Internet Info 1993

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Internet Info 1993 / Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (1993).iso / answers / soc / holocaust / leuchter / part02 < prev next >

Wrap

Internet Message Format | 1994-03-11 | 41.8 KB

Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!nic.hookup.net!nntp.cs.ubc.ca!mala.bc.ca!oneb!periodic Newsgroups: alt.revisionism,soc.history,soc.answers,alt.answers,news.answers Subject: HOLOCAUST FAQ: The "Leuchter Report" (2/2) Message-ID: <leuchter-02_758970003@oneb.almanac.bc.ca> From: periodic@oneb.almanac.bc.ca (Ken McVay) Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 09:00:23 GMT Reply-To: kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca Followup-To: alt.revisionism Expires: 9 Mar 1994 09:00:03 GMT Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA Keywords: Leuchter Summary: Research guide to the Leuchter Report Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.edu Supersedes: <leuchter-02_755946001@oneb.almanac.bc.ca> Lines: 909 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.revisionism:6268 soc.history:16435 soc.answers:807 alt.answers:1677 news.answers:14331 Archive-name: holocaust/leuchter/part02 Last-modified: 1994/01/07 The Leuchter Report: A Layman's Guide Holocaust Denial & The Big Lie (Part Two) 2.06 Doors of Gas Chambers Too Weak to Prevent Escape.....11 2.07 They Would Not Have Used Zyklon-B for Gassing........11 2.08 The gas chambers were never sealed, or...............12 2.09 The gas would have killed everyone outside when ventilated...........................................14 2.10 Where did all the ashes from the cremations go.......14 2.11 People who dropped the gas into the gas chamber would have been killed by it...............................15 2.12 The Auschwitz death list doesn't show all those people were killed...................................15 2.13 Why would there be a swimming pool at a death camp...15 2.14 The high water table made it impossible to burn bodies in ditches....................................15 2.15 How did witnesses to the gassings survive............16 2.16 Toxicity of fumes from a diesel engine...............18 2.17 There were not enough Jews in Europe to account for six million victims..................................18 2.18 The "myth" of the Holocaust was created solely for the financial benefit of Israel......................20 3.00 Leuchter's credibility.................................21 3.10 Leuchter's perjury in Canadian court...................21 3.20 Leuchter's credibility among American prison admins....24 4.00 Research Sources & Other Useful Appendices.............24 4.10 Recommended Reading..................................25 4.20 Abbreviations Used in Citations......................25 4.30 Glossary.............................................25 4.40 Works Cited..........................................25 [Leuchter] [Page 11] 2.06 Doors of Gas Chambers Too Weak to Prevent Escape Holocaust denial asserts that the doors of the "alleged" gas chambers were much too weak to withstand the pressure of people trying to escape death from inside the chambers. Since none of the Kremas remained in their original state (Bunker I & II and Kremas II,III,IV and V destroyed, and Krema I modified) there is no physical evidence as to what the doors of the extermination gas chambers looked like. However, a door which probably belonged to an extermination gas chamber was discovered in the camp's building yard; it is massive, and reinforced with iron bars. Furthermore, the small peephole is protected from the inside with a strong metal grid, probably installed so the victims would not break the glass in the peephole. Those making this claim present pictures of doors for the delousing chambers, which were not fortified, presumably on the assumption that viewers are too inept to notice the switch. For a photograph of a door probably used in an extermination gas chamber, see Pressac (486). (Request gifs aukdoor.gif) 2.07 They would not have used Zyklon-B for gassing Holocaust denial often claims that if the Nazis had intended to kill people by lethal gassing, they would have used something other than Zyklon B. Zyklon-B was in use at Auschwitz as a delousing agent, and was thus readily available. The Nazis had experience in its safe use as well, which made it even more attractive. In addition, Zyklon B was easy to ship and to store, which also made it attractive to the SS, who ordered enough of it, as Ho"ss pointed out in his testimony, to kill two million people. Yitzhak Arad mentions Christian Wirth's rejection of Zyklon-B for use in exterminations: Wirth developed his own ideas on the basis of the experiences he had gained in the Euthanasia program. Thus, in Belzec he decided to supply the fixed gas chamber with gas produced by the internal-combustion engine of a motorcar. [He] rejected Cyanide B which was later used at Auschwitz. This gas was produced by private firms and its extensive use in Belzec might have aroused suspicion and led to problems of supply. He therefore preferred a system of extermination based on ordinary, universally available gasoline and diesel fuel. (YVS XVI, 211) In a letter requesting for a truck to bring Zyklon-B to Auschwitz, the standard camouflage term "resettlement of Jews" is used to refer to extermination. Another such document asks for "material for special treatment" - another term used to disguise extermination (Request gifs resett.gif; also Pressac, 557. For more examples of the camouflage terms noted, see file of original Nazi documents). [Leuchter] [Page 12] ---------------------------------------------------------------- Radio message 13 SS Garrison Radio Station Auschwitz Origin WVHA [SS economic administration head office] Received 2nd October 1942 in the Kommandantur of Auschwitz Concentration camp The movement authorization for one 5 Ton truck with trailer to Dessau and back in order to pick up material for the resettlement of the Jews, is hereby accorded. The authorization is to be given to the driver. Liebehenschel SS Lieutenant Colonel Permanent representative of the head of the service with the rank of Waffen SS Lieutenant General For file Head of the radio station ----------------------------------------------------------- When camp adjutant R. Mulka was asked by Judge Hofmeyer what "material for the resettlement of the Jews" meant, he answered "well, sure. Zyklon-B" (The Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt, 11 Sep. 1964). 2.08 The gas chambers were never sealed... or there was no provision to exhaust the gas from them... or there was no way for the guards to release the pellets into them, or.... As stated earlier, the extermination chambers were dynamited by the SS when they deserted the camp. There is therefore no direct evidence of what they looked like when they were in operation other than a few photographs taken by the Allies and the SS during the war (See Brugioni; Request gifs krema3.gif for view of Krema III taken during the war, from the air). The construction plans do include the air extraction systems, as one readily sees (in krema3.gif and others) and the air extraction system is mentioned in many documents. Some of the ventilation openings are still visible in the ruins of the gas chambers. The plans even include the shower heads that were placed in the gas chamber to mislead the victims (Request gifs auplan.gif). It is a sad reflection on Leuchter's integrity and ability to use logic to see that he admits the Kremas were demolished, yet continues to claim he can deduce from their current state how they looked in 1944, before they were blown up! The following is a verbatim excerpt from his cross-examination by Mr. Pearson, in the Zundel trial: [Leuchter] [Page 13] Q. Crematoria III has been demolished. A. Um, there are still parts of Crematoruim III there, but for the most part, the roof of the alleged gas chamber has crumbled and is all lying in bits and pieces in the basement of what would have been the alleged gas chamber. Q. So, it's no longer subterranean? A. That's correct. There's a hole in the ground. Q. With respect to the gas chambers at Crematorium IV and V, those are totally demolished. A. With the exception of the foundation, yes. Q. So, all that was there for you to examine was the foundation of the building. Is that right? A. That is correct. Leuchter admits that the roof of the gas chamber of Krema III was all blown up and collapsed, and that Krema IV and V are gone except for the foundation! As for Krema II, his testimony is also intriguing: Q. So, the gas chamber facility itself is presently underground? A. Parts of it are and parts aren't. Q. All right. And the parts that are underground, I take it that the roof is no longer whole; is that right? A. Um, one of the roofs is broken into several pieces but it's essentially whole. Q. It's broken in several pieces but it's essentially whole? A. I mean it's not fragmented. Q. How many pieces? A. Three, I believe. I say that only to indicate that it's not fragmented. There are large slabs left of the roof. Q. Right. And it's collapsed. A. It's dropped several feet. It's partially collapsed. Q. Is there dirt over it? Is it subterranean? A. In some places there are dirt over it and some places there's no dirt. [Leuchter] [Page 14] Q. All right. And that's with respect to Crematorium II? A. That's correct. Even more incredible is to see what Leuchter writes in his report: "Evidence as to Krema function is non-existent since Krema's I oven has been completely rebuilt, Kremas II and III are partially destroyed with components missing, and Kremas IV and V are gone". "Are gone"! Yet, he can still conjecture about how they functioned before being destroyed... The pictures of the gas chambers in their current state appear in Pressac. They are totally demolished and there is no way a reasonable person would claim to be able to conclude anything about how they functioned before they were destroyed. Leuchter further ridicules himself by stating that the gas chambers were never sealed and that using cyanide gas inside them would be dangerous. But, he admits that the gas was used in them (for delousing purposes, as he claims). This is absurd, of course; if they were not sealed, introducing the gas into them would be dangerous no matter what the purpose was. This obvious contradiction alone is reason enough to discard the "Leuchter report". 2.09 If the gas chambers were ventilated, the gas would kill people outside. Nonsense; it is all a question of concentration. Once the gas is released into the atmosphere, its concentration drops and it is no longer dangerous. Also, HCN dissipates quickly. The execution gas chambers in US prisons are also ventilated directly into the atmosphere. Furthermore, if this argument would hold for the extermination chambers, it would hold for the delousing chambers as well, and one would have to conclude that no delousing chambers existed either. 2.10 If so many people were actually killed and cremated, where is all the ash? After a person is cremated, quite a small amount of ash remains - it fits in a small urn, or a box. This means that ashes of thousands of people fit into one truck. The ash was either scattered around in fields, buried, or - in Auschwitz, for instance - dumped into a river. [Leuchter] [Page 15] 2.11 The people who dropped the Zyklon-B into the chambers would have died from the gas themselves. Utter nonsense. Like those who used the Zyklon-B in the delousing chambers, the SS men who carried out the gassings utilized gas masks. (The mind boggles at the realization that a "gas chamber expert" could not figure this out.) 2.12 The death lists from Auschwitz do not show that any people were gassed, and point to a smaller number of victims. This is because those lists refer only to those who where assigned serial numbers. The majority of people transferred to the camp were classified as "unfit for work" and gassed immediately. This fact is noted, for instance, in a report written by top SS officer Franke-Gricksch to Himmler (Request auschwitz Gricksch.rpt; auschwitz.faq1, which discusses the registration process). These people were not registered anywhere, and no one recorded their names. (Testimony of Polish prisoner Aloiz Oskar Kleta, Shelly, p. 284; Fertig, 12; Fleming, 174. Also, see testimony of Henryk Tauber, Pressac, page 488, as to how the SS routinely burned documents regarding the number of victims. 2.13 There was a swimming pool in Auschwitz, hence it could not have been an extermination camp. Indeed, a water reservoir in Auschwitz I (the main camp) was converted to a swimming pool which was used by the camp's staff. Other means of entertainment for the SS personnel existed - a band composed of prisoners, and a brothel. How this "proves" that Auschwitz was not an extermination center is beyond the author of this text. 2.14 Much of the area of Auschwitz has a high water table, therefore corpses could not be burned in ditches. There are pictures of these ditches with corpses burning in them (Request index gifs for a list of available photographs) . During the period in which Auschwitz was active, the SS had the area drained; as can be seen today, the drainage, which has not been maintained since 1945, has deteriorated and the water level had risen. Furthermore, the ditches were not used all the time, but only when there were not enough furnaces to cremate the victims or during the extermination of the Hungarian Jews, when so many people were murdered daily that the furnaces could not handle the amount of corpses. The "incineration ditches" are known to have been active in October-November 1942 and the summer of 1944, which do not coincide with the period the snow melts and the water level rises. [Leuchter] [Page 16] 2.15: How come eye witnesses to the gassings survived? Why didn't the Nazis kill them? The answer is rather simple - the SS did kill almost all of them. After the war, for instance, there were about 70 survivors from Treblinka (more than 700,000 victims, see also file with excerpts from ruling of German courts - request reinhard reinhard.faq1 and reinhard reinhard.faq2). These survivors escaped from the camp, mostly during the rebellion they carried out. Same for Auschwitz: nearly all the members of the "Special Commando" who saw the gassings and had to carry out and cremate the victims, were killed by the SS, but a small number of them escaped, mostly during the rebellion of October 1944. Another factor is the fact that in the end of the war Auschwitz was in total chaos - the Soviets were approaching fast, and they even bombed the camp. Thus there was no time to kill all the occupants, and some were transferred to camps within Germany. Many of them died in those forced "death marches". 2.16: Fumes from a diesel engine are not toxic enough to kill people. (This claim is made with regard to the death camp of Treblinka - see file with ruling of German courts on this. In other death camps, gasoline engines were used. The method of killing was simple - people were crammed into the gas chambers, and the exhaust of powerful engines was pumped into them). Nonsense. In a closed chamber, of course diesel fumes will kill. There was actually a study on this, and its results are reported in "The Toxicity of Fumes from a diesel Engine Under Four Different Running Conditions", by Pattle et al., British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1957, Vol 14, p. 47-55. These researchers ran a few experiments in which various animals were exposed to diesel fumes, and studied the results. In the experiments, the exhaust of a small diesel engine (568 cc, 6 BHP) was connected to a chamber 10 cubic meters (340 cubic feet) in volume, and the animals were put inside it. In all cases, the animals died. Death was swifter when the intake of air to the engine was restricted, as this causes a large increase in the amount of carbon monoxide (CO) that is emitted. (See, for instance, "diesel Engine Reference Book", by Lilly, 1985, p. 18/8, where it is stated that at a high air/fuel ratio the concentration of CO is only a few parts per million but for lower ratios (25:1) the concentration of CO can rise up to 3,000 ppm. It is very easy to restrict the air intake - the British researchers did so by partially covering the air intake opening with a piece of metal.) Even in cases where the CO output was low, the animals still died from other toxic components - mainly irritants and nitrogen dioxide. Now, the diesel engines used in Treblinka were much larger - they belonged to captured Soviet T-34 tanks. These tanks weighed 26-31 tons (depending on the model) and had a 500 BHP engine (compared to a [Leuchter] [Page 17] mere 6 BHP in the British experiments). The volume of the extermination chambers in Treblinka is, of course, a factor. But the chambers' volume was about 60 cubic meters (2040 cubic feet); this is 6 times more than those in the British experiments, but the difference in the size of the engines is much larger than a factor of 6. It should be remembered that what matters in CO poisoning is not the concentration of CO, but the ratio of CO to oxygen. In a small, gas-tight room, crammed full of people, oxygen levels drop quickly, thus making death by CO poisoning faster. As noted, other toxic components in the fumes further accelerate mortality. The SS was aware of the fact that cramming as many people as possible into the gas chamber, thus leaving no empty spaces, would accelerate mortality. This is evident, for instance, from a letter regarding "gassing vans" (used in the Chelmno extermination camp and other locations) sent to SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Rauff, 5 June 1942. The letter is quite long (more of it is reproduced in the file of original Nazi documents), but here is the relevant part (Nazism, document 913). "2) The vans are normally loaded with 9-10 people per square meter. With the large Saurer special vans this is not possible because although they do not become overloaded their maneuverability is much impaired. A reduction in the load area appears desirable. It can be achieved by reducing the size of the van by c. 1 meter. The difficulty referred to cannot be overcome by reducing the size of the load. For a reduction in the numbers will necessitate longer period of operation because the free spaces will have to be filled with CO. By contrast, a smaller load area which is completely full requires a much shorter period of operation since there are no free spaces." Another gruesome testimony to the "science of gassing" developed by the SS is the letter from Dr August Becker to SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Rauff, 16 May 1942 (Nazi Conspiracy, 418) The application of the gas is not undertaken correctly. In order to come to an end as fast as possible, the driver presses the accelerator to the fullest extent. By doing that the persons to be executed suffer death from suffocation and not death by dozing off as was planned. My directions have now proved that by correct adjustment of the levers death comes faster and the prisoners fall asleep peacefully. Distorted faces and excretions, such as could be seen before, are no longer noticed. [Leuchter] [Page 18] Additional information was published to several UseNet newsgroups in November of 1993, in which smullins@ecn.purdue.edu quotes Holtz (see Recommended Reading section) and Elliot. A quick scan of the data clearly shows the difference in oxygen and carbon monoxide levels found in diesel exhaust under different fuel-air mixture conditions: Exhaust gas composition of a diesel engine, running at the correct fuel-air ratios (% by volume): O2: 1.5% CO2: 13.5% CO: 0.5% Exhaust gas composition of a diesel engine running at a fuel-air ratio of 0.094 (% by volume): O2: 0.3% CO2: 10.2% CO: 6.0% The data clearly demonstrates that simply restricting the air intake of the engine, any diesel engine will produce sufficient CO to be clearly and rapidly fatal (6% CO represents roughly 60,000 ppm). This data (Holtz & Elliot) appeared in "Transactions of the ASME" in early 1941, and was probably known to the Nazis. Mr. Mullins has also published an article to UseNet which deals with Berg's "The Diesel Gas Chambers: Myth Within a Myth," (request holocaust/ihr JHR.v5n1), and which demonstrates not only how diesel engines can quickly produce highly toxic levels of gasses, but which uses Berg's own references to do so. (Request holocaust/ihr diesel.001 for the full article.) 2.17 There were not enough Jews in Europe to account for the number of 6 million victims This claim is ridiculous, as attested to by all population statistics of that time, including the numbers of Jews appearing in many original Nazi documents... for instance: Extracts from the minutes of the Wannsee conference, January 20 1942, regarding the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" [Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals - Washington, U.S Govt. Print. Off., 1949-1953., Vol. XIII, p. 210] --------------------------------------------------------------- [...] II. At the beginning of the meeting the Chief of the Security Police and the SD, SS Lieutenant General Heydrich, reported his appointment by the Reich Marshal [Goering] to service as Commissioner for the preparation of the Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem.... [Leuchter] [Page 19] In the course of this final solution of the European Jewish Problem, approximately 11 million Jews are involved. They are distributed among individual countries as follows: A. Original Reich Territory [Altreich] 131,800 Austria 43,700 Eastern territories 420,000 Government General [Nazi occupied Poland] 2,284,000 .. .. .. The Netherlands 160,800 .. .. Rumania, including Bessarabia 342,000 .. .. Hungary 742,800 USSR 5,000,000 .. .. White Russia, excluding Bialystok 446,484 [Many countries deleted for brevity] TOTAL over 11,000,000 Under proper direction the Jews should now in the course of the Final Solution be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor. In big labor gangs, with separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to these areas and employed in road building, in which task undoubtedly a great part will fall out through natural diminution. The remnant that finally is able to survive all this - since this is undoubtedly the part with the strongest resistance - must be treated accordingly since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development. (See the experience of history). In the program of the practical execution of the Final Solution, Europe is combed through from the West to the East. The claims often made by Holocaust deniers about emigration of Jews after the war are preposterous. For instance, there were 370,000 Jews in Palestine in 1937, and 600,000 in 1948. The numbers arrived at by the Anglo-American committee for studying the Holocaust are the following: [Leuchter] [Page 20] (Conclusions of the Anglo-American committee for studying the Nazi genocide inflicted on the Jews of Europe, with exact breakdown, country by country.) Numbers of missing Jews (post-war minus pre-war): Germany - 195,000 Austria - 53,000 Czechoslovakia - 255,000 Denmark - 1,500 France - 140,000 Belgium - 57,000 Luxemburg - 3,000 Norway - 1,000 Holland - 120,000 Italy - 20,000 Jugoslavia - 64,000 Greece - 64,000 Bulgaria - 5,000 Rumania - 530,000 Hungary - 200,000 Poland - 3,271,000 USSR - 1,050,000 Less dispersed refugees (308,000) Total number of Jews that were exterminated = 5,721,500 ------------------------------------------------------- Some estimates are lower, and some are higher, but these are the magnitudes in question. Recent evidence shows that the number of ex-USSR victims was actually underestimated. About 6 million non-Jewish civilians were killed by the Nazis - mostly in Poland and Yugoslavia. 2.18 The "myth" of the Holocaust was created solely for the financial benefit of Israel Holocaust denial often asserts that the sole reason that the "Holocaust hoax" has been promulgated was that it created a financial windfall for the State of Israel. Deborah Lipstadt provides this information in "Denying the Holocaust": "Israeli officials detailed their claims against Germany in their communique of March 1951 to the Four Powers, and this document became the official basis for the reparations agreement. It contained an explanation of Israel's means of calculating the size of the reparations claim. In the communique Israeli officials explained that Nazi persecution had stimulated 'a second Jewish exodus' of close to five hundred thousand. Based on the size of this exodus, Israel determined the amount of the reparations it would request: [Leuchter] [Page 21] The government of Israel is not in a position to obtain and present a complete statement of all Jewish property taken or looted by the Germans, and said to total more than $6 thousand million. It can only compute its claim on the basis of total expenditures already made and the expenditure still needed for the integration of Jewish immigrants from Nazi-dominated countries. The number of these immigrants is estimated at some 500,000, which means a total expenditure of $1.5 thousand million. It seems hardly necessary to point out that since the money the state received by based on the cost of resettling _survivors_, had Israel wanted to increase the amount of reparations it obtained from Germany it would have been in its interest to argue that fewer than six million had been killed and that more had managed to flee to Israel." (Lipstadt, 57) 3.00 Leuchter's "credibility," or rather, his lack of same. 3.10 Leuchter's claims during his Zundel testimony, and the reality of his perjury, Leuchter's admission that he is not an engineer (in American court), court order to quit publishing "reports" which claim engineering expertise.. (For an extensive examination of Leuchter's reception as an "expert witness" in a Canadian court, request LIPSTADT LIPSTADT.005.) In his article of January 11, (Spotlight, "Major Historical Fact Uncovered," January 11, 1993), Foner discusses the Canadian trial of Ernst Zundel, and tells us... Zundel went looking for an expert on executions, particularly gassings. He found Leuchter, who specializes in the design and fabrication of execution hardware used in prisons throughout the United States. (Foner, 3) Although Leuchter is touted by Neo-Nazi publications and Holocaust deniers as an "expert," Mr. Leuchter's own testimony at the Zundel trial made it clear that he was neither an expert nor a credible witness. The following is taken from Leuchter's testimony at the Zundel trial (Douglas Christie, Zundel's attorney is the questioner) - following the testimony are verbatim quotes from two American prison officials, which were obtained after Leuchter's testimony at the trial. We believe you will have no difficulty in determining the value of Mr. Leuchter's credentials after considering both: Q: And what is your relationship with the operation of those facilities [i.e. gas chambers] in those two States [California and North Carolina]? A: We consulted with both States, California primarily on a heart monitoring system to replace the older type mechanical diagraph stethoscope that's presently in use. We will be shipping to them shortly and installing a new heart monitor for both chairs in their gas chamber. [Leuchter] [Page 22] Q: You are consulted by the State, I understand? A: Yes, Juan Vasquez. Q: I see. And in North Carolina? A: North Carolina. My discussions and work was with one Nathan Reise, and he had some work done by their maintenance personnel on their gas chamber two years ago, and they had a problem with the gasket on a door leaking. At which point, we discussed it with him and recommended remedial procedures to change the gas chamber. Q: And he consults you in regard to those matters? A: He does. What do those two facilities have to say about the matter? First, the warden at San Quentin (California) responds: "I can inform you, however, that San Quentin has not contracted with Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. for the installation of a heart monitoring system or for any other work." Signed: DANIEL B. Vasquez, Warden (California) Next, we offer the comments from North Carolina prison officials: "I discussed your request with Mr. Nathan A. RICE, Former Warden, and he stated that he vaguely recalled a telephone conversation between him and a gentleman professing to be an expert on execution chambers. Mr. Rice further states that the gentleman called him for the purpose of selling a lethal injection machine... Also, our records do not support that Mr. Leuchter performed either consulting or any service...I can attest that the planning and work was performed by the Department of Correction Engineering Section and our institution maintenance department." Signed: Gary T. Dixon, Warden (North Carolina) We discover, then, that neither California nor North Carolina have consulted with Leuchter regarding their gas chambers. Leuchter was incapable of even getting the names of the wardens right, and clearly lying about his "professional" relationships with them. The only other state with which Leuchter has alleged consulted regarding gas chambers is Missouri. Yet, even thought Leuchter has allegedly "designed" a gas chamber for the state, we have to take his word for it since that gas chamber was never built nor installed and, in fact, Missouri does not have an operational gas chamber to this day even though Leuchter had allegedly designed one for them over 4 years ago. We would like to hear from anyone who has contacted authorities in the State of Missouri regarding this matter. [Leuchter] [Page 23] An article in the Washington Post sheds additional light upon Leuchter's legal problems, and his status as an engineer: BOSTON, June 17 - Fred A. Leuchter Jr., a self-styled expert in the machinery of death who parlayed his reputation as a builder of killing equipment into a second career as a proponent of "Holocaust revisionism," has admitted that he is not an engineer. Made in a consent decree filed with a Massachusetts court last week, his admission should deal a blow to the movement holding that the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews and others during World War II was a hoax or an exaggeration, according to experts in the field. Leuchter, 48, of suburban Malden, was to face trial later this month on charges of practicing engineering without a license, a violation of Massachusetts law. But on June 11, he signed a consent agreement with the board that licenses engineers. In it, Leuchter acknowledged that, "I am not and have never been registered as a professional engineer" and that he nevertheless had represented himself as an engineer in dealings with various states that use the death penalty and to which he supplied equipment or advice. The agreement also requires Leuchter to stop disseminating reports in which he purports to be an engineer, most significantly a document known as the "Leuchter Report." That report, widely circulated by revisionists, asserts that gas chambers at Nazi concentration camps in Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek could not have been used for mass killings because they were not big enough nor well ventilated or sealed. The assertion is based largely on chemical analysis of materials scraped surreptitiously from walls of those chambers by Leuchter during a visit to Poland in February 1988. Sally Greenberg, an attorney with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in Boston, which was instrumental in bringing Leuchter to the attention of Massachusetts authorities, welcomed the settlement. "It's a blow to Holocaust revisionism because he has been the guru of the revisionists," she said. "Now, he has as much as admitted that he is not qualified as an engineer to comment on the 'myth' of the Holocaust. It's essentially an admission that he's the charlatan and phony that we always knew he was." ("Holocaust Revisionist Admits He Is Not Engineer." The Washington Post. Request leuchter leuchter.02 for the complete text.) [Leuchter] [Page 24] 3.20 Leuchter's "credibility," or rather, his lack of same, among American prison administrators On July 20,1990, Alabama Assistant Attorney General Ed Carnes sent a memo to all capital-punishment states questioning Leuchter's credentials and credibility. Carnes stated that not only were Leuchter's views on the gas-chamber process 'unorthodox' but that he was running a shakedown scheme. If a state refused to use his services, Leuchter would testify at the last minute on behalf of the inmate, claiming that the state's gas chamber might malfunction. <Memorandum from Ed Carnes, Alabama Assistant Attorney General, to all Capital Punishment States July 20,1990; Shapiro 'Truth Prevails' pp. 17 and 21; Newsweek, Oct. 22, 1990, p. 64; Swampscott Journal, Nov. 1, 1990.> According to Carnes, Leuchter made 'money on both sides of the fence.' <Associated Press, October 24, 1990>. Describing Leuchter's behavior in Virginia, Florida, and Alabama, Carnes observed that in less than thirty days Leuchter had testified in three states that their electric-chair technology was too old and unreliable to be used. In Florida and Virginia the federal courts had rejected Leuchter's testimony as unreliable. In Florida the court had found that Leuchter had 'misquoted the statements' contained in an important affidavit and had 'inaccurately surmised' a crucial premise of his conclusion <Carnes, Op.Cit., 2>. In Virginia, Leuchter provided a death-row inmate's attorney with an affidavit claiming the electric chair would fail. The Virginia court decided the credibility of Leuchter's affidavit was limited because Leuchter was "the refused contractor who bid to replace the electrodes in the Virginia chair <Shapiro, "Truth Prevails, 22>." (Lipstadt, 170) 4.0 Research Materials & Sources Vera Laska provided an extensive list of assets for those interested in Holocaust research, which was included in the Auschwitz FAQ. I recommend it as an excellent starting point for anyone wishing to do serious research into the Reinhard camps. (Request auschwitz auschwitz.faq2) In addition, you may obtain our 19-part Holocaust bibliography by sending a message to kmcvay@oneb.almanac.bc.ca, and simply putting the word BIBLIO in the Subject: field of your message. All the parts will be mailed to you immediately. [Leuchter] [Page 25] 4.1 Recommended Reading For those wishing to learn more about the extermination facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau, we suggest that you begin with our two-part Guide, by requesting AUSCHWITZ AUSCHWITZ.FAQ1 and AUSCHWITZ.FAQ2, which contains a comprehensive list of sources. Truth Prevails: Demolishing Holocaust Denial, published by the Beate Klarsfeld foundation and Holocaust Survivors and Friends. ISBN 1-879437-00-7. Denying the Holocaust. Deborah Lipstadt provides extensive discussion relating to Leuchter's lack of expertise or credentials - see Work Cited. The Holocaust archives are available via InterNet Gopher. To access this service, use the command "gopher jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il". Select #4, "Electronic Jewish Library," then select #2, "Holocaust Archives." 4.2 Abbreviations Used in Citations (For a list of abbreviations which may have been used in this document, request: auschwitz reference.term.) 4.3 Glossary Krema: a unit containing a homicidal gas chamber and furnaces for disposing of the bodies. Auschwitz had five such installations. (Request gifs krema4.gif for a photograph [Pressac] of Krema IV, which was above ground, and gifs krema3.gif) 4.4 Works Cited Borkin, Joseph. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farbin. London & New York: Collier Macmillan Publishers (London) and The Free Press, a division of Macmillan Publishing, 1978. Brugioni, Dino A., and Robert G. Poirier. The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex. (Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C.) February 1979. The paper includes aerial photographs of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex in operation during WWII. A summary of their analysis is included in the paper. These photos corroborate eyewitness accounts/Nazi documentation on camp operations. [Leuchter] [Page 26] You can obtain a copy from the US gov't through the following sources: National Technical Information Service 5285 Port Royal Road Springfield, VA 22161 or: Photoduplication Service Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 20540 Use the report number(#st 79-10001) and the document number (NTISUBE28002) to speed service along. The document # is particularly important. Feig, Konnilyn G. Hitler's Death Camps. LOC D810.J4 F36, 1981 Foner, Samuel P. "Major Historical Fact Uncovered" SPOTLIGHT Vol. XIX, Number 2, January 11, 1993) Hilberg, Raul. Commandant of Auschwitz (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1959) Klarsfeld, Serge. The Holocaust and Neo-Nazi Mythomania, as quoted in Feig. Shelly, "Secretaries of Death", Edited and Translated by Lore Shelly, Shengold Publishers INC., NY 1986 Fertig, Howard. The History of KL-Auschwitz. New York: 1982 Fleming, Gerald. Hitler and the Final Solution. University of California Press, 1984 Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying The Holocaust. New York: Macmillan, 1993. Toronto: Maxwell MacMillan Canada. ISBN: 0-02-919235-8 Merck Index. Ninth Edition, 1976. Mu"ller, Filip. "Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers", as cited by both Feig and Hilberg. Museum w Oswiecimu. "KL Auschwitz seen by the SS Hoess, Broad, Kremer," 2nd. ed., 1978 Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. III. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946 Nazism: A History in Documents and Eye Witness Accounts, Vol.2 Pressac, J.C. Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers. New York: Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, 1989 [Leuchter] [Page 27] "Holocaust Revisionist Admits He Is Not Engineer." The Washington Post, June 18, 1991, FINAL Edition. Christopher B. Daly YVS XVI. Yad Vashem Studies, XVI. "Operation Reinhard": Extermination Camps of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1984 -- The Old Frog's Almanac Home of the Holocaust Archives Ladysmith, British Columbia, CANADA