Johann Breyer was complicit in the murder of 216,000 Jews in the gas chamber at Auschwitz — Updated

John Breyer, at the age of 17, when he was in the German army

Update July 23, 2014:  John Breyer has died while awaiting trial.
You can read about it here.  He will probably be put on trial, even after his death. I wrote that Breyer might be put on trial after his death here.

Update June 24, 2014:

According to a news article, which you can read in full here, Johann Breyer has been charged with crimes committed at the Auschwitz II camp, from May 1944 to October 1944, when the Hungarian Jews were brought to the camp in 158 trains. Starting in May 1944, Breyer was a perimeter guard at the Auschwitz I camp, which was 3 kilometers from the Auschwitz II camp.  Before that, he was a perimeter guard at the Buchenwald concentration camp, where there was no gas chamber.

The following quote is from the news article:

In Germany, Breyer was accused in connection to the extermination of approximately 158 trainloads of Jewish prisoners coming from Hungary, Germany and Czechoslovakia. This is documented to have occurred between May 1944 to October 1944. Thousands of women, men and children from the trains were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. Breyer has denied any direct involvement in the execution process. Prosecutors argue that being a perimeter guard [at the main Auschwitz camp] and his overall presence in the camps is being involved in the process and that his role served to aid in the the deaths.

The reporter, who wrote this article used a photo from this page of my website: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/AuschwitzScrapbook/Tour/Auschwitz1/Auschwitz12.html

Unfortunately, the reporter didn’t read the text on my website, after stealing the photo, or she would have known that the Jews, who were gassed between May 1944 and October 1944, were gassed at the Auschwitz II camp, aka Auschwitz-Birkenau.  My photo shows the gate into the Auschwitz I camp, where Breyer was a guard, but the gas chamber in this camp was no longer in operation in 1944.

Another news article, which you can read in full here, also gets the story completely wrong.

This quote is from the article, cited above:

As an armed guard at the Nazi concentration [main] camp at Auschwitz and a member of the notorious SS “Death’s Head” battalion, the authorities charged on Wednesday, Mr. Breyer was complicit in the gassing of 216,000 Jews taken [to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp] in 1944 from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Germany.

The Germans, seeking to have him extradited to stand trial, have charged him with 158 counts of aiding and abetting in murder — one count for each of the 158 trainloads of Jews taken to the killing center at [the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp] in a six-month span. Most of the so-called deportees, including many thousands of women, children and old people, were killed in gas chambers almost immediately after arriving at Auschwitz [Birkeanau], with their bodies burned in four crematories.

Mr. Breyer acknowledged two decades ago, when first questioned by the American authorities, that he had worked as a guard at Auschwitz [main camp], but he said that he had done so involuntarily and had nothing to do with the gassings. His lawyer, Dennis Boyle, insisted Wednesday that Mr. Breyer had worked in a prison section of Auschwitz [ main camp], not among the guards in the extermination area [Auschwitz-Birkeanu]. “He was absolutely not one of those guards,” Mr. Boyle said.

You can read about the history of the “Death’s Head” unit of the SS on this page of my website: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/SScamp/SSHistory.html

Continue reading my original post:

According to a recent news article, which you can read in full here, 89-year old former German SS soldier Johann Breyer, now living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the USA, has been charged with being “complicit” in 158 cases of murder in the deaths of 216,000 Jews at Auschwitz.

Complicit? What does that mean? It means that he was present, somewhere inside one of the three Auschwitz camps, when 216,000 Jews arrived on 158 trains, and he did nothing to prevent the Jews from being taken to the gas chamber.  If he had tried to prevent the deaths of these 216,000 Jews, he would have been shot, on the spot, but he would have gone down in history as a hero, who tried to save Jews from an ignominious death.

The “criminal complaint” against Johann Breyer (click on the photo to enlarge)

The Talmud teaches that “He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.”

  http://jewinthecity.com/2013/09/he-who-saves-just-one-life-saves-the-world-entire/#ixzz35ZNdmqpz

Are the names of the 216,000 Jews, who arrived on these 158 trains known?  Yes, but there was always a “selection” done by Dr. Josef Mengele, who was always at the ramp, looking for twins for his experiments.

The Jews, who were gassed immediately after they got off the trains in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, were not registered, so their names are unknown.

Each of the Holocaust survivors, who is still alive today, has a story about why they were not gassed.

Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau

What the news article didn’t tell you is that Breyer will be prosecuted in a German court, under the “common design” theory, an ex-post-facto law, that was made up by the Allies after the war. Under this concept, every German man or woman was guilty of murdering Jews, if they were anywhere near a concentration camp during World War II, working in any capacity. Even a person, who once worked as a baker, or a supply clerk in a Nazi camp, is guilty under the “common plan” or “common design” concept that was dreamed up by the Allies after the war.

This quote is from the news article:

An 89-year-old Philadelphia man [Johann Breyer] was ordered held without bail today on a German arrest warrant charging that he aided and abetted in the deaths of 216,000 Jews while he was a guard at the Auschwitz death camp.

The “Auschwitz death camp” was Auschwitz-Birkenau, aka Auschwitz II, which was located near the “Judenrampe” (shown in the photo below) where the Jews got off the trains, before the tracks were extended inside the camp when the Hungarian Jews were deported in May 1944.

The train ramp, from where the Jews were taken to the Auschwitz II camp to be gassed

However, this quote from the news article says that Breyer worked at the Auschwitz I camp:

Breyer testified in U.S. court that he served as a perimeter guard at Auschwitz I, which was largely for prisoners used as slave laborers, though it also had a makeshift gas chamber used early in the war; it was also the camp where SS doctor Josef Mengele carried out sadistic experiments on inmates.

But [Breyer] denied ever serving in Auschwitz II, better known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, the death camp area where the bulk of the people were killed.

Note that, according to the news article, the Auschwitz I camp had a “makeshift gas chamber.”  What does that mean?  Is this a reference to the fact, now admitted, that the gas chamber in the main camp was created by the Soviets after the war?

Or is the term “makeshift gas chamber” an admission that the so-called gas chamber in the main camp was a morgue room that could not have been used as a homicidal gas chamber?

Will the prosecution have to prove that the “makeshift gas chamber” in the main camp could have been used to kill people?  No, of course not. It is “common knowledge” that Jews were gassed inside what looks like a morgue room in the main Auschwitz camp.

Gas chamber in main Auschwitz camp was located in the morgue room (Click on photo to enlarge)

Quote from the news article:

By early 1943, [Breyer] arrived at Auschwitz, still a [17-year-old] teenager. He allegedly became a member of the Death’s Head battalion. In the next year, 216,000 Jews arrived by train and “were exterminated upon arrival,” the indictment says. They “were taken from the train ramp by armed Death’s Head guards directly to the gas chambers for extermination. … The armed Death’s Head guards were under orders to shoot to kill anyone who tried to escape.”

Note that all the Jews, who had arrived by train, “were exterminated upon arrival.”  What? There were no selections?  Where was Dr. Mengele when these 216,000 Jews arrived by train? Maybe he was sick.  It is known that Dr. Mengele got typhus while he was at Auschwitz, so maybe he missed doing the selections from 158 trains.

You can read about the “Death’s Head” battalion on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/DachauScrapbook/SScamp/SSHistory.html

The photo below shows the “Death’s Head” emblem. Any German soldier, who wore this emblem, was a criminal, under the ex-post-facto laws of the Allies.

Death’s Head emblem worn by SS men on their caps.

If Johann Breyer is renditioned to Germany for prosecution under the “common design” charge, he will be automatically convicted because there is no defense against the “common design” charge. Any German person, who was anywhere near a German concentration camp is automatically guilty, regardless of his or her job at the camp.

John Breyer claims that he does not have a tattoo, which all SS soldiers were supposed to have, showing their blood type. Dr. Mengele did not have this tattoo either.  If an SS soldier were caught after the war, he would have been instantly recognizable as an SS soldier, so apparently these soldiers were given a choice in the matter, since the tattoo marked them as a “war criminal.”