At Nessie's suggestion, I circled back and read the report he gathers this interpretation from. Here it is (originally shared on the HC blog), with the 'incriminating' portions bolded:Nessie wrote:Two hectares, up to 7m deep. That is a total volume of 140,000m3, or the same as 56 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Based on the above, here's what we can tell about Nessie's "2 hectares surface, 7m deep" inference:For the purpose of performing an official investigation of the scene of the crime, Judge Lukaszkiewicz had gone to Treblinka. As he later explained, he acted206 "[…] at the request of the State Prosecutor of the District Court in Siedlce of September 24, 1945, further induced by a letter of September 18, 1945, of the Main Commission for the Investigation of the German Murders in Poland."
After bidding farewell to the visitors, Lukaszkiewicz set to work with a group of workers. Between November 9 and 13, he undertook a thorough examination of the grounds as well as a series of excavations. Afterwards he composed an official protocol, which we reproduce in full in view of its significance:207
"Protocol of the tasks performed on the grounds of the death camp Treblinka, which forms the object of the judicial examination.
From November 9 to 13, 1945, the examining magistrate of Siedlce, Z. Łukaszkiewicz, together with the State Attorney for the District Court of Siedlce, J. Maciejewski, performed the following tasks on the camp grounds:
November 9, 1945
Excavations were begun on the grounds using the services of 20 workers who had been mustered by the village administration for carrying out roadwork. The excavations began at the location described by the witness Rajzman on November 6, where the so-called ‘camp hospital’ had stood and where, according to the witness, a mass grave is supposed to exist.
Since a bomb crater 4 to 5-meter deep is present at the said location – two bombs still lie at a slight distance from this crater – the digging was begun in this crater. In the course of this work numerous Polish, as well as Russian, German, Austrian, and Czech coins as well as broken pieces of various kinds of containers were discovered. At the end of the work, at approximately 3 pm, at a depth of 6 meters, we encountered a layer which had not been reached previously. There were no human remains found.
November 10, 1945
The work was continued, with 36 workers assigned who had been commandeered for roadwork. At a depth of 6 meters begins a layer which has never before been uncovered by anyone. It consists partly of all sorts of kitchen utensils and different kinds of household objects; there are also pieces of clothing. At a depth of 7 meters, we reached the floor of the pit – a layer of yellow sand which is not mixed with gravel. By means of expansion of the excavation we succeeded in determining the shape of the pit. It has sloping walls, and the bottom measures about 1.5 meters [sic!]. The pit was presumably excavated with an excavator. During the course of the excavations, numerous more or less badly damaged Polish documents were discovered, further a badly damaged personal identity card of a German Jew, as well as several more coins: Polish, German, Russian, Belgian, and even American. After we had made certain that this pit, filled with broken pieces of the containers mentioned, ran in a north-south direction on the grounds of the camp area – 2 meters more [in a northerly direction] had been excavated – the workers started work at this location.
November 11, 1945
A series of test excavations were performed at the place where the [gas] chambers had to have been located, in order to find their foundation walls if possible. Pits 10 - 15 meters in length and 1.5 meters deep were dug. Undisturbed layers of earth were uncovered by this.
The largest of the craters produced by explosions (numerous fragments attest to the fact that these explosions were set off by bombs), which is at maximum 6 meters deep and has a diameter of about 25 meters – its walls give recognizable evidence of the presence of a large quantity of ashes as well as human remains – was further excavated in order to discover the depth of the pit in this part of the camp. Numerous human remains were found by these excavations, partially still in a state of decomposition.[208] The soil consists of ashes interspersed with sand, is of a dark gray color and granulous in form. During the excavations, the soil gave off an intense odor of burning and decay. At a depth of 7.5 meters the bottom was reached, which consisted of layers of unmixed sand. At this point the digging was stopped here.
November 13, 1945
With the assistance of 30 workers employed for roadwork, the opening of a pit was begun – a site where refuse was deposited in the northeastern section of the camp. In this location, as the workers from the nearby hamlets explained, a very large number of documents were found up till now. Work was begun at this location where the people [of that area] had dug a three-meter-deep pit in a search for gold. During the course of the digging, broken pieces of all sorts of kitchen containers as well as a large number of rags were continually found. Aside from the coins discovered so far, Greek, Slovakian, and French ones were found, as well as documents in Hebrew and Polish and remnants of a Soviet passport. At a depth of 5 meters the work was stopped due to the steadily worsening weather conditions.
The Examining Judge The State Attorney
Lukaszkiewicz Maciejewski
Decision:
The Examining Judge of Siedlce, on November 13, 1945, rules in consideration of the fact that with great probability no mass graves are any longer to be found on the grounds of the former camp today, as is to be concluded from the witness testimonies examined so far and from the results of the works carried out at the site, and in consideration of the oncoming autumn, the present rainfall and the necessity of a rapid conclusion of the judicial preliminary investigations, in view of all these facts to stop the work on the territory of the former death camp Treblinka.
The Examining Judge
Lukaszkiewicz."
On December 29, 1945, after the conclusion of his preliminary investigations, Lukaszkiewicz issued a protocol with 14 paragraphs, which – as already mentioned – was presented by the Soviets at the Nuremberg Trial as Document USSR-344. In the third paragraph, which bears the title "Current condition of the camp terrain", it says the following:209
"With the assistance of an expert land surveyor and witnesses, I made an exact inspection of the terrain. According to the measurements, the area of the camp is approximately 13.45 hectares and had the shape of an irregular quadrilateral. No remnants of facilities of the former death camp exist any longer. The only things that remain of the structures are: a ditch with remains of burned wooden poles protruding up, which lead into the cellar, wall bricks from the foundations of the camp’s domestic economics building and the site of the well. Here and there one finds traces of the burned-out wooden poles of the fence and remains of barbed wire. There are also some sections of paved walks that remain. Nonetheless, there are still other traces that hint at the existence and functions of the camp. In the northwestern section of the area, the surface is covered for about 2 hectares by a mixture of ashes and sand. In this mixture, one finds countless human bones, often still covered with tissue remains, which are in a condition of decomposition. During the inspection, which I made with the assistance of an expert in forensic medicine, it was determined that the ashes are without any doubt of human origin (remains of cremated human bones). The examination of human skulls could discover no trace of« wounding. At a distance of some 100 m, there is now an unpleasant odor of burning and decay. In the southwestern direction, a portion of the camp terrain is covered by aluminum – enamel – glass and porcelain dishes – kitchen utensils – hand luggage – rucksacks – pieces of clothing, etc. There are innumerable holes and craters on the property."
Lukaszkiewicz summarized the investigations carried out a month earlier at that location as follows:210
"During the work on the terrain, I found no mass graves, which, in connection with the statements by the witnesses Romanowski and Wiernik, leads to the conclusion that nearly all of the bodies of the victims were burned, all the more so since the camp was liquidated early and the murderers had much time. The ground of the camp was ploughed and sown. Ukrainians were settled there, who fled before the arrival of the Red Army (witnesses Kucharek and Lopuszyński)."
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- Inference on depth is based entirely on exactly one sample where the largest bomb crater was dug a bit further and reached sand layers.
- Nessie presumably allows for a 0.5m cover layer, hence the 7.5m becoming 7m.
- Inference on surface area is based on Judge Lukaszkiewicz's passing mention to a 2 hectares area where the "surface is covered with a mixture" that includes ashes and sand.
- One sample of depth (reportedly 7.5m) in a single location does not allow us to extrapolate to what lies beneath a massive area of 2 hectares
- All that is mentioned of the area of 2 hectares is that its surface is covered with a mixture of ashes and sand. But within this 2 hectares area, a massive bomb (leaving the 25m diameter, 6m depth crater) exploded into an apparent ash + sand pit, scattering ashes and sand all over the surrounding area, up to 2 hectares
- There is nothing anywhere that suggests the "ashes and sand" were detected beneath the surface, beyond the specific location (the center of the crater) that was dug from 6m (the crater's depth) down to 7.5m (at which point multiple layers of sand were found, which suggests that the sand began even higher than the full 7.5m depth, meaning even fewer 'ash' layers/volume.
- "Ashes and sand" seem to be reported equally, suggesting similar or equal volume of each. Also, there is the problem of soil (and lime) which are always noted as having been mixed-in, in other cremation burials (e.g. Belzec, Sobibor). Hence, we need to assume at least ~60% of what was buried is not purely ashes but also sand, soil, lime, and anything else buried there.
- Critically: almost the entire report documents astounding quantities of buried property (including coins/currency of multiple nationalities, broken containers, kitchen containers and utensils, household objects, clothing, rags, documents, glass/porcelain dishware, luggage, rucksacks, and much more -- exactly what would be expected in a property-sorting operation).
- Directly adjacent to the massive crater in the northwestern section which exploded ash/sand all over the place (Nessie's 2 hectare area) was a massive refuse pit (in the northeastern section) densely filled with even more trash and abandoned [Jewish] property. Altogether, such massive quantities of junk property and it being a standard practice to burn trash/refuse for sanitary and practical reasons, strongly suggests that a large portion of the ashes we see buried at Treblinka must necessarily have come from burnt property -- not just burnt corpses.
20,000m2 x 6.5 = 130,000m3 grave volume
But wait -- we know that sand (explicitly reported alongside ash) and soil (i.e. the native soil which must necessarily have been mixed or layered-in, unless massive displacement is explained) would have formed a large or majority portion of what was buried there. Let's say a modest 60% was sand + soil (possibly lime as well). This brings us to:
130,000m3 x 0.40 = 52,000m3 total ash + cremains volume
So, where does this leave us, in terms of how many Jews could fit into this "2 hectare grave"?
Well, we know that fully cremated corpses in outdoor cremation can be reduced to about 0.008m3 (1.5 shoe boxes, or about the size of a basketball; see TORC, p. 293; TECOAR, p. 1316), whereas very incomplete cremations might reduce to around 0.035m3 (6-7 shoe boxes, or a medium suitcase). It sounds like we have a middle-ground (some incomplete corpses, some bone fragments), so let's go with that: 0.021m3 corpse ash volume per corpse.
We also know that to cremate emaciated (or near-emaciated) corpses to complete cremation outdoors requires around 600-700kg of green wood per corpse, but can be reduced to perhaps ~350-400kg with dry wood and highly-efficient airflow (see 2018 Yerman study, TECOAR, p. 1330-1331; TORC, p. 282-283, 287-291). Even partial cremations will require at least 50-60% of the wood needed for complete cremation, but likely higher (water evaporation takes up the majority of fuel consumption, even before most organic combustion can begin). To be charitable to Nessie, let's again take the middle-ground between very incomplete cremation (~55% of wood needed) and complete cremation (100% of wood), i.e. ~78% of the wood typically needed per corpse is required here. We must also factor in weather constraints (rain, temperature) which necessarily have a major impact. Mattogno calculates this more precisely but let's assume just a 10% increase in wood required, rounding us off to 85% of the normal 100% needed. Assuming at least some green wood has been used but also accounting for optimal 'Nazi efficiency' (grates/airflow), let's assume just 400kg wood per corpse. What is known is that wood creates about 0.34m3 of ash per ton of wood (TECOAR, p. 1316). This brings us to [400 x 0.34 / 1000 = ] 0.136m3 wood ash volume per corpse
Now, let's put it all together:
0.136 + 0.021 = 0.157m3 ash (wood + corpse) per corpse
52,000 / 0.157 = 331,211 corpses
Already, even with Nessie's wild, totally-unsubstantiated extrapolation of "2 hectares of surface-level ashes and sand" and "7 meters depth under a crater" to somehow mean "7 meters deep across the entire 2 hectares", Nessie is still short by about 400,000 to 500,000 corpses/Jews. This also assumes that none of the ashes found in this area would be anything other than human (and wood) ashes, despite the area being chock-full of disposed property (furniture, clothing, etc.), including a massive refuse pit directly adjacent in the northeastern area of the camp.
To recap: Nessie has taken a single mention of ashes found under a bomb crater to mean that the gigantic surface area of 2 hectares where the same crater's ashes/sand were scattered also had the same contents underneath the surface, and to the same depth. There is not a shred of evidence (nor even statements from Judge Lukaszkiewicz) which supports this. Moreover, even if we accept Nessie's blatantly-wrong interpretation, it doesn't account for a majority of his missing Jews, as shown above, nor does it account for ashes from burnt property which are expected here.
Overwhelmingly, what the excavation's findings as reported show is that Treblinka was a place where property was managed, sorted, buried, and disposed of, and that its location and operations (undoubtedly including massive trash pyres as were known at other camps) also made it suitable for cremation of human corpses at times or as needed (such as from ghettos where typhus was rampant and cremation facilities were limited).
What's abundantly clear is that nothing reported here counts as clear or compelling evidence of a mass murder operation of unfathomable scale.
