Auschwitz plans found

[SteveF]

http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk186/geosteve/auschwitz_1110632c.jpg

The 28 yellowing blueprints show an 11.66 metre by 11.20 metre room marked "Gaskammer" (gas chamber). The plans also include a crematorium and a room marked "L. Keller" - an abbreviation for "Leichenkeller", or corpse cellar.

Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the federal archives office in Berlin, told Bild that the blueprints offered "authentic evidence of the systematically planned genocide of European Jews".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/3411647/Auschwitz-plans-found-in-Berlin-flat.html

[SteveF]

But see this article in the Jerusalem Post suggesting that maybe these aren't brand new discoveries:

Historian Robert Jan van Pelt, an expert on Auschwitz, said he had checked the "so-called 'new' material" on the Web site of Bild, a high-circulation daily, and found that "the drawings that are on their site are all old material, perfectly known" and published by himself and others in the 1990s.

"If they are original drawings from which blueprints were made, this would be an interesting story," van Pelt, a professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, told JTA in a telephone interview. But, he said, there were "tons of such drawings in 300 boxes at Auschwitz ... copies of the originals." Some were found in the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and published by van Pelt and others.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1225910081954&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Rathpig]

The Jerusalem Post (Robert Jan van Pelt) But "it is completely and utterly incomprehensible" that the director of the national archive would "open his mouth on something so sensitive without having consulted the literature." And when the Bild publishes this "without doing any homework, it puts us back 20 years. It's as if we didn't publish these documents already."

This is one example of why journalists are often bad for historical knowledge. Another copy of something known to exist is not "news"; therefore it is necessary through either ignorance or sensationalism to present these documents as a new chapter in the story. It would require actual work to write a similar story in context of the earlier knowledge. These documents are important for what they represent, but they are not important simply because they were discovered.

[DMB]

I don't suppose we can tell what they actually are until more details are released. If they did have annotations by Himmler, I imagine they would be of considerable interest.

[Preno]

I can't believe you guys fell for this Jewish forgery again.

[GenesisNemesis]

I can't believe you guys fell for this Jewish forgery again.

I don't know you that well (hey, it's the Internet!) but I do hope you're kidding. :o

[Rathpig]

I can't believe you guys fell for this Jewish forgery again.

Unfortunately this type of reaction is a real concern for scholars when reporters and even their academic contacts are so sloppy in their presentation.

[osmanthus]

The Islamic world is absolutely full of Holocaust denial. I'll bet that rumour is doing the rounds already.

[Rathpig]

The Islamic world is absolutely full of Holocaust denial. I'll bet that rumour is doing the rounds already.

If I had to speculate, I think the scholarly indignation was probably aimed in this direction. Western Holocaust denial is very marginalized and wouldn't present much reason to make a rebuttal. It just isn't political well suited to one's career to draw too specific a target especially when that target is Muslim. This is especially true for people who have to work and research in Europe as any scholar of the period would.

For the press to present this as "new" when it is merely a copy of known plans could be seen as feeding the Islamic revisionist effort.

[osmanthus]

Hmmmm. Possibly. I was thinking more that calling them Jewish forgeries would be the knee jerk reaction even if they were originals with Himmler's sig on them. IOW, it wouldn't matter how they were presented or what they were.

[Febble]

Well, that looks to me like a drawing rather than a blueprint.

Blueprints are, well, blue, or were. And if they were on some other kind of light sensitive paper, I'd expect them to be yellower still by now (mine are, and they are only twenty years old).

[osmanthus]

Well, that looks to me like a drawing rather than a blueprint.

Blueprints are, well, blue, or were. And if they were on some other kind of light sensitive paper, I'd expect them to be yellower still by now (mine are, and they are only twenty years old).
Hey I thought you were older than that.:D

[Febble]

Well, that looks to me like a drawing rather than a blueprint.

Blueprints are, well, blue, or were. And if they were on some other kind of light sensitive paper, I'd expect them to be yellower still by now (mine are, and they are only twenty years old).
Hey I thought you were older than that.:D

I am, but my plans aren't.

[Rathpig]

Hmmmm. Possibly. I was thinking more that calling them Jewish forgeries would be the knee jerk reaction even if they were originals with Himmler's sig on them. IOW, it wouldn't matter how they were presented or what they were.

This is true from the standpoint of the deniers, I think the historian quoted was equally concerned with how sloppy this was from a professional standpoint. I know I would share this concern. It is bad enough that the deniers, especially the organized deniers such as Iran, wouldn't need much counter-evidence, but being able to point to the sloppy work of journalists and historians makes their denial that much easier.