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Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

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J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 55<br />

guards” and “<strong>of</strong>ten surpassed their German instructors in cruelty.” They<br />

would “form a cordon to prevent the newcomers from escaping.” (English<br />

version, pp. 34f., 62)<br />

Was the speech needed to prevent any kind <strong>of</strong> resistance? Hardly,<br />

for the deportees were much too tired after the long trip and too scared<br />

to fight. Without fail, they would have obeyed any orders that would<br />

have been barked at them by the guards.<br />

Then why harangue them? Why did the SS man tell them that Sobibór<br />

was a transit camp and that they would soon move on into<br />

Ukraine or to Riga?<br />

Anyone in possession <strong>of</strong> his mental faculties can find the answer by<br />

himself.<br />

2.3.20. Conclusions<br />

The <strong>of</strong>ficial version <strong>of</strong> the history <strong>of</strong> the camp, still in effect to the<br />

present day, was essentially defined by the 1947 report edited by the<br />

“Main Commission for the Investigation <strong>of</strong> the German Crimes in Poland”:<br />

Sobibór was an extermination camp for Jews from various European<br />

countries. Except for a small number <strong>of</strong> “working Jews,” the new<br />

arrivals were immediately killed by means <strong>of</strong> engine exhaust gases in a<br />

“gassing building” subdivided into several chambers. The corpses were<br />

burned on pyres in the open. The number <strong>of</strong> victims amounted to some<br />

250,000.<br />

Since then, the Sobibór literature has, by and large, adopted this version,<br />

even though some authors, such as S. Szmajzner, claimed far<br />

higher numbers <strong>of</strong> victims. The only major revision on the part <strong>of</strong> any<br />

orthodox historian is due to Jules Schelvis. He reduced his figure to<br />

170,000 when the Höfle message became known.<br />

The attentive reader will have noticed that over a period <strong>of</strong> twenty<br />

years (between 1947 and 1967) not a single book, not even an article <strong>of</strong><br />

any serious nature was written about Sobibór. Among novelists and historians<br />

an interest in this camp increased only at the end <strong>of</strong> the 1970s.<br />

The reason for this phenomenon is obviously the increasing Jewish influence<br />

in the world. Its most noticeable characteristic has been the intensification<br />

<strong>of</strong> “<strong>Holocaust</strong>” propaganda. When we look at this literature,<br />

we see right away that the publications repeat over and over again<br />

a mass <strong>of</strong> unproven assertions, a never-ending line <strong>of</strong> the same horror<br />

stories and anecdotes, and promote to exhaustion the heroic tale <strong>of</strong> the<br />

uprising on 14 October 1943. Indeed, the available material does not

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