Deceit & Misrepresentation Appendix 7 From the Jerusalem Post, May 29, 1990, p. 4:
To the Editor of the Jerusalem Post:
Sir, - Neil Kuchinsky (letters, May 20) quotes from the Nuremberg
trial transcripts to show that the Germans made soap from human bodies
at the Danzig Anatomic Institute, basing himself on the testimony of two
British PoWs and a German laboratory assistant. The facts are correct.
They were quoted in extenso in a Czech- language book by Ota Kraus and
Erich Kulka, and are well-known to historians.
The reason why no historian has ever claimed that Germans made
industrial use of human bodies for the production of soap is also
contained in those very testimonies. They show that the
"Institute" was established in the course of 1944 by a Danzig
Nazi scientist (Dr. Spanner) who invented the method by which this could
be done, and persuaded an apparently enthusiastic Berlin authority (we
do not know who it was) to support his experiments.
According to the somewhat contradictory evidence, 25 kg. or perhaps
more of this horrible substance was made, and one source claims that it
was used experimentally in Danzig itself. It emerges very clearly that
this was a first and unique experiment and that it was in its
experimental stages. The bodies used may have been those of prisoners
of war and forced labourers from the immediate vicinity. It is also
clear that had the war continued, the Nazis were certainly capable of
turning this into another mass horror.
There was no industrial production, and the pieces of soap inscribed
R.I.F. which Jewish victims were told were made of human fat were found
to contain ordinary non-organic fats (R.I.F. means Reichsstelle fuer
Industrielle Fettversorgung, or State Centre for Supply of Fats, and not
Pure Jewish Fat, as the victims were told by the Nazis).
The reason why one has to be accurate is that one has to exercise
tremendous responsibility and deep respect towards the victims and their
relatives and towards the memory of the millions of Jewish dead. What
the Nazis did is horrendous enough; we do not need to believe the
additional horrors they thought about but did not have time to realize.
The Holocaust deniers waiting in the wings are eager to pick up any
inaccuracies we may inadvertently commit, and we should not ease their
"work."
Yehuda Bauer
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The Techniques of Holocaust Denial
Yehuda Bauer on the Soap Allegations