History of the Second World War-part work Holocaust claims

[borjastick]

Thanks to Horhug I now know that this extensive British published part work covering the whole of the second world war was published in 1975. There were 8 volumes and thousands of pages. My dad collected the whole set which must have taken well over a year. I found them all, except for one book which is missing, in his house recently. I have been through them all with a view to seeing how the holocaust was portrayed and covered at that time. Volume 3 covers the holocaust although the word 'holocaust' is hardly used at all.

Surprisingly, given how much noise the holocaust is given today, the subject doesn't get much coverage at all. Perhaps 20 pages in thousands on the whole war. At one point in the editorial they claim that the holocaust was responsible for ten million deaths.

I have picked out the most salient points here and tried to scan the relevant pages but alas they aren't good scans due to the fact that I cannot remove the individual sections from their hard backed binder, and that doesn't allow me the space to get them onto the scanner properly. Thus I show them below as proof that they exist rather than being perfectly legible pages. You will be able to read a good amount of each page, hopefully.

Page 1043
This is fascinating to me. They claim that cyclon B (sic) was used in the camps to kill rats!

Cyclon B poison gas crystals, originally supplied to kill the rats, were first used experimentally on human beings in September 1941...

and then a little further on

...mass graves were constructed to contain them

Here they are talking about the bodies of thousands being buried at Auschwitz in mass graves.
Page 1229 This is the main Auschwitz section.

Many (Polish jews) fled into the territory which was temporarily conceded to Russia

Page 1231
This concerns Hoess's visit to Treblinka to observe the way they were killing jews.

The ten gas chambers at Treblinka only held 200 people; the engines used to pump carbon monoxide gas into the lungs of the walled up victims had refused to fire properly

The Auschwitz section is short on what we now know to be the main story and evolution of gassing in Auschwitz. By this I mean that there is no mention of gassings taking place in the little farm houses. The gassing at Auschwitz is painted as a complete invention by Hoess. Comments please on the blue prints scan. Can you see the obvious flaw?

Hoess is quoted saying this -

The trapped prisoners hurled themselves against both doors. But the doors held...

Here is quoted from his confession talking about the gassing process in the early days.
Page 1232

and shaved off the women's valuable hair

This is in the section discussing the immediate actions taken after each gassing. And -

At first the bodies were buried in vast pits dug by prison labour

and

Each crematorium, with its 15 ovens, could consume 45 bodies every 20 minutes...

From the top, why was women's hair so valuable? Some stories say it was shipped back to Germany in huge quantities for use in blankets, sockes etc. If that was the case it would need to be cleansed and processed, so where is the evidence for that large process?

Where are these 'vast pits' today? Why are they not an integral part of the Auschwitz tour and story today?

45 bodies consumed by the crematory ovens in 20 minutes I think we all know is pure fantasy.

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