Lévy, Robert

Robert Lévy was a French-Jewish professor of medicine from Strasbourg deported to Auschwitz in September 1942, where he was deployed as a surgeon working at the Ausch­witz inmate hospital. In a 1947 article, he reported about his experiences in Auschwitz. He claimed no direct knowledge of the alleged extermination procedure, but summarized what he had heard elsewhere. In this article, he regurgitated a string of clichés, among them the legend – refuted by air photos – that gigantic open-air incinerations took place in the summer of 1944. He moreover invented a new extermination method by stating that the victims “went into an immense freight elevator, where they were gassed; thanks to this system, the bodies were transported to the furnaces without wasting time.” It is needless to say that no such thing ever existed. This only proves that, no matter your academic title, you should limit yourself to writing about things you are well-familiar with, or else you might look like a fool and do your own cause a huge disservice by discrediting witness statements in general. (Mattogno 2021, p. 395.)