Answers to the 66 Questions of Holocaust Deniers

Answers to the 66 Questions
of Holocaust Deniers

The following material comes from Nizkor, an extraordinary site devoted to combatting Holocaust deniers. The original version is filled with hyperlinks to other material on Nizkor, which we either had to recode or remove to avoid bad links from the JVL. We chose to remove them, so we urge those interested in more careful study of this topic to use the link to Nizkor to take advantage of their detailed information on specific individuals and arguments. The original also had extensive links to the deniers' web sites. We chose not to include them here for two reasons: first, not all the links worked and second, we prefer not to encourage visits to those sites. Nizkor's philosophy is to make both sides available to all and let the reader draw their own conclusions. We do not believe there are two sides to the question of whether the Holocaust occurred. Anyone wishing to see the deniers' sites can use the links provided by Nizkor. Finally, before printing this document, be forewarned that it is very long.

The Institute for Historical Review, or IHR, publishes many small pamphlets designed to misinform people about the Holocaust. One of the most-persistent has been a pamphlet called "66 Questions And Answers About the Holocaust," or simply "66 Q&A."

This pamphlet neatly summarizes many of the most common arguments used by Holocaust-deniers. Refuting these 66 claims strikes directly at the core of Holocaust-denial.

What follows is a point-by-point refutation of its half-truths and untruths. The full text of the original pamphlet is included, with the IHR's questions and answers reproduced unaltered.

Ernst Zündel's publishing house, Samisdat, has distributed an earlier version as recently as November 1995, which we will occasionally refer to as the "Samisdat" version for lack of a better name. We are currently only in possession of the first page of this, and it skips quite a few questions, so we don't know how much we're missing. We are also not sure exactly when it was written, but its answer to question 22 refers to a united Germany, which places it in the 1990s. Updates will come as we learn more, of course.

In any case, the various revisions that have been made have rarely made the pamphlet any more truthful. This is not surprising, because the aim of the pamphlet is not to educate but to mislead. Where the revisions are noteworthy, we will comment upon them.

If our treatment seems tedious, consider yourself lucky: years ago, the IHR used to publish one hundred and twenty Q&A about the Holocaust. We have been unable to obtain a copy of that older pamphlet, so for now we resign ourselves to critiquing the abridged version. Remember as you're reading this that there were 54 other Q&As that were not good enough to make their final cut!

Finally, for another good antidote to the "66 Q&A," we suggest two documents put out by the Simon Wiesenthal Center: their "Responses to Revisionist Arguments," and their "36 Q&A" (which are unrelated except for the similarity in format).

The IHR's Questions & Answers

Nizkor’s Responses

1. What proof exists that the Nazis practiced genocide or deliberately killed six million Jews?

The IHR says (original, Samisdat, and revised versions combined):

None. The only evidence is the postwar testimony of individual "survivors." This testimony is contradictory, and no "survivor" claims to have actually witnessed any gassing. There are no contemporaneous documents and no hard evidence whatsoever: no mounds of ashes, no crematoria capable of disposing of millions of corpses, no piles of clothes, no human soap, no lamp shades made of human skin, no records, no credible demographic statistics.

Nizkor replies:

Lie piled upon lie, with not a shred of proof.

This is as good a place as any to present some detailed evidence which is consistently ignored, as a sort of primer on Holocaust denial. It will make this reply much longer than the other sixty-five, but perhaps the reader will understand the necessity for this.

Let's look at their claims one at a time:

Supposedly the only evidence, "the postwar testimony of individual survivors."

First of all, consider the implicit conspiracy theory. Notice how the testimony of every single inmate of every Nazi camp is automatically dismissed as unconvincing. This total dismissal of inmates' testimony, along with the equally-total dismissal of the Nazis' own testimony (!), is the largest unspoken assumption of Holocaust-denial.

This assumption, which is not often spelled out, is that the attempted Jewish genocide never took place, but rather that a secret conspiracy of Jews, starting around 1941, planted and forged myriad documents to prove that it did; then, after the war, they rounded up all the camp survivors and told them what to say.

The conspirators also supposedly managed to torture hundreds of key Nazis into confessing to crimes which they never committed, or into framing their fellow Nazis for those crimes, and to plant hundreds of documents in Nazi files which were never discovered until after the war, and only then, in many cases, by sheer luck. Goebbels' diary, for example, was barely rescued from being sold as 7,000 pages of scrap paper, but buried in the scattered manuscript were several telling entries (as translated in Lochner, The Goebbels Diaries, 1948, pp. 86, 147-148):

February 14, 1942: The Führer once again expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.

March 27, 1942: The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

Michael Shermer has pointed out that the Nazis' own estimate of the number of European Jews was eleven million, and sixty percent of eleven million is 6.6 million. This is fairly close to the actual figure. (Actually, forty percent was a serious overestimate of the survival rate of Jews who were captured, but there were many Jews who escaped.)

In any case, most of the diary is quite mundane, and interesting only to historians. Did the supposed Jewish conspiracy forge seven thousand pages to insert just a few lines? How did they manage to know Goebbels' affairs intimately enough to avoid contradictions, e.g. putting him or his associates in the wrong city at the wrong date?

As even the revisionist David Cole has admitted, revisionists have yet to provide a satisfactory explanation of this document.

Regarding postwar testimony from Nazis, were they all tortured into confessing to heinous crimes which they supposedly did not commit? This might be believable if only a few Nazis were captured after the war, or maybe if some had courageously stood up in court and shouted to the world about the supposed attempt to silence them. But hundreds testified regarding the Holocaust, in trials dating from late 1945 until the 1960s.

Many of these Nazis testified as witnesses and were not accused of crimes. What was the basis for their supposed coercion?

Many of these trials were in German courts. Did the Germans torture their own countrymen? Well, Holocaust-deniers sometimes claim that the Jews have secretly infiltrated the German government and control everything about it. They prefer not to talk too much about this theory, however, because it is clearly on the lunatic fringe.

The main point is that not one of these supposed torture victims -- in fifty years, not one -- has come forth to support the claim that testimony was coerced.

On the contrary, confirmation and reconfirmation of their testimony has continued across the years. What coercion could have convinced Judge Konrad Morgen to testify to the crimes he witnessed at the International Nuremberg Trial in 1946, where he was not accused of any crime? And to later testify at the Auschwitz trial at Frankfurt, Germany, in 1963-65? What coercion was applied to SS Doctor Johann Kremer to make him testify in his own defense in 1947, and then, after having been convicted in both Poland and Germany, emerge after his release to testify again as a witness at the Frankfurt trial? What coercion was applied to Böck, Gerhard Hess, Hölblinger, Storch, and Wiebeck, all former SS men, all witnesses at Frankfurt, none accused of any crime there?

Holocaust-deniers point to small discrepancies in testimonies to try to discredit them. The assumption, unstated, is that the reader will accept minor discrepancies as evidence of a vast, over-reaching Jewish conspiracy. This is clearly ludicrous.

In fact, the discrepancies and minor errors in detail argue against, not for, the conspiracy theory. Why would the conspirators have given different information to different Nazis? In fact, if all the testimonies, from the Nazis' to the inmates', sounded too similar, it is certain that the Holocaust-deniers would cite that as evidence of a conspiracy.

What supposed coercion could reach across four decades, to force former SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Hans Münch to give an interview, against the will of his family, on Swedish television? In the 1981 interview, he talked about Auschwitz:

Interviewer: Isn't the ideology of extermination contrary to a doctor's ethical values?

Münch: Yes, absolutely. There is no discussion. But I lived in that environment, and I tried in every possible way to avoid accepting it, but I had to live with it. What else could I have done? And I wasn't confronted with it directly until the order came that I and my superior and another one had to take part in the exterminations since the camp's doctors were overloaded and couldn't cope with it.

Interviewer: I must ask something. Doubters claim that "special treatment" could mean anything. It didn't have to be extermination.

Münch: "Special treatment" in the terminology of the concentration camp means physical extermination. If it was a question of more than a few people, where nothing else than gassing them was worthwhile, they were gassed.

Interviewer: "Special treatment" was gassing?

Münch: Yes, absolutely.

And what supposed coercion could reach across four decades, to force former SS-Unterscharführer Franz Suchomel into giving an interview for the film Shoah? Speaking under (false) promises of anonymity, he told of the crimes committed at the Treblinka death camp (from the book Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, 1985, p. 54):

Interviewer: You are a very important eyewitness, and you can explain what Treblinka was.

Suchomel: But don't use my name.

Interviewer: No, I promised. All right, you've arrived at Treblinka.

Suchomel: So Stadie, the sarge, showed us the camps from end to end. Just as we went by, they were opening the gas-chamber doors, and people fell out like potatoes. Naturally, that horrified and appalled us. We went back and sat down on our suitcases and cried like old women.

Each day one hundred Jews were chosen to drag the corpses to the mass graves. In the evening the Ukrainians drove those Jews into the gas chambers or shot them. Every day!

Ask the deniers why they shrug off the testimony of Franz Suchomel. Greg Raven will tell you that "it is not evidence...bring me some evidence, please." Others will tell you that Suchomel and Münch were crazy, or hallucinating, or fantasizing.

But the fantasy is obviously in the minds of those who choose to ignore the mass of evidence and believe instead in a hypothetical conspiracy, supported by nothing but their imaginations.

That total lack of evidence is why the "conspiracy assumption" almost always remains an unspoken assumption. To our knowledge, there has not been one single solitary "revisionist" paper, article, speech, pamphlet, book, audiotape, videotape, or newsletter which provides any details about this supposed Jewish/Zionist conspiracy which did all the dirty work. Not one.

At best, the denial literature makes veiled references to the World Jewish Congress perpetuating a "hoax" (in Butz 1976) -- no details are provided. Yet the entire case of Holocaust-denial rests on this supposed conspiracy.

As for the testimony of the survivors, which the "revisionists" claim is the only evidence, there are indeed numerous testimonies to gassings and other forms of atrocities, from Jewish inmates who survived the camps, and also from other inmates like POWs. Many of the prisoners that testified about the gassing are not Jewish, of course. Look for instance at the testimony of Polish officer Zenon Rozansky about the first homicidal gassing in Auschwitz, in which 850 Russian POWs were gassed to death, in Reitlinger, The Final Solution, p. 154:

Those who were propped against the door leant with a curious stiffness and then fell right at our feet, striking their faces hard against the concrete floor. Corpses! Corpses standing bolt upright and filling the entire corridor of the bunker, till they were packed so tight that it was impossible for more to fall.

Which of the "revisionists" will deny this? Which of them was there? Which of them has the authority to tell Rozansky what he did or did not see?

The statement that "no 'survivor' claims to have actually witnessed any gassing" is clearly false; this was changed to "few survivors" in later versions, which is close to the truth.

But we do not need to rely solely on testimony, from the survivors, Nazis, or otherwise. Many wartime documents, not postwar descriptions, specifically regarding gassings and other atrocities, were seized by the U.S. armed forces. Most are in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; some are in Germany.

Regarding the gassing vans, precursors to the gas chambers, we find, for example, a top secret document from SS Untersturmführer Becker to SS Obersturmbannführer Rauff (from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 1946, Vol. I, pp. 999-1001):

If it has rained for instance for only one half hour, the van cannot be used because it simply skids away. It can only be used in absolutely dry weather. It is only a question now whether the van can only be used standing at the place of execution. First the van has to be brought to that place, which is possible only in good weather. ...

The application of gas usually is not undertaken correctly. In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent. By doing that the persons to be executed suffer death from suffocation and not death by dozing off as was planned. My directions now have proved that by correct adjustment of the levers death comes faster and the prisoners fall asleep peacefully.

And Just wrote of the gas vans to Rauff, on June 5, 1942, in a letter marked both "top secret" and "only copy". This is a horrific masterpiece of Nazi double-talk, referring to killing as "processing" and the victims as "subjects" and "the load." (See Kogon, Nazi Mass Murder, 1993, pp. 228-235.)

Since December 1941, for example, 97,000 were processed using three vans, without any faults occurring in the vehicles. ...

The normal capacity of the vans is nine to ten per square meter. The capacity of the larger special Saurer vans is not so great. The problem is not one of overloading but of off-road maneuverability on all terrains, which is severely diminished in this van. It would appear that a reduction in the cargo area is necessary. This can be achieved by shortening the compartment by about one meter. The problem cannot be solved by merely reducing the number of subject treated, as has been done so far. For in this case a longer running time is required, as the empty space also needs to be filled with CO [the poison exhaust gas]. ...

Greater protection is needed for the lighting system. The grille should cover the lamps high enough up to make it impossible to break the bulbs. It seems that these lamps are hardly ever turned on, so the users have suggested that they could be done away with. Experience shows, however, that when the back door is closed and it gets dark inside, the load pushes hard against the door. The reason for this is that when it becomes dark inside, the load rushes toward what little light remains. This hampers the locking of the door. It has also been noticed that the noise provoked by the locking of the door is linked to the fear aroused by the darkness.

Slip-ups occurred in written correspondence regarding the gas chambers themselves, some of which, fortunately, escaped destruction and were found after the war. A memo written to SS man Karl Bischoff on November 27, 1942 describes the gas chamber in Krema II not with the usual mundane name of "Leichenkeller," but rather as the "Sonderkeller" "special cellar."

And two months later, on January 29, 1943, Bischoff wrote a memo to Kammler, referring to that same chamber as the "Vergasungskeller." (See Gutman, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, pp. 223, 227.) "Vergasungskeller" means exactly what it sounds like: "gassing cellar," an underground gas chamber.

Holocaust-deniers turn to Arthur Butz, who provides a specious explanation for the Vergasungskeller: "Vergasung," he says, cannot refer to killing people with gas, but only to the process of converting a solid or liquid into gas. Therefore, he says the "Vergasungskeller," must have been a special room where the fuel for the Auschwitz ovens was converted into gas -- a "gasification cellar."

There are three problems with this explanation. First, "Vergasung" certainly can refer to killing people with gas; Butz does not speak German and he should not try to lecture about the language. Second, there is no room that could possibly serve this function which Butz describes -- years after writing his book, he admitted this, and helplessly suggested that there might be another building somewhere in the camp that might house a gasification cellar. Third, the type of oven used at Auschwitz did not require any gasification process! The ovens burned solid fuel. (See Gutman, op. cit., pp. 184-193.)

So what does the term "gassing cellar" refer to? Holocaust-deniers have yet to offer any believable explanation.

An inventory, again captured after the war, revealed fourteen showerheads and one gas-tight door listed for the gas chamber in Krema III. Holocaust-deniers claim that room was a morgue; they do not offer to explain what use a morgue has for showerheads and a gas-tight door. (See a photograph of the document, or Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation, 1989, pp. 231, 438.)

A memo from the Auschwitz construction office, dated March 31, 1943, says Hilberg, Documents of Destruction, 1971, pp. 207-208):

We take this occasion to refer to another order of March 6, 1943, for the delivery of a gas door 100/192 for Leichenkeller 1 of Krema III, Bw 30a, which is to be built in the manner and according to the same measure as the cellar door of the opposite Krema II, with peep hole of double 8 millimeter glass encased in rubber. This order is to be viewed as especially urgent....

Why would morgues have urgently needed peepholes made out of a double layer of third-of-an-inch-thick glass?

The question of whether it can be proved that the cyanide gas was used in the Auschwitz gas chambers has intruiged the deniers. Their much-heralded Leuchter Report, for example, expends a great deal of effort on the question of whether traces of cyanide residue remain there today. But we do not need to look for chemical traces to confirm cyanide use (Gutman, op. cit., p. 229):

Letters and telegrams exchanged on February 11 and 12 [1943] between the Zentralbauleitung and Topf mention a wooden blower for Leichenkeller 1. This reference confirms the use of the morgue as a gas chamber: Bischoff and Prüfer thought that the extraction of air mixed with concentrated prussic acid [cyanide] (20 g per cu m) required a noncorroding ventilator.

Bischoff and Prüfer turned out to be wrong, and a metal fan ended up working acceptably well. But the fact that they thought it necessary demonstrates that cyanide was to be routinely used in the rooms which deniers call morgues. (Cyanide is useless for disinfecting morgues, as it does not kill bacteria.)

Other captured documents, even if they don't refer directly to some part of the extermination process, refer to it by implication. A captured memo to SS-Brigadeführer Kammler reveals that the expected incineration capacity of the Auschwitz ovens was a combined total of 4,756 corpses per day (see a photograph of the document or Kogon, op. cit., p. 157).

Deniers often claim that this total could not be achieved in practice (see question 45). That's not the point. These crematoria were carefully designed, in 1942, to have sufficient capacity to dispose of 140,000 corpses per month -- in a camp that housed only 125,000. We can conclude that massive deaths were predicted, indeed planned-for, as early as mid-1942. A camp designed to incinerate its full capacity of inmates every four weeks is not merely a detention center.

Finally, apart from the abundant testimonies, confessions, and physical evidence of the extermination process, there is certainly no want of evidence of the Nazis' intentions and plans.

Here are just a few examples. Hans Frank’s diary (from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 1946, Vol. I, pp. 992, 994):

But what should be done with the Jews? Do you think they will be settled down in the 'Ostland' [eastern territories], in [resettlement] villages? This is what we were told in Berlin: Why all this bother? We can do nothing with them either in the 'Ostland' nor in the 'Reichkommissariat.' So liquidate them yourself.

Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourself of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain the structure of the Reich as a whole. ...

We cannot shoot or poison these 3,500,000 Jews, but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures, which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation....

That we sentence 1,200,000 Jews to die of hunger should be noted only marginally.

Himmler's speech at Posen on October 4, 1943 was captured on audiotape (Trial of the Major War Criminals, 1948, Vol. XXIX, p. 145, trans. by current author):

I refer now to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of those things that is easily said: "the Jewish people are being exterminated," says every Party member, "quite true, it's part of our plans, the elimination of the Jews, extermination, we're doing it."

The extermination effort was even mentioned in at least one official Nazi court verdict. In May 1943, a Munich court wrote in its decision against SS-Untersturmführer Max Taubner that:

The accused shall not be punished because of the actions against the Jews as such. The Jews have to be exterminated and none of the Jews that were killed is any great loss. Although the accused should have recognized that the extermination of the Jews was the duty of Kommandos which were set up especially for this purpose, he should be excused for considering himself to have the authority to take part in the extermination of Jewry himself.

And Hitler spoke quite clearly in public on no fewer than three occasions. On January 30, 1939, seven months before Germany invaded Poland, he spoke publicly to the Reichstag (transcribed from Skeptic magazine, Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 50):

Today I want to be a prophet once more: if international finance Jewry inside and outside of Europe should succeed once more in plunging nations into another world war, the consequence will not be the Bolshevation of the earth and thereby the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.

By the way, this last phrase is, in German, "die Vernichtung der jüdischen Rasse in Europa," which German-speakers will realize is quite unambiguous.

In September, 1942:

...if Jewry should plot another world war in order to exterminate the Aryan peoples in Europe, it would not be the Aryan people which would be exterminated but Jewry...

On November 8, 1942:

You will recall the session of the Reichstag during which I declared: if Jewry should imagine that it could bring about an international world war to exterminate the European races, the result will not be the extermination of the European races, but the extermination of Jewry in Europe. People always laughed about me as a prophet. Of those who laughed then, countless numbers no longer laugh today, and those who still laugh now will perhaps no longer laugh a short time from now.

There are many other examples of documents and testimonies that could be presented.

Keep in mind that the IHR#&146;s answer to "what proof exists?" is "none." It has certainly been demonstrated already that this pat answer is totally dishonest. And this is the main point we wish to communicate: that Holocaust-denial is dishonest.

We continue by analyzing the remaining, more-specific, claims about what evidence supposedly does not exist.

"No mounds of ashes" is an internal contradiction. In an article in the journal published by the same IHR that publishes these Q&A, the Journal's editor reported that a Polish commission in 1946 found human ash at the Treblinka death camp to a depth of over twenty feet. This article is available on Greg Raven's web site.

(Apparently some survivors claimed that the corpses were always thoroughly cremated. Because uncremated human remains were mixed with the ash, the editor suggested that the testimonies were false. Amazingly, he had no comment on how a twenty-foot layer of human ashes came to be there in the first place. Perhaps he felt that to be unworthy of mention.)

There are also piles of ashes at Maidanek. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, ashes from cremated corpses were dumped into the rivers and swamps surrounding the camp, and used as fertilizer for nearby farmers' fields.

"No crematoria" capable of disposing of millions of corpses? Absolutely false, the crematoria were more than capable of the job, according to both the Nazis' own internal memos and the testimony of survivors. Holocaust-deniers deliberately confuse civilian, funeral-home crematoria with the huge industrial ovens of the death camps. This is discussed in much detail in the replies to questions 42 and 45.

"No piles of clothes"? Apparently, the IHR considers piles of clothes to be "hard evidence"! This is strange, because they do not deny the other sorts of piles found at Nazi camps: piles of eyeglasses, piles of shoes (at Auschwitz, Belzec, and Maidanek), piles of gold teeth, piles of burned corpses, piles of unburned corpses, piles of artificial limbs (see Swiebocka, Auschwitz: A History in Photographs, 1993, p. 210), piles of human hair (ibid, p. 211), piles of ransacked luggage (ibid, p. 213), piles of shaving-brushes (ibid, p. 215), piles of combs (ibid), piles of pots and pans (ibid), and yes, even the piles of clothes (ibid, p. 214) that the IHR claims do not exist.

Perhaps the authors of the 66 Q&A realized that it was dangerous for them to admit that these piles were hard evidence, because then they would also be forced to admit a number of other things as "hard evidence." Perhaps this is why they removed this phrase from the revised 66 Q&A.

If items were not generally found in mass quantities, it is only because the Nazis distributed them to the German population. A memo on this was captured, revealing that they even redistributed women's underwear.

"No human soap"? This is true, but misleading. Though there is some evidence that soap was made from corpses on a very limited experimental scale, the rumored "mass production" was never done, and no soap made from human corpses is known to exist. However, there is sworn testimony, never refuted, from British POWs and a German army official, stating that soap experiments were performed, and the recipe for the soap was captured by the Allies. To state flatly that the Nazis did not make soap from human beings is incorrect.

"No lamp shades made of human skin?" False -- lampshades and other human-skin "ornaments" were introduced as evidence in both trials of Ilse Koch, and were shown to a U.S. Senate investigation committee in the late 40s. We know they were made of human skin because they bore tattoos, and because a microscopic forensic analysis of the items was performed. (A detailed page on this is being prepared.)

"No records"? This is nonsense (which may explain why this claim was removed from the "revised" versions of the 66 Q&A). True, extermination by gassing was always referred to with code-words, and those victims who arrived at death camps only to be immediately gassed were not recorded in any books. But there are slip-ups in the code-word usage that reveal the true meanings, as already described. There are inventories and requisitions for the Krema which reveal items anomalous with ordinary use but perfect for mass homicidal gassing. There are deportation train records which, pieced together, speak clearly. And so on. Several examples have been given above.

"No credible demographic statistics"? This is the second internal contradiction -- see question 2 and question 15. The Anglo-American committee who studied the issue estimated the number of Jewish victims at 5.7 million. This was based on population statistics. Here is the exact breakdown, country by country:
   Germany -                       195,000
   Austria -                        53,000
   Czechoslovakia -                255,000
   Denmark -                         1,500
   France -                        140,000
   Belgium -                        57,000
   Luxemburg -                       3,000
   Norway -                          1,000
   Holland -                       120,000
   Italy -                          20,000
   Jugoslavia -                     64,000
   Greece -                         64,000
   Bulgaria -                        5,000
   Rumania -                       530,000
   Hungary -                       200,000
   Poland -                      3,271,000
   USSR -                        1,050,000
   
   Less dispersed refugees        (308,000)
   
   Total number of Jews killed   5,721,500
(This estimate was arrived at using population statistics, and not by adding the number of casualties at each camp. These are also available -- for instance, a separate file with the ruling of a German court regarding the number of victims in Treblinka is available. The SS kept rather accurate records, and many of the documents survived, reinforced by eyewitness accounts).

Some estimates are lower, some are higher, but this is the magnitude in question. In an article in CMU's student newspaper, the head of CMU's History Department, Peter Stearns, is quoted as saying that newly discovered documents -- especially in the former USSR -- indicate that the number of victims is higher than six million. Other historians claim not much over five million. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust uses 5,596,000 as a minimum and 5,860,000 as a maximum (Gutman, 1990, p. 1799).

In summary:

"Revisionists" often claim, correctly, that the burden of proof is on historians. The proof, of course, has been a matter of public record since late 1945, and is available in libraries around the world. The burden has been met, many, many times over. You've just seen a brief presentation of some of the highlights of that immense body of proof; much more is readily available.

To even argue that the Holocaust never happened is ludicrous. To claim straight-faced that none of this proof even exists is beyond ludicrous, and it is a clear example of "revisionist" dishonesty.

2. What evidence exists that six million Jews were not killed by the Nazis?

The IHR says:

Extensive forensic, demographic, analytical and comparative evidence demonstrates the impossibility of such a figure. The widely repeated "six million" figure is an irresponsible exaggeration.

Nizkor replies:

First of all: in the answer to this question, they claim to have "extensive evidence" to prove that something did not happen. Yet Holocaust-deniers often claim that they do not have to prove anything because, as they say, "it is impossible to prove a negative." Greg Raven has said this at least twice: once implicitly, and once explicitly:

We also note in passing that they ask me to prove a negative, which is impossible.

It is possible to prove a negative, of course, but since none of the "evidence" is given here, it is impossible to respond definitively to this absurd claim. "Forensic evidence " is probably a reference to the fraudulent "Leuchter Report," of which a detailed analysis has been written.

What is this about "demographic evidence"? Didn't they just say in question 1 that "no credible demographic statistics exist"? Another internal contradiction.

"Analytical and comparative evidence" could mean anything. We invite any "revisionist" to explain what this means and to present some of this evidence, and we promise to address it on this page if they do so.

3. Did Simon Wiesenthal once state in writing that "there were no extermination camps on German soil"?

The IHR says (original):

Yes. In Books and Bookmen, April, 1975 issue. He claims the "gassings" of the Jews took place in Poland.

The IHR says (revised):

Yes. The famous "Nazi hunter" wrote this in Stars and Stripes, Jan. 24, 1993. He also claimed that "gassings" of Jews took place only in Poland.

Nizkor replies:

Wiesenthal's 1975 letter to the editor said:

Because there were no extermination camps on German soil the Neo-Nazis are using this as proof that these crimes did not happen [...]

How ironic that he was not only correct, but that those very words were later misused in the manner he described.

Both answers are correct in themselves: Wiesenthal did indeed indicate in 1975 and in 1993 that there were no extermination camps in what is now Germany. Innocuous as the change seems, it does lead the reader to assume that the most recent statement is some kind of admission that the Holocaust was much more limited than has been maintained and that the truth is finally coming out. Statements like Wiesenthal's are in fact the basis upon which deniers claim that their pressure is forcing the truth out of reluctant historians.

The truth is that historians, and others like Wiesenthal, have attempted repeatedly over the years to dispel several myths about the Holocaust: the mass production of soap made from human fat is a good example.

Another misconception which they have tried to dispel is that the bulk of the extermination of the Jews took place within Germany itself -- or, more properly, within the "Altreich," the prewar boundaries of Germany. While there were indeed gas chambers and homicidal gassings in the Altreich, they were on a much smaller scale than the gassings in the camps in Nazi-occupied Poland, such as Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Kulmhof/Chelmno, Maidanek/Majdanek, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. About three million people, almost exclusively Jews, were gassed to death in those camps. Camp gassings in the Altreich probably claimed the lives of only a few thousand people, almost certainly under ten thousand. Aside from "small-scale" gassing in places like Sachsenhausen, Stutthof, Neuengamme, and Ravensbrück, it was largely confined tothe "euthanasia" program, which did claim the lives of over a hundred thousand people, mostly non-Jews.

The Nazis had at least two good reasons for building the death camps outside of Germany. First, they were easier to conceal from the German people. Given the chaotic wartime conditions in the territory surrounding the Altreich, they were easier to conceal in general.

Second, the vast majority of murdered Jews came from conquered territory to the east and south -- why go to extra trouble to ship them back into Germany? (See the statistics at the end of question 1.)

What is not given any recognition by the deniers is that the latest "admission" by Wiesenthal is exactly what respectable historians have been saying for the past 45 years, starting perhaps with the Munich-based Institute for Contemporary History in 1950. This selectivity amounts to nothing less than lying by omission and innuendo.

4. If Dachau was in Germany and even Simon Wiesenthal says that it was not an extermination camp, why do thousands of veterans in America say that it was an extermination camp?

The IHR says:

Because after the Allies captured Dachau, thousands of G.I.s were led through Dachau and shown buildings alleged to be gas chambers, and because the mass-media widely, but falsely, stated that Dachau was a "gassing" camp.

Nizkor replies:

In the sense that tens of thousands of people were starved to death and sporadically killed in it, yes, Dachau was a death camp. The term "extermination camp" should probably not be applied to Dachau, because that is generally taken to mean one of the large camps in occupied Poland where mass gassings were performed (see question 3).

What is not in question is that the gas chamber did exist. The Allies captured the memo sent from Dr. Sigmund Rascher at Dachau to Himmler, which read (see Kogon et al., Nazi Mass Murder, 1993, p. 202):

As you know, the same facilities [gas chambers] have been built at the Dachau concentration camp as at Linz Hartheim]. Whereas the "invalid transports" end up in certain chambers anyway, I ask whether we cannot test some of our various combat gases on specific persons who are involved in the action. Up till now there have only been animal tests or accounts of accidental deaths in the manufacture of these gases. Because of this paragraph, I have sent this letter marked "Secret."

An American reporter made a movie showing the gas chamber very soon after the camp's capture, showing how it was labelled "Brausebad" ("showers") despite having no shower facilities.

The question of whether the gas chamber can be proved to have been used has not been definitively answered. Some historians say that there is no question: it was never used. Some say that the question is still open. It comes down to two testimonies: that of a British officer named Payne-Best who says he heard Dr. Rascher speak of gassings, and that of Dr. Franz Blaha, who testified under oath to experimental gassings. For more information, see Kogon et al., op. cit., pp. 202-204, and Blaha's testimony in Trial of the Major War Criminals, 1947, vol. V, pp. 167-199.

Holocaust-deniers, of course, only present the point of view which says that it was never used. They often quote from a 1960 letter written by the director of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute for Contemporary History), in Munich (see Die Zeit, August 19, 1960, p. 16):

No Gassing in Dachau

Neither in Dachau nor in Bergen-Belsen nor in Buchenwald were Jews or other prisoners gassed.

The letter of course confirms that mass gassing did take place in the larger camps. Holocaust-deniers don't like to mention that part. They also don't like to mention that, since 1960, the Institut has performed more research and has come to a new conclusion. They now say:

...a gas chamber was established [in Dachau] in which...a few experimental gassings were undertaken, as more recent research has confirmed.

Finally, the "mass media," for the most part, states the facts: that Dachau was used for gassing on a very small scale. Whether the term "gassing camp" is appropriate would probably depend on context. If the IHR can present a cite in which a newspaper or magazine has printed an inaccuracy, let them do so. It won't be the first time, nor the last, that something was erroneously printed. If Holocaust-deniers think errors in newspapers help prove that the Holocaust did not occur, they are obviously deluded.

5. Auschwitz was in Poland, not Germany. Is there any proof that gas chambers for the purpose of killing human beings existed at or in Auschwitz?

The IHR says:

No. A reward of $50,000 was offered for such proof, the money being held in trust by a bank, but no one came up with any credible evidence. Auschwitz, captured by the Soviets, was extensively modified after the war and a mortuary was reconstructed to look like a large "gas chamber." It is now a big tourist attraction for the Communist Polish government.

The IHR says (revised):

No. Auschwitz, captured by the Soviets, was modified after the war, and a room was reconstructed to look like a large "gas chamber." After America's leading expert on gas chamber construction and design, Fred Leuchter, examined this and other alleged Auschwitz gassing facilities, he stated that it was an "absurdity" to claim that they were, or could have been, used for executions.

Nizkor replies:

Regarding the $50,000 reward offer: it was paid, to the last cent (actually $90,000), to Mel Mermelstein, an Auschwitz survivor who took the IHR to court. Here is the statement made by the judge:

The Honorable Thomas T. Johnson, on October 9, 1981, took judicial notice as follows:

Under Evidence Code Section 452(h), this court does take judicial notice of the fact that Jews were gassed to death at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944

and

It just simply is a fact that falls within the definition of Evidence Code Section 452(h). It is not reasonably subject to dispute. And it is capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy. It is simply a fact.

The IHR complains that they were not given a chance to dispute this fact, but then the American court system is not meant to be a place for people to try to prove crackpot theories. No "credible evidence" was produced because there was no call for it -- a courtroom is not the place to rehash the work of historians over the last half-century.

Besides, "credible evidence" means only what Holocaust-deniers want it to mean. Michael Shermer, in an open letter, has offered to take the IHR up on a similar offer, but only if they precisely define ahead of time what they will accept as evidence. He has received no reply. (In fact, to date, his letter has not even been printed.)

After this trial, both Mermelstein and the IHR sued each other for libel, but both decided not to go to court. The Holocaust deniers claim this is a "stunning victory" which "nullifies the result of the first trial." Nonsense: the two were unrelated, and the second trial would have had nothing to do with the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

As with most legal proceedings, the details get quite complicated. Great detail, including copies of several official documents, is available in the FTP archives.

Regarding Fred Leuchter’s fraudulent "Report," a separate FAQ is available.

6. If Auschwitz wasn't a "death camp," what was its true purpose?

The IHR says (original):

It was a large-scale manufacturing complex. Synthetic rubber (Buna) was made there, and its inmates were used as a workforce. The Buna process was used in the U.S. during WWII.

The IHR says (revised):

It was an internment center and part of a large-scale manufacturing complex. Synthetic fuel was produced there, and its inmates were used as a workforce.

Nizkor replies:

True to some extent. Auschwitz was a huge complex; it had ordinary POW camps (in which British airmen were also held, and they testified of atrocities in the nearby extermination camp). Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, was the largest camp, and the gas chambers were there. Auschwitz III, or Monowitz, was the industrial manufacturing plant.

Many prisoners were indeed used for forced labor in Auschwitz. But the "unfit" -- meaning the elderly, the children, and most of the women -- were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

In its revised answer, the IHR states that "synthetic fuel" was produced there, not Buna. This is more accurate. By war's end, not a single ounce of rubber had been produced at the Buna camp.

It's a tactical error on their part to admit this, however, because in question number 40, they state that it was impossible to burn corpses because there wasn't any fuel. Yet they admit that there was a fuel-synthesis plant just a few miles away. It did produce fuel, and in fact was an Allied bombing target for that reason. Another internal contradiction.

7. Who set up the first concentration camps, and where and when?

The IHR says:

The first use of concentration camps in the Western world was apparently in America during the Revolutionary War. The British interned thousands of Americans, many of whom died of disease and beatings. Andrew Jackson and his brother -- who died -- were two. Later the British set up concentration camps in South Africa to hold Afrikaner women and children during their conquest of that country (the Boer War). Tens of thousands died in these hell-holes, which were far worse than any German concentration camp of WWII.

Nizkor replies:

Irrelevant to the issue of the Holocaust, except for the last sentence, which is an absurdity. Even Holocaust-deniers have to admit that hundreds of thousands of prisoners died in Nazi camps -- see their answer to question 36. Another internal contradiction.

The IHR wishes to whitewash the Nazis' crimes by comparing them to other evils. We will not take part in this moral relativism, but will merely present the historical facts about the Nazis and let the reader make up his or her own mind.

8. How did German concentration camps differ from American relocation camps which interned Japanese-, German- and Italian-Americans during WWII?

The IHR says (original and revised):

Except for the name, the only significant difference was that the Germans interned persons on the basis of being a real or suspected security threat to the German war effort, whereas the Americans interned persons on the basis of race alone.

Nizkor replies:

Irrelevant to the issue of the Holocaust, and untrue. The phrase "the Germans interned persons on the basis of being a real or suspected security threat" could be true -- if one were to acknowledge that every Jew was a suspected security threat simply by virtue of being Jewish.

For example, a 1942 report from Himmler to Hitler lists three categories under "Bandenverdaechtige" -- suspected members of the opposition. Under "captured," there were 19,000. Under "executed," there were 14,000. And under "executed Jews," a third of a million. A photograph and a transcription of this document is available. By the way, that's a third of a million Jews executed by the Einsatzgruppen in just four months in late 1942.

The claim that there were no significant differences is of course a lie. The Americans did not starve millions of people to death, did not force their imates to work under brutal conditions, and did not send them to gas chambers if they were "unfit" to work.

9. Why did the Germans intern Jews in concentration camps?

The IHR says:

Because the Germans considered Jews a direct threat to their national sovereignty and survival, and because Jews were overwhelmingly represented in Communist subversion. However, all suspected security risks -- not only Jews -- were in danger of internment.

The Samisdat version says:

Because the Germans considered Jews a direct threat to their national sovereignity and survival. Jews were overwhelmingly represented in Germany in communist subversion. On a per-capita basis, Jews were over represented in key government and commercial positions and professions. However, all suspected security risks -- not only Jews -- were in danger of internment.

Nizkor replies:

All the Jews were Communists or risks to national security? And the Jews of other countries, such as Poland? And the homosexuals, and the gypsies? This is Nazi propaganda of the worst kind reincarnated. The statement about Jews being "overwhelmingly represented" in "Communist subversion" and in the wrong "professions" is an exact echo of antisemitic Nazi propaganda.

The fact is that the Nazis used such propaganda to justify the slaughter of every Jew they found behind the advancing Eastern front, and in every other country they overran: millions of them, men, women, and children.

Holocaust-deniers, by the way, admit that hundreds of thousands of Jews, including women and children, were shot in the eastern territories. (See next question.) The Nazis claimed it was justified because of the wartime conditions. To find the same justifications turning up again, fifty years later, is, in our opinion, horrifying.

10. What extensive measure did world Jewry undertake against Germany as early as 1933?

The IHR says:

An international boycott of German goods.

The Samisdat version says:

On March 24, 1933, International Jewry declared war against Germany and ordered a world-wide boycott of German goods simply because the German government had removed Jews from influential positions and transferred power back to the German people. The boycott order and the Jewish "war" against Germany were reported in world media and broadcast everywhere. Phony stories of German "death camps" circulated before WWII. The Germans, as a result, had every right to lock up Jews, as prisoners of war, wherever and whenever they were found between 1933-45!

Nizkor replies:

This boycott happens to be the exact same thing referred to in the next question, except there it's referred to as "declaring war on Germany."

Why did the IHR describe this single action twice with different words? Something fishy is going on here.

The boycott of German goods was undertaken in response to various Nazi atrocities, including a planned Nazi boycott of Jewish goods and services.

But the IHR just conveniently "forgot" to mention this.

Note the blatant antisemitism in the Samisdat Ernst Zündel) version. Never mind the gas chambers and the extermination effort, never mind that six million died. Just ask yourself if the Nazis had "every right" to send Jewish infants to camps with little food, no sanitation, and rampant typhus epidemics, where they died like flies? Were those Jewish babies "prisoners of war"?

Even "revisionists" must admit that this slaughter occurred. The Holocaust-denier David Irving describes a 1944 Himmler speech (Skeptic magazine, Vol. 2, No. 4, p. 50):

"If people ask me," said Himmler, "why did you have to kill the children too, then I can only say I am not such a coward that I leave for my children something I can do myself." ... I agree, Himmler said that. He actually said "We're wiping out the Jews. We're murdering them. We're killing them." ... He is talking about solving the Jewish problem, about having to kill off women and children too.

Did a newspaper story in 1933 give the Nazis "every right" to do this?

(Irving claims in that interview that because Himmler had not mentioned specifically how many Jews were being killed, that therefore it is not evidence for the Holocaust.)

11. Did the Jews of the world "declare war on Germany"?

The IHR says (original):

Yes. The world media carried the headlines, "Judea Declares War on Germany."

The IHR says (revised):

Yes. Newspapers around the world reported this. A front-page headline in the London Daily Express (March 24, 1933), for example, announced "Judea Declares War on Germany."

Nizkor replies:

"World media"? "Newspapers around the world"? One British newspaper is cited, talking about a planned economic boycott.

A transcript of the article is available. The next paragraphs after the headline were:

A strange and unfortunate sequel has emerged from the stories of German Jew-baiting.

The whole of Israel throughout the world is uniting to declare an economic and financial war on Germany.

Hirtherto the cry has gone up: "Germany is persecuting the Jews." If the present plans are carried out, the Hitlerite cry will be: "The Jews are persecuting Germany."

The fact that this "Hitlerite cry" has been echoed four decades later by Holocaust-deniers should surprise no one. (See question 62 for information about various deniers' views on Hitler.)

In sum, this question and answer is a cheap trick to make it seem as if "the Jews of the world" started the "war" against Germany, instead of the other way around. The word "war" means many things. In this case it meant planning to apply economic pressure.

But the IHR and Zündel want you to think it was a real declaration of war. How many divisions of troops did "Judea" have? How many tanks? How many planes? How many artillery shells?

The fact is that Germany started the real war, World War II, and started it by overrunning Poland with planes, bombs, tanks, and millions of infantrymen. To compare this to a planned economic boycott is ludicrous, but typical of "revisionist" trickery.

Besides, this is an internal contradiction. Their answer to question 54 states that "the Germans maintained cordial relations with the Zionist leadership." War is not a cordial relation. They should get their story straight.

12. Was this before or after the rumors of the "death camps" began?

The IHR says:

Nearly six years BEFORE. Judea declared war on Germany in 1933.

Nizkor replies:

Economic "war," as noted in the reply to question 11.

Here's an internal contradiction: in the answer to question 10, the Samisdat version claims that the "death camp phony stories" were "circulating" in 1933.

And here's another internal contradiction: in the answer to question 54, the IHR states that "the Germans maintained cordial relations with the Zionist leadership." War is not a cordial relation.

Here are some statements and actions of Nazi leaders, years before the shooting war broke out in 1939:

1919: Hitler writes in a letter:

... Everything that makes the people strive for greater things, be it religion, socialism, or democracy, merely serves the Jew as a means to the satisfaction of his greed and thirst for power....

Rational antisemitism, by contrast [to emotional antisemitism] must lead to a systematic and legal struggle against, and eradication of, what privileges the Jews enjoy over other foreigners living among us. Its final objective, however, must be the total removal of all Jews from our midst.

1924: Hitler writes Mein Kampf while in prison, regretting that Germany did not gas influential Jews during World War I.

1932: Hermann Goering speaking on behalf of the Nazi Party (not yet in power) tells an Italian reporter in an interview that the Nazis need to defend themselves against the Jews by forbidding intermarriage, expelling Jews in Germany of Eastern European descent, dismissing native German Jews from all jobs, honorary position or capacity that the Nazis deem they might exert their "destructive, antinational or international influence."

In the same white paper that the Nazis reprinted this interview they said that they would set the synagogues aflame, close the murderous band of Jews up in Ghettos and prisons, and hang them from trees (July 13, 1932, Stellung der NSDAP [NSDAP = Nazi Party.])

1932, summer: Nazi faction in the Prussian (Weimar) Parliament demands dismissal of actors and artists not of German descent, a ban on the Jewish ritual method of slaughtering animals for food, and the expropriation of property belonging to East European Jews residing in Germany.

1932, July 31: Goebbels writes an article in the newspaper Der Angriff calling for a pogrom against the Jews.

1933, January 30: Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany.

1933, March: Nazi opponents arrested and imprisoned in the first concentration camps.

1933, March 13: Hitler establishes the Ministry of Information and Propaganda under Goebbels.

1933, March 23: Hitler signs into law "The Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich", giving Hitler the authority to abolish all regional parliaments within Germany.

1933, March 31: Hans Kerrl, Commissar of the Prussian Ministry of Justice and Hans Frank, Commissar of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, announce that all Jewish judges and prosecutors were to take an immediate leave and that Jewish lawyers and notaries would no longer be permitted to work [in their provinces; same dictum spreads to other provinces shortly thereafter].

The "66 Q&A," and most denier propaganda, always seek to make issues cut-and-dried. They present one curious fact out of context and hope to convince the reader that he needs to know no more. But after some of the context is restored, the curious fact often reveals itself to be no more curious than anything else happening at the time.

These are just the public, known anti-Jewish actions and writings before the Jewish boycott in 1933. The actions and writings became more pronounced and violent as time went on. Hitler became more and more explicit, until he stated publicly on January 30, 1939:

Today I will once more be a prophet: if the international Jewish financiers in and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the result will not be the bolshevization of the earth, and thus the victory of Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe!

He repeated this sentiment at least twice more, publicly, during the war, and he was not alone in doing so.

13. What nation is credited with being the first to practice mass civilian bombing?

The IHR says:

Great Britain -- on 11 May 1940.

Nizkor replies:

The town of Guernica in Spain was bombed by the German Luftwaffe in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.

But what does this have to do with the Holocaust?

It is true that the Allies had massively bombarded civilian population -- as had the Germans. Does the fact that atrocities were committed against the Germans mean they did not commit any themselves? Some weird logic.

The last few questions may only have hinted at it, but the IHR does openly suggest elsewhere that the imprisonment of European Jews was justified. See their Web page, The Encampment of the Jews: Might It Have Been Justified?

14. How many gas chambers to kill people were there at Auschwitz?

The IHR says:

None.

Nizkor replies:

Wrong, as usual; no evidence, as usual.

There were five "Kremas," each containing, among other things, an extermination gas chamber and furnaces to cremate the victims. The first was converted from its original use. The remaining four were designed as gas chambers from the start.

(For completeness' sake: a talented and well-respected amateur researcher by the name of Pressac believes that the two largest Krema were originally designed to be morgues and were switched over to gas chambers very early in their construction. He is in a minority of one in this belief.)

Two other extermination installations were called "Bunker I" or the "little red house" and "Bunker II" or "the little white house."

And again for completeness' sake: the first gassing was performed in the basement of Block 11, and there was also a sixth Krema which never got beyond the very early planning stages.

Recommended reading: The Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Gutman et al., pp. 157-245.

15. How many Jews were in areas that came to be controlled by the Germans before the war?

The IHR says (original):

Fewer than four million.

The IHR says (revised):

Fewer than six million.

Nizkor replies:

Didn't they just say in question 1 that there were "no credible demographic statistics"?

About three million in Poland, a million in Hungary, more than a million in the area of Russia occupied by the Nazis, and many, many more all over Europe. According to the Nazis' own figures given in the Wannsee Protocol, there were eleven million Jews in occupied Europe in 1942. See the reply to question 1.

Note also that if real historians had changed a Holocaust-related estimate from six million to four million or vice versa, the "revisionists" would be repeating it and citing it as proof that historians are changing their story and don't have any real figures to back up what they say. But when the revisionists change their own figures by two million, they don't raise much of a fuss, it seems.

16. If the Jews of Europe were not exterminated by the Nazis, what happened to them?

The IHR says:

After the war Jews of Europe were still in Europe, except for perhaps 300,000 of them who had died of all causes during the war, and those who had emigrated to Israel, the United States, Argentina, Canada, etc. Most Jews who left Europe did so after, not during, the war. They are all accounted for.

Nizkor replies:

This is ridiculous. It would imply that about 5 million missing Jews have emigrated to these countries after WW2. This is not supported by reality, not by a long shot. Most Jews in these countries came before WW2. In Palestine, for instance, there were 370,000 Jews in 1936, and 590,000 in 1947. There were 5.54 million Jews in America at 1939, and about 6 million today. There are about 6 million missing European Jews, and they are not accounted for -- except by the German camps.

Interestingly, the famous "revisionist" David Irving has recently made a surprising admission in a radio interview. Totally out of the blue, he stated that he now believes that as many as four million Jews died in concentration camps during the war.

17. How many Jews fled to deep within the Soviet Union?

The IHR says:

Over two million. The Germans did not have access to this Jewish population.

Nizkor replies:

What counts is how many Jews remained. See question 18.

18. How many Jews emigrated prior to the war, thus being outside of German reach?

The IHR says:

Over a million (not including those absorbed by the USSR).

Nizkor replies:

Yes, but more then six million remained. There were about eleven million Jews in Europe in 1937, by the Nazis' own estimates given in the Wannsee Protocol.

19. If Auschwitz was not an extermination camp, why did the commandant, Rudolf Hoss, confess that it was?

The IHR says (original):

He was tortured by Jewish interrogators in British uniform, as one of them has subsequently admitted.

The IHR says (revised):

He was tortured by British military police, as one of his interrogators later admitted.

The Samisdat version says:

Time-honored methods were used to get him to tell his captors what they wanted to hear.

Nizkor replies:

Wait a minute! The story gets more and more vague with each revision.

What exactly did this torturer admit? The IHR's first claim was that the interrogaters were Jewish operatives wearing (phony) British uniforms. If one of these interrogators supposedly admitted this, why did the IHR change things around and make these phony Jewish operatives into real British military police?

The real answer is that this claim of "Jewish interrogators in British uniform" appears nowhere else in Holocaust-denier literature. This claim appears only in the "Q&A." There is no evidence whatsoever to support it.

In other words, someone just made it up. Later, someone else decided they'd better quietly drop the whole thing. How many of the other 65 Q&A are similar? We can't know, because they don't provide any evidence to back any of them up.

Regarding the Höss confession:

We must consider all information in context. There are numerous other testimonies which confirm the essential facts of Höss' confession. There are captured documents which speak very clearly of gassing and mass shooting. The list goes on and on; for just a few examples, see the answer to question 1.

Deniers depend very heavily upon Hoess supposedly being coerced and fed a story. But they only have two pieces of evidence:

A lurid book by one Rupert Butler called Legions of Death. Butler tells of seeing Hoess beaten when he was first found. He makes no mention of the interrogators being Jewish agents in British uniform, of course.

And most importantly, Butler's version of what happened contradicts the deniers' hypothesis that Hoess was fed a story. Butler's book nowhere mentions Hoess being given a particular story to tell, it simply says Hoess was beaten.

A piece of hearsay that is supposedly contained in a secret document which the "revisionist" Robert Faurisson is not at liberty to reveal. (And even if it were revealed, it would be the first time the deniers ever accepted hearsay as being valid...)

(See footnote 2 of Mark Weber’s essay, titled "Let's Hear Both Sides" on Greg Raven's web site and " Different Views on the Holocaust" on Ernst Zündel's web site.)

On this pair of flimsy excuses, the deniers dismiss and ignore Hoess' confession, his testimony, his memoirs, and everything else he said and wrote about the gassings and the extermination program. Excerpts from his testimony and memoirs are available.

20. Is there any evidence that it was American, British, French, and Soviet policy to torture German prisoners in order to exact confessions before the trials at Nuremberg and elsewhere?

The IHR says:

Yes. Torture was extensively used to produce fraudulent "evidence" for the infamous Nuremberg trials, and in other postwar "war crimes" trials.

Nizkor replies:

No doubt there were some cases of mistreatment. Some Allied soldiers were so shocked with what they saw in the camps that they reacted with violence, but this is not a serious factor in the overall picture. This is a long way from a policy of torture inflicted to extract confessions.

As was asked in the reply to question 1: what torture or coercion could possibly reach across decades to convince a Nazi to continue testifying about the horrors of the Holocaust in the 60s, 70s, and 80s? What torture or coercion was being applied to Nazis while they awaited trial in German courts?

Try this experiment:

Email Greg Raven, the head of the IHR, at ihrgreg@kaiwan.com. Ask him:

whether he thinks that individual acts of Allies brutalizing Nazis would count as evidence toward a policy of torture.

what evidence he has to prove that "it was American, British, French, and Soviet policy to torture German prisoners in order to exact confessions."

whether he thinks that individual acts of Nazis murdering Jews would count as evidence toward a policy of extermination.

whether he considers Himmler's speech of October 4th, 1943 to indicate a Nazi policy to exterminate Jews:

"The Jewish people are being exterminated," says every Party member, "quite true, it's part of our plans, the elimination of the Jews, extermination, we're doing it."

Send a Cc of your email to webmaster@nizkor.org, and ask Mr. Raven to do the same.

21. How does the "Holocaust" story benefit the Jews today?

The IHR says:

It removes them from any criticism as a group. It provides a "common bond" with which their leaders can control them. It is instrumental in money-raising campaigns and to justify aid to Israel, totaling about $10 billion per year.

The Samisdat version also adds:

The "big-H" story is designed to shame the Gentile: "Poor Jews! How they do suffer!"

Nizkor replies:

This argument borders on insanity. The US was one of the leading forces in exposing the Holocaust. Did the US invent the Holocaust, so it could later give Israel money?

How about the former Soviet Union? Holocaust-deniers claim that most of the supposedly-forged Holocaust evidence was forged there. One of their more popular books is Porter's The Holocaust: Made in Russia. Yet the Soviet Union was traditionally the enemy of Israel, supporting and arming its enemies.

And who says the memory of the Holocaust is the reason the US gives money to Israel? There were -- and still are -- important strategic reasons for the US to support Israel and to lend its even greater support to Egypt.

Finally, where does the $10 billion per year figure come from? This is a vast exaggeration, as may be seen in the following tables:
                 Aid to Israel            Aid to Egypt
Year               in billions             in billions

1988                    $1.831                  $3.480
1989                     1.902                   2.085
1990                     4.377                   4.977
1991                     2.028                   2.478
1992                     4.746                   2.539
1993                     2.886                   2.734

Total (six years)      $17.770                 $18.293
Source: Readers Digest Almanac and Yearbook. (Egypt was the largest recipient during that period, with Israel second).
         Total funds given to Israel,
           1945 to 1984, in billions

Grants                       $13.751
Loans                        $11.756
Loans still owed              $9.360
The totally-baseless $10 billion figure has been quietly removed from the revised "66 Q&A." The insulting comment about how the Jews are controlled by their leaders was also struck out. The even-more insulting sarcastic comment about how the Jews "do suffer" is apparently thanks to Ernst Zündel.

22. How does it benefit the state of Israel?

The IHR says:

It justifies the billions of dollars in "reparations" the State of Israel has received from West Germany (East Germany has refused to pay). It is used by the Zionist/Israeli lobby to control American foreign policy toward Israel and to force American taxpayers to put up all the money Israel wants. And the annual ante is growing each year.

The Samisdat version says:

It justifies the more than $65 billion dollars in "reparation" the State of Israel has received from Germany. It is used by the Zionist-Israeli lobby to control American foreign policy toward Israel and to force American taxpayers to put up all the money Israel wants. The annual ante is growing each year.

Nizkor replies:

No reparations are paid for persons killed by the Nazis. Reparations are paid only to survivors for lost property and suffering. Obviously, if reparations were the primary motivation, it would be in the interest of survivors to minimize, not to maximize, the death toll.

Without wanting to get into an argument about modern politics, we will simply point out that there are obvious reasons why it is in the United States' national interest to support Israel. If the IHR rejects this, and thinks that only a tragedy like the Holocaust can explain the amount of aid Israel is receiving, perhaps they would like to explain why Egypt gets more (see question 21).

23. How does it benefit many Christian clergymen?

The IHR says:

It correlates with the Old Testament idea of Jews being the persecuted "Chosen People." It also keeps the Israeli-controlled "Holy Land" accessible to the clergy.

Nizkor replies:

Perhaps some clergyman can comment on this.

24. How does it benefit the Communists?

The IHR says:

It hides the extent of their own war mongering and atrocities before, during and after the war.

Nizkor replies:

Historians, and indeed the general public, are well aware of Communist atrocities. Those atrocities, terrible as they are, are irrelevant to the facts of the Holocaust.

25. How does it benefit Britain?

The IHR says:

In the same way it benefits the Soviet Union.

Nizkor replies:

Irrelevant moral relativism.

26. Is there any evidence that Hitler ordered a mass extermination of Jews?

The IHR says:

No.

Nizkor replies:

Of course there is. Himmler, Eichmann, Höss, and others have said that the orders for the genocide came directly from Hitler.

Consider that Hitler received in December 1942 a report from Himmler stating that 363,211 Jews had been murdered in August-November 1942. This was just one of many reports from the Einsatzgruppen, who had the job of exterminating the Jews and anti-Nazis behind the eastern front. A photograph and the text of the report are available.

Or consider a phone log from Hitler to Himmler, in which Hitler ordered "no liquidation" of a particular trainload of Jews, because they wanted one suspected passenger questioned. If Hitler did not know of the liquidation process, how could he have ordered it stopped in this one instance? (Ironically, David Irving used part of this phone log out of context to indicate that Hitler was trying to put a stop to the extermination program. Of course, this was before Mr. Irving changed his mind and decided that there never was any extermination program, much less that Hitler knew about it.)

From Höss’ memoirs (Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz, 1959, p. 205):

In the summer of 1941, I cannot remember the exact date, I was suddenly summoned to the Reichsfuhrer-SS [Himmler], directly by his adjutant's office. Contrary to his usual custom, Himmler received me without his adjutant being present and said in effect:

"The Führer has ordered that the Jewish question be solved once and for all and that we, the SS, are to implement that order."

Eichmann's final speech to the court, after being sentenced to death, included the following statement:

These mass murders are solely the result of the Führer's policy.

This is as quoted by the revisionist Paul Rassinier, The Real Eichmann Trial, 1979, p. 152.

Felix Kersten was Himmler's personal manual therapist. As he wrote in his memoirs (Kersten, The Kersten Memoirs, 1956, p. 162-3):

Today I had a very long talk about the Jews with Himmler. I said that the world would no longer tolerate the extermination of the Jews; it was high time that he put a stop to it. Himmler said that it was beyond his power; he was not the Führer and Adolf Hitler had expressly ordered it. I asked him whether he was aware that history would one day point to him as one of the greatest murderers on record, because of the way hin which he had exterminated the Jews. He should think of his reputation, not sully it with that reproach. Himmler replied that he had done nothing wrong and only carried out Adolf Hitler's orders.

... I told Himmler that he still had a chance to stand well with history by showing humanity to the Jews and other victims of the concentration camp -- if he really disagreed with Hitler's orders to exterminate them. He could simply forget certain of the Führer's orders and not carry them out.

"Perhaps you're right, Herr Kersten," Himmler responded, but he also added that the Führer would never forgive him and would immediately have him hanged.

Hitler met with the Mufti, Haj Amin Husseini, on 28 November 1941. Notes of the meeting were taken by Dr. Paul Otto Schmidt (see Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution, 1984, pp. 101-104). At this meeting, Hitler promised the Mufti that, after a certain objective was reached, "Germany's only remaining objective in the region would be limited to the annihilation of the Jews living under British protection in Arab lands."

Furthermore, don't discount Hitler's own public speeches, cited in the reply to question 1. He stated his intentions to exterminate the Jews no fewer than three times, in public.

"No evidence," indeed.

In the original version of the 66 Q&A, this question was the same as question 53, with different wording:

"Is there any evidence that Hitler knew of a mass extermination of Jews?" (question 26, original);

"What evidence is there that Hitler knew of the ongoing Jewish extermination?" (question 53, original and revised).

That gives an idea of how much careful thought was put into this pamphlet.

Recommended reading: Fleming's Hitler and the Final Solution.

27. What kind of gas was used by the Nazis in concentration camps?

The IHR says (original):

Zyklon-B, a hydrocyanic gas.

Nizkor replies:

Amazingly, even this four-word answer contains two errors.

First, Zyklon-B is the carrier of the gas, not the gas itself. Zyklon-B is the trademarked name for a substance, usually wood chips or diatomaceous earth, which has been impregnated with both the liquid form of hydrogen cyanide, and an irritant.

Second, the gas in question is hydrogen cyanide (sometimes called prussic acid). "A hydrocyanic gas" is nonsensical, because there is only one gas which is hydrocyanic, and that is hydrogen cyanide gas.

The IHR says (revised):

Hydrocyanic gas from "Zyklon B," a commercial pesticide that was widely used throughout Europe.

Nizkor replies:

The answer as revised is correct.

28. For what purpose was, and is, this gas manufactured?

The IHR says:

For the extermination of the typhus-bearing louse. It is used to fumigate clothing and quarters. It is readily available today.

Nizkor replies:

That's right. But it was also used to kill people on a massive scale. HCN (hydrocyanic acid, the gas released by Zyklon-B) has a "side effect" which the SS found very useful: it kills human beings quite well.

In fact, the same concentration kills humans and other mammals much faster than it kills lice and bugs. The concentration used for delousing, 8-10 grams per cubic meter, kills humans very quickly, though it takes up to 32 hours to get rid of bugs and clothes moths. Even when a lower concentration is used, death comes swiftly.

In fact, HCN is used to kill people in gas chambers today, in the United States.

A rather technical paper on the nature and mechanism of cyanide is available.

29. Why did they use this instead of a gas more suitable for mass extermination?

The IHR says:

If the Nazis had intended to use gas to exterminate people, far more efficient gases were available. Zyklon-B is very inefficient except when used as a fumigation agent.

Nizkor replies:

Lies. Zyklon-B was used partly because it is extremely efficient at killing people. True, there are other gases that are comparably efficient. However, Zyklon-B was unique in that it also had these two advantages:

It was easy to pack, store and transport -- it could be ordered from an ordinary chemical company, and came in sealed tins.

It was widely available, as it was used for delousing. In fact, probably over 90% of the Zyklon used at Auschwitz was used for delousing purposes. See e.g. Gutman, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, p. 215.

As noted in the answer to question 28, it is extremely efficient for mass murder. In fact, HCN, the gas released by Zyklon-B, is used today to execute condemned people in the United States.

In fairness, it should be pointed out that today's execution gas chambers generate HCN by chemical reaction, not by simply allowing it to evaporate, as was done with Zyklon-B. But there were no problems with the method the Nazis used; it worked quite well.

As the Nazis found out soon enough, the bottleneck in the extermination process was the incineration of the bodies, not the gassing itself. A thousand people could be killed in a matter of minutes, or an hour or two at most, counting the entire operation from arrival at the camp to the final ventilation of the gas chamber.

Yet to burn the bodies of those thousand people took quite a long while. Large, expensive furnaces were purchased, and many Reichsmarks were spent on maintaining them, but burning bodies still took at least ten times longer than actually killing people. The Nazis even reduced the size of the gas chambers after they realized that the bottleneck would always be the furnace capacity -- see Gutman et al., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, p. 224.)

So the arguments about difficulties with the gassing process, or efficiency of the gas, are just red herrings. See also the appropriate section of the Auschwitz FAQ.

Anyway, if there are supposedly so many gases that are "far more efficient," why doesn't the IHR just name some? Greg Raven was asked to do exactly this in on Usenet in 1994-95, but, after being asked many times, he was only able to state:

Carbon monoxide would be faster than Zyklon B, for example, as would any of numerous nerve gasses.

As has already been explained, the speed of the killing agent is not the bottleneck in the killing process, so saying which gas is "faster" misses the point. That aside, carbon monoxide is not in fact "faster" than HCN, which is one of the fastest-acting poisons there is. See the paper written on the subject for details.

In fact, the Nazis did try using carbon monoxide, in the Action Reinhard camps, and also at Maidanek, where bottled CO and piping apparatus was found. But, as Höss explained in his memoirs, he found the existing methods inefficient and decided to switch to Zyklon-B instead.

"Nerve gasses" is not a specific enough claim to address.

The only other instance of a specific gas being named, that we have yet found, is a laughable demonstration of ignorance. In the so-called "Lüftl Report," Walter Lüftl writes:

Anyone familiar with the danger involved in handling hydrocyanic acid gas (which is explosive and extremely toxic) must wonder why the SS executioners didn't use carbon dioxide gas -- which is easier to handle and completely harmless to the executioner -- to kill the prisoners who were allegedly poisoned with Zyklon.

Any textbook on physiology confirms that in the event of anoxia (oxygen deprivation), disturbances of brain functioning appear after five seconds, followed by unconsciousness after 15 seconds, and brain death after five minutes. This is how animals are put to sleep, painlessly and surely. It also works with people.

This is sheer stupidity. Carbon dioxide simply asphyxiates its victims, drowning them in oxygenless air. Unconsciousness would take much longer than fifteen seconds. Death would not be painless, it would be about as painful as strangling or drowning. And carbon dioxide must be transported compressed in bottles, since "dry ice" cannot be sublimated quickly enough to kill anyone.

How many bottles of carbon dioxide would it take to completely replace the normal, oxygenated air in a gas chamber? How much would it cost to transport and refill these bottles? Wouldn't it be easier to use a small amount of a poison that must only achieve a few hundred parts per million to be deadly, instead of having to reach a concentration sufficient to displace the oxygen from the air?

In fact, Friedrich Berg, dismisses carbon dioxide in another article published by the IHR, and available on Greg Raven's web site:

Carbon dioxide is not really any more poisonous than ordinary water. Most toxicology handbooks do not even mention it. When mentioned at all, it is generally classified as a "non-toxic, simple asphyxiant."

So this is another internal contradiction.

The "Lüftl Report," is available on-line in a textfile on Nizkor, or as a web page at Greg Raven's web site. Search on the text "physiology".

30. How long does it take to ventilate fully an area fumigated by Zyklon-B?

The IHR says:

Normally about 20 hours. The whole procedure is extremely involved and technical. Gas masks have to be used and only well-trained technicians are employed.

Nizkor replies:

No. The "20 hours" figure is irrelevant for a variety of reasons.

First of all, the figure is intended to apply to ordinary, unventilated, commercial- or home-use buildings. One should not reenter an ordinary building within that period of time, because there is little if any forced ventilation. Furthermore, ordinary items like carpets, drapes, furniture, and so on lengthen the time required to restore fresh air. The Nazi gas chambers, on the other hand, were empty concrete rooms, forcibly ventilated, so even five minutes was enough to recycle the air (see Gutman, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, p. 232). Some gas chambers did not have forced-ventilation systems; in those, the people who took the bodies out wore gas masks.

Also, there is a tremendous safety factor allowed for. Safety standards don't apply in wartime, and especially not when the aim is to kill a thousand people as quickly as possible. The Germans had plenty of experience with gas in general, and Zyklon in particular, since it was used so often in delousing.

Perhaps the Holocaust-deniers' next claim will be that the Germans never could have shot down any Allied planes, because it is impossible to fire a bomber's machine-gun while one is properly wearing a safety-belt according to FAA regulations.

Furthermore, the SS used Sonderkommando, prisoners used as forced labor, to remove the corpses from the gas chambers and cremate them. Needless to say, they didn't care much if the Sonderkommando would be hurt by the remaining gas. They were operating under a death sentence anyway -- the first thing each new Sonderkommando unit did was to burn the corpses of the previous unit.

If the "20 hours ventilation period" above was true, this would mean that the corpses of people executed using cyanide gas in US gas chambers would remain tied to the chair 20 hours after they were killed.

See also question 31, and the appropriate section of the Auschwitz FAQ.

31. Auschwitz commandant Hoss said that his men would enter the gas chamber ten minutes after the Jews had died and remove them. How do you explain this?

The IHR says:

It can't be explained because had they done so they would have suffered the same fate as the previous occupants.

Nizkor replies:

It can be explained very easily, and it has been explained, many times, in works available in any good library. Or, anyone who takes a little time to think will come up with what the solution was.

The solution that the Nazis used, in the largest gas chambers, was to install ventilation systems that could completely recycle the air in under five minutes (see Gutman, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, p. 232). There were also wire-mesh devices to remove the Zyklon-B from the chambers, improving the efficiency of the ventilation process.

Other gas chambers did not have ventilation systems, and the first people to enter those gas chambers wore gas masks until the gas was diffused and made harmless.

It was important to ventilate the gas chambers quickly and get on with evacuating the bodies and cremating them -- this was what took a lot of time. The gassing itself only lasted a few minutes.

See also question 30.

32. Hoss said in his confession that his men would smoke cigarettes as they pulled the dead Jews out of the gas chambers ten minutes after gassing. Isn't Zyklon-B explosive?

The IHR says:

Highly so. The Hoss confession is obviously false.

Nizkor replies:

Now this is really absolute nonsense.

The minimal concentration causing explosion is 56,000 parts per million. A concentration of 300 parts per million kills humans within a few minutes. As a reference, one can look at "The Merck Index" and the "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics," or consult any manual dealing with toxicity and flammability of chemicals. There would have been no real danger of explosion even if there were a bonfire burning in the gas chamber while the execution was taking place.

In fact, the Nazis' own product literature on Zyklon-B, Nuremberg document NI-9912, points this out:

Danger of explosion: 75 grams of HCN in 1 cubic meter of air. Normal application approx. 8-10 grams per cubic meter, therefore not explosive.

(By the way, the 8-10 grams per cubic meter is the concentration needed for exterminating lice and other insects, not human beings. Mammals require a much lower concentration and much shorter exposure time.)

A transcription of the NI-9912 document is available on Bradley Smith's web site, incidentally, including the above quotation. So the "revisionists" obviously know it exists. They just choose to ignore it. Mr. Smith calls the document "inconvenient" -- that it may be...but to whom?

In any case, would the gas be explosive ten minutes into the ventilation process, after enough of it had been swept away to render the room nontoxic? Not a chance. If the Sonderkommando were smoking cigarettes, they were obviously not wearing gas masks, so they would be dead anyway unless the concentration were far below 100 parts per million!

Why on earth does the IHR even bother to claim that explosion was a possibility? If there were anywhere near enough HCN to cause an explosion, any smoker would be long-dead from the poison anyway!

The facts are that the IHR has ignored basic reference works, failed to notice the Nazis' own dismissal of this point, and jettisoned common sense. This says a great deal about their level of scholarship.

And, for a brief digression...

It seems to say something about their honesty as well. Though they ignore NI-9912 here, where it is inconvient, they actually use it in other IHR publications! The so-called Lueftl Report, available from Greg Raven's web site, lifts figures from this document without a citation, when it says:

The evaporation of Zyklon B requires as many as 32 hours or as few as six hours, depending on whether the ambient temperature ranges from five to 30 degrees Celsius.

So they quote NI-9912 when it suits their purposes, and ignore it when it doesn't. That pretty much sums up Holocaust "revisionism."

And as long as we're on the topic, we might as well mention: that statement, even just in and of itself, is blatant academic dishonesty. NI-9912 does mention the figures of 6 to 32 hours, depending on temperature. However, those numbers are how long it takes the insects to die, and they have nothing to do with the evaporation time of Zyklon-B. Here is the original text of the captured Nazi document:

Time needed to take effect: 16 hours, unless there are special circumstances such a closed-in type of building, which requires less time. If the weather is warm it is possible to reduce this to a minimum of 6 hours. The period is to be extended to at least 32 hours if the temperature is below 5 degrees Centigrade.

The strength and time as above are to be applied in the case of: bugs, lice, fleas, etc., with eggs, larvae and chrysalises.

Again, the above is available on Bradley Smith's web site and is called "inconvenient" -- again, inconvenient to whom?

33. What was the exact procedure the Nazis allegedly used to exterminate Jews?

The IHR says:

The stories range from dropping the gas canisters into a crowded room from a hole in the ceiling, to piping it through shower heads, to "steam chambers," to "electrocution machinery." "Millions" of Jews are alleged to have been killed in this manner.

Nizkor replies:

The exact method depended on the camp. Different means of killing -- sometimes only slightly different -- were used in different camps, and even in different places in the same camp.

At Auschwitz, specifically at Krema I through III, the Zyklon-B was dropped through holes in the ceiling. The holes are visible in aerial photographs that happened to be taken by Allied reconnaissance planes. At the Action Reinhard camps, exhaust from powerful engines, often engines stripped from captured Russian tanks, was pumped into buildings.

There were indeed showerheads in several gas chambers; witnesses have testified to this and wartime Nazi documents like inventories confirm it. (See a photograph of the document, or Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation, 1989, pp. 231, 438.) It is believed, however, that in every case, the showerheads were only cosmetic, were not connected to anything, and that no poison gas was pumped through them. They were intended to reassure the victims that everything was normal, to help prevent panic as they crowded into the chamber, and Nazis testified to this after the war.

Approximately three million Jews were gassed to death, over about three years, at the six major death camps. The rest were killed by numerous mass executions, mainly in the occupied eastern territories, and in the numerous smaller camps and ghettoes by inhuman treatment like starvation and slave-labor.

Regarding "steam chambers" and "electrocution machinery" -- these were testimonies given by confused eyewitnesses, in some cases Poles who were spying on the camps from the outside. For example, someone seeing the killing process at the Action Reinhard camps might see the suffocating engine exhaust smoke billowing out of the gas chambers, and mistake it for steam. Of the Nazis themselves, or anyone else who saw the entire killing process from a close vantage point, we know of no one who repeats these false stories.

Such stories had no evidence or corroborating testimony to back them up, and so were not even entered as charges at the war-crimes trials. In other words, those false stories are not evidence that the Nazis were falsely charged -- rather, they are evidence that the trials were fair, and that the system worked.

34. How could such a mass program have been kept secret from Jews who were scheduled for extermination?

The IHR says (original):

It couldn't have been kept secret. The fact is that there was no such mass-gassing anywhere. The extermination rumors came from strictly Jewish sources.

The IHR says (revised):

It couldn't have been kept secret. The fact is that there were no mass gassings. The extermination stories originated as wartime atrocity propaganda.

Nizkor replies:

The Nazis made a tremendous effort to keep the extermination process secret, although it eventually leaked out. For example, see the testimony of Dr. Hans Münch, who said that exposing the gassing and extermination process:

...would have been a completely useless undertaking which would have very shortly caused me and my family to be liquidated very quickly, because the Gestapo was so well organized and the threats for nonobservance of the secrecy that surrounded the Auschwitz exterminations were so clearly worded for members of the SS that everybody avoided telling even his closest friend about it, because experience taught us that anybody who talked about it in any way was very quickly found because the Gestapo sniffed out every rumor very consistently that spread about Auschwitz.

Also see the 1943 German court verdict against SS-Untersturmführer Max Taubner, which apart from declaring the existence of the extermination effort itself, also declared that the defendent was to be punished for taking photographs of it:

By taking photographs of the incidents or having photographs taken, by having these developed in photographic shops and showing them to his wife and friends, the accused is guilty of disobedience. Such pictures could pose the gravest risks to the security of the Reich if they fell into the wrong hands...

The Poles living near the camps knew that mass extermination was going on, because they saw hundreds of thousands of Jews arriving by trains into camps which could not house even a tenth of them, and because the amounts of food brought into the camps were far less then what was needed to keep these people alive. They saw the trains leave the camp, filled with the victims' clothes and other belongings, and smelled the stench of burning flesh. They knew what was happening and reported it to the outside world.

Finally, note the elimination of the original phrase, "strictly Jewish sources." When revisionism was young, it did not mind airing its prejudices in public. Now, it is aiming for the mainstream and must be more careful. One sees this a lot.

35. If Jews scheduled for execution knew the fate in store for them, why did they go to their death without fight or protest?

The IHR says:

They didn't fight or protest simply because they knew there was no intention to kill them. They were simply interned and forced to work.

Nizkor replies:

Many did not know. However, some did, and revolted. The biggest revolt was in the Warsaw Ghetto, and it took the Germans a lot of fighting to subdue the rebellion; the whole Ghetto had to be destroyed in order to force the Jewish partisans out. There were also rebellions in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, and Sobibor (the last one was dramatized in a movie), but they were not terribly successful, except at Treblinka, where the camp was shut down partly due to the rebellion.

Holocaust-deniers often mock survivors by quoting one who says that the extermination process was a well-kept secret, and another who says that many people knew about it. There is no contradiction here, of course. At different times, and different places, different people knew different things.

To claim that if one Jew knew something, then every other Jew automatically knew it as well, is just an extension of the old antisemitic propaganda of Jews as world-conspirators.

The line "simply interned and forced to work" -- deleted in the revised version -- is eerily reminiscent of Hitler's quotation, "the Jews should be grateful that all I want from them is a little hard work."

36. About how many Jews died in the concentration camps?

The IHR says (original):

About 300,000.

The IHR says (revised):

Competent estimates range from about 300,000 to 500,000.

Nizkor replies:

Again -- what would the "revisionists" be saying if real historians changed their figures around like this, raising their estimates by sixty-six percent? Yet when they do it, it's all right.

In reality, more than 3,000,000 died in the camps (the rest behind the Eastern front and in the ghettos). The two worst camps were Auschwitz (about 1.3 million victims, 1.1 million of them Jews) and Treblinka (about 800,000 victims, nearly all Jews but also about 3,000 Gypsies).

And didn't they say in question 7 that "tens of thousands" died in British concentration camps, which made them "far worse than any German concentration camp"? Another internal contradiction.

And if "competent estimates" range only to 500,000, then arguably the world's most famous revisionist, David Irving, must be incompetent by a factor of eight. Irving has recently surprised everyone by stating that he now believes that as many as four million Jews may have died in the concentration camps.

37. How did they die?

The IHR says:

Mainly from recurring typhus epidemics that ravaged war-torn Europe during the period. Also from starvation and lack of medical attention toward the end of the war when virtually all road and rail transportation had been bombed out by the Allies.

Nizkor replies:

Some died from typhus. Numerically speaking, most Jews died from gassing, the next-most from shooting.

In the camps inside the "Altreich" (see question 1), death was mainly due to starvation and disease. When inmates are given insufficient food and forced to work hard labor, there is often little practical distinction between the two. At Auschwitz, which was both an extermination and a work camp, prisoners were "selected" every so often, with the weakest being gassed. That way, fewer had the opportunity to die of exhaustion, and they met their end in the gas chambers instead.

When the Allies reached the Nazi death camps in Germany, they found the SS personnel well-fed and well-dressed, and the local population was often not undergoing serious hardship, relatively speaking. (On the other hand, the German population in the big cities did suffer a lot.) This is clearly attested to in the film footage of the liberation of the camps, where one can see the people in the nearby towns and villages, which the American soldiers brought over to the camps so they can witness what happened. None of them are starved.

There is also a famous photograph of some plump SS women being captured at Bergen-Belsen. Tens of thousands of prisoners starved at Belsen. If you've seen a film of emaciated corpses being bulldozed into mass graves, it was probably taken at Belsen. The contrast to the well-fed SS women is quite remarkable.

Also, hardly any of the Allied prisoners starved to death; there were people that the Nazis wanted to keep alive, and there were people they preferred dead. A great number of Soviet POW's died -- over three million -- for this reason.

38. What is typhus?

The IHR says:

The disease always appears when many people are jammed together for long periods without bathing. It is carried by lice which infest hair and clothes. Armies and navies have traditionally required short haircuts on their men because of the danger of typhus. Ironically, if the Germans had used more Zyklon-B, more Jews might have survived life in the concentration camps.

Nizkor replies:

Typical "revisionist" humor.

39. What is the difference if six million or 300,000 Jews died during this awesome period?

The IHR says (original):

5,700,000. Besides -- and contrary to "Holocaust" propaganda -- there was no deliberate attempt to exterminate anyone.

Nizkor replies:

As mentioned before, about six million did die. Saying otherwise does not bring them back to life.

The IHR here states clearly that "there was no deliberate attempt to exterminate anyone." They have clearly separated the question of Nazi gas chambers from the question of the Nazi plan to exterminate European Jews regardless of means.

Perhaps Greg Raven, the head of the IHR, would like to explain the quotations below. When asked about them previously, he has always tried to change the subject and bring up gas chambers. But if he truly believes that "there was no deliberate attempt to exterminate anyone" -- period -- then he should be able to respond to these quotations without referring to gas chambers:

Hans Frank’s diary (from Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, 1946, Vol. I, pp. 992, 994):

But what should be done with the Jews? Do you think they will be settled down in the 'Ostland' [eastern territories], in [resettlement] villages? This is what we were told in Berlin: Why all this bother? We can do nothing with them either in the 'Ostland' nor in the 'Reichkommissariat.' So liquidate them yourself.

Gentlemen, I must ask you to rid yourself of all feeling of pity. We must annihilate the Jews, wherever we find them and wherever it is possible, in order to maintain the structure of the Reich as a whole. ...

We cannot shoot or poison these 3,500,000 Jews, but we shall nevertheless be able to take measures, which will lead, somehow, to their annihilation....

That we sentence 1,200,000 Jews to die of hunger should be noted only marginally.

Himmler's speech at Posen on October 4, 1943 was captured on audiotape (Trial of the Major War Criminals, 1948, Vol. XXIX, p. 145, trans. by current author):

I refer now to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of those things that is easily said: "the Jewish people are being exterminated," says every Party member, "quite true, it's part of our plans, the elimination of the Jews, extermination, we're doing it."

Goebbels (as translated in Lochner, The Goebbels Diaries, 1948, pp. 86, 147-148):

February 14, 1942: The Führer once again expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly. There must be no squeamish sentimentalism about it. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe that has now overtaken them. Their destruction will go hand in hand with the destruction of our enemies. We must hasten this process with cold ruthlessness.

March 27, 1942: The procedure is a pretty barbaric one and not to be described here more definitely. Not much will remain of the Jews. On the whole it can be said that about 60 per cent of them will have to be liquidated whereas only 40 per cent can be used for forced labor.

Perhaps the awkwardness of dealing with quotes such as those, without being able to sidetrack the issue to the (equally-bogus but more-complex) question of the gas chambers, is why the IHR removed from its revised version the line "there was no deliberate attempt to exterminate anyone."

40. Many Jewish survivors of the "death camps" say they saw bodies being piled up in pits and burned. How much gasoline would have to be used to perform this?

The IHR says:

A great deal more than the Germans had access to, as there was a substantial fuel shortage at that time.

Nizkor replies:

"Access"? The Auschwitz III camp, Monowitz, was an industrial work camp where fuel was produced! The IHR even admits this in their revised answer to question 6. How much better "access" could there possibly be?

Anyway, the question is misleading: a high-energy, refined fuel like gasoline was not required. Cheap and relatively plentiful imflammables like motor oil and methanol were used instead. Höss describes the open-air burning process at Treblinka (Bezwinska and Czech, KL Auschwitz Seen By The SS, 1984, p. 133):

[After the gassing at Treblinka] the gas-chambers were opened up and the bodies taken out, undressed and burnt on a framework made of railway lines.

The fires were stoked with wood, the bodies being sprayed every now and then with petrol refuse.

He also describes the process at his own camp, Auschwitz (Kogon et al., Nazi Mass Murder, 1993, pp. 168-169):

As late as the summer of 1942, the corpses were still carried to mass graves. It was only toward the end of the summer that cremation began to be used -- first by means of a wood pyre with about two thousand corpses, and later in the ditches, with the corpses that had been buried there earlier and then been exhumed. Used motor oil was poured over them, and later methanol.

It was not a serious hardship for the Nazis to sacrifice a little used motor oil.

The IHR changed the question from the blatant invention "gasoline" in the original, to the merely-inaccurate "fuel" in the revised version. It's still misleading. The term "fuel" can refer to many things, but used motor oil is not one of them.

41. Can bodies be burned in pits?

The IHR says (original):

No, it is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames in this manner, as not enough heat can be generated in open pits.

The IHR says (revised):

No. It is impossible for human bodies to be totally consumed by flames in this manner because of lack of oxygen.

Nizkor replies:

Which is it: heat, or oxygen?

Regardless of what Holocaust-deniers wish to be the case, the simple fact is that such burning did take place; there is a famous photograph of pit-burning, in fact, which was smuggled out of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

42. "Holocaust" authors claim that the Nazis were able to cremate bodies in about 10 minutes. How long does it take to incinerate one body according to professional crematory operators?

The IHR says (original):

About 2 hours.

The IHR says (revised):

About an hour and a half, although the larger bones require further processing afterwards.

Nizkor replies:

Well, which is it, 1.5 or 2? More recently, the Holocaust-deniers have begun to rely on the testimony of Ivan Lagace, who apparently said at the Zündel trial and later in print that it takes six or eight hours per body.

The IHR has a lot of nerve complaining that survivors' testimonies contradict each other on technical details like cremation time -- it can't even get its own story straight!

The discrepancy between the IHR's estimates and the actual time (more like 30 minutes) is chiefly due to the fact that the IHR is confusing military-industrial crematoria with everyday civilian crematoria.

When they say "professional crematory operators," they mean people like Lagace, whose job is to cremate one corpse at a time, with a coffin, in an oven designed to incinerate even the largest bones into a fine ash for the next of kin to take home. This situation is obviously not comparable to the situation at Auschwitz-Birkenau during the Second World War.

For example, Lagace would never even consider mixing or "comingling" the ashes of one deceased person with those of another. Lagace and the IHR forget that two or three emaciated corpses could be inserted into each "muffle." This would, of course, never be done in a civilian, commercial establishment.

Also, the Auschwitz furnaces were designed to run continuously, using the heat energy produced by the burning of previous bodies to keep the oven hot for the next bodies. After they were fired with coke to their proper operating temperature at the beginning of the day, they required little or no extra fuel to operate. This was a technical achievement that is well-documented (see Gutman et al., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, pp. 185-187ff). Lagace claims that there must be a "cooling off" period between each body incinerated, which shows a profound ignorance on his part as to how the ovens worked. Lagace claims that continuous operation would have caused the Auschwitz ovens to break down, but again, he simply does not understand the difference between everyday civilian crematoria and military-industrial crematoria.

Also, typically, a commercial crematory operator will burn a corpse for an extended period to remove all traces of carbonized flesh, i.e., to whiten the bones. Even so, such processes only extend the total cremation time to between two and four hours, and not the six to eight hours that Lagace claimed. Lagace forgets that such cosmetic concerns were not of importance to the Nazis. But these errors and others are dealt with in the reply to question 45.

Those errors aside, there is still simply no question about the burning times of the ovens. In 1939, the firm of Topf and Sons was awarded a contract to build a Dachau furnace which had an estimated capacity of one corpse per hour per muffle (times two muffles). By increasing the air pressure, by July 1940 they had produced a furnace that could burn just under two corpses per hour per muffle (again, times two muffles). It required three hours of maintenance per day, a far cry from the twelve hours per day claimed by the IHR in question 45. (See Gutman et al., op. cit., pp. 185-186, 189-190.)

The crematoriums that were eventually installed at Auschwitz-Birkenau were massive. They were capable of disposing of several bodies per muffle in half an hour or so, and they could run for days at a time without maintenance. (There were difficulties eventually, however, and several of the ovens were out of service for months at a time.) Topf and Sons was awarded a patent in 1951, and the patent also states that a single muffle can cremate a corpse in half an hour.

A photograph of the furnaces in Krema II is available.

43. Why did the concentration camps have crematory ovens?

The IHR says:

To dispose efficiently and sanitarily of the corpses created by the typhus epidemics.

Nizkor replies:

...and the mass-gassing operations. See the reply to question 45.

44. Given a 100% duty cycle of all the crematoria in all the camps in German-controlled territory, what is the maximum number of corpses it would have been possible to incinerate during the entire period such crematoria were in operation?

The IHR says:

About 430,600.

Nizkor replies:

This faulty figure is the result of several cumulative errors. Errors in burning time per corpse and maintenance requirements are addressed in the reply to question 42. The error of the number of corpses per muffle is addressed in the reply to question 45.

Looking at theoretical numbers can be instructive, if one remembers that the theoretical capacity was never reached for a number of reasons. But, if one wants to consider what the theoretical numbers could have been, using a hypothetical 100% duty cycle and no downtime due to maintenance, the numbers are staggering.

We needn't look at all Nazi camps; let's consider Auschwitz-Birkenau alone. In fact, let's consider only the two largest crematory facilities (out of five). Those two ovens alone, working at their full estimated capacity 24 hours a day from their installation in April 1943 to their decommissioning in November 1944, could have incinerated over 1.7 million corpses.

This is simple arithmetic, based on the furnace capacity that the Nazis themselves estimated. See a photograph of the document, or Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation, 1989, p. 247.

Note that the Nazis later began to realize that the theoretical capacity of the ovens was too impractical, and in late 1942 reduced their estimates from 1440 per Krema per day to 800 (see Gutman et al., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, p. 212). Using that more-accurate figure, not quite a million corpses could be incinerated, in those 20 months, by those two Auschwitz crematoria.

This corresponds with reality, since there were other Kremas available to incinerate corpses, and since we know that the ovens were often overburdened by the sheer number of corpses, requiring bodies to be burned in open pits. See question 41. In total, 1.1 million to 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz and their bodies incinerated.

45. Can a crematory oven be operated 100% of the time?

The IHR says:

No. 50% of the time is a generous estimate (12 hours per day). Cremator ovens have to be cleaned thoroughly and regularly when in heavy operation.

Nizkor replies:

This reply is a comprehensive one, covering Q&A numbers 42, 43, and 44 as well.

Start by looking at a photograph of the furnaces in Krema II, to get some idea of scale. They were very large. Keep in mind that the Zündelsite characterizes these massive crematoria buildings as "chicken sheds."

There were five Krema in Auschwitz. Krema II and III had five huge furnaces, each of which had a "triple-muffle" that could burn three bodies simultaneously. They were designed to burn efficiently and quickly, especially when burning many bodies in a row (see Gutman et al., Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, pp. 185-186).

Although the furnaces were designed with three muffles, two to three bodies could almost always be placed in each muffle. Remember that many children were present, and that the victims were often inmates who had been at Auschwitz for months and who were malnourished in the extreme. The Nazis took 70 to 100 kg of animal remains as a "unit" that could be incinerated in one muffle; whether that was one large person or three small ones was irrelevant, technically speaking. Höss testified that the Sonderkommando would alternate between putting three and two bodies in each muffle. (See Gutman et al., op. cit., pp. 236, 166, 180n55.)

Contrary to what the IHR claims in question 42, the furnaces would consume the bodies in anywhere from half an hour to 45 minutes maximum. This is not only verified by eyewitnesses, but by numerous Nazi memos concerning a variety of incineration jobs.

Here is the arithmetic for a single Krematorium, number II:

Five furnaces, each with three muffles, each muffle capable of holding two to three corpses simultaneously (call it two) and burning them in half an hour, could reduce 1440 bodies to ash in twenty-four working hours. 5 times 3 times 2, divided by one-half, times 24, equals 1440.

A captured memo dated June 28, 1943, sent to SS General Kammler in Berlin, cites the number of bodies that can be disposed of in one day, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, as 4,756. This is apparently based on a 24-hour working day using the above figures, as it cites the capacity of Krema II as 1440. See a photograph of the document, or Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, 1989, p. 247. There is argument among historians and technical experts as to whether this represents a theoretical maximum that was never reached in reality except with the aid of additional cremation done in burning pits, or a figure that was reached and possibly exceeded during the worst of the extermination action. Nevertheless, it is clear that Lagace's claim of 184 bodies daily (Lenski, Robert, The Holocaust on Trial, 1990, p. 252) is not even within an order of magnitude of being correct.

46. How much ash is left from a cremated corpse?

The IHR says:

After the bone is all ground down, about a shoe box full.

Nizkor replies:

This is correct: about a shoebox full.

47. If six million people had been incinerated by the Nazis, what happened to the ashes?

The IHR says:

That remains to be "explained." Six million bodies would produce literally tons upon tons of ashes. Yet there is no evidence of any large depositories of such ash.

Nizkor replies:

Slight dishonesty. Nobody claims that six million bodies were incinerated. Behind the Eastern front, people were simply shot and buried in mass graves.

Many millions of bodies, however, were incinerated (including some that were buried in mass graves and had to be exhumed). It is quite easy to get rid of ash. It was dumped in fields and in rivers. Ash is not toxic; it can be dumped anywhere. In fact, it makes good fertilizer, and it is well-documented that farmers around Auschwitz used human ash in their fields.

Just compute how many shoeboxes fit into a large truck. Tens of thousands. What's the problem with dumping truckload after truckload into rivers or fields? Auschwitz is built at a junction of rivers, with a large marsh nearby. In fact, one aerial photograph taken during the war shows large quantities of what may be human ash in a marsh just outside the extermination camp facility.

For comparison, consider that nobody denies that Stalin and Mao killed tens of millions of people by various means. No "revisionists" are asking where the piles of those bodies are. They focus only on the Nazi Holocaust. Why is this?

48. Do Allied wartime photos of Auschwitz (during the period when the "gas chambers" and crematoria were supposed to be in full operation) reveal gas chambers?

The IHR says:

No. In fact, these photographs do not even reveal a trace of the enormous amounts of smoke which were supposedly constantly over the camp. Nor do they evidence the "open pits" in which bodies were allegedly burned.

Nizkor replies:

First of all, realize that overflights of Auschwitz were very few and far-between. In late 1943 and early 1944, the Allies began bombing oil-production facilities, including the small-to-middling-size petrochemical plant at Auschwitz III. Auschwitz III, or Monowitz, was a satellite camp about four kilometers from the gas chambers at Auschwitz II, or Birkenau.

Allied bombers and their fighter coverage did not have sufficient range to reach Monowitz until April 1944 (see Gilbert, Auschwitz and the Allies, 1981, p. 191). Photo reconnaissance of the area on April 4th accidentally included Birkenau; twenty snapshots were taken, and three included Auschwitz-Birkenau. After that date, there were only four more overflights before the crematoria were torn down: May 31, June 26, August 25, and September 13, 1944. In total, very few photographs of Birkenau were ever taken, some of which show insufficient detail to be of value.

Whether or not the pictures happened to capture gassing operations in progress was a matter of chance. One photo, taken on August 25th, reveals a line of about a hundred people walking from the train in the direction of Krema II and III. The gate to Krema II is open for them. Do the deniers claim that they were going to take a tour of the "morgue"?

That same photo reveals the gas chambers, including very obvious roof vents used to insert Zyklon-B. How do deniers explain these? Remember, a morgue cannot be disinfected with Zyklon-B, as that poison has no effect on bacteria. (See Gilbert, op. cit., photo 28, between pp. 192-193.)

And the vents are visible on the gas chambers of Krema II and III, but not the undressing rooms. How do the deniers explain the difference, since they claim that both the gas chamber and the undressing room were morgues? Why vents on one but not the other, and is it just coincidence that the room with the vents is the one pointed to as the gas chamber since the 1940s? Remember, these photos were not declassified until the 1970s.

Another photo reveals a pit dug behind Krema III, exactly where eyewitnesses had placed the pit-burning in testimony given many years before. The photos were not declassified until the 1970s, so the fact that they match the testimony is strong collaboration of that testimony. The last sentence in the IHR's answer, in any case, is a baldfaced lie.

Holocaust-deniers admit this, by the way, so it qualifies as yet another internal contradiction. The "revisionist" Carlo Mattogno writes in a response to Pressac that:

Aerial reconnaissance photographs show that a cremation is taking place in one of the three pits measuring 3.5 by 15 meters in the Crematory V courtyard.

Again, they've failed to keep their stories straight.

Now, it may be true that the pictures do not reveal smoke emenating from the crematoria. At the moment, we're researching this matter further. But if true, all this means is that corpses were not being burned on those particular days. There are only five days' worth of photographs of Auschwitz-Birkenau in the entire year of 1944, some of which do not show the crematoria, so this does not prove anything.

And what the photographs do reveal is extremely damaging to the Holocaust-deniers' position -- so, of course, they lie about it.

49. What was the main provision of the German "Nuremberg laws" of 1935?

The IHR says:

Laws against intermarriage and sexual relations between Germans and Jews, similar to laws existing in Israel today.

Nizkor replies:

More antisemitic lies and moral relativism. There are no such laws in Israel (although the number of intermarriages is quite small).

The Nuremberg laws not only prohibited sexual relations between Germans and Jews, they effectively punished them by death. (Although the specified punishment was imprisonment or hard labour - or both - a number of Jews were indeed executed for having sexual relations with Germans. Even "petting" was reason enough to apply the death penalty.)

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 affected many things outside of personal relationships. Later in the year, an ordinance was issued on the basis of one of the Nuremberg Laws (see Hilberg, Documents of Destruction, 1971, p. 20):

On the basis of article 3 of the Reich Citizenship Law of September 15, 1935 (Reich Legal Gazette I, 1146) the following is ordered: ...

Article 4

1. A Jew cannot be a Reich citizen. He is not allowed the right to vote in political affairs; he cannot hold public office.

2. Jewish civil servants will retire as of December 31, 1935. ...

Later laws, of course, were much less subtle.

50. Were there any American precedents for the Nuremberg Laws?

The IHR says:

Many states in the U.S.A. had laws preventing intermarriage and sexual relations between persons of different races long before the Nazis.

Nizkor replies:

This is just a guess, but it seems likely that the penalty for breaking the law in America was not the same as the penalty in Nazi Germany: death.

In any case, this is just more irrelevant moral relativism.

51. What did the International Red Cross have to report with regard to the "Holocaust" question?

The IHR says:

A report on the visit of an IRC delegate to Auschwitz in September, 1944 pointed out that internees were permitted to receive packages and that rumors of gas chambers could not be verified.

Nizkor replies:

Rumors of gas chambers could not be verified because the delegates were expressly forbidden from visiting the Auschwitz Krema, where the gas chambers and creamation facilities were. They were taken only to those parts of the huge complex which housed prisoners who were not to be exterminated. Some Allied POWs were held in Auschwitz, in reasonable conditions, but they knew about the gassings and mentioned them to the IRC delegate.

For example, former SS-Untersturmfuehrer Dr Hans Münch confirmed this in his testimony at the International Nuremberg Trial (Trial of the Major War Criminals, 1948, Vol. VIII, p. 313-321). He said:

I repeatedly witnessed guided tours of civilians and also of commissions of the Red Cross and other parties within the camp, and I was able to ascertain that the camp leadership arranged it masterfully to conduct these guided tours in such a way that the people being guided around did not see anything about inhuman treatment. The main camp was shown only and in this main camp there were so-called show blocks, particularly block 13, that were especially prepared for such guided tours and that were equipped like a normal soldier's barracks with beds that had sheets on them, and well-functioning washrooms.

Ironically, this policy of not showing extermination-related facilities is also confirmed by the IHR itself, though unwittingly. In the "Lüftl Report," supposed expert Walter Lüftl mentions a memo to the commandants of the concentration camps. According to Lüftl, it reads:

The bordello and the crematories are not to be shown during camp visits. These installations are not to be mentioned to persons visiting the camp...

Lüftl goes on to comment:

Apparently, then, everything else could be shown and mentioned to visitors. Logically, then, a gas chamber, if one existed, could be shown and talked about; otherwise, it would have been included in the prohibition.

Since we cannot assume that the SS ever showed a [homicidal] gas chamber to the inspectors of the International Red Cross, it is permissible to conclude that none existed.

Lüftl, who is supposedly an expert, is not even aware that the term "crematories" refers to the cremation complexes, which also housed not only the ovens but also the gas chambers.

Unwittingly, he has presented evidence against his own case -- for why would it be necessary to hide the cremation complexes from the Red Cross unless something were happening there that the Red Cross should not see?

The "Lüftl Report," is available on-line in a textfile on Nizkor, or as a web page at Greg Raven's web site. Search on the text "Red Cross".

52. What was the role of the Vatican during the time the six million Jews were alleged to have been exterminated?

The IHR says:

If there had been an extermination plan, the Vatican would most certainly have been in a position to know. But since there was none, the Vatican had no reason to speak out against it.

Nizkor replies:

Lies. The Nazis hated the Catholic church, and executed many clergymen in Poland and other places. The church had no power or influence over the Nazis. Reich propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary on March 26, 1942 (see Lochner, The Goebbels Diaries, 1948, p. 146):

It's a dirty, low thing to do for the Catholic Church to continue its subversive activity in every way possible and now even to extend its propaganda to Protestant children evacuated from the regions threatened by air raids. Next to the Jews these politico-divines are about the most loathsome riffraff that we are still sheltering in the Reich. The time will come after the war for an over-all solution of this problem.

Or, look at the following:

Letter to Reich Minister of Justice
From Roman Catholic Bishop of Limburg
13 August 1941

... Buses arrive in Hadamar several times a week with a large number of these victims. School children in the neighborhood know these vehicles and say: "Here comes the murder wagon." After the arrival of such vehicles the citizens of Hadamar then see the smoke coming from the chimney and are upset by constant thoughts about the poor victims especially when, depending on the direction of the wind, they have to put up with the revolting smell. The consequence of the principles being practiced here is that children, when quarreling with one another make remarks like: "You are thick, you'll be put in the oven in Hadamar." People who do not want to get married or who do not get the opportunity say: "Get married? No fear. Put children into the world who then end up going through the stack." Old people are saying "on no account will I go into a state hospital! After the feeble-minded, the old will be next in line as useless mouths to feed."

The last paragraph refers to the systematic annihilation of tens of thousands of insane and retarded people by the Nazis, in the so-called "euthanasia" or "mercy killing" program.

53. What evidence is there that Hitler knew of the ongoing Jewish extermination?

The IHR says:

None.

Nizkor replies:

See question 26.

54. Did the Nazis and the Zionists collaborate?

The IHR says:

Before the war, Germany signed an agreement with the Zionists permitting Jews to take large amounts of capital to Palestine. During the war, the Germans maintained cordial relations with the Zionist leadership.

Nizkor replies:

"Cordial relations"? Now really. With a leadership that had declared publicly, again and again, that Jews are vermin that should be exterminated? See Hitler's speeches, quoted in question 1.

This "Q&A" also seems to be another internal contradiction. In the answers to questions 11 and 12, they say that "Judea" and "the Jews" declared war on Germany six years before World War II started. The IHR should make up its mind: either the Germans were vilified by the hateful Jews, or the Germans are such good people that even the hateful Jews were able to maintain "cordial relations" with them. They can't have it both ways.

55. What caused Anne Frank's death just several weeks before the end of the war?

The IHR says (original):

Typhus.

The IHR says (revised):

After surviving internment in Auschwitz, she succumbed to typhus in the Bergen-Belsen camp, just a few weeks before the end of the war. She was not gassed.

Nizkor replies:

Anne was just one of eight Dutch Jews who had been in hiding for two years and thirty days when they were discovered and arrested by the Nazis and deported from Amsterdam to the death camps in Poland.

Herman Van Pels, a business associate of Anne's father, was gassed upon the group's arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, September 6, 1944 (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 103586). His wife died "between April 9 and May 8, 1945, in Germany or in Czechoslovakia," (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 103586). Their son Peter died on May 5, 1945, in Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, after a forced march from Auschwitz (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 135177).

Dr. Friedrich Pfeffer, a friend of the family, died December 20, 1944, at Neuengamme concentration camp (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 7500).

Anne's mother died January 6, 1945, at Auschwitz-Birkenau (Netherlands Red Cross, dossier 117265). Anne and her elder sister Margot died of typhus sometime around March 31, 1945, at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (Netherlands Red Cross, dossiers 117266 and 117267). Of the eight, only one, Anne's father, Otto Frank, survived.

Two non-Jews, Johannes Kleiman and Victor Gustav Kugler, business associates of Otto Frank, were arrested as well, for aiding the Frank family. Both were sentenced to Arbeitseinsatz (labor service) in Germany, and both survived the war.

All references to the Netherlands Red Cross were cited in Frank, Anne, The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, 1989, pp. 49-58.

56. Is the Anne Frank Diary genuine?

The IHR says (original):

No, the evidence compiled by Ditlieb Felderer of Sweden and Dr. Robert Faurisson of France establishes conclusively that the famous diary is a literary hoax.

The IHR says (revised):

No. Evidence compiled by Dr. Robert Faurisson of France establishes that the famous diary is a literary hoax.

Nizkor replies:

Ditlieb Felderer is a notorious neo-Nazi, who spent time in a Swedish prison for spreading hate propaganda. He is best-known for mailing snippets of hair to Jews in Europe, and asking them sarcastically if this can be proven to be hair from a gassed Jew. He has also written many disgusting tracts involving sex and Nazi murder. One which is too repulsive to repeat here describes (sarcastically) how cyanide gas influences a female sexual organ.

Part of the "evidence" which Felderer "compiled" is the following, in which he argues ironically that the diary cannot be totally forged because it seems to have been written by a Jew:

THE ANAL COMPLEX

We feel that another forceful reason why the Anne Frank Diary cannot be entirely dismissed as a fictitious story is its preoccupation with the anus and excrements, a trait typical of many Jews. Pornography and excretal fantasies have always fascinated them.... Jewish writings have been infused with stories about the reproductive and excremental functions. ...

... Although we cannot dismiss the argument that these excremental preoccupations are mere fancies on the part of the author or authors there are good reasons to believe the stories are genuine and are in part reflecting some of the foremost thoughts of the occupants. Even if they were invented they nevertheless splendidly depict the anal complex, of an ancient, cultural people.

Note that the IHR omits the reference to Felderer in the revised version. Again, as revisionism tries to move from the antisemitic fringes into the mainstream, they must jettison or at least disguise their ties to people like this.

Dr. Robert Faurisson is at least not as crude as Felderer. But he is not a historian, forensic expert, or handwriting expert. He was a professor of literature at the University of Lyons. The testimony of this "foremost Holocaust authority" regarding the authenticity of the writings of Anne Frank was rejected by the Frankfurt Oberlandesgericht (Higher Regional Court) in 1979.

In 1981, Faurisson was called before a French judge in order to substantiate his statement on the radio and in various publications that the gas chambers had never existed. He received a three-month suspended sentence and was ordered to pay fines and damages for defamation, incitement to discrimination, race hatred and racial violence. The sentence was confirmed on appeal.

Faurisson's strange sense of what constitutes evidence is described well by Michael Shermer in an open letter to revisionists.

In 1981, the Netherlands State Institute for War Documentation submitted Anne Frank's handwritten diaries to the Dutch State Forensic Science Laboratory of the Ministry of Justice to determine their authenticity. The State Forensic Science Laboratory examined the materials used -- the ink, paper, glue, etc. -- and the handwriting and issued a report of some 270 pages:

The report of the State Forensic Science Laboratory has convincingly demonstrated that both versions of the diary of Anne Frank were written by her in the years 1942 to 1944. The allegations that the diary was the work of someone else (after the war or otherwise) are thus conclusively refuted.

Furthermore, that despite corrections and omissions...the Diary of Anne Frank [i.e., the published version of the diaries] does indeed contain "the essence" of Anne's writings, and that there are no grounds on which the term "forgery" can be applied to the work of the editors or publishers of the book.

The most common complaint against the diary is that it contains writing in a ballpoint pen, and that ballpoints were not popular until after Anne's death. This is a fraudulent but persistent myth. The only ballpoint ink in the diary were on slips of paper known to be inserted by someone other than Anne anyway. The writings of Anne herself are, needless to say, not in ballpoint.

See Frank, Anne, The Diary of Anne Frank: The Critical Edition, 1989, pp. 96, 166.

57. What about the numerous photographs and footage taken in the German concentration camps showing piles of emaciated corpses? Are these faked?

The IHR says:

Photographs can be faked, yes. But it's far easier merely to add a caption or comment to a photo or a piece of footage that does not tell the truth about what that photo or film actually shows. Does a pile of emaciated corpses mean that these people were "gassed" or deliberately starved to death? Or could this mean that these people were victims of a raging typhus epidemic or starved due to the lack of food in the camps toward the end of the war? Pictures of piles of German women and children killed in Allied bombing raids have been passed off as dead Jews.

Nizkor replies:

It's strange that the IHR says that piles of dead bodies are not evidence that the Nazis practiced genocide. In the original answer to question 1, they mention "piles of clothes" and imply that if there were such things, they would indeed be proof. Piles of clothes are proof, but piles of bodies are not?

We also see here the implicit claim that the Allied soldiers went and collected dead Germans, brought them to the camps, and photographed them there. Some evidence to back up this absurdity would be nice, but of course there is none.

The many starved people are evidence that the Nazis did not make feeding their prisoners a very high priority. At the Belsen camp, hundreds of tons of food were found locked up, just a few miles away from where tens of thousands starved to death. See question 37 for a bit more on this topic.

As for the homicidal gas chambers, there are other pieces of evidence that point clearly to their existence and usage. See question 1, for starters.

58. Who originated the term "genocide"?

The IHR says:

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish Jew, in a book which appeared in 1944.

Nizkor replies:

This begs the obvious question: why did he invent it?

We do not know whether the IHR's answer is true or false.

59. Were films such as Holocaust and The Winds of War documentary films?

The IHR says:

No, the films do not claim to be history, rather fictional dramatizations BASED on history. Unfortunately, all too many people have taken them to be accurate representations of history as it really happened.

Nizkor replies:

There are many authentic films from the camps -- photographed by the Allies and the Russians. Some rather gruesome but totally accurate representations of history can be found at François Schmitz's Holocaust Picture Exhibition.

60. About how many books have been published which refute some aspect of the standard claims made about the "Holocaust"?

The IHR says (original):

At least 60. More are in process of production.

The IHR says (revised):

Dozens. More are in production.

Nizkor replies:

And the figure is probably even higher by now. But repeating deplorable lies doesn't make them true.

61. What happened when a historical institute offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz?

The IHR says:

No proof was submitted as a claim on the reward, but the institute was sued for $17 million by a "Holocaust" survivor who claims the reward offer caused him to lose sleep, caused his business to suffer, and represented "injurious denial of established fact."

Nizkor replies:

That "historical institute" was the IHR itself. See the answer to question 5.

62. What about the claim that those who question the "Holocaust" are anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi?

The IHR says:

This is a smear designed to draw attention away from facts and honest arguments. Scholars who refute "Holocaust" claims are of all persuasions -- Democrats, Republicans, libertarians, socialists, Christians, Jews, etc. There is no correlation between "Holocaust" refutation and anti-Semitism or neo-Nazism. As a matter of fact, there are increasing numbers of Jewish scholars who openly admit that evidence for the "Holocaust" is severely lacking.

Nizkor replies:

There is a tremendous correlation between Holocaust-denial and antisemitism/Naziism. To claim the opposite is such a colossal lie that one hardly knows where to begin.

There are hundreds of examples that could be given, but we'll only list a few:

The IHR, or more strictly its parent corporation, was started by Willis Carto, who heads another group called "Liberty Lobby." No less of a federal judge than Robert Bork declared Liberty Lobby to be the "core, factual meaning" of antisemitism.

Here is what Willis Carto has had to say about Hitler, Jews, and blacks (see National Review, September 10, 1971, p. 979):

Hitler's defeat was the defeat of Europe. And of America. How could we have been so blind? The blame, it seems, must be laid at the door of the international Jews. It was their propaganda, lies, and demands that blinded the west to what Germany was doing....

The Jews came first and remain Public Enemy No. 1.

The revolutionists have seen to it that only a few Americans are concerned about the inevitable niggerfication of America.

The IHR is currently headed by Greg Raven, who in 1992 stated publicly that Hitler was "a great man...certainly greater than Churchill and FDR put together...about the best thing that could have happened to Germany." Mr. Raven has prepared additional explanation of his views on Hitler at his web site.

One of the world's most prominent revisionists, Ernst Zündel, is an unabashed self-described National Socialist (Nazi). With George Dietz, he is the co-author of The Hitler We Loved and Why, under the pseudonym of Friedrich Christhof. His full name is Ernst Christhof Friedrich Zündel, according to his friend Michael Hoffman's book The Great Holocaust Trial, 1985, p. 8. (Other material authored by Friedrich Christhof includes a pamphlet organizing a "search for Hitler's Antarctic U.F.O. bases.")

Regarding The Hitler We Loved And Why, Hoffman claims that Zündel only "provided photos for the book...it was largely Mr. Dietz's opus," p. 72.

Also according to Hoffman, p. 74, we learn that he:

...told the court that he is the first to freely admit that the National Socialists committed some ruthless actions in World War II. But what was to Zundel the undeniable, fundamental goodness of the Hitler party, was something he would not deny.

The same Michael Hoffman, described as a media critic for Carto's Spotlight newspaper, wrote a letter to Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine, asking him:

Suppose I made a flick, "Finklestein's Piss," about Israel and the Palestinians...

Mr. Hoffman went on to inform Dr. Shermer that he was "a fucking idiot posing as an original intellectual," and included a sticker with his letter which depicted a Jew in crude caricature, and read:

REMEMBAH DE SIX MILLION! For the Next Six Million Years! ... Prevent Thought Crime: Worship and Obey the Chosen Pimples

Famous Holocaust "revisionists" (Irving, Faurisson, Zündel) have appeared at neo-Nazi meetings and rallies in Europe, where they spoke before sieg-heiling thugs.

Holocaust-denial author Friedrich Berg, in between endorsements for CODOH, made the following comment on Usenet:

Mr Kaufman is obviously Jewish and a living example of why the Nazis tried to remove Jews from Europe and short of that, into concentration camps for the duration of the war.

He made other, similar antisemitic and Nazi-apologetic comments as well, which are not worth repeating here. According to the index available at Greg Raven's web site, he has contributed at least three articles to the Journal of Historical Review (and his wife worked for the IHR as a translator until recently). At least one of the articles is online at the IHR web site.

Ditlieb Felderer's pornographic antisemitism is among the most filthy, disgusting and hateful ever penned (see question 56). He contributed five articles to the first four Journals that the Institute for Historical Review ever published, including one in their premier issue.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center set up a phony far-right-wing "magazine" in 1993, as part of a sting operation to track the spread of Naziism and neo-Naziism in Germany. The phone number was given out only to a few secretive hard-line Nazis, so that their contacts could be traced. A short while later, the Editor of the IHR's Journal, Mark Weber, called that number and asked for a subscription. Thus, a close link between hard-core German fascists and American Holocaust-deniers, the IHR in particular, was established. More details on this story are available online, and in the book In Hitler's Shadow, Svoray et al., 1994, which was co-written by the undercover agent who made the contacts.

Holocaust-denier Jack Wikoff organizes marches for White Power in upstate New York. He refers to Martin Luther King's birthday as "Marchin' Lootin' Coon Holiday," and distributes posters with crude caricatures of blacks and Jews that ask "Where's your Outrage, White America?" He has written at least seven book reviews and one article for the IHR's Journal, and according to the IHR's Holocaust calendar, has lectured on Holocaust revisionism to college students.

One of the main themes of organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP), which advocates "relocation" of Blacks, Jews, Asians and other minorities, is denial of the Holocaust.

A young racist skinhead by the name of Reuben Logsdon has set up a web site, with pages such as the one where the Imperial Klaliff of the Ku Klux Klan provides answers to questions about the KKK. He also provides a number of web pages which deny the Holocaust. Yet, he has publicly admitted that he does not, in fact, doubt the Holocaust -- he has only posted Holocaust-denial material in order to attract racists. No correlation between the two? Try telling that to Mr. Logsdon!

A young man by the name of Marc Lemire advertises his bulletin-board system by pointing out the audio files he will have available on-line: speeches by "revisionists" like Ernst Zündel, David Irving, and Fred Leuchter; speeches from Adolf Hitler, White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger, and George Lincoln Rockwell; and "National Socialist music and speeches."

Another young man, this one named Milton Kleim, is not only a Holocaust-denier but a self-described National Socialist (i.e. Nazi). He is the author of what he calls the "National Socialist FAQ," and he claims that he would continue to admire Hitler even if he had killed sixty million Jews.

How many more examples are necessary?

We will not claim that all Holocaust-deniers are antisemitic and/or racist, but to claim that there isn't an obvious and significant correlation is ludicrous.

More importantly -- and this cannot be stressed enough -- we do not claim that because these people are racist and antisemitic, therefore they are wrong. They are wrong about the Holocaust regardless of their opinions on race and ethnicity.

"Increasing numbers of Jewish scholars" who supposedly support Holocaust-denial is probably a reference to Professor Noam Chomsky of MIT. They tend to claim that Chomsky supports their absurd theories, but that is a lie. Chomsky has defended the right of the French "revisionist" Faurisson to free speech, but he completely rejects Holocaust revisionism itself.

Here is what he wrote on the matter:

My views are quite explicitly stated: the Holocaust was the most extreme atrocity in human history, and we lose our humanity if we are even willing to enter the arena of debate with those who seek to deny or underplay Nazi crimes.

And when asked his opinion on the writings of Faurisson and other Holocaust "revisionists," he answered:

I have seen no reason to doubt the conclusions of authentic Holocaust historians (Hilberg, Bauer, etc.) on the facts of the matter.

Hilberg and Bauer are well-known Holocaust historians. Each has written numerous books and articles. Needless to say, neither of them doubts the murder of millions in gas chambers.

63. What has happened to the historians who have questioned the "Holocaust" material?

The IHR says:

They have been subject to smear campaigns, loss of academic positions, loss of pensions, destruction of their property and physical violence.

Nizkor replies:

Violence is a deplorable response to speech, of course, and it must be condemned.

But still, what historians? There is not a single Ph.D. historian in the revisionist community. Faurisson was a professor of literature, Zündel was a photo-retoucher by trade, Butz is a professor of electrical engineering, Stäglich is a judge, O'Keefe is a Harvard dropout, and Cole is a high-school dropout. Raven is a former writer for stand-up comics and automotive magazines.

Irving is a journalist and historical writer, and Weber has a Master's degree in history. They are as close as any "revisionist" comes to being a historian.

Ironically, one of the few other "revisionists" with an academic degree in history is Leuchter, who is presented as an expert engineer! (He has a Bachelor's degree.)

64. Has the Institute for Historical Review suffered any retaliation for its efforts to uphold the right of freedom of speech and academic freedom?

The IHR says:

The IHR had been bombed three times and completely destroyed on July 4, 1984 by a criminal arson attack. Death threats by telephone are virtually a daily occurence. All newspaper coverage is hostile, if there is any coverage at all.

Nizkor replies:

Physical violence must be strongly condemned. As for "hostile coverage," what do Nazi sympathizers expect?

And when Ernst Zündel echoes this call for freedom of speech by reposting his copy of the 66 Q&A, it truly rings hollow. Zündel has helped distribute a pamphlet which invites the reader to "Join the worldwide campaign to BAN SCHINDLER'S LIST!"

Free speech, yes, but only when it's speech he agrees with. If the IHR is such a staunch defender of freedom of speech, where is their denunciation of Ernst Zündel?

65. Why is there so little publicity for your point of view?

The IHR says:

Because for political reasons the Establishment does not want any in-depth discussion about the facts surrounding the "Jewish Holocaust" myth.

Nizkor replies:

No, because Holocaust denial is absurd. The Flat-Earth Society doesn't get much press either. Also, see the reply to question 62.

66. Where can I get more information about the "other side" of the "Holocaust" story as well as facts concerning other areas of WWII Historical Revisionism?

The IHR says:

The Institute for Historical Review, P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659, carries a wide variety of books, cassette and video tapes on significant historical subjects. (updated 1/95)

Nizkor replies:

If you think there are "two sides" to the issue, there is only one web site where you will find both of them explored: Nizkor.

Source: Nizkor