Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers

Reviewed by Mark Weber

This useful and enlightening work by French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac is an ambitious defense of the Auschwitz extermination story against growing criticism from Holocaust revisionists. The author and the publishers -- "Nazi hunters" Beate and Serge Klarsfeld -- realize very clearly that Holocaust revisionism is not some temporary or frivolous phenomenon, but is a serious and formidable challenge that has already found many thoughtful adherents.

This book is being promoted by the publishers as "a scientific rebuttal of those who deny the gas chambers." An article about it in The New York Times (Dec. 18, 1989) appeared under the heading "A New Book Is Said to Refute Revisionist View of the Holocaust" or (in other editions) "Auschwitz: A Doubter Verifies the Horror."

Printed on 564 oversize pages of 17 by 11 inches, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers includes hundreds of good-quality reproductions of original German architectural plans and diagrams, photographs taken both during and after the war, and many documents, with translations. About half of the one thousand copies that were printed have been donated to major libraries and research centers around the world. Remaining copies are being sold for $100 each, in the hope that they will be donated to smaller libraries. More