Expert Report: Professor Robert Jan van Pelt — CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

In the case of David John Cawdell Irving, plaintiff, and Penguin Books Limited and Deborah E. Lipstadt, defendants, there are a number of points of contention that touched my own expertise as a scholar of Auschwitz. At the end of my report, I believe that it is indeed possible to reduce the issues at stake to the ten questions asked in the Introduction. Four of which concern the history ofAuschwitz:

Six questions concern the plaintiff:

I will review these questions one by one:

The answer is yes: the “intentional evidence” given by former inmates and the mostimportant perpetrators is corroborated by the “non-intentional evidence” provided by the documents in the archive of the Auschwitz Central Construction Office, the results of the forensic investigationsdone in 1945 by Jan Sehn and Roman Dawidowski, and the testing of samples of the walls of the gaschamber of crematorium 1 and the ruins of the gas chambers of crematoria 2, 3, 4 and 5.

The attempts by Holocaust deniers such as Rassinier, Faurisson, Butz, Stäglich and Leuchter to discredit the evidence on the basis of hermeneutic analysis of “intentional evidence” and scientific analysis of the “non-intentional evidence” has been shown to be of little or no significance, and do not discredit the overwhelming evidence that converges on the conclusion that Auschwitz was equipped with homicidal gas chambers and that these gas chambers were systematically used.

The answer is yes: the “intentional evidence” given by former inmates and the most important perpetrators is corroborated by the “non-intentional evidence” provided by the records of transports to Auschwitz.

The attempts by Holocaust deniers such as Christophersen and Stäglich to discredit the evidence on the basis of their own eye-witness testimony has been shown to be of no significance, and do not discredit the overwhelming evidence that converges on the conclusion that Auschwitz was a place where Jews were systematically put to death.

The answer is yes: the “intentional evidence” given by former inmates is corroborated by the “intentional evidence” given by the perpetrators. Deliberate murder was the main cause of death in Auschwitz, and not the effects of general deprivation, exhaustion or disease, or the effects of allied bombing on inmates evacuated as Irving speculated to Dresden in early 1945.

The answer is probably: the “intentional evidence” given by Höss is can be largely corroborated by the “non-intentional evidence” provided by the records of the transports to Auschwitz, and demographical studies that study total Jewish mortality of all causes during the Holocaust and subtracts from this number the mortality caused by deprivation in the ghettos, open-air shootings, and killings in the Operation Reinhard camps and other concentration camps.

Probably between 800,000 and 900,000 Jews were killed in Auschwitz upon arrival at the camp as part of the state-initiated and state-sponsored “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” to whichmust be added another 100,000 Jews who died in the camp from the effect of incidental cruelty, general deprivation, exhaustion or disease. This brings a total of between 900,000 and 1,000,000 Jewish victims of Auschwitz.

In addition to which 120,000 other 120,000 inmates died in the camp as the result of German policy or negligence. The largest sub-group of these victims were the Poles (74,000), followed by Romani people (21,000) and Soviet prisoners-of-war (15,000). Holocaust deniers such as Irving have not been able to create a substantial challenge against this assessment of the total mortality of Auschwitz.

Six questions concern the plaintiff, and I will consider them one by one:

The answer is yes: He has done so at various occasions, for example in the flyer that announced the publication of the Leuchter Report (1989), in his open letter to Hugh Dykes, M. P.(1989), in his lectures in Moers and Toronto (1990), in his presentation at the Tenth International Revisionist Conference (1990), and in his lecture in Milton, Ontario (1991).

The answer is yes: he did so explicitly or implicitly at the occasions mentioned above.

The answer is yes: whenever he addressed the issue specifically, he preferably sought to blame the responsibility for their deaths on the effects of the allied bombing raids. See the Leuchter Reportpress conference (1990) and his lecture “The Search for Truth in History Banned” (1993).

The answer is yes: he did so in his presentation at the Tenth International Revisionist Conference (1990) and in his lecture “The Search for Truth in History Banned ” (1993).

The answer is yes: since 1988 Irving has had a steady intellectual and business relationshipwith Ernst Zündel, was in frequent contact with Dr. Robert Faurisson, and essentially adopted the latter’s brand of Holocaust denial when he endorsed and published the Leuchter report.

The answer is yes.

I have been advised by my Instructing Solicitors of my overriding duty to the Court which I understand is paramount in my role as an expert of the Court. I understand that I am to assist the Court in all matters within my expertise regardless of whom my instructions are from and who is paying my fee. I confirm that this report is impartial, objective and unbiased and has been produced independently of the exigencies of this litigation.

I believe that the facts I have stated in this report are true, and that the opinions I have expressed are correct.

Waterloo, June 2, 1999 Robert Jan van Pelt, D.Lit. Professor of Architecture University of Waterloo Ontario N2L 3G1 Canada

Notes

1. Doctor Litterarum (D. Lit.), 1984, University of Leiden. Dissertation: “Tempel van de Wereld: DeKosmische Symboliek van de Tempel van Salomo” (“Temple of the World: The Cosmic Symbolism of the Temple of Solomon”) Dissertation supervisor: Professor Jan van Dorsten.

2. Doctorandus Litterarum (Drs. Lit), 1979, University of Leiden. Thesis: “Het Oude Hof. van Prinsenhuis tot Koningshof” (“The Old Court: From Prince’s Residence to Royal Palace”); thesis supervisors: Professor J.J. Terwen and Professor Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer.

3. Candidatus Historiae Artium et Archeologiae (Cand. Art), 1977, University of Leiden.

4. ”Guggenheim Fellow,” awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, New York, USA, 1993-94.

5. (with Debrah Dwork–my contribution 50%) Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996); UK:(London: Yale University Press, 1996), 448 pp.; translated in German as Auschwitz: 1270 bis heute trans. Klaus Rupprecht (Zürich: Pendo, 1998), 496pp.; translated in Dutch as Auschwitz: 1270 tot Heden trans. Tinke Davids (Amsterdam: Boom, 1997), 456 pp.

6. (with C.W.Westfall)–my contribution 60%) Architectural Principles in the Age of Historicism(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991,417 pp.

7. (“A Site in Search of a Mission,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Eds. Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 93-156.;(with Jean-Claude Pressac–my contribution 25%),”The Machinery of Mass Murder at Auschwitz,” in Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Eds.

Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994) pp.183-245; (with Debrah Dwork–my contribution 50%). “Reclaiming Auschwitz,” in Geoffrey Hartman ed., Shapes of Memory (London: Blackwell, 1993), pp.200-234.

8. (with Debórah Dwork–my contribution 50%) “German Persecution and Dutch Accommodation: The Evolution of the Dutch National Consciousness of the Judeocide,” in David Wyman ed., The World Reacts to the Holocaust(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,1996), pp.45-77.

9. (with Debórah Dwork) “The Politics of A Strategy for Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Cardozo Law Review(vol 20, 1998), pp. 687-693; (with Donald McKay, Val Rynnimeri, Derrick Revington, and Deborah Dwork) “A Strategy for Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Cardozo Law Review (vol 20, 1998), 695-730 ; “Auschwitz: From Architect’s Promise to Inmate’s Perdition,” Modernism/ Modernity (vol 1, 1993), pp. 80-120; “After the Walls Have Fallen Down,” Queen’s Quarterly (vol. 96, 1989), pp.641-660.

10. (All co-authored with Debórah Dwork), “Jews, Poles Must Cooperate On Auschwitz,” Washington Jewish Week (vol. 35, no. 4, January 28, 1999), 17; “Paus moet ingrijpen “, NIW (vol. 133, Sept.11, 1998)p. 9; “Gevecht om de toekomst van Auschwitz “, NIW (vol. 133, Sept 11, 1998), pp. 8-9; “Poles, Jews differ on future of death camps”, Washington Jewish Week (vol. 34, no. 31, July 30, 1998) 16 -19; “Shred the Auschwitz Agreement”, Forward (vol. 102, no.

31, 193, July 17, 1998), 7.

11. “Auschwitz: The Blueprint of Genocide,” BBC Horizon, WGBH Boston Nova (a 60 minute documentary made by Isabelle Rosin and Mike Rossiter about my research on Auschwitz). BBC 2 broadcast on May 9 and 14, 1994; PBS Broadcast in February 1995; also shown in Israel and Australia. Awarded the award of “Best Documentary” at the European Television Festival, 1995, Lyons, France; nominated for an Emmy Award for “Best Historical Programing “, New York, 1996.

12. “Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter.” Feature Length Documentary made by Errol Morris. Anticipated release date: Fall 1999.

13. Articles and or books: De Volkskrant (May 2, 1998), Het Parool (January 27, 1998), in Jonathan Frankel ed., The Fate of the European Jews, 1939-1945: Continuity or Contingency? (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 74-83, Nieuw Israelitisch Weekblad (November 7, 1997), Trouw (November 4, 1997), The Montreal Gazette (Nov. 2, 1996), Vrij Nederland (Sept.

28, 1996), The Guardian Weekend (21 January, 1995), 13-23, Elzeviers Weekblad (20 August, 1994), 66-68, Algemeen Dagblad (2 July, 1994), Gillian Rose, “Architecture after Auschwitz,” in Judaism and Modernity: Philosophical Essays (London: Blackwell,1993), 241-257, and Gillian Rose, Mourning Becomes the Law: Philosophy and Representation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 28-35.

14. Conferences include: Aberraciones de la Modernidad, Madrid, March 1998; European Social Science History Conference, Amsterdam, March 1998; The Holocaust: Moral & Legal Issues Unresolved 50 Years Later, New York, February 1998; Topographies of Evil, Toronto, January 1998; Terezin After the Year 2,000, Terezin, November, 1997; Political Psychology in the Post-Cold War World, Cracow, July 1997; ACSA International Conference, Berlin, May 1997; Neuere Tendenzen der Holocaust forschung,

Essen, March 1997; Lessons and Legacies IV, South Bend, IN, November 1996; 21st Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association, New Orleans LA, October 1996; American Philosophical Association, Chicago IL, April 1996; Terminals, Santa Barbara CA, April, 1996; Western Humanities Conference, Santa Barbara CA, October 1995; Lessons and Legacies III, Hanover NH, October 1994; The Holocaust: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined, Washington DC, December 1993; Auschwitz:

Should the Ruins be Preserved?, Oswiecim, August 1993; Architecture-Memory-Holocaust, Ithaca NY, April 1991.

15. Institutions include University of Munich, January 1999; University of Colorado, November 1998; University of British Columbia, November 1998; Wiener Library, February 1998; Cambridge University, February 1998; University of Toronto, November 1997; Bezalel School of Architecture, Israel, August 1997; MIT, April 1997; United States Holocaust Museum, January 1997; Concordia University, Montreal, October 1996; Northwestern University, Evanston, April 1996; Martyrs Memorial and Holocaust

Museum, Los Angeles, April 1996; Williams College, Williamstown, April 1995; Cranbrook Academy, Detroit, February 1995; Bielefeld University, December 1993; Yale University, November 1993; Oxford University, November 1992; Warwick University, November 1992; Syracuse University, October 1992; Cooper Union, April 1992; University of Amsterdam, November 1991; Staedelsche Kunst Akademie, Frankfurt am Main, October, 1991; Technical University, Berlin, October, 1991; University of Marburg, October

1991; McGill University, February 1991; Carleton University, February 1991; and many others.

16. Spiro Kostof Award, 1997; Society of Architectural Historians for Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present, “Judged to be the best work published in 1995 and 1996 contributing to our understanding of the physical environment.” National Jewish Book Award, 1996; National Jewish Book Council for Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present.

17. A selection of reviews include reviews of Auschwitz: Von 1270 bis heute in Focus (February 22, 199), Tages-Anzeiger (February 19, 1999), Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung (13 February 1999), Wiener Zeitung (December 23, 1998), Neue Zürcher Zeitung (December 5/6, 1998), BuchJournal (Winter 1998), Die Zeit (November 5, 1998), Heilbronner Stimme(October 31, 1998), reviews of Auschwitz: 1270 tot Heden in Historisch Nieuwsblad, vol.7, no.1 (March 1998), pp.50-1, Trouw (October 31, 1997), Nieuw

Israelitisch Weekblad (October 31, 1997), reviews of Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (October 25, 1997), Star Tribune (February 9,1997), The Times Literary Supplement (January 31, 1997), De Volkskrant (January 31,1997), The Canadian Jewish News (January 16, 1997), Architect’s Journal (January 9, 1997), Jewish Chronicle (January 3, 1997), The Wall Street Journal (December 31, 1996), Skeptic (vol.

4, 1996), pp.100-101, Building (October 25, 1996), Zachor (October, 1996), 11, The Tablet (October 19, 1996), The Forward (Nov. 1, 1996), Chicago Tribune (Sept 29, 1996), New York Newsday (Aug. 4, 1996), The Washington Post(Aug. 4, 1996).

18. (with Debórah Dwork, Donald McKay, Derrick Revington, Val Rynnimeri a.o): A Strategy for the State Museum in Oswiecim, presented to President Kwasniewski of Poland on March 5, 1997.

19. Letter Harriet Benson of Mishcon de Reye to Robert Jan van Pelt, June 9, 1998.

20. Letter Kevin Bays of Davenport Lyons to Robert Jan van Pelt, August 21, 1998.

21. While I did not allow my work to be guided by any personal persuasions, it will be clear that in researching and writing a report on the profoundly disturbing subject of the Holocaust at Auschwitz and the denial thereof some personal feelings did arise. I have expressed these in the Introduction to this report. These feelings did not affect my objectivity as a historian of either Auschwitz, the Holocaust, Holocaust denial, or David Irving.

22. Jean Cayrol, “Night and Fog,” in Robert Hughes ed., Film: Book 2–Films of Peace and War (New York: Grove Press, 1962), 234f.

23. I do not have any hope nor ambition to convince the negationists. At worst they are of a bad faith and use the issue to support various political and/or ideological agendas that will not allow them to concede their interpretation of Auschwitz even if they were convinced otherwise. At best they are of what I would like to think of as good faith, but of such a mental disposition that they truly believe that the “Auschwitz Legend” was, in the analysis of Arthur R.

Butz, a war-time conspiracy created by a allied military intelligence. These latter people who sincerely believe, in the words of one of the founding the Royal Society John Wilkins, that “the rest of Mankind might have combined together to impose upon them by these relations,” will not be able to be convinced by anything.

Yet, in turn, I hope that those who maintain an unwarranted skepticism will not be able to convince those who are prepared to consider, with common reason and without prejudice, the evidence.

And perhaps they will agree with Wilkins that “those who will pretend such kind of grounds for their disbelief of any thing, will never be able to perswade others, that the true cause why they do not give their Assent is because they have no reason for it, but because they have no mind to it.” John Wilkins, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion (London: A. Maxwell, 1675), 26.

24. Wilkins’s typology of the various levels of certainty provides a useful compass when one undertakes a journey through a landscape of awful historical facts and offensive lies. For Wilkins neither Physical Certainty, based on the direct experience of the senses, nor Mathematical Certainty, obtained through proof, were epistemologically problematical.

But in the realm of Moral Certainty the question of evidence became central. “I call that Moral Certainty, which hath for its object such beings as are less simple, and do more depend upon mixed circumstances. Which though they are not capable of the same kind of Evidence with the former, so as to necessitate every man’s assent, though his judgement be never so much prejudiced against them; yet may be so plain, that every man whose judgement is free form prejudice will consent unto them.

And though there be no natural necessity, that such things must be so, and that they cannot be possibly otherwise, without implying a Contradiction; yet may they be so certain as not to admit of any reasonable doubt concerning them.” Wilkins, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, 7f

25. Paul Lungen, “The Zündel Trial: Witness disputes view 6 million Jews killed,” The Canadian Jewish News (April 28, 1988), 6.

26. Edith Wyschogrod, An Ethics of Remembering (Chicago and London: The Chicago University Press, 1998), 3.

27. Alexander Donat, The Holocaust Kingdom (New York: Holocaust Library, 1978), 183, 211.

28. Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved transl. Raymond Rosenthal (New York: Summit Books, 1988), 11f.

29. Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, transl. Georges Van Den Abbeele (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 56f.

30. Ibid., 58.

31. Today the word “Auschwitz” has various meanings. As a proper name, it referred at various periods between 1270 and 1919, and more importantly between 1939 and 1945, to the town of Oswiecim located at the confluence of the Vistula and Sola rivers in today’s Republic of Poland.

As an abbreviation, it refers to the Konzentrationslager Auschwitz O/S a particular concentration camp which was established in the Spring of 1940 in the suburb Zasole of Auschwitz/Oswiecim,and which in the next four and half years was to grow until it encompassed by 1944 a complex of many camps subject to the main camp or Stammlager in Zasole.

As a synecdoche, it denotes the Holocaust as a whole, defined here as the murder of six million Jews during the Second World War, and as a metonymy it may denote genocide(s) or massacre(s) elsewhere and at other times, or (some)evil (event)in general.

In this report, I will use the word “Auschwitz ” as an abbreviation for the concentration camp as an organization, which encompassed, from 1941/2 onwards, various camps, including the Stammlager at Zasole and the very much larger camp at Birkenau.

When I refer to the Stammlager only, I will use either the words “main camp,” “Stammlager,” or the official German designation “Auschwitz I” When I refer to the camp at Birkenau only, I will use either the proper name “Birkenau,” or the official German designation “Auschwitz II.”

32. David Rousset, The Other Kingdom, trans. Ramon Guthrie (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock,1947), 168f.

33. The history of the concentration camp at Auschwitz, like the history of any place or event, will remain subject to revision. While I take pride in having contributed, on the basis of ten years of study of a great variety of newly available evidence, a major shift in our understanding of the context, development and operation of the camp, I hope that future scholars will revise, on the basis of evidence not available now, some of my conclusions.

Like all historians, I do know that in my reconstruction of the history of the camp, there is range of certainty due to the availablity and nature of the evidence available to me. And as a responsible and professional historian, I have indicated in Auschwitz: 1270 to th Present my own dissatisfaction with the nature and amount of evidence available. For example: the exact nature of Himmler’s changing ambition for the camp in the summer of 1941 remains problematic.

I have already engaged scholars in a legitimate debate concerning the validity of my reconstruction of this issue.

Yet, as a professional and responsible historian who has devoted ten years of his life to an intense study of the camp, studying the site, the archival sources created at the time, interrogating witnesses, studying the trial records and the secondary literature, I affirm after a careful weighing of all the evidence available, using both technical expertise, skepticism to the reliability of the evidence, common sense that admits of a varying degree in the strength of evidence, and what one may

call a certain practical wisdom in human affairs that the following propositions may be asserted with what the seventeenth-century philosopher John Wilkins defined as moral or indubitable certainty–that is that we may have an assurance which does not admit of any reasonable cause of doubt. This is the certainty about matter of fact and is based on such evidence as excludes the possibility of error for all practical purposes.

34. Robert Jan van Pelt and Debrah Dwork, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,1996),163ff.

35. Ibid.,171ff.

36. Ibid.,177ff.

37. Ibid.,188f.f.

38. Ibid.,206ff.

39. Ibid.,254ff.

40. Ibid.,283.

41. The Germans built in Auschwitz five crematoria: one the main camp (Auschwitz I), and four in Birkenau (Auschwitz II).The official German designation was as follows:the crematorium in the Stammlager was designated as crematorium 1,the two large crematoria at the end of the Birkenau Rampe were designated crematoria 2 and 3, and the two smaller crematoria at the end of the main Lagerstrasse were known as crematoria 4 and 5.

Yet sometimes inmates and even Germans used a different numbering for the Birkenau crematoria. Ignoring the existence of crematorium 1 in the main camp, they numbered the crematoria 2 to 5 in Birkenau as 1 to 4. In quotations of original German sources and memoirs we will encounter both systems. This creates confusion. One solution is to adopt one standard designation, and change the numbering in some of the quotes. For the sake of scholarly precision, I decided against that.

Therefore, for the sake of clarity, I will preserve in the quotes the number given, but for the convenience of the reader use arabic numerals when the numbering follows the official German nomenclature (1,2,3,4 and 5), and latin numerals when it follows the informal nomenclature of the Birkenau crematoria (I, II,III,IV). Outside of quotations, I will systematically use the German nomenclature. In general I will ignore a third nomenclature, used by the SS building office in Auschwitz.

The architects referred to the various buildings under construction by means of a project number. Crematorium 1 was BW (Bauwerk or building) 11; crematorium 2 (I) was BW 30;crematorium 3 (II)was BW 30a; crematorium 4 (III)was BW 30b; and crematorium 5 (IV)was BW 30c. This nomenclature will occasionally surface in footnotes referring to documents in the Auschwitz and Moscow archives.

42. Van Pelt and Dwork, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present 301ff.

43. Ibid.,334ff.

44. Ibid.,337ff.

45. Ibid.,254f.

46. Ibid.,273f.

47. Ibid.,302.

48. David Irving, “Reply to Defence of Second Defendant,” 5.

49. The late Tadeusz Iwaszko, chief archivist at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, have determined that 1,500 inmates were released from Auschwitz.All of these were so-called Erziehungshäftlinge (re-education inmates)–some 9,000 Polish men and almost 2,000 Polish women who had been arrested for problems in the workplace, and who were brought to Auschwitz for a six-to eight-week long introduction to German work habits.

Of these inmates, who were not given a tattoo and whose prison uniform was marked with an “E ” instead of with a coloured triangle, ten percent died before the end of their “course,” and most were kept in the camp after completion of their six-month re-education course. Initially the Erziehungshäftlinge were housed in a special block in Auschwitz I. From early 1943 onwards, they were assigned four barracks in Auschwitz III, the labour camp adjacent to the Buna works in Monowitz.

In short, these prisoners were lodged at a considerable distance from the centre of killing in Birkenau. See Tadeusz Iwaszko, “Les Détenus ‘E ‘ d ‘Auschwitz,” Bulletin d’Information. Comité internationale d’Auschwitz (1977),issue 9/10,4;(1978),issue 1,4 and issue 2,4.

50. For a collection of excellent oral histories of surviving Sonderkommando see Gideon Greif, Wir weinten tränenlos: Augenzeugenberichte der jüdischen “Sonderkommandos” in Auschwitz (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna:Böhlau,1995).

51. Hannah Arendt, “The Image of Hell,” in Hannah Arendt, Essays in Understanding, 1930-1954 Jerome Kohn ed.(New York, San Diego and London: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994), 198f.

52. Arthur A. Cohen, The Tremendum: a Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (New York: Crossroads,1981),1f.

53. Elie Wiesel, Legends of Our Time (New York:Schocken,1982), 181f.

54. Van Pelt and Dwork, Auschwitz : 1270 to the Present, 343ff.

55. Olga Lengyel, Five Chimneys: The Story of Auschwitz, transl. Paul P. Weiss and Clifford Coch (New York:Ziff-Davis, 1947), 15f.

56. Theodor Adorno, “Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft,” Kulturkritik und Gesellschaft I: Prismen. Ohne Leitbild (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 33. Adorno’s “after Auschwitz” became a popular figure of speech to denote the great historical rupture wrought by the Holocaust.

See, for example, Ignaz Maybaum, The Face of God after Auschwitz (Amsterdam: Polak and Van Gennep, 1965); Richard L.Rubenstein, After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism (Indianopolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1966); André Neher,L’exil de la Parole: du silence biblique au silence d’Auschwitz (Paris: Êditions du Seuil, 1970); Hans Jansen, Christelijke theologie na Auschwitz: Theologische en kerkelijke wortels van het antisemitisme (The Hague: Boekencentrum, 1982); Peter Mosler, ed.,

Schreiben nach Auschwitz (Cologne: Bund Verlag, 1989); David H.Hirsch, The Deconstruction of Literature: Criticism after Auschwitz (Hanover and London: Brown University Press, 1991).

It is important to note here that at least one prominent Jewish philosopher, the late Arthur A Cohen, protested against the use of “Auschwitz” as a synecdoche of the Holocaust, which he denoted with the term tremendum a word that denotes a vast terror. “Note that I have not referred to Auschwitz as the name by which to concretize and transmit the reality of the tremendum,” Cohen wrote. “Auschwitz was only one among many sites of death.

It was not even the largest death camp, although it may well have claimed the largest number of victims. Auschwitz is a particularity, a name, a specific. Auschwitz is the German name for a Polish name. It is a name which belongs to them It is not name which commemorates. It is both specific and other.” Arthur A. Cohen, The Tremendum: a Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (New York: Crossroads, 1981),11.

57. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, revised and definitive edition, 3 vols. (New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1985), vol.3, 1219. For the mortality in Auschwitz, see the extended discussion at the end of this section.

58. Hungary (438,000); Poland (300,000); France (69,000); The Netherlands (60,000); Greece (55,000); Bohemia and Moravia, Theresienstadt (46,000); Slovakia (27,000); Belgium (25,000); Germany and Austria (23,000); Yugoslavia (10,000); Italy (7,500); Norway (69,000). See Franciszek Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz Aufgrund der Quellen und der Erträge der Forschung 1945 bis 1990 (Oswiecim: The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, 1993), Table D (between pp. 144-5).

59. Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, trans. William H. Hallo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971), 298.

60. Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God: Biblical Portraits and Legends, transl. Marion Wiesel (New York: Summit Books, 1976), 32.

61. State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Curt of Jerusalem, 5 vols. (Jerusalem: The Trust for the Publication of the Eichmann Trial, 1992), vol. 3, 1237.

62. Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 78.

63. Ibid., 86.

64. Henry L. Feingold, “How Unique is the Holocaust?,” Genocide: Critical Issues of the Holocaust, Alex Goodman and Daniel eds.(Los Angeles: The Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1983), 398.

65. Franklin H. Littell, “The Credibility Crisis of the Modern University,” in Henry Friedlander and Sybil Milton, The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy, and Genocide (Millwood: Kraus, 1980), 274.

66. Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy transl. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: Grove Press, 1964), 248.

67. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, The Jews: History, Memory, and the Present transl. David Ames Curtis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 148f.

68. Ibid.

69. Richard L. Rubenstein, The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1978), 46f.

70. Ibid., 6; 79.

71. David Irving, “On Contemporary History and Historiography,” Journal of Historical Review vol. 5 (Winter 1984), 274.

72. Cayrol, “Night and Fog,” in Hughes ed., Film: Book 2–Films of Peace and War, 240f.

73. Konnilyn G. Feig, Hitler’s Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness (New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1981), 337.

74. Roland Barthes, Mythologies, transl. Annette Lavers (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 143.

75. Ibid.

76. Pery Broad, “Reminiscences,” in Auschwitz–Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS: Rudolf Höss, Pery Broad, Johann Paul Kremer, transl. Constantine FitzGibbon and Krystyna Michalik (Warsaw: Interpress, 1991), 142.

77. State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Curt of Jerusalem, 5 vols.(Jerusalem: The Trust for the Publication of the Eichmann Trial, 1992), vol. 3, 1005f.

78. United States, Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10, 10 vols. (Washington D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1950), vol. 5, 433.

79. Crematorium 1, so it was estimated, had had a monthly incineration capacity of 9,000 corpses. Having been in operation for 24 months, it was assumed that it had had a burning capacity of 216,000 bodies. Crematoria 2 and 3 were estimated to each have had a monthly capacity of 90,000 corpses. As they had been in operation for 19 and 18 months, they would have been able to incinerate together a total of 3,330,000 corpses.

Crematoria 4 and 5 were estimated at 45,000 bodies per month, and as they had been in function for 17 and 18 months, they had together over that time a cremation capacity of 1,575,000 bodies.

See “Statement of the Extraordinary State Committee For the Ascertaining and Investigation of Crimes Committed by the German-fascist Invaders and Their Associates On Crimes Committed by the German-fascist Invaders in the Oswiecim Death Camp,” Information Bulletin, Embassy of the Soviet Socialist Republics (Washington D.C.), vol. 5, no. 54 (May 29, 1945), 8.

80. Ibid.

81. Expert Opinion Nachman Blumental, Höss Trial, volume 29, 153ff; vol. 31, 47ff., Archive Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim.

82. Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution: The Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe 1939-1945 (London: Valentine, Mitchell & Co., 1953), 460f.

83. Reitlinger explained this reason for this extremely cautious approach in the pre-amble to his calculation of the total number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, which he set at between 4,194,200 and 4,581,200 people. “Since the reading of the Nuremberg indictment in November, 1945, naming the figure of 5,700,000 Jewish victims of Germany, the round number of six millions has become a generally accepted assumption in most circles that are interested in the matter.

But in the course of writing this book I have been forced to the conclusion that, while it cannot be determined even within a half-million degree of accuracy, the true figure may be considerably smaller. In submitting my following estimates I realise that I may be accused of belittling the sufferings of the persecuted communities, but I believe that the nature of the book is a guarantee of my good faith in that respect.

The figure used in Nuremberg was supplied by the World Jewish Congress at a moment when little reputable data were available. Constant repetition of that figure has already given anti-semitic circles on the Continent and in Germany in particular the opportunity to discredit the whole ghastly story and its lessons.

I believe that it does not make the guilt of the living German any less, if the figure of six million turns out to be an over-estimate and that the accurate assessment, if it can be ever obtained, will not weaken the Jewish case for sanctions against recurrences of these symptoms. Whether six million died, or five millions, or less, it will still be the most systematic extermination of a race in world history.

Moreover, once the principle of the murders is proved, there is no particular magic in additional millions. As a German, Walter Dirks, has written: ‘It is shameful that there should be Germans who see a mitigating circumstance in reducing the sum from six millions to two millions!’” Reitlinger, The Final Solution, 489.

84. Reitlinger concluded the main narrative with the following remarkable observation: “I have spent close to four years among these documents and I found their company neither gloomy nor depressing. For on many pages darts and gleams that thing which prevents all government becoming a living hell–human fallibility.

Eichmann fails to fill his death trains, the satellite-government Ministers refuse to answer letters, someone gets the figures wrong, and someone else gives the show away too soon. And so the immense disaster was partly whittled down. How much worse it would have been if the French had not been inconsistent, if the Italians had not been easygoing, the Hungarians jealous, the Rumanians corrupt, and the Germans wedded to protocol.

It is possible that murderous racialism is something ineradicable in the nature of ants and men, but the Robot State which will give it full effect cannot exist and never will. Reitlinger, The Final Solution, 488.

85. As quoted in State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Curt of Jerusalem 5 vols.(Jerusalem: The Trust for the Publication of the Eichmann Trial, 1992), vol. 3, 1310.

86. “Testimony of Rudolf Hoess Taken at Nurnberg, on 1 April 1946, 1430 to 1730,” in The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, eds. John Mendelsohn and Donald S. Detwiler, 18 vols.(New York and London: Garland, 982), vol. 12, 72.

87. Document 3868-PS, “Affidavit of Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Hoess,” in International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals, 41 vols.(Nuremberg: Secretariat of the Tribunal, 1947-49), vol. 33, 275f.

88. Gustave M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1947), 249.

89. State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Curt of Jerusalem, 5 vols. (Jerusalem: The Trust for the Publication of the Eichmann Trial, 1992), vol. 3, 1005f.

90. Rudolf Höss, “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” in Rudolf Höss, Death dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz, ed. Steven Paskuly, transl. Andrew Pollinger (Buffalo NY: Prometheus Books, 1992), 38f.

91. Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, revised and definitive edition, 3 vols.(New York and London: Holmes & Meier, 1985), vol. 3, 1219.

92. Yad Vashem published his findings in 1991: Franciszek Piper, “Estimating the Number of Deportees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp,” Yad Vashem Studies vol. 21 (1191), 49-103.

The United States Holocaust Research Institute published Piper’s findings in 1994: Franciszek Piper, “The Number of Victims,” Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp (Washington D.C, Bloomington and Indianopolis.: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Indiana University Press, 1994), 61-76.

93. The so-called “family camp,” created in subsection BIIb of Birkenau in September 1943 for 5,000 Jews brought from Theresienstadt, and enlarged with another 5,000 Theresienstadt Jews in December 1943, cannot be considered an example of the so-called “special lodging” for those declared “unfit for work” at the selection at arrival.

While the inmates of the family camp included old people and children–that is those usually declared “unfit for work” at selection–none of them had been subjected to selection at their arrival in Birkenau. Men and women, young and old, healthy and sick, were all interned in the family camp.

The name of each prisoner was designated with the code SB6, i.e. “Special Treatment (Sonderbehandlung) after six months.” Indeed, in March 1944, six months after their arrival, the first transport was gassed, after having been asked to write postcards to relatives who had stayed behind in Theresienstadt. The purpose of the family camp was to produce first of all a paper trail to refute reports that those taken to Auschwitz were killed.

During Red Cross visits to Theresienstadt, the postmarked messages of people who had been sent six months earlier to Auschwitz were given to the delegation to counter rumors that Auschwitz was an extermination camp. Furthermore these inmates were kept alive as some Red Cross delegates to Theresienstadt had mentioned their wish to visit these people in Auschwitz.

When during the June 23,1944 Red Cross visit to Theresienstadt the SS proved able to convince the delegates that no transports had left the ghetto, and that the “Hitler’s gift to the Jews” was indeed a permanent abode and not a transit point to Auschwitz, the delegati

on decided that there was no need to visit Auschwitz. Subsequently the SS decided there was no need to preserve the family camp in Birkenau, and liquidated it.

The circumstances that led to the creation and destruction of the family camp–the only place in Auschwitz where inmates who could have been considered unfit for work (if they had been selected) were lodged–were unique, and cannot be used to explain the references to “special lodging” for those declared “unfit for work” after the selection at arrival in Auschwitz. See Nili Kern, “The Family Camp,” Gutman and Berenbaum, eds., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 428ff.

94. One is a telegram of February 20, 1943, and concerns three transports from Theresienstadt which arrived

on January 21, 24 and 27, 1943. These transports counted a total of 5,022 Jewish men, women, and children. Of these, 930 (614 men and 316 women) had been selected for labour allocation; the rest (4,092 people), had been determined to be “unfit for work” and were “lodged separately” (“gesondert untergebracht“) The second is a telegram of March 8, 1943, and concerns three transports from Berlin and Breslau which had arrived

on March 5 and 7. They counted a total of 3,223 Jews. Of these 1,324 (973 men and 351 women) were selected for work, the rest (306 men and 1,593 women and children) were “treated specially” (“wurden sonderbehandelt“). A final telegram of March 15, 1943, concerns a transport from Berlin. Counting 964 Jews. Of these 365 were selected for work, and the remaining 126 men and 473 children were “specially lodged” (“gesondert untergebracht“).

There is no record in the Auschwitz archives about any special accomodation for those who were to be “specially lodged” after having been determined to be “unfit for work” at a selection. See Piper, Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz, 65ff.

95. In his 1945 deposition made to the British, Broad stated that “when information was requested by the Reich Main Security Office concerning a past transport, as a rule nothing could be ascertained. Former transport lists were destroyed. Nobody could learn anything in Auschwitz about the fate of a given person. The person asked for ‘is not and never has been detained in camp,’ or ‘he is not in the files’–these were the usual formulas given in reply.

At present, after the evacuation of Auschwitz and the burning of all papers and records, the fate of millions of people is completely obscure. No transport or arrival lists are in existence any more. Pery Broad “Reminiscences,” in Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim, KL Auschwitz Seen by the SS: Rudolf Höss, Pery Broad, Johann Paul Kremer, transl. Constantine FitzGibbon and Krystyna Michalik (Warsaw: Interpress, 1991), 142.

96. 42 Crematorium 1 had an official cremation capacity of 340 corpses per day, or 10,200 corpses per month; crematoria 2 and 3 had an official cremation capacity of 1,440 each, or 43,200 per month each; crematoria 4 and 5 had an official cremation capacity of 768 each, or 23,040 each. Letter Bischoff to Kammler, 28 June 1943, Osobyi Moscow, ms.502/1–314; USHRI Washington, microfilm RG 11.001M.03–41.

97. See Piper, “Die Zahl der Opfer von Auschwitz,” 100.

98. Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle: 1939-1945, transl. Barbara Harshav, Martha Humphreys, and Stephen Shearier (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1990).

99. Ibid., 268f. The annotation of this day refers to various documents in the archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.A typical reference is, for example, the source for the order to assemble the standby squad at the unloading ramp: APMO, D-AuI-1/3, FvD, p.138, which reads as Archiwum Panstwowego Muzeum w Oswiecimia (Archive of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oswiecim), Document-Auschwitz I-file 1, item 3, Führer vom Dienst (Duty Offiver Log), p.138.

The entries to the two transports are not annotated following Czech’s practice to provide, in cases where she obtained information about various transports from a common point of origin from a single body of material, only the reference to the first time such a transport appears in the Kalendarium. For example, the first transport from Zichenau arrived

on November 7, 1942, and the source of this information is the archive of the Höss Trial (1947) which is preserved in the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum.

100. Jacon Lestschinsky, “Bilan d ‘extermination,” Le Monde Juif(March 1947), 19f.

101. There were only three substantial groups of gentile prisoners deported to Auschwitz: Poles (140,000 to 150,000), Romani (23,000) and Soviet prisoners of war (15,000). None of these groups came from the nine countries mentioned above. There were also a total of 25,000 gentile inmates of various nationalities (including Czechs and French citizens).

They were, however, not brought to Auschwitz with the Jewish transports referred to in the list given above, but in small transfers from other concentration camps.

102. Remarkably enough, this figure comes very close to the number of 1,130,000 deported Jews given at three different occasions by Kommandant Rudolf Höss. During his interrogation in Nuremberg, Höss admitted to a total number of 1,125,000 deported Jews to Auschwitz. “Testimony of Rudolf Hoess Taken at Nurnberg, on 1 April 1946, 1430 to 1730,” in The Holocaust: Selected Documents in Eighteen Volumes, eds.

John Mendelsohn and Donald S.Detwiler, 18 vols.(New York and London: Garland, 982), vol. 12, 72. In a private memorandum which he wrote for Dr. Gustave Gilbert, and which the latter submitted as evidence in the Eichmann Trial, Höss claimed that 1,125,000 Jews had been deported to Auschwitz.

State of Israel, Ministry of Justice, The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings in the District Curt of Jerusalem 5 vols.(Jerusalem: The Trust for the Publication of the Eichmann Trial, 1992), vol. 3, 1005f. Finally,during Polish captivity, he confirmed once more the figure of 1,130,00 Jews. Rudolf Höss, “The Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” in Rudolf Höss, Death dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auchwitz, ed. Steven Paskuly, transl.

Andrew Pollinger (Buffalo NY: Prometheus Books, 1992), 38f;

103. The introduction of the A and B numbers in the Spring of 1944 occurred amidst the administrative chaos created by the Hungarian Action.

According to Helen Tichauer, a Slovak-Jewish inmate who helped manage the administration in the women’s camp in Birkenau, the new A and B series were introduced because (1) the existing numbering system created in 1940 when the camp only had gentile Polish inmates did not make distinctions between Jews and non-Jews and (2) in the regular numbers had become too high (in the women’s camp in had reached almost 90,000, in the men’s camp it had passed 185,000), and the five and six digit

numbers created confusion. In introducing a combination of letters and numerals, simplicity was to be restored. Arriving gentile inmates were to be given numbers following the old system, while arriving Jewish inmates were to be registered in the A and B series. Yet the opposite happened: confusion increased.

For example: while Jews who arrived with transports dispatched by the Reich Security Main Office were given A and B numbers, those who were transferred from other camps or prisons were given numbers following the old system. Therefore the SS returned in August 1944 to a numbering system without letters, closing the A and B series. Helen Tichauer in conversation with author, May 22 and 23, 1999.

104. Jean-Claude Pressac, Les crématoires d’Auschwitz: la machinerie du meurtre de masse (Paris: CNRS Êditions, 1993), 147.

105. Ibid.

106. Ibid., 148.

107. Jean-Claude Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz: Die Technik des Massenmordes, transl. Eliana Hagedorn and Barbare Reitz (München and Zürich: Piper, 1994), 197ff.

108. Letter Bischoff to Kammler, 28 June 1943, Osobyi Moscow, ms. 502/1–314; USHRI Washington, microfilm RG 11.001M.03–41.

109. Pressac, Die Krematorien von Auschwitz, 196f.

110. Anatole Fance, Penguin Island, transl. A. W. Evans (New York: The Heritage Press, 1947), 3f.

111. Focal Point Publications, “Press Statement: The Leuchter Report, The First Forensic Examination of Auschwitz,” June 1989, Irving’s Further Discovery.

112. “Leuchter Report Press Conference,” London, 23 June 1989. Focal Point Video, Tap3 184.

113. Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time: Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations during the Great War (London: George Allan & Unwin Ltd., 1928), 161. In fact, as James Morgan Read showed at the beginning of the Second World War, Ponsonby had been fooled. None of the papers mentioned ever carried such articles. “But where did Ponsonby get his information,” Read asked. “The source was almost certainly German.

The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of July 4, 1915, contained the story exactly as Lord Ponsonby has translated it, under the caption, “What Can Be Made Out of a News Item.” Although there is no indication in the German paper that this is a fable, the lack of any such item in the papers names shows that the German editors were ridiculing the Allied Purveyors of atrocity tales. At the same time they were demonstrating to the German public the naivete of their opponents.

To make the cycle of this absurdity complete, almost a year later the same German paper carried the identical story, citing Ponsonby as authority. He had, indeed, used it in the interim. No mention was made of the fact that this had been originally been German irony. More than likely the German authors had forgotten it themselves by that time.

Propagandists often succeeded in talking themselves into believing a legend of their own creation.” James Morgan Read, Atrocity Propaganda 1914-1919 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1941), 25.

114. Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time, 25ff.

115. George Sylvester Viereck, Spreading Germs of Hate (New York: Horace Liveright, 1930), 153f.

116. “The Corpse Factory,” The Times, April 17, 1917.

117. “Cannon-Fodder–and After,” Punch, vol. 152 (April 25, 1917).

118. Ponsonby, Falsehood in War-Time, 112.

119. It is not surprising that Ponsonby’s book is today published by the negationist Institute of Historical Review. In a recent issue of its journal, it was advertised as follows: “Falsehood in Wartime by Arthur Ponsonby, M.P. First published in 1928, this trenchant volume authoratively debunks numerous atrocity lies fabricated and circulated about the Germans during World War I.

Learn how professional liars–three decades before the Holocaust story–manufactured such fakes as a “German corpse factory,” “the crucified Canadian,” handles Belgian infants, and scores more with typewriter, scissors and paste to lead millions to misery, mutilation, and death. Lord Ponsonby’s classic remains indispensable for anyone concerned to see through government and media lies today–and tomorrow.

New Softcover edition, 192 pp, $ 6.95 + $ 2 shipping from IHR.” The Journal of Historical Review, vol. 13 (September/ October 1995), 43.

120. Tony Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination: A Social an cultural History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), 56

121. Douglas Reed, Disgrace Abounding (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939), 268.

122. Ibid.,269.

123. Time, September 18, 1939,59, as quoted in Deborah Listadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945 (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 137.

124. Peoria Journal Transcript, March 9, 1940, as quoted in Lipstadt, Beyond Belief, 137.

125. Bernard Wasserstein, Britain and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1945 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 166f.

126. Victor Cavendish-Bentinck Minute, August 23, 1943, Public Record office, FO 371/34551