AUSCHWITZ: PLAIN FACTS - Holocaust Handbooks

Robert Faurisson, Reply to Jean-Claude Pressac on the Problem of the Gas Chambers 71became uncontrollable. It was necessary to keep the typhus from spreadingto the surrounding area. The whole camp had to be isolated and no onemust leave. On July 10 [1942] a partial quarantine was ordered.” (p. 43)He adds:“But as the ravages of the typhus epidemic continued unabated and thesituation became catastrophic, the total isolation of the camp was decreedon July 23 [1942].” (p. 46)The epidemic went on to cause as many as 250 to 300 deaths per dayamong the inmates, the civilians and the SS (p. 50). Pressac fails to mentionthat the head physician, Dr.Popiersch, himself died of typhus. 19 In the periodfrom September 7 to 11, 1942, the first epidemic reached its peak, with 375deaths in one day (cf. the table on page 145). A second epidemic, then a thirdbroke out in the first half of 1943 (p. 82).Disinfection, particularly by means of Zyklon B, constituted a vital necessity:“In the week of July 5 th to 11 th [1942], the building housing the SSguards, which was swarming with vermin, was gassed [with Zyklon B].”(p. 16)At Birkenau, the Zentral-Sauna“was a well functioning sanitary complex; it was to be equipped withfour rooms for delousing by hot air (document 23), three industrial autoclaves(document 24), a room for head shaving, a room for medical examinationsand fifty showers. With this facility the SS intended ‘definitively’ toforestall any resurgence of typhus at Birkenau. The detainees were to beshaved, examined, disinfected and showered while their effects were deloused.Unfortunately, the installation was not operational until late January1944.” (p. 69)Document 23 and, especially, documents 24 and 40 illustrate the degree towhich the Germans were concerned with hygiene, particularly in that part ofthe camp at one time occupied by Gypsies. Documents 42 and 43 show inte-19 Cf. Comité international d’Auschwitz, Anthologie (blue), French Version, vol. I, 2 nd part,(Warsaw, 1969), p. 196. Among many other German victims of typhus at Auschwitz we maymention Dr. Siegfried Schwella (Dr. Popiersch‘s successor), the wife of Gerhard Palitzsch,camp Rapportführer, and the wife of Joachim Caesar, head of agricultural works. OtherGermans whose names are known contracted typhus without dying from it, amongst themDr. Johann-Paul Kremer, Dr. Heinrich Schwarz, Dr. Kurt Uhlenbrock and Dr. Josef Mengele.Amongst the most famous detainees who died of typhus were Dr. Marian Ciepilowski,who cared for the Soviet prisoners, Professor Zygmunt Lempicki and the dentist DanielleCasanova, whom legend long held to have been killed by the Germans. The Germans, in theeast, lived in constant fear of typhus; Adolf Hitler himself was vaccinated against it on February7 and 14, 1943, at Rastenburg (on this, cf. the memoirs of his physician, Dr. Theo Morell,in David Irving, The Secret Diaries of Hitler‘s Doctor, New York, McMillan 1983, p.109).