42 "Holocaust" authors claim that the Nazis were able to cremate bodies
in about 10 minutes. How long does it take to incinerate one body, according to
professional crematory operators?

Ernst Zündel Replies:
Rebuttal # 42:

I have done extensive research to inform myself first-hand on that question.
Have you?

I started my research by consulting one of Toronto's most
modern crematories, then went on to study the entire history of cremation
through the ages. I consulted especially the Encyclopedia Brittanica, going back
over 120 years relating to the evolution of cremation.

I next obtained
copies of all the German patents of crematory equipment and ovens - pre-war,
wartime and post-war - in preparation for my trials.

Here is the story of
the concentration crematories:

Most crematories, even today, still
require 2 1/2 to 3 hours for the entire process. The size of the body, the type
of container that holds the body, and the type of crematory affect the cremation
time, depending on the efficiency of the furnace, moisture content, bulk, weight
and size of the cadaver to be cremated.

Additionally, speed of cremation
depends on such things as necessary cooling-down periods for the actual oven,
called a retort, between individual cremations, rebuilding and re-bricking of
crematoria, breaking-in periods of new crematoria etc.

One important
point is that if a corpse is prematurely inserted into an improperly cooled-down
retort, the body will literally explode from the intense heat and damage the
very fragile, special refractory brick, causing the shut-down of the entire
crematorium.

In other words, the entire crematoria story stands and
falls on technology. And here it is important to note that the cremation
technology in the 1940s was virtually the same as it is today.

Nizkor
claims that ". . . more recently, the Holocaust-deniers have begun to rely on
the testimony of Ivan Lagace, who apparently said at the Zundel trial and later
in print that it takes six to eight hours per body. . . "

Lagace said no such thing. Lagace gave highly expert testimony.
Lagace had overseen the burial or cremation of 10,000 corpses in his career as
the director of the Calgary, Alberta crematorium. Nizkor should have started
with Lagace, whose testimony, summarized precisely, can be found at http://www.webcom.com/ezunde/english/dsmrd/dsmrd26lagace.html

As
stated before, Carlo Mattagno of Italy has compiled an extensive bibliography
which is available to anybody serious about finding answers to highly technical
questions pertaining to cremation. Additionally, anybody interested in this
macabre topic should go to the trouble of consulting any good Encyclopedia or
the local crematory in their city or region. They will be in for an awakening
and be shocked how they have been lied to by the Holocaust propagandists.

This rebuttal is not the place to cite such information extensively, but
it is available and can be checked and double-checked for all those truly
interested. Write to Granata Publishing, P.O. Box 2145, Palos Verdes, CA
90274.

Below, I will just quote a few passages to give Nizkor a feel for
the core and substance of the argument, as taken from "The Crematories of
Auschwitz" by Carlo Mattagno, a 1995 copyrighted Granata publication.

Here is Mattagno, in his own words, speaking of Auschwitz-Birkenau in
his rebuttal of the Pressac claims:

". . . if, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, there really had been a mass
extermination of Jews and others whose bodies were cremated, then the weapon
of the crime, the homicidal gas chamber, must have had an indispensable
accessory, namely the crematory oven.

After long years of research in
German libraries, we have collected an extensive bibliography comprising
practically all of the technical articles concerning cremation that appeared
in Germany from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Moreover, in the archives
of the Auschwitz State Museum in Poland, we examined photocopies of
unpublished documents from the Moscow archives concerning the crematory ovens
manufactured during the war by the Topf Company of Erfurt, Germany.

In addition, we made on-site studies of the Topf crematory ovens still
in existence at the concentration camps of Dachau, Mauthausen, Gussen and
Buchenwald.

We also studied the crematory ovens made by the Kori
company of Berlin at the concentration camps at Dachau, Mauthausen and
Majdanek . . .

The demonstrative procedures and conclusions of this
work have been examined by a group of German engineers who have confirmed
their scientific value.

A scientific study. . . must confront and
resolve two fundamental thermal-technical problems: cremation capacity and
coke consumption.

The Topf ovens at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were
designed and constructed to hold one corpse at a time, required an average of
approximately one hour to cremate each corpse. In fact, because of their
limited heat potential, it was not economically feasible to cremate two or
more bodies together, from the point of view both of duration and of coke
consumption.

A simultaneous cremation . . . was therefore
thermo-technically impossible."

Furthermore,

". . . practical considerations significantly lower the
actual cremation capacity. First, proper functioning of the ovens requires a
break of at least four hours each day to clean coke slag from the furnace
grilles.

Second, the ovens were programmed to function for twelve hours
per day.

Moreover, past experience with the two-chambered ovens at the
Auschwitz main camp crematory had shown that these installations wore out
rapidly and were subject to frequent breakdowns.

Therefore, they could
not have been expected to function continuously, or to be better than other
ovens of that era."

Additionally, to come back to the claim made in previous Q/As regarding
burning of bodies in pits,

". . . the aerial photographs. . . do not show the least indication of
this alleged mass extermination. No smoke, no cremation pits (burning or not),
no traces of the earth that would have to have been dug out of the pits; no
piles of wood to fuel the pits; no traces of vehicles, or of any activity in
the critical zone . . . These photographs provide irrefutable proof that the
story (is) historically unfounded."

Mattagno concludes:

I have done extensive research to inform
myself first-hand on that question. Have you?

I started my research by
consulting one of Toronto's most modern crematories, then went on to study the
entire history of cremation through the ages. I consulted especially the
Encyclopedia Brittanica, going back over 120 years relating to the evolution of
cremation.

I next obtained copies of all the German patents of crematory
equipment and ovens - pre-war, wartime and post-war - in preparation for my
trials.

Here is the story of the concentration crematories:

Most
crematories, even today, still require 2 1/2 to 3 hours for the entire process.
The size of the body, the type of container that holds the body, and the type of
crematory affect the cremation time, depending on the efficiency of the furnace,
moisture content, bulk, weight and size of the cadaver to be cremated.

Additionally, speed of cremation depends on such things as necessary
cooling-down periods for the actual oven, called a retort, between individual
cremations, rebuilding and re-bricking of crematoria, breaking-in periods of new
crematoria etc.

One important point is that if a corpse is prematurely
inserted into an improperly cooled-down retort, the body will literally explode
from the intense heat and damage the very fragile, special refractory brick,
causing the shut-down of the entire crematorium.

In other words, the
entire crematoria story stands and falls on technology. And here it is important
to note that the cremation technology in the 1940s was virtually the same as it
is today.

Nizkor claims that ". . . more recently, the Holocaust-deniers
have begun to rely on the testimony of Ivan Lagace, who apparently said at the
Zundel trial and later in print that it takes six to eight hours per body. . .
"

Lagace said no such thing. Lagace gave highly expert testimony. Lagace
had overseen the burial or cremation of 10,000 corpses in his career as the
director of the Calgary, Alberta crematorium. Nizkor should have started with
Lagace, whose testimony, summarized precisely, can be found at
http://www.webcom.com/ezunde/english/dsmrd/dsmrd26lagace.html.

As stated
before, Carlo Mattagno of Italy has compiled an extensive bibliography which is
available to anybody serious about finding answers to highly technical questions
pertaining to cremation. Additionally, anybody interested in this macabre topic
should go to the trouble of consulting any good Encyclopedia or the local
crematory in their city or region. They will be in for an awakening and be
shocked how they have been lied to by the Holocaust propagandists.

This
rebuttal is not the place to cite such information extensively, but it is
available and can be checked and double-checked for all those truly interested.
Write to Granata Publishing, P.O. Box 2145, Palos Verdes, CA
90274.

Below, I will just quote a few passages to give Nizkor a feel for
the core and substance of the argument, as taken from "The Crematories of
Auschwitz" by Carlo Mattagno, a 1995 copyrighted Granata publication.

Here is Mattagno, in his own words, speaking of Auschwitz-Birkenau in
his rebuttal of the Pressac claims:

". . . if, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, there really had been a mass
extermination of Jews and others whose bodies were cremated, then the weapon
of the crime, the homicidal gas chamber, must have had an indispensable
accessory, namely the crematory oven.

After long years of research in
German libraries, we have collected an extensive bibliography comprising
practically all of the technical articles concerning cremation that appeared
in Germany from the 1920s through the 1940s.

Moreover, in the archives
of the Auschwitz State Museum in Poland, we examined photocopies of
unpublished documents from the Moscow archives concerning the crematory ovens
manufactured during the war by the Topf Company of Erfurt, Germany.

In
addition, we made on-site studies of the Topf crematory ovens still in
existence at the concentration camps of Dachau, Mauthausen, Gussen and
Buchenwald.

We also studied the crematory ovens made by the Kori
company of Berlin at the concentration camps at Dachau, Mauthausen and
Majdanek . . .

The demonstrative procedures and conclusions of this
work have been examined by a group of German engineers who have confirmed
their scientific value.

A scientific study. . . must confront and
resolve two fundamental thermal-technical problems: cremation capacity and
coke consumption.

The Topf ovens at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which were
designed and constructed to hold one corpse at a time, required an average of
approximately one hour to cremate each corpse. In fact, because of their
limited heat potential, it was not economically feasible to cremate two or
more bodies together, from the point of view both of duration and of coke
consumption.

A simultaneous cremation . . . was therefore
thermo-technically impossible."

Furthermore,

". . . practical considerations significantly lower the actual
cremation capacity. First, proper functioning of the ovens requires a break of
at least four hours each day to clean coke slag from the furnace
grilles.

Second, the ovens were programmed to function for twelve hours
per day.

Moreover, past experience with the two-chambered ovens at the
Auschwitz main camp crematory had shown that these installations wore out
rapidly and were subject to frequent breakdowns.

Therefore, they could
not have been expected to function continuously, or to be better than other
ovens of that era."

Additionally, to come back to the claim made in previous Q/As regarding
burning of bodies in pits,

". . . the aerial photographs. . . do not show the least indication of
this alleged mass extermination. No smoke, no cremation pits (burning or not),
no traces of the earth that would have to have been dug out of the pits; no
piles of wood to fuel the pits; no traces of vehicles, or of any activity in
the critical zone . . . These photographs provide irrefutable proof that the
story (is) historically unfounded."

Mattagno concludes:

". . . in case of discrepancy between testimony and physical evidence,
it is physical evidence that should prevail. . . technical reality and
physical evidence show the material impossibility of a mass extermination at
Auschwitz-Birkenau."

In summary, what Nizkor so glibly and irresponsibly believes is
technically possible to prop up the faltering "Nazi Holocaust Mass Murder"
claims is simply not borne out by knowledge about the functioning of crematoria
- then or now.

In summary, what Nizkor so glibly and irresponsibly
believes is technically possible to prop up the faltering "Nazi Holocaust Mass
Murder" claims is simply not borne out by knowledge about the functioning of
crematoria - then or now.