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From: mvanalst@rbi.com (Mark Van Alstine)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: I'll ask again: Why is Holocaust denial a "bad thing"? (Was: Clack, clack, clack, clack, clack)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 22:50:57 -0700
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In article <19970328060500.BAA08509@ladder01.news.aol.com>, ceacaa@aol.com
(Ceacaa) wrote:

> Miloslav Bilik wrote on 23 Mar 1997 
> >I agree that Auschwitz was less efficient 
> >as a murder system than
> >Treblinka or other camps, but we shouldn't 
> >forget that Auschwitz had
> >two uses: labor, and murdering of the people unable to work.
> 
> 
> 
>      On March 23 Mr. Bilik raised the claim that 
> Auschwitz was a labor camp.  The presumption
> behind that claim is that the labor was 
> profitable.  But, if it cost $10 per day to feed, house,
> guard and manage an inmate, why keep an inmate
> around who was only producing $8 per day of goods
> or sevices?  It is a money loosing proposition.

And Mr. Allen's source for his above unsubstantiated claim that it "cost
$10 per day to feed, house, guard and manage an inmate" is? 

As we can see below, the cost for the upkeep of Nazi concentration camp
prisoners per day was RM 1.34 per male prisoner and RM 1.22 per female
prisoner.  In comparison, the daily wages paid by German companies (e.g.
I.G. Farben) to the SS for the use of prisoner labor was RM 3 for
unskilled labor and RM 4 for skilled labor. That would imply that the SS
made a  per prisoner daily _profit_ of somewhere between RM 1.66 and RM
2.78. (cf. van Pelt, _Auschwitz_, p.208.) 

>  Mr. Bilik:  Let's figure out what the  BASIC 
> EXPENSE in maintaining a prisoner was, food, housing,
> guards, fences.   



Summary costs for the upkeep of prisoners in concentration camp

The costs for clothing, accomodation and food per capita 
and day are:

a) for female prisoners                                  RM 1.22
b) for male prisoners                                    RM 1.34

These sums were calculated as follows:

a) _Clothing_

The calculation of the cost of male clothing is based on 
the supplies budget of January 18, 1944, (wear and tear) includ-
ing cleaning and repair. The annual sum is: 
RM 142.35 = per capita and day                           RM -.39
The calculation of the costs of female clothing is based on 
the supplies budget of Janaury 19, 1944, (wear and tear)
including cleaning and repair. The annual sum is:
RM 96.43 = per capita and day                            RM -.27

b) _Accomodation_
The cost of accomodation is based on H.Dv. 320/2 page
12, No. 56 and amounts per capita and day to             RM -.30
This includes:
a) camp equipment and replacement                        RM -.05
b) management costs (heating, kighting, cleaning, water
   supply etc.)                                          RM -.15
c) rent of premises                                      RM -.10
                                                       ---------
                                                 total   RM -.30

c) _Food_
According to the information supplied by the concentration
camp the cost of food, including supplements for prisoners
engaged in heavy work, per prisoner and day is           RM -.65



Source: Distal and Jakusch, _Concentration Camp Dachau 1933-1945_, p.139,
        Translation of plate 287; Reference: Bundesarchiv Koblenz 

> This would be the first step in looking at your claim
> that the Germans kept all those tens of thousands of
> inmates working in profitable activities.

Indeed. Too bad Mr. Allen never took this first step before blathering his
above drivel.

> As opposed to the Revisionist view that the
> Germans often put people to work at 
> "make-work" tasks.

Indeed. Such "make-work" as sorting the plunder of the victims murdered in
the gas chambers for shipment back to Germany; working (and dying) in the
DEST quarries; Building (and later working at) the I.G. Farben synthetic
fuel plant at Monowitz; and, cruelest of ironies, being forced to build
their own private hell: KL Auschwitz. 


For those interested in Mr. Allen's prolific Holocaust denial and crackpot
"theories," please peruse DejaNews and visit the Nizkor Project at:

http://www.dejanews.com/
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?people/a/allen.andrew

Mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes 
not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties--but
right through every human heart--and all human hearts." 

-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago"
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