Here are some visual depictions of the alleged enormous pits.
From Samuel Willenberg, who claims to have been the only person in his transport to not be gassed because he was a bricklayer:
Here is Jankiel Wiernik's model of Treblinka:
As you see, the pits are claimed to be extremely large. The Düsseldorf Jury Court at the trial of 1964-1965 stated in the verdict:
"one of the pits [at Treblinka] contained no less than approximately 80,000 corpses"
(Adalbert Rückerl, NS-Vernichtungslager im Spiegel deutscher Strafprozesse, Frankfurt 1977, pp. 204f.)
However, none of the excavations at these three camps has ever shown a photograph of a pit anywhere near these sorts of sizes, even though it would be far easier to detect an enormous pit than a small one. What we generally see are photographs with anything from 1 skull or bone to what could be maybe the bones of 5, 10, or 20 people. Most of the time, these photographs are from the 1940s instead of from the recent "archeological investigations" of these camps undertaken in the past 2 decades.
Do photographs of pits containing the remains of fewer than 100 people prove that these camps were extermination camps? Do they prove that hundreds of thousands of Jews were gassed and buried at "Pure extermination camps" Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka 2?
Here are some excerpts of police reports regarding deportations of Jews from Kolomea to Belzec: (I am only quoting small portions, full text links are provided)
Another:7. Pol. 24
Tgb. Nr 64/42 (g).
Lemberg 14 September 1942
To:
Commander of the Order Police in the Galicia District
Lemberg
Subject: Jewish Resettlement
After carrying out Jewish resettlement actions on 3 and 5 September 1942 in Skole, Stryj and Chodorow, for which Captain of the Schutzpolizei Kropelin was in charge of the Order Police involved and which has already been reported in detail, the 7th Company of the 24th Police Regiment arrived as ordered in Kolomea on the evening of 6 September.
...
Contrary to the experience in Stryj, the action planned for 7 September 1942 in Kolomea was well prepared and made easy for all units involved. The Jews had been informed by the above mentioned agencies and the Labour office to gather at the collection point of the Labour office for registration on 7 September at 5.30 a.m.
Some 5,300 Jews were actually assembled there at the appointed time. With all the manpower of my company, I sealed the Jewish quarter and searched thoroughly, whereby some 600 additional Jews were hunted down.
The loading of the transport train was completed about 7.00 p.m. After the Security Police released some 1,000 from the total rounded up, 4,769 Jews were resettled. Each car of the transport was loaded with 100 Jews. The great heat prevailing that day made the entire action very difficult and greatly impeded the transport.
After the regular nailing up and sealing of all cars, the transport train got underway to Belzec about 9.00 p.m. with a guard of one officer and nine men.
With the coming of deep darkness in the night, many Jews escaped by squeezing through air holes after removing the barbed wire. While the guard was able to shoot many of them immediately, most of the escaping Jews were eliminated that night or the next day by the railroad guard or other police units.
...
On 7 September, some 300 Jews – old and weak, ill, frail, and no longer transportable were executed. According to the order of 4 September 1942 of which I was first informed on 6 September, concerning use of ammunition, 90% of those executed were shot with carbines and rifles. Only in exceptional cases were pistols used.
...
Other than the Jews rounded up in Horodenka and Sniatyn, who had already been loaded onto ten cars at each location by the Security Police, another 30 cars were loaded in Kolomea. The total number sent to Belzec on the resettlement train of 10 September 1942 amounted to 8,205
...
Given the great heat prevailing on those days and the strain on the Jews from the long foot marches or from waiting for days without being given any provisions worth noting, the excessively great overloading of most of the cars with 180 to 200 Jews was catastrophic in a way that had tremendously adverse effects on the transport.
...
During the onward journey, at every station stop, help was needed to nail up the train, because otherwise the rest of the trip would not have been at all possible. At 11.15 a.m. the train reached Lemberg (Lvov).
...
SS- Obersturmfuhrer Schulze then had some additional 1,000 Jews loaded. About 1.30 p.m. the transport departed for Belzec. With the change of engine in Lemberg, such an old engine was hooked up that further travel was possible only with continuous interruptions.
...
The ever greater panic spreading among the Jews due to the great heat, overloading of the train cars, and smell of dead bodies – when unloading the train cars some 2000 Jews were found dead in the train – made the transport almost unworkable.
...
(signed) Westermann
Reserve Lieutentant of the Schutzpolizei
And Company Commander
From: https://archive.is/gP5eb or http://web.archive.org/web/201603302154 ... lomea.htmlSchutzpolizei Zugwachtmeister Jacklein’s Report
Zugw. d. SchP. Josef Jacklein
7/ Pol. 24 in Lemberg
Lemberg 14 September 1942
Report
Subject: Resettlement from Kolomea to Belzec
On 9 September 1942 I received orders to take over command of the Jewish resettlement train which was leaving Kolomea for Belzec on 10 September 1942.
...
After a short stop at Lemberg station the train went to the suburban station of Kleparow where I handed over nine wagons to SS- Obersturmfuhrer Schulze which had been marked with an “L” and had been designated for Lemberg compulsory labour camp.
SS- Obersturmfuhrer Schulze then loaded on about 1,000 more Jews and at about 13.30 hours the transport departed again. At Lemberg the engine was replaced and an old engine was attached which was not powerful enough for the weight of the train. The train driver never managed to reach top speed with his engine so that the train, particularly when travelling uphill, moved so slowly that the Jews could jump off without any risk of injury.
...
I ordered the train driver on numerous to drive faster but this was impossible. It was particularly unfortunate that the train frequently stopped in open country. The escort squad had meanwhile used up all the ammunition that had been brought with us as well as an extra 200 bullets that I had obtained from some soldiers, with the result that we had to rely on stones when the train was moving and fixed bayonets when the train was stationary.
The ever- increasing panic among the Jews, caused by the intense heat, the overcrowding in the wagons….. the stink of the dead bodies – when the wagons were unloaded there were about 2,000 dead in the train – made the transport almost impossible.
At 18.45 the transport arrived in Belzec and I handed it over to the SS- Obersturmfuhrer and head of the camp at 19.30 hours. Towards 22.00 hours the transport was unloaded.
...
(signed) Jacklein
Zugwachtm d Schutzpol.
So according to these reports, the "Resettlement train" to Belzec of about 8,200 Jews to be ended up with 2,000 of them dead on arrival due to disease. In addition, some 300 Jews were executed due to being incurably sick/ill. It may seem harsh, but in this instance lives were probably saved because putting incurably sick Jews on a train full of healthy Jews would end up with a larger number of total deaths.
It is claimed that in the first three months of Belzec's operation (March - June 1942) 80,000 people were gassed and buried in pits covered with "a shallow layer of earth." By July, it is claimed that a new building with 6 gas chambers that could handle 1,000 people at once was built. By December 1942, it is alleged that 350,000 to 400,000 Jews were gassed in these new buildings.
If that is so, why did the reports claim that 300 old Jews were executed by bullet? Why were they not gassed?
If it is true that 2,000 Jews perished in transit, then that would explain why there would be scattered pits with human remains at the camps. This specific transport was an anomaly: the very high death rate was likely to be one of the highest of any transports, if not these highest. And this was not due to homicidal intent, but logistical difficulties. Regardless, the example quite succinctly shows that human remains in some quantity would be expected at these camps even if no Jews were gassed here; nowhere near the alleged hundreds of thousands claimed by the "Holocaust" narrative, but something like 10-25 thousand could be possible.
It should be noted also, at the time, certain Jewish populations were extremely superstitious and had a strong aversion to bathing and doctors. This is elaborated on quite well in the following article:
Typhus and the Jews https://archive.is/HoEoG
For instance, after the war, one American officer noted:
"The school children were next bathed and deloused. Gorman observing that 'if the older people were as enthusiastic as these children, typhus would no longer be a dread in Poland.' Unfortunately, the older people were content to live in the unimaginable dirt and filth, one old woman having been heard to cry out, 'death here in my hovel rather than the torture of bathing.'" (Alfred E. Cornebise, "Typhus and Doughboys", 1982, p. 65)
A book by Jewish historian Lucy Dawidowicz stated:
"In the Warsaw ghetto alone, epidemic typhus was believed to have affected between 100,000 and 150,000 persons, though the official figures were barely over 15,000. The spread of disease was concealed from the Germans. Hospital cases of typhus were recorded as 'elevated fever' or pneumonia. Mainly, the stricken were treated in their homes in a massive clandestine operation, covering up the presence of the disease from German inspection teams who periodically threatened to seal off the affected areas." (Lucy S. Dawidowicz, "The War Against The Jews 1933-1945", 1975, p. 289)
History professor Alfred E. Cornebise stated regarding American efforts in the town of Wlodowa in the 1920s:
"... further difficulties were in the form of considerable resistance among the population to bathe. The town's officials also vacillated, whereupon the police had to be used to compel the people to do so. Soon the town officials devised a plan whereby those persons who had been bathed were provided with a ticket and only those who possessed one could buy bread and potatoes in the stores. However, this was rather ineffective as forged tickets soon appeared and also, as Gillespie [an American first lieutenant] contemptuously charged, 'The Jews would get their tickets, alter the name on them and sell them to some other person.' ... Moreover, as Snidow recounted, 'in the first preliminary council we were assured by the priest, the rabbi and mayor and later confirmed by two doctors that not a soul in the town had had a bath for over a year. This statement we considered conservative and I personally doubt if water had touched the persons of most of them since the departure of the Germans during whose occupation they were required to bathe at least once a week, when they could be caught.' There was a good community bathhouse, but the people had 'formed a horror of it' from being compelled to bathe there by the Germans, and would not use it" (Cornebise, p. 66)
So, it is quite apparent that in some Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, but certainly not all, there was a hysterical aversion to bathing and basic sanitary measures. This resistance to reasonable hygienic standards could easily have resulted in a high death rate from disease in certain transports to these camps.
Recommended reading:
Sobibor "Archaeological excavation" report(s) of 2014 and 2015 - no photographs of human remains, when will we see them?
viewtopic.php?t=12901
John Wear: What Really Happened To The Inmates Of The Aktion Reinhardt Transit Camps in Poland?
viewtopic.php?t=12388
SS Officer Karl von Eberstein on the conditions of the camps / Piles of bodies & Emaciated Corpses
viewtopic.php?t=12624
Carlo Mattogno, Jürgen Graf, Thomas Kues: The “Extermination Camps” of “Aktion Reinhardt”
https://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=28
PDF: https://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/28-tecoar.pdf
War-time German documents & writings mentioning the "Final Solution"
viewtopic.php?t=12296
