Krema I Testimonies

[Numar Patru]

The fact is that children, the elderly, and weak and thin women and men WOULD BE immediately killed upon arrival, and this is refuted by individuals registered in the camp who received complex hospital treatment.

In which camp: Auschwitz or Birkenau? Answer and provide examples.

[TlsMS93]

The fact is that children, the elderly, and weak and thin women and men WOULD BE immediately killed upon arrival, and this is refuted by individuals registered in the camp who received complex hospital treatment.

In which camp: Auschwitz or Birkenau? Answer and provide examples.

Are you assuming that no one housed in Birkenau received medical treatment? What kind of extermination camp is this that has accommodation for 200,000 people? What would be the difference between someone being held in Auschwitz and someone being held in Birkenau? In fact, do you think the two were so far apart that it was impossible for them to receive treatment?

[Numar Patru]

Are you assuming that no one housed in Birkenau received medical treatment?

Nope. I'm asking for evidence.

[TlsMS93]

Germar Rudolf in his Lectures on the Holocaust - Chapter 3.4.8 on Documentary Evidence, mentions that there was medical treatment at Birkenau and that there are thousands of medical records available to the public.

[Numar Patru]

And I should trust Germar Rudolf why?

[TlsMS93]

And I should trust Germar Rudolf why?

His source is simply the Auschwitz records. By the way, did you ever go there and do research or did you just go on the tour? Did they show you the pools?

[Archie]

Numar, I will let Monsieur Pressac explain it to you.

RUDOLF HOESS describes one of the first gassings [of 900 Russian prisoners of war] at which he was present, in the morgue of Krematorium I (page 164). Two details are unlikely: the squeezing of 900 persons into 78.2m² and the “rapid” drilling of several holes in the ceiling to pour the Zyklon B. Drilling through 10 to 15cm of concrete was not a job that could be done on the spur of the moment.

https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... 0127.shtml

Turning a morgue into a serviceable gas chamber is not a trivial task. You would need to seal up the room. Reinforce the doors. Figure out how you're going to ventilate it. Drilling through the concrete is not that easy. It would also leave a bunch of debris in the room which is supposed to look like a shower room. They did all this on a whim with no planning? They decided it while the prisoners were being unloaded? You actually believe this?

There are a lot of unfounded assumptions going on here. The first is that the tasks of sealing the room, reinforcing the doors, ventilation, etc., were not already done. The quote from Höss only discusses the holes in the roof, not the other things. Those are your (perhaps Pressac's -- been a while since I've read him) interpolations.

Second, I'd want to see the Höss quote in the original German to determine two things: (1) how accurate a translation is "simply knocked holes through"; and (2) whether Höss actually stated that the holes were created as the Russians were being unloaded. Given the insert of "of the Russians" in brackets, I can assume it's not in the orignal, so I'd want to see the original to see what Höss actually said -- not what you (or Pressac) want to believe he said.

Hoess only mentions the holes. He doesn't mention those other things. I think it is you who is making the strong assumption that they made a bunch of extra preparations that Hoess fails to mention. The major issue is that there are things you would expect to be done to convert the room. For this sort of project, we would expect some sort of high-level decision that the Russians were to be killed, say at the level of Hoess (or higher). Once this was determined, there may be some discussion of execution method. For something technical like a gas chamber you might expect some technical team to be involved. And then for the actual construction work, you would expect some sort of word order to be prepared, specifying precisely what is to be done. If you were to just tell people on the spur of the moment to make a gas chamber, they wouldn't have any idea what to do. When Krema I was converted into an air raid shelter, there was exactly such an order, specifying exactly what changes to make to the building. The idea that the gas chamber conversion was done in a completely impromptu fashion is totally absurd and frankly you are wasting everyone's time trying to defend this.

As for your speculation about it being a mistranslation (note that the fact that you are suggesting this implies that you understand perfectly well the problem with the story), you can find the German text quoted in the German edition of HH #35, pg 218.
https://holocausthandbooks.com/de/book/ ... auschwitz/

And this can be confirmed in the German edition of the "autobiography," pg. 189.
https://archive.org/details/kommandanti ... 8/mode/2up

Stärker erinnerlich ist mir die bald darauf erfolgte Vergasung von 900 Russen im alten Krematorium, da die Benutzung des Block 11 zuviel Umstände erforderlich machte. Es wurden einfach noch während des Entladens mehrere Löcher von oben durch die Erd- und Betondecke des Leichenraumes geschlagen.

It says während (while). Clearly it is indeed saying the holes were made in the ceiling at the same time as the unloading.

For comparison, here is another English translation (by Constantine FitzGibbon) from my paperback copy.

While the transport was detraining, holes were pierced in the earth and concrete ceiling of the mortuary.

Same thing. Although this one was omits einfach (simple) from the original.

[Numar Patru]

Hoess only mentions the holes. He doesn't mention those other things. I think it is you who is making the strong assumption that they made a bunch of extra preparations that Hoess fails to mention.

OK, fair enough.

The major issue is that there are things you would expect to be done to convert the room. For this sort of project, we would expect some sort of high-level decision that the Russians were to be killed, say at the level of Hoess (or higher).

Höss in fact says that this decision had been made on the page before the very one you cite:

Gemäß einem geheimen Führererlaß' wurden in allen Kriegsgefangenenlagern die russischen Politruks und politischen Kommissare herausgesucht durch besondere Kommandos der Gestapo. Die Herausgefundenen wurden zur Liquidation dem nächstgelegenen KL überstellt. - Als Grund zu dieser Maßnahme wurde verlautbart, daß die Russen jeden deutschen Soldaten, der Parteimitglied sei oder einer Gliederung der NSDAP angehöre, insbesondere SS-Angehörige, sofort niedermachten und daß die politischen Funktionäre der Roten Armee den Auftrag hätten, im Falle der Gefangennahme, in den Gefangenenlagern und an den Arbeitsstellen Unruhe in jeder Form zu stiften bzw. die Arbeit zu sabotieren.

Back to you:

Once this was determined, there may be some discussion of execution method. For something technical like a gas chamber you might expect some technical team to be involved.

Why? One thing made clear by Höss is that gassing with Zyklon-B wasn't even his idea. His adjutant Fritzsch had done it first in Block 11 but it had taken too long for the gas to clear. So Höss looked for alternate places to try a gassing since the one conducted by Fritzsch had at least proved that using Zyklon-B would be deadly.

The idea that the gas chamber conversion was done in a completely impromptu fashion is totally absurd and frankly you are wasting everyone's time trying to defend this.

I think you're making this argument particularly strongly because you know that's precisely what the standard history has established. And there's nothing "absurd" or timewasting about this. He addressed the problems found by Fritzsch.

It strikes me that this "Germans wouldn't have done it this way" argument is akin to the argument from incredulity. There were a lot of decisions being made by different groups of people simultaneously, and people on the ground were improvising solutions. The history going all the way back to Broszat establishes that this type of dynamic was absolutely typical in Nazi Germany and its undertakings.

As for your speculation about it being a mistranslation (note that the fact that you are suggesting this implies that you understand perfectly well the problem with the story), you can find the German text quoted in the German edition of HH #35, pg 218.
https://holocausthandbooks.com/de/book/ ... auschwitz/

And this can be confirmed in the German edition of the "autobiography," pg. 189.
https://archive.org/details/kommandanti ... 8/mode/2up

Thanks for providing the original text, btw.

Yeah, it's a problem that Höss says the holes were made in the roof "easily." I'd have to know more about the roof. The building itself had been built by the Austro-Hungarian government and the whole camp itself had served as a barracks for the Austro-Hungarian Army, so I'm going to see if I can find out more about the ceiling.

There's also, btw, Mazal et al's article on the holes in the roof here: https://academic.oup.com/hgs/article-ab ... /68/648579

Been a while since I've read it but I'll re-read it today if time allows. If you need a copy, let me know.

[Numar Patru]

Oh, here's an HTML version of Mazal et al: https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... oles.shtml

[Stubble]

Oh, here's an HTML version of Mazal et al: https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... oles.shtml

Thank you

[DavidM]

There are a lot of unfounded assumptions going on here. The first is that the tasks of sealing the room, reinforcing the doors, ventilation, etc., were not already done. The quote from Höss only discusses the holes in the roof, not the other things. Those are your (perhaps Pressac's -- been a while since I've read him) interpolations.

Hello Numar, No one has every claimed that there was a ventilation system in the morgue of Krema I,
or a system of physically extracting the zyklon from the room. Without these two systems, the morgue could not have
served as a gas chamber (except for one time!)
To quote Pressac;

Unlike Krematorien II, III, IV and V, there are very few German documents concerned with Krematorium I. These do not make it possible to formally establish proof of homicidal gassing in its morgue and this lack of documentary evidence, together with the present state of the premises, has favoured revisionist attacks aimed at demonstrating that the gas chamber did not really exist. The fact is that while the building itself is still the original one, its internal arrangement, as found in January 1945, has been restructured and the installations connected with its cremation and gassing activities have been reconstructed and reconstituted... As evidence to establish the reality of homicidal gassing there remain only the testimonies of participants, https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... 0123.shtml

The morgue had to stay a morgue for the simple reason that the Germans needed a place to store bodies.
As is shown by the cremation urns, bodies were stored up to fours days before cremation.
https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-his ... 0133.shtml

But more persuasive are the ground plans of Krema I in 1942...
https://codoh.com/library/document/thin ... auschwitz/. Illustration 1.
From a sign at the Krema I site.
Can Numar tell us how the victims got into the gas chamber in 1942?

[Numar Patru]

Through the door.

[DavidM]

The fact is that children, the elderly, and weak and thin women and men WOULD BE immediately killed upon arrival, and this is refuted by individuals registered in the camp who received complex hospital treatment.

In which camp: Auschwitz or Birkenau? Answer and provide examples.

Hello Numar...both Auschwitz Main and Birkenau had hospitals.
See https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/camp-hospitals/
In Auschwitz Main the hospital was located next to the "Top Secret" (haha) gas chamber I building.
At Birkenau, there were large inmate hospital staffed by largely by Jewish doctors.
"“Her experience echoes my findings related to Jewish prisoner-physicians within the industrial sub-camps of Auschwitz,” said Siegel. “Surviving doctors report that on a variety of occasions, S.S. medical orderlies or doctors obtained requested medical equipment or medications. The importance of the Jewish doctors to the [Germans’] industrial program is clear from their transfers from Birkenau to the sub-camps and from one sub-camp to another.”
https://news.yale.edu/2019/05/21/resear ... xperiences
See also the complete Auschwitz Album (not the Believer version removing inconvenient photographs)
showing the large Birkenau hospital and the staff of Jewish doctors.

Floor plan of Krema I
Please look at the 1942 floor plan of the Krema I? Notice that there was no direct access
to the "gas chamber" at the time. To enter the morgue at the time, one had walk past the crematoria room and
a second room where they stored the urns with cremated remains.

[Numar Patru]

Not sure of your point. Be less long winded

[DavidM]

Auschwitz was a camp that combined purposes. Birkenau did not. Moreover, over the course of time, extermination occurred more exclusively in the latter than the former.

This is very basic stuff. And don't project your despair onto me.

The camp was expanded to accommodate 200,000 more prisoners, which is why there were barracks there. The gas chamber only exists in your own mind. Repeating the narrative of transferring the extermination site doesn't change anything. And the selections were purely administrative, as any shallow prison system does. No one mixes men and women in the same room.

The fact is that children, the elderly, and weak and thin women and men WOULD BE immediately killed upon arrival, and this is refuted by individuals registered in the camp who received complex hospital treatment.

And it's a good idea to mention me so that I can be informed of your responses so that it doesn't seem like I didn't respond and therefore accepted defeat. Otherwise, it's better to end the discussion.

Hello TlsMS93. Believers are a group that can look at a picture of barracks for tens of thousands of people with buildiong going on for a hundred Thousand more people and assert the place was an extermination factory.
You are correct that thousands of inmates were not working, in the hospital, or working simply producing food for themselves. A very low percentage of detainees produced income producing products