The Evidence - YOU DECIDE!

On the 19th July 1996, Bernard Freedman, who writes the 'Canberra File' in the Australian Jewish News had an item headlined, "New Crude Attempt at a Holocaust Denial". He wrote, "Holocaust denial is not new but a new, crude, Australian-made attempt is now in circulation. It takes the form of an open letter Prime Minister John Howard, by someone calling himself Alexander McClelland and claiming to be secretary of the small Fortress Association of ex-POWs of Terezin Concentration Camp."

Would Bernard Freedman call the following crude Australian attempts?


• The Australian 9th Division that held Tobruk against Rommel's attacks?
• The Australian 9th Division who led the successful attack in the battle of El Alamein, in which one third of all the casualties were Australian ?
• The Australians of 2/1 and 2/11 Battalion, that successfully defended Rethymon on Crete. Unfortunately the English troops evacuated Heraklion and Chania leaving the Australians, under the command of Colonel Ian Campbell to fight on. UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill had promised the Australian Prime Minister that the Rethymon force would be taken off at Agia Galina, an impossible promise.

Lt. Davies (Australian) was awarded the George Cross for being in charge of a bomb disposal unit which diffused a one ton bomb, which could have destroyed St Pauls Cathedral in London during the Blitz. Over 8,000 Australian Air Force members, and in all 11,544 Australian Volunteers lost their lives fighting Nazi Germany so that democracy might survive.

It is obvious that Bernard Freedman seems to be unaware of Australian sacrifices in the European theatre of WW11. Where was he at that the time in history?

On the 10th February 1995 Bernard Freedman claimed, "There was a self-evident double standard, in the implication that Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors could not be believed", unlike the cruelty and privations suffered by Australian POWs in Japanese hands in Changi and other POW camps on the Burma railway.

Bernard Freedman, it is quite simple. The facts are that Australian servicemen claimed that they were beaten and starved, and that some were beheaded. By cross checking survivors' stories these allegations were proven to be correct. Where as Jewish survivors had countless, very dubious, stories of Nazi brutality, which I have found upon checking to not be irrefutable, mostly just pure fiction.

AUSTRALIANS AWAKE TO THE FACTS

Berek Lewcoicz of Melbourne, in the book Unsung Heroes and Heroines published by the Australian Bicentenial authority in 1988, claimed the most remarkable story. He claimed to be one of only two Jewish male survivors of the 4,000 men in the notorious Small Fortress of Terezin Concentration camp in 1945. From his other numerous claims it is obvious that he was never in the small Fortress at all.

Dr Ernest Morgan of Sydney, in the Australian of the 24th January 1995 claimed to have touched a gas chamber wall while it was working at Auschwitz.Yet the alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz were underground. So he had to be inside to put his hand on the wall when it was working. It certainly was a miracle for him to survive.

Dr Sammuel Pisar, who lived in Melbourne for 5 years after WWII, and is now a leading international lawyer, is the 'Gold Medal' winner of Auschwitz. In the European, weekend edition of 25/27 1990 he claimed, "I am the youngest survivor of Auschwitz." How does he explain the photographs of small children , some so small they had to be carried, being liberated by the Russians in January 1945? Does he wish the world to believe that all the other so called Holocaust victims are lying? He was made an honorary member of the Order of Australia.

Misha in a book published in America called Company of Wolves claims to have been just seven years old when she trekked 5,000km across eight Nazi-occupied countries, trying to find her parents, 'victims of the Holocaust. When humans deserted her the company of wolves kept her alive, 'I never remember being hungry with the wolves. I bathed with them, slept with them, ate with them and even howled at the moon with them'. Disney studios have snapped up the rights to make a film of this remarkable story - who else?

On 23rd April 1997 The Times noted that the Nazi camp orchestra leader , Herbert Zipper had died. He had formed a secret orchestra in Dachua Concentration camp which entertained prisoners on Sundays in the prison grounds. The conductor was moved to Buchenwald Concentration camp where he was rescued by his family.

Gerald Green is author of the book Holocaust , which he classified as fiction, from which an eight hour film was made about the holocaust. In his second book, Artists of Terezin, which he classified as non-fiction, he claims that the SS evacuated the Auschwitz on 18th January 1945. The SS Command in Berlin ordered the general evacuation of Auschwitz as Russian guns thundered in the distance. But on 5th March 1945, 46 days later the Terezin camp Jews were killed by gassing and cremated. This mass murder was evidently carried out 35 days after the Russians had liberated Auschwitz on 27th January 1945. He made many other absurd claims.

Dr Miklos Nyiszlis' book is called Auschwitz. A Hungarian, he did medical pathology at Crematorium No 2 at Auschwitz. Amongst his numerous claims was that 20,000 Jewish men and 20,000 Jewish women and children , all from the Terezin Concentration camp, were gassed and cremated early in November 1944. The whole camp was evacuated by 1.00 am on 18th January 1945. The last SS left the camp. He closed the iron gates and cut off the lights from the main switchboard which was located near the entrance. He had arrived at Auschwitz from Hungary in mid-March 1944 with his wife and daughter. After describing ghastly, goulish doings he witnessed there, at Crematorium No 2, he says, on the last page "One afternoon after my return to my home in Hungary the doorbell roused me from my daydreams. Before I could get up to answer it my wife and daughter burst in to the room. They were in good health and had just been freed from Bergen Belsen, one of the most notorious extermination camps." Three people forced into the nazi death camps. All three people survive Nazi death camps in good health. Another miracle!

Eva Stonim and Marta Wise-Eva were 13 and 10 when they arrived at Auschwitz. (This article in the Australian dated 24th January 1995 was written by Konrad Kwiet. He is a Professor of German studies at Macquarie University, Deputy Director of the centre for Comparative Genocide Studies and a former Chief Historian of the Australian War Crime Commission.) After many unbelievable incidents the Russians arrived. Stonim and Wise-Eva fled from Auschwitz travelling by goods trains and trucks for 18days and nights, begging for food, back to Czechoslovakia, where they re-united with their parents. "Just as we were approaching the gate of our house we saw my father and my brother walking home from the Synagogue. Mother, father, two sisters and brother - five people. Despite the horrors of Auschwitz death camp five out of five survived - another miracle.

David Watt's book stoker, put together by Dorian Wild, is the "true story of an Australian soldier who stoked the furnaces at Auschwitz"(Crematorium No. 2, the same Crematorium as Dr Miklos Nyiszlis). The claims in this book are the most horrific and fantastic Holocaust books. I covered it in detail in the last press statement before leaving Australia in April 1997. The Australian Jewish News did not want to have anything to do with this book. After reading Stoker it is easy to see why. How could Dorian Wild John Saunders, founder of the Sydney Jewish Museum, have anything to do with it either?

There are many more examples of claims in 'Stoker' that are impossible for me and other concentration camp veterans to believe. Most of Watt's claims range from absurd to ridiculous, yet they have been accepted as 'revelations' about the Holocaust. They include the claim that German guards habitually cut off the penises of Jewish prisoners, that prisoners were regularly thrown into furnaces alive, and babies were torn apart.

On page 160 Watt says he was interviewed by Rear-Admiral Neil Ralph, chairman of the Concentration Camps Committee. Watt notes, 'He was after the sort of information that only someone who had actually been in Auschwitz would know about'. If our Australian authorities were prepared to accept Watt's contradictory evidence, it proves how easily misled we have been about this whole issue. I thought 1995 was the Year of Tolerance, not for promoting racial hatred against the Germans for hideous acts which were never committed. 1996 is the time for facts, not fiction.

But Watt and the Australian film-making team are by no means alone in wishing to 'find' new atrocities which never occurred. Many works considered authoritative can be easily demonstrated to be contradictory and full of untruths. Yet they are never criticised in public, because they are part of the untouchable Holocaust mythology.

AMONG THESE BOOKS ARE:

Gerald Green, "Holocaust". Gerald Green's publishers themselves described this as a work of fiction (see author's list from 'Artists of Terezin'). Yet the eight-hour film version of this book was presented to the public as 'the true story', as though it was a documentary.

Gerald Green, "Artists of Terezin". Allegedly, non-fiction, but the author's comments are full of errors and lies.

Dr Miklos Nyiszli, "Auschwitz". This claims to be "an eye-witness account of the atrocities committed inside the most terrible of Nazi death camps."

It is undeniable that tens of thousands of Jews dies at Terezin and equal or greater numbers at other concentration camps. It is also true that typhus was rampant in a population chronically under-nourished, with very poor hygiene, and cramped conditions. The death toll from typhus has been almost completely ignored as a cause of the bodies which went into the crematoria in concentration camps.

In the book, "Artists of Terazin" by Gerald Green there is not a single mention in any drawing or poem of gas chambers. The poems refer to terror of death - but due to typhus, not the Germans. For example, this poem 'Fear' on page 172 - 'Now children choke and die with typhus here, a bitter tax is taken from their bands.' The fact is there were NO gas chambers at Terezin. Despite this, Green twice (p 68, 84) refers specifically to people being dragged off to the gas chambers, and states throughout the book that the Germans' sole intent was to murder their prisoners. For example, on page 26, Green asserts,'..I am persuaded that the generative force of Nazism, the very core of their movement, was the killing of Jews. All other aspects of Nazism - employment, rearmament, world domination, Aryan supremacy - all these were secondary, and grew out of the compulsion to murder.'

Contradicting himself, on page 32 Green himself admits that the huge number of deaths were not due to murder. 'There was no planned program of extermination at Terezin…But 33,430 prisoners died there - of starvation, beatings, disease, exhaustion. Almost one quarter of all who were interned!'

The book "Ghetto Theresienstadt", by Zedic Lederer published in 1963, was Green's source on the 33,647 deaths at Terezin. It contains detailed lists of the ghetto populations as well as their causes of death. An analysis of the figures shows that at any time between July 1942 and April 1945, more than 58 per cent were over 61 years and more than 50 percent were over 66.

On page 88 of "Artists of Terezin" Green claims that of 15,000 children who passed through the camp, only 150 survived. Similar claims have been made elsewhere. But the official figures published in Lederer's book (p 263) show that at 30 April 1945 (two days before International Red Cross took over) there were 815 boys and 796 girls under 15 years, a total of 1611. This compares to the maximum at the end of 1942 of 1787 boys and 1708 girls.

This is another example of the exaggeration which has gone down as fact in respected and frequently quoted books. Photographs of the children at Terezin on the day of liberation by the Soviets show them with legs over the windowsills. They are clothed, wearing boots, and appear to be in good condition.

In his book "Auschwitz", Nyiszli claims (p48) that people in the gas chambers were killed within five minutes. Elsewhere he claims it took 20 minutes. Nyiszli also claims that the International Red Cross actively assisted the slaughter. See page 48,"For every convoy it was the same story. Red Cross cars brought the gas from outside.'

Nyiszli, his wife and daughter were all taken to Auschwitz where, according to some accounts, virtually everyone was killed. On arrival they were separated. He hints at the truth on the last page of his book when he describes his reunion with his wife and daughter. "They were in good health and had just been released from Bergen-Belsen, one of the most notorious of the extermination camps." In short, three out of three survived the worst Nazi death camps.

There is a remarkable consistency in the wild claims made by these books. Perhaps the reason is not that authors like Watt are recounting their experiences, but that they are regurgitating what they have read - with even more dramatic detail to ensure readers and publicity.

In "The Artists of Terezin" (p123) Green notes that on 18 January 1945, "the SS command in Berlin ordered a general evacuation of Auschwitz". However, on page 30 Green claimed "on March 5, 1945, the SS Commandant of Birkenau advised the Terezin Jews to prepare for transfer to a new camp called Heydebreck." Green says there was no such place - and the Jews were really sent to gas chambers. "They all perished. Some battled the guards with bare hands and had to be driven to their death. They died singing Hatikvah."

In fact Auschwitz was occupied by the Russians on 27 January 1945. So the slaughter of Jews claimed by Green occurred 37 days after they were liberated! Green claims the Jews were given post cards, which they dated March 25, to send their relatives in Terazin. He then claims that two more groups of Jews were shipped from Terazin to Birkenau and "systematically exterminated". If so, they must have been killed by the Russians.

The examples that I have listed here are only a small sample of the fraudulent claims that my research has exposed. I am appalled when I see the faces of children, after they have been exposed to these gruesome and hateful lies.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PAST AND THE FUTURE

is that you cannot change the past. But I believe, as Ian McKierman (a fellow Australian, a solo yachtsman who became the founder of the 'Clean Up The World' campaign) does, that the individual can make the difference in his own community. His initial effort is now a global co-operation programme.

I started in Crete at a rat control programme, which was very successful with the four legged species which spreads numerous diseases. The "Athens News" headlined my efforts 'The Pied Piper of Crete".

I now turn my attention to the two legged species which are much more dangerous. The spreading of racial hatred, particularly when they force feed their evil message, claiming it to be historical truth, through the local libraries and school libraries.

There would be a queue of volunteers a mile long to punish a person who put poison in children's school lunch. I personally cannot see the difference between such a poisoner, and those who poison the brains of children and parents with racial hatred.

The reason I write this book is to open the eyes of my fellow Australians to the fact that, unknown to them, our country Australia has become the number one country in the world promoting racial hatred, via the documentary, originally called "The Greatest Nazi Hoax", later changed to "Where Death Wears a Smile", "which successfully Australianised the Holocaust" world-wide, and the book Stoker. Both were conceived by people claiming to be Australians. Who are these people? I call them traitors to the Australian way of life.

I believe they are covered by Ciceros' assessment of the Traitor: "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely. His sly whispers rustle through the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself."

"For the traitor appears not as a traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of society; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared."

As a matter of interest, in 1994 I approached five school masters, or principals, in the Hunter Valley , where I was born and went to school before WWII. They told me that they had received a 'Kit for teaching the Holocaust'. After looking at it with their staff they all said the same thing: we want the children leaving our school capable of thinking for themselves - not to be brainwashed. They all decided to put this kit on the back shelf of the library reserve. I congratulated them on there wise decision. I have personally analysed these kits and are horrified at their contents. Thank God that people of this calibre are finally thinking for themselves. It is a very good sign for the future of our country, Australia. To me it is just the tip of the iceberg of public opinion. Their actions will not be acceptable to an ethnic minority in our midst .

I feel very sorry for Walter Steilberg, for allowing himself to be used by Frank Heimans in the Where Death wears a Smile documentary, and Donald Watts for allowing himself to be used in the book Stoker by John Saunders, sponsor of Sydney's Jewish and Holocaust Museum , used to promote Zionist racial hatred. Both men were in poor health. After the documentary and book they were declared Totally and Permanantly Incapacitated War pensioners, such as I have been since 1975. I call on all ex-service men to remove this evil hate-promoting material from Public Libraries and School Libraries.

My two best friends here in the UK, from the time of my arrival in 1973, were Group captain 'Wings' Day' senior British Officer of RAF POWs in Germany, and Dixie Deans, who was in charge of over 15,000 RAF WO's and sergeants. Both these men were aware of the treatment given to RAF personnel, made POWs in Nazi Europe. I am sure they would have known about what Donald Watts claimed happened to RAF and USAF air crew interrogated at Nuremberg - if it had happened!

The Los Angeles Simon Wiesenthal Centre was named after the self styled Nazi hunter. He survived the death camps by a miracle, such as arriving at Auschwitz when the gas chambers were too busy to deal with any more bodies. After three days his waiting cattle train was sent away to a marginally less lethal camp. Another time he was lucky when the executioner decided to call a halt only metres from him, because church bells called him to vespers (prayers). Two years later, 1943, he was placed on the edge of a sandpit ready for execution, but surprisingly was the only one not killed.

The Australian War Crimes Trials were instigated by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre of Los Angeles and the World of Jewish Congress. Who benefited from this fiasco costing $30 million? Most certainly not the Australian tax-payer who footed the bill for this modern-day-witch-hunt. The late Bruno Kriesky, the Jewish president of Austria, after the war, claimed that Simon Wiestenthal had worked for the Gestapo in Poland during the war, and that he was a stranger to the truth.

After the war, at Zurich in Switzerland, on the 18th November 1969, at a lecture to predominantly Jewish students he claimed that around seven million Germans in East and West Germany and Austria were murderers and criminals. He stated, "The murderers of today are being born today. These future potential murderers must be eliminated. Potential enimies exist even as embryos - yes - even in embryonic form. They must be destroyed once and for all. " This was reported in the international edition of the Neue Zuricher Zeitung on the 21st of November 1969.

Professor Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize winner, claimed to be liberated by the Russians at Auschwitz, then liberated at Buchenwald, 500km west, by the Amreicans, then liberated again at Dachau, 300km south, by the Americans. As Abe Lincoln, first President of America, said, "There is no such person as a successful liar". All I can add is the simple fact that a lie told six million times is still a lie. The truth sets us all free from the lies of the past.

Note that:

The Nazis were bombed out of all the occupied countries in Europe. Argentina was bombed out of the Falklands, following UN resolution No. 502. Iraq was bombed out of Kuwait, following UN resolution No. 678.

And yet:

Israel has ignored 97 UN resolutions, including Resolution 242, ordering Israel to vacate all occupied Arab territories, plus thirty-two other resolutions were vetoed, mostly by America, Britain and France.

Iraq ignored 11 UN Resolutions in 1991 before the UN forces, led by American, British and French forces, conducted non-stop bombing Iraq, followed by a ground-forces attack lasting 100 hours - a golden opportunity for the Western Allies to test their latest weapons in war conditions.

People world-wide, especially in the Arab world, are asking why is Israel alone allowed to ignore UN Resolutions? Why is Israel not bombed by US Forces, to force it to obey UN Resolutions, as was the case with Iraq?

I propose to start an International Fund, with the monies derived from the sale of this book, for a group of international forensic specialists to investigate the alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where allegedly millions of Jewish people were killed. The Russians have allowed an American team of six forensic specialists to the remains of the Russian Royal Family. So why not Auschwitz-Birkenau? This would finally prove, as a Daily Mail headline, on the 29th August 1978, put it "The Holocaust - History or Hokum?" (Melodramatic nonsense)

In 1970 I just started to obtain justice for myself. Twenty-eight years later I believe it is time for justice for the German peoples, and for the Arab peoples, especially the Palestinians.

IRAQ ignored 11 UN Resolutions - Desert Storm
ISRAEL ignored 97 UN Resolutions
Why doesn't USA force Israel to comply by bombing?

Contact USA Embassy and ask why

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

In the UK the English MP Greville Janner and other Jewish leaders continually press for laws to control freedom of speech such as so-called Holocaust denial.

My view is 100 per agreement with Sir Zelman Cowan, the former Governor-General of Australia. In the London Jewish Chronicle of 2 September 1988, Sir Zelman said he did not support the growing call from the Jewish community for a new group libel law to prohibit offensive material like the Holocaust News, which tries to prove that the holocaust never happened. "I'm troubled by the notion that you want to prohibit people from asserting that it didn't take place. You meet that by the irrefutable proof that it did."

I am sure Major-General Paul Cullen, Isi Leibler, Mark Leibler, Jeremy Jones, Marcus Einfeld and Duron Ur, all prominent leaders in the Jewish community here in Australia will agree with Sir Zelman Cowan. As I am certain the majority of my fellow Australians would also agree. I also agree 100 per cent with Justice Marcus Einfeld, as quoted in Australian Jewish News 5 March 1993: "Any citizen or lawful resident of Australia may advocate any cause or point of view provided it is within the law." Surely the truth must be within the law, or is it politically incorrect?

IN CONCLUSION

Professor Yehuda Bauer, chairman of the Vidal Sassoon Centre for the Study of Anti-Semitism (former chief of the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem) said in April 1995 regarding claims that a bar of soap was made from Jewish human fat: 'Someone is misusing people's fears and obsessions and presenting things that we know today didn't happen.'

In 1941 at Rethymon just before the German airborne attack our Commanding Officer Ian Campbell placed us in position to cover the airstrip. He said,"The enemy has landed at Heraklian and Chania - both ends of the island. I expect them here within an hour. I am counting on you men to make certain they don't get this airstrip." We replied, "Yes sir." He smiled and said, "Good luck."

This year, I marched on Anzac Day in Sydney. The next day I visited Major-General Campbell at the RSL Retirement Village at Narrambeen.

The way I look at it now, he hasn't countermanded that order at Rethymon. THE AIRSTRIP IS MY COUNTRY, AUSTRALIA, IN DEFENCE AGAINST PROPAGANDA PROMOTING RACISM.

APPENDIX I

Letter from Alexander McClelland to The Prime Minister of Australia, on the 10th February 1997.

The Prime Minister, Hon John Howard,
Parliament House
Canberra 2600.


Dear Prime Minister,

Last May I wrote you an open letter about my personal experiences as a prisoner of war of the Nazis and my subsequent research, over more than two decades, into the Holocaust.

I am sorry that at that time I was unable to give a permanent address because I was leaving to return to Crete. Because of this you may have felt that I was somehow a 'crank' and should not be taken seriously. I am also concerned that a report about my previous submission to you, in the Australian Jewish News of July 19 said "the Prime Minister's office was still searching for the letter at the time of writing (of the article)".

In case my first letter did go astray, I have now come back to Australia to pursue my interest in this matter. I intent to remain here until my research has been made public so the Australian people can make up their own minds.

Given your record on the need for freedom of speech and open debate even on sensitive subjects, I hope that you will have an open mind about this material and consider it as a serious contribution to a historical debate. My greatest concern is that the truth is being subverted and even lost amid a tide of propaganda which is becoming more and more outlandish.

I must state now that I am not an anti-Semite. I am not pro-German either, I am simply pro-truth. It is a matter of great regret to me that the whole issue of the Holocaust has now become so political, dare I say politically correct, that to even question its details is to be branded as a racist. This subject is far more of a sacred cow than immigration.

Australia has become the world's leading nation in promoting racial hatred by people claiming to be Australians. For example, the promoter and producers of the documentary 'Where Death Wears a Smile' shown worldwide and the book 'Stoker', also being published worldwide, are using the good name of our tolerant country as a base to promote their evil racial hatred worldwide. Their distortions have been accepted as truth and are being taught to innocent children in schools to convince them that some people - Germans - are evil by their very nature.

I feel sorry for the two Australian ex-servicemen, namely Walter Steilberg and Donald Watts, both in ill health, who assisted with this film, and book. But they should not have allowed themselves to be manipulated by people promoting racial hatred in our very tolerant society.

Why was there no mention in Australian Jewish News of "Stoker", a true story of an Australian in a Nazi death camp, although other major newspapers publicised it? Could it be that the Jewish leaders in Australia were aware that the book was basically fiction and refused to endorse it, but at the same time allowed it to be released to well meaning Australians as the truth?

The laws which have been passed in this country should be used to protect the silent majority from these people as they are used against others who promote hatred.

As the democratically elected leader of our country we depend on you and your Government to protect our children from base propaganda.

Yours sincerely,

Alexander McClelland.

APPENDIX II

THE TRUTH AT LAST
SUMMARY OF FACTS UNCOVERED BY ALEXANDER McCLELLAND
ON THE NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS IN WORLD WAR II.

Introduction.

In recent years the Australian public has been presented with 'new facts' about Nazi atrocities during World War 2, in the form of a television documentary 'Where Death Wears a Smile' and a new book, 'Stoker'. Both shocked the public and served to 'Australianise' the atrocities. But I question the 'truth' presented in these and other accepted 'historic' works. Both the documentary and the book 'Stoker' are damning evidence against the German people under the National Socialist leadership of Adolf Hitler. I realise that by exposing a person of Jewish background as a racist, I run the risk of being branded as anti-Semitic. By exposing an Australian ex-serviceman as an accomplice in promoting racial hatred, I will doubtless be branded a traitor to my mates, et cetera. But I believe by not exposing these people for what they really are I would be a traitor to my country and every man, woman and child in it, in particular those who died fighting Nazism. In Australian fairness to all the people who now look on Australia as there home, we must ensure that history is the truth not just politically correct. The future of the youth of Australia and the world depends on the truth which sets us free from the lies of the past, in particular World War 2 propaganda. These lies are still promoted by Zionists and their fellow travellers to promote their own interests. The deaths of countless thousands in concentration camps was bad enough, it does not need embellishment.

The Facts.

In June 1985 the Australian Public was shown on television the documentary 'Where Death Wears a Smile (the smiling face of Auschwitz )'. This documentary made by Australians was presented as a true story of Australian Army soldiers incarcerated in the security section, known as 'the Small Fortress', of Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia during WW2. This documentary has been shown on channel 7 and channel 10, and in New Zealand, the USA and Germany. It was awarded the prize for Best Political Documentary at the New York Television and Film Festival in 1985. It Australianised the Holocaust with evidence that 40 Australian prisoners of war had been murdered by the Waffen SS troops.


CLAIM: The evidence of this massacre, which formed the core of the documentary was an affidavit which the makers claimed they had obtained from the War Crimes Office in Dortmund. They referred to the 'statement', and 'the affidavit', which was signed by a Czechoslovakian Jew.

After seeing the documentary, in which I featured, I was appalled. I was in Europe at the time and was writing a book, with a contract from the film makers promising to give me any information they uncovered. But they never mentioned the evidence they claimed to have concerning the massacre of the Australians, and never provided any information to me despite the written contract with them to do so. I thought that some of my friends could have been among those murdered, and I wanted to find out more.

FACT: I went myself to Dortmund on 4 July 1988, to get a copy of the crucial "affidavit". But I was astonished to find that it did not exist. After considerable reasoning with the Chief Prosecutor I was presented with not one, but three affidavits signed by Morris Mittelman. I have retained copies of these original documents, which can be shown to anyone who doubts. These were the evidence used in the film - but the documentary makers had cannibalised the three documents to create one, false document which, they said, 'proved' the murder occurred. In fact, the affidavits indubitably that the massacre was merely a dramatic story made up by Mittelman. There were no other alleged witnesses.

The three affidavits agreed that the crime occurred but are completely contradictory on the place and circumstances. In one affidavit, Mittelman claims that he was standing 5 to 15 metres away from the men when they were shot. Yet in the affidavits he places the murder in three entirely separate locations, kilometres apart. One was in the Small Fortress, another in the anti-tank ditch, and the last, in the forest visible on the horizon from the camp. It was this last location favoured by documentary makers, who claimed that 'the little wood in which this happened is one full of corpses'.

Scriptwriter and producer Paul Rea also published articles including extracts from "the statement" in several Australian Newspapers.

The documentary's assertion of the murder of these Australians was reported very widely in Australia and New Zealand.It has become an established 'fact'. It is completely false.

The documentary contained other grave errors attributable to Walter Steilburg. Like me, Steilberg was in Small Fortress ( we did not know each other there). But he was obviously used and misled by the documentary makers.


CLAIM: Steilberg claimed any prisoners working on anti-tank ditch of Terezin, who were unable to work, were shot.

FACT: I myself had a poisoned leg, I could not work. I was not shot; in fact a Waffen SS signal corps man gave me a First Aid kit.


CLAIM: Steilberg claimed he counted 28 people shot in the ditch. He claimed one man had his head split open with a spade.

FACT: The killing of this Jewish prisoner has been verified by several veterans of the Small Fortress. Cyril Collins of the UK stated (in an official letter to the Brittish Government) that he also saw one man shot in the ditch. (Bloke with Steilberg) Other ex POWS claim they saw no-one shot.


CLAIM: Steilberg claimed there were headless bodies and blood spattered walls.

FACT: This is nonsense. Not one other ex POW from the Small Fortress recalls any such horrors.


CLAIM: Steilberg said every time they saw a cart filled with bodies go out, it always turned out to where the cookhouse was.

FACT: Detailed maps of Terezin published by the Czech Government show that Steilberg could not have seen where the cart ( if there were carts) went. The heavy wooden doors of his cell were locked, and there was no way to see out through the courtyard arch except by standing in the middle of compound 4.


CLAIM: Steilberg claimed the POWs had sheets which were replaced with clean ones every week, and that he was fed soup with hunks of meat in it. He speculates that perhaps they were forced to eat human flesh.

FACT: Other POWs including myself and C.J. Collins recall that we were given no sheets or clothing. Collins in his cell had to sleep on wet concrete. We were given bread to eat and not much of it, not stew.

I feel sorry for Steilberg, who had a heart condition. I believe he was manipulated by the filmmakers. I also feel sorry for Donald Watts. Both men had serious health problems.

In 1995 the book 'Stoker' , by Donald Watts was published as the true story of an Australian Army ex serviceman, an eye witness account of the mass murder of men, women and children at the notorious Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 'Stoker ' is the most macabre, horrific book based on the Holocaust which I have ever read in my 25 years of research. 'Doctor at Auschwitz' appears a child's fairy-tale in comparison.

It is noteworthy that his book was published by the 'encouragement and enthusiasm' of John Saunders AO, founder of the Sydney Jewish Holocaust Museum. The museum cost Saunders $5 million to establish and, according to a report in Australian Jewish News, a further $1 million a year to operate. He clearly has a vested interest in promoting new and sensational material about the Holocaust, even if it is blatantly untrue.


CLAIM: Stoker, ex 2/7 Infantry Battalion claims that he was a stoker of the fires used to burn thousands of bodies after Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. He claims (p 103) that he used fir trees from the nearby forest as fuel., shoving reat logs into the furnaces to keep them operating at maximum capacity.

FACT: It is very well documented that the fuel used in the Auschwitz crematorium furnaces was coke, not wood. The ovens were made by Tropf and Sons of Urfurt. The crematorium ovens at Terezin were gas fired, but most in concentration camps used coke.

FACT: Photographs of the crematorium ovens - including on in 'Stoker' itself - show that the furnace stoking doors were small, less than half a metre across. It would be impossible to push 'huge logs' into them as claimed by Watt.


CLAIM: Watt's (p 107) asserts that bodies were pushed down a chute to the crematorium furnaces. He claims one person had a long pole with a steel plate on the end with which he shoved bodies in, 'as they built up, in a sort of log-jam at the entrance'.

FACT: The photographs mentioned show that the bodies were placed into the furnaces one by one. German records show that it took one and a half to two hours to burn a single body. Then the ovens had to be cooled between each cremation for 2 hours.


CLAIM:Watt claims (p107) that wagons of bodies were 'pushed at regular intervals from the gas chamber to the furnace'.

FACT: But Watt admits on page 104 that the gas chambers at Birkenau were underground. The bodies were put in a purpose-built elevator and lifted, one at a time. They were then put onto trolleys and placed on rollers which slid then, into the crematorium retorts - each of which held one body at a time.


CLAIM: Watt (p 107) claims the gas chambers and furnaces worked '24 hours of every day, weekends included'.

FACT: On page 103 Watt contradicted himself claiming that he and the stokers arrived at the furnaces at 6am to light them. 'They had been cleaned out during the night, all the ashes of the previous day shovelled away."


CLAIM: On page 94 Watt claims he counted the bodies and estimated that from May to the end of November 1944; two crematoria EACH disposed of 5000 corpses a day, seven days a week.

FACT: As Watt several times confirms that the ovens worked 6am to 6pm (page 102) and were shut down at night, to dispose of 5000 bodies a day would require a rate of 417.5 an hour. Each crematorium had 15 retorts, which means just under 28 bodies burnt each hour in EACH retort, or one every two minutes. This is completely incompatible with the data provided by the crematorium manufacturer.


CLAIM: On page 98 Watt claims that 600 or 700 Jewish women were placed in cages and the SS removed their blood with 'big syringes' each day, until they were too sick to give any more. "When that happened they were taken to the gas chambers and a fresh lot of women put into the cages.'

FACT: Watt himself admits that he never saw this ghoulish activity taking place, but 'heard about it from other prisoners'. He also saw 'the corpses, with their arms and bodies covered in puncture marks'. Anyone who has given blood knows that to get blood requires tapping into an artery. Bodies 'covered in puncture marks' are a ghoulish, sick fantasy.


CLAIM: Watt asserts on page 112 that all the horrors he described 'happened constantly, several times a day, each day and every day. I know, because…I was there and I saw it."

FACT: Watt unwittingly implies that there is no evidence to support his wild claims. On page 171, he asserts that the Germans "destroyed anything they could find that would have been the least bit incriminating". Yet he expects us to believe that he, the stoker For five months, was not thrown headfirst into the furnace as part of their clean-up.

There are many more examples of claims in 'Stoker' that are impossible for myself and other concentration camp veterans to believe. Most of Watt's claims range from absurd to ridiculous, yet they have been accepted as 'revelations' about the Holocaust. They include the claim that German guards habitually cut off the penises of Jewish prisoners, that prisoners were regularly thrown into furnaces alive.

APPENDIX III

PRESS STATEMENT
BY ALEXANDER McLELLAND, March 1997

Former Prisoner of War, Teresienstadt (Terezin) Concentration Camp, 1945.

History means telling the truth. But attempts to "Australianise" the Holocaust are leading further from the truth and more into the realms of promotion of racial hatred - against the Germans and those who assisted them.

The Australian-made documentary film "Where Death Wears a Smile (The Smiling Face of Auschwitz)" won the award for best political documentary at the New York Television and Film Festival in 1985. But the evidence of the murder of 40 Australian POW's in Terezin (also known as Teresienstadt) Camp in 1945 by Waffen SS troops, was completely false.

The crux of the documentary was an affadavit which the film-makers claimed was held at the War Crimes Archives in Dortmund, Germany. They claimed the affadavit was signed by "a Czechoslovakian Jew" who was the sole witness to the slaughter of the Australians in the small forest near the camp.

But when I went to Dortmund to see this affadavit I discovered that there was no such thing. On the contrary there were three separate affadavits signed by a Morris Mittelman, which were mutually contradictory. The filmmakers had taken excerpts from each of the affadavits to 'prove' their story, ignoring the remainder which proved it to be false.

Another example is the book "Stoker" written by Australian Donald Watts (with assistance from journalist Dorian Wild) and published in 1995. The book was given prominent coverage in major Australian newspapers but my research indicates that, although the book was sponsered by John Saunders AO, the benefactor of the Sydney Jewish Museum, there was NO coverage of "Stoker" in the Australian Jewish News. Could this be because the AJN recognised it for a fraud and would not support it?

It is interesting that on 23 March and 7 April 1995, just before "Stoker" was published on April 15, the AJN featured a photograph of a scale model of Crematorium 2 at Auschwitz-Birkenau on display at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, USA. The scale model shows that Donald Watts' ghoulish descriptions of mass disposal of bodies are myths.

I have spent the past 25 years researching the facts of the Holocaust in war archives throughout Europe and I am astonished that the blatant lies in "Stoker" have not been refuted. Watts for example claims that he was a stoker of the fires for the crematorium, using logs of fir trees cut down near the camp. Technical information on the crematorium shows beyond doubt that they were COKE fired, not wood fired. There are numerous other obvious errors in 'Stoker'. Watt insists he pushed huge logs into the ovens, but the photographs of the crematorium ovens - including one in "Stoker" itself - show that the furnace stoking doors were small, less than half a metre across.

Watt asserts that bodies were pushed down a chute to the crematorium furnaces. He claims one person had a long pole with a steel plate on the end with which he shoved bodies in, 'as they built up, in a sort of log-jam at the entrance'. The photographs show that in fact the bodies were placed into the furnaces one by one. German records show that it took 1 to 2 hours to burn a single body. Then the ovens had to be cooled between each cremation for 2 hours.

Watt claims wagons of bodies were "pushed at regular intervals from the gas chamber to the furnace". But Watt admits on page 104 that the gas chambers at Birkenau were underground. The bodies were put in a purpose-built elevator and lifted, one at a time. They were then put onto trolleys and placed on rollers which slid them into the crematorium retorts - each of which held one body at a time.

On page 98 Watt claims that 600 or 700 Jewish women were placed in cages and the SS removed their blood with "big syringes" each day, until they were too sick to give any more. "When that happened they were taken to the gas chambers and a fresh lot of women put into the cages."

Watt himself admits that he never saw this activity taking place, but "heard about it from other prisoners". He also saw "the corpses, with their arms and bodies covered in puncture marks". Anyone who has given blood knows that to get blood requires tapping into an artery. Bodies "covered in puncture marks" are a sick fantasy.

Last July 19 the AJN carried an article by Bernard Freedman about my research. Mr Freedman quoted Major-General Digger James of the RSL as stating he had never heard of myself nor the Small Fortress Association, representing ex-prisoners of war at Terezin, of which I am a secretary. I saw Digger James on February 13 and showed him the article; he was annoyed and said, "I never said that. These people never approached me."

It is time that the Jewish community of Australia purged its ranks of the people promoting racial hatred, at the expense of the truth. Failure to do so could cause a severe backlash against the Jewish people if they are shown to be complicit in falsifying history, especially to innocent school children.

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AUTHORISED BY THE SMALL FORTRESS ASSOCIATION
OF THERESIENSTADT CONCENTRATION CAMP
Alexander C. McClelland, Secretary & Founder/Director of AIJF
PO Box 887 Toronto NSW Australia 2283