Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[Clayton Moore]

Yeah, nor do we for, you know, Jesus. Hearsay evidence entirely. Dude never wrote anything down apparently.

Typical. Always ready to throw in an anti-Christian slur.

 

[TSR]

Typical.

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Typical of ... ?
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Always ready to throw in an anti-Christian slur.

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In what way does Wroclaw's comment insult Xtians as a grouo?
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[TSR]

Speaking of double standards, I have yet to get a response to this request.

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Haven't you noticed -- DZ isn't here to answer questions, but to ask ones the answers to which have already been given. These, zie ignores because the answers were not the ones he wanted -- zie instead prefers to go with other answers which, while they do reinforce what zie really really wants to have happened, do not share those other answers' quality of being true.

That this leads zie into endorsing ideas such as that a person not being listed on a census for a specific area means they never existed, despite the fact that someone else reports having met and interviewed that person does not seem to bother DZ at all.
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[Robrob]

Typical. Always ready to throw in an anti-Christian slur.

So Jesus, did write things down?

 

[LemmyCaution]

Quick question for the peanut gallery: When was Kruk's diary first published? Where was it before it was published?

Something more needs to be said about this post. It is either an example of Dogzilla's dishonesty - or his laziness.

Here's why: A few times upthread - for example here http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7756570&postcount=7423 - where I referenced the Harshavs, editors of Kruk's diary, and David E. Fishman's article in Jonathon Rose, ed., The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation, I gave sources for material on the chain of custody of Kruk's diary.

But now we have Dogzilla asking when it was first published and where the manuscripts were held, if I interpret his vague question correctly, when the references already given explain the what scholars know about the manuscripts.

So, if Dogzilla wanted to make a point about the provenance of the diaries, why didn't he just go ahead and do so instead of popping in with his questions, with their gratuitous "peanut gallery"?

This discussion should not be a quiz show or the game of I'll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours that LGR tries reducing things to. Just last January, LGR was honoring requests for honest and open discussion by citing to a document on Vilna and, when asked to show his hand, replying, "Maybe, but not necessarily here." LGR may not care about his credibility, but Dogzilla has tried presenting himself as a reasonable denier, so it is sad to see him using these tactics. So much for open and honest exchanges of views and information to achieve greater understanding.

Unless I am mistaken, and Dogzilla really doesn't know when the diary was published or where the manuscripts were held, despite having been given references to information that would easily have answered his question, at least giving him what scholars have concluded.

 

[LemmyCaution]

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Haven't you noticed -- DZ isn't here to answer questions, but to ask ones the answers to which have already been given. These, zie ignores because the answers were not the ones he wanted -- zie instead prefers to go with other answers which, while they do reinforce what zie really really wants to have happened, do not share those other answers' quality of being true.

That this leads zie into endorsing ideas such as that a person not being listed on a census for a specific area means they never existed, despite the fact that someone else reports having met and interviewed that person does not seem to bother DZ at all.
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Well, yes, to be fair, I have noticed these quirks. At a certain point, which for some inexplicable reason we haven't reached yet, these quirks disqualify a person for further discussion. As does the double standard wielded by this same Dogzilla - at a certain point, frankly, such one-sided stubbornness becomes tedious beyond repair. For the moment, however, what I find astonishing is the magnitude of the intellectual dishonesty of the enterprise.

As a reminder, just for the first week of September, we can read in Kruk's diary how on 4 September - at a time Sakowicz was recording mass shootings at Ponar, the same time for which Jaeger later recorded extermination actions with 3704 Jewish victims - Kruk, "through friends and efforts," met with "11-year-old Yudis Trojak of Szawelska 11, apartment 26," who'd undergone an operation for injuries sustained at Ponar, and then with "The second one . . . Pesye Schloss, 16 years old," whose address was Strashun 9 - and then with 4 other "wounded people" and even with "peasants who brought the people to the hospital" - and we can read how they all "tell the same thing." One of these two girls, Trojak, was also mentioned in Abba Kovner's day diary around this time as having brought word from Ponar. And we can read on 5 September how Kruk further met with 4 more victims, who give very different estimates of the number of victims, based on their individual experiences, and then a fifth survivor who "confirms everything chronicled here."

 

[Nick Terry]

Historians look at the evidence and see where the evidence leads them.

But this is precisely what you're not doing. Say 'the evidence' to a historian and they will think you are referring to the totality of the evidence, not to one tiny piece of it.

Schloss does not appear in any other context as a piece of evidence for Ponary other than in Kruk's diary. The apparent non-appearence of Schloss in another, non-Ponary-related source, is irrelevant. If historians applied your spurious standard to their sources more generally, then they'd never be able to write anything. Which is your ultimate goal, isn't it; you'd like the Holocaust to be erased from history and for historians to be forbidden from researching and discussing it.

You have shown time and again that you don't care about other eras in history and yet say things like "historians look at the evidence and see where the evidence leads them", implicitly appealing to an ideal type of historian, which standard presumably historians of the Holocaust do not live up to. To make such a claim, you'd have to prove that all other historians have higher standards. I can assure you that you will never be able to prove this.

Since previously you have introduced themes from ancient history into discussion of standards of evidence, I think I'm entitlted to do the same. It's a very good way of calibrating the treatment of evidence. Some time ago the thread-starter, kageki, who has since vanished, came a cropper when I discussed the evidentiary issues with Thucydides, the chronicler of the Peloponnesean War in ancient Greece. Thucydides is revered as one of the first true historians rather than chroniclers, because of his relative care in identifying his sources - he explains who he met with and what they told him. But he was not writing a diary, rather composing an account much later on.

There are certainly names of witnesses and protagonists in Thucydides which appear in no other contemporary written source. Later writings are often derivative of this source, and there is relatively little possibility of confirming such details as names from archaeology, unless someone finds a statue with a name on it. Which wouldn't apply to the vast majority of names. But enough can be confirmed that historians of ancient Greece do not regard Thucydides as another Homer, making up a mythological tale.

The same problem of witnesses or historical figures who are mentioned in only one source will recur in all epochs right up to the 20th Century. It will recur in writing the history of regions where record-keeping is patchier or where records have been destroyed. It is a comforting conceit to think that every person who ever lived in the 20th Century had their name written down somewhere. This is absolutely not the case.

The only sensible approach is to approach the source - whether Thucydides or Kruk's diary doesn't matter - as a whole. Not the other way around. That's how "historians look at the evidence and see where it leads them".

 

[Wroclaw]

So Jesus, did write things down?

Good God, no. Given his class and the time in which he lived, he was probably illiterate.

(Now I've stepped in it.)

He probably had functional fluency in four languages, however: Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.

 

[twinstead]

But this is precisely what you're not doing. Say 'the evidence' to a historian and they will think you are referring to the totality of the evidence, not to one tiny piece of it.

Yup. One thing I have learned from my years on this forum is that the only thing one can do when the preponderance of evidence is contrary to ones beliefs is concentrate on just a couple pieces of it that appear, at least in a cursory way, to support those beliefs.

This is about as far away from real investigation as one can get.

 

[Dogzilla]

Typical. Always ready to throw in an anti-Christian slur.

Saying that evidence for Jesus is all hearsay isn't necessarily an anti-Christian slur. Jesus was a Jew. I think his biggest disciples were all Jews. Don't we have Roman sources that indicate that Jesus the man actually lived at one time? So his existence doesn't depend on the testimony of Jews. But all the evidence of the miracles he performed and his rising from the dead and all that other stuff is based on testimony of Jews. So to say that Jesus wasn't the Son of Dog is to say that Jews are all liars. That sounds like antisemitism to me.

 

[Dogzilla]

I hate you.

And with this we see the manifestation of emotional attachment to some particular historical fact. Does anybody express hatred towards a person who says Shakespeare didn't write the plays? Or someone who doubts the lone gunman theory of the Kennedy assassination? Or even someone who says 9/11 was an inside job?

 

[LemmyCaution]

And with this we see the manifestation of emotional attachment to some particular historical fact. Does anybody express hatred towards a person who says Shakespeare didn't write the plays? Or someone who doubts the lone gunman theory of the Kennedy assassination? Or even someone who says 9/11 was an inside job?

I would wager that they do when the Shakespeare denier, JFK loon, or 911 twoofer mocks and ridicules the victims and those who care that there were victims. Yes, I am pretty sure you'd see that, especially if the JFK loon, say, had the edge of anti-Catholicism.

 

[Nick Terry]

And with this we see the manifestation of emotional attachment to some particular historical fact. Does anybody express hatred towards a person who says Shakespeare didn't write the plays?

Yes. Roland Emmerich is a terrible film-maker. There's a thread on here somewhere about his new film.

Or someone who doubts the lone gunman theory of the Kennedy assassination?

Considering the antics of the current JFK nut on another thread in this forum, I think it's highly probable that many members hate that particular JFK nut for his dishonesty, obnoxiousness and all-round conspiraloon manners.

Or even someone who says 9/11 was an inside job?

Have you ever read the forum next door?

 

[Nick Terry]

Saying that evidence for Jesus is all hearsay isn't necessarily an anti-Christian slur. Jesus was a Jew. I think his biggest disciples were all Jews. Don't we have Roman sources that indicate that Jesus the man actually lived at one time? So his existence doesn't depend on the testimony of Jews. But all the evidence of the miracles he performed and his rising from the dead and all that other stuff is based on testimony of Jews. So to say that Jesus wasn't the Son of Dog is to say that Jews are all liars. That sounds like antisemitism to me.

What sounds like antisemitism to me is your putrid gloss on the New Testament, which is putrid no matter whether one is atheist, agnostic or Christian.

 

[Wroclaw]

Here's what I know: No person who actually witnessed Jesus's life directly wrote down anything. The writers of the gospels and Josephus as well — none of them actually knew him. Ergo, he must not have ever existed. I mean, at least with Pesye Schloss, someone that had met her actually wrote something down. For JC, we don't even have that.

 

[LemmyCaution]

Here's what I know: No person who actually witnessed Jesus's life directly wrote down anything. The writers of the gospels and Josephus as well — none of them actually knew him. Ergo, he must not have ever existed. I mean, at least with Pesye Schloss, someone that had met her actually wrote something down. For JC, we don't even have that.

And not just anyone: the notes about Pesye Schloss were made by a man who comes across as honest, who made an effort to keep an accurate record of events he considered important, and whose observations strongly correlate with other sources. In other words, a reliable and credible observer.

 

[little grey rabbit]

And not just anyone: the notes about Pesye Schloss were made by a man who comes across as honest, who made an effort to keep an accurate record of events he considered important, and whose observations strongly correlate with other sources. In other words, a reliable and credible observer.

So it this man comes across as particularly honest - although frankly I would say you are a rather poor judge of character - does he mention finding Kalmanovitch's diary? It should be in the entries of September 1943

The diary was preserved in an almost miraculous way. After Kalmanovitch was deported to Estonia, Herman Kruk discovered the diary in Kalmanovitch's home and secreted it in the Ghetto library. After the liquidation of the ghetto a great portion of the books and manuscripts was used by the janitor of the house for heating the furnace. After liberation in 1945 Abraham Sutskever, the Vilna poet, salvaged the remains of this collection and among other valuable materials he also found Kalmanovitch's diary. He sent the manuscript to the Yivo library where it is now deposited

Since if Kruk was not alive, it is difficult to know if it was he who discovered the diary.

Of course Mr Caution would probably think Avrom Sutzkever was an honest man also - despite seeming to go out of his way to imply there was a gas chamber at Ponary when testifying at Nuremberg.

SUZKEVER: When the Germans seized my city, Vilna, about 80,000 Jews lived in the town. Immediately the so-called Sonderkommando was set up at 12 Vilenskaia Street, under the command of Schweichenberg and Martin Weiss. The man-hunters of the Sonderkommandos, or as the Jews called them, the "Khapun," broke into the Jewish houses at any time of day or night, dragged away the men, instructing them to take a piece of soap and a towel, and herded them into certain buildings near the village of Ponari, about 8 kilometers from Vilna. From there hardly one returned.

What a pity Kruk neglected to inform his colleague Sutzkever of his conversations with Pesye Schloss so that he could have given more accurate testimony at Nuremberg.

 

[eerok]

I'd like to thank the holocaust deniers in this thread for underscoring the unconscionable and hideous actions of the Nazis toward Jews, gypsies, gays, and other "undesirables." We should never be allowed to forget the wholesale, sanctioned torture and murder of innocents undertaken for political convenience by the sociopaths leading Hitler's regime. The holocaust is a mark against all human beings, for we are all in some sense party to the commission of that horror, and in another sense the victims as well. This is our tribe, and this is our crime.

By tirelessly refreshing this issue, you are reminding us constantly how horrible the holocaust was, and of the degree of suffering that can be caused by human stupidity and outright madness.

So keep up the good work. Apathy really is the enemy here, and stirring things up is for the best. It doesn't matter how weird or damaged you appear, you provide a useful service by offering an obviously demented position that we can improve ourselves by rejecting.

Keep on keeping on.

 

[little grey rabbit]

I'd like to thank the holocaust deniers in this thread for underscoring the unconscionable and hideous actions of the Nazis toward Jews, gypsies, gays, and other "undesirables." We should never be allowed to forget the wholesale, sanctioned torture and murder of innocents undertaken for political convenience by the sociopaths leading Hitler's regime. The holocaust is a mark against all human beings, for we are all in some sense party to the commission of that horror,

Speak for yourself. I don't make slanderous lies for personal gain. When I occasionally tell the odd porkie it is entirely from a sense of fun and entertainment.

There is no moral equivalence between me and the tribe of Hoaxsters.

 

[LemmyCaution]

So it this man comes across as particularly honest - although frankly I would say you are a rather poor judge of character - does he mention finding Kalmanovitch's diary? It should be in the entries of September 1943



Since if Kruk was not alive, it is difficult to know if it was he who discovered the diary.

Of course Mr Caution would probably think Avrom Sutzkever was an honest man also - despite seeming to go out of his way to imply there was a gas chamber at Ponary when testifying at Nuremberg.


What a pity Kruk neglected to inform his colleague Sutzkever of his conversations with Pesye Schloss so that he could have given more accurate testimony at Nuremberg.

Sutzkever's post-war testimony and recollections contained a number of mistakes, often in form of conflation of details. Please do not attribute to me what I have not said or implied. One reason for the great value of the Kruk diaries is precisely that they do not depend on fallible memory, as Sutzkever did after the war.

If LGR is trying to argue that Sutzkever did not understand how Jews were killed at Ponar and that his reference to buildings and soap intimates gar chambers - I would remind readers of LGR's pattern of deceitfulness: First, Sutzkever was not asked about the means of death by Smirnov in the above exchange, so did not describe it or imply any specific means. Sutzkever was replying to a general question about persecution he'd witnessed, and responded with a statement about what he had heard about Ponar, as a case in point. There was, of course, for example, a train station at Ponar.

Second, Sutzkever testified following his brief mention of Ponar about a number of issues related to the question he was asked: the shooting of a Jewish girl (Gitele Tarlo) in Vilna, the yellow star order, the German anti-natal order, the murder of his infant in hospital, German cover story for the fall murders in a newspaper (deaths from an epidemic), and his estimate of the number murdered in Vilna. A strange set of detours for someone trying to argue for gas chambers at Ponar.

Sutzkever made one more allusion to how Jews died:

I must say that not all the Jews were driven into the ghetto. Fincks [Hingst] had set up two ghettos in Vilna. In the first were 29,000 Jews, and in the second some 15,000 Jews. About half the Jewish population of Vilna never reached the ghetto; they were shot on the way. I remember how, when we arrived at the ghetto ... [ellipses in transcript, where Smirnov interrupted the witness]

Third, if LGR doesn't like the detail about the soap and towels carried by the victims, well, Kruk also mentioned the same detail (saying handkerchiefs instead of towels); I assume it was a detail that spread around Vilna.

Fourth, LGR knows that Sutzkever was aware of the mode of death at Ponar - mass shootings - because LGR included testimony in this thread from Motel Gdud, which Sutzkever himself took down. Sutzkever, who knew Kruk, didn't need, therefore, to hear Kruk's summary of the testimony that Kruk took from Schloss, Trojak, Katz, and unnamed others because he himself took testimony from Ponar survivors.

The real question here is why, aware of all this, LGR tries to pass off his distortions and lies by omitting so much.

As to the question about Kalmanovich's diary, there were survivors, after all of the actions at Vilna, and they were able to give their accounts of such details, so we don't need Kruk surviving to have someone give details about what he did in 1943. Since LGR hasn't given a reference to the bit he quoted, it isn't possible to check whether the source explains this.

I should also note that, even as he brings in more distortions and wriggles and squirms, LGR has failed to reply to a post I made days ago, seconded by Wroclaw, requesting that he provide a summary, with details and names, of what he argues about Kruk's diary and how he knows it. He prefers gnomic allusions and vaguely based insinuations to laying out his argument and supporting it. In his own way, he's as tiresome as Dogzilla by this point, with his circling and dodging.