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Oy Vey! The Auschwitz tattooist was a JEW.

Thread ID: 11665 | Posts: 4 | Started: 2003-12-30

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Ed Toner [OP]

2003-12-30 16:03 | User Profile

[url]http://www.ajn.com.au/pages/current-paper/feature-01.html[/url] December 19, 2003 FEATURE The Auschwitz tattooist ANGIE FOX

LOU Sokolov wears a permanent reminder of the three years he spent in Birkenau. Although it is faded, the number 32407 is still clearly legible on his left forearm. The tattoo which indelibly scars his tanned skin bears witness to his encounter with hell on earth.

Indeed, *thousands of Holocaust survivors worldwide, as well as at least 10 in Melbourne — including his late wife Gita — bare the same reminder, not just of the horrors they endured at Auschwitz/Birkenau, but of Sokolov’s presence at the Nazi death camp.

Small with pale blue, haunting eyes which large glasses fail to hide, Sokolov was the Auschwitz/Birkenau tetovierer (tattooist). From August 1942 to late 1944 he, along with assistants, tattooed the arms of 200,000 Jews from Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Norway, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Austria and Hungary.

A piece of wood attached to two needles and a pot of ink were the tools of his trade. Each tattoo, he says, took 30 seconds. Yet those numbers have become long-lasting evidence of the most heinous crime in history.

Smiling as he reclines in an armchair in his Caulfield apartment with his two precious dogs — which he calls his children — Sokolov, 87, says his role as tattooist was simply a “job”.

“It had to be done,” he says. “We weren’t human beings, we were numbers. Those who ............................

*(How about Millions? Ed.)

Robbie

2003-12-30 23:34 | User Profile

[QUOTE=Ed Toner][url]Yet those numbers have become long-lasting evidence of the most heinous crime in history.[/QUOTE]

I think she means [B]one of[/B] the most heinous crimes.

Oliver Cromwell

2003-12-31 00:40 | User Profile

There are a number of factual errors in this interview. There aren't any respected historians that still hold to the 1.5 million death number, and everyone likes to make up anacdotes about Mengale. The story about robbing newcomers sound true, but it seems he used the money for himself and concocted a humanitarian explaination for it.

Carlos W. Porter

2004-03-13 19:25 | User Profile

SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A
NAZI “TATTOOING MACHINE” (with documentary appendices) BY CARLOS W. PORTER (If the links don’t work paste the Internet addresses in the window of the browser. Some of the source articles are reproduced at the end, in a documentary appendix.) INTRODUCTION:
Of all the multifarious “symbols of the Holocaust” (and EVERYTHING about the Holocaust is symbolic), probably no symbol is more powerful than the “Holocaust tattoos” of the “Holocaust survivors”. Wherever you find Jews, you find “survivors”; wherever you find “survivors”, you find “Holocaust tattoos”. One “survivor” at a public meeting of some sort has the same sort of effect on the audience as a shot of curare or displaying a crucifix in front of a vampire: the “tattoos” (and the sob-stories with which they are inevitably accompanied), have a paralyzing effect on almost everyone who sees them; yet, astonishingly enough, apart from the tattoos themselves, there is not the slightest proof that the National Socialists tattooed anyone, ever, at Auschwitz or elsewhere else. Let us examine this matter dispassionately, in a bit more detail.
EXHIBIT 1 [url]http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0241/black/php[/url] Excerpts from Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation; long description of the complexity of the registration number system, which allegedly included a reference to the inmate’s occupation, in case the Germans needed certain skills:
QUOTE: “In August 1943, a timber merchant from Bendzin, Poland, arrived at Auschwitz. He was among a group of 400 inmates, mostly Jews. First, a doctor examined him briefly to determine his fitness for work. His physical information was noted on a medical record. Second, his full prisoner registration was completed with all personal details. Third his name was checked against the indices of the Political Section to see if he would be subjected to special punishment. Finally, he was registered in the Labor Assignment Office and assigned a characteristic five-digit IBM Hollerith number, 44673. The five-digit Hollerith number was part of a custom punch card system devised by IBM to track prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, including the slave labor at Auschwitz. The Polish timber merchant’s punch card number would follow him from labor assignment to labor assignment as Hollerith systems tracked him and his availability for work, and reported it to the central inmate file eventually kept at Department DII. Department DII of the SS Economics Administration in Oranienburg oversaw all camp salve labor assignments, utilizing elaborate IBM systems. Later in the summer of 1943, the Polish timber merchant’s same five-digit Hollerith number, 44673, was tattooed on his forearm.” [COMMENT: In other words, the alleged tattoo reference number was of such importance that the tattooing could not be entrusted to a mere inmate. In addition to which, the whole system could be frustrated by the inmates at any time, simply by re-tattooing each other and altering the numbers on the tattoos. The fact that tattoos can always be altered or covered would render any tattooing system useless for identification purposes. Since the Holocaust tattoos we see are nearly always very crude, the alterations would be less noticeable, thus further defeating their alleged purpose.]

EXHIBIT 2 [url]http://www.chgs.edu/Educational_Resources/[/url] Curriculum/Auschwitz/Tattooing/auschwitz/tattooing.html. QUOTE: “The tattoos of the survivors have come to symbolize the utter brutality and of the concentration camps and the attempt of the Nazis to dehumanize their victims. The tattoos are also a testament to the resilience of those who bear them. Yet despite the importance of the tattoos, as testament, symbol and historical artifact, little scholarship has been devoted to the subject. There exist virtually no official period documents relating to the practice; what we know stems from anecdotal evidence contained in camp records and the accounts of those who were at the camps.” [COMMENT: In other words, there is no evidence that it ever happened, except for the tens of thousands of “survivors” displaying their “Holocaust tattoos”, 55 years after the war. There are no documents, no tattooing equipment, nothing.]

ENTER THE RUBE GOLDBERG “HOLOCAUST TATTOOING MACHINE” (continued from
[url]http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Educational_Resources/Curriculum/[/url] Auschwitz_Tattooing/auschwitz_tattooing.html ) QUOTE: “As the number of prisoners brought to the expanding Auschwitz complex rose, so did the death rate. But if a corpse were separated from its uniform, identification was rendered all but impossible.” [COMMENT: If the Germans were busy murdering people by the millions, why the hell would they care about identifying them afterwards?] QUOTE: “With often hundreds of prisoners dying per day, other methods of identification were needed. In Birkenau the method used to tattoo the Soviet prisoners of war was implemented for emaciated prisoners whose deaths were imminent; [COMMENT: What is the logic of this?] “the tattoos were later made with pen and ink on the upper left forearm.” [COMMENT: In this case we aren’t even talking about a “tattoo” at all. Perhaps this is the origin of the legend.]
QUOTE: “… After a month’s work the commission had singled out approximately 300 “fanatic communists”. [footnote 3: Danuta Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle 1939-1945, Henry Holt & Co., NY, 1990, p. 102]. Those designated as such were tattooed by means of a metal plate [!] with interchangeable needles attached to it [!] The plate was impressed into the flesh on the left side of their chests [!] and the dye was rubbed into the wound.” [COMMENT: Another source for this fantastic yarn is Tadeusz Iwaszko, La deportazione al campo e la registrazione dei prigionieri, in: "Auschwitz. Il campo nazista della morte" [“Deportation to the Camp and Registration of the Prisoners”, in: “Auschwitz: The Nazi Death Camp”, by F. Piper and T. Swiebocka, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Publications, 1997, p. 54. The most amusing part (about how the machine proved “impractical” – like the height-measuring head-shot contraptions and other bizarre contraptions described by “survivors” -- is usually deleted. Actually the whole passage is more or less a quotation from the “affidavit” of Tadeusz Iwaszko, naturally prepared following the Communist takeover of Poland. Remember, these are the same people who gave us the “quicklime trains”, “electrical chambers at Belzec” and the “steam chambers” and “vacuum chambers” at Treblinka. According to “Tadeusz Iwaszko” (whoever he was), the “interchangeable needles” were 1 cm long, 10 times the depth of an ordinary tattoo. In addition to causing a puncture wound, this would cause the ink to migrate beyond the intended location, blurring the tattoo, and, to some extent, defeating its intended purpose – legibility. Iwaszko’s affidavit reads, in part, as follows: “A special metal stamp was employed, upon which the interchangeable figures were fixed, made up of needles approximately 1 cm long. By means of a heavy pressure of the stamp on the upper left part of the trunk, a tattoo of the entire number was obtained in one single motion by means of the intermixture of ink into the wound in the form of the numbers caused in this manner… [Deletion] Since use of the metal stamp proved rather impractical…”] I sometimes amuse myself by attempting to imagine how such a device – with “interchangeable needles” -- would actually work. NAZI ‘TATTOOING MACHINE”, ALTERNATIVE DESIGN NO. 1: In other words, the Germans are alleged to have used a sort of stencil formed of needles, which could then be transformed at will into a stencil for any other number, rather like the light bulb displays which used to form the words “Merry Christmas” during so-called “End of Year Holidays” in the United States. The “metal plate” would probably require at least one hundred needles (see below) as well as an extremely complex mechanism permitting the formation of a different stencil for each five-digit number (i.e., needle 1 in position A1 would be moved laterally by a lever mechanism to position A9, for example), and so on for 100 needles, and, presumably, 100 levers (or perhaps it was computerized). All to save a few minutes tattoo work with one needle! Where are the plans, designs, specification sheets, patents, order forms, manufacturing reports, provisional and final acceptance forms, delivery vouchers, inventory reports, etc. for this Rube Goldberg device? No such “metal plate” has ever been found. No documents relating to it have ever been found. No tattooing needles or other equipment has ever been found. In practice, such a “plate” would probably cause a puncture wound followed by anaerobic infection, in addition to infecting the entire camp with hepatitis, syphilis, staph infections, possible septicemia and even gangrene. And if the “plate” was to be autoclaved after each inmate, how many thousands of “metal plates” would they need? Where did they all disappear to? Either the needles were interchanged in position only, or new needles were inserted from the back. Which is it? NAZI ‘TATTOOING MACHINE”, ALTERNATIVE DESIGN NO. 2: “Interchangeable needles” may mean that the needles were inserted from the rear of the plate after each use, either manually or by means of some mechanism. In this case, needle 1 in position A1 would be retracted through the back of the frame, and another needle inserted in, for example, position A9. Since tattooing needles normally place the tattoo between the second and third layer of skin, this means that the needles could only be about 1 millimeter long (unless the intent is to cause a puncture wound). In any case, the frame would be contaminated by blood and body fluids after the first use, thus contaminating the needles. And if the frame is to be autoclaved or disposed of after each use, what use is the frame? NAZI ‘TATTOOING MACHINE”, ALTERNATIVE DESIGN NO. 3: A “tattooing machine” designed in the manner of a date stamp. 5 wheels, each with 10 surfaces, each surface equipped with perhaps 15 to 30 needles, all controlled by a crank for each wheel on the front and/or back of the device (exactly as with a date stamp).
In this case as well, the whole contraption would be contaminated after the first use, rendering it useless. Tattooing needles must be very sharp. In a device of this kind, intended for “mass production tattooing”, the needles would naturally be dulled after only a few tattoos, rendering them useless.
The operator would contaminate or infect himself while turning the wheels; the surface of the “date stamp” would probably fail to come into contact with the skin properly: tattoo stencils are flexible and curve to fit the body. The human body is not flat and hard, like a piece of paper on a writing desk. It appears that, prior to the invention of the modern, electrical tattooing needle by an Irish-American named Samuel O’Reilly in 1891, only slightly modifying an invention by Thomas Edison, unskilled tattooists did, for short while, experiment with “tattooing plates” inlaid with needles (see IDENTIFICATION OF THE LIVING, by Alphonse Bertillon, translated by Ralph W. Webster, M.D., LEGAL MEDICINE AND TOXICOLOGY BY MANY SPECIALISTS, edited by Peterson, Haines and Webster, W.B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1901, 1904. 1907, revised 1923, volume p. 116: “There are, it seems, instruments which produce the entire design at one application by means of a sort of plate inlayed in relief with needles”; Bertillon’s system of “anthropometric identification” was adopted by the Paris Police Department in 1880.)
Note that the “tattooing plate” described by Bertillon does not involve “interchangeable needles”, i.e., it was still impossible to turn a tattoo of the Holy Virgin into a tattoo of Popeye the Sailor Man just by turning a crank or a wheel to re-arrange the position of the needles; so the mystery of the “tattooing plate with interchangeable needles” is far from solved.
One can only assume that these “tattooing plates” were abandoned as a failure, as well as representing a very serious health risk. Even today, ordinary, flexible plastic tattoo stencils can spread disease if not sterilized after use, and are, today, ordinarily disposed of after each job, along with all needles, tubes, thimble-sized ink cups, rinsing and dilution goblets, wooden skin depressors, cotton swabs, razors and latex gloves. Tattooists need to depress the skin as they work, like a man shaving himself; they need to feel the skin. A “tattooing” plate would obviously fail to do this.
The needles would either fail to penetrate properly or would have to be extremely long, causing a puncture wound. In view of the unsanitary conditions at Auschwitz, in my view it is the responsibility of Auschwitz “survivors”, not only to describe the tattooing process in terms that make sense, but to explain how they survived the inevitable staph infections and hepatitis caused by the “tattooing process” (hepatitis C causes cancer of the liver). Why are tens of thousands of them still alive 55 years later? The modern electrical tattooing machine is such a simple device that it can be improvised out of junk; this is commonly done in prisons.
A fresh tattoo is a open wound, and is easily infected.
It is hard to see why the world’s most technologically advanced nation should install the very latest in computer technology (in the 1930s!), build highly complex disinfestation facilities using Zyklon, Argon, electrically heated hot air, steam, ultrasound and autoclaves (for clothing), if the intention is to infect 400,000 people with hepatitis B and C, syphilis, staph, septicemia and gangrene in the “filth of Auschwitz”. (Tattooing has also been known to spread leprosy).
If the Germans had an autoclave to use on clothing, why not install an autoclave to use with ordinary tattooing equipment, like everyone else? Germany is a maritime nation, with some of the largest seaports in the world. There must have been dozens of German tattooists in every German port. Why would they need all these Rube Goldberg devices?
CONCLUSION: The Nazi “tattooing machine” probably belongs to the same category of hallucination as the “wire cage Zyklon introduction cages” which were supposedly fished up and down through a “hollow, perforated, sheet-metal column” connected to a “hole in the roof” at Auschwitz II, as described by “eyewitness” Hendryk Tauber, all of which never existed because the columns at Auschwitz are of solid reinforced concrete and there are no “holes in the roof”. Tattooing occurs in all prisons (see, for example, [url]http://www.convictsandcops.com/tattoo.htm[/url].) and is usually a disciplinary offense, because it spreads disease (see also PRISON TATTOOS, by Douglas Kent Hall). To get an idea of some of the problems involved in “jailhouse tattooing”, take a piece of paper and write a five-digit number on it with a pen, but using only dots. You will probably need between 15 and 30 dots per digit. Now imagine that the “pen” is a needle and that the “paper” is a person’s skin. You would spend at least half your time swabbing the blood away so that you could see what you were doing! Any open cuts or sores on your hands would mean immediate infection by any blood-borne disease carried by the person being tattooed, while failure to sterilize your hands properly and use a new needle would infect all subsequent persons being tattooed with any blood-borne disease carried by the first person (or by yourself, at that stage). As one vendor of tattooing equipment [url]http://www.etnj.com/tatshack/disclaimer.html[/url] says, “YOU AND ANYONE YOU TATTOO and/or PIERCE CAN & WILL CONTRACT LIFE-THREATENING DISEASE OR SUFFER PERSONAL INJURY IF *PROPER PROCEDURES ARE NOT PRACTICED”.
If half a dozen jailbirds infect each other with hepatitis in an American prison, there is not much lost; but we are still far from the “industrialized tattooing on an assembly-line basis” alleged as the basis of all these Hoaxoco$t yarns.
It is only a guess, but it seems probable to me that the setup and disassembly time required for even one tattoo would probably amount to no less than 20 minutes. This does not include autoclaving and disposal. The needles must be soldered to the needle bar (the part that vibrates up and down), then broken off and autoclaved (or preferably disposed of) AFTER EVERY USE. This takes time.
Where are the plans, specifications, order forms, delivery vouchers, inventory receipts, etc. etc. for millions of tattooing needles, thousands of tattooing machines, related supplies, “tattooing plates” and all the rest of it? Where are the decisions, orders, and records relating to the persons tattooed? What is the point of tattooing some people and not others, if no record is made of the fact that a given person has been tattooed? Since a tattoo can be altered or covered at any time (all you need is another jailbird with a needle, cork, and some ink), this renders tattoos almost useless for purposes of identification.
For example, police “wanted” posters always mention tattoos, but do not usually describe them. They usually say: “Scar, right arm, tattoo, left shoulder”. Tattoo cover-up work is a very big part of the tattoo industry. Almost the only restriction is that white can only be applied over white, or over bare skin. Anything else can be covered, with anything.

SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A “NAZI TATTOOING MACHINE” To revisionists who say, “Show me or draw me a Nazi gas chamber”, but who accept the fairy tale of the “mass tattooings”, I say, “Show me or draw me a Nazi tattooing machine”. EXHIBIT 3
ANOTHER RIDICULOUS EXAMPLE OF GERMAN HOAXOCO$T “TATTOO TECHNOLOGY” The Auschwitz Tattooist: Angie Fox, Australian Jewish News, December 19, 2003, posted on [url]http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/Auschwitz/tattooist.htm[/url] (source website no longer carries the item) QUOTE: “Lou Sokolov wears a permanent reminder of the three years he spent in Birkenau. Although it is faded, the number 32407 is still clearly legible on his left forearm. The tattoo which indelibly scars his tanned skin bears witness to his encounter with hell on earth.” [Deletion] “… From August 1942 to late 1944 he, along with assistants, tattooed the arms of 200,000 Jews from Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Norway, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Austria and Hungary.

A piece of wood attached to two needles and a pot of ink [!] were the tools of his trade. Each tattoo, he says, took 30 seconds.” [COMMENT: This obviously impossible claim is made necessary by the claim that he tattooed 200,000 people. The intent is to hide the irrationality of the whole procedure by deceiving us into believing that if a 5-digit number can be tattooed in 30 seconds, then one person can tattoo 2 inmates per minute = 120 inmates per hour = 1200 inmates per 10-hour day, probably half the daily registration rate usually alleged at Auschwitz. This is like saying that if my car can go 100 miles and hour, New York and Los Angeles are 2000 miles apart, then I can drive coast to coast in 40 hours.] “Yet those numbers have become long-lasting evidence of the most heinous crime in history. … More than 400,000 tattoos were issued.” [COMMENT: If you were going to tattoo 400,000 (or 200,000) people, wouldn’t you want an electric tattooing machine? The book IBM AND THE HOLOCAUST by Edwin Black describes the crucial information coded into Auschwitz inmate registration numbers -- information required to assign inmates to the right jobs. Would an inmate be entrusted with the job of tattooing this vital information with 2 needles [!] and a piece of wood? (The needles would presumably be very close together to make a thicker line.)
The obvious solution would be to assign a professional tattooist, a member of the German armed forces, and keep proper records to ensure that no duplicate or incorrect numbers were issued, etc. etc.
If the registration number says a man is a welder and it turns out he is a carpenter, you’ve lost at least a day’s work, all because of a careless error performed by a tattooist who is a prisoner and has no motivation to do proper work – a man whose only motivation was to sabotage the whole process as much as possible !]

”When Sokolov started the job in August 1942, the tattoo numbers commenced at 38,000. When they reached approximately 70,000, the tattoos commenced with the letter A.” [COMMENT: This contradicts the description of the numbering system given by Edwin Black in his book IBM AND THE HOLOCAUST.] “By that time, Sokolov had a number of assistants helping him cope with the transports, which were arriving day and night. … Sokolov also used his skill to save a man who was scheduled to be hanged after a failed escape. He transformed the man’s tattoo into a picture of a snake” [COMMENT: FIRST ARGUMENT: This is only one of the many stories on the Internet about “miraculous escapes” brought about through the alteration of a tattoo. For this reason, it is extremely unlikely that the Germans ever tattooed anyone, and if they did, they would have made a record of it. The Auschwitz archives survived the war intact. J.-C. Pressac claims to have examined 80,000 documents at the Auschwitz State Museum, but there is no mention of “Holocaust” tattooing in any of his books. Also, wouldn’t the guy be in jail? Wouldn’t the Germans look for him someplace? If the Germans knew the man was tattooed, wouldn’t they look for a tattoo someplace? Wouldn’t the position of the snake be a dead give-away? SECOND ARGUMENT: Since this amounts to an admission that any tattoo can be altered or covered at any time, why do the Holocaust survivors keep their tattoos if they hate them so much? Why don’t they just cover them up and forget about it? (Don’t tell me it is because tattoos are forbidden by Jewish law: Jews are fascinated by tattoos and are getting tattooed in large numbers. Many of them, including a few non-Jewish idiots, all of them too young to be “survivors”, are getting “Holocaust tattoos” to “remember the Holocaust”, or are asking their rabbis whether such a thing would be permissible!
The Israeli Army is full of tattooed reservists. Tattooing is permitted in Israel although it is prohibited in South Carolina and Oklahoma except by medical personnel, for example, registered nurses.)
The truth is that “survivors” want to be able to produce their “tattoos” every five minutes to “prove the Holocaust”, to attract attention, and demand money. “Jewish life has two elements: collecting money and protesting” (Nahum Goldman, THE JEWISH PARADOX, p. 52). “Holocaust survivors” are entitled to claim special DBs (death benefits) from the Federal Government of the United States. All they need do to “prove” that they are “survivors” is to show a tattoo, or even a scar resulting from tattoo removal! The financial and political motivation is obvious. THIRD ARGUMENT: The ancient Romans and other ancient peoples, including the Japanese, tattooed criminals and slaves. Since escaped criminals and slaves covered their slave and/or prison tattoos with other tattoos as soon as they escaped, every person with a tattoo became suspect. This is why tattooed persons have always been viewed with suspicion. FOURTH ARGUMENT: “How do we know that what we are looking at is a tattoo”? Since the tattoos almost invariably appear on the left forearm, and since most people are right-handed, all one need do is take a fountain pen, write a number on one’s left forearm, and presto! one is a “survivor”, and one’s “tattoo” “proves the Holocaust”! This question is also suggested by the extremely vague language used to describe the tattooing procedure itself (for example, “the tattoos were later made with pen and ink on the upper left forearm”, see above.) There is no doubt that if the Germans had wished to tattoo 400,000 people they could have done so. (The Waffen-SS were tattooed with their blood type). But it would require proper procedures and proper equipment, voluminous documentation, and proper record-keeping. It is up to the Jews to prove where they got their tattoos, and to describe these matters in language that makes sense. My personal belief is that the Germans considered the idea of tattooing inmates to facilitate recapture in the event of escape but abandoned the idea. There is probably no more than one single German document even mentioning it.
Robert Fausisson says he believes he saw it, many year ago, but is unable to provide any further information. Auschwitz was full of common criminals who, it may be surmised, tattooed each other in the camp (just as they do in any other prison) (see testimony of Fritz Schermuly, N.M.T. VI (I.G. FARBEN CASE), pp. 825-830. It is hard to understand Schermuly’s testimony unless this is what he means. Neither the defense nor the prosecution at Nuremberg appeared interested in finding out what he meant. The passage is as follows:

EXHIBIT 4 CROSS-EXAMINATION MR. MINSKOFF: Mr. Witness, will you tell the court what your inmate number was that you have inscribed on your hand, on your arm? A. 13955. It wasn't tattooed on my arm for one reason [?]. Only Jews and foreigners had their arms tattooed. That did not apply to Reich Germans. Q. You mean that did not apply to Aryan Reich Germans? A. Well, there were some Germans who had themselves tattooed voluntarily [?], but none of them were forced to do that at Monowitz. [Schermuly WAS A REICHS GERMAN. DOES THIS MEAN THAT THE INMATES TATTOOED EACH OTHER, OR THAT THEY APPROACHED THE GUARDS AND SAID, “HEY FRITZ, COULD YOU DO ME A FAVOUR AND TATTOO ME WITH MY INMATE NUMBER? I MIGHT FORGET IT.” SINCE TATTOOING OCCURS IN ALL PRISONS, IT IS MY BELIEF THAT THE FIRST ALTERNATIVE IS THE MORE PROBABLE INTERPRETATION, AND THAT THE INMATES TATTOOED EACH OTHER. JUST AS AN EXAMPLE, 20% OF ALL INMATES OF THE SOVIET GULAGS OF THE 1930S WERE SAID TO BEAR “GULAG TATTOOS”, OFTEN CONSISTING OF ANTI-SOVIET SLOGANS. ] I believe that the Jews got the idea of tattooing each other from criminals and tattooed each other solely to blackmail the Germans, morally and financially. Another possibility is that the allegation is of Communist origin. Footnote 17 of L’Affaire Faurisson, interview with Storia Illustrata, states: (translation: “The Polish communists themselves recognize that the tattooing was intended to render escape more difficult and to facilitate investigation as to the origins of captured fugitives; see Contribution à l’histoire du KL-Auschwitz, publication of the Auschwitz Museum, 1968, pp. 16 and 99.” The fact remains that there is no evidence that anyone was actually tattooed. I believe that the American authorities found it convenient to encourage the inmates to make these accusations, but knew that they were not true, and for that reason never made any effort to prove the truth of these accusations at any “war crimes” trial. It’s like the “gas chamber at Dachau” The Americans knew perfectly well that there was never any “gas chamber at Dachau” and never attempted to prove that there was, but it suited them to encourage others to say that there was (see, for example, my article THE GAS CHAMBER AT DACHAU – NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T, available through the search engine on [url]www.cwporter.com[/url]).
OBJECTION: “Would the Jews lie to us?” Answer: that is not the point. The point is an inversion of the burden of proof. If I go to court with a black eye and accuse someone of assaulting me, I will not be permitted to say, “Are you accusing me of lying? Do you think I gave myself this black eye?” Under our legal system, the court need not pronounce as to the origins of my black eye. The court is entitled to decide, on the basis of the evidence, that is there is insufficient evidence of an assault, in which case the defendant will be acquitted. But since the question has been raised, the answer is, yes, the enemies of National Socialism (not just the Jews) do, in point of fact, not to put too fine a point on it, have a very poor record for truth and honesty. For example, in 1944, the OFFICIAL VERSION of the “Holocaust”, peddled to and by the World Jewish Congress, believed and repeated by Anthony Eden, President Roosevelt, and the international organizations in Geneva, was that the Germans were exterminating the Jews in TRAINS FILLED WITH QUICKLIME (STORY OF A SECRET STATE, by Jan Karski, 1944, available from [url]www.alibris.com[/url] or [url]www.abebooks.com[/url] for about 3 dollars, first edition). (Anybody who has every put quicklime down an outhouse knows you can handle the stuff with bare hands.)
The book contains no mention of any other methods of mass killing, and no mention of any “gas chambers”, and must be read all the way through to appreciate this simple fact. Karski survived the war by 50 years, became a professor at Georgetown University, hob-nobbed with several Presidents, but never renounced this lie.
Instead, he compounded it with other lies: that he had ATTEMPTED TO WARN THE WORLD OF THE “HOLOCAUST”, BUT WAS NOT BELIEVED. He is said to have adopted an air of great suffering, like a Polish Elie Wiesel. On his own account, he WAS believed.
Americans were asked to make “greater sacrifices” to save them from extermination by the Germans, not in gas chambers, but in “quicklime trains”! This is why the Americans went to war. Because of liars like Karski. The Internet is not reliable where Karsi is concerned. One must read the book. So the matter stands as follows. SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “GAS CHAMBER” SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “ELECTRICAL CHAMBER”
SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “VACUUM CHAMBER” SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “ELECTRICAL CHAMBER”
SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “STEAM CHAMBER” SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “PEDAL-DRIVEN BRAIN-BASHING MACHINE” SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “PORTABLE OVEN” SHOW OR DRAW ME A NAZI “SPANKING MACHINE” SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “QUICKLIME TRAIN”

And, last but not least, SHOW ME OR DRAW ME A NAZI “TATTOOING MACHINE” CARLOS W. PORTER FEBRUARY 2004

[Since the above was written, it has occurred to me that tattooing could be performed on an assembly-line basis, but only by an assembly line of tattooists and/or technicians: one to prepare the equipment, one to shave and disinfect the arm, one to perform the actual tattooing, one to dissemble and dispose of all used equipment (needles, tubes, ink pots, spatulas, latex gloves, cotton swabs, etc.), one to break off the needle bars and prepare them for autoclaving, one to operate the autoclave, and, finally, one to bandage all tattooed persons and instruct them in aftercare.
There would have to be an after-care service, consisting of perhaps a single person, and meticulous records would have to be kept. The autoclave would have to be tested periodically. The huge quantities of used tattooing equipment would presumably exist somewhere in medical containers at an Auschwitz rubbish dump. The forced tattooing of foreign citizens would almost certainly be in violation of various general clauses of international law.
Presumably after the war an investigation would have been conducted by the Poles, and, in addition to the hundreds of thousands of German documents, there would be huge quantities of physical evidence and tens or hundreds of thousands of affidavits by tattooed persons. Since the technicians would presumably work in shifts, the entire staff involved would probably amount to at least a dozen persons, all of whom would have to be examined medically at regular intervals, with related records.] INTERNET SITES OF INTEREST: French page with history of tattooing in various cultures: [url]www.tattoo-passion.com[/url] How tattoos work: [url]http://doj.shef.ac.uk/student/web02/joa99nc/My%20Webs/how_tattoos_work.htm[/url] Prison tattoo artists and prison tattoos: [url]http://www.convictsandcops.com/tattoo.htm[/url] Very interesting example of tattoo cover-up work. Any tattoo can be covered with another tattoo. The difference here is that Andy Nevil is one of the best tattooists in the world. If the link doesn’t work, copy [url]http://home.tiscali.be/rastamann/[/url] into the window of your browser, look for ARTWORK, EN COURS, then click on YVES, lower right: [url]http://home.tiscali.be/rastamann/nouvellepage158.htm[/url] Health aspects of tattooing. Disease prevention: [url]http://people.howstuffworks.com/tattoo9.htm[/url] Invention, design and principle of the modern tattooing machine: [url]http://people.howstuffworks.com/tattoo5.htm[/url] How to make your own tattooing machine (e-book for amateur and illegal tattooists): [url]http://www.tmbamall.com/hermitware/tattooing.htm[/url] Home-made prison tattooing machines and history of tattooing: [url]http://www.nmm.ac.uk/site/request/setTemplate:singlecontent/contentTypeA/[/url] conWebDoc/contentId/1293/viewPage/12 Vendor of tattooing equipment issues serious health warning: [url]http://www.etnj.com/tatshack/disclaimer.html[/url]
Issues of legal and illegal tattooing: [url]http://www.luckyfish.com/laregs.html[/url] Danger of reusing needle tubes, grips and needle bars: [url]http://www.piercing.org/tattoo/[/url] Hoaxoco$t tattoo sites (note the lack of detail relating to the tattoo process): [url]http://www.bernardoffen.org/[/url] [url]http://www.chgs.umn.edu/Histories__Narratives__Documen/[/url] Henry_Oertelt_-_An_Unbroken_Ch/Auschwitz_Tattoo/auschwitz_tattoo.html [url]http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Holocaust/Tattoos.html[/url] [url]http://isurvived.org/StoryAlive_Holocaust.html[/url] [url]http://www.moravian.edu/news/releases/2002/022.htm[/url] [url]http://holocaust.hklaw.com/essays/1998/98GA1.htm[/url] US Government offers financial motivation to obtain “Holocaust tattoos”: [url]http://policy.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0200302335[/url] Neurotic Jewish attitudes towards “Holocaust” tattooing and tattooing generally: [url]http://judaism.about.com/library/3_askrabbi_c/bl_tattoos_holocaust.htm[/url] [url]http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0425/2_62/103415711/p3/article.jhtml?term=[/url] [url]http://www.babelguides.com/view/work/16773[/url] [url]http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19990712&c=2&s=wiener[/url] Family of Jewish tattooists: [url]http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.09.19/living5.tatoo.html[/url] The use of tattoos as a political weapon and “proof” of a “Holocaust”: [url]http://isurvived.org/StoryAlive_Holocaust.html[/url] (complete with the usual “miracle”). European Union tattooing regulations: [url]http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_safe/news/eis_tattoo_reg_052003_en.pdf[/url] United States tattooing regulations – by state: [url]http://www.nbbs.com/statetattoo.html[/url] (very detailed -- click on state) [url]http://www.tattoobodypiercinginstitute.com/bloodborne/states.html[/url] Tattooing in late antiquity: [url]http://www.ucpress.edu/scan/ca-e/161/gustafson.161.pdf[/url]

DOCUMENTARY APPENDIX:
ANNEX 1 COMPLETE LIST OF ALL REFERENCES TO THE TATTOOING OF CONCENTRATION INMATES AT NUREMBERG (13 NUREMBERG TRIALS, OVER 200,000 PAGES OF TRANSCRIPT, MILLIONS OF PAGES OF DOCUMENTS, AND THIS IS ALL THERE IS).
FIRST NUREMBERG TRIAL (IMT) vol. VIII, p. 317: “COUNSELOR SMIRNOV: Do you have any proof that you were an inmate of this camp? SCHMAGALEVSKAYA: I have the number which was tattooed on my arm. COUNSELOR SMIRNOV: That is what the Oscwiesim inmates call the ‘visiting card’? SCHMAGALEVSKAYA: Yes.” [COMMENT: In a real trial, this would be called “arguing a matter not in evidence”. I.e., before the possession of a “tattoo” could be accepted as “proof” that a witness was in a camp, a showing would have to be made that the Germans actually tattooed camp inmates. No proof of this contention was ever offered.] NATIONAL MILITARY TRIALS; POHL TRIAL: (included to show irrationality of trial evidence generally; this is the same trial that “proved” the existence of 10 steam chambers and 10 gas chambers in the same camp at the same time, NMT IV 1119-1152): Opening Statements of the Prosecution and Defense: A. Extracts From the Opening Statement of the Prosecution: The SS Industries: Part 1", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1950. pp. 242-247: “At Dachau and Mauthausen, human skin of dead prisoners was used to make lamp shades, saddles, riding britches, gloves, house slippers, and ladies' hand bags. Tattooed skin was particularly valued by the SS men.” (Extracts From Testimony of Prosecution Witness Dr. Bernhard Lauber", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1950. pp. 412-416.) “Q. Did you receive a tattoo when you entered Auschwitz? A. Yes. My number is 161374. Q. Will you show the Tribunal your tattoo, please? A. Certainly. (Witness rises, unbuttons shirt and bares fore arm to Court.)” Extracts From Testimony of Prosecution Witness Dr. Victor Abend: Part 1", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1950. pp. 641-646: “…The following day we went to be tattooed, again under severe beatings. Q. Were you tattooed? A. Yes. I have the number 160879. Q. Do you know whether they tattooed inmates in other concentration camps or not? A. Only at Auschwitz. Q. In other words, any inmate who has a tattoo on his arm was an inmate at Auschwitz; is that right? A. Yes. That is correct.” (The following two items are, again, included to show the irrationality of the trial accusations generally) Extracts From the Closing Statement of the Prosecution: Part 3", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1950. pp. 832-837: “Another inmate, from Camp Buchenwald and Dora, gave the reason for the construction of the crematorium at Dora. For some Lime, the bodies of the inmates were hauled from Dora to Buchenwald for burning.
But it became quite embarrassing to the SS, he said, when the drunken drivers would lurch and careen over the highways spilling corpses out of the truck-beds. People on their way to church would stumble over the bodies. It obviously would not do to have these constant menaces to traffic and religious meditation and so a crematorium was built at Dora.
This witness regularly conducted large parties through the camp at Buchenwald. They weren't shown everything, he testified, but they were able to see a great deal with their own eyes. He himself showed the parties exhibits of shrunken skulls [sic] and tattooed skin…” Judgement: B. Concurring Opinion by Judge Michael A. Musmanno: Treatment of Concentration Camp Inmates: Part 2", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 5: United States v. Oswald Pohl, et. al. (Case 4: 'Pohl Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1950. pp. 1088-1092. “At times, when an inmate's death was decided upon, the camp commandant would inform him that on the following day he was to try to escape. In the camp office, the man's death already had been recorded "killed while attempting escape." The Austrian Consul General, Dr. Stiedler, was informed one day of the fate which awaited him the following day. Dr. Stiedler pleaded that he could not do this since he was a faithful Catholic, and condemned suicide. Nonetheless, the next day, while approaching a chain of guards, he was shot down. (Tr. p. 97.) The witness, Josef Ackermann, who related the above incident, was an inmate first in Dachau, then in Buchenwald, and then in Nordhausen. At Buchenwald he served as physician's clerk in the pathological section, and was required to keep records of autopsies. The chief of the medical department in department [division] D, WVHA, Dr. Lolling, frequently wrote the director of the pathological section at Buchenwald: "I need immediately 10 entire skeletons, 12 skulls, or individual parts of the body, or we need some interesting bullet wounds." One day the camp physician, pointing to an inmate passing by, said to the witness: "Dr. Ackerman, I would like to have this skull on my desk tomorrow." And then, according to the witness: "The very same evening, the prisoner was ordered to report to the hospital and on the next day he was on my autopsy table and the skull was taken apart, and it was turned over to Dr. Hoven." (Tr. p. 940.) One specialty of the pathological section of the Buchenwald concentration camp was to remove the skin of prisoners and tan it: "Production was carried out by two ways, either it was put into a transparent form, or it was tanned so that the skin became tough, like leather." (Tr. p. 940.) The inmate who carried tattooed pictures on his body walked a precarious path. He was immediately catalogued and his skin marked for the collection (after his death) of tattoos kept in the special museum in Berlin. Hunchbacks or other persons with a body structure of medical interest excited the anatomical and macabre avarice of half-crazed doctors who were not averse to killing to obtain the skeletons to incorporate into the collections of the SS doctors, or the display in the SS Medical Academy at Graz. (V/178, Do. 499-PS.) Delving into the medieval past for ideas on torture and brutalities, devising schemes of their own for unique, sadistic practices on the body and soul of their fellowmen, the degenerate and power-crazed SS men, ever seeking some new, bizarre bestiality for their criminally warped imaginations, went to the jungle tribes of Africa for anatomical grotesquenesses not theretofore known in Europe. As Indians scalped their deceased foes certain African tribes bore away the decapitated heads of their fallen enemies, and by a certain process reduced them to the size of a doll’s head. A returned traveller from Africa [COMMENT: Shrunken heads come from South America, not Africa. The shrunken head produced at Nuremberg was later found to be hundreds of years old, and originated from an anthropological museum. No forensic tests were ever performed during any of the trials.] was taken into the pathological section to instruct the SS staff in the mysteries of skull shrinking [!], and the revolting hideous thing was done. Various heads were shrunk, and, according to the witness, the SS men liked to have these things on their writing desks in order to consider themselves important. (Tr. p. 943.)… » NATIONAL MILITARY TRIBUNAL – I.G. FARBEN TRIAL Slave Labor-Count Three: E. Affidavits and Testimonies of Prosecution Witnesses: 2. Affidavit and Testimony of Norbert Wollheim: a. Affidavit", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. VIII: United States v. Carl Krauch, et. al. (Case 6: 'IG Farben Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1952. pp. 589-592. TRANSLATION OF DOCUMENT NI-9807 PROSECUTION EXHIBIT 1476 I, Norbert Wollheim, presently living at Wakenitzerstrasse 34 b, Luebeck, having been informed that I shall be subJect to punishment if I make a false statement, herewith testify under oath voluntarily and without duress: … [Deletion] 3. Concentration camp Monowitz consisted of approximately 20 barracks at the time when I arrived there in March 1943. As I found later, they were all quite full. Hardly any inmate had a bed of his own. The total of inmates at that time was about 3 000 prisoners. We went to work for the first time in the IG plant already the day after we arrived, having all been registered and tattooed. My own prison number is 107,984. [POSSIBLE CRIMINAL ORIGINS OF THE LEGEND] “Slave Labor-Count Three: G. Affidavits and Testimonies of the Defense Witnesses: 6. Affidavit and Testimony of Fritz Schermuly, A German Convict Interned at Auschwitz Concentration Camp: b. Testimony of Fritz Schermuly: Part 1", in Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. VIII: United States v. Carl Krauch, et. al. (Case 6: 'IG Farben Case'). District of Columbia: GPO, 1952. pp. 825-830. “TESTIMONY OF FRITZ SCHERMULY BEFORE COMMISSIONER MULROY DIRECT EXAMINATION DR. SEIDL (counsel for defendant Duerrfeld): Witness, on 9/16/1947, you made an affidavit, Document Duerrfeld 402, Duerrfeld Exhibit 103, [Reproduced immediately above.] available to the defense. It was sworn before a notary in Munich on that same day ? WITNESS SCHERMULY: Yes. Q. Witness, are these statements made in that affidavit made by you voluntarily? A. Yes, this affidavit was made voluntarily. Q. And it was signed by you voluntarily, was it? Q. In order to complete the record, would you please state your full name and the date of your birth? A. I, Fritz Schermuly, was born on the 21st of July 1897, at Munich. Q. I have a few supplemental questions to put to you, Witness. At the beginning of your affidavit, you state that after serving a term in prison for trade in narcotics you were sent to a concentration camp, Mauthausen, in November 1941 on preventive custody ? Q. Had you been sentenced by another court in Germany before that ? A. As far as I remember, I was sentenced in 1920 with 7 days imprisonment; 1923, 2 years and 6 months; and in 1930, 1 year; in 1931, 2 years and 9 months; and then afterwards I served my sentence in the camp. [Deletion] CROSS-EXAMINATION MR. MINSKOFF: Mr. Witness, will you tell the court what your inmate number was that you have inscribed on your hand, on your arm? A. 13955. It wasn't tattooed on my arm for one reason. Only Jews and foreigners had their arms tattooed. That did not apply to Reich Germans. Q. You mean that did not apply to Aryan Reich Germans? A. Well, there were some Germans who had themselves tattooed voluntarily, but none of them were forced to do that at Monowitz. Q. Now, Mr. Witness, in your affidavit you mentioned that you served the term of imprisonment for trade in narcotics, and then were sent to the. concentration camp Mauthausen in November 1941. On your direct examination by Dr. Seidl, you elaborated upon your affidavit and mentioned several earlier convictions in 1920, and 1923, and I believe one in 1931. You also added that you had a green triangle, which is the criminal triangle. Now, Mr. Witness, just so the record will be complete, will you tell the court the first time you were convicted of a crime? A. I believe in 1920. Q. And will you tell the court what the nature of the crime was? A. Because of theft. Q. Mr. Witness, will you now tell the court the second time you were convicted of a crime? A. The second time in 1923, beginning of 1923, April or so, because of theft, and because of receiving. Q. Now, Mr. Witness, I know this is some time back, but isn't it a fact that you were convicted of a crime in May 1922 ? A. Quite possible, but I can't remember it now. Yes, I think 2 months; I think so, yes. Q. And that was also for theft ? A. Yes, yes, theft, that is right. Q. And do you recall again in 1922, the following month, being convicted for theft? A. Yes. Well, that concerned one trial. As far as I remember, that was all one trial; 2 months. Q. Now, Mr. Witness, the 1920 conviction, and the May 1922 convictions, and the June 1922 conviction, were three separate convictions with three separate sentences. Now do you not recall that at all at the present time ? A. I only know that I was imprisoned for 2 months. It may have been connected with the other sentence, but I don't know. DR. SEIDL: Mr. Commissioner, I don't want to object to that question; I am not sure whether the translation came through. He said that there was one trial but that a number of deeds were considered at the same time during that one trial. Perhaps the prosecutor will repeat his question. MR. MINSKOFF: I w ill be glad to. Mr. Witness, will you try to recall whether it is a fact or not that after the 1920 conviction which you spoke of, there were two convictions in 1922, 1 month apart, and both for theft, and both involved separate sentences A. Yes, I had two sentences, but only one sentence was served by me but there were two actual trials connected in one sentence, two procedures connected in one sentence; that is quite possible, yes. Q. Alright. Mr. Witness, now the next time you were convicted of a crime you state was 1923, in May. A. Yes, beginning of 1923. Q. And what was the nature of that crime ? A. That was receiving, theft, and burglary; all together, a sentence of 3 years. Q. Perhaps there is a little confusion here, Mr. Witness. I think you are a little bit ahead of me on your dates. I think you are thinking about July 1923. Now in May 1923, do you recall whether you were convicted of a crime of trading in gold and silver and platinum, on the 14 of May 1923 [5/14/1923]? A. That was, yes, yes, that concerned that matter; 8 days or something I am not quite sure. That is quite possible, yes. That was some illegal trading; yes. Q. And then the following month, Mr. Witness, do you recall being convicted of grand larceny? A. Yes; 2 years and 6 months. Q. And also 5 years loss of civil rights. A. Five years, yes. Continued: pp. 830-832. Q. And then, Mr. Witness, on the second of July 1923 were you convicted of another crime? A. That was receiving, yes. Q. That was receiving stolen goods ? Q. Now, Mr. Witness, when was the next time that you were convicted of a crime? A. Nineteen-thirty, I think. Q. And what was the nature of that crime ? A. Receiving stolen goods.” [COMMENT: The above cross-examination proves, if nothing else, that the Americans had no interest in proving the truth of the tattooing accusation or even in finding out more about it, rather implying that they knew perfectly well that it was not true.] ANNEX 2 EXCERPTS FROM GERMAN PAPERBACK EDITION OF
IBM AND THE HOLOCAUST BY EDWIN BLACK. In August 1943, a timber merchant from Bendzin, Poland, arrived at Auschwitz. He was among a group of 400 inmates, mostly Jews.
First, a doctor examined him briefly to determine his fitness for work. His physical information was noted on a medical record. Second, his full prisoner registration was completed with all personal details. Third his name was checked against the indices of the Political Section to see if he would be subjected to special punishment.
Finally, he was registered in the Labor Assignment Office and assigned a characteristic five-digit IBM Hollerith number, 44673. The five-digit Hollerith number was part of a custom punch card system devised by IBM to track prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, including the slave labor at Auschwitz. The Polish timber merchant’s punch card number would follow him from labor assignment to labor assignment as Hollerith systems tracked him and his availability for work, and reported it to the central inmate file eventually kept at Department DII.
Department DII of the SS Economics Administration in Oranienburg oversaw all camp salve labor assignments, utilizing elaborate IBM systems.
Later in the summer of 1943, the Polish timber merchant’s same five-digit Hollerith number, 44673, was tattooed on his forearm.
Eventually, during the summer of 1943, all non-Germans at Auschwitz were similarly tattooed. Tattoos, however, quickly evolved at Auschwitz. Soon, they bore no further relation to Hollerith compatibility for one reason: the Hollerith number was designed to trace a working inmate – not a dead one. Once the daily death rate at Auschwitz climbed, Hollerith-based numbering simply became outmoded. Soon, ad hoc numbering systems were inaugurated at Auschwitz. Various number ranges, often with letter attached, were assigned to prisoners in ascending sequence. Dr. Josef Mengele, who performed cruel experiments, tattooed his own distinct number series on ‘patients’. Tattoo numbering schemes ultimately took on a chaotic incongruity all its own as an internal Auschwitz-specific identification system.
However, Hollerith numbers remained the chief method Berlin employed to centrally identify and track prisoners at Auschwitz. For example, in late 1943, some 6,500 healthy, working Jews were ordered to the gas chamber by the SS. But their murder was delayed for two days as the Political Section meticulously checked each of their numbers against the Section’s own card index.
The Section was under orders to temporarily reprieve any Jews with traces of Aryan parentage. Sigismund Gajda was another Auschwitz inmate processed by the Hollerith system. Born in Kielce, Poland, Gajda was about 40 years of age when on f May 18. 1943, he arrived at Auschwitz. A plain paper form, labeled “Personal Inmate Card’, listed all of Gajda’s personal information. He professed Roman Catholicism, had two children, and his work skill was marked ‘mechanic’. The reverse side of his Personal Inmate Card listed nine previous work assignments. Once Gajda’s card was processed by IBM equipment, a large indicia in typical Nazi Gothic script was rubber-stamped at the bottom: ‘Hollerith erfasst’, or ‘Hollerith registered’.
Indeed, that designation was stamped in large letters on hundreds of thousands of processed Personal Inmate Cards at camps all across Europe. The Extermination by Labor campaign itself depended upon specially designed IBM systems that matched worker skills and locations with labor needs across Nazi-dominated Europe. Once the prisoner was too exhausted to work, he was murdered by gas or bullet. Exterminated workers were coded ‘six’ in the IBM system. The Polish timber merchant’s Hollerith tattoo, Sigismund Gajda’s inmate form, and the victimization of millions more at Auschwitz live on as dark icons of IBM’s conscious 12-year alliance with Nazi Germany. IBM’s custom-designed prisoner-tracking Hollerith punch card equipment allowed the Nazis to efficiently manage the hundreds of concentration camps and sub-camps throughout Europe, as well as the millions who passed through them.
Auschwitz’s camp code in the IBM tabulation system was 001. Nearly every Nazi concentration camp operated a Hollerith Department known as the Hollerith Abeilung. The three-part Hollerith system of paper forms, punch cards and processing machines varied form camp to camp and from year to year, depending upon conditions. In some camps, such as Dachau and Storkow, as many as two dozen IBM sorters, tabulators and printers were installed. Other facilities operated punchers only, and submitted their cards to central locations such as Mauthausen or Berlin. In some camps, such as Stutfhoff, the plain paper forms were coded and processed elsewhere. Hollerith activity, whether paper, punching or processing, were frequently – but not always – located within the camp itself, consigned to a special bureau called the Labor Assignment Office, known in German as the Arbietseinsatz. The Arbeitseinsatz issued the all-important life-sustaining daily work assignments, and processed all inmates cards and labor transfer rosters. IBM did not sell any of its punch card machines to Nazi Germany. The equipment was leased by the moth. Each month, often more frequently, authorized repairmen, working directly for or trained by IBM, serviced the machines on-site – whether in the midst of Berlin or a concentration camp.
In addition, all spare parts were supplied by IBM factories located throughout Europe Of course, the billions of punch cards, continually devoured by the machines, available exclusively through IBM, were extra. IBM’s extensive technological support for Hitler’s conquest of Europe and genocide against the Jews was extensively documented in my book, IBM and the Holocaust, published in February 2001 and updated in a paperback edition.
In March of this year, the Village Voice broke exclusive new details of a special IBM wartime subsidiary set up in Poland by IBM’s New York headquarters shortly after Hitler’s 19398 invasion. In 1939, America had not entered the war, and it was still legal to trade with Nazi Germany. IBM’s new Polish subsidiary, Watson Business Machines, helped Germany automate the rape of Poland. The subsidiary was named for its president Thomas J. Watson. Central to the Nazi effort was massive 500-man Hollerith Gruppe, installed in a looming brown building at 2 Murnerstrasse in Krakow. The Hollerith Gruppe of the Nazi Statistical Office crunched all the numbers of plunder and genocide that allowed the Nazis to systematically starve the Jews, mete them out of the ghettos and then transport them to either work camps or death camps. The trains running to Auschwitz were tracked by a special-guarded IBM customer site facility at 22 Pawia in Krakow. The millions of punch cards the Nazis in Poland required were obtained exclusively from IBM, including one company print shop at 5 Rymarska Street across the street from the Warsaw Ghetto. The entire Polish subsidiary was overseen by an IBM administrative facility at 24 Kreuz in Warsaw. The exact address and equipment arrays of the key IBM offices and customer sites in Nazi-occupied Poland have been discovered. But no one has ever been able to locate an IBM facility at, or even near, Auschwitz. Until now. Auschwitz chief archivist Piotr Setkiewicz finally pinpointed the first such IBM customer site. The newly unearthed IBM customer site was a huge Hollerith Büro. It was situated in the I.G. Farben factory complex, housed in Barracks 18, next to German Civil Worker Camp 7, about two kilometers from Auschwitz III, also known at Monowitz Concentration Camp. Auschwitz’ Setkiewicz explains, ‘The Hollerith office at IG Farben in Monowitz used the IBM machines as a system of computerization of civil and slave labor resources. This gave Farben the opportunity to identity people with certain skills, primarily skills needed for the construction of certain buildings in Monowitz. By way of background, what most people call ‘Auschwitz’ was actually a sprawling hell comprised of three concentration camps, surrounded by some 40 sub-camps, numerous factories and a collection of farms in a surrounding captive commercial zone. The original Auschwitz became known simply as Auschwitz I, and functioned as a diversified camp for transit, labor and detention. Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau, became the infamous extermination center, operating gas chambers and ovens. Nearby Auschwitz III, known at Monowitz, existed primarily as a slave labor Camp. Monowitz is where IBM’s bustling customer site functioned. Many of the long-known paper printers forms stamped Hollerith ersfasst, or ‘registered by Hollerith’, indicated the prisoners were from Auschwitz III, that is, Monowitz. Now Auschwitz archivist Setkiewicz has also discovered about 100 Hollerith machine summary printouts of Monowitz prisoner assignments and details generated by the by I.G. Farben customer site. For example, Alexander Kuciel, born August 12, 1889, was in 1944 deployed as a slave carpenter, skill coded 01456, and his Hollerith printout is marked ‘Sch/P’ the Reich abbreviation for Schutzhäftling/Pole. Schutzhäftling/Pole means ‘Polish political prisoner’. The giant Farben facilities also known as ‘I.G. Werk Auschwitz’, maintained two Hollerith Büro staff contacts, Herr Hirsch and Herr Husch [deletion]. Comparison of the new printouts to other typical camp cards show the Monowitz systems were customized for the specific coding Farben needed to process the thousands of slave workers who labored and died there. The machines were probably also used to manage and develop the manufacturing processes and ordinary business applications. The machines almost certainly did not maintain extermination totals, which were calculated as ‘evacuations’ by the Hollerith Gruppe in Krakow. At press time, the diverse Farben codes and range of machines used are still being studied. It is not known many many additional IBM customer sites researchers will discover in the cold ashes of the expansive commercial zone. A Hollerith Büro, such at the one at Auschwitz II, was larger than a typical mechanized concentration camp Hollerith Department. A Büro was generally y comprised of more than a dozen punching machines, a sorter and one tabulator. Leon Krzemieniecki as a compusory worker who operated a tabulator at the IBM customer site at the Polish railways office in Krakow that kept track of trains going to and from Auschwitz. He recalls, “I know that trains were constantly going from Krakow to Ausschwitz -- not only passenger trains, but cargo trains as well. Krzemieneicki, who worked for two years with IBM puncher, card sorters and tabulators, estimates that a punch card operation for so large a manufacturing complex as Farben ‘would probably require at least two high-speed tabulators, four sorters, and perhaps 20 punchers...” Edwin Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust, The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation (Crown Publishers 2001 and Three Rivers Press 2002). This article is drawn from his just released and updated German paperback edition. Information relating to the new Auschwitz discovery will be appended to his English language editions at the next reprinting…
ANNEX 3 EXCHANGE OF E-MAIL MESSAGES BETWEEN CARLOS PORTER AND PROMINENT AUSCHWITZ RESEARCHER BETWEEN JANUARY 26 AND 28, 2004.
(The researcher began by stating that there were no German documents mentioning the practice.) RESEARCHER: Number 32407 was assigned on 23 April (Jewish transport from Slovakia). According to T. Iwaszko, the numbers were not tattooed number by number, rather, all the figures were tattooed simultaneously by means of a suitable machine [!], therefore the 30 seconds referred to in the testimony do not seem improbable to me [!]. On the contrary, it seems improbable to me that every tattoo should take 10 minutes. In this case, the tattooing of the numbers on the hundreds of inmates of every transport would have taken a very long time. CARLOS PORTER: No, tattoos aren’t done this way, and if they were, there would be documents. RESEARCHER: It seems very improbable to me that, in a camp like Auschwitz, in which thousands of tattoos were performed [!], there did not exist a suitable machine in which it was possible to enter the number (as in a date stamp) [!] and perform the tattoo in several tenths of a second…To solve the problem, it would be necessary to find the device used to perform the tattoos, but I have never seen it, not even in a photograph. [!] CARLOS PORTER: You can’t compare it with a date stamp, envelopes don’t get infected with diseases. The dates, the stamps, don’t get contaminated. Doing a tattoo is almost like a minor surgical operation. It’s like the famous gas chambers. You have to begin by asking: what is a tattoo, and how does it work? How is tattooing normally performed? RESEARCHER : The description by T. Iwaszko is very exact, [COMMENT: OK, so what kind of mechanism did it employ?] so that one may suppose that he has seen the instrument in question or the description is based on a detailed testimony. In any case I do not consider it very important. COMMENT ON THE ABOVE BY CARLOS PORTER: Either that or it is all lies. Note the circular reasoning in the above. Compare: “Millions of people were gassed at Auschwitz; therefore the gassings must have been possible; therefore the gas chambers existed.” When you prove that this is impossible, people reply: “It is not very important.” ANNEX 4 (from [url]www.adelaideinstitute.org[/url], slightly revised) The Auschwitz tattooist ANGIE FOX The Australian Jewish News December 19, 2003

LOU Sokolov wears a permanent reminder of the three years he spent in Birkenau. Although it is faded, the number 32407