American historian Randolph L. Braham wrote that on March 19, 1944, without any resistance, Germany occupied Hungary primarily based on military-strategic considerations. At this time, Hungary was a member of the Axis Alliance, and had a Jewish population of approximately 800,000. Braham wrote that, from May 15 through July 9, 1944, approximately 440,000 Jews were deported from Hungary, with more than 420,000 Jews sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He claimed that most of the Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau were murdered upon arrival.¹

British historian David Cesarani wrote that, in the unremittingly grim record of the Holocaust, no single chapter is quite so awful as the fate which befell Hungary’s Jewish population. He said that with the full cooperation of the local administration, the Eichmann Kommando quickly set about plundering and deporting Hungary’s Jewish population. Cesarani estimated that 437,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He wrote that only a fraction of these Jews was selected for work, and only a few thousand of them survived.²

This article documents that, contrary to the statements of most historians, the Hungarian Jews were not subject to a program of mass extermination at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

No Homicidal Gas Chambers

The official number of Hungarian Jews allegedly exterminated at Auschwitz-Birkenau is impossible because there were no homicidal gas chambers there. The first scientific study of the alleged German homicidal gas chambers was made by the American gas chamber expert Fred Leuchter in his Leuchter Report. Leuchter concludes in his report that the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek were structurally unsuitable for gassing.³

Leuchter also researched the chemical properties of the Zyklon B fumigant. Leuchter found that Zyklon B is a highly toxic compound that releases deadly hydrogen cyanide gas. The released hydrogen cyanide gas clings to surfaces and reacts chemically with materials containing iron, forming ferrocyanide compounds that have a distinctive blue color called Prussian Blue. Since building materials normally contain a certain amount of rust (iron oxide, usually between 1% and 4%), repeated exposure to hydrogen cyanide gas would result in Prussian Blue staining on the walls of the alleged homicidal gas chambers.⁴

Leuchter took forensic samples from the alleged homicidal gas chambers at the visited sites and a control sample from the delousing facility at Birkenau. The samples were analyzed by an independent laboratory in the United States. The laboratory found no significant ferrocyanide compound traces in the samples taken from the alleged homicidal gas chambers tested, but the sample from a wall of the Birkenau delousing facility had heavy concentrations of the ferrocyanide compounds. Leuchter concludes that this result would be impossible if the alleged homicidal gas chambers had been repeatedly exposed to hydrogen cyanide gas.⁵

Germar Rudolf, a certified chemist, expanded on Leuchter’s work by writing the Rudolf Report in the spring of 1992. The Rudolf Report, which has since been updated and revised several times, focuses on engineering and chemical aspects of the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Rudolf observed in his on-site examinations that the delousing facilities at Auschwitz, Birkenau, Stutthof and Majdanek all have one thing in common: their walls are permeated with Prussian Blue. Not only the inner surfaces, but also the outside walls and the mortar between the bricks of the delousing facilities have Prussian Blue staining. Nothing of this sort can be observed in any of the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Rudolf also took samples from the alleged homicidal gas chambers and the delousing facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Similar to Leuchter’s samples, the alleged homicidal gas chambers exhibit only insignificant traces of ferrocyanide residue on the same order of magnitude found in any other building. The samples from the delousing chambers, however, all showed very high ferrocyanide residues. Rudolf determined that, if mass execution gassings with hydrocyanic acid had taken place in the alleged homicidal gas chambers, the rooms in those chambers would exhibit similar ferrocyanide residue as the delousing chambers. Therefore, Rudolf concludes that mass gassings with Zyklon B did not occur in the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.⁶

Chemists adhering to the orthodox Holocaust narrative have failed to explain why the walls of the delousing facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau are permeated with Prussian Blue, while nothing of this sort can be observed in any of the alleged homicidal gas chambers. The only reasonable explanation is that Zyklon B was never used in the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dr. Nicholas Kollerstrom writes:⁷

“[…] for any alleged human gas chamber found in a German World War II labor camp, let us merely measure cyanide in the walls: if it’s not there, it didn’t happen.”

Furthermore, the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau could also not have been used to exterminate hundreds of thousands of people as described in pro-Holocaust literature for numerous reasons:

1. They did not have escape-proof doors and windows.
2. They did not have panic-proof equipment.
3. They did not have technically gas-tight doors and shutters.
4. They had no provision to quickly release and distribute the poison gas.
5. They had no effective device to ventilate or otherwise render ineffective the poison gas after the execution.⁸

By contrast, Germany built highly sophisticated and expensive disinfestation facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau to kill lice and save inmates' lives. By one estimate, the SS at Auschwitz spent almost $1 billion in today’s dollars to bring the typhus epidemics raging there under control.⁹ An enormous amount of information exists concerning the German delousing facilities,¹⁰ but no similar information exists regarding the alleged homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.¹¹

The roof of the semi-underground Morgue No. 1 of Crematorium II at Birkenau, which is said to have been the building’s homicidal gas chamber, remains intact to some degree today. Contrary to the testimony of some eyewitnesses, this roof has no Zyklon-B introduction holes. This has been acknowledged by pro-Holocaust researcher Robert Jan van Pelt. Since it is impossible to close holes measuring 70 x 70 cm in a concrete roof without leaving clearly visible traces, it is certain that Zyklon-B introduction holes never existed at Crematorium II. Consequently, Zyklon B could not have been introduced through the roof at this morgue, and Crematorium II was never used as a homicidal gas chamber, as claimed by pro-Holocaust historians.¹²

Crematoria Capacity

Another factor making impossible the official number of Hungarian Jews dying at Auschwitz-Birkenau is the fact that thousands of corpses could not have been cremated every day at Auschwitz-Birkenau, as is commonly claimed. Ivan Lagacé, manager of a large crematory in Calgary, Canada, testified at the 1988 Ernst Zündel trial that, based on his experience, it would have only been possible to cremate a maximum of 184 bodies a day at Birkenau. Lagacé stated that the claim that the 46 retorts at Birkenau could cremate over 4,400 bodies in a day was “ludicrous,” “preposterous” and “beyond the realm of reality.”¹³

Carlo Mattogno, with the assistance of Italian engineer Dr. Ing. Franco Deana, has performed additional research to show that more than 184 bodies a day could have been cremated at Birkenau. During their interrogations after the war by Smersh, the Soviet counter-espionage agency, Topf engineers Kurt Prüfer and Karl Schultze, testified that it took about 60 minutes to cremate a single body in the furnaces at Birkenau. During his interrogation on March 4, 1946, Karl Schultze stated:¹⁴

“Five furnaces were located in the two crematoria, and three corpses were introduced in each furnace [one in each muffle], i.e., there were three openings (muffles) in each furnace. In one crematorium with five furnaces [and 15 muffles], one could incinerate 15 corpses in one hour.”

During his interrogation on March 5, 1946, Kurt Prüfer explained why the cremations lasted so long in the Birkenau crematoria:¹⁵

“In civilian crematoria, pre-heated air is blown in with the help of special bellows, due to which the corpse burns faster and without smoke. The construction of the crematoria for the concentration camps is different; it was not possible to pre-heat the air, as a result of which the corpse burned slower and with smoke developing. In order to reduce the smoke and the smell of a burning corpse, a fan is used.

Question: How many corpses would be cremated per hour in a crematorium in Auschwitz? Answer: In a crematorium that had five furnaces and 15 muffles, one cremated 15 corpses in an hour.”

Thus, German engineers confirmed that the cremation furnaces at Auschwitz-Birkenau could incinerate one corpse per hour and muffle. Given the capacity of one body per hour and 20 hours of operation per day, the theoretical daily maximum capacity of the Topf cremation furnaces at Auschwitz-Birkenau was 1,040 bodies (52 muffles times 20 hours of operation per day).¹⁶

Carlo Mattogno, however, writes that, according to a German memorandum dated March 17, 1943, the normal activity of the crematoria was only 12 hours per day, of which the first hour was probably needed to bring the furnaces back to operational temperature. This means that only 11 hours per day were available for actual cremations. Thus, the actual theoretical daily maximum capacity of the Topf cremation furnaces at Auschwitz-Birkenau was 52 muffles times 11 hours of operation per day, which equals 572 bodies.¹⁷

Supporters of the official Holocaust story sometimes use a letter dated June 28, 1943, under the name of SS-Sturmbannführer Bischoff, the Chief of the Auschwitz Central Construction Office, to prove a higher cremation capacity at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This letter, which was intended to be sent to SS-Brigadeführer Kammler, the Chief of the Economic-Administrative Main Office’s Office Group C, concludes that 4,756 bodies per day could have been cremated at Auschwitz-Birkenau.¹⁸

However, even pro-Holocaust researcher Jean-Claude Pressac does not give Bischoff’s letter any credibility. In his book Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, Pressac says that the real cremation capacity at Auschwitz-Birkenau was much lower. He writes that this “official” figure “had no basis in practice, and probably has to be divided by two or three to arrive at the true figure.”¹⁹

The authors of the book The Holocaust in Hungary: Evolution of a Genocide write that at least 300,000 to 345,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered in the gas chambers upon arrival at Birkenau.²⁰ The cremation capacity at Birkenau was not nearly enough to cremate that many Jews so quickly. The authors of The Holocaust in Hungary acknowledge this fact and write:

“The Nazis’ main problem: they were killing more people in the gas chambers than they could burn in the furnaces. The crematoria simply could not keep up with the task.”

Thus, the Germans decided to burn many dead Hungarian Jews in open pits.²¹

However, as we will see in the next section, aerial photographs taken during the height of the alleged extermination of the Hungarian Jews at Birkenau show an uneventful camp without smoke emanating from the crematoria or open pits.

Photographic Evidence

The photographic evidence indicates that Germany did not have an extermination program against the Hungarian Jews. The U.S. government released wartime aerial photographs in 1979 of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp taken on several random days in 1944 during the height of the alleged extermination period. Many of these photographs were taken at mid-morning on typical workdays. None of these photos shows huge pits or piles of bodies, smoking crematory chimneys, masses of Jews awaiting death outside of the alleged gas chambers, or mountains of coke used to fuel the crematoria. All of these would have been visible if Auschwitz-Birkenau had been the extermination center it is said to have been.

In his book Auschwitz: The End of a Legend, Carlo Mattogno writes regarding the Allied aerial photographs taken at Birkenau on May 31, 1944:²²

“It is pointed out also that the aerial photographs taken by the Allied military on 31 May 1944, at the crucial time of presumed extermination, on the day of the arrival at Birkenau of about 15,000 deportees, and after 14 days of intense arrivals (184,000 deportees, averaging 13,000 per day) and with an extermination toll (according to Pressac’s hypothesis) of at least 110,000 homicidally gassed, which would have had to average 7,800 per day, every single day for 14 consecutive days; after all of that, the photographs do not show the slightest evidence of this alleged enormous extermination: No trace of smoke, no trace of pits, crematory or otherwise, burning or not, no sign of dirt extracted from pits, no trace of wood set aside for use in pits, no sign of vehicles or any other type of activity in the crucial zones of the courtyard of Crematory V nor in the earth of Bunker 2, nor in Crematories II and III. These photographs constitute irrefutable proof that the story of extermination of the Hungarian Jews is historically unfounded.”

John C. Ball writes that the Hungarian Jews arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau from May 28 through May 31, 1944 are said to have been killed on the spot and cremated. Since the crematories at Auschwitz-Birkenau could have cremated only a small fraction of these bodies, most of them would have had to have been cremated on gargantuan pyres outdoors. Therefore, if the orthodox story were true, the area would have been blanketed in smoke. However, the Allied air photo of Birkenau on May 31, 1944 shows a peaceful and uneventful camp devoid of any smoke emanating from the crematoria or open pits.²³

Ball concludes:²⁴

“The air photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau known to date from the period of December 1943 to February 1945 show no signs of fuel depots, massive smoke from chimneys or open fires, burning pits or pyres. The photos were altered: fake Zyklon-B input shafts and groups of inmates were retouched onto the photo negatives. One must assume that any actual mass-murder activities would not have escaped the notice of the air-photo interpreters, which would have resulted in the bombing of the camp – but this did not happen….To this day there is no air-photo evidence to support the alleged mass murder of the Jews at any location in Europe occupied by the Germans during World War II.”

Conclusion

The Hungarian Jews were not subject to a program of mass extermination at Auschwitz-Birkenau. No homicidal gas chambers existed at Auschwitz-Birkenau to carry out such a massive extermination process. The crematoria capacity at Auschwitz-Birkenau was moreover insufficient to cremate the alleged dead Hungarian Jews in the time period claimed by Holocaust historians. Finally, Allied aerial photographs taken at the height of the alleged extermination of the Hungarian Jews at Birkenau show an uneventful camp devoid of any evidence of a mass extermination program.

Historian Randolph Braham wrote:²⁵

“History is a formidable weapon that has been exploited by extremists, including chauvinistic nationalists, to justify their claims and aspirations at the expense of historical truth.”

In this author’s opinion, however, it is Zionist/Jewish historians and organizations who have weaponized the so-called Holocaust at the expense of historical truth. The “Holocaust” has been used to justify the Allied war effort, to establish the state of Israel, to justify Israel’s violence against its neighbors, to induce guilt in both Germans and the Allied nations, to cover up and ignore Allied crimes against Germans, to allow Jews to receive massive reparations from Germany, and to create solidarity in the Jewish community. The extreme importance of the Holocaust story in advancing Zionist/Jewish interests ensures that this falsification of history will continue in the future.²⁶

Notes

A version of this article was originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of The Barnes Review.