“… When it was known beforehand that a man could not survive
[following medical experimentation at Dachau. knm], Rascher [Dr.
Sigmund Rascher, the Luftwaffe physician who initiated medical
experimentation by writing to Himmler. knm] would make what he
called a ‘leather inspection.’ Grabbing a man by the buttocks or
thighs, he would say ‘Good,’ which meant that, after the victim had
been killed, the skin was stripped from his body. (NCA, 2428 PS,
Deposition of Anton Pacholegg, May 13, 1945.)
A Czech doctor, Franz Blaha … testified before the [Nuremberg]
tribunal that he had been incarcerated at Dachau from 1941 to 1945.
… He said he had been assigned to perform autopsies, and had
conducted twelve thousand all told … On numerous occasions, Blaha
recalled, he had been ordered by Rascher and another doctor to flay
the skin off bodies.
‘It was chemically treated and placed in the sun to dry. After that
it was cut into various sizes for use as saddles, riding breeches,
gloves, house slippers, and ladies handbags. Tattooed skin was
especially valued by SS men. Sometimes we did not have enough
bodies with good skin and Rascher would say, ‘All right, you will
get the bodies.’ The next day we would received twenty or thirty
bodies of young people. They would have been shot in the neck or
struck on the head so that the skin would be uninjured. Also we
frequently got requests for the skulls or skeletons of prisoners.
In those cases, we boiled the skull or the body. Then the soft
parts were removed and the bones were bleached and dried and
reassembled. In the case of skulls it was important to have a good
set of teeth, so it was dangerous to have good skin or good teeth.’
(IMT, vol. 5, p. 171)
‘I was in the office many times when human skin with blood still on
it was brought into Rascher, Pacholegg noted. ‘After the bodies had
been carted away, Rascher would inspect the skins carefully,
holding them up to the light for flaws, and would pass on them
before they were tanned. They were always stretched over small
wooden frames when they came to Rascher. I saw the finished leather
later made into a handbag that Mrs. Rascher was carrying.'(NCA,
2428 PS, op. cit.)” (Conot, 288-289)
Work Cited
Conot, Robert E. Justice at Nuremberg. New York: Harper & Row,
1983
Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Tattoo “debunking” debunked (2/3)
Summary: Gannon’s “case” “debunking” the evidence of tanned human
skin fails to survive on its merits, as the testimony at
Nuremberg clearly demonstrates.
Reply-To: [email protected]almanac.bc.ca
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Old Frog’s Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: tattoo,Dachau,Koch,Rascher
Lines: 49
Last-Modified: 1994/03/09
