Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history Subject: Holocaust Almanac - Mazur's Soap Machine Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca Followup-To: alt.revisionism Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Mazur,soap Since Mr. Raven, although still apparently suffering from May 4 Myopia, has addressed the soap issue at great length (thank you, Greg), I thought it might be appropriate to republish the following, as the author of the cited text is mentioned in Mr. Raven's article. Archive/File: holocaust soap.1 Last-Modified: 1994/08/15 The issue of whether or not the Nazis produced soap from human fat is addressed by Konnilyn Feig, in the book "Hitler's Death Camps." It is a contentious issue, and may be completely untrue. If evidence exists that Mazur has been discredited, I would welcome the opportunity to examine it. Until then, I will accept the evidence offered: It seems that Stutthof manufactured soap. Some historians claim that the Nazi manufacture of soap from human fat is just a grim rumor. However, cakes are on display; and witnesses have testified that soap was made at Stutthof from the fat of dead prisoners. At the War Crime Trials Sigmund Mazur, laboratory assistant at the Danzig Anatomic Institute, testified that the institute conducted experiments in producing soap from human bodies. The professors collected bodies, bones, and human fat in a building called "a laboratory for the fabrication of skeletons, the burning of meat and unnecessary bones." the chief, Professor Spanner, gave Mazur the soap recipe: 5 kilos of human fat are mixed with 10 liters of water and 500 or 1,000 grams of caustic soda. All this is boiled 2 or 3 hours and then cooled. The soap floats to the surface while the water and other sediment remain at the bottom. A bit of salt and soda is added to this mixture. Then fresh water is added, and the mixture again boiled 2 or 3 hours. After having cooled the soap is poured into molds. The prosecutor presented Mazur's description of the process: I boiled the soap out of the bodies of women and men. The process of boiling alone took several days -- from 3 to 7. During two manufacturing processes, in which I directly participated, more than 25 kilograms of soap were produced. The amount of human fat necessary for these two processes was 70 to 80 kilograms collected from some 40 bodies. The finished soap then went to Professor Spanner, who kept it personally. The work for the production of soap from human bodies has, as far as I know, also interested Hitler's Government. The Anatomic Institute was visited by the Minister of Education, Rust; the Reichsgesundheitsfuhrer, Doctor Conti; the Gauleiter of Danzig, Albert Forster; as well as professors from other medical institutes. I used this human soap for my personal needs, for toilet and for laundering. For myself I took 4 kilograms of this soap. Two British POWs gave the prosecution staff testimony on the soap experiments: Owing to the preservative mixture in which they were stored, this tissue came away from the bones very easily. The tissue was then put into a boiler about the size of a small kithen table. . . . After boiling the liquid it was put into white trays about twice the size of a sheet of foolscap and about 3 centimeters deep. . . . Approximately 3 to 4 trayfuls per day were obtained from the machine. A machine for the manufacture of soap was completed some time in March or April 1944. The British prisoners of war had constructed the building in which it was housed in June 1942. The machine itelf was installed by a civillian from Danzig by the name of AJRD. It consisted, as far as I remember, of an electrically heated tank in which bones of the corpses were mixed with some acid and melted down. This process of melting down took about 24 hours. The fattey portions of the corpses and particularly those of females were put into a crude enamel tank, heated by a couple of bunsen burners. Some acid was also used in this process. I think it was caustic soda. When boiling had been completed, the mixture was allowed to cool and then cut into blocks for micrscopic examination. The prosecutor showed the court soap samples.[19] [19] The soap stories appear to excite enormous controversy. Early scholars said the stories were untrue, that the Nazis did not make soap from human fat, that those bars of soap marked with an "RJF" were not made from humans (letter in author's possession from Herbert Rosenkranz to Lonny Darwin, September 20, 1979). Most East European camp scholars, however, validate the soap stories, and other kinds of bars made from humans are displayed in Eastern Europe -- I have seen many over the years. I accept without further question that the Nazis did use every part of the human body, for the evidence now is irrefutable. The Stutthof soap do not have "RJF" stamped on them. Testimony from IMT 7:598-601. See also Shirer, 971. --------------------------------------------------------------- "Hitler's Death Camps" by Konnilyn G. Feig LOC D810.J4 F36 1981 --------------------------------------------------------------- I appreciate Mr. Raven's article, as it provides further material for research, but note that he did not fully examine Feig's text (cited above) - the British POW's, for instance, were not mentioned. I have always had an open mind about this issue, as the opening paragraphs indicate (the original article goes back over two years), and have still not seen either Mazur's testimony, or that of the two POW's, refuted. I am, however, well aware of the controversy surrounding this issue, and the comments made by Lipstadt and Bauer. Alas, neither has provided any research material to examine, so the question remains open.
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