The killings in the gas chambers of Majdanek

The title of my blog post today is a quote from a comment made by Herbert Stolpmann, one of the readers of my blog.

Herr Stolopmann is German and he was alive during World War II. He has first-hand knowledge of what went on during that terrible time. He wrote the following in a comment on my blog.

Begin quote from comment by Herr Stolpmann

The killings in the gas chambers of Majdanek were held on the orders of Globocnik, who as already emphasized, often used the concentration camp Lublin for his own needs and made ​​it an important element of “Aktion Reinhardt”. The killings by gas was started probably in September 1942. They ended up in the first days of September 1943. The peculiarity in Majdanek in the application shows the use of two toxic gases. Carbon monoxide (CO) and Zyklon B (HCN). The use of carbon monoxide is evidence of the involvement of “Action Reinhardt” in Majdanek as a method of extermination. Zyklon B on the other hand of connection with the murder methods in the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. In other words, it was either copied or instructed to be used, on orders of Globocnik.
The gas chambers were set up in a small brick building that was located directly behind the men’s wash-room (No. 41) and far away from the woman’s wash-room (No. 42). The building should have been originally a disinfections facility. During the construction work, probably in August 1942, small changes were made to make it into its new role, to adapt it, to kill people. The building had a protruding roof over it, to the original planned provision, protecting disinfected clothing against rain. However, while the use of the chambers was now intended to exterminate people, it served just as camouflage. The system consisted of four rooms: three chambers and a small annex, the cabin for the SS personnel, in which steel cylinders were stored with carbon monoxide. In the ceiling of one chamber was a shaft connected to an opening to pour the diatomaceous (Kieselgur) earth-bound gas. Apart from that, this chamber, as well as in the adjacent one, pipes were connected to the steel cylinders from the cubicle next to it. In both chambers people were killed by gas.

End quote

I have a large section about the gas chamber at Majdanek on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Majdanek/Majdanek02.html

Inside the Majdanek gas chamber

Majdanek gas chamber has a plate glass window inside it

I know what you are going to say: “What kept the victims from jumping out the window?” The Nazis weren’t stupid. They posted guards outside the window. If a prisoner tried to climb out, he was shot before he hit the ground. So why have a window? No one knows.

Upon entering Barrack No. 41, which is the gas chamber building, you first come to the bare, unfurnished undressing room which has narrow wooden boards over the concrete floor. Then you enter the shower room, a large room with rows of exposed water pipes and sprinkler-type shower heads on the ceiling; this room also has a wooden floor over concrete. At one end of the shower room, there are two large concrete bathtubs. My tour guide explained that the prisoners were not allowed to loll in the bathtub, but had to get in and out in a few seconds.

The bathtubs were probably filled with disinfectant, as was the case at other camps such as Buchenwald. This shower room was also used by incoming prisoners who were selected to work at Majdanek, which was a labor camp as well as an extermination camp for the Jews.

View of the gas chamber, as seen through an outside door into the room

When I visited the Majdanek camp, visitors were not allowed to enter the gas chamber room, shown in the photo above. There was a sign which said “No photos allowed” but my camera kept going off by accident. Fortunately, I was not arrested. I was prepared to plead innocent by reason of stupidity.

Building where gas chambers were located at Majdanek

The Majdanek gas chamber was located alongside a major road. The trees that you see in the background of the photo are on the other side of the road. Anyone going down this road could see the Jews lined up outside the gas chamber building, ready to be killed.

 

Name that tune

the mass extermination of Jews by means of gas — the primary activity at the Majdanek death camp

 

1946 postage stamp in honor of Majdanek camp

The title of this blog post is a quote from this news article, which mentions the postage stamp shown above:

Poland: One year of truth

Here is the full quote from the news article:

Begin quote

The treatment of the Holocaust in post-war Eastern Europe was complicated. Communist governments framed the Holocaust in terms of fascism and anti-fascism, and divorced themselves from any homegrown culpability in the anti-Semitism and mass killings. Commemorations at concentration camps found in the Soviet zone focused on communists killed by the Nazis and the struggle against fascism, and made little mention of the mass extermination of Jews by means of gas — the primary activity at the Majdanek death camp.

End quote from news article

The Majdanek concentration camp, which is located in the Polish city of Lubin, was in operation from October 1, 1941 to July 23, 1944 when it was liberated by soldiers of the Soviet Union.

According to the museum guidebook, the camp was initially called the Concentration Camp at Lublin (Konzentrationslager Lublin); then the name was changed to Prisoner of War Camp at Lublin (Kriegsgefangenenlager der Waffen-SS Lublin), but in Feb. 1943, the name reverted back to Concentration Camp. Throughout its existence, Majdanek received transports of Prisoners of War, including a few Americans.

Although the first prisoners at Majdanek were Russian Prisoners of War, who were transferred from a barbed wire enclosure at Chelm, the camp soon became a detention center for Jews after the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” was planned at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942.

Mass transports of Jews began arriving at the Majdanek camp, beginning in April 1942, during the same time period that the Auschwitz II camp, which was originally a POW camp for Soviet soldiers, was being converted to an extermination camp for Jews.

The headquarters for Operation Reinhard, which was set up after the Wannsee Conference, was in Lublin, near the Majdanek camp. The clothing that was confiscated from the prisoners who were sent to the three Operation Reinard camps (Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec) was brought to Majdanek to be disinfected with a poison gas called Zyklon-B. The same gas was allegedly used in homicidal gas chambers at Majdanek to murder thousands of Jews.

In sharp contrast to the extermination camp at Treblinka, which is in a wooded area as remote as Ted Kaczynkski’s Montana cabin, the Majdanek concentration camp is situated in a major urban area, four kilometers from the city center of Lublin, and can be easily reached by trolley car. The location of the Majdanek camp is in an area of rolling terrain and can be seen from all sides; it could not be more public or accessible.

The Majdanek concentration camp is located in an entirely open area with no ten-foot wall around it to hide the activities inside the camp, as at Dachau. There was no security zone established around the Majdanek camp, as at Birkenau, and there is no natural protection, such as a river or a forest, as at Treblinka.

Besides being bounded on the north by a busy main road, the camp was bounded on the south by two small villages named Abramowic and Dziesiata. People driving past the camp, while it was in operation, had a completely unobstructed view, being able to see the tall brick chimney of the crematorium wafting smoke from the top of a slope not far away, and the gas chamber building which is only a few yards from a busy street.

Just as at the Auschwitz main camp, the first Jewish prisoners that were sent to Majdanek were 10,000 young men from Slovakia, followed by transports from the area that is now the Czech Republic. Jews from Austria, Germany, France and Holland were also sent to Majdanek, but from mid 1942 until mid 1943, most of the Jews sent to the camp were from the Lublin region and the ghettos of Warsaw and Bialystok.

According to a Museum booklet, “The transports of Jews from the General Government were in direct connection with Action Reinhard whose aim was mass extermination of Jews and plunder of Jewish property. The headquarters of this action, managed by O. Globocnik, was in Lublin.” The Action Reinhard camps were at Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka, all on the border of Soviet-occupied Poland and the General Government, which was the name given to central Poland by the Nazis. Lublin is the easternmost large city in Poland.

The population of Lublin has tripled since the end of World War II to its present total of 350,000, and the former Majdanek concentration camp is now within the city limits, like a municipal park except that it is a ghastly eyesore. There are several modern high-rise apartment buildings overlooking the camp on two sides now, and on one side, right next to the camp, is a Roman Catholic cemetery which was there even when the camp was in operation. On the other side of the street, directly across from the former concentration camp, there is now a Polish military installation since this street is part of the main road into the Ukraine and Russia. During World War II, the street which borders the Majdanek concentration camp was the main route to the eastern front for the German army.

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The news article ends with this quote:

Begin quote

In 1946, [when the postage stamp, honoring the Majdanek camp, was printed] Poland was already under Soviet influence, but its communist government wasn’t formed until 1947. Perhaps that brief lag in time allowed the Poles to openly acknowledge what occurred on Polish soil in a way that wasn’t repeated for decades to come.

Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com

Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News

End quote

I went to visit the Majdanek camp several years ago. I was riding in a car, driven by my tour guide, when she suddenly said “Look over there; that’s the Majdanek camp.”  I was completely flabbergasted and could not speak.

Were the Nazis so stupid that they put a death camp on a busy highway where thousands of people driving by could see the Jews marching to the gas chambers? Apparently, they were.

Belzec, a camp where Jews were ordered to run through a tube that let into the gas chambers

Today I am blogging about a news article which you can read in full at: https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/06/28/vandal-smashes-holocaust-memorial-glass-but-survivors-spirit-remains-resolute/YuSqLke3WYoz5zRNxvEdyO/story.html

The following quote is from the news article:

Begin quote

[Israel] Arbeiter, 92, has spent a lifetime telling their [Holocaust survivor] story, and his, recounting the October night in 1942 when they [the Jews] were herded into a marketplace in the Polish ghetto of Starachowice and sorted into two lines by German soldiers. He and two of his brothers were sent to a labor camp outside town. The rest of his family was loaded onto trains bound for Treblinka, where he believes they were murdered right away.

End quote

You can read about Treblinka on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Treblinka/introduction.html

The news article continues with this quote:

Begin quote

The tower at which Isaac threw that rock memorializes Belzec, a [concentration] camp in Southeastern Poland. There, beginning in 1942, German soldiers unloaded 20 packed freight cars at a time and ordered Jews to run through a tube that led directly into the gas chambers. Afterward, other prisoners were forced to bury the dead in mass graves, or to burn them. More than 400,000 Jews perished there.

End quote

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I I have a section on my website about Belzec: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Belzec/index.html

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Continue quote from news article:

We allow their lives to recede — to become abstract artifacts of history — at our own peril. As survivors leave us, and anti-Semitism regains more of a foothold than we might have dreamed possible, we need physical reminders more than ever.

End quote from news article

 

 

WWII justified by former German soldiers

Listen to former German soldiers talk about World War II.

Who blew up the buildings at Auschwitz-Birkenau — the Germans or the Russians?

I am writing this blog post in answer to an argument that is going on in the comment section of my blog.

This quote is from the comments:

Begin quote

“….the Germans started breaking down those buildings [at AuschwitzBirkenau] before the Soviets got there.

You and FG’s “theory” that the Soviets blew up those buildings matches no reality, Jim.

End quote

The following quote, regarding this subject, is from my website: [My website is kosher — written before I became a Holocaust denier.]

Begin quote from my website:

Old photo of Crematorium III at Auschwitz-Birkenau

In May 1944, the railroad tracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau were extended from the train station into the camp so that the trains carrying the Hungarian Jews could be brought inside the camp. The old photo above shows the tracks a few feet from the 10-foot high barbed wire fence around Krema III.

According to a book [which I purchased from the Auschwitz Museum], Crematorium III was blown up by the Nazis on Jan. 20, 1945, the same day that Crematorium II was destroyed [allegedly by the Nazis].

A book from the U.S. Holocaust Museum entitled “The World Must Know” by Michael Berenbaum says that “Soviet troops entered Birkenau on January 18, 1945.” January 18th was the same day that 60,000 prisoners were being death-marched out of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Nazis.

Krema II and Krema III were both T-shaped brick buildings which were mirror images. Each of these buildings had an [alleged] underground gas chamber where Jews were murdered with Zyklon-B, a poison gas that was also used for delousing the clothing at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Both buildings are now nothing but ruins; they were [allegedly] blown up by the fleeing Nazis on Jan. 20, 1945, two days after the camp was abandoned [and the prisoners were marched out].

End quote from my website

Allegedly, the Nazis came back two days after they had abandoned the camp, and destroyed these buildings, so as to leave no evidence behind. Or was it the Jewish prisoners who destroyed these buildings in order prove their future Holocaust story? Or maybe the Russians destroyed the buildings! Who knows!

 

The Holocaust survivor who jumped off a cliff to save himself

The following quote is from a news article which you can read in full at https://www.thejc.com/culture/film/destination-unknown-mosberg-film-documentary-holocaust-1.440039

The photo above shows Holocaust survivor Ed Mosberg who is still alive

Begin quote from news article:

Later, [Ed] Mosberg found himself in a sweltering, airless cattle wagon [on a train], also bound for Auschwitz. However, when the transport arrived, it sat on the rails for a night, because “they were too busy at the crematorium [where bodies were burned]. So they never unloaded us and they took us [instead] to Mauthausen.”

End quote from news article

So what was it like in the Mauthausen prison?

My photo of the Mauthausen quarry

After working in the Mauthausen quarry, the prisoners in the “punishment detail” had to carry a heavy rock on their backs, up the steps and out of the quarry. Only the prisoners in the “punishment detail” had to do this.

My photo of the Mauthausen stairs which the prisoners had to climb to get out of the quarry

[How did I mange to take the photo above, you ask.]

I hired a taxi to take me to the bottom of the stairs, early in the morning, before the Memorial Site was open to visitors. [So I cheated! Sue me!]

Begin quote from news article:

He [Ed Mosberg] worked in the quarry, where exhausted prisoners ascended and descended [the] 186 steps, carrying rocks weighing up to 50Kg. “If somebody stopped for a moment, they’d push them to their death. Or they’d beat you. Or they’d shoot you,” says Mosberg. “Mathausen and Gusen – they were the two worst concentration camps, and they were classified that way by the Germans.”

End quote from news article

Actually, the prisoners only had to carry one heavy rock out of the quarry, at the end of the day. And that was only if they were in the punishment group.

My photo of a rock carrier used at Mauthausen

You can read about the death statistics for the Mauthausen camp on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/deathstatistics.html

You can read about the Jewish prisoners at Mauthausen on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/KZMauthausen/History/Jews.html

I have a section about the town of Mauthausen on my website at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/Town/index.html

When I was doing research on Mauthausen, I was told by many people, all of them Jews, that I should not go to the town because there were Jews waiting there to kill people and take everything that the visitors owned.

I decided to risk it anyway, and I found that the people in the town were the most friendly people that I had ever met. I’m glad that I stayed in the town.  You can see my photos of the town at http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Mauthausen/Town/index.html

Global “Ransomware” attacks

This morning, when I read the latest news on my computer, I was horrified to learn that there is now something called “ransomware”.

The following quote is from a news article which you can read in full at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/technology/global-ransomware-hack-what-we-know-and-dont-know.html

Begin quote from news article

What Is Ransomware?

• Ransomware is one of the most popular forms of online attack today. It typically begins with attackers sending their victims an email that includes a link or a file that appears innocuous but contains dangerous malware.

• Once a victim clicks on the link or opens the attachment, the computer becomes infected. The program encrypts the computer, essentially locking the user out of files, folders and drives on that computer. In some cases, the entire network the computer is connected to can become infected.

• The victim then receives a message demanding payment in exchange for attackers unlocking the system. The payment is usually requested in Bitcoin, a form of digital currency.

End quote

After learning about this latest computer problem, I quickly consulted a man who is a computer expert. He told me not to worry because my blog is backed up by WordPress, the company which hosts my blog. My scrapbookpages.com website is backed up by the company that hosts my website.

I would advise all my readers to consult a computer expert, whom you trust, and then get everything on your computer safely backed up. If you fail to do this, you could be getting a call soon with a request for a payment of $300.

 

The glass door into the Auschwitz gas chamber

My photo of glass door into gas chamber in Auschwitz main camp

My close-up photo of the gas chamber door

One of the regular readers of my blog asked, in a comment, how I know that the glass door into the alleged gas chamber in the Auschwitz main camp is original, as I stated in a recent blog post.

The insinuation is that Holocaust deniers have somehow sneaked into the alleged gas chamber and installed a glass door to prove that the alleged gas chamber was not a gas chamber.

The alleged gas chamber room in the Auschwitz main camp was originally used as a morgue to store corpses prior to cremation in the ovens in the room next door. Neither the gas chamber, nor the morgue, included the area where a washroom was once located. This means that the victims had to go through two small rooms in order to get to the gas chamber, and that neither the morgue, nor the gas chamber, had a floor drain since the only drain that can be seen today is in the washroom area of the reconstructed gas chamber. The gas chamber, as seen by tourists today, includes the area of the former washroom.

When the alleged gas chamber building was converted into an air raid shelter in September 1944, a new door was cut into what is now called the gas chamber.

During the time that the building was used as an air raid shelter, the morgue room was divided into four small rooms.

During the reconstruction in 1947, the walls of the small rooms in the morgue were removed, along with the wall of the small washroom.

The victims had to first walk through a small room which was a room for “storage for spare gratings” at that time. When the building was used as a morgue, this same room was used as a “laying out room.”

According to the original blueprint of the building, the wash room was a separate room from the morgue. When the morgue was converted into a gas chamber, the victims had to go through a door into the “laying out” room or a door from the vestibule into the wash room to enter the gas chamber. This means that the gas chamber had no floor drain and no way to clean the room, according to the Auschwitz Museum.

However, Fred Leuchter wrote the following in his infamous Report, after examining the gas chamber in Februrary 1988:

Begin quote

We had, by this time, obtained blueprints of the alleged gas-chamber facility and were able to follow the structural changes back to the dates in question. We also verified the existence of the floor drain for the periods of alleged gas chamber usage.

End quote

For over fifty years, visitors to Auschwitz were told that the reconstructed gas chamber was in its original state. On my 1998 visit to Auschwitz, I was led to believe that what I was seeing was the original gas chamber, complete with two wooden doors that both opened inward, a large floor drain, and drains for two toilets.

 

 

German vocabulary word of the day: “Scheißhaufen”

https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/the-proposal-to-insure-the-biological-continuation-of-the-german-people-is-racist-who-knew/

The video, which you can see by clicking on the link above, is an example of “Scheißhaufen” according to an outstanding native German speaker.

You can see the German word “Scheißhaufen” used in a sentence in a comment made by Herbert Stolpmann, which you can read in the quote below.

Begin quote from Stolpmann

Well hermie -FG

That strong and vibrant voice of mein Führer is now silent [actually it sounds like a dog barking] and the world he set on fire will never be the same, at least not for me.
Just keep cranking out some more of these Scheißhaufen, some people like you seem to like it!

End quote from Stolpmann

In his youth, Stolpmann fought for Germany all the way to the bitter end, until he was ordered to surrender.  Then he survived as a member of the Disarmed Enemy Forces.  His first-hand recollections of those days are very valuable, and I have the utmost respect for his stories.  However, I fear that the word Scheißhaufen might lose something in translation.

Stolpmann is an outstanding blogger in his own right.

You can read his 2017 blog posts, about Dachau, by clicking here:

http://dachaukz.blogspot.com/2017/