Information that in the Third Reich massively made soap from human fat is extremely common on the network and in book publications. We checked whether this statement is confirmed by facts.
Reports that the Nazis boil soap from people, appeared Already in 1941, including in American intelligence reports (with reference to messages of local residents). In 1942 from the pages Chicago Tribune And The New York Times The manufacture of soap from the corpses is the leader of the US Zionist movement Doctor Stephen Samuel Weiss.
In 1945, the story with the production of soap Nazis in the laboratory in Danzig (Gdansk) Describes Polish publicist Zofya Nalkovsk. After the capture of the city, the Polish authorities sent two doctors to explore the laboratories of the Anatomical Institute of the Danzig Medical Academy, which, in particular, made textbooks using internal bodies of executed criminals. That's how Describe Inspection of Anthropologists Alexander Arkhipov and Joseph Zislin: “They see a terrible picture: parts of the bodies with traces of medical operations are scattered everywhere. In addition, they saw there tanks and a white mass, similar to fat, about which one former employee, Pole, said that this is "soap made of people." Doctors verbally reported this to the authorities, but there was no written report on the Nuremberg process on their behalf.
The assistant to the main prosecutor from the USSR L. N. Smirnov presented these and other certificates in Nuremberg on February 19, 1946. He said that the institute had already been produced “on a semi -industrial scale of experiments on obtaining soap from human bodies and overtaking with the industrial goals of human skin”, and Presented A sample of soap from human fat found in the laboratory. Smirnov’s speech was based on the testimony of the laboratory assistant of the Pole, Sigmund Mazur, who said that in 1944 Dr. Rudolf Spanner (the famous pathologist and director of the anatomical institute) conducted experiments with the manufacture of soap from human ingredients. In particular, Mazur (who died from typhus in prison, without having to live to the tribunal) brought a recipe for the production of this soap: “In this recipe, it was ordered to take human fat, 5 kilos with 10 liters of water and 500 [grams] or a kilogram of caustic soda. All this cook for two or three hours, then let it cool. The soap pops up, and the remains and water remain at the bottom in the buckets. Salt (handful) and soda were also added to the mixture. Then fresh water was added, and the mixture was again cooked for two to three hours. After cooling, the finished soap was poured into forms. ”
From then until the beginning of the 1990s, this plot as absolutely reliable was reproduced in media, literature and oral narratives along with other Nazis crimes. In particular, the books and diaries of Zofya Nalkovskaya with a description of what he saw in Gdansk came out and studied in Poland and beyond - for example, already published in 1945 Essay “Professor Spanner”, in detail describing the “Lockword History” and the first testimony of Mazur, survived more than one reprint.
One of the first publicly about the failure of the history with soap declared Michael Berenbaum, curator of the creation of the Museum of Memory of the Holocaust in the USA and its first director (from 1993 to 1997). When Berenbaum began to collect museum exhibits, he said, he considered it completely obvious that the Nazis made soap from human fat. It was probably ethical, the question of whether to use soap at the exhibition. However, after a thorough study, Berenbaum “found evidence of everything else that the Nazis did, and even worse”, but there was no sufficient evidence of the production of soap and it was not included in the exposition. The fact that the industrial production of soap from human fat is a legend in 1990 He wrote researcher of Jehuda Bauer, and about this with some regularity Representatives of the "Yad Vashem" (memorial complex of the history of the Holocaust) also claim. All this prompted chemists, biologists, historians and anthropologists to a deeper study of the issue in the last 30 years.
Anthropologists and historians separately note that the plot with soap from people appeared during the First World War - not least thanks to British propaganda. In 1925, he was debunked by the British themselves, but became stable far beyond the borders of Great Britain. As the researchers of Arkhipov and Zislin write, “joint efforts of media, propagandists and folklore tradition, the plot of hostile social groups that can process people on soap, spread widely in Europe and Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. In the early 1920s, the inhabitants of Petrograd accused the local Chinese that they steal people for soap. The young writer M. Stronin mentions in the sketch of the life of St. Petersburg, M. Stronin: ""The Chinese cooks for soap."Thus, by the beginning of World War II, all conditions were created so that the second, very close plot appeared: soap made by the Nazis from Jews." You can read in the most detail about the history of this plot in article "The funeral of soap: legends and reality of the Holocaust."
Perhaps the most thorough at the moment is study available evidence, including photo documents and texts of interrogations, Polish historian Joachim Neander. The study was published in 2006 and showed shortcomings in the work of the Polish commission, a member of which was Zofya Nalkovsk, the lack of sufficient material evidence and a number of inconsistencies in Mazur's testimonies. In particular, the soap's recipe described by him was not just outdated, which was strange for a sufficiently technologically advanced Germany of that time, but also a man dangerous for use (although Mazur showed that he washed them). In addition, the case of the Spanner was investigated in Britain and Germany, and he himself was questioned three times in 1947 and 1948. The court and the investigation did not find sufficient evidence of guilt, concluding that he was engaged exclusively with "experiments with dead bodies." In addition, the posthumous analysis showed that there were no Jews among them, the bulk of the bodies was supplied to the Academy from prisons and houses for mentally ill and most of them were ethnic Germans and Poles. The authors came to the same conclusion posthumous investigationsspent in 1967-2002. As a result, the spanner was not convicted and spent the rest of his life in Cologne at the position of a university professor.
Chemical analysis and analysis of DNA of available samples of soap produced by an industrial method in the Third Reich, does not show anomalies or the presence of the amount of human DNA, which could be considered proof of the production of soap from human fat. But here it is worth noting that during the preparation of corpses and the preparation of anatomical manuals, an unpeeled soap mass is really formed, which is used to work with the joints of anatomical manuals - the spanner spoke about this in all his testimonies. From this Joachim Neander made two assumptions. First: it was this badly smelling substance that was eventually called soap, probably such soap mean Jehuda Bauer, speaking of "25 kg of soap produced in Danzig." Second: in theory, against the background of a soap deficit, this mass could be cleaned in the laboratory and used for household needs - washing tables and premises. Both assumptions find confirmation in 2006.
IN statement The main commission for the investigation of crimes against the Polish people of October 13, 2006 states that any crimes were not committed on the territory of the Medical Academy in Danzig, in particular, the use of corpses from the concentration camp is not confirmed. However, during the investigation that began in 2002, a piece of soap stored in the Hague, and a piece of soap transferred to journalists by a former employee of the Academy, was analyzed. Professor Andrzej Stolyvo, specializing in chemistry of fats, said that an abrasive kaolin was added to the soap, making soap suitable for household purposes, and almond oil to bring down the smell. And the analysis allows a high probability to assume that the composition of animals did not contain exclusively, but also human fat, which, according to the table, is a violation of ethical principles.
November 20, 2006 Prosecutor Peter Nesin from the Institute of National Memory stopped Investigation for the lack of corpus delicti. He did not find evidence that the spanner provoked the murders to get corpses for the academy. The final verdict states that in 1944 and 1945, a “chemical substance that is essentially soap” was extracted in the laboratory of a spanner from human fat. ”
Outdoor In 2010, the study of Monica Tomkevich and Peter Semkov, dedicated to the Spanner, also analyzes the chemical data and concludes that it was hardly a piker with his formation and status was interested in other processing of corpses than the preparation of anatomical manuals. But with his knowledge or without it, probably, a certain amount of soap was indeed produced in the laboratory. At the same time, the authors criticize the results of the analysis of Andrzei Stolkovo in 2006, since they were not published in details, and the DNA analysis of the same soap samples carried out at the beginning of the investigation (in 2002) did not show the presence of human DNA. Nevertheless, Tomkevich and Semkov converge with Neander that against the background of the legend and quite real genocide, as well as the available information about inhuman experiments, it was the finds in Gdansk that have already existed for several decades.
All researchers, as well as employees of memory memorials Emphasize The danger of the spread of this plot, since it can spur the denial of the Holocaust. Aaron Breitbart, employee Center of Simon Vizenthal (Jewish non -governmental organization named after famous "Hunter for the Nazis"), He said The following: “The point of view of the revisionists of the Holocaust is as follows: if you can prove that something is wrong, then everything is wrong [the rest]. This gives them the opportunity to question the general historical reliability of the Holocaust. ” And the researchers are right: it is the debunking of the myth of soap production I took it As the main argument, the well -known renewer of the Holocaust, German chemist Germar Rudolf, after It failed His campaign to deny the use of gas chambers by Nazis.
Thus, a common plot of soap bouture from human fat arose during the First World War and was soon refuted, but continued its existence in folklore. Against the backdrop of crimes of Nazi Germany, the plot was transformed, picked up at the official level and spread as an undeniable truth until the 1990s. There are a number of grounds that allow us to say that in the laboratory of Dr. Spanner, byatomical preparation of anatomical preparations was used, including for the manufacture of household soap. However, the industrial production of soap from human fat is not confirmed by evidence of the past and is refuted by all modern research.
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