Nahon, Marco

Marco Nahon was a Greek Jew who was interned at the Auschwitz Camp from May 1943 until October 1944. Toward the end of his stay, when SS surveillance allegedly slacked, he claimed to have been able to talk to some members of the Sonderkommando. He presented his narration of an inspection of a crematorium and a description of what was happening inside in the first person, thus giving the false impression of a first-hand report. Here are Nahon’s peculiar hearsay remarks:

• The intended victims were trucked to the crematorium, entered the undressing room and undressed, but then it was discovered that 1,400 were not enough, so they all went back to their barracks. Only two days later, with 2,000 inmates, did the process get completed. Of course, that would never have happened. On the one hand, 1,400 was more than enough, and on the other, it might have been a smart idea to count the intended victims before picking them up on trucks and carrying them some place. The SS were hardly so foolish.
• Above the door to the gas chamber was a clock and a window. We don’t know about a clock (no other inmate has ever mentioned it), but we know that there was no window above any door leading to any room ever alleged to have served as a homicidal gas chamber.
• Zyklon B was stored in metal containers similar to vacuum flasks or thermos bottles. Actually, it was stored in tin cans, some 15 cm in diameter and of variable heights.
• An SS man threw such a bottle through the window above the door into the gas chamber. On impact, it detonated. First, there was no such window. Next, Zyklon-B cans were not bombs that exploded on impact. And finally, they were certainly not themselves thrown in, but at most their contents.
• The walls of the gas-chamber tremble under the incredible impact and the desperate knocking of those being asphyxiated. The heavy double-brick walls built into the ground most certainly would not have trembled.
• Nahon described what the gassing victims experienced: All of us are pale, our hair stands up on our heads, a cold sweat forms in drops over our foreheads… The blood drains from our bodies. Remember this is an account from hearsay! Hydrogen cyanide, Zyklon B’s active ingredient, does not drain anyone’s blood.
• The execution lasted only 3–5 minutes, which is both a common claim and also physically impossible with the claimed setup.

Statements such as these are the reasons why testimonies from hearsay should not be admissible either in court — they are admissible in many countries! — or in historiography. (For details, see Mattogno 2021, pp. 376-378.)