Typhus: The Real Killer

Typhus is an infectious disease spread by lice, ticks, mites, and rat fleas. The overall case fatality rate for untreated infections is 10 to 40%; however, the mortality rate increases with age. Infections are rarely fatal in children less than 10 years old, but in people over 50 years old the mortality rate can be as high as 60% without treatment. In the German concentration camps typhus killed more people than homicidal gas chambers. How do I know this? Because no one died in a homicidal gas chamber as they never existed.

Many people know nothing about the typhus outbreaks in the camps and this is because it is not something that Holocaust fabulists like to discuss, as the discussion may bring up issues that are not so great for the Holocaust narrative.

The Holocaust Encyclopedia does not have a dedicated article on typhus, so I did a Google search on “Holocaust typhus” and got a page from Auschwitz.org which is run by the Auschwitz/Birkenau Memorial and Museum (ABMM). The following paragraph is their entire entry for typhus:

“A severe and dangerous infectious disease which led to the death of tens of thousands Auschwitz prisoners, caused by bacteria transmitted by fleas that are parasitic to rodents, including rats and mice. The first symptoms, visible several days after infection, are high fever and a rash taking the form of red spots on the skin. Next comes damage to the nervous and circulatory systems, and to the heart. Effective treatment with antibiotics was not available during World War II. Surviving the illness thus depended on the resistance of the individual organism; recovery without treatment may occur after about four weeks. At first, SS doctors did not attach much importance to combating its causes. Only the death of the SS head camp physician in May 1942 and numerous cases among the garrison forced the camp authorities to take preventive measures. These included mass selection for the gas chambers of people with symptoms of typhus, more frequent fumigation of clothing, the disinfection of barracks, and showers for prisoners. The typhus epidemic was not brought under control until 1944.”

The following claim can be easily refuted: “At first, SS doctors did not attach much importance to combating its causes. Only the death of the SS head camp physician in May 1942 and numerous cases among the garrison forced the camp authorities to take preventive measures.” In fact, many of the life-saving measures the Nazis employed are twisted by Holocaust fabulists into something sinister. New arrivals having their hair cut off was not meant to dehumanize or humiliate, it was because head lice is a carrier of typhus. Zyklon B was not for gassing humans to death—it was used in delousing chambers to kill disease-carrying vermin on clothing, bedding, and such (see image below).

Cremation facilities were not built to hide the evidence of mass killings; they were employed as a sanitary method to dispose of bodies. The image below is a recreation of the crematory ovens in Auschwitz. As you can see, the openings are meant for one person. Why would the Germans build individual ovens if they were intending to commit mass murder? The camps and their procedures were designed with disease control in mind.

To further refute the claim ABMM makes about the apathy SS doctors had about typhus prior to 1942, I will present a statement made by celebrated Holocaust fabulist Jean-Claude Pressac (source page 79):

“The SS physicians knew that the Auschwitz region was marshy. They had already been confronted with the problem of untreated water, which led to typhoid fever caused by the Eberth bacillus. Towards the end of May 1942 numerous cases of typhoid appeared among the inmates; thus in early June the consumption of tap water was prohibited to the SS and the employees of the seventeen civilian firms operating in the camp. To compensate, mineral water was provided free and in abundance. Looking to summer, the physicians anticipated as nearly inevitable cases of malaria, borne by the mosquitoes of the marshes. To face this danger, an SS hygiene institute had to be set up at Raisko, and that was done in October. But the typhus took them by surprise. They thought that the prophylactic measures (quarantining, head shaving) and hygienic measures (treatment of body hair, showering) applied to detainees upon arrival would, by eradicating the vector, the louse, keep the scourge out of the camp. That was the case as concerned the inmates, but the affliction came from those who had not been submitted to such treatment, the civilians, who were daily in close company with the detainees.” (My emphasis added.)

As you can see, disease-controlling measures were employed before 1942.

While addressing this statement from ABMM, “Only the death of the SS head camp physician in May 1942 and numerous cases among the garrison forced the camp authorities to take preventive measures,” I ran into a funny incident trying to find out who this mysterious SS head camp physician was. When I asked my robot assistant, Sarah, for help I got the following:

Why is the ABMM hiding this bit of information? In my quest to find this mystery man, I stumbled upon an article by Robert Faurisson that mentioned an SS doctor that died of typhus in April of 1942:

“In the Anthology of the International Auschwitz Committee, Volume I, second part, page 196 (in the French edition), we read that the SS physician Dr. Popiersch, head doctor of the garrison and of the camp, had died of typhus on 24 April 1942 (four months before the arrival of Dr. Kremer).”

Perhaps ABMM just got the date wrong. I mean you can’t expect an organization that receives millions of dollars yearly to get everything right. Anywho, there isn’t a lot of information about Dr. Popiersch. Whether this is because something fishy is going on, or because there just isn’t that much information about him, I do not know. If I do find anything of interest, I will be sure to report it, but it is time to get back to the topic on hand. (UPDATE: The mystery doctor is Siegfried Schwela, not Dr. Popiersch. As Popiersch died in Lublin. If I find any interesting information about either doctor I will still report it. And I would also like to point out that I do not receive millions of dollars yearly.)

Earlier I mentioned that talk of typhus brings up discussion that is not favorable the the Holocaust fabulists. Allow me to take you down a bit of a rabbit hole to demonstrate.

According to Holocaust fabulists, gassings in Crema II began in March of 1943. Yes, they began gassing operations in the middle of an epidemic… an epidemic that they were trying to control… trying to save the lives of the people they were systematically murdering in gas chambers.

Crema II was built as a morgue and crematory. The following is a blueprint for Crema II with my numbering added. Holocaust fabulists will tell you that room 1 was for where the Jews undressed and room 2 is where the alleged gas chamber was. In reality, these were basement rooms used for corpse storage. For size reference, room 2 is 4/5 the size of a tennis court.

ABMM said themselves that the typhus epidemics were not brought under control until 1944. From Carlo Mattogno’s book, The Making of the Auschwitz Myth, I found the following:

“On March 20, the garrison physician presented a report on the situation in the hospital barracks at Birkenau. With a population of 45,000 inmates, it was expected that 4,500 would fall ill – 10%. In Construction Sector II, there were seven barracks for sick patients, two of which were for outpatient treatment; they could not provide beds for patients. According to Dr. Wirths’s calculations, another 23 air-force-style barracks were required for bed-ridden patients. He also issued instructions relating to the disposal of the bodies of deceased inmates:

“Transporting the bodies from the inmate infirmary to the crematorium will require 2 covered hand-drawn carts permitting the transport of 50 corpses each.” (source page 66)

Wait, didn’t ABMM say that Jews with typhus were just gassed? Why the need for 23 more barracks for bedridden patients? Dr. Wirth also clearly stated that corpses were to be taken to the crematorium, but that building was allegedly being used to gas Jews. Why would a doctor instruct the disease-ridden bodies to be taken to a place where they could not be stored? You will see exactly how absurd the idea of using the crematory for a mass murder facility is as you read on.

Records of deaths in the camps were kept by the Germans in “death books.” During March of 1943, there were about 7,300 recorded deaths. Also during the month of March 19, transports with over 17,000 people arrived at Auschwitz. According to Holocaust fabulists, “many” of the people who arrived were gassed upon arrival (see image below).

During this time, Crema II was the only cremation facility in Birkenau. According to Sarah, it could only handle cremating 360 bodies a day—but that is only if they were burning bodies 24 hours a day, which wasn’t the case. At best, the ovens could run for 20 hours a day. So, at best, 300 corpses could be burned a day, which would be 9,300 for the whole month. This would cover the recorded deaths from the camp, but what about “many” of the 17,000 arrivals that were allegedly murdered? I’m sure “many” was more than a couple thousand considering the allegation that 1.1 million Jews were murdered in Auschwitz in the course of three years. If you would like to know more about crematory capacity, read this article, but let’s get back to the point.

What we have is the dual problem of crematory ovens that couldn’t handle the amount of bodies that Holocaust fabulists alleged were murdered, and nowhere to store the excess. Holocaust fabulists will claim that the excess were cremated in open-air pits. However, there is no compelling evidence of this, as I have outlined in this series of articles.

So, Holocaust fabulists, where did they store the bodies? And I don’t want some just-so story, give me an evidence-based reason and then we’ll talk.