# Questions about Hitler and Nazi Germany's attempted extermination of Europe's Jews **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168 "2013-09-18T19:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/441 "2013-09-22T03:08:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And you’re still ignoring the question. The big issue isn’t Belson or Dachau or Theresienstadt. The big issue is the main extermination camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. And also the significant numbers of Jews in conquered territory whom the SS [_Einsatzgruppen_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen) murdered even before the extermination camps were built. > [@](#): > > _Einsatzgruppen_ (German for “task forces”,[1] _“deployment groups”;_[2] singular _Einsatzgruppe;_ official full name _Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD)_ were _Schutzstaffel_ (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass killings, primarily by shooting, during World War II. The _Einsatzgruppen_ had a leading role in the implementation of the Final Solution of the Jewish question _(Die Endlösung der Judenfrage)_ in territories conquered by Nazi Germany. Almost all of the people they killed were civilians, beginning with the Polish intelligentsia and swiftly progressing to Soviet political commissars, Jews, and Gypsies throughout Eastern Europe. > > Under the direction of Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and the supervision of SS-_Obergruppenführer_ Reinhard Heydrich, the _Einsatzgruppen_ operated in territories occupied by the German armed forces following the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union) in June 1941. The _Einsatzgruppen_ carried out operations ranging from the murder of a few people to operations which lasted over two or more days, such as the massacre at Babi Yar (33,771 killed in two days) and the Rumbula massacre (25,000 killed in two days). As ordered by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht cooperated with the _Einsatzgruppen_ and provided logistical support for their operations. Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the _Einsatzgruppen_ and related auxiliary troops killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews. The total number of Jews murdered during the Holocaust is estimated at 5.5 to six million people. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/442 "2013-09-22T03:28:49Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > And also the significant numbers of Jews in conquered territory whom the SS [_Einsatzgruppen_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen) murdered even before the extermination camps were built. I agree the Einsatzgruppen killed a lot of people. But I think the six camps I named were still the biggest issue. From what I can find, those six camps between them accounted for about a third of the total number of people killed in the Holocaust. The fact that these six camps were officially designated as extermination camps (vernichtungslager) or death camps (todeslager) by the Nazis themselves indicates what their intended purpose was. They were not considered the same as the concentration camps (konzentrationslager) or slave labor camps (arbeitslager) - places like Belsen or Dachau. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/443 "2013-09-22T05:04:43Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I actually like Danny DeVito better in Taxi. You owe me a new laptop. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/444 "2013-09-22T09:59:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The fact that these six camps were officially designated as extermination camps (vernichtungslager) or death camps (todeslager) by the Nazis themselves indicates what their intended purpose was. They were not considered the same as the concentration camps (konzentrationslager) or slave labor camps (arbeitslager) - places like Belsen or Dachau. Do you have a cite for that? I know the term, but I thought it was from _after_ the war. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/445 "2013-09-22T10:43:18Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And you’re still ignoring the question. The big issue isn’t Belson or Dachau or Theresienstadt. The big issue is the main extermination camps: Auschwitz, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Let’s not forget Jasenovac which, while not operated by the Germans, is still part and parcel of the Solution, opened after some prodding by the Nazis, and I believe was in part supported by them (i.e. providing Zyklon B and such, even if the Ustase seemed more interested in more, ah, artisanal methods). ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/446 "2013-09-22T10:56:20Z")
After some searching, what I _do_ find are the terms “Sonderlager” (Special Camp) and “Sonderkommando”(special force). ‘SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka’ , ‘Sonderkommando Belzec der Waffen-SS’ and ‘SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor’ seem to be the official names for the camps. Any google hits to the use of ‘Sonderlager’ for these three camps only come from revisionist sites. ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/447 "2013-09-22T14:47:52Z")
Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann) was asked to name the extermination camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked “How do you classify the camps Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald?” he replied, “They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann.” So we have a high level Nazi differentiating between extermination camp (Vernichtungslager) and consentration camps (Konzentrationslager) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/448 "2013-09-22T15:59:44Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Do you have a cite for that? > I know the term, but I thought it was from _after_ the war. Here’s a [reference](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932705,00.html) from 1944, admittedly from an American source. But it does show it was a term in use during the war. (The camp referred to as “Maiden” is Majdanek.) ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/449 "2013-09-22T16:08:07Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It is, but are you still maintaining that the cremation of corpses as originally described is impossible? I’m perhaps being impolite in not allowing myself to be so easily distracted. (I’m going back over the old posts and responding to those that I missed.) Of course, my experiment was flawed but I’m confident a good experiment would yield not as dramatic but similar results. Even if the cremation process worked, which it wouldn’t, the bones and ashes would still be in the grave. The grave could be excavated and the number of bodies buried and then burned could be precisely counted. That’s no way to hide a mass grave. The whole confession is preposterous start to finish. There are other descriptions of hiding mass graves by exhuming and burning bodies, each preposterous - Wiernik describes digging up the bodies and burning them on grates at Treblinka, and then pulverizing the bones and tossing the bones and ashes into a nearby river. So far so good. However, he notes that women burn more easily than men, so they were put on the bottom and used as kindling. This is absurd. There was a trial for the perpetrators of the Harvest Festival, and a Nazi confessed to first burying the bodies, and then the next day receiving instructions to exhume them and burn them, so it’s absurd from the get go. His process was to create a ramp down to the bottom of the grave, and put a grate there and cremate some of the bodies, and then to advance the grate to the place where the just burned bodies had been and then repeat the process. The bones and ashes were carted out and the bones pulverized and disposed of. Cremation requires a very hot flame and a hot flame requires lots of O2, thus cremating bodies at the bottom of a 3m grave is preposterous. In summary, there is not a shred of physical evidence for any of this, and the descriptions of the processes defy physics and common sense. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/450 "2013-09-22T16:19:01Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > but I’m confident a good experiment would yield not as dramatic but similar results. Confident, eh? Any basis for that other than faith? At this point, you’ve responded to a mountain of physical evidence with “confidence” that the “real” physical evidence will back you up. Instead of being “confident”, how about being **sure**? As in, do a valid experiment or find somebody who has done the experiment. And you’ll still be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/451 "2013-09-22T16:20:32Z")
> [@Palo\_Verde](#): > > Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann) was asked to name the extermination camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked “How do you classify the camps Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald?” he replied, “They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann.” > > So we have a high level Nazi differentiating between extermination camp (Vernichtungslager) and consentration camps (Konzentrationslager) I cannot find it in the Nuremberg transcript of 3 january 1946. He does use it in his final affadavit though, of which I can only find an [english version.](http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/Wisliceny.htm) The part you speak of is in the pre-trial interrogation, apparently. I can only find this excerpt on the net: > [@](#): > > A. Yes. I came to know about a number of such extermination camps. > Q. Their names? > A. The largest one was Auschwitz, Maidenek, near Lublin. In the immediate vicinity of Lublin there were several other such camps. > Q. Do you remember their names? > A. No, because the designations for these transports always went by the name of Lublin. Maidenek too, was never mentioned by name, but was always referred to in the record by Camp M. It was only by accident that I learned one time that this camp M. was Maidenek. > Q. How did that come about? > A. When the Russians took over the camp at Maidenek with all of its devices, Eichmann once mentioned that this camp, Maidenek, was our Camp M. > Q. He said that to you in a conversation? > A. Yes. > Q. What designation did Auschwitz have? > A. Auschwitz was commonly known as Camp A. > Q. What was Camp T? > A. If I correctly recollect, that belonged to the complex Lublin system. I remember having heard the designation Camp T. > Q. Was that also an annihilation camp? > A. Yes, sir > Q. Were there others? > A. As far as I can remember now, there were none. The exerpt starts just a few questions to late to see whether the term is used by Wisliceny or is introduced by the interrogator. What is clear, however, is the level of secrecy surrounding these camps, even among high-up German personnel. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/452 "2013-09-22T16:28:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Here’s a [reference](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932705,00.html) from 1944, admittedly from an American source. But it does show it was a term in use during the war. (The camp referred to as “Maiden” is Majdanek.) I need to subscribe for that… Could you give us a cite? ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/453 "2013-09-22T16:33:46Z")
**Gack,** you repeatedly say that documented actions (burning, burying) are “preposterous.” What is your source for such a claim? Are you an expert in combustion, cremation, chemistry, physics and human anatomy? Have you ever managed a crematorium? If not, then your argument is called “personal incredulity” and an argument “from ignorance.” Since we are dedicate to fighting ignorance, your claims don’t carry much weight. None, even. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/454 "2013-09-22T16:36:22Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > Do you have a cite for that? > I know the term, but I thought it was from _after_ the war. Which term are you asking for a cite about? ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/455 "2013-09-22T16:36:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Which term are you asking for a cite about? Vernichtungslager ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/456 "2013-09-22T16:45:26Z")
Now Gack goes for denying what happen in Treblinka, indeed there is evidence that burning people in an open pit was not as effective as crematoriums, so what he claims is misleading nonsense as the evidence shows. That bones can remain after being burned in a pit does not help his dumb cause. > **[Treblinka: Revealing the hidden graves of the Holocaust](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16657363)** > > Any doubts about the existence of mass graves at the Nazi death camp of Treblinka in Poland are being put to rest by forensic archaeology. > [@](#): > > Any doubts about the existence of mass graves at the Treblinka death camp in Poland are being laid to rest by the first survey of the site using tools that see below the ground, writes forensic archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls. > [@](#): > > As well as the pits, the survey has located features that appear to be structural, and two of these are likely to be the remains of the gas chambers. > > According to witnesses, these were the only structures in the death camp made of brick. > > Unlike at Auschwitz, there were no purpose-built crematoria at Treblinka. > > The decision to burn the bodies of victims was made only after the camp had been operating for several months. The order to exhume and cremate those already buried came in 1943, after the German army had discovered the bodies of Polish officers massacred by the Soviets at Katyn three years earlier - demonstrating to the German leadership the importance of covering up its own crimes. > > Witness reports indicate that the bodies were burned on improvised pyres made of railway lines and wood, and the ashes were often reburied in the same graves the bodies had been taken from. > The ground near the railway platform Underground features detected here, coincide with variations in surface level > > But recent work in forensic cremation demonstrates that total eradication of bone requires extremely high temperatures. In most crematoria today, bones remain intact and have to be ground down to produce ash. > > At Treblinka it is clear that the ash contains many bones. Bone fragments can still be seen on the surface of the ground, especially after rain. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/457 "2013-09-22T17:18:01Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Now Gack goes for denying what happen in Treblinka, indeed there is evidence that burning people in an open pit was not as effective as crematoriums, so what he claims is misleading nonsense as the evidence shows. That bones can remain after being burned in a pit does not help his dumb cause. > > [Treblinka: Revealing the hidden graves of the Holocaust - BBC News](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16657363) Who knows, maybe he’ll next start ranting about the persecution of Ivan Demanjuk. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/458 "2013-09-22T17:19:51Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > There are other descriptions of hiding mass graves by exhuming and burning bodies, each preposterous - Wiernik describes digging up the bodies and burning them on grates at Treblinka, and then pulverizing the bones and tossing the bones and ashes into a nearby river. So far so good. However, he notes that women burn more easily than men, so they were put on the bottom and used as kindling. This is absurd. The only thing that is absurd in that paragraph is your illogical conclusion. Women’s bodies do not have to burn more easily than men, (although they may); Wiernik and his cronies merely have to have believed that women’s bodies burned more easily. Do you have any evidence that they did not hold such a belief? With as poor a grasp of logic as that, no wonder you are so easily influenced by the anti-Jewish crackpots at IHR. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/459 "2013-09-22T17:27:40Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > I need to subscribe for that… > Could you give us a cite? The cite would be Time Magazine, August 21, 1944. I think the text he’s talking about is: > [@](#): > > Last week the Russian press published the first eye-witness description of a Nazi extermination camp. Wrote Soviet War Correspondent Roman Karmen: > > "In the course of all my travels into liberated territory I have never seen a more abominable sight than Maiden, near Lublin, Hitler’s notorious Vernichtungslager [extermination camp] where more than half a million European men, women and children were massacred. . . .\* This was not a concentration camp; it was a gigantic murder plant. Also, there’s this, which isn’t an “official” use of the term, but from the diary of Dr. Johann Kremer. Kremer was an SS doctor at Auschwitz. This is from his Diary of September 2, 1942: > [@](#): > > Male draussen um 3 Uhr früh bei einer Sonderaktion zugegen. Im Vergleich hierzu erscheint mir das Dante’sche Inferno fast wie eine Komödie. Umsonst wird Auschwitz nicht das Lager der Vernichtung genannt! which, translated, is pretty much. “At 3 o clock, attended a special action outside. In comparison, Dante’s inferno seems almost like a comedy. They don’t call Auschwitz the camp of extermination for nothing!” ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/460 "2013-09-22T17:28:45Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Wiernik and his cronies Ehrrm… Wiernik was a laborer there. He was a (often cited) witness for the prosecution. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=24)