Alfred Wetzler and "The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol"
1.Introduction
1.1. Wetzler and Vrba
Slovak Jew Alfréd Wetzler (1918-1988), who was deported to
Auschwitz Birkenau in 1942, can best be described as the unknown
sidekick to Rudolf Vrba (Walter Rosenberg). Together the two
Slovak-Jewish “death camp” escapees wrote the so-called
Auschwitz Protocol or Vrba-Wetzler Report, which in 1944 was
published in English translation by the War Refugee Board in New
York. It is often maintained that this report – which is divided
into three parts: one written by Vrba, one by Wetzler, and a
third written together – caused a shift in the Western Allied
“awareness” of what would much later be called the “Holocaust”.
The report was originally published with its author’s names hidden
behind the monikers “the first escapee“ and “the second escapee”
– supposedly in order to grant their security while they still
remained German occupied territory – but not to long after the
war Vrba discarded his anonymity. In 1963 his book I Cannot
Forgive (later retitled I Escaped from Auschwitz) was published
in London. Vrba earned a Ph.D. and made an academic career. He
also appeared as a witness in a number of trials, including the
1964-64 Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, as well as was interviewed in
Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah film.[1]
Wetzler, on the other hand, has remained in obscurity, at least to
Western readers. While briefly taking the stand as a witness in
the mentioned Frankfurt Auschwitz trial, the book he published
in 1964, Escape from Hell, was not published in translation
until 2007.[2] This may of course be
explainable by the fact that Wetzler remained in Czechoslovakia
until his death.
In the following article, I will briefly analyze the text by
Wetzler, as well as compare some aspects of his eyewitness
account with those of his co-escapee Rudolf Vrba. As will be
seen, the two are far from unanimous.
2. The book
Escape from Hell
In 1946 Wetzler wrote a brief account in Slovak based on the
Vrba-Wetzler report entitled “Auschwitz, Tomb of Four Million
People”.[3] Unfortunately, the author of
this article has not yet been able to access this rare piece of
writing.
Escape from Hell was originally written in 1963 in Slovak and published
in 1964 by Osveta, Bratislava, under the title Čo Dante nevidel
(“What Dante did not see”). At the time Wetzler was writing
under the pseudonym Jozef Lanik, which had been his nom de plume
in the Slovak resistance movement.
Curiously for an autobiographical account, Escape from Hell is
written in third person. In the book Alfred Wetzler himself is
referred to as Karol, while Rudolf Vrba (alias Walter Rosenberg)
is called Val. As opposed to truly autobiographical writing,
where the narrative is strictly limited to the thoughts,
observations and experiences of the author, Escape from Hell
contains several long passages describing events which the
author himself could not have witnessed, such as the account of
Himmler’s supposed inspection of the alleged homicidal gas
chambers, and the depiction of what allegedly transpired inside
Birkenau during the two days when Vrba and Wetzler were hiding
in a barrack in the unfinished camp sector “Mexiko”, waiting for
the right moment to escape.
3. The flaming crematory chimneys of Birkenau
Like many other Auschwitz witness writings, in particular early
ones, Escape from Hell can not resist describing the spectacular
scenery of crematory chimneys spewing flames towards a darkened
sky:
From the four chimneys, one after another or simultaneously,
blinding flames shoot up with a terrible hiss and roar. These
fiery tongues, whose bluish or greenish beginnings are hardly
seen, hop up and sink down just as though someone were pulling
them down or pushing them up. They shoot up fiercely, at times
very high, as if they were trying to burn someone up there. They
leap up roaring and hissing: their sound swallows everything,
penetrates everywhere, even into the men in cages where weak
life still trembles and flickers. The flames are blinding, they
wail and roar, they conjure up terrible visions. You close your
eyes, but the flames are demoniacally strong and fierce. They
pass through your closed lids and for a moment you feel them
burning. You can turn away, you can look somewhere else, you can
retract a few steps, but you are always under them, under those
four fiery mass murderers.[4]
As has been carefully demonstrated by Carlo Mattogno and others,
the mere idea that flames would protrude from the chimney of a
coke-fired crematorium is technically absurd.[5]
Wetzler’s claim of huge, blinding flames is thus even beyond
that.
4. The victim figure
4.1. The number of Auschwitz victims according to Wetzler
To the question how many people perished in the Auschwitz
complex, Wetzler offers the following estimate:
How many have they tortured to death, shot, hanged, poisoned,
killed with phenol, killed with injections of cancer, typhus,
malaria, by electric current or asphyxiation? Altogether three
million, possibly more.[6]
In the Auschwitz Protocol, the number of Jews “gassed up till
April 1944” is given as 1,765,000. The three million mentioned
in Escape from Hell might thus be taken as a figure
“extrapolated” from that, covering the entire period of
existence of the camp and including “natural” deaths among Jews
as well as non-Jewish deaths. By “electric current” Wetzler
likely means deaths from contact with electrified fences, rather
than the kind of electrocution death chambers at one point
alleged for Bełżec.
The outrageous propaganda figure touted by Wetzler has prompted
Péter Várnai of Cambridge University to write the book’s only
footnote:
The author believed this number to be the true estimate of the
people who died in Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1942 and 1944.
Nevertheless, he gave a ‘careful estimate’ of 1,765,000 in the
Vrba-Wetzler report in 1944. However, it is not possible today
to obtain an accurate estimate of this figure as the retreating
German army destroyed the majority of documents and other
evidence. A number of authoritative estimates exist today for
these gruesome statistics, ranging from one million to a few
million people in total.
As will be seen below, the “few million” figure was discarded
long before Várnai wrote this note.
4.2. The Auschwitz victim figure according to R. Vrba
In the bestselling book
I Cannot Forgive, Vrba delivers his own
authoritative estimate on the number of Auschwitz deaths:
And so he [Himmler] gave orders for the greatest, most efficient
extermination factory the world has ever known. For the modern
concrete gas chambers and the vast crematoria that could absorb
as many as 12,000 bodies in twenty-four hours and, in fact, did
so. For the machinery that sucked in 2,500,000 men, women and
children in three years and puffed them out in harmless, black
smoke.[7]
More than two decades later, when confronted with this passage
at the 1985 Toronto Zündel trial, Vrba asserted that his
estimates were correct and that the mainstream historians such
as Raul Hilberg and Gerald Reitlinger who insisted on lower
figures were mistaken:
It is not for me to explain the scholarships of Reitlinger or
Hilberg, because they have different methods of scholarships.
For them, if they do not have documents of considerable value
and amount, which are very difficult to obtain, they prefer not
to include that figure in their final calculation, because they
are bound by historical discipline; whereas my figure is based
on eyewitness account. (...) I think that in this respect both
Hilberg and Reitlinger has made an underestimate.[8]
In a deposition made by Vrba in The Israeli Embassy in London
for submission at the Eichmann trial, we read:
I was imprisoned in Auschwitz from 30th June, 1942 until my
escape on 7th April, 1944. During this time I worked as a member
of the so-called Sonderkommando in the Property Department. This
Department dealt with the property of people who had been killed
in Auschwitz. I worked in this department until June 1943. I was
present at the arrival of every transport to Auschwitz, or, if I
was not present, as these were done in shifts, I was able to get
figures from my workmates. So I was well in a position to obtain
rather exact figures of how many people arrived in Auschwitz.
These figures were complied on the basis of the number of wagons
from which each transport was made up. Secondly, on the density
of people who were packed in the wagons and, as I worked quite a
considerable time at this place, I was in a position on the
basis of my experience to make this estimation. I was usually
present when the arriving trains were opened. Thus I was easily
in a position to obtain first-hand information about the number
of people who arrived at Auschwitz.[9]
Vrba thus claimed that his statistics were correct, since he had
access to “first-hand information” and had himself “seen the
people walk into the crematoriums.” He was in fact so sure of
himself, that he in the same deposition claimed that the figure
of 1,750,000 people killed in Auschwitz until April 7, 1944 was
correct “with a maximum possible error not exceeding more or
less than ten per cent.”[10]
4.3. The number of persons deported to Auschwitz according to F.
Piper
In 1991 Dr. Franciszek Piper, head of the historical department
of the Auschwitz state museum, published a long article in which
he discussed the death toll for the Auschwitz camp complex,
which the previous year had been officially lowered from four
million to one and a half million victims. In this study, Piper
showed that the number of persons deported to Auschwitz amounted
to approximately 1.3 million people.[11]
According to Piper, 1.1 million of these deportees perished in
the camp, most of them killed in homicidal gas chambers. While
the latter claim is not supported by any documentary or forensic
evidence, Piper’s research into the number of deportees makes it
clear that the theoretical upper limit to the Auschwitz death
toll must be set at approximately 1.1 million people.[12]
This means that the figures of three, four, or two and a half
million victims claimed by Wetzler and Vrba (as well as the
vague “few millions” mentioned by Péter Várnai in 2007) are
absolutely untenable.
Nuremberg Auschwitz witness Seweryna Szmaglewska writes in the
foreword to her book Smoke over Birkenau that no less than five
million people died or were killed at Auschwitz, stating that
this figure had been “given out at the time of the liquidation
of the camp by the people working in the Political Department”.[13]
This suggests that propagandists among the inmate staff working
with the reception and registration of prisoners came up with
the wildly inflated death tolls later spread by the news media.
5. Himmler’s 1943 visit – Wetzler vs. Vrba
In the following section I will compare Wetzler’s and Vrba’s
statement regarding an inspection tour of Auschwitz by Himmler
which allegedly took place in early 1943.
5.1. Wetzler’s description of the visit
Wetzler provides the following time frame for the visit:
The crematoriums are now finished. Two of them are in operation,
today or tomorrow they could easily exterminate the whole camp.
Maybe the SS-Reichsführer was coming here personally for
something of the kind.[14]
The two Birkenau crematoria buildings first finished were number
II and IV, inaugurated on March 15 and 22 and respectively.
Krema III, while being located just opposite Krema II and in
construction the mirror image of this building, was not finished
until June 25 the same year. I will return to this issue later.
Wetzler further indicates the time frame in the following sentence:
He [“Bubo”, a prisoner] has worked six months on the
crematoriums that were finished two days ago.
Thus if we assumed the “crematoriums” to be number II and IV,
the present date should be March 24. Next Wetzler describes the
late March weather:
The March sun now stands low in the sky, its last rays licking
the flat plain.[15]
The spring sun shines brightly and in its warm light everything
looks somehow softer and more delicate.[16]
At this point of time in the narrative, Wetzler works in a small
wooden mortuary situated about one hundred meters south west of
Krema II. From this location Wetzler had the opportunity to
observe the arriving cars of Himmler’s convoy through a
rigged-open door:
Marek fixes the door of the hut with wire so that they can see
the road clearly through the crack. Then he picks up six tiles
which are lying by the hut and sets them down next to one
another a short way from the door.[17]
The Reichsführer’s convoy and its arrival to the area between
Krema II and (in reality not yet finished) Krema III is
described thus:
The rays of the sun gleams on the bodywork of the latest luxury
models on the main road. Three…five…seven…twelve cars. They all
turn to the right nearer to the crematoriums.
In the cage by the gate is a sixteen-man band with a conductor.
It has just started playing the ‘Entry of the Gladiators’. On
the road outside the crematoriums stand fifty striped ones from
the squad that works on the ramp. Val [=Vrba] is among them.[18]
Senior SS dignitaries step out of the cars – local ones and
unfamiliar ones, as well as a few civilians. (…) The SS men and
the civilians straighten up and line up by the road and intently
look at the fifth car, from which Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler
alights.[19]
According to Wetzler, Himmler was welcomed at this site by the
camp commandant:
SS-Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Franz Hoess, the commandant of
this huge complex of camps, begins to scratch something on the
road surface with his stick. Hoess explains. Himmler looks at
the drawing on the ground and nods. Abruptly he starts, pushes
his sleeve up and looks at his watch. ‘Obersturmbannführer,’ he
says to Hoess reprovingly, ‘it’s two minutes past ten.’
Hoess freezes to attention and worriedly looks at the road. Yes,
it’s two minutes past ten, but everything is in best order. From
the road in front comes the noise of a long column of lorries.
(…) From the wooden mortuary Karol [=Wetzler] and Marek have a
good view of the people in the open lorries.
‘Good lord, it’s a transport,’ Karol desperately grumbles.[20]
Wetzler thus has it that Himmler’s convoy arrived at the
crematoria early in the morning, shortly before ten o’clock. The
lorries carrying the victims of the demonstration gassing
arrives a few minutes later, at 10:02 AM. The Jewish victims are
thereafter unloaded and made to form columns:
On the road they’ve formed columns of five – women and children
together, old men and old women with their grandchildren. Out
front a boy of three begins to cry. His mother tries to quiet
him, she talks to him and caresses him, but the little boy keeps
crying, with tears like peas rolling down his cheeks.
‘Is this fine young man sick?’ Himmler asks. ‘Shouldn’t he be
seen by the doctor?’[21]
The victims are helped off the trucks by SS staff members:
‘Slow and steady,’ Himmler reminds a bulky SS man who has so
awkwardly supported and old woman that she nearly fell from the
ramp. ‘Slow and steady, we don’t want any accidents. We’ve got
all the time in the world.’[22]
The number of victims amounts to 1,200:
And so two hundred and forty columns of five – women and
children in front – at Hoess’s command they move silently down
to the washrooms over which square chimneys are towering. Behind
this long and unsteadily stumbling crowd a military vehicle
marked with a red cross moves slowly. It turns behind a low
hedge, where two SS men with black flashes get out. Medical
orderlies.
Thus the car with the poison gas arrives as the victims are
walking into the crematoria building, sometime between 10:02 and
10:30. Besides the gas, the car carries two men described as
medical orderlies.
‘Alles in Ordnung? Das ist alles?’ Himmler asks the commander
who has accompanied the column of vehicles.
‘No, Herr Reichsführer, this isn’t everything, this is only one
half’, replies SS-Oberscharführer Moll, the commandant of the
crematorium (…). They’re bringing the rest along this evening.’
We here learn that only half of the Jewish transport will be
gassed in the morning, and that the rest are expected to arrive
in the evening.
‘Also los, we can begin,’ Himmler calls out drily. (…) ‘We can
begin,’ Himmler repeats and briskly steps up to the brick
buildings. Those in his entourage follow him at a respectful
distance. Some of them unbutton their collars because the sun
beats down on them. ‘Got a wonderful spring here,’ Himmler says
to Hoess up front. And with obvious impatience he asks: ‘Does it
take long for them to undress?’
Once again we are reminded that this supposedly takes places on
a very warm and sunny March day.
For a while they chat outside the building, then, at a signal
from Moll, they enter. They take turns at the little window in
the upper part of the steel door – Himmler, professors of
medicine from Berlin, Hamburg, Münster and representatives of
various firms, Hoess and officers from the staff of the camp
commandant. (…)
The people in the chambers stand body to body and are terrified.
The two medical orderlies unload green tins from their vehicles.
On the grassy hill that masks the roof of the chambers they put
on gas masks. Then they open the flaps of the ventilating
shafts, break the patent lid of the cans and into the opening
empty the crystals of greenish-purple color.
Not until the victims are already inside the gas chamber do the
SS men with the poison gas cans climb up on the gas chamber roof
and empty the Zyklon B through the introduction shafts. It is
not mentioned whether Himmler and his entourage has to descend
any stairs in order to reach the door with the peephole. Note
the color ascribed to the Zyklon B, which in reality consists of
gypsum pellets of white or bluish-white color. The cans are
described as green, while the actual color in most cases appears
to have been metallic.
Himmler glances at his watch and from that moment onwards, for
the next ten minutes, he doesn’t tear his eyes from the window
in the [gas chamber] door.
The people who not so long ago were worried about their baggage,
who a few minutes earlier accepted the attentive services of the
SS men, turn rigid and look up to where tiny crystals drop out
from showerheads. A gas quickly issue from the crystals, they
inhale it now, a sharp, poisonous substance. Himmler, his eyes
glued to the window, eagerly watches as the people behind the
steel door are progressively seized by spasms, as they wring
their hands, tear their hair, turn rigid. The gas rises up, the
children twist longer in terminal spasms. The SS officers,
engineers, technicians and scientists curiously watch Himmler,
trying to read from his round face, now red with excitement,
whether he is satisfied. Inside all movement has ceased. Himmler
turns and almost shouts:
‘Famos! Famos! Sensational! Grossartig, genial!’
With a little envy they all look at Herr Prüfer, the chief
engineer of the firm Topf und Söhne in Erfurt, who had designed
and installed these ‘washrooms’. Prüfer turns his face to
Himmler, as if this recognition belonged to him alone, bows a
little and says:
‘The firm Topf und Söhne will be immensely happy, Herr
Reichsführer, that it has, at least in small measure,
contributed to the realisation of your inspired plans.’
Himmler warms up:
‘No such modesty, my dear fellow. You accomplished more than a
good division in the field. This is a complete reversal of
strategy. A complete reversal, gentlemen! This...’ he points to
the empty green can that Moll meanwhile brought along –
‘this...’
‘Zyklon B, Herr Reichsführer,’ Herr Faust helps him out
tactfully. He is the engineer of the firm Degesch, which
produced those miraculous little crystals.
‘Yes, this Zyklon B, gentlemen, will remain a major milestone in
the historic struggle of the men of the SS against the lesser
races. A few cans for six or seven thousand units. I believe the
Führer will be very satisfied.’
He glances once more through the little window and, leaving the
building, he says to Hoess:
‘Very soon we’ll be sending you a lot of material – Russians,
Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Italians, a great many Greeks and also
some Northerners…I am sure that with this Zyklon, you’ll quickly
get rid of them, my dear Hoess.’
‘Very quickly, Herr Reichsführer,’ Hoess agrees with a smile.
‘You were good enough to convince yourself…one thousand and two
hundred in less than ten minutes. Of course the cremation time
will have to be added…’ (…).
The above description of Himmler and his entourage witnessing
the gassing can of course only be derived from hearsay or
imagination. It also seems highly unlikely that Wetzler (or most
other inmates for that matter) would have been able to identify
the civilian persons Faust and Prüfer. It seems more probable
that Wetzler heard of their names after the war and that he then
incorporated them into his visual-sadistic Himmler fantasy. The
time allegedly required for the gassing, “less than ten
minutes”, is, as shown by Germar Rudolf and others, patently
absurd.
‘You do not wish to have a look at the second building, Herr
Reichsführer?’ Hoess asks. ‘It has a bigger capacity and also a
basement.’
‘Well, just a quick look then, seeing that we are here,’ Himmler
graciously agrees.
They walk down the well-rolled road. The drivers with the empty
limousines creep along noiselessly after them. (…).
[23]
Here again we are dealing with what can only be ascribed to
hearsay (or perhaps more likely) imagination, but there is also
a major contradiction present in this passage which must be
addressed. That is: Given the March date and the statement that
Wetzler is observing Himmler and his entourage from a mortuary
located next to Block 27 in Birkenau Bauabschnitt Ib, the
crematorium where the demonstration gassing is supposed to take
place can only be Krema II. Yet this building has a basement, or
rather semi-basement, wherein Morgue I, the alleged “gas
chamber”, is located. Krema III, being the mirror image of Krema
II, of course also had a (semi-)basement, but this building was
still unfinished in March 1943. When finished, its “gas chamber”
would of course have had the same capacity, not a larger one as
reportedly stated by the camp commandant. What then about the
finished Krema IV? To begin with, it did not have a basement. It
also allegedly had a much smaller killing capacity than Krema
II.
As the cars turn off towards Hoess’s villa, one hundred and
fifty prisoners, the Sonderkommando, march out of the men’s
camp. The ventilators in the gas chambers are switched on, the
gas is dispersing, fresh air is streaming in. The corpses have
to be carried out to the furnaces, the gas chambers have to be
emptied, everything’s got to be ready in five hours, just as it
was an hour and a half ago.[24]
The time is thus still noon.
The sentence about the corpses having to be “carried out to the
furnaces” is interesting, since it implies that Wetzler is not
aware of the elevator trip necessary to bring bodies from Morgue
I (the “gas chamber”) to the furnace room. This however is in
harmony with the schematic drawing and description of Krema II
and II in the Auschwitz Protocol, which places their “gas
chambers“ and the ovens more or less at the same floor. On the
other hand, the above cited mention of the gas chambers being
covered by a “grassy hill” appears to contradict this notion.
An hour later the one hundred and fifty inmates of the
Sonderkommando come out of the crematorium, line up on the road
and with tired steps march into the cage. All traces have been
perfectly removed.
Fifty are again standing in two rows by the ditch, facing the
road. Not far from the crematoriums the limousines move in a
tidy line. Reichsführer Himmler, the commandant of the Auschwitz
camps, Hoess, the engineers, technicians and scientists from
Berlin, Hamburg and Münster are again watching the SS men as,
with gentle smiles, a few friendly words and supportive arms
they are helping the people down the long, wide ramps from
twenty-eight trucks.
A moment later Himmler questions the NCO who had escorted this
second transport:
‘Alles in ordnung?’[25]
Again we wonder at Wetzler’s capability of identifying from a
distance the professions of the civilians in Himmler’s
entourage.
Karol and Marek have had their soup inside the hut; now they
have come out and have stopped near the cookhouse, where they
are joined by Bubo. Val [=Vrba] has also come back, there will
be no sorting until tomorrow.[26]
The author has thus stayed inside the mortuary for the entire
time of the alleged happenings.
From the distance comes the sound from motor vehicles. Surely
they are not again… No, these are only the two missing vehicles
from the second transport. The vehicles turn into the camp and
stop by the cookhouse. Young boys jump out from them. One
hundred and twenty, saved from Zyklon B by an inexplicable
breakdown not far from the camp.[27]
The above described event is just one of an untold number of
life-saving miracles recalled by the eyewitnesses in their holy
scripts.
It is Lagerruhe, but flames are leaping from the chimneys, fed
by the bodies of over two thousand people from Cracow.[28]
This figure appears to be the sum of the victims from both
demonstration gassings, and not only that of the latter one.
5.2. Rudolf Vrba’s description of the Himmler visit
Let us now take a look at the description of the alleged Himmler
visit found in Rudolf Vrba’s book I Cannot Forgive:
Heinrich Himmler visited Auschwitz Camp again in January, 1943.
(…)
He [Himmler] was to watch the world’s first conveyor belt
killing, the inauguration of Commandant Hoess’s brand new toy,
his crematorium. It was a truly splendid affair, one hundred
yards long and fifty yards wide, containing fifteen ovens which
could burn three bodies simultaneously in twenty minutes (…).
Commandant Hoess, anxious to display his new toy at its most
efficient, had arranged for a special transport of 3,000 Polish
Jews to be present for slaughter in the modern, German way.
Himmler arrived at eight o’clock that morning and the show was
to start an hour later. By eight-forty-five, the new gas
chambers, with their clever dummy showers and their notices
“Keep Clean,” “Keep Quiet”, and so on, were packed to capacity.
The S.S. Guards, indeed, had made sure that not an inch of space
would be wasted by firing shots at the entrance. This encouraged
those already inside to press away from the doors and more
victims were ushered in. Then babies and very small children
were tossed on to the heads of the adults and the doors were
closed and sealed.
An S.S. man, wearing a heavy service gas mask, stand on the roof
of the gas chamber, waiting to drop in the Cyclon B pellets
which released a hydrogen cyanide gas. (…)
By eight-fifty-five the tension was almost unbearable. The man
in the gas mask was fidgeting with his box of pellets. He had a
fine full house beneath him. But there was no sign of the
Reichsführer who had gone off to have breakfast with Commandant
Hoess.
Somewhere a phone rang. Every head turned towards it. A junior
N.C.O. clattered over to the officer in charge of the operation,
saluted hastily and panted out a message. (…)
The message was: “The Reichsführer hasn’t finished his breakfast
yet.” (…) The Reichsführer, it seemed, was still at his
breakfast. The S.S. man on the roof of the gas chamber squatted
on his haunches. Inside the chamber itself frantic men and
women, who knew by that time what a shower in Auschwitz meant,
began shouting, screaming and pounding weakly on the door; but
nobody outside heard them because the new chamber was
sound-proof as well as gas-proof. (…)
The morning dragged on and the managers came and went. By ten
o’clock the marathon breakfast was still under way. By half past
ten the S.S. men had become almost immune to false alarms and
the man on the roof remained on his haunches even when the
distant telephone rang.
But by eleven o’clock, just two hours late, a car drew up.
Himmler and Hoess got out and chatted for a while to the senior
officers present. Himmler listened intently, as they explained
the procedure to him in detail. He ambled over to the sealed
door, glanced casually through the small, thick observation
window at the squirming bodies inside, then returned to fire
some more questions at his underlings.
At last, however, everybody was ready for action. A sharp
command was given to the S.S. man on the roof. He opened a
circular lid and dropped the pellets quickly onto the heads
below him. (…)
The gassing had begun. Having waited for a while so that the
poison would have circulated properly, Hoess courteously invited
his guest to have another peep through the observation window.
For some minutes Himmler peered into the death chamber,
obviously impressed, and then turned with new interest to his
commandant with a fresh batch of questions. (…)
Several times he [Himmler] left the group of officers to watch
the progress through the peephole; and, when everyone inside was
dead, he took a keen interest in the procedure that followed.
Special lifts took the bodies to the crematorium, but the
burning did not follow immediately. Gold teeth had to be
removed. Hair, which was used to make the warheads of the
torpedoes watertight, had to be cut from the heads of the women.
The bodies of wealthy Jews (…) had to be set aside for
dissection in case any of them had been cunning enough to
conceal jewelry – diamonds, perhaps – about their person.
It was, indeed, a complicated business, but the new machine
worked smoothly under the hands of skilled operators. Himmler
waited until the smoke began to thicken over the chimneys and
then he glanced at his watch.
It was one o’clock. Lunch time, in fact. He shook hands with the
senior officers, returned the salutes of the lower ranks
casually and cheerfully and climbed back into the car with Hoess.[29]
As will be shown below, Vrba’s account clashes with that of
Wetzler on no less than thirteen major points.
5.3. The Himmler visit in the Vrba-Wetzler report
Only a few lines in the Auschwitz Protocol are devoted to the
alleged Himmler visit. They read:
Prominent guests from BERLIN were present at the inauguration of
the first crematorium in March, 1943. The “program” consisted of
the gassing and burning of 8,000 Cracow Jews. The guests, both
officers and civilians, were extremely satisfied with the
results and the special peephole fitted into the door of the gas
chamber was in constant use.
5.4. Rudolf Höß’ s account of visits by Himmler
In the memoirs written by (or ascribed to) the former Auschwitz
commandant Rudolf Höß just prior to his execution in 1947, we
read:
My next meeting with Himmler was in the summer of 1942 when he
visited Auschwitz for the second and last time.[30]
Höß thus denies the reality of the Himmler visit described by
Vrba and Wetzler. On this point Höß is in fact supported by what
is often considered the most authoritative Auschwitz chronicle,
Danuta Czech’s Kalendarium.[31] According
to it, Himmler visited the camp only twice, on March 7, 1941,
and July 17, 1942.
5.4. Vrba’s testimony at the Toronto Zündel trial
When during the Zündel trial Vrba was confronted with his
account of the alleged Himmler visit and the statements in
Czech’s Kalendarium, Vrba suddenly grew unsure of if it was
really Himmler he had seen:
I was informed at that time by the grapevine in the camp that
Himmler is coming to visit the camp again, and then there was a
cavalcade equipped as if it would be Himmler in other words, the
standard Mercedes and the standard sycophants constantly around,
but he didn’t come to shake hands with me and to introduce
himself to me or to say, “I am Himmler”, or he didn't tell me,
you know, “Himmler didn't come this time but I am instead of his
and this is my name.” So you might be quite right that that
information might be not perfectly exact, only close to exact.[32]
Vrba gave no explanation as to why in I Cannot Forgive he had
placed the supposed visit in January, two months prior to the
inauguration of the first Birkenau crematorium.
5.6. Summary of contradictions
Below I have listed the major contradictions which become
apparent when comparing the statements of Wetzler and Vrba on
the alleged Himmler visit:
1. The date of the visit. Wetzler
does not provide any exact date for the visit, but it implicated
that it takes place in mid- or late March. Regarding the weather
we learn that the spring sun was shining so hot that some SS men
unbuttoned their uniforms. Vrba on the other hand writes that
the visit took place in January, when such temperatures are
hardly likely in southern Poland. Also at this point in time
none of the Birkenau crematoria were finished, so that the
demonstration gassing hardly could have taken place. According
to Höß as well as Auschwitz historian Danuta Czech, this visit
never took place.
2. Himmler’s time of arrival. In
Wetzler, we read that Himmler and his entourage arrived at the
crematorium a few minutes to ten in the morning. Vrba in his
book claims that Himmler arrived to the camp already at 8
o’clock in the morning. The demonstration killing was then
scheduled to commence at 9 o’clock, but due what certainly must
have been an extraordinary breakfast table, Himmler and Höß get
delayed for no less than two hours, causing the SS officers
stationed at the crematoria to run around like hens.
3. The arrival of the victims.
Wetzler has it that Himmler and Höß waited on the road in front
of the crematorium for the victims to arrive. Himmler then
oversees the unloading of the victims, the formation of columns,
and the entrance of the victims into the crematorium. He also
exchanges some words with a Jewish woman. In Vrba we read that
the victims were already present inside the gas chamber when
Himmler and Höß arrived at the crematoriums.
4. Himmler’s entourage. In
Wetzler’s version of the events, Himmler and his entourage
arrive to Krema II in twelve luxury cars. His entourage include
not only Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß and a number of unnamed
senior SS officers, but also a number of civilians, including
“engineers, technicians and scientists from Berlin, Hamburg and
Münster” as well as Kurt Prüfer of the firm Topf und Söhne and
Max Faust of Degesch. Vrba on the other hand, who would have had
an excellent opportunity to view the arriving cars, speaks of
only one car and does not mention any civilians accompanying
Himmler.
5. Manner of transport. According
to Wetzler, the victims arrived loaded on lorries. Vrba, despite
being present at the place where the victims supposedly were
unloaded, does not mention what kind of vehicles the Jews
arrived in.
6. From arrival to gassing.
According to Vrba, the SS guards fire shots at the gas chamber
entrance in order to fill up the space better. They also
violently throw babies and small children in over the heads of
the adult victims. In Wetzler no shots are fired. Perhaps
significantly, neither Vrba nor Wetzler describes exactly how
the victims reach the gas chamber from the outside of the
building. Vrba has no description at all, while Wetzler merely
states that the victims “move silently down to the washrooms”
(again contradicting the words ascribed to Höß that “the second
building” has a basement, in contrast to the one he and Himmler
have just left).
7. The introduction of Zyklon B.
According to Wetzler the Zyklon B was brought to the site by one
or possibly two military vehicles bearing Red Cross insignia.
The vehicle(s) arrive at the same time as the victims are about
to enter the crematorium. Two SS medical orderlies “with black
flashes” steps out of the vehicle, carrying the Zyklon B cans.
They do not step up on the roof of the gas chamber until all
victims have been led inside the crematorium. Vrba does not
mention any vehicle(s) with Red Cross insignia. It is left
unclear in his text how the gas was brought to the site of the
crematoria. Vrba further has it that a single SS man in a “heavy
service gas mask” poured Zyklon B pellets from a single “box”
into what appears to be a single opening in the gas chamber roof
(it is anyway not mentioned that the contents of the “box” is
dropped into more than one opening). This man has to wait two
hours, sitting on his haunches on the gas chamber roof, for
Himmler’s arrival and the start of the gassing.
8. Himmler and the gas chamber. In
Wetzler we are told that Himmler spent the entire time of the
gassing glued to the peephole, his face red by excitement. In
Vrba we read that Himmler looked through the peephole for a few
minutes and spent the rest of the time discussing the process
with Höß.
9. Duration of the gassing. “Less
than ten minutes” according to Wetzler. In Vrba the time is not
stated, but it is implied that it takes significantly longer
than ten minutes.
10. Himmler’s departure from the crematorium. In Wetzler,
Himmler and his party leaves the crematorium right away after
the gassing is finished. In Vrba, Himmler is said to have taken
a “keen interest” in the procedure which followed the gassing,
and it is stated that he did not leave the building “until the
smoke began to thicken over the chimneys”.
11. The whereabouts of the Sonderkommando. According to Wetzler,
the Sonderkommando workers waited in their quarters in the men’s
camp until Himmler and his entourage had left the crematorium in
their cars. Vrba on the other hand implies that the
Sonderkommando was present in the crematorium during the entire
time of Himmler’s visit
12. The second gassing. According to Wetzler the victims of the
morning’s demonstration gassing made up the first half of a
Jewish transport from Cracow. The remaining part of the
transport was then gassed in the afternoon or evening of the
same day. No second gassing is mentioned by Vrba.
13. The number of victims. Wetzler writes that on the day of
Himmler’s visit, a transport of Jews from the Cracow ghetto was
gassed in two batches. The first consisted of 1,200 people. The
number of victims in the second batch is not specified clearly,
but since Wetzler writes that the lorries carrying the second
batch contained on average 60 people each, that there were in
all 30 lorries, whereof two got delayed and missed the gassing,
we may estimate the (hypothetical) number of victims to 1,680.
This would make a total of about 2,880 murdered Cracow Jews.
Wetzler simply writes that the victims of that day totaled “over
two thousand”. Vrba on the other hand states that a total of
“3000 Polish Jews” were gassed. According to the 1944
Vrba-Wetzler report (in its OSS translation), the inauguration
spectacle consisted of “the gassing and burning of 8,000 Cracow
Jews.”
5.7. A brief assessment of the contradictions
Let us next briefly consider the significance of the respective
contradictions:
Contradiction 1: It seems very strange that Vrba would date the
visit to January, if in reality it had taken place on the hot
March day described by Wetzler. The weather conditions could
possibly be checked through contemporary metrological data, if
such are available. On the other hand, the date given by Vrba is
impossible in light of the fact that none of the Birkenau
crematoria were finished at that time.
Contradiction 2: That Vrba gives the time of Himmler’s arrival
to the crematorium as 11 AM, while Wetzler has it as
approximately 10 AM should perhaps not be considered as too
major a contradiction, given that it is hardly conceivable that
Vrba actually would have known the visit’s schedule.
Contradiction 3: The contradiction between the accounts in
regards to chronological order of Himmler’s arrival and that of
the victims simply cannot be explained away, since both Vrba and
Wetzler would have been fully able to witness the arrivals (cf.
map below).
Contradiction 4: While the identification of the civilian
members of Himmler’s entourage must be ascribed to hearsay or
imagination, the contradiction involving the numbers of cars in
the entourage is not easily explained away. How could Wetzler
see twelve luxury cars, and Vrba only one?
Contradiction 5: That Vrba does not mention any lorries could of
course be ascribed to a simple omission in his part.
Contradiction 6: Given the standard gassing scenario alleged for Krema II, both Vrba and Wetzler would have been able to observe
the victims descend down the stairs to the “undressing room”
(cf. map below). That none of them gives any detail on this part
of the alleged process is telling. That Wetzler does not mention
any shots being fire could be explained by his distance to the
crematorium building.
Contradiction 7: Like the third contradiction, the two scenarios
given here simply cannot be reconciled.
Contradiction 8: The difference here may of course be ascribed
to hearsay or imagation.
Contradiction 9: Given that neither Vrba nor Wetzler were
present inside the crematoria building at the time, this
difference should not be given much significance.
Contradiction 10: As with the third and seventh contradictions,
this difference between the accounts cannot be resolved.
Contradiction 11: This is hardly explainable, given
contradiction number ten.
Contradiction 12: This contradiction might perhaps be explained
by Vrba not being present in the vicinity of the crematorium
during the afternoon and evening and later being ignorant of it,
or simply forgetting to mention it.
Contradiction 13: Here the most significant difference is
between the figures of the respective accounts from the 1960s
and the Auschwitz Protocol text from 1944. As we have seen
above, Vrba brags about being able to make very exact estimates
of the number of deportees of each transport. How then could he
confuse 8,000 with 3,000?
Illustration: The area of Krema II and III in 1943: A) The
location of Wetzler’s mortuary, B) Vrba’s position according to
Wetzler, C) Morgue II (the “undressing room”), D) Morgue II (the
“gas chamber”).
6. Greuelpropaganda
Like all Auschwitz eyewitness literature, Wetzler’s book
contains tales of SS sadism that are almost certainly not
grounded in fact, but in rumors spread by angry or fearful
prisoners. Here is one of them, obviously based on hearsay, as
Wetzler admittedly never entered any of the crematories:
…when the SS man discovers [a theft of dental gold] he always
has one of the Sonderkommando put on a stretcher and shoved into
the fire. On a soap-greased stretcher for easier slipping.[33]
That the SS posted to the crematories would carry out this kind
of exceedingly brutal punishment seems completely absurd, not
only in light of the strict regulations concerning punishment of
prisoners, but also since the panic-stricken victim might very
well seriously damage the equipment of the oven muffle.
About the camp’s German doctors Wetzler has the following
flattery to say:
In their experiments they deform their skulls, legs, arms and
then they report their findings under lamps whose shades are
made of human skin.[34]
Here Wetzler clearly tries to recycle the human lampshade story,
which is normally attached to the Buchenwald camp.[35]
As far as the writer of this article is aware, there exist no
other claims of such artifacts being produced or present in
Auschwitz.
That propaganda and rumors were rampant in the camp, and that
most inmates were aware of them as such is noted even by Wetzler
himself:
…in all the months he [=Wetzler] had not met a single person who
had not accepted the rumors of the mass killing in the
concentration camps without reservations or without some remark
about propaganda.[36]
7. The sources of the Vrba-Wetzler report
According to Wetzler, one of the main informants behind the
Auschwitz Protocol was a young Jew in the Sonderkommando which
he calls “Filipek”, a nickname for Filip:
Filipek in Hut 13 lies on his bunk dressed (…). He thinks about
the two years he has survived here. He has long deleted himself
from the list of the living, because all the time he has been
working with the dead, and at this moment he wonders whether he,
‘dead’, did enough while alive in those surroundings. He feels
he probably did. He wrote down the names of all the SS men
working around the crematoriums. He recorded the transports
around which he worked: where they had come from and when. In
this collection of information he had been helped by others. Yet
even so… He pulled off the label from one can of Zyklon. He got
the first two parts of cleanly, the next two he copied by hand:
place of manufacture, name or title of the manufacturer – enough
to prove criminal complicity.[37]
This is clearly the same person as Filip Müller, another
well-known Auschwitz witness. In his book Eyewitness Auschwitz:
Three Years in the Gas Chambers, we read about the assistance he
claims to have given Vrba and Wetzler:
Alfred [Wetzler] and Walter [Rosenberg a.k.a. Rudolf Vrba] would
succeed in escaping from this hell on earth, of that I now felt
much more confident. If they managed to get through they would
be sure to accomplish the assignment they had undertaken. When
on the evening of the third day after their escape the outer
courdon was withdrawn, I heaved a sigh of relief. I had great
expectations from the success of their flight. It was from them
that, at long last, the world would learn about the death
factories of Auschwitz.
I had handed to Alfred a plan of the crematoria and gas chambers
as well as a list of names of the SS men who were on duty there.
In addition I had given to both of them notes I had been making
for some time of almost all transports gassed in crematoria 4
and 5. I had described to them in full detail the process of
extermination so that they would be able to report to the
outside world exactly how the victims had their last pitiful
belongings taken away from them; how they were tricked into
entering the gas chambers; how after the gassings their teeth
were wrenched out and the women's hair cut off; how the dead
were searched for hidden valuables; how their spectacles,
artificial limbs ad dentures were collected; and everything else
that took place. In the course of many long talks I had
described to them both the tragedy which was constantly being
enacted behind the crematorium walls.
The most important piece of evidence which I gave them to take
on their journey was one of those labels which were stuck on the
tins containing Zyclon B poison gas. I tried for a long time to
lay my hands on one of these tins.[38]
While Wetzler agrees that Müller had provided them with the
torn-off Zyklon can label, he claims that the plan of Krema II
and III was drawn not by Müller, but by a certain Vasil, “who
had drawn the plan in the small locksmith’s shed.”[39]
The crematoria plan and the maps of the camp were then put
inside a metal tube, carried by Wetzler. The tube was then lost
when Vrba and Wetzler were ambushed by a German patrol two days
after their escape from the camp:
Somewhere he [=Wetzler] lost his metal tube, probably near the
power station when they had been running for their lives and
frequently falling. Rolled up in the tube was the ground plan of
the crematoriums, the plan of the concentration camp and the SS
barracks. Oh, this is terrible! My dear Vasil, your work has
been in vain.[40]
According to Wetzler, Vrba carried a second metal tube,
containing “the history of the establishment of the camp, a list
of transports, the entire hierarchy of the SS, the incredible
brutality and the incredible victims, and the label of a Zyklon
B canister.” This tube was not lost during the journey to
Slovakia. Wetzler further details the contents of the second
tube:
He [=Wetzler] takes out some rolled-up paper from the tube. ‘The
prisoners in the central registry risked the gas chambers when
they copied these facts out for us.’ (…) These dirty sheets of
paper contain very important facts: data on the establishment
and extension of the various camps, numbers of victims driven
there first from Poland and then from France and Germany and
later still from all of the occupied countries of Europe,
including ‘non-occupied’ Slovakia.[41]
Wetzler further describes himself as saying to the Slovak Jewish
leaders:
‘They [the data on transports and victims] are copied from the
record book, from the data at the political department, a few
were given us by the men from the crematoriums, and there are
also some of our own entries from the ramp and from the camp.’
(…) ‘They are truthful, but not complete. They only cover major
transports and major selections.”[42]
In the aforementioned 1960 London deposition, Vrba explains the
background to the statistics of the Auschwitz Protocol:
All these figures were checked by direct information from
prisoners who worked in the gas chambers and in the crematoriums
in Auschwitz and knew the exact figures because they dealt with
the bodies of the killed people.[43]
As one of these Sonderkommando informants, Vrba mentions “Philip
Müller”.
Regarding the lost maps and ground plans, Vrba is described by
Wetzler as saying:
‘We’ll cobble up those plans ourselves, it doesn’t have to be a
topographical hand. They’ll find Auschwitz on the map and we’ll
draw the rest.’[44]
In I Cannot Forgive Vrba does not mention the loss of a metal
tube with plans, and neither does he explain where the maps
included with his and Wetzler’s report came from. Questioned on
this issue during the Zündel trial, he stated:
Q. Sure. I now produce and show to you a diagram which came
from, I suggest, your War Refugee Report of 1944 in which you
depicted a crematoria. Correct?
A. That's right.
Q. Is it accurate?
A. This I cannot say. It was said that as we were not in the
large crematoria, we reconstructed it from messages we got from
members of the Sonderkommando working in that crematorium, and
therefore, that approximately how it transpired in our mind, and
in our ability to depict what we have heard.
Q. That is what you depicted, though?
A. Yes.
Q. And it is accurately depicting what you depicted?
A. That's right. It is accurately depicting what I heard that it
might look like.[45]
The implication of Vrba’s testimony is that Vrba or Wetzler drew
up the maps based on what they remembered from what had been
told to them by Sonderkommando prisoners. There is no mention of
a ground plan made by a member of the Sonderkommando and later
redrawn from memory.
8. The escape to Slovakia
While Wetzler spends over 40 pages describing the escape from
Auschwitz and the hazardous travel to Slovakia, Vrba in I Cannot
Forget cover the same events in considerable fewer words. The
description of the two escapee’s walk from Auschwitz to the
Slovak border takes up no more than 11 pages.
8.1. A summary of Vrba’s account[46]
After having fled Auschwitz on April 9, 1944, the two escapees,
armed only with knives, spend their first night sleeping inside
a clump of bushes. The night after that, they “wander right into
the outer confines of a concentration camp” and find themselves
in a public park used by SS men and their families. They are
seen by an Oberscharführer and his children but manage to get
away, continuing their journey at a deliberately slow pace. On
the fifth day of their journey, while heading for the Bezkyd
Mountains, Vrba and Wetzler loose their way and find themselves
in the midst of the city of Bielsko. They then reach the village
of Pisarovice just at the break of day, which means that they
have to seek help. Pretending they are Christian Poles, they are
let into the house of an old woman, who gives them advice how to
reach the mountains. After another two days, Vrba and Wetzler
have come halfway on their journey. They heed the words told
them by another prisoner, to stay out of the town of Porebka,
but at the outskirts of the same town they are suddenly fired at
by a German patrol. Running and hiding behind rocks, the two
manage to escape into a forest. A day later they encounter an
old woman and an old man who provides them with food and shows
them the way over the Polish-Slovak border. On April 21 they
reach the outskirts of the town of Cadca, where they are taken
in by a peasant, Canecky, who three days later puts them in
touch with a Jewish doctor named Pollak. On April 25 the two are
brought to meet the Jewish leaders in the town of Zilina.
8.2. Wetzler’s account
As already mentioned, Wetzler’s account is much fuller than
Vrba’s. There are a number of contradictions and differences
between the two accounts, the most major one being that Vrba
does not mention anything about a metal tube with maps being
lost. It might be assumed that since he continued to live in
Czechoslovakia after the war, Wetzler better remembered the
geography and route, and thus was able to write a more detailed
account.
9. Conclusion
In his book Escape from Hell, Slovak Jew Alfréd Wetzler
describes his time as a prisoner in Auschwitz-Birkenau, his
escape from the camp together with Rudolf Vrba, and the writing
of the so-called Auschwitz Protocol (also known as the World
Refugee Board report). The perhaps most interesting part of it,
from the viewpoint of a gas chamber skeptic, is the description
of an alleged visit by Himmler to Birkenau in early 1943. As has
been demonstrated above, Wetzler’s description of this alleged
event on several points stands in severe contradiction with the
account published by his comrade Vrba in 1959. The two accounts
clashes on a number of other points also, and in addition
Wetzler’s writing shows susceptibility to hearsay and a strong
tendency to fantasize about such things as crematory chimneys
spewing roaring geysers of flame. It would indeed have been
interesting, if Wetzler like Vrba could have been summoned as a
witness to the 1985 Zündel trial.
[1] Cf. Ernst Bruun, “Rudolf Vrba
exposes himself as a liar”, The Revisionist 1(2) (2003), pp.
169f.
[2] Alfred Wetzler, Escape from Hell:
The True Story of the Auschwitz Protocol, translated by with
Ewald Osers with notes by Péter Várnai, Berghahn Books,
Oxford/New York 2007.
[3] Josef Lanik, Oswiecim, hrobka
styroch millionov ludi, Vydalo Poverenictve SNR, Kosice 1946.
[4] Wetzler, p. 69. Other references to
flames protruding from crematorium chimneys may be found on
pages 57, 71.
[5] Carlo Mattogno, “Flames and Smoke
from the Chimneys of Crematoria: Optical Phenomena of Actual
Cremations in the Concentration Camps of the Third Reich”, The
Revisionist 2(1) (2004), pp. 73-78.
[6] Wetzler, p. 112.
[7] Vrba, Rudolf & Alan Bestic, I Cannot
Forgive, Bantam Books, Toronto 1964, p. 10.
[8] Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst
Zündel, District Court of Toronto, January 1985, p. 1455.
[9] Vrba, p. 269.
[10] Ibid, p. 271.
[11] F. Piper, “Estimating the Number
of Deportees to and Victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp”, in:
Yad Vashem Studies, XXI, Jerusalem 1991, pp. 49-103.
[12] Since orthodox historians
acknowledge about 200.000 Auschwitz survivors.
[13] S. Szmaglewska, Smoke over
Birkenau, Henry Holt and Company, New York 1947.
[14] Wetzler, pp. 43-44.
[15] Ibid, p. 53.
[16] Ibid, p. 45.
[17] Ibid, p. 46.
[18] Ibid, p. 47.
[19] Ibid, p. 47.
[20] Ibid, p. 48.
[21] Ibid, p. 49.
[22] Ibid, p. 49.
[23] Ibid, pp. 50-52.
[24] Ibid, p. 53.
[25] Ibid, p. 53.
[26] Ibid, p. 54.
[27] Ibid, p. 54.
[28] Ibid, p. 55.
[29] Vrba, pp. 10-13.
[30] Rudolf Höß, Commandant of
Auschwitz, World Publishing Company, Cleveland 1959, p. 233.
[31] Danuta Czech (ed.), Kalendarium
der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau
1939-1945, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989; translated into English as
Auschwitz Chronicle, 1939-1945, Henry Holt, New York 1989.
[32] Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst
Zündel, District Court of Toronto, January 1985, pp. 1532-1533.
[33] Wetzler, p. 199.
[34] Ibid, p. 202.
[35] An interesting video concerning
this and other Buchenwald myths may be viewed online at
http://www.onethirdoftheholocaust.com/Buchenwald/
[36] Wetzler, p. 217.
[37] Ibid, p. 162.
[38] Filip Müller, Eyewitness
Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers, Stein & Day, New
York 1979, pp. 121-122.
[39] Wetzler, p. 162.
[40] Ibid, p. 162.
[41] Ibid, p. 200.
[42] Ibid, p. 209.
[43] Vrba, p. 271.
[44] Wetzler, p. 162.
[45] Her Majesty the Queen vs. Ernst
Zündel, District Court of Toronto, January 1985, p. 1479.
[46] Vrba, pp. 232-244.