This file contains four parts, which have appeared on USENET as an answer to Holocaust "revisionists". More are being prepared. The contents of this file are as follows: 1) Britannica entries about Holocuast, Auschwitz, Treblinka. Prepared by Brian Douglas. 2) Part of the ruling of the German court in Dusseldorf in the first and second Treblinka trials. Prepared by Danny Keren. 3) US court ruling and other documents from the Mermelstein vs. the IHR trial. As a result of that trial, the IHR had to pay Mr. Mermelstein the 50,000$ reward it promised to anyone who can prove that people were gassed to death in Auschwitz. 4) An answer to the so-called "Leuchter report" which supposedly proves that "no one was gassed in Auschwitz". Written by Danny Keren. In preparation are answers to other revisionist publications (such as the "66 Q&A on the Holocaust" pamphlet). Further suggestions are welcome, as are comments on the contents of this file. 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 From Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th Edition ------------------------------------------- Here are a few facts about the Holocaust taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica 15th Edition (most recent). Following are the entries on the Holocaust and on the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were the worst in terms of numbers of victims. ********************************************************************* Holocaust, Hebrew SHO'AH, or HURBAN, the 12 years (1933-45) of Nazi persecution of Jews and other minorities, which was marked by increasing barbarization of methods and by expansion of territories terrorized by German rule and which climaxed in the "final solution" (die Endlosung), the attempted extermination of European Jewry. Adolf Hitler's persecution of the Jews in Germany began a month after he became chancellor on Jan. 30, 1933. Jewish businesses were boycotted and soon vandalized, and Jewish personnel were dismissed from local governments, law courts, and universities. In a series of laws, confiscations, and pogroms between 1933 and 1938, Hitler succeeded in undermining the political and economic foundations of German Jewry, which, according to Nazi doctrine, included thousands of German Christians of Jewish origin. By the Nurmberg laws of 1935, Jews lost their citizenship completely and were forbidden to intermarry with other Germans. As a result of the Kristallnacht pogrom, the Night of Broken Glass, of Nov. 9-10, 1938, practically every synagogue in Germany was destroyed, along with other Jewish institutions. Thereafter, thousands of Jews were imprisoned in concentration camps, and the major part of German Jewish wealth was confiscated by huge punitive fines and other exactions. By the time that World War II had broken out in 1939, Jews were no longer citizens, could attend no public schools, engage in practically no business or profession, own no land, associate with no non-Jew, and frequent no park, library, or museum; and they were ordered to live in ghettos. By 1941 boys over 12 were conscripted into munitions factories, all use of the telephone and public transportation systems was forbidden, and all Jews over 6 years of age were required to were the yellow Star-of-David badge. The Nazis became convinced, after a few propaganda successes, that anti-Semitism could also serve as an entering wedge into many countries of Europe. By 1938 Fascist Italy had issued an anti- Jewish law modeled on German anti-Semitic racial legislation; and the conquest and incorporation of Austria in 1938 and of Czechoslovakia in 1939 brought about the subjection of their Jewries. Hungary, with a background of anti-Semitism, enacted its first anti-Semitic statute on the Hitlerian model in 1938. Romania reached a climax of anti-Semitism in December 1937, when Octavian Goga became premier and sponsored a series of nazi anti-Semitic laws. He was speedily deposed by King Carol II; but, nevertheless, by November 1939, more than one-third of Romanian Jewry was disenfranchised. This meant that, as aliens, they were not permitted to work. Those social and political forces that might have been expected to rise to the support of the Jews and other oppressed minorities in Europe failed to do so. The student bodies of central and eastern Europe, following old traditions, refused to line up with the liberals. The liberal political parties themselves had been crushed and suppressed. The protests of the churches, when they were made, were feeble and ineffective; certain individual church-men and prelates were apparent anti-Semites. The methods of self-help employed by the Jews themselves served in a small degree to ameliorate their position. The majority hoped for emigration; from 1931 to 1941, for example, 161,262 immigrant Jews were admitted to the United States. This relatively small migratory tide, however, did little to alleviate the conditions of millions of Jews. The victories of the German armies in the early years of World War II brought the overwhelming majority of European Jewry under the Nazis and their satellites. From the Atlantic to the Volga, from Norway to Sicily, Jews were deprived of human rights. Their property confiscated, most of them were herded into ghettos and concentration camps. As the German armies moved eastward, first into Poland and then into the Soviet Union and the Baltic states, the resolution of the "Jewish question" (die Judenfrage) was terrifyingly inaugurated by SS death squads known as special task forces (Einsatzgruppen). Whole populations of Jews (as well as Gypsies and many non-Jewish Slavs) of conquered villages, towns and cities were rounded up, shot, and buried locally in mass graves. Another method of extermination consisted of herding victims into enclosed trucks or vans into which exhaust fumes were directed, killing the occupants on the ride to mass graves. However, a combination of inefficiency and the uneasiness in some sectors of public opinion, especially among regular army troops and officers, meant that the time had come for some new methods of mass murder. The evolving plans for murder and cremation in remote extermination camps would ensure that most killings would be done behind a wall of secrecy, by methods that far fewer people would have to see, and in circumstances that would reduce to a minimum the chance of discovery. At the notorious Wannsee Conference, on Jan. 20, 1942, in the Berlin suburb of Grossen-Wannsee, 15 leading Nazi bureaucrats headed by SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich (and including Adolf Eichmann) met to discuss the "final solution of the Jewish question." The decision taken was to systematically evacuate Jews from all over occupied Europe to camps in the East, where they would be "treated accordingly." Some would be exterminated outright (though the word extermination or execution was not used officially), and others would be organized into huge labor battalions; exhausting work with meager food would ultimately spell the death of survivors of their eventual selection for extermination. (Some of Germany's allies, such as Italy and Hungary, opposed and resisted the extermination policy, but submitted when overpowered by Germany in 1943-1944. Only Bulgaria resisted to the end.) The most effective method for mass extermination became gassing in specially constructed gas chambers (disguised as showers), from which the bodies were removed to adjacent crematoriums. By this and other means, perhaps as many as 4,000,000 Jews were put to death in the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Belzec and in the other concentration camps. The total number of Jews exterminated by the Nazi during the war is variously estimated but may have been as many as 6,000,000. (This about 13 percent of the estimated total of probably more than 46,000,000 military personnel and civilians killed worldwide in World War II.) This plan of genocide was carried out with efficiency and the victims, whose will to resist had been sapped by prolonged starvation and disease, were often unaware until the last moment that they were going to be gassed. Nevertheless, there was some Jewish resistance, both passive and active. Where the population was friendly to Jews, as in Denmark, France Italy, and Bulgaria, it proved possible to save considerable numbers of Jews by hiding them, furnishing them with false documents, and even evacuating them to neutral countries. Thus a large part of Danish Jewry was secretly transferred en masse to Sweden, while some French Jews found refuge in Spain, Portugal, and Switzerland. In eastern Europe, however, the Germans exploited the traditional anti- Semitism of the peasant, so that hardly any aid reach the Jews from the mass of the people, while not a few non-Germans were among the most brutal agents in carrying out the extermination campaign. Notwithstanding these unfavourable conditions, thousands of young Jews joined the various underground resistance movements and the partisans in Poland, the USSR, Yugoslavia, France, and Italy. Jewish partisans often formed their own units, and in France there was a special Jewish section of the Maquis (bush guerrillas) that distinguished itself in attacks against the Germans. But it was above all in the major ghettos of Poland--Warsaw, Bialystok, and Vilnius--that Jewish rising took place against overwhelming odds. In Warsaw, where at one time nearly 400,000 Jews had been concentrated, the last 60,000, almost unarmed, resisted the German deportation order and held out for nearly a month against regular German troops armed with flame throwers, armoured cars, and tanks (April-May 1943). Unfortunately, the Allied governments were too preoccupied with their own effort to render effective aid in saving Jews, and through the war the gates of most countries remained closed to all but a handful of refugees. The war in Europe ended on May 8, 1945. The subsequent years tended to heal a few individual wounds, but the damage suffered by organized Jewry on the continent of Europe could not be fully repaired. Jewry's hopes became concentrated on the establishment and preservation of Israel and on the bringing of Nazi war criminals to trial. Holocaust Day, a day of commemoration, is observed in Israel on Nisan 27, and elsewhere on April 19 or 20. The date is considered the anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (q.v.) of 1943. ********************************************************************* ********************************************************************* Auschwitz Polish, Oswiecim, also called Auschwitz-Birkenau, Nazi Germany's largest concentration camp and extermination camp, located near the Polish town of Oswiecim in Galicia. Heinrich Himmler ordered the establishment of the camp on April 27, 1940, and the first transport of Polish political prisoners arrived on June 14. This small "Auschwitz I" throughout its history was reserved for political prisoners, mainly Poles and Germans. It was supplemented in October 1941 by "Auschwitz II," or Birkenau, located outside the nearby village of Brzezinka (Birkenau in German). There the SS later developed a huge extermination complex--including Badeanstalten ("bathhouses") used for gassing prisoners to death, Leichenkell ("corpse cellars") used for storing their bodies and Einascherungsofen ("cremating ovens")--all for the "final solution," the annihilation of European Jews. Another camp, near the village of Dwory, later called "Auschwitz III," became in May 1942 a slave-labour camp supplying workers for the large chemical and synthetic-rubber works of IG Farben nearby. From 1940 to 1945 the commandant of all the Auschwitz camps was SS-Haputsturmfuhrer (Captain) Rudolf Franz Hoess. Upon their arrival in freight cars, Jewish prisoners were subjected to a Selektion ("selection"): able young men and women were sent to the forced-labour camp, while the aged, the weak, and children and their mothers were killed. The forced labourers too were periodically "selected," to weed out those weakened by overwork, disease, or hunger. Some prisoners were also selected for medical experiments, such as testing for cheap and quick methods of sterilization or killing and performing autopsies on twins in search of means of increasing the Aryan breed. The notorious camp doctor Josef Mengele conducted the latter experiments and supervised the Selektionen. As Soviet armies advanced, Auschwitz was gradually abandoned, most of the remaining prisoners leaving on Jan. 17, 1945, and being transported to Dachau, Mauthausen, and other German camps; 7,650 prisoners left behind were found 10 days later by arriving Soviet troops. Estimates of the total numbers who died at Auschwitz from all causes vary greatly, usually cited as between 1,000,000 and 2,500,000 but sometimes reaching 4,000,000. See also Holocaust. ********************************************************************* ********************************************************************* Treblinka Major German Nazi concentration camp and extermination camp, located near the railway village of Treblinka, between the Polish towns of Siedlce and Malkinia, 62 miles (100 Kilometers) northeast of Warsaw. There were two camps: the first Treblinka, 2.5 Miles from the station, was opened in December 1941 as a small forced-labor camp; the second, larger, and ultrasecret camp, called "T.II" (i.e., Treblinka II) in official dispatches, was located one mile from the first and opened in July 1942 as an extermination camp for Jews marked for the final solution. After being unloaded from arriving railway freight cars, the victims at Treblinka II were separated by sex, stripped of their clothing and other possessions, marched into buildings containing "bath houses", and gassed from ceiling pipes issuing from diesel engines (the camp may later have also used the poison gas Zyklon-B). A few hundred Ukrainians and about 1,000 to 1,500 Jewish male prisoners were employed in performing the executions, removing gold teeth, dentures, and other valuables from the corpses, and transforming the remains to mass graves. The total number executed at Treblinka has been estimated at more then 731,000. On Aug. 2, 1943, a group of Jewish prisoner-workers rose in a planned revolt, killing some Ukrainian guards and one SS officer but generally failing in a confusion of mistiming and ill luck. Most of the 200 or more who did escape were eventually killed or recaptured. The facilities at Treblinka II were closed in October 1943; those at Treblinka I in July 1944. Only about 50 survivors could be found after World War II. See also Holocaust. 22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222 ************************************************************************** EXCERPTS FROM JUDGMENTS (URTEILSBEGRUNDUNG) Passed on September 3, 1965 in the trial of Kurt Franz and nine others at the court of Assizes in Dusseldorf (First Treblinka Trial) (AZ-LG Dusseldorf: II 931638, p. 49 ff.), and the trial of Franz Stangl at the court of Assizes at Dusseldorf (Second Treblinka Trial) on December 22, 1970 (pp. 111 ff.,AZ-LG Dusseldorf, XI-148/69 S.) Number of Persons Killed at the Treblinka Extermination Camp: ------------------------------------------------------------- At least 700,000 persons, predominantly Jews, but also a number of Gypsies, were killed at the Treblinka extermination camp. These findings are based on the expert opinion submitted to the Court of Assizes by Dr. Helmut Kraunsnick, director of the Institute for Contemporary History (Institute fur Zeitgeschichte) in Munich. in formulating his opinion, Dr. Kraunsnick consulted all the German and foreign archival material accessible to him and customarily studied in historical research. Among the documents he examined were the following: (1) The so-called Stroop report, a report by SS Brigadefuhrer [Brigadier] Jurgen Stroop, dealing with the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. This report consists of three parts: namely, an introduction, a compilation of daily reports and a collection of photographs. (2) The record of the trial of the major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. (3) The official transportation documents (train schedules, telegrams, and train inventories) relevant to the transports to Treblinka. The latter documents, of which only a part were recovered after the war, were the subject of the trial and were made available to Dr. Krausnick by the Court of Assizes. Dr. Krausnick's report includes the following information: According to the Stroop report a total of approximately 310,000 Jews were transported in freight trains from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka during the period from July 22, 1942 to October 3, 1942. Approximately another 19,000 Jews made the same journey during the period from January, 1943 to the middle of May, 1943. During the period from August 21, 1942 to August 23, 1943, additional transports of Jews arrived at the Treblinka extermination camp, likewise by freight train, from other Polish cities, including Kielce, Miedzyrec, Lukow, Wloszczowa, Sedzizzow, Czestochowa, Szydlowiec, Lochow, Kozienice, Bialystok, Tomaszow, Grodno and Radom. Other Jews, who lived in the vicinity of Treblinka, arrived at Treblinka in horse-drawn wagons and in trucks, as did Gypsies, including some from countries other than Poland. In addition, Jews from Germany and from other European countries, including Austria, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece were transported to Treblinka, predominantly is passenger trains. It has not been possible, of course, to establish the exact number of people transported to Treblinka in this fashion, because only a part of the transportation documents, particularly those relevant to the railroad transports, are available. Still, assuming that each of the trains consisted of an average of 60 cars, with each freight car holding an average total of 100 persons and each passenger car an average total of 50 (i.e., that each freight train might have carried an approximate total of 6,000, and each passenger train an approximate total of 3,000 Jews to Treblinka) the total number of people transported to Treblinka in freight trains and passenger trains might be estimated at approximately 271,000. This total would not include the 329,000 from Warsaw. Actually, however, these figures in many instances were much larger than the ones cited above. Besides, many additional thousands of Jews - and also Gypsies - arrived in Treblinka in horse-drawn wagons and on trucks. Accordingly, it must be assumed that that the total number of Jews from Warsaw, from other parts of Poland, from Germany and from other European countries, who were taken to Treblinka, plus the total of at least 1,000 Gypsies who shared the safe fate, amounted to far more than 700,000, even if one considers that several thousands of people were subsequently moved from Treblinka to other camps and that several hundred inmates succeeded in escaping from the camp, especially during the revolt of August 2, 1943. In view of the foregoing, it would be scientifically admissible to estimate the total number of persons killed in Treblinka at a minimum of 700,000. The court of Assizes sees no reason to question the opinion of this expert, who is known in the scholarly world for his studies on the National Socialist persecution of the Jews. The expert opinion he has submitted is detailed, thorough, and therefore convincing. ************************************************************************* This is just a small part of the German courts' ruling. It goes on to give further evidence of the number of victims, and to study the structure of the camp and the extermination process. It states that the estimate of 700,000 is probably "too conservative". In the fall of 1969 another expert, Dr. Scheffler, submitted for the second Treblinka trial an opinion which was based on more recent research, estimating the total number of victims at about 900,000. Following are some verbatim quotes from the German courts' ruling as to how the murders took place: ************************************************************************* From that stage on both male and female victims received the same treatment. So that these people would not have the time to think or offer resistance, they were driven through the "tube" by guards stationed there, who struck out at them with canes, whips, rifle butts and with their fists to hurry them along. The victims had to run through the "tube" four and five abreast, completely naked and with arms raised; this was the way in which they were herded into the gas chambers. The capacity of each gas chamber was utilized down to the last square centimeter. Under a rain of constant blows and abuse so many people were squeezed into the chamber that no one was able to move any more. Often, infants and young children would simply be tossed into the rooms above the heads of the adults standing in the chamber. When it was no longer possible to squeeze additional people into the chambers, the doors were sealed and the German squad leader ordered the Ukrainian in the engine room (he might say "Ivan, water!") to switch on the engine, whose exhaust fumes were then conducted into the chamber [In a different place, it is specified that engines of captured Soviet tanks were used]. The killing process itself lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. After that time the engine was shut and someone went to the doors to listen for signs of life in the chambers. If no sign of life could be detected, the command was given to open the trap doors on the outer walls, and the transfer of the corpses began. On occasion some victims showed signs of life even after the gassing had been completed. Such people would be shot on the platform or perhaps on the way to the ditch or the cremation grill. The shooting was done either by the German squad leader or by one of the Ukrainian guards. Others shot at the mass graves included newcomers who could not be pushed into the already overcrowded gas chambers, but who were too few in number to warrant the expense of a separate gassing operation. ***************************************************************** 333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333 These are the facts concerning the Mermelstein vs. the IHR (Institute for Historical Review) trial. The revisionists sometimes claim that "no one was able to prove the existence of gas chambers for killing people in Auschwitz" and say that a 50,000$ reward will be given to the person who will supply the proof. Note that they *never* mention the name of the person or institute offering this reward - they know very well the money will be claimed, as it was in this case. After this trial, both Mermelstein and the IHR sued each other for libel, but both decided not to go to court. The revisionists claim this is a "stunning victory" which "nullifies the result of the first trial". Complete nonsense: the two are unrelated, and the second trial had nothing to do with the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Here is a short history of the court proceedings, followed by the court transcripts: 1) Mr. Mermelstein wrote a letter to the Jerusalem Post; 2) the IHR wrote him a letter offering him $50,000 for proof "that Jews were gassed in gas-chambers at Auschwitz"; 3) he provided proof; 4) the IHR refused to pay; 5) he sued them; 6) the court said that he had provided proof; 7) the IHR et al paid him $90,000 and apologized. The judgment of the court is below (exhibit A). Below that is the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment (i.e., exactly what the two parties agreed to - as opposed to the judgment of the court). This is exhibit B. Note the judge's ruling: ************************************************************************** "WHEREAS, on October 9, 1981, the parties in dispute in the litigation filed cross-motions for summary judgment resulting in the court, per the Honorable Thomas T. Johnson, taking 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.'" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ************************************************************************** ). (Also contained below is the letter which Mel Mermelstein wrote to the Jerusalem Post (exhibit C) and the letter of reply from the IHR stating the $50,000 award and the conditions for being awarded the money (exhibit D).) And the IHR tried to weasel out of it again in 1991, and again the judge, the Hon. Stephen O'Neil this time, affirmed the judicial notice with the statement that "it is just not disputable." (The transcript of the discussion of this point is also below (exhibit E).) In closing, Mel Mermelstein has written a book about the Holocaust. The title is "By Bread Alone, The Story of A-4685" (ISBN 0-9606534-0-6) and it can be ordered from: Auschwitz Study Foundation, Inc. 7422 Cedar Street, P.O. Box 2232 Huntington Beach, CA 92647 (213)592-5558 or (714)848-1101 . ***** A ***** A ***** A ***** A ***** A ***** A ***** A ***** SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES MEL MERMELSTEIN. ) No. C 356 542 Plaintiff, ) vs. ) JUDGMENT ) INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL ) REVIEW, et al. ) Defendants. ) Pursuant to the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment executed on July 22, 1985, the Court renders the following judgment: 1. Defendants LIBERTY LOBBY, WILLIS CARTO, ELISABETH CARTO, LEGION FOR SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, and NOONTIDE PRESS, and each of them, are jointly and severally liable to plaintiff MEL MERMELSTEIN for the sum of One Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($150,000.00), reduced to the sum of Ninety Thousand Dollars ($90,000.00) payable as follows: (a) Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000.00) on August 1, 1985, and delivered to the law offices of ALLRED, MAROKO, GOLDBERG & RIBAKOFF; (b) Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000.00) on September 1, 1985; (c) Twenty Thousand Dollars ($20,000.00) on October 1, 1985. 2. Should any of the installments not be made by the defendants against whom judgment herein is entered within the time period provided, plaintiff, at his sole option and discretion, shall have the following options: (a) To rescind the Stipulation for Entry of Judgment and proceed to trial and any payments received by plaintiff to that date from defendants shall not be returned to said defendants; or (b) Plaintiff may request entry of Judgment against each of said defendants, jointly or severally, in the sum of One Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($150,000.00). 3. Defendants LIBERTY LOBBY, WILLIS CARTO, ELISABETH CARTO, LEGION FOR SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, and NOONTIDE PRESS, shall issue and execute, by a duly authorized representative, a Letter of Apology to Mel Mermelstein, as follows: "Each of the answering defendants do hereby officially and formally apologize to Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz for the pain, anguish and suffering he and all other Auschwitz survivors have sustained relating to the $50,000 reward offer for proof that "Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz". DATED: AUG 5, 1985 ROBERT A. WENKE, JUDGE SUPERIOR COURT APPROVED AS TO FORM AND CONTENT: G. G. BAUMEN Attorney for Defendants INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, LEGION FOR SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM, ELISABETH CARTO and NOONTIDE PRESS VON ESCH & ASSOCIATES Attorneys for Defendants LIBERTY LOBBY and WILLIS CARTO ***** B ***** B ***** B ***** B ***** B ***** B ***** B ***** STATEMENT OF RECORD AND LETTER OF APOLOGY TO MEL MERMELSTEIN "WHEREAS, the Legion for Survival of Freedom, and the Institute for Historical Review, sent by letter dated November 20, 1980, directly to Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, an exclusive reward offer in a letter marked "'personal'" dated November 20, 1980, offering Mr. Mermelstein a $50,000 exclusive reward for "'proof that Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz'" "and further stating that if Mr. Mermelstein did not respond to the reward offer "'very soon"', "the Institute for Historical Review would ' publicize that fact to the mass media' ..." "WHEREAS, Mr. Mermelstein formally applied for said $50,000 reward on December 18, 1980; and "WHEREAS, Mr. Mermelstein now contends that the Institute for Historical Review knew, or should have known, from Mr. Mermelstein's letter to the editor of the Jerusalem Post dated Autust 17, 1980, that Mr. Mermelstein contended he was a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald; knew, or should have known, that Mr. Mermelstein contended that his mother and two sisters were gassed to death at Auschwitz; and knew, or should have known, of his contention that at dawn on May 22, 1944, he observed his mother and two sisters, among other women and children, being lured and driven into the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which he later discovered to be Gas Chamber No. 5; and "WHEREAS, on October 9, 1981, the parties in dispute in the litigation filed cross-motions for summary judgment resulting in the court, per the Honorable Thomas T. Johnson, taking 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.'" "WHEREAS, Mr. Mermelstein and other survivors of Auschwitz contend that they suffered severe emotional distress resulting from said reward offer and subsequent conduct of the Institute of Historical Review; and "WHEREAS, the Institute for Historical Review and Legion for Survival of Freedom now contend that in offering such reward there was no intent to offend, embarrass or cause emotional strain to anyone, including Mr. Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald Concentration Camps of World War II, and a person who lost his father, mother and two sisters who also were inmates of Auschwitz; "WHEREAS, the Institute for Historical Review and Legion for Survival of Freedom should have been aware that the reward offer would cause Mr. Mermelstein and other survivors of Auschwitz to suffer severe emotional distress which the Institute for Historical Review and Legion for Survival of Freedom, now recognize is regretable and abusive to survivors of Auschwitz. LETTER OF APOLOGY TO MEL MERMELSTEIN "Each of the answering defendants do hereby officially and formally apologize to Mr. Mel Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, and all other survivors of Auschwitz for the pain, anguish and suffering he and all other Auschwitz survivors have sustained relating to the $50,000 reward offer for proof that "Jews were gassed in gas chambers at Auschwitz". DATED: 7/24/85 G. G. Baumen Attorney for Defendants Legion For Survival of Freedom, Institute for Historical Review, Noontide Press, and Elisabeth Carto DATED: 7/24/85 MARK F. VON ESCH Attorneys for Defendants Liberty Lobby and Willis Carto ***** C ***** C ***** C ***** C ***** C ***** C ***** C ***** THE JERUSALEM POST (INTERNATIONAL EDITION), 24-30 AUGUST 1980 Sir, - By now you may have heard of the so-called "prestigious" names: 1. Dr. Austin J. App (retired) La Salle College, Philadelphia 2. John Bennett, Victoria Council for Civil Liberties, Australia 3. Dr. Reinhard K. Buchner, California State University, Long Beach 4. Dr. Arthur R. Butz, Northwestern University, Illinois 5. James E. Egolf, Duquesne University, Pennsylvania 6. Dr. Robert Faurisson, University of Lyon-2, France 7. Ditlieb Felderer, Bible Researcher, Sweden 8. Dr. James J. Martin, Institute of Historical Review 9. Udo Walendy, Varlag Fur Volkstum & Zeitgeschictsforschung. You may have also read about a recent publication of the so-called "Journal of Historical Review" which originated in Torrance, California. If by chance you have not heard of these gentlemen, nor read about the so-called "Journal of Historical Review," allow me to inform you that these university professors, some of them former Nazis of the old Hitlerite regime, have taken upon themselves to use and abuse our colleges and universities throughout the western world, in particular the United States, to spread lies, hatred and bigotry vis-a-vis the subject known as the "Holocaust." They even invented new titles to distort these awesome historical events. "The Hoax of the 20th Century," "The Myth of the Six Million," etc., etc. What can one say, when once again we sit idly by as these highly acclaimed professors, in highly accredited universities are "at it again." They are teaching our new generation that the chimneys of Auschwitz were only those of the bakeries. That there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz-Berkenau. That Dachau was a peaceful town within Nazi Germany and that the "six million" European Jews fled Nazism and have been living peacefully in Israel ever since. As one who survived the infernos of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, my eyes are still blurring from the vision of that nightmare and my ears are still ringing with the agonizing sounds of men, women and little children who were lured and driven into the gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, solely and exclusively because they were Jewish. These "prestigious" gentlemen mentioned above, as well as the bigoted organizations they represent, have the gall to offer any survivor of the Holocaust a $50,000, and possibly $100,000 award if he or she can prove that indeed gassings of men, women and little children had actually taken place during that awesome period known as the "Holocaust." I shall be leaving for the 10th time to a survivors' conference in October to be held at Auschwitz. Perhaps some of these "prestigious" gentlemen would like to accompany me, at which time, I could physically point out the places from where I saw the actual gassings of men, women and little children in gas chambers disguised as shower rooms. MELVIN MERMELSTEIN Huntington Beach, California ***** D ***** D ***** D ***** D ***** D ***** D ***** D ***** INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW 20 November 1980 Dear Mr. Mermelstein (sic): Your recent letter in the Jerusalem Post indicates that you can prove that Jews were gassed in gas-chambers at Auschwitz. At our 1979 Revisionist Convention we announced a $50,000 reward for proof of this allegation. To date, no one has stepped forward, and at the 1980 Revisionist Convention we suspended the reward and replaced it with a $25,000 reward for proof that The Diary of Anne Frank is authentic, and another $25,000 reward for proof that Jews were turned into bars of soap by the Nazis. In the circumstances, we will re-open the $50,000 reward so that you can apply. I enclose the necessary application forms. Please note that the evidence will be judged along the same standards as evidence in a U.S. criminal court; not the standards of the Nuremberg Trials. If we do not hear from you, we will be obliged to draw our own conclusions, and publicize this fact to the mass media, including the Jerusalem Post. I look forward to hearing from you very soon. Sincerely, Lew Brandon Director ***** E ***** E ***** E ***** E ***** E ***** E ***** E ***** SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA FOR THE COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES DEPARTMENT NO. 82 HON. STEPHEN O'NEIL, JUDGE MEL MERMELSTEIN. ) PLAINTIFF, ) VS. ) NO. C 629224 ) Consolidated with LEGION FOR THE SURVIVAL OF FREEDOM ) NO. SOC 95211 etc., et al., ) Defendant. ) TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS January 10, 1991 .................. THE COURT: ......... All right? Now, let's handle the judicial notice matter. MR. HULSY (lawyer for defendant/responding party): All right. The judicial notice matter, your Honor - perhaps the court could give me a little guidance on its thinking on how it arrived it, because there were three or four different theories proferred. THE COURT: Certainly. And that's why I wrote down all four sections of the Evidence Code and have it right in front of me; because in essence, if you will, it was on two theories: One, the previous matter, I believe it was Judge Johnson. So under Evidence Code sections 452(c) and (d), that alone permits this court to take judicial notice under those sections of the Evidence Code I just cited. But I'm taking it a step further; and I'm adding, in addition, as a reason Evidence Code sections 452(g) and (h), that - and if you'd like me, I'll quote (h) in particular: "Facts and propositions that are not reasonably subject to dispute and are capable of immediate and accurate determination by resort to sources of reasonably indisputable accuracy." So for all of those reasons, the request for judicial notice is granted. MR. HULSY: Okay. Well, in other words, you're deciding it anew, as well as holding that you're collaterally estopped to raise it. THE COURT: For all of the above. MR. HULSY: All right. Well, I don't suppose I'm going to change the court's mind; but when you look at things like the number of moons around Jupiter, we pull out an old Encyclopedia Britannica, and they'll have a statement, very factual, about what they knew at that time. This is - there's been developments in the last ten years, since this was last looked at by the court; and the historians are still pondering over this area. It was our - my feeling is that it's too controversial - it's a jury matter, but I really don't have any new case. THE COURT: Well - MR. HULSY: - I thought that the - THE COURT: - more important than a new case, how about a new fact? MR. HULSY: Well, I'm - I'm not - THE COURT: Because, again, I emphasize the language, "reasonably indisputable accuracy." MR. HULSY: Well, it takes away a major area from the role of the jury, and this - THE COURT: Well, there's also a society in England, I believe, called the Flat Earth Society. MR. HULSY: True. THE COURT: So, I mean, some people may not want to take Caribbean cruises for fear of falling off the end of the earth - you know. But reasonably indisputably accurate, I'd say the earth is a sphere. I mean - you know - how far are we going to carry this? MR. HULSY: My thought is, your Honor, that's a spurious analogy. I've tried to use the moons of Jupiter where, it's a continue- - we're discovering now, we've got twenty - THE COURT: Well, you're entitled to your opinion - MR. HULSY: Right. THE COURT: - as it being spurious, sir. I - you know - MR. HULSY. I don't mean to be disrespectful. THE COURT: - I'm just citing that as a - I mean, there are all sorts of societies out there, and there are all sorts of groups and organizations. But as far as this issue and this request for this statement of judicial notice, this court again, in its opinion, feels that for all of the reasons that I cited, not only the prior ruling but also because it is just not disputable. MR. HULSY: The - I can't offer anything to quarrel - you know - factually, a new fact on the deciding it anew, other than the facts that have been submitted. On the collateral estoppel issue, I thought that the - that the case that was appended from the Lexis was very interesting and it showed the court's logic; and I thought that it would be useful to go back to the letter of apology and see that the thrust of that was the emotional distress rather than any sort of a concession as to the facts. And that's why I thought on the collateral estoppel that if the court was thinking exclusively on that, that it ought not be followed. THE COURT: Interesting, not persuasive. MR. HULSY: All right. I submit. 44444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following was written in order to refute some of the Holocaust revisionists claims concerning the extermination camp in Auschwitz, Poland, which was the worst of the Nazi death camps in terms of the total number of victims. About a million people were gassed to death and cremated in Auschwitz. This is by no means a replacement to serious reading - just an exposition of common revisionists frauds, such as the "Leuchter report". Comments, corrections, and additions are welcome. -Danny Keren (dzk@cs.brown.edu). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * What is the "Leuchter report"? The purpose of the "Leuchter report" is to "scientificly demonstrate" that people were not gassed to death using Zyklon-B in Auschwitz. It is composed of old claims made by the French Revisionist Faurisson as well as some new ones. Many of the claims appear in the "66 Q&A on the Holocaust" pamphlet, and occur repeatedly in the B-CPU posts. * What did Fred Leuchter do? In 1988, he took samples from the walls of delousing rooms and from the ruins of the homicidal gas chamber in Krematoria II in Auschwitz, and had them analyzed. Leuchter claims to be an engineer, but admits his formal education consists of a BA in history. * Some technicalities concerning Zyklon-B Zyklon-B is a powerful insecticide. HCN is Hydrocyanic acid, which is released from Zyklon-B. HCN is gas, and Zyklon-B is its carrier - some material soaked with the gas; usually it comes in the shape of small pellets or disks. HCN is what causes death. While interacting with iron and concrete, it creates compounds. Leuchter ADMITS that these compounds were found in the ruins of the gas chamber in Krematoria II in Auschwitz (as reaffirmed by the findings of the Polish government institute, which incidentally does not agree with Leuchter's conclusions AT ALL). A "Krematoria", by the way, is a unit containing a homicidal gas chamber and furnaces for disposing of the bodies. Auschwitz had five such Krematoria. HCN is *extremely poisonous* to humans. * Two types of gas chambers There were two types of gas chambers in Auschwitz: those used for delousing cloths ("delousing gas chambers") and those used for killing people on a massive scale ("homicidal gas chambers"). The delousing gas chambers were a standard feature, and were left intact by the SS (as opposed to the homicidal gas chambers, which were dynamited in an effort to conceal criminal traces). The revisionists try to confuse by mixing the two types of chambers - for instance, they show pictures of the doors for the *delousing chambers*, and note that they are too weak to withstand the pressure of people trying to escape. Of course, the doors for the *homicidal chambers* are completely different (see section 6 in this FAQ). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Next are some of the major revisionist claims and their refutation. In some cases I refer to photographs, which can be found in Pressac's "Technique and Operation of the gas Chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau". ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) More Hydrocyanic compounds were found in the delousing chambers in Auschwitz then in the ruins of the gas chamber; therefore, it is impossible that mass murder using the gas took place inside it, because more traces would have to be found. Nonsense. HCN is MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE ON WARM BLOODED ANIMALS (INCLUDING HUMANS) THEN ON LICE ETC. Therefore, the period of exposure to HCN is MUCH LONGER in delousing than in homicidal gassings (while the concentration is about the same). Homicidal gassing takes no more than 5 minutes, delousing many hours (up to a day). Therefore, the HCN in the gas chambers hardly had time to form compounds on the walls. The revisionists claim that the gas would need a lot of time to kill, because it would have to spread all over the chamber, but this is not true; the gas chambers were not that large (those in Krematorien II and III were about 210 square meters) and the Zyklon-B was dropped from four openings (still visible in the ruins of the gas chambers). Since the concentration used was quite higher than the lethal one, death was very swift. Furthermore, the delousing chambers are INTACT while the gas chamber in question was BLOWN UP (a picture of it appears in [Pressac], p. 354). Therefore, its walls were exposed to rain, acid rain etc. HCN compounds easily dissolve in these surroundings (nontheless - so much gassing took place that some of the compound remained). Summarizing, the walls of the homicidal gas chambers were in contact with HCN for a much shorter time then those of the delousing rooms, and for 45 years were exposed to surroundings which dissolve the compounds, while the delousing rooms were not. Therefore it is obvious that less traces of compounds would remain in them. This debunks the major "amazing discovery" in Leuchter's report. What further refutes the "Leuchter report" in the fact that Cyanic compounds were found on the ventilation grills of the gas chambers (see section 4). 2) It would have been impossible to use the gas chambers for killing, because they were too close to the furnaces, and the gas would explode. Once again - nonsense. The concentration of HCN necessary to cause death is nearly 200 times LESS than the one that causes explosion. Although the SS used a concentration higher than the lethal one, it was FAR BELOW the one causing explosion. 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. For HCN, a concentration of 300 ppm (parts per million) kills humans within a few minutes, while the minimal concentration that can result in an explosion is 56,000 ppm. 3) It takes 20 hours to air a room which was disinfected with Zyklon-B, and therefore the eyewitness accounts giving a time of 20-30 minutes from when the gassing started to when the bodies where carried out is impossible, because the people carrying out the bodies would perish. No. The 20 hours figure means that if one disinfects a building, in ordinary commercial use, it should not be entered within that period of time. It has no meaning in relation to the gas chambers because they were forcibly ventilated, so 15 minutes were enough to replace the air. When ventilation was not used, the Sonderkommando (Jewish and Polish prisoners used as forced labor) who took the bodies out had gas masks on. The Germans had plenty of experience with gas, especially HCN, which was widely used for delousing. They knew how to work with it without getting hurt. It is absurd to use in this context the 20 hour figure, which does not assume forced ventilation and takes a huge safety factor into account. Furthermore, what makes ventilation difficult and lengthy is the presence of rugs, furniture, shades etc. Needless to say, these were not present in the gas chambers - just bare concrete, making ventilation very fast and efficient. 4) Hydrocyanic compounds were found on the ventilation grills of the gas chambers in Krematoria II and III (the chemical analysis was carried out by Dr. Jan Robel of the Cracow Forensic Institute in December 1945, and was part of the evidence in the trial of Auschwitz commander Hoess). This proves beyond doubt that gassing did take place in that chamber - contrary to the revisionists claims that it was an underground morgue. so they claimed that "a morgue is disinfected with Zyklon-B". The claim was made by Faurisson, and still appears in revisionists publications. Nonsense. Zyklon-B IS USELESS FOR DISINFECTING CORPSES. It cannot kill anaerobic bacteria - it kills only aerobic organisms. Other chemicals are used for disinfecting a morgue. 5) Judging by the amount and area of the gas chambers, and the number of the Krematoria, it was impossible to kill 6 million people in the time interval in which the concentration camps existed. No. First, nobody claims that 6 million people died in the camps. Many died in the ghettos and in Russia. Estimates of the number of people who were gassed to death in Auschwitz vary, but the lowest is 900,000. It is obvious that the extermination and cremation facilities in Auschwitz could take care of such a number. Just look at the photographs of the furnaces ([Pressac], p. 367). There were five Krematoria in Auschwitz. Number II, for instance, had 15 huge furnaces, especially designed to burn more efficiently and quickly. Each of the furnaces could take 3-4 bodies (remember that many children were present, and many of the people were emaciated). The furnaces would consume the bodies in 45 minutes maximum. The figure Leuchter gives as the maximum number of people that could be executed in a week - 1693 - is absurd, as is demonstrated by the following calculation for *a single Krematoria*, number II: * one gas chamber, of area about 210 squared meters (about 260 squared yards), easily accommodated a few hundred people, who were crammed into it. * 15 furnaces, each capable of disposing of at least 3 bodies in 45 minutes. This gives for 12 working hours a total of 720 bodies. This is *one Krematoria* in *one day*! Do the computation over a year, and remember - this is one Krematoria in one camp! Add to this the multitude of bodies disposed of in "burning pits" - large ditches filled with petrol - and you get the picture. There are two gruesome photographs of these "burning pits", taken in secrecy in Auschwitz-Birkenau. They are of rather good quality, and show men standing inside a pile of naked bodies, with the smoking pit in front of them. Some bodies are being dragged into the pit. The photographs are reproduced in [Pressac], p. 422. It does not make any sense to claim that such a number of Krematoria were constructed, and such huge amounts of coal supplied to the camps, for anything but disposing of bodies created by mass murder. As a reference, one can look at a letter dated June 20 1943, sent to SS General Kammler in Berlin, citing the number of bodies that can be disposed of in 24 working hours as 4,756. A photograph of the letter and its serial number in German archives appears in [Pressac], p. 247. This is lower than 5 x 1440 = 7,200 because some of the Krematoria had less furnaces than II and III. 6) The doors of the "alleged" gas chambers are much too weak to withstand the pressure of people trying to escape death. No. The doors are massive, and reinforced with iron bars. The ultimate proof for the purpose of these doors is that the small peephole is protected from the *inside* with a strong metal grid, installed there so the victims would not break the glass in the peephole. The revisionists are presenting pictures of *doors for the delousing chambers*, which were not fortified. For a photograph of a door used in a *homicidal* gas chamber, see [Pressac], p. 486. 7) If the Nazis intended to kill people with gas, they would use something different, not Zyklon-B. No. Zyklon-B was used because - a) It is extremely useful for killing people. b) It was widely available, as it was used for delousing. c) It is easy to pack, store and transport.