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Orthodox Narrative Sometime in 1942, SS chief Heinrich Himmler is said to have decided that the traces of atrocities committed by German units both in the various so-called extermination camps as well as during mass shootings outside of camps needed to be erased. To this end, mass graves were ordered to be opened, the corpses…
Origin of the Term The origin of the term Aktion Reinhardt (sometimes spelled Reinhard) is not clear. Some historians think it was named after German State-Secretary of Finance Fritz Reinhardt, but a majority of historians think that it was named after Reinhardt Heydrich (whose first name is often misspelled as Reinhard). Orthodox Meaning of the Term…
In April 1944, the two Auschwitz inmates Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler escaped from the camp. They managed to flee to Slovakia, where they wrote down in May 1944 what they claimed was unfolding at Auschwitz. This report was sent in various versions and languages to several Jewish personalities. At the same time, the German authorities…
In October of 1938, the radically anti-Jewish Polish government decided that all Polish Jews living abroad who did not renew their passport in Poland by the end of October of that year would have their citizenship revoked. At that time, tens of thousands of Polish Jews were living in Germany, the majority of them in…
Numerous self-declared eyewitnesses of homicidal gas chambers have declared that they miraculously escaped from a gas chamber when they were just about to get gassed. The following individuals made such claims: Regina Bialek (Auschwitz) Arnold Friedman (Auschwitz) Mietek Grocher (Majdanek) Sofia Litwinska (Auschwitz) Filip Müller (Auschwitz) Moshe Peer (Bergen-Belsen) Mary Seidenwurm Wrzos (Majdanek)
On the day Germany’s armed forces invaded Poland, Hitler signed an order permitting the “mercy killing” of severely mentally disabled persons in what is called Germany’s Euthanasia Program. In charge of the program was Viktor Brack, a high official in the Reich’s Chancellery. The program was also called Aktion T4, an acronym for the Berlin…
Toward the end of the war, as Allied forces approached German concentration camps, orders were issued to evacuate all inmates capable of walking. Initially, this only affected the eastern camps threatened by the Red Army. Lublin (Majdanek) and Auschwitz were among the first camps to be subjected to this order. Some ghettos whose production facilities…
The excavation of mass graves containing victims of mass murder committed by German forces during World War II can be divided into two groups: Excavations presumably carried out by German units during the war in attempts to erase traces of their crimes. This is said to have happened during a large-scale operation nowadays referred to…
The term “final solution” (German: Endlösung – end/terminal/final solution) within the context of what National Socialists called the “Jewish Question” first appeared in a letter written on 24 June 1940 by Reinhardt Heydrich, head of Germany’s Department of Homeland Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt), to Joachim von Ribbentrop, German Minister of Foreign Affairs. In this letter, Heydrich asserted…
Rumors about the “first gassing” at the Auschwitz Main Camp originated in propaganda spread by inmate resistance groups there in October of 1941. This propaganda claimed that the Germans were testing toxic gases on Russian PoWs in preparation for chemical warfare at the Eastern front. Similar claims of the preparation of weapons of mass destruction…
After Germany’s victory over Poland and the annexation of West Prussia and the Warthe Region in early 1940, German officials developed a plan called “Generalplan Ost” (“General Plan East”) that aimed at Germanizing these regions and resettling those parts of the population that they thought could not be integrated, including all Jews. These people were…
Healthcare provided by the SS in German concentration camps is said to have been of very low quality, if it existed at all. Inmates too sick or injured to be cured quickly are said to have been killed in order to get rid of “useless eaters.” But like so many aspects of the orthodox Holocaust…
Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Third Reich’s SS and police forces, had an obsession with delivering endless speeches. Many if not most of his speeches were delivered in front of non-public audiences usually consisting of high-profile personalities of politics and military. The topics Himmler covered reach from the mundane to the top secret. Surprisingly, many…
Himmler’s service calendar proves that he visited Auschwitz on 17 and 18 July 1942, in order to follow up on the implementation of plans to expand the Birkenau Camp. The orthodoxy claims that, on this occasion, Himmler attended the gassing of a transport of Jews. However, Himmler’s service calendar, showing that he was busy doing…
The word holocaust originates from the two Greek words hólos (whole) and kaustós (burnt). It used to refer to a religious sacrifice whereby an animal carcass is completely consumed by fire (burnt offering). Starting in 1903, the term was occasionally used in articles of the New York Times referring to the persecution of Jews in…
The orthodoxy insists that on 3 and 4 November 1943, all remaining Jews in the Trawniki and Poniatowa forced-labor camps, as well as in the Majdanek Concentration Camp, were murdered. Some 42,000 to 43,000 persons are said to have been shot and buried in mass graves on these two days, 17,000 to 18,000 of them…
“Selection” is a term used by witnesses and postwar historical accounts about the alleged process whereby German wartime-camp officials picked out inmates presumably unfit for work or otherwise deemed unworthy of living. The supposed aim was to murder these inmates either in gas chambers (large batches of inmates) or by way of individual executions, prominent among…
Soviet Union Soviet Russia is infamous for its systematic mistreatment, torture and murder of millions of prisoners from all walks of life already prior to the war with Germany. The legal standing of prisoners certainly did not improve with the outbreak of hostilities, and reached a fever pitch toward the end of the conflict. The…
Typhus fevers are a group of diseases caused by bacteria that are transmitted by parasitic insects, such as fleas, lice and chiggers. In the context of the Holocaust, epidemic typhus is relevant. Epidemic typhus is also sometimes called European, classic, or louse-borne typhus, as well as jail fever. The disease is caused by the bacteria…
During the year 1941, it became clear to Germany’s top officials that there would be no peace in the West. Therefore, any plans to force Jews out of Europe to some overseas region, as was suggested with the so-called Madagascar Plan, became increasingly unlikely. On the other hand, Germany’s initial successes during its invasion of…
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