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You probably thought you knew a thing or two about Auschwitz: It was a nightmarish Nazi extermination camp in Poland where more than 1 million people were murdered, most of them gassed to death with Zyklon-B and then cremated. Dr. Josef Mengele performed horrible medical experiments on live humans there, including twins and those with blue eyes. At the end, as the Soviets closed in, the SS guards murdered thousands more as they marched starving survivors west.

But Carolyn Yeager wants to set the record straight.

The aim of the thoughtful Germans who ran the place actually was 鈥渞eform, re-education and rehabilitation.鈥� Inmates were taught trades there. Townspeople in the surrounding area saw life at Auschwitz as 鈥渓uxurious,鈥� what with the inmates鈥� 鈥渁ttractive red-brick sleeping quarters,鈥� complete with 鈥渂unk beds with mattresses 鈥� flush toilets, porcelain-covered stoves for cozy heating, and double-paned casement windows.鈥� The paths were 鈥渢ree-lined,鈥� there were flowers planted before every barracks, and the Nazis regularly showed movies to the inmates.

Yes, Auschwitz had an art museum, a library, regular concerts and sporting events, a 鈥渢heater for music and drama,鈥� a swimming pool (sometimes used for water polo) and a brothel for lonely inmates 鈥� all round, as Yeager writes, 鈥渁 flourishing cultural life.鈥� It also had two fine post offices because 鈥渢he Geneva Convention rules, strictly followed by the Germans, ensured the sending and receiving of mail by all prisoners.鈥� Why, the kindly SS guards even provided special pre-printed cards and letter forms! And their health care system was world class 鈥� after all, for the Nazis, 鈥渢he health of the labor force was a prime concern.鈥�

This, at least, is the view of Carolyn Yeager, a woman of leaden stupidity who took a walking tour of Auschwitz last year and decided that the accounts of thousands of victims, perpetrators, camp liberators and Nazi officials including Auschwitz鈥檚 most infamous commandant were all hogwash 鈥� a transparent ploy by post-war propagandists to say ugly things about caring Germans.

Her comments are brought to us courtesy of The Barnes Review, America鈥檚 leading Holocaust denial journal and a gathering point for anti-Semites and Nazi sympathizers from around the country. They were published earlier this year in a slick, 48-page booklet entitled, Auschwitz: The Underground Guided Tour: What the Tour Guides Don鈥檛 Tell You at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It鈥檚 true! As this author can attest after two lengthy tours of Auschwitz and its adjoining Birkenau camp since 1988, the guides will tell you none of this.

Perhaps that鈥檚 because it鈥檚 all false. Long-time Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoess, in the autobiography he wrote shortly before his execution, described how Heinrich Himmler in 1941 鈥渉imself gave me the order to prepare installations at Auschwitz where mass exterminations could take place,鈥� and then detailed the entire horrifying process, including gassings he personally witnessed. Filip Muller, a prisoner who worked for three years in the crematoria but survived, described unbelievably brutal exterminations. And so did thousands of others.

But Carolyn Yeager did stroll through Auschwitz and Birkenau seven decades later, and she鈥檚 pretty sure the guides didn鈥檛 give her the real lowdown. One Auschwitz gas chamber was 鈥渞eally a morgue,鈥� later turned into an air raid shelter. Over at Birkenau, there was a 鈥渂eautiful, modern hygiene building鈥� where arriving prisoners had their hair shorn, but that also occasionally doubled 鈥渁s a ballroom.鈥� SS guards there regularly socialized with prisoners, with a number of love affairs resulting in postwar marriages. Guards and inmates 鈥渆njoyed friendly competition on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, with enthusiastic cheering sections.鈥�

Actually, Yeager, a relatively new face in denialist circles, seems to have had something of an attitude long before she brought her analytical abilities to Auschwitz. On her website, she describes growing up in a 鈥渨hite home town鈥� in the Midwest, the daughter of a German-American father who complained about 鈥渢he dishonest Jews who cheated him and the Negroes who stole from him.鈥�

She says she was a liberal for a time, 鈥渟ympathetic to the plight of the coloreds,鈥� but in the late 1990s began to read conspiracist literature and 鈥渓earned the truth鈥� about the takeover of the American monetary system 鈥渂y mainly Jewish and foreign bankers.鈥� She 鈥渓et go鈥� her fear of being called an anti-Semite. 鈥淔inally,鈥� she writes, 鈥淚 was drawn to National Socialism as a viable alternative, learning about its true nature as opposed to the lies I had been taught.鈥�

So the mind of one Carolyn Yeager has been liberated. It鈥檚 a shame the same can鈥檛 be said of the millions murdered by people who think like she does.