Deceit & Misrepresentation The Soap Allegations Porter's first claim:
In 1946, it was a "proven fact" that Nazis made human soap
(Judgement, Nuremberg Trial, IMT I 252; VII 597-600; XIX 506; XXII 496).
[22]
As we have already mentioned above in the sections on
Weber
and
Smith,
the Judgment of the IMT actually says that "attempts were
made," not that soap was made, and it also specifically says
"in some instances": not a large-scale program.
Note that the point Porter is trying to make here is that things
which were proven at Nuremberg have been retracted later by historians.
Since, as we have seen, historians repudiate the "RIF" soap
rumor but not the Stutthof/Danzig evidence, Porter's point is not
supported.
Furthermore, Porter cites four sections of the trial record to back
him up on the matter of "proven fact." He correctly points
out that I-252 is the Judgment, but neglects to mention that XXII-496 is
the same text, just in a different place. VII-597 through 600 is the
Soviet prosecution's introduction of the evidence, and XIX-506 is simply
a reference to that evidence by the British prosecution. In short, not
one of these quotes backs up his claim.
Porter's second claim:
They [The Hague] have the "human soap," which has never
been tested, and the "original human soap recipe" (Document
USSR-196), which is a forgery; but apparently no original wartime German
documents.
[23]
Since Porter claims that virtually every Nuremberg document that
shows a German in a bad light is a forgery, it would be impossible to
change his mind in this regard. Notice that he does not show how or
why the soap recipe is a forgery.
In Sigmund Mazur's deposition of 11 June 1945 (USSR-197), which
Porter even includes as Appendix I in his other book, Made in
Russia: The Holocaust, Mazur confirmed that the recipe in
possession of the Soviet interrogator, which would later be introduced
to the IMT as USSR-196, was the one he knew from the Danzig Institute:
Question: You have been shown a recipe typed in the letterhead of the
Anatomical Institute. What do you have to say in respect of this recipe?
Answer: The recipe shown to me, dated 15th February 1944, is the same
recipe about which I have just testified. This recipe was stuck to a
plywood board which hung in the building where soap was prepared.
[24]
Porter's third claim:
Since the affiants almost never (if ever) wrote their own
"statements," it is common to find identical or nearly
identical phrases or even entire paragraphs occurring in different
documents, even when they have been prepared on different days by
people; for example, ... Documents USSR-264 and 272 (human soap
affidavits).
[25]
Porter makes this sound sinister and conspiratorial, but there is a
rational explanation for why USSR-264 (affidavit of John Henry Witton, 3
January 1946) and USSR-272 (affidavit of William Anderson Neely, 7
January 1946) might contain similar phrases and/or terminology.
The first thing to point out is that both affidavits were given to
the British Judge Advocate General's Office, not to the Soviets. But
even though both of these documents were witnessed by different members
of the JAG Office, it is likely that both men were deposed by the same
interviewer -- i.e., someone familiar with the Danzig Institute who
could ask relevant questions -- especially since the two former POWs
gave their affidavits only four days apart, at 6, Spring Gardens in the
City of Westminster.
Porter's book, Made in Russia: The Holocaust, contains
what we will call his fourth claim:
Of the two British human soap witnesses -- signers of mutually
contradictory hearsay affidavits prepared with the help of other people
-- John Henry Witton has apparently emigrated, while William Anderson
Neely lives in Scotland. He has declined to discuss his experiences, and
appears unaware that his story could make him wealthy.
[26]
As usual, Porter merely brushes aside Nuremberg documents without
offering any proof to back up his assertions. A close examination of
both affidavits reveals only two "contradictions":
What might be the possible explanations for these two apparent
contradictions? One idea might be that the second one could just be a
typo, where "months" was substituted for "weeks," or
vice versa. But this is unlikely; the most logical explanation is that
Witton was correct and Neely was wrong.
In his affidavit, Neely wrote: "I myself was employed in taking
the corpses down to the cellar and laying them on the tables in the
dissecting room and also in clearing them away at the end of the
day." Perhaps Witton was much more involved in the process at the
Danzig Institute than Neely was and therefore saw more corpses than his
fellow POW did. This might also explain the discrepancy in the length of
time, if Witton knew more details about the entire process than Neely
did.
Aside from these two "contradictions," the rest of the two
statements are in accord with each other. But it is really not
surprising that their statements are not identical, since both men had
been POWs for over four years, obviously traumatic events in their
lives.
More importantly, it would have been more suspicious if
their affidavits were exactly alike. In fact, Porter charged this as
well: in one of his books, Porter complained that the two
statements contained too many of the same phrases to be trusted, and in
his other book he said they were too contradictory!
Finally, since both men worked in the Danzig Institute, their
statements are not "hearsay."
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The Techniques of Holocaust Denial
Part 4 of 6
Claims by
Carlos Porter