A key issue in the history of Nazi occupation policies in the USSR is identifying the point at which each SS unit was instructed, or allowed to, kill all Jewish men, women and children in its area. In the Critique here, I noted the document of Einsatzgruppe A leader Stahlecker of 6.8.41 [see VEJ 7, pp. 511-514 (Dok. 181)] that took issue with the guidelines issued by Der Reichskommissar für das Ostland, Lohse, which Stahlecker felt did not allow the SS to exploit "the radical possibilities for dealing with the Jewish Problem" that had "emerged for the first time in the Ostland," in light of "general orders from above that cannot be discussed in writing." I have also blogged this year on disputes between EK 3 leader Jaeger and the civil administrator Gewecke in Schaulen regarding the desire of the SS to kill Jewish workers and their families. Below I discuss a further important document, namely Operational Situation Report [hereafter EM] 53, and specifically an important passage written by Einsatzgruppe A (presumably Stahlecker).
The passage reads as follows:
B. Political Situation
Clarification of the general political situation in the entire occupied area has not yet been achieved. The uncertainty of the population leads to rumors, although everywhere there are voices advocating an attitude of patience, waiting until the end of the fighting.
Since July 25th the Reichskommissar for Ostland, Gauleiter Lohse, and the Military Commander, Lieutenant-General Bremer, are operating in Kaunas. District commissars have been assigned to Lithuania and to the areas west of the Dvina, and they have gradually started their work. It appears that nowhere are there concrete plans and guiding principles. The commissars started their work in various ways. While the town commissar in Kaunas proceeded promptly in [initiating] the first actions, in a manner similar to those in Polish areas, district commissars approached the competent Einsatzkommandos with the request to execute Communists and Jews. Elsewhere, among them Kaunas, talks were arranged between the responsible commanders of the Security Police and the district commissars which will, hopefully, result in successful cooperation.
The Reichskommissar for Ostland in Kaunas has prepared a draft of a decree concerning guidelines for the treatment of Jews in the area of the Reichskommissariat Ostland and has handed it to the Higher SS and Police Commander.
The draft is similar to those issued in Holland, the Polish areas, etc. We foresee its distribution among the Higher SS and Police Commandos. However, it doesn't mention the cooperation with or the competence of the Security Police.
What conclusions can be inferred from this? In mid-July, the policy in Kaunas had been to set up a ghetto because, as noted in EM 19, "Further mass shootings are no longer possible." However, in Vilnius, EK 9 operated through "daily liquidation quotas" [EM 24, 16.7.41] in which, via "Special Treatment...about 500 Jews, saboteurs amongst them, are liquidated daily [EM 21, 13.7.41]." Lohse, on the other hand, had agreed that"The countryside is to be cleansed of Jews" but had also stipulated that "As far as possible the Jews are to be concentrated in cities or in sections of large cities, where the population is already predominantly Jewish. There, ghettos are to be established, and the Jews are to be prohibited from leaving these ghettos." This was unacceptable to Stahlecker, who favoured "an almost one hundred percent immediate cleansing of the entire Ostland of Jews [6.8.41, VEJ 7, pp. 511-514 (Dok. 181), here p.514]."
Stahlecker believed that he had been given the green light to proceed with the total extermination of Jewish men, women and children when Himmler visited Riga on July 30 and announced an intention to "set up police formations consisting of Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians, etc., employing them outside of their own home areas [EM 48, 10.8.41]." However, Himmler had not given him authority to proceed independently of Lohse because, on August 10, Stahlecker was still complaining that:
After this task is completed, they will be used as police units, also outside their own home areas. Since the Army Group urgently demands a quick solution because of the difficult situation with the partisans and the difficulties involving the dual front, the Einsatzgruppe urgently asks for general instructions how to deal with this question [EM 48, 10.8.41].
It would therefore appear at this point that the policy of Himmler (and by implication Hitler) was to incentivize and encourage the SS to kill all Jewish men, women and children but not to interfere directly in their political struggles with the the Reichskommissar.
In response to this impasse, Jaeger's EK 3 simply proceeded to kill every Jew in its path until it was impeded by the direct intervention of Gewecke and Lohse in the case of Schaulen. As a result, by the end of 1941, the Jewish population of Lithuania had been reduced to around 43,000, concentrated in the ghettos of Schaulen, Vilnius and Kaunas [Arad, here, p.247].
Himmler had, to some degree, delegated the battle for control over the rate of extermination to local level, where it was fought out between the SS, civil administration and Wehrmacht. There was fundamental agreement that Jews would eventually be exterminated in the Ostland (Lohse had prefaced his guidelines with "as long as, further measures for the final solution are not possible...") but the SS wanted this to be "an almost one hundred percent immediate cleansing" whereas Lohse saw the civil administration as performing a holding operation, such as was taking place in the General Government, pending victory in the war and a decision to exterminate the Jews on a Europe-wide basis. Stahlecker and Jaeger escalated killing measures, with Himmler's implied backing, to pre-empt what they saw as Lohse's power grab over these Jews.
A whole cottage industry has sprung up in recent years devoted to "proving" that the late Elie Wiesel was a total fraud: an impostor who stole an actual Auschwitz survivor's identity. Most of the crazies are of course Holocaust deniers. One notable exception is an actual Jewish Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivor, Nikolaus Grüner, whose bookStolen Identity. Auschwitz Number A-7713 serves as a springboard for the deniers.
To remind our readers: according to Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) in Auschwitz he had the number (and a corresponding tattoo) A-7713, his father Shlomo Wiesel had the number A-7712.
The basic denial claims look like this:
1. Elie Wiesel allegedly had no visible Auschwitz tattoo.
2. Camp documents allegedly show that Lazar Wiesel A-7713 from Auschwitz was born in 1913 (not 1928 as Elie Wiesel; note: both "Elie" and "Lazar" are variants of the name "Eliezer") and that A-7712, who Elie Wiesel said was his father Shlomo, was actually someone named Abram Viezel.
3. Grüner claimed that he knew the "actual" Lazar Wiesel A-7713 in Auschwitz (Monowitz) and Buchenwald and that he wasn't the same person as Elie Wiesel. Moreover, Grüner claimed to have also known the prisoner A-7712, Lazar's brother Abram.
From this the conspirologists conclude that Elie Wiesel stole Lazar Wiesel's identity, sometimes claiming that he also stole the book Night, which is a shorter version of a thicker volume in Yiddish Un di velt hot geshvign, which was, according to some of them, written by the "real" Lazar Wiesel.
They never provide a plausible account of why, how and at what point the "switch" is supposed to have occurred, what happened to the "real" Wiesel and why none of the people who knew Elie Wiesel since Buchenwald have spoken up except Grüner. But such "minor" matters have never stopped the deniers, have they?
Anyway, let's take a brief look at the claims of fraud.
The Tattoo
This has become sort of a staple of denial. There is a whole site called eliewieseltattoo.com run by a ridiculously ignorant neo-Nazi Carolyn Yeager.
The deniers point to a couple of low quality videos in which Wiesel's bare forearm can be seen and say that since the tattoo is not discernible in them he must have had none.
Here is the "argument" summed up by the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer:
Now, the argument hardly makes sense. Individual tattoos differed in how "bright" and distinct they were, depending on the specific circumstances. It is thus of no use pointing to some survivors' still distinct and clearly visible tattoos and claiming that Wiesel's should have looked exactly the same. If Wiesel's tattoo was faint from the start, it would have gotten even fainter with age, since tattoos fade somewhat with time. And the bright sun shining on it like in the video would have actually obscured it on film rather than making it more clear - that is, if the deniers marked the right place on his arm at all, which, as we'll see in a moment, is not even the case.
For a comparison, here is another barely visible tattoo, this one from Andy Roth, A-8520 in Auschwitz (photo credit: Tom Rogers).
Such a tattoo would not have been visible under the exact same circumstances Wiesel was filmed in the instances above.
Similarly, Martin Greenfield's (Maxmilian Grünfeld's) A-4406 tattoo is barely legible (photo by Joseph Victor Stefanchik/The Washington Post):
There is photographic evidence that Elie Wiesel had exactly this kind of a faint tattoo. Yeager even gathered some of it in the article "How Wiesel’s “tattoo” looks from where I’m sitting", in which she grudgingly acknowledged that some kind of a tattoo can be seen.
It is sufficient to post just two of those photos, or, to be more precise, the closeups of the tattoo from those photos.
One photo is from 1945:
The other one is a 2006 photo for Haaretz by Eyal Toueg:
It's faint, but it's there.
Yeager then sort of moves the goalposts, complaining about how the number is not readable, but this doesn't change the fact that the original argument has been debunked: deniers can't show that Wiesel didn't have the tattoo he claimed to have and should have had as the survivor A-7713. The denier arguments about videos and photos "not showing" the tattoo were bunk from the start.
The Documents
Now we come to the interesting part. Neither Grüner, nor the deniers are lying when they say that authentic wartime documents exist that show the prisoner A-7713's date of birth as 04.09.1913 (not 30.09.1928, Wiesel's official DOB, or 04.10.1928, his DOB in some of the post-liberation documents) and A-7712's name as Abram (and not Shlomo).
The Holocaust denier Carlo Mattogno summed up some of them in "Elie Wiesel: New Documents" at the Inconvenient History blog. The most prominent one is Lazar Wiesel's personal card from Buchenwald:
This doesn't automatically mean, however, that Wiesel's claims about his identity are somehow false. For some reason the deniers have refused to seriously entertain the possibility that that is merely a series of clerical mistakes (where there is one, there could be more...).
Mattogno, for example, claims:
In conclusion, we can say that Elie Wiesel can be neither Lazar Wiesel, nor Lázár Wiesel, nor Lazar Vizel and that the ID number A-7713 was not assigned to him but to Lazar Wiesel, while ID A-7712 was not assigned to his father but to Abram (or Abraham) Viesel (or Wiesel).
The charge of identity theft raised against Elie Wiesel by Miklos Grüner does not concern Lazar Wiesel only, but Lázár Wiesel as well: from the former, he took the Auschwitz ID number (A-7713), from the latter the stay at Buchenwald and the later transfer to Paris.
Elie Wiesel may have known Lazar Wiesel and built his own story on the latter’s account, embellished where needed. Here, however, we are moving into the region of conjecture, even though it is likely that the truth will have to be looked for in this direction.
The other possibility – that Elie Wiesel is himself Lazar Wiesel – must be excluded for obvious reasons of chronology: he would now be 97 years of age! On the other hand, why “change” the date of his birth once again, to 30 September 1928, after having “falsified” it to 4 October 1928?
Mattogno, Yeager and others have tied themselves into a Gordian knot inventing more and more of various separate Wiesels/Viezels/Vizels/... whereas the most parsimonious solution is so simple: Eliezer (Lazar, Elie) Wiesel is one person and the contradictory information in the documents stems from mere clerical mistakes.
That documents can be mistaken on such details is a given. An example of the Polish aviator Janina Lewandowska comes to mind. She was the daughter of Jozef Dowbor-Musnicki, born on 22.4.1908 and was one of the Katyn victims. She figures in a 1940 NKVD transport list as Janina Lewandowska, daughter of Marian, born in 1914. It would be plain idiotic to claim on such a basis that there were two different Janina Lewandowska's in Katyn.
As a whole, the documents used by Grüner and the deniers so far actually fit Elie Wiesel's identity with the notable exception of the above-mentioned two contradictions: there was a Lazar Wiesel (from Sighet) A-7713 in Auschwitz whose parents were Solomon Wiesel and Serena Wiesel née Feig (cf. the Buchenwald card for prisoner 123565). This fits with Elie Wiesel's official birth certificate. Contrary to Mattogno there is no evidence that it was issued on the basis of a self-declaration rather than official Sighet records - indeed, we even know the date on which the birth (30.09.1928) was entered into the civil registry (06.10.1928) and even the civil registry number (511); comparing an official state civil registry with the Yad Vashem database is asinine, but typically Mattognesque. Elie Wiesel's father was Solomon Vizel, his mother was Sura (i.e. Sarah) Vizel née Feig (Sarah and Serena are used interchangeably on rare occassions) This also fits with the A.E.F. D.P. Registration Record published by the International Tracing Service after Wiesel's death. His parents are specified as Salomon Wiesel and Szerena Feig there.
The prisoner no. 123565 was also registered in block 66 which was a children's block, not a block for 31-year-old men. In the American Buchenwald questionnaire the same prisoner figures under no. 123165 ("1" instead of "5" is a proven clerical error since this is actually Pavel Kun's number). This prisoner was born in 1928 in Sighet, was in Auschwitz, and could name Samuel Jakobovits as one of his references. Samuel Jakobovits in turn also names Lazar Wiesel as one of his references. Thus they knew each other. And Jakobovits was about the same age as Lazar-1928, from the same town and actually arrived in Auschwitz in the same transport as Lazar-1913. So the identity of Lazar-1913 and Lazar-1928 is rather obvious. And Lazar-1928 was transferred from Buchenwald to Paris. Again, this fits the Elie Wiesel life story. It should be noted that Jakobovits was moved to France with the same transport and kept in touch with Elie Wiesel and his family. There is simply no "opening" in this chain of events in which an impostor could insert himself.
It is true that Nikolaus Grüner claimed to have known brothers Lazar and Abraham Wiesel (A-7713 and A-7712) since his stay in Monowitz (p. 49) but his own book undercuts his credibility on this issue. Remember: he claimed not to have recognized Elie Wiesel as his old Lazar Wiesel during a meeting in 1986 (pp. 31-33). And yet on 05.01.2000 he wrote a letter to Elie Wiesel (fig. 14 and 14.1 in his book):
Ever since you regained your freedom from the eternal threat of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, you have shown great courage and furthermore displayed a huge sacrifice so as to save mankind from yet another Holocaust to come. For this action, in respect, you have also received the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Honourable Chairman and Participator A-7713, I would like to ask you kindly to study my plea for correction (given below) to the Swedish 'Living History Project' which contains erroneous information and which proposes further measures to protect the world against another Holocaust in the future.
[...]
Honourable Chairman! I have reached the point of confidence when I would like you to remember the day when we were liberated, when our joint weight was less than 55 kg. Today, however, fifty five years later and both of us in our seventies, despite all the tremendous work, time, money, effort and energy invested in the teaching of the history of the Holocaust, we are yet again being accused of being a serious threat to the average man's economy and thus are probably facing in the future yet another Holocaust to come.
[...]
With this in mind I enclose with this letter a proposition to set up an organisation whose aim is the 'Worldwide Memorial Protection of the Holocaust and all the other Genocides'.
In this text he doesn't doubt Wiesel's age (Lazar-1913 wouldn't have been in his seventies), his camp number and their shared experiences.
It would seem then that it is only after Wiesel ignored Grüner's letter that the whole "I knew the real Lazar Wiesel" story was concocted. (I'm thankful to the user "uberjude" at the AHF for this observation).
So far we have examined only the published documents and have seen how weak the denier arguments are. But now is the time to cut right through this Gordian knot.
Dr. Kenneth Waltzer has kindly supplied me with the documents from the International Tracing Service about the prisoners A-7712 and A-7713 (see Appendix 1).
Of them the most important documents concerning the prisoner A-7712 are the following:
A personal card from Buchenwald given to Abram Viezel, Buchenwald number 123488, death on 02.02.1945, official reason: collapse from general body weakness. Born in Sighet on 10.10.1900, wife: Serena Viezel née Feik.
Another card (Nummernkarte) about the same prisoner, new details: his father was Lazar Viezel, mother - Betty Viezel née Bosch. Wife is Serena Viezel née Faik. Most importantly there is Viezel's signature and it reads: "Viezel Salomon". His occupation is given as "Schlosser" (locksmith).
The personal effects card for the same prisoner. With his personal signature, which, again, reads "Viezel Salomon". Someone struck out "Salomon" and wrote in "Abram" instead.
We see therefore how the Nazi bureaucracy functioned in this case: Shlomo Wiesel wrote his own name as "Salomon" and apparently some functionary corrected it to the official "Abram", because that's what the other documents said. It was useless to protest. Ordnung muss sein.
The most important ITS documents concerning the prisoner A-7713:
A personal card from Buchenwald, which has already been published (and mentioned above), given to Lazar Wiesel, number 123565. Born in Sighet on 04.09.1913, not married. Father: Szalamo Wiesel (with the comment that he is also in Buchenwald), mother: Serena Wiesel née Feig (in Auschwitz). Profession: "Schlosserlehrling" (locksmith's apprentice). Bears Lazar Wiesel's signature.
Another card (Nummernkarte) about the same prisoner, also bears Wiesel's signature.
The signatures on these two cards of the prisoner A-7713/123565 correspond to the signature on the questionnaire of the Military Government of Germany mentioned above (mistakenly ascribed to prisoner 123165), in which Lazar Wiesel says he was born on 04.10.1928. This confirms that the previously specified date of birth in 1913 was a clerical mistake. This also confirms the identity of Lazar Wiesel born in 1928 with the Auschwitz prisoner A-7713.
Moreover, we can clearly see that contrary to Nikolaus Grüner's claim A-7712 and A-7713 were not brothers and A-7712's real name was Salomon, not Abraham.
These documents also confirm Elie Wiesel's claim that A-7712 was his father Shlomo (Solomon, Salomon):
A-7712 was Salomon Viezel, the husband of Serena Viezel née Faik/Feik.
A-7713 was a son of Szalamo Wiesel and Serena Wiesel née Feig.
Therefore A-7713 was A-7712's son, just as Elie Wiesel claimed.
As mentioned before, this also corresponds to the data in Elie Wiesel's birth certificate and the A.E.F. D.P. card. (And this further buttresses the fact that "1913" was a clerical mistake, since Lazar Wiesel's father was registered as having been born in 1900.)
True, there are still some minor contradictions. For example the date of Shlomo Wiesel's death - was it Jan. 27, as Elie Wiesel claimed in his Yad Vashem submission for his father, or was it the night between Jan. 28 and 29, as he wrote in Night, or was it Feb. 2, as the camp documents state? Wiesel could have been very easily misremembering the date, plus generally we shouldn't rely on memoirists' memory-based chronologies. But we should also not assume that Feb. 2 was the exact date of death either, rather than, say, the day when Wiesel's death was officially registered. There could be a confluence of mistakes at play here again, and again it simply doesn't matter for the issue at hand: at worst it's a case of bad memory.
Then there is the matter of Elie Wiesel's date of birth, given as 04.10.1928 in the 1940s (with the exception of the DP card, where it is given as 04.05.1928; the card was filled out in May so that may explain the mistake) and as 30.09.1928 in the official birth certificate. However the teenager who, according to transport lists, traveled to a children's home in France and whom we know to be Elie Wiesel (fromnumerousphotos, from other Buchenwald Boys' memoirs, from the reminiscences of the educators, etc. - it's not like these things happened in a vacuum) also had the same October date of birth listed, so whatever the reason for the discrepancy, it doesn't matter as far as Elie Wiesel's identity is concerned.
The convergence of the documentary information that we do have proves that Elie Wiesel was what he claimed to be, some inevitable mistakes and minor contradictions notwithstanding. I summed up the most relevant sources in two tables in Appendix 2.
So in the end we know that Nikolaus Grüner lied about Elie Wiesel being an impostor. It's not plausible to suggest that it's a mere false memory, because aside from the details of Grüner's testimony being based on the clerical mistakes discussed above he also invented a story about his imaginary grown up "Lazar Wiesel" having been allowed into the children's block - he had to, in order to mask the contradiction caused by real Wiesel's documented registration in this block.
And the deniers - especially the ever laughable neo-Nazi Carolyn Yeager and the bumbling and mendacious pseudoresearcher Carlo Mattogno, who have been exposed so many times by us, - have shown their true faces once again, latching onto Grüner's tall tale, jumping to conclusions not warranted by the documents they had at their disposal, not applying Occam's razor and not trying to do a better research. These frauds have been discredited - once again.
Appendix 1: The ITS documents.
Courtesy of Dr. Kenneth Waltzer.
1. Lazar Wiesel: Personal card envelope, Buchenwald, postwar IST-L-1
2. Lazar Wiesel: Nummernkarte ITS-L-2
3. Lazar Wiesel: Effektenkarte ITS-L-3
4. Lazar Wiesel: Postkontr.-Karte ITS-L-4
5. Lazar Wiesel: Arbeitskarte ITS-L-5
6. Lazar Wiesel: Military Government in Germany Questionnaire ITS-L-6
Appendix 2: Collation of information from sources relevant to Elie and Shlomo Wiesel's stay in the camps.
Note: various secondary museum sources, such as database entries and letters with information, are not included here. It is not clear, for example, that the information about the date of birth and names in the letter by K. Smolen comes from any Auschwitz documents rather than from the Buchenwald records (which were available to the Auschwitz Museum since the letter also contains information about the date of registration in Buchenwald).
Goebbels' diary [hereafter TB], January 31, 1941: "Discussed with Bouhler the discreet liquidation of the mentally ill. 40,000 have gone, 60,000 have still to go. It’s a tough but necessary job. And it has to be done. Bouhler is the right man to do it [Longerich, Peter. Goebbels: A Biography (Kindle Locations 21516-21520). Random House Publishing Group, 2015. Kindle Edition, 21519, n.62; German text here]."
Das Reich, July 20, 1941: "Just as the fist of an awakened Germany has struck this racial filth, the fist of an awakened Europe will surely follow. Mimicry will not help the Jews then. They will have to face their accusers. The court of the nations will judge their oppressor. Without pity or forgiveness, the blow will strike. The world enemy will fall, and Europe will have peace [source and source]."
TB, August 7, 1941: Goebbels states that Jews in the Warsaw ghetto are carriers of infectious diseases and must be locked up and left to themselves or liquidated [source].
TB August 11, 1941: “In the major cities the Jews are receiving their just deserts. Masses of them are being beaten to death by the self-defense organizations of the Baltic peoples. What the Führer prophesied is coming true: that if Jewry succeeded in once again provoking a war it would cease to exist [Longerich, 21520-21534, n.68; German text here]."
TB August 19, 1941, German text here, summarized by Longerich, 11185:
As Goebbels had previously assumed, Hitler too adopted an uncompromising position on the “Jewish question.” “He agrees that we should introduce a large visible Jewish badge for all Jews in the Reich” so that “the danger of Jews being grumblers and malcontents without people recognizing them as Jews is removed.” Moreover, Hitler had promised “to deport the Berlin Jews as quickly as possible to the east as soon as the first transportation becomes available. There they will be subjected to a harsher climate.” Later Hitler once more returned to the topic and expressed his conviction that “the prophecy that he had made to the Reichstag back then that, if the Jews succeeded once again in provoking a world war, the final annihilation of the Jews would be assured. During these weeks and months, that was coming true with a certainty that was almost uncanny. The Jews must pay the bill in the east; in Germany they had almost paid it and would have to pay still more in the future.”
TB, August 19, 1941, quoting Hitler: "But I will not rest or be idle until we too have gone all the way with the Jews [translation in Browning, p.320]." Context: The Rumanians had been shooting entire Jewish communities, based on an order given by Antonescu on June 16, 1941 [see Ancel, here, note 21]. Hitler was alluding to a matching escalation in the USSR, with the possibility of also killing Reich Jews after deporting them to the USSR.
TB, August 23, 1941: Goebbels bemoans the fact that the euthanasia program has become too controversial in view of Galen's opposition. Goebbels writes that it is It is intolerable that during a war, hundreds of thousands of people who are completely stupid and can never can be cured are allowed to use up valuable resources [source].
TB, September 5, 1941: Notes shooting of Jews in Bessarabia [Longerich, 21534, n.68]
TB, October 19, 1941: “massive shooting of Jews in the Ukraine [Longerich, 21534, n.68].”
27-31 October 1941, summarized by Longerich, 11438-11446:
Goebbels’s solution was to launch another anti-Semitic campaign at the end of October without referring to the deportations from Germany. This campaign once more targeted the alleged dominant influence of the Jews in the Soviet Union, in the United States, and in Great Britain and was intended to prove the existence of the Jewish world conspiracy. Another event, however, formed the prelude: A letter written by the Romanian head of state, Ion Antonescu, to Wilhelm Filderman, the leading Jewish representative in that country, in which he strongly rejected the latter’s complaints about the deportation of the Bessarabian Jews to Transnistria, was given widespread coverage in the press. The press was instructed to give this letter and the deportations from Bessarabia prominence and to recall Hitler’s prophecy of January 1939 in which he had predicted “the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe” in the event of a world war. The Völkischer Beobachter reported on October 27 under the headline “They Dug Their Own Grave! Jewish Warmongers Sealed Jewry’s Fate.” As instructed by the propaganda minister, the article included the quotation from Hitler’s speech of January 30, 1939, in full and added: “What the Führer announced prophetically then has now become reality. The war of revenge against Germany stirred up by the Jews has now turned on the Jews themselves. The Jews must follow the path that they prepared for themselves.”
Das Reich, November 16, 1941: "The Jews are receiving a penalty that is certainly hard, but more than deserved. World Jewry erred in adding up the forces available to it for this war, and now is gradually experiencing the destructon that it planned for us, and would have carried out without a second thought if it had possessed the ability. It is perishing according its own law: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth [source and source]."
TB, December 12, 1941, on Hitler's address to the Gau and Reich leaders: "As concerns the Jewish question, the Führer is determined to make a clean sweep. He had prophesied to the Jews that if they once again brought about a world war they would experience their own extermination. This was not just an empty phrase. The World War is there, the extermination of Jewry must be the necessary consequence. This question must be seen without sentimentality. We are not here in order to have sympathy with the Jews, rather we sympathize with our own German people. If the German people have now once again sacrificed as many as 160,000 dead in the Eastern campaign, then the authors of this bloody conflict must pay with their lives [source, paragraph, 5.128]."
Conclusions:
1) Hitler's Reichstag prophecy is invoked repeatedly, and knowingly. Whilst this does not yet entail systematic extermination in death camps, the prospect of mass death being inflicted on deported Jews in the USSR is already a motivating force, albeit for after the war.
2) Antonescu's influence on Hitler has arguably been neglected by historians. Antonescu had initiated the killing of women and children in the USSR via his instructions of June 16, 1941 [see Ancel, here, note 21]. Hitler was aware of these killings via the reports of Einsatzgruppe D. His approval of these killings was an important green light for the Final Solution. Hitler's response to Antonescu's rebuke of Filderman in October 1941, with the Fuehrer again invoking the prophecy, shows that the genocide committed by the Rumanians in Transnistria cohered with Hitler's conception of how his prophecy was now relevant to the times.
Since I wrote on this topic last, right wing bloggers and journalists have circled the wagons around Sebastian Gorka, Trump's deputy adviser for national security and purported anti-terrorism expert. Responding to reporting by the Forward, on the Lobelog blog, and in the Hungarian press, Richard Miniter – among other writers – responded on the Forbes Web site.
Miniter's defense of Gorka is remarkable for its sheer length and comprehensiveness. Going point by point, Miniter begins with the assertion that charges of anti-Semitism on Gorka's part, on the basis of his having cofounded a political party with former members of the Jobbik far-right party, are a matter of guilt by association. He elaborates:
Gorka founded a party that included some people who came from another party and that other party had some figures who… Really? This is the argument here? Gorka wrote for a newspaper that also published content that critics called “anti-Semitic” and hung around opposition figures that included people that critics say are “anti-Semitic,” therefore…. Even if the critics were right about the alleged “anti-Semitism” of the other journalists and the other politicians (and there are good reasons to believe that their characterizations are highly questionable), it reveals nothing about Gorka or his beliefs. Sharing a room with Helen Keller does not make one blind; sharing a subway car with Albert Einstein does not make one a genius.
Miniter has something of a point – the mere fact of a relationship between Gorka and some loathsome characters on Hungary's far right cannot be used alone to establish the political leanings of Gorka himself.
However, the analogy that ends the quote above is inapt. No, sharing a room with Helen Keller does not make one blind; however, sharing a political party with her might result in the reasonable assumption that the person sharing that party is a socialist, as Keller herself was. Moreover, it's certainly true that sharing a subway car with Albert Einstein does not make one a genius; however, publishing scholarly articles in the same journals with Einstein might reasonably result in the assumption that the person in question is a theoretical physicist.
Taking Miniter's argument about Gorka's political assumptions one by one, we can begin with the assertion that "Gorka wrote for a newspaper that also published content that critics called 'anti-Semitic' and hung around opposition figures that included people that critics say are 'anti-Semitic.'" What's irksome about this passage is not only the sneer quotes around "anti-Semitic" but also what even a cursory examination of the people in question reveals about their political points of view.
Among the photos making the rounds is one of Gorka standing to Támás Molnár (above), one of the former Jobbik members referred to above. As the screenshot shown below reveals, the two men are Facebook friends. To be fair, Gorka has more than 2,000 "friends" on Facebook, but there are several other Jobbik members and political allies not on Gorka's friends list. We might assume (and I do believe that the evidence suggests that Gorka should address this issue directly) that the two men are friends.
So what does Molnár believe? Apparently at least some of what informs Molnár's ideology is a belief in "double genocide" -- a popular right-wing theory in countries subjected to occupation by both the Nazis and the Soviets. Where the theory has seen expression most publicly since 1991 has been in the Baltic states, including Latvia, where members of the Latvian Legion of the Waffen-SS have marched in parades with the status of heroes for having fought the Soviets.
Double genocide proponents in Hungary focus on Soviet repression, which began with the Soviet invasion in 1945 and extended through the late 1990s, with the peak occurring in 1956. These proponents suggest not only that the Soviet repression was as costly as Nazi occupation in terms of human lives (it was not: thousands were killed in 1956 vs. hundreds of thousands in 1944), but often, that the perpetrators of Soviet repression were Jewish.
This uncanny focus on the Jewish ancestry of some Hungarian communists is something we've seen before -- see Sergey Romanov's insightful comment on our blog. Molnár is apparently a firm believer, having co-signed an open letter on a Web site indicating refusal of the party (of which Gorka was cofounder) to sign a proclamation denouncing racism and anti-Semitism.
(I am in the process of seeking translation from Hungarian for this material and will post it when I do.)
Incidentally, this Web site features several bloggers from the party, one of whom is Gorka himself.
Lest we think that Molnár's views have moderated since he collaborated with Facebook friend Gorka in the mid-2000s, we need only consider the story of Eszter Solymosi, a Hungarian girl at the center of a blood libel in Hungary in the late 19th century. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the case has been revived since 1989 by Jobbik. Daniel Véri writes:
Besides the revival of Eszter Solymosi’s imaginary portrait, which will be examined in the next part of the study, two further works were created, showing the girl as a Christian martyr. Both were published on kuruc.info, the major news portal of the Hungarian extreme right. The first was created in 2008 by an unknown artist, the second – inspired by the previous one – in 2009 by painter Tamás Molnár.
The name Támás Molnár, it turns out, is not terribly rare in Hungary. It was the name of a conservative Catholic philosopher and U.S. resident, who died some time ago. It's also the name of a Hungarian Olympic water polo player. And, finally, it's the name of two artists -- one of whom was also a member of Jobbik.
Should Mr. Miniter be reading this, we can disagree over whether a double genocide theory is anti-Semitic. On blood libel, I don't think the jury is still out. Gorka has to answer for his friend.
====
Added at 5:30 p.m. EDT
The Forward has just published video of Gorka defending Jobbik's Garda paramilitary. An interview with Gorka from 2007 has him appearing to do the same.
It is often assumed that no Axis orders were issued before the invasion to kill women and children in any part of the USSR, but this assumption is false. The General Inspector of the Romanian Gendarmerie, Constantin Vasiliu, issued an order on June 17 or 18, 1941, mandating "the extermination on the spot of all Jews in rural areas, enclosing them in ghettos in urban areas, and the arrest of all those suspected of being Communist party members or of having held important functions under Soviet rule [cited by Ancel, here, note 21, and by Deletant, p.143]." However, it is correct that in the area under the authority of HSSPF Jeckeln, the killing of women and children only became systematic in late August. Prior to the Kamenets-Podolsky massacre of 27.8.41, 40,000 Jews had been killed, but from 27.8.41 to 30.9.41, 100,000 were murdered [Dieter Pohl, here, p.32]. This article examines how the German policy escalated from one of primarily shooting male Jews (as a "security measure" or in reprisal) to one of exterminating whole Jewish population centres.
The argument below follows Pohl in showing how the impetus came from a combination of pressures from above and below. The German shooters and their collaborators were inspired by the fact that Einsatzgruppe D and the Rumanians had been exterminating entire communities along the Black Sea coast since the invasion. For example, 321 Jews of all ages and sexes were massacred at Sculeni, Bessarabia, in early July following an evacuation order by German Colonel Buck [Deletant, p.144]. In addition, the Wehrmacht proved to be willing facilitators, providing both manpower and ideological cover, as shown by the Reichenau order, which although dated October 10, must have reflected his position in August when he allowed surviving children to be shot in Bila Tserkva, a week before the Kamenets-Podolsky massacre. Reichenau had angrily dismissed the complaint of Groscurth that "[Riedl] stated that he considers the extermination of the Jewish women and children to be absolutely necessary, regardless of how this is to be done [Groscurth, 295th Infantry Division, 20.8.41]." According to Reichenau, "I [had] decided that once started the operation should be properly carried through."
Pressure from above was exerted by Himmler, who had given extra manpower to the leaders of the security police (HSSPF), with a mission to kill Jews more systematically than had been the case of the early weeks since the invasion. Himmler in turn was encouraged by more radical utterances by Hitler, such as those on July 16 here (which authorized "all necessary measures—shooting, resettling, etc") and August 19 (which praised Antonescu and said "But I will not rest or be idle until we too have gone all the way with the Jews [translation in Browning, p.320])."
One of the tasks of the HSSPF was to provide more ruthlessness than had sometimes been exerted by Einsatzgruppen leaders. Some early Einsatzgruppen Situation Reports (hereafter EMs) had expressed skepticism about being able to shoot millions of Jews without an overall Europe-wide order of extermination being in place. Rasch had suggested that "Until the final solution of the Jewish question for the entire continent is achieved, the superfluous Jewish masses can be excellently employed and used for cultivating the vast Pripet swamps, the northern Dnieper swamps as well as those of the Volga [EM 52, 14.8.41]." This would result in "a gradual liquidation of the Jews, a development which corresponds to the economic conditions of the country [EM 86, 17.9.41]." However, Rasch was removed from his post in October 1941, and his successor stated unequivocally that "The extermination of the Jews, who are, without any doubt, useless as workers and more harmful as the carriers of the bacillae of Communism, was [unavoidably] necessary [EM 133, 14.11.41]."
Jeckeln provided Himmler with a daily report on shootings, summarized by Yad Vashem as follows:
Page 105-107: Report dating from August 20 on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade and the Stabskompanie HSSUPF Sued, which shot 514 Jews and two partisans, southwest of Starokonstantinov.
Page 108: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade and Polizeibataillone 45 and 314 on August 21. Polizeibataillon 45 shot five prisoners (including three women), 19 "bandits" and 66 Jews, at an unknown place. Furthermore, they shot 471 Jews in Sudilkov. Battalion 314 shot 28 Ukrainians in Kulczka.
Page 109-111: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade and Polizeiregiment Sued on August 21. The 1. SS-Brigade arrested and possibly shot five Communists in Luginy. They also arrested 30 in Opiluja. Polizeibataillon 314 shot 367 Jews, south of Rollbahn Nord.
Page 112: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade, which shot 65 Jews and took 48 prisoners near Korosten-Belokorovichi, on August 23.
Page 113-116: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade and Polizeiregiment Sued on August 23. An unspecified Einsatzgruppe shot 12 "bandits" and 70 Jews. Polizeibataillon 314 shot 294 Jews, Battalion 45 shot 61 Jews near Kowel. Polizeischwadron shot 113 Jews in Polonnoye.
Page 117: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade. On August 24, SS-Infanterie-Regiment 10 shot 283 Jews and took 85 prisoners.
Page 118: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued. On August 24, Pol. Regiment Sued shot 1,342 Jews in Baranovka, Dubrovka and Izyaslav. Polizeibataillon 314 captured eight paratroopers and shot them.
Page 120: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade, which shot 82 Jews and took 46 prisoners on August 25.
Page 121-122: Report on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade, Polizeiregiment Sued, Polizeibataillon 314 and the Stabskompanie des HSSUPF Russland Sued on August 26. Polizeiregiment Sued captured one paratrooper and shot 549 Jews. Polizeibataillon 314 shot 69 Jews. Stabskompanie des HSSUPF Russland Sued shot 546 Jews in Berdichev.
Page 123: Report by the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade, Polizeiregiment Sued and Polizeibataillon 320 on August 27. During an operation north of the Rollbahn Korosten-Bielokorovichi, the 1. SS-Brigade shot 16 Jews and partisans and took 99 prisoners. Polizeiregiment Sued arrested 22 former POWs and shot 914 Jews. Polizeibataillon 320 and an Einsatzgruppe der Stabskompanie shot 4,200 Jews in Kamenets-Podolsk.
Page 124: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade on its activities on August 26, when they shot 16 Jews and partisans and took 99 prisoners, east of Bielokorovichi.
Page 125: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade on its activities on August 27, when they shot 12 Jews and one partisan north of Korosten–Bielokorovichi.
Page 130: Message from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities on August 27: The 1. SS-Brigade took 42 prisoners, shot 12 Jews and one partisan north of Korosten–Bielokorovichi (see page 125). Also, Polizeiregiment Sued shot 369 Jews and took four prisoners in a forest north of Jwatki (?). Polizeibatiallon 304 shot two parachutists, three Bolsheviks and one Jew. Polizeibataillon 320 shot 5,000 Jews during a raid in Kamenets-Podolsk. (See also pages 132 and 134)
Page 131: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade on August 28. They continued a raid, north of the Rollbahn Korosten-Bielokorovichi during which they shot 77 Jews and took 18 prisoners.
Page 132: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade, the Stabskompanie HSSUPF Russland Sued and Polizeibatallion 320 on August 28. The Stabskompanie HSSUPF Russland Sued finished its raids in Kamenets-Podolsk, with the shooting of 7,000 Jews. The total number of murdered Jews in Kamenets-Podolsk thus increased to 20,000. In a correction of earlier reports (see page 130), the number of murdered Jews in Kamenets-Podolsk on August 27 was 11,000, not 5,000. Furthermore, it was not Polizeibataillon 320, but the Stabskompanie HSSUPF Russland Sued that carried out the executions. Polizeibataillon 320 only guarded the activities. (See also page 134)
Page 133: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the SS-Kavalleriebrigade and Polizeiregiment Mitte on August 29. SS-Kavallerie Regiment 2 shot 40 Russians south of Rollbahn 1 near Domunowicze and Skawzin. Also, Polizeiregiment Mitte shot 84 Jews near Bykhov and 180 partisans near Gorditschew (?) and Kolitschenka. They also took 14 prisoners.
Page 134-135: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade, Polizeiregiment Sued and Polizeibataillon 320 on August 29. The 1. SS-Brigade took one prisoner and shot 65 Jews north of the road Ignatpol-Malakhovka-Usovo. Polizieregiment Sued concluded a raid, south of the Zvyagel-Zhitomir road. They took three Ukrainians and four Russians, probably paratroopers, as prisoners and handed them over to the SD. The number of Jews murdered by the Stabskompanie HSSUPF Russland Sued was corrected to read 23,600.
Page 137: Message from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade, Polizeibataillone 304 and 320, and Polizeiregiment Sued on August 31. The 1. SS-Brigade arrested twelve men, including five partisans, north of the road Ignatpol-Malachowka-Usewo. Polizeiregiment Sued shot 20 partisans, including four women, near Dowbisch. In Slavuta, they arrested four Russians and handed them over to the SD, and shot 911 Jews. Polizeibataillon 320 shot 2,200 Jews during a raid in Minkovtsy.
Page 138: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade on August 31. They shot 66 Jews and two partisans along the Ovruch-Levkoviche-Slovechno line near Selezovka.
Page 143: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade on its activities on September 1, when they shot 15 Jews and 19 partisans.
Page 145: Message from HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade and Polizeiregiment Sued on September 3. The 1. SS-Brigade shot 26 Jews and nine, northwest of the Ovruch-Slovechno line. Polizeiregiment Sued shot 4,144 Jews.
Page 146: Report from the 1. SS-Brigade, which shot seven Jews in Lelchitsy on September 4.
Page 147: Report from the HSSUPF Russland Sued on the activities of the 1. SS-Brigade, Polizeiregiment Sued, Polizeibataillon 320 and the Stabskompanie HSSPF Russland Sued on September 6. The Stabskompanie HSSPF Russland Sued murdered 1,303 Jews in Berdichev.
2) Christopher Browning collated these reports, based on YVA O.53/86 and O.53/128 [Ordinary Men, p.17]:
AUGUST 19: Battalion 314 shot 25 Jews. Battalion 45 at Slavuta shot 522 Jews.
AUGUST 22: Battalion 45 shot 66 and 471 Jews in two actions.
AUGUST 23: Battalion 314 shot 367 Jews in a"cleansing action."
AUGUST 24: Battalion 314 shot 294 Jews, Battalion 45 shot 61 Jews, and the "police squadron" (horse-mounted police) 113 Jews.
AUGUST 25: Police Regiment South shot 1,324 Jews.
AUGUST 27: According to the first of two reports, Police Regiment South shot 549 Jews and Battalion 314 shot 69 Jews. The second credited Police Regiment South with shooting 914 Jews.
AUGUST 28: Police Regiment South shot 369 Jews.
AUGUST 29: Battalion 320 provided the "cordon" while the staff company of the HSSPF shot 15,000 Jews at Kamenets Podolsky on August 26-27 and another 7,000 on August 28.
AUGUST 31: Battalion 320 shot 2,200 Jews in Minkovtsy.
SEPTEMBER 1: Police Regiment South shot 88 Jews; Battalion 320 shot 380.
SEPTEMBER 2: Police Regiment South shot 45 Jews.
SEPTEMBER 4: Police Regiment South shot 4,144 Jews.
SEPTEMBER 6: Police Regiment South shot 144 Jews.
SEPTEMBER 11: Police Regiment South shot 1,548 Jews.
SEPTEMBER 12: Police Regiment South shot 1,255 Jews.
OCTOBER 5: Police Battalion 304 shot 305 Jews.
Operational Situation Report 106 noted the liquidation of 36,000 Jews in Kiev and 3,145 at Zhitomir. Operational Situation Report 128 made it clear that Jews were executed because they were Jews, without any investigation into whether or not they were Bolsheviks or partisans:
As to purely execution matters, approximately 80,000 person have been liquidated by now by the Kommandos of the Einsatzgruppe.
Among these are approximately 8,000 person convicted after investigation of anti-German or Bolshevist activities.
The remainder was liquidated in retaliatory actions.
Several retaliatory measures were carried out as large-scale actions. The largest of these actions took place immediately after the occupation of Kiev. It was carried out exclusively against Jews and their entire families.
The difficulties resulting from such a large-scale action, in particular concerning the round-up, were overcome in Kiev by requesting the Jewish population to assemble, using wall posters. Although at first only the participation of 5-6000 Jews had been expected, more than 30,000 Jews arrived who, until the moment of their execution, still believed in their resettlement, thanks to extremely clever organization [propaganda]. Even though approximately 75,000 Jews have been liquidated in this manner, it is evident at this time that this cannot be the best solution of the Jewish problem. Although we succeeded, particularly in smaller towns and villages, in bringing about a complete liquidation of the Jewish problem, nevertheless, again and again it has been observed in the larger cities that after such an action, all Jews have indeed been eradicated. But, when after a certain period of time a Kommando returns, the number of Jews still found in the city always surpasses considerably the number of executed Jews.
Kiev was arguably always slated for total liquidation. Food supply and security so far east would have placed heavy burdens on the occupation. It had been noted by Halder back on July 8 that Leningrad was to be leveled so that the population would not need to be fed, and it would appear probable that Kiev shared this fate. However, more recent events were also important, notably the desire for retaliation after Stalin's announcement that he was to deport Volga Germans to Siberia [see how the Nazis reported that event here].
Conclusion: As Pohl argues, there was more than one "green light" involved in the timelines given above. Bila Tserkva, Kamenets-Podolsky, Volhynia (Berdichev, Zhitomir, Rovno) and Kiev (Babi Yar) all required judgments to be made about permissions and consequences, and these calculations worked back to the signals given by Hitler and Himmler via Jeckeln, plus the crucial role of the Wehrmacht (most notably Reichenau) in adopting at best "a blind eye" and at worst an active encouragement, as in Reichenau's subsequent order.
On September 12, 1936, Julius Streicher used the word 'extirpated' [Ausrottung] in a clearly exterminatory sense in a speech reported by The Times, reproduced on September 16 in The Glasgow Herald, shown here. Jansson claims here that the quote was imputed falsely to Streicher by Jewish organizations, and credulously chooses to believe Streicher's defence at Nuremberg. However, Jansson's own source (pp.23-24) shows that the quote was published in The Times, which was not a Jewish organization, and the original author of the article was, according to his biography, Matthew Halton, a Canadian reporter.
The average online denier is not a sophisticated creature. He is usually satisfied with a few memes he has found on Twitter or at some forum and repeats them ad infinitum, never bothering to fact-check them, thus regurgitating the deceptive tidbits that have been debunked over and over and over again. One such moldy debunked meme is the myth about the crushed testicles of 137 German defendants in the Dachau trials.
All but two of the Germans, in the 139 cases we investigated, had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair. This was Standard Operating Procedure with American investigators.
The source is given as "The Progressive, February 1949, p. 21f", the author is alleged to be Edward L. Van Roden:
a Pennsylvania judge served in World War I and II, in the latter as Chief of the Military Justice Division for the European Theater where he saw service in Normandy, Belgium, the Rhineland, the Battle of the Bulge, and in the Ardennes. In 1946 he was reassigned to active duty and served on several important court martial trials in Germany. In 1948 Secretary of the Army Royall appointed him to an extraordinary commission charged with investigating the Dachau War Crimes program.
So of course this is repeated ad nauseam on Twitter and at trashy forums like CODOH, where this is a favorite of its know-nothing Aufseher Jonnie "Hannover" Hargis.
But the meme is used not only by online clowns. More "serious" sources quote it as if it were a proven fact. Germar Rufolf, writing under pseudonym "Manfred Köhler", insists in his article "The Value of Testimony and Confessions Concerning the Holocaust" that "... Americans extorted confessions from accused persons ... the methods used were [a list of allegedly used methods ending in] crushed testicles". Robert Faurisson, in a letter to the Journal of Historical Review, quotes Manstein's not quite honest lawyer Paget, who claimed that the Simpson Inquiry Commission "reported among other things that of the 139 cases they had investigated, 137 had had their testicles permanently destroyed by kicks received from the American War Crimes Investigating Team". Carlo Mattogno repeats the meme in Intervista sull'olocausto,in My Banned Holocaust Interview and in "The Myth of the Extermination of the Jews: Part II". The claim is repeated by Richard Harwood in Did Six Million Really Die? and by Roger Garaudy in The Founding Myths of Modern Israel, by Arthur Butz in The Hoax of the Twentieth Century and by Serge Thion in Historical Truth or Political Truth?.
Which basically means that the average denial guru has not evolved far from the average denier chimp.
Anyway, the claim is of course false and of course none of the individuals mentioned above have bothered to verify it. It was decisively debunked during the Malmedy massacre investigation hearings in the US Senate in 1949.
Gordon Simpson, of the Simpson Commission (composed of Simpson and Judge Van Roden), a former justice of the Texas Supreme court, was examined about the claim in 29.04.1949 (MMI, vol I, p. 197):
Mr. CHAMBERS. Today in the examination of other witnesses and in some of the printed stories based on the Simpson report, there is reference made to the fact that a rather surprising percentage - I think out of 139 cases all but 2 of the Germans had had their testicles damaged beyond repair. Where did you find the evidence on that? Mr. SIMPSON. None at all. Mr. CHAMBERS. Were there charges made to that effect? Mr. SIMPSON. No; no claim was made to that effect in any of the records we inspected, and we diligently tried to find them. Senator MCCARTHY. Just a second. Did you read Colonel Everett's affidavit, Judge? Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. Senator MCCARTHY. You say there was no claim made. You read that before you conducted your investigation? Mr. SIMPSON. I suppose you are correct. When I say no claim was made, I am too broad in that. I like to separate between the realm of allegation and the realm of proof. I want to say I found no proof of that.
Judge Van Roden was examined on 04.05.1949 (MMI, vol I, p. 244):
Senator MCCARTHY. Yes. Am I correct in saying that you did find evidence to indicate that a sizable number of those men sentenced to die were crippled to at least some extent because of having been kicked in the testicles? Judge VAN RODEN. We found that to be so. But I have seen some of the articles in the papers and some were exaggerated. I read one the other day saying that all but two of the men had been injured for life. We did not find that. Senator MCCARTHY. But you found - Judge VAN RODEN. That some of them had been injured in their testicles. We could not find out how many.
As a side note, here is what was Van Roden's evidence consisted of (MMI, vol I, p. 250):
Senator BALDWIN. In your statement sometime ago that was made in February 1949, you said American investigators of the United States Court in Dachau, Germany, used the following methods to obtain confessions: Beating and brutal kickings. What evidence can you tell us there was of that? Judge VAN RODEN. The only evidence I can recall was what the person who came before us talked to us about, and the petitions that were filed, and I suppose Colonel Everett, of course, spoke to us and told us what he knew, and he presented, I think, two affidavits he had while in Washington, either then or before that time. I cannot remember the specific stories for each of those various things, but we learned that in the course of our investigation over there.
Riiiiight...
About the article in Progressive (MMI, vol I, pp. 256-7):
Senator HUNT. Judge Van Roden, I have here before me a magazine known as the Progressive, I believe it is called. Judge VAN RODEN. I have seen that. Senator HUNT. Which carries, I presume, a written article by you, at least it accredits the article to you, and that makes some rather serious, very serious and direct charges, and I would like to ask you some questions with reference to the source of your information for making those charges. Judge VAN RODEN. Before you do so, Senator, I want this to be made very definitely of record. I did not write that article. I had made a talk at a Rotary Club meeting in our county and a gentleman who was there took some notes on the talk, and I understand that is supposed to be a condensation of the things, some of the things that I said at that Rotary Club gathering. The gentleman who actually did write that article, actually is the author of it, telephoned to me that it was to have a byline. I did not know what a byline was, believe it or not, gentlemen. Then I was startled by receiving a copy of that as the author of that article. I am not the author of that article. Senator HUNT. Let me ask you, Judge, after having read the article, would you like to say that the statements in there are statements made by you, or are they incorrect statements attributed to you? Judge VAN RODEN. Well, some are correct and some are not correct. Senator HUNT. Judge, in your report of January 6, 1949, which you signed along with Colonel Simpson and Col. Charles W. Lawrence, this paragraph appears:
There was no general or systematic use of improper methods to secure prosecution evidence for the use at the trials.
Now, does that statement reflect your position as a member of the board? Judge VAN RODEN. I would say so as stated therein.
And later (05.05.1949), commenting on the individual passages of the article in Progressive (MMI, vol I, p. 312):
Now, in the next paragraph where it says "All but two of the Germans, in the 139 cases we investigated, had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair,"I did not say that. What I said was that all but two were recommended for commutation to life imprisonment, and the other two for other sentences. I do not know how many we heard or how many may or may not have been kicked or kneed in the testicles. We learned some had been but that figure is absolutely wrong. I do not know how many were kicked or abused in the testicles.
Later it turned out that a certain Finucane, who was the actual author of the article, ran the draft by Van Roden (03.06.1949; MMI, vol I, pp. 1112-7):
Mr. CHAMBERS. Now, I notice that in this first press release - is this item that "all but two of the Germans, in the 139 cases we investigated, had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair"? Judge VAN RODEN. Not over 130. I do not know horn many were kicked; all we found was that some of them were kicked or kneed in the groin or in their testicles. Mr. CHAMBERS. Now, in your original testimony you denied that categorically. Judge VAN RODEN. That is correct. Mr. CHAMBERS. And you said you did not say and never heard any such things. Judge VAN RODEN. I do not know how many were kicked. Some of them were kicked; I do not say none were not. Maybe I said categorically - I did not say a specific number had been kicked. I never said all but two. I think what I said there was that when I referred to "all but 2 of the 139 cases," we recommended clemency to the extent of commutation of their death sentences, but for 2, that is life imprisonment. But for two recommendations, one got 10 years and one 2 1/2 years, all but two; we recommended rather that they be commuted from death to life imprisonment. That may be where the confusion of that 2 came in, but I denied categorically, and still deny categorically that all but 2 were kicked in the testicles. Mr. CHAMBERS. It is not the question of kicking, but "damage beyond repair." Judge VAN RODEN. Damaged beyond repair. Mr. CHAMBERS. But also since it was in your original press article which you had a chance to edit and correct, why did you not see fit to delete it from there rather than later let it get out as a later story? Judge VAN RODEN. I do not know. Mr. CHAMBERS. Because that particular item has been the most inflammatory thing that has come before us. I will say the same thing about that particular part of it. Judge VAN RODEN. That one item? Mr. CHAMBERS. That one item is probably the worst, and you furthermore made the statement, or the statement was accredited to you in the original press release, that this was standard operating procedure with our American investigators, and that also appears in the Progressive. Judge VAN RODEN. Yes. Mr. CHAMBERS. You denied it later before us, and you said you did not say that; but you let it stand in the press release. Now why, Judge? Judge VAN RODEN. Oversight is all I can think of to answer that, I remember the telephone conversation; I tried to cover all that by telephone, and I wrote a letter which has gone out there. I cannot explain it to you. Mr. CHAMBERS. Well, Mr. CHAMBERS. Well, Judge, here is what I am getting at. Judge VAN RODEN. Why was it in that letter of December 18? Mr. CHAMBERS. On December 18 you wrote a detailed letter enumerating a great many items which should be deleted from this press release, but you did not see fit to delete that one about the 139 cases with respect to having been kicked in the testicles, and the statement that they had been damaged beyond repair, and the statement that this was standard operating procedure with our American investigators. Judge VAN RODEN. It should have been. Mr. CHAMBERS. It should have been? Judge VAN RODEN. It should have been.
[...]
Mr. CHAMBERS. That is right. Now, you have gone through the Progressive magazine here and scratched out certain things for us. Now, Mr. Finucane took the stand and also under oath testified that you knew all of these things. For instance, on this particular item where it appears you had a chance to correct and did not, and which has proven to be of great controversy, it, in fact, cannot be corroborated; that is, this matter of - Judge VAN RODEN. Let me see if we are very far apart on that. You are suggesting that because I did not correct the item with respect to the number of persons who had been kicked in the testicles, that should be repudiated in its entirety? I do not know if I follow that. Mr. CHAMBERS. I am not saying that at all, sir. I merely want to ask you this: You say that the whole thing - I read the two parts of it:
"All but 2 of the Germans, in the 139 cases me investigated, had been kicked in the testicles beyond repair. This was standard operating procedure with our American investigators.
Senator BALDWIN. As I understood, Judge Van Roden, you said that you did not say that. Judge VAN RODEN. As to the number, yes, sir. I said some had been kicked, and some injured beyond repair, from what we found in the papers. Senator BALDWIN. But you did not say a hundred. Judge VAN RODEN. Not all but two. Senator BALDWIN. And you did not say it was standard operating procedure. Judge VAN RODEN. No. Mr. CHAMBERS. And you further said that should have been deleted and was not deleted when you marked that up. Judge VAN RODEN. When I wrote that letter.
[...]
Mr. CHAMBERS. Now, what I was trying to find out from you was this matter of whether or not in your opinion American investigators adopted a standard operating procedure, the custom of kicking people in their testicles for the purpose of getting confessions. Judge VAN RODEN. No; I do not believe so. Mr. CHAMBERS. And if you had caught that at the time you would have deleted it. Judge VAN RODEN. I may summarize it, in answer to your question, and say this: The deletions in the Progressive that I have told you. about at the previous hearing, I still say should be deleted, and they should not be attributed to me, and those same averments, either in the same words or meaning the same thing, if they appeared in any previous press release, they are hereby repudiated by me, and should be deleted, and if they were not deleted, if one that you have mentioned here was overlooked and not deleted, all I can explain that is due to the fact of the suddenness of this matter, when this release came to me on a Saturday morning, when I tried to get them on the telephone I could not, had a lot of difficulty, finally got Finucane, and I think it was that same morning, December 18 - it must have been whether it was a Saturday or not, I can tell from the calendar - Mr. FINUCANE. Yes. Judge VAN RODEN. I took my girl there and dictated to her in the desire to get it off as soon as I possibly could, and it must have been that I overlooked mentioning that fact of 139 only 2 had escaped - let me finish. When the second release came there I got that, and I put it in my file, and I was disgusted with the whole thing, and I did not know how far it had gone; I got the impression from Mr. Libby, as a matter of fact, that the first press release had already been distributed, and it was impossible to call it back, and Mr. Finucane said that he thought there was some that they could recall and not have them delivered and have them revised. I think it could have happened on the following Monday. The time limit - I did not have the time to go over it thoroughly, but I was entirely upset and distressed about that going out without my having seen it, and that is the only excuse I can give you for not picking it up, picking up the one thing I should have picked up, because it certainly is not so that of 139 all but 2 were injured beyond repair.
So Van Roden repudiated the 137/139 meme, though claiming that they did find that some were kicked in the testicles (we've seen above what sort of shaky evidence he relied on). Simpson however disagreed with his colleague on this (MMI, vol I, p. 198):
Senator BALDWIN. Could you tell us, judge, at that point what you found in the Malmedy case with reference to the abuses of any prisoners or anything that was complained of? Mr. SIMPSON. We found no proof of physical abuse. We found proof enough of these improper methods to which I have referred, to satisfy me personally, that even though I was convinced that the record warranted the findings of guilty, I didn't want to see anybody hung in a procedure which had the blemish in it of that improper investigation; and so clemency was recommended, not because we didn't think the men were guilty, but because we didn't approve the procedures by which the cases were investigated.
The Simpson Commission report, signed by Simpson, Van Roden and Lawrence, states (MMI, vol. I, p. 1197):
Based upon the examination made and additional information from other sources, including interviews with persons connected in varying ways with the war crimes program (Tab E), it is the opinion of the undersigned that: (a) The unexecuted confirmed death sentences resulting from the Dachau war crimes trials are based upon records which [...] reflect that the trials mere essentially fair. (b) There was no general or systematic use of improper methods to secure prosecution evidence for use at the trials. (c) Except as to the cases of the twenty-nine prisoners referred to in Tab H, no reason is perceived why the death sentences under consideration, all of which were imposed for participation in murder, should not be executed.
The accusations of the alleged abuses were thus limited to a few cases (connected the the Malmedy Massacre). Since the allegations about those improper methods are not the topic of this post and since they were examined during the Senate subcommittee hearings, I refer the interested readers to the subcommittee's final report (just 35 pages, so it's not a long read).
The subcommittee ordered a medical examination of the prisoners available at Landsberg prison (Report of Subcommittee..., pp. 15-16):
The subcommittee itself secured a medical staff, consisting of two doctors and a dentist of outstanding qualifications, from the Public Health Service of the United States. This medical staff independently examined all the Malmedy prisoners who are presently at Landsberg Prison. In addition, they also examined Eble for evidence of physical abuse. They state, of those convicted prisoners at Landsberg, 11 claim that they were not physically mistreated at Schwabisch Hall, 34 allege they were physically mistreated at Schwabisch Hall but do not claim to have received injuries which would leave evidence of a permanent nature, and 13 allege that they were physically mistreated and have injuries of a permanent The medical staff pointed out that there was no question that the 11 prisoners were not subjected to physical mistreatment at Schwabisch Hall and that the second group of 34 prisoners had no physical evidence to support their claims of alleged physical mistreatment. Of the 13 who alleged physical, mistreatment with permanent results, the medical evidence does not support, to any degree, the claim of these prisoners. They state that 3 had conditions which definitely were not due to physical mistreatment, and that the remaining 10 showed physical findings which might possibly have resulted from physical mistreatment, but none of these 10 showed evidence of the severe acts alleged by the prisoners.
The full medical examination report is in MMI, vol. II, pp. 1616ff.
While there undoubtedly were some improper interrogation methods used in some cases during the Malmedy Massacre investigations (the methods, the allegations about which caused a public scandal and a whole Senate subcommittee hearing), the claim that 137 of 139 accused were kicked in the testicles rendering them beyond repair and that it was somehow standard operating procedure among the American investigators is simply false. It was categorically refuted both by Van Roden and Simpson.
Which, of course, will not prevent the deniers from citing this debunked zombie meme again and again and again and again...
Elie Wiesel, who died last year, was the “prominent false witness” who said he had been interned during the war at Auschwitz with his father. In January 1945, while the Soviet troops were approaching, the Germans had offered the internees, Jewish or non-Jewish, the choice between leaving for the West (i.e., towards the centre of “Nazi” Germany) and staying on in the camp. With the first choice, the prisoners would experience one of the dreadful “death marches” during which many of them might perish because, particularly, of the devastation caused by the Allied bombings and, with the second, they – especially the women and girls among them – could fear having to face the brutal rabble of the “Red Army”. Having deliberated at length, father and son opted for departure with the Germans, that is, with their supposed exterminators, instead of awaiting their supposed liberators on the spot.
Ding ding ding! Here is our first regurgitated piece of denier wisdom, the "they chose to go with the Nazis!" canard. Is there anything missing from this description? You betcha, as one of Faurisson's intellectual equals might have said. Here's how Wiesel really describes the events in Night:
The camp had become a hive of activity. People were running, calling to one another. In every block, the inmates prepared for the journey ahead. I had forgotten about my lame foot. A doctor came into the room and announced: "Tomorrow, right after nightfall, the camp will start on its march. Block by block. The sick can remain in the infirmary. They will not be evacuated." That news made us wonder. Were the SS really going to leave hundreds of prisoners behind in the infirmaries, pending the arrival of their liberators? Were they really going to allow Jews to hear the clock strike twelve? Of course not."All the patients will be finished off on the spot," said the faceless one. "And in one last swoop, thrown into the furnaces.""Surely, the camp will be mined," said another. "Right after the evacuation, it will all blow up."As for me, I was thinking not about death but about not wanting to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much, endured so much together. This was not the moment to separate. I ran outside to look for him. The snow was piled high, the blocks' windows veiled in frost. Holding a shoe in my hand, for I could not put it on my right foot, I ran, feeling neither pain nor cold. "What are we going to do?" My father didn't answer. "What are we going to do?" He was lost in thought. The choice was in our hands. For once. We could decide our fate for ourselves. To stay, both of us, in the infirmary, where, thanks to my doctor, he could enter as either a patient or a medic. I had made up my mind to accompany my father wherever he went. "Well, Father, what do we do?" He was silent. "Let's be evacuated with the others," I said. He didn't answer. He was looking at my foot. "You think you'll be able to walk?" "Yes, I think so." "Let's hope we won't regret it, Eliezer." After the war, I learned the fate of those who had remained at the infirmary. They were, quite simply, liberated by the Russians, two days after the evacuation.
Next Faurisson builds sort of a strawman:
E. Wiesel is often portrayed as the witness par excellence to the extermination of the Jews in Auschwitz, capital of “the Holocaust” or “Shoah”.
"Often portrayed", such weasel words. How often? By whom? For example, how many historians of the period - i.e. the people whose opinion actually matters on the topic - have cited Wiesel as such a witness?
In general, care is taken not to specify that, for the author of Night, the extermination was carried out there by FIRE in open-air flames and not by GAS in “gas chambers”.
Pinocchio's nose just got longer since nowhere Wiesel stated that there were no deaths in gas chambers. Describing one alleged killing event does not deny or contradict other killings. Indeed, Wiesel wrote of "the thousands of people who died daily in Auschwitz and Birkenau, in the crematoria" (where the gas chambers were).
(Side note: in fact there are other witnesses describing a truck dumping live children into a fire pit at Birkenau, like Wiesel (incl. Feliks Rosenthal, Krystyn Olszewski, Jan Szpalerski) and there is a David Olere drawing of a truck full of babies (whether alive or dead) near a flaming pit. To be honest, I'm extremely skeptical about the claims of live babies dumped into flaming pits, even considering the situation of 1944. It is possible that there were some such events with children's corpses dumped into pits which were then embellished into accounts of children being burned alive. Whatever the case may be, logically, had such burnings happened for whatever reason, they did not contradict other methods of killing.)
Inexplicably Faurisson then turns to the Polevoy canard:
The Soviets took Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Curiously Pravda, for six days, stayed silent on the way in which the “German fascists” had gone about exterminating the detainees. Only in its issue of February 2 was it to reveal that the extermination had been carried out by ELECTRICITY; the victims, falling dead on a conveyor belt, were carried to the top of a blast furnace and dumped inside to be reduced to ashes (see Auschwitz: Facts and Legend, January 11, 1995). In other words, any rubbish that the men at Pravda (“truth”) saw fit to write, as so often with holocaustic inventions!
A group of prisoners was driven into a chamber. The door was hermetically sealed, gas was introduced. After 8 minutes ventilation of the chamber and cremation of corpses commenced.
Here the gas was used which is known under a name "Zyklon B". This is a product of Prussic acid. Several cans of this poisonous material were left in storerooms, and inmates who worked on the destruction of the plant of death before the camp evacuation [i.e. the members of crematoria Abbruchkommando - SR] remember how the chambers were equipped. Cans of gas were thrown in through an opening in the roof and smashed on the floor. So that the inmates wouldn't be able to go for the smoking material to slow the spreading of the gas, cans didn't fall freely, but inside metal mesh columns.
With some minor inaccuracies (e.g. Zyklon-B was not thrown on the floor, but rather lowered or poured into an inner movable part, so it could have been withdrawn afterwards) this corresponds to what we know to be true.
In other words, what does quoting some unreliable early report prove? Right, nothing. Is, for example, the Katyn massacre a big fake because both Nazi and Soviet initial reports hugely exaggerated the number of the corpses buried in the graves? Why does Faurisson bring this up at all?
Rather than commemorations and ceremonies I am still waiting for “one proof, one single proof of the existence and functioning of a single Nazi gas chamber”, or a response to the challenge that I repeat persistently: “Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber!” I am answered with physical blows, insults and lawsuits, and even with a special law, known as the “Gayssot law” or “Fabius-Gayssot law” or “Faurisson law”.
Well, Faurisson can start addressing the documentary evidence for the mobile Nazi gas chambers. I won't be holding my breath though. And of course he has been given numerous drawings of functional gas chambers, including those by Jean-Claude Pressac and Robert Jan van Pelt. In fact, even his fellow denier Fritz Berg doesn't buy Faurisson's shtick:
On technical subject matter, Robert Faurisson is hopeless! He is a kind of techno-retard locked into his fixed ideas about “impossibilities.” Unfortunately, so are many “revisionist” true-believers who seem to worship at his feet. Denial is their new religion. That may explain why holocaust revisionism is not far more successful than it is.
Now, now, Fritz; now tell us what you really think. :)
Faurisson closes his litany of recycled memes with praise for a neo-Nazi:
As irony would have it, on the same April 24 another German, to whom historical revisionism owes so much, will celebrate his 78th birthday: the admirable Ernst Zündel.
It is very telling whom Faurisson finds admirable and this explains his motive for denying truthful history just fine.
A favourite meme of Holocaust deniers is that pogroms were not the responsibility of the Germans. Germar Rudolf even claims here that Jewish deaths from pogroms were not "real Holocaust victims." This article refutes such lies by demonstrating that references to pogroms in the Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Reports [hereafter EMs] almost always show attempts by Germans to instigate them. The success or failure of these attempts varies with the region in which each Einsatzkommando was operating.
EM 10 informs us that "The 17th Army Command has suggested the use first of all of the anti-Jewish and anti-Communist Poles living in the newly-occupied areas for self-cleansing activities" and that "It is therefore obvious that such Poles need not be included in the cleansing action, especially as they are of great importance as elements to initiate pogroms and for obtaining information. (This depends, of course, on local conditions)." The following day, EG A reports that "Pogroms have been started" in Riga [EM 12]. A day later, "Pogroms are being initiated" in Grodno [EM 13]. On July 16, it is confirmed that "400 Jews were killed during pogroms in Riga, since the arrival of EK 2; 300 by the Latvian auxiliary police and partly by our units [EM 24]." In Latvia, therefore, the role of EK 2 was not simply collusion but participation and direction.
When pogroms failed to materialize, the reason usually given was fear among the population that the Soviets would regain power. For example, EG C noted in EM 47 concerning western Ukraine:
Carefully planned attempts made at an earlier date to incite pogroms against Jews have unfortunately not shown the results hoped for. They were successful in Tarnopol and in Chortkov, where 600 and 110 Jews respectively were disposed of. The reason for this failure may be the fact that the Ukrainian population is still too fearful in view of the strong position the Jews held formerly. They are also still afraid of a possible return of the Soviets.
However, in EM 43, Einsatzgruppe B admitted that"It was, however, almost impossible to stage pogroms against the Jews because of the passivity and the political disinterest of the Byelorussians."The Einsatzgruppen leaders could not therefore reach consensus on whether the lack of pogroms was due to fear or indifference.
EM 81 contains an extraordinary passage about the lengths to which the Germans were willing to go in order to encourage mob violence against Jews:
Concerning propaganda measures for the broad masses in the Ukrainian districts it should be kept in mind that the population be induced to take active steps against the Jews. This may be traced back to the fear still prevailing in many circles that the Reds might come back again.
Time and time again this intimidation was made by the older people with the addition that they already had the experience in 1918 when the Germans suddenly withdrew. In order to counteract this psychosis of fear, and to break the spell which adheres to the Jews as carriers of political power in the eyes of many Ukrainians, Einsatzkommando 6 in several instances marched the Jews through the town under guard prior to their execution.
It was likewise often deemed important to have men from the militia (Ukrainians) participate in the execution of Jews. Word seems to have been passed to Jews on the other side of the front about the fate they can expect from us
In David Irving's questioning of Christopher Browning in the Lipstadt libel trial, Irving quote-mined another passage from EM 81 to argue that the Einsatzgruppen were encouraging evacuation by these measures. Note how Browning skillfully rebuts this sly tactic:
Q. You did not quote in your report the passage on the Jewish question from the event report No. 81 dated September 12th 1941. I am just going to quote to you three and a half lines from it. It is the operations of Einsatzkommando 6, and the quotation is as follows. It may be familiar to you. "The gratuitous evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Jews", what would "evacuation" there be? A. I have not seen the written --- Q. "The gratuitous evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Jews may be considered to be an indirect success of the work of the security police. As we hear mostly from the other side of the Urals, the Ural mountains, this is a considerable contribution to the solution of the Jewish question in Europe". This is September 1941 and in your opinion are they are referring there to a geographical evacuation, or something more sinister? A. Not seeing the wider context, I think he is probably referring to the escape of Jews to the Soviet side, and that these were Jews that were no longer within German control. Q. "The gratuitous evacuation of hundreds of thousands of Jews may be considered to be an indirect success of the work of the security police", in other words they had fled? MR JUSTICE GRAY: They did not want to get shot? A. They are Jews that do not have to be shot because they have left German custody. MR IRVING: So at this time there was no plan to catch all the Jews you could and kill them? A. What the reports note as they go further East, there are fewer and fewer Jews in the areas the Germans get because so many have fled, and this is in a sense of a way of saying why his body count has not been maintained, that so many of these are have fled beyond the Soviet lines. We can consider this an indirect success. If the programme then was still expulsion, this would not be an indirect success, it would be a direct success. If it is an indirect success, that implies that it is something other than what the direct process is.
Essentially Irving commits a syllogism:
1. Holocaust historians say the Germans intended to kill all the Jews that came under their occupation 2. EM 81 expresses delight that many Jews fled beyond the German zone 3. Holocaust historians are wrong to say the Germans intended to kill all the Jews that came under their occupation. They really wanted to deport them eastwards.
In reality, EM 81 was referring to the Final Solution as the removal of Jews from Europe, by means of shooting combined with driving fleeing Jews farther east to evade capture and death. Irving failed to consider the fate that the Germans envisaged for the Jews who had fled, namely that the Germans would catch up with those Jews and kill them after defeating the USSR in the war, which they anticipated would happen quickly. Irving, like Rudolf, was exhibiting deliberate blindness to German intentions and the consequences of deliberate German actions.
In response to the brainless denier meme that Jews were only shot in the USSR because they were partisans, Communists, saboteurs or provocateurs (a meme that is antisemitic on its face, because no other group was automatically shot because it was assumed to inherently possess those characteristics), below are a list of quotes from Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Reports [hereafter EMs] which show that being a Jew alone - and for no other reason - was sufficient to get a person shot, regardless of age, class, gender or political history.
In the course of a routine Security Police screening of an additional part of the civilian population around Leningrad, 140 more people had to be shot. The reasons for this were as follows:
a) Active participation in the Communist Party before the arrival of the German troops;
b) Seditious and provocative activity since the arrival of the German Army;
c) Partisan activity;
d) Espionage;
e) Belonging to the Jewish race.
2) EM 133. Although various pretexts are given here, the inclusion of children of all ages clearly shows that the motive was exclusively racial:
As a result of numereous complaints about their provocative behavior in Gorki (northeast of Mogilev) as well as in the surrounding area, a total of 2,200 Jews of all ages were liquidated in mopping-up operations in eight localities. They were, for the most part, Jews who had immigrated from the district of Minsk. Like the rest, they committed offences against the regulations of the German [occupation] forces. The operation was carried out in close cooperation with the Military Police.
In Mstislavl, about 80 km east of Mogilev, 900 Jews were liquidated for breaking regulations of the German forces, harboring partisans in transit, and providing them with food and clothing.
On October 19, 1941, a large-scale operation against the Jews was carried out in Mogilev with the aid of the Police Regiment 'Center.' 3,726 Jews of both sexes and all ages were liquidated by this action. These measures were necessary because, ever since the town of Mogilev was occupied by German troops, the Jews ignored the authority of the Occupying forces. In spite of previous measures taken against them, they not only failed to desist but continued their anti-German activities (sabotage, support of partisans, refusal to work, etc.) to such an extent and with such persistance that, in the interests of establishing order in the rear areas, it could no longer be tolerated.
On October 23, 1941, to prevent further acts of sabotage and to combat the partisans, a further number of Jews from Mogilev and the surrounding area, 239 of both sexes, were liquidated.
3) EM 92 demonstrates that "racial inferiority" was a criterion in Minsk:
All the executed persons were inferior elements whose presence here could not be tolerated [The Einsatzgruppen Reports edited Yitzak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski and Shmuel Spector, Yad Vashem, 1999, p. 154].
In addition to this, the term "Jewish question" or "Jewish problem" appears regularly in these reports. For example, EM 128 views the Reichenau Order in the context of the "Jewish problem":
Only with respect to the Jewish problem could a complete understanding with junior Army officers not be reached until quite recently. This was most noticeable during the taking over of prisoner-of-war camps. As a particularly clear example, the conduct of a camp commander in Vinitsa is to be mentioned. He strongly objected to the transfer of 362 Jewish prisoners-of-war carried out by his deputy, and even started court martial proceedings against the deputy and two other officers. Unfortunately, it often occurred that the Einsatzkommandos had to suffer more or less hidden reproaches for their persistent stand on the Jewish problem. Another difficulty was added by the order from the Army High Command prohibiting entry by the SD into the POW transit camps. (1) These difficulties have probably been overcome by now due to a new order from the Army High Command. This order clearly states that the Wehrmacht has to cooperate in the solution of this problem, and, in particular, that the necessary authorizations must be granted the SD to the fullest extent. However, it became evident in the past few days that this policy-making order still has not reached lower [military] authorities. In the future, further cooperation and assistance by the Wehrmacht authorities can be expected. As far as the province of the 6th Army HQ is concerned, Generalfeldmarschall von Reichenau issued an order on October 10, 1941, which states clearly that the Russian soldier has to be considered in principal to be a representative of Bolshevism and thus to be treated accordingly by the Wehrmacht.
Given that Reichenau had referred to"pitiless extermination" and "Jewish subhumanity" (and excused the killing of captured women because they were "unnatural women"), there can be no doubt that the application of the order was purely racist.
According to this memo of the RSHA Security Police motor pool of 23 June 1943, the Gaubschat company in Berlin had mounted coachworks on 20 chassis to be used as homicidal gas vans. This letter to Gaubschat of 30 April 1942 announcing the delivery of another 10 chassis and requesting changes implies that the 20 chassis had been finished and dispatched by the time and thus delivered to Gaubschat well before. They were likely registered in one or several batches with consecutive numbers (as indicated by the three known numbers of Saurer gas vans cited above) and the licence number 71449 of the truck fits to such series.
There had been two sizes of gas vans, a smaller type of about 3 tons dispatched earlier in December 1941, which was mainly based on American chassis, and a bigger type of 5 tons on Saurer chassis dispatched since February 1942. It seems not entirely clear yet how many smaller gas vans there had been (other than two for Chelmno, at least three for Einsatzgruppe A & B and one for Einsatzgruppe C), so that the gas van with the license number 71449 might have been either a smaller or bigger type depending on the actual number of smaller gas vans.
Since Laabs filled up his gas van with gasoline, the document supports once more that the German homicidal gas vans were operated with gasoline engine exhaust (see also Rebuttal of Alvarez on Gas Vans: Why the Diesel Issue is Still Irrelevant). Why did Laabs go all the way from Chelmno to Lodz with a gas van, where he had to refuel the vehicle? The victims of Ghetto Lodz were brought by train and trucks to Chelmno in June - July 1944 and in August 1944 most of the remaining inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Quite possibly, on this 2 September 1944, Laabs was ordered to pick up a batch of victims directly in Lodz, who had been caught hiding from their deportation to Auschwitz, or he was transporting goods from Lodz to Sonderkommando Kulmhof.
Appendix: Testimonies on Laabs as Gas Van Driver of Sonderkommando Kulmhof (Chelmno)
interrogation of Gustav Laabs (Sonderkommando Kulmhof SS) of 2 December 1960:
"After some time...me and H. received the order from Bothmann to pick up two gas vans from the train station in Kolo...In my opinion, it were the same gas vans we already drove in 1942/43.
[...]
One day in September or October 1944, me and H. received the order from Bothmann to load the gas vans on freight cars in Kolo and to go with them to Berlin to deliver them at a big motor pool in Oranienburg."
(BArch B 162/3246, p. 62f. & 65)
interrogation of Walter Bo. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof police) of 20 June 1961:
"The gas vans were black-brown coated vans, like the type of Opel Blitz vehicles. One was driven by Hauptscharführer Laabs, the other by Hauptscharführer H.."
(BArch B 162/3248, p. 99)
interrogation of Walter Bu. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof SS) of 26 January 1961:
"I remember that also before Laabs and H. were the gas van drivers, there were one or two SS members in Kulmhof whose permanent duty it was to the drive the gas vans."
(BArch B 162/3246, p. 160)
interrogation of Karl H. (Sonderkommando Chelmno police) of 27 January 1961:
"SS-Oberscharf. Gustav Laabs. He was one of the gas van drivers."
(BArch B 162/3248, p. 54)
interrogation of Wilhelm H. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof police) of 30 November 1961:
"If I remember correctly, there were two gas vans operating in Chelmno, which were used to gas the the incoming Jews in turns. These vehicles were driven and operated by SS-Hauptscharführer Laabs and SS-Oberscharführer H.."
(BArch B 162/3247, p. 217)
interrogation of Josef I. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof police) of 26 February 1962:
"SS-Oscharf. Gustav Laabs...He was one of the gas van drivers and I have observed in the forest camp numerous times that the arrived with a gas van..."
(BArch B 162/3249, p. 155)
interrogation of Friedrich M. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof police) of 20 July 1961:
"As far as I remember there were two gas vans in operation driven by SS-Hauptscharführer Laabs and SS-Oberscharführer Oskar H.."
(BArch B 162/3248, p. 112)
interrogation of Hans M. of 24 October 1962:
"...at the agency were two gas vans driven by Laabs and H...."
(NHStA NDS. 721 Hannover Acc. 97/99 Nr.10/29, p. 53)
interrogation of Kurt M. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof police) of 9 November 1961:
"In my memory there was only one permanently used gas van, which was driven by Gustav Laabs. A second gas van was used if bigger transport arrived in Chelmno..."
(BArch B 162/3247, p. 206)
interrogation of Wilhelm S. (Sonderkommando Kulmhof police) of 20 December 1961:
"As I learnt later, the gas van drivers were SS-Hauptscharführer Gustav Laabs and SS-Oberscharführer Oskar H.. There were only two gas vans in Chelmno, which were driven and operated by these two persons."
(BArch B 162/3247, p. 145)
____________ Update 19 April 2017: corrected first name of Wilhem H. (thanks to Patrick Montague)
I gave an interview a couple of months ago to Matthew Buckley of Adelaide, Australia, who runs a podcast called Social Justice Warriors. We talked about the phenomenon of denial in general, techniques of denial, whether deniers are liars or just lousy historians, and the current status of Holocaust denial as a movement.'
For readers interested in the "inside baseball" of HC, there's a bit of our backstory at the beginning of the interview. Apologies to Nick for never remembering where he went to school and to Sir Ian Kershaw for failing to remember his name.
The following is merely a sample of reports where the killing of children is included or clearly implied. More will follow in due course. To these must also be added the numerous actions in the Jaeger Report that included children, and Jaeger's update of 9.2.42 which gave a total killed of 34,464 children.We can also consider the high number of references to places being "free of Jews" (e.g. EM 88, EM 133, EM 150) as being inclusive of killing all the children.
1) Massacre in Sculeni by Rumanian forces, July 1941: "all the Yids who remained in this village...were executed according to orders from above (cited in Deletant, p.144-145; see also this video of testimonies)."
2) Vileyka, massacre by EK 9,approximately July 30, 1941, reported in TuLB 2: "In Wilejka musste die gesamte Judenschaft liquidiert werden (Klein (ed.), p.136; Kay, p.163n.22)."
3) Bila Tserkva: "[Riedl] stated that he considers the extermination of the Jewish women and children to be absolutely necessary, regardless of how this is to be done [Groscurth, 295th Infantry Division, 20.8.41]."
8) Thomas, leader of Einsatzgruppe C: "The extermination of the Jews, who are, without any doubt, useless as workers and more harmful as the carriers of the bacillae of Communism, was [unavoidably] necessary [EM 133, 14.11.41]."
9) Shumyachi 16 mentally ill Russian and Jewish children (EM 148)
Extracts from the Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten appear in this collection edited by Arad et al. Below I copy across several relevant extracts, each referenced by the page number in the collection. No. 4, 22.5.42: "Of the Krimchaks (about 6,000) who were usually counted as part of the Jewish population, well over half lived in Simferopol (2,500) and in Karasubatsar [Karasubazar]. Their extermination, together with that of the Jews and the Gypsies in the Crimea, was accomplished for the most part by the beginning of December, 1941 [p.344, quoted here]."
No. 5, 29.5.42: 251 people shot and 28 hanged in Minsk on 5.5.42 [p.346].
No. 6, 5.6.42: "Today, there are no more Jews in Estonia [p.347]."
No. 7, 12.6.42: At the time the Germans invaded, "about 70,000 Jews remained in Latvia", but now there only remain skilled laborers as follows: about 2,500 Riga, about 950 Daugavpils, about 300 Libau. Thus by implication, around 66,000 Jews had been exterminated [pp.348-349].
No. 8, 19.6.42: "Lithuania is now free of Jews" except for 15,000 in Kaunas, 15,000 in Vilnius and 4,000 in Siauliai [p.350]. In Liepaja, Latvia, "several Jews were arrested while trying to escape to Sweden [p.351]."
No. 9, 26.6.42: "These measures have created the basis for the planned Final Solution of the European Jewish question specifically with respect to Byelorussia [p.354]."
No. 12, 17.7.42: 340 Jews and Communists shot in Shatsk, Ukraine [p.355].
No. 15, 7.8.42: "In the area of Kharkov, cleansing operations continued and several hundred people were seized for special treatment [p.357]."
No. 16, 14.8.42: Jewish population of Rostov was said to have been 50,000 up to November 1941; but only 2,000 had been registered after a Jewish Council was installed on 1.8.42. "Further necessary measures" were under way [p.358].
Nr. 19, 4.9.42: Anti-partisan action north-west of Slonim: killed were 200 bandits (100 Jews), 4 German Gendarmerie and 1 Latvian. Ratno, 11.8.41, eleven people, including 7 Jews, "were given special treatment [p.361]."
Nr. 24, 9.10.42: "In the area of Berdichev, there was a rumour that after the Jews, all the Poles in the camp would be shot [p.363]."
Nr. 38, 22.1.43: Operation "Hamburg" in area of Slonim: 1,676 partisans killed in battles, while 1,510 were executed. German losses: 7 dead and 18 wounded. Operation "Altona" in area of Kossov-Byten: 93 partisans killed in battles, while 785 were executed. No German losses.
As mentioned previously on the blog, we have 22 German wartime documents explicitly mentioning Sonderkommando 1005, of them 7 have been published here. Now it's time for a little update of that posting. First of all, I have added an image of the official German wartime copy of Hegenscheidt's radiogram, the text of which has already been published. Hegenscheidt was arrested and imprisoned in 1944 and this official certified wartime copy is among the other materials in his case.
Further I have added a previously unpublished document from the same case - excerpts from the manuscript that Hegenscheidt wrote as a part of his defense in 1944, as he was sitting in a Berlin prison.
That makes it for 8 published German wartime documents that mention SK 1005 explicitly (and 22 that we have overall).
Remember how Mattogno and Graf insisted on the very designation "1005" being a Soviet invention? And what did they base that on? Right, the same thing these clowns base all of their fraudulent "research" on: nothing (except wishful thinking).
According to this site, researched by Jacob Gorfinkel, "According to June 1942 Food Card distribution, there remained 487 Jews (245 men, 242 women, 22 children) in Daugavpils." The low number of children is strong proof of an extermination policy in Latvia. It converges with the photographic evidence from Liepaja, Latvia, and the other evidence about Latvia published previously on this blog. It also reinforces the evidence for the Rumbula massacre in Riga, such as the note of Operational Situation Report 155, dated 11.1.42: "The number of Jews left in Riga, 29,500, was reduced to 2,600 by an action carried out by the Higher SS and Police Leader of Ostland. In Daugavpils, there are still 962 Jews left who are urgently needed for the labor pool." This was in the wider context of reducing the Latvian Jewish population from an estimated 70,000 to fewer than 4,000 [Reports from the Occupied Eastern Territories, No. 7, 12.6.42].
Remember how CODOH is supposed all to be about rationality, arguments and no hidden agenda whatsoever?
Except they used to have this hidden subforum called VIP Lounge, accessible only to the "time honored & trusted Revisionists", to quote Jonnie "Hannover" Hargis.
Well, here's what they really write when they think the Traditional Enemy is not watching.
Jonnie Hargis, the forum's dictator and chief censor, defends the expulsions of Jews, agreeing with CODOH's "time honored & trusted" resident neo-Nazi Friedrich Braun:
More deep thoughts from Friedrich Braun:
But apparently Friedrich Braun began to be too transparent about his neo-Nazism also in the public forum, which is why he was censored by Hargis and decided to tell the truth about his moderation practices:
More interesting than Braun's stale rants are the posts by Carto's Cutlass Supreme. This guy is a total dimwit, but since he is better known as Denierbud, whose series of youtube videos got completely debunked here, he is somewhat of a figure on the denier scene. He tries to keep the more neutral facade in the public forum but lets loose in the VIP section.
Here's him ranting about poor persecuted Nazis and neo-Nazis like Matt Hale (convicted for soliciting murder of a federal judge), the Aryan Nations and Julius Streicher.
As you see, he also mildly castigated the liar "Mark_Twain", the neo-Nazi behind judicial-inc.biz, for being inaccurate about his facts (indeed, the fellow was so bad that even the dishonest denier Carlos Porter had to debunk him). MT then basically admitted he was engaging in pure propaganda and just using random pictures on his website. Here is the continuation of that thread:
Here is CCS possibly on drugs, tripping about being a part of a cosmic drama, battling against the evil Jews (and showing his ignorance about basic religious matters - according to the mythology all people come from Adam, not only Jews).
It is clear that CCS is an ignorant kook. Here is him espousing a crazy theory he made up when he learned that Yiddish is based on old German (because he is the first person in the world to have noticed that, apparently):
Here is one of the neo-Nazis making an anti-Arab joke and another castigating him for purely Reapolitik reasons.
Speaking of Realpolitik, these deniers are indeed concerned about their "outside world" image. Here is Hannover-Hargis responding to the aforementioned self-confessed bullshitter Mark_Twain asking him to tone it down with the explicit anti-Jewish talk: "Try more specific descriptions like 'Zionists'". Of course this concerned merely the external appearance, it is clear that Hargis agreed with MT.
This wasn't a one time occurrence with MT:
And here is CCS being concerned about Braun's open rabid antisemitism, while admitting that he believes "what he's saying is the truth" and that he "can understand Braun's sentiment completely".
And if you think everything you've read so far was bad stuff, consider what was in the threads that had to be pulled even from the private VIP Lounge:
Clearly, the core CODOH deniers are rabid antisemites who don't want the world to know they are rabid antisemites (they're failing at that of course, even without the leaked materials).
There are tons of more fun stuff like this where this came from, but that's all for today. 😃
Obviously, considering that Marine Le Pen's deputy was forced to leave his post because of Holocaust denial, nothing much has changed on the inside, despite the recent attempts to sanitize the party's image. Apple, tree.
A couple of weeks ago, Eugene Volokh, a lawyer, blogger, and columnist with the Washington Post, reported that Ernst Zündel had filed a petition to have the ban on his living in the United States overturned. The Department of Homeland Security declined. I wrote to Volokh the below e-mail, which I append here since it includes some (I think) interesting "inside baseball" about the Zündel case.
Also, looking for something not entirely different, I found this video (below) of Zündel in the 1990s, when he was the primary supplier of Nazi propaganda to Ewald Althans, who himself has since left the movement. Let's not forget exactly what Zündel is -- sob story aside.
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I should start by saying that I'm not a lawyer. That said, the argument in the DHS decision seemed to me to be less about Zündel's conviction and more about his "moral turpitude." We could argue whether such an objection to a potential immigrant would be fair or right, and I think you made the case about schmucks rather well, but there's little question that an objection on this basis vis-à-vis Zündel is warranted.
My personal history with Zündel and more importantly his wife is a related but lengthy and mostly unrelated story. The relevant part begins in 2003, when Zündel was taken into custody for violating immigration statutes. I was approached then by Harry W. Mazal, a now deceased Holocaust educator with whom I had collaborated fairly extensively, to provide information to certain government offices to build a case for permanent deportation to Canada. I was told at the time that this information would also be provided to the Canadian government, which could result in Zündel being further deported to Germany, where he would likely be imprisoned for his Holocaust denial activities. As something of a First Amendment absolutist, I wrestled with this issue a bit but ultimately cooperated and contributed a dossier I had been given on Zündel's political and personal association.
The material I was given came from Zündel's then most recent ex-wife, Irene (he was, I believe, married twice before his current marriage). A huge caveat here is that there is no reason to take Irene's word at face value; she obviously had an ax to grind. However, much of what she reported could be independently verified.
The most explosive of the charges were that Zündel had firebombed his own house in Toronto to garner sympathy that he was being targeted by "JDL thugs" and that he had told his then "press secretary" and now wife, Ingrid Rimland, that if National Socialists ever took control of the government, her son Erwin (since deceased), who was born with a severe case of cerebral palsy, would have to be euthanized to assure a pure genetic stock for the future.
As far as I know, the latter charge was never proved, but I mention it for two reasons. First, Ingrid had already attempted to capitalize on her son's disability by writing a supposedly non-fiction book, Demon Doctor, about how none other than Dr Josef Mengele had delivered Erwin in Paraguay (where Ingrid and her first husband had lived after the war) and had so botched the delivery that Erwin had a severe case of CP. When that gambit failed to earn any money or renown for Ingrid, as did her attempt to publish a sex therapy book, she threw in her lot with Holocaust deniers, who apparently retroactively exonerated Mengele and negated any value that Erwin's life might have had to her. That the purported difficulty that Ingrid had in raising Erwin was mentioned by Zündel's legal team in this case is rich; if any extreme hardship was part of her experience of raising Erwin, it would appear to have been self-imposed.
More to the point of what can be proved, it is worth mentioning that, once Zündel was returned to Canada, he was detained there because, by moving to the United States to marry Ingrid (itself a highly suspect move), he had vacated his status in Canada as a "landed immigrant" (equivalent to having a green card here). There, the government deliberated and found that Zündel could not remain in Canada because he constituted a security risk. This assessment was not based on his Holocaust denial beliefs alone. Rather, it was based on his lengthy associations with neo-Nazis, not just in Canada, but in the U.S. and Germany as well. Photographs and video are readily available online of Zündel addressing rallies of neo-Nazi skinheads, some of whom he employed as bodyguards. Zündel's most prominent political ally in Canada was Paul Fromm, a Canadian far right agitator and cosigner of the New Orleans Protocol -- a statement of cooperation and collaboration among white nationalist groups -- with David Duke, Don Black of Stormfront, and the now deceased Willis Carto, who more than any other single person, was responsible for keeping fascism buoyant as a political movement in the U.S. Back in the 1990s, Tom Metzger, head of the White Aryan Resistance neo-Nazi group, ran a telephone hotline out of his house in Fallbrook, CA, not far from where Ingrid lived at the time in the San Diego area. Curious to know just how deep the connects that the Rimland-Zündel network, which was already on my radar, had with the American extreme right ran, I left a question for Metzger about his connections, if any, to Zündel. Metzger's response was notable:
As you might recall, Metzger was found liable in a civil suit in the late 1980s for the murder of an Ethiopian exchange student in Portland, OR, by neo-Nazi skinheads. These were Zündel's friends and associates when he lived in North America. This information was included in the dossier on Zündel as well.
If it is a fair observation for a U.S. court to consider the embrace of National Socialism and association/collaboration with international networks of extreme racists to be evidence of "moral turpitude," I think it might be, then there's no reason Zündel should be allowed here. As you said, we have enough of our own schmucks; we don't need to import more.
