Auschwitz: A Death Camp in Many Respects

by M. S.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - fall 1998)

As the truth remains that the Holocaust did happen, and as it is permanently part of our past, there are Holocaust Revisionist who deny this reality. Try as they might, with false claims and persistent arguments, they can never change what happened to six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis. That is, they can never “re-mold” the truth, because what happened will always be the truth. Therefore, the truth will always remain solidly where it stands, because it is a part of reality. Unfortunately, what Holocaust Revisionist can do is change the future as they influence unsuspecting audiences with their mere opinions that present bizarre arguments in order to influence people with their pro-Nazis, and racist views. The importance of never forgetting the truth about the past is so great because it is the past that we study in order to get an understanding of it, while we likewise better arm ourselves to prevent abominable events to repeat. If people adopt these fallacious contentions that the revisionist are spreading, then how are they suppose to prevent what happened when it is ignored, and dismissed?

If the Holocaust deniers should ever come to power it would be because we allowed them to spread their obvious lies, hence erase our memory of the truth. As obvious as their lies are, they are convincing to many people because they hide behind the pretense of scholarship. People believe that the Revisionists are scholars whose main desire is to bring out the “truth”. They think that what the revisionist have to say about the holocaust is a matter of research, and that it is a part of a normal historical debate. The truth is that the holocaust did happen, and serious scholars do not question this fact. According to Yisrael Gutman, “The active deniers…know the terrible truth in full; their aim is simply to try to cover up the murder” (1). The deniers bury the truth deeply in their works by quoting each other, quoting half sentences, and intentionally avoiding information and reasoning that will contradict their lies. With these schemes they veil the truth so that historical facts do not get in their way, and this is how they are able to deceive those who believe their lies. There is no other way that the deniers can present their arguments, because “ Holocaust deniers, like any form of deep rooted prejudice, is an irrational hatred that cannot be countered with the normal techniques of investigation, argument, and debate (2). They could present what lies behind their fraudulent arguments, but no one would listen to them if they did.

Although their writings do not take the obvious form of racist books as does the Turner Diaries which was written by William Pierce in 1978, and is an unusual book of hate, in which Blacks and Jews are aimed for murder by white supremacists, it is exactly what the deniers present, and it is why they are even more dangerous. The Turner Diaries serves as a Bible for the right-wing extremists. It advocates the vicious removal of the Federal Government, and genocide of non-whites, and Jews. Many of the members have a prison record for violent crimes against minorities and “More than 50 inmates in the prison’s maximum-security unit are members of the group” (3). Even though some, if not most, of the Holocaust revisionist have some type of prison record for incitement of racial hatred, their work is more sophisticated than committing murder against non-whites, and Jews, as they write books that seem to be “diligently researching” the Holocaust.  People are more ready to believe books that seem to be studying, and observing materials in a scholarly manner. The deniers show themselves in this manner, but they are by all means not. They wouldn’t be as convincing if they presented their readers with racist words such as, “Robberies of this sort….with groups of Blacks forcing their way into white homes to rob and rape” (4), or if they advocated to bomb FBI headquarters, and kill people. But this is exactly what the Revisionist present behind their insidious claims. The only difference between the writings of the deniers and the Turner Diaries is that the Revisionist hide behind their pretentious academic methodology, and instead of going directly to the people with racist comments and beliefs, they present to them a more subtle (more sinister) racist belief. 

Hence because revisionist sound convincing to people and have been able to influence many, just as how Hitler was able to convince many Germans that Jews were evil, and subhuman, real historians must pause from their work to correct the deniers who either have no grasp of reality, or insist in changing minds in order to support their antisemtic belief by spreading their lies. The holocaust revisionists are nothing but a distraction that keeps historians from doing their jobs in informing the world of what is fact. So, like a pest that is by all means not only a nuisance, but also a threat, revisionist must be acknowledged not because of what they say is worthwhile, but because of what they damage with what they say. In the book Hitler’s Apologist, it is rightly argued that “If one group advertises that the Holocaust never happened, another can buy space to insist that American blacks were never enslaved….If the holocaust is not a fact, then nothing is a fact, and truth itself will be diminished” (5). There are truths that we know with certainty because of concrete evidence that exist, and if what is already known is denied, humanity will then be taking a step backwards by replacing truth with unnecessary questions, and discredited assertions.  Thus it is what is known that must be protected in order to continue with our progression, and not be hindered by what the holocaust deniers propagate.  In my paper I will refute the claims of the deniers that say that Auschwitz was only an internment camp, and not a death camp. Although there were many concentration camps in Nazi Germany, I will mainly concentrate on Auschwitz. I will begin by introducing the arguments of the deniers, which I will then refute.  Next I will present what accredited, genuine historians say according to testimonies, documents, confessions, in other words, actual evidence.

The general argument that the holocaust deniers make about Auschwitz and every other concentration camp in Nazis Germany is that they were “internment” camps, and not the death camps that they were. They admit that many of the people that were prisoners there died, but not at the hands of Nazis. They claim that prisoners who died, died from “natural” causes, such as typhus and “unintentional” starvation. They do not believe that their deaths were the result of any malicious intentions, and even more, they do not believe that Jews were massacred because of their race. They believe that the Final Solution only consisted in removing the Jews from Europe for the sake of nationalization.  They contest that the gas chambers never existed, and that Zyclone B was only used to exterminate ticks, lice, and fleas in order to prevent the spread of typhus, and not to annihilate millions of men, women, and children. They believe the holocaust was invented as a result of “semi-official propagandist” that took advantage of the war to “deceive” the public.

Robert Faurisson is a member of the Institute for Historical Review since 1979, which is the leading propagandist of Holocaust denial, and was a professor at the University of Lyon from 1974 until 1990. He finds it impossible to believe that there were gas chambers that served to kill many Jews. He claims it would have been dangerous for a work crew with out gas masks to immediately remove the bodies of the victims after they have been gassed with Zyklone B. This is a common argument that the IHR use when they try to explain the gas chambers away. They claim that there is no proof that gas chambers were used to kill people. They say this is so because Auschwitz, captured by the Soviets, was modified after the war, and a room was reconstructed to look like a large gas chamber” (6). And they proudly announce that their leading “expert” on gas (Fred Leuchter) confirmed that they could not have been used for mass exterminations. In question number thirty one of that same article, revisionists further argue that according to Hoss, the commander of Auschwitz, testimony that victims bodies were removed ten minutes following the execution by gas cannot “…be explained because had they done so they would have suffered the same fate as the gassing victims” (7).  Faurisson claims that  “Only seldom does one hear defense witnesses with enough courage to pronounce his statement” (8), after quoting Christophersen, who claims to be a witness, and capable of assuring that no gas chambers exist in Aushwitz. Faurisson obviously contradicts himself when he calls Christopherson brave for what he testifies, yet is so quick to discredit the testimonies of survivors. This is because he, as well as his fellow colleagues, has the tendency “to pick and chose…. [what will supplement their claims], ignoring and discarding whatever runs contrary to their thesis” (9) Faurisson is also better known for his claim that Hitler did not know about the Final Solution, which bye the way, is a claim that serious scholars do not consider.

Leuchter proclaims himself as a chief engineer, however, he holds only a B.A. in History from Boston University. He was given a grant of $40,000 to investigate the gas chambers in Auschwitz for any evidence of zyclone, claimed that there were no gas chambers, and that there was only a very small amount of zyclon B. He said that this small amount that he found would not be able to kill human beings, but only lice, ticks, and fleas. His conclusions from this investigation were that the gas chambers were entirely a hoax. He claimed that “based upon very generous maximum usage rate for all alleged gas chambers, totaling 1,693 persons per week….it would have required 68 years to execute the alleged number of six million persons” (10). He then calls anyone who believes the “mistruth” of the holocaust is negligent and irresponsible for not “investigating” for themselves.

Mark Weber, born in October 1951 in Portland, Oregon and a graduate from a Jesuit High School in 1969, is the author of 100 articles, reviews, and essays dealing with holocaust denial. He graduated from Indiana University from where he obtained his masters degree in European History in 1977. He is an editor at IHR, and with a “…long term association with the racist and anti-Semitic National Alliance, a neo-Hitler” (11). He claims that Hitler did not give any orders to exterminate Jews because evidence of that does “not” exist. He then says that Hitler only wanted to remove Jews from Europe. He buys Hitler’s propaganda that claimed that Jews were “taking over” Germany, as he believes that Hitler did not want them to be exterminated, but only removed for the sake of Germany and its German people. Weber then says that Jews were an interest to Germany’s labor force as prisoners, and explained that they couldn’t have been murdered because of their usefulness. He further claims that “many thousands of secret German documents dealing with Auschwitz were confiscated after the war by the Allies” (12). He then finishes by saying, “…the extermination story cannot be reconciled with the documentary evidence”. Weber then says that historian rely a lot on the testimonies of survivors, and says that they are unreliable. He makes a poor argument as he generalizes: “If a people as cultured and as educated as the Germans could turn against the Jews, so the thinking goes, than surely no non-Jewish nation can ever be completely trusted. The Holocaust message is thus one of contempt for humanity” (13). He also then makes the assumption that “…the Germans would certainly not have released inmates who knew what was happening in the camp” (14).     

Theodore O’Keefe, a writer for the Institute for Historical Review, claims that all those who died did not die of intentional starvation or torture. He claims that they died by either starvation because “…of the virtual collapse of Germany’s food, transportation, and public health systems to catastrophe” (15). The general argument that Revisionist make about how prisoners died is that they died either from “unintentional” starvation, or diseases, such as typhus. That the victims died of starvation due to a shortage of food during “…the final months of the conflict, when virtually all road and rail transportation had been bombed out by the Allies” (16) These are the general arguments that Holocaust deniers make about not just Auschwitz, but all the death camps in Nazi Germany. I will begin to refute every claim that I just mention Revisionists make n the following paragraph. Afterwards I will give a general outlook of how exactly Auschwitz was a death camp using real historians. This will support my argument, and will further help to show how fallacious the Revisionist claims are.

Robert Faurisson, who has quite a criminal record for racial defamation, said that it would have been deadly for a work crew to remove the gassed victims after only ten minutes elapsing after the execution. Indeed it would have been dangerous, and especially since, according to Farrison, they didn’t wear gas masks to protect themselves from the Zyclone B that was released. However, the personal were of little importance to the SS men, because they were prisoners, and mainly Jewish. They were the victims as their relatives were being exterminated, and as they were forced to remove their bodies out of the chambers. Sometimes, despite of finding the bodies blue, and completely deformed, recognizing some of their kin. They too were fated for a similar tragic end at the hands of the Nazis. Further, these men did wear gas masks as they carried the gassed bodies of the victims out of the gas chambers, and into the yards, and crematoriums to burn around 8,000 bodies in 24 hours. These men who worked at the gas chambers were called Sonderkommando prisoners. Personnel such as these did not matter to the SS men, because they were after all next in line to be murdered. So weather they were exposed to gas or not was not an issue to the SS guards since they would eventually kill them, and what a better way than to have them work under hazardous conditions, which killed them little by little, while at the same time they could be used for their labor. Because they were useful they were fed well, however, when they have learned too much they were exterminated, which is why they were commonly known as the living dead. In the mean time, the Sonderkommander were given gas masks so that they can serve their purpose for as long as they could. Faurrison only mentioned them as personnel, as if they were SS guards, and not Jewish victims themselves. He dishonestly left this out in order to lead his reader to believe that it would have been impossible to have SS guards to do a dangerous job without risking their safety. There was no danger for SS guards, because it was their Jewish victims that performed this risky task.

 Revisionists claim that there is no proof that gas chambers were used to kill people, and that they were not the orders of Hitler. However, there is plenty of evidence to prove that indeed gas chambers did not only exist but were chiefly used to exterminate as many Jews as quickly as they could, and this was ordered by Adolf Hitler. Hoss, who was the commander of Auschwitz, and who organized the systematic mass murder, explained in his written testimony that Himmler notified him that “The Fuhrer [Hitler] has ordered that the Jewish question be solved once and for all and that….the SS, are to implement that order” (17). Himmler entrusted this order to Hoss, which involved in the mass extermination of the Jews. Himmler continued to say, according to the reliable testimony of Hoss, that “ The Jews are the sworn enemies of the German people and must be eradicated. Every Jew that we can lay our hands on is to be destroyed now during the war, without exception. If we cannot now obliterate the biological basis of Jewry, the Jews will one day destroy the German people” (18). Hoss explained that the mass deportation of Jews from the West (France, Belgium and Holland), as well as neighboring parts of Polish, and eastern part of Upper Silesia were to begin in order to commence the mass systemized murder through gas chambers that were being organized at that time in Auschwitz. The SS officials decided that it would be by gas that they would exterminate the millions of Jews, because they concluded it would be the quickest and less burdensome manner in killing them. A peasant farmstead was chosen to serve as the gas chamber, which was in a wooded, isolated area, and where a meadow was nearby to conveniently serve as a burial site for all the obliterated victims. Hoss explains that they “…have calculated that after gas-proofing the premises then available, it would be possible to kill about 800 people simultaneously with a suitable gas” (19). SS-Unterscharfuhrer Pery Board is another witness who described “…the killing processes used in the Auschwitz gas chambers but denies his own responsibility” (20) at the Nuremberg trials. A third witness, Dr. Johann Paul Kremer, an SS- Haupstsurmfuhrer who was a doctor at Auschwitz kept a diary that reveals the many events that occurred in the death camp, as well as special operations. “None of his testimonies were ever denied by other SS men….not a single one denied the existence of the gas chambers or their purpose; none expressed the least doubt on the subject” (21) We have a total of sixty-nine testimonies of SS members “…who admitted having seen the Birkenau gas chambers functioning”. There are also the testimonies of the survivors that cannot be denied. They consist of those who have escaped from the death camp, the Sonderkommandos, who directly witnessed the gassings, as they were in charge of removing the bodies, French physicians, and more eyewitnesses. In his books A Doctors Eyewitness Account, Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, who was a Jewish prisoner, and used for his medical skills, explained that he revived a young girl who was among the piled 3,000 corpses that have just finished being gassed. He said that he “…saw a girl in the throes of a death rattle, her body seized with convulsions….Her lungs, tortured by the gas, inhaled the fresh airy avidly…(22). There is just too much evidence to dismiss the fact that gas chambers were not only used, but were chiefly used to exterminates millions of prisoners, especially Jewish prisoners. 

Leuchter claims that the gas chambers, which he investigated for any evidence of Zyclone B, contained only a very small amount of the gas. The “expert” engineer said that this small amount that he found could not possibly have been used to kill people. He says that more traces of Zyclone B should have been found but wasn’t. He does not mention the whole story though, but only what he found. The Birkenau gas chambers that he found small traces of Zyclone B were, on Himmler’s order, blown up in 1944. Himmler ordered this so as to destroy evidence of the grotesque events that had happened there. “The Polish government, wishing the world to understand the horrors committed at Auschwitz-Birkenau, returned the original, experimental gas chambers to its original form” (23) Therefore, it is expected that the walls contain only the small trace of gas that Leutcher found. Leuchter was misleading in his report, because he did not tell the whole story, and so neglected to tell the truth. He, however, has the audacity to call those who believe in the holocaust irresponsible for not “investigating” for ourselves. First of all, he dishonestly claimed to be an expert engineer, when in fact he had only a Bachelor of Arts degree. He does not have a Bachelor of Science degree, a Master of Science degree, a Ph.D. in science, a degree in engineering, and he basically does not belong to any engineering or scientific societies. When crossed examined by Mr. Pearson in Zundel’s trial, he did not even understand what Mr. Pearson was talking about when he asked him if he “…belong to any supervising disciplinary professional body”, and didn’t understand what Mr. Pearson meant when he was asked if he belonged “…to a governing body of engineers”. (24). Fred Leucher certainly did not demonstrate to be a responsible person, since he himself was not honest about his “expertise”, and since he did not provide the whole story of the Birkenau gas chambers. For practicing without a license, the State of Massachusetts threatened to bring criminal charges against Leuchter. Perhaps, before deciding to inform people that they must be responsible for “investigating” for themselves, Leutcher should probably have concentrate on himself first. Ironically, the IHR, despite of his misrepresentation, dishonesty, and lack of expertise, Leuchter is considered their leading gas chamber “expert”.

Before I begin refuting Mark Weber’s claims that the Jews could not have been possibly exterminated because of how useful they were to Nazis labor force, I must first point out that Mark Weber believes Hitler when he said that Jews were taking over Germany. That his only reason to “remove” them was for the sake of the nation. This, of course, was a false claim that Hitler made, either because he, like some of the deniers, were ignorant of real evidence, or like most of the deniers, was an anti-Semetist and used this claim as a way to have many blindly follow him. The fact that Germany contained only half a million Jews, which was one per cent of the population, shows that Germany was not at all “threatened” by the Jewish people. Furthermore, “Nazis had charged….that the Jews dominated industry, finance, and government” (25), however, this is false. “Not one of the most powerful German industries-Krupp, Klockner, Siemens, Stinnes, I.G. Farben, Hugenberg, Vereinigte Stahlwerke, Hapag, Stumm, Nordlloyd- was in Jewish hands”. Further, “…the international cartels which German industries were part of- oil, iron, potash, chemicals, shipping,-Jews had no influence in them, either as owners or directors. Tick off the most powerful families in the country: not one was Jewish” (26) The reason why Hitler wanted to “remove” the Germans were clearly not because they posed a danger to Germany, but because Hitler wanted to protect “the purity of the Aryan race”. Weber believes that Hitler wanted to protect the German industries from Jews, perhaps because he is ignorant of the historical fact that what Hitler said about the Jews was only propaganda to slander the Jews, and to promote anti-Semitism, or because Weber is not ready to part with his claims, perhaps because of disguised anti-Semitic reasons. So, what this paragraph exposes is either Webers ignorance, or anti-Semitic beliefs.

Mark Weber’s claim that the prisoners were not killed because of how useful they were to Germany’s labor force are indeed fallacious. “The growing number of prisoners “classified by the Nazis as “racially” inferiors coincided with the attitude that such persons constituted a hostile and expendable element that should be eliminated”(27) Prisoners worked under inhuman conditions and were terrorized by the SS malicious acts. It was through labor that the SS used as a way to kill many prisoners. It was the “destruction through labor” method of killing that resulted in a lot of deaths. In fact, Jews were to work for the sake of working. “The phenomenon of “non-instrumental” labor, namely labor without any productive purpose, was widespread in the Germans’ treatment of the Jews…” (28).  Moreover, they were not “intentionally starved” as Okeef claims they were because of lack of resources. Jews were given only 300 calories per day, which was less than half of what the non-Jewish prisoners were getting. Later in the death march, they were given virtually nothing to eat so as to starve them to death. For example, “A few women from Sangerberg tried to pass to the prisoners some bread. At once, however, the nearby SS women prevented it. A male guard threatened one of the women who wanted to distribute food that he would shoot her if she should try again pass food to the prisoner” (29) If SS guards were really out of resources, and were not starving the Jews, then why would they not allow townspeople to give their prisoners food. Even more, they wouldn't allow the Jewish prisoners to eat anything that was either given to them or found. For example, one survivor explained that she stopped to pick up a rotten potato she found on the ground, but was beaten by a guard “…with the butt of his rifle, causing a wound on [her] head which started to bleed” (30) One guard admitted beating to death three or four girls “…because they have thrown themselves on a heap of rotten beet roots…” (31). It is only too evident that Jews were being killed with every intention of exterminating the Jewish race, and by “destruction through labor”, and intentional starvation SS guards managed to kill many Jews. 

Auschwitz was the largest death camp that systematically murdered millions of human beings during German Nazi rule. It served as a death camp since May 1940 through January 1945. Roughly 405,000 prisoners, which included men, and woman, from nearly every part of Europe, were registered, assigned serial number, and incarcerated there. Approximately 200,000 prisoners died. (32). This does not include the number that were not registered, or assigned a serial number. Millions of prisoners were sent to their deaths by gas chambers because they were too sick, too old, too young, or too weak to work.  Jews were the prisoners that were mostly labeled as unfit to work, and as a result, far more Jews were massacred. “Of those murdered upon arrival, no trace remained: no name, no record, no precise information” (33), because the selections took place immediately upon the arrival of the many prisoners. On entry into the death camp, prisoners had their personal possessions taken away, and their bodies were violated as all body hair was shaven off, and a serial number was tattooed on their skin. This was of course only the beginning for those who passed the “selections”. In order to kill more prisoners more efficiently, and in larger proportions, Heinrich Himmler gave orders to commander Hoss to expand Auschwitz on March 1, 1941, and ordered the mass extermination of Jews in the camp. In September 1941 Zyclone B was first used in order to exterminate its first victims (Soviet POW’s and 298 sick inmates. In Berlin on January 20, 1942 it was decided that the mass extermination would take place by using this method. On March through June 1943 new crematoriums with gas chambers were put into operation, and on November 1944 the gassing are “…suspended [when] Heinrich Himmler gives orders to disassemble the killing institutions and to destroy the gas chambers and crematoriums” (34) Auschwitz was then evacuated, and all those who were able to walk were sent on “Death Marches”. Many were murdered during the death marches. Jews suffered the most in these marches as “…the German repertoire of cruelty was practiced more on them: Jews received the necessities of life in smaller qualitatively impoverished quantities” (35) Overall, Adolf Hitler, which Himmler, and Hoss, among many SS guard carried through, ordered all this terror specifically for “the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe” in not just Auschwitz, but in the many other death camps that existed at the time.

In conclusion there is just too much evidence to say that the Holocaust did not happen. Furthermore, Holocaust deniers attempt to manipulate what they find, and mold it into something that will fit into their claims. Thus, because the deniers intention is not to remain with what is true, but create a series of lies so as to present their anti-Semitic beliefs, there is an obligation to the truth which involves protecting the memories of all who died in concentration camps by cold blooded German perpetrators. This means that the fact that a mass murder occurred at the hands of the nazis who performed medical experiments, gassed, intentionally starved, cremated, gunned, and worked Jews to death must not be distorted by the corrupting claims of the “revisionist”. The truth that these acts were mainly directed at Jews for the sake of exterminating the Jewish race should never be forgotten. As Milton Meltzer gives a powerful explanation in his book that “ The central issue must not be forgotten: it is a moral issue, the issue of what the world has done and permitted to be done. To insist upon making the world uncomfortable with the memory of its guilt is a necessity for that moral reconstruction which may alone prevent a repetition of our Holocaust” (36). Indeed the importance of the memories about the holocaust, however painful and horrid they are, serve as an arm for the survival of our civilization. They are what we must refer to as a lesson, and they are what must always be preserved so that the future people do not make the same mistake as those before them have. What holocaust deniers do is open doors for the hellish events of the holocaust to repeat.

Foot notes

(1) Yisrael Gutman, Denying The Holocaust, (The Institute of Contemporary Jewry, 1985), 27

(2) Holocaust Denial: Bigotry In the Guise of Scholarship, (A Simon Wiesenthal Center Report, 1994), 7