Show Trials

Calling a legal proceeding a “show trial” amounts to accusing the involved judiciary of not playing by the rules of a fair trial. The degree of unfairness can vary, of course. The following are some of the features that distinguish show trials from normal, fair trials. The more of them are that are present, the…

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Showers

Fake Showers Many witnesses claimed that deportees slated for homicidal gassings were told by SS men or their helpers that, in order to be admitted to the camp, they needed to have their clothes laundered and disinfested, and they themselves had to take a shower. This, it is frequently claimed, was a deception, so the…

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Shrunken Heads, Myth of

At the Buchenwald Camp shortly after its occupation by U.S. American troops in April 1945, the U.S. Armed Forces’ Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) set up a table displaying items meant to prove National-Socialist atrocities. For “educational” purposes, the local population was forced to walk by this table and hear a U.S. official in uniform explain…

Silberschein, Abraham

Abraham Silberschein was a member of the Polish parliament, a delegate of the World Jewish Congress and a member of the Committee for Assistance to the Suffering Jews in the Occupied Countries. As such, he collected witness testimonies about the alleged extermination of Jews in occupied Poland, which he published in Geneva in 1944 in…

Simpson, Gordon

Gordon Simpson (30 Oct. 1894 – 13 February 1987) was a justice of the Supreme Court of Texas from January 1945 until September 1949. Together with Edward van Roden, at that time Chief of U.S. Military Justice in Europe, Simpson was appointed in 1948 to an extraordinary commission. This commission was charged with investigating claims…

Six Million (Jewish Victims)

Importance The alleged Six Million Jewish fatalities is the single most important number of the Holocaust, and one of the most consequential statistics in all of history. It appears everywhere that we hear about the Holocaust. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum website writes: “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately…

Skarżyński, Kazimierz

Kazimierz Skarżyński was a Pole living in the village of Wólka Okrąglik near the Treblinka Camp who testified twice in front of a Soviet investigative commission about the Treblinka Camp, once on 22 August 1944, and then again one day later. In his first deposition, he claimed to know from Jews incarcerated at Treblinka that…

Slovakia

The German and Slovak government agreed in early 1942 that Germany would take all of Slovakia’s Jews in return for a certain payment. During the first phase in March and April, only Jews fit for labor were deported to the labor camps of Majdanek and Auschwitz. Starting in late April 1942, everyone was deported, including…

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Sobibór

Documented History The Sobibór Camp near the Polish settlement of the same name was located some 47 miles east of Lublin, close to the border to Ukraine. Wartime documents concerning Sobibór are very rare, but the few that do exist do not corroborate the orthodox narrative. Chronologically the first of these few documents is a…

Sompolinski, Roman

Roman Sompolinski was a Polish Jew who was arrested in 1939 and, after staying at various camps, ended up in Auschwitz at the end of 1943, where he claims to have worked inside Crematorium II as a member of the Sonderkommando from December 1943 until February 1944. From Auschwitz he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen in…

Sonderkommando

Sonderkommando is a German term meaning “special unit” or “special squad.” It is used to this day in German military and police forces to denote units that are assigned special tasks outside of routine duties. This was also the case during the Second World War. Many of the subunits of the Einsatzgruppen operating in the…

Source Criticism

The modern method of source criticism was developed in the mid-1800s by German historian Leopold von Ranke, but it is in general applicable to all fields of academic inquiry. More generally expressed, it should be called “evidence criticism.” It is based on the observation that evidence needs to be evaluated as to its reliability, accuracy…

Soviet Union

Introduction The Soviet Union played four roles within the context of the Holocaust: Crime Scene Victim Perpetrator Propagandist The last role is discussed in detail in the section on the Soviet Union of the entry on propaganda, so it will not be covered here. Anti-Bolshevism was one of the four main motives of National-Socialist enmity…

Spanner, Rudolf

Rudolf Spanner was a professor of human anatomy at the university of Danzig until 1946. Primitive soap cakes confiscated at his institute were submitted during the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal by the Soviets as proof that the Germans turned the bodies of murdered camp inmates into soap. It turned out that these pieces of soap…

Special Treatment

General Usage in German Wartime Documents The German term Sonderbehandlung (special treatment) and other related terms, such as Sonderaktion (special operation) and Sondermaßnahme (special measure) appear on numerous occasions in original German wartime documents. In a general context of the Second World War, German documents containing the term “special treatment” could have both beneficial as…

Speer, Albert

Albert Speer (19 March 1905 – 1 Sept. 1981) was Germany’s Minister of Armaments and War Production from 8 February 1942 until 30 April 1945. He was indicted during the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal for his extended use of forced laborer in the Third Reich’s various construction and armament projects that he managed. He was…

Springer, Elisa

Elisa Springer (12 Feb. 1918 – 19 Sept. 2004) was an Austrian Jewess who married an Italian and moved to Italy in 1940, living under a false identity. She was betrayed in 1944, arrested and deported to Auschwitz, arriving there in early August. After three months she was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen Camp. She went…

Srebrnik, Szymon

Szymon Srebrnik (10 April 1930 – 16 Aug. 2006) was a Polish Jew who, during an interview with Judge Bednarz on 29 June 1945, claimed that at age 13 he was arrested with his mother and taken to the Chełmno Camp. He is one of only three Chełmno inmates who have testified about their alleged…

Stahlecker Reports

During his time as commander of Einsatzgruppe A since Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union, SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker compiled two extended reports on the structure, personnel and activities of his task force. The first of these so-called Stahlecker Reports covers events and activities since the outbreak of hostilities until and including 15 October 1941….

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