
Was the Auschwitz Gas Chamber reconstructed in the '60's?
Dear AnswerMan,
I believe I read a few weeks ago at one of the Revisionist sites that
the Auschwitz gas chamber was 're'constructed by the Poles in the 1960s
and that an authority on the Holocaust had testified to this fact.
I, perhaps, foolishly used this argument in a debate and have been
challenged to discover the source. I have attempted to locate this information
using the search facility at your site but have so far failed to do
so. In desperation, I am therefore writing to ask whether or not you
have heard of the aforementioned fact and if so - could you possibly
point me in the right direction so that I may locate it.
Thanks for your help, and keep up the good work!
Dave
AnswerMan
Replies:
AnswerMan! has not heard the Auschwitz reconstruction in the '60's
thesis. Typically no date is specifically cited. The general wisdom
would put the reconstruction in the late 40's. The "Auschwitz Authority"
you reference may be Dr. Franciszek Piper. Piper admitted on film to
revisionist activist David Cole that the Auschwitz I "gas chamber" was
a reconstruction. David Irving also quoted Piper, an offense for which
he was fined in Germany. The principal text that references such changes
and reconstruction at Auschwitz I is Robert Jan van Pelt's Auschwitz
1270 - Present. See especially pp. 363-64. Van Pelt writes that
"there have been additions to the camp the Russians found in 1945 as
well as deletions." There are several other interesting passages as
well.
Of course the traditional historians admit (today) that there were
changes made and "reconstruction." The argument then becomes what is
meant by "reconstruction." To revisionists this strikes of fraud and
fakery, to the Holocaustorians it means that the rooms were changed
or destroyed near the end of the war and were later restored to resemble
their earlier deadly design.
The problem for the Holocaustorians becomes if there were no plans
or archetectural drawings for gas chambers and if the rooms that were
found were no longer designed nor functioning as gas chambers, with
what information was the room "restored?"
With that question we arrive back at the topic of "eyewitness testimony."
The traditional historians generally accept it while the revisionists
generally do not.
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