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Why I acquired the whiteprint of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria

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Preservation isn’t enough; this document must be seen, studied and understood.

Elliott Broidy
This piece was originally published on JNS on February 18, 2026.

When I first saw the faded whiteprint, an architectural drawing of the earliest design concept for what became Crematoria II and III at Auschwitz-Birkenau, I felt the crushing weight of evil. This piece of paper with its neat geometric lines—so professional, so precise—was proof of the intent to incinerate the corpses of hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children who would be murdered on an industrial scale.

I have dedicated much of my philanthropic work to support Jewish organizations and to combat antisemitism. I knew immediately that this artifact had to be brought to light, especially in our era of surging Holocaust denial and resurgent antisemitism.

That’s why I acquired the whiteprint for $1.5 million, a sum chosen to honor the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The document, drawn by SS architect Walter Dejaco in October 1941, has been authenticated by Robert Jan van Pelt, one of the world’s leading experts on Auschwitz. Van Pelt has called it “quite literally irreplaceable.”

The whiteprint represents crucial architectural evidence of Nazi extermination infrastructure. It is a tangible link to the systematic planning behind the Holocaust and an irrefutable record of genocidal intent. Physical artifacts such as this provide enduring evidence of the Nazi pursuit of the “Final Solution.”

Yet preservation by itself isn’t enough. The whiteprint must be seen, studied and understood.

For that reason, I intend to exhibit it at various Holocaust museums and institutions dedicated to fighting antisemitism before permanently donating it to one such institution. Each viewing will be an opportunity to educate, to remember and to inoculate future generations against denial and distortion.

The proceeds from the acquisition will support an early-childhood curriculum designed to combat extremism and hate before they take root. By emphasizing altruism and empathy in young children, we can build immunity against the dehumanization that makes hatred and ultimately violence possible.

‘A particular responsibility’

The whiteprint acquisition is part of a broader commitment.

Working with the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, I helped fund the purchase of the former home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss. At 88 Legionów Street in Oświęcim, Poland, the house sits directly adjacent to the camp where he oversaw mass murder on a scale that will forever be incomprehensible.

CEP has transformed the house into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, which uses the very latest technology to disrupt the shadowy financial networks that extremists use to foment antisemitism, extremism and terrorism. What was once the home of a principal architect of genocide now houses scholars, researchers and activists working to fight against the mainstreaming of the evil Höss embodied. I serve as co-chair of the Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism and Hate, which helps enable ARCHER’s vital work.

We are living in a time of acute danger. Antisemitic incidents have reached levels not seen in generations. Holocaust denial proliferates online, often cloaked in the dishonest guise of “just asking questions,” as it edges ever closer to the mainstream—a harrowing development. The survivors who bore witness to history’s greatest crime will not be alive much longer. And when they are gone, artifacts like the whiteprint, Holocaust museums and organizations like ARCHER will become our primary vehicles for transmitting memory and combating lies.

The Jewish philanthropic community carries a particular responsibility. We cannot shirk it. We must support education that cultivates moral responsibility and seriousness; fund research that exposes and disrupts contemporary forms of antisemitism; preserve and display evidence of the Holocaust (in addition to the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the most devastating massacre since the Holocaust); and build communal institutions that will outlast our lifetimes.

We must confront the most dangerous form of contemporary antisemitism: the systematic delegitimization of the State of Israel.

We must push back against those who accuse Israel of committing genocide, a modern-day blood libel that was once confined to the fringes of radical academia, but has escaped containment into the broader discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We must proudly support Israel and champion a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. We can differ in our views of particular Israeli policies, but we must never lose sight of what is at stake: the survival and security of the world’s only Jewish state, home to nearly half the Jews on the planet.

For a small people—there are only about 16 million Jews in the world today, fewer than on the eve of World War II—this work is not optional.

Elie Wiesel moved beyond vowing “Never Again” in his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, insisting instead: “Sometimes, we must interfere.”

Fighting antisemitism must be a sustained commitment expressed through action, scholarship and memory.

Elliott Broidy is an entrepreneur who has used his extensive experience and talent to found, invest in, and in some cases, manage as CEO, more than 160 companies over his four-decade career. He has given extensively to support the Jewish community and other causes during his career. He currently is the Co-Chair of the Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism and Hate which supports the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, an initiative of The Counter Extremism Project.

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Preserving proof: Acquiring ‘profoundly evil’ Auschwitz-Birkenau whiteprint

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This piece was originally published in The Baltimore Sun. 

By Armstrong Williams

Florida-based philanthropist and businessman Elliott Broidy, joined by his wife, Robin, speaks with The Baltimore Sun about acquiring for $1.5 million an original 1941 whiteprint of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria, a document that embodies the calculated architecture of genocide during the Holocaust.

The preservation of this whiteprint is more than historical stewardship. It is an act of resistance against denial, distortion and forgetfulness. Primary evidence anchors collective memory,  and a healthy democracy depends on shared facts. The interview has been edited for length and clarity

What is the historical significance of this original whiteprint?

Elliott Broidy: This document is the front elevation of the crematoria building at Auschwitz-Birkenau, dated Oct. 24, 1941. It was created by SS architect Walter Dejaco under the direction of commandant Rudolf Höss. It shows the size, scale and smokestack of the structure — the physical infrastructure that would become central to industrialized murder.

This was not spontaneous evil. It was engineered: deliberate, technical, bureaucratic. It reflects the earliest architectural conception of how a prison complex evolved into a mechanized killing site. That precision is what makes it so chilling.

Why did you feel compelled to secure it?

EB: Only two such documents are known to exist. One was last documented in Russia in 1991. When this surfaced, I believed it needed to be preserved, not hidden or lost to private hands.

It demonstrates the intentionality behind genocide, how ideology became design and design became machinery. It exposes the cold, administrative nature of what occurred. It is proof not only of horror, but of planning.

How did it survive from 1945 until now?

EB: A rabbi in California received it years ago. It had reportedly been purchased at a neo-Nazi gathering in Germany, without full awareness of its historical weight.

We believe someone originally removed it from an architectural office at Auschwitz and concealed it. Decades later, it resurfaced. When it was examined by a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the October 1941 date immediately signaled its importance; it placed the design at a critical early phase of the camp’s transformation.

Read the whole thing in The Baltimore Sun. 

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Finding Faith: Boca couple fights antisemitism through philanthropy, education

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This article was originally published in The Coastal Star.

By Janis Fontaine

In November, Elliott and Robin Broidy of Boca Raton paid $1.5 million for an old drawing. Not a piece of fine art, but an architectural sketch drawn on cheap newsprint dated Oct. 24, 1941. 

The landscape-oriented drawing, about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, is sepia-toned with age and protected by plastic; it depicts a house of horrors: the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where millions of Jews were systematically exterminated.  

What the Broidys now own is one of only two known original drawings produced in preparation for meetings where the logistics of killing Jews on an industrial scale would be discussed. 

“The drawing we have is clear proof of genocidal intent,” Elliott Broidy wrote in a Nov. 21 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “To behold it is to confront the deliberate design of evil. My most sincere wish is for this whiteprint to be memorialized as part of an irrefutable body of evidence that negates Holocaust denial and helps to forever silence malevolent revisionists while also educating new generations about the lessons of the Holocaust.”

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Robin Broidy recalled the first time she stood before the drawing:  “It’s a horrible feeling. You’re standing so close to evil. These people created this document that you’re holding in your hands with the purpose of murdering, exterminating, terminating mass numbers of people. And you’re just, you’re sad.”

The document itself is nothing special: “The paper isn’t premium,” Robin Broidy said. In wartime paper is expensive. “They were doing as much as possible on very cheap paper, so all the blueprints are on low-quality paper.” 

The significance of the document lies in the date. Drawn by SS architect Walter Dejaco under the authority of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, it’s the snapshot of the moment when the men who planned the execution of millions of Jews actually put pen to paper and drew up the plan for the place the extermination would happen. The whiteprint is stark and irrefutable proof that the Shoah, the Hebrew word for the Holocaust, was conceived months before the announcement of the “final solution” in January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference. 

The Broidys purchased the artifact from Rabbi David Baron of Temple of the Arts Synagogue in Beverly Hills, who had received it from a friend of a congregant who had bought it at a Nazi memorabilia auction in Germany. Neither the buyer nor seller was aware of its historical significance. According to journalist Benjamin Raziel of Forbes, the Nazis understood the power of documentation and they tried to destroy as many records as possible as the Allies approached, so finding artifacts of this import is rare. 

Professor Robert Jan van Pelt, the foremost expert on Auschwitz architecture, authenticated the document, but when asked to place a value on it, Robin Broidy said, “He couldn’t. He said, ‘I can’t value it. It’s priceless.’” 

In an act of remembrance and reverence, the Broidys agreed to pay $1.5 million to the Temple of the Arts for the drawing. The money would be earmarked for Baron to use to create a global early-childhood curriculum promoting empathy and altruism. The rabbi’s curriculum aims to reach children when they are young, long before extremist ideologies can take root. 

“He has done research that indicates that children’s values are formed between zero to 5,” Robin said. “Therefore, if you can teach children altruism, empathy and listening to another person’s point of view then, they will be less likely to become an extremist and less likely to create hateful attitudes.”

That you become what you are taught isn’t a new idea, but Robin said, “Education is always the key. Education is the key to succeeding in life and to being a good person, getting your values straight.”

It’s also quite simple. Robin likes to tell the classic story of Rabbi Hillel, who was asked, “Can you teach the entire Torah standing on one foot?” Robin says his answer is the answer: “Sure I can. Whatever is hateful to you, do not do unto others. That’s what Jews are taught from their infancy.”

Baron told the Broidys how much money he would need to start his program, and they settled on a number. “It was a number that had some meaning,” Elliott said, “because out of the 6 million that died, 1.5 million were children.”

It’s not the first time the Broidys have stepped up like this. They’ve been actively fighting antisemitism and extremism for years. Their support turned “hell-on-earth” into a symbol of truth and light when the Counter Extremism Project transformed Rudolf Höss’ residence at 88 Legionow St. into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88.

The lovely private villa with its gardens and swimming pool where the Höss family lived in comfort and affluence — Höss’ wife called it “paradise” — sits just outside the fence of Auschwitz. The Höss children played under skies darkened by the smoke rising from the crematoria next door. While they hosted lavish parties with decadent food, Jews starved just feet away.

Today the property has a mezuzah on its front door. ARCHER at House 88’s goal and message are to turn a site of mass murder into a global center dedicated to exposing the machinery of hate and educating the world. Education must begin with children, but it has to continue through adulthood. Truly, no dog is too old to learn. 

Today’s battle is against misinformation and how easily it spreads. Researchers and educators, policymakers and activists work to prevent the spread of online extremism, promote safety on digital platforms and counter misinformation and radicalization. 

“What ARCHER is fighting against is the mainstreaming of extremism — the same propaganda, the same misinformation, the same lies that enabled the Germans and the SS to be able to do this without a second thought, without remorse, without thinking,” Robin Broidy said. “That is the message that we are trying to send to today’s young people. Anytime somebody tries to tell you that the other someone else is less than human, don’t believe them.”

The fight continues right in our own backyard. 

In January, several news agencies, including WPEC CBS12, reported that Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies had investigated a swastika and racial slurs painted on the pavement outside Florida Cancer Specialists, a medical office plaza in West Boca. An employee discovered the white lettering which targeted both Jewish and Black communities. A discarded paintbrush and empty paint can were recovered nearby but no usable fingerprints were found. The damage was estimated at about $500, and the graffiti was quickly removed. But the implications will last. 

Antisemitism is part of being a Jew, but Jews don’t fight hate with hate, Robin says: “You move on, and you try to show the world that you’re decent, wonderful human beings. You try to be positive, try to educate.”

To that end, the Broidys plan to display the whiteprint at institutions and organizations dedicated to combating antisemitism and preserving the memory of the Holocaust, before making a long-term gift of it to one institution. “Probably the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum,” Elliott said. 

The Broidys relocated to Boca Raton from Los Angeles to be closer to their children, grandchildren and about three dozen of Robin’s relatives. Elliott, chairman and CEO of Broidy Capital Holdings, is an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist with a career spanning four decades. Robin is a former film producer and movie executive who with Elliott has been devoted to the fight against antisemitism — they call it “our major fight” — for decades. 

Philanthropically, the Broidys support organizations dedicated to countering antisemitism, hate and extremism, including the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (CELL), the George Washington University Program on Extremism, and StandWithUs.

“This document is our way of changing the world a little bit, if possible, and that’s no small feat,” Elliott said.

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Elliott Broidy: How I reclaimed a blueprint of genocide to fight Holocaust denial

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We live in troubling times. Antisemitism is surging across the globe, reaching levels not seen since the end of World War II and spawning atrocities like the Hanukkah massacre at Australia’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people.

This hate hasn’t spared South Florida. Just weeks ago, a medical office in West Boca Raton was defaced with a swastika and racial slurs. The Miami nightclub played the rapper Ye’s song “Heil Hitler” as antisemitic influencers including Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes sang along proudly.

Israel, the world’s one Jewish state, faces not mere political criticism but seething, vicious slander that denies its right to exist — alone among the world’s countries — and demonizes its people with language and imagery drawn straight from history’s darkest chapter.

Elliott Broidy is a philanthropist and chairman and CEO of Broidy Capital Holdings, LLC. (courtesy, Elliot Broidy)
Elliott Broidy is a philanthropist and chairman and CEO of Broidy Capital Holdings, LLC.

Shockingly, a 2023 poll found that 20% of young Americans think the Holocaust is a myth.

In this scary environment, I felt compelled to fight back.

I recently acquired an original architectural drawing, or whiteprint, of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria. Drawn in October 1941 by SS architect Walter Dejaco, this document represents the earliest design concept for Crematoria II and III, the facilities in the massive Birkenau complex where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered with industrial efficiency. As historian Laurence Rees writes in his recently published book “The Nazi Mind,” the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria represented the “final evolutionary stage of the Holocaust.”

The document serves a vital purpose in the essential fight against Holocaust denial, arguably the cruelest manifestation of antisemitism. Deniers claim that the gas chambers never existed and that the Holocaust is either grossly exaggerated or fabricated out of whole cloth.

The whiteprint is irrefutable evidence of the Nazis’ murderous intent. It demonstrates the meticulous planning that went into their attempt to kill every Jew they could get their hands on.

It will eventually be donated to a Holocaust museum, where future generations can be confronted with documentary proof of the Nazi genocide and learn the horrible, but important, truth of what happened.

The artifact was secured for $1.5 million, a figure chosen to honor the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis, children who never had the chance to pursue their dreams, fall in love, or contribute their gifts to the world. The proceeds from the purchase will support an early childhood curriculum emphasizing altruism and empathy, designed to inoculate young minds against the dangers of extremism and hate before such poison can take root.

This acquisition is part of a broader commitment to confront antisemitism and extremism. I was honored to help the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) purchase the former home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, which stands just beyond the camp’s walls. Höss lived there in splendor with his wife and five children while directing the murder of a million Jews. CEP has transformed this home of a mass murdering antisemite into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, a groundbreaking initiative using cutting-edge technology to fight back against antisemitism, extremism and terrorism.

As important as remembrance is, without action, it is insufficient. No matter how passionately and reverently we intone “Never Again,” if we don’t take the fight to the antisemites, it won’t make a difference.

Soon there will be no living voices to bear witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. That makes our obligation all the more urgent. We must preserve their memory and testimony, teach it and, crucially, do everything in our power to defeat the antisemitism raging in our own time.

Let us honor the murdered not merely with tears but with resolve. Let us transform artifacts of genocide into tools of education. We must teach our children, from their earliest years, that every human life has infinite worth and that indifference to hatred makes us complicit in its consequences.

The whiteprint of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria reminds us that evil is planned and executed by human hands. Our response must be equally deliberate: to instill our children with righteous values and build a world where such evil can find no fertile ground.

About the author

Elliott Broidy is a philanthropist and chairman and CEO of Boca Raton’s Broidy Capital Holdings, LLC. He is co-chair of The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate.

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Jeff Jacoby: The drawing that killed my father’s family

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What a pristine Nazi blueprint reveals about professional complicity in genocide.

By Jeff Jacoby
On Oct. 24, 1941, an Austrian architect named Walter Dejaco sat at a drafting table in the German concentration camp at Auschwitz and sketched a preliminary design for what would soon become the camp’s main crematorium. In its clarity, precision, and carefully calculated dimensions, Dejaco’s drawing plainly reflected his professional training and experience.
It also reflected something new in the history of architecture. What Dejaco — a Nazi loyalist who had joined the SS in 1933 — drafted that day was the first rendering of a facility capable of incinerating human remains on an industrial scale. Over the next few months, his initial concept would be expanded into a crematorium with the capacity to incinerate 1,440 corpses per day. It was the first of four massive crematoria that would eventually be operating in Auschwitz, where 1.1 million people, nearly all of them Jews, would be murdered by Nazi Germany.
In the spring of 1944, my father and his family entered Auschwitz in a sealed boxcar from Hungary. Within a few hours of their arrival, my father’s parents and two youngest siblings were dead; before long, two older siblings were dead as well. The infrastructure that killed them — the gas chambers, the crematoria, the system for transporting corpses by the thousands to ovens each day so they could be turned to ash and smoke — had been designed by Dejaco and other SS architects: professionals complicit in facilitating genocide.
Earlier this month, I traveled to Los Angeles to see Dejaco’s original 1941 architectural drawing for the Auschwitz crematorium. The schematic, known as a whiteprint (a high-quality type of blueprint), was acquired in 2025 by Elliott Broidy, a businessman and philanthropist. Only two of Dejaco’s initial drawings still survive; the other, locked in a Russian military archive, is inaccessible to Western scholars.
Read the rest of Jeff Jacoby’s powerful piece in The Boston Globe. 
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Elliott Broidy: An original Auschwitz plan, a warning for our time

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I have acquired an original architectural drawing – a “whiteprint” – of the very first design of the crematoria built in Birkenau as an expansion of Auschwitz by Austrian architect Walter Dejaco.

This piece was originally published in The Jerusalem Post on January 14, 2026.
By Elliott Broidy
The massacre on Bondi Beach brought home to every Jew, everywhere, that no Jew is safe, anywhere.

As an American Jew, I watched the images of the antisemitic attack in Australia with horror – images that, like those of October 7 in Israel, brought back into our present-day lives the antisemitic violence of the past. Alongside this horror was a determination to fight back, using every means at our disposal to ensure that history is not forgotten.

As part of that fight, I have acquired an original architectural drawing – a “whiteprint” – of the very first design of the crematoria built in Birkenau as an expansion of Auschwitz.

Auschwitz concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during the Holocaust.
Auschwitz concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during the Holocaust. (credit: WALLPAPER FLARE)

The term ‘genocide’

The term “genocide” was first used in a legal context at the Nuremberg Trials, which began on November 20, 1945, almost exactly 80 years ago. It was intended to describe Nazi Germany’s systematic project to annihilate, with intent, an ethnic, racial, or religious group: the Jewss.Today, however, the concept of genocide has become debased and misused, most flagrantly in accusations leveled against Israel that it has committed genocide in Gaza. Holocaust deniers, of whom there are still too many for comfort, have been joined by a large and vocal crowd – including the United Nations and governments in Europe – who abuse the term genocide by applying it to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Prior to acquiring the whiteprint, in 2024, I helped the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit organization, purchase a house next door to Auschwitz. Commandant Rudolf Hoss lived there from May 1940 to December 1943, and again in early 1944, with his wife and five children. His chillingly dispassionate approach to the horror he oversaw at Auschwitz was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film The Zone of Interest.

I obtained the whiteprint from a rabbi in the Los Angeles area, who had been given the document a decade earlier by a collector of Nazi memorabilia known to one of his congregants. The donor had come across it at an auction in Germany without knowing its true historical value.

Whiteprint ‘literally irreplaceable’

In exchange for the whiteprint, I committed to fund $1.5 million for an educational project that the rabbi is currently developing. It is an early-education curriculum on altruistic behavior – a “catch them while they are young” approach to safeguarding children from extremism. The sum is intended to honor the memory of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.

The whiteprint is of immense historical significance. A member of my research team consulted Robert Jan van Pelt, a professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a leading authority on Nazi concentration camp architecture. He authenticated the whiteprint, describing it as “quite literally irreplaceable.”

Van Pelt explained that Dejaco created the design while visiting Auschwitz, where he would have been a guest of Hoss. The crematorium was initially planned to be located next to the Hoss family home, where he lived with his wife and young children. In 1942, the Nazis instead chose to build four crematoria in the nearby camp of Birkenau. These were later blown up by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced.

The four crematoria had an incineration capacity of nearly 4,400 corpses per day. Given their central role in the genocide of the Jews, van Pelt noted that Hoss “would have followed this project very intensely. It was a major capital outlay at a time of general rationing of resources like building materials and steel.”

Gassing and burning, starvation and disease

Although historians now estimate that approximately 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, roughly one million of them Jews, Hoss testified at Nuremberg that he believed the number was far higher. He stated that “at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated [at Auschwitz] by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000 dead.” This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners.”

Today, the two largest crematoria exist only in ruins.

Given the extraordinary rise in antisemitism across the globe and the threat it poses not only to Jews, but to Western civilization itself, we must make it impossible for anyone to deny that the Holocaust occurred. The whiteprint, in effect, makes denial untenable even for the most committed revisionists.

Elliott Broidy is a philanthropist and chairman and CEO of Broidy Capital Holdings, LLC. He is co-chair of the Fund to End Antisemitism, Hate, and Extremism.
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Philanthropist Elliott Broidy Acquires Rare Auschwitz Crematoria Whiteprint to Combat Antisemitism

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This piece was originally published on Voice.media on January 6, 2026.

By Alinasir Nasir

Philanthropist and entrepreneur Elliott Broidy has acquired an extremely rare artifact of historical significance: one of only two surviving original architectural drawings—a whiteprint—of the first design of the crematoria at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

According to Broidy’s announcement, the artifact is “a chilling and irrefutable piece of evidence documenting the start of the systematic, industrialized murder of millions of Jews that defined the Holocaust.”

The only other known copy is held in a Moscow archive that is inaccessible to Western scholars.

Created in October 1941 by SS architect Walter Dejaco under the direction of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, the drawing informed the design of Crematoria II and III at Birkenau, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered beginning in the spring of 1943.

Broidy purchased the document for $1.5 million from Rabbi David Baron of the Temple of the Arts Synagogue in Beverly Hills, California, an amount symbolically honoring the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust. The funds will support Rabbi Baron’s development of a global early-childhood curriculum focused on empathy and altruism.

In the announcement, Broidy described the whiteprint as crucial evidence at a moment of rising antisemitism and Holocaust denial. “To behold it is to confront the deliberate design of evil,” he said. “My most sincere wish is for this whiteprint to be memorialized as part of an irrefutable body of evidence that negates Holocaust denial and helps to forever silence malevolent revisionists while also educating new generations about the lessons of the Holocaust.”

The document was authenticated by renowned Auschwitz scholar Robert Jan van Pelt, the author of, among other works, Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present (with Deborah Dwork) and The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial and an expert witness for the defense in David Irving’s civil libel suit brought against Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt.

Van Pelt and another Holocaust historian cited in the press release, Michael Berenbaum, view the document as an especially valuable artifact because it captures the meticulousness with which the Nazis planned, engineered, and implemented mass murder.

Broidy intends to exhibit the artifact at institutions dedicated to Holocaust education and combating antisemitism before donating it permanently to such an institution. He sees this journey as an extension of his broader commitment confronting extremist ideologies, including his help in supporting the purchase and transformation of the former home of Rudolf Höss—located directly next to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland—into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, which fights antisemitism and other forms of extremism with cutting-edge technology. Broidy co-chairs The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism and Hate, whose purpose is to support ARCHER at House 88.

“The Nazis sought to erase the humanity of their victims and their very existence,” Broidy said. “This artifact—and the education it will support—reasserts that humanity, helps ensure the continuity of the Jewish people, and works to build ways for all people to see the good in others.”

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Turning a Blueprint of Death into a Plan of Defiance

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by Benjamin Raziel

In a year marked by rising antisemitism and an alarming resurgence of Holocaust distortion, one of the most chilling artifacts of the Shoah has quietly emerged into public view—this time, as a weapon against denial rather than a remnant of it. Businessman and philanthropist Elliott Broidy has acquired one of only two known surviving original architectural whiteprints of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau for $1.5 million, honoring the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.

Far from being a collector’s item, the whiteprint is a stark and irrefutable testament to the mechanized precision of Nazi genocide. Drawn in 1941 by SS architect Walter Dejaco under the authority of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, it captures the transition point when Auschwitz was being designed not merely as a concentration camp but as a center for extermination.

The purchase comes at a dark moment for the global Jewish community. In the wake of October 7, antisemitic attacks and hate speech have surged worldwide. The murder of 15 Jews at a Hanukkah celebration last week at Sydney’s Bondi Beach underscored how contemporary antisemitism is as dangerous as ever. At a time when the distance between past and present feels increasingly narrow, evidence matters.

“My ultimate hope is that the reemergence of this document ensures that the fight against antisemitism and extremism continues,” Broidy said. “We cannot forget what happened, but we also have to hold onto hope and equip future generations with knowledge and understanding.”

Leading Holocaust scholar Robert Jan van Pelt, who authenticated the document, described it as the “missing piece.” It is the first iteration of a full-scale crematoria needed for the most lethal killing facilities in human history. The date on the plans, October 24, 1941, indicates they were drafted months before the infamous Wannsee Conference of January 1942 where the implementation of the Final Solution was approved. The plans demonstrate that the infrastructure for mass murder was already being developed months before the conference convened.

As slogans, hashtags and manipulated images spread faster than truth, this physical piece of evidence stands as an antidote. It is not interpretation. It is not narrative. It is the Nazis’ own drawing of how they intended to kill.

And Broidy has no intention of allowing it to gather dust. Instead, it will support an extraordinary new effort unfolding in the shadow of Auschwitz itself.

Earlier this year, the Jewish Journal reported that Höss’ private home—the villa his wife once called a “paradise”—was purchased by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), with Broidy playing a leading role in the initiative. The property, located at 88 Legionow Street in Oświęcim, Poland – 88 being the numeric representation for “HH” or “Heil Hitler” – sits just outside the fence line of Auschwitz. From its garden and swimming pool, Höss’ children could see the smoke rising from the crematoria.

Today, that same property now has a mezuzah on its front door and has been transformed into a global center dedicated to countering extremism, antisemitism, and hate: The Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization, known as ARCHER at House 88.

ARCHER will operate in partnership with CEP, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, and UNESCO, with renowned architect Daniel Libeskind—whose parents survived the Holocaust—leading the property’s redesign. The center will host researchers, policymakers, educators, and activists working on extremism prevention, including financial-network disruption, digital platform safety, and counter-radicalization strategies.

What was once the family home of the architect of Auschwitz will soon become one of the world’s foremost institutions dedicated to dismantling the ideological machinery he helped build.

Broidy’s acquisition of the crematoria whiteprint and the creation of ARCHER are intertwined—not just symbolically, but strategically.

In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing the acquisition, Broidy wrote that he wanted to take possession of this document so it would be used “as an enduring challenge to anyone who would deny the Holocaust or diminish its magnitude.” He argued that at a time when Holocaust distortion is rising, the most powerful response is to preserve, study, and display original evidence of Nazi intent.

Indeed, Holocaust denial no longer hides on the margins. Since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023, antisemitic narratives—old and new—have proliferated across social platforms, college campuses, and public demonstrations. These range from classic denial (“the gas chambers didn’t exist”) to modern distortion (“the Holocaust is exaggerated,” “Israel is committing genocide just like the Nazis,” “Auschwitz was a labor camp”).

The Nazis understood the power of documentation. It is why they tried to destroy their records as the Allies approached. Their failure to eliminate all of them is now our greatest strength. A whiteprint is an inconvenient truth for those who wish to reshape the past for political or ideological purposes. By integrating this artifact into the mission of ARCHER, Broidy positions the whiteprint as both historical evidence and a modern tool of prevention.

Broidy has pledged the proceeds of this acquisition toward a first-of-its-kind early-childhood curriculum centered on altruism, empathy-building, and anti-extremist education. Developed by Rabbi David Baron of the Temple of the Arts Synagogue in Beverly Hills, the curriculum aims to reach children long before extremist ideologies can take root.

The logic is grounded in history. Nazism was not born in the gas chambers; it was cultivated over decades—through propaganda, dehumanization, social engineering, and early indoctrination. The crematoria were the final manifestation of an ideology that began in classrooms, youth groups, newspapers, and public speeches.

Teaching empathy is not a soft response to hate. It is the first firewall against it.

There is a profound, almost poetic symmetry in the fact that the whiteprint—once used to mechanize death—is now being used to educate, inoculate, and confront. There is symmetry, too, in the transformation of House 88—from a place where the Höss family lived comfortably just feet away from mass murder to a global center dedicated to exposing the psychology of radicalization and the machinery of hate.

As Ambassador Mark Wallace, founder of CEP, said during the announcement of House 88:

“The ordinary house of the greatest mass murderer will now be converted into the extraordinary symbol of that fight.” Auschwitz has always forced the world to confront two truths simultaneously: the unimaginable scale of evil, and the unimaginable resilience of those who survived to bear witness. The acquisition of the whiteprint and the creation of ARCHER carry that duality forward. Turning instruments of death into instruments of truth may be one of the most meaningful forms of remembrance and resilience that we have left.

As Broidy’s acquisition makes clear, the fight for historical memory is not an academic exercise. It is an urgent battle in real time—one that demands not only preservation of the past, but active protection of the future. What was once used to plan the destruction of Jewish children will now help protect today’s children from the ideologies that made Auschwitz possible. In that reversal lies a new kind of justice. And perhaps, a new whiteprint for hope.

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Rare Architectural Drawing of Auschwitz Crematoria Acquired for $1.5 Million

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This article original appeared in Space Coast Daily on December 19, 2025.

A rare architectural drawing tied to the earliest design of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria has been acquired by South Florida-based philanthropist and entrepreneur Elliott Broidy. Broidy says he intends to use the artifact to strengthen public understanding of the Holocaust at a moment when antisemitism and denial are again on the rise.

The document—an October 1941 whiteprint created by SS architect Walter Dejaco—is one of only two surviving originals. According to the press release announcing the acquisition, the only other known copy is held in a Moscow archive inaccessible to Western researchers.

Such architectural drawings, including the acquired whiteprint, formed the basis for the crematoria and gas chamber complexes that, beginning in 1943, became the principal killing sites at Birkenau, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered. Scholars have long regarded the technical evolution of these buildings as central to understanding the Nazis’ systematic approach to genocide.

Broidy called the whiteprint “a chilling and irrefutable piece of evidence documenting the start of the systematic, industrialized murder of millions of Jews that defined the Holocaust.” He purchased the artifact for $1.5 million.

The high price tag is not accidental, however—the amount is meant to represent the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust. The proceeds from the sale of the whiteprint will fund Rabbi David Baron’s global early-childhood curriculum promoting empathy and altruism.

The whiteprint was authenticated by Auschwitz scholar Robert Jan van Pelt, known for his extensive scholarship on the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp’s architectural history.

American Jewish University professor Michael Berenbaum emphasized the value of the whiteprint in illustrating how the Nazi killing apparatus was constructed. “This is one of the most important visual documents showing how the crematoria were created, and showing also the intentionality and professionalism, the intricate detail and the substance, with which the crematoria were thought through,” said Berenbaum.

According to Elliott Broidy, the whiteprint’s value is not only historical but moral. “To behold it is to confront the deliberate design of evil,” he said in the announcement. He hopes the artifact will become part of an “irrefutable body of evidence” capable of countering Holocaust denial and reaching younger generations with the truth of what unfolded at Auschwitz.

Speaking of the document’s significance, Broidy said, “The Nazis sought to erase the humanity of their victims and their very existence. This artifact—and the education it will support—reasserts that humanity, helps ensure the continuity of the Jewish people, and works to build ways for all people to see the good in others.”

Elliott Broidy plans to exhibit the drawing at institutions devoted to Holocaust memory and combating antisemitism before making a permanent donation.

The Boca Raton resident has become known for his involvement in efforts to confront extremism, including helping to acquire the former residence of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss in Oświęcim, Poland.

Under the Counter Extremism Project’s initiative, ARCHER, at House 88, the commandant’s house is being transformed into a research center focused on combating antisemitism and radicalization. Broidy co-chairs The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate, which was created to support ARCHER at House 88.

As Holocaust witnesses dwindle and denial of historical facts increasingly circulates online, the preservation and public display of original documentation, such as this whiteprint, become increasingly important.

The detailed architectural drawing demonstrates that Auschwitz’s crematoria were not improvised structures—they were engineered components of a bureaucratic and industrial system built to carry out genocide. Each surviving document that records this process serves as an antidote to historical amnesia.

Broidy - Auschwitz-Birkenau Crematoria Whiteprint

Boca Raton Couple Preserve a Chilling Document As A Reminder Of The Holocaust’s Dark Path

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This piece originally appeared in Boca Daily News on December 23, 2025.

By Daniel Nee

As Hanukkah concludes, and menorahs are being dutifully stored away for another year, shining light toward the darkest corners of humanity has rarely seen a time of more importance than the present. Just before the start of a holiday season that became marred by a terrorist attack on a sunny beach in Australia, canceled celebrations in Europe and fears of future tragedies reaching the shores of United States, one Boca Raton couple made it their mission to preserve a disturbing-but-powerful document that shows the literal pencil-to-paper plotting of evil, drawn up as a group of men gathered to discuss a macabre final solution.

Elliott Broidy, 68, has experienced a celebrated career straddling the worlds of defense, diplomacy and philanthropy. A pioneer in leveraging open source intelligence to improve safety and security, he and his wife, Robin, have acquired a rare, real, tangible object that would have made world leaders of the 1940s shudder at the thought of what was being planned. The landscape-style document, a few feet long, set forth a way to manage the horrors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp: a physical whiteprint of Crematoria II and III, where the bodies of those whose lives were stolen in the Holocaust would be disposed.

The Broidys acquired the document in exchange for a $1.5 million commitment to efforts that will go toward developing anti-hate and anti-extremism curricula for children. The figure represents the 1.5 million children who were killed in the Holocaust.

The historic document was produced by SS architect Walter Dejaco on Oct. 24, 1941, in preparation for days of meetings in which the logistics of killing at an industrial scale were to be discussed in bureaucratic fashion. Under the leadership of camp commandant Rudolf Höss, two whiteprints were drawn up – one which is locked away in an archive in Moscow, having been seized by Soviet soldiers after the fall of the Nazi regime, and the other which resurfaced in the mid-2010s. The authenticity of the document was in question until it was examined by Dutch professor and Auschwitz historian Robert Jan van Pelt, who linked together the timeline of the meetings of Nazi officials, the location of the document’s origin, and the date of its physical creation, which directly corresponded to the conference led by Höss.

“This is about education,” Robin Broidy said. “Especially for young people. If you understand how this happened once, you’re less likely to accept it happening again.”

One of only two known surviving copies of the original whiteprint of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Elliott Broidy)

One of only two known surviving copies of the original whiteprint of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Elliott Broidy)

In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell if photos and stories are real or the machinations of artificial intelligence platforms, human-authenticated documents such as the crematorium plans provide concrete – rather than theoretical – examples of what extremism can lead to.

“There are still Holocaust deniers in the world,” said Elliott Broidy. “We consulted experts to authenticate the document and learned that only two copies exist — one in Moscow that hasn’t been seen since 1991, and this one. We felt it was important for the public to see it. When the Nazis retreated, they destroyed much of Birkenau and burned many documents. But they forgot the architectural office. That’s why we still have proof of what these buildings were designed for.”

Based on the date of its creation, the planning document was drawn up for what has become known as the Wannsee Conference, the physical meeting of Nazi political and military leadership that produced plans to deport European Jews to facilities in occupied Poland where they would be killed. The result of the conference, named for the Berlin suburb where it was held, is clear. But documents such as the whiteprint help drive home the personal reality of its intent – real people, real plans and real decisions on how to perpetrate a genocide at scale. The plans represented an expansion of a camp that held Soviet POWs to what became the most infamous venue of the Holocaust.

“It shows the earliest planning stages of industrialized mass murder,” said Broidy. “That’s why it’s historically priceless.”

The Broidy family, who relocated to Boca Raton from California to be closer to family and enjoy a more peaceful daily life, have become more active in causes that battle antisemitism and extremism in recent years. With colleagues, they purchased the residential “house next door” to Auschwitz where Höss lived with his family. Photos in the Broidy’s personal collection show parties, children’s birthday celebrations, and joyous gatherings occurring with the death camp’s guard towers and exterior walls in the background. The house – which was the subject of the award-winning 2023 film The Zone of Interest – was acquired as a guarantee not only that history would be preserved, but so it would never become a deranged shrine to what happened mere yards away. The whiteprint added to the context of the prior purchase.

“History may not repeat itself exactly, but hatred persists,” said Robin Broidy. “This document shows how ordinary people were manipulated into participating in evil. It forces people to ask: ‘Am I being manipulated the same way?’”

“If it gives people pause — if it reminds them that this was planned, intentional, and real — then it serves a purpose,” she added.

The physical document has been shipped to a secured location in California where the facilities exist to preserve a sketch that is more than eight decades old, printed on what resembles yellowed newsprint. Its ultimate destination is to be determined – it may find a home at the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., on the grounds of the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum in Poland, or another facility with preservation infrastructure. There is a chance, if feasible, that it could be transported to remote locations, giving a larger number of people an opportunity to experience the chilling sight with their own eyes.

“Our rabbi [in California] wanted the proceeds from the project to go toward education, but asked that the document be released,” Broidy said. “He, and we, felt it was important for the public to see it, though ultimately it should rest somewhere that can preserve it properly. While I didn’t have direct relatives affected in the Holocaust, I met many survivors and children of survivors.”

“Over the past few years, antisemitism became a very urgent issue for us,” Elliott Broidy said. “This was the best symbol, the best way to actively combat antisemitism, we could find.”

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