Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[Wroclaw]

Is the testimony you rely on mainly from the Germans like Hoess or Gerstein?

I know there are other parts of the Holocaust, but the primary interest is the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Not as much Höss and Gerstein as some of the men tried in W. Germany in the 1960s. Broad, Baer, Storch, Böck... People like that.

Why do I know that you've never heard of these guys? There's a reason people that hang out at CODOH don't mention these men...

 

[Dogzilla]

Maybe Kageki will listen to you on this. I have been saying this to him for pages.

These two statements show your attempt to get a rise out of other posters. You rely on emotional pleading and anger as a way of suggesting people are illogical about the discussion. This is sort of the backbone of your position. That people are so emotional about the topic they are not interested in the facts.

Unfortunately it doesn't work on me.

There is no "IF" in the statement that the holocaust was traumatic. But you said the "holocaust." At the point that it was traumatic it wasn't traumatic because it was a "holocaust;" it was traumatic because people were sick and starving and working in camps where people were dying all around them. The cremation of bodies was an effort to deal with the large numbers of deaths in the camp. People in the camps were not aware of a "Holocaust" at this point. They were living in a traumatic situation and it is understandable that things could be misunderstood.

This is essentially what I've been saying all along. People were in a unfamiliar, often frightening, traumatic situation. There were wild rumors going around the camp. Prisoners were told the soap was made from human fat. Some prisoners believed that and some didn't.

People arriving in Auschwitz came into a fairly industrialized complex where synthetic rubber was manufactured. They saw smoke stacks and thick black smoke and the place smelled horrible. Somebody pointed to a smoke stack and said that was where the Jews were burned. Some prisoners believed it and some didn't.

Some people worked in the Krema bringing bodies from the morgue up to the ovens to cremate them. Somebody said the morgue was a gas chamber. Some prisoners looked at a room full of gaunt, splotchy dead bodies typical of typhus victims and believed these people were victims of poisen gas. Some prisoners didn't.

Working in a place where your job is bringing diseased corpses from the morgue to the crematorium is probably not the healthiest place to work. The death rate among these sondercommando was probably higher than among other prisoners. Somebody said the sondercommando weren't allowed to live more than six months because the Nazis wanted to keep their policy a secret. Other prisoners saw sondercommando 'disappearing' faster than other prisoners and believed the rumor. Some prisoners didn't.

Prisoners entering the camp had the hair shaved off their bodies to control lice. Somebody said the hair was shaved off the bodies because it was an industrial material used to stuff matresses or woven into socks for U-boat crews. Some prisoners believed it. Some didn't.

The delousing procedure in the German camps was unfamiliar to peoples of Eastern Europe. In the Dwork and van Pelt book, "Auschwitz" there is an excerpt from a letter a young Jewish woman wrote to her Uncle in the 1880s that described her fears upon entering Germany at the time:

"The train stopped, and the passengers were told to get out, Maryashe explained. They were led into a large yard where many men and women dressed in white awaited them.

This was....[a] scene of bewildering confusion, parents losing their children, and little ones crying; baggage being thrown together in one corner of the yard, heedless of contents, which suffered in consequence; those white-clad Germans shouting commands, always accompanied with "Quick! Quick!"--the confused passengers obeying all orders like meek children, only questioning now and then what was going to be done them...Our things were taken away, our friends separated from us; a man came to inspect us, as if to ascertain our full value; stranger looking people driving us about like dumb animals, helpless and unresisting; children we could not see crying in a way that suggested terrible things; ourselves driven into a little room where a great kettle was boiling on a little stove; our clothes taken off, our bodies rubbed with a slippery substance that might be any bad thing; a shower of warm water let down on us without warning; again driven to another little room where we sit, wrapped in woolen blankets till large, coarse bags are brought in, their contents turned out, and we see only a cloud of steam, and hear the women's orders to dress ourselves,--"Quick! Quick!"--or else we'll miss--something we cannot hear. We are forced to pick out our clothes from among all the others, with steam blinding us; we choke, cough, entreat the women to give us time; they persist, "Quick! Quick!--or we'll miss the train!"--Oh, so we really won't be murdered! They are only making us ready for the continuing of our journey, cleaning us of all suspicions of dangerous sickness. Thank God!"

Dwork/van Pelt say that this passage is "both a blueprint for, and an eerie foreshadowing of, the delousing routine in Auschwitz sixty years later." I think it actually shows a long standing fear in the Ostjuden community of German delousing procedures.

Imagine you're a young SS man assigned to herd the Jews through an ordinary delousing. You have a couple of hundred men women and children freaking out because they think they're going to be murdered. You hear the screaming and wailing as they go into the shower room. The door closes and your hear muffled wailing, then the sound of the water turned on, more muffled screaming and then silence as the Jews inside realize it's just a shower. The door opens on the other side and the Jews walk out of the shower room. The door closes and the other door opens up on the other side to take in the next batch of Jews. You, the young SS guard thinks nothing of it.

After the war, you're questioned about the gas chambers and reinterpret what you saw as an ordinary shower as a gassing.

Any Jewish prisoners who were close enough to a delousing station to hear what was going on but couldn't see could easily misinterpret what they heard as a homicidal gassing.

That is my point. All the eyewitnesses who saw gas chambers and crematorium and mass graves were not lying about what they saw. Some were. But most were merely misinterpreting what they saw. There were "selections." Bodies were cremated. Zyklon B was ubiquitous. Hair was shaved off bodies. These were perfectly normal activities that have been misinterpreted as evidence of homicidal gassings.

Also how interesting that there has rarely been a situation where the Aguna issue came up because a husband came back after being sent to the "snake and scorpion pit"

Opportunists and mentally ill people have often used the Holocaust to get attention or make money by suggesting they were survivors. This has happened with 911 as well. But the reason they were able to get away with it for so long is because it actually happened. That pesky little fact.

You are ignoring witness testimony as if there is just a handful of witnesses and a large number of those are lying. But this is not the case. There are thousands and thousands of witnesses and a handful of outright liars. There is likely to be hundreds of witnesses who misunderstood what they saw. This is understandable. But there is plenty of testimony that indicates the reality of the camps. This testimony comes from both Germans and inmates.

There are not thousands and thousands of witnesses to much of the holocaust. There are actually very few eyewitnesses upon whom the holocaust story is based. There are a few outright liars but most are people who misunderstood what they saw. What makes the holocaust unique is that the people who misunderstood what they saw (or purposely misinterpreted what they saw to either get somebody in trouble or get themselves out of trouble) were more likely to believed by those in a position of power. And there was little incentive to disprove these witnesses.

The Aguna issue is one that I have not heard about before. I am skeptical that it had as much of an impact as you believe it did. But it's impact, big or small, doesn't speak to the truth of the witness statements. It speaks to the need of *some* Jews to believe her spouse was sent to the "snake and scorpion pit" lest she be an adulteress.

 

[kageki]

Not as much Höss and Gerstein as some of the men tried in W. Germany in the 1960s. Broad, Baer, Storch, Böck... People like that.

Why do I know that you've never heard of these guys? There's a reason people that hang out at CODOH don't mention these men...

They have discussed these other people. Believers themselves promote the main honcho like Hoess anyways.

What would testimony matter if the physical evidence and possibility doesn't seem to be there.

 

[Wroclaw]

This is essentially what I've been saying all along. People were in a unfamiliar, often frightening, traumatic situation. There were wild rumors going around the camp. Prisoners were told the soap was made from human fat. Some prisoners believed that and some didn't.

I think that's a fair assessment.

People arriving in Auschwitz came into a fairly industrialized complex where synthetic rubber was manufactured. They saw smoke stacks and thick black smoke and the place smelled horrible. Somebody pointed to a smoke stack and said that was where the Jews were burned. Some prisoners believed it and some didn't.

And now you're off the rails again.

The rubber factory was a Monowitz. The gas chambers were in Birkenau, over five miles away. See the map:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sou...0.028034,19.245472&spn=0.065946,0.115185&z=13

So I think your statement above may be correct about people in Monowitz. It would not apply, however, to people in Birkenau.

Some people worked in the Krema bringing bodies from the morgue up to the ovens to cremate them. Somebody said the morgue was a gas chamber. Some prisoners looked at a room full of gaunt, splotchy dead bodies typical of typhus victims and believed these people were victims of poisen gas. Some prisoners didn't.

Now you're into the realm of absurdity.

First of all, why do you even have a morgue at a KZ? Even if there's some good reason for a morgue, the Sonderkommando are the ones saying they moved bodies from the "morgue"; problem is that they're all saying that the morgue was really a gas chamber. As in every last SK that survived.

Working in a place where your job is bringing diseased corpses from the morgue to the crematorium is probably not the healthiest place to work. The death rate among these sondercommando was probably higher than among other prisoners. Somebody said the sondercommando weren't allowed to live more than six months because the Nazis wanted to keep their policy a secret. Other prisoners saw sondercommando 'disappearing' faster than other prisoners and believed the rumor. Some prisoners didn't.

So why did the SK say they worked in gas chambers?

Prisoners entering the camp had the hair shaved off their bodies to control lice. Somebody said the hair was shaved off the bodies because it was an industrial material used to stuff matresses or woven into socks for U-boat crews. Some prisoners believed it. Some didn't.

In that case, they were told the truth. It was used for that.

The delousing procedure in the German camps was unfamiliar to peoples of Eastern Europe. In the Dwork and van Pelt book, "Auschwitz" there is an excerpt from a letter a young Jewish woman wrote to her Uncle in the 1880s that described her fears upon entering Germany at the time:

Dwork/van Pelt say that this passage is "both a blueprint for, and an eerie foreshadowing of, the delousing routine in Auschwitz sixty years later." I think it actually shows a long standing fear in the Ostjuden community of German delousing procedures.

Except you had Jews, particularly at Auschwitz, who weren't Ostjuden. The single largest cohort of Jews killed at Auschwitz were probably Hungarians, easily half of whom were urban. Throw in the French Jews (very far from Ostjuden), Dutch Jews, Norwegian Jews, Greek Jews, Italian Jews, Belgian Jews, etc., and none of them are going be in the same basic group as Ostjuden.

So tell us all: Why don't any narratives of the Reinhardt camps, which is where the Polish Jews and some Soviet Jews were sent, include delousing facilities? I.e., if there was delousing at Auschwitz, why not at the Belzec, Treblinka, and Sobibor?

Imagine you're a young SS man assigned to herd the Jews through an ordinary delousing. You have a couple of hundred men women and children freaking out because they think they're going to be murdered. You hear the screaming and wailing as they go into the shower room. The door closes and your hear muffled wailing, then the sound of the water turned on, more muffled screaming and then silence as the Jews inside realize it's just a shower. The door opens on the other side and the Jews walk out of the shower room. The door closes and the other door opens up on the other side to take in the next batch of Jews. You, the young SS guard thinks nothing of it.

After the war, you're questioned about the gas chambers and reinterpret what you saw as an ordinary shower as a gassing.

Neat story if the gas chambers actually operated like that.

Please demonstrate that any room identified as a gas chamber at any camp had working showers. Any will do. I'm waiting. Note that above you identified one gas chamber as a morgue. Will you now change it to a shower?

Any Jewish prisoners who were close enough to a delousing station to hear what was going on but couldn't see could easily misinterpret what they heard as a homicidal gassing.

See above.

That is my point. All the eyewitnesses who saw gas chambers and crematorium and mass graves were not lying about what they saw. Some were. But most were merely misinterpreting what they saw. There were "selections." Bodies were cremated. Zyklon B was ubiquitous. Hair was shaved off bodies. These were perfectly normal activities that have been misinterpreted as evidence of homicidal gassings.

Except when it was homicidal gassing. We have not only SKs but seasoned SS men saying the same God-damned things. They are identifying the same rooms as gas chambers years after the fact on four separate continents.

There are not thousands and thousands of witnesses to much of the holocaust. There are actually very few eyewitnesses upon whom the holocaust story is based. There are a few outright liars but most are people who misunderstood what they saw. What makes the holocaust unique is that the people who misunderstood what they saw (or purposely misinterpreted what they saw to either get somebody in trouble or get themselves out of trouble) were more likely to believed by those in a position of power. And there was little incentive to disprove these witnesses.

Please see the bolded sections above. I believe the deniers need to answer these questions.

 

[Wroclaw]

They have discussed these other people. Believers themselves promote the main honcho like Hoess anyways.

Höss gave more information because he had more information. Are you laboring under the assumption that Höss lied because he got the death toll wrong?

What would testimony matter if the physical evidence and possibility doesn't seem to be there.

But they are.

You see, some sixty-nine different people testified to the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau; in fact, IIRC, they testified to the existence of a single chamber (Krema II) in which half a million human beings were killed.

So you have testimony.

We have Pressac's exhaustive archival research on this room, including a document identifying this room as the Vergasungskeller and another as a Gaskeller. You have three separate tests of the walls of that room that have tested positive for HCN — in fact, if you count Leuchter, you actually have four, because Leuchter found cyanide traces also.

So you have both documentary and scientific evidence.

Add to that the fact that you have crematory capacity just for that one room set at roughly one thousand bodies per day. That's a big ol' chunk of circumstantial evidence to boot.

Look: Modern day murder trials stress the need to identify means, motive, and opportunity. The means are demonstrated in this post in the above paragraphs. Opportunity was provided by the relocation of millions of Jews to Eastern Europe and the fog of war. I hope we don't have to go over motive.

 

[kageki]

Höss gave more information because he had more information. Are you laboring under the assumption that Höss lied because he got the death toll wrong?



But they are.

You see, some sixty-nine different people testified to the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau; in fact, IIRC, they testified to the existence of a single chamber (Krema II) in which half a million human beings were killed.

So you have testimony.

We have Pressac's exhaustive archival research on this room, including a document identifying this room as the Vergasungskeller and another as a Gaskeller. You have three separate tests of the walls of that room that have tested positive for HCN — in fact, if you count Leuchter, you actually have four, because Leuchter found cyanide traces also.

So you have both documentary and scientific evidence.

Add to that the fact that you have crematory capacity just for that one room set at roughly one thousand bodies per day. That's a big ol' chunk of circumstantial evidence to boot.

Look: Modern day murder trials stress the need to identify means, motive, and opportunity. The means are demonstrated in this post in the above paragraphs. Opportunity was provided by the relocation of millions of Jews to Eastern Europe and the fog of war. I hope we don't have to go over motive.

What do you think about the complications for handling the corpses that are gassed?

I have linked to a description of a gas chamber execution where it says they would spray the body with ammonia to neutralize cyanide. Has anyone described the precautions of disposing such corpses? Wouldn't disposal in fact be lethal in some cases if precautions weren't taken?

 

[Saggy]

And I'm sorry again, Saggy, but you saying that this is NTS doesn't make it so. Much like you redefining Zionist doesn't make your definition the dictionary one.



Unfortunately, Saggy, this is not Alice in Wonderland and you are not the Queen who gets to make up what words mean. Here are the synonyms and antonyms for 'respectable'

Synonyms: admirable, appropriate, august, becoming, befitting, comely, conforming, correct, creditable, decent, decorous, dignified, done, estimable, fair, honorable, mediocre, moderate, modest, nice, ordinary, passable, presentable, proper, redoubtable, redoubted, reputable, reputed, respected, satisfactory, seemly, sublime, suitable, tolerable, upright, venerable, virtuous, well-thought-of, worthy Antonyms: bad, corrupt, dishonest, dishonorable, unrespectable, unworthy


As I pointed out already, the better word in Nelson's claim would be reputable, which is a synonym of respectable.

One antonym, ie opposite, of respectable is 'dishonest', which is pretty much how Holocaust revisionists are perceived.




Nonetheless I have not pulled my punches. I have just stated that Holocaust deniers are generally perceived as dishonest. That's not actually name-calling, what would be name-calling is saying that deniers are dishonest little ******.



You keep on saying this, but keep on ignoring the circumstances of the case in question. Neither USHMM nor Yad Vashem endorsed Defonseca, invited her to give a talk at their museums, said anything nice about her or otherwise promoted her.

Sooner or later you will have to acknowledge that not everything related to the Holocaust is run through USHMM or Yad Vashem or can be controlled, dictated or organised by them.



No, that isn't the accepted definition of a Zionist. Zionism was a political movement inside the Jewish diaspora, beginning in the late 19th Century, which sought to create a Jewish state in the Biblical homeland of Palestine. After 1948 the primary aims of Zionism were fulfilled, because the state of Israel was founded. Ever since then the main context in which it makes sense to speak of Zionists are if one is discussing Jewish activists who seek to encourage more diaspora Jews to make aliyah to Israel.

Christian Zionists used to be known as Restorationalists, and encompass those Christians, mostly dispensationalists and thus Protestant fundamentalists, who believe for theological reasons that it is important that the Jews return to their Biblical homeland. Mormons, too, have believed that it is theologically important that the Jews returned to Palestine. This is the only other group that one can label as Zionist.

Catholics, Anglicans, and most diaspora Jews are in fact non-Zionist. It does not matter to Catholics or Anglicans whether Israel exists or not on theological grounds. They can choose to acknowledge Israel or ignore it, without this making them "Zionists".

Anti-Zionists are those who oppose the aims of the original Zionist movement and since 1948 the term has come to mean those who oppose the existence of the state of Israel. Merely criticising Israel for its actions is not necessarily anti-Zionism, though many critics of Israeli behaviour who stop short of wanting Israel to cease to exist actually embrace the term.

Your apparent definition of Zionist actually expands to include the very large percentage of the population of the planet who has no active desire to see Israel cease to be, and doesn't actually give Israel very much thought on a day to day basis. Because it is so expansive, it is a nonsensical definition, and is not in current use.



Good grief, do you realise the topsy-turvy logic you have created for yourself? The Zionists opposed the tenure of one of their own? OH RLY? You must be kidding me.

Finkelstein cannot, under any circumstances, be described as a Zionist. He does not live in Israel, he does not support Israeli actions and is a major known critic of Israel, he is vocally pro-Palestinian. This is what he said when asked about Israel during the Gaza operation

It has been a long time since I felt any emotional connection with the state of Israel, which relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars. It is a vandal state. There is a Russian writer who once described vandal states as Genghis Khan with a telegraph. Israel is Genghis Khan with a computer. I feel no emotion of affinity with that state. I have some good friends and their families there, and of course I would not want any of them to be hurt. That said, sometimes I feel that Israel has come out of the boils of the hell, a satanic state[63]
​

Under no stretch of the imagination can Finkelstein be described as a Zionist.

Just because someone doesn't want to see Israel erased from the world map does NOT make them a Zionist.



I can name a great many non-Zionist western academic historians, Saggy: approximately 95% of them at a guess. That's because non-Zionist covers the overwhelming majority of the world's population. There are a few overtly Zionist historians and a number of anti-Zionist historians. That's it.

Am I meant to poll my colleagues and ask the medievalists whether they even care about Israel? Do they have to express a negative opinion of Israel or be damned as 'Zionists'? What level of opposition to Israel is sufficient for you to save someone, Jewish or otherwise, from being called a Zionist? Do they have to strap on explosive vests or is demonstrating in front of the Israeli embassy enough for you?

Jesus Christ....

Unfortunately, Saggy, this is not Alice in Wonderland and you are not the Queen who gets to make up what words mean. Here are the synonyms and antonyms for 'respectable'

Keep whining Nick, you're looking more and more like a complete idiot.

That's not actually name-calling, what would be name-calling is saying that deniers are dishonest little ******.

There we go, feel better? That's the esteemed scholar Nick Terry we know and love

No, that isn't the accepted definition of a Zionist.

No Nick, the power of the Zionists does have limits, and you don't get to define words to suit yourself. My definition is exactly right, and here is the bottom line, until you prove otherwise - there is not a single non-Zionist western academic historian. Remarkable isn't it. Now, what were you saying about the Zionists controlling the academy?

Finklestein explicitly favors the existence of a state for Jews only in Israel, and opposed a one-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, he is a Zionist, no matter how much he complains that the other Zionists 'cheapened' the holocaust.

Gotta go to dinner, let me quickly clue you in on how it works ... courtesy of none other than Chomsky .....

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

So, the allowable spectrum of opinion in US academia is limited by the Likud Zionists on the right, who want to cleanse all of Palestine of Palestinians, the sooner the better, and the 'humanistic' Zionists like Chomsky and Finklestein, who are willing to let the Palestinians retain some small fraction of Palestine. Non-Zionists, like Helen Thomas, are banished immediately.

One more once .... there is not a SINGLE non-Zionist western academic historian.

 

[Wroclaw]

No Nick, the power of the Zionists does have limits, and you don't get to define words to suit yourself. My definition is exactly right, and here is the bottom line, until you prove otherwise - there is not a single non-Zionist western academic history.

God, you're obnoxious for someone who is so demonstrably ignorant.

Finklestein explicitly favors the existence of a state for Jews only in Israel, and opposed a one-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem, he is a Zionist, no matter how much he complains that the other Zionists 'cheapened' the holocaust.

This is patently untrue. You simply don't know what you're talking about.

Furthermore, Finkelstein is defined by nearly every expert in this field as probably the world's best known non-religious Jewish anti-Zionist. Chomsky's criticism of Israel really never went beyond his criticisms of every other country that abuses power. Finkelstein has been banging this particular drum for years.

So, the allowable spectrum of opinion in US academia is limited by the Likud Zionists on the right, who want to cleanse all of Palestine of Palestinians, the sooner the better, and the 'humanistic' Zionists like Chomsky and Finklestein, who are willing to let the Palestinians retain some small fraction of Palestine. Non-Zionists, like Helen Thomas, are banished immediately.

And you have yet to demonstrate how the nullification of Israel's existence is (a) possible or (b) plausible.

 

[TSR]

Wouldn't disposal in fact be lethal in some cases if precautions weren't taken?

.
*Again* with the ignorance of the history you're trying to deny?

Some precautions were taken, and were both documented and testified to.

But let's see -- who did the corpse disposal?

Oh, yes -- the SK.

And who were the SK?

Why, the very "kind" of people WHO WERE BEING KILLED ANYWAY.

Which is why, out thousands of those forced into this duty, ~30 survived until liberation. Do you really believe the Nazis would be terribly concerned about keeping them absolutely safe?
.

 

[Wroclaw]

What do you think about the complications for handling the corpses that are gassed?

I think they were handled depending on the time and specific chamber. In some gas chambers, gas masks were used; in others, there were large fans used to remove HCN before the SK came in.

I have linked to a description of a gas chamber execution where it says they would spray the body with ammonia to neutralize cyanide. Has anyone described the precautions of disposing such corpses? Wouldn't disposal in fact be lethal in some cases if precautions weren't taken?

Do you think the SS really cared whether doing this was going to be harmful to the SK?

Just a few ways that Auschwitz gas chambers are not comparable to modern penal gas chambers:

* Only one person gassed at a time in penal GCs; not true at A-B.
* People are gassed in penal GCs wearing clothes; not true at A-B.
* In a penal GC, a specific formulation of HCN devised for killing people is being used; at A-B, they used Zyklon-B, formulated to be used against insects.

The argument that pointing to a modern penal GC and how it's different from the described procedures at Auschwitz is akin to pointing to a funeral home crematorium and making direct comparisons to Töpf und Söhne Kremas at Auschwitz.

In short, the only comparison is that they were both used to burn people. The comparison ends there.

 

[Saggy]

God, you're obnoxious for someone who is so demonstrably ignorant.



This is patently untrue. You simply don't know what you're talking about.

Furthermore, Finkelstein is defined by nearly every expert in this field as probably the world's best known non-religious Jewish anti-Zionist. Chomsky's criticism of Israel really never went beyond his criticisms of every other country that abuses power. Finkelstein has been banging this particular drum for years.



And you have yet to demonstrate how the nullification of Israel's existence is (a) possible or (b) plausible.

Not obnoxious, Wroc, just right. You don't like the truth.

I've googled up Finklestein's position on the two-state solution before, ain't gonna bother this time.

The just solution in Palestine is for the Jews to pack up and go home. That ain't gonna happen. The next best solution is for a unified Palestine, secular state, one man one vote. The Jews, as long as the US is funding their country and military, won't hear of it, they want the whole enchilada. It is exactly like South Africa.

Here is another little exercise, find out how many academics signed up for the boycott of apartheid South Africa, and see how many signed up for the boycott of apartheid Israel.

 

[Wroclaw]

Not obnoxious, Wroc, just right. You don't like the truth.

Oh dear...

I've gooled up Finklestein's position on the two-state solution before, ain't gonna bother this time.

I don't believe you. I think you're intellectually dishonest and lazy.

The just solution in Palestine is for the Jews to pack up and go home.

This is equivalent to suggesting that white Americans pick up and do the same thing.

The majority of Jews in Israel were born there. Do you think it's fair under any nation's law to deport people from their native land?

That ain't gonna happen. The next best solution is for a unified Palestine, secular state, one man one vote. The Jews, as long as the US is funding their country and military, won't hear of it, they want the whole enchilada. It is exactly like South Africa.

How many black South Africans could vote under apartheid, Saggy?

Here is another little exercise, find out how many academics signed up for the boycott of apartheid South Africa, and see how many signed up for the boycott of apartheid Israel.

I'll answer that question when you answer the bolded on above.

 

[Dogzilla]

Saggy and 911 never answer questions,never tell us why they have the hots for Hitler and never tell us why they hate Jews.

TheRedWorm and dafydd never answer questions, never tell us why they have the hots for Stalin and never tell us why they hate Germans.

 

[Wroclaw]

TheRedWorm and dafydd never answer questions, never tell us why they have the hots for Stalin and never tell us why they hate Germans.

You can't demonstrate that about RedWorm or dafydd; however, it is easily demonstrable for 911 and, perhaps, Saggy.

 

[kageki]

I think they were handled depending on the time and specific chamber. In some gas chambers, gas masks were used; in others, there were large fans used to remove HCN before the SK came in.



Do you think the SS really cared whether doing this was going to be harmful to the SK?

Just a few ways that Auschwitz gas chambers are not comparable to modern penal gas chambers:

* Only one person gassed at a time in penal GCs; not true at A-B.
* People are gassed in penal GCs wearing clothes; not true at A-B.
* In a penal GC, a specific formulation of HCN devised for killing people is being used; at A-B, they used Zyklon-B, formulated to be used against insects.

The argument that pointing to a modern penal GC and how it's different from the described procedures at Auschwitz is akin to pointing to a funeral home crematorium and making direct comparisons to Töpf und Söhne Kremas at Auschwitz.

In short, the only comparison is that they were both used to burn people. The comparison ends there.

I don't see how your points make it that much different. If more people were being gassed then it would be that much more difficult. You would need gas masks and gloves. The crematorium workers would also need to wear gas masks then.

There has off course been much more detailed discussions, but I don't see too much point in pursuing this further in this thread.

 

[dafydd]

You can't demonstrate that about RedWorm or dafydd; however, it is easily demonstrable for 911 and, perhaps, Saggy.

Impossible to demonstrate it,I don't hate Germans,and if anyone contends that just point me to something I said. I hate Nazis.

 

[Dogzilla]

This is a very flawed approach.

First, there exists a late August 1942 Auschwitz document detailing some of the on-going planning for future crematoria. In the document, Kurt Prüfer connected the delivery of ovens to the "bathing installations for special actions." Around this same time, we have the diary entries of German physician Dr. Johann Kremer detailing his experience with those "special actions."

Second in September 1942, while in discussions with the camp staff over the amount of ovens, Prüfer noted that despite his estimates of the cremation capacity at 2650 per day (nearly 80,000 per month), the camp official was demanding more ovens. In June 1943, the Auschwitz camp estimated that their crematoria could cremate nearly 5000 bodies per day.

Surely alarm bells must be going off in your head that the camp was willing to part with so many lives every day? As a non-extermination camp, the crematoria capacity is ridiculous. How can you operate a satisfactory labor camp when you are cremating nearly the whole labor force every month? Illogical and absurd. Such capacity only makes sense with an ongoing extermination program (hence references to the special actions).

Finally, there is the late January 1943 Auschwitz document regarding the construction of Krema II. The document notes that preparations could be made so that by mid February, "cremation with simultaneous special treatment is made possible." Of course, construction progress was too low, and the building did not become operational until March.

So for Auschwitz, gassing and cremation very much are 'lumped together'.

I'm sorry but the evidence of crematoriums being constructed at Auschwitz (and many other camps throughout Germany and occupied Europe) is pretty darn compelling. We have blueprints, and requisition orders, and memos, and invoices, etc--all the documentation you would expect to find for projects as large as a crematorium. Some of the crematorium are still standing in camps like Buchenwald and Dachau. The evidence that there were morgues attached to these crematorium is just as compelling as the evidence for the crematorium because they were built together at the same time!

Meanwhile, a few memos and diary entries retrofitted with sinister meaning and ONE ambiguous word appearing ONCE in ONE German wartime document is about all there is for the gas chambers.

Are you saying the crematoriums never existed? That the morgues never existed?

 

[kageki]

No. I didn't mention it because there is no logical or necessary link between the above point and whether the history as recorded is true or false.

Unless you can demonstrate one.

And you can't.

By the way, it's illegal in Poland to deny communist crimes. It's illegal in France to deny the Armenian genocide. Do you therefore think that neither of those things happened?

The irony is that Jewish organizations defend the right to deny the Armenian genocide and continue to block resolutions recognizing it as a genocide.

The Holocaust is a much broader topic and thus "denying" it becomes dependent on the exact definition. That's why revisionist say they are not "denying" the Holocaust. Just certain elements of it. Persecutions and deportations happened after all.

 

[TSR]

The irony is that Jewish organizations defend the right to deny the Armenian genocide and continue to block resolutions recognizing it as a genocide.

.
No, they don't, and no they don't.

Yehuda Bauer says that the Armenian Genocide, "... is the closest parallel to the Holocaust" in his article "The Place of the Holocaust in Contemporary History" in the anthology _Holocaust: Religious & Philosophical Implications_. He also explicitly refers to an Armenian genocide in his talk entitled "Can Genocides be Prevented?"

Lucy Dawidowicz quotes Bernard Lazare as saying "The once unthinkable 'Armenian solution' became, in our time, the achievable "Final Solution," in "The Holocaust and the Historians."

Raphael Lemkin, who is the one who actually coined the term "genocide" in 1943, has stated that he did so with the fate of the Armenians in mind, explaining that "it happened so many times... First to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action"

The International Association of Genocide Scholars headed up by William Schabas has gone on record that "the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire began a systematic genocide of its Armenian citizens – an unarmed Christian minority population. More than a million Armenians were exterminated through direct killing, starvation, torture, and forced death marches."

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates re-affirming the Genocide Scholars' conclusion that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.

I could go on all night -- who have *you* got to support your lies that "Jewish organizations defend the right to deny the Armenian genocide and continue to block resolutions recognizing it as a genocide?"

And what happened to Henio?
.

 

[USSManhattan]

That's why revisionist say they are not "denying" the Holocaust. Just certain elements of it. Persecutions and deportations happened after all.

But, you are denying the central fact - that the National Socialist regime developed and executed a program of mass murder against the Jews and "undesirables" of Europe - are you not?