Subject:      Re: Zyklon B / Carbon monoxide comparison
From:         jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Date:         1997/01/02
Message-Id:   
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Newsgroups:   alt.revisionism

tm@pacificnet.net (tom moran) wrote:

> Costs (theoretical);
>   Carbon monoxide
>   ===============
>         Three cents per gassing.
>         At least 50 times cheaper than Zyklon B.

Astounding.

Mr. Moran, we've been told by Fritz Berg and a handful of other
Holocaust-deniers, in this forum, that gassing with engine exhaust
was incredibly wasteful -- that there was a fuel shortage, that
it took precious oil to keep the engines running.  They say why on
earth would precious diesel fuel be used to kill people when
German trucks were parked on the streets for lack of gas?

Therefore, they say, the Holocaust never happened.

Now you come and say gassing with engine exhaust was so very cheap,
it was the perfect means of killing, and it wouldn't make sense to
switch to Zyklon-B.

Therefore, you say, the Holocaust never happened.

Who are we supposed to believe?

Posted/emailed.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net        Co-Webmaster of http://www.nizkor.org/










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From: dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Zyklon B / Carbon monoxide comparison
Date: 2 Jan 1997 20:48:57 GMT
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Jamie wrote:

>Mr. Moran, we've been told by Fritz Berg and a handful of other
>Holocaust-deniers, in this forum, that gassing with engine exhaust
>was incredibly wasteful -- that there was a fuel shortage, that
>it took precious oil to keep the engines running.  They say why on
>earth would precious diesel fuel be used to kill people when
>German trucks were parked on the streets for lack of gas?
>
>Therefore, they say, the Holocaust never happened.

I'll take your word that Berg said that (and also take exception to your
description of him as a "Holocaust-denier"), but it isn't and never was a
factor in the main points he makes.  Diesel engines are an extremely
inefficient way to generate carbon monoxide. Their normal operating
characteristics just aren't conducive to its formation at lethal levels. 
A diesel engine would have to be operated at such a rich air/fuel ratio
that there would be rapid buildup of solids in the cylinders which would
ruin the engine.  It isn't a lengthy process, it would occur within hours,
or at most, days.  In addition, the engine would have to be run at 80% to
100% of full load, rather a difficult thing to do for a stationary mounted
unit.  A dynamometer type loading device would have to be installed. 
There is again no record or mention of the presence of this large,
expensive, and highly specialized item in any supply records, statements
or testimonies.  

Gasoline engines, on the other hand, are excellent sources of carbon
monoxide, as evidenced by the frequency of suicides using automobile
exhaust.  Gasoline was also in short supply in wartime Germany, a fact
that caused them to invent and build a half-million or more "producer gas
generators" which were small add-on modules that could be mounted on
vehicles to provide fuel for their modified engines.  This was done in
great numbers to solve the problem of petroleum shortages.  Producer gas
powered vans, trucks and buses were a standard mode of transportation
throughout Germany and occupied Europe and Russia.  

Wood chips were burned in a converter chamber whose output was a flammable
mix of gases that contained high levels of carbon monoxide, 25% on the
average (carbon monoxide is also flammable).  This gas mix was lethal in
its produced state and found limited use as a fumigant, probably for rats,
not insects.  The drawback of course is that it's also highly flammable,
and in quantity, explosive.  However, it is a simple matter to set such an
engine so that its exhaust emits carbon monoxide in reduced but still
deadly levels that would kill quickly without the risk of explosion.  

Given the ready availability of the producer gas vehicles and the fact
that their operation required only ordinary wood chips, they would have
been an obviously more practical choice than either of the other two types
of engines or, for that matter, Zyklon-B.  Yet, aside from stories of
field use of "killing vans" in which the alleged victims were placed in
the back of such trucks for gassing in a limited area of the Eastern Front
and one or two other locations, there is absolutely no mention of their
use in camps for this purpose in the historical record.  No mention in
German records, and no claims by purported witnesses.  (The former, by the
way, would naturally be the case if there were no gassing chambers.)  All
you have is the diesel claim, which I understand is beginning to be
revised to gasoline by some of the sanctioned historians, no doubt in
quiet reaction to the improbability of a diesel being able to do what has
been claimed.  

And, yes, I know of the report from a British medical journal in the
fifties in which several animals were killed with diesel exhaust in a
scantily documented experiment.  All that proves is that it is, as stated
earlier here and elsewhere by Berg, marginally possible to push a diesel
to its limits and achieve lethal levels of CO in its exhaust *FOR A VERY
SHORT PERIOD OF TIME*, something I do not recall the report addressing.

Regards,
David Thomas
_________________________________________________________

"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me."
-in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.
"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me."
-in those who do not harbor such thoughts hatred will cease.
For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.

From the Twin Verses of the Dhammapada

David Thomas
CODOH (http://www.codoh.com/)








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From: dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Zyklon B / Carbon monoxide comparison
Date: 5 Jan 1997 11:00:11 GMT
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 Lastly, CO is not the only factor in causing death; lack of 
   oxygen in the exhaust is another one, and so are other poisonous
   gases present in the exhaust, such as NO2.

-Danny Keren.

Lack of oxygen in diesel exhaust???  Daniel, you know as much about
engines as you do about other technical matters you attempt to address. 
The limit approaches zero.  And in your ignorance you persist in braying
out "liar" like a mantra.  Jeez, get a clue guy.

David
_________________________________________________________

"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me."
-in those who harbor such thoughts hatred will never cease.
"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me."
-in those who do not harbor such thoughts hatred will cease.
For hatred does not cease by hatred at any time: hatred ceases by love, this is an old rule.

From the Twin Verses of the Dhammapada

David Thomas
CODOH (http://www.codoh.com/)








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From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: DThomas's comments on diesel -- analysis
Date: Thu, 09 Jan 1997 17:32:59 -0500
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DThomas,

It appears this must be one of the "matters in which [you] have both
interest and knowledge," which you told us on Dec. 11 that you would
consider debating.

I do hope you stick with this and see it through.  I would hate to get
involved in a civil debate with you, and then have to watch the response
be silence, or changing the subject.  That's very frustrating for me.

I'll go through your article point-by-point.  Allow me to outline your
claims and my reply as follows:

   * CAN DIESEL ENGINES KILL?
      + Is high carbon monoxide necessary?
      + Is a high fuel-air ratio possible?
         - Would particulate exhaust ruin the engine?
         - Would a load be required?
   * WAS THERE ANYTHING BETTER?
      + Were gasoline engines better?
      + Was producer gas better?
   * MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS
   * SUMMARY



dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas) wrote:

> Jamie wrote:
> 
> >Mr. Moran, we've been told by Fritz Berg and a handful of other
> >Holocaust-deniers, in this forum, that gassing with engine exhaust
> >was incredibly wasteful -- that there was a fuel shortage, that
> >it took precious oil to keep the engines running.  They say why on
> >earth would precious diesel fuel be used to kill people when
> >German trucks were parked on the streets for lack of gas?
> >
> >Therefore, they say, the Holocaust never happened.
>
> I'll take your word that Berg said that

Thanks, it saves time :-)

> (and also take exception to your
> description of him as a "Holocaust-denier"),

Well, since you bring it up, I'll ask you the same question I
recently asked your colleague Richard Widmann.

Bradley Smith tells us, at :

   For half a century the gas chambers have been at the heart of the
   holocaust story. The two are absolutely inseperable. No gas
   chambers, no holocaust. That's the equation.

My interpretation of "the two are absolutely inseparable;  no gas
chambers, no Holocaust" is that to deny one is to deny the other. Thus,
strictly speaking, according to Smith -- since Berg denies the gas
chambers, he denies the Holocaust.  Do you agree with my reasoning,
and if not why not?

> but it isn't and never was a
> factor in the main points he makes.  Diesel engines are an extremely
> inefficient way to generate carbon monoxide.

Splendid!  I'm pleased that you're taking an interest in the subject.

Now, let's take a look at the arguments you present.



CAN DIESEL ENGINES KILL?
========================

> Their normal operating
> characteristics just aren't conducive to its formation at lethal levels. 

There's the first argument:  the diesel engine must be run at a rich
fuel-air ratio, which was impossible.

The problem is that it's just not true.


   Is high carbon monoxide necessary?
   ----------------------------------

Yes, running at a rich fuel-air ratio does indeed produce very toxic
exhaust.  True, gasoline engines (as opposed to diesel engines) can
produce more carbon monoxide (CO).  But, a diesel's oxygen output can
easily be reduced under 10%, which is rapidly fatal.

Furthermore, there are NxOx compounds that are very dangerous as well --
250 to 500 ppm of NO2 or N2O4 will do you in quickly.  The specific NxOx
compounds weren't individually broken out and quantified in the sources
Berg cited for his paper, so he is not justified in ruling them out.
Also, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have a synergistic effect;
while CO2 is not poisonous by itself, it exacerbates the effect of CO.
Berg does not take this into account.  And, finally, the blistering heat
and choking smoke of the exhaust being pumped into the gas chambers
would not do the victims any good.

In fact, as Berg himself points out, some testimonies do indicate that
the victims were blue.  This points toward suffocation from lack of
oxygen.  It's also much easier to make a diesel produce low O2 than high
CO, so the whole argument about CO is largely a red herring.

Here's what Berg says on that:

   If the Jews were not murdered with carbon monoxide from Diesel
   exhaust, could they have died instead from the effects of reduced
   oxygen in Diesel exhaust? Such a theory would at least be
   consistent with the claim that the corpses were "blue." A bluish
   coloring to certain parts of a corpse is indeed a symptom of death
   from lack of oxygen.

If you keep reading, Berg goes further than merely saying that the
oxygen-deprivation theory is "consistent" with the blue color -- he says
that it is the _only_ possible theory:

   [...] any possible death from Diesel exhaust would have been
   due to lack of oxygen, which would in turn have caused a bluish
   appearance of the corpse [...]

Since some witnesses' reports indicate a pink color, which in turn tends
to indicate CO poisoning, I'm not sure I'd state the case as strongly as
Berg does.  But, for argument's sake, I'll grant that oxygen deprivation
is what we need to look most closely at, though it is surely not the
_only_ causative factor.

Thus granted, the question is:  what fuel-air ratio must have been
achieved by the Nazis to kill by lack of oxygen?  Again, the answer is
in Berg's own paper:

   At full load, which corresponds to a fuel/air ratio of 0.055, the
   oxygen concentration in the exhaust of any Diesel is 4%.

Berg also says that, below concentrations of about 6%, the victims
stop breathing, which, let's assume, means death.  There's our answer --
a ratio of 0.055 or more is more than sufficient.  Four percent oxygen
will kill quite effectively, by itself, with some room to spare.


   Is a high fuel-air ratio possible?
   ----------------------------------

And achieving that high ratio is very easy.  One simply has to rev the
engine up fairly high, so it doesn't stall, and block the air intake
with a piece of cardboard.  (This was the method used by Pattle et al.
in their paper for the British Journal of Industrial Medicine.)  Or
unscrew the fuel pump plunger a few turns, so it injects more fuel. 
(This was the method used in the experiments cited in the Holtz-Elliot
paper which Berg himself used.)

It's not rocket science.  We'll see more on this below.

But, you and Berg give two reasons why this simple method could not
have been used.  Let's examine them.


   Would particulate exhaust ruin the engine?
   ------------------------------------------

The first reason given is that particulates (solids) would ruin the
engine:

> A diesel engine would have to be operated at such a rich air/fuel ratio
> that there would be rapid buildup of solids in the cylinders which would
> ruin the engine.  It isn't a lengthy process, it would occur within hours,
> or at most, days.

Well, no one will argue with you that running a very rich fuel-air
mixture is not _good_ for the engine.

But then, the Nazis didn't really care whether their engines broke down,
since they were scavenged (by most accounts) from Russian tanks.

The question is, how long would it take for this buildup of solids to
make the engine unusable?

Quantification is absolutely necessary here because we are dealing with
tiny amounts.  According to Berg's own sources (Elliott-Davis, p. 345),
solid material is measured in grams per hour.  And nearly all of that is
flowing right out the tailpipe.  "...the quantities of material sticking
in an engine in the form of deposits amounts to possibly 0.0001% or
0.01% of the fuel burned.  The 0.0001% figure corresponds to an engine
with a normal life while the 0.01% figure means short engine life due to
heavy deposits."

Their graph shows solid exhaust rising from a normal amount of around
1 gm/hr to somewhat under 20.  Does this mean the engine life is reduced
by a factor of twenty?  If the normal engine life expectancy is twenty
years, then did the Treblinka engines last...one year?  That wouldn't
conflict with any of the information we have -- after all, "short engine
life" in the real world would mean a motor that breaks down after only
five years.

And, would routine maintenance on the engines -- simple cleaning --
improve the life expectancy?  We don't know.

But!  You say that engine breakdown "would occur within hours, or at
most, days."  So presumably you have some quantification of how solid
buildup destroys an engine, and how this relates to the fuel-air ratio
used.  This is exciting news, because I have yet to see any mention of
"hours, or at most, days" in any of the articles which I've read on the
subject over the past three years.

So I'd appreciate it if you could present this evidence.  Thanks.


   Would a load be required?
   -------------------------

Your (and Berg's) second reason why the simple method of blocking the
air intake could not have been used is that the engine would have to be
loaded:

> In addition, the engine would have to be run at 80% to
> 100% of full load, rather a difficult thing to do for a stationary mounted
> unit.  A dynamometer type loading device would have to be installed. 
> There is again no record or mention of the presence of this large,
> expensive, and highly specialized item in any supply records, statements
> or testimonies.  

There are several erroneous assumptions in this, the main one being that
a dynamometer would be required to brake an engine.  Any mechanical
device which does work would suffice, of course, such as an electric
generator.  No "expensive and highly specialized item" is required.
Berg, in fact, says this.

But the main error is simply that Berg is wrong.  The engine need not be
run at full load if one wishes to tweak the fuel-air ratio by blocking
the air intake.

Let me repeat myself:  Berg is wrong.

Now, if you would like to contact Berg and have him defend his thesis,
you are welcome to do so.  Berg has already left alt.revisionism after
making some nasty comments about how ugly Jews were, so he might not be
happy to take your call.  Then again, he might.  Who can say?

How do I know Berg is wrong?  I asked some questions of an acquaintance
who was involved for a time with the design and development of engines at
a British diesel engine manufacturing company.  (I have been meaning to
make this available on the web earlier, and I shall do so as soon as I
find the time.  I'll share his name and full qualifications as soon as I
obtain permission from him.)

I wrote to him.  Among my questions was this comment, on page 5:

   Berg makes the further claim that fuel/air ratio is directly
   related to the load placed on the engine, and that diesel engines
   canot be "tweaked" the same way gasoline engines can.

I then quoted Berg:

   Please explain to me if you think you can, how you can run a
   Diesel "rich" at part-load as well as at full-load?  What do you
   mean?  I think you are simply confusing Diesel engines with
   gasoline engines.

My source commented:

   The claim on page 5 that fuel/air ratios cannot be altered is
   incorrect.  The fuel injected is under governor control, so is
   linked to speed.  Thus a small drop in engine speed, as load is
   applied, will result in more fuel being injected to provide the
   additional energy required.
   
   However, it would be possible to alter the governor/fuel pump
   relationship to produce an excess of fuel.  The volume of fuel
   injected for each engine power stroke is controlled by rotating
   the fuel pump plunger which has a helical spill groove.  This
   controls the effective fuel pump stroke hence the volume of fuel
   injected.  The result of overfuelling would be an excess of
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   exhaust smoke, i.e. high hydrocarbon emissions, together with
   an increase in CO.
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Seems pretty straightforward to me.  Berg is, quite simply, "incorrect."
Furthermore, Berg offers no credentials for himself as an engine
designer or technician.  Nor does he have footnotes for his claim to me,
quoted above, nor for his assertion that loading the engine is the only
way to increase fuel/air ratios.

My source continues:

   The injectors would soot up quite quickly.  But for an engine
   which is being run to the death (and for the death) the period
   required to stop and clean injectors would not be a problem. 
   Neither would the internal condition of the engine give cause for
   concern.

Here is one more thing which Berg has failed to take into account:
simply cleaning the injectors will alleviate his concern (and yours)
about excess smoke rendering the engine useless.

We have just seen that the two objections raised by you and Berg are
both invalid.  The first is unquantified when quantification is
absolutely necessary.  The second is based on an assertion by Berg which
is both unreferenced and false.

As my source says:

   In short I do not believe that the engines were loaded -- let
   alone overloaded.  They could be overfuelled in the full speed -
   no load state.

And, as Berg says:

   At [...] a fuel/air ratio of 0.055, the oxygen concentration in
   the exhaust of any Diesel is 4%.

Berg says that this corresponds to "full load," but as we have
seen, this is false.  High fuel/air ratios can be attained at
"full speed - no load."  Berg is wrong.

At this point I must ask you to reexamine your claim that there was
no lack of oxygen.  You seem to disagree with these conclusions, but
you failed to present any evidence.  What you did present was:

   Lack of oxygen in diesel exhaust???  Daniel, you know as much about
   engines as you do about other technical matters you attempt to
   address.  The limit approaches zero.  And in your ignorance you
   persist in braying out "liar" like a mantra.  Jeez, get a clue guy.

Do you stand by these assertions, and if so, why?



WAS THERE ANYTHING BETTER?
==========================

So, now that we have shown that diesel engines are quite capable of
extinguishing human life, what arguments remain?  Well, not much.
The only arguments left are that diesel would have been inefficient,
and that the ever-efficient Germans would have chosen something
better to kill people with.

This argument is very weak on its face.  If something happened, it
happened, and there is no need for it to make sense.  The Nazis did many
things which did not make sense.  The slaughter of the Jews itself was
absurd.  To claim that because some details were absurd, they therefore
did not happen, is ridiculous.

Even if one were to pretend for the sake of argument that not a single
Jew was deliberately murdered, just the mere roundup, transportation,
and incarceration of children and old people was senseless and highly
wasteful of resources.  Yet even the revisionists admit this happened.

Furthermore, this argument is especially weak because the gas chambers
of Treblinka and the other Reinhard camps were _not_ the zenith of this
supposed German efficiency.  Auschwitz holds that distinction, and at
Auschwitz, the more powerful poison in Zyklon-B was used.  Diesel gas
chambers could have been improved upon -- and, tragically, were.


   Were gasoline engines better?
   -----------------------------

DThomas continues:

> Gasoline engines, on the other hand, are excellent sources of carbon
> monoxide, as evidenced by the frequency of suicides using automobile
> exhaust.  Gasoline was also in short supply in wartime Germany,

An excellent reason, then, for not using gasoline engines!

Also, I understand that gasoline itself is more highly refined than
diesel fuel, so it would be cheaper and easier to use diesel engines
for that reason.


   Was producer gas better?
   ------------------------

> a fact
> that caused them to invent and build a half-million or more "producer gas
> generators" which were small add-on modules that could be mounted on
> vehicles to provide fuel for their modified engines.  This was done in
> great numbers to solve the problem of petroleum shortages.  Producer gas
> powered vans, trucks and buses were a standard mode of transportation
> throughout Germany and occupied Europe and Russia.  
> 
> Wood chips were burned in a converter chamber whose output was a flammable
> mix of gases that contained high levels of carbon monoxide, 25% on the
> average (carbon monoxide is also flammable).  This gas mix was lethal in
> its produced state and found limited use as a fumigant, probably for rats,
> not insects.  The drawback of course is that it's also highly flammable,
> and in quantity, explosive.

Highly flammable, yes -- a fact which Berg mentions but does not
emphasize, because he also suggests that the producer-gas vehicles would
have been used to kill:

   The gaswagons [...] would have been far superior for mass murder
   to any conventionally powered vehicles [...]

The fact is that pumping producer gas into a room would turn it into a
giant Bic lighter.  Carbon monoxide has an extremely large flammability
range:  anywhere from 12 to 75%.  And as Berg says:

   The combustible gas produced in this way always contained between
   18% and 35% carbon monoxide.

Why on earth would the Nazis have wanted something so flammable?  And,
given that we've already shown that diesel engines would suffice, why
would they replace a solution that worked with one so dangerous?

> However, it is a simple matter to set such an
> engine so that its exhaust emits carbon monoxide in reduced but still
> deadly levels that would kill quickly without the risk of explosion.  

You don't give references, and I'd like to hear how this gas could have
been used "without risk."

Ironically, one of the claims made in the Leuchter Report -- to which
your own web site offers a link! -- was that HCN was explosive and
therefore would have been too dangerous to use in the Kremas, near the
cremation furnaces:

   The building is too damp and cold to utilize Zyklon B gas
   effectively.  The gas would have reached the ovens, and after
   killing all the technicians, would have caused an explosion and
   destroyed the building.

Leuchter says this about hydrocyanic gas, whose minimum explosive
concentration is TWO HUNDRED times greater than the toxic concentration.
By contrast, carbon monoxide is flammable at TWICE the same toxicity
level.  (HCN: 56000/300 ppm for "a few minutes" by the Merck Index;
CO: 12/6.4 percent for "less than" 3.75 minutes by Berg's math.)

We needn't even mention how it's more dangerous to handle a gas which is
continually produced under pressure, as opposed to one that comes in
measured quantities from a can.

So, DThomas, may I ask what your reference was for the claim that this
gas "would kill quickly without the risk of explosion"?

> Given the ready availability of the producer gas vehicles and the fact
> that their operation required only ordinary wood chips, they would have
> been an obviously more practical choice than either of the other two types
> of engines or, for that matter, Zyklon-B.

True.  Except for that little problem with turning buildings (and the
victims inside) into torches.

But since you raise the argument of practicality, you must remember that
the producer gas vehicles had an alternative use, as vehicles.
Meanwhile, there were hundreds of functional engines sitting in Soviet
tanks -- and foreign engines were not "plug-and-play" with any German
vehicles or machines, so they could serve little other use.

> Yet, aside from stories of
> field use of "killing vans" in which the alleged victims were placed in
> the back of such trucks for gassing in a limited area of the Eastern Front
> and one or two other locations, there is absolutely no mention of their
> use in camps for this purpose in the historical record.  No mention in
> German records, and no claims by purported witnesses.  (The former, by the
> way, would naturally be the case if there were no gassing chambers.)

If there were such testimonies, I suspect Leuchter and Berg would be the
first to criticize them because of the severe danger of explosion.  (And
they'd be right to do so.  Except no such impossible testimonies exist.
Too bad for the revisionists, I suppose.)



MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS
========================

> All
> you have is the diesel claim, which I understand is beginning to be
> revised to gasoline by some of the sanctioned historians, no doubt in
> quiet reaction to the improbability of a diesel being able to do what has
> been claimed.  

Thank you for bringing this up.

You "understand" this to be true because Berg has told you so.  But, as
Holocaust-deniers often do, Berg is hiding important facts in an attempt
to distort the historical record.  It is vital that we look at exactly
how Berg distorts the truth, because I believe it casts his credibility
into serious question.

Berg claims that "several leading holocaust proponents" -- and he gives
six of them by name -- are trying to pull a fast one on their readers.
He says they are "taking great pains to drop the Diesel claim and
replace it with the view that the engines were not Diesels but
conventional gasoline engines which simply burned Diesel fuel."

Berg's sole evidence for this is a few pages in their book
_Nationalsozialistiche Massentoetungen durch Giftgas_, 1983, which was
translated into English as _Nazi Mass Murder_ in 1993.

In those pages, the editors quote part of the Gerstein statement.  Just
as is done elsewhere in the book, they use only the parts they find
relevant and omit the rest.  This is because the book is not just a
collection of documents:  it is an edited work, and it attempts to
present somewhat of a narrative flow.

The editors used portions of, by my reckoning, the first half of the
statement -- about five hundred words -- where Gerstein describes his
arrival, then the Jews' arrival, at the Belzec camp.  They omitted the
second half, in which Gerstein mostly described the murder operation
itself.  Instead, they chose to use Professor Pfannenstiel's affidavit
to describe that, presumably for reasons of flow and so that the reader
would not suspect there was only one testimony concerning the gassing.

Now, it just so happens that the second half of Gerstein's statement
contained two references to the diesel engine, and one reference to
diesel oil being poured over the bodies.  And, part of what was omitted
in the first half happened to mention the diesel engine as well.

Coincidence?  Not to Berg.  He is convinced that this 1983 book contains
the seeds of a great conspiracy to remove the "inconvenient" diesel
engines from history and substitute gasoline engines instead!

Now, keep in mind that the editors never state what type of engine was
used -- because, to most people, this is an insignificant detail.  And
also note that Pfannenstiel's testimony, which rounds out the account of
the gassings, specifically says:

   Der Motor selbst befand sich nicht in einem besonderen Raum,
   sondern stand offen etwas erhoeht auf einem Podium. Er wurde mit
   Dieselkraftstoff betrieben.

Or, in the English translation (_Nazi Mass Murder_, Kogon et al., 1993,
p. 130):

   The engine itself was not in a separate room but stood in the open,
   raised on a platform.  It was a diesel engine.

It is true that Pfannenstiel's description, "Er wurde mit
Dieselkraftstoff betrieben," means literally "it ran on diesel fuel."
This is obviously just a way of saying "it was a diesel engine." 
Suppose I told you, "I once had a Volvo that ran on diesel" -- would it
ever cross your mind that I was trying to fool you into thinking I
really put diesel fuel into a regular gasoline engine!?

Of course not.  And if the editors really were trying to pull a fast one
on the world -- if they were taking great pains to start a massive
campaign to "revise" history and replace diesel by gasoline, they
obviously would not have allowed that sentence to be translated:
"it was a diesel engine"!

Not to mention the other places in the book where diesel engines are
mentioned quite explicitly.  See p. 163 in the German edition.

But, now that you know the whole story, read Berg's description of this
supposed conspiracy:

   Several leading holocaust proponents are now taking great pains to
                                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   drop the Diesel claim and replace it with the view that the
   engines were not Diesels but conventional gasoline engines which
   simply burned Diesel fuel, presumably to make the engines more
   deadly than if they had only burned regular gasoline. This
   amazing transformation has appeared in a recent book in Germany
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   entitled Nationalsozialistiche Massentoetungen durch Giftgas. ^34
   The book was a joint project of 24 of the most eminent scholars on
   the subject, including such notables as Eugen Kogon, Hermann
   Langbeing, Adalbert Rueckerl, Gideon Hausner, Germaine Tillion and
   Georges Wellers. The book represents the current state of the art
   of holocaust mythomania and has already been recommended by the
   World Jewish Congress in London. ^35  The new, "revised" version
   of the holocaust says, in effect, that Gerstein and the others
   were mistaken when they had claimed that Diesels were used to kill
   Jews at Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.  The claim now is that
   gasoline engines were used.             ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This last sentence is an invention.  This "claim" is simply not made.

Berg continues:

   The clumsy juggling of evidence which characterizes this book is
   exemplified by the fact that although the Gerstein statement
   refers to diesel engines four times, the portion of the Gerstein
   statement which is quoted in this supposedly definitive rebuttal
   of the revisionists does not mention Diesels at all, nor does it
   even describe the alleged killing process. ^36 For a description
   of the killing process that Gerstein supposedly witnessed, the
   book gives a piece of postwar testimony by Dr. Pfannenstiel in
   which there is also no mention of the use of Diesels, but only of
   the use of Diesel fuel in the engine. How one could possibly have
   operated a gasoline engine with Diesel fuel is, of course, left to
   the imagination.

Whose imagination?  No one was asked to imagine this, because the book
never said any such thing.

The impact on Berg's credibility is, I think, obvious.

> And, yes, I know of the report from a British medical journal in the
> fifties in which several animals were killed with diesel exhaust in a
> scantily documented experiment.  All that proves is that it is, as stated
> earlier here and elsewhere by Berg, marginally possible to push a diesel
> to its limits and achieve lethal levels of CO in its exhaust *FOR A VERY
> SHORT PERIOD OF TIME*, something I do not recall the report addressing.

Again, a total lack of quantification, where quantification is
desperately needed.  The report fails to support your point that the
engines self-destructed after "hours, or at most, days."

Because this effect was not mentioned, DThomas, you assert again that it
must be "*A VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME*."  I don't believe a nonmention
of something is evidence that it must be true.



CONCLUSION
==========

I should point out that, because historians have already established
the facts about the killing at the Reinhard camps, the burden of proof
is on Berg (and you) to demonstrate that they could not have occurred.
To be proper skeptics, we must carefully consider the issues which Berg
raises -- but we must also insist that this heavy burden be met.  That
means quantification of his claims.  Berg has done an admirable job of
providing numbers in his original article, but unfortunately, he was
wrong on several key assumptions, rendering his work useless.  Now, if
he (and you) intend to continue to defend his claim, which I assume is
the case, we must still insist that quantification be given wherever
necessary.

This article will be HTML'ized with footnotes to sources and URLs,
hopefully within the next week or two.  I'll post a followup to this
thread when that's done.

Meanwhile, DThomas, I would like to see your evidence for your claim
that running very rich would render an engine useless in "hours, or at
most, days."  Ideally it would consider the case of the injectors being
cleaned, perhaps on a regular basis.

I'd also like you to expound on what you mean by this:

   it is a simple matter to set [a producer gas] engine so that its
   exhaust emits carbon monoxide in reduced but still deadly levels
   that would kill quickly without the risk of explosion.

What's that simple technique?

Finally, if you see fit, a comment on the term "Holocaust-denier," in
the context of what Smith said, would be appreciated.  I know it's off
topic;  I apologize and promise never to do it again.  ;-)

Posted;  not emailed by DThomas's previous request.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net        Co-Webmaster of http://www.nizkor.org/









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From: dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: DThomas's reply to J.McCarthy, 1 of 2
Date: 10 Jan 1997 17:39:33 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
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Jamie McCarthy writes:

>DThomas,
>
>It appears this must be one of the "matters in which [you] have both
>interest and knowledge," which you told us on Dec. 11 that you would
>consider debating.

That's a too large first mouthful, let me clarify it a bit.  I have an
interest in the subject of gassings, some knowledge of the chemistry and
mechanics involved, but no depth of knowledge about diesels.  As you
clearly note in your response to my comments to Dan Keren, I relied
largely on information from writings by Fritz Berg.  You present lengthy
refutations to those which I will try to address, but not in the same
scope as your large post.  Some points I'm going to be able to reply to
quickly, others will require some research, and this will determine the
order of address.

>I do hope you stick with this and see it through.  I would hate to get
>involved in a civil debate with you, and then have to watch the response
>be silence, or changing the subject.  That's very frustrating for me.

Well that's mighty white of you, and I'll see what I can do to not let you
down, given the sacrifice involved in being civil. :-) Which you are, by
the way, except for the comment noted.  I respect your effort in this
regard and will respond accordingly.

>> (and also take exception to your
>> description of him as a "Holocaust-denier"),
>
>Well, since you bring it up, I'll ask you the same question I
>recently asked your colleague Richard Widmann.
>
>Bradley Smith tells us, at :
>
>   For half a century the gas chambers have been at the heart of the
>   holocaust story. The two are absolutely inseperable. No gas
>   chambers, no holocaust. That's the equation.
>
>My interpretation of "the two are absolutely inseparable;  no gas
>chambers, no Holocaust" is that to deny one is to deny the other. Thus,
>strictly speaking, according to Smith -- since Berg denies the gas
>chambers, he denies the Holocaust.  Do you agree with my reasoning,
>and if not why not?

This area is a semantic game.  Here are some of the elements involved:

(1)  The facts and reasonable conclusions based on them which describe
what we know and can know regarding the treatment of Jewish captives by
the government of the Third Reich.  By this I mean the historical record,
which is incomplete in many areas.

(2)  A stylized version of (1) which includes as much emotional content as
it does factual, and attempts to focus on the mystery and evil of events
in a near mystic way.  It has become a quasi-religious body of fact and
conjecture which was dubbed The Holocaust in fairly recent times.  I
believe that "holocaust" is a word used to distinguish between ordinary
burnt offerings to G-d which are only partly consumed by the fire (and
presumably utilized for food afterward) and those offered for more
important occasions, which are consumed entirely by the fire.  The
connection appears to be the bodies of gassing victims being consumed
completely by the fires of the Krema, this equating to a holocaust
offering to G-d.  (I am intending my spelling of that last word to be
respectful of common useage by religious adherents.  If I err, correction
would be appreciated.  Knowledge of religious practices isn't one of my
long suits either.)

Attempted discussions of the historical record as described in (1), which
contain no degree of controversy for most other topics, are almost always
immediately characterized by detractors as involving (2), and a great deal
of controversy enters the picture.  This is because the context of a valid
discussion of facts, their accuracy and interpretations, is converted to
an issue of challenging elements of a religious belief.  Logic and faith
are not resolvable, by definition, and endless argument and emotional
reactions are the inevitable outcome of attempts to do so.

(Just hit the size limit, have to continue this as a Part 2)

Sincerely,
David








Subject:      Re: DThomas's reply to J.McCarthy, 2 of 2
From:         dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Date:         1997/01/10
Message-Id:   <19970110192700.OAA20472@ladder01.news.aol.com>
References:   <19970110173700.MAA17776@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups:   alt.revisionism
X-Admin:      news@aol.com

Part 2 of 2, response to Jamie McCarthy's comments on Bradley Smith's
remarks about holocaust/Holocaust/The Holocaust vs. discussion of
historical record and what constitutes "denial."

Bradley's comment "no gas chambers, no holocaust," refers to the religious
connection of the word.  The alleged millions of gassing victims consumed
completely in the Krema form what I perceive to be the connection for
applying the term "holocaust" to the events in its traditional religious
sense.  He is further referring to the preeminent role that the chambers
play in this arrangement.  Without this massive and ultimately evil source
of sacrifices to burn, the construct cannot survive in its present form.

In that context of faith, the term "denier" makes sense.  With
fundamentalist beliefs, all elements of dogma are normally held to be
inviolate.  The falsity of any component, however small, cannot be
entertained by the faithful without destroying the whole.  That is, to
deny the word of God is to deny God.

The rub comes when secularists question the worldy contents of the
historical record (recall the religious attacks on evolutionists and even
paleontologists).  They are accused of being "Holocaust deniers," which is
a term related to a matter of faith.  However, the secular/non-secular
distinction is never made clear, and the term "denier" is taken by users
and bystanders to mean that questioners of details reject the entire
historical record, and deny that any harm was visited upon Jews by the
Third Reich.  This is an absurd misrepresentation, by which normal
intellectual inquiry is equated with willful dismissal of valid facts, an
action which reasonable people everywhere look at as objectionable in
itself and likely to indicate motives even more repugnant than the
anti-intellectual stance (falsely) attributed.  The seeker of a better
understanding is thus branded a willful liar with evil motive.  If someone
were trying to deny the reality of wrongs done to a group that inarguably
occurred, a ready and natural conclusion is that the denier of apparent
fact is deeply prejudiced.  Thus the final link in a phony
chain--questioner = denier = antisemite = bigot = nazi = evil.

This has led to calls from those so branded for their accusers to "define
Holocaust."  I haven't run across a case where anyone has done that
coherently in the manner presented in Part 1 of this post.

To sum up, the word "denier" is valid when applied to those who attack any
part of a faith whose tenets are considered by adherents to be a
monolithic inviolate whole.  The same word when applied to normal
intellectual inquiry is egregiously misused.  The effects of this now
pervasive misuse are obvious, we have a new damning label with great
emotional power.  But it's a devious word trick at best, and a foully
dishonest smear at its frequent worst.

Few people are too stupid to see the reality of huge pogroms and human
atrocities that occurred in Europe and Russia.  Some are so biased that
they embrace without question interpretations of fact which require faith
to hide the concurrent embrace of illogic.  This description applies both
to defenders of The Holocaust mythology (as I defined it in Part I, an
item of faith that is inviolate and inviolable) and other groups with
lesser known ethnocentric interpretations, plus their offensive opposites,
those with illogical biases against groups so wronged.  The large number
of people who are approaching this with no positions or agendas to defend
suffer from the conflicts of these extremes.  Attacked by the former and
lumped with the latter.  That's what happens when emotion holds sway over
logic.  "Goes with the territory," is about all you can say to yourself,
then go about your business as best you can.

End, 2 of 2

David Thomas









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From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Zyklon B / Carbon monoxide comparison
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 03:59:32 -0500
Organization: Voyager Information Networks, Inc.
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Message-ID: 
References:  <19970102204700.PAA22486@ladder01.news.aol.com>  <32d3597d.404467@199.0.216.204> <5b412v$20i@d31rz0.Stanford.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: vixa.voyager.net

rjg@d31rz0.Stanford.EDU (Richard J. Green) wrote:

> tom moran  wrote:
> 
> >We could take the word of it saying the "lethal concentration" is 6%. 
> 
> Dr. Keren said that 6% is much more than the lethal concentration.

[quoting from Material Safety Data Sheet]

> EFFECTS OF OVEREXPOSURE:
> 
>   TOXIC & FATAL IN CONCENTRATIONS OF 0.4% IN AIR IN LESS THAN
>   ONE HR EXPOSURE

Friedrich Berg claims (dubiously in my opinion) that as concentration of
a toxic gas doubles, lethality time is halved.  By Berg's math, then,

0.4% - fatal in less than one hour
0.8% - fatal in less than 30 minutes
1.6% - fatal in less than 15 minutes
3.2% - fatal in less than 7.5 minutes
6.4% - fatal in less than 3.75 minutes

Since a commonly-referred-to concentration of HCN, the gas released from
Zyklon-B, is the 300 ppm level, at which it is fatal in "a few minutes"
according to the Merck Index, it may be useful to know how concentrated
CO would have to be to kill as quickly.

As I say, I doubt Berg's claim that the relationship is linear -- I
think it's obviously folly to take it too far.  But that's how the
numbers come out in this case.  I used the above reasoning in my article
headed "DThomas's comments on diesel -- analysis," but I didn't show my
work, preferring to just call it "Berg's math."  :-)

Posted/emailed.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net        Co-Webmaster of http://www.nizkor.org/








Subject:      Re: Nettiquette WAS Re: "ehrlich606" and His Lame Defense of 'Revisionist Science'
From:         jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Date:         1997/02/11
Message-Id:   
References:   <32FDEC24.6912@ccnis.net> <19970210102701.FAA27527@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Organization: Voyager Information Networks, Inc.
Newsgroups:   alt.revisionism

D. Thomas -- out of curiosity, are you still working on your reply
to the diesel article of early January?  On 1/10, you wrote me:

> You present lengthy refutations to those which I will try to address,
> but not in the same scope as your large post.  Some points I'm going
> to be able to reply to quickly, others will require some research, and
> this will determine the order of address.

To date, I'm not aware of your replying to any of the points (except
the side-issue I raised on another topic altogether).  My newsfeed
may have missed them, though.

Posted;  not emailed by your request.
--
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net        Co-Webmaster of http://www.nizkor.org/










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From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Engine size, chamber size, and gassing times
Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 04:01:30 -0500
Organization: Voyager Information Networks, Inc.
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Ehrlich, you write:

> A reasonable assumption, and why don't you just get a competent
> engineer to straighten it out on your side, as Berg has presented
> the case on the revisionist side?

I did exactly this, the first week of January in an article to DThomas.
He assured me he'd respond to it piecemeal, some parts more quickly than
others.  It's been six weeks now and I haven't seen any response from
him regarding the diesel issues.  I posted a reminder to him on the net,
but because he forbids me from emailing him Cc copies, I'm not sure he
saw the reminder.

In fact, this competent engineer whom I contacted has worked in the
design of diesel engines for a number of years.  He informed me in
unmistakeable language that at least one of Berg's absolutely key
assumptions was simply false.  Namely, that a diesel engine cannot be
revved up to high RPM under no load with a blocked air intake -- it can.
Berg's entire paper is thus essentially worthless.  Furthermore,
serious questions are raised as to Berg's competence in this field (not
that serious questions weren't already raised).

If _you_ would like to respond to this, please let me know and I will
repost and/or email you a copy of the article I posted back in January.
Oh, and if you're reading this, you might jog DThomas's elbow and see
if he's still working on his response.  Thanks.

Posted;  not emailed by your prior request.
--
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@voyager.net        Co-Webmaster of http://www.nizkor.org/








Subject:      Re: Engine size, chamber size, and gassing times
From:         dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Date:         1997/02/21
Message-Id:   <19970221154100.KAA09494@ladder02.news.aol.com>
References:   
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups:   alt.revisionism
X-Admin:      news@aol.com

Jamie McCarthy wrote:

>I did exactly this, the first week of January in an article to DThomas.
>He assured me he'd respond to it piecemeal, some parts more quickly than
>others.  It's been six weeks now and I haven't seen any response from
>him regarding the diesel issues.  I posted a reminder to him on the net,
>but because he forbids me from emailing him Cc copies, I'm not sure he
>saw the reminder.

A few points here.

I have not replied to your article yet because I do not wish to do so with
off the cuff remarks as is usually the case when post surfing here.  My
personal life has been filled with a great number of distractions of late
which have prevented me from addressing anything in detail, but I will at
some point, later rather than sooner, address the diesel issues you raise.
 This does not preclude my making brief comments elsewhere, so no further
wondering needed here, I hope.

Regarding the emailing, allow me to correct your statement "he forbids me
from emailing him...".  Our initial pass on the email came because I took
exception to the tone of what you were sending me.  It was not civil, but
a little on the strident side and directed at me personally.  I asked you
first to tone it down and then made a polite request that you not send any
more to me, something you politely agreed to.  In fact, I recall one of
your first end of message notices about this including the phrase 'because
he politely asked me not to' or something close.  Also, please note my
signature and the fact that the "do not send me copies of public posts"
now has nothing to do with you.  I get way too much email to handle now. 
I don't want or need stuff I can get out of a public listing, even if it
means that my thead adherences is spotty--there's personal benefit in that
last for me too.

Regards,
David

Please do not send emailed copies of Usenet or other public forum posts to this address.  Thank you for your consideration.--David Thomas 1/16/97









Subject:      Re: Engine size, chamber size, and gassing times
From:         dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Date:         1997/02/21
Message-Id:   <19970221154400.KAA10167@ladder02.news.aol.com>
References:   
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Newsgroups:   alt.revisionism
X-Admin:      news@aol.com

Jamie wrote:

>In fact, this competent engineer whom I contacted has worked in the
>design of diesel engines for a number of years.  He informed me in
>unmistakeable language that at least one of Berg's absolutely key
>assumptions was simply false.  Namely, that a diesel engine cannot be
>revved up to high RPM under no load with a blocked air intake -- it can.

I ask this as a point of information, not a challenge--what did he say
about the emissions profile of an engine being run as you described.  I
presume it's obvious that it would differ from that of an engine under
load.

>Berg's entire paper is thus essentially worthless.

Patience, patience.  You jump too far with too little.

Regards,
David

Please do not send emailed copies of Usenet or other public forum posts to this address.  Thank you for your consideration.--David Thomas 1/16/97








Subject:      Re: Engine size, chamber size, and gassing times
From:         jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Date:         1997/02/25
Message-Id:   
References:    <19970221154100.KAA09494@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Organization: Voyager Information Networks, Inc.
Newsgroups:   alt.revisionism

This is a meta-posting, an article about articles.  I apologize for
distracting people from the real point of this newsgroup (which is
obviously to make denigrating comments about my rabbits :-).

dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas) wrote:

> I have not replied to your article yet because I do not wish to do so with
> off the cuff remarks as is usually the case when post surfing here.  My
> personal life has been filled with a great number of distractions of late
> which have prevented me from addressing anything in detail, but I will at
> some point, later rather than sooner, address the diesel issues you raise.
> This does not preclude my making brief comments elsewhere, so no further
> wondering needed here, I hope.

No further wondering needed.

No wondering would have been needed at all if I could have emailed you
to ask what was up and see your reply.  As it was, I waited six weeks,
posted something which you apparently didn't see, waited another week,
and posted what you quoted. I hope you don't take offense at this.

> Regarding the emailing, allow me to correct your statement "he forbids me
> from emailing him...".  Our initial pass on the email came because I took
> exception to the tone of what you were sending me.  It was not civil, but
> a little on the strident side and directed at me personally.  I asked you
> first to tone it down and then made a polite request that you not send any
> more to me, something you politely agreed to.  In fact, I recall one of
> your first end of message notices about this including the phrase 'because
> he politely asked me not to' or something close.

That's probably the case, I don't remember.

In future I will note that you _politely_ forbade me from emailing you.

You say that that statement minus the adverb requires "correction."  For
the record, not that I want to raise a fuss about such a trivial point,
I disagree.

> Also, please note my
> signature and the fact that the "do not send me copies of public posts"
> now has nothing to do with you.  I get way too much email to handle now. 
> I don't want or need stuff I can get out of a public listing, even if it
> means that my thead adherences is spotty--there's personal benefit in that
> last for me too.

> Please do not send emailed copies of Usenet or other public forum posts
> to this address.  Thank you for your consideration.--David Thomas 1/16/97

There may indeed be personal benefit to you in not being able to follow,
and thus participate in, discussions on alt.revisionism.  I wouldn't know.

For the rest of us, it is frustrating not to know when or if messages
have arrived, and to have to keep a mental tally of when to send
reminders in the case that messages are ignored (which, I've found,
happens with distressing regularity).  A reminder too soon would be
rude, which I'm sure would be another point against me;  too late puts
an end to any hope of resurrecting what remains of discussion.  It's a
fine line to walk, and it's just One More Thing for me to do.

No one is claiming you would have to read every Cc'd copy of public
posts.  I certainly don't;  I skim Cc's, file them, and wait for the
post to show up on Usenet.  They're intended to be a notice to watch for
the post to appear.  That you don't even want to receive this notice
strikes me as odd.

You, Bradley Smith, Matt Giwer, and Ehrlich606 are the only people I've
ever seen on the net who insist on _not_ receiving courtesy copies.
And Ehrlich relaxed this rule recently, even sending _me_ a Cc of one of
his posts.

Posted;  not emailed.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@nizkor.org     Director of Operations, The Nizkor Project
                                          http://www.nizkor.org/










Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
From: dkeren@world.std.com (Daniel Keren)
Subject: Some "Highlights" from the "Rudolph Report"
Message-ID: 
Organization: The World, Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 1 May 1997 08:59:06 GMT
Lines: 58

I have what appears to be an abridged version of the "Rudolph
report", in which the "bright shining star of Holocaust revisionism"
writes about the gas chambers of Treblinka and Auschwitz.
 
To demonstrate the "quality" of the "report", let us look at
a claim made about gassing with diesel exhaust:
 
  "The near impossibility of killing with Diesel exhaust has been
  mentioned repeatedly, and, in addition, has now been proven
  through self-testing and through tests on animals".
 
What this deplorable liar "forgot" to mention is that, in a series
of experiments conducted in 1957 by British scientists, it was
proven that diesel fumes - even from a very small engine - can
easily kill animals in a closed chamber. Partially blocking the 
air intake (a trivial thing to do) will accelerate death. The
engine used was a tiny one - 6 BHP; tank engines, as those used in
Treblinka, have 500 BHP. See "The Toxicity of Fumes from a Diesel 
Engine Under Four Different Running Conditions", by Pattle et al., 
British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1957, Vol 14, p.  47-55. 
See also "The Significance of Diesel-Exhaust-Gas Analysis", by 
J.C. Holtz and M.A. Elliot, Transactions of the ASME, Vol. 63, 
1941, p. 97-105, in which it is reported that concentrations of 
CO up to 6 percent were measured in diesel exhaust (this is more 
than 10 times the lethal concentration). Under other running 
conditions, there was hardly any oxygen present in the exhaust.
 
Our brave "revisionist scholar" goes on to claim that it would
have been impossible to burn so many corpses in Treblinka because,
so he says, that would require 100-200 Kg of wood per corpse.

Similar claims about the alleged "great difficulties" in burning
many corpses were given by other "revisionists".
 
Take a look in
 
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/places/germany/dresden/images/
dresden-pyre-01.jpg, dresden-pyre-02.jpg
 
These are photographs taken after the bombing of Dresden, when
many corpses of the victims had to be burned. One can see a huge
pyre of corpses being set on fire; there seem to be a few hundreds
of corpses. However, there is no evidence in the photograph to
the alleged huge amount of wood which the "revisionists" claim
is necessary to burn such a number of corpses.
 
Apparently, our whacky "revisionists" are claiming that corpses
of Jews burn differently than those of non-Jews!
 
Also, it's interesting to note that the method used to burn the
corpses bears striking resemblance to that used in Treblinka and
other camps; it would not be surprising to learn that the people
in charge of burning the corpses in Dresden consulted SS 
"experts" from the camps.
 
 
-Danny Keren.









From: dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: Some "Highlights" from the "Rudolph Report"
Date: 6 May 1997 03:03:34 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Lines: 54
Message-ID: <19970506030200.XAA01762@ladder01.news.aol.com>
References: 
NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder01.news.aol.com
X-Admin: news@aol.com

Danny Keren wrote:

>I have what appears to be an abridged version of the "Rudolph
>report", in which the "bright shining star of Holocaust revisionism"
>writes about the gas chambers of Treblinka and Auschwitz.
>
>To demonstrate the "quality" of the "report", let us look at
>a claim made about gassing with diesel exhaust:

Well I'll be!  A highlight from a lowlight.  What'll they think of next?
;-)

Seriously, Dan, if you use any more sneer quotes people will think you
keep chickens indoors--inside your computer.  Can't you talk normal
anymore?  Or write, whatever. Everybody knows what your attitude is, you
don't have to stamp your feet and curl your lip back up into your nostril
twice in every sentence.  We get it, trust me.

>>"The near impossibility of killing with Diesel exhaust has been
>> mentioned repeatedly, and, in addition, has now been proven
>> through self-testing and through tests on animals".
>
>What this deplorable liar "forgot" to mention is that, in a series
>of experiments conducted in 1957 by British scientists, it was
>proven that diesel fumes - even from a very small engine - can
>easily kill animals in a closed chamber. Partially blocking the 
>air intake (a trivial thing to do) will accelerate death. The
>engine used was a tiny one - 6 BHP; tank engines, as those used in
>Treblinka, have 500 BHP. See "The Toxicity of Fumes from a Diesel 
>Engine Under Four Different Running Conditions", by Pattle et al., 
>British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1957, Vol 14, p.  47-55. 
>See also "The Significance of Diesel-Exhaust-Gas Analysis", by 
>J.C. Holtz and M.A. Elliot, Transactions of the ASME, Vol. 63, 
>1941, p. 97-105, in which it is reported that concentrations of 
>CO up to 6 percent were measured in diesel exhaust (this is more 
>than 10 times the lethal concentration). Under other running 
>conditions, there was hardly any oxygen present in the exhaust.

Shame on you, making me put those quote brevets in for you!  I hate 'em
just as much as you do, maybe I'm just a little more concerned with
accuracy, huh?  Which leads me to say SHAME ON YOU!!! with emphasis for
not telling the rest of this tired schtick, as per usual.

Did you forget to tell the boys and girls that the animals killed were
little rats and rabbits?  And let's see now, how many HOURS did it take to
waste the first mouse?  Ahhh, all those bothersome details.  What's a
Crusader to do, can't be expected to remember them all the time!

Like hell you can't.  Try being honest in your presentations for a change.

Regards,
David T.

Please do not send emailed copies of Usenet or other public forum posts to this address.  Thank you for your consideration.--David Thomas 1/16/97









Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
From: dkeren@world.std.com (Daniel Keren)
Subject: Re: Some "Highlights" from the "Rudolph Report"
Message-ID: 
Organization: The World, Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA
References:  <19970506030200.XAA01762@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 05:39:42 GMT
Lines: 56

dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas) writes:

# Can't you talk normal anymore?  Or write, whatever.
# Everybody knows what your attitude is, you don't have
# to stamp your feet and curl your lip back up into
# your nostril twice in every sentence.  We get it,
# trust me.

I notice that you resort more and more to insults, and
that you make no meaningful comments anymore.

I posted a rather simple demonstration that the "report",
written by the "revisionist" Germar Rudolph, contains
outright lies and absurdities. If you have a meaningful
comment, go ahead and post it.

# Did you forget to tell the boys and girls that the
# animals killed were little rats and rabbits? 

And who said that people are more immune than rats
and rabbits, to the same concentration of gas? As 
the delousing instructions for HCN indicate, for
instance, more HCN is needed to kill rats and mice
than humans. Moreover, the engine used in these 
experiments was a tiny (6 BHP) diesel; the tank 
engines used in Treblinka were 500 BHP.

# And let's see now, how many HOURS did it take to   
# waste the first mouse? 

There were a few experiments; when the engine was tuned
to release more CO, I recall that the animals started
dying within an hour. I'll check that.

But your claim is useless; the Holtz-Elliot paper
reports concentrations of CO up to 6 percent in
diesel exhaust. They proved that it is a trivial
matter to tune a diesel so that its exhaust contains
hardly any oxygen, and a huge amount of CO. 6 percent,
BTW, is more than 10 times the lethal concentration.

# Ahhh, all those bothersome details. 

Lay off it. You lost this one. You cannot argue with
the technical data which refutes your claims.

What about the other claim your "revisionist" hero
makes? That it would take 200 Kg of wood to burn one
corpse in Treblinka? How does this compare with the
photo of the corpse-burning in Dresden, which indicates
that far less wood was necessary? Are you people now
claiming that Jews and Aryans burn differently?


-Danny Keren.










Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
From: dkeren@world.std.com (Daniel Keren)
Subject: Re: Some "Highlights" from the "Rudolph Report"
Message-ID: 
Organization: The World, Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA
References:  <19970506030200.XAA01762@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 07:21:13 GMT
Lines: 34

dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas) writes:

[Regarding experiments which prove that diesel fumes can kill
 animals in a closed space]

# And let's see now, how many HOURS did it take to waste the
# first mouse? 

  "After one hour's exposure in D1 (0.22% CO), all except three
  of the 20 mice were dead".

Quoted from "The Toxicity of Fumes from a Diesel Engine Under Four 
Different Running Conditions", by Pattle et al., British Journal of 
Industrial Medicine, 1957, Vol 14, p.  47-55. The engine used was
a tiny 6 BHP diesel, as opposed to 500 BHP tank engines used by
the SS in Treblinka. Moreover, there is no proof that the British
researchers tried to kill the animals as fast as possible; they
may well have reduced the necessary time by further blocking the
air intake, which causes a sharp rise in CO concentration in the
exhaust. 

# Ahhh, all those bothersome details.  

Which you didn't bother to check, of course.

# What's a Crusader to do, can't be expected to remember them
# all the time!

After you have so thoroughly humiliated yourself, I have nothing
to add.


-Danny Keren.







Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Path: szdc2!super.zippo.com!enews.sgi.com!newshub1.home.com!newshub2.home.com!news.home.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!uucp2.uu.net!world!dkeren
From: dkeren@world.std.com (Daniel Keren)
Subject: The "Rudolph Report": Yet More "Revisionist" Nonsense
Message-ID: 
Organization: The World, Public Access Internet, Brookline, MA
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 18:58:00 GMT
Lines: 57
Xref:   szdc2 alt.revisionism:104252

I have what appears to be an abridged version of the "Rudolph
report", in which the "bright shining star of Holocaust revisionism"
writes about the gas chambers of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

To demonstrate the "quality" of the "report", let us look at
a claim made about gassing with diesel exhaust:

  "The near impossibility of killing with Diesel exhaust has been
  mentioned repeatedly, and, in addition, has now been proven
  through self-testing and through tests on animals".

What this deplorable liar "forgot" to mention is that, in a series
of experiments conducted in 1957 by British scientists, it was
proven that diesel fumes - even from a very small engine - can
easily kill animals in a closed chamber. Partially blocking the 
air intake (a trivial thing to do) will accelerate death. The
engine used was a tiny one - 6 BHP; tank engines, as those used in
Treblinka, have 500 BHP. See "The Toxicity of Fumes from a Diesel 
Engine Under Four Different Running Conditions", by Pattle et al., 
British Journal of Industrial Medicine, 1957, Vol 14, p.  47-55. 
See also "The Significance of Diesel-Exhaust-Gas Analysis", by 
J.C. Holtz and M.A. Elliot, Transactions of the ASME, Vol. 63, 
1941, p. 97-105, in which it is reported that concentrations of 
CO up to 6 percent were measured in diesel exhaust (this is more 
than 10 times the lethal concentration). Under other running 
conditions, there was hardly any oxygen present in the exhaust.

Our brave "revisionist scholar" goes on to claim that it would
have been impossible to burn so many corpses in Treblinka because,
so he says, that would require 100-200 Kg of wood per corpse.
Similar claims about the alleged "great difficulties" in burning
many corpses were given by other "revisionists".

Take a look in

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/places/germany/dresden/images/
dresden-pyre-01.jpg, dresden-pyre-02.jpg

These are photographs taken after the bombing of Dresden, when
many corpses of the victims had to be burned. One can see a huge
pyre of corpses being set on fire; there seem to be a few hundreds
of corpses. However, there is no evidence in the photograph to
the alleged huge amount of wood which the "revisionists" claim
is necessary to burn such a number of corpses.

Apparently, our wacky "revisionists" are claiming that corpses
of Jews burn differently than those of non-Jews!

Also, it's interesting to note that the method used to burn the
corpses bears striking resemblance to that used in Treblinka and
other camps; it would not be surprising to learn that the people
in charge of burning the corpses in Dresden consulted SS 
"experts" from the camps.


-Danny Keren.








Path: szdc2!super.zippo.com!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!news-peer.gsl.net!portc01.blue.aol.com!audrey02.news.aol.com!not-for-mail
From: dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: The "Rudolph Report": Yet More "Revisionist" Nonsense
Date: 20 May 1997 22:04:21 GMT
Lines: 52
Message-ID: <19970521020400.WAA05652@ladder02.news.aol.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ladder02.news.aol.com
X-Admin: news@aol.com
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
References: 
Xref:   szdc2 alt.revisionism:104772

Dan Keren wrote:
************************************************
Our brave "revisionist scholar" goes on to claim that it would
have been impossible to burn so many corpses in Treblinka because,
so he says, that would require 100-200 Kg of wood per corpse.
Similar claims about the alleged "great difficulties" in burning
many corpses were given by other "revisionists".

Take a look in

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/places/germany/dresden/images/
dresden-pyre-01.jpg, dresden-pyre-02.jpg

These are photographs taken after the bombing of Dresden, when
many corpses of the victims had to be burned. One can see a huge
pyre of corpses being set on fire; there seem to be a few hundreds
of corpses. However, there is no evidence in the photograph to
the alleged huge amount of wood which the "revisionists" claim
is necessary to burn such a number of corpses.
************************************************
Daniel,

What you leave out is that the Dresden civil defense people used liberal
quantities of precious gasoline to accomplish the burning, there being
very little in the way of wood left in the city after its three day
firestorm mixed with high explosive bombs. The resource sacrifice was
necessary because of the extreme health hazard posed by the rotting
corpses, and the burning went on for weeks.

As for the Pattle diesel experiments, your omissions are even more
convenient, to the point that one might say intentionally misleading. 
Please start including the relevant details about the animals.  Mention
that they were rabbits and mice, and it took several hours to kill the
first mouse, significantly longer for a rabbit.  And that the chamber fed
by the 6HP motor was significantly smaller than the one the 500HP unit
allegedly serviced.  And that a diesel run under the conditions of
Pattle's test for any length of time would destroy itself.  And that there
existed 500,000 or so producer gas trucks, busses and vans with converters
that burned wood to produce flammable gas capable of powering the engine,
with CO content on the order of 30%, requiring no special or abusive
tuning or running of the engine to dispense a highly lethal exhaust.  And
that normal diesel exhaust contains 18% oxygen.  And, in summary, that a
diesel engine versus any other kind of internal combustion engine would be
an idiot's choice for a murder weapon, particularly given the ready
availability of the wood burners.  You know all this of course.  Why then
don't you want to share it with your readers?  A bit biased, are we? 
Little bit of old-fashioned flim-flam, maybe? Sure as heck looks that way
to me.

David Thomas

Please do not send emailed copies of Usenet or other public forum posts to this address.  Thank you for your consideration.--David Thomas 1/16/97









Path: szdc2!newsp.zippo.com!clmx10.dial.voyager.net!user
From: jamie@voyager.net (Jamie McCarthy)
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Re: The "Rudolph Report": Yet More "Revisionist" Nonsense
Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 01:14:07 -0400
Organization: None
Lines: 101
Message-ID: 
References:  <19970521020400.WAA05652@ladder02.news.aol.com>
Xref:   szdc2 alt.revisionism:105191

dvdthomas@aol.com (DvdThomas) wrote:

> And, in summary, that a
> diesel engine versus any other kind of internal combustion engine would be
> an idiot's choice for a murder weapon, particularly given the ready
> availability of the wood burners.  You know all this of course.  Why then
> don't you want to share it with your readers?  A bit biased, are we? 
> Little bit of old-fashioned flim-flam, maybe? Sure as heck looks that way
> to me.

Oh, my.  Deja vu!

I'm going to try to make this summary as brief as possible.  Here's a
record of the discussion so far.  DT is "DvdThomas."  JM is myself.

Jan  2:  DT:  "Diesel engines are an extremely inefficient way to
              generate carbon monoxide."  etc.  Producer gas
              vehicles, support of Berg, and so on.

Jan  5:  DT:  "Daniel, you know as much about engines as you do about
              other technical matters you attempt to address. [...]
              Jeez, get a clue guy."

Jan  9:  JM:  "I'll go through your article point-by-point."

               * CAN DIESEL ENGINES KILL?
                  + Is high carbon monoxide necessary?
                  + Is a high fuel-air ratio possible?
                     - Would particulate exhaust ruin the engine?
                     - Would a load be required?
               * WAS THERE ANYTHING BETTER?
                  + Were gasoline engines better?
                  + Was producer gas better?
               * MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTIONS
               * SUMMARY

Jan 10:  DT:  "Some points I'm going to be able to reply to quickly,
              others will require some research, and this will
              determine the order of address."

[a month of silence from DvdThomas on the subject]

Feb 11:  JM:  "out of curiosity, are you still working on your reply
              to the diesel article of early January?"

Feb 19:  JM:  "It's been six weeks now and I haven't seen any response
              from him regarding the diesel issues."

Feb 21:  DT:  "Patience, patience.  You jump too far with too little."

Feb 21:  DT:  "I have not replied to your article yet because I do not
              wish to do so with off the cuff remarks [...] I will at
              some point, later rather than sooner, address the diesel
              issues you raise."

[three months of silence from DvdThomas on the subject]

May 20:  DT:  Diesel engines are inefficient.  Producer gas vehicles,
              support of Berg, etc.  "You know all this of course.  Why
              then don't you want to share it with your readers?  A bit
              biased, are we?  Little bit of old-fashioned flim-flam,
              maybe? Sure as heck looks that way to me."

I stand in awe, "DvdThomas," at the facile way you attack your
opponents.  You have utterly failed to address the points raised in
January.  You have been reminded several times, and each time you have
said you will get around to responding eventually.

Yet, after all this artful dodging, you return to your original claims
after four and a half months.  You raise all the same old stuff which I
debunked in January (and which Mike Stein et al. had debunked in 1994). 
You repeat all the same old errors as if they were still fresh.

And then -- this is the crowning touch -- you have the cojones to accuse
your _opponents_ of engaging in "flim-flam," and of not sharing
pertinent information with the reader.  Whew!  There aren't enough "o"s
in the word "smooth" to describe that tactic.  You must have nerves of
steel to think you were going to get away with that one.

How about just addressing the subject?

Four and a half months ago, I gave a point-by-point refutation of the
Berg-rehash which you posted.  I deliberately dropped as many details as
I could, leaving only the most crucial points, so that it would be as
easy as possible for you to reply.

After promising a reply, several times, all you have offered is "get a
clue," "patience," and "old-fashioned flim-flam."

And my guess is that is all you _can_ offer.

Feel free to prove me wrong.

A record of this attempt at discussion will be archived at
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/people/nyms/dthomas/diesel-retreat-01 .

Posted;  not emailed by request.
-- 
 Jamie McCarthy          http://www.absence.prismatix.com/jamie/
 jamie@nizkor.org     Director of Operations, The Nizkor Project
                                          http://www.nizkor.org/

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