Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature
Holocaust Denial Bachelor Thesis
Brno 2010
Supervisor: Author: Mgr. Zdeněk Janík, M.A., Ph.D. Ladislav Vykoukal
Holocaust Denial 2
Prohlášení:
Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci zpracoval samostatně a použil jen prameny uvedené v seznamu literatury.
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Podpis
Holocaust Denial 3
Acknowledgments: I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Zdeněk Janík for his valuable advice and help. Holocaust Denial 4 Annotation
This bachelor thesis deals with the phenomenon of the Holocaust Denial. It provides a detailed rendering of historical events leading to Holocaust as well as contradictory statements of the protagonists of Holocaust Denial. The chief aim of this research is to indicate potential consequences of such claims and to provide a warning for the new generations of the danger of racial hatred and intolerance. The first chapter is dedicated to the introduction of this occurrence as such. The second chapter deals with the ideology behind Holocaust. The third chapter is about the topic of Holocaust itself based on historical evidence. The fourth chapter provides a summary of the most common assertions of supporters of Holocaust Denial and their tactics. The fifth chapter deals with the education of Holocaust as prevention to future displays of racism and intolerance. Polemics about potential as well as existent consequences resulting from denials of this historical event are found in conclusion.
Holocaust Denial 5 Table of contents 1. Introduction 7 2. Ideology Behind Holocaust 10 2.1. Race Science 10 2.2. Eugenics 11 2.3. Anti-Semitisn 12 3. The History of Holocaust 15 3.1. Social Life 15 3.3.1. Bureaucracy 16 3.2. Proceedings against the Enemies of the State 17 3.2.1. Race Laws 17 3.2.2. Kristallnacht 18 3.3. Final Solution 18 3.3.1. Mobile Killing Squads 20 3.3.2. Ghettos 20 3.3.3. Concentration and Extermination Camps 21 3.3.3.1 Special Detachment 22 3.4. Historical Evidence of Holocaust 22 3.4.1. Thievery of the Nazi Regime 23 3.4.2. The Reaction of the World 21 3.5. The Reaction of the World towards Holocaust 24 3.6. Personal Responsibilities 24 4. The Denial 29 4.1. Identity of the Deniers 30 4.2. The Methods of Deniers 30 4.2.1. Relativism 32 4.2.2. Revisionism 33 4.3. Danger of Holocaust Denial 34 5. Education 36 5.1. Practical Suggestions 36 5.2. Situation of Holocaust Education in Czech Schools 37 5.3. Conclusion 42 6. Conclusion 44 Holocaust Denial 6 List of References 47 Appendices 50
Holocaust Denial 7 1. Introduction Young people living all their lives in a democratic system take it for granted without hardly any notion about the persistence in effort of the previous generations to achieve this, however “much of world history documents the struggle of people to build societies that include and protect everyone” (Strom 52). The struggle to maintain democracy will never cease. There is always a tendency to deteriorate due to amnesia. There are also various extremist movements at work which spread their ideologies, searching for a willing listener. It is no surprise that it is always young people who are targeted as they do not have the experience of the consequences of totalitarian regimes. The young generations should always be able to take a lesson from the mistakes made by the previous generations so that they make the best in preparing life for themselves as well as for their descendants. This is the concept how education should work and it is the duty of us teachers to pass on children and young people this message. We do not have the right to keep silent and not to share with them the information of the achievements as well as of the mistakes of ourselves and our forefathers because their future could be thus endangered. It has to be viewed as our privilege to provide testimony about the long and persistent effort to build a democratic system. The burden of this enormously important responsibility does not lie on the educational system only. Parents should be well aware of the interests of their children and of the philosophies they are influenced with. Also the ability to distinguish right from wrong is to be taught consistently and commenced with as soon as possible. One of the strategies of the most active and dangerous extremist groups is to attack this concept of retrospection by means of suppressing memory which is denying that certain historical events ever happened. No matter how ludicrous it may seem, these strategies are rather effective and the number of listeners as well as new followers is growing every day. For certain reasons, which will be dealt with later on in the text, their main interest lies in denying the Jewish genocide – Holocaust which was one of the most gruesome chapters in the history of mankind where 6 000 000 of human beings were ruthlessly and systematically killed and liquidated.
The chief aim of this bachelor thesis is the following: by studying in detail the Jewish Genocide, light will be shed on the fundaments of racial and religious hatreds and their possible consequences. Some of the most important historical instances connected with the Holocaust will be brought into focus and after all the important facts Holocaust Denial 8 about this occurrence have been viewed, further investigation will be necessary to ascertain what made it happen. The circumstances leading to Holocaust will be explored and compared with the world of nowadays where the risk of recurrence of these events is even more acute due to the claims and activities of Holocaust Deniers. The more we delve into the phenomenon of Holocaust the more we should empathize with people afflicted by this horrible tragedy and in this sense we should consider it our responsibility never to let it happen again. In this respect the education of children and young people should comprise empathy towards other people and their suffering. Denying that evident crimes committed against an individual, a group of people or a nation ever happened is very cruel and it is in fact a criminal attitude in itself. It is very difficult for the ones that have not experienced all the Nazi horrors to imagine what pain and humiliation is caused to the victims of genocide who suddenly become imposters. Every government must protect the memory of the victims and such claims should be placed beside the law. All the prejudices ought to be examined, lies challenged and the motives of deniers investigated. The education about Holocaust, to which is dedicated the last chapter, is to be included into the curriculum and young people should be well equipped with all the necessary facts. The current situation regarding this kind of education in the Czech schools will be also brought into focus. Why is it so important that all these historical events be retold? It is necessary that people take a lesson from their mistakes of allowing and tolerating the horrible crimes to be perpetrated. According to journalist Judith Miller, there is a big danger that they might be committed again if people are ignorant of history:
Knowing and remembering the evil in history and in each of us might not prevent a recurrence of genocide. But ignorance of history or the suppression of memory removes the surest defense we have, however inadequate, against such gigantic cruelty and indifference to it (Strom 471).
The realization of the Jewish Genocide was only possible with the participation of the whole nation making use of science and implementation of the most modern inventions. The answer how it was possible that large masses of people were indoctrinated with hatred towards certain group of people even with the justification of Holocaust Denial 9 their murder and liquidation, lies in education as it was misused to the advantage of destruction of democratic system of law and order. According to Albert Einstein “the pre-war schooling system was interested rather in creating mental machines than human beings” (Strom 128). The notion that science and technological progress can only serve for the good of humanity had once and for all been shattered. It should be considered as our chief aim that education always serves for the benefit of humanity.
Dear Teacher: I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So I am suspicious of education. My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human (Strom 519).
Holocaust Denial 10 2. Ideology behind Holocaust 2.1. Race Science The reason for the extermination of the Jews is found in the ideology of “race betterment” and “racial hygiene” called the Race Science which means upholding the purity of the Aryan race as set by the study of Eugenics which will be dealt with further in the next subchapter. The race scientists based their hypothesis on the findings of Samuel Morton a surgeon and anthropologist interested in craniometry who supported his views of the distinction of the white race by measuring the size of sculls he gathered from all over the world. He came to the conclusion that the white (Caucasian) race is superior due to the fact that it possesses the largest brain cavity. He went even further in his “research” claiming that the features of each race are a fixed matter. There is no possibility of any improvement or a change of an inferior race in any way, except to deteriorate (Strom 88). As the father of the race science may be considered Arthur de Gobineau according to whom all civilisations come from the white race which also guarantees supremacy and rule over the impure, inferior races. The racists found support for their claims in Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species according to which only the fittest survive. His research was focused on the world of animals at first, later it was applied by him also on human beings. It is necessary to mention, however, that Darwin was not a social Darwinist, it was namely a British writer Herbert Spencer who derived from Darwin’s work a discipline called Social Darwinism. His ideas are applied to human society according to which natural selection allows that each person finds his place in the world with the fittest at the top and the unfit at the bottom. Social Darwinism with various interpretations soon became very popular in every country. In Germany it was romanticized by Ernst Haeckel in a book called Riddle of the Universe where the top of the society was occupied by German Folk = Aryans and the bottom was reserved for the Jews (Strom 89). This pseudoscientific hypothesis became very popular and soon new supporters were found in Europe. In 1904 out of 1000 educated Europeans 999 were convinced of the authenticity of their Aryan origins (Ibid. 81). The ideology of Master Race was derived from the concept of a Nordic superior race which is supposedly the purest race in the world. Racial Purity together with the Holocaust Denial 11 need for Lebensraum, the territories further eastwards necessary to house the expanding Germans, shaped domestic as well as foreign policy of the Nazi Germany Every attempt at proving that there does not exist a scientific basis for the theory of “pure race” was not taken into account. An extensive research was undertaken by German Anthropological society in order to find out if there were any possible racial differences between Jewish and “Aryan” (German) children. After almost 7 000 000 children had been closely examined and their features compared, the outcome of the study did not indicate any differences. These two groups of people were almost alike, according to the research (Strom 89). “This survey should have ended controversies about the existence of pure Aryans and Jews. However, it seems to have had surprisingly little impact. The idea of a race had been infused with myths, stereotypes, and subjectivities long ago and a scientific survey could change little. The idea of pure, superior race and the concept of a racial enemy solved too many pressing problems to be easily discarded” (Ibid.). Yet for many people it was and unfortunately still is very appealing and reassuring to belong to a “superior race”. If it were not for the theory of the Master Race, there would not be any death camps. This gruesome ideology did not need any justification in sending millions of people to their deaths. The officials and members of Nazi Germany were only performing their “sacred” duty.
2.2. Eugenics The idea of Eugenics was originated by Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, according to whom the best specimens of the race are achieved by breeding the best with the best and any mixing among the races is strongly prohibited (Strom 89). Eugenics as a pseudoscience, which became the impetus of Hitler’s Nazism, has its origin in America where it served the purpose of checking the influx of immigrants of non Anglo Saxon or Scandinavian origin and removing all the undesirable and "unfit" people who did not conform to the so called Nordic pattern. It was necessary to prove that undesired individuals were less than human in order to legalize the inhuman treatment inflicted on people of different colours. Parts of this philosophy were implemented into the national policy effecting forced sterilizations, segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions. “In California in 1909, which became the third state to adopt such laws eugenics practitioners, coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of Holocaust Denial 12 thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning” (Black). Later when eugenics was introduced and thus established in the United States, it was delegated to Germany. Hitler studied eugenics and was inspired and motivated by the American example. Being assured that science was on his side, the race science as well as eugenics became the driving force behind Hitler’s Nazism which was to decide who was to be persecuted and disposed of in the German occupied territories. Whereas in the United States the discriminating laws of the ideology of the Race Science were aimed at Black People, diseased and undesirable immigrants, in Germany it was the Jews who were the main victims of aggression.
2.3. Anti – Semitism Anti-Semitism is like an incurable disease. Its definition could be as follows: hatred of a certain group of people without any reason. In times of distress it is easy to look out for a scapegoat. Easy answers, which offer solutions to complex problems, are immediately available. There is an ancient and well rooted tendency to ascribe all the problems to the alleged Jewish conspiracy. Throughout the course of history, Jews have been charged of well poisonings, killing Christian children, spreading pestilence, causing draughts, famine and earthquakes. The expression anti-Semitism first appeared in a pamphlet entitled The Victory of Judaism over Germanism by Wilhelm Marr, a German journalist (Strom 92). It became very popular throughout Europe at that time, especially in Germany. In 1883, Theodor Fritch wrote The Racist Decalogue where he instructs good Germans how to treat Jews:
Thou shall keep thy blood pure. Consider it a crime to soil the noble Aryan breed of thy people by mingling it with the Jewish breed. For thou must know that Jewish blood is everlasting, putting the Jewish stamp on body and soul unto the farthest generations....Avoid all contact and community with the Jew and keep him away from thyself and thy family, especially thy daughters, less they suffer injury of body and soul (Ibid.).
According to Hitler “the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew“ (Hitler). The Jews were supposedly guilty not only Holocaust Denial 13 of the outbreak of the WWII but of the social evil of poverty and injustice as well. All these claims were supported by a pamphlet called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It is a counterfeit document used by the Russian secret police for the purpose of a tsarist intelligence to ignite hatred against Jews. They were made official scapegoats held responsible for every misfortune which befell Russia and thus people’s attention was averted from the corruption and inefficiency of the state apparatus. When the protocols were first published in France in the middle of the 19th century, the Jews did not figure in the text whatsoever. They were rewritten later at the beginning of the 20th century with the Jews as the main culprits. That it is in reality a forged document has been proved repeatedly in the past (Protocols of Leaders of Zion). Hitler claimed that the Jews controlled Germany. Voiced apprehensions that the Jews would soil the German race and that the alleged world-wide Jewish conspiracy was at work in every sphere of a society were the claims of Nazi leaders. Was it really the case? According to historian Donald L. Niewyk who, when studying German census data, came to the conclusion that the Jews “accounted for no more than 3,5% of all positions in trade, commerce, banking, law and medicine, hardly enough to control a nation” (Strom 141). Yet these claims found many a willing listener among people from all spheres of society. Anti-Semitism may be tracked back to the middle ages when the Jews after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the destruction of the Jerusalem temple were dispersed into many countries. They have always been regarded as Christ’s killers. This notion was supported by the Catholic Church as well as by the Protestants. Martin Luther has not been viewed merely as a religious leader and reformist but as a German nationalist (Strom 79). In 1543 Luther published a pamphlet “On the Jews and their lies” where he calls Jews as “base and whoring people”, “poisoned envenomed worms”, giving the following instruction how brothers in Christ should treat them:
First their synagogues or churches should be set on fire and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed (Gerrish).
He also mentions to Christians that they are “at fault in not slaying them” (Ibid.). His works were received by the people with acclaim. Holocaust Denial 14 Hitler did only what the church had already done before him and the fact that the Kristallnacht coincided with the anniversary of Martin Luther’s birthday on November the 10th is also of interest. All the restrictions of the Nazis were applied also in the middle ages. For example the Jews were forced to live in Ghettos, were deprived of their property, were not allowed to engage in trade and also the necessity to distinguish them from gentiles was not original as they had been ordered to wear cone-shaped hats by church leaders as early as in the 13th century. It is also necessary to point out that throughout the course of history since the Catholic Church was established, anti-Semitism was a part of the doctrine and thus there has been nothing wrong with the discrimination of Jews until recently as not before than 1965 did the Roman Catholic Church issued Nostra Aetate statement in which “all forms of anti-Semitism and discrimination” are condemned (Strom 51).
Holocaust Denial 15 3. The History of Holocaust 3.1. Social Life and education in Nazi Germany Life in pre-war Germany could be well characterized by the following statement by historian William Sheridan Allen: “Wherever two or three are gathered, the Fuehrer would also be present” (Strom 182). This paraphrase of the verse from the New Testament about Christ being present whenever two or three believers gather in his name indicates how deep the Nazi system got imbedded. The Nazis created a philosophy as a substitution for a religion which was according to Hitler “the most stupendous thing, that our movement should create for the broad, searching and erring masses a new belief upon which they can have absolute confidence and build, that they not be forsaken in this word of confusion, that they find again at least in some place a position where their hearts can rest easy” (Strom 214). Every sphere of life was subdued to the Nazi ideology. Teachers had the most important role in Nazi Germany as they had the task to educate children according to the race ideology in regard to the following instructions in Mein Kampf: “every theatre, every movie, every advertisement must be subjected to the service of one great mission” ( Ibid. ). Soon after Hitler came to power the Nazi minister of education outlined the course of racial instruction as follows: no child shall leave school without a conviction of the necessity of pure blood (Strom 243). The children were taught about the potential danger of soiling their Aryan blood by the contact with the undesirables which were the Jews in the first place. The system also took care of the way people were thinking. Even small children were taught “Heil Hitler” before they could pronounce “mama” (Strom 235). The sinister program the Nazis had been so meticulously preparing was not divulged on the population at once. Step by step were people’s minds poisoned until they got so preoccupied by the Nazi totalitarian regime that there was no place left to think. To get used gradually to what is not right is unbelievably simple. By small doses it is even possible to get used to a murder. Malcocm Hay, a Catholic historian explains:
Men are not born with hatred in their blood. The infection is usually acquired by contact, it may be injected deliberately or even unconsciously, by parents or by teachers...... The disease may spread throughout the land like the plague (Strom 49).
Holocaust Denial 16 3.1.1. Bureaucracy More terrifying than the technical inventions of the Nazis was their success on the field of bureaucracy, which made the mass killings possible. The Nazis were well aware of the importance of bureaucracy in realization of their plan.
Bureaucracy is a human invention which can subjugate its inventor, undermine human conscience and allow individuals to abdicate personal and moral responsibility (Strom xviii).
They insisted on the complete dehumanization of their administration system. Every single clerk employed in the project was to do his work diligently without the slightest notion of guilt being sure that they were not doing anything wrong. They regarded themselves only as little cogwheels in a huge machine stating that they were just obeying orders. Millions of innocent people were dying as a result of orders given cold bloodedly from the desks of efficient clerks. These clerks did not have to soil their hands with the murders and at the same time they were, or at least they thought they were, void of any responsibility for their crimes. It was rather to be the responsibility of their superiors or the system. They were all performing their duties and they never killed anyone with their own hands. That is why it was so easy to mollify their consciences. Even Adolf Eichmann, the chief coordinator of the Jewish extermination who was all the time behind the scene doing his work from desk, stated that he had not seen the gassing as he probably would have fainted (Knopp 213). He is also an ideal example of the so called “middle manager” who never really killed anyone with his own hands yet the fact that he was guilty of sending six million people to their deaths did not trouble his conscience. He did not invent the final solution as he was only performing his duty.
The number of victims of the Holocaust is a benchmark of shame, and it was only achieved through the efficiency of German bureaucracy. Only a fully modern, highly literate state was capable of the division of labour necessary to kill six million Jews, two thirds of whom were killed within a twelve month period. This required massive coordination of effort between military and civilian agencies. The German bureaucracy responded to the increasingly radicalized demands of Nazi policy regarding Jews and facilitated their murder all without leaving the comfort of their desks. Their rubber stamps were as deadly as any bullet (Galore). Holocaust Denial 17 Once confronted after the war, when all the bestialities came to the surface, all the “little cogwheels” were hiding behind the system. They were claiming that they were only acting according to orders from “on high” given by people in charge who projected and organized everything so that the machinery (state project) would run smoothly without any hitches with split second timing”. The organization of the extermination process was thus brought to perfection. People in charge were simply making business as usual: signing lists of special orders, creating timetables with neatly typed long lists with victims and dictating telegraph messages to their secretaries.
3.2. Proceedings against the enemies of the state 3.2.1. Race Laws Defining an enemy became a very intricate matter and to keep the Aryans from contamination led between the years 1933 and 1945 to passing more than 400 laws, which stripped the Jews off their rights. In order to upkeep the purity of race “genetic health courts” were set with the result that 320 000 German women were sterilized between the years 1933 and 1939. This was regarded as “positive eugenics” (Strom 184). Hitler turned his attention also to the so called “useless eaters” which included people suffering from various diseases such as epilepsy, mental disorders, orthopaedic problems, birth defects and so on. First, he set about to liquidate by “mercy killings” disabled infants. A committee called “Reich Committee for Scientific Treatment for Severe Hereditary and Congenial Diseases” was established with the authorisation to decide which child had the right to live. This system later included also teenagers as well as adults (Strom 280). The murders by euthanasia were justified by the following claim: “it is a doctor’s duty to rescue fit for the future by weeding out the unfit in the present”. Doctors were also referred to as “alert biological soldiers” (Strom 281).
Hitler exterminated over 273,000 people even before the Holocaust! "The first to be killed were the aged [those who are an economic burden, who detract from the happiness of society as a whole], the infirm, senile, mentally retarded and defective children [that included epileptics]. Then there were WW I veterans - amputees - still in hospitals. Their reward for giving an arm or leg for Germany was extermination as 'undesirable.' Even bed wetters and children with badly modelled ears were put to death – all a part of the euthanasia project of Germany (straight-talk). Holocaust Denial 18 Together with the laws for upholding purity of the race such as the law from 1933, ordering sterilization of mental defectives, law of deportation of “undesirable aliens” from 1934 and the Nurnberg laws targeted against the Jews, there was a new law aimed at the Gypsies under the title “Fight against the Gypsy menace”, stating that the matter of tackling the Gypsy Question must be approached as a “matter of race” (Strom 284).
3.2.2. The Night of the Broken Glass The Russian word pogrom can be translated as “a riot or destruction” meaning a “government organized or inspired massacre of a minority group, particularly of Jews” (Strom 267). The biggest pogrom the world has ever witnessed called Kristallnacht took place in Nazi Germany and Austria in the night from the 9th to 10th of November 1938. Its name “The Night of the Broken Glass” is derived from the countless Jewish stores, synagogues and community centres demolished during the pogrom. There were 267 synagogues destroyed, 7500 Jewish businesses looted and demolished and 91 people killed (Kristallnacht). The pogrom was supposedly regarded as a reprisal for the assassination of a German diplomat by a Polish Jew, yet it fitted well into the concept of the liquidation of Jews. This incident marked evidently a turning point in the course of actions taken against the Jews. From then on, they were arrested on a mass scale and sent to concentration camps. This state of things was soon to culminate in the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. It was not difficult then for the rest of the world to foresee what fate was in store for the Jews in Germany and Nazi occupied territories.
3.3. The Final Solution The decision to annihilate all the European Jews was reached by Hitler himself in September 1941 and was referred to as "the final solution of the Jewish question” (Knopp 95). This term was first used at the Wansee Conference (1942) organized by Adolf Eichmann, an Expert on Jewish Affairs where the fate of the Jewish population in Europe was to be decided and where the Nazi high officials were discussing matters of its implementation. All the fundamental as well as practical matters were to be cleared up. This conference did not stage the beginning of the Holocaust as the killings were already in progress. Holocaust Denial 19 The most significant outcome of the conference was that the “final solution” was handed over to bureaucrats. Thus the process of extermination was to commence according to premeditated rules and regulations.
In the course of the practical implementation of the final solution, Europe is to be combed from west to east. The Reich area, including the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, will have to be handled in advance, if only because of the housing problem and other socio-political necessities (Gilbert 282).
R. Heydrich informed all the present representatives of the government about his being appointed by the Reich Marshal Herman Goering with the Final Solution of the Jewish Question. He also explained that this “final solution concerned some eleven million Jews throughout Europe (Gilbert 280). The whole nation was to be employed in the organized mass killings of Jewish population in Europe First of all, it was decided that the Jews be removed from the territory of the General Government without delays as they represented a serious threat for the country (Gilbert 283). The deportations were to begin as soon as Stalin was defeated. Although the course of the war did not proceed according to expectations, and the glorious victory over the Soviet Union was not imminent, the realisation of the concept of the final solution would not suffer any postponement. For example in 1943 when the situation on the Russian front was far from satisfactory for Germany, and train transports played a vital role, Himmler asks the Reich Minister of Transport as follows: “Give me more trains!” (Gilbert 526). Also at the end of the war, which was already lost for Germany, the fighting was continued only for the purpose of accomplishing the extermination of the Jewish population. Being driven by the hatred of the Jewry, the task Hitler set before himself - the extermination of Jews - was of the utmost importance: “....the war will not end as the Jews imagine it will, namely with the uprooting of the Aryans, but the result of this war will be complete annihilation of the Jews....And the hour will come when the most evil universal enemy of all time will be finished, at least for a thousand years” (Gilbert 285). Only one day before his death, on April 30, 1945 he concluded his so called will with these words: “Above all I call upon the leaders of the nation and their followers to observe painstakingly the race laws and to oppose ruthlessly the poisoners of all nations: international Jewry” (Strom 486). Holocaust Denial 20 3.3.1. Mobile Killing Squads (Einsatzgruppen) After the invasion of the Soviet Union the Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing units) supported by SS Waffen were moving behind the lines of the German Army with the mission of accomplishing operations of mass killings on Jews, Gypsies and communists. They killed a vast number of victims in the open in the conquered towns and villages. Upon entering the city, all the Jewish men women and children were gathered with the help of the local informants. The victims had to get undressed and hand over all their valuables. After that they were driven to forests, ravines and fields where they had to line up at the edges of the pits, the mass graves, they had to dig in most cases themselves, before they were finally executed by shooting. Later this system of extermination was dropped due to the high psychological strain which was put on the executioners. Yet according to their own records, the executioners of Mobile Killing Squads killed more than one million Jews (Mobile Killing Squads).
3.3.2. The Ghettos The designers of the Final Solution, who were on the lookout for more effective and at the same time anonymous ways of killing, had to solve many practical issues until they were able to bring the system of extermination to perfection. To start with, the victims were fired at by the executioners and buried into mass graves. As this procedure proved to be ineffective, new ways of killing were to be found with the criteria of saving time and cost. In 1941 Himmler gave a command for the construction of high capacity concentration and extermination camps which were being built at that time especially in Poland and on the territories occupied by Germany. It was preferred that the Jews be collected in Ghettos, from which they were gradually sent to these concentration and extermination camps. Experiments on Russian POWs and mentally ill people were commenced with the result of choosing the most suitable procedure – death caused by gassing. Rudolf Hoess, the commander of Auschwitz, mentions in his memoirs that he was relieved (!) upon finding out that Cyclon B is an effective poison gas as the mass killing of people was soon to commence (Hoess 163). After the surrender of Poland, Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Central Security Office, ordered concentration of Jews throughout the country into large cities: “the evacuated Jews will be brought, group by group, into so called transit ghettos, to be transported from there farther to east” (Gilbert 282). Almost 400 ghettoes and 437 forced labour camps were soon established in Poland, occupied by the Nazis. The Holocaust Denial 21 largest ghetto was set up in Warsaw with more than 350 000 inhabitants where the rule of terror started immediately. High walls surrounding the ghetto were erected where 33% of the inhabitants of the city lived on the 3% of the land with food rationing for only 20% of them. By summer 1941 all the Jewish population of Eastern Europe was moved into the ghettos (Strom 292). The conditions there were dreadful, mortality rate was very high due to extreme starvation, a lack of space, hygiene and medicines, which led to wide spread epidemics. Jan Karski, a courier of the Polish resistance, was smuggled into the Warshaw ghetto that he could testify to the world about the plot of the Jews: “It was not a world. This was not humanity...... I was told these were human beings – they did not look like human beings” (Strom 329).
3.3.3. Concentration and Extermination Camps Extermination camps (Vernichtungslager) were designed for the purpose of systematic murder where there was no selection performed. The victims, mainly Jews, were sent immediately after the arrival into the gas chambers. There were three such camps: Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno and Sobibor. The concentration as well as extermination camps, where selections took place and where a minor amount of prisoners were kept for the purpose of labor, were Auschitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. There was death awaiting the newcomers shortly after the arrival. Many of them died from torture, starvation or by shooting. Slavery of the worst kind comprising hard labour was in store for the inmates of the concentration camps. After three months, they were without any strength whatsoever ending in the gas chambers anyway. All of these camps were located in occupied Poland. The most sophisticated and effective killing centre with the biggest output of exterminated human beings was Auschwitz-Birkenau. The vast majority of victims were killed by a poisonous gas Cyclon B which was produced by a German chemical company IG Farben. The process of extermination went as follows. After the selection, the Jews were inconspicuously brought into the building of crematoriums where they were supposed to undergo disinfection and delousing. First, they entered the undressing room on the walls of which were mounted hooks with numbers and benches underneath so as to make the undressing for the victims as comfortable as possible. On the many pillars in the undressing room were posters with the following inscriptions in several languages to lure the victims into the gas chambers: “Clean is good.” “Even single lice can kill.” “Wash yourself!” “To the Holocaust Denial 22 disinfection area.” After they got undressed, they entered the gas chambers which were provided with phony pipelines and shower cylinders on the ceilings. These were to dispel the fears of the victims and make the extermination process as smooth and effective as possible. After the door was screwed, doses of Cyclon B were inserted by means of vents in the ceiling of the gas chambers and the shafts which went down to the floor. It was possible to observe the dying of the victims by the peepholes in the door. The whole process took usually no longer than 20 minutes. The amount of Cyclon B necessary for the gassing of 15 000 people was between 5 and 7 kg. Between the years 1942 and 1943 there was altogether expended around 20 000 kg of Cyclon B (Hoess 250).
3.3.3.1. Special Detachment ( Sonderkommando ) To the jobs no one could have been prepared for belonged extracting corpses from the gas chambers, pulling gold teeth of the victims, cutting hair, sorting shoes, clothes, contents of luggage, transferring the bodies to the crematoria, operating the ovens and finally crushing the ashes which were taken in trucks and poured out into the river Vistula. These were the jobs of the so called Sonderkomando – Special Detachment and it is no wonder that the Nazis took care that not even a single member would survive and give testimony to the world. In order that the process of gassing and cremating was maintained, every time there were around 1000 members of these squads who were being replaced after the period of every three months. After the initiation of the new squad, its members were to perform their first task of burning the bodies of their predecessors.
3.4. Historical evidence of Holocaust The list of the sources of evidence of Holocaust with available proofs is provided below: - the testimonies of the Holocaust survivors - admissions of the war criminals - the centres of extermination, death camps, mass graves - piles of spectacles, shoes, human hair, watches and other items the victims were deprived of before they were killed - testimonies of Special Detachments (Sonderkomando) - eye witnesses, people living in the vicinity of the extermination centres Holocaust Denial 23 - loads of documents brought to light after the end of the WWII such as letters, bills, invoices, inventories, photographs, blueprints, work orders, schemes and so on
There is also plenty of material available which was collected from the archives of the Auschwitz Museum as well as from the archives of KGB by means of which it is possible to “create a complete chronology of the extermination process at Auschwitz” so that “the Holocaust is no longer written in sand..….. but in concrete” (Strom 492).
There is the testimony of Rudolf Hoess, the commander of Auschwitz at the War Crime Tribunal where he willingly admits the amount of killed victims:
I commanded Auschwitz until 12/1/1943 and estimate that at least 2.5 million victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease making a total dead of about 3 million. This figure represents about 70-80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners, the remainder having been selected and used for slave labour in the concentration camp industries ....The remainder of the total number of victims included about 100,000 German Jews, and great numbers of citizens, mostly Jewish, from Holland, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Greece, or other countries. We executed about 400,000 Hungarian Jews alone at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 (Rudolf Hoess).
Further details about the testimony of Rudolf Hoess form the War Crime Tribunal in Nurnberg is to be found in the appendix no.2.
3.4.1. Thievery of the Nazi Regime Since the beginning of the war, the devastation of the life of the Jews went simultaneously with the stealing of their property. It was not just the intended looting which happened simultaneously with the killing. It was the systematic programme of the Nazi State which was pointed at every kind of possession that could be seized starting from objects of everyday use ranging from clothes and shoes to furniture, flats, houses, shops, businesses and factories. This process of organized theft did not end when the victims were killed. Before the execution they were bereft of their meagre bundles they brought with themselves on their last passage, clothes, shoes and even their hair was shorn. After their death, their corpses were searched for hidden Holocaust Denial 24 possessions and gold teeth which were extracted before they were disposed of by burning in pits or crematoria (Gilbert 468). The state was to profit from the liquidation of the victims. The strength of the ones selected for work in the concentration camps was exploited to the last stretch. In order to provide a better idea of the criminal acts of the Nazi regime, below, there are some figures indicating the profits from the system of the robbery ordained by the Nazi state. According to Odilo Globocnik, the chief of the Action Reinhard, the administration of the extermination camps of Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec sent to Berlin from 1.10. 1942 till 2.8.1943 the following goods: 25 cargo wagons of women’s hair 248 cargo wagons of clothing 100 cargo wagons of shoes 22 cargo wagons of underwear 46 cargo wagons of medicaments 254 cargo wagons of mats and covers 400 cargo wagons of objects of everyday use (Wiesenthal 96).
Further in 1943 Globocnik submitted a report about the financial acquisition of the operation Reinhard which went simultaneously with the extermination of the Jews: 53 million Reichsmark in cash 1.4 million foreign currency 1.800 kilograms of gold 10.000 kilograms of silver 39 million Reichsmark - gain from the clothes of the victims 178 million Reichsmark - overall acquisition of the operation Reinhard The total sum must have been, however, much higher as there was not included the benefit from diamonds and everything that had been stolen during the action (Hoess 247).
3.5. The Attitude of the World towards Holocaust “The world is too dangerous to live in – not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen.” ALBERT ENSTEIN
Holocaust Denial 25 The Conference at Evian took place in July 1938 in France where the representatives of 33 countries were discussing the problem of the increasing number of Jews fleeing before the Nazi persecution. By that time the Nazis were trying to export the Jews from Germany. Although it was quite apparent at that time what the future situation of the Jewish population in Germany would be like, judging from the Racial Laws, persecution and the first concentration camps, out of the 33 nations, only one state was willing to accept a limited amount of Jews. According to Chaim Weizman, the first president of Israel: "The world seemed to be divided into two parts: those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter" (Shaw). This unwillingness on the part of the surrounding world to harbour Jews strengthened Hitler in his opinion about the “inferiority of the Jews” and the necessity to blot them out of the world. The reasons why the world was not willing to accept Jews from the European territories occupied by the Nazis could be explained by the fear of anti-Semitism that this step would incite. These apprehensions were enhanced by the fact that the Germans allowed Jews to leave only after they had robbed them of all their property. Also the economic situation of every state was not favourable due to the high unemployment rate. Yet the most decisive factor for this decision was apathy as almost no one seemed to be interested in the lot of Jews in Germany. People rather preferred not to know. Although there was the abundance of reports and testimonies about the mass killings in German occupied territories, it was impossible to convince the world that it was really true. According to Jan Karski, a courier of the Polish resistance, the testimonies were not believed because they were “beyond human imagination “. People also thought it was “a war time propaganda” (Strom 368).
3.6. Personal Responsibilities Around the year 1933 there were approximately 9 million Jews living throughout the countries of Europe. In 1945 the number was less than 3 million which means that out of every three Jews, two were killed (Gilbert 280). The gravity of these crimes does not lie only in the number of the victims killed but in the way how systematically and meticulously the murders were planned and to the very least detail accomplished. Judging from the monstrosity of the actions taken not only against Jews but also against Gypsies and other innocent people, it is obvious that there was a large group of Holocaust Denial 26 individuals involved in the process of extermination. The imperative of the Final Solution was not to be solely Hitler’s but of every German citizen. This shifting of responsibilities is peculiar for all despotic rulers and tyrants. According to Richard von Weizsaecker: “Hitler made the entire nation a tool of his hatred of Jews” (Strom 486). It implies also that Germany became responsible for the crimes. The extermination was in reality a project on a national scale with the engagement of companies and expert workers throughout all the possible spheres of industry. There was a strong competition among German companies struggling for the government contracts for designing and building crematoriums and gas chambers. The murdering took place in facilities similar to plants which enabled to liquidate people on an industrial level. It is necessary to point out that the SS set about to annihilate millions of innocent men, women and children on the basis of premeditated and well mechanized process. Is it possible that people in Germany did not know? According to President Richard von Weizsaecker:
“...every German was able to experience what his Jewish compatriots had to suffer, ranging from plain apathy and hidden intolerance to outright hatred. Who could remain unsuspecting after the burning of the synagogues, the plundering, the stigmatization with the Star of David, the deprivation of rights, the ceaseless violation of human dignity? Whoever opened his eyes and ears and sought information could not fail to notice that Jews were being deported” (Strom 487).
People in Germany were shutting their eyes before what was happening so that they could build for themselves an illusion that they were not involved. Those who were not directly participating in the system of killing but were aware of it no matter how vaguely are guilty. When the unspeakable truth of the Holocaust then became known at the end of the war, all too many of the people claimed that they had not known anything about it or even suspected anything. Raul Hilberg, a leading Historian on Holocaust, claims that many people must have known about the murdering. For example, the organization of the transports to all the concentration camps involved a huge number of individuals and the way how meticulously with regard to economy the transports were run is described as follows: Holocaust Denial 27 The National Railroad was issuing for the victims tickets for only one trip. Children under the age of ten had a half fare and children under the age of four went free of charge. The transports of Jews were organized by Mitteleuropaeisches Reisebuero (a travel agency) on the principle of excursion groups that were granted a special fare for the minimum of 400 people. This travel agency would ship people to their favourite resorts as well as to gas chambers. The Nazis used the confiscated property of the Jews to finance the transports of the victims. In fact they even had to pay for their deaths (!) (Ibid. 365-366).
“Hitler lost his battle on every front except the battle against defenceless and unarmed men, women and children. He won the war against the Jews of Europe. He carried out this war with the help of the German nation” (Gilbert 813).
3.5.2. Obeying Orders If we are ordered by the government to do something that is either, immoral, totally wrong or unacceptable, do we really have to obey? Adolf Eichmann claimed in his defence speech during the process in Jerusalem that if he had not obeyed the commands he had been given, his conscience would have “bothered him at that time” (Strom 467). This statement is an example of an absolutely perverted concept of conscience. Yet this obligation to obey orders from above was used as an excuse in a defence speech by all the Nazi criminals. They were not supposed to think and they even did not deny what they were accused of. For example Rudolf Hoess the commander of Auschwitz:
Don’t you see we were not supposed to think about these things, it never even occurred to us. And besides, it was something already taken for granted that the Jews were to blame for everything...... We were all so trained to obey orders without even thinking ...... You can be sure that it was not always a pleasure to see those mountains of corpses and smell the continual burning. But Himmler had ordered it and had even explained the necessity and I really never gave much thought to whether it was wrong. It just seemed a necessity (Ibid. 433).
Holocaust Denial 28 In 1946 when the Russians captured and interrogated Kurt Pruefer, one of the leading engineers of the crematoria furnaces of the company Topf and Sons in Auschwitz, he defended himself that although he knew about the mass liquidation of innocent human beings in crematoriums, he devoted himself for designing and creating higher capacity incineration furnaces for crematoriums of his own initiative as follows:
“I was a German engineer and key member of the Topf works and I saw it as my duty to apply my specialist knowledge in this way in order to help Germany win the war, just as an aircraft construction engineer builds airplanes in wartime, which are also connected with the destruction of human beings” (Strom 436).
Another way of trying to escape the responsibility for crimes against humanity is to belittle them as it is apparent from the testimony of Erich Gewunch. It is about his involvement in gassing the Jews in Ukraine, 1942-3 and it shows how preposterous were his attempts to escape responsibility.
“On orders from my department, I too drove a gas-van from Berlin to Minsk. These vans had been constructed with a lockable cargo compartment, like a moving van... I was detailed with the gas-van to about twelve convoys of arriving Jews. It was in 1942. There were about a thousand Jews in each convoy. With each arrival I made five or six trips with my van. Some of the Jews were shot. I myself never shot a single Jew; I only gassed them...“ (Lewis).
Holocaust Denial 29 4. The Denial 4.1. Identity of the Deniers The first deniers were Nazis as it is quite apparent from the special language they were using at the time of planning and realizing the extermination. Concrete terms were avoided and masked by using various codes and euphemisms as follows:
Sonderbehandlung - special treatment – the death process in camps Aussiedlung – evacuation - murder Umsiedlung – resettlement – murder Loesung der Judenfrage – solution of the Jewish question – murder of Jewish people Specialeinrichtungen – special installations – gas chambers and crematoria Endloesung – the Final Solution – the decision to commit genocide (Strom 309)
Furthermore, the SS officials in Auschwitz were ordered not to mention anything about gassing or gas chambers. Throughout all the Nazi documents and correspondence, these words were used only marginally or by mistake. It is no wonder that when the Third Reich began to crumble, the Nazis were systematically trying to liquidate the incriminating documents as well as all the traces of mass killings. They hoped that they would keep hidden from the world the crimes they were committing in the death factories. No prisoner was to bear witness of the extermination. To enter the gas chambers and crematorium meant to enter the “gate to death” There was no other way for the victims to leave the crematoria except in the form of ash. In this respect disposing completely of the victims of the genocide simultaneously served the purpose of liquidating any possible evidence. The Holocaust Denial movement is closely linked with the neo fascist political program. Its protagonists are extremists who succeed in camouflaging their anti-Semitic ideology based on hatred under the veil of science (Lipstadt 23). Especially fertile soil for Holocaust deniers are the lands of Central and Eastern Europe with a very deep tradition of anti-Semitism where the nationalist and extremist groups are very active. As a substantial basis for this ideology, serves nothing else as the alleged Protocols of the Elders of Zion mentioned earlier in the text. Most of the predecessors of these movements were Nazi collaborators who by denying the Holocaust found an opportunity for their cleansing. If there had not been Holocaust Denial 30 Holocaust, the collaboration with Germans would not be so incriminating. If Holocaust did not take place, what is wrong with National Socialism? It is mainly the Holocaust which discredits the fascist ideology. Every time the extremist groups are extolling the advantages of National Socialism there is the following question they have to answer: If National Socialism is as good as they claim, how is it possible that Holocaust happened? Until the blot of Holocaust is removed, it won’t be possible for the National Socialist to resurrect fascism (Lipstadt 28). That the ideology of Holocaust Denial is identical with anti-Semitism is obvious from the following statements of its protagonists:
- the Jews are aiming at submitting the world under an alleged world government called “Panjudea” (Lipstadt 63) - Jews succeeded in deceiving the world by means of their ability to conspire and create myths. Now as well as in the past the Jews applied their immense talent at making use of the world financial means, media, and political interests to achieve their goals (Lipstadt 92) - without Hitler there would be no Israel and that all the polemics about Holocaust is only a stratagem by means of which the Jews are to amass huge sums of money (Lipstadt 164) - the lie of the existence of the gas chambers has enabled the foundation of the state of Israel (Lipstadt 53) - the Jews invented a deceit about the existence of gas chambers and 6 000 000 victims in order to ask for huge sums of money from Germany; the higher the number of victims the higher is the reward (Ibid. 85) - the 6 000 000 “dead” Jews live in the United States (Ibid. 97) Further they speak about the Israeli politicians as of “the deceivers of the crematoria” and they nick named Holocaust as the “Mythology of the gas chambers” (Ibid. 93).
4.2. The Methods of Deniers We are living in the age of internet which serves young people as well as adults as the primary source of information of which the Holocaust Deniers are well aware. They also make use of it by designing their web pages very accessible so that the browsers always find them first. Holocaust Denial 31 According to David Sitman from the Roth Institute, there are four main reasons why the leading extremists are aiming at using the internet: - groups spreading hatred can operate more freely without any risks of possible consequences - lots of propagandistic materials can be spread rather cheaply in the form of a spam - anti-Semites and racists get encouraged by the indifference of some of the internet providers - the internet is used for spreading misinformation, recruitment of new members and acquisition of funds (Maršák). Whereas in the past, the extremists wanted to justify the necessity of the Holocaust, nowadays they have chosen exactly the opposite strategy: Holocaust is being denied. Holocaust deniers want that their ideology be accepted as a legitimate scientific discipline. One of their tactics is the way how they camouflage their real motives by proclaiming that they only aim at detecting all the historical half truths and lies. By means of this they are expertly hiding their real motives as well as their anti-Semitic and fascist identity with its ideological and political program. They ignore the principles so valued in democratic systems: freedom of speech and the natural urge to search for the historical truth (Lipstadt 51). The revisionists use to their advantage the fact that during the WWI. England was spreading dreadful rumors about German cruelties committed on civilians, for example that a deadly poisonous gas was applied and that small babies were used as targets for practicing shooting. Twenty years later, when messages about the gassing of the Jewish population arrived in America, it was regarded as a second wave of the war propaganda (Lipstadt 59). The fact that the horrors of the death camps were beyond all imagining contributed also to the cause of the Nazis that few would believe upon hearing the testimonies of escaped victims or agents as the nature of human beings turns against everything which is abhorring and repulsive and does not fit into its system of value and thought. Then there is only a little step towards denying that these horrors ever happened. Furthermore, the vast majority of the victims who survived the torture of Concentration Camps did not want to share their experiences. They were rather trying to forget once and for all about them and thus get even with the past. All the more it is necessary that the message of the survivors is retold many times until it is accepted. Holocaust Denial 32 The ideology of holocaust denial is also backed by some of the distinguished officials of the Catholic Church. For example Bishop Richard Williamson, proclaimed the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as authentic. Furthermore, he disputes the number of 6 000 000 of the Holocaust victims together with the claim that there were no gas chambers in Nazi extermination camps:
I believe that the historical evidence is strongly, hugely against 6 mil. Jews having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler. Not one Jew was killed in gas chambers. I believe there were no gas chambers. As far as I have studied the evidence, I am not going by emotion, I am going by historical evidence. Between 2 and 300 000 Jews perished in Nazi concentration camps but none of them in gas chambers (Piggot).
The fact that Bishop Williamson got acquitted by the Pope for his claims, speaks for the fact that the Catholic Church sympathizes with the Holocaust Denial movement. As the next method they use is to disguise denying by fighting for human rights. They also claim to be fighting for the freedom of expression. If it is denied them they want to achieve to be viewed on as martyrs suffering for the truth seeking any opportunity of a public attention when some of their members are being accused for their claims (Maršák).
4.2.1. Relativism Although the Holocaust Denial movement is not a new occurrence, it is necessary to notice that nowadays than ever before there is a huge increase in its intensity in regard to the fact that the academic climate is more than favorable due to the relativistic approach. Various research workers have come up with the claims that texts do not have a solid, unchangeable meaning. There is the reader’s interpretation that counts. Also the concept that the opinion of everyone, no matter how erroneous it may be, is to be regarded as valid, has created for the deniers a very favorable climate (Lipstadt 41). This destructive ideology is called “relativism” which is aiming at contradicting all the historical facts, events and aspects where it is possible to reinterpret and reshape every truth and every fact. According to this ideology there is no ultimate historical reality. This represents an acute danger of the models according to which knowledge is gained and opinions formed. Holocaust Denial 33 One of the most preposterous examples of the way the Holocaust deniers debate and contradict the truth is to be found in the book by Robert Faurisson, one of the leading members of this movement, who gives as the reason for his not believing in the existence of the gas chambers the fact that no victim of the death camps has ever submitted an eye witness account of his own gassing (!) (Lipstadt 39). This way of reasoning is unacceptable being in contrast to all the criteria of submitting evidence. It is impossible to supply proofs so as to contradict arguments of this character. What is more, an extensive range of available testimonies of the eye-witnesses, the members of the Special Detachments (Sonderkommando) who were entangling the corpses from the gas chambers and operated the crematoria ovens are ignored. The revisionists keep on repeating that they want to be supplied at least by a small proof that the gas chambers existed. Drumming this request interminably, it seems as if there really were not a single proof confirming the existence of gas chambers and crematoria. However, upon submitting necessary facts and evidence, these are dismissed point blank.
4.2.2. Revisionism
“The revisionists are not interested in truth, but in the destruction of the dead’s only Grave that is, our memory, and the erosion of all awareness of the crime itself” (Strom 494).
Holocaust Deniers introduced a new term for their approach to historical research - “revisionism” which is well accepted among historians as a legitimate discipline where new interpretations of given historical facts may be found, but where the truth is completely twisted. Revisionists are maintaining “a new kind of discourse” which was ignored by the scholars till the year 1979 when the Institute for Historical Research was founded and started to publish its “respectable” journal which is respectable on the surface only but underneath with a fully anti-Semitic content with close ties to the Nazi Party. The revisionists regard themselves as scholars who want to eradicate in their research historical mistakes, lies and half truths. They are not concerned only about history of WWII as they extend their “research” for the history of WWI so that they give the appearance of their interest in history in general. The revisionists are always demanding to be supplied with a definite proof about the existence of the gas chambers and crematoria. They are willing to admit that a Holocaust Denial 34 certain amount of Jews was imprisoned but with the comfort of a rustic society club with the available facilities such as a swimming pool, dancing hall and so on. Some of them even may have died, but it happened in the natural course of the war (Lipstadt 47). The policy of the Institute for Historical Research is to claim that it was technically impossible to gas and dispose of by incinerating in crematoria large groups of people. According to these claims, there was not a single Jew cremated. However, no matter how many substantial claims have already been submitted, they were all dismissed by the deniers as unsatisfactory or false.
4.3. Danger of the Holocaust Denial Deniers want that their claims be regarded as a fully competent discipline legally countering all the historical evidence of Holocaust supporters. We live in a democratic society with freedom of speech for everyone, yet it is necessary to consider, whether deniers with all their racist program should be allowed to express their views openly. Everyone should be aware that many of their claims are based on hatred, racism and anti-Semitism. The methodology and program of the Holocaust deniers have to be unmasked which should go simultaneously with the improvement of the knowledge of the Holocaust. The language they use is identical with the Nazi literature with the only difference that it takes the appearance of free speech and an open inquiry, arguing that all points of view deserve to be heard. If it is only extremists who deny the Holocaust, the situation does not have to be that critical. There is however a big danger looming if they smoothen their behavior and expressions and achieve to get access to the legitimate circles. According to a survey undertaken in the United States regarding the knowledge of the Holocaust only 38% of adults and 53% of students did not know anything about this historical occurrence (Investigation into Collective Historical Knowledge and Implications of its ignorance). About 25 percent thought future generations would give Hitler a fairer judgment” (Strom 489). The most aggravating fact is that students could accept the following arguments of HD as their own: How do we know that the gas chambers really existed? What proofs do we have that the survivors of Nazi concentration camps tell the truth? The way how the minds of students are shaped can indicate the approach to Holocaust and the attitude of the future generations of students towards the truth. Holocaust Denial 35 HD are systematically sowing a seed of doubt which is bound to produce its fruit later on when all the eye witnesses of Nazi genocide are dead and when there is no one left to give a testimony about the truth. A Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust keeps on sending advertisements to universities throughout the US. Majority of the US universities refuse to publish or even pay attention to these articles, yet there are some of them which are willing to cooperate. The committee tries to “prey on the students’ ignorance about Holocaust”. Without evidence to substantiate their claims they insist: “that there were no mass killings of Jews”, that there were no “execution gas chambers in any camp in Europe under German control”. They are also talking about the “myth of the extermination chambers (Strom 495). There is the same danger in the Czech Republic as in 2005 a brochure under the title Osvětim: fakta versus fikce (Auschwitz: Facts versus fiction) with the subtitle Nové a utajované poznatky o holocaustu (New and hidden findings about Holocaust) was distributed to the schools in the Czech Republic by the Národní vzdělávací institute (National educational institute). This brochure gives the appearance of a respectable study and under the pretext of freedom of expressions there comes to manipulation of historical events. It is full of extremist assertions about the non-existence of gas chambers and denying that during the WWII there was no mass killing of the Jewish people. The assertions presented in this brochure are in contrast with the Czech law and thus its distribution is punishable (Frankl).
Holocaust Denial 36 5. Education The significance of the education of this topic is increasing due to the displays of the growing intolerance and racism in the Czech Republic. Holocaust is also necessary to teach as it was in reality an unprecedented attempt to liquidate a whole nation and its culture. Its study can give students an idea about the misuse of power and help them to realize the importance of the responsibility of an individual when confronted with the breach of human rights. It is also to indicate the danger of passivity and significance of responsibility of an individual that should never be discarded. There is also the phenomenon of bureaucracy which played a vital role when modern technical inventions were applied to the mechanical liquidation of innocent people. The students ought to be aware of the ever present danger of human nature as it is not guaranteed that the technical achievements be applied to the prosperity of humanity. The role of teachers is of the utmost importance and it is our goal to help to achieve that the tragedy of Holocaust does not reoccur in the future and that necessary information is passed on the following generations.
5.1. Practical Suggestions To discuss Holocaust with the students may seem to represent certain difficulties for teachers. It is also uncertain how students would respond. The most important criterion is to present this topic without traumatizing. No matter how scary it may seem, it is possible to present Holocaust with a required effect which is to incite their sensitivity and compassion towards the suffering of innocent people. Young people may not be willing to discuss matters connected with Nazi Germany, destruction and suffering being rather convinced about the progress of civilization and improvement of human relations. It is the task of the teachers to encourage students to formulate their own questions, to analyze different sources of information and to search their own answers to these critical events. One of the most effective steps of the Holocaust education is to invite a survivor of Holocaust to the class or to organize discussions with students. It is important that they are prepared for this discussion. They should be respectful to the speaker without interrupting him. Teachers should remind the students that the speakers are not qualified historians and that they are not to expect to be informed about all the historical events in detail. Holocaust Denial 37 It is also important to be certain that the survivor (speaker) is able to speak in front of the class. Students should be instructed to ask the speaker not only about the period of Holocaust but also about his life in general. How he was able to cope with the trauma, how he was living before and after the war so that he is wholly understood. Students should be confronted with the dilemmas people were facing at that time. When teaching about Holocaust, the language of war criminals, euphemisms such as “final solution” should be avoided. The terminology is to be prepared beforehand and the teacher should be well acquainted with all the historical events connected with Holocaust so as to inspire students with confidence. Teachers should be also well equipped with historical proofs and quality of historical interpretation and rather avoid easy answers. It is of the utmost importance that students do not view the victims of Holocaust as large masses of unfortunate people but rather as individuals. It is very helpful to use diaries, testimonies, documents, photographs and so on. By means of these, it is possible to emphasize the fact that behind every statistics, there is an individual with his history (How to Teach about Holocaust in Schools). There is for example a non-profit organization Terezín Initiative Institute advocating remembrance of Holocaust which is editing these documents of the victims in the form of brochures and distributing them to schools. Examples of these documents are found in the appendix.
5.2. Situation of Holocaust Education in Czech Schools According to Mgr. Barbora Štěpková, a lecturer from the Terezín Initiative, the topic of Holocaust education was neglected in the past and now it is outlined rather marginally for the subjects of civics education and history at schools in the Czech Republic. It is only upon the initiative of every teacher to introduce the topic more thoroughly to the students. This institute cooperates together with the teachers of many schools on the arrangements of seminars for students and children. Mrs. Štěpková has kindly arranged upon my request a meeting with two of the teachers that cooperate with the Terezín Initiative on the program of Holocaust education in schools. First, I met Mgr. Petr Barranikov, a teacher of history at a gymnasium and basic school in Modřany in Prague who supplied me with the necessary information about the situation of Holocaust education in the schools in the Czech Republic. Secondly, it was Holocaust Denial 38 Mgr. Petr Kočíř a teacher of history at basic school in Uherské Hradiště who supplied me with the activities provided by the school for their students. According to Mgr. Barranikov, Holocaust is taught only in the 9th year of the basic schools and in the 4th year of secondary schools. In the case of the basic schools, it collides with the preparations of the students for entrance exams at secondary schools. As far as the education of Holocaust at secondary schools regards, it collides with school leaving exams. Further, the volume of the learning in the history classes is so extensive, starting from the evolution, that the teachers in most cases are not able to proceed any further than to the WWI. So much time is dedicated to primeval ages and the fact that there are no instructions from the Ministry of Education how to concise the volume of the teaching materials has the effect that the very learning is in most cases unfinished. Mgr. Barranikov wonders why so much time is to be dedicated to primeval age when the topic of Holocaust, which closely relates to social studies and thus preparation of students for their further lives in a society, is neglected. All the more, it is important to find place for the teaching of Holocaust in the classes of History as it does not figure in the subject of civics. There are altogether 66 hours of history classes per year of which there is only 1 hour dedicated to Holocaust. Mr. Barranikov, however, makes the best effort to achieve that at least 4 hours are dedicated to this subject in his classes. According to Mgr. Petr Barranikov, Holocaust should not be taught frontally as children are overexposed to numbers and statistics and that is why education of this kind should be performed interactively by means of examples. That is why he is using the following methods: 1. Studying documents with anti-Jewish measures and regulations from the educational project of www.holocaust.cz – “Justice during the time of injustice” (Spravedlnost v době bezpráví) - in order to ascertain what would be still acceptable for the students and how they would react - trying to show the absurdity of that time on various examples ranging from trivial to the serious ones (a protocol of the punishment of a trespasser who stepped on the grass is found as an example in the appendices)
2. Terezín Album from the educational project of www.holocaust.cz “Numbers which became faces again” (Čísla opět tvářemi) Holocaust Denial 39 - in order to let children construct possible lives of the Holocaust victims - in order that children and students identify themselves with the places they know as the database of the victims consist only of people living in Prague
3. Experiential methods - excursion to Auschwitz which is voluntary and which is attended by 50 students of the gymnasium throughout the years 1 to 4. - excursion to Terezin, - visit of the Jewish quarter in Prague in order to make them familiar with “the vanished neighbours” and to show the students how they lived
Further, he reads the students letters of children writing their parents from ghettoes and also plays videos with the survivors of Lidice. He fully agrees with Tereza Štěpková from Terezín initiative that experiential teaching by means of introducing the suffering of the victims of Holocaust in more details would lead to unnecessary traumatizing of the students. He also pays attention to the phenomenon of Holocaust denial and introduces in the classes the main representatives of this movement together with their assertions and motives. He also mentions that almost every year, there is at least one student in every class with extremist opinions and that the school already had to exclude several students due to their openly proclaiming their views. According to the teaching experiences of Mgr. Barranikov, children and students are incapable of discerning and they are non-critical towards information. They do not go to libraries to search for information and the only source of information is the internet and TV. They accept the first information offered to them as the right one of which the deniers are well aware and thus design their web pages so that they are to be found first. Searching for truth is connected with effort of which the deniers make advantage. When children and young students do not succeed in finding required information at once, they are despondent. So far, there have not been negative reactions from the parents in regard to his way of Holocaust teaching.
Holocaust Denial 40 Mgr. Petr. Kočíř a teacher of history at a basic school Uherské Hradiště provided the following list of activities organized for the students of history classes between 2004 till 2010 together with the future plans.
1) Excursions to Auschwitz, Terezín, Lidice and Berchtesgaden 2) Organizing meetings and discussions with the witnesses of Holocaust and communist injustice 3) Exhibitions in their school organized in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Prague and the associations Bearers of Legionary traditions (Nositelé legionářských tradic) and People in Need (Člověk v tísni) a) Vanished Neighbours (Zmizelí sousedé) ( 2006) b) Homage to the Infant Victims of Holocaust (Pocta dětským obětem Holocaustu) (2006) c) Not to Lose Faith in Man (Neztratit víru v člověka) ( 2007) d) Fatal Years of the Czech Nationhood (Osudové roky české státnosti) ( 2008) e) Instances of Communist Injustice (Příběhy komunistického bezpráví) ( 2007) f) Anne Frank ( 2009)
4) organization of excursions to historical exhibitions: Wagon (Vagón) ( 2008)
5. Workshops of the following topics organized in their school in cooperation with the Jewish Museum of Prague and Brno a) Holocaust Documented (Holocaust v dokumentech)( 2009) b) Tradition and Habits of the Jewish Religion (Tradice a zvyky židovského náboženství) ( 2009) c) Hana’s Suitcase (Hanin kufřík) ( 2009,2010)
6. Realization of projects with historical themes: a) Project: Vanished Neighbours in the towns of Uherské Hradiště and Uherský Brod (Zmizelí sousedé v Uherském Hradišti a Uherském Brodě) – in 2008 their school won 30 000 CZK as a grant from the district of Zlín for the realization of this project - in the course of this project our students visited for example the synagogue and Jewish cemetery in Uherský Brod, further the synagogue in Uherské Hradiště. They Holocaust Denial 41 also searched for the Jewish inhabitants in the archive of Uherské Hradiště and more importantly they visited concentration camps of Auschwitz and Terezin. The aim of this project was to search for the destiny of the Jews from Uherské Hradiště and Uherský Brod after 1939. b) Project: Fighters against totalitarian regime seen by children (Bojovníci proti totalitě očima dětí) – students of their school shot a short document about a Holocaust survivor Věra Weberová from Kyjova (2009)
c) Project: On the Track of Nazism (Po stopách nacismu) - again their school won 30 000 CZK as a grant from the district of Zlín) - as a part of this project was an excursion of students to Berchtesgadenu - Germany and Auschwitz in 2009 and Anne Frank exhibition
7. Organization of film projection about Nicholas Winton – Power of Humanity (Síla lidskosti) for students from the 5th to 9th years in the cinema Hvězda once in four years accompanied by the dramaturgist of the programme - pupils of their school also contributed in the shooting of the second part of the documentary Nicky’s Family (Nickyho rodina) in March 2008
8. Participation in the seminars organized by the memorials of Terezín, Lidice, Concentration Camp Flossebürg and organisation Centropa. 1. In Terezín ( 2004) 2. in Concentration Camp Ravesbrück in Germany ( 2006) 3. Museum of Holocaustu in Berlin ( 2006) 4. Museum of Holocaust Yad Vashem in Jerusalem ( 2007) 5. Memorial in Lidice ( 2006) 6. Memorial in Ležáky ( 2008) 7. Memorial of Pankrác in Praze ( 2007) 8. Memorial of the Concentration Camp Flossenbürg ( 2009) 9. Memorial Heydrichiáda in Prague ( 2009) 10. Memorial SNP in Banská Bystrica in Slovakia ( 2009) 11. the Jewish Quarter in Prague ( 2004, 2010) 12. Memorial Pečkárna in Prague ( 2009) 13. Memorial of Holocaust in Paris ( 2010) Holocaust Denial 42
In regard to the mentioned educational activities their school cooperates on the education of pupils in the long term with the following organisations: Memorial Lidice , Memorial Terezín, The Jewish Museum in Prague Praze and Brno, the Centropa organisation, which pursues digitalization of the memoirs of Holocaust witnesses
Future Activities: 1) Continuation with the discussions with Holocaust witnesses 2) Continuation with the organization of trips to Auschwitz ( September/October 2010) 3) Continuation with the organization of trips to Terezín ( next is planned in December 2011) 4) Exhibition Girls from the Room No. 28 (Děvčata z pokoje č.28) in their school is arranged on May 2011 5) Participation in the project of Centropa – (digitalization of the memoirs of Holocaust witnesses in cooperation with Věra Weberová from Kyjov) 6) Participation in the project of Czech Television: Children film their heroes (Děti točí své hrdiny) children also shoot next document about a survivor of Nazi injustice
5.3. Conclusion As it is apparent from the above mentioned interview with Mgr. Barranikov, there is almost no room for the education of Holocaust in the history classes. It is unsatisfactory that there is so little time dedicated to Holocaust as prevention to further cases of genocide and at the same time alarming that it does not figure whatsoever in the curriculum of the civic education. It is important to mention that the way of presentation of historical topics is always the initiative of every teacher. That is why teachers should be well informed about the history of Holocaust and be aware of the importance of its education, namely that Holocaust as a milestone in human history should serve as the warning for future generations. Yet to be educated in history does not suffice as it is the conviction of every teacher that matters. It is absolutely essential that teachers of history are also prepared to give a true presentation of the facts. It is in the competence of every teacher to use in the classes of history different textbooks and teaching tools than provided by the ministry of education in order to cover all the topics in the most effective way. It is an excellent Holocaust Denial 43 opportunity to focus on the topics which have a connection with nowadays matters and influence students in a positive way so that they are prepared for the life in society. Yet this opportunity may not always be managed to achieve the required result as there are certain dangers involved. For instance Mgr. Štěpková from the Terezín Initiative also mentioned during my interview that there was a case when a teacher of history was presenting in his classes the history of Holocaust according to the deniers’ pamphlet Osvětim: fakta versus fikce (Auschwitz: Facts versus fiction) mentioned earlier in the text. This is an extreme illustration in itself yet it provides a sufficient example to what ends the benevolence in the presentation of history may lead to. As I find crucial the commitment of teachers to present Holocaust accordingly, that is why I would like to focus on the education of teachers of history and civic education by the organisations such as the Jewish Museum in Prague, Terezín Initiative and holocaust.cz in my diploma thesis. The list of activities provided by Mgr. Kočíř is very interesting and serves as a good example of the variety of what everything can be achieved in the education of children and students. Yet it is necessary to stress that it is rather an exception as the teachers of history who provided information for my bachelor thesis were recommended by the Terezín Initiative as those who actively participate in the project of introducing Holocaust to schools. The situation of the vast majority of schools may be completely different. A global survey of education of Holocaust in the Czech schools as a part of prevention of racism and intolerance provided with the reactions of students will be also the object of my thesis.
Holocaust Denial 44 6. Conclusion There is an erroneous concept of thinking that people are generally good. Even Anne Frank stated in her diary her belief in the good in all men (Frank 237). But at the same time she is a sad example of so many people who died because they did not believe in the destructive tendencies within people’s hearts, because they did not believe in Auschwitz. Why were millions of Jews so docile and let themselves herded to the gas chambers? It was due to their belief that nothing evil would happen to them. We would even prefer that there was no Holocaust due to the wishful thinking in our hearts that people are generally good. After Auschwitz no one can ever harbor this notion and its legacy should always keep us awake. We should never allow ourselves to be lulled into oblivion as if the abominable crimes never happened. According to president Richard von Weizsaecker:
“Anyone who closes his eyes to the past is blind to the present.” “Whoever refuses the inhumanity is prone to new risks of infection..... The young and old generations must and can help each other to understand why it is vital to keep alive the memories” (Strom 470).
It is then our responsibility to remind young people about the past as well as the necessity to make them realize that the current situation in Europe is unequalled and that democracy is our responsibility! This long period of life in democratic system of European countries is not to be taken for granted. There is always the tendency to deteriorate which is also assisted by the activities of the deniers. Trying to ignore the denying because it is so phantasmagorical is without doubt very dangerous. As early as in 1945, during the liberation General Dwight D. Eisenhower had a premonition of the future “attempts to recharacterize the Nazi crimes” when visiting the concentration camp in Gotha.
"The same day I saw my first horror camp. It was near the town of Gotha. I have never been able to describe my emotional reactions when I first came face to face with indisputable evidence of Nazi brutality and ruthless disregard of every shred of decency. Up to that time I had known about it only generally or through secondary sources. I am certain however, that I have never at any time experienced an equal sense of shock. I visited every nook and cranny of the camp because I felt Holocaust Denial 45 it my duty to be in a position from then on to testify at first hand about these things in case there ever grew up at home the belief or assumption that "the stories of Nazi brutality were just propaganda" (Holocaust Denial).
There is a danger that the technological process of mass murder may be inspiring for someone in authority in the future. Holocaust was legislated by the state and in this regard it was completely different from any other crime. People were considered and treated as objects, as insects necessary to liquidate. The value of people was annulled and such disrespect of the life of human beings was only possible in a state system where the philosophy of Social Darwinism was being applied. It was the propaganda which made it possible to consider the Jews and other victims as the enemies of Germany. Any claims either of nations or individuals for Aryan supremacy which are definitely based on hate and disdain of certain groups of people must be unmasked, recognized and condemned and no individual or a nation must ever consider themselves to be of a so called “superior” race. Limitless loyalty to authority of the people carrying on the task of liquidation of Jews and ruthless execution of orders which relieved the culprits of responsibility for the crimes they were thoughtlessly committing, was the ideal pattern for the functioning and existence of the system the Nazis created. Yet it is necessary to realize that the slaughter of innocent people was not carried by madmen as many of the perpetrators possessed university degrees. They were ordinary men diligently obeying orders, believing that they were serving their mother country. The ideal of a man the Nazi system created was a murderer and at the same time an honest man in one person as Himmler put it to his subordinates in his speech at an SS congress, the transcription of which is to be found in appendix. It is also important that children and young people learn to discern between good and bad and to take responsibility for their actions. It is so easy and at the same time very dangerous to discard responsibility when it comes to committing injustice. Simon Wiesenthal, when discussing with students at the American Universities the value of freedom and democracy, which unfortunately became to be taken for granted by many young people of our time, stressed the necessity to root out every single grain of injustice. Many of the students he met during his lectures about Holocaust said that they were willing to fight against Hitler or Gestapo, protect the Jews and avoid the world war. Yet before stepping to all these heroic deeds it is important to realize that the evil Holocaust Denial 46 did not appear in its most virulent form all of a sudden at the time of Nazi Germany. It all started inconspicuously gaining at speed and did not stop until it was already too late. It is vital that every individual start a campaign in his life against all the little injustices committed every day such as to stand up to weaker people, to a friend when he is wronged (Wiesenthal 391). That is what quality education in the classes of history and civics should help to achieve in the forming of characters of young people and thus preparing them for their lives in a democratic society.
Holocaust Denial 47 List of References
Frank, A. Diary of a Young Girl. New York: Pocket Books, 1967. Hoess, R. Velitel v Osvětimi. Praha: Akademia, 2006. Gilbert, M. Holocaust. London: Fontana Press, 1987. Lipstadt, D. Popírání Holocaustu. Praha: Paseka, 2006. Knopp, G. Holokaust. Praha: Euromedia Group, 2008. Strom Margot, S. Holocaust and Human Behaviour. Brookline: Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc., 1994. Wiesenthal, S. Spravedlnost nikoli pomstu. Ostrava: Sfinga, 1994.
Internet Sources
Black, E. “The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics.” hnn.us. History News Network, 11 Nov. 2003. Web. 20 Aug. 2010.
“Final Solution. ” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. n.d. Web. 22 May. 2009. < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution>
Frankl, M. “Šíření osvětimské lži do českých škol.” holocaust.cz. Holocaust, 15 Nov. 2005 Web.19 May. 2010. < http://www.holocaust.cz/cz2/news/2005/osvetim_fakta_fikce>
Galore, E. “The Bureaucracy of Terror.” Galorebot.com. The Bureaucracy of Terror, 2004. Web. 20 Aug. 2010.
Gerrish,J. “The Sickness of Anti-Semitism.” churchisraleforum.com. Church & Israel Forum, n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2010.
Hitler, A.“Mein Kampf.” Jewish Virtual Llibrary.org. Jewish Virtual Library, n.d. Holocaust Denial 48 Web. 15 Feb. 2009.
“Hitler used Evolutionary Theory to Justify the Holocaust.” straight-talk.net. Straight talk about issues affecting America today, n.d. Web. 10 Jul. 2010.
“Holocaust denial.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2009.
“How to Teach about the Holocaust in Schools.” holocausttaskforce.org. Holocaust Task Force, n.d. Web. 12 May. 2010.
"Investigation into Collective Historical Knowledge and Implications of its ignorance,” Trinity.edu. Trinity University, n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2010 < http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/histignrl.htmlc>
“Kristallnacht.” jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Jewish Virtual Library, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Lewis, K. “The Einsatzgruppen and Gas Vans in the Eastern Territories.” einsatzgruppenarchives.com. Einsatzgruppenarchives, 13 May. 1998, Web. 30 Oct. 2010.
Maršák, J. “Současný stav hnutí popíračů Holocaustu.” blisty.cz. Britské listy, 3 Feb. 2005. Web.10 Jul. 2010.
“Mobile Killing Squads. “ ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 10 Jun. 2009. Holocaust Denial 49
Piggot R. “Profile: Bishop Richard Williamson.” news.bbc.co.uk. BBC News, 16 Apr. 2010. Web. 28 Jun. 2010.
“Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” ushmm.org. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 20 Jun. 2009. < http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007058>
“Rudolf Hoess.” jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Jewish Virtual library, n.d. Web. 30 Oct. 2010. < http://dev.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cgi-bin/itemPrintMode.pl?Id=2001>
Shaw, A. “Evian Conference.” christianactionforisrael.org. Christianaction Action for Israel Exclusive, 2001. Web. 14 Jul.2009. < http://christianactionforisrael.org/antiholo/evian/evian.html>
Holocaust Denial 50 List of Appendices
Appendix 1: Heinrich Himmler’s Speech Appendix 2: Rudolf Hoess’ Testimony Appendix 3: Terezín Album in Schools Appendix 4: Photographs
Holocaust Denial 51 Appendix 1: Heinrich Himmler’s Speech
"I shall speak to you here with all frankness of a very serious subject. We shall now discuss it absolutely openly among ourselves; nevertheless we shall never speak of it in public. I mean the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish race. It is one of those things that is easy to say. 'The Jewish race is to be exterminated,' says every party member. 'That's clear, it's part of our program, elimination of the Jews, extermination, right, we'll do it.'
"And then they all come along, the 80 million good Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. Of course the others are swine, but this one is a first-class Jew. Of all those who talk like this, not one has watched, not one has stood up to it.
"Most of you know what it means to see a hundred corpses lying together, five hundred, or a thousand. To have gone through this and yet - apart from a few exceptions, examples of human weakness - to have remained decent fellows, this is what has made us hard.
"This is a glorious page in our history that has never been written and shall never be written for we know how difficult we should have made it for ourselves, if - with the bombing raids, the burdens and the depravations of war - we still had Jews today in every town as secret saboteurs, agitators and trouble-mongers. We would now probably have reached the 1916-17 stage when Jews were still in the national body.
Holocaust Denial 52 Appendix 2: Rudolf Hoess’ Testimony
The 'Final Solution' of the Jewish question meant the complete extermination of all Jews in Europe. I was ordered to establish extermination facilities at Auschwitz in 6/1941. At that time, there were already in the General Government three other extermination camps: Belzek, Treblinka and Wolzek. These camps were under the Einsatzkommando of the Security Police and SD. I visited Treblinka to find out how they carried out their exterminations. The camp commandant at Treblinka told me that he had liquidated 80,000 in the course of one-half year. He was principally concerned with liquidating all the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. He used monoxide gas, and I did not think that his methods were very efficient. So when I set up the extermination building at Auschwitz, I used Zyklon B, which was a crystallized prussic acid which we dropped into the death chamber from a small opening. It took from 3-15 minutes to kill the people in the death chamber, depending upon climatic conditions. We knew when the people were dead because their screaming stopped. We usually waited about one-half hour before we opened the doors and removed the bodies. After the bodies were removed our special Kommandos took off the rings and extracted the gold from the teeth of the corpses.
Another improvement we made over Treblinka was that we built our gas chamber to accommodate 2000 people at one time whereas at Treblinka their 10 gas chambers only accommodated 200 people each. The way we selected our victims was as follows: We had two SS doctors on duty at Auschwitz to examine the incoming transports of prisoners. The prisoners would be marched by one of the doctors who would make spot decisions as they walked by. Those who were fit for work were sent into the camp. Others were sent immediately to the extermination plants. Children of tender years were invariably exterminated since by reason of their youth they were unable to work. Still another improvement we made over Treblinka was that at Treblinka the victims almost always knew that they were to be exterminated and at Auschwitz we endeavored to fool the victims into thinking that they were to go through a delousing process. Of course, frequently they realized our true intentions and we sometimes had riots and difficulties due to that fact. Very frequently women would hide their children under the clothes, but of course when we found them we would send the children in to be exterminated. We were required to carry out these exterminations in secrecy but of course the foul and nauseating stench from the continuous burning of bodies permeated the entire area and Holocaust Denial 53 all of the people living in the surrounding communities knew that exterminations were going on at Auschwitz.
We received from time to time special prisoners from the local Gestapo office. The SS doctors killed such prisoners by injections of benzine. Doctors had orders to write ordinary death certificates and could put down any reason at all for the cause of death.
From time to time we conducted medical experiments on women inmates, including sterilization and experiments relating to cancer. Most of the people who died under these experiments had been already condemned to death by the Gestapo.
I understand English as it is written above. The above statements are true; this declaration is made by me voluntarily and without compulsion; after reading over the statement I have signed and executed the same at Nuremberg, Germany, on the 4/5/1946. - Rudolf Hoess."
Holocaust Denial 54 Appendix 3: Terezín Album in Schools
Holocaust Denial 55
Holocaust Denial 56 Appendix 4: Photographs
(Auschwitz-Birkenau http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/ausc.html)
(Arrival at Birkenau http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/Arrival%20a t%20Birkenau.html)
(Children Survivors http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/Child%20Su rvivors.html)
(Auschwitz tatoo Holocaust Denial 57 http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/auschtattoo. html)
( Crematoriom 4 http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/Krema%204 .html)
(Shower Room http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/showerroom .html)
(A Pile of Glasses of Auschwitz Victims http://www.awesomestories.com/images/user/233a7c1dd9.jpg) Holocaust Denial 58
(Cyklon B http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/galleries/auschperiod/index4.html)