Questions about Majdanek

Toivo · Post by **Toivo** » 25 Jun 2004 18:36

Greetings,

I just re-read Konstantin Simonov's diary from warperiod, he was comissar and correspondent. He describes many things there, I got interested on his notes about Majdanek which he said he visited.

He claims there:

Since summer 1943 trains brought each to Majdanek from camps of Germany (Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Buchenwald etc) after every two-three days atleast thousand people.

He says he saw buildings full of shoes, it looked like atleast million pairs (!) since one wall of those buildings had collapsed and were very full of shoes, from floor to ceiling. Size of room - some 70 feetx40 feet.

Office of camp - full of passports of victims (from many different countries).

Gas chamber where people were killed, 6x6 meters, 2 meters high. On average 250 victims were sent in and gassed.

Crematorium - estimated burning period was 45 minutes for six bodies but it was shortened to 25 minutes by raising burning temperature.
It worked 24/7 and burned 1400 bodies on average in 24 hours.

Estimated number of victims from 1 to 2 millions.

Any of this true? There were many more "facts". Now I searched on forum and found number of victims in Majdanek ... 50000?

Regards

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 25 Jun 2004 19:46

Toivo · Post by **Toivo** » 25 Jun 2004 20:38

Thanks for taking your time David and gathering those links. I did search but missed "Liberation" article which was very interesting to compare with Simonov's story.

Regards

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » 26 Jun 2004 17:48

In the thread
"Son of Majdanek revisited"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=28646

listed by Mr. David Thompson,

in the first posting, is a picture shown captioned
"Inside of gas chamber has stains left by Zyklon-B"
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Ma ... anek02.jpg

Of course the resolution of the image is not too great, however it seems that the door at the far end is of metal and seems to have three door levers for opening/closing the door mounted on the inside.

Would there not exist the possibility that the victims inside could simply open the door from the inside and take off, letting all the gas escape in the environment?

I also wonder without bringing up Auschwitz, why this gas chamber has Prussic Blue stains and the homicidal gas chamber in Auschwitz/Birkenau (Krema II, LK 1) has not?

Konrad Bergmann

Toivo · Post by **Toivo** » 26 Jun 2004 18:19

Very good points.

One thing which makes me also wonder was how Simonov mentioned hermetic doors being sealed off with clay to prevent gas leaks! Considering there were many false reports by eyewitnesses, such as one which suggested former Prime Minister of France was held there and died aswell, alot is to be questioned and to be skeptic about.

Regards

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 26 Jun 2004 19:45

Konrad -- You said:

Of course the resolution of the image is not too great, however it seems that the door at the far end is of metal and seems to have three door levers for opening/closing the door mounted on the inside.

Would there not exist the possibility that the victims inside could simply open the door from the inside and take off, letting all the gas escape in the environment?

Are the door and its mounting scheme supposed to be original?

You also asked:

also wonder without bringing up Auschwitz, why this gas chamber has Prussic Blue stains and the homicidal gas chamber in Auschwitz/Birkenau (Krema II, LK 1) has not?

There are a lot of variables for the formation of those stains, like the composition of the walls and the amount and duration of exposure. Also, a reliable "staining threshhold" has never been established. Zyklon B can be used over and over again before the stains ever begin to form. Also, it is not clear whether the stains continue to intensify over time, or fade.

Toivo -- You remarked:

Considering there were many false reports by eyewitnesses, such as one which suggested former Prime Minister of France was held there and died aswell, alot is to be questioned and to be skeptic about.

I'm skeptical about whether an error in the testimony of one witness should be used, without additional information, to discredit his testimony or the testimony of other witnesses. For example, if a fellow says he saw a murder, but he is mistaken about the color of the victim's shirt, does that mean the murder didn't happen?

I think it would be helpful to make a list of all the accounts relating to an historical question, and then determine what percentage of those accounts contain erroneous information. The errors could then be analyzed to see whether or not they are likely to have been deliberate, or just the result of a simple mistake. That would give us a better idea of how many witness there were, how many errors there were, how the errors did or did not cluster according to the witness, and whether the errors had anything to do with the matter at issue.

I tried to make a start of this by posting witness accounts of Majdanek and Auschwitz, but with the exception of a couple of witnesses, no poster contested the accuracy of the testimony.

xcalibur · Post by **xcalibur** » 26 Jun 2004 20:56

David Thompson wrote: Toivo -- You remarked:
Considering there were many false reports by eyewitnesses, such as one which suggested former Prime Minister of France was held there and died aswell, alot is to be questioned and to be skeptic about.
I'm skeptical about whether an error in the testimony of one witness should be used, without additional information, to discredit his testimony or the testimony of other witnesses. For example, if a fellow says he saw a murder, but he is mistaken about the color of the victim's shirt, does that mean the murder didn't happen?

I think it would be helpful to make a list of all the accounts relating to an historical question, and then determine what percentage of those accounts contain erroneous information. The errors could then be analyzed to see whether or not they are likely to have been deliberate, or just the result of a simple mistake. That would give us a better idea of how many witness there were, how many errors there were, how the errors did or did not cluster according to the witness, and whether the errors had anything to do with the matter at issue.

I tried to make a start of this by posting witness accounts of Majdanek and Auschwitz, but with the exception of a couple of witnesses, no poster contested the accuracy of the testimony.

DT: There seems to be a misunderstanding on the part of some readers about eyewitness testimony. As you rightly point out just because one detail in such testimony is wrong doesn't necessarily mean that the testimony as a whole should be dismissed (uness that detail proves to be a lie, in which case one could infer that the witness has lied about other details as well).

Some readers seem to see this testimony as a chain, with each detail of the testimony a link. Therefore, if a link breaks so too does the chain. Perhaps a better way of thinking of the testimony is as a rope, with each detail a strand. If a strand breaks the balance of the rope remains intact.

Konrad · Post by **Konrad** » 27 Jun 2004 02:28

David Thompson:
" Are the door and its mounting scheme supposed to be original? "

I have not the slightest. The doors look kind of new to me.

David Thompson:
"There are a lot of variables for the formation of those stains, like the composition of the walls and the amount and duration of exposure. Also, a reliable "staining threshhold" has never been established. Zyklon B can be used over and over again before the stains ever begin to form. Also, it is not clear whether the stains continue to intensify over time, or fade."

I am not a chemist. To me a strong blue staining which is chemically proven to be Prussic Blue indicates a strong exposure to HCN.
And if there is no such staining this would indicate to me, at least on the surface, the lack of a strong HCN exposure.

But no doubt does the temperature, humidity, duration of HCN exposure and HCN concentration play a big role in this.

Konrad Bergmann

Toivo · Post by **Toivo** » 27 Jun 2004 06:34

David:

Toivo -- You remarked: Quote:
Considering there were many false reports by eyewitnesses, such as one which suggested former Prime Minister of France was held there and died aswell, alot is to be questioned and to be skeptic about.

I'm skeptical about whether an error in the testimony of one witness should be used, without additional information, to discredit his testimony or the testimony of other witnesses. For example, if a fellow says he saw a murder, but he is mistaken about the color of the victim's shirt, does that mean the murder didn't happen?

I think it would be helpful to make a list of all the accounts relating to an historical question, and then determine what percentage of those accounts contain erroneous information. The errors could then be analyzed to see whether or not they are likely to have been deliberate, or just the result of a simple mistake. That would give us a better idea of how many witness there were, how many errors there were, how the errors did or did not cluster according to the witness, and whether the errors had anything to do with the matter at issue.

I tried to make a start of this by posting witness accounts of Majdanek and Auschwitz, but with the exception of a couple of witnesses, no poster contested the accuracy of the testimony.

I was busy when making that post so here's full story.

Simonov who wrote to newspaper "Krasnaja Zvezda" (Red Star) about Majdanek, was made to believe by testimonies of eyewitnesses that Léon Blum, former PM of France there in Majdanek and got killed also.

Ofcourse in fact Blum never was to Majdanek and survived the war. He was for very short time in Buchenwald.

It appeared one old man just said he was Blum in Majdanek and many went around saying he indeed is Blum. Reasons why he acted as Blum do not matter as much as fact that eyewitnesses have been wrong in many cases. Their stories can be read and argued about but that's really up to everyone personally wether they take it for truth or not. All those stories have some percentage of truth we just don't know how much.

Also what was seen at Majdanek was pretty much real only for first who arrived there after liberating that camp. Simonov started to write it in propagandistic ways - "it looked like million pairs of shoes" etc. And now deathtoll at camp has been lowered to some 300,000 victims. I personally find this to be typical scheme. In 1945 and shortly after the war stories were made as horrific as possible, now we see calmer figures.

Still it beats me why would anyone need to seal off hermetic door to secure it...

Regards