Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 4: Auschwitz
groups of people of a category for which there exists an extermination program at
Birkenau. The dual role of Zyklon in this story merely effects passage from the
nonsensical to the incomparably ludicrous.
If we examine another extant source of what is said to be statistical data concerning
transports to Auschwitz, we meet the same situation. The data offered in
the Netherlands Red Cross reports is more reliable than that offered in the WRB
report, although it is rather limited. Nevertheless, as shown in Appendix C, the
data shows that virtually all of the male Jews who were deported from the Netherlands
to Auschwitz in July and August of 1942 entered Birkenau and were given
registration numbers. It is also known that these Dutch Jews wrote letters to acquaintances
in the Netherlands in which they described the work at Auschwitz as
“hard” but “tolerable,” the food “adequate,” the sleeping accommodations “good,”
the hygienic conditions “satisfactory” and the general treatment “correct” (this
was reported by the Jewish Council in Amsterdam which claimed, however, that
it knew of only 52 such letters). To Reitlinger, these things are “mysteries” for, he
says, “at certain periods, entire transports were admitted.” 202
The term “spot decisions” has not been used subsequent to the Höss affidavit,
so far as we know. The common term is “selections.” The story is that “selections”
were made on incoming transports on a basis of suitability for work. This,
of course, must be essentially true; given the extent and variety of the industrial
operations at Auschwitz, selections were required not only on a work vs. no work
basis but also on, e.g., a light work vs. heavy work basis. Other factors which
must have figured in this connection were whether a given transport was composed
of prisoners, volunteer laborers, Jews being resettled (such as the Theresienstadt
Jews) or other. The transports were no doubt also screened for certain
key professionals, such as medical personnel, engineers, skilled craftsmen, etc.
The extermination legend merely claims that one category sought in these elaborate
sortings and selections was all non-employable Jews, destined for extermination.
This claim has already been seriously undermined by the evidence. 203
A Hospital for the People Being Exterminated
Selections on incoming transports are not the only mode of gas chamber selections
which have been claimed. A Dutch Jew, Dr. Elie A. Cohen, was arrested in
202
203
Reitlinger, 118-121. Reitlinger remarks on the “mystery” presented by the data in the Netherlands
Red Cross reports, which is presented and discussed here in Appendix C. The letters from
Auschwitz are considered by de Jong.
The Kalendarium, published in 1964 in German, says that of 1500 people in a transport that arrived
at Auschwitz on April 16, 1944, from the camp in Drancy, France, a certain number of the
men were registered as inmates and the others gassed. Many years ago Robert Faurisson pointed
out that, according to the deportation lists, “the others” included Simone Veil, who, as Faurisson
wrote, was the first President of the European Parliament. Later I noticed that the English translation
of the Kalendarium, published in 1990 (D. Czech, Auschwitz Chronicle 1939-1945), engages
in a little bit of revisionism on this, and now says some of the women were registered. A document
from the International Tracing Service, Arolsen, Germany, is cited.
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