CHAPTER 16: MAJDANEK

Section 98: Majdanek, Lublin—Originally Built as POW Camp for Soviet Army Prisoners

The Majdanek camp, situated within eye-shot of the city of Lublin in Poland, achieved brief fame in the Holocaust storytellers’ legend immediately after the war, but has since faded away in importance. The reason for this change in status has primarily been a realization amongst the Holocaust “experts” that the initial burst of propaganda and stories about the camp were so grossly exaggerated that it was damaging to the legend to give Majdanek too much prominence.

Initially called “Prisoner of War Camp of the Waffen-SS in Lublin,” Majdanek was built in October 1941 as a prisoner of war camp to help hold the large number of Russian soldiers captured during the invasion of the Soviet Union which began in June of that year.

By March 1942, orders had been given for the camp to be able to hold 250,000 Soviet POWs, although the official records show that the numbers never reached that amount.

Prisoners were put to work in the nearby industrial sites, of which the largest was the Steyr-Daimler-Puch weapons and munitions factory.

It was also built close to the former Polish-Soviet border, and its location meant that when the Soviet armies advanced westward following the defeat of the German invasion, Majdanek was the first German concentration camp to be liberated on July 23, 1944, some nine months before the war ended. The Germans had hastily evacuated the camp, and as a result it was captured almost intact.

The only building which had been destroyed was the wooden housing of the crematoria, which had burned down in a fire a few days earlier.

It is claimed that this fire was deliberate, but, given that nothing else in the camp was damaged and the brick crematoria ovens survived the fire, a deliberate arson seems unlikely.

The wooden crematoria building has been completely “reconstructed” at the camp today, a fact which is of great significance, as will be seen below.

Below: The ovens at the Majdanek crematorium, as they were found by the Soviet army. Previously indoors, the entire building around the ovens burned down before the Soviets arrived, exposing the ovens—and the chimney—to the outside elements.

Below: The extent of the “reconstruction” work at the Majdanek crematorium is evident from these two photographs. Left: The crematorium as it was found by the Soviets. Only the chimney and the crematorium, both made of brick, were left standing after a fire destroyed the surrounding building. Right: How the chimney and crematorium are presented to visitors at the campsite today. The whole wooden building surrounding the crematorium chimney has been added. Although there is no evidence whatsoever that there was a “gas chamber” in the original crematorium building, one has been included in the “rebuilt” wooden house, and is passed off as such to present-day visitors who are not told that the entire surrounding structure was built after the war.

Section 99: First Majdanek Show Trial, 1944

The Soviets, seeking revenge for the German exposure of Communist crimes such as the Katyn Massacre (where NKVD officers had murdered thousands of Polish army officers and intelligentsia) were delighted with what they found at the camp. Within a matter of weeks, they circulated stories, faithfully repeated in all the western media, that they had found gas chambers and evidence of the mass murder of one million Jews and at least 500,000 others at the camp.

Six German guards who had been unable to escape in time were put on trial in Lublin in November 1944, and officially charged with the murder of 1.7 million people (Sentencja wyroku. Specjalny Sad Karny w Lublinie, December 2, 1944, “Reasons for Sentence in the Trial of Hermann Vogel et al.”, Archiwum Panstwowego Muzeum na Majdanku, Archive of the State Museum in Majdanek, sygn. XX-1, p. 100.).

All six were sentenced to death after a perfunctory hearing and executed on December 3, 1944, in a show trial typical of many others run by the Soviets at the time (such as the disgraceful Katyn frame-up mentioned earlier).

The documents entered into the Nuremberg trial record claimed that 1.5 million people had been murdered at Majdanek (IMT, vol. VII, p. 590) and this was for many years the accepted figure.

Below: An awful scene awaited the Soviet soldiers in Majdanek: the wooden crematorium building had burned down shortly before they arrived, leaving only the brick ovens standing. Corpses which had been due for cremation were half-burned in the fire, and when the wooden structure had burned away, the skeletal remains of the dead were lying out in the open, as can be seen in this picture. The shocking scene has often been used as “evidence” of mass murder, but in reality the skeleton pictures from Majdanek were only the result of the crematorium building fire. Today, the crematorium ovens are completely enclosed in a building erected after the war—which, as mentioned, also now contains a “gas chamber.”

Section 100: Number of Majdanek “Victims” Varies Wildly from 1.7 Million to 79,000

The Soviet claims of 1.7 million were soon disputed, even by other leading Holocaust storytellers, as being fantastic even by their exaggerated standards. As a result, the number of “victims” claimed for Majdanek still varies wildly, according to which source the reader consults:

- 1,380,000 victims, according to Lucy Dawidowicz (Lucy Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews 1933–1945, Pelican Books, 1979, p. 191.);

- 360,000 according to Lea Rosh and Eberhard Jäckel (Lea Rosh and Eberhard Jäckel, Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland, Hoffmann und Campe, 1991, p. 217.);

- 250,000 according to Wolfgang Scheffler (Wolfgang Scheffler, Judenverfolgung im Dritten Reich, Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1964, p. 40.);

- 200,000 or more according to the West German tribunal which organized the Düsseldorf Majdanek trial (Landgericht Düsseldorf, Urteil Hackmann u.a.. XVII 1/75, Band I, p. 90.);

- 79,000 according to Tomasz Kranz, director of the Research Department of the State Museum at Majdanek, in a 2005 article in the official Majdanek Museum journal, Zeszyty Majdanka (Kranz, T, Records of deaths and mortality rate of prisoners of KL Lublin, Zeszyty Majdanka Tom XXIII, 2005).

The fact that the number of “victims” can casually vary between 1.7 million and 79,000 is a reflection of the fact that there is actually no evidence beyond wild hearsay and speculation about Majdanek.

It is therefore no wonder the camp gets so little attention in present-day Holocaust propaganda.

Section 101: “Gas Chamber” Added to Postwar Rebuilt Majdanek Crematorium Building

The state of the camp when captured by the Russians lent itself to anti-Nazi propaganda. Disease (mainly typhus, which causes extreme weight loss) had killed thousands of inmates, and a shortage of fuel had prevented the camp crematorium from hygienically disposing of large numbers of bodies.

The resultant piles of corpses—none of whom had been “gassed”—made horrific viewing. Pictures of these half-decomposed bodies circulated the world along with utterly erroneous claims that they had been gassed or otherwise murdered—and there was no one to say otherwise.

In addition, gruesome pictures of skeletons and half-burned bodies lying in front of the crematoria were taken and are still circulated as “evidence” of mass murder. It is, of course, never explained why the Germans would leave skeletons and half-burned corpses strewn around in front of the crematorium.

These horrific scenes are, of course, the product of the fire which destroyed the wooden crematorium building—but that is never mentioned when the pictures are shown.

Some of the camp’s buildings were found to be stacked to the rafters with shoes and clothing. This was (and still is) presented to the outside world as belonging to the people who had been “gassed.”

The truth was far simpler: Majdanek was the main gathering point for all items seized from deportations to the three Reinhard camps, so the clothing and personal items found there in fact came from four camps, including Majdanek itself. In addition, section VI of the camp, where the shoes were found, was a cobbler’s factory, where worn-out shoes were sent from the Eastern Front for repair. This fact was admitted by Polish historian Zdzislaw Lukaszkiewicz as early as 1948 (Zdislaw Lukaszkiewicz, ‘Oboz koncentracyjny i zaglady Majdanek’, in: Biuletyn Glownej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Niemieckich w Polsce, Vol. IV, Warsaw 1948), but is, of course, ignored by the Holocaust storytellers.

There was even a factory in the Majdanek camp area, staffed by inmates, whose job it was to process the clothing brought in from occupied Poland, clean it, and prepare it for distribution all over the Reich.

This was ignored in the propaganda rush, with the result that to this day, visitors are shown piles of clothing and shoes at Majdanek and told they belonged to “gassed” Jews, even though there is no evidence at all that the gassings took place as claimed.

Below: Majdanek Drying Room Air Vent Misrepresented as “Zyklon-B” Insertion Mechanism: A Hoax Still Perpetrated to the Present Day. This picture, which was taken by the Soviet commission of investigation into Majdanek in 1944, appeared in the official report titled “Opening through which the substance ‘Zyklon’ was poured into the gas chamber.” It also appeared in The Illustrated London News, Oct. 14, 1944, p. 442, with the title “The opening in the roof of the gas chamber through which ‘cyclone’ crystals were poured.” In reality, this structure is one of two ventilation shafts of the drying facility of the camp laundry, located in hut 28 of Majdanek Camp section I. The airtight lid allowed the rooms below to keep heated air (provided by piped heaters in another part of the camp) in the room to speed up the drying of prisoner clothes. The Soviet Commission claimed that the laundry section was also a “gas chamber” but this allegation has been quietly dropped by the Holocaust storytellers (Image source: Gosudarstvenni Archiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow, 7021-128-243, p. 7). This image is still to the present-day circulated by Holocaust storytellers as that of a “gas chamber Zyklon-B insertion tube.”

Section 102: The Impossibility of the Majdanek “Gas Chambers”

The claim that Majdanek’s disinfection station was used as a homicidal “gas chamber” was first made by the Soviet “commission” which investigated the camp in 1944. The Communist commission was also the first to make the claim that Jews had been gassed with Zyklon-B and carbon monoxide gas at the camp.

The Soviets found a room with 135 unused cans of Zyklon-B at Majdanek, which can still be seen by the present-day visitor. As was the case with Auschwitz, these cans of Zyklon-B were however used in the “entlausung” (“delousing”) section to disinfect clothing.

Ironically, this is not in dispute by the Holocaust storytellers, who merely claim that the insecticide was “also” used to kill people.

Of much greater significance was the claim that carbon monoxide was used to gas people at Majdanek. There is no record, or even a claim, of any of the usual diesel engines being deployed at the camp. Instead, the Soviet commission produced several large gas bottles, which it claimed contained the carbon monoxide gas.

Two of these original gas bottles are on display in the “gas chambers” today—as detailed below—but they are deadly only for the extermination claim, as will be seen below.

Below: An aerial view of the Majdanek camp as presented in 2011, showing its proximity to the city of Lublin. Hut 41—where the Holocaust storytellers claim the “gassings” occurred, is the building on the bottom right-hand side (marked “A”), literally within a stone’s throw of the nearest civilian houses—not exactly an ideal location for a “mass gas chamber.” Note that the crematorium (marked “B”) is located on the far side of the camp perimeter, top left.

According to the Holocaust storytellers, and the official guidebook distributed at the camp in 2009, Majdanek served as a labor camp and an “extermination camp.” The latter phase allegedly occurred from September 1942 to October 1943, when at least four “gas chambers” were built on the camp.

As with Auschwitz, the only German plan of the camp does not show any “gas chambers” at all. Instead, just like Auschwitz, the German plans show a “delousing” (German: “Entlausung”) section. It is these buildings, which were obviously set up to delouse clothing, which are claimed to have been “converted” into some of the “gas chambers” at Majdanek.

The wooden crematorium building, which burned to the ground before the Soviet army occupied the camp, is also claimed to have contained a “gas chamber.” The likelihood of a wooden, impossible-to-make-airtight building containing a “gas chamber” is incredibly far-fetched.

There is of course no documentation whatsoever to support the claim of a “gas chamber” in the crematorium building, but this has not stopped the “reconstructed” building containing a “gas chamber” which is shown to all visitors today.

Below: The exterior of “hut 41” at Majdanek in the present day, in which it is claimed thousands were gassed. According to the surviving German plans for the camp, it was the delousing building through which all the inmates’ clothing was processed to kill lice.

Below: The first room one encounters when entering hut 14 at Majdanek contains a real shower (see shower-heads in the ceiling) and baths (visible at the end of the room) for the prisoners. Incredibly, the Holocaust storytellers admit that the showers and baths are real. When questioned why the Nazis would first give people showers and baths before gassing them, they answer that it was to “warm them up so that the Zyklon-B would work more effectively.”

As laughable as that answer is, it is doubly ridiculous because the Holocaust storytellers claim at the same time that carbon monoxide gas was also used to kill people at Majdanek. “Warming” the prisoners would have no effect on that method of execution, which makes a mockery of the “explanation.”

Leading “Holocaust expert” Jean-Claude Pressac was forced to admit the following about the “reconstructed” gas chamber in the Majdanek crematorium building as follows:

“The vice-director of the museum has written to this author that this gas chamber was used ‘little, but really very, very little,’ which means that it was not used at all. The fiction is maintained in order not to hurt the popular superstition that every crematorium must have contained a gas chamber ... If prisoners had been murdered with Zyklon-B in that room, its location within the building, between an autopsy room, a corridor and the morgue, would have made an artificial ventilation imperative, but there is not the faintest trace proving that such a ventilation ever existed. In case of a natural ventilation by the draught, it would have been necessary to evacuate the whole crematorium for a period of time difficult to estimate” (Pressac, Jean-Claude, “Les carences et incohérences du rapport Leuchter,” Journal J, December 1988).

The other “gas chambers” shown to visitors at Majdanek today are located in what is known as “hut 41,” also called “barrack 41.” This was actually the delousing section at Majdanek which the Germans had clearly marked out on their plans for the camp. There were two huts used to delouse clothing, numbers 41 and 42, and both are right next to each other and still on view at the camp today. However, today, only hut 41 is claimed to have contained a “gas chamber.”

If there was any single reason why “hut 41” could not have been used as a “gas chamber,” it would be its location.

It is within sight (literally a stone’s throw) from the main road which runs past the camp and is physically outside the main camp fence, as can be seen in the overview photograph. In other words, the “gassing site” would have been in open sight of passersby, civilians, and in fact the whole town of Lublin. The “gas chambers” are also quite a distance from the crematorium building.

This means that the “gassing” would have to be carried out in sight of the public—and then the gassed bodies would have to be transported, under public gaze, to the crematorium—located on the outer perimeter of the opposite side of the camp—presumably on carts or trucks.

The possibility of such open mass murder makes the “extermination” allegation nothing short of laughable. It is an indication of how biased media coverage and academia has become on the topic that this obvious fact is so blatantly ignored.

Section 103: Majdanek’s Real Showers for “Gassing Victims”

A sign at the entrance to hut 41 says Bad und Desinfektion (“Bath and Disinfection”). It is claimed that this was there to lull the “victims” into a sense of security about their fates, an allegation which is astonishing because the first room one enters while touring the building is indeed a room in which real shower-heads and even two baths (!) are installed.

The Holocaust storytellers claim that victims were genuinely showered with hot water and given the opportunity to bathe. When confronted with the obvious question of why one would shower people before gassing them, the Holocaust storytellers claim that this was to “warm them up” so that the Zyklon-B gas would work more efficiently. If these outrageous claims were not taken seriously, they would be laughable.

There are a series of rooms in hut 41 which are shown to the present-day tourist as “gas chambers.” The first is immediately adjacent to the real shower room, and measures 184 ft² (17.1 m²). There are no Prussian blue Zyklon-B stains on the walls of this “gas chamber,” so, in order to get round this, the Holocaust storytellers claim that people were murdered here with carbon monoxide gas.

Section 104: Majdanek’s “Gas Bottles” on Display are Carbon Dioxide, Not Carbon Monoxide

Two of the gas bottles discovered by the Soviets are now conveniently set up in an adjoining room to this “first” gas chamber. The bottles are connected to pipes which allegedly run into the “gas chamber” and there is a “peep hole” in the wall through which the SS man who “operated” the gas bottles could allegedly keep an eye on the victims.

This “gassing” operation is however, the final evidence that the whole display is fake. The sign which accompanies the display says that “carbon oxide” gas was used—while this might be a Polish-English translation error, the truth is that there is no such gas as “carbon oxide.”

However, even if the sign meant to say “carbon monoxide,” the “lethal” Nazi gas bottles on display are engraved with the name of their contents: carbon dioxide.

As anyone with even basic chemistry knowledge knows, there is a world of difference between carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. The latter gas is poisonous, while carbon dioxide is the gas which is used to make sweet drinks fizzy and often added to other foodstuffs.

Carbon dioxide is also used in applications as diverse as wine making, agriculture, refrigerants and a host of others—all of which are ultimately consumed by humans. Carbon dioxide is also the gas that people exhale while breathing, and which is then absorbed by plants in the photosynthesis process.

Below: The gas bottles on display at Majdanek camp: the Holocaust storytellers claim they are carbon monoxide (CO) which was used to kill Jews.

The bottles are in fact engraved as follows:

“Dr. Pater Victoria Kohlensäurefabrik Nußdorf Nr 6196 Full. 10 Kg […] und Fluid Warszawa Kohlensäure […] Fluid Warszawa Lukowski. Pleschen 10,1 kg CO2 Gepr.”

(The inscriptions are only partly legible.) These gas bottles are actually carbon dioxide (CO2) which is a completely different chemical most commonly used in the manufacture of foodstuffs (for example to give sweet drinks such as Coca-Cola the “fizz”). It is tragic that such an obvious fraud is taken seriously by anyone. Note also the official sign which claims that the gas is “carbon oxide” (which does not even exist). The sign also claims that the SS men could watch the gassing through a “grated window”—see the picture below for the location of this “grated window” and the “gas bottles.”

Below: The peephole supposedly used by SS men to check on the dying prisoners in the “gas chamber” next door to the “gas bottle” room. As can be seen, the “hole” does not even have glass and is completely open. Any poisonous gas released in the “chamber” would have come straight back into the “operator’s room.” Errors such as these are ignored by the Holocaust storytellers.

Below: A close-up of the open “grated window” through which the Holocaust storytellers claimed that the SS-men could “watch gassings.” Any “gassing” undertaken in the “gas chamber” into which this glass-less window looks, would be impossible as the “gas” would disperse through the “observation window” into the next room.

Below: The largest of the delousing rooms—bearing the characteristic marking of Prussian Blue stains from Zyklon-B use—is presented to the present-day visitor as a “gas chamber.” Note the sign which claims that prisoners were gassed using “carbon oxide” and an addendum that “cyclone B was also used.” There are no Zykon-B “induction holes” in this chamber, which makes using that chemical as a homicidal gassing method impossible, something which has actually already been admitted by Holocaust “expert” Jean-Claude Pressac.

It borders on the impossible—even more so than with diesel fumes—to gas large numbers of people with carbon dioxide. Official tests show that carbon dioxide only becomes fatal to humans at levels above 5% concentration (50,000 parts per million, or ppm) exposure.

The claim that large groups of people could be gassed to death in a room into which carbon dioxide was pumped from bottles is so absurd as to be mad. To make matters even more ludicrous, the “peephole” through which the SS operator was supposed to watch the victims, is merely an open hole with small iron cross bars. The “carbon oxide gas chamber” is not airtight, which makes the claim of gassing with any chemical physically impossible.

Section 105: The Anomalies of Majdanek’s Second and Third “Gas Chambers”

The second “gas chamber” shown to visitors is the same size as the first, and the walls here contain distinct blue discoloration from Zyklon-B. In addition, there is an opening in the ceiling through which, it is claimed, Zyklon-B pellets were dropped into the chamber by SS men on the roof.

The third “gas chamber” shown to present-day visitors measures 378 ft² (35.2 m2). Its walls are also stained with “Prussian blue” Zyklon-B marks. However, there is no “Zyklon-B inlet” in this room. The Holocaust storytellers get around the lack of Zyklon-B inlets by now saying that the SS men threw the gas pellets into the room over the heads of the victims before slamming the doors shut.

This is of course, ludicrous, and even Holocaust “expert” Jean-Claude Pressac was forced to admit that:

“It is frankly unrealistic to imagine an SS-man with a gas mask and a can of Zyklon-B in his hand throwing the pellets into a space of 30 cm between the heads of the victims and the ceiling—the pellets might have fallen on the floor in front of the gas chamber—and subsequently trying to slam the door without the doomed inmates making a desperate attempt to break out.” (Pressac, Jean-Claude, “Les carences et incohérences du rapport Leuchter,” Journal J, December 1988).

Section 106: The Plain Glass Window in Majdanek’s Fourth “Gas Chamber”

The fourth and last gas chamber, located next to the real bath in which the victims could wash “before being gassed” (!) measures 1153ft² (107.7 m2).

The walls in this room show “Prussian blue” discoloration as well and there are two round openings in the ceiling through which, it is claimed, the Zyklon B was inserted from above.

This chamber has a large plain glass window, through which a direct view to the outside can be had. The claim that victims would stand by idly while being gassed and not knock out a plain glass window, is as laughably fraudulent as the supposed site of the “gas chamber” itself.

Below: One of the “gas chambers” shown to present-day visitors to Majdanek has a plain glass window in the wall. It is, of course, impossible to think that victims would not immediately have smashed out the window, but this obvious flaw is ignored by the Holocaust storytellers and missed by the large number of tourists who visit the camp each year.

The Holocaust storytellers have attempted to explain the presence of the plain glass window by claiming that it was installed after the war. However, the Zyklon- B “Prussian blue” stains are present on the wooden window frames, which means that it was there when the chemical was deployed in the room.

The idea that people could be gassed in this room without smashing their way out, is impossible.

Yet tourists to the camp are told that this was the single largest “gas chamber” at the camp in which thousands of Jews were put to death.

Furthermore, this “gas chamber” has two doors, both of which open into room. Logically this would be impossible. If, as the “eyewitnesses” claim, the bodies of “gassed victims” were pressed up against the door and walls from the inside, then it would be impossible to open the doors from the outside.

As the scholars Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno have written on the topic of the Zykon-B “insertion holes” at Majdanek:

“The existing openings in Chambers I and II are so small (26 × 26 cm and 29 × 33 cm respectively) . . . were cut through the ceilings in a downright crude manner, especially in Chamber II where there is not even so much as a wooden frame for the hole. All indications are that these openings were hastily added for the Polish-Soviet Commission.

“The following description of Chamber I by Constantino Simonov, a correspondent for the Soviet army paper Red Star who visited Majdanek right after liberation, is of great interest: ‘But let us open the next door and enter the second disinfestations chamber, which has been built along completely different criteria. It is a square room, not much higher than two meters, and approximately 6 x 6 m in size. The walls, the ceiling, the floor—all are of gray, monotonous reinforced concrete. There is no rack for clothing such as we saw in the previous room: here, everything is bare and empty. A single large steel door hermetically seals the entrance to the room; it is closed from the outside with strong steel bolts. The walls of this reinforced concrete crypt contain three openings: two of them are pipes entering from outside, the third is a porthole, a square little window barred by a large, thick steel grid solidly anchored in the reinforced concrete. The thick glass is on the outside so that it cannot be reached through the grid.’

“C. Simonov had just left Barrack 42, which he described as follows: ‘Then we arrive at the chambers where the clothing taken from the inmates was disinfected. Pipes are affixed in the ceiling, and the disinfestation agent was introduced through these. Then they were closed off, the doors were sealed airtight, and disinfestation proceeded. In fact, the barrack walls, constructed of wooden slats, and the doors, which were not lined with metal, were not nearly solid enough to have served for any purpose other than disinfesting clothing.’

“So if Simonov mentions the openings in the ceiling of the disinfestations chambers in Barrack 42, but not the opening in Chamber I which he entered immediately thereafter, this can only mean that that opening did not yet exist at the time. To summarize: the delousing chambers of Barrack 42, which are acknowledged to have served exclusively for disinfesting clothing, had openings in the ceiling for pouring in the Zyklon B, even though such openings were not absolutely necessary (the pellets could just as well have been thrown on the floor). On the other hand, Gas Chambers I and III of Barrack 41, which allegedly served only for killing people, were not equipped with any ceiling openings for introducing Zyklon, even though such openings would have been utterly, unequivocally necessary!” (Concentration Camp Majdanek, A Historical and Technical Study, Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Translated by Victor Diodon Chicago (Illinois): Theses & Dissertations Press, Imprint of Castle Hill Publishers, June 2003.)

It is obvious that “hut 41” was a disinfestation center and nothing else. Inmates were made to undress, shower, or bath while their clothes were disinfected with Zyklon-B insecticide—all in an attempt to control lice and typhus at the camp.

It is bizarre therefore, that the German efforts to keep their prisoners alive through attempting to keep disease under control, is now used as “evidence” of mass murder.

Section 107: The “Harvest Festival” Hoax

Not content with producing preposterous lies about “gas chambers” in Majdanek, the Holocaust storytellers have developed an even more incredible story about the camp, called “Operation Harvest Festival.” This was supposed to be the execution, by machine gun, of 17,000 Jews in a single day, November 3, 1943, in the camp.

Bearing in mind that it is now claimed that “only” 79,000 Jews were killed at the camp, this single day’s alleged massacre supposedly accounted for nearly a quarter of all “murders at the camp,” so it is a significant event in the Holocaust story.

The supposed ashes of the 17,000 people allegedly shot to death on this day now form part of a large open-air (!) dome mausoleum at the Majdanek campsite, which has taken on almost religious significance for the Holocaust story. It is incredible to think that ashes are left out exposed to the elements like that, but this is likely done because they are not ashes at all, as detailed below.

The first problem with “Operation Harvest Festival” is the name itself. The Holocaust storytellers claim that this was the “code name” for an operation to kill all Jews in the area following an uprising earlier in 1943—but the words “Harvest Festival” appear absolutely nowhere in any German documentation, nor is there any order to kill all Jews in 1943 in Lublin. The name has literally been invented out of nothing.

Section 108: The Mussfeldt “Confession”

The second problem with the “Operation Harvest Festival mass shooting” story is that the entire event is based on the 1947 “confession” of an SS-Oberscharführer, Erich Mussfeldt.

All other accounts are based exclusively on his version of events, and this “confession” is so obviously faked that it was clearly extracted from him under duress (in exactly the same way that other Germans “confessed” to the Katyn Massacre, for example). Amongst the many impossibilities of this “confession” are the claims that:

- The “victims” were forced to climb into specially prepared ditches in groups of ten and lay down before being shot. This meant that as the ditches supposedly filled up, the “victims” would soon have to be lying down on piles of corpses. Such a scenario carrying on for eleven hours without interruption is extremely unlikely. Resistance of some sort would have been inevitable, bearing in mind that there were supposedly only 100 SS men present as opposed to 17,000 (!) prisoners, all patiently lining up to be shot.

- A huge stockpile of ammunition would have been necessary to shoot so many people, especially bearing in mind that the SS men were allegedly armed with the standard German automatic weapons which fired 600 rounds per minute. If only four of the SS men fired for two seconds at a group of ten Jews, they would expend up to 160 bullets. Eleven hours of almost continual shooting would have expended 3,600 bullets per hour, or 39,600 rounds for the whole day.

Presuming that there was a brief pause in between each round of shootings, it would not be unreasonable to presume that the operation would have used up at least 30,000 rounds—a veritable mountain of ammunition which would most certainly have alerted the 17,000 prisoners supposedly quietly lining up, naked, in the open field.

- The camp was, as pointed out earlier, in open view of the town of Lublin. To think that an eleven-hour mass execution—by shooting—of this nature could have gone unnoticed by the townsfolk, is unimaginable. Yet no one had ever heard of, or reported the killings, before Mussfeldt’s “confession.”

- No evidence of the mass 328 feet-long (100 meters) “zig zag ditches” which Mussfeldt claimed had been dug for the bodies, has ever been found.

- Mussfeldt “confessed” to having been ordered to organize the exhumation and cremation of the 17,000 bodies shortly afterward.

This task was allegedly completed by December 1943 by using the crematorium and burning in the open on “wooden boards.” The ashes were supposedly reburied in the (never-to-be-found) ditches, but somehow mysteriously have now found their way into the mausoleum located under an open-air dome memorial at the camp.

Here, an important part of the whole story falls down: why, if the decision had been taken to cremate the victims, were they buried in the first place?

Also, Mussfeldt “confessed” that he started the cremations on November 5, and finished the task by December 24, some 50 days in total.

This means that for 50 days, the townsfolk of Lublin would have been subjected to the view of gigantic open air exhumations, huge bonfires, the stench of 17,000 bodies being burned, and huge amounts of smoke. It is an impossible claim.

The Polish government-in-exile, the Delegatura, issued a report claiming that there had been a massacre in Majdanek on November 15, based, allegedly on its sources within the camp. This was, however, the same propaganda machine which claimed that there were “gas chambers” at Majdanek as early as December 15, 1942—something which, as the evidence above has clearly shown, was not true.

So what did the Delegatura report on? The most likely course of events behind this incident is that there was some type of disturbance in the camp at the beginning of November which possibly even resulted in a shooting incident.

This disturbance could have been an attempted escape—there had, for example, been a breakout of prisoners from the Sobibór camp in late October, so it is possible that there was trouble at Majdanek.

Alternatively, it could have been the transportation of a large number of prisoners from Majdanek to Cracow, as reported in the Polish resistance newspaper Dziennik Polski (printed in England).

That paper’s November 1943 edition said that “25,000 Jews were transferred from Majdanek to Cracow, where they were quartered in hundreds of recently constructed barracks.

Probably these Jews will have to work in the German factories which have recently been transferred to the Cracow district” (Gajowniczek, Jolanta, “Obóz koncentracyjny na Majdanku wietle ‘Dzennika Polskiego’ i ‘Dziennika Polskiego i Dziennika onierza’ z latach 1940–1944,” in: ZM, VII, 1973, note 446, p. 256).

Such a large number of prisoners being moved about, combined with a potentially unrelated minor shooting incident, could easily create rumors about a massacre involving thousands of people in the camp.

Fed by the Delegatura’s propaganda, the Soviet occupation army sought out the hapless German Mussfeldt who was forced to “confess” to a staggering crime—and the basis for “Operation Harvest Festival” myth was born.

As to the ashes in the open air dome mausoleum today on display at the camp: repeated requests to independently DNA test this mound to see if it really contains human remains has been turned down by the camp museum authorities. Those who know the true story of Majdanek are not surprised.

Section 109: The Second Majdanek Trial of 1975

In 1975, a major trial of sixteen former SS members was held in Düsseldorf for their alleged involvement in the events at the Majdanek camp.

The outcome of the trial was in itself a condemnation of the “extermination camp” theory.

Of the sixteen accused, two were released “due to ill health,” one died during the trial, and five were completely acquitted. The eight who were found guilty were sentenced to varying terms of imprisonment.

The two defendants who were given the severest sentences—life—were accused of “selecting victims for the gas chambers.”

They both denied taking part in any such activity—something which was plainly true, given the absence of homicidal gas chambers as detailed above—but in the lynch mob climate which ruled German courts, their denials were ignored.

The absurdity of the court proceedings were summarized in the claim made in the judgment that carbon monoxide had been used to kill Jews:

“The gassing always proceeded in the same way. The inmates marked for death were taken to the barrack, made to undress and then herded into one of the gas chambers. As soon as the door was closed airtight behind them, the carbon monoxide or Zyklon B was introduced into the chamber. As soon as the SS-man in charge of supervising the gassing determined that all the victims had died, the steel doors were thrown open so that the gas could escape. Then the bodies were brought out by a special unit of inmates, loaded onto hand carts or vehicles and either taken to the old or new crematorium to be burned, or to pits or pyres prepared outside the camp in the surrounding forest” (District Court Düsseldorf, Urteil Hackmann u.a., XVII 1/75, v. I, pp. 65f.).

As shown earlier, there were no “diesel” engines at Majdanek, and the only “gas bottles” found there were carbon dioxide, not carbon monoxide.

In addition, the claim that poisonous gas could “escape” simply by the doors “being opened” is patently absurd.

Firstly, gas would be trapped between the bodies, even if such an unlikely scenario could have taken place, and, as pointed out above, some of the “gas chambers” only have doors which open inward.

The verdict was, the court said, based almost entirely on “eyewitness testimony.” The court relied in particular upon the testimony of someone who claimed to be a former SS member, one Heinz Müller.

The court judgment described Müller as “one of the few members of the SS who have not sought to hide their knowledge behind alleged ignorance, inability to remember, disinterest in camp events at the time in question, or other excuses.”

Müller “confessed” to having attended “gassings with carbon monoxide,” at Majdanek—and was the only one from the German side to have claimed so, as all the others denied it.

Even though Müller was the only one to have claimed to have been present at one of these impossible gassings, strangely enough he was also the only one not to be charged with any crime!

It was a clear and obvious distortion of justice that sixteen people could be put on trial on the “eyewitness” evidence of one person who testified about a physically impossible event—while the eyewitness evidence of the sixteen accused was rejected in favor of the one counter-witness.

Other “evidence” accepted by the court without question were written statements by five Polish and Soviet witnesses who refused to come to court, and an astonishing thirteen witnesses who were long dead, including Mussfeldt.

The court also accepted without question the “Operation Harvest Festival” story and the evidence by another man who claimed to have been in the SS, one Georg Werk.

His incredible testimony included the claim that he had been on the detachment which had carried out the mass shootings—but that “luckily” his gun had “jammed” so he personally, of course, had not actually shot anybody!

As a result, this “witness” was not charged but was of course allowed to give “evidence.” The court verdict stated: “According to his statements, the witness Werk was posted to the office in Lublin at that time, and had been detailed to the execution squad, but claims that he did not participate in the shooting but only ‘watched’ because, (in his own words), ‘luckily’ his submachine gun malfunctioned.

The latter is anything but believable; but the Court has absolutely no doubt that the rest of his testimony is truthful, especially with regard to how the witnesses had to lie down on top of each other like roofing tiles, to be killed with shots to the back of the head or in the neck.”

As the revisionist researchers Jürgen Graf and Carlo Mattogno have commented: “It doesn’t take much of an imagination to picture how the Court probably bought this witness’s incriminating statement: in return for the desired description of the mass murder, Georg Werk was exempted from criminal charges, even though the Court considered his excuse, the malfunctioning submachine gun, to be unbelievable and he would therefore logically have to have been charged as accessory to murder, and convicted.

“SS-man Erich Laurich, on the other hand, who categorically denied any involvement in the executions, was ‘exposed’ by the testimony of the witness Zacheusz Pawlak, and sentenced to eight years in prison” (Concentration Camp Majdanek, A Historical and Technical Study, Jürgen Graf, Carlo Mattogno, Translated by Victor Diodon Chicago (Illinois): Theses & Dissertations Press, Imprint of Castle Hill Publishers, June 2003).

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