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The Holocaust History Project.

DATA, COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS, AND REFUTATION OF "HOLOCAUST REVISIONISM": THE CREMATORIUMS IN GUSEN AND AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU


Prepared by Daniel Keren

Summary: In Gusen camp, which was a sub-camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp, 2 Topf cremation muffles sufficed to cremate 94 corpses in 20 working hours. Contrast this with claims by "Holocaust revisionists", who allege that it would take two, or three, or four hours, to cremate one corpse.

How did the SS experts achieve such a high cremation rate? See technical discussion.

In the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, in which far more people were murdered than in Gusen, the SS built 52 Topf muffles, in huge crematoriums which were manned with up to 870 stokers. So many people were being murdered, that hundreds of workers were required to dispose of the corpses.

If the SS could cremate 94 corpses during one day in the 2 Gusen muffles, why did they build 52(!) muffles in Auschwitz-Birkenau? "Holocaust revisionists" have not been able to answer this question. And, even this enormous cremation power did not suffice; sometimes, the furnaces broke down, and corpses had to be burned in the open.

Here are the photographs, the documents, and the figures.

Gusen cremation report. Entry for November 7 1941 lists 94 corpses cremated in this small, 2-muffle crematorium during 20 hours. Compare it to the furnaces in one of the five crematoriums in Auschwitz-Birkenau. According to the official estimate of the SS, the 52 Auschwitz-Birkenau muffles could cremate 4,756 corpses in 24 working hours, with a cremation rate higher than Gusen, as so many of the victims were infants and children. These huge crematoriums were fully manned in day and night shifts.

It doesn't take much expertise to realize how many people the SS were murdering in Auschwitz, if so many furnaces and stokers were required to dispose of the corpses; see Auschwitz-Birkenau labor deployment reports, listing huge numbers of stokers in the crematoriums:

   

Last modified: October 18, 1999
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