A. Many concentration camp inmates were imprisoned not simply for ethnic reasons. They were there because they were common criminals. Some of these people were not honest to begin with and used this opportunity to turn the tables on their former captors. It is a way to take revenge and to distract attention away from their own crimes.
B. Many concentration camp inmates were there for political reasons-- particularly communists. They might lie for ideological reasons. Alleging atrocities and abuse would help to discredit the Nazi regime and system that imprisoned them.. On a more personal level, communists and Jews who spent the war in a camp working for the Nazis need to justify their actions while in custody. This usually entailed working in German shops and factories for the Germans. Claiming heavy abuse, or involvement in sabotage are ways of satisfying questions of personal political hygiene.
C. Some former prisoners testified to abuse after their liberation from the Nazis simply because that was what was expected of them from their liberators. In the postwar trials some people became paid professional prosecution witnesses who were willing to testify to just about anything. Perjury by prosecution witnesses was not something that was punished-instead it was often encouraged.



15) Why do revisionists not find the eyewitness testimony credible?
a) Eyewitness testimony, even when it is not politically motivated, is the lowest quality of evidence. Memory is a very malleable thing even under normal circumstances. In the highly charged atmosphere of the ideological conflict that destroyed a major part of Europe, the testimony of people who have good reason to hold a grudge should be highly suspect and examined carefully. When inspected critically, many of the cornerstone testimonies regarding the Holocaust contain many factual errors and absurdities. Another important point to consider is the circumstances under which the testimonies--particularly those of the Nazis-were obtained. Torture was used in some cases to obtain "confessions." In others, threats were made against the lives and health of members of the "war criminal's" family. Under the conditions that prevailed at the end of the war, the Allied governments could obtain any sort of testimony they wanted to get. And they did. It is not just the revisionists who view the supposed eyewitness testimony with caution; Authors like Arno Mayer, J.C. Pressac, and Tom Segev also are aware of just how unreliable "survivor" and other postwar testimony is. Despite this, these authors regard this testimony to be, in a general sense, true even though they are exaggerated, or contain hearsay information.



16) Why does the U.S. government endorse the Holocaust story?
a) World War Two was the event which drew the United States back onto the global political scene after following a politically neutral foreign policy since the end of World War I. It defined the United States as the world's economic and military superpower, with only the Stalinist U.S.S.R. as a major competitor. The U.S. began to follow an ideologically messianic foreign policy under Roosevelt which sought to internationalize the New Deal. This political messianism solidified and became more sharply defined under Truman and the development of the Cold War. Part of the justification for the international role the U.S. has played has been its new obligation to fight 'evil' regimes and protect 'democratic' ones. The paradigm for the U.S. role in international politics is its involvement in W.W.II and the paradigm for the 'evil' it is fighting is Hitler and Nazi Germany--particularly as it has become defined in its attempt to exterminate the Jews.
Since Stalin, our ally, could be argued to be every bit as evil as Hitler, a reason had to found to define what made Nazi Germany so much more evil than Soviet Russia. The idea that we fought Germany because Hitler declared war after extensive U.S. provocation does not serve an active interventionist policy. The Holocaust serves the purpose of justifying U.S. political messianism which insisted on the unconditional surrender of Germany, bombed German cities into ruins, suppressed German economic recovery for three years after the surrender, and put the country under U.S. military occupation for nearly fifty more. Questioning the Holocaust therefore would also be a round-about threat to messianic myth which drives U.S. interventionist foreign policy. There are other factors involved in the U.S. endorsement of the Holocaust which involve its prosecution of 'Nazi war criminals' at the show trials that followed the war; Except for the alleged attempt to exterminate the Jews, the U.S., British, and the Soviets committed all of the same crimes they accused and hanged the Nazis for. Of course, not least of all, the political power wielded by the 'AIPAC' and other branches of the 'Jewish lobby' work to ride herd on the U.S. government when it feels its interests are threatened. The Holocaust is Zionism's most important political tool and weapon.



17) Why does the current German government endorse the Holocaust story?
a) The postwar German government of West Germany, based in Bonn, which has become the government of a reunified Germany has endorsed and protects the Holocaust story by law because West Germany wished to rejoin the community of nations that had rejected it during the war years. In order to do that West Germany had to demonstrate its rejection of its Nazi past. Part of this act of contrition is its recognition and support of the Zionist state of Israel which states in its declaration of independence that the reason for its foundation was the Holocaust. Any rejection of the Holocaust story by the German government would be regarded as a sign of backsliding by the United States, Israel, the international Jewish lobby organizations, such as the World Jewish Congress, and other interested parties. In exchange Germany has again been allowed to become a major political and economic force in Europe. The myth that the Nazi regime was composed of a few thugs who intimidated the German nation and that therefore Germans are not collectively guilty for the sins of Nazi Germany has been promulgated as part of the new German political order. A re- examination of the twelve years of Nazi rule is viewed by the German establishment as potentially having only negative results. It prefers the status quo where it pretends to be a new Germany which has rejected its past rather than a creature of the Allied occupying powers.



18) What was the purpose of Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and so forth?
a) The Nazi concentration camp system served as a source of labor and income for the SS which rented prison labor to private industry. It was a prison system for common criminals and political enemies. Auschwitz and Birkenau held many unemployed prisoners, many of them with no job skills or too sick to work. These included inmates with chronic illnesses such as tuberculosis. Some camps were designated transit camps where Jews being resettled in ghettos in the East were deloused before being sent on to their final destinations. In some cases Jews were placed in quarantine before being sent to their final destinations to prevent the introduction of diseases like typhus into the Eastern ghettos. This is not to say many Poles, Gypsies, and others did not die in the Nazi concentration camps. They did, but the context of their deaths is quite different than the one usually portrayed.



19) Why was the Wannsee conference held?
a) Because of the rapid acquisition of huge amounts of territory which had been depopulated by the retreating communists, the Nazi leadership saw this as an opportunity to expel the Jews. Germany now had control of an area into which to put them until the end of the war. Because of the war, an international boycott of German goods and limits on immigration in Palestine and other areas, Germany had difficulty getting the Jews to emigrate. In addition, the defeat of Poland in 1939, and the annexation of Austria, and parts of Czechoslovakia before that brought millions of additional Jews under German control. The Wannsee conference was where Germany's new policy toward the Jews was outlined. The Nazis believed the Jews constituted a security risk due to the 'stab in the back' of World War One in which they blamed the Jews for Germany's defeat. By expelling and isolating the Jews the Nazis hoped, among other things, to keep the Jews from agitating inside Germany and detrimentally affecting the morale of the country. They also believed Jews could not be assimilated and were a negative cultural influence. In the process of expulsion, many of the Jews being relocated would also be put to work on various projects related to the war effort in the east and according to the Wannsee protocol many were expected die in the process. After the war, it was planned that a homeland for the Jews would be created outside of Europe through an international agreement. The Jews resettled in Russia, would be relocated once again to this new, remote homeland once this expected agreement was reached.



20) What did Himmler refer to in his Posnan speech if not a policy of killing the Jews?
a) The quote from the October 4,1943 Himmler Posnan speech usually cited as evidence that the Nazis were attempting to exterminate the Jews is this:
'I am referring to the evacuation of the Jew, the annihilation of the Jewish people. This is one of these things that are easily said. "The Jewish people is going to be annihilated," says every party member. "Sure, it is our program, elimination of the Jews, annihilation-we'll take care of it." And then they all come trudging, 80 million worthy Germans, and every one has one decent Jew. Sure, the others are swine, but this one is an A-1 Jew. Of all those who talk this way, not one has been through it. Most of you must know what it means to see a hundred corpses lie side by side, or five hundred, or a thousand. To have stuck this out and - excepting cases of human weakness-to have kept our integrity, that is what has made us hard. In our history, this is an unwritten and never-to- be-written page of glory, for we know how difficult we would have made ourselves if today-amid the bombing raids, the hardships and the deprivations of war-we still had the Jews in every city as secret saboteurs, agitators, and demagogues. If the Jews still ensconced in the body of the German nation, we probably would have reached the 1916-17 stage by now.'
Some revisionists question the authenticity of the Posnan speech, while others believe it to be authentic. In any case, the meaning of this one paragraph taken from a long, rambling speech by Himmler to SS officials is ambiguous. Himmler does not mention gas chambers, or death camps, or specifically to mass killings. The meaning of this passage is unclear. Himmler speaks of large numbers of corpses and the "annihilation" of the Jews, but he also makes reference to "bombing raids, the hardships and the deprivations of war" which would also produce large numbers of corpses. Himmler does not say whose corpses are lying side by side. In 1943 Nazi Germany had suffered a major reversal of fortune on the Russian front. The SS was involved in fighting the Red Army and partisan guerrillas behind the front. To say Himmler is talking about killing large numbers of Jews in gas chambers is reading a lot into the text of this one paragraph. The point Himmler appears to be making in this quote is though expelling the Jews is a difficult, thankless task, but if it had not been done German morale would be low and Germany would have be suing for peace with the Russians because of internal disorder caused by the Jews. This quote should be taken in the context of the Nazi myth of the Jews stabbing Germany in the back and causing its defeat in World War I.



21) Weren't gas chambers for killing people found at some of the Nazi concentration camps when they were captured by the Allied armies?
a) No. The 'gas chambers' on display at Dachau and Auschwitz were originally crematory morgues. The Dachau crematory morgue was altered by the U.S. Army into a mock up 'gas chamber disguised as a shower' for 'educational' purposes. The one at Majdanek was a delousing chamber for the fumigation of mattresses and other material. Several forensic examinations of these rooms and others which are now in ruins conclude none of these facilities could have been used as execution chambers for the killing of large numbers of people. Their designs are all wrong. Despite the fact that these 'reconstructions' are displayed to hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, Holocaust historians such as Arno Mayer and Hugh Trevor-Roper admit nobody knows what the gas chambers looked like or how they operated. This is no reason not to believe the gas chambers are a myth according to these two authors, but others take a more skeptical view.



22) How many Jews died during the war if the 6 million is not the correct number?
a) This is not known, but several demographic studies indicate the number of Jews who lost their lives in the war from all causes is somewhere around one million persons. There are several difficulties in determining what the Jewish population is at any point in time. First, a definition has to be agreed upon. If the definition is religious, then a population decrease might be attributable to conversions to other faiths. Are those who no longer practice any religion to be counted? Once a definition is determined, how does one go about counting the population? Between 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland and the German surrender in 1945 uncounted millions of people were displaced by the war. People who lived in Poland in 1939 were in the U.S.S.R in 1945 and they didn't have to move at all. National borders were redrawn all over eastern Europe. In any case, taking a Jewish census was not a top priority in 1945 and none was taken. Most estimates of Jewish losses in Europe are baseless, or at least flawed in that they do not include Jewish population increases due to immigration in areas outside Europe during the 1930's through the 1950's. Even today in a world without the restrictions in communication that existed in the preceding five decades estimates in world Jewish population vary by several million persons depending on who is doing the estimating and how and why the guesses are being made.



23) What did the term 'selection' refer to?
a) Holocaust literature often uses 'selection' as meaning a process in which prisoners were segregated into a group that would be put to work and a group that would be put to death. Of course, the process of sorting prisoners by sex and age before the delousing procedure was a standard and implied nothing sinister since the prisoners had to strip in order to take a shower. The Nazi concentration camps generally segregated prisoners by sex with children under 14 staying with their mothers if an entire family was put into the camp. Prisoners were also selected and organized by the type of work that was assigned to them. Selections also took place when prisoners were to be reassigned to other camps, or were to be released. Many who spent time in Auschwitz served sentences of less than a year and went home after completing their sentence. In addition sick prisoners were triaged and sent to hospital blocks. Many of these procedures required a quick visual examination by an SS doctor who to part in the camp selections. The 'selection' process was part of routine camp procedures and has since been given an evil meaning in survivor testimony and Holocaust literature.



24) What did the term 'special treatment' refer to?
a) Several German words with the 'Sonder' or 'special' prefix have been designated as code words in the Holocaust lexicon. 'Sonderbehandlung' can mean many different things in German depending on the context. In many documents in the Auschwitz files, the 'Sonder' prefix designated something that had to do with the hygienic regimen that was instituted in the camps after the epidemics of the summer of 1942. There was 'special action', 'special treatment', 'baths for special purpose' and other terms which referred specifically to procedures put in place to control body lice and the spread of typhus.



25) What did the term 'special action' refer to?
a) The diary of SS doctor Josef Kremer makes repeated references to his taking part in 'special actions' while he was assigned to duty at Auschwitz during the Fall of 1942. This was during the worst time of the typhus epidemic at that camp. While his diary does not make clear what he was doing during one of these special actions, it appears his duty was one of giving clinical (i.e. visual) examinations to groups of prisoners being transferred from other camps and sub-camps of Auschwitz (e.g. Birkenau.) Because of the typhus epidemic many of prisoners were in very bad shape and prompted Kremer to record the horrible conditions that prevailed in the camp at the time. In his private diary he referred to Auschwitz as the butt hole of the world and compared it to Dante's Inferno. A 'special action' could refer to any number of activities at the camp. The use of this term in German refers to any unscheduled activities or duties performed that were outside the norm.



26) What is Zyklon-B used for?
a) Zykon-B is a commercially made fumigant designed to rid man-made structures, such as buildings, ships, silos, etc. of destructive pests including moths, rodents, termites, and--most importantly during World War II--the typhus-bearing body louse. Many of the Nazi concentration camps suffered from typhus epidemics which killed hundreds of thousands of prisoners. Camp staff members also became sick and died from typhus. To control the epidemics, a hygienic regimen was instituted which included the periodic fumigation of camp buildings with Zyklon-B. Decontamination facilities were also built to delouse clothing, luggage, etc. Some of these facilities used steam, others used Zyklon-B. The hygienic practices also included shaving the hair of incoming prisoners and forcing them to take a shower as part of a delousing procedure. Large shipments of the fumigant was sent to many of the Nazi concentration camps and not just to the alleged 'death camps.' So the presence of Zyklon-B in a camp is not an indication that it was there to be used to gas prisoners. Zyklon-B is a fumigant. There was a hygienic need for a fumigant in the camps. It's use in the camps is not evidence of a genocide program. In fact, it is just the opposite. Zykon-B was used in an effort to save the lives and health of camp inmates and staff.



27) Why would German documents designate Zyklon-B as material for Jewish resettlement?
a) The resettlement of Jews by the Nazis meant they would have to be moved to housing in the east. This housing in some cases needed to be fumigated before it was turned over the resettled Jews. Transit camps were also set up where Jews, and their luggage, being transported eastward, would be deloused before being sent to their final destinations. Since the delousing of Jews and their belongings and the fumigation of buildings was part of the resettlement process, there is nothing unusual in the fact in some documents the fumigant Zyklon-B would be labeled 'material for Jewish resettlement.'



28) Why did the Nazis equip some of their camps with crematories?
a)From 1942 until the end of the War in 1945, the SS fought epidemics of typhus and other diseases in the concentration camps. One of the largest camps and the one hardest hit by the epidemic was Auschwitz and its satellite camps. An average of about one hundred prisoners out of population of around fifty thousand died there every day. The crematories were built as a sanitary measure to dispose of the bodies of the dead. Auschwitz/Birkenau's crematories were completed during the first half of 1943 after it was decided to expand the camp to hold two hundred thousand prisoners. This decision and the already high death rate at the camp is why the four crematory facilities were built there. Many of the concentration camps had crematories and many did not. Included in those that did not is Treblinka which is alleged to have been an extermination camp. The conclusion that has to be drawn is the presence of crematories is not an indication of the existence of gas chambers or an extermination program. Several studies of the crematories conclude these facilities were designed to handle the camp disease mortality rate and little more.



29) Why were Jews required to wear a yellow hexagram on their clothing in Nazi Germany?
a)From the time the Hitler became Chancellor, the policy of the Nazi regime was to institute laws which would politically, socially, and economically isolate the Jews of Germany and encourage their emigration. The yellow Star of David was only one of many harassing laws applied to the Jews to get them to leave Germany.



30) What role did the Einsatzgruppen play in the German war effort?
a)Because the fight between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was a largely ideological one, and the Soviet Union was not a signatory of Geneva Convention agreements on the conduct of war, it was rightly assumed by Hitler that the Soviets would not fight by the rules. The Einsatzgruppen were police units assigned to the pacification of occupied territories in the east. Their duties included fighting anti-German partisan guerrillas, shooting captured communist 'commissars' and executing civilians in reprisal for acts of murder and sabotage committed by the guerrillas.



31) Why were so many dead bodies found in the Nazi camps when they were captured by Allied troops?
a) By the early spring of 1945, when the British and American troops began occupying German territory containing Nazi prison and labor camps, Germany was in a state of economic chaos. Allied bombers and fighter planes made the communication of goods very difficult and many of the concentration camps had not received enough supplies for weeks or months to feed the camps, or to provide the sick in the camps with medicine. In addition, as German military forces retreated from the advancing Red army in 1944 and 1945 many prisoners retreated with them; most did so voluntarily. More and more people were crowded into fewer and fewer camps. The overcrowding and lack of supplies combined to contribute to the spread of disease in the camps in the final months of the war. The death rate in the camps outstripped the capacity of the crematoria in the camps to dispose of them. In some cases there was no fuel to run the crematoria even if death rates were at 'normal' levels. This increase in camp population, and breakdown in support services to the camps led to an increased death rate. The bodies piled up in the days and weeks before the surrender of the camps to the advancing Allied armies in the spring of 1945.



32) Why is the Holocaust story important to Israel?
a) Israel's 1948 declaration of independence states the reason that state was being founded was the Holocaust had shown there was a need for a Jewish state as a place of refuge for Jews suffering persecution. Without the Holocaust, there is no demonstrated need for a Jewish state. The Israeli government therefore considers any questioning of the Holocaust to be a questioning of Israel's right to exist. It passed a law in the early 1980's making questioning, or minimizing the Holocaust a crime punishable by a sentence of five years in prison-a sentence more severe than the one in Israeli law for questioning God's existence.



33) What was Babi Yar?
a) Babi Ravine [ = Yar] is a ravine in Ukraine where over 100, 000 Jews are said to have been shot by the Nazis and buried in a mass grave. The bodies were later exhumed and the evidence destroyed.



34) What evidence exists for the massacre at Babi Yar?
a)The basis of the Babi Yar allegation is Soviet wartime propaganda, some documents purporting to be Nazi reports of the massacre, and post war testimony. According to these claims the bodies of the victims were exhumed and destroyed by the Nazis before the Soviets recaptured the territory. There is no physical evidence of the massacre. Air photographs taken of the area soon after the mass exhumation is supposed to have occurred show no evidence of it.



35) Why were Jews put into concentration camps by the Nazis?
a) Jews were put into concentration and labor camps for a wide variety of reasons. Some were imprisoned because of criminal activities or anti-Nazi political activities. Others, particularly after 1943 and the reversal of Germany's fortunes on the eastern front, were taken from ghettos for the purpose of working in factories and on farms and housed in concentration camps to keep them socially isolated from the surrounding community. The war produced a shortage of labor and Jews were exploited to fill that need. This situation put Jews in the position of working for the Nazis and the German war effort which was socially and politically embarrassing for them once Germany surrendered and Nazism defeated. Since Jewish inmates could therefore be seen as collaborating with the German war effort, there was pressure upon them to explain why they had worked for the Nazis. The explanation, like that used by Germans who were accused of participating in the extermination of the Jews, was the only alternative was death. If the inmate did not work, he or she was murdered The excuse then was they had to cooperate to save their lives. Some have added to this reason the self-inflated "in order to bear witness" reason for their working for the Nazis, if saving their own skins was not reason enough. If the need to bear witness overrides any reason not to cooperate with the Nazis, then what was witnessed needs to be extraordinary. In this may be a core reason for the wild tales told by some former concentration camp inmates because after the war they were viewed with scorn by other Jews and wished to rehabilitate their standing in the community. The Zionists living outside Europe referred to the Jews who survived Nazi occupation as "soap" because of their lack of resistance to the Nazi occupation and the extermination program.



36) What was the function of Treblinka camp?
a)Records indicate there were two Treblinkas. Treblinka I was a labor camp that included a gravel quarry. Treblinka II was a smaller camp and was probably a delousing station for Jews being resettled in the east. Train loads of Jews would arrive at T-II to be deloused. Their luggage would also be deloused. Once the procedure was completed, the Jews would board a new train that would take them to their final destination which was either a labor camp or ghetto somewhere in occupied Soviet territory. German documents indicate Jews were being funneled through Treblinka which was designated a transit camp. T-II played a major role in the deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to labor camps and ghettos farther east.



37) What evidence is used to support the Treblinka death camp story?
a) There are wartime news reports that Jews were being killed in large numbers at Treblinka and there are also the postwar recollections of about 70 people who claim to have worked as prisoners at the camp. There are also the 'confessions' of Nazis who were either assigned to the camp or claim to have visited it during the year or so that it was operational. The content of the testimonies is largely contradictory and in some cases very funny. Read about Treblinka from three or more sources and compare what they say about the method used to kill Jews there and you will understand why I say that. There is no physical evidence that hundreds of thousands of people were killed at Treblinka. The camp was totally dismantled by the Nazis and the site today contains an elaborate memorial that was built long after the war was over.



38) Why were Gypsies put into concentration camps?
a)Some groups of Gypsies were put into Nazi concentration camps for several reasons. The German government considered them a security risk, but more importantly the Romany led a wandering lifestyle and did not occupy themselves in what the Nazis considered productive employment. Because they refused to abandon their traditional lifestyle, they were put to work in labor camps.



39) Why is the question of the gas chambers important?
a)The gas chambers are supposed to be the end result of a long chain of events that evolved into a genocide program. They then constitute the physical application of Nazi policy toward the Jews. Whether the policy the exterminate the Jews was the intention from the start, or whether it evolved into it over time because of circumstance, the gas chambers are unambiguous signs the extermination program existed. So, if the silly gas chamber allegation is abandoned in favor of shootings, or starvation, or clubbings the whole fabric of the Holocaust story begins to unravel. If the gas chamber story is false, why has it been pushed for half a century by those who insist it is true? If the extermination of the Jews is true, why falsely allege gas chambers were used when another method of murder was applied? The gas chamber story and the extermination story are twins joined at the heart. If one dies, so does the other. On another level, men were hanged because of the gas chambers. The German nation has spent half a century apologizing over the gas chambers. The orientation of European and Middle Eastern politics revolves around the gas chamber story as justification for many actions taken by various governments. The question of the gas chambers is important because outcome of W.W.II is the basis on which the world has rested for the last half century and how that war is viewed has a lot to do with how many countries view their current role in the political world.



40) How did the Holocaust story originate?
a)The Holocaust story of German extermination of the Jews originated during the war. The charge of gassings of Jews in concentration camps was leveled by the Zionist and Jewish organizations appear around 1942 and were picked up and given lip service by the American and British governments at about the same time. Some Zionists were looking to leverage the British into opening Palestine up to more Jewish immigrants. By pleading a refuge in Palestine was needed due to the crisis of Nazi Germany's mass murder of the Jews, these groups hoped to embarrass the British to life immigration restrictions and to pressure the U.S. government to use its influence to get Great Britain to make the changes to its policies regarding the Jews and Palestine they desired. Other Jewish organizations wished to stop the Germans who were deporting entire Jewish communities east. Many of these deportations were taking place under inhumane circumstances. Various plans were floated to purchase groups of Jews from the Nazi regime to get them out of Europe or to terminate the deportations and though the Nazis appear to have been willing to negotiate, none of them were implemented. The Soviets also began accusing the Germans of murdering civilians soon after the mass graves containing the bodies of executed Polish Army officers were discovered in the forests near Katyn by the German Army. Stalin accused the Germans of the Katyn forest massacre as well. Katyn was one of the crimes for which Germans were prosecuted after the war. The Russians finally admitted responsibility for that crime only a few years ago. As a propaganda story among many meant to discredit the Axis war effort and overshadow Soviet atrocities, the genocide charge took on a similar role during the IMT and NMT war crimes trials and the post war de- Nazification programs. The point to it was and is to discredit the NS regime and place it beyond the political pale. The Holocaust became the paradigm which demonstrated the evil of the Nazi regime and therefore justified the amount of destruction inflicted on Europe to defeat it. The evil of Germany revealed in the Holocaust became the reason Germany and Europe remained divided for so long and why the United States needed to become western Europe's guardian. Since Europe could not be trusted to protect itself after the defeat of Nazism from the new menace of Russian Communism which had recently swallowed eastern Europe, the United States had an excuse to remain engaged in European politics and retard Germany's political and economic recovery. As an indication the status quo established by World War Two is still in place, recent commemorations of the Nuremberg trials have lionized them as a dispensation of justice rather than repudiating them for the show-trials they were.



41) Are there precedents to what happened to the Jews?
a) The forced transfer of populations is something that has happened as long as history has been recorded. In more recent times, the Turks and the Greeks exchanged populations when borders were redrawn at the end of W.W.I. At the end of W.W.II millions of Germans were relocated under horrible conditions. In the United States, Indian tribes were resettled multiple times as the country expanded westward. Stalin uprooted millions of various ethnic minorities in Russia and forcibly resettled them in Siberia. The forcible expulsion of ethnic groups is not a unique occurrence and definitely not rare even in the last one hundred years. SR)


42) What escape routes were available to Jews during the war?
a) Many Jews were able to leave Europe during the war through a variety of paths. Over 100,000 are claimed by Yad Vashem to have crossed Soviet territory to Shanghai, China which had liberal immigration policies. From there almost all of them proceeded to other destinations which included the United States, Canada, and Australia. Fashion designer John Weitz is said to have taken this emigration route through China. Others traveled south from the Soviet Union into Iran and then west to Palestine. Menachem Begin supposedly left his native Poland during the war using this route. Another pathway out of Europe used by Jews during and after the war was a southerly course through the Balkans and Greece to Turkey and then on to Palestine.



43) Did resistance to German occupation affect Nazi treatment of Jews in territory under their control?
a)Soviet propaganda agitated for civilians to fight the Germans in occupied Soviet territory. Many partisan guerrilla groups remained active in these areas committing acts of sabotage and murder throughout the time the Nazis occupied them. The Nazis viewed communism as a creature of the Jews and in reprisal for the war being waged by the partisans, many Jews were shot. Jews were viewed by many in the Baltic states, occupied by the Communists in 1940, as collaborators in that occupation. As the Red army retreated in 1941, the Soviet secret police known as the NKVD murdered as many of the political prisoners as they could before abandoning their prisons to the advancing Germans. Many Jews who did not retreat with the Russians were rounded up and murdered by local anti-Communist militias and German units in reaction to the NKVD murders of members of nationalist groups they held in their prisons.



44) How were Jewish ghettos in Nazi territory administered?
a)Ghettos set up by the Nazis were administered by a Jewish council called the Judenratt. The Judenratt was the point of contact between the Nazis and the Jews of the ghetto. It acted as the official ghetto government.



45) What role did the Judenratt play in providing labor for the concentration camps?
a)The Judenratt would provide lists of names of people in the ghetto that could be conscripted for work in the concentration camps. This was a compromise the Judenratt made with the Nazi SS which was known to send press gangs into the ghetto and kidnap Jews off the street.



46) Why did Otto Frank, father of diarist Anne Frank, leave Germany?
a) Otto Frank was wanted in Germany on charges of embezzlement of money from his employer.



47) What was the 'transfer agreement?'
a)An international boycott of German goods organized by some American Jews cut Germany's foreign exchange. It also cut the value of German currency outside the country. The Nazis wanted Germany's Jews to emigrate, but it was difficult for them to do so for several reasons. One of the most prominent reasons was they did not want to leave all their assets behind when they left the country. The transfer agreement was made between Nazi Germany and the Zionist leadership in British-controlled Palestine by which German goods would be purchased in Germany using the assets of the Jews wishing to emigrate to Palestine. The German goods would be shipped to Palestine with the emigrating Jews. The goods would then be sold in Palestine and the proceeds would go to the émigré's. About 50,000 Jews are said to have taken advantage of the program which was implemented by the German government, the Zionist leadership and several Jewish financial institutions inside and outside of Germany. One of the most notable of these was the Warburg bank in Hamburg.



48) Why did the Nazis initiate a boycott of Jewish shops in Germany?
a) The Nazis proclaimed a boycott of German shops owned by Jews in response to an international boycott of German goods declared by international Jewish groups on March 24th, 1933 that was to last more than twelve years.



49) How long did the Nazi boycott last?
a) The Nazi boycott of German Jewish shops lasted one day: April 1st, 1933. It was a Saturday--when religious Jews would not be doing business because of religious obligations.



50) What events led up to the Kristallnacht pogrom?
a) Poland passed a law which required Polish Jews living outside the country return to Poland to have their passports stamped. If these stamps were not obtained by a particular date, the passports would become invalid and the bearer would no longer be recognized by Poland as a citizen of that country. Nazi Germany, fearing that it would suddenly have a large population of 'stateless' Jews, forced thousands of Polish Jews living in Nazi Germany back to Poland to obtain the required stamp. After the stamp was obtained, the Jews were free to return to Germany, which is what most of them did. Among those deported were the parents of Hershel Grynspan, a young Polish Jew living in Paris. While several stories exist about his motivation, including anger over what he considered the mistreatment of his family, it is not certain why he went to the German embassy to kill the German ambassador. Because he was not allowed to see the ambassador, the assassin shot another German diplomat instead who died a few days later from his wound. Goebbels is generally blamed for instigating the pogrom against German Jews that took place thereafter.



51) Why was German Jewry fined to pay for the damage done during the Kristallnacht pogrom?
a)The Nazis fined the German Jewish community for the damage from the pogrom because much of the material needed for repairs had to be imported. Because of the Jewish boycott of German goods, Germany lacked foreign exchange. The fine was a direct punishment for the Jewish boycott of Germany.



52) What was Hitler's reaction to news of the pogrom?
a) He was shocked and angry. He ordered that it be stopped immediately.

53) How many gas chambers were there at Treblinka?
a) One, three, five or six, seven, eight, ten, or thirteen depending on which source you use. In some accounts of Treblinka there were no gas chambers, but steam chambers that boiled Jews to death like lobsters. Other stories allege Jews were crowded into sealed buildings and large pumps were used to evacuate the air causing the victims to suffocate. The gas chambers of Treblinka are a mystery both in their number and their design. There is no real evidence the gas chambers at Treblinka numbered any more than zero.
Hannah Arendt quotes Eichmann as recalling seeing one large hall and being told the killing agent was cyanide. Steiner states there were originally three gas chambers and ten more larger structures were added later and that the gas used was engine exhaust. An ex-SS member remembers there being five or six large gas chambers and an unspecified number of smaller ones while another states he believes there were eight. Hoess, the Auschwitz commandant, says in his confession that there were ten gas chambers at Treblinka, but claims to have visited the camp on a date before it existed. The IMT trials accepted an official Polish government report into evidence that claims ten chambers were built at Treblinka and the killing agent was steam. Most books on the death camps contain very little about Treblinka and the other four lesser-known "death camps" because evidence about them is so scarce and confused. Even simple questions like 'how many gas chambers?' cannot be answered authoritatively because the evidence is contradictory and of similar quality.



54) What agent was used to kill people in the gas chambers at Treblinka?
a) It might have been cyanide, or steam, or diesel engine exhaust, or gasoline engine exhaust, or some delayed-action mystery gas. It depends on the source consulted. Since the camp was dismantled long before the war ended, it is entirely speculation that gas chambers existed at Treblinka at all. The official version of events appears based on the reports of Gerstein and confessions of others who were either stationed at the camp, or survived it as inmates. This version centers around the use of engine exhaust. Diesel engine exhaust is most frequently alleged.



55) What evidence is there that Jews were being resettled in the east by the Nazis?
a)First, there are Nazi documents that mention ghettos of resettled Jews in White Russia and other areas of occupied Soviet territory. Second, thousands of Jews survived their relocation by the Nazis and either returned to their former homes after the war or emigrated from Europe after the defeat of Germany testifying to the fact they had been relocated. Third, during the war, many resettled Jews continued to correspond with people back in their home countries.



56) What consequences have revisionists suffered for their conclusions?
a) Since at least the 1970's revisionist authors and researchers have met with not only with derision from other historians and authors, but also with court fines, imprisonment, assault, arson attacks against their homes and offices, loss of employment, of pensions, revocation of academic degrees, exclusion from entering some countries, expulsion from other countries.
A popular magazine in Japan was shut down after printing a revisionist article.
A revisionist book published in Germany was ordered destroyed by a German court-every copy was to be burned!
Revisionist WWWeb sites have been shut down without warning for their content.
Discussions of revisionist findings on various online services have been cut off by the services.


57) What evidence exists for mass murder at Belzec?
a)Like the evidence of it at the other camps, it consists of testimony. Belzec is supposed have been similar to Treblinka according to some stories, but a fantastic report about the camp filed with the IMT alleges Belzec had a subterranean facility where Jews were marched into a pool of water where they were electrocuted. Once they were dead, a grillwork on the bottom of the pool lifted the mass of corpses up and out of the water. Then current sent through the grillwork caused it to heat up and incinerate the bodies. It's laughable, but certainly as true as any of the stories about Belzec.



58) What evidence exists for mass murder at Chelmno?
a)Testimony.
SR)Butz; Mayer; Klee; Lanzmann
59) Where did the bodies of the dead at Treblinka go?
a) It is alleged by those who claim to be survivors of Treblinka camp that some 800,000 bodies were first buried in mass graves and that these were later exhumed and burned on iron rails set over wood fires. Treblinka was not equipped with crematories. Aerial photography of the site taken in 1944 shows no indication of mass graves or locations where continuous burning of bodies had taken place.



60) How many are claimed to have been killed at Treblinka?
a) The figure most often given for Treblinka is 800,000 or more Jews gassed or otherwise killed in less than a year. The bodies are said to have been buried in mass graves and later exhumed and burned. There is no evidence to support these allegation or that for the other five so-called death camps.
One of several versions of the Treblinka gas chamber story alleges Diesel engines were used to pump exhaust into some rooms and everyone inside died within 32 minutes. Animal tests performed in England forty years ago indicate animals can survive three and one half hours on up to 14 or more hours breathing exhaust from Diesel engines.
John Ball has demonstrated the area in which the bodies were buried was not large enough to hold even one tenth the number that are claimed to have been buried there prior to exhumation and cremation.



61) What evidence exists for mass murder at Sobibor?
a) Testimony.



62) How good is testimony as a form of evidence?
a)Testimony is the poorest form of evidence. The human mind is very malleable, and memory can be affected by a wide variety of factors. Very normal people can sincerely remember things that never happened. Add to this the interest of many of the witnesses in getting attention, influencing how they are themselves perceived by those around them, ameliorating their punishment, or exacting vengeance on their enemies. Testimony alone should be used only with extreme caution.



63) What was the War Refugee Board?
a)The WRB was set up in 1944 by the Roosevelt administration and was head by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau who was the one who proposed the destruction of Germany's industrial base at the end of the war. This plan was the basis of U.S. occupation policy for over two years after the German surrender. The WRB was involved in projects to get Jews out of Europe and served as a tool of the World Jewish Congress and other Zionist organizations.



64) What was the WRB Report?
a)The WRB report is supposed to be based on the testimonies of three escaped prisoners from Auschwitz who claimed Jews were being gassed at Auschwitz on a large scale. It has now been largely forgotten, even though it is one of the founding sources for the Auschwitz legend. The reason it has been forgotten is that it is so obviously inaccurate in its descriptions of the gas chambers and the numbers of Jews being killed. In effect, it was inaccurate about everything that had to do with the extermination of Jews at the camp.



65) How accurate was the information contained in the WRB Report?
a)There is very little in the report which can verified as accurate. The bulk of the information in the report is verifiably untrue or inaccurate by a wide margin. Though the report is supposed to be the first detailed account of the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz to reach the West, it is wrong in almost all of its details.



66) What did the Auschwitz camp commander Rudolf Hoess confess about the Auschwitz camp?
a)Auschwitz camp commander Rudolf Hoess signed two confessions. The first confession was while a captive of the British. This confession was read to him at one of the Nuremberg trials at which time he testified the content of the confession to be true. A thorough examination of the confession shows it is filled with lies and contradictions.
Hoess signed another confession while in Polish custody. The contents of the second confession are much like that of the first, but in his second confession he accuses the British of beating him and forcing him to sign the first confession though he had no idea what was in it. Hoess also wrote a memoir while in Polish custody. This memoir is considered by many to be a fraud which Hoess transcribed from a prepared text given to him by the Polish communists. Even so, this fake is still in print and widely available. The former camp commander also testified at other trials before he was ultimately hanged at the Auschwitz camp that he used to run by the Polish Communists. In his oral and written accounts of his time as commander at Auschwitz, Hoess describes being ordered to established facilities for the killing of large numbers of people and the disposal of their bodies. To fulfill this task assigned to him, Hoess built one or more gas chambers at Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. The fumigant Zyklon-B was used as the killing agent in these gas chambers. The bodies of the victims were burned in the crematories and in open pits. The ashes were then collected. Bones were pounded into a powder. All of the remains were then dumped into the river. Hoess provided several estimates as to the number of people killed at his camp which range from 1.2 million to 2.5 million.



67) How was Hoess' confession obtained?
a) Among the techniques used by the British to get Hoess to sign his confession included sleep deprivation, threats against his family, beatings, and forced consumption of alcohol.



68) Is torture a way to get a reliable confession?
a) No. The torture victim will usually agree to do anything in order to get the pain or torture stopped. It is however, a good way to get the kind of confession that is desired by the torturers. SR)Butz; Faurisson; Porter; Pressac; Mayer; Sack; Preissinger
69) What did a U.S. Senate commission find about the use of torture to obtain confessions for the Malmedy Massacre case?
a) The commission investigated nearly 140 former members of the Waffen SS who were involved as defendants in the Malmedy case. All except two of these men had had their testicles crushed while in the custody of the U.S. military.



70) Was the use of torture and threats only used in isolated cases?
a) There appears to be a wide range in how Nazi's in Allied custody were treated. It is pretty clear from various sources that threats against prisoners were common. The use of torture was not rare either. Torture was used to break a prisoner's spirit to gain cooperation, as in the case of Hoess. It was also ad