Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[Dogzilla]

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So, is it your contention that Klee is not an historian, or that "The Good Old Days" doesn't discuss the Holocaust at all
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No, you aren't, but no, I don't
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And what makes it absurd, in your world?
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No, it is to show that those findings and stories have zero impact on the actual history involved.

Just like the fact that George Washington not having chopped down that cherry tree nor thrown a silver dollar across the Potomac does not mean the American Revolution didn't happen.
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Mostly because few of them use nonsensical claims.
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And I gave you Klee.

Which you then lied about.
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And I rejected that suggestion, since AFAIK none have, but it is impossible to prove a negative.

You want to throw out that detail on that basis, be my guest -- it won't change a single thing about the normative understanding of the Holocaust.
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Yes, thereby fulfilling your any historian and any detail requirements,
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Which is true.
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Which word is confusing you?
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It's not my claim nor that of anyone here (so I can hardly have defended it), so it's not my responsibility to research it.
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No, it is meaningless denier drivel that this shows anything contradicting the Holocaust as we know it.
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If that's how you want to treat it, go ahead.

But why I don't I give you more exercise by your running away from the question "So what if it is?"
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No, we cannot assume that. It's been explained to you how eyewitness testimony can be unreliable in spots, and how this unreliability is handled.

It's no one's fault but your own if you choose to continue to make yourself the object of ridicule by ignoring that explanation.
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When an historian offers such a source without commentary as Klee did in this case, it can be assumed that it is offered with approval, even if the historian doesn't add "... and I agree" at the end.
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No, it demonstrates problems with the pop culture. For example, most people assume that the signing of the Declaration of Independence was part and parcel with the vote for independency. This is because of the popularity of things such as the musical, film, and revival of "1776".

The fact is, these were two separate votes, with independency having been approved on July 2nd.

That the other is assumed to be fact does not indicate intellectual bankruptcy on the part of historians of the era, no more than it mean the American Revolution never happened.

Only the Holocaust has that standard applied by deniers.
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No, it was an *lowering* of the standards (not one specific detail from the book, but any detail at all from the book) in order to show that deniers can't even do the easier task.

That deniers cannot but still continue with the claim shows intellectual bankruptcy, unlike your example.
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So which specific detail provided by a survivor or perpetrator is referenced to and "endorsed" by Klee?

 

[Dogzilla]

Since you've demonstrated no familiarity with any scholarship whatsoever, your opinion that scholarship on the Holocaust is 'intellectually bankrupt' is worthless.

Your claim is moreover completely illogical, and also slaloms from extreme to extreme. Things really aren't as black-and-white, all-or-nothing as you constantly pretend they are.

Wiesel isn't an "absolute nobody" to historians of the Holocaust. He just isn't relevant to a very large proportion of the scholarship, as explained previously. There is little reason why Christopher Browning, for example, would cite Wiesel when Browning has spent the greater part of his career looking at the origins of the Final Solution and the Holocaust in Poland. Similarly, someone studying Sachsenhausen isn't very likely to cite Wiesel because Wiesel was never there.

Where he is relevant, then some historians are likely to cite him - for example, if they are writing about the Holocaust in Hungary. But they will also cite a variety of other witnesses and memoirs. Same with historians writing about Auschwitz - Wiesel is cited a couple of times in the Auschwitz State Museum's 5 volume work Auschwitz 1940-1945, along with several hundred other memoirists and eyewitnesses. In both sub-fields, there are plenty of sources which historians can choose to cite.

If you or any other denier want to address the content of what Wiesel wrote, then you need to be familiar with those other sources, in order to see what is corroborated and what is personal - much as LemmyCaution has explained to you in another post today.

We've been over a lot of this before. There are several very good reasons why Wiesel will not appeal to a number of historians, over and above the fact that if they're writing about the Holocaust in x region he wouldn't even be relevant. Firstly, his memoir is extremely literary and does not necessarily lend itself to the kind of citations that historians prefer, which are more often descriptive. Secondly, his sheer popularity means that there are going to be those who sniff at him because of that popularity, in the same way that cognoscenti and intellectuals tend to disdain overly popular novelists or pop stars. Thirdly, there is Wiesel's evident religiosity, which is another turn-off for historians, most of whom tend to be rather secular.

For all these reasons, the apparent disconnect is quite explicable and not damning, contrary to what you apparently think. Indeed, the very fact that you are deliberately interpreting this as somehow damaging to the credibility of whoever, is a sign that you are in the grip of a raging paranoia.

Good post Nick. I hope TSR will read it and drop his obsession with the man.

 

[TSR]

So which specific detail provided by a survivor or perpetrator is referenced to and "endorsed" by Klee?

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Asked and answered. Here it is again:

Klee, in "The Good Old Days" cites a report from Johannes Blaskowitz on the very first page of the main part of the book which speaks of the indiscriminate slaughter of Jews qua Jews.

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You concede the other points in my post?
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[TSR]

Good post Nick. I hope TSR will read it and drop his obsession with the man.

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*My* obsession?

*I* am not the one that keeps bringing him up -- that would be Saggs and CM. And you then try to defend it, failing that to move the goalposts.

But even though you knew that, acknowledging the point wouldn't allow you to get in a cheap shot.

And cheap shots are all you have, aren't they?
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[Dogzilla]

Glass as in window glass.

At Auschwitz the glass window is in a typical wooden office door that goes directly into the hoax gas chamber. On scrapbook pages the writer describes his visit to the hoax gas chamber - he asked the guide why the prisoners didn't break the window, and the guide replied that the Nazis stationed a guard outside the door with the window with a gun and instructions to shoot anyone breaking the window. Oy vey ! How freaking idiotic can they get ?

The Jews were herded into the gas chamber under the pretext of taking a shower. Were the Jews instructed to not break the glass in the door of the "shower room" under any circumstances and that there was a guard outside with a gun who would shoot them if they did? Otherwise, how would the Jews know they shouldn't break the glass?

We know from the Sondercommando testimony that the Jews inside the gas chamber tried desperately to get away from the Zyklon B induction columns when they realized what was happening. We've read the heart wrenching descriptions of Jews crushed up against the doors as they tried to escape the lethal gas. Naturally, if you're facing death inside the gas chamber, you're going to try to escape. If breaking the glass in the door of the gas chamber is going to give you a slight chance of escaping impending doom, I think you're going to do it--guard or no guard.

But what do I know? I've never had a gun to my head. And I've never had a gun to my head but didn't know I had a gun to my head while I was being gassed inside a room with a plate glass window I could break and through which I could crawl out.

And about that warning agent that was removed from the Zyklon B at the behest of the SS. If the Jews did break the glass, the guard outside the door would start shooting. But the odorless cyanide gas would still escape through the broken window. How many Jews inside the gas chamber would be shot before the guard outside was overcome by the fumes? Actually, how many Jews would be shot before the guard ran out of bullets? If there are two thousand people being gassed, the guard is going to need a two thousand round clip to prevent them all from escaping. And what happens to the poor guard when he runs out of bullets?

And I thought the problem of accidental leakage of cyanide gas with no warning agent wouldn't be a problem because only the Sondercommando were in the immediate vicinity of the gas chamber and who cares if they die? Were the guards stationed outside the gas chamber Sondercommando? Sondercommando packing enough heat to kill two thousand people if necessary?

This is just a microcosm of the problem with holocaust scholarship and the fallacy of making it up as you go along. Rather than look at the evidence objectively and allow that evidence to inform their conclusions, the holocaust scholars start with the conclusion in mind and try to fit the evidence to that conclusion. They elevate conjecture to fact without considering if that "fact" meshes with the real world or with other "established" "facts" about the holocaust.

Thus, they tell us this is a gas chamber without considering the consequences of an easily breakable glass window in the door of the gas chamber. When these consequences are brought to their attention, they make up the explanation of a guard on duty to shoot anybody who breaks the glass. This creates more questions and contradicts previously established "facts" about the gas chamber. So now they need to make up more lies or they can say that the docent at the museum who said there was a guard outside the door was mistaken and what he/she said doesn't matter anyway because no historian has ever said there was a guard outside the door of the gas chamber.

 

[Dogzilla]

Here is a link with an explanation.

David Cole also recanted his gas chamber denialism.

That link doesn't explain the glass window. David Cole recanted because of threats from the JDL. The current JDL website doesn't have links to the terrorist campaign they instigated against him anymore. But you can find remnants of it on the old JDL website that is archived at the Wayback Machine.

 

[Dogzilla]

Personally I don't like to be bombed in the dark. I doubt installing a window would have reduced my safety much had a bomb fallen on me. But really all this doesn't matter. What I ask and want to know was when the window was put in place. Was it there during the gassings or delousings? If you know the answer then post it.

I don't know if the window was suppose to have been there when it was a gas chamber or not. I don't know if you can get a straight answer from anybody about this. When I visited Auschwitz, I wasn't told that anything I saw was a reconstruction. I wasn't even told that all the gassings allegedly took place at Birkinau.

If they're showing tourists a room with a plate glass window in the door and calling it the gas chamber in its original state, it's reasonable to assume that the plate glass window in the door was present when it was a gas chamber. If they show tourists a room with a plate glass window in the door and call it a reconstruction of the gas chamber, it's reasonable to assume that the plate glass window in the door is a reproduction of the door that was originally in the gas chamber.

What isn't reasonable is to show tourists a gas chamber you reconstructed out of whatever material you happen to have lying around and expect the tourist to know which features of the gas chamber that they are shown may or may not have been a feature of the original gas chamber and that they should ask the tour guide if they are unsure.

So the bottom line is that if they show you a door with a plate glass window leading into the gas chamber--and they don't specify that the door isn't the original door and that it does not resemble the original door--it's reasonable to assume that a door with a plate glass window in it was what prevented the Jews from escaping.

 

[OCaptain]

So I'm really going to give my name and address to some JDL thugs.

So, to sum up - you're too afraid of the big bad Joos to email an old man, but you're not too afraid to defame/slander him and other survivors on this forum?

Have I got that right?

Because you realize that, if they had as much power as you fear, dude, they already know who and where you are!

 

[twinstead]

So, to sum up - you're too afraid of the big bad Joos to email an old man, but you're not too afraid to defame/slander him and other survivors on this forum?

Have I got that right?

Because you realize that, if they had as much power as you fear, dude, they already know who and where you are!

What an odd little world Clayton lives in

 

[TSR]

David Cole recanted because of threats from the JDL. The current JDL website doesn't have links to the terrorist campaign they instigated against him anymore. But you can find remnants of it on the old JDL website that is archived at the Wayback Machine.

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Nota bien: I am not defending, justifying or excusing what the JDL *did* do in any way shape or form.

That being said, nothing on that page mentions a terrorist campaign in progress. It says Cole was afraid one might occur, not that he had received threats of any kind let alone death threats as your denier buds here assert.

Try again.
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[Nick Terry]

The Holocaust Controversies critique is now fully posted and is also available as a PDF download from multiple sites. The links below should take interested readers to the posts, as well as to the download sites.

The PDF is bookmarked for ease of navigation.

The members of Holocaust Controversies have prepared a large critique entitled 'Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard: A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues.' It is the First Edition of a White Paper, and the background events that led to its creation are discussed in the introduction. We will be publishing the whole work as a PDF file on the Internet within the next 14 days; but first we are rolling out our current working version as a blog series, starting here. We have not employed a professional proofreader and we are working on this project for free in our spare time, so we would like to appeal to all readers to post feedback on any typos or other errors in the Comments below each blog article. We will incorporate any necessary corrections into the PDF and any subsequent versions of the White Paper.

Happy Holidays and Enjoy!

Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka​

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Holocaust Denial and Operation Reinhard​

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A Critique of the Falsehoods of Mattogno, Graf and Kues​

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A Holocaust Controversies White Paper, First Edition, December 2011



http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com


© 2011 Jonathan Harrison, Roberto Muehlenkamp, Jason Myers, Sergey Romanov, Nicholas Terry


This work may be freely distributed electronically as a PDF or reproduced on websites, but rights of authorship are reserved; please credit this to ‘Holocaust Controversies’. Reproduction for commercial purposes is prohibited.

Dedicated to Harry Mazal (1937-2011) ​

​

NOTE: the definitive version of this Critique is in the PDF format. It can be downloaded from the following sources:​

• Google Docs
• Rapidshare
• Archive.org

The blog version should be considered as an earlier version.​

Table of Contents​

Introduction.

• Overview and Historiography of Aktion Reinhard
• Sources.
• Structure of the Critique

Chapter 1: The Hoax That Dare Not Speak Its Name

• Wartime Reports
• Investigations and Trials

Chapter 2: Nazi Policy

• Extermination of Soviet Jews, June 1941 - March 1942
• Evolution of Europe-Wide Final Solution, September - December 1941
• Local Exterminations: Chelmno, Serbia and Reich Jews in RK Ostland
• The Europe-Wide Final Solution, January 1942 - March 1943
• Killing of Soviet Jews, August-December 1942
• Conclusion

Chapter 3: Aktion Reinhard and the Holocaust in Poland

• The Origins of Aktion Reinhard
• Extermination and Labour
• Mattogno’s ‘Resettlement’ Shell Game

Chapter 4: So Where Did They Go? “Resettlement” to the East

• The Excruciatingly Slow Evolution of the Revisionist “Resettlement” Thesis
• “Resettlement” for MGK
• Realities in the Occupied Soviet Territories
• The Ostland
• Ukraine
• The Alleged Fate of the ‘Resettled’ Jews

Chapter 5: Gas Chambers at the Aktion Reinhard Camps

• A “Humane” Solution: Poison Gas and the Development of the Gas Chambers
• The Original & Second Gas Chambers at Belzec and Sobibor
• The Treblinka Camp
• Property Plunder
• The Gassing Engine: Diesel or Gasoline?
• Corpse Color
• Archaeology of the Gas Chambers
• Gas Chamber Ventilation

Chapter 6: Death Camp Witnesses

• MGK’s Methodology (or lack thereof)
• Treatment of Witness Testimony
• Direct and Indirect Witnesses
• Dishonest Treatment of SS Witnesses
• Hypocritical Use of Witness Evidence
• Witness Convergences

Chapter 7: Mass Graves

• Number, Dimensions and Contents of the Mass Graves
• Mattogno et al’s Claims: Nature and Purpose of Archaeological Investigations
• Human Remains Found
• Capacity of the Graves
• Soil Removed from the Graves
• Groundwater Pollution
• The "Actual" Surface of the Graves
• Density of Corpses in the Graves

Chapter 8: Burning of the Corpses

• Cremation Devices, Methods and Times
• Fuel Requirements
• Duration of Cremations
• Cremation Remains
• Why Cremation?

Conclusion

Afterword: A Special Note by Jason Myers
​

I'd like to add that this is one of the longer debunking efforts ever put together by skeptics and anti-conspiracy theorists. The PDF comes to 570 pages plus a cover. We used well over 600 books and articles, and made reference to nearly 100 books and articles by deniers, thus tackling a sizeable chunk of their literature. We also used over 150 documents from the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, and cited from over 150 unpublished archival files, microfilms and trial papers.

We hope the critique is a useful introduction to the history of a major aspect of the Holocaust and a good guide to what is known about three of the extermination camps.

We also hope that the critique is a good example of skeptical, critical thinking, weighing the claims of Holocaust deniers and their conspiracy theories in the balance, and pointing out the flaws in their arguments. It will be no surprise that we have identified numerous examples where the thinking of our denier targets went badly wrong, and where they resorted to blatant fallacy-mongering. I hope that interested skeptics will find the time to look at the critique and read it with this in mind.

Finally, a word of thanks to the deniers on here, for providing what was often much-needed light relief and serving as punchbags during the process of putting this critique together. I doubt you will find all your inane questions answered in the critique, but frankly, I don't care very much any more what you guys think. If you want to discuss mass graves, you have 131 pages to read on that alone... and if you want to claim the Holocaust was a 'holohoax', you can try tackling the argument on pp.39-91 which refutes the core conspiracy theories of Holocaust deniers. And so on.

 

[LSSBB]

That link doesn't explain the glass window. David Cole recanted because of threats from the JDL. The current JDL website doesn't have links to the terrorist campaign they instigated against him anymore. But you can find remnants of it on the old JDL website that is archived at the Wayback Machine.

Where on that fragment does it say that he "recanted because of threats from the JDL"?

 

[Dogzilla]

This deserves it's own call-out:

I wrote: "So CMs factoid about babies thrown on top of the heads in a stuffed to the gills gas chamber is meaningless holocaust drivel because he can't tell us which historian has specifically mentioned this anecdote." Your response was:

No, it is meaningless denier drivel that this shows anything contradicting the Holocaust as we know it.

I wrote: "Similarly, your unwillingness to find an historian who specifically endorses Pesye Schloss' foot story means that it too is meaningless holocaust drivel."

If that's how you want to treat it, go ahead.

But why I don't I give you more exercise by your running away from the question "So what if it is?"

So what if Pesye Schloss' testimony is worthless drivel? Is that what you're asking? So what if a "credible Jewish eyewitness to the holocaust" is worthless drivel?

Accuracy means nothing to you people?

 

[LemmyCaution]

This deserves it's own call-out:

I wrote: "So CMs factoid about babies thrown on top of the heads in a stuffed to the gills gas chamber is meaningless holocaust drivel because he can't tell us which historian has specifically mentioned this anecdote." Your response was:

I wrote: "Similarly, your unwillingness to find an historian who specifically endorses Pesye Schloss' foot story means that it too is meaningless holocaust drivel."

So what if Pesye Schloss' testimony is worthless drivel? Is that what you're asking? So what if a "credible Jewish eyewitness to the holocaust" is worthless drivel?

Accuracy means nothing to you people?

Awfully quiet on the full range of Ponar sources, aren't you? How's your comparison of Sakowicz, Jaeger, Dworzecki, Rudashevski, and Balberyzski to Kruk coming along?

Please continue explaining how the Jaeger Report is about ethnic cleansing. Or anti-partisan actions. Or how Specialist Charles Graner and Specialist Lynndie England were kinda like SS-Standartenführer Karl Jaeger, yeah, you know two American soldiers, ranking equivalent to corporals, are, in your view, basically the same as an SS colonel . . . uh, that is an officer commanding something along the lines of a regiment . . . pray, elucidate. . .

 

[Dogzilla]

Sounds all so... unprovable.

Actually David Cole himself sounded pretty clear that he didn't want to get involved with holocaust denial anymore. At least that's my take on that letter that he sent to the JDL that was available on the Nizkor website.

 

[TSR]

Actually David Cole himself sounded pretty clear that he didn't want to get involved with holocaust denial anymore. At least that's my take on that letter that he sent to the JDL that was available on the Nizkor website.

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Actually, I don't think that that was the point LSSBB was calling unbelievable.

I think that most reasonable people, taking all of the context of that subthread into account, would say that the "all" includes the reason Mondial has asserted for Cole's recantation is what cannot be proven. That and Mondial's claim that Cole still secretly supports denial.
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[TSR]

So what if Pesye Schloss' testimony is worthless drivel? Is that what you're asking? So what if a "credible Jewish eyewitness to the holocaust" is worthless drivel?

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Except that no one but you is saying 'falsus in uno'.

And disregarding that there are other sources of evidence which support other parts of that testimony.

And disregarding that there are other sources of evidence which support other details of the Holocaust.

And disregarding that this convergence of evidence shows that our normative understanding of the Holocaust is as accurate as it can be, based on ***all of*** the available evidence.
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Accuracy means nothing to you people?

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No, that would be you and your denier buds, trying desperately to twist everything into a black and white, falsus in uno world in which you don't appear able to realize would impeach deniers in general, and you in particular, far more then any individual eyewitness whether victim or perpetrator.
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[Dogzilla]

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Asked and answered. Here it is again:


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You concede the other points in my post?
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Sorry, that's not an answer. You said: "Klee, in "The Good Old Days" cites a report from Johannes Blaskowitz on the very first page of the main part of the book which speaks of the indiscriminate slaughter of Jews qua Jews."

"Indiscriminate slaughter of Jews qua Jews" isn't specific enough, unless the report from Blaskowitz was nothing more than zb 'I am pleased to report the indiscriminate slaughter of Jews qua Jews.' Anything there about the method of killing? I prefer a killing method that is diabolical yet breathtakingly inefficient but whatever you can find is OK by me. Just remember, it's a specific quote the from the report that you can link to a specific fact endorsed by Klee in his book.

Concede the other points? I pointed out where you dismissed the importance of accuracy in the land of holocaust scholarship in separate post. I don't think there were any other points that any relevance. I mean, once you reject the value of truth in historical discourse I don't know how any point you might make would be relevant.

 

[Dogzilla]

Where on that fragment does it say that he "recanted because of threats from the JDL"?

It doesn't. It says his recantation is evidence of the power of the Jewish Defense League. But that's obviously a reference to the work done by the University outreach side of the JDL that does all the original research and publishes all those scholarly articles, sponsors the annual conference and all those semiannual seminars for the academic community that makes the JDL the number one source of information about the holocaust. 'Irv Rubin's Brain Boys'--that's what they call themselves--obviously showed David Cole the evidence he needed to see to answer all of his questions about Auschwitz. So David Cole recanted. I just wish David Cole would share that knowledge with the rest of us.

 

[Dogzilla]

Awfully quiet on the full range of Ponar sources, aren't you? How's your comparison of Sakowicz, Jaeger, Dworzecki, Rudashevski, and Balberyzski to Kruk coming along?

Why would I look into something I don't care about? Especially since Team holocaust has said it doesn't matter if eyewitness testimony is accurate or truthful?

Please continue explaining how the Jaeger Report is about ethnic cleansing. Or anti-partisan actions.

The Jaeger report is allegedly a report of Einsatzgruppen activity, right? Why were the Einsatzgruppen created? What was their mission?

Or how Specialist Charles Graner and Specialist Lynndie England were kinda like SS-Standartenführer Karl Jaeger, yeah, you know two American soldiers, ranking equivalent to corporals, are, in your view, basically the same as an SS colonel . . . uh, that is an officer commanding something along the lines of a regiment . . . pray, elucidate. . .

I didn't realize these people were different people with different ranks in different armies who lived at different times. I also just found that Lynndie England doesn't have a penis and Jaeger didn't have a cell phone. Of course there's no comparison. In the world of holocaust scholarship, the only time valid comparisons between different objects can be made is when the different objects are the same.

What are you trying to say? That Graner and England are evidence of the American plan to exterminate all the Arabs?