Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Chapter 2: The Camps
“emergencies.” 104 At Auschwitz there were divers recreational activities: concerts,
cabaret performers, movies and athletic contests. There was even a brothel for the
prisoners, staffed by professionals recruited for the purpose. 105 Medical services
receive further comment later on.
The providing of such extensive services naturally meant that companies using
the labor of the prisoners “rented” them from the SS; a typical rate seems to have
been RM 4.00-RM 6.00 ($1.00-$1.50) per day and up. 106 Thus, the prisoners were
at the basis of Himmler’s bureaucratic and economic empire, and accordingly this
resource, together with the supporting functions of feeding, clothing, etc. were
jealously guarded. Nevertheless, Farben had been big enough to get a special arrangement
for those at Monowitz; it was granted full authority for the care of the
prisoners there and consequently the payments to the SS were reduced. This led to
the expected scraps between the SS and Farben. The SS complained of beatings
and other mistreatment such as unsanitary conditions at the Monowitz hospital.
Also, one-fifth of the people who had been registered at this hospital were discharged
by being sent to Birkenau, at which time the Farben appropriations for
their care immediately ceased and they became the responsibility of the SS which,
already wounded by not being accorded its customary rights in regard to employable
prisoners, was incensed at receiving in return only the unemployable from
Monowitz. The SS therefore demanded that the Monowitz hospital, which had
only 300 beds, be enlarged, but the reply to this, of course, was that “if they aren’t
strong enough to work, they don’t belong on the factory grounds.” 107
Birkenau, like Auschwitz I, had a responsibility of supplying labor for Farben
and for sub-contractors to Farben. It also supplied labor for other enterprises such
as the Krupp fuse plant and the Siemens electrical factory. In addition, inmates
worked at clearing demolished structures, draining the marshy land, road construction,
operating an establishment for the cultivation of special plants (Raisko),
building and operating a model farm (Harmense), clothing manufacture, etc. 108
Birkenau had other functions, as will be seen. It will be particularly necessary to
examine the claim that at Birkenau a program of mass killings of Jews via gas
chambers was in operation, the Jews having been transported to Auschwitz primarily
for this purpose. 109
The rough figures given above for camp populations are only illustrative; the
Birkenau figure actually varied a great deal, and in addition, the Birkenau camp
was never completed. The projected capacity of Birkenau seems to have been
200,000 prisoners, while Auschwitz I expanded to a capacity of about 30,000 and
then stabilized. 110 Thus, on the basis of seniority and also on account of quartering
the Auschwitz SS administrative offices, Auschwitz I was indeed the “main
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
NO-1290 in NMT, vol. 5, 371.
Cohen, 180; Christophersen, 34. See also the discussion of the Dachau brothel in Gun, 38-40.
NMT, vol. 9, 121; Central Commission, 37.
DuBois, 164, 220-224.
DuBois, 141; NMT, vol. 6, 207, 233; NMT, vol. 9, 120; US-WRB (1944), pt. I, 1-2; Christophersen,
23-25.
Reitlinger, 115, 157; Hilberg, 565, 574.
Central Commission, 31.
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