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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and Operation
of
the Gas Chambers © | |
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“LE VERITABLE PROCES EICHMANN ou les vainqueurs
incorrigibles”
[The real Eichmann trial or the
incorrigible victors]
by Paul RASSINIER
Les Sept couleurs,
Paris 1962, pages 245 to 249. |
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MEDECIN A AUSCHWITZ
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Concerning “Médecin à
Auschwitz” published by the Munich magazine Quick in
January 1961 [as "Auschwitz: Das Tagebuch eines Lagerarztes" - The
diary of a camp doctor] and now just republished in France by
Julliard, who had already published it in 1951 in Mr Jean-Paul
Sartre's review “Les Temps Modernes”, I wrote to
the publisher, Julliard. My letter and the reply are given
below. |
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16th November 1961
Mr
René Julliard, Directeur des Editions Julliard
30 rue de
l'Université - PARIS (7e)
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Sir, I have just finished
reading “Médecin à Auschwitz” by Dr Miklos
Nyiszli, published by you last month, and of which I had already
read large extracts under the title "SS Dr Obersturmführer Mengele"
in the March and April 1951 issues of the Review “Les Temps
Modernes”.
At the time, in my double role of
historian and deportee, thinking that publishing accounts that were
manifestly in contradiction with material facts as regards the
political behavior of Nazism, one could not do other, if caught
several times in flagrant délit, than a sow doubt in public opinion
and gradually convince people that Nazism was a fable, I rose up
against the tendency of publishers to print accounts of
concentration camps by all and sundry. His account being, according
to the extracts published in “Les Temps Modernes”,
full of impossibilities and contradictions, and the introduction by
Mr Tibère Kremer adding even more, I therefore wrote to Dr Nyiszli,
care of “Temps Modernes”. Through Mr Tibère Kramer, l
l rue des Moulins, Toulouse, I received a letter, that I hold at
your disposal and which is in contradiction with the text you have
just published. For example, Mr Tibère Kramer, in his 1951
introduction, spoke of 6,000,000 Jews in such a way that this was
taken up by the entire press and attributed to the Auschwitz gas
chambers. Dr Nyiszli himself says 2,500,000, and this was the figure
accepted by the Cracow Court that condemned Hoess, the camp
commandant, to be hung, on 4th April 1947. Another example: arriving
in Auschwitz at the end of May and speaking of 20,000 Jews being
exterminated every day in the gas chambers, plus 5,000 in the open
air pyres, Nyiszli states that that had been going on for FOUR
years, and this is again found on page 50 of your book Now, if there
were gas chambers at Auschwitz the documents produced at Nüremberg
establish:
That they were ordered from Messrs Topf of
Erfurtt on 8th August 1942, but under the designation
“Leichenkeller” and “Badeanstalt”;
Set up in the camp in
February-March 1943.
And the repport by Dr Kasztner
establishes for its part — and this report was accepted at Nuremberg
— that they did not operate from “autumn 1943 to May
1944”.
Etc. ... I could add to the list, but in view of the
time that that would take me, I shall do so only if you are
interested.
However, what I would draw your attention to is
the German version of “Médicin à Auschwitz”, published in
installments in the Munich illustrated weekly "Quick",
starting on 15th January 1961. This version is in formal
contradiction with Mr Tibère Kremer's translation on virtually
everything. I have noted 31 contradictions, not counting those due
to faulty syntax nor those found in the text itself. An example of
absolute contradiction: in the German text, the crematoriums handled
10,000 persons a day and in the French text 20,000. An example of
contradiction by the author: the the dead are shorn on one page, and
then twenty pages further on it is said that the hair was collected
before sending people ro the gas chamber. Furthermore, there are
corrections that Mr Kramer has made with repect a his first version.
A pistol marksman who hits his target at 40-50 metres in the first
version succeeds only at 20 to 30 metres in the second; an institute
that is the most famous in the Third Reich in the first is the most
famous in the world ín the second, etc. … It all boils down
to one thing: either it is a document that is being made public and
it should be the same in 1961 as in 1951, and in its German and
French versions, or it is an apocryphal document. How are we
historians supposed to emerge honorably from this affair if we are
called upon to talk about it? People are automatically going to say
that it is an apocryphal document. And, since the description of the
premises agrees neither in German nor in French with the official
description taken from the documents produced at Nuremberg, if we
are are told that this Nyiszli never set foot in Auschwitz, there
will be no lack of reasons for so claiming.
Example: the gas
chambers, Miklos Nyiszli tells us, are 200 meters long, and the
document produced at Nuremberg tells us that they have a floor area
of 210 m², 400 m² or 580m², giving widths of 1.05m, 2m and 2.90 m
respectively, which is not reasonable. It is all the less likely in
that 3,000 people are supposed to he able to enter and move around
easily, there are pillars down the centre and benches on each side.
Another example, in the French version two plaaces are 500m apart,
in rhe German version 3 km, or vice-versa. Etc.
…
When this German version was published by
“Quick”, I wrote to Mr Tibère Kremer, but the letter was
returned "no longer at this address". I wrote to “Quick”, and
was told that they could not send the letter on to Dr Nyiszli
because he was dead (!)
Perhaps you could pass these remarks
on to Mr Tibère Kremer, whose address you must have because the
translation you published was obtained from him.
It remains
only for me to ask you kindly not to misunderstand the purpose of
the remarks I have taken the liberty of addressing to you.
Historical documents should be respected and versions whose acuracy
cannot be guaranteed should not be published without due
consideration. As it happens, my studies requiring it, I have been
looking for the original for fifteen years and nobody has ever been
able to tell me where I could consult it. The best qualified
historians in the world know nothing about it. The versions that
have been made public are divergent and contradict one another from
one page to the next. The author speaks of places he obviously never
visited, otherwise he would not attribute a length of 200 metres to
a room that would be only 1.05m wide if it were true, or at most
250m, etc. Such things lead to the conclusion that it must indeed
been an apocryphal document
If, therefore, you were able to
provide me with enough certainties to enable me to write “authentic
document”, against the name of Dr Nyiszli in the references in my
works, I should be particularly grateful. |
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Yours etc.,
Paul
RASSINIER |
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| THE REPLY FROM JULLIARD |
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8th December 1961
Mr
Paul RASSINIER
36 rue Bapast, ASNIERES
(Seine)
Sir,
Thank you indeed for having sent me the
typed copy of your letter of 16th November.
I am forwarding
it this very day to Mr Tibère Kremer, translator of the book by
Doctor Miklos Nyiszli, “Médecin à Auschwitz”, so that
he can reply to you.
I can however tell you that it is true
that Doctor Nyiszli is dead, but his wife is still living. I have
also shown his book to several deportees, who have confirmed its
authenticity. |
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Yours etc.,
Pierre
JAVET |
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I am still awaiting the reply from Mr Tibère Kremer.
It is likely that I shall never receive it. First, on 24th
October 1951, Mr Tibère Kremer sent me a reply from Dr Nyiszli to
the letter I referred to when I wrote to Mr Julliard. Second, the
research I have continued to carry out regarding this singular
witness has resulted in my receiving infonnatiom from New York,
(where the book translated by Mr Richard Seaver was published in
1951 with a preface by Professor Bruno Bettelheim), that Dr Nyiszli
was dead long before his testimony was published for the first time.
If this is true, then this dead witness — yet another —
would have the distinction of having written to me after his death.
And the silence of Mr Tibère Kremer would then be
understandable.
No further comment. |
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AUSCHWITZ:
Technique
and operation
of the gas chambers
Jean-Claude Pressac
© 1989, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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