothing with it than print the odd explanatory comment. You couldn't get that big a pile of used glasses just by random collections, let alone the hair, and nobody would do that many chalk drawings on the ceilings if they weren't trying to leave a message.

Ian wrote: "And to be clear, I have seen clear evidence of the holocaust. I walked through Auschwitz back when Poland was firmly Communist and had just left it there with the gates open. Nobody would make a sh..."

There is plenty of contemporary evidence in the press photos of Auschwitz. Belsen and Buchenwald which I remember seeing and do not forget. They only have to be reprinted every generation to show people what they could become.

The most chilling sight I saw were large mounds (or minor hills) covered in beautiful flowers, with birds singing nearby. It was a remarkably still sunny day and it seemed so beautiful, until I realised the mounds were the gigantic piles of blood and bone from the crematoria.

Ian wrote: "The most chilling sight I saw were large mounds (or minor hills) covered in beautiful flowers, with birds singing nearby. It was a remarkably still sunny day and it seemed so beautiful, until I rea..."

That is amazing, Ian. How long after the war was that?

August 23, 1968. I recall the date because immediately after leaving the camp I drove down to enter Czechoslovakia, along with a Russian invasion that had just started. It tended to explain why the black-market currency traders in Krakow were so keen to unload Czech crowns - I got a good premium on my surplus zloty - something I would have thought impossible.