← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · starr
Thread ID: 20303 | Posts: 16 | Started: 2005-09-20
2005-09-20 08:37 | User Profile
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[center][font=Arial, Helvetica][size=2]Simon Wiesenthal: "The Conscience of the Holocaust, Dies in Vienna" at 96[/size][/font]
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[font=Arial, Helvetica][size=2]Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi Hunter has died in Vienna at the age of 96, the Simon Wiesenthal Center announced today (September 20th).[/size][/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica][size=2]"Simon Wiesenthal was the conscience of the Holocaust," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the International Human Rights NGO named in Mr. Wiesenthalââ¬â¢s honor, adding, "When the Holocaust ended in 1945 and the whole world went home to forget, he alone remained behind to remember. He did not forget. He became the permanent representative of the victims, determined to bring the perpetrators of the historyââ¬â¢s greatest crime to justice. There was no press conference and no president or Prime Minister or world leader announced his appointment. He just took the job. It was a job no one else wanted.[/size][/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica][size=2]The task was overwhelming. The cause had few friends. The Allies were already focused on the Cold War, the survivors were rebuilding their shattered lives and Simon Wiesenthal was all alone, combining the role of both prosecutor and detective at the same time."[/size][/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica][size=2]Overcoming the worldââ¬â¢s indifference and apathy, Simon Wiesenthal helped bring over 1,100 Nazi War Criminals before the Bar of Justice.[/size][/font]
[font=Arial, Helvetica][size=2]There will be a news conference at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Wednesday, September 20th at 10 am.[/size][/font]
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2005-09-20 09:41 | User Profile
I hope the Joos won't mind if I don't cry a river for this lying scumbag!
The only thing I feel sorry for is the fact he didn't die before he sent innocent men to death...hunting "War Criminals" my ****en arse!
2005-09-20 11:13 | User Profile
Simon Wiesenthal: Fraudulent 'Nazi Hunter' By Mark Weber
[url]http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/wiesenthal.shtml[/url]
For more than 40 years, Simon Wiesenthal has been tracking hundreds of "Nazi criminals" from his "Jewish Documentation Center" in Vienna. For his work as the world's most prominent "Nazi hunter," he has been awarded several honorary degrees and numerous medals, including Germany's highest decoration. In a formal White House ceremony in August 1980, a teary-eyed President Carter presented him with a special gold medal awarded by the US Congress. President Reagan praised him in November 1988 as one of the "true heroes" of this century.
This living legend was portrayed in flattering terms by the late Laurence Oliver in the 1978 film fantasy "The Boys From Brazil," and by Ben Kingsley in the 1989 HBO made-for-television movie "Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story." One of world's most prominent Holocaust organizations bears his name: the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles.
Wiesenthal's reputation as a moral authority is undeserved. The man whom The Washington Post has called the "Holocaust's Avenging Angel" [1] has a little known but well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. He has lied about his own wartime experiences, misrepresented his postwar "Nazi-hunting" achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities.
Different Stories Szymon (Simon) Wiesenthal was born on December 31, 1908, in Buczacz, a town in the province of Galicia (now Buchach in Ukraine) in what was then the eastern fringe of the Austro-Hungarian empire. His father was a prosperous wholesale sugar merchant.
In spite of all that has been written about him, just what Wiesenthal did during the war years under German occupation remains unclear. He has given conflicting stories in three separate accounts of his wartime activities. The first was given under oath during a two day interrogation session in May 1948 conducted by an official of the US Nuremberg war crimes commission. [2] The second is a summary of his life provided by Wiesenthal as part of a January 1949 "Application for Assistance" to the International Refugee Committee. [3] And the third account is given in his autobiography, The Murderers Among Us, first published in 1967. [4]
Soviet Engineer or Factory Mechanic? In his 1948 interrogation, Wiesenthal declared that "between 1939 and 1941" he was a "Soviet chief engineer working in Lvov and Odessa." [5] Consistent with that, he stated in his 1949 declaration that from December 1939 to April 1940 he worked as an architect in the Black Sea port of Odessa. But according to his autobiography, he spent the period between mid-September 1939 and June 1941 in Soviet-ruled Lvov, where he worked "as a mechanic in a factory that produced bedsprings." [6]
Relative Freedom After the Germans took control of Galicia province in June 1941, Wiesenthal was interned for a time in the Janowska concentration camp near Lvov, from where he was transferred a few months later to a camp affiliated with the repair works (OAW) in Lvov of the Ostbahn ("Eastern Railroad") of German-ruled Poland. Wiesenthal reported in his autobiography that he worked there "as a technician and draftsman," that he was rather well treated, and that his immediate superior, who was "secretly anti-Nazi," even permitted him to own two pistols. He had his own office in a "small wooden hut," and enjoyed "relative freedom and was permitted to walk all over the yards." [7]
Partisan Fighter? The next segment of Wiesenthal's life -- from October 1943 to June 1944 -- is the most obscure, and his accounts of this period are contradictory. During his 1948 interrogation, Wiesenthal said that he fled from the Janowska camp in Lvov and joined a "partisan group which operated in the Tarnopol-Kamenopodolsk area." [8] He said that "I was a partisan from October 6, 1943, until the middle of February 1944," and declared that his unit fought against Ukrainian forces, both of the SS "Galicia" division and of the independent UPA partisan force. [9]
Wiesenthal said that he held the rank of lieutenant and then major, and was responsible for building bunkers and fortification lines. Although he was not explicit, he suggested that this (supposed) partisan unit was part of the Armia Ludowa ("Peoples Army"), the Polish Communist military force established and controlled by the Soviets. [10]
He said that he and other partisans slipped into Lvov in February 1944, where they were "hidden by friends of the A.L. ['People's Army'] group." On June 13, 1944, his group was captured by the German Secret Field Police. (Although Jewish partisans caught in hiding were often shot, Wiesenthal reports that he was somehow spared.) Wiesenthal told much the same story in his 1949 statement. He said that he fled from internment in early October 1943 and then "fought against the Germans as a partisan in the forest" for eight months -- from October 2, 1943, to March 1944. After that, he was "in hiding" in Lvov from March to June 1944.
Wiesenthal tells a totally different story in his 1967 autobiography. He reports there that after escaping from the Ostbahn Repair Works on Oct. 2, 1943, he lived in hiding in the houses of various friends until June 13, 1944, when he was discovered by Polish and German police and returned to a concentration camp. He makes no mention of any partisan membership or activity. [11]
According to both his 1948 interrogation and his 1967 autobiography, he tried to commit suicide on June 15, 1944, by cutting his wrists. Remarkably, though, he was saved from death by German SS doctors and recovered in an SS hospital. [12] He remained in the Lvov concentration camp "with double rations" for a time, and then, he reports in his autobiography, he was transferred to various work camps. He spent the remaining chaotic months, until the end of the war, in different camps until he was liberated from Mauthausen (in Austria) by American forces on May 5, 1945. [13]
Did Wiesenthal invent a past as a heroic wartime partisan? Or did he later try to suppress his record as a Communist fighter? Or is the true story altogether different -- and too shameful to admit?
Nazi Agent? Did Wiesenthal voluntarily work for his wartime oppressors? That's the accusation leveled by Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, himself of Jewish ancestry and leader for many years of his country's Socialist Party. During an interview with foreign journalists in 1975, Kreisky charged Wiesenthal with using "Mafia methods," rejected his pretense of "moral authority," and suggested that he was an agent for the German authorities. Some of his more pertinent remarks, which appeared in Austria's leading news magazine Profil, include: [14]
I really know Mr. Wiesenthal only from secret reports, and they are bad, very nasty. I say this as Federal Chancellor ... And I say that Mr. Wiesenthal had a different relationship with the Gestapo than I did. Yes, and this can be proven. I can't say more [now]. Everything else, I'll say in court.
My relationship with the Gestapo is unambiguous. I was their prisoner, their inmate, and I was interrogated. His relationship was a different one, I can say, and this will come out clearly. It's bad enough what I've already said here. But he can't clear himself by charging me with defaming his honor in the press, as he might wish. It's not that simple, because that would mean a big court case ... A man like this doesn't have the right to pretend to be a moral authority. That's what I say. He doesn't have the right ...
Whether a man who, in my view, is an agent, yes, that's right, and who uses Mafia methods ... Such a man has to go ...
He is no gentleman, and I would say, to make this clear, so that he won't become a moral authority, because he is not ... He shouldn't pretend to be a moral authority ...
I say that Mr. Wiesenthal lived in that time in the Nazi sphere of influence without being persecuted. Right? And he lived openly without being persecuted, right? Is that clear? And you perhaps know, if you know what was going on, that no one could risk that.
He wasn't a "submarine" ... that is, submerged and in hiding, but instead, he was completely in the open without having to, well, ever risk persecution. I think that's enough. There were so many opportunities to be an agent. He didn't have to be a Gestapo agent. There were many other services.
In response to these damning words, Wiesenthal began efforts to bring a lawsuit against the Chancellor. Eventually, though, both Wiesenthal and Kreisky backed away from a major legal clash.
Mauthausen Myths Before he became famous as a "Nazi hunter," he made a name for himself as a propagandist. In 1946 Wiesenthal published KZ Mauthausen, an 85-page work that consists mainly of his own amateurish sketches purporting to represent the horrors of the Mauthausen concentration camp. One drawing depicts three inmates who had been bound to posts and brutally put to death by the Germans. [15]
The sketch is completely phony. It was copied -- with some minor alterations -- from photographs that appeared in Life magazine in 1945, which graphically record the firing-squad execution in December 1944 of three German soldiers who had been caught operating as spies behind the lines during the "Battle of the Bulge." [16] The source of the Wiesenthal drawing is instantly obvious to anyone who compares it with the Life photos. [17]
The irresponsible character of this book is also shown by Wiesenthal's extensive citation therein of the supposed "death bed confession" of Mauthausen Commandant Franz Ziereis, according to which four million were gassed to death with carbon monoxide at the nearby Hartheim satellite camp. [18] This claim is totally absurd, and no serious Holocaust historian still accepts it. [19] Also according to the Ziereis "confession" cited by Wiesenthal, the Germans supposedly killed another ten million people in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. [20] In fact, this fraudulent "confession" was obtained by torture. [21]
Years later, Wiesenthal was still lying about Mauthausen. In a 1983 interview with the daily newspaper USA Today, he said of his experience in Mauthausen: "I was one of 34 prisoners alive out of 150,000 who had been put there." [22] This is a blatant falsehood. The years have apparently not been kind to Wiesenthal's memory, because in his own autobiography he wrote that "almost 3,000 prisoners died in Mauthausen after the Americans liberated us on May 5, 1945." [23] Another former inmate, Evelyn Le Chene, reported in her standard work about Mauthausen that there were 64,000 inmates in the camp when it was liberated in May 1945. [24] And according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, at least 212,000 inmates survived internment in the Mauthausen camp complex. [25]
After the war Wiesenthal worked for the US Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the CIA) and the US Army's Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC). He was also vice chairman of the Jewish Central Committee in the US occupation zone of Austria. [26]
'Human Soap' Wiesenthal has given circulation and credence to one of the most scurrilous Holocaust stories, the charge that the Germans manufactured soap from the corpses of murdered Jews. According to this tale, the letters "RIF" in bars of German-made soap allegedly stood for "Pure Jewish Fat" ("Rein judisches Fett"). In reality, the initials stood for "National Center for Industrial Fat Provisioning" ("Reichstelle fur industrielle Fettversorgung"). [27]
Wiesenthal promoted the "human soap" legend in articles published in 1946 in the Austrian Jewish community paper Der Neue Weg ("The New Path"). In an article entitled "RIF," he wrote: "The terrible words 'transport for soap' were first heard at the end of 1942. It was in the [Polish] General Government, and the factory was in Galicia, in Belzec. From April 1942 until May 1943, 900,000 Jews were used as raw material in this factory." After the corpses were turned into various raw materials, Wiesenthal wrote, "The rest, the residual fat stuff, was used for soap production."
He continued: "After 1942 people in the General Government knew quite well what the RIF soap meant. The civilized world may not believe the joy with which the Nazis and their women in the General Government thought of this soap. In each piece of soap they saw a Jew who had been magically put there, and had thus been prevented from growing into a second Freud, Ehrlich or Einstein." [28]
In another imaginative article published in 1946 entitled "Belzec Soap Factory," Wiesenthal alleged that masses of Jews were exterminated in electrocution showers: [29]
The people, pressed together and driven on by the SS, Latvians and Ukrainians, go through the open door into the "bath." Five hundred persons could fit at a time. The floor of the "bath chamber" was made of metal and shower heads hung from the ceiling. When the room was full, the SS turned on the 5,000 volts of electric current in the metal plate. At the same time water poured from the shower heads. A short scream and the execution was over. An SS chief physician named Schmidt determined through a peep hole that the victims were dead. The second door was opened and the "corpse commando" came in and quickly removed the dead. It was ready for the next 500.
Today no serious historian accepts the stories that Jewish corpses were manufactured into bars of soap or that Jews were electrocuted to death at Belzec (or anywhere).
Wiesenthal's imaginative view of history is not limited to the twentieth century. In his 1973 book Sails of Hope, he argued that Christopher Columbus was a secret Jew, and that his famous voyage to the western hemisphere in 1492 was actually a search for a new homeland for Europe's Jews. [30]
Wiesenthal is not always wrong, of course. In 1975 and again in 1993 he publicly acknowledged that "there were no extermination camps on German soil." [31] He thus implicitly conceded that the claims made at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal and elsewhere that Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps in Germany proper were "extermination camps" are not true.
'Fabrications' About Eichmann In more than 40 years of "Nazi hunting," Wiesenthal's role in locating and capturing Adolf Eichmann is often considered his greatest achievement. [32] (Eichmann headed the wartime SS Jewish affairs department. He was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Argentina in May 1960 and hanged in Jerusalem after a trial that received worldwide media attention.)
But Isser Harel, the Israeli official who headed the team that seized Eichmann, has declared unequivocally that Wiesenthal had "absolutely nothing" to do with the capture. (Harel is a former head of both the Mossad and Shin Bet, Israel's foreign and domestic security agencies.) [33]
Wiesenthal not only "had no role whatsoever" in the apprehension, said Harel, but in fact he endangered the entire Eichmann operation. In a 278-page manuscript, Harel carefully refuted every claim by Wiesenthal about his supposed role in identifying and capturing Eichmann. Claims by Wiesenthal and his many friends about his supposedly crucial role in capturing the former SS officer, said Harel, have no foundation in fact. Many specific assertions and incidents described in two books by Wiesenthal, said the Israeli official, are "complete fabrications." [34]
"Wiesenthal's reports and statements at that period prove beyond any doubt that he had no notion of Eichmann's whereabouts," said Harel. [35] (For example, just before Eichmann's capture in Argentina, Wiesenthal was placing him in Japan and Saudi Arabia.) [36]
Characterizing Wiesenthal as a rank opportunist, Harel summed up: "All the information supplied by Wiesenthal before and in anticipation of the [Eichmann] operation was utterly worthless, and sometimes even misleading and of negative value." [37]
Reckless Charges in Walus Case One of Wiesenthal's most spectacular cases involved a Polish-born Chicago man named Frank Walus. In a letter dated December 10, 1974, he charged that Walus "delivered Jews to the Gestapo" in Czestochowa and Kielce in Poland during the war. This letter prompted a US government investigation and legal action. [38] The Washington Post dealt with the case in a 1981 article entitled "The Nazi Who Never Was: How a witch hunt by judge, press and investigators branded an innocent man a war criminal." The lengthy piece, which was copyrighted by the American Bar Association, reported: [39]
In January 1977, the United States government accused a Chicagoan named Frank Walus of having committed atrocities in Poland during World War II.
In the following years, this retired factory worker went into debt in order to raise more than $60,000 to defend himself. He sat in a courtroom while eleven Jewish survivors of the Nazi occupation of Poland testified that they saw him murder children, an old woman, a young woman, a hunchback and others ...
Overwhelming evidence shows that Walus was not a Nazi War criminal, that he was not even in Poland during World War II.
... In an atmosphere of hatred and loathing verging on hysteria, the government persecuted an innocent man. In 1974, Simon Wiesenthal, the famous "Nazi hunter" of Vienna, denounced Walus as "a Pole in Chicago who performed duties with the Gestapo in the ghettos of Czestochowa and Kielce and handed over a number of Jews to the Gestapo."
The Chicago weekly newspaper Reader also reported on the case in a detailed 1981 article headlined: "The Persecution of Frank Walus: To Catch a Nazi: The U.S. government wanted a war criminal. So, with the help of Simon Wiesenthal, the Israeli police, the local press and Judge Julius Hoffman, they invented one." [40] The article stated:
... It is logical to assume that the "reports received by Wiesenthal [against Walus] actually were rumors... In other words, Simon Wiesenthal had no evidence against Walus. He denounced him anyway.
While [Judge] Hoffman had the Walus case under advisement, Holocaust aired on television. During the same period, in April 1978, Simon Wiesenthal came to Chicago, where he gave interviews taking credit for the Walus case. "How Nazi-Hunter Helped Find Walus," was the Sun-Times headline on a story by Bob Olmstead. Wiesenthal told Sun-Times Abe Peck that he "has never had a case of mistaken identity." "I know there are thousands of people who wait for my mistake," he said.
It was only after an exhausting legal battle that the man who was vilified and physically attacked as "the butcher of Kielce" was finally able to prove that he had spent the war years as a peaceful farm laborer in Germany. Frank Walus died in August 1994, a broken and bitterly disappointed man, man.
Wiesenthal's recklessness in the Walus case should have been enough to permanently discredit him as a reliable investigator. But his Teflon reputation survived even this.
Wrong about Mengele Much of the Wiesenthal myth is based on his hunt for Joseph Mengele, the wartime physician at Auschwitz known as the "Angel of Death." Time and time again, Wiesenthal claimed to be close on Mengele's heels. Wiesenthal reported that his informants had "seen" or "just missed" the elusive physician in Peru, Chile, Brazil, Spain, Greece, and half a dozen locations in Paraguay. [41]
One of the closest shaves came in the summer of 1960. Wiesenthal reported that Mengele had been hiding out on a small Greek island, from where he escaped by just a few hours. Wiesenthal continued to peddle this story, complete with precise details, even after a reporter whom he had hired to check it out informed him that the tale was false from beginning to end. [42]
According to another Wiesenthal report, Mengele arranged for the murder in 1960 of one of his former victims, a woman he had supposedly sterilized in Auschwitz. After spotting her, and her distinctive camp tattoo, at a hotel in Argentina where he was staying, Mengele allegedly arranged to have her killed because he feared that she would expose him. It turned out that the woman was never in a concentration camp, had no tattoo, had never met Mengele, and her death was a simple mountaineering accident. [43]
Mengele regularly dined at the finest restaurants in Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital, Wiesenthal said in 1977, and supposedly drove around the city with a bevy of armed guards in his black Mercedes Benz. [44]
Wiesenthal announced in 1985 that he was "100 percent sure" that Mengele had been hiding out in Paraguay until at least June 1984, and charged that the Mengele family in Germany knew exactly where. As it turned out, Wiesenthal was completely wrong. It was later definitively established that Mengele had died in 1979 in Brazil, where he had been living for years in anonymous poverty. [45]
Israel's ambassador to Paraguay from 1968 to 1972, Benjamin (Benno) Varon, remarked in 1983 on the Mengele campaign: "Wiesenthal makes periodic statements that he is about to catch him, perhaps since Wiesenthal must raise funds for his activities and the name Mengele is always good for a plug." Wiesenthal "failed miserably" in the Mengele case, the diplomat said on another occasion. [46] In the Mengele case, former Mossad chief Harel remarked, "Wiesenthal's folly borders on the criminal." [47]
In truth, the bulging Mengele file in Wiesenthal's Vienna "Documentation Center" was such a jumble of useless information that, in the words of the London Times, it "only sustained his self-confirmatory myths and gave scant satisfaction to those who apparently needed a definitive answer to Mengele's fate." [48]
In the considered view of Gerald Posner and John Ware, coauthors of Mengele: The Complete Story, Wiesenthal spent years assiduously cultivating a mythical "self-image of a tireless, dogged sleuth, pitted against the omnipotent and sinister might of Mengele and a vast Nazi network." Because of his "knack of playing to the gallery," Posner and Ware concluded, Wiesenthal "ultimately compromised his credibility." [49]
'Incompetence and Arrogance' Eli Rosenbaum, an official with the US government's "Nazi hunting" Office of Special Investigations and an investigator for the World Jewish Congress, took aim at Wiesenthal's carefully cultivated "Nazi hunter" reputation in a detailed 1993 book, Betrayal. [50] For example, Rosenbaum mentioned, Wiesenthal "had all these reports placing Mengele in almost every country in Latin America except the one he was in -- namely, Brazil." [51]
Wiesenthal, wrote Rosenbaum, has been a "pathetically ineffective" investigator who had "gone far beyond the buffoonery and false boasts in prior years." Much of his illustrious career, Rosenbaum said, has been characterized by "incompetence and arrogance." [52]
Bruno Kreisky once summed up his attitude towards the "Nazi hunter" in these words: [53]
The engineer Wiesenthal, or whatever else his title is, hates me because he knows that I despise his activity. The Wiesenthal group is a quasi-political Mafia that works against Austria with disgraceful methods. Wiesenthal is known as someone who isn't very careful about the truth, who is not very selective about his methods and who uses tricks. He pretends to be the "Eichmann hunter," even though everyone knows that this was the work of a secret service, and that Wiesenthal only takes credit for that.
'Commercializing' the Holocaust The Los Angeles Wiesenthal Center pays the Vienna "Nazi Hunter" $75,000 a year for the use of his name, the director of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center said in 1988.
Both the Center and Wiesenthal "commercialize" and "trivialize" the Holocaust, the director added.
Wiesenthal "threw out" the figure of "11 million who were murdered in the Holocaust -- six million Jews and five million non-Jews," said the Yad Vashem official. When asked why he gave these figures, Wiesenthal replied: "The gentiles will not pay attention if we do not mention their victims, too." Wiesenthal "chose 'five million (gentiles)' because he wanted a 'diplomatic' number, one that told of a large number of gentile victims but in no way was larger than that of Jews ..." [54]
"What Wiesenthal and the Los Angeles Center that bears his name do is to trivialize the Holocaust," commented The Jewish Press, a weekly that claims to be the largest-circulation English-language Jewish community paper in America.
In recent years Wiesenthal has been concerned about the growing impact of Holocaust revisionism. In "A Message from Simon Wiesenthal" published by the Center that bears his name, he said: "Today, when I see the rise of antisemitism here in Europe ... the popularity of Le Pen, of David Duke, of the Holocaust revisionists, then I am convinced more than ever about the need for our new [Wiesenthal Center] Beit Hashoah-Museum of Tolerance" in Los Angeles. [55]
Wiesenthal is often asked why he does not forgive those who persecuted Jews half a century ago. His stock answer is that although he has the right to forgive for himself, he does not have the right to forgive on behalf of others. [56] On the basis of this sophistical logic, though, neither does he have the right to accuse and track down anyone in the name of others. Wiesenthal has never confined his "hunt" to those who victimized him personally.
'Driven by Hatred' It is difficult to say just what drives this remarkable man. Is it a craving for fame and praise? Or is he trying to live down a shameful episode from his past?
Wiesenthal clearly enjoys the praise he receives. "He is a man of considerable ego, proud of testimonials and honorary degrees," the Los Angeles Times has reported. [57] Bruno Kreisky has given a simpler explanation. He said that Wiesenthal is "driven by hatred." [58]
In light of his well-documented record of deceit, lies and incompetence, the extravagant praise heaped upon this contemptible man is a sorry reflection of the venal corruptibility and unprincipled self-deception of our age.
Notes Quoted in: M. Weber, "'Nazi Hunter' Caught Lying," The Spotlight (Washington, DC), Oct. 26, 1981, p. 9. Interrogation of S. Wiesenthal on May 27 and 28, 1948, conducted by Curt Ponger of the Interrogation Branch of the Evidence Division of the Office (U.S.) Chief of Counsel for War Crimes. Interrogation No. 2820. On file at the National Archives (Washington, DC), "Records of the U.S. Nürnberg War Crimes Trials Interrogations, 1946-49," Record Group 238, microfilm M-1019, roll 79, frames 460-469 and 470-476. Also cited in: "New Documents Raise New Doubts About Simon Wiesenthal's War Years," The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1988-89 (Vol. 8, No. 4), pp. 489-503. PCIRO (International Refugee Organization, Austria) "Application for Assistance" filled out and signed by Wiesenthal. Dated Jan. 16,1949. (This was a trial exhibit in the Walus court case. Photocopy in author's possession.) Simon Wiesenthal, The Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Memoirs. Edited by Joseph Wechsberg. (New York: McGraw Hill, 1967) Interrogation of S. Wiesenthal, May 27, 1948, pp. 1-2. The Murderers Among Us, p. 27. The Murderers Among Us, pp. 29-35. This account is not inconsistent with his 1948 and 1949 statements; See also: Simon Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance (New York: Grove Weidenfeld: 1989), pp. 7-9. Interrogation of May 27, 1948, p. 2. In a signed 1945 statement, Wiesenthal wrote: "... I escaped on October 18, 1943, from the Lemberg [Lvov] hard labor camp where I was kept as a prisoner during my two years of labor at the railroad works... and went into hiding until joining Jewish partisans on November 21, 1943, who operated there. It was while fighting in the partisan ranks against the Nazis that we managed to collect and bury for safekeeping considerable amount of evidence... When the partisans were dispersed by the Germans I fled to Lemberg on February 10, 1944, and again went into hiding. On June 13, 1944, I was found during a house to house search and was immediately sent to the famous Lacki camp, near that city ..." Source: "Curriculum Vitae of Ing. Wiesenthal, Szymon." SHAEF, Subject: War Crimes, July 6, 1945. Records of USAEUR, War Crimes Branch, National Archives (Suitland, Maryland), Records Group 338, Box 534, Folder 000-50-59. Wiesenthal's alleged partisans activities are also recounted in Alan Levy, The Wiesenthal File (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 50-53. Interrogation of May 28, 1948, pp. 1-2. Interrogation of May 28, 1948, p. 5. The Murderers Among Us, pp. 35-37. The Murderers Among Us, pp. 37-38; Interrogation, May 27, 1948, p. 2, and May 28, 1948, p. 5; A. Levy, The Wiesenthal File (1994), p. 54. The Murderers Among Us, pp. 39-44; Interrogation, May 27, 1948, pp. 2-3. Interview with foreign journalists in Vienna, Nov. 10, 1975. Text published in: "War Wiesenthal ein Gestapo-Kollaborateur?," Profil (Vienna), No. 47, Nov. 18, 1975, pp. 16, 22-23; Reprinted in: Robert H. Drechsler, Simon Wiesenthal: Dokumentation (Vienna: 1982), pp. 215-218, 222-223; Quoted in part in A. Levy, The Wiesenthal File (1994), p. 349, and in, S. Wiesenthal, Justice Not Vengeance (New York: 1989), pp. 7, 299. Kreisky was not alone in charging that Wiesenthal had collaborated with the German Gestapo. Wim Van Leer, columnist for the English-language daily Jerusalem Post, stated in May 1986 that a high-level police official in Vienna, citing confidential police records, had told him during the early 1960s that these and other charges against Wiesenthal were true. Source: J. Bushinsky, "Nazi hunter sues over charges of links to Gestapo," Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 31, 1987. Simon Wiesenthal, KZ Mauthausen (Linz and Vienna: Ibis-Verlag, 1946). Facsimile reprint in: Robert H. Drechsler, Simon Wiesenthal: Dokumentation (Vienna: 1982), p. 64. "Firing Squad," Life magazine, US edition, June 11, 1945, p. 50. M. Weber and K. Stimely, "The Sleight-of-Hand of Simon Wiesenthal," The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1984 (Vol. 5, No. 1), pp. 120-122; D. National-Zeitung (Munich), May 21, 1993, p. 3. S. Wiesenthal, KZ Mauthausen (1946). See also facsimile reprint in: Robert H. Drechsler, Simon Wiesenthal: Dokumentation (Vienna: 1982), pp. 42, 46. This "confession" is a somewhat altered version of Nuremberg document NO-1973; A new edition of Wiesenthal's 1946 book has been published under the title Denn sie Wussten, was sie tun: Zeichnungen und Aufzeichnungen aus dem KZ Mauthausen (Vienna: F. Deuticke, 1995). I am grateful to Robert Faurisson for bringing this to my attention. He points out in a July 1995 essay that Wiesenthal has deleted from this new edition both the "death bed confession" of Ziereis as well as his drawing of the three Mauthausen inmates. According to the Encyclopaedia Judaica ("Mauthausen,", Vol. 11, p. 1138), a grand total of 206,000 persons were inmates of Mauthausen and its satellite camps (including Hartheim) at one time or another. S. Wiesenthal, KZ Mauthausen (1946). Facsimile reprint in: R. Drechsler, Simon Wiesenthal: Dokumentation, p. 47. R. Faurisson, "The Gas Chambers: Truth or Lie?," The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1981, pp. 330, 361. See also: Hans Fritzsche, The Sword in the Scales (London: 1953), p. 185; Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (London: Sphere, pb., 1971), p. 515; M. Weber, "The Nuremberg Trials and the Holocaust," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1992 (Vol. 12, No. 2), p. 182. USA Today, April 21, 1983, p. 9A. The Murderers Among Us, p. 44. Evelyn Le Chene, Mauthausen: The History of a Death Camp (London: 1971), pp. 166-168 and 190-191. "Mauthausen", Encyclopaedia Judaica (New York and Jerusalem: 1971), vol. 11, p. 1138. C. Moritz, ed., Current Biography 1975 (New York: H.W. Wilson, 1975), p. 442; Wiesenthal interrogation of May 27, 1948, p. 3. Mark Weber, "Jewish Soap," The Journal of Historical Review, Summer 1991 (Vol. 11, No. 2), pp. 217-227; See also: Robert Faurisson, "La savon juif," Annales d'Histoire Revisionniste (Paris), No. 1, Printemps 1987, pp. 153-159. Der Neue Weg (Vienna), No. 17/18, 1946, pp. 4-5. Article entitled "RIF" by "Ing. Wiesenth." (Simon Wiesenthal). Der Neue Weg (Vienna), Nr. 19/20, 1946, pp. 14-15. Article entitled "Seifenfabrik Belsetz" ("Belzec Soap Factory"), by "Ing. S.Wiesenth." S. Wiesenthal, Sails of Hope (Macmillan, 1973). Letters by Wiesenthal in Books and Bookmen (London), April 1975, p. 5, and in Stars and Stripes (European edition), Jan. 24, 1993, p. 14. Facsimile of Stars and Stripes letter in The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1993, p. 10; In 1986 Wiesenthal lied about his 1975 statement. In a letter dated May 12, 1986, to Prof. John George of Central State University in Edmond, Oklahoma (copy in author's possession), Wiesenthal wrote: "I have never stated that 'there were no extermination camps on German soil.' This quote is false, I could never have said such a thing." For example, in a letter (dated Sept. 13, 1993), published in The New York Times, Sept. 29, 1993, Wiesenthal boasted: "I succeeded in putting a number of Nazis on trial who had perpetrated horrendous crimes in the Nazi era, including Adolf Eichmann, Franz Stangl, Gustav Wagner,..." S. Birnbaum, "Wiesenthal's Claim on Eichmann Disputed by Former Mossad Head," Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin (New York), April 4, 1989. (Dispatch dated April 3). J. Schachter, "Wiesenthal had no role in Eichmann capture," The Jerusalem Post, May 18, 1991. Facsimile reprint in Christian News, May 27, 1991, p. 19. See also: Ruth Sinai, "Wiesenthal's role in Eichmann's capture disputed," Associated Press, The Orange County Register, Feb. 25, 1990, p. A 26; L. Lagnado, "How Simon Wiesenthal Helped a Secret Nazi," Forward (New York), Sept. 24, 1993, pp. 1, 3. J. Schachter, The Jerusalem Post, May 18, 1991 (cited above). Facsimile in Christian News, May 27, 1991, p. 19. Arnold Forster, Square One (New York: 1988), pp. 187-189. (Forster was general counsel of the Anti-Defamation League, a major Zionist organization.) J. Goldberg, "Top Spy Says Wiesenthal Lied About His Exploits," Forward (New York), Nov. 12, 1993, pp. 1, 4; R. Sinai, "Wiesenthal's role...," The Orange County Register, Feb. 25, 1990 (cited above). Michael Arndt, "The Wrong Man," The Chicago Tribune Magazine, Dec. 2, 1984, pp. 15-35, esp. p. 23; Charles Ashman and Robert J. Wagman, The Nazi Hunters (New York: Pharos Books, 1988), pp. 193-195. "The Nazi Who Never Was," The Washington Post, May 10, 1981, pp. B5, B8. "The Persecution of Frank Walus," Reader (Chicago), Jan. 23, 1981, pp. 19, 30. After Wiesenthal was ultimately proven wrong in a similar case in Canada, the Toronto Sun newspaper commented in an editorial: "It seems that material provided by professional Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal is wrong, but repeated anyway [in the media]." (Quoted by M. Weber in The Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1984, pp. 120-122.) Gerald L. Posner and John Ware, Mengele: The Complete Story (New York: Dell, 1987), pp. 220-221; Gerald Astor, The 'Last' Nazi: The Life and Times of Dr. Joseph Mengele (Toronto: Paperjacks, 1986), p. 202. G. Posner and J. Ware, Mengele: The Complete Story (cited above), p. 220. G. Posner and J. Ware, Mengele (cited above), pp. 179-180; G. Astor, The 'Last' Nazi (cited above), pp. 178-180. Time magazine, Sept. 26, 1977, pp. 36-38. Cited in: G. Posner and J. Ware, Mengele (cited above), p. 219. "Hunting the 'Angel of Death'," Newsweek, May 20, 1985, pp. 36-38. See also: M. Weber, "Lessons of the Mengele Affair," Journal of Historical Review, Fall 1985 (Vol. 6, No. 3), p. 382. On Wiesenthal's distortion of truth in the Mermelstein-IHR case, see: M. Weber, "Declaration," Journal of Historical Review, Spring 1982 (Vol. 3, No. 1), pp. 42-43; M. Weber, "Albert Speer and the 'Holocaust,"' Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1984 (Vol. 5, Nos. 2-4), p. 439. Midstream, Dec. 1983, p. 24. Quoted in: G. Posner and J. Ware, Mengele (cited above), p. 219; Los Angeles Times, Nov. 15, 1985, p. 2. J. Schachter, "Wiesenthal had no role in Eichmann capture," The Jerusalem Post, May 18, 1991. Facsimile reprint in Christian News, May 27, 1991, p. 19. Tom Bower in The Times (London), June 14, 1985, p. 14. Quoted in: G. Posner and J. Ware, Mengele (cited above), pp. 222-223. G. Posner and J. Ware, Mengele (cited above), pp. 222-223. Betrayal, by Eli M. Rosenbaum, with William Hoffer. Published in 1993 by St. Martin's Press (New York). Reviewed by Jacob Heilbrunn in The New York Times Book Review, Oct. 10, 1993, p. 9. Quoted in L. Lagnado, "How Simon Wiesenthal...," Forward (New York), Sept. 24, 1993, p. 3. The New York Times Book Review, Oct. 10, 1993, p. 9; Forward (New York), Sept. 24, 1993, p. 3. "Was hat Wiesenthal zu verbergen?," D. National-Zeitung (Munich), Nov. 11, 1988, p. 4. David Sinai, "News We Doubt You've Seen," The Jewish Press (Brooklyn, NY), Dec. 23, 1988. Based on report in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Dec. 16, 1988. "A Message from Simon Wiesenthal," Response: The Wiesenthal Center World Report, Winter 1992, p. 11. Charles Ashman and Robert J. Wagman, The Nazi Hunters (New York: Pharos Books, 1988), p. 286; A. Popkin, "Nazi-Hunter Simon Wiesenthal: 'Information is Our Best Defense'," Washington Jewish Week, Oct. 29, 1987, p. 2. Quoted in: M. Weber, The Spotlight, Oct. 26, 1981, p. 9. Quoted in D. National-Zeitung (Munich), July 8, 1988, p. 7, and in, R. Drechsler, Simon Wiesenthal: Dokumentation (Vienna: 1982), p. 199.
From The Journal of Historical Review, July-August 1995 (Vol. 15, No. 4), pages 8-16. This is a revised and updated version of an article that first appeared in the Winter 1989-90 issue of The Journal of Historical Review.
About the author Mark Weber is director of the Institute for Historical Review. He studied history at the University of Illinois (Chicago), the University of Munich, Portland State University and Indiana University (M.A., 1977). For nine years he served as editor of the IHR's Journal of Historical Review.
This essay, and others in this series, are available in handy leaflet format, ideal for wide distribution. They can be ordered, postpaid, at these prices: 10 copies, $2.00 :: 50 copies, $7.50 :: 100 copies or more, 10 cents
2005-09-20 11:17 | User Profile
Nazi Agent?
Did Wiesenthal voluntarily work for his wartime oppressors? That's the accusation leveled by Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, himself of Jewish ancestry and leader for many years of his country's Socialist Party. During an interview with foreign journalists in 1975, Kreisky charged Wiesenthal with using "Mafia methods," rejected his pretense of "moral authority," and suggested that he was an agent for the German authorities. Some of his more pertinent remarks, which appeared in Austria's leading news magazine Profil, include: [14]
"I really know Mr. Wiesenthal only from secret reports, and they are bad, very nasty. I say this as Federal Chancellor ... And I say that Mr. Wiesenthal had a different relationship with the Gestapo than I did. Yes, and this can be proven. I can't say more [now]. Everything else, I'll say in court.
My relationship with the Gestapo is unambiguous. I was their prisoner, their inmate, and I was interrogated. His relationship was a different one, I can say, and this will come out clearly. It's bad enough what I've already said here. But he can't clear himself by charging me with defaming his honor in the press, as he might wish. It's not that simple, because that would mean a big court case ... A man like this doesn't have the right to pretend to be a moral authority. That's what I say. He doesn't have the right ...
Whether a man who, in my view, is an agent, yes, that's right, and who uses Mafia methods ... Such a man has to go ...
He is no gentleman, and I would say, to make this clear, so that he won't become a moral authority, because he is not ... He shouldn't pretend to be a moral authority ...
I say that Mr. Wiesenthal lived in that time in the Nazi sphere of influence without being persecuted. Right? And he lived openly without being persecuted, right? Is that clear? And you perhaps know, if you know what was going on, that no one could risk that.
He wasn't a "submarine" ... that is, submerged and in hiding, but instead, he was completely in the open without having to, well, ever risk persecution. I think that's enough. There were so many opportunities to be an agent. He didn't have to be a Gestapo agent. There were many other services..."
[img]http://forum.cuni.cz/fukIV08/11-1.jpg[/img]
2005-09-20 11:43 | User Profile
Wiesenthal is not always wrong, of course. In 1975 and again in 1993 he publicly acknowledged that "there were no extermination camps on German soil."* [31] He thus implicitly conceded that the claims made at the postwar Nuremberg Tribunal and elsewhere that Buchenwald, Dachau and other camps in Germany proper were "extermination camps" are not true...
*Letters by Wiesenthal in Books and Bookmen (London), April 1975, p. 5, and in Stars and Stripes (European edition), Jan. 24, 1993, p. 14. Facsimile of Stars and Stripes letter in The Journal of Historical Review, May-June 1993, p. 10; In 1986 Wiesenthal lied about his 1975 statement. In a letter dated May 12, 1986, to Prof. John George of Central State University in Edmond, Oklahoma (copy in author's possession), Wiesenthal wrote: "I have never stated that 'there were no extermination camps on German soil.' This quote is false, I could never have said such a thing."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Wiesenthal Re-Confirms: 'No Extermination Camps on German Soil'
In a letter published in a January issue of The Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for US military service personnel, Simon Wiesenthal re-confirmed, in passing, that "there were no extermination camps on German soil" during the Second World War. He made the identical statement in a letter published in the April 1975 issue of the British periodical Books and Bookmen.
While the truth of Wiesenthal's words here has been known for years, this statement is significant, first of all, because it is made by an internationally renowned and supposedly knowledgeable and reputable figure, and, second, because it once again confirms a point that revisionists have been making for years. What Wiesenthal does not mention, and what is not widely understood, is that he also implicitly confirms the drastic change that has taken place over the years in the Holocaust extermination story.
What the "Nazi hunter" now says contrasts sharply with what was authoritatively claimed in the decades following the Second World War. At the great Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-1946, for example, Allied government officials presented apparently conclusive evidence to prove that camps "on German soil" -- such as Dachau and Buchenwald -- were "extermination" centers. Sir Hartley Shawcross, chief British prosecutor at the main Nuremberg trial, accordingly declared in his closing address on July 26, 1946, that "murder [was] conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens" of Buchenwald, Dachau, Oranienburg -- all "on German soil" -- as well as at other German-run camps.
'Evidence' of Gassings at Dachau Abundant "proof" that inmates were gassed at Dachau has been provided over the years, most notably at the main Nuremberg trial of 1945-1946. Former inmate Dr. Franz Blaha, for example, provided eyewitness testimony at Nuremberg about gas chamber killings there of "many prisoners."
According to a May 1945 US government document, which was accepted as evidence by the Nuremberg Tribunal as document L-159 (USA-222), "a distinguishing feature of the Dachau Camp was the gas chamber for the execution of prisoners." The official report went on to describe the alleged gassing operation in some detail. (For more about such "evidence," see: R. Faurisson, The Journal of Historical Review, Fall 1990, pp. 296-307.)
'Evidence' of Extermination at Buchenwald Superficially impressive evidence has likewise been presented over the years to "prove" that the Buchenwald camp was an "extermination" center. For example, an April 1945 US Army report about Buchenwald prepared for the Supreme Allied Headquarters in Europe declared that the "mission of the camp" was "an extermination factory."
The May 1945 US government report on the German camps (already cited), which was accepted as evidence by the Nuremberg Tribunal as document L-159, similarly described Buchenwald as an "extermination factory." An official French government report accepted by the Tribunal as exhibit RF-301 (document 274-F) charged:
Everything had been provided for down to the smallest detail. In 1944, at Buchenwald, they had even lengthened a railway line so that the deportees might be led directly to the gas chamber. Certain [of the gas chambers] had a floor that tipped and immediately directed the bodies into the room with the crematory oven.
(For more on such "evidence," see: M. Weber, "Buchenwald: Legend and Reality," The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1986-1987.)
Broszat's Acknowledgment Such official claims of extermination and gassing at camps in Germany proper persisted until August 1960, when Dr. Martin Broszat of Germany's semi-official Institute for Contemporary History acknowledged in a letter published in the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit that such allegations were not true. In doing so, Broszat implicitly also conceded that the "evidence" presented at Nuremberg and elsewhere for extermination and gassings in those camps is bogus. (The complete text of Broszat's letter is given in translation below.)
Ignorance Nevertheless, some people still persist in affirming the now-discredited story of gassings at Dachau. It is precisely such ignorance that prompted Wiesenthal's recent statement.
In a letter published in the December 3, 1992, issue of The Stars and Stripes (European edition), J. Fulton-Scott, a veteran who had been "stationed at Dachau immediately after the war" told readers: "Everything [there] was still intact, including human ashes in the grates of the crematoriums and the blood-stained fingernail claw marks on the walls of the gas chambers." Similarly, in a letter in the January 11 issue, Ben Kerns told readers about his visit to the camp in 1945 as a sergeant with the US Third Army. He attested to having seen there "a gas chamber with the chilling sign 'Dusche' (shower) over the door."
The Stars and Stripes editors also seem to accept the view that there was a homicidal gas chamber at Dachau. Adjacent to Wiesenthal's letter in the January 24 issue appears a widely reproduced US Army photograph with the caption: "A 7th Army soldier examines the gas chamber at Dachau at the end of World War II." In fact -- and as all reputable specialists of the subject now readily concede -- this was a small non-homicidal delousing gas chamber that was never used to kill people.
The Wiesenthal Record While it is gratifying to note that, in his recent "Revisionist" letter, Wiesenthal implicitly "denies history" as "established" by the Nuremberg Tribunal, it must be pointed out that nearly everything else he says is untrue.
There is not a shred of evidence, for example, that "a gas chamber was in the process of being built at Dachau, but it was never completed." (See "The Second Leuchter Report" by American gas chamber expert Fred Leuchter in The Journal of Historical Review, Fall 1990.) There is likewise no proof that "mentally and physically handicapped people were killed" by gas at any of the four "institutions" Wiesenthal mentions.
This US Army photo was taken at Dachau on April 30, 1945, one day after the camp's capture. It shows a GI standing in front of a door marked with a skull and crossbones and the words "Caution! Gas! Life danger! Do not open!" According to the official caption, "these chambers were used by Nazi guards for killing prisoners of the infamous Dachau concentration camp." In fact, this is a small disinfection gas chamber used for delousing clothes. It was never used to kill people. For several decades, this photo has been widely reproduced to help keep alive the notorious Dachau "gas chamber" myth. (US Army photo SC 206194.)
Actually -- and contrary to his highly flattering public image -- the renowned "Nazi hunter" has a well-documented but little-known record of deceit, mendacity and prevarication. Some highlights:
Wiesenthal repeatedly lied about his alleged role in locating Adolf Eichmann, was consistently wrong about Josef Mengele, and falsely accused Polish-American Frank Walus of having murdered Jews in Poland as a Gestapo official. Wiesenthal has absurdly charged that the Germans exterminated Jews in "electrocution chambers," and that they manufactured bars of soap from the bodies of murdered Jews. His deception about his own wartime activities prompted Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky (himself of Jewish ancestry) to accuse the "Nazi hunter" of having collaborated with his wartime oppressors. (For details about Wiesenthal's record, see: M. Weber, "Simon Wiesenthal: Bogus Nazi Hunter," The Journal of Historical Review, Winter 1989-90.)
Finally, Wiesenthal has even lied about his most widely-cited concession to truth. Concerned about the way that various Revisionists were quoting his 1975 Books and Bookmen letter, he simply denied ever having written it. In a letter dated May 12, 1986, to Professor John George of Central State University in Edmond, Oklahoma, Wiesenthal wrote: "I have never stated that 'there were no extermination camps on German soil.' This quote is false. I could never have said such a thing."
-- M.W. and G.R. 'No Gassing In Dachau' Shown below is the widely-quoted 1960 letter by Dr. Martin Broszat, translated from the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit under the headline "Keine Vergasung in Dachau" ("No Gassing in Dachau"). It appeared in the German edition of August 19, 1960, and in the US edition of August 26, 1960 (p. 14). Dr. Broszat writes in the name of the prestigious Institute for Contemporary History (Institut fuer Zeitgeschichte). He later served as director of the Munich-based archive and research center, which is funded by German taxpayers.
Here is a translation of the complete text of Broszat's letter:
Neither in Dachau nor in Bergen-Belsen nor in Buchenwald were Jews or other prisoners gassed. The gas chamber in Dachau was never entirely finished or put "into operation." Hundreds of thousands of prisoners who perished in Dachau and other concentration camps in the Old Reich [that is, Germany in its borders of 1937] were victims, above all, of the catastrophic hygienic and provisioning conditions: according to official SS statistics, during the twelve months from July 1942 through June 1943 alone, 110,812 persons died of disease and hunger in all of the concentration camps of the Reich. The mass extermination of the Jews by gassing began in 1941-1942 and occurred exclusively in a few facilities selected and equipped with appropriate technical installations, above all in the occupied Polish territory (but at no place in the Old Reich): in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Sobibor on the Bug [river], in Treblinka, Chelmno and Belzec.
It is at those places, but not in Bergen-Belsen, Dachau or Buchenwald, where the mass extermination facilities, spoken of in your article [in an earlier issue of Die Zeit], were built and disguised as shower baths or disinfection rooms. This necessary differentiation does not, of course, change anything regarding the criminal character of the facility that was the concentration camp. However, it may perhaps help eliminate the annoying confusion that arises from the fact that some ineducable people make use of a few arguments that, while correct, are polemically torn from the context, and that, rushing to respond to them are other people who, although they have the correct overall view, rely upon false or mistaken information.
Dr. M. Broszat Institute for Contemporary History Munich
[url]http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n3p-9_Staff.html[/url]
2005-09-20 12:45 | User Profile
Isn't Wiesenthal the one who claimed that so many Jews were killed at Auschwitz that there were literal 'geysers of blood' spurting from the ground? What a charlatan.
2005-09-20 12:52 | User Profile
That was Elie Wiesel.
2005-09-20 12:54 | User Profile
No, that was Elie Wiesel, and it was about Babi Yar, and holo-defenders seem to be backtracking on this part:
[COLOR=DarkRed]"Smith writes. "EW claims that after Jews were executed at Babi Yar in the Ukraine, 'geysers of blood' spurted from their grave for 'months' afterward." Wiesel's words are these: "Eye witnesses say that for months after the killings the ground continued to spurt geysers of blood. One was always treading on corpses." Nowhere did Elie Wiesel claim to see geysers of blood, only that he heard these reported."[/COLOR]
[url]http://www.holocaust-history.org/codoh/silber-letter-01.shtml[/url]
Petr
2005-09-20 12:59 | User Profile
[QUOTE=robinder]That was Elie Wiesel.[/QUOTE]
Which one was a concentration camp inmate and chose to evacuate with the Germans westward away from the "liberating" Soviets?
2005-09-20 14:13 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Quantrill]Isn't Wiesenthal the one who claimed that so many Jews were killed at Auschwitz that there were literal 'geysers of blood' spurting from the ground? What a charlatan.[/QUOTE]
Remarkable Nonsense about the Holocaust Geysers of blood at Babi Yar Elie Wiesel The Jews of Silence New York: New American Library, 1972 page 48.
How many Jews were killed at Babi Yar? Exact estimates are hard to come by. Some say seventy thousand, others a hundred and fifty thousand [...]
Eyewitnesses say that for months after the killing the ground continued to spurt geysers of blood.
[url]http://www.historiography-project.org/nonsense/19720000geysers.html[/url]
2005-09-20 14:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Bardamu]Which one was a concentration camp inmate and chose to evacuate with the Germans westward away from the "liberating" Soviets?[/QUOTE]
"...When Elie Wiesel and his father, as Auschwitz prisoners, had the choice of either leaving with their retreating German "executioners," or remaining behind in the camp to await the Soviet "liberators," the two decided to leave with their German captors..."
[url]http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/wiesel.shtml[/url]
2005-09-20 14:40 | User Profile
Everyone should come piss and shit on this lying (redundant) zhid grave.
2005-09-20 19:14 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Howard Campbell, Jr.]"...When Elie Wiesel and his father, as Auschwitz prisoners, had the choice of either leaving with their retreating German "executioners," or remaining behind in the camp to await the Soviet "liberators," the two decided to leave with their German captors..."
[url="http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/wiesel.shtml"]http://www.ihr.org/leaflets/wiesel.shtml[/url][/QUOTE] Interesting tidbit.
Also interesting was something that never "clicked" in my reading on WW II: that the "death camps" were on "foreign" rather than German soil.
[u]above all in the occupied Polish territory (but at no place in the Old Reich): in Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Sobibor on the Bug [river], in Treblinka, Chelmno and Belzec[/u].
Thanks for that, Howard, nice to fill in the cracks.
AE
2005-09-20 19:44 | User Profile
[IMG]http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/rids/20050920/i/r2084520004.jpg[/IMG] Wiesenthal, who helped find one-time SS leader Adolf Eichmann and the policeman who arrested Anne Frank, died in his sleep at his home in Vienna, said Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. [url]http://news.yahoo.com/fc/world/holocaust[/url]
Bio and photos from the Wiesenthal Center: [url]http://www.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=fwLYKnN8LzH&b=242614[/url]
2005-09-21 00:04 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Everyone should come piss and shit on this lying (redundant) zhid grave.[/QUOTE]
Not sure I'd what to share anything that precious with him.
2005-09-21 13:40 | User Profile
*Interesting entry here from the blog, The White Christ -- *
[size=3]Sorry, not my religionââ¬Â¦or, the High Priest of Holocaustianity is Dead.[/size]
The holocaust is a religion; did you know that? Did you also know that it is the antithesis of Christianity?
Doubt me? Read this:
If Auschwitz is true, then there is a human suffering with which that of Christ simply cannot be compared...In this case, Christ is false, and salvation will not come from him.... Auschwitz is the refutation of Christ." - Claude Lanzmann
OK, now we can talk about today's news:
Simon Wiesenthal, the witch-hunting Yid that lived for 96 years, only to seek revenge on every German that lived and may have had a part in the Second World War, is dead.
And is now meeting the Lord God Almighty, for his judgment, we hope.
As Wiesenthal, in a blood-lust that knew no bounds, assigned numerous individuals to death, or brutal imprisonment [in contradiction to the standards of War, as the Anglo-Saxon West had known it for centuries] and led the way for the Judaization of the entire legal system of Europe, Australia, Canada, and the USA, so now let us hope that the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ- YHWH God Almighty, will see fit to assign Wiesenthal his own circle in Hell, preferably next to the Austrian Painter who sought to restore a paganism that Christendom had nixed some 1500 years earlier. It would only be fittingââ¬Â¦ and right.
Why such rancour? Because, as NPR (National Propaganda Radio) erroneously stated today in reading Wiesenthalââ¬â¢s obit, Jewish interests see themselves and their dead as more noble, more HUMAN that those of the Goyim, and Wiesenthal propagated that MYTH for over fifty years!
So much so that there exists a historically fraudulent ââ¬ÅCenterââ¬Â bearing his name, purportedly to perpetuate this MYTH of the superiority of Jewish dead, and the so-called Holocaust.
Doubt me? The ââ¬Ëbabeââ¬â¢ reciting the details of Wiesenthalââ¬â¢s life stated at the end, the MYTHIC figure of ââ¬ÅSix Million Jews Deadââ¬Â via the ââ¬ÅHolocaust.ââ¬Â
Oh really?
Well, here is a table that shows that Jews truly know how many REALLY died in WWII, and they are keeping it a SECRET from the GOYIM, to milk/bilk us out of our lives, our country, and our money, all for their benefit.
Here is the article:
The Auschwitz Fraud -From 9,000,000 Dead Jews To 38,031
(This table and its contents first appeared in The Barnes Review, January / February 2001) taken from [url="http://www.white-history.com/numbers.htm"]http://www.white-history.com/numbers.htm[/url] Accessed 1/28/04 at 8:40 AM CST on White-History.com
As quoted on the headline for this page, the reasons for bringing up the real number of atrocities committed during the Second World War is not to minimize the suffering people went throughââ¬Â ââ¬Åââ¬Â¦The significance of the Holocaust, or the alleged mass murder of six million Jews by Nazis during World War Two, lies not so much in its effect upon Nazis or Jews, but in its use to suppress any discussion or argument on the topic of race since the end of the Second World War. For this reason alone, an overview of the basic facts surrounding the Holocaust is of critical importance.ââ¬Â
And the grand finale -- The number of alleged Auschwitz deaths.
9,000,000 Cited by the French documentary, Night and Fog, which has been shown to millions of school students worldwide.
8,000,000 The French War Crime Research Office, Doc. 31, 1945.
7,000,000 Also cited by the French War Crime Research Office.
6,000,000 Cited in the book "Auschwitz Doctor" by Miklos Nyiszli. It has since been proven that this book is a fraud and the "doctor" was never even at Auschwitz, even though the book is often cited by historians.
5,000,000 to 5,500,000 Cited in 1945 at the trial of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoess, based on his "confession" which was written in English, a language he never spoke.
5,000,000 Cited on April 20, 1978 by the French daily, Le Monde. Also cited on January 23, 1995 by the German daily Die Welt. By September1, 1989, Le Monde reduced the figure to 1,433,000.
4,500,000 In 1945 this figure was cited by another witness at the afore-mentioned Hoess trial.
4,000,000 Cited by a Soviet document of May 6, 1945 and officially acknowledged by the Nuremberg War Crimes trial. This figure was also reported in The New York Times on April 18, 1945, although 50 years later on January 26, 1995 (see below), The New York Times and The Washington Post slashed the figure to 1,500,000 citing new findings by the Auschwitz Museum officials. In fact, the figure of 4,000,000 was later repudiated by the Auschwitz museum officials in 1990 (see below) but the figure of 1,500,000 victims was not formally announced by Polish President Lech Walesa until five years after the Auschwitz historians had first announced their discovery.
3,500,000 Cited in the 1991 edition of the Dictionary of the French Language and by Claude Lanzmann in 1980 in his introduction to Filip Muller's book, "Three Years in an Auschwitz Gas Chamber."
3,000,000 Cited in a forced confession by Rudolf Hoess, the Auschwitz commander who said this was the number of those who had died at Auschwitz prior to Dec. 1, 1943. Later cited in the June 7, 1993 issue of Heritage, the most widely read Jewish newspaper in California, even though three years previously the authorities at the Auschwitz museum had scaled down the figure to a minimum of 1,100,000 and a maximum of 1,500,000. (see below).
2,500,000 Cited by a famous "witness to the Holocaust," Rudolf Vrba, when he testified on July 16, 1981 for the Israeli government's war crimes trial of former SS official Adolf Eichmann.
2,000,000 Cited by no less than three famous Holocaust historians, including Leon Poliakov (1951) writing in "Harvest of Hate"; Georges Wellers, writing in 1973 in "The Yellow Star at the Time of Vichy"; and Lucy Dawidowicz, writing in 1975 in "The War Against the Jews."
2,000,000 to 4,000,000 Cited by Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer in 1982 in his book, "A History of the Holocaust." However, by 1989 Bauer revised his figures and determined that the actual number was lower: 1,600,000.
1,600,000 This is a 1989 revision by Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer of his earlier figure in 1982 of 2,000,000 to 4,000,000, Bauer cited this new figure on September 22, 1989 in The Jerusalem Post, at which time he wrote: 'The larger figures have been dismissed for years, except that it hasn't reached the public yet."
1,500,000 In 1995 this was the "official" number of Auschwitz deaths announced by Polish President Lech Walesa as determined by the historians at the Auschwitz museum. This number was inscribed on the monument at the Auschwitz camp at that time, thereby "replacing" the earlier 4,000,000 figure that had been formally repudiated (and withdrawn from the monument) five years earlier in 1990. At that time, on July 17, 1990 The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The London Daily Telegraph citing the "new" figure of 1,500,000 that had been determined by the authorities at the Auschwitz museum. This new figure was reported two years later in a UPI report published in the New York Post on March 26, 1992. On January 26, 1995 both The Washington Post and The New York Times cited this 1,500,000 figure as the new "official" figure (citing the Auschwitz Museum authorities).
1,471,595 This is a 1983 figure cited by historian Georges Wellers who (as noted previously) had determined, writing in 1973, that some 2,000,000 had died. In his later calculation, Wellers decided that of the 1,471,595 who had died at Auschwitz, 1,352,980 were Jews.
1,433,000 This figure was cited on September 1, 1989 by the French daily, Le Monde, which earlier, on April 20, 1978, had cited the figure at 4,000,000.
1,250,000 In 1985, historian Raul Hilberg arrived at this figure in his book, "The Destruction of the European Jews." According to Hilberg, of those dead, some 1,000,000 were Jews.
1,100,000 to 1,500,000 Sources for this estimate are historians Yisrael Gutman and Michael Berenbaum (later of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) in their 1984 book, "Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp"; also Dr. Franciszek Piper, the curator of the Auschwitz Museum, writing a chapter in that book. This estimate was later also cited by Walter Reich, former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, writing in The Washington Post on September 8, 1998. The upper figure of 1,500,000 thus remains the "official" figure as now inscribed at Auschwitz, with the earlier figure of 4,000,000 having been removed from the memorial at the site of the former concentration camp.
1,000,000 Jean-Claude Pressac, writing in his 1989 book "Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers." This is interesting since he wrote his book to repudiate so-called "Holocaust deniers" who were called that precisely because they had questioned the numbers of those who had died at Auschwitz.
900,000 Reported on August 3, 1990 11, by Aufbau, a Jewish newspaper in New York.
800,000 to 900,000 Reported by Gerald Reitlinger in his 1953 book, "The Final Solution." This figure is notable, considering the fact that it reduces the Auschwitz death total from the 4,000,000 figure that was widely in vogue in 1953.
775,000 to 800,000 Jean-Claude Pressac's revised figure, put forth in his 1993 book, "The Crematoria of Auschwitz: The Mass Murder's Machinery", scaling down the figure from Pressac's 1989 claim of 1,000,000 dead. At this juncture, Pressac said that of the new number, 630,000 were Jews.
630,000 to 710,000 In 1994 Pressac scaled his figure down somewhat further; this is the figure cited in the German language translation of Pressac's 1993 book originally published in French. Again, this is substantially less than Pressac's 1989 figure of 1,000,000.
73,137 This figure was reported in The New York Times on March 3, 1991 and was based entirely on the wartime German concentration camp records that had been captured by the Soviets and just recently released. According to this figure, of those dead, 38,031 were Jews. These records state that the total of all persons who died in the ENTIRE German prison camp system from 1935 to 1945 were 403,713. To repeat: a total of 403,713 persons of all races and religions was officially recorded to have died (of all causes. typhus, old age, measles, etc.-and execution) in the entire prison camp system over a 10 year period. Of those 403,713 a total of 73,137 died at Auschwitz. Of those 73,137 who died at Auschwitz, 38,031 were Jews.
As a final note, a reader posted this addendum:
ââ¬ÅGentlemen, According to the International Red Cross Office in Arolsen, (Germany) which is controlled by the Allies (still), the official sum Total for all persons who died in all German camps from their inception to the time the Allies took them over, and numbers which were openly publicised in 1984, is 282,077 people.
To this I must add that in Bergen-Belsen for example around 6,000 people had died in the camp while it was still under the control of the SS. In the first two months after the British took over the camp a further 13,000 people died of illnesses.
In Dora-Mittelbau camp American bombers killed around 1700 people in the camp one day before their ground forces took the camp but in both these cases the unfortunate deaths of these people were added onto the numbers who died in the camps.
The Germans had 90 main camps and all deaths in the hundreds of satellite camps were registered in the main camps.
So if we divide 282,077 by 90 we get a total of 3134 deaths per camp from 1933-1945. If we divide the 3134 by the 12 years the Nazis were in power we get a total of 261 deaths per camp, per year. Those are the numbers of the Holocaust.ââ¬Â
End of post
Therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, let us never trust a Jew, when they speak of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, unless they are willing to TRULY show the real figures of Jewish dead, and to break down the ââ¬ËBerlin Wallââ¬â¢ of their own racist, apartheid, xenophobic state, and are FULLY WILLING to let the Palestinians be ERETZ YISROEL along with the Ashke-NAZIââ¬â¢s of the modern world.
Amen, and Amen.
[url="http://newnidaros.blogspot.com/2005/09/sorry-not-my-religionor-high-priest-of.html"]http://newnidaros.blogspot.com/2005/09/sorry-not-my-religionor-high-priest-of.html[/url]