"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 Dachau, Gusen, Neuengamme, Sachsenhausen, Stutthof, and Ravensbrück, and Brandenburg, the site of the first gas chamber, it was largely confined to the "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. As Richard Brietman pointed out while writing about the so-called "euthanasia" killings:

"It was one thing ... to kill hundreds of thousands of East European Jews on site in the East -- in inaccessible places, with police cordons preventing spectators from attending. It was quite another thing to murder Jews in Germany or Western European countries... "

...The false causes of death reported raised some suspicions, the residents in the vicinity of the gassing centers began to realize what was going on nearby, and other leaks occurred as well. Adverse public reaction and even signs of open protest induced Hitler to shut down the gassing centers ... the euthanasia killings continued in a more decentralized -- and even less noticeable -- fashion. Still, the experience did not generate confidence about the secrecy of killing on a large scale within Germany." ( Breitman, Richard. Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew, New York: Hill & Wang, 1998. pp 69-70)

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. Dr. Charles Larson, a forensics expert, also examined gassing victims at the camp, saying "only relatively few of the inmates I personally examined at Dachau were murdered in this manner."

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.

1922: Hitler explains his plans for the Jews during a 1922 magazine interview, in which he says:

Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews. As soon as I have the power to do so, I will have gallows built in rows - at the Marienplatz in Munich, for example - as many as traffic allows.

Then the Jews will be hanged indiscriminately, and they will remain hanging until they stink; they will hang there as long as the principles of hygiene permit. As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up, and so on down the line, until the last Jew in Munich has been exterminated. Other cities will follow suit, precisely in this fashion, until all Germany has been completely cleansed of Jews.

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. (The Luftwaffe honed its bombing skills during World War I - see the Recommended Reading note, below.)

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?

Recommended reading, for those who do not truly appreciate the duplicitous nature of Holocaust denial: The Luftwaffe : Creating the Operational Air War 1918-1940, by James Corum (Modern War Studies)

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: Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, Gutman et al., pp. 157-245, and, for excellent historical perspective, Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present

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 the IHR'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 revisionism@corax.org. Ask him:

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

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

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

4. 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:

Year	Aid to Israel	Aid to Egypt
	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. (We know of no case where a Christian clergyman has stood at his pulpit and exclaimed "Thank goodness for the Holocaust! Because of it, we can continue having access to the Holy Land...." but perhaps the IHR can provide us with a citation....)

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....The Jews are the sworn enemies of the German people and must be eradicated. Every Jew that we can lay our hands on is to be destroyed now during the war, without exception. If we cannot now obliterate the biological basis of Jewry, the Jews will one day destroy us." (R. Hoess. Commandant of Auschwitz. London: Phoenix Press. 2000 [1959]. Pg. 183)

Evidence presented at various war-crime trials

SS-Obersturtmbannführer Dr. Martin Sandberger, commander of EK 1a:

"I myself was present during the discussions in the palais Prinz Albrecht in Berlin and during the speech by Streckenbach when the well-known Führer order was announced."

"Streckenbach personally informed me about the Führer order, which said that, in order to secure the Eastern territory permanently, all Jews, Gypsies, and communist functionaries were to be eliminated, together with all other elements who might endanger society."

According to Sandberger, the work of an EK commander consisted of four elements:

[Establishing] a good relationship with the army as far as possible; second a strict and energetic leadership of the commandos under his command; third, as quick and thorough an execution of an order as possible, in particular concerning the Jews; and fourth, as part of this Führer order, a bitter fight against communism.

Q. What orders did [Brigadeführer Walter] Stahlecker give you before you left Riga?

A. He gave me two orders particularly, the first order was to have as good a relationship as possible with the army and, second, as i have said, according to the Führerbefehl to have Estonian Jews eliminated. (From the testimany delivered for the Einsatztruppen Case, 1947-1948, vol. 6, pp. 2143-2176, quoted in Ezergailis op. cit., pps. 204 - 205, with thanks to Eugene Holman, UseNet alt.revisionism et al, June 28, 2001, Message-ID: <280620011757058782%holman@elo.helsinki.fi>)

Captured German documents

SS-Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker's Memorandum of August 6, 1941. This memorandum was written in response to Heinrich Lohse's "Guidelines on the treatment of Jews in Ostland" (July 27, 1941). Up until the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union, policy towards Jews in Nazi-occupied territory had primarily been to ghettoize them and exploit them for labor. Hinrich Lohse, the civilian governor of the Ostland, had recommended that the same policy be continued. In response to this SS-Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker, head of Einsatzgruppe A, wrote:

"The projected measures concerning the settling of the Jewish problem are not in harmony with those orders concerning Jews in the Ostland given by Einsatzgruppe A of the Security Police and the SD. Nor does the project take into consideration the new possibilities of cleaning up the Jewish question in the Eastern regions.

"In the Generalgouvernement there was no serious danger to in leaving the Jews in their living quarters and work places. But in the Ostland, the resident Jews or those brought in by the Red powers became the leading supporters of the Bolshevik idea. Numerous Jews are openly communist activists. The experience so far allows us to expect that, even a long time after the military occupation of the Ost territory, disorders will arise. Sabotage and acts of terror can be expected not only from communists not caught in previous actions, but precisely from Jews who will use every possibility to create disorder. The pressing need to pacify the Ost area quickly makes it necessary to eliminate all likely sources of disorder.

"The project apparently does not foresee the resettlement of the Jews as an immediate measure provided under paragraph V, but rather sees that as a lower, later development.

"In closing, let me sum up by saying that the Jewish question shall be solved by 1) a complete and 100 percent clearing of the Jews from the Ost territory; 2) preventing the Jews from increasing their numbers; 3) using the Jews to the fullest as a work force; 4) a considerable facilitation for the later collective transport to a reservatrion outside Europe.

"This definite measure can be carried out only by the forces of the Security and the Order Police.

A post script to the letter reads:

"Consider it desirable, before issuing any basic statement, once more to discuss these questions by word of mouth, especially since it is safer that way, and since it concerns fundamental orders from higher authority to the Security Police, ones that should not be discussed in writing"

(The full text of the memorandum is given in A. Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia: 1941 - 1944. Riga: The Historical Institute of Latvia. 1996. Pgs. 378 - 380. with thanks to Eugene Holman, UseNet alt.revisionism et al, June 28, 2001, Message-ID: <280620011757058782%holman@elo.helsinki.fi>))

According to Ezergailis, Stahlecker made three further rerefences to the fundamental orders - on October 15, 1941, and on January 31, 1942.

Stahlecker's Consolidated Report, October 15, 1941:

"From the very beginning it was to be expected that pogroms alone would not solve the Jewish problem in the Ostland. The goal of the cleansing operation of the Sicherheitspolizei, in accordance with the fundamental orders, was the most comprehensive elimination of the Jews possible."

The same report continues:

"It is appropriate to mention in this connection the considerable resistance by officers of the Civil Administration against the implementation of large-scale executions. This resistance was countered in all cases by pointing out that the implementation of executions was the result of a fundamental order."

Stahlecker's Consolidated Report, January 31, 1942:

"According to the orders of establishing basic principles to be followed, the systematic purge operations in the Ostland, including the elimination, as completely as possible of Jewry."

(Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia: 1941 - 1944. Riga: The Historical Institute of Latvia. 1996. pg. 232. with thanks to Eugene Holman, UseNet alt.revisionism et al, June 28, 2001, Message-ID: <280620011757058782%holman@elo.helsinki.fi>)

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 in 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 camp Treblinka, 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 CODOH's'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 the IHR'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.

Recommended Reading: Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp

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?

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 aliv