The Denial of Nuremberg Testimony

by R. A.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - spring 1997)

I present my argument against the deniers based on their claims that the holocaust is a "hoax", and that those witnesses who were present when the atrocities took place were liars. The "witnesses" are not only the survivors but the perpetrators as well; those who have committed crimes not only against the Jewish people but on humanity as a whole. Men, consumed by evil and hate, tell of what they did; who they killed and why they took millions of innocent lives, yet their stories, the deniers claim, are simply plea bargains or lies the perpetrators were forced to tell for the safety of their own lives. The deniers are not men who simply are illiterate buffoons, they are men of intelligence, all though perverted by hate, yet there are among them professors, engineers, and men with PHd's. It would be much simpler for society if they were illiterate buffoons, but they are cunning, and by their wit they are gaining new grounds. Those among us who wish to preserve the truth, cannot simply ignore them; because there are those who don't.

To ignore the voice of hate is too allow the hate to spread. for those who died it is essential that we, as a part of humanity, do not let them die with out a purpose. The mass genocidal acts had no purpose but hate and evil. As a part of humanity we need to make sure that no group of people, whether they be black, Jewish, or Anglo-Saxon; ever die in such a cruel and inhumane way. For the sake of those who died in the holocaust, for the sake of our children we need to acknowledge what took place in the holocaust. If we can never admit of what we are capable of, then we will never be prepared. The deniers have not only not allowed for the memory of the victims of the holocaust to live in peace; they have denied the victims death.

In my argument I will look at the denier's proof that Hoess, and other war criminals tried for atrocities against humanities did not actual do or see many of the things they have testified to. I hope to show that their arguments are not only factually false, but logically are not reasonable.Their arguments, lack structure, evidence, and logic. In the first part of the paper I will look at the deniers argument, next I will present evidence which disprove their argument. After wards I will look at the what really happened in the holocaust, and lastly I will give my final remarks. I hope that the reader will come away with an awareness of what the human race is capable of.

Paul Rassinier, one of the leading denier's, in his book, 'The Real Eichman Trials or the Incorrigible victors,' attacks the prosecution for allowing evidence in the trial that he believes was false. For example, he takes the testimony of Dr. Franz Blaha, Dr. Blaha testified in front of the courts that the gas chamber at Dahau was completed in 1944. He later goes on to say that another doctor, Dr.Rascheu had instructed him to examine the first victims. (Rasinier, pg.88) Rassinier argues that the tribunal had no right, "bound by technical proof of evidence," to accept the testimony as true evidence since they did not have proof. He states, "However, it is known that the gas chambers at Dachau was not completed and made workable until after the inmate of the concentration camp, and no one had been gassed there. Therefore, it can be said that the Czech communist, Dr. Franz Blaha, was nothing more than a common false witness." (pg.89) As most any reader with a sense of logic can see can see this argument is logically flawed. However, in the first part of the paper I am simply going to be looking at the denier's arguments , and in the next part of the paper I will be providing counter evidence and criticizing the arguments. Not only does Rassinier attack the statement of doctors but he also tries to discredit those who were actually there. He tells a story of one survivor from Auschwitz who says what happened at Auschwitz in the gas chambers, the witness himself did not see it, 'but the witness says he was told by a reliable source, the witness went further to say that you did not survive more than three months but he himself survived three years.' What Rassinier is trying to prove here is that witnesses and survivors who claim to have seen proof of the gas chambers are liars or else misled by lies told by others.

A Dr. Wilhelm testified against Adolf Eichman, who he claims to have known since 1938. He reports that Adolf Eichman,'"had a conversation with me in my apartment in Budapest...Heknew that he was considered a war criminal by the United Nations because he had the lives of thousands of Jews on his conscience. I asked him how many and he answered that although the numbers are a great secret he would tell me because from the information he had, he had arrived at this conclusion: in the extermination camps about 4 million Jews had been gassed and 2 million killed in another way." (Taken from the Report on the Nuremberg tribunal Volume XXXIII, p.85- 87)' (Rassinier pg.140) Rassinier says after wards that, "Eichman was not a historian. His knowledge of the events he refers to was very limited, his memory faulty etc., and his talks contain many errors of fact, their dates etc."(pg.145) Rassinier again questions a survivors testimony when the witness testified against Eichman saying that he had seen the gas chambers in action and Eichman having a part in the executions. Eichman denied the allegations, but according to Rassinier he could come up with no evidence that he was not there so it was just assumed by the tribunal that he was guilty of the crime.

Even when the criminals themselves have confessed to the crime, and have written it down in their own script; deniers like Rassinier and Hardwood still do not take it as fact. Deniers, such as Hardwood, and Rassinier, believe that Rudolph Hoess's memoirs written in prison cannot be taken as fact. There are a number of factors which according to deniers makes the memoirs unreliable such as the fact the memoirs were written in pencil, and in prison. "In prison, while waiting his trial, he wrote his memoirs. For this purpose, he was given not a pen and ink but "a pencil." The advantage, for those who wish to exploit it, is that facsimiles-and surely the originals, too- from writings are almost all illegible." (Rassinier; pg.236) Rassinier also says that not all of the memoirs have been published, and that there are relatively few who have actually seen the original texts of the memoirs. Hardwood brings up some other issues which deniers believe discredit Hoess's memoirs. For instance, deniers point out a number of contradictions in the memoirs and Hoess's testimony such as that Hoess wrote that there were 2,500,000 victims, but in his trial he used a figure of 1,135,000 (Hardwood pg.35) "Hoess claims that Jews wereseparated into extermination and work -groups simply as they walked past a doctor. Yet according to Dr. E. A. Cohen, a Dutch Jew who claims he was a doctor at Auschwitz, Jews were only selected for special treatment after a proper medical examination at the camp hospital." (Hardwood pg.30) "Form April to May 1946, Hoess docily authenticates before the Nuremberg Trial (although with innumerable contradictions) some of the most improbable accusations brought against Germany concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity." (Rassinier pg.155)

It seems as though all those who testified against Germany, according to the deniers, are somehow liars. General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski testified against Himmler. "In March 1941, he claimed Himmler (the head of the SS) invited his SS friends (including Bach-Zelewski) to his castle at Wewelsburg for a conference. Himmler spoke in grandiose terms about the liquidation of the peoples of Eastern Europe he said. Goering, in the dock, denounced Bach-Zelewski to his face for the falsity of his testimony." (Hardwood pg.29)'Hardwood criticizes Bach Zelewski's testimony further when he says he made "outrageous allegations" when Bach Zelewski said one of Himmler's aims was to "decimate the Slav population by thirty million." What Himmler really said is given by his Chief of Staff Wolf: that war in Russia was certain to result in millions dead.(cf. Maxwell and Frankl, The Incomparable Crime p.117)' Bach Zelewski reports that he witnessed Himmler watch an execution of hundreds of Jews, at which the sight made him faint, but it is a known fact that at on that particular date Himmler was at is headquarters at Zhitomin in the Ukraine. The truth about Himmler and the SS, Hardwood argues, came after the Nuremberg trials `by an anti-Nazi- Felix Kerstein, Himmler's's physician and masseur. In his memoirs he reveals that from his close and personal knowledge of Himmler he is convinced that Himmler did not advocate liquidating the Jews, but favored their emigration oversees.'

Somehow everyone is a liar to the deniers including doctors. Miklos Nyiszli a doctor at Auschwitz is claimed to have written memoirs which a monthly review run by Jean- Paul Sartre printed. In the memoirs, supposedly, `are the first detailed accounts of all the horrors that tookplace at Auschwitz, including the exterminations in the gas chamber in particular. They were used to asphyxiate 20,000 persons a day.' Rassinier claims that this doctor did not know what he was talking about if he really existed. Rassinier says that ` the gas chambers at Auschwitz had not been installed or made ready to work until February 20, 1943.' The contradictions in his testimony has lead Rassinier to "claim one of two things is true:either this Dr. Miklos Nyiszli never existed, or, if he did exist, he never set foot in the places that he describes."(pg.245)

First off, in Rassinier argument against Dr.Franz Blaha, the argument does not follow a logical flow. In order for Rassinier to make the inference that Dr. Blaha is a false witness the above statements must be true. How do we know they're true? They are not. Rassinier makes a statement and claims that it is common knowledge, common to whom? Dr. Blaha testified in Nuremberg against defendants that he was able to identify as being at the Dachau concentration camp, most them having denied knowing that the concentration camps existed. Rassinier questions Blaha's knowledge of the concentration camp, was Rassinier himself present? No he was not, but Blaha was there. "Early in the war, Blaha had been arrested by the Nazis and committed to Dachau, where as a physician, he was order to carry out typhoid experiments on healthy patients. He refused and was banished to the autopsy room. By the end of the war, Blaha had performed twelve thousand autopsies." (Persico, pg.214) It is ludicrous for Rassinier to claim to have more knowledge of the Dachau concentration camps, which he has never visited, over a man who performed 12,000! autopsies at the very place. Rassinier's attack on the survivor is even more outrageous. The survivor said he was told by a friend at Auschwitz about what happened in Auschwitz gas chambers and he goes on further to say that people did not survive more than three months but he himself survived three years. This argument has no credible basis. First off, the survivor is an exception not the rule, and second there are pages and pages of eye witnesses, survivors who can testify to seeing the gas chambers, yet Rassinier does not even mention them, he just happens to mention a witness who relied on a credible outside source; how convenient!

The argument Rassinier presents on the behalf of Eichman is very confusing. In one part he says that Eichman is not a historian and his numbers cannot be trusted and in another part he is saying that Eichman's's denial of allegations can be trusted. Either someone can be trusted or they cannot be. Eichman is a man of great evil, that can be proven by his own words . In March 1942, Adolf Eichman offered to take seventeen thousand Jews ,whom were unemployed off the Slovakian governments hands. On April 13, those men were joined with others destined for Auschwitz. (Conot pg.3) During the Nuremberg trials An SS member, Dieter Wislensy testified that in "August of 1942 he had gone to see Adolf Eichman, had of Department IVA4 of the RSHA, the section dealing with Jewish matters. Wisliceny told Eichman that he was being pressured by Slovakain officials to find out what had happened to seventeen thousand of their Jews deported to Poland. The Slovakians wanted to visit them and see how they were faring. Eichman finally admitted that such a visit was impossible. The Jews were dead. How could that be? Wislicency wanted to know. Extermination of the Jews was official policy, passed down from the Fuhrer to Himmler to the RSHA, Eichman explained. A disbelieving Wisclicency asked to see the order. He testified that Eichman then took a document from his safe and showed it to him." Later on the question was asked,'"Did Eichman say anything at that time as to the number of Jews that had been killed?"'

'"He said he would leap laughing into the grave," Wislicency answered, "because the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction."'(Perisco, pg.202)

As for Eichman's knowledge of the gas chambers, it was he who explained to 'Hoess the workings of the static gas chambers in euthanasia stations and the mobile chambers installed in automobiles. He commented however, that neither type was suitable for the mass-scale extermination that was planned for Auschwitz.' (Gutman &Berenbaum, pg.157)

That is not to say that Rudolph Hoess was ignorant or did not know what was going on,for he knew and did plenty.In Hoess' memoirs he tells of many of the atrocities that went on during the war. For deniers, such as Hardwood and Rassinier to claim that his memoirs can not be trusted in accuracy has no basis. The fact that the memoirs were written in pencil has nothing to do with how legible the memoirs are. For Rassinier to claim that almost all copies or originals written in pencil are illegible is a far stretch; besides Rassinier nor Hardwood would have any clue as to how legible Hoess' memoirs are, because neither one of them have seen the original. To say that Hoess was confused or contradicted himself does not any ground either. Hoess 'gave precise answers to questions by the judges, the prosecution, and the defense counsel. He corrected figures when he knew them and statements that he judged to be untrue.' (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.296) For example when the prosecutor asked Hoess, "Didn't you exterminate about three million Jews in Auschwitz?" Hoess replied:

"No. I never said three million."
"What did you say?"
"Two million."
"You said two and a half million were gassed."
"Yes."
"And half a million just died because of disease and epidemics."
"Yes."
"Is that three million all together, or isn't it?"
"Yes. But no three million were exterminated." (Conot pg.372)

"Hoess neither protected anyone nor evaded his own responsibility. He replied briefly, precisely, and impassively to every question posed to him. He did not deny the charges nor behave provocatively. He did not display servility or attempt to draw a lighter sentence by admitting guilt." (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.297) Deniers can not claim Hoess lied to save himself, for he too, was executed. He wrote his memoirs and answered the questions posed to him at the Nuremberg trials as a matter of fact. He was a manwho had done horrid evil and did not testify out of a sense of guilt but rather he testified simply t the way it was, because to him there was nothing shocking about it, it was all just facts.

Hardwood's claims that General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski is a false witness against Himmler does not make any sense. First off, for Hardwood to use Goering, a man who was accused of some of the most heinous war crimes as a witness, is crazy. Goering was guilt of great atrocities he was evil , and a liar; not to mention a chicken. Goering took the easy way out and instead of facing his sentence like a man, he killed himself. Bach Zelewski had no reason to lie about Himmler. He himself advocated the liquidation of the Jews.'Bach Zelewski had said; "I am of the opinion when, for years and for decades, the doctrine is practiced that the Slavic race is an inferior race, and the Jews are not even human, then such an explosion was inevitable." Bach Zelewski had one a reputation for ruthlessness in catching guerilla fighters and executing them, along with thousands of hostages. Hitler had once called Bach-Zelewski "the model partisan fighter."' (Persico, pg.206) Why wold he lie? Hardwood's claim that it is known fact that Himmler was out of town the "particular date" Bach Zelewski said he witnessed a massacre, is a false statement. Again I ask the question a false statement to whom, deniers? And if it can proven Himmler was not at the massacre on that "particular date" then why not give the "particular date?" Himmler like Goering took the chicken way out and committed suicide. Himmler was the head of the SS, and as such he was needed to head the campaign of ethnic cleansing. "Himmler had been chosen by Hitler as Reichskommissar because he headed the ideal tool to create this New Order: the SS. As a paramilitary force it had the muscle to take responsibility for the necessary ethnic cleansing, and as the National socialist racial and ideological avant-garde, imbued with the ideas of "blood and soil," it could provide the human resource to the German East into a Nordic paradise." (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.100)

It is apparent that the deniers are liars, distorting facts and conveniently leaving out evidence that would disprove their case. I want to look at some of the crimes that took place duringthe holocaust. First, looking at the role doctors played in the holocaust. As you may recall earlier in the paper deniers questioned the memoirs of Dr. Milklos Nyiszli, well the fact is they can question all they want, but they can not prove anything to be untrue. Nyisizli in detail was able to describe the pathologist room.'equipped with a "dissecting table of polished marble," a basin, three porcelain sinks, and windows with screens to keep out flies and mosquitos, it was in Nyiszli's words, "the exact replica of any large city's institute of pathology."' (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.306) There are doctors, besides Nyiszli who have testified and written about what went on in the concentration camps. Doctors, in fact, sadly to say, helped the Germans in the extermination of millions of Jews. A Dr.Clauberg worked in the Auschwitz camp, to find a way how to sterilize women. Accordingly, he was brought to Auschwitz under the leadership of Himmler. The institute that Clauburg built to perform is experiments on Jewish women, Clauberg named after Himmler- the '"Research Institute of the Reichsfuhrer SS for Biological Propagation." in approving the project and specifying his practical expectations from such research, Himmler expressed his interest in finding out " how long it would take to sterilize a thousand Jewesses."' (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.306)

Heinous acts were performed on the Jews during the holocaust. Jews were not only murdered in the millions, but they were also tortured and mutilated. The deniers do not realize the extent too which their lies can damage. It is time they opened their eyes to the crimes that the Nazis died. They need to listen. The Nazi killed not only full grown men, but they killed women and defenseless children. The evidence is out there. If they do not want to believe what they read then they need only open their eyes and look at the hundreds of pictures taking during the holocaust. Pictures of women holding on to their children as a member of the SS guns them down. Or children being starved, and killed just because they were born a Jew. To deny that atrocities such as these did not take place, is to deny mankind the lesson they can learn from history.

It is estimated that any where from 5 to 6 million Jews were killed during the holocaust. Itis thought that in Auschwitz alone, over one million Jews were killed.'It was Himmler's decision in the summer of 1941 that Auschwitz was to play a part in the plan to annihilate European Jews, a new method of mass killing in gas chambers was introduced.' (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.157) A doctor, Johann Kremer, testified after the war that after the gas had been poured in,"shouting and screaming of the victims could be heard through that opening and it a clear that they fought for their lives. These shouts lasted a short while. i should think it was several minutes, though I cannot give precise evidence." Jewish women and children probably constitutes more than half of all the victims murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. (Gutman & Berenbaum, pg.393) Imagine that, half of the people screaming for their lives were women and children. This is snot a made up scenario, but it is one that is proven with testimonies by doctors and survivors. The deniers claims that nothing happened are simply claims based on half truths and lies. The women and children suffer heavily at the Auschwitz death camp Living conditions were not fit for animals. disease spread rapidly due to lack of sanitation and dead bodies could be found everywhere. children in these camps wee not shown any mercy. If they were able to work, they worked and would eventually die of exhaustion, if they could not work they were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

Diaries of those who lived through the ordeal are in publication. The Diaries of the Sonderkommando are comprised of six diaries and fragments of notes written in Yiddish by three members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando they were found between 1945 and 1970. "These diaries were written by men who knew that they ad no hope of remaining alive." One of the writers, Gradowski 'writes that this nation of Satan's servants is bringing the Jews of the entire world to the altar to sacrifice them before their pagan Aryan god, in whose eyes the blood of the Jews is very dear and whose intent is that no Jews should remain in the world. the murder is being conducted, Gradowski writes, with the greatest efficiency, for "the greater the culture, the greater the murderer...and the greater the development, the more terrible the deeds."' (Gutman &Berenbaum pg.523-24)

The voice of a dead man voice falls on deaf ears among deniers. As I researched this paper the thing that struck me was the overwhelming amount of proof that there is in regards to the holocaust and to the extent in which people were killed and the massive numbers they were killed in. What scared me the most was the fact that in light of all this proof deniers still hold on their false beliefs. their blindness was frightening. Either they are blinded by hate or they really do believe that these atrocities against humanity never took place. The latter being more scary than the former. Like I mentioned in the introduction, these people are not stupid, they have done extensive research on the subject matter, and have read many of the same books many of us have, yet they still hold on to their twisted beliefs. Do they really believe what they write ? Part of me says they do, and the other part says they can not, the evidence is too overwhelming. Simply a picture of men fenced in on the brink of starvation is enough proof to see that people were being killed in large numbers. Like they say a picture is worth a thousand words.

For the sake of those who died we can not let their deaths be swept away. If we can learn on thing from the holocaust, it should be that we are capable of being so blinded by our hatred that we can not se the truth nor can we see the evil we commit in the name of what's right. The holocaust is a Jewish word, which means a whole offering or sacrifice. Let us learn , let the blood of millions prevent the blood of millions more. Today we can look around the world and see the weak being oppressed, the innocent being killed in the name of a nation. In a sense many in the world are deniers, because if humanity truly grasped what happened in Europe during WWII, we would do everything in our power that, "never again", any where to anyone will we allow this to happen.

Bibliography

Conot, Robert E., Justice at Nuremberg, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, 1983

Gutman, Yisrael & BerenBaum, Michael, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, 1994

Hardwood, Richard, Nuremberg and Other War Crimes, Historical Review Press, England, 1978

Persico, Joseph E., Nuremberg Infamy on Trial, Viking Penguine, New Zealand, 1994

Rassinier, Paul, Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ullysses, The Insititute for Historical Review, California, 1978

Rassinier, Paul, The Real Eichman Trials or The Incorriglible Victors, Steppingstones Publication, Silver Spring, 1979