If you are expecting either a piece of "holocaust denial" or a rant against "holocaust deniers" - I should invite you straight away to look elsewhere.
I should also state quite clearly that I don't know what exactly happened or did not happen in Auschwitz. I wasn't around. And having studied history (among other things), I know how treacherous historiography is, almost inevitably. The truth of history - any history - is, as the saying goes, seldom simple and never pure.
A friend of a friend dragged me into a discussion about WW II the other day; specifically, a discussion of what is usually called (thanks to Spielberg) "the Holocaust".
The discussion went nowhere very fast, because he was insisting I look at some of his sources - which turned out to be internet postings. Forum postings, with a link or two to websites that appear to be too sure of their own truth for my taste.
Featuring prominently was a series of discussions about what appears to be a swimming pool located in Oswiecim, better known by its German name, Auschwitz.
Apparently the existence of this swimming pool had been denied in the past; or, more accurately, it was called a "cistern", a water tank, for the Auschwitz fire brigade.
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| Taken from here. |
It certainly has an unusual shape for such a purpose; to me, it appears to be a perfectly fine and elegant Art Deco-era swimming pool, especially considering the place and circumstances.
And I told him so.
Then I expected to be told the gist of the story that the picture seemed to promise. Yes, it was a swimming pool - a nice swimming pool.
At Auschwitz, yes. ... And...?
And that was that.
Apparently the fact that there was a swimming pool at Auschwitz was highly significant.
But, I objected, it is well known that the German authorities took reasonably good care of their Lager-Kommandanten and their families as well as the personnel whenever possible. They had all sorts of amenities; why not a swimming pool?
In my obtuseness apparently I had misunderstood the whole point of the "discussion". The point being that if there was a swimming pool at Auschwitz it must have been used by the prisoners; which in its turn signifies that Auschwitz was not a sinister extermination camp but rather a summer camp... well, of sorts.
How did you come to the conclusion that it was used by the prisoners?, I asked.
Apparently the fact that the swimming pool's existence had been "covered up" by the local museum guides and book guides about Auschwitz, either by flat denial of its existence or by presenting it as a water tank for other purposes is incriminatory enough to allow such a leap of logic.
As I said before, I do not know what happened or did not happen at Auschwitz, or wherever I was not present.
But to me, the denial of the existence of said swimming pool at Auschwitz signals atrociously bad judgment and extremely poor scholarship on the part of whoever trained the guides (and of the guides themselves) and/or wrote the guidebooks that do not mention the swimming pool or that present it as something else. It does not follow from this stupidity that the pool was used by the prisoners. It may have been, for all I know; but if it was, that certainly does not follow from the "evidence" presented.
The reason I chose to pen this little post today is that this issue - or rather "issue" - appears to be less of a historical mystery/conspiracy/cover-up/whatever than a rather typical example of the ignorance that the internet has revealed and is now actively spreading itself.
By ignorance I mean just that: lack of proper education, of proper schooling, and - much more worryingly - of proper critical thinking skills (which are, after all, one of the goals of proper education).
This (non)issue could be the symbol of the new world that has emerged since the beginning of the internet era: an era of easily accessible information, where mere ease and speed of information is mistaken for quality of information.
Even worse, books - proper books, historical and other, and the painstakingly researched information they offer - appear to be almost devalued among a considerable number of netizens, if we are to judge from numerous forum postings and other means of public expression.
Does truth not matter? Since when?
Just because many people seem to prefer indulging in assorted conspiracy theories - because they are, to put it bluntly, unhappy with the real world of their own daily life but lack the intellectual wherewithal to change it - it does not follow that anything and everything can be relativised into an "alternative" story - and still hold water.
To read a more uplifting story, about the glory of the human mind (and good education!), see this delightful text (p. 29 of the PDF; or through a link found here).
The best part of it is that the critical thinker featured in it was twelve years old.
The bad, really bad news is that it happened 200 years ago.
