Anne Frank

Inte så konstigt att hon kunde skriva som en bokmal.

"---One of the children in my barracks toward the end of the war was Anne Frank, whose diary became famous after her death. I didn't know her family before-hand, and I don't recall much about her, but I do remember she was a quiet child. When I heard later that she was 15 when she was in the camps, I was surprised. She seemed younger to me. Pen and paper were hard to find, but I have a memory of her writing a bit. Typhus was a terrible problem, especially for the children. Of 500 in my barracks, maybe 100 got it, and most of them died. Many others starved to death. When Anne Frank got sick with typhus, I remember telling her she could stay in the barracks-she didn't have to go to roll call.

"---All things considered, the Netherlands Institute's "critical edition" of the Anne Frank diary is a disaster for the late Otto Frank and for his experts, friends, and those who have vouched for him. Clearly, Frank's cause has been deemed indefensible. But, by cutting away the deadwood in an attempt to preserve the tree, that is, by sacrificing Frank's reputation in order to save that of his daughter's alleged diary, the pruners at the Netherlands State Institute have found themselves confronting a kind of nothingness. Only a questionable "handwriting analysis" emerges from it all, which is all the more laughable given that, a few years after the publication of their "critical edition" in 1986, other samples of the girl's writing in various personal letters and postcards appeared on the open market. These samples, which seem genuine to me, have rendered worthless the Netherlands Institute's laborious analyses. In any case, the experts' work must now be reviewed from beginning to end.

Auschwitz-Birkenau (arrival: night of 5-6 Sept 1944):
Immediately upon arrival: 549 people (240 men, 230 women, and all 79 children) were selected to be killed.
(Accounts differ about whether Mr. v. Pels was selected that night.)

The men:
The label tatooed on Otto's arm: B-9174.
The men were taken to a quarantine block.
Later they were moved to Block II.
Peter was put to work in the camp post office, or some other office job.
The other men did outdoor labor.
In November, Otto was sent to the grossly inadequate hospital.
He was liberated there on 27 Jan 1945, by the Russians.

The women:
were tatooed number labels somewhere between A-25060 and A-25271,
and were taken to a quarantine block.
Then they were moved to Women's Block 29, in Birkenau, and probably labored outdoors.
When Anne got scabies, she was sent to the scabies block. (Margot and possibly their mother went, too, to be with her.)

"---In November, Otto was sent to the grossly inadequate hospital.
He was liberated there on 27 Jan 1945, by the Russians.---"

"---"One Louse, Your Death!" This bilingual (German-Polish) poster graphically warned Auschwitz inmates of the danger of typhus bearing lice. (p. 54) Other measures taken by camp authorities to combat typhus included camp quarantines, routine delousings of barracks and clothes with "Zyklon" gas, quarantine of newly arriving prisoners, disinfection baths for inmates, and inspections of barracks. The dread disease claimed the lives of many tens of thousands of inmates. German camp personnel also fell victim, including SS garrison physician Dr. Siegfried Schwela and other high-level SS officers.

"Zyklon" (hydrocyanic acid gas), a widely available commercial insecticide and rodent killer, was used extensively at Auschwitz to kill typhus-bearing lice. It was used, for example, to fumigate clothes in delousing gas chambers, and to kill vermin in barracks and other buildings.

Commandant Rudolf Höss emphasized its deadliness when not used properly in this "special order" of August 12, 1942. (p. 201) Forty copies were distributed to officials throughout the camp. Höss warned:

Today there was a case of illness due to slight symptoms of poisoning with Prussic acid [Zyklon]. This makes it necessary to warn all those involved with gassings, as well as all other SS personnel, that especially when opening gassed rooms, SS personnel not wearing gas masks must wait at least five hours and keep a distance of 15 meters from the chamber. In this regard, particular attention should be paid to the wind direction.

The gas now being used contains less [protective] odor additive, and is therefore especially dangerous.

The SS garrison physician refuses to accept responsibility for accidents that may occur in cases where SS personnel do not obey these guidelines.

Shown on this March 1944 Auschwitz construction department diagram of the Birkenau camp are crematory buildings II and III (at upper left), and IV and V (at upper center). Between them is the"Disinfection and disinfestation facility" ("Desinfektions u. Entwesungsanlage"), which was also known as the "Central Sauna" ("Zentralsauna"). (p. 514.)

This August 1942 architectural diagram of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, supposedly the Third Reich's main "extermination" center, shows that German authorities planned to enlarge the camp so that it would eventually hold 200,000 inmates. (p. 203) The "Mexiko" section at the top, which would hold 60,000 people, was only partially completed, and the comparable section at the bottom was never begun. This document cannot be reconciled with the camp's alleged function as a top secret extermination center.

Auschwitz-Birkenau was greatly enlarged in 1943 and 1944 to accommodate the arrival of more and more Jews. Accordingly, plans were made for more extensive hospital and quarantine facilities.

This plan for a new "Prisoner hospital and quarantine section" ("Haftlings-Lazarett u. quarant ane-Abt.") in the Birkenau camp's"Mexiko" section was prepared in June 1943 by the WVHA agency in Berlin that administered the concentration camp system. It was quickly approved by the Auschwitz camp construction department. This "hospital and quarantine" section for 16,596 inmates included surgery, x-ray, delousing, and laundry facilities, as well as barracks for severely ill inmates.

Pressac acknowledges (p. 512) the difficulty of reconciling these plans with the camp's alleged function as an extermination facility:

There is incompatibility in the creation of a health camp a few hundred yards from four Krematorien [crematory facilities] where, according to official history, people were exterminated on a large scale ... It is obvious that KGL [concentration camp] Birkenau cannot have had at one and the same time two opposing functions: health care and extermination. The plan for building a very large hospital section in BA III ["Mexiko" section of Birkenau] thus shows that the Krematorien [facilities] were built purely for incineration, without any homicidal gassings, because the SS wanted to "maintain" its concentration camp labor force.

The "Mexiko" section was only partially completed and "became a transit camp in May-June 1944 for the Hungarian transports," Pressac reports.---"