Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Tattoo "debunking" debunked (2/3)
Summary: Gannon's "case" "debunking" the evidence of tanned human
         skin fails to survive on its merits, as the testimony at
         Nuremberg clearly demonstrates.
Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: tattoo,Dachau,Koch,Rascher
Lines: 49


   
Archive/File: people/b/blaha.franz blaha.001 people/r/rascher.sigmund blaha.001 
Last-Modified: 1994/03/09

   "...  When it was known beforehand that a man could not survive
   [following medical experimentation at Dachau.  knm], Rascher [Dr.
   Sigmund Rascher, the Luftwaffe physician who initiated medical
   experimentation by writing to Himmler.  knm] would make what he
   called a 'leather inspection.' Grabbing a man by the buttocks or
   thighs, he would say 'Good,' which meant that, after the victim had
   been killed, the skin was stripped from his body. (NCA, 2428 PS,
   Deposition of Anton Pacholegg, May 13, 1945.)

   A Czech doctor, Franz Blaha ... testified before the [Nuremberg]
   tribunal that he had been incarcerated at Dachau from 1941 to 1945.
   ... He said he had been assigned to perform autopsies, and had
   conducted twelve thousand all told ... On numerous occasions, Blaha
   recalled, he had been ordered by Rascher and another doctor to flay
   the skin off bodies.

   'It was chemically treated and placed in the sun to dry. After that
   it was cut into various sizes for use as saddles, riding breeches,
   gloves, house slippers, and ladies handbags. Tattooed skin was
   especially valued by SS men. Sometimes we did not have enough
   bodies with good skin and Rascher would say, 'All right, you will
   get the bodies.' The next day we would received twenty or thirty
   bodies of young people. They would have been shot in the neck or
   struck on the head so that the skin would be uninjured. Also we
   frequently got requests for the skulls or skeletons of prisoners.
   In those cases, we boiled the skull or the body. Then the soft
   parts were removed and the bones were bleached and dried and
   reassembled. In the case of skulls it was important to have a good
   set of teeth, so it was dangerous to have good skin or good teeth.'
   (IMT, vol. 5, p. 171)

   'I was in the office many times when human skin with blood still on
   it was brought into Rascher, Pacholegg noted. 'After the bodies had
   been carted away, Rascher would inspect the skins carefully,
   holding them up to the light for flaws, and would pass on them
   before they were tanned. They were always stretched over small
   wooden frames when they came to Rascher. I saw the finished leather
   later made into a handbag that Mrs. Rascher was carrying.'(NCA,
   2428 PS, op. cit.)" (Conot, 288-289)

                             Work Cited
   
   Conot, Robert E.  Justice at Nuremberg.  New York: Harper & Row,
   1983

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