The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: camps/aktion.reinhard/treblinka/treblinkas-sloping-floors


Path: news.trends.ca!hub.org!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!logbridge.uoregon.edu!scanner.worldgate.com!rover.ucs.ualberta.ca!not-for-mail
From: check.the.signature@nospam.ualberta.edu (John Morris)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: could someone be LYING???
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 13:49:49 GMT
Organization: University of Alberta
Lines: 117
Message-ID: <34d188fc.49508369@news.srv.ualberta.ca>
References: <6ap79p$75t$1@usenet11.supernews.com>
Reply-To: check.the.signature@nospam.ualberta.edu
NNTP-Posting-Host: async16-4.remote.ualberta.ca
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Trace: pulp.ucs.ualberta.ca 886081794 24202 (None) 129.128.237.13
X-Complaints-To: usenet@pulp.ucs.ualberta.ca
X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451
Xref: news.trends.ca alt.revisionism:161900

In <6ap79p$75t$1@usenet11.supernews.com>, on Thu, 29 Jan 1998 00:17:40
-0600, "Thomas Stedham"  wrote:

>I will wait patiently for Yale or Joel Rosenberg or one of the other
>fanatical holocaust supporters to reconcile this with reality.....
>---------------------------------

>(from the IHR website)
>....As to whether Bomba is being honest about having seen a gas chamber at
>Treblinka consider Rachel Auerbach's description of that gas chamber in her
>The Death Camp Treblinka (note 3). Auerbach is given a place of honor in
>this, the most comprehensive book published on the camp. 

The most comprehensive book published on Treblinka? I hardly think so.
But far be it for the IHR to give you complete and accurate
information.

First of all, _The Death Camp Treblinka_ is not by Rachel Auerbach. It
is a collection of articles by several people edited by Alexander
Donat. Auerbach's is but one of those articles.

Far and a way the most comprehensive *history* of Treblinka is Yitzhak
Arad's _Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death
Camps_ published by the Indiana University Press in 1987.

>As she was (she
>died in 1976) a permanent research staff member of the Yad Vashem Holocaust
>Memorial museum in Jerusalem, her description of the gas chamber should not
>be dismissed out of hand.

Of course not. That is why it is perplexing that the IHR goes on to
dismiss the description out of hand.

What you should consider is the time, circumstances, and manner of the
description. Since the IHR has not filled in the gaps for you, and
since you are too narrow-minded a bigot to do it for yourself, I guess
I will do it for you. Not that it will make the least bit of
difference to what you believe.

>"... The floor of the gas chamber was sloping and slippery. The first ones
>in would slip and fall, never to rise again. Those who followed would topple
>over them ... About 25 to 45 minutes later -- [after the "gassing" began,
>that is] -- the chutes on the other side could be opened and the corpses
>tumbled out."

Auerbach's description was written in 1946 at the end, or very near
the end of her work, for the Polish Central State Commission for the
Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. Despite the Commission's
ponderous title, its members were not predominantly Jewish or
Communist. I say so only because I know *you* will not consider the
merits of any case otherwise.

Auerbach herself was not a survivor of Treblinka, but an investigator
who at the time of writing was collecting information from all
possible sources. Auerbach's account is simply a narrative based upon
witness statements submitted up to that point and well before it was
possible for historians to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

The description is very close to the Polish report--almost word for
word--submitted by the United States at the IMT in Nuremberg. As such,
it was likely given to Auerbach by a member of the Polish resistance.

Polish resistance reports do differ significantly from the accounts
given by survivors for the very simple reason that the Polish
resistance had to observe the camp from a considerable distance.
Judging from the scale maps and aerial photographs, I would say
anywhere from a third to half a kilometer. Just as it is possible on a
still winter day to mistake diesel exhaust for steam, so it is
possible to mistake bodies falling from an open door for a door
leading to a sloped, slippery floor.

In any case, the perpetrators themselves were able to give quite
accurate descriptions of the gassing process at the two Treblinka
Trials at the Court of Assizes in Duesseldorf in 1965 and 1970. Parts
of the Court's judgments are also printed in Donat's _The Death Camp
Treblinka_.

>It would seem that while he was being interviewed for Shoah Mr. Bomba forgot
>about how slippery the floor is supposed to have been in his little gas
>chamber. It seems he forgot how it slanted steeply in the direction of the
>chutes. As a matter of fact, Mr. Bomba forgot to mention the chutes.

I doubt whether the floor was slippery or slanted or whether there
were any chutes.

>If Lanzmann had read the literature even superficially he would have been
>aware that Bomba was leaving a few things out of his story. As Lanzmann
>claims he worked for ten years on Shoah, I'm going to guess that Lanzmann is
>aware of Auerbach's description of the Treblinka gas chamber and chooses to
>ignore it.

Funny how Lanzmann is to blame for not knowing a book which the IHR
cannot even cite correctly while the IHR is apparently blameless for
not knowing the basic historiography.

>--------------------------------
>SO, boys, is someone lying? 

Yes. The IHR.

>Can you bring yourself to use words like "liar"
>when referring to a sacred jew like
>Auerbach?

Certainly. But as I read more and more, the epithet more often belongs
to the IHR.

Don't even bother answering until you have read something a little
more accurate and comprehensive than an IHR pamphlet on a web page.
Until know what you are talking about, it will be a waste of your time
and mine.

--
 John Morris                                
 at University of Alberta  
--
 The Nizkor Project is at http://www.nizkor.org/


Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.