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Controversy: Are or were there ever holes in the roof of the Leichenkeller (Morgue) No. 1 at Krema (crematiorium) II at Auschwitz -- the holes through which SS officers allegedly poured in the Zyklon B crystals?

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See David Irving closing speech, page 31.

krema II, Leichenkeller 1, underside of rood

Website photo of Krema II, Leichenkeller 1, underside of roof


A S Marques writes Friday, December 15, 2000 :

YOUR comments on Charles Provan and his discovery of "holes" in the roof of Krema II are right on target.

I had a brief email exchange with Provan in June this year [2000] and I got the impression that he was basically honest but quite naïve both in his views and in his expectations concerning the Auschwitz Museum authorities. He wrote to me, for instance, that "I decided to do my own survey because I was pretty sure that one of the eyewitnesses to the holes in the roof (Konrad Morgen) was telling the truth."

ProvanBut Morgen, of course, is well-known precisely for, while pretending to go along with his Allied captors, managing to tell glaring Münchausen-like lies that no one accepts any longer, devised to shift every conceivable guilt claim, no matter how surrealistic, from the living persons undergoing trial to the dead ones that could no longer be reached. One example of this is his testimony concerning Oscar Dirlewanger's permanently hard-pressed combat group trying to make human soap out of Jewish fat in a large bubbling cauldron in the middle of Warsaw (of all people, times and places!), a worthy sequel to the now classic stories of evil Herr Prof. Spanner and his supposed human soap industrial research.

Well, okay, one's first motivations, however naïve, do not necessarily imply that one's conclusions will not be honest. They may, however, throw a degree of suspicion over the level and quality of one's critical thinking, however well-intended. So, I sent for a copy of Provan's booklet No Holes ? No Holocaust? A Study of the Holes in the Roof of Leichenkeller 1 of Krematorium 2 at Birkenau (One Chapter of the Book entitled Revising Revisionism), available from the author, and I was again taken aback by the level of Provan's naïveté. For instance, he begins his booklet by dividing "witnesses" in two groups, one of which he labels "testimonies of lesser value", proceeding to explain why they should be labeled so. However, the ones he includes in the other group, apparently accepting them as legitimate ones with little or no hint of suspicion and labelled simply "eyewitnesses", include not only Konrad Morgen, but Rudolf Höss and such luminaries as Miklos Nyisly and Filip Müller...

Concerning the famous holes, Provan found no less than eight of them. It's clear that by "holes" he means everything from cracks to post-war holes to gain access to the underground room. He does recognize this, and he acknowledges that there are bent rebars in one of the "holes" which he agrees must have been made after the war (this is the one that is most often shown as the genuine thing by the traditional friends of hole-riddled cabalistic thinking.) Another three, Provan says, are obvious products of the roof being demolished. But he claims the remaining last three are in positions largely agreeing with the eyewitness accounts. Though the eyewitnesses mention four holes for Zyklon B, he says he was unable to locate a suitable candidate for the fourth hole, since the roof was on edge, and the hole location under the surface of the rubble. His conclusion is this: since three suitable locations agree with the witnesses, with the fourth underground, it is now not correct for the Revisionist position to be "No Holes, No Holocaust."

Again, it should be stressed that Charles Provan seems to be an honest individual. He mentioned Faurisson's criticism of his method in a letter to me, and indeed he agrees that he did not check the holes he claims to have found to ascertain the non-presence of rebars. He does recognize that if the Germans on duty had cut holes in the concrete, they would have had to remove the rebars in the holes in order to make them suitable for the introduction of Zyklon B. He also said he was hesitant to disturb the holes, so as not to disturb evidence and that he had written to the Auschwitz Museum (which he had heard was planning to disturb the site to find the holes) requesting that they conduct an "x-ray" study to check the pattern of the rebars, so as not to disturb the site.

All very nice and commendable, but one must make two objections upon examination of Provan's photos and arguments:

  1. The three "holes" that he thinks might have included original Zyklon vents are next to the remnants of the massive pillars and in the photos they look like irregular enlarged fractures due to the whole roof being lifted and moved sidewise by the explosion and then crashing on the said pillars with the fractures resulting from this. "Hole" 2 of the eight has visible rebars protruding and is located at the end of a short crack with crumbled material all around extending from the respective pillar that protrudes through the roof; neither "hole" 6 nor "hole" 8 look like holes at all but rather as cracks directly resulting from the roof landing on the respective pillars and pieces of it crumbling in those locations. Provan considers the possibility that the large holes / cracks resulting from the fall of the roof may have coincided with previous gassing holes, not clear any longer among all the fractured concrete, even though "holes" 6 and 8 lie to the East of the central pillars and "hole" 2 to the West. Of course, irregular fractures resulting from a rather visible direct cause and subsequently enlarged are not the same as holes drilled for a purpose and finished accordingly. The extent of the iron remains in (at least) one of the holes that can be seen in Provan's photos together with the apparent lateral dislocation of the whole roof seem to me to make the hypothesis of previously existing holes (with not one of them surviving in recognizable form) in the location of the fractures and cracks that can be seen today, very unlikely.
  2. The crying need is for a truly independent investigation of the premises with all the modern means available, under public scrutiny from all parties interested. Certainly, something like the scientific investigation that debunked the Turin shroud would be nice. checkmarBut, alas, this is quite impossible to achieve for the moment and all efforts should be deployed to avoid any tampering with the current state of the location by professional falsifiers of history that have to conform to (and impose on others) the only story permitted by their own national laws that forbid doubts about the "Holocaust". Provan does not appear to realize that any present or future Polish curator of the Auschwitz Museum that will say "I, or my predecessors, have goofed in the past" will go straight to jail as a "Holocaust denier", as indeed will go any German or French investigators that do not conform with the dogmas imposed by the law in their respective countries. Right now, vigilance is all-important and makeshift investigation from past falsifiers should be avoided, unless (a very unlikely event) they were allowed to proceed under the control of all the parties interested. After the long history of tampering with the main camp crematorium / air shelter, everything should be expected.

So, the question should be the following, given the amazing shameless out-and-out constant falsifying concerning the gas chambers issue: is it really a good policy to encourage the Auschwitz Museum authorities to investigate on their own and to talk to them, as Provan does, as if they were thrustworthy and interested in honest inquiry ?

A S Marques



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