Learning Tools

RESPONSE: However, extensive evidence of the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau remains. Cremas 2 and 3 had holes in the roof for the introduction of Zyklon-B into the gas chamber below. Eyewitness and photographic evidence documents these holes, and a recent study has proved their precise location.

RESPONSE: Despite the fact that the wire-mesh introduction columns can't be found today, their existence is confirmed by eyewitness accounts-both perpetrator and survivor-and by a surviving German documents that lists them in an inventory.

RESPONSE: However, closer examination of the materials on order and in use inside the gas chambers and the immense distance between the SS barracks and the gas chambers in Birkenau belie the claims of deniers. These were homicidal gas chambers.

RESPONSE: The Auschwitz Death Books only list 69,000 deaths because they do not include the more than 900,000 men, women and children who were sent directly to the Auschwitz gas chambers from the railroad car transports without being registered.

RESPONSE: Although it is true that no document signed by Hitler authorizing the entire murderous campaign we call the Holocaust has been found, historians point to the convergence of evidence from all levels of the Nazi hierarchy that demonstrate Hitler's complicity in every facet of this murderous undertaking.

RESPONSE: Despite claims to objective truth, the Leuchter Report isn't "exact science." Leuchter's methods were fatally flawed and his conclusions false. The fact that even "insignificant traces" were found in the ruins of the gas chambers after all these years of being exposed to the elements is proof that there WERE gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

RESPONSE: Crematorium 1 (Crema 1) in the Main Camp is not a "fake" but an authentically restored space meant to be a memorial and symbolic representation of all the gas chambers and crematoria in the Auschwitz camp complex.

RESPONSE: the ovens did suffer breakdowns and they did need maintenance. The use of some ovens was discontinued by German decision and others were destroyed in a prisoner uprising. However, when there were more bodies than could be burned in the crematoria, the Germans used open air pits which could burn thousands of bodies at once.

RESPONSE: Holocaust deniers refuse to accept the Germans' own documentation about the capacity of the ovens. They denounce this authoritative evidence as forgeries.

RESPONSE: Historical evidence shows that when the available ovens at Auschwitz-Birkenau couldn't handle the load, open-air pit burning was used. Photographs from the air and on the ground show the open-air pit burning process and eyewitness evidence supports them.

RESPONSE: The authorities in Auschwitz were not concerned about respect for the dead and clearly did not abide by civilian laws of cremation. They burned multiple bodies at one time, continuously pushing in more to keep the fires hot.

RESPONSE: We will probably never know exactly how much coke was delivered to Auschwitz or how much was required in the cremation process. Furthermore, the cremation of multiple bodies at the same time, continuous usage of the ovens, the use of alternate fuels and open-air burning pits make the question irrelevant.

RESPONSE: Anne wrote the body of her diary with a fountain pen. The only ball point pen ink traces are two loose notes written by someone else and put with the papers later and some page numbers written on the sheets during the compilation process.

RESPONSE: Physical testing of the notebooks, papers, and ink Anne used found that they are all authentic to the time. Furthermore, the handwriting and printing in the diary is the same as that in other writings known to have been penned by Anne Frank.

RESPONSE: Hidden in a landing accessed by a swinging bookshelf in a small office, the residents had some close calls during their 25 months in hiding, but they took care to be quiet and give no signs to the outside world that they were living there during the times people were present in the building.

RESPONSE: Herschel Grynszpan wasn't supported by 'International Jewry' or LICA. He bought the gun with his own money and went to the embassy where he shot vom Rath on his own. His first lawyer was provided by LICA at the request of his relatives and paid for by a defense fund raised in the United States. It was initiated by Hitler, set in motion by Goebbels, executed by the Gauleiters and the Stormtroopers under their control.

RESPONSE: Given the verifiable fact that Hitler was informed about the earlier disturbances at his meeting with Goebbels, he must have authorized the larger attacks on Jews, their property and their businesses.

RESPONSE: Between November 9 and 10, 1938, however, hundreds of synagogues were burned, thousands of Jewish businesses and homes were destroyed, at least 91 Jews were murdered and many others were assaulted and seriously injured. Over 20,000 male Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps where they were maltreated and terrorized.

RESPONSE: In fact, Nazi leaders successfully prevented the vast majority of offenders from being prosecuted. Only the cases of two men were sent to the criminal court system, both for the crime of 'race mixing' which the Nazis found repugnant. All other crimes-up to and including the murder of Jews-were simply forgiven or ignored.

RESPONSE: Adolf Hitler did not try to stop the pogrom. He authorized Goebbels to get it started. Other Nazi officials in Hitler's inner circle and their subordinates sent out clarifying instructions throughout the night giving directions on how best to conduct the pogrom -- not stop it.

RESPONSE: Definitive research shows that the death toll in Dresden was around 25,000. Irving exaggerates the death toll in Dresden while minimizing the death toll in Auschwitz in an attempt to make Allied and Nazi atrocities seem equivalent. They were not.

RESPONSE: However, Dresden was a legitimate military target. It was a key railroad junction and therefore an important transit point for military traffic.

RESPONSE: In fact, Hindu funeral pyres are highly inefficient for the cremation of just one body, and a completely impractical model for incinerating thousands of bodies.

RESPONSE: The amateur experiment used to recreate the scenario does not even remotely resemble the conditions in the mass incineration, and based on more accurate figures, the mass graves would have provided ample room for the ash produced.

RESPONSE: The reality is that Poland's climate is temperate, with average annual precipitation of only 18 to 24 inches in the region of the camps. This left ample time to burn on days that were not wet and windy. Combined with testimony of the flames reaching 30 feet into the air, the evidence points to the German incineration grills burning very effectively.

RESPONSE: The Germans built huge fixed-height grills made from concrete and steel railroad rails over a pit full of fuel soaked with gasoline or oil that were primitive but very effective.

RESPONSE: Railroad rails are hardened during manufacturing to withstand the weight of heavily-loaded trains in all types of weather, and the fact that they occasionally melted during incineration supports accounts of the gruesome efficiency of the grills built by the Germans.

RESPONSE: Although bodies do not ignite entirely on their own, the Germans developed techniques to increase the efficiency of their process. They found, for instance, that well-nourished bodies and those with more fat content, such as women, burned better and so were put on the bottom layer of the incineration grill to increase combustion.

RESPONSE: In fact, half of the remains burned in the incineration fires were children and infants and a full two-thirds of all bodies were exhumed remains that had been buried for months, greatly reducing the actual mass that was burned. Therefore the estimates used by deniers to calculate the amount of wood needed were false.

RESPONSE: The estimates of the amount of wood needed that are used by Holocaust deniers are grossly inflated, and the actual amount of wood needed for the incineration correlates to the amount of deforestation in and around the camp site.

RESPONSE: Forensic dentists have found that after short periods of time in fires that are hot enough to incinerate bodies (between 1400 to 2100 degrees Fahrenheit), teeth are mostly destroyed or rendered weak enough to be easily broken down, which would have happened in the bone crushing procedure that followed the incineration fires.