PART TWO
CHAPTER 8 |
| |
"ONE PROOF
... ONE SINGLE PROOF":
THIRTY-NINE CRIMINAL TRACES |
| |
| A complete list of the
“criminal traces” or “slips” found in the archives of the
Auschwitz State Museum and the Warsaw Central Commission concerning the
homicidal gas chambers in Birkenau Krematorien II, III, IV and V, presented
together with original documents and two recapitulatory drawings by the
author. |
| |
| “ONE PROOF... ONE SINGLE
PROOF” |
| |
[Request formulated by Robert Faurisson in an
article on page 13 of the newspaper “Le Monde” of 16th
January 1979, then used as a title for his letter of 29th February 1979
addressed in right of reply to the same newspaper, which refused to publish it.
and which its author nevertheless published in his “Mémoire
en défense” [statement for the defence], La Vieille Taupe,
1980, pages 96 to 100.]
Faurisson asked for “one proof...
one single proof” of the existence of homicidal gas chambers. The
“traditional” historians provided him with an “abundance of
proofs” which were virtually all based on human testimony, from SS and
surviving former prisoners and Sonderkommando men. But human testimony is
fallible. It is unreliable and Faurisson wanted a CONCRETE historical proof,
that is proof based on incontestable and irrefutable documents. Four types of
historical document would meet these stringent criteria: |
| |
photographs and
films made between 1942 and
the end of 1944 in KL Auschwitz.
German letters and documents,
original
drawings concerned with the camp. |
| |
So far as we know at present, no film was made
recording the extermination of a transport. On the other hand, there is no lack
of photographs of Krematorien under construction or completed (in the
“Bauleitung Album” not yet published) and of the
arrival of four convoys of Hungarian Jews and selections of two of them (in
“L’Album d’Auschwitz” by S. Klarsfeld and
Seuil). The main obstacle to using these last photographs as evidence is that,
except for three of them, they present only views of “peaceful country
scenes” against a background of barbed wire. The SS photographers did
actually go inside some of the Krematorien, but they did not record the final
act, extermination in gas chambers. Some members of the Sonderkommando,
according to the deposition by one of them, Henryk Tauber, took photographs
showing corpses in the gas chambers, but after being buried near Krematorien II
and III, these vital photographs have never been found, and if by chance they
should be discovered now, they will be irretrievably damaged after over 40
years in the ground. We also have the three photographs known as the
“Polish Resistance” photographs recording the incineration of bodies
in a ditch behind Krematorium V in the summer of 1944 and of naked women with
their backs to this same Krematorium. They are certainly of exemplary value,
but are difficult to use in view of their small number and, like those of the
“L’Album d’Auschwitz”, cannot be presented as
definitive proof.
As for the technical drawings of the
Krematorien, cited in legal actions and described as proving that they were
planned for large scale assassination by gas (which is in fact incorrect). NOT
ONE explicitly mentions in so many words anything like: Blausaüre (prussic
acid) Vergasungs- or Gaskammer or -keller [gassing or gas chamber or cellar].
This is not because the drawings were “camouflaged” in any way, but
is simply because the buildings concerned were converted from their original
function, cremation pure and simple, and transformed for criminal use, so that
the compromising words could not have been written on the original drawings of
Krematorien II and III, and were probably left out on those of IV and
V.
In the final analysis, there remain only the various items of
correspondence and offical documents of German origin. Through the
“slips” that can be found in them, they form a convincing body of
presumptive evidence and clearly indicate the presence in the four Birkenau
Krematorien (II, III, IV and V) of gas chambers using a prussic acid
disinfestation agent sold under the name of “Zyklon-B”. In 1979-80,
it was impossible to go any further than this, i.e. to demonstrate with the aid
of “concrete” documents that these gas chambers had been used to
execute human beings. At the end of the “Faurisson trial”, nobody had
yet managed to produce “one proof ... one single proof” of the
existence of “homicidal gas chambers” in
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In the absence of any “direct”, i.e.
palpable, indisputable and evident proof (lacking so far as we know at present)
such as a photograph of people killed by a toxic gas in an enclosed space that
can be perfectly located and identified, or of a label on a Krematorium drawing
of a “Gaskammer um Juden zu vergiften / gas chamber for poisoning
Jews” an “indirect” proof may suffice and be valid. By
“ndirect”, proof, I mean a German document that does not state in
black and white that a gas chamber is for HOMICIDAL purposes, but one
containing evidence that logically it is impossible for it to be anything else.
The first document [Document A] presented here is an inventory
of equipment installed in Krematorium III and formed part of the file of
documents compiled for the official handover of the new building to the camp
administration.
[Auschwitz State Museum Archives reference BW 30/43,
page 24. This document, held in the “October
Revolution” Central State Archives in Moscow was sent by this body
in 1964-65 to the Warsaw Central Commission for the investigation of Hitlerite
crimes in Poland, which sent it under a covering letter of 30th October 1968 to
the Vienna assize court to be part of the evidence in the trial of the
Auschwitz Krematorium “architects”, former SS officers Walter DEJACO
and Fritz ERTL. This trial was held from 18th January to 10th March 1972 and
ended with the acquittal of the accused. The documents sent by the Poles to the
Austrians were scarcely used by the “experts”, which explains the
astonishing verdict of not guilty, in particular for Dejaco.]
This
inventory indicates that the equipment installed for “Leichenkeller 1 /
Corpse cellar [morgue] 1” included: |
| |
· “1 gasdichte
Tür / 1 gas-tight door,”
AND
· “14 Brausen /
14 showers”, |
| |
| two items that are strictly INCOMPATIBLE with
one another. This incompatibility constitutes the fundamental proof, for it is
clear that: |
| |
| Proposition
A: |
A gas-tight door can
be intended only for a gas chamber. |
| |
|
| Question A:
|
Why does a gas
chamber have showers in it? |
| |
|
| Reply A: |
Incomprehensible.
Proposition A must be formulated differently for a logical reply. |
| |
|
| Proposition
B: |
A room fitted with
showers is a place where people wash themselves. |
| |
|
| Question
B: |
Why does the only
entrance to the shower room have a gas-tight door? |
| |
|
| Reply B:
|
Incomprehensible,
Proposition B must be formulated differently for a logical reply. |
| |
| Which sends us back to proposition A, question
A, reply A, proposition B, etc. The reasoning is in a vicious circle which
cannot be broken. The only way to escape the illogicality is to bring
complementary proof demonstrating that one of the propositions IS
INCORRECT. This can he done by means of the following arguments: |
| |
| · |
The average area
covered by a shower head, calculated on the basis of the drawings for the two
shower installations at the Stammlager, the reception building (BW 160) and
Block 26. and for those at Birkenau, BW 5a, 5b. and the Zentral Sauna (BW 32),
works out at 1.83m² |
| |
|
| · |
On this basis.
Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium III, with a floor area of 210m2, should have 115
shower heads. |
| |
|
| · |
In fact only 14 were
planned and we know that they were FITTED, because seven wooden bases to which
similar shower heads were fitted are still visible in the ruins of the ceiling
of L-keller 1 of Krema II. |
| |
|
| · |
On one of the copies
of the Krematorium II/III inventory drawing 2197, that from the Soviet
“October Revolution” central state archives, water
pipes are shown supplying the 3 taps of Leichenkeller 1 and the 5 of
Leichenkeller 2, but none are connected to the “showers”, This is
paradoxical because on this version of drawing 2197 even the lamps are drawn
and on various other drawings showing shower installations the shower heads are
necessarily shown and the associated pipework usually appears also. |
| |
|
| · |
It can only be
concluded that these are DUMMY SHOWERS, made of wood or other materialls, and
painted, as stated by several former memhers of the Sonderkommando |
| |
This inventory is absolute and irrefutable
proof of the existence of a gas chamber fitted with dummy showers in
Krematorium III.
These dummy showers were not placed there by chance,
or for purposes of decoration, but with a very precise purpose: to mislead the
people entering Leichenkeller 1 / gas chamber l, a misrepresentation implying
the deliberate intention to cause them to die by inhaling a deadly gas.
These Krematorium inventories. drawn up when the buildings were
completed, also provide an almost incredible supplementary proof:
mention of the device for introducing Zyklon-B into a Leichenkeller. The
second document [Documents B and B'] [Auschwitz State Museum Archive
reference BW 30/43, page 12, also from a Soviet source] contains a flagrant
error on the part of the SS man who filled in the form.
The first line
indicates that in the basement of Krematorium II, "Raum I, Leichenkeller / Room
I, corpse cellar" was fitted with: |
| |
| · |
“16 Lamp o. Kug, u. Tel. Feuchtsicher / 16 lamps other
than globes, waterproof” and |
| · |
“5 Zapfhühne / 5 taps”. |
| |
| The second line shows that “Raum 2 / room
2”, idem. [Leichenkeller] was fitted with: |
| |
| · |
“10 Lamp o. Kug. u. Tel. Feuchtsicher / 10 lamps other
than globes. waterproof” |
| · |
“3 Zapfhühne / 3 taps”, |
| · |
“4 Drahtnetzeinschiebvorrichtung / 4 wire mesh
introduction devices” and |
| · |
“4 Holzblenden / 4 wooden covers.” |
|
