Auschwitz swimming pool

[Maly Jacek]

as seen on picture taken during my last month's visit :



and very puzzling description:




I find it a bit strange,specially when similar reservoir located at Birkenau looks nothing like this one.Perhaps it was swimming pool after all...

[Hannover]

This is yet another case of the 'holocau$t' Industry losing control of their lies.

The other story has it that, 'oh yes, it's a swimming pool, but for German staff only'. Ofcourse, that spin job is shattered by the 'it's really a reservoir', which means was it never a swimming pool for German staff.

The 'holocau$t' Industry has forgotten a basic principle:

Tell the truth, it's easier to remember.

- Hannover

[Malle]

I find it a bit strange,specially when similar reservoir located at Birkenau looks nothing like this one. Perhaps it was swimming pool after all...

Those stupid Germans built a 'fire brigade reservoir' just 15 meters (45 feet) from a fire post (and yes, it was there during the war too).



Have you ever seen a 'water reservoir' with a decorated outlet like this?



Did you ask if they are going to restore it or just demolish it?

[PLAYWRIGHT]

While the Auschwitz State Museum claim is unlikely, I did note one detail that constitutes a small proof that it was a fire brigade reserve.

The pool doesn't have a shallow end.

Swimming pools are built on an incline, with a deep end and a shallow end. This pool has a uniform depth, and that would seem to indicate that it was constructed at least in part as a fire brigade water reserve.

Also, I don't see any set up for the filter. Since I have my own outdoor pool, I know that I have to have the filter running at least six hours a day, and add chlorine at least every three days. I'm assuming they had it on a stand next to the pool, or something like that, though I can't spot the setup. Without constant filtering, the water in an outdoor pool deteriorates very quickly.

Possibly, that little culvert to the right of the decorative water spigot was the inlet for the filter, and the spigot the outlet from the filter.

[Hannover]

Playwright:

The pool doesn't have a shallow end.

Swimming pools are built on an incline, with a deep end and a shallow end. This pool has a uniform depth, and that would seem to indicate that it was constructed at least in part as a fire brigade water reserve.

Huh?

There are pools aplenty without a shallow end . In those cases it assumes the user can actually swim and/or tread water. And, any body of water could theoretically serve as a 'reservoir', but the official storyline is that it was built to resemble a pool. Why build a reservoir to look like a swimming pool? It's a laughable assertion.

If it looks like a swimming pool (complete with blocks for attaching diving boards), and acts like a swimming pool, it is a swimming pool.

The Auschwitz Theme Park management must lie in order to conceal the obvious fact that there was a swimming pool at Auschwitz ... and a theatre, orchestras, etc.

The 'holocau$t', falling apart faster than a cheap suit.

- Hannover

[Malle]

While the Auschwitz State Museum claim is unlikely, I did note one detail that constitutes a small proof that it was a fire brigade reserve.

The pool doesn't have a shallow end.

If that’s the case, then one of my neighbours has a 'fire brigade reservoir' in their backyard. One other point to consider, why should the Germans invest in a 'fire brigade reservoir' when they have almost an unlimited reservoir in the river Sola about 50 meters (150 feet) away?

[Scott]

It's easier to pad a military budget for construction of something utilitarian like a "fire brigade reservoir" than for a swimming pool.

It probably was used as a swimming pool. Big deal. That doesn't make it a holiday camp. Who got to use it, anyway?

Besides, unless it were heated somehow you couldn't use it except during the hottest parts of the summer.

If it were used for the physical therapy of patients in the hospital it probably wouldn't have a deep end at all. In fact, all you could do with it is swim laps back and forth.

It doesn't really look deep or wide enough for diving, although it is hard to gauge sizes in the photo and it does appear to have been fitted with diving boards at one time.

Also, the water mains are not always reliable for fire-fighting in an air raid or other disaster. During WWII the Germans had makeshift pipe sections that they could slap together and then they would actually pump raw sewage to fight fires. There was a whole host of medical studies conducted to see if this would cause epidemics, but the conclusion was that the risk was minimal and well-worth adding additional sources of water for firefighting rather than just clean drinking water.

As far as the Sola River being 50 meters away, that is all well and good but the depth probably varies during the year, and anyway you would have to string hoses past the perimeter wire. Having a water reservoir handy for fighting camp fires probably looked good on the books for civil defense planners.

[Hannover]

Scott says:

It probably was used as a swimming pool. Big deal. That doesn't make it a holiday camp. Who got to use it, anyway?

It was a swimming pool, look at it. And who said Aushwitz was a "holiday camp"? And remember what the sign says:

"Fire brigade reservoir built in the form of a swimming pool probably in 1944".

It doesn't say 'a reservoir used occasionally as a swimming pool'. They are clearly trying to hide the fact that it was a swimming pool; it wouldn't look very good for their absurd 'extermination camp' canard.

The 'who got to use it, anyway?' backfires on the claim that it was reservoir for fire brigades. And does Scott ignore the fact that there was also a theatre for inmates and orchestras too? And who got to use them, anyway? Ahem. Oh, we can't say that, it might seem we're calling Auschwitz a Club Med.

Then Scott says:

As far as the Sola River being 50 meters away, that is all well and good but the depth probably varies during the year, and anyway you would have to string hoses past the perimeter wire. Having a water reservoir handy for fighting camp fires probably looked good on the books for civil defense planners.

The depth varies, so what? A foot in depth would do just nicely. String hoses a whole 150 feet, wow... so very difficult, and the Germans could move the perimeter to anywhere they liked, if they even needed to do that.

And I can just see the inspectors to the labor camp glowing with praise for the Auschwitz engineers who went to all the trouble to build a 'reservoir' that looked like a swimming pool.

Could it have been used for firefighting? Sure. As can any swimming pool.

- Hannover

[Hannover]

Another swimming pool (in background) at the Mauthausen camp. Undoubtedly a 'fire brigade reservoir'.

- Hannover

[Maly Jacek]

are there any war time photos of Auschwitz pool ?

[Ajax]

Besides, unless it were heated somehow you couldn't use it except during the hottest parts of the summer.

This makes some sense, but then we have to entertain the vivid imaginations of the mythologists. For even if they were to concede that it might have been a swimming pool, they'd use the lack of heating facilities to claim that it was used during the winter months for freezing experiments...

[Hannover]

Scott said:

Besides, unless it were heated somehow you couldn't use it except during the hottest parts of the summer.

Most municipal pools are not heated as they close in winter. Ice will crack the walls of a swimming pool.

And this lack of heating renders the silly notion that it was 'built as fire brigade reservoir' even more absurd, if that's possible. The pool would then be empty or frozen & cracked, not exactly advantageous for a 'fire brigade'.

- Hannover

[Richard Perle]

I might be mistaken but wasn't there a mention somewhere of some kind of swimming competition in Auschwitz between different nationalities?

[Daniel Saez Lorente]

Robert Faurisson wrote an entire article on the swimming pool at Auschwitz, entitled, fittingly, "The Swimming Pool at Auschwitz". It is listed on www.vho.org someplace.
One of the first sentences states: "It was a swimming pool."
Faurisson goes on to quote survivor memoirs in which the swimming pool is mentioned. In other words, inmates swam in it.

[Scott]

Besides, unless it were heated somehow you couldn't use it except during the hottest parts of the summer.

Most municipal pools are not heated as they close in winter. Ice will crack the walls of a swimming pool.

And this lack of heating renders the silly notion that it was 'built as fire brigade reservoir' even more absurd, if that's possible. The pool would then be empty or frozen & cracked, not exactly advantageous for a 'fire brigade'.

I don't see the fuss about the swimming pool, theater and brothel. Big deal. There were different classes of prisoners anyway. Kapos probably ate better too.

It looks like a pretty stout cement pond for a swimming pool. Plus, I don't see any bolts to mount the diving board. It doesn't look that much like a swimming pool to me.

And it seems like it would be easier to knock a hole in the ice to drop in a fire hose here than to drape hoses over the wire, go around to the gate with the pumper cart , then tiptoe out across the frozen river to bust a hole in the ice.

Nevertheless, the Auschwitz museum should produce a little documentation here. What is accomplished for them to hide the swimming pool when there is the theater? Or, for that matter, as the sign implies, why would the Germans disguise a fire-brigade pond as a swimming pool?