Can this be true?

[David Thompson]

This thread, which was morbid from the begining, is starting to to look more and more like an ""out of the frying pan, into the fire" contest. If any of our readers think that there's a future for this thread please say why soon.

[michael mills]

The "frying pan" story most likely is related to an early rumour about methods of extermination at the Belzec Camp. That rumour was published in the 1946 book "Black Book: The Nazi Crime Agianst the Jewish People".

According to that account, the extermination camp was situated underground, accessible via a railway tunnel. The victims arrived on trains, and were taken to a vast subterranean hall, in which was situated a large pool filled with water, having a movable metal plate as its floor.

The victims were made to enter the pool, and then a strong electric current was passed through the plate and the water, killing the victims.

After the death of the victims, the metal plate was raised out of the water, and the current continued to be passed through it, causing it to heat up and burn the bodies. Hence the concept of the "frying-pan".

The above account was given quite serious consideration until a Polish-Soviet Commission of Enquiry at the end of the war concluded that the method of killing had been gassing with vehicle exhaust, as in the camps at Sobibor and Treblinka.

I hope the explanation I have given, based on published sources, will put an end to the matter and the irrelevant exchange of recriminations that has preceded my post.

[Eistir]

I saw that program.If I remember well, that was one guy who was crying and telling that germans was using big frying pan.Victims was those who was drying to escape.Already in this time I was amazed how brainwashed somebody can be.

[alf]

One of the main rumours that emerged from Belzec was of electrocution, prisoners standing on a metal plate in the showers and the current truned on. That story came from a Dr Gurin who was in a POW camp some 20 miles away from Belzec, Dr. Ignacy Schwarzbart, member of the Polish National Council, reported that story in London on November 15, 1942.
It was subsequentially disproved by a survivor of the camp Rudolf Reder.

The Black Book of Polish Jewry I believe was written in 1943 not 1946. As such it is a mixture of wartime propaganda, errors, denial and some truth mixed together. It was sponsored in the US in 1946 by such people as Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein.

A far more accurate account is Reitlinger's The Final Solution (1953) dispenses with the rumor of mass murder by "electrocution" at Belzec and other means, the mundane shootings, beatings and gassings surficed.

[michael mills]

Alf wrote:

The Black Book of Polish Jewry I believe was written in 1943 not 1946. As such it is a mixture of wartime propaganda, errors, denial and some truth mixed together. It was sponsored in the US in 1946 by such people as Eleanor Roosevelt and Albert Einstein.

Alf is confusing two different books.

"The Black Book of Polish Jewry" was published in 1943 in New York, and was indeed sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt.

It contains an account released in February 1943 by the two Jewish representatives on the Polish Government-in-Exile in London, Ignacy Szwarcbart and the Bundist Zygielbojm, describing the deportation of Jews from Warsaw. According to that account, the Jews were taken first to a "sorting camp" (oboz rozdzielczy), and then to a camp identified by Szwarcbart and Zygielbojm as Belzec, where they were killed by electrocution and/or gassing.

The appellation "Belzec" was of course a misidentification; the extermination camp was at Treblinka, and the "sorting camp" was most probably at Malkinia, where the branchline on which the Treblinka Station is situated separates from the Warsaw-Bialystok mainline.

The account released by Scwarcbart and Zygielbojm was appropriated in 1944 by Kozielewski alias Karski as the basis for his mendacious claim in his book "Story of a Secret State", that he himself had entered Belzec disguised as an Estonian guard.

"The Black Book: The Nazi Crime against the Jewish People", is quite a different book, published in 1946, under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress, New York, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, Moscow, the Vaad Leumi (Jewish National Council of Palestine), Jerusalem, and the American Committe of Jewish Writers, Artists and Scientists, New York.

It is this book that the false description of the extermination process at Belzec appears.

This book also contains a description of the extermination camp at Treblinka by the Soviet Jewish Communist propagandist Vassilii Grossman, in which he claims that the method of killing was by steam.

Grossman in fact examines the possibility that the killing methodology was gassing with engine exhaust, but dismisses it as not capable of killing the vast numbers allegedly exterminated at that camp. Why it was not capable he does not say; perhaps he meant that it would consume too much fuel.

The belief in execution by steam must have arisen from a confusion between homicidal gas-chambers and genuine disinfestation facilities situated on railway lines at which showers for delousing travellers were combined with a chamber in which their clothes and possessions were deloused with hot steam.

Such a confusion must also lie at the basis of an early report by the Polish Underground according to which the killing at Treblinka was by means of a "delayed-action" gas. According to that account, the Jews emerged alive from the chamber and walked to the edge of the mass-grave, where they fell unconscious and were covered over with earth. That description must derive from observation of a delousing station, where people could actually be seen emerging alive from a chamber, and which was mistakenly identified as the extermination camp at Treblinka about which so many rumours were circulating in August 1942.

Such confusion of two different things is a common human failing, as witnessed by Alf's confusion of the two different publications "The Black Book of Polish Jewry" and "The Black Book: The Nazi Crime against the Jewish People".

[jmh8300]

My initial post was pormpted by the question asked by my parents, as I had not heard of a such a barbaric method of murder being used in any of my reading or browsing. I was attempting to ascertain whether any more widely read members of the forum had.

I would like to thank Agibaer for posting the link to the Dan Bar-On site which I found particularly interesting - having missed the programme my parents had watched. I have admiration for the courage of both the victims and the children of prominent Nazis who met in a spirit of reconciliation and healing.

In reply to Vadim's first post, I don't think that sarcasm is a suitable method of emphasis for such a profound subject – although I understand the point he makes. I was certainly not trying to imply that the murder of Holocaust victims was more acceptable when carried out by gassing or shooting. That implication I find objectionable and offensive. As Kunikov mentions, gassing was humane only for the perpetrators, and was adopted to spare the psychological problems apparent in the Einsatzgruppen after conducting mass shootings.

Earldor makes a good point by referring to the distressing account of the use of quicklime in Richard Rhodes' "Masters of Death; The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust" - a book I have read. Whether this is the precise method of execution the programme on The History Channel (and my parents) referred to I cannot be sure until I see the programme for myself.

It would appear in conclusion that there is no historical evidence for murdering victims by “frying” which is of course not the same as saying that it did not happen, given the many horrors of The Holocaust. This is really the same point as that made by Mauser K98k.

Perhaps if the Moderator finds this thread too morbid and exhausted, he should close it. As its originator, I would be happy for him to do so as in effect my question has been answered.

Regards,

James

[David Thompson]

jmh8300 -- Thanks. I'm not fond of closing threads, so I'll let this one die a natural death.

[michael mills]

jmh8300 has had explained to him the origin of the "frypan" story in an unsubstantiated rumour about Belzec.

The explanation has be given to him by two forum members, one an open philosemite.

Nevertheless, it appears he wants to go on believing in the "frypan" story, despite the fact that it has been disproved. Well, you cannot stop people believing what they want to believe, in spite of the evidence.

[xcalibur]

jmh8300 has had explained to him the origin of the "frypan" story in an unsubstantiated rumour about Belzec.

The explanation has be given to him by two forum members, one an open philosemite.

Nevertheless, it appears he wants to go on believing in the "frypan" story, despite the fact that it has been disproved. Well, you cannot stop people believing what they want to believe, in spite of the evidence.

That would be accurate, if that's what he had said. Work on it Mills, you are slipping in your old age. Memory and understanding fade a bit with time.

[David Thompson]

Please avoid personal remarks in posts.

[Penn44]

Nevertheless, it appears he wants to go on believing in the "frypan" story, despite the fact that it has been disproved. Well, you cannot stop people believing what they want to believe, in spite of the evidence.

I have to agree with xcalibur that Michael Mills did not understand or misrepresented what mh8300 wrote. The allegation that the Germans used a "frying pan" type of murder instrument was not disproven, merely that there was no evidence to substantiate it. I have to say this, I find it hard to believe that the Germans would fry Jews to death as they would no doubt stick to the bottom of the pan, and would be difficult to scrub off. When was Teflon invented?

Unfortunately, Panzermahn is not here to offer the counter-accusation, "Did the Bolsheviks fry German POWs" since it fits his previous claim that Russian soldiers ate German POWs.


Penn44

[David Thompson]

The problem I'm having with this thread is:

(1) I'm not entirely certain that the frying pan murders happened, and I can't say for sure that they didn't happen.

(2) Death by frying pan would not be anyone's genocidal weapon of choice.

(3) Certainly a number of Nazi leaders are on record as having complained about the psychological toll mass shootings of civilians took on their men. I can only imagine the reaction if this frying pan murder system was widespread.

(4) Since WWII accounts like this are infrequent or unique, I'm inclined to think that if this happened, it was an aberrent criminal act and not a matter of state policy.

(3) As an aberrent criminal act, it has a special horror all its own, but it looks less like a war crime and more like a crime committed by one or a few sociopathic serial killers, acting on their own initiative, in wartime.

[michael mills]

David,

The situation is that the "frypan" claim was contained only in a rumour about Belzec, and nowhere else.

Furthermore, the rumour about Belzec, which I summarised in my post, did not claim that the victims were killed by the so-called "frypan" (actually the alleged metal floor of the alleged pool in which the victims were allegedly electrocuted).

Rather it claimed that the bodies of the electrocuted victims were cremated by heating on the so-called "frypan".

Since the rumour about Belzec, according to which the victims were elctrocuted in a pool and their bodies cremated on the metal floor of the pool which had been raised out of the water to become a so-called "frypan", has been discarded on the basis of the post-war investigation of the camp, which concluded that the killing was carried out with exhaust gas from an engine, it can be said that the "frypan" allegation has been definitively disproved.

There are no allegations of either killings or cremations by "frypan" in relation to any place other than Belzec.

[Sergey Romanov]

This book also contains a description of the extermination camp at Treblinka by the Soviet Jewish Communist propagandist Vassilii Grossman, in which he claims that the method of killing was by steam.

Grossman in fact examines the possibility that the killing methodology was gassing with engine exhaust, but dismisses it as not capable of killing the vast numbers allegedly exterminated at that camp. Why it was not capable he does not say; perhaps he meant that it would consume too much fuel.

Oh really? Have you even read it before making such claims?

Here's Russian version from the Black book:

http://web.archive.org/web/200203110300 ... man005.htm

And here's stand-alone version called "Treblinskij ad":

http://lib.ru/PROZA/GROSSMAN/trebl.txt

In BOTH accounts Grossman lists three methods of execution:

1) Carbon monoxide from the heavy tank engine's exhaust.
2) "Suction chambers", from which the air was sucked and victims died from asphyxiation. Grossman says that it was the most used method.
3) Steam chambers - air was replaced by steam and victims died from asphyxiation. Grossman says that it was the _least_ used method.

Grossman also says that there were different experiments with gases, but mass murder was done with the first two methods.

[michael mills]

Sergey Romanov does the same thing as Alf, he confuses two different books.

He is referring to a book published in the Soviet Union by Il'ia Erenburg, commonly referred to as "The Black Book". That work was in fact suppressed. It deals mainly with repressions of Jews by German forces on the territory of the occupied Soviet Union.

I was referring to a book published in New York in 1946. It is called "The Black Book: The Nazi Crime against the Jewish People". Its scope is Europe-wide, not restricted to the Soviet Union. And yes, I have read that book.

I dare say the account of Treblinka by Grossman published in "The Black Book: The Nazi crime Against the Jewish People", is the same as the account that appeared in the Erenburg work.

And Grossman most certainly did say that gassing with engine exhaust was rejected as a killing method because of the numbers of victims involved.

So the essential issue is that Grossman looked at three different methods of killing employed at Treblinka, and picked one that was historically incorrect. That simply shows the degree to which rumours circulated about both Belzec and Treblinka, and the degree to which such rumours were believed.