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The Holocaust History Project.

How Reliable are the Hoess Memoirs?

Notes

  1. Francizek Piper, "Gas Chambers and Crematoria" in Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Bloomington: 1994), p. 177, fn. 18.

  2. Lucy Dawidowicz, The Holocaust and the Historians (NY:1981), pp. 176, 177, fn. 1.

  3. Mark Weber, "My Role in the Zundel Trial," 9 Journal of Historical Review No. 4 (Winter 1989/1990), p. 405.

  4. Jerusalem Post, August 17, 1986, p. 1.

  5. Jerusalem Post, August 21, 1986, p. 10. See also the Nizkor file http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/k/krakowski.shmuel/press.

  6. The area of victim and perpetrator testimony in light of corroborating evidence in the Holocaust will be thoroughly examined in John C. Zimmerman, Holocaust Denial: Demographics, Testimonies and Ideologies, Chapters 5 and 6. Forthcoming.

  7. Miklos Nyiszli, Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account (NY:1993), p. 41.

  8. Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle (NY:1990), p. 699.

  9. Rudolf Hoss, Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz (NY:1992). Edited by Steven Paskuly and translated by Andrew Pollinger. Citations to this source will appear in the text smaller and in a different face, e.g.: (27-28).

  10. See the source cited in note 6 above.

  11. Rupert Butler, Legions of Death (Feltham:1983), pp. 237, 238.

  12. Text of Pery Broad's "The Reminiscences of Pery Broad," in Jadwiga Bezwinska and Danuta Czech, Eds., K L Auschwitz Seen by the SS (NY:1984). Abridged text in Bernd Naumann, Auschwitz (NY:1966), pp. 162-183.

  13. Text of Kremer's diary and his explanations of the entries in Bezwinska and Czech, ibid pp. 214-231. For a comprehensive analysis of Kremer's diary entries and denier portrayal of those entries see Chapter 4 of the source cited in note 6 above.

  14. Text of this testimony is in David Fyfe, The Belsen Trial of Joseph Kramer and Forty Four Others (London: 1949).

  15. For an analysis of all the testimony at the Auschwitz trials in the mid 1960s see Bernd Naumann, Auschwitz (NY:1966). Naumann was a journalist who covered the trial. This is the only comprehensive analysis of the trials in English. The transcripts of the hearings were published in Hermann Langbein, Der Auschwitz Prozess: eine Dokumentation (Wien:1965) 2 vols.

  16. On page 30 Hoss gives the impression that this was the only gassing in Block 11, but later on (155-156) he suggests that there was another gassing at this block.

  17. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, 121.

  18. The Auschwitz Death Books are discussed in Chapters 4 and 10 of the source cited in note 6 above. They will also be discussed in a future study intended for this site entitled "Body Disposal at Auschwitz: The End of Holocaust Denial."

  19. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 102, 112, 120, 131.

  20. See denier Carlo Mattogno, "The First Gassing at Auschwitz: The Genesis of a Myth," 9 Journal of Historical Review No. 2 (Summer 1989), pp. 212-213. Mattogno actually provides a great deal of useful information to show that the gassing occurred, something that appears to have escaped Mattogno and the JHR. He argued that the first gassing did not occur because of contradictions in the eyewitness testimonies as to the date of the first gassing in the Fall of 1941. However, in light of the findings of the Cracow Institute, discussed below, the actual date is not as important as the event itself. Also, there may have been some confusion as to the first gassing because there could have been two gassings in Block 11 as suggested by Hoss (155-156).

  21. The report appeared in the Polish journal Z Zagadnien Sqdowych. z XXX 1994, pp. 17-27. An English translation appears at http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/polish/institute-for-forensic-research/. I have received written permission from the Institute to reproduce the study in an appendix in the source cited in note 6 above.

  22. David Irving, "The Suppressed Eichmann and Goebbels Papers," 13 Journal of Historical Review No. 2 (March/April 1993), p. 22.

  23. David Irving, Hitler's War (NY:1977), p. 330. fn24: Brack device

  24. NO-365 dated October 25, 1941. Translation in Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (Berkeley:1982), pp. 70-71. My thanks to the National Archives for providing me with a photocopy of the original document.

  25. The texts of both of these reports are in PS-501 in Office of the Special Counsel, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington D.C. 1947), Vol. 3, pp. 418-422.

  26. Photocopy of the original German with an English translation in Eugen Kogon, Hermann Langbein and Adalbert Ruckerl, Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas (Yale:1993), pp. 228-235. fn27: Inventory

  27. Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers (NY:1989), p. 429. Photocopy of the list on p. 430.
     

  28. Original text with English translation in ibid., p. 231. fn29: Vergasungskeller

  29. Text in ibid., p. 211. The German word "Vergasungskeller," gassing cellar, is underlined in the original report. The "gassing cellar" was Corpse Cellar I. See ibid., p. 212.
     

  30. Jean Claude Pressac, Les Crématoires d' Auschwitz: La Machinerie du Meurtre De Masse (Paris: 1993), p. 107, fn. 256. Pressac discovered this document in the Auschwitz Archives in Moscow. The eyewitness testimony is reproduced in Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, pp. 161, 164, 171, 181.

  31. Text of the report in Jeremy Noakes and G Pridham, Nazism 1919-1945 (Exeter:1988), Vol. 3, p. 1184. Registration data in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 347.

  32. Text in Kogon, Langbein and Ruckerl, Nazi Mass Murder, p. 160. fn33: Electricity

  33. "Aktenvermerk Betr: Stromversorgung und Installation des KL und KGL" in Auschwitz Archives From Moscow, File 502-1-26 Reel 20. My thanks to Aaron Kornblum of the United States Holocaust Museum for providing me with this and other documents from the archives.
      fn34: Dessau

  34. Text in Raul Hilberg, Documents of Destruction (NY:1971), pp. 220-221. Photocopy of the original in Death Books From Auschwitz: Remnants (London:1995), Vol. 1, Appendix, p. 144.
     

  35. Source cited in note 21 herein.

  36. Chapter 10 of the source cited in note 6 herein and a forthcoming study for this site entitled "Body Disposal at Auschwitz: the End of Holocaust Denial."

  37. New York Times, November 25, 1942, p. 10.

  38. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, p. 357. The date was March 22, 1944.

  39. Pressac, Les Crematoires d' Auschwitz, pp. 79-80, citing a letter from the Auschwitz Archives in Moscow dated June 9, 1943.

  40. Dino Brugioni, "Auschwitz-Birkenau," Military Intelligence(January-March, 1983), p. 53.

  41. Michael Shermer, Why People Believe Weird Things (NY:1997), p. 236. The photo analyst is Dr. Nevin Bryant.

  42. Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, p. 422. The background of this photo is consistent with Crematorium V. Many photos of the Crematoriums, including Crematorium V, were published by Pressac. See also the photos reproduced in Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle. The photo may be found online at http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/camps/auschwitz/images/burning-pit.jpg.

  43. Dino Brugioni and Michael Poirier, The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex (CIA:1979), p. 6.

  44. Piper, "Gas Chambers and Crematoria," p. 175.

  45. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle, pp. 633, 636, 641, 642, 643, 647, 648, 650, 655, 661, 666, 671, 673, 686.

  46. Letter dated July 11, 1944 from Edmund Veesenmayer, Germany's Plenipotentiary to Hungary, NG 5615 in Randolph Braham, The Destruction of Hungarian Jewry: A Documentary Account (NY:1963), Vol. 2, p. 443.

  47. NOKW 266, in Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Trials of War Criminals (Washington D.C. 1947), Vol. 2, p. 557.

  48. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (NY: 1985), Vol. 3, p. 935.

  49. Franciszek Piper, "Estimating the Number of Deportees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp", 21 Yad Vashem Studies (1991), pp. 97-99 for a summary of the data appearing earlier in the study. Piper has done a more comprehensive work on this subject in German. See his Die Zahl Der Opfer von Auschwitz: Aufgrund der Quellen der Etrage der Forschung, 1945-1990 (Oswiecim:1993).

  50. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Atlas of the Holocaust (NY:1996), p. 97.

  51. Piper, "Estimating the Number of Victims", pp. 53, 54, 58, 59. Text of USSR-008 in German appears in International Military Tribunal, Trials of Major War Criminals (Washington D.C., 1947), Vol. 39, pp. 241-261. Four million reference on p. 260. fn52: Weisse, undated fn52: Weisse, May 24

  52. Photocopy of the original in Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton, eds, Archives of the Holocaust (NY:1989), Vol. 11, Part 2. Docs. 405 and 406, p. 300.
     

  53. D-728. Text in Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. 7, p. 175. My thanks to the National Archives for providing me with a photocopy of the original document.

  54. See Richard Breitman, The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution (NY:1991), p. 7, for the destruction of documents which incriminated Himmler.

  55. Speech of October 4, 1943. Relevant excerpts in Yitzhak Arad, et. al, Eds. Documents on the Holocaust (Jerusalem:1981), pp. 344-345; Lucy Dawidowicz, ed. A Holocaust Reader (West Orange:1976), p. 133; Michael Berenbaum, Witness to the Holocaust (NY:1997), p. 178. German text in International Military Tribunal, Trials of Major War Criminals (Washington D.C. 1947), Vol. 29, p. 145. Mitchell Jones, an independent researcher, obtained a recording of the speech from the National Archives. See his comments on the denier claim that Himmler did not mean physical killing of the Jews. Mitchell Jones, The Leuchter Report: A Dissection (Cedar Park: 1992), p. 62.

  56. New York Times, January 21, 1998, p. A4. The notation is from December 18, 1941. A scan may be found on the web at http://www.mazal.org/archive/documents/DOC-00002.htm. A similar entry in Goebbels diary for December 12, 1941 has been discovered in the archives. See Gord McFee, "When Did Hitler Decide on the Final Solution?" http://holocaust-history.org/hitler-final-solution/.

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