Aerial photographs
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Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek. As in the case of Treblinka, it would have been impossible in Majdanek or Belzec to keep any mass murder secret; the close proximity of settlements and roads, and the cultivation of surrounding farm land right up to the camp fences, saw to that. In no case is there any evidence for mass graves or burning pits. Babi Yar The ravine of Babi Yar underwent no noticeable changes in topography or vegetation up to the end of the War. There are no signs of human intervention during the time of German occupation. There was no human activity there at the time of the mass cremations attested to by the witnesses. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

Auschwitz-Birkenau. The few air photos of Auschwitz-Birkenau known to date from the period of December 1943 to February 1945 show no signs of fuel depots, smoke from chimneys or open fires, burning pits or pyres. The photos were altered: Zyklon B input hatches, groups of inmates, and walls around crematoria were retouched onto the photo negatives. Insofar as they still exist, photos of good quality are being kept from the public. One must assume that any actual mass murder activities would not have escaped the notice of the air photo interpreters. This would have resulted in the bombing of the camp - which, however, was carefully refrained from. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

The Bottom Line. To this day there is no air photo evidence to support the alleged mass murder of the Jews at any location in Europe occupied by the Germans during World War Two. Further, air photo analysis refutes the claim that the Nazis had intended, at whatever time, to keep events in the alleged extermination camps secret. In many cases the air photos provide clear proof that some of the events attested to by witnesses, such as the destruction of the Hungarian Jews or the mass executions at Babi Yar, did not in fact take place. We may hope that the release of Soviet air photos dating from the time the camps were in operation will shed further light on these issues. The fact that these photos have not been published to date may already speak for itself. That the photos in Western hands were altered in order to incriminate Germany, and were first published by the CIA, is also very significant indeed. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

Ken Wilson, a specialist in aerial photographs, had shown that the homicidal "gas chambers" of Auschwitz and Birkenau did not have gas evacuation chimneys, which would have been indispensible. He also showed that I had been right in accusing Serge Klarsfeld and Jean-Claude Pressac of falsifying the map of Birkenau in the Auschwitz Album (Seuil Publishers, 1983, p. 42). Those authors, in order to make the reader believe that groups of Jewish women and children surprised by the photographer between crematories II and III could not go any farther and were thus going to end up in the "gas chambers" and those crematories, had simply eliminated from the map the path which. in reality led up to the "Zentralsauna," a large shower facility (located beyond the zone of the crematories), where those women and children were actually going. The Zündel Trials (1985 and 1988) by ROBERT FAURISSON

Aerial photographs taken of Auschwitz by the Americans during the war were released by the CIA in 1979 in a book entitled The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex. Using slides of these photographs, Felderer pointed out to the jury the main buildings in the camp, including the electrified fence, the alleged gas chamber, Commandant Hoess's house, the administration buildings, the swimming pool, the hospital block, the gynecological block (as children were born at Auschwitz), the SS hospital, blocks where inmates learned a trade such as sewing and the two largest buildings in the camp, the kitchen, and the theatre. (18-4255 to 4259) Close-up slides of the aerial photographs indicated that the alleged gas chamber in Auschwitz I was about 30 metres from the SS hospital building. (18-4260) Felderer was told by people in the town of Auschwitz that during the war people could obtain special permission to take tours of the camp on special days. [Ditlieb Felderer] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988 

I went to the National Archives and requested to see the originals, since the photos given to me as originals had clearly been altered. And in fact I was then given air photos which I was assured were the originals. These were indeed of better quality than the negatives I had been given first: due to the better focus, the work of the forgers was considerably more clearly apparent at the same places on the photos. When I pointed this out to the Archives staff, I was told that these were the negatives which the National Archives had received from the CIA in 1979, and that they had always believed that they were in the precise state in which they had been taken out of the reconnaissance planes in 1944. I was told that I was the first member of the public ever to have seen these negatives. Now they would be returned to the archives forever and be handed out only on the request of government agencies such as the CIA.
    In light of the poor quality of the forgeries on these air photos it is not likely that the alterations were added by a government agency or by the CIA itself. These authorities have highly qualified staff and advanced technology at their disposal and would have produced forgeries that were perfect, or at least very difficult to expose. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

Much like Treblinka, the Belzec camp could easily be looked into from the nearby rail line and road. The town of Belzec was located about 1 mile north of the camp....The Majdanek camp is located at the outskirts of the city of Lublin. Just as for Treblinka, the surrounding fields were cultivated right up to the camp boundary. The alleged gas chambers and the crematorium were outside the camp proper, openly visible and accessible to thousands of people living in the suburbs of Lublin. AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

One qualitatively excellent sequence of photos from June 26, 1944 breaks off just before Auschwitz. While it is possible that the cameras were turned off immediately after the plane flew over the main point of interest, namely the synthetic rubber plant in Monowitz, it seems more probable that these photos of excellent quality and resolution were in fact removed before the public could view them.AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

it is interesting that in Birkenau, as well, the surrounding fields were cultivated right up to the camp boundary, which would have defeated any attempts to keep events in the camp secret.AIR PHOTO EVIDENCE by JOHN CLIVE BALL

Weber first became interested in the Holocaust issue when the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made public in 1979 the wartime aerial reconnaissance photographs of Auschwitz taken in 1944 and 1945. These photographs were unknown to the public up to that time. The purpose of the overflights was not to record what was going on in Auschwitz I or Birkenau, but what was going on at Monowitz (sometimes called Auschwitz III) which was a major industrial centre the Germans had built up for manufacturing artificial gasoline. (23-5720, 5724)
    It surprised Weber that the photographs showed no evidence of an extermination in the very camp which today was considered the most important German extermination centre. Nor were the photographs consistent with the extermination story of Auschwitz as it had been presented for years by the Holocaust historians. For example, it was claimed that the Auschwitz crematories in 1944 were belching smoke constantly as masses of gassed Jews were cremated and that huge piles of corpses were being burned in open funeral pyres. However, there was no indication of this in any of the aerial photographs even though the photographs were taken at random, as far as the Germans were concerned, during precisely the period when it was alleged that the greatest extermination took place at Auschwitz. At Nuremberg, it was claimed that 4 million people were killed at the camp. While the photographs alone did not prove the revisionist viewpoint, they were inconsistent with the Holocaust story. Weber was astounded when Elie Wiesel and others nevertheless seized upon these aerial photographs to claim that the United States government knew that Jews were being exterminated at Auschwitz during the war and complacently refused to do anything about it. Elie Wiesel's words were that the United States shared a historical guilt for allowing the Jews to be exterminated. Weber asked the Director of the Modern Military Branch of the National Archives about this point and he told Weber emphatically that he also disagreed with this interpretation and felt that the photographs were being blatantly misrepresented. (23-5720 to 5724) [Mark Weber] The 'False News' Trial of Ernst Zündel -- 1988