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Posted Monday, September 6, 2004

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Letters to David Irving on this Website


Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives and invite open debate.

Ivan Brkich of Queensland, Australia, asks important questions on behalf of students at his college about the Holocaust.


"Hitler's Typewriter"

Norway and the Holocaust

Subject: The Holocaust Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 23:06:14 +1000 From: "IVAN BRKICH" <> To: <[email protected]>

Dear Mr. Irving

My Year 11 Modern History class at Varsity College on the Gold Coast Queensland Australia is studying a Unit in Modern History called Nationalism and Internationalism. Nazi Germany is the focus of this study. We have examined the totalitarian and nationalistic characteristics of Germany during this time. Naturally, we have also investigated the Holocaust. During this investigation, I have endeavoured to present opposing viewpoints with the intent that the students determine/assess the reliability of evidence. Presenting opposing viewpoints to traditionally accepted viewpoints found in textbooks has been difficult given that the websites we have wanted to access whilst at school have been designated as aggressive sites and access to these sites has been denied to us.

Hence, the reason for my email. My class has compiled the following email and would appreciate a response from you at your earliest convenience. Due to the fact that I cannot email you from school, I am emailing you from my personal email address.

Their letter is as follows:

We are a Year 11 Modern History class currently studying Totalitarian Nationalism with a particular focus on Nazi Germany. We are writing to gain your feedback on a number of issues/beliefs that have arisen during the course of our study. While traditional texts have portrayed the Jews as victims of a repressive Nazi regime, revisionist sites on the internet have cast doubt and confusion amongst the students within the class in relation to several topics.

We would like clarification on the following areas:

  1. Gas Chambers: We watched a video of an interview you had with Mike Willisee on 'A Current Affair' some ten years ago during which you debated a Ms Kitty Altman (an Auschwitz survivor) who insisted that the gas chambers existed. During this interview, you made the claim that crematoriums do not smoke and challenged the Australian public to visit their local crematoriums to see for themselves. While this may be true now due to advances in technology, crematoriums today are quite different to what they were during The Second World War. Is it not feasible that the crematoriums such as those used by the Nazis did indeed smoke. How do you account for the gas chambers in evidence at Auschwitz? How do you account for all the images that clearly depicted the use of gas chambers? On what basis do you dispute the existence of gas chambers when Rudolph Höss himself admitted to setting up extermination buildings and using Zyklon B as a method of execution at Auschwitz? Höss makes the claim that one of the greatest assets of Auschwitz was "building our gas chambers to accommodate 2000 people at a time." (Nuremberg Document PS 3868). How do you explain this? We have also watched a Sidney Bernstein video called 'Genocide' (which highlighted the existence of the gas chambers) and an account by Rudolph Höss (Nuremberg Document PS-3868) also appears to confirm the existence of gas chambers. Can you please comment on this? How do you account for Allied troops' claims that ash from the sky was falling on them as they approached some of the extermination camps? How do you account for the quantities of Zyklon B found at the various 'death camps'?
     
  2. Number of Deaths: In your 1995 interview with Ron Casey, when asked what was your estimate of the number of Jews killed during Hitler's regime, you stated, "A minimum of 1 million and a maximum of 4 million Jews killed. Depending on what you mean by killed." Taking the worst case scenario ie: your figure of 4 million killed, what number died from (1) diseases (2) starvation, (3) gassing and (4) various extermination methods accepted by revisionists such as firing squads? What sources/evidence are you referring to when you are determining your figures? For what reason(s) is there such a large discrepancy between the figures that you provide in relation to the Holocaust and the figure used in history textbooks? From the sources we have viewed in textbooks, the number of Jews killed is said to be approximately 6 million. Our studies have given us reason to believe that 68% of the Jewish population perished during World War 2. In our textbook, it is stated that 88% of the 3,300,000 Jews living in Poland were executed which greatly exceeds your minimum estimate of 1 million. Can you please explain how you came by your figure of the number of Jews who were executed?
  3. Zyklon B: The history textbooks, videotapes and various internet sites reaffirm the use of Zyklon B in the gassing of Jews and others. R. Höss refers to Zyklon B during his Nuremberg trial during which he graphically explained the gassing procedure, i.e. how long it took the prisoners to die and what happened to the bodies afterwards. Can you please comment on this? The revisionist sites that we have visited claim that Zyklon B was used to delouse prisoners and to control the vermin within the camps. Do you have any evidence of this whereby Höss and other camp commandants make specific reference to such uses of Zyklon B to control the problem in their correspondence with their superiors? We have also read that, after experiments, it became clear to German officials that Zyklon B could be used to exterminate undesirables more effectively than other methods that were being used such as firing squads. Please comment. Furthermore, you have based much of your rejection of the use of Zyklon B for gassing purposes on scientific evidence although none of this is referenced. Can you please provide this scientific evidence or direct us to where it can be found? Finally, during the Willisee interview, you stated, "there is no significant trace of cyanide gas found in the remains of the gas chambers." Is this an acknowledgement of the existence of gas chambers? You also claimed that an independent had reported that these findings had been supported by the findings of a Polish team of investigators. What were their qualifications? Who asked them to investigate and submit a report? To whom did they report? Where can their report be found?
     
  4. Method of Execution: According to sources such as our textbook, Inquiry 1, by Brian Hoepper (et al), and the website Body Disposal at Auschwitz; The End of the Holocaust Denial (http://www.holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/body-disposal/) , evidence suggests that the method of execution did indeed involve gas chambers. The testimonies of the survivors appear to substantiate the claim yet, during your interview with Willisee, you reject the use of gas chambers and allege that other methods were used. Can you please provide evidence which allowed you to come to this conclusion? 

    Can you please reply asap as our class continues to debate these issues and others as we analyse the evidence we are coming across from a variety of sources?

This ends the email compiled by my students. They are eagerly awaiting your response. I thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide my students as they struggle to come to terms with 'the truth'.

Ivan Brkich

Our dossier on Auschwitz
 
© Focal Point 2004 David Irving