Fake Holocaust Survivors: Ora Markstein

I have long been of the opinion that various ‘Holocaust Survivors’ – while they may have been at the camps – have deliberately (or sometimes through senility) modified their stories to fit the popular narrative.

A good example of this can be found in the tales told by one Ora Markstein – formerly of Hamilton, Canada – whose recent obituary in the ‘Hamilton Spectator’ makes for interesting reading.

We read how:

‘Markstein — who died May 9 at 100 — was one of 450,000 Jews deported from her homeland of Hungary in May 1944 to Auschwitz in occupied Poland in an operation overseen by the notorious Adolf Eichmann.’ (1)

So far so good Markstein was allegedly deported to Auschwitz from Hungary in May 1944 which would place her among the first to be deported to the Auschwitz camp system from that country that began in April 1944 and kicked into high gear in May 1944. She was also roughly 20 at the time of deportation which also makes sense.

Yet that is where the plausible history of Markstein’s ‘Holocaust’ narrative ends since we then read that:

‘She believed it was good luck she survived. She found her husband Francis and parents survived the war, but she lost 35 other family members, including her “sweet” mother-in-law. The last time Markstein saw her was when she gave a wave as she was being led to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

“Anyone who survived, survived because of a chain of miracles,” she said. “I am able to stand here and tell you these things because I was lucky.”

Six million Jews perished in the Holocaust, about one million at Auschwitz. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., released a study in January estimating there are about 245,000 survivors still alive today, 95 per cent being “child survivors” born between 1928 and 1946.

In October, she was moved to Bergen-Belsen near Hanover. She got typhus in January 1945 and was found by two British officers on her death bed after they liberated the camp in April 1945.’ (2)

Now in the first instance what we read is the typical recycled trite tripe about how it ‘being a miracle’ anyone survived Auschwitz, but yet they – as always – fail to understand or even reasonably speculate how that might have been even if the ‘Holocaust’ narrative were correct.

In the second we note that Markstein claims she ‘waved’ as her mother was ‘being led to the gas chamber at Auschwitz’, but which gas chamber is she referring to? She just assumes there was one when there were in fact four allegedly operating at this time of which Markstein is apparently total unaware.

This is odd given that if she was at Auschwitz and it had operating gas chambers – then at the height of their use remember - then she would have known this but if there weren’t ‘gas chambers’ and she’s just filling in from post-war general claims then it would completely understandable how she wouldn’t know this basic information and instead suggest there was just the one operating.

Thirdly I note – unrelated to Markstein’s testimony but in the ‘Hamilton Spectator’s’ article – that there are over 200,000 ‘child Holocaust survivors’ alive today, which is decidedly odd if the orthodox ‘Holocaust’ narrative were true because part of the core idea of the ‘Holocaust’ is the very first people to be killed (as ‘unless eaters’ and thus unable to work) were the elderly, the infirm and the children: so if this were true why did so many jewish children survive the German concentration camp system when they were allegedly priority targets?

Fourthly Markstein’s suggestion that she was ‘moved to Bergen-Belsen’ from Auschwitz in October 1944 is plausible albeit very early which makes it possible but somewhat unlikely and would need to validated by archival research. (3)

Next, we read how:

‘Markstein recalled her trip to Auschwitz was in a crowded cattle car. Eighty people were forced in and they had one pail of water for drinking and one pail for the toilet. She said many of the oldest and youngest died.

When they arrived, she said a SS officer separated the crowd between those who would work and those who would die in the gas chamber.

“If someone tried to hold on to someone’s hand, they were beaten with rifles until they let go,” said Markstein. She later learned the officer was likely Dr. Josef Mengele, nicknamed the “Angel of Death.”

The brutality of the camp was further illustrated to her when they were given “rag” dresses to wear. They had no shoes or underwear. One woman was given a dress she couldn’t get into because it was too small, and when she complained, “she was beaten to death in front of us.”

In the camp, she was shocked to see strange-looking people in blue and grey dress with no hair. “At first, we thought this was a lunatic asylum, they looked so forlorn and desperate.”

She said everyone quickly learned not to speak to the guards, complain or fail to do what was asked of them. She became numb.

Her sister-in-law was a violinist and was recruited to play in one of the macabre camp orchestras by Mengele. She asked if she could bring her sister and Mengele allowed it. Markstein worked in a factory and an office.

With the Russians closing in, the orchestra group went to Bergen-Belsen, which Markstein described as “a disorganized, filthy hole with bodies everywhere.”’ (4)

What we need to note here is the lack of actual detail here in that we are told the common trite story of the ‘railway car with one pail as a toilet’, but with the significant addition of a pail of water – usually it is claimed by ‘Holocaust survivors’ that the Germans didn’t provide any water at all so ‘many jews died from dehydration and heat exhaustion’ – as well as the classic ‘Dr. Mengele did the selections’ (possible but he was one of several medical personnel in the Auschwitz camp system so it would need to actually be validated) as well as a bizarre unsubstantiated story about a jewess being randomly beaten to death with rifle butts after being unable to fit in a concentration camp prisoner uniform and then asking for a different size.

Then we are treated to the often-unremarked fact – at least by mainstream historians – that Auschwitz had a camp orchestra – whose string section apparently included Markstein’s sister – with Dr. Mengele apparently taking requests from prisoners as to where they’d be assigned work duty which would be decidedly odd (not to mention extremely inefficient) if Auschwitz was conducted ‘mass exterminations’ as is frequently alleged.

All this suggests that Markstein really doesn’t seem to know very much about the ‘extermination camp’ she was allegedly in, but instead seems to be getting her a lot of her information about the camp and her experiences from post-war summaries, documentaries and presumably also word of mouth.

We are all but told as much by the ‘Hamilton Spectator’ when they write that:

‘The celebrated sculptor kept her story to herself for decades until 1995 when she heard about people denying the Holocaust’s existence. After that, she spoke at many schools and to reporters.

“I got so angry,” she told The Spectator. “I decided I’m going to tell the world what they did to us just because we happened to be Jewish.”’ (5)

In other words: Markstein never talked about her ‘experiences’ from 1945 to 1994 but suddenly started warbling about them in 1995 – some fifty years after the fact! – in order to ‘combat Holocaust denial’, which suggests she probably ‘refreshed’ her memory a bit but then because – like so many – she didn’t do any serious research she begins unknowingly contradicting the official narrative and mentioning inconvenient bits of information such as the pail of water in the train carriage (i.e., the Germans were randomly torturing jews by depriving them of water), thinking there was only one ‘gas chamber’ at Auschwitz and also mentioning that her sister was part of the Auschwitz camp orchestra which fact is often suppressed due to the obvious incredulity of having an orchestra at it what is commonly perceived as a ‘death camp’.

The truth is – as always – a lot simpler in that Auschwitz wasn’t a ‘death camp’ that didn’t conduct ‘mass gassings’, but instead was simply a large series of work camps that were an integral part of the Third Reich’s war economy and industrial output and that the almost universal inability of ‘Holocaust survivors’ (like Markstein) to get specific details of this ‘extermination’ policy right – while also mentioning less known but unrelated specific details (like the camp orchestra) – is far more reminiscent of the common legal problem of (unsuccessfully) trying to get multiple witnesses to coordinate their story so that it matches than actual historical truth.

References

(1) https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/obituary-ora-markstein-holocaust-survivor/article_93328891-8259-5faa-a81b-c77568f595ff.html

(2) Ibid.

(3) https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/evacuation/; https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/evacuation/the-final-evacuation-and-liquidation-of-the-camp/; https://www.auschwitz.org/en/liberation-of-kl-auschwitz-80/

(4) https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/obituary-ora-markstein-holocaust-survivor/article_93328891-8259-5faa-a81b-c77568f595ff.html

(5) Ibid.