Destruction of Krema II

[ganglere]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen!

Long ago I was taught that the nazis tried to cover up their hineous crimes, among other things, they blew up Krema II.

Perhaps this issue has already been covered, in that case I apologize in advance.

Though it strikes me as odd, blowing up the building as means of hiding evidence, because cyanide residue does'nt disappear by dynamiting a building, as Leuchter discovered, or rather, did'nt discover, if you catch my drift.

What I am wondering about, is there any evidence that it was actually the germans that blew up the building, and what was in that case their motives?

All the Best!

Ganglere

[Kingfisher]

On the evidence, I can't help. But on motive: the Soviets had captured Majdanek and published photos of the crematoria as evidence of alleged mass murder. This would have been a sufficient motive for the Germans to avoid presenting them with a similar opportunity at Auschwitz. (So the Soviets decided to build one in the main camp!)

So, basically, no real difference between the Exterminationists and the Revisionists on this. Except of course on the reality of the alleged massacres.

[Zulu]

What I am wondering about, is there any evidence that it was actually the germans that blew up the building, and what was in that case their motives?

We could have some idea of it by analyzing the aerial photos taken by Allied reconnaissance raids including a German one in January 14th 1945.

One of a series of aerial photographs taken by Allied reconnaissance units under the command of the 15th U.S. Army Air Force during missions dating between April 4, 1944 and January 14, 1945. The photos were used to plan bombing raids, determine the accuracy of bombing sorties, or make damage assessments. A typical sortie employed two cameras equipped with lenses of different focal lengths. After the war the Auschwitz reconnaissance photographs were stored in the archives of the Defense Intelligence Agency (Washington, D.C.) until they were rediscovered in 1978 by two CIA photo analysts, Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirer. The photographs were later declassified and transferred to the National Archives, where they were became RG373. A selection of images were enlarged and annotated with identifying labels by the CIA in 1978
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/auschwitz/aerials.html

The issue is actually that: the available photos were selected and "annoted" by CIA's boys. The result is that it is quite impossible to make a good observation on the state of the "Kremas' destruction" between December 22, 1944 and January 15th 1945 on the photos showed on internet.
Has anybody aerial photos with better definition and without those perturbing CIA's "annotations" in order to make a valuable observation?

[Kladderadatsch]

We could have some idea of it by analyzing the aerial photos taken by Allied reconnaissance raids including a German one in January 14th 1945.

One of a series of aerial photographs taken by Allied reconnaissance units under the command of the 15th U.S. Army Air Force during missions dating between April 4, 1944 and January 14, 1945. . . .

According to that bible of Official Holocaust Historiography, Danuta Czech's Auschwitz Chronicle, the final destruction of Kremas II and III did not take place until January 20, 1945. Which pretty much means that photographs taken before January 15 are irrelevant--at least if Czech's version of events is to be believed.

The thing is, Czech's description is based entirely on the testimony of two "eye witnesses" (or at least, she cites only these two witnesses as support for the claim): Anna Kowalczyk and Maria Matlak.

So the question then is, how reliable are these witnesses? Personally, I don't know offhand; perhaps someone here will know more about them. But to get a flavor of them, you just have to read a bit of the context in the Chronicle. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the book in English, but there's an Italian translation available online. From the entry for "20 gennaio, 1945":

Nelle vicinanze del campo di Birkenau si fermano alcuni reparti di SS in preda all'agitazione. Uno di questi reparti entra il mattino nel campo femminile BIIe e ordina alle detenute di cucinare un pranzo per le SS; a tale scopo consegnano alle donne del pollame macellato e un maiale. La maggior parte degli uomini delle SS indossa già abiti civili, che si sono procurati nel magazzino del campo effetti, Canada, e sopra portano il cappotto della loro uniforme. Il pranzo però lo lasciano stare, perché, quando ricevono l'ordine di partenza immediata, prendono la fuga. Anche una parte dei detenuti sani, uomini e donne, decide di fuggire. Sollevano il portone chiuso del campo BIIe e raggiungono la guardiola delle SS, che incominciano a demolire. D'improvviso, scorgono da lontano un reparto di SS che sta arrivando. Tornano perciò nel lager. Il reparto delle SS, al comando dell'SS-Unterscharführer Perschel, capo dell'Arbeitsdienst nel campo femminile, entra nel campo femminile BIIe e ordina a tutte le detenute ebree di abbandonare le baracche: escono circa 200 donne, che sono condotte davanti alla porta del campo e fucilate. Successivamente, il reparto delle SS si reca nel campo infermeria maschile BIIf. Qui le SS scelgono un gruppo di prigionieri che devono portare casse di dinamite nei Crematori II e III.

APMO, Osw./Kowalczyk/482, vol. 19, testimonianza della ex internata Anna Kowalczyk (n. 27658); Osw./Matlak/894, vol. 43, testimonianza della ex internata Maria Matlak (n.50161)

Il reparto delle SS al comando dell'SS-Unterscharführer Perschel fa saltare i Crematori II e III, in parte già demoliti, e abbandona il lager.

Ibidem

I won't try to translate the whole thing, but basically, it says that some SS units arrive at Birkenau "all excited" (in preda dell'agitazione). The camp itself had been evacuated a few days previously, but the SS men make their way into the women's camp, BIIe, and demand that some of the women who've stayed behind make them lunch, using some chicken and pork that they've brought along. They wind up not eating the lunch, however, because when given an order to leave (advance?) they run away instead (quando ricevono l'ordine di partenza immediata, prendono la fuga). Some of the prisoners try to escape after them, getting as far as the SS guardhouse (which they start to destroy!--raggiungono la guardiola delle SS, che incominciano a demolire), but they have to turn back when they see another SS unit approaching the camp in the distance. This unit, under the command of SS-Unterscharführer Perschel, "capo of the Work Service in the women's camp" (capo dell'Arbeitsdienst nel campo femminile), then proceeds to lead some 200 women outside the camp gates and shoot them (escono circa 200 donne, che sono condotte davanti alla porta del campo e fucilate). Then, that same unit enters the men's infirmary (!!!) in BIIf and selects a group of prisoners to carry boxes of dynamite to Kremas II and III (scelgono un gruppo di prigionieri che devono portare casse di dinamite nei Crematori II e III). Finally, topping off a busy afternoon, they destroy the evidence:

Il reparto delle SS al comando dell'SS-Unterscharführer Perschel fa saltare i Crematori II e III, in parte già demoliti, e abbandona il lager.

The SS unit under the command of SS-Unterscharführer Perschel blows up Crematoria II and III, already partially demolished, and abandons the camp.

And that's it: two unsubstantiated "eyewitness testimonies," complete with uneaten fried chicken and ham, cowardly SS men in civilian clothes who desert the camp when ordered to leave it, sadistic/crazy SS men arriving from the other direction to blow it up, two hundred women (Jewish, of course--"detenute ebree") massacred outside the camp gates (did the Soviets find their bodies, I wonder?), and an SS-Unterscharführer who's so dumb that when he needs coolies to haul his boxes of dynamite for him, the best place he can think of to go is the men's infirmary, where the guys who were too sick to leave earlier are all dying in their beds.

This is the "evidence" that Czech would have us accept for the claim that the SS blew up Kremas II and III in a desperate bid to "hide the evidence of their crimes" before they abandoned Auschwitz. Is there better evidence? For all I know, there might be--but I wonder then why Czech didn't include it instead of the "testimonies" of Kowalczyk and Matlak.

Because otherwise, all we've got is the word of the Soviet "liberators" that the buildings were blown up already when they got there. They wouldn't have lied about that, would they?

[Toshiro]

According to that bible of Official Holocaust Historiography, Danuta Czech's Auschwitz Chronicle, the final destruction of Kremas II and III did not take place until January 20, 1945. Which pretty much means that photographs taken before January 15 are irrelevant--at least if Czech's version of events is to be believed.

The December 21, 1944 photo shows dismantled roofs of the Kremas.

[Kladderadatsch]

According to that bible of Official Holocaust Historiography, Danuta Czech's Auschwitz Chronicle, the final destruction of Kremas II and III did not take place until January 20, 1945. Which pretty much means that photographs taken before January 15 are irrelevant--at least if Czech's version of events is to be believed.

The December 21, 1944 photo shows dismantled roofs of the Kremas.

Thanks Toshiro. I honestly can't make out enough detail in the reconnaissance photos to feel persuaded either way. Can you really say from this photo that the roofs to the underground "gas chambers" have been dismantled? They don't show up very well, that's certain (particularly for KIII), but then a lot of details are unclear in the photo.



The thing is, I'm pretty sure that the difficulty has more to do with the quality of the photo than with the state of "dismantling" at the camp. For example, a modern Google Maps image of Birkenau, on approximately the same scale, shows obvious traces of the ruined buildings' "footprint" to this day, including the alleged gas chambers.



On the 1944 image, you can barely see anything at all where the equivalent structure for KIII should be. That can hardly mean that the structure (or the remains of it) wasn't there in December 1944--more likely that we just can't see well enough from the photo in question to determine the condition that it's in.

Anyway, the purpose of my post above was not to say that the Germans did nothing to dismantle various buildings and other facilities at Birkenau before they evacuated the camp. Tearing down and packing up would be the natural thing to do, after all, for thrifty and cautious military men--and we do know that the buildings were destroyed at some point. So I have no argument with the idea that the Germans may in fact have dismantled KII and KIII to some degree before evacuating Birkenau. My purpose was simply to point out the absurdities in the story peddled by orthodox historians of how the SS supposedly returned to the camp after its evacuation to blow up the "gas chambers" and so "hide the evidence of their crimes" . . . while at the same time executing 200 women and leaving their bodies outside the front gate for the Soviets to find. (Among other things.)

In other words, I'm agnostic on the subject of when, and by whom, the roofs on Leichenkellers II and III were destroyed. But I do know a dumb story when I see one.

[Toshiro]

Here are two better photos:



Close-up of KII:

(Document 6: NA, Mission 15 SG/995 5PG. Can D 1535. Exposure 4018)

And a comment by Carlo Mattogno:

The aerial photograph dated December 21, 1944, confirms this fact (see doc. 6). It shows crematorium II being dismantled. Morgue 2 appears to be uncovered; the roof and a large portion of the chimney have been taken down. Morgue 1 shows quite angular contours, which means that the concrete cover was surely laid bare.

From: Carlo Mattogno, The Openings for the Introduction of Zyklon B – Part II: Crematorium II