The Holocaust Historiography Project

Contest Winners, October 31, 2004

Holocaust Historiography Project is proud to announce the winners of the 1st Annual David McCalden Most Macabre Halloween Holocaust Tale Challenge, which ended October 30, 2004.

Each submission is an example of the horror cult that has grown up around the Holocaust. Of course, these laughably absurd tales are believed by none but the most extreme, ideologically-driven fanatics. Unfortunately, lesser tales still walk among the living, on nights other than Halloween, finding victims among the credulous.

These less extreme tales are still promoted by professors of Holocaustology, by Holocaust propagandists, and by flim-flam artists out to con the gullible. So, as we announce the award-winning entrants, we tip our hat to the memory David McCalden, a man who with simple straightforward skepticism worked to demolish these ugly myths.

Congratulations to one and all!

First Place — $200.00

Scores of Mengele’s guinea pigs died at this stage, many of them from a particularly bizarre experiment in which the blood supplies of different pairs of twins were interchanged. The results of one of these experiments were graphically described by a witness, Vera Alexander.

“One day Mengele brought chocolate and special clothes. The next day, SS men came and took two children away. They were two of my pets, Tito and Nino. One of them was a hunchback. Two or three days later, an SS man brought them back in a terrible state. They had been cut. The hunchback was sewn to the other child, back to back, their wrists back to back too. There was a terrible smell of gangrene. The cuts were dirty and the children cried every night.”

Source: Mengele: The Complete Story, by Gerald L. Posner and John Ware, (London: Futura paperback, 1987 edition), p. 37, and referenced in the notes from Vera Alexander interviewed by Central Television (London) for Home Box Office production, “The Search for Mengele,” October 1985.

Submitted by Alistair McConnachie (Sovereignty)

Second Place — $50.00

During his interrogation at the investigations leading to the infamous Auschwitz Trial, witness Adolf Rögner said about a member of the camp Gestapo:

“In interrogations, Unterscharführer Quackernack Walter […] used torture by crucifixion, stabbing the testicles with steel needles and burning tampons in the vagina.”

Source: Staatsanwaltschaft beim LG Frankfurt (Main), Strafsache beim Schwurgericht Frankfurt (Main) gegen Baer und Andere wegen Mordes, ref. 4 Js 444/59, vol. I., p. 65. See www.vho.org/VffG/2002/4/Image75.gif

Stuttgart public prosecutor Weber described Rögner several times as a “glory-seeking psychopath.” (p. 7), a “contradictory and psychopathic professional criminal,” (p. 106r, p. 85r).

In a letter on April 9, 1958, the prison administration in Bruchsal, where Rögner spent his sentence for several crimes, wrote to chief prosecutor for district I in Munich as follows with respect to the prisoner Rögner: (pp. 24-26)

  1. Rögner had served a term of imprisonment for fraud and attempted fraud;
  2. he had been sentenced to imprisonment during the Third Reich for criminal deeds and part of the term was spent in concentration camps;
  3. he filed “numerous, ungrounded complaints” against authorities, is “quarrelsome,” “eastern oriented” and will emigrate to Poland when he is released, sees himself as a “star witness in a series of great concentration camp trials";
  4. he resists official rules, constantly demands exceptions for himself, attempts to use his knowledge of concentration camps to lighten his punishment and pursues “obscure goals.”

On August 14, 1958, prosecutor Schabel wrote to the Baden-Württemberg Minister of Justice concerning the transcript of the decision of the Land Court Munich: (p. 39)

“[…] which shows that Rögner as the prosecution witness in trials against concentration camp personnel has obviously lied for reasons of hatred and revenge.

“Rögner was therefore sentenced to a prison term of 3 years and 6 months — although the sentence is not yet valid. […it became valid shortly after] In addition, Rögner’s right to testify as a witness or expert in a trial has been revoked permanently.”

Here you have a star witness.

Another statement from Rögner (Interrogation of Nov. 4, 1958, vol. 2, pp. 247-261):

“Therefore I kept myself hidden behind a big tree and watched what was happening [Remark: There were no trees at the Birkenau camp]. Then I saw how [SS man] Boger went off to the side with a Jewish girl about 15 years old who had just come in on the last transport. […] When Boger and the girl were about 150 m. from his other colleagues — I myself was about 15-20 m. from the scene of the incident — Boger spoke to the girl and right afterward hit her powerfully, causing her to fall to the ground unconscious. I could not understand what Boger said to the girl, but I assume that he wanted to use the girl for sexual purposes. After the girl had been stricken unconscious, Boger could no longer accomplish his shameful purpose, because the selection commando had come closer in the meantime and he would be afraid to be seen. Boger had torn some of the clothing from the girl’s body, and some of it he had cut off with his pocket knife — or maybe it was a stiletto. After the girl was stripped down to her underclothes and stockings […]. Then he drew his pistol and shot the girl once each in the left and right breast. Then he stuck the pistol barrel in the girl’s genitals and fired one more shot.”

Rögner was the key witness to start the Auschwitz investigations! He also was a member of the Auschwitz “camp partisans,” together with Bruno Baum (who confessed to his propaganda activity), Hermann Langbein (head of the Int. Auschwitz Comité), and K. Smolen (Polish Auschwitz propagandist), to name only a few.

Submitted by Germar Rudolf (VHO)

Honorable mention

That day the blinding artificial lights were turned off in the courtroom, plunging it almost into darkness. In the wavering dim light the witness-box was occupied by corpses …

The art of the courageous Soviet documentary film makers (some of whom are no longer alive) resurrected these corpses and brought them into the courtroom. It was as if they had risen from the grave and were hurling indisputable evidence in the defendant’s faces….

A bluish light flashed in the darkness, a beam of light cut across the court-room and the following text appeared on the screen: “Documentary Film Evidence on the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders.” A documentary film presented by the Chief Prosecutor from the USSR. … [Transcription note: Filmed movie takes and stills of several other camps follow]

“Danzig, a room in the Technological Institute, where the methods and technology for the industrial utilization of human bodies were elaborated,” droned the commentator’s voice in the earphones.

We already knew about this. We had seen the exhibits and outputs of this factory in court. Yet, it was still dreadful. You felt like closing your eyes tightly, jumping up and running out of the courtroom. But you had to pass through all the circles of this hell on earth, peer into the very heart of nazism and find out absolutely everything that it had brought mankind.

We saw a basement, again full of corpses that were stacked in neat piles like raw material in factory warehouses. In fact, this really was raw material graded according to the fat content. Severed heads were lying separately in a corner. They were waste material, unsuitable for soapmaking, or perhaps nazi science had failed to keep pace with the requirements of life and had still not found a way of industrially utilizing them. Then we saw dismembered human bodies that had been piled into vats to be boiled in an alkaline solution….

Boris Polevoi, The Final Reckoning: Nuremberg Diaries, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978 (English Edition), pp. 108-184

Submitted by a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous.