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The Holocaust History Project.

The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
 
 
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copies of the this report were written in German and the third, abridged, directly in "a chaotic French" (25, p. 236) which was however, comprehensible. There was also a note in English.

At the beginning of the month of May, Gerstein met two officers, one American and the other English, to whom he related his journey to Poland and his visit to Belzec and to Treblinka. He gave them the note in English and his account in French, as well as a certain number of bills which he had in his possession concerning the delivery of important quantities of "Zyklon B" to the SS.

Shortly thereafter he was transferred by the French from Rottweil to Paris and incarcerated in the prison of Cherche Midi, where he hanged himself.

Upon leaving Rottweil, Gerstein was to leave a copy of his report in the German language to the proprietress of the Hotel Mohren, who was to send it to his wife (25, p. 238), whereas the other was to be found later at the hotel and published with a few cuts through the good offices of Professor H. Rothfelds in the German historical periodical, "Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte" (1953, number 2, p. 185) under the title "Augenzeugenbericht zu den Massenvergasungen" (45).

The report in French as well as the bills for "Zyklon B" were to be discovered in the archives of the American delegation on January 30, 1946, by the French prosecutor, M. Charles Dubost, at the time of the first major trial at Nuremberg. The report in German was to be used in 1947, at the time of the trial of the Nazi doctors in Nuremberg, and in January 1949 at Frankfurt during the trial of the directors of the I.G. Farbenindustrie, which produced "Zyklon B.' It is thus that the "Gerstein report" became public. It is impossible to read the report without being profoundly upset, for the description of the scenes witnessed by Gerstein is eloquent..., and atrocious. Naturally, the international press gave it abundant coverage.

2. Proofs that the Gerstein testimony is a "forgery"

Rassinier endeavoured to demonstrate that this report was a forgery. His first attempt, which appeared in 1961 in his book "Ulysses Betrayed by His Own People," on pages 30 and 112 in identical terms, follows a passage declaring that the writings of David Rousset, of Eugene Kogon and of the
"Hungarian Communist Niyzli Miklos" are historical forgeries" fabricated in"work shops" where Russians "correct history all day long." It must, in addition, be recognized that they are improving, especially if one takes into account that in January 1946 they had succeeded in having accepted as authentic by the Tribunal of Nuremberg judging the doctors the document PS-1553 R.F. 350 (39, pp. 30, 112) according to which the Jews were asphyxiated "by groups of 750 to 800" in gas chambers which measured "25 meters at the base and were 1.80 meters high."
This flood of insults and sarcasms typical of the manner of Rassinier was, however, manifestly insufficient to discredit the "report," and the problem was taken up again a year later in the new work, "The Real
    
   

 
The Holocaust and the Neo-Nazi Mythomania
© 1978, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
Previous Page  Back Page 122 Forward  Next Page

   

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