• And for the sake of a bit of variety, other sources also tell of escaped mothers. Jean-François Steiner's book[64] is based on many instances of alleged eyewitness testimony and claims that "Ivan", who was later promoted to "the Terrible", was killed during the Treblinka revolt (which claim, however, was rescinded during Demjanjuk's first trial). This book tells of a very similar case which allegedly took place at about the same time, in Ponar near Vilna. Driven into a corner, Steiner admitted that his book was really just a novel (but the Brockhaus Enzyklopädie quotes it as factual source in its article on Treblinka!). Kuznetsov's book[39] and Schindler's List[65] are also works of fiction!
• Other questions regarding Knopp's film:
• Despite all the top secrecy, who managed to take a photo of the victims lined up to be shot? Who, furthermore, managed to do this from a clearly visible vantage point and even potentially within the scatter field of the machine gun fire? Why does the rather out-of-focus picture reveal characteristics common to many other falsified propaganda pictures? Why are the people dressed? According to the witness, six men were designated as execution commando and six as guards. Where did the 'bayonet men' come from? How many prisoners or groups can be guarded by six men?
9. Novelist Guido Knopp[66] writes in the left-hand column of page 132 of his book:
"[...] many soldiers stood with machine guns. [...] They led us to a ravine, where big boxes stood, in which they collected the documents and other things. [...] Then an execution commando took up position. Mother did not wait for the commando, she threw herself and me into the pit and fell on me. The special units began to cover us over with dead bodies. After that they shot another group. [...] A soldier stood on my mother and stabbed the wounded man lying beside her. When they passed on to share the spoils, mother pulled me out unconscious and carried me away."
In the right-hand column of the same page, however, we read:
"When they arrived at the ravine after the beating, they had to lie down on the ground in rows, in small groups. Then the execution commando went into action. A burst of machine gun fire, a few shovels of earth that only barely covered the bodies, and then the next group was driven into the ravine."
• How does Knopp imagine the machine gun execution of victims that are lying down?
• And what must one think of authors who, when writing the right column of a page, can no longer remember what they wrote in the left column?
• For comparison, we have the sworn statement of Professor Aloshin, according to whom heavy machine guns were set up on either side of the ravine. And:
"then Russian prisoners-of-war who were stationed on either side of the ravine with shovels [...] had to throw sand over the victims."
• The victims had been herded into the ravine; the heavy machine guns were fired downward at a sharp angle - not an easy task.
• At the bottom, he said, the bodies piled up every which way - not, as Knopp describes, "in rows on the ground." From experience with the mass graves in Hamburg, for the 40,000 victims of the British terrorist attacks, we know that the prisoners-of-war would have had to shovel about 742,000 cu.ft. of sand in order to cover the victims. Given a more careful layering of the bodies, as in Katyn, there would still have been about 503,200 cu.ft. to shovel. Since the bodies were in the pit, they would either have had to dig into the embankments or to bring the sand in from outside. More work, and lots of it! Do the air photos reveal any of this? How much sand can one worker shovel per day, under such conditions?
• Where does Knopp glean his knowledge of large empty halls in which those still living spent night?[66] There were no halls at Babi Yar. And why is there not so much as one single witness for these treks - from the 'halls' back to the murder sites?
10. Professor Dr. Wolfgang Benz:[67] In the ravine
"[...] there were 3 groups of marksmen, a total of about 12 marksmen. [...] They stood behind the Jews and killed them with shots to the neck."
• Shooting in the neck was the well-known murder method of choice for the GPU, NKVD, KGB, and Stasi!
11. On February 18, 1946, the Soviet prosecutor Smirnov declared at the IMT:[68]
"In Kyiv, over 195,000 Soviet citizens were tortured to death, shot, and poisoned in the gas vans, as follows:
(1) In Baybe-yar, over 100,000 men, women, children, and old people."
• How does this version agree with the various eyewitness testimony?
• Did the Communist regime concoct these claims in order to blame its own mass murders on the Germans?
• The approximately 10,000 Ukrainians who were murdered in Vinnica by the Soviets via bullets to the neck and then thrown into mass graves[69] come to mind, as do other massacres.
12. N. F. Petrenko and N. T. Gorbacheva testified:[70]
"[...] the Germans threw babies at the breast into graves and buried them alive with their dead or wounded parents."[71]
• Evidence? Specifics re. place, date, etc.?
13. In C. Clarke's book we read:[72]
"German tanks roared through the large Jewish quarter, after the occupation, blasting every living object in sight, and then burning Jews alive in flaming buildings and killing them in woods over the mass graves excavated by the victims while some Jews were tied to trees and shot or bayoneted."
• Evidence? Witnesses?
• Time required for the victims-to-be to excavate the mass graves?
• Place? Date?
• Why the time-consuming procedure of tying to trees?
• If there was a large Jewish quarter, why were the Jews not simply ordered to gather there and led off, instead of marching them in many columns into northwestern Kyiv and producing many witnesses in the process - witnesses who, however, mysteriously were not to be found later?
14. In her book, published in 1987 in Israel, Leni Yahil wrote:[73]
"The 30,000 Jews who assembled [in Kyiv] were taken to the forest and slaughtered over the course of two days."
• Leni Yahil does not name witnesses, nor does she give an explanation and/or evidence for how it was possible to assemble and lead off more than 30,000 people within a few hours, without thousands of people noticing and potentially appearing as witnesses later.
• Yahil transfers the murder site to a forest. So it wasn't a ravine? Evidence? Air photos?
15. As noted in sections 4 and 6, the Jews of Kyiv and its environs were informed via placards that they had to assemble with all their belongings at a specific place. This placard was not ready until the day before.
This organizational point is of utmost importance and should be examined a little more closely, for the relevant considerations apply mutatis mutandis for all the various versions of the massacre.
The placard was printed in Russian, Ukrainian and German and allegedly read [translation of German text]:[7]
"All the Jews of Kyiv are to gather until 8 o'clock on Monday, September 29, 1941, at the corner of Melnik and Dokteriwski Streets (at the cemeteries). Bring your papers, money and valuables, also warm clothing etc.
Anyone failing to comply with this order, and found elsewhere, will be shot.
Anyone breaking into vacant Jewish homes or appropriating items from the same will be shot."
Fundamental questions:
• Why is no issuing authority given?
• Name and rank of the issuing commander?
• Date of issue?
Regarding the German text: