Auschwitz 2007 – Swimming Pool, Soccer Field, Post Office
Most of these facilities can still be seen in the camp today, including the cinema, swimming pool, hospital, library and post office.
Let us hope the schoolchildren visitors are properly taught about the elegant swimming-pool at Auschwitz, built by the inmates, who would sunbathe there on Saturday and Sunday afternoons while watching the water-polo matches; and shown the paintings from its art class, which still exist; and told about the camp library which had some forty-five thousand volumes for inmates to choose from, plus a range of periodicals; and the six camp orchestras at Auschwitz/Birkenau, its theatrical performances, including a children’s opera, the weekly camp cinema, and even the special brothel established there. Let’s hope they are shown postcards written from Auschwitz, some of which still exist, where the postman would collect the mail twice-weekly. Thus the past may not always be quite, as we were told.
– School Trips to Auschwitz
Visits were routine
Supposedly the most dreaded of German camps, Auschwitz was visited monthly by International Red Cross inspection teams who were allowed to speak to prisoner representatives alone, in order to hear first-hand of any mistreatment, chicanery, interruption of mail and parcel delivery, health concerns, food and ration matters etc.
In a 1650 page Red Cross report there was never a mention of gas chambers.
Ernst Zündel is a German Canadian who was put on trial in Canada for questioning the Holocaust. He forced the Red Cross to produce their WWII records, they showed approximately 280,000 total dead for all the camps.
No such visits took place – ever! – to Soviet Gulag camps.
Auschwitz, the supposed “death camp”, had many facilities amongst which were:
Camp dental facilities, attended by camp inmate dentists and nurses to deal with the inmates’ dental problems – before the war there 43% of Germany’s dentists were Jewish.
Camp hospital attended by camp inmate doctors and nurses to deal with the inmates’ health problems. Expert surgeons from the famous Berlin “Charité” Surgical Clinic were dispatched to deal with difficult cases.
Healthcare in Auschwitz: Medical Care and Special Treatment of Registered Inmates
The Auschwitz Camp had sickbays and hospitals where thousands of inmates were cured. Since late 1942, the camp authorities, foremost the garrison physician Dr. Wirths, tried with all conceivable means to keep the Auschwitz inmates alive and healthy.
PDF: http://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/33-hia.pdf
Camp kitchen – one of the largest service buildings in Auschwitz, with state-of-the-art cooking facilities. There were twelve of these throughout the camp.
The caloric content of the diet was carefully monitored by camp and Red Cross delegates. It only deteriorated in Auschwitz and other camps towards the end of the war when German railroads and the entire transport system collapsed under constant aerial attacks.
Camp Orchestras
There were six camp orchestras at Auschwitz/Birkenau alone, one of which contained no less than 100-120 musicians. The Jerusalem Post recorded one inmate’s memory: In 1943, the later Professor Daniel K. was only 10 years old when he participated in the children’s choir – as the Jerusalem Post recorded: “The Chorale (from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony) was… performed by a Jewish children’s choir at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943… I was a member of that choir… I remember my first engagement with culture, with history, and with music – in the camp.”
In March 1944 the Auschwitz inmate Daniel K. became severely ill with diphtheria and was transferred to the camp’s hospital barracks. His mother had asked to be transferred to stay with him in the hospital. After the war he recalled how, “One of the youth leaders of our group … asked to establish an education centre for children. He was given permission, and in a short time the education centre became a spiritual and social centre for the family camp. It was the soul of the camp. Musical and theatrical performances, including a children’s opera, were held at the centre. There were discussions of various ideologies – Zionism, Socialism, Czech nationalism… There was a conductor named Imré… (who) organized the children’s choir. Rehearsals were held in a huge washroom barracks where the acoustics were good…”
The existence of orchestras, not only in Auschwitz but in all other camps, is confirmed by the Enzyklopaedie des Holocaust, p. 979.
A Camp Theatre
On weekends at the camp cinema, mainly cultural and non-political films were shown. One ex-occupant recalled how: “There was a library with newspapers. A violin quartet came to play in the barracks. They even ‘made a movie’ in the camp. Some evenings they brought in German movies…” Theatrical performances, including a children’s opera, were held at the centre, plus a camp theatre, where a rather saucy review was held on Saturdays. Today a convent of Carmelite nuns dwells there. The last pictures taken inside showed pianos and costumes and a stage where the inmates used to put on productions. One ‘survivor’ recalls having been an orchestra musician: “A grand piano was brought into Block 1, and downstairs from it there was the Theatre. The inmates made a stage curtain. They staged plays which were ‘very peaceful,’ and some composed music.” (Source: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive)
A camp cinema – where every week different, mainly cultural and non-political films were shown.
Marc Klein, the French Professor of medicine at the University of Strasbourg, published two recollections of his incarceration at the Auschwitz camp. He first submitted them “to the reading and scrutiny of Robert Weil,” a science professor who had been interned in the same camps, for verification. His account told how, “At a cinema, news movies of the Nazis were presented as well as sentimental movies. There was a rather popular cabaret doing frequent presentations, which were often even visited by SS-staff. Finally, there was a remarkable orchestra, which was manned with Polish musicians during the first time, which later were replaced by a group of first class musicians of all nationalities, the majority of them being Jewish.”
Auschwitz had an artist studio.
“Art in Auschwitz 1940-1945.”
The camp commandant provided a studio and the equipment which produced thousands of paintings and sketches. The Auschwitz museum has 1470 painting, but none are displayed.
A rash of absurd paintings, that were sketched after 1945 are pushed on a gullible public.
A camp library where inmates could borrow books from forty-five thousand volumes available.
Here is an image of the camp library at Dachau:
Camp religious facilities made available on a rotating basis to every denomination for religious services.
Camp sport facilities like soccer fields, handball areas, fencing classes and other exercise facilities.
Auschwitz United: Soccer & gas chambers
“A football pitch, on a big clearing immediately to the right of the road, was particularly welcome. Green turf, the requisite white goalposts, the chalked lines of the field of play — it was all there, inviting, fresh, pristine, in perfect order. This was latched onto straightaway by the boys as well: Look here! A place for us to play soccer after work.”
— Imre Kertész, Hungarian Jew, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Prize winner, on his reaction to first seeing the Auschwitz-Birkenau football pitch in 1944 aged 14 (Kertész, Imre. Fatelessness. Harvil Publishers, London. 2005 (originally 1975 in Hungarian). p.89.
Two Jewish “Holocaust survivors” discuss football at Auschwitz-Monowitz and Gross-Rosen.
The Auschwitz Swimming Pool
In 1947 a Jewish Auschwitz survivor, stated Auschwitz had a swimming pool:
“The working hours were modified on Sundays and holidays, when most of the kommandos were at leisure. Roll call was at around noon; evenings were devoted to rest and to a choice of cultural and sporting activities. Football, basketball, and water-polo matches (in an open-air pool built within the perimeter by detainees) attracted crowds of onlookers. It should be noted that only the very fit and well-fed, exempt from the harsh jobs, could indulge in these games which drew the liveliest applause from the masses of other detainees.” — Marc Klein De l’Université aux camps de concentration: Télmorgnages strasbourgeois, Paris, les Belles-lettres, 1947, p. 453
A wartime detainee and, like M. Klein and R. Weil, a Jew himself, confirmed, in a short testimony written in 1997 entitled “Une Piscine ¦ Auschwitz,” that he saw, in July 1944, dozens of his fellow prisoners busy at work on the said pool which, he pointed out, had “a diving board and an access ladder”; he could have added “along with three starting blocks for races.”
He wrote that towards the end of that month “a newsreel director had some deportees filmed swimming there.” As one might expect, he enlivened his account with the regular stereotypes of the SS men’s or kapos’ brutality and he saw in the making both of the pool and of the film nothing but a propaganda operation. His report ends with two interesting remarks. First, that in 1997 no guide was “aware” of the pool (which nonetheless stands right before the guides’ very eyes and of which a photograph accompanies the article: we read that this picture, showing a swimming pool full of water, was taken in that year) and that the author would like to know just where the newsreel might be today. His question is akin to those put by some revisionists: might the film not be “at the headquarters of the International Red Cross”? Doubtless he meant: at the International Tracing Service (ITS) located at Arolsen-Waldeck in Germany and operating under the direction of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), with headquarters in Geneva. Since 1978, this body has barred revisionists from its archives, which are known to be an exceptionally rich resource. For its part, the Auschwitz State Museum probably possesses documentation relevant to various aspects of this swimming pool’s construction, e.g. the project, the plans, the financing, the requests for and the supply of building materials, the requisition of laborers, the inspection visits.
(Reference for this account: R. Esrail, registration no. 173295, – Une piscine, Auschwitz, in Aprës Auschwitz (Bulletin de l’Amicale des dëportës d’Auschwitz), n 264/octobre 1997, p. 10).
http://rense.com/general24/controversy.htm
Auschwitz museum giving out misinformation about their swimming pool
Camp incentive system where through extra work inmates could obtain coupons redeemable for cake or ice cream in the Camp Cantina, which also had extra toiletries etc.
Camp Post Office with twice weekly pick-ups and deliveries.
Letters to and from the outside world were collected twice weekly. One postcard sent from Auschwitz dated 18 February 1942 by Johann Klausa expressed the hope that his family is in good health and that they will write to him – he was eventually released from the camp, on 27 November 1943. Considering that Klausa arrived in the camp on 25 June 1940, he sounds rather cheerful! Another source recalled that twice a month they could write home, once with a postcard (Source: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive ).
If you are gassing people – Do you let them write letters?
Camp complaints office where inmates could register complaints or make suggestions. Camp Commander Hoess had a standing order that any inmate could approach him personally to register a complaint about other inmates such as “Kapos” and even guards. A system of strict discipline for guards and also for inmates, with severe punishment being handed out against those found guilty.
Auschwitz marriages took place because worker inmates fell in love and married their inmate partners.
Auschwitz maternity ward
Over 3,000 live births were registered there, with not a single infant death while Auschwitz was in operation under German rule.
* Auschwitz pregnancies took place because of the open nature of the facility.
It was a regular occurrence for children to be born in the camp. The fiendish Nazis even set up a nursery for the children….even though it is always claimed that they just wanted to murder everyone.
These two photos are from Dachau:
Auschwitz Jail
Since the camp was a large, open facility, transgressors could be arrested, tried and jailed right in Auschwitz.
Auschwitz Crematoria
These structures were hastily built by inmate labour after the first typhus epidemic caused thousands of deaths. Burial of epidemic victims had caused the ground water to be contaminated causing infections among the German staff. Amongst the victims was an early camp commandant’s wife. Polish peasants from the surrounding district were also cremated here.
PHOTOS SHOWING HEALTHY CAMP INMATES
When the Soviet Army approached Auschwitz in January 1945 the Germans brought along the prisoners who were fit to work and were considered strong enough to withstand the harsh journey. The first 80 km had to be covered on foot to reach the nearest station that could be used to evacuation to Germany. The picture below shows how well-fed and healthy even the sick and weak prisoners were in Auschwitz in January 1945. Photo by Soviets when they captured the camp.
Some of the 5,800 Birkenau survivors, most of whom look like well-fed Polish peasants. The tall, skinny guy wearing an arm band is Dr. Otto Wolken, a medical doctor in the Birkenau Quarantine camp, who stayed behind to help his fellow prisoners when the Birkenau camp was evacuated.
Healthy-looking children during the Soviet takeover of Auschwitz.
(The Soviets shot their propaganda footage sometime after they took over the camps. It was the Soviets who dressed the children in the striped prisoner jackets, which they had never worn them prior to that.)
Why were so many ‘Holocaust survivors’ so well-fed?
These photos showing healthy camp inmates stand in total contradiction to the death camp narrative.
