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Broidy - Auschwitz-Birkenau Crematoria Whiteprint (2)

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.

Elliott Broidy Auschwitz gate

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.
Gates to Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp

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.