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History See other History Articles Title: David Cole Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper, Director, Auschwitz State Museum (Auschwitz Video) See or listen to this video tape online! In order to restrict bandwidth usage to real visitors who really want to download these files, we had to put these files into a protected directory. Access to them is free. Just click on the links and type in the following as prompted in order to gain access: User Name: visitor Password: download Video in Real Format (20 MB): http://vho.org/dl/ENG/cole.ra (Download and install RealPlayer ) Video in Windows Media Format (44 MB): http://vho.org/dl/ENG/DavidColeatAuschwitz.wmv Preface It is an undisputed fact of history that, during World War II, the Germans ran a network of prison and labor camps, both in Germany and in the territories they controlled. Into these camps were sent Jews, prisoners-of-war, resistance fighters, Gypsies, and other people considered enemies of the Third Reich. The largest of these camps was the one called Auschwitz, located in Poland. Those interned at Auschwitz came from all over Europe and consisted of men, women, and children. Those able to work were used as labor for the German war effort. Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Army in January of 1945. But that is where the consensus ends. Since the end of World War II we have been told repeatedly that many of these camps served a darker purpose: the genocide of six million Jews and the execution of five million non-Jews through the use of homicidal gas chambers in what is now commonly known as the "Holocaust." The largest number of people are said to have been murdered at Auschwitz. But there are some people who maintain these claims of mass murder have never been proven. These people point to the lack of documentation other than the highly questionable and partially discredited evidence supplied by the Soviet Union at the Nuremberg Trials and the unreliable nature of the eyewitness testimonies, many of which have also been discredited. (For example, many former camp inmates, as well as American soldiers, still speak of "gassing" at the Dachau camp in Germany, even though it is no longer held that any [homicidal] gas chamber was ever in use at that camp.) Still, the Holocaust is an event that has seemingly grown in importance since the end of the war, taught as fact...usually accepted without question. But how do we know it really happened? What "proofs" are offered for those not willing to take history on faith alone? This video deals with, among other things, one of those proofs, one piece in a very large puzzle: the supposed gas chamber at the Auschwitz Main Camp. This tape is the first in a series of tapes covering my September 1992 trip to Europe to investigate first hand the sites of the alleged "Final Solution." It is by no means intended to be the last word on the controversy, but just the opposite. I hope this tape can begin an open debate that's long overdue: what is fact and what is simple wartime propanganda regarding the event we have come to know as the Holocaust. Tour of Auschwitz This is the Auschwitz main camp or Stammlager. There are three parts to what is known as Auschwitz. There is Auschwitz I, the main camp, a well-built compound which existed before World War II as a military barracks and was slightly modified by the Germans when they took it over. Then there's Auschwitz II, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was constructed during the war as an expansion of the main camp. And there's Auschwitz III, or Auschwitz-Monowitz, a large industrial area where many inmates were forced to work. It is Auschwitz I, the main camp, which is the center of Auschwitz tourism. It is here that tours are conducted hourly in English, Polish, German, and French. By their own figures, over half a million people visit here every year and the place has become a curious shrine, a mix of crass commercialism and religious reverence, with a hotel, restaurant, gift shop, and booths selling all manner of video equipment like batteries and videotapes in all formats so that no one need worry about missing a shot of the Final Solution. This is a shrine which combines Catholic exressions of identity and mourning with Jewish ones, and this has traditionally caused some tension. Jewish groups have charged that the Poles down-play the role of Jewish suffering, and while few would openly suggest it, it could be said that, in the West, Jews have attempted to monopolize Auschwitz as a uniquely Jewish experience. Already we reach an important point in our examination of the Holocaust. It is an event interpreted differently in various corners of the world. The Soviets have always stressed the suffering of Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, and others. Post-World War II Soviet propaganda films often made little mention of Jews. To the Polish locals, Auschwitz is given a Catholic face, with all the usual fetishes-- the suffering of Polish priests and other martyrs is stressed, and attempted extermination of the Polish people is the preferred theme. But in the Western world, we get a single-mindedly Jewish interpretation, with the non-Jewish deaths being used mainly to keep non-Jewish interest in the Holocaust alive by giving non-Jews some involvement in it. But we are told that even though non-Jews suffered as well, it is the Jews and the Jews only who are marked for extermination. This schism has often resulted in well-publicized disputes such as the convent of Carmelite nuns who took up residence here at Auschwitz against the wishes of many Jewish groups. And the time a touring Polish Auschwitz exhibit was protested for not being Jewish enough. However, at the camp itself, there is more than enough victimization to go around. The layout of the Auschwitz main camp is fairly simple. A square of barbed wire fence surrounds rows and rows of inmate barracks, a large mess hall, and a few surprises which we will get to later. Outside the fenced-in area is the SS headquarters these two buildings -- and the SS hospital and restaurant. Across from that is the building known as Crematorium I, the infamous gas chamber and crematorium. Most of the inmates' barracks have been converted into museums which make up the bulk of the guided tour. The rest of the barracks are used as either archives or offices for the museum staff. One barrack, Block 11, has been kept in its original state. It was the camp prison and it is now referred to, naturally, as "The Block of Death." Which brings up another interesting point: what is shown on the tour and what is not. During the tour, you are shown "The Block of Death," the so-called "Wall of Death" -- naturally right next door to "The Block of Death" -- and exhibit after exhibit specifically designed to affirm atrocity stories and to portray Auschwitz as a death machine, the place where internment meant extermination. But what don't they show you? To start with, a building which could conceivably be called "The Block of Life," a massive disinfestation complex where Zyklon B gas was used daily to combat lice and the disease they carried. These were the real gas chambers except their victimes were clothing and mattresses, and their purpose was to preserve the health of the inmates. Holocaust experts don't deny the purpose of this building; they just don't like mentioning it. After all, why complicate things? Also forgotten is the Auschwitz camp theatre, the current home of the aforementioned convent of nuns. The last pictures taken inside this building showed pianos and costumes and a stage where the inmates used to put on productions. These days, however, the nuns don't allow pictures to be taken inside. And finally, we have the Auschwitz swimming pool. Yes, that's right; swimming pool, situated inside the prison compound right along side of the inmates barracks. A beautiful pool with a diving board and 'starters' blocks for races. To their credit, the Auschwitz camp officials have not tried to remove this distraction. But if you want to see the pool, you need to know already that it exists because you won't find it on the tour. So basically what we have is a tour that consists mainly of tourists who already believe in the Holocaust story and are perhaps emotionally connected to it in some way, being given a selectively edited tour filled with horror story after horror story and finally ending up at the final stop -- the gas chamber. At this point, the tour group is emotionally primed to believe anything and the gas chamber is like the featured performer after a two hour warm-up act to get the crowd in the mood. Literally, the gas chamber is the objective proof that everything they've heard on the tour is true; objective proof of the Holocaust. But is it? We'll see in a minute. I went to Auschwitz in September of 1992 to see for myself this place I had studied for so long. I paid extra for a personal English language tour guide, a young lady named Alicia, who gives tours in Polish, German, and English. And I wore my yarmulke just so nobody missed the point that I'm Jewish. I figured that way I could ask my questions in a manner that would not make me look like a revisionist. You see, in the past, revisionists haven't had much success in getting answers from the Auschwitz officials. But I would come off as a righteous Jew wanting to know the real facts and answer those who say the Holocaust never happened. (For the sake of clarity, not only am I a revisionist, I am also quite proudly an atheist. But my parents are both Jewish so if you're a Jew by birth, you're a Jew by birth. It's not anything I'd be ashamed of.) Alicia, like the other tour guides, had to take a class and memorize the spiel to become one. This is an important point because I'm going to show that the people who run Auschwitz. like Dr. Franciszek Piper and the tour guide supervisor you'll meet shortly, teach their tour guides to say things they know aren't true. But this shouldn't reflect badly on Alicia; she only repeats what she's been told and I'm sure she never had to put up with a tourist like me before. I have over four hours of footage of me taking the tour, asking one obnoxious question after another. This footage will be re-edited into a seperate tape. This time, we're just going to concern ourselves with the gas chamber and my interview with Dr. Franciszek Piper, Senior Curator and Head of Archives at the Auschwitz State Museum. I came to Auschwitz as a confirmed skeptic about the gas chamber story. I know to some people, critically examining the Holocaust is the ultimate sacrilege. But you'll have to realize that I have no sacred cows and understanding what really happened is important to me, and I ask that you respect that. I know from years of my own research and the research of others that proofs of the Holocaust are few. Literally, all there is are the "eyewitness" testimonies and the postwar confessions. There's no picture, plan or wartime document dealing with homicidal gas chambers or a plan to exterminate Jews. And we can't use the excuse the Nazis destroyed all the evidence because after we had broken the German code, we were able to intercept their secret transmissions including those that came from Auschwitz. The key to understanding the Holocaust story is understanding the true nature of the things passed off as proofs. Everything that is used as evidence of the Holocaust also can be said to have a perfectly normal explanation. For example, these exhibits are said to be the material proofs of exterminations. There are the piles of human hair. But what does that prove? It is acknowledged that each inmate had his or her head shaved because of the lice problem. That's not denied, so why wouldn't there be piles of human hair? What about the piles of shoes and clothing. Is that a proof? It's a fact that the prisoners were issued a uniform upon arrival, including shoes. So why wouldn't there be piles of inmates' shoes and clothing? It doesn't prove anybody was killed. And that's giving the Soviets and Poles the benefit of the doubt that the clothes and hair are genuinely from the camp during its operation. What about the canisters of gas? No one denies that Zyklon B was used to disinfect clothes and also buildings. Zyklon B was one of the premier pest control agents in Europe at that time. It was present in most of the concentration camps including those that were not said to have had homicidal gas chambers in them. The typhus epidemic that spread throughout Europe during the war and also spread through the camps called for stringent lice control procedures. In his book, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, published by the [Beate] Klarsfeld Foundation and meant to refute revisivonists, Jean-Claude Pressac admits that over 95% of the Zyklon B used by the Germans was used to disinfect. He assigns only 5% to homicidal purposes. And this from a Holocaust supporter. So what other proofs are offered? Well, there's the usual pictures of sick inmates which proves the ground-breaking thesis that people got sick at the camp. Once again I'll add that nobody denies the typhus epidemic which resulted in many deaths. Then there's the artwork and picures of children. But at this point it's looking pretty bad for somebody looking for objective proofs of the gas chamber. And some of the proofs they present actually work against the concept. For example, they have one of several aerial photographs taken at Auschwitz by the Allies during the war. They don't mention, however, that when blown up, these photographs don't show people being gassed or bodies being burned, even though they were taken during the time killings were said to be going on almost non-stop. I won't even go into the special money the Germans printed for Auschwitz inmates or the fact even though it was said that Jewish children were killed immediately, both Anne Frank and her sister were sent to Auschwitz and survived, later being transfered to the Bergen-Belsen camp where they are said to have died from typhus. But all this bickering would be pointless if we could see a genuine gas chamber for ourselves. That, of course, would most effectively end the argument. Which brings us to the building I'm standing in front of, the gas chamber and crematorium. Pictures of this building have been featured in book after book on the Holocaust. After all, what better proof it all happened? Revisionists don't dispute that this was a real building from during the war.We say that it was indeed a crematorium and a mortuary which also was used as an air-raid shelter for the SS men in the hospital and restaurant right across the street from it. The Auschwitz people say it was indeed a mortuary and crematorium with the mortuary part, which you're looking at right there, later being used as the gas chamber. They also say it was used as an air-raid shelter. And they have, in the past, admitted that the large brick chimney at the side of the building is a reconstrucion, which is no big shock to anybody because it clearly isn't connected to the building in any way. Now let's go inside. Once inside, we can see why revisionists have had such a field day with this building: Obvious marks on the walls and floors, where apparently walls have knocked down. Equally obvious holes in the floor where bathroom facilities had been.( We maintain that, unlike the large hollow chamber we have seen, this room had once been five rooms including a bathroom. I should add, there is no Zyklon B blue staining in the walls as there would have been with repeated Zyklon B use and as there were and still are in the disinfection chambers.) A flimsy wooden door with a big glass pane in it and A doorway with no door and no fittings for a door leading to the crematorium ovens. And I should also mention the big manhole, right in the middle of the gas chamber. Yet the building does have what appears to be evidence of criminal usage -- four holes in the ceiling which lead to the roof where four little chimneys stand. It is said that through these four holes, Zyklon B crystals were dropped. And indeed, there seems to be no other explanation for them. Do these holes prove homicidal gassings? Revisionists have claimed in the past that these holes were added after the camp's liberation, and that the inside walls were knocked down and the bathroom facilities removed to make the room look like a big gas chamber. As Alicia and I approached the building, we passed the gallows where the commandant in Auschwitz, Rudolph Höss, was hanged by the Soviets in 1947, executed directly in front of the evidence of his crime. --snip--
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 7.
#1. To: christine (#0)
Gosh, should I ping Starwind?
The gassings could not have happened at Auschwitz as has been claimed. This is a must watch. In other words, he realizes that for such a high death rate, multiple gassings every day at an extremely fast pace would have been necessary. So what we have here is a contradiction.The concept of limited use of the chambers could conceivably explain the lack of residue but limited gassing contradicts eye-witnesses and makes the high gassing death rate technically impossible. Also, the concept of limited gassing makes ridiculous the idea of German intent to wipe out the entire Jewish population. Literally, to support one part of the Holocaust story, Piper ends up jeopardizing another. Unfortunately, what passes for Holocaust History has become such a complex balancing act of rationalizations. This is why its proponents prefer you not ask too many questions like the ones concerning Zyklon B. What about the gas itself? We are shown many canisters of Zyklon B gas as proof of the Final Solution. But apart from delousing , which everyone agrees on, and homicidal gassings, which the Auschwitz officials maintain, did the gas have any other uses? Piper: [Unintelligible] disenfectation of the buildings so there was such a... Cole: Was it routine for the buildings to be disinfected? Piper: From time to time, such actions were carried out to remove lice. Now, let's recap again. We now know that Zyklon B gas was used to delouse clothes, to disinfect buildings and if you will remember the calculations of Holocaust supporter Jean-Claude Pressac, over 95% was used for disinfection with only 5% or less used for homicide. This seems like a great amount of effort on the part of the Germans to preserve the health of people who were meant to be exterminated. And I think at this point we can move on. --snip-- and more: My point is, when the experts tell you there is no room for debate about the gas chamber story they are hiding the fact that they debate each other about it frequently. Oftentimes, the reason for reluctance to answer hard questions about the gas chambers comes from the fact that the experts secretly realize that the gas chambers are simply not well documented, and that much of the documentation we have has already been discredited. --snip--
Here is an interesting tidbit: http:/ /www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/denial.html "...22 Working with chambers measuring an average 225 square feet, the Nazis forced to their deaths 700 to 800 men, women and children at a time.22" 750 humans in 225 square feet?!?!? Give me a F-ing break. Gee, this shower sure is crowded!! Again, what in the hell were these people thinking? And, what does it say of these "victims" who would be just crammed, packed into what they know to be certain death. An intensely interesting point: were ALL of these people merely cowardly and meek sheep??????????????
That's why they need laws in Germany aobut speaking out about the truth of the holocaust. If the majority of Germany ever learned the real truth about the holocaust, all hell would break lose. The "jews" would be peeing their pants literally.
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