Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[Nick Terry]

Piper's work was of course what I had in mind. Earlier I alluded to how the number of deportees to Auschwitz has been the subject of common agreement for the better part of 20 years. It seems that Dogzilla took this to mean that the number was solely the product of consensus and did not think to look under that consensus, at the actual evidence.

In effect, Dogzilla's replies went:

1) "I don't know how many were deported to Auschwitz or died there, but here are some obsolete figures which nobody agrees on any more"

2) "I refuse to distinguish between evidence and the consensus that evidence produces when it comes to historical facts"

3) "I have run out of ways to obfuscate this, please let's drop this and let me repeat my fallacious mantras when I am next asked what happend to the Jews"

Dogzilla is right that sometimes consensus does determine facts. For it is by now surely a matter of overwhelming consensus that he is a lying, obfuscating, dishonest debater who cannot answer a straight question. This can quite handily be taken to be a fact, one that is reconfirmed every time he opens his mouth.

 

[Moss]

I think we need a "Son, I am disappoint" motivational with the face of Hannover.

 

[LemmyCaution]

I do believe that what we have here is the following situation:

1) Dogzilla can quarrel with Piper's estimates - so widely studied and shared - by presenting his own (sourced) estimates, or

2) Dogzilla needs to explain what happened to nearly 1,000,000 Jews transported to Auschwitz and 100,000 others, or

3) Dogzilla will imagine that he can declare "I don't know and I don't care" whilst trying to spin up some more of the funky chicken to dance his way out of his predicament and his responsibility.



Word count: 88

 

[Nick Terry]

It may well have occurred to others that we are basically three weeks shy of the one-year anniversary of the General Holocaust Denial Discussion Thread, which started on 26th February 2011.

While I do not think the thread should be closed, it has clearly run its course. The deniers have had a full year - just counting this thread - to present a convincing argument and to demonstrate that they can debate honestly. They have obviously failed to do either.

This is the General Holocaust Denial Discussion Thread, in the Conspiracy Theories sub-forum at JREF. Whether the remaining deniers like it or not, the burden of proof has always been on them to come up with a decent argument and provide evidence to substantiate their claims. Everyone else regards the matter as settled; they are the ones who want to unsettle it. And they have failed to do so.

By my calculations, using the 'who posted?' list, 160 posters have contributed to the thread who are not deniers, whereas there have been 17 deniers or fellow-travellers/CTs/trolls endorsing a morsel of denial. The denier side has racked up about 30% of the posts, nearly 3000 in fact. That's nearly 3000 chances to make a convincing argument or present evidence to back up their assertions and claims.

Instead of seizing on the opportunity generously provided by JREF in allowing them to post at all, the deniers have resorted to gnomic one-liners, a little bit of spam, a lot of obfuscation and a truly colossal amount of repetition.

They have presented a truly sorry spectacle of know-nothingism and ignorance regarding the very subject which supposedly exercises them so much. They have refused to answer simple questions about what books they have read; they have avoided answering simple questions of fact and they have dodged answering simple questions of explanation, most notably the oft-repeated and evidently fatal question of 'what happened to the Jews'.

They clearly cannot answer that question, and they won't answer others. Some of the deniers have been self-admitted trolls, and others are clearly engaged in little more than game-playing.

So I congratulate all the deniers and their few fellow-travellers who have posted on this thread for exposing just how intellectually and morally bankrupt their belief system is. It is quite clear that they have won numerous negative converts - people who will never, ever endorse 'revisionism' - because of their antics on this thread.

Time, ladies and gentlemen, please.

 

[000063]

Weren't you just bragging about how stupid you were a year ago? Now you've done quite a bit of research into this topic?
...

1. That seems quite the opposite. He's not bragging about his ignorance. He's saying the statement is based on things he didn't know as recently as a year ago.
2. A year is quite a lot of time to find information. You can write a thesis in that time.
3. That's a personal attack, and has nothing to do with the veracity of his claims. It is a common tactic for sophists to attack their opponents first, before they move onto the actual facts, if they ever do.

 

[BaaBaa]

It may well have occurred to others that we are basically three weeks shy of the one-year anniversary of the General Holocaust Denial Discussion Thread, which started on 26th February 2011.

While I do not think the thread should be closed, it has clearly run its course. The deniers have had a full year - just counting this thread - to present a convincing argument and to demonstrate that they can debate honestly. They have obviously failed to do either.

This is the General Holocaust Denial Discussion Thread, in the Conspiracy Theories sub-forum at JREF. Whether the remaining deniers like it or not, the burden of proof has always been on them to come up with a decent argument and provide evidence to substantiate their claims. Everyone else regards the matter as settled; they are the ones who want to unsettle it. And they have failed to do so.

By my calculations, using the 'who posted?' list, 160 posters have contributed to the thread who are not deniers, whereas there have been 17 deniers or fellow-travellers/CTs/trolls endorsing a morsel of denial. The denier side has racked up about 30% of the posts, nearly 3000 in fact. That's nearly 3000 chances to make a convincing argument or present evidence to back up their assertions and claims.

Instead of seizing on the opportunity generously provided by JREF in allowing them to post at all, the deniers have resorted to gnomic one-liners, a little bit of spam, a lot of obfuscation and a truly colossal amount of repetition.

They have presented a truly sorry spectacle of know-nothingism and ignorance regarding the very subject which supposedly exercises them so much. They have refused to answer simple questions about what books they have read; they have avoided answering simple questions of fact and they have dodged answering simple questions of explanation, most notably the oft-repeated and evidently fatal question of 'what happened to the Jews'.

They clearly cannot answer that question, and they won't answer others. Some of the deniers have been self-admitted trolls, and others are clearly engaged in little more than game-playing.

So I congratulate all the deniers and their few fellow-travellers who have posted on this thread for exposing just how intellectually and morally bankrupt their belief system is. It is quite clear that they have won numerous negative converts - people who will never, ever endorse 'revisionism' - because of their antics on this thread.

Time, ladies and gentlemen, please.

.

 

[Clayton Moore]

They have presented a truly sorry spectacle of know-nothingism and ignorance regarding the very subject which supposedly exercises them so much. They have refused to answer simple questions about what books they have read; they have avoided answering simple questions of fact and they have dodged answering simple questions of explanation, most notably the oft-repeated and evidently fatal question of 'what happened to the Jews'.

Other than the suffering and rigors of war at the hands of Germans, who considered them a Communist menace, they survived the war relatively unscathed as is obvious by their prosperity worldwide after WWII.

More. 416,800, American serviceman were killed than Jewish people died in the Holocaust.

 

[Dogzilla]

Is your reading comprehension ability as poor as you're making out, or are you still playing a game - more of the "I can't answer the questions so I'll make a fuss" game?

Anyway, direct questions like Nick's or the other ones you've been dodging are not a game. Explain to us why your having viewpoints on critical issues in the Holocaust - like the numbers of Jews deported to Auschwitz, the fate of the Jews of the 5 ghettos you were asked about, and so on - constitutes a game. For anyone interested in the Holocaust, these are important topics. Or are you just afraid to make a commitment to a point of view?

Along with your openly stated ignorance of the topics you weigh in on we now have your delusion that avoidance is somehow convincing or interesting.

What is tedious is watching you imagine you're doing a clever dance when what you are truly doing is a cowardly and clumsy dodge act.



Word count: 165

You are the one who said it was a game. I answered Dr. Terry's question and he didn't like my answer. So he asked it again. I don't think there is an answer. But if there is, that answer would be available on any of three websites I mentioned.

If this a valid test of how much people know about the holocaust and a measure of their ability to participate in this forum, everybody needs answer the question and then Nick can tell us who gets to play and who has to go home.

So the question is: How many people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945? Don't get confused by minutia like Jews/non-Jews, durchgangjuden/registered/unregistered, or official/unofficial. Just people deported. We're looking for the number that has been commonly accepted for just over twenty years now. I already gave my answer so anybody else can see what I wrote and know what the answer is not.

 

[BaaBaa]

Other than the suffering and rigors of war at the hands of Germans, who considered them a Communist menace, they survived the war relatively unscathed as is obvious by their prosperity worldwide after WWII.

More. 416,800, American serviceman were killed than Jewish people died in the Holocaust.

a truly sorry spectacle of know-nothingism and ignorance...

...

 

[LemmyCaution]

You are the one who said it was a game.

I said it was your game, not Nick's or mine. And you kept wising off by pretending otherwise. Sheer stupidity on your part.

I answered Dr. Terry's question and he didn't like my answer.

That wasn't an answer - it was an attempt to avoid giving an answer under a pile of verbiage and irrelevant (as Nick explained) numbers.

So he asked it again.

Which isn't a game; rather his asking again is his (generous) attempt to get you to be serious, the opposite of a game.

I don't think there is an answer.

Then you have to explain why Piper's estimate is not what Nick had in mind and not a valid answer. Because the best estimate is the one I gave and which you didn't know. Piper's estimate is summarized here http://en.auschwitz.org/h/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=3. Notice that I've given you a specific link to a specific estimate - not waffle like

It's the same number that Nizkor, USHMM, and Yad Vashem will tell you if you look on their websites,

but an estimate with details. Now you have to explain what is problematic about this answer.

But if there is, that answer would be available on any of three websites I mentioned.

Try the link I posted.

If this a valid test of how much people know about the holocaust and a measure of their ability to participate in this forum, everybody needs answer the question and then Nick can tell us who gets to play and who has to go home.

I answered for you. The clown act is growing thin.

The question was posed to you, not everyone - and, like so many questions that have been posed to you, by the way, not as a test of your knowledge or anyone else's but to lead to a discussion, in this case of your stunningly stupid claim that

those people went to the same place the two and half million Auschwitz victims went in the late 1980s. If you can't find them there, go look in Israel, New York, Miami, Los Angeles or hundreds of other places around the world

So the question is: How many people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945? Don't get confused by minutia like Jews/non-Jews, durchgangjuden/registered/unregistered, or official/unofficial. Just people deported.

Asked and answered. Really, catch up. Read my post answering Nick's question: it already gives a specific and clear reply to Nick's question. Before you go around handing out inane nuggets of useless and misguided advice, you might do your own homework.

And, no, my response didn't stop with my writing down the estimate - I did add explanation - not minutia, but important details and clarifications. To help with the discussion. Of what you still have to account for. Which is that we have evidence, and a well accepted estimate, for 1,300,000 deportees to Auschwitz, of them 1,100,000 Jews - but no evidence for about 1,000,000 of the Jews (the topic here) leaving the complex. Ball in your court, where it has been for a long time now. What became of the nearly 1,000,000 Jews transported to Auschwitz but not leaving (alive)?

We're looking for the number that has been commonly accepted for just over twenty years now.

I gave the answer, sheesh. And we are not looking for the number - we are looking to see if you can give a serious reply to any question asked of you, a serious explanation of evidence shown to you, or a serious account of your own views. So far without luck.

I already gave my answer so anybody else can see what I wrote and know what the answer is not.

You waffled and acted the clown.


Word count: 470

 

[LemmyCaution]

Other than the suffering and rigors of war at the hands of Germans, who considered them a Communist menace, they survived the war relatively unscathed as is obvious by their prosperity worldwide after WWII.

More. 416,800, American serviceman were killed than Jewish people died in the Holocaust.

1) Were Europe's Jews "a Communist menace"?

2) Germany developed a successful economy and became prosperous during the postwar years. Did WWII not affect it?

3) Your last sentence needs some repair - it isn't clear what you mean by it.

 

[Nick Terry]

2) Germany developed a successful economy and became prosperous during the postwar years. Did WWII not affect it?

Not according to Werner Abelshauser, who showed that despite bombing, dismantling of military factories and reparations in kind to the USSR, west Germany came out of the doldrums of war and occupation with a larger and more modernised stock of industrial plant than had been the case in 1939. And the British were dumb enough to restart the Volkswagen plant, despite this eventually contributing to the death of the domestically owned British car industry. We even reformed their worthless currency, and thereby triggered the Wirtschaftswunder.

 

[MaxMurx]

Instead of seizing on the opportunity generously provided by JREF in allowing them to post at all, the deniers have resorted to gnomic one-liners, a little bit of spam, a lot of obfuscation and a truly colossal amount of repetition.


So I congratulate all the deniers and their few fellow-travellers who have posted on this thread for exposing just how intellectually and morally bankrupt their belief system is.

Speaking of intellectual bancrupcy I would like to make a comment: What you might have seen if your eyes had been open and your mind not fogged with bias. is that the term "denier" is offending and insulting those who do not bluntly "deny" a complete narrative but who according to defined and accepted standards of good scientific conduct "revise" results like all scientific results must be revised constantly with growing knowledge.
It might have disappointed you that not the expected bunch of SS adoring skinheads were dumping their brown oozem, but to confirm prejudice this is not the right place and the right level of forum.
Those appearing here have seious doubts in parts of the story. Their doubts in no way have to be proven. The burden of proof is always on the accuser because nothing is provable not to exist or not to have happened. The accusers however never hesitate to quote the "mountains of evidence" and being asked to present at least some, come around with some reliable looking details, some obscure and some clearly fabricated or falsified material. It should be clear that if a witness is caught lying in court, EVERYTHING which was submitted by that witness, true or not true, has to be ignored by the jury. This is also applicable in case the prosecutor is lying, as seen in the OJ Simpson trial. Then the case is done for the prosecution. period. And so is yours.

I finish with a quote from Gilad Atzmon in "The Wandering Who? A study of Jewish Identity Politics". Zero Books, Washington. 2011, page 174:
When I was young and naive, I regarded history as serious academic matter. As I understood it, history had something to do with truth seeking, documents, chronology and facts. I was conviced that history aimed to convey a sensible account of the past based on methodical research. I also believed that an understanding of the past could throw some light over our present and even help us to shape a better future.
I grew up in the Jewish state and it took me a while to understand that the Jewish historical narrative is very different. In the Jewish intellectual insular world, one first decides what the historical morale is, then one invents a past to fit.

No further comment.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

No further comment.

Promise?

 

[Nick Terry]

Speaking of intellectual bancrupcy I would like to make a comment: What you might have seen if your eyes had been open and your mind not fogged with bias. is that the term "denier" is offending and insulting those who do not bluntly "deny" a complete narrative but who according to defined and accepted standards of good scientific conduct "revise" results like all scientific results must be revised constantly with growing knowledge.

Literally none of you have used "defined and accepted standards of good scientific conduct" on this thread. That goes for the outright deniers, the fellow-travellers, self-styled skeptics, fence-sitters, and the merely clueless.

The correct branch of knowledge needed to comprehend the history of the Holocaust is, doh, history. Do you have any familiarity with the defined and accepted standards of modern historiography?

Thought not.

It might have disappointed you that not the expected bunch of SS adoring skinheads were dumping their brown oozem, but to confirm prejudice this is not the right place and the right level of forum.

On the contrary, quite a few of the deniers on this thread have been SS adoring nutters, most have been overt antisemites, and only a handful have been fellow-travellers and useful idiots.

Those appearing here have seious doubts in parts of the story. Their doubts in no way have to be proven. The burden of proof is always on the accuser because nothing is provable not to exist or not to have happened.

The burden of proof is on deniers and their sympathisers to substantiate their conspiracy theories and present evidence to justify their baseless assertions. Merely posing as a defence attorney does not absolve you of the requirement to prove your case. Neither you nor any other denier has managed it in what is the better part of a year.

Your confusion fails to realise that the burden of proof for the Holocaust was carried a long time ago, elsewhere. If it had not been carried, then it would not be an accepted historical fact. But it clearly is an accepted historical fact. So anyone wishing to challenge that accepted historical fact now has the burden of proof to substantiate their challenge and justify how and why we ought to revise the accepted understanding.

Revising history also means rewriting history. As a narrative and as an explanation. Deniers do neither.

At the very least, any genuine skeptic has the burden to read something on the subject about which they are skeptical. Ad by something, I mean the conventional scholarship, not fringe drivel. It is quite clear that the deniers and their sympathisers in this thread have not done so.

The accusers however never hesitate to quote the "mountains of evidence" and being asked to present at least some, come around with some reliable looking details, some obscure and some clearly fabricated or falsified material. It should be clear that if a witness is caught lying in court, EVERYTHING which was submitted by that witness, true or not true, has to be ignored by the jury. This is also applicable in case the prosecutor is lying, as seen in the OJ Simpson trial. Then the case is done for the prosecution. period. And so is yours.

This is flat-out wrong. Firstly, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is explicitly rejected in Californian law, indeed in Anglo-American common law as a whole. It's also rejected in continental law, including German law. It's also a logical fallacy in philosophy. It was last used explicitly in the Middle Ages. So you're asking us to revert back to what is quite literally medieval thinking.

Secondly, you seem to assume that every witness relevant to the Holocaust has been 'caught lying'. In actual fact the number of outright liars is minuscule, and those outright liars have had their testimonies rejected by courts as well as historians. There are 10s of 1000s of witnesses who gave probative evidence to one or other aspect of the Holocaust. I seriously doubt you have actually listened to what these witnesses are saying in any significant way, yet you set yourself up as jury and judge on this subject without having shown that you really know what you're talking about.

Thirdly, you seem blithely unaware of how important contemporary documents are to the historiography. On this thread we have been discussing quite a few examples in some detail - most recently, the Jaeger report.

I finish with a quote from Gilad Atzmon in "The Wandering Who? A study of Jewish Identity Politics". Zero Books, Washington. 2011, page 174:
When I was young and naive, I regarded history as serious academic matter. As I understood it, history had something to do with truth seeking, documents, chronology and facts. I was conviced that history aimed to convey a sensible account of the past based on methodical research. I also believed that an understanding of the past could throw some light over our present and even help us to shape a better future.
I grew up in the Jewish state and it took me a while to understand that the Jewish historical narrative is very different. In the Jewish intellectual insular world, one first decides what the historical morale is, then one invents a past to fit.

No further comment.

But the Holocaust isn't just part of a Jewish historical narrative. It's very firmly part of a German historical narrative, and also part of the Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Belarusian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Romanian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Czech, Bulgarian, Greek, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Austrian, Italian, French, Belgian, Dutch, Luxembourgeois, Danish and Norwegian historical narratives, because it directly affected those countries. It also affected Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, Turkey, the US, at the time, in the 1940s. So it's also part of those countries' historical narratives, too.

The country whose scholars pay most attention to the Holocaust is hands-down, Germany. They do so of their own free will. Their scholarship is the gold standard which everyone else is expected to read and digest. And their productivity is ferocious. Here are just a few of the more prominent examples of works written about the Holocaust and directly related issues by German historians in the past two years:

• Anders, Freja, Stoll, Katrin, Wilke, Karsten (eds), Der Judenrat von Bialystok. Dokumente aus dem Archiv des Bialystoker Ghettos 1941-1943. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010
• Bajohr, Frank and Christoph Strupp (eds), Fremde Blicke auf das ‘Dritte Reich’: Berichte ausländischer Diplomaten über Herrschaft und Gesellschaft in Deutschland 1933-1945. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011
• Baum, Herwig, Varianten des Terrors. Ein Vergleich zwischen der deutschen und rumänischen Besatzungsverwaltung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1944. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Benz, Angelika and Marija Vulesica (eds), Bewachung und Ausführung. Alltag der Täter in nationalsozialistischen Lagern. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Benz, Angelika, Der Henkersknecht: Der Prozess gegen John (Iwan) Demjanjuk in München, Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Benz, Wolfgang, Barbara Distel, Angelika Königseder (eds), Nationalsozialistische Zwangslager. Strukturen und Regionen, Täter und Opfer. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Buser, Verena, Ueberleben von Kindern und Jugendlichen in den Konzentrationslagern Sachsenhausen, Auschwitz und Bergen-Belsen. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Christ, Michaela, Die Dynamik des Tötens: Die Ermordung der Juden in Berditschew. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011
• Conze, Eckhart, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes, Moshe Zimmermann, Das Amt und die Vergangenheit: Deutsche Diplomaten im Dritten Reich und in der Bundesrepublik. Karl Blessing Verlag, 2010
• Cramer, John, Belsen-Trial 1945. Der Lüneberger Prozess gegen Wachpersonal der Konzentrationslager Auschwitz und Bergen-Belsen. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011
• Curilla, Wolfgang, Der Judenmord in Polen und die Ordnungspolizei 1939-1945. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2011
• Dieckmann, Christoph, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941-1944. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011
• Friedrich, Klaus-Peter (ed), Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1933-1945. Bd 4: Polen September 1939-Juli 1941. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011
• Gerlach, Christian, Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 (a German historian)
• Gerwarth, Robert. Hitler’s Hangman. The Life of Heydrich. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011 (a German historian)
• Greiser, Almut, Der Kommandant Josef Schwammberger: Ein NS-Täter in den Erinnerungen von Ueberlebenden. Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2011
• Gruner, Wolf and Osterloh, Jörg (eds), Das ‘Grossdeutsche Reich’ und die Juden. Nationalsozialistische Verfolgung in den ‘angegliederten Gebieten’. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2010
• Hess, Christiane, Julia Hörath, Dominique Schröder, Kim Wünschmann (eds), Kontinuitäten und Brüche: Neue Perspektiven auf die Geschichte der NS-Konzentrationslager. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Hoppe, Bert and Hildrun Glass (eds), Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistischen Deutschland 1933-1945. Bd 7: Sowjetunion mit annektierten Gebiete I. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2011
• Kammerhofer, Andrea, Brigitte Kepplinger, Irene Leitner (eds), Dameron Report. Bericht des War Crimes Investigating Team No 6824 der US Army vom 17.7.1945 über die Tötungsanstalt Hartheim. Vienna: StudienVerlag, 2011
• Keller, Rolf, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im Deutschen Reich 1941/42. Behandlung und Arbeitseinsatz zwischen Vernichtungspolitik und kriegswirtschaftlichen Zwängen. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011
• Kühne, Thomas, Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community, 1918-1945. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010 (a German historian)
• Kuretsidis-Haider, Claudia, Irmgard Nöbauer, Winfried Garscha, Siegfried Sanwald, Andrzej Selerowicz (eds), Das KL Lublin-Majdanek und die Justiz. Strafverfolgung und verweigerte Gerechtigkeit. Polen, Deutschland und Oesterreich im Vergleich. Vienna: CLIO, 2011
• Lang, Hans-Joachim, Die Frauen von Block 11. Medizinische Versuche in Auschwitz. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe Verlag, 2011
• Longerich, Peter, Heinrich Himmler. A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 (originally in German)
• Longerich, Peter, Holocaust. The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010 (originally in German)
• Löw, Andrea and Markus Roth, Juden in Krakau unter deutscher Besatzung 1939-1944. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011
• Mallmann, Klaus-Michel, Andrej Angrick, Jürgen Matthäus, Martin Cüppers (eds), Die ‘Ereignismeldungen UdSSR’ 1941. Dokumente der Einsatzgruppen in der Sowjetunion. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2011
• Meyer, Ahlrich, Das Wissen um Auschwitz, Täter und Opfer der ‘Endlösung’ in Westeuropa. Paderborn: Schöningh, 2010
• Mick, Christoph, Kriegserfahrungen in einer multiethnischen Stadt: Lemberg 1914-1947. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011.
• Mlynarczyk, Jacek Andrezj and Böhler, Jochen (eds), Der Judenmord in den eingegliederten polnischen Gebieten 1939-1945. Osnabrück: fibre Verlag, 2010
• Morsch, Günter, Bertrand Perz, Astrid Ley (eds), Neue Studien zu nationalsozialistischen Massentötungen durch Giftgas, Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Neitzel, Sönke and Harald Welzer, Soldaten: Protokolle vom Kämpfen, Töten und Sterben. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011
• Neumann, Boaz, Die Weltanschauung des Nazismus: Raum – Körper – Sprache. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010
• Osterloh, Jörg and Clemens Vollnhals (eds), NS-Prozesse und Deutsche Oeffentlichkeit: Besatzungszeit, Frühe Bundesrepublik und DDR. Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2011
• Reichelt, Katrin, Lettland unter deutscher Besatzung 1941-1944. Der lettische Anteil am Holocaust. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Rentrop, Petra, Tatorte der ‘Endlösung’. Das Ghetto Minsk und die Vernichtungsstätte von Maly Trostinez. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Riedel, Dirk, Ordnungshüter und Massenmörder im Dienst der ‘Volksgemeinschaft’. Der KZ-Kommandant Hans Loritz. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Riedle, Andrea, Die Kommandanturstabsangehörigen des KZ Sachsenhausen: Sozialstruktur, Dienstwege und biografische Studien. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Schüle, Annegret, Industrie und Holocaust. Topf & Söhne – Die Ofenbauer von Auschwitz. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2010
• Steegmann, Robert, Das Konzentrationslager Natzweiler-Struthof und seine Aussenkommandos an Rhein und Neckar 1941-1945. Berlin: Metropol, 2010
• Wefing, Heinrich, Der Fall Demjanjuk: der letzte grosse NS-Prozess. Das Leben, der Prozess, das Urteil. Berlin: Beck, 2011
• Weigelt, Andreas, Judenmord im Reichsgebiet. Lieberose: Aussenlager des KZ Sachsenhausen. Berlin: Metropol, 2011
• Wette, Wolfram, Karl Jäger: Mörder der litauischen Juden. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 2011
• Wrochem, Oliver von and Jockheck, Lars (eds), Das KZ Neuengamme und seine Aussenlager. Geschichte, Nachgeschichte, Erinnerung, Bildung. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 2010

These works, by the way, also illustrate just a tiny fraction of what is meant by the burden of proof for the Holocaust being carried. If you want to criticise them, fine, but first you have to read them.

 

[TSR]

/
Oh, yeah, Nick?

Well, you're a crypto Jew, so there.

Seriously, has there ever been a denier argument that doesn't boil down to that? No one (that I am aware of) disputes that, let's say, the Roma weren't singled out for Porajmos.

And given that, the only argument left is "those kind Nazis wouldn't have done it even though the Jews deserved what didn't happen despite what the Nazis said happened because the Jews deserved what didn't happen even though it they also did it to others who also deserved what didn't happen..."

MM: care to comment on the Ustaše?

Of course not, you'd never even seen the word before today...
/

 

[LemmyCaution]

I would add, in reply to this

Those appearing here have seious doubts in parts of the story. Their doubts in no way have to be proven,

two comments.

First, if they want to make a case in the real world, those "appearing" to doubt the history have at least to explain their doubts, to a minimum level of competence and coherence, with something other than their own skewed common sense or self-defined view of possibilities and logic. They need to show how the works explaining the history have got it wrong - which means reading and understanding those works as well as bringing to bear different interpretations of the evidence. It is precisely the deniers on this thread who wallow in negationist stances like "I don't know and I don't care" or "They wouldn't have," without explaining why they make their claims in the context of the history, and who produce and fixate on

minor details, some obscure and some clearly fabricated or falsified material.

We have had the spectacle of one banned member fabricating addresses and chain of custody information, that same member altering a court statement made by a prominent historian, two other members obsessing on the theft of shoes from a shooting victim, and yet another member offering a quotation for which he can't provide a citation. Needless to say, every one of these folks has been from the denier camp.

The methods and tactics of the deniers on this thread undermine the notion that they entertain "serious doubts" about the Holocaust - they either have frivolous, uninformed doubts or they are pushing an agenda for which they use the Holocaust.

Second, there is a burden on anyone wanting to understand and explain any history: we are left with evidence, of various kinds and degrees of reliability. To understand what went on is not to fixate on minor discrepancies - the specialty of denial - but to seek out and weigh all the evidence and judge, on balance, what it tells us. In discussing Ponar, for example, we have seen the deniers in our discussion utterly incapable - whether from ignorance, cowardice, or tactics - of assessing the range of evidence for events in Vilna in summer and fall 1941. With minor exception, they have ignored the multiple strands of evidence - Jewish and non-Jewish diaries, court testimonies, German sources like the Jaeger and Stahlecker reports and the war diary of the 403rd security division, memoirs, and so on - despite these sources being pointed out and brought into the discussion over and over. Deniers, true to their mentality and approach, prefer to obsess on, well, minor details and to make false or unsupportable claims.

We see time and again the failure of deniers to put together, for example, an evidence-based, coherent explanation for what happened to Vilna's Jewish population in 1941, to those living in the Jewish Residential District in Warsaw during 1942-1943, or to the deportees to Auschwitz between 1940-1945. Like true negationists, you and they claim that doing so isn't an obligation. But it is if you want to speak to anyone but yourselves - to anyone curious about what happened, not about the prejudices and reflexes of deniers.

With the previous replies in mind, I think it is clear why deniers are called deniers - they do not know the history, they do not bring a critical eye or perspective to the history, and they do not accept responsibility to work with the range of evidence any student of these events must deal with and construct a new narrative. Instead, they believe they enjoy the luxury of firing errant potshots and basking in the superiority of not knowing and not caring - by which means they produce repetition, tedium, and a degree of revulsion.

 

[LemmyCaution]

It is worth noting that MaxMurx's latest "argument" in this thread - a negationist thrust against the Jaeger Report that blew up in his face - was riddled with errors and empty claims - and shredded immediately.

 

[LemmyCaution]

But the Holocaust isn't just part of a Jewish historical narrative.

And for good reason. To take just one issue, National Socialist war crimes, including mass murder actions: the penal, forced labor, demographic, and execution programs of the National Socialists targeted not only Jews but were part of a National Socialist approach to the world and their intention to re-order the European continent along racial and national lines.

The National Socialists defined a variety of groups as not only outside the racially unified national community but also inimical to it and having, therefore, to be dealt with, in hard ways through a variety of programs and actions. In the National Socialist viewpoint - and this viewpoint is discoverable in their statements about their movement and in actions they took - dangerous enemies of the German people included Jews, Slavs (10s of millions okay to starve to death), political opponents (from Communists to liberals), Ziguener (Gypsies), Jehovah's Witnesses, gays, Catholics, the mentally and physically disabled, the so-called work shy and asocials, and POWs.

In the mental world of the National Socialists, these various groups had different statuses at different times - some were earmarked for liquidation, some were to be shoved into reservations separated from people of good race, some were slated for incarceration, some were designated for forced labor, etc. The history of National Socialist criminality is not reducible to a Jewish narrative - it is a broad-ranging narrative involving both the German people and people of other nations across the continent - and beyond.

Reading deniers on this thread - e.g., of late Dogzilla has been incredulously straw-manning some presumed narrative that reduces National Socialist actions in the east to anti-Jewish actions - one gets the idea that part of the agenda of deniers emerges in such, to be charitable, misapprehensions about the nature and scope of National Socialist designs and war crimes taken to advance them.

 

[Clayton Moore]

Secondly, you seem to assume that every witness relevant to the Holocaust has been 'caught lying'. In actual fact the number of outright liars is minuscule, and those outright liars have had their testimonies rejected by courts as well as historians. There are 10s of 1000s of witnesses who gave probative evidence to one or other aspect of the Holocaust. I seriously doubt you have actually listened to what these witnesses are saying in any significant way, yet you set yourself up as jury and judge on this subject without having shown that you really know what you're talking about.

And yet the biggest name representatives of the Holocaust, the Simon, the Elie, and the Spielberg, have lied with aplomb and been rewarded for it. And have never admitted to their lies.