General Holocaust Denial Discussion Part II

[LemmyCaution]

I've been a long time lurker on this thread, mostly because most of the poster have a level of knowledge about the history of the holocaust which I cannot hope to approach and their replies to CM, Snakey and the other occasional denialists are pretty much comprehensive and convincing.

This comment by CM is a pretty good example of why CM and his ilk are unconvincing. So there is an allegation, unproven, that this fellow Wiesel is a fraud, but there is no convincing proof and no apparently relevance to CM's central denialist contention.

On the one hand CM denies the occurrence of the holocaust - the murder of millions, evidenced by extensive testimonial, documentary and forensic evidence and complains when people expose this denial as false. Yet, he demands investigation and exposure of one single person, who he thinks may have lied about his personal history? Talk about ignoring the log in your own eye...

And a little note to CM: You aren't convincing anyone who doesn't already believe in denial. You are unable to respond coherent to criticism of your arguments (such as they are). You don't cite evidence for facts you claim to be true. Most of your "arguments" are little more than rhetorical quibbles. They didn't convince the judge in the Irving trial and they won't convince anyone else who doesn't already believe.

And to the rest of the regular contributors here, keep up the good work. I essentially read this thread for your expositions of the history (and the occasional CM stundie).

Welcome to the forum. Good comments - and I think I shall borrow from you, if it is ok, the log in the eye bit . . .

 

[Multivac]

The Holocaust is a giant scam. Follow the money.

Do you have any proof? Evidence? Links?

 

[LemmyCaution]

Do you have any proof? Evidence? Links?

Clue?

 

[TSR]

Clue?

In cm's version of that game it was 1) the Jews, who never existed but who deserved it anyway, 2) all over the entire world 3) with their fiendishly clever fact thingies


What do I win?

 

[Border Reiver]

In cm's version of that game it was 1) the Jews, who never existed but who deserved it anyway, 2) all over the entire world 3) with their fiendishly clever fact thingies


What do I win?

<Don Pardo's voice>

Well TSR, you get a year's supply of Rice-a-roni, the San Francisco treat, a case of Turtlewax and a copy of our home game!

<end Don Pardo's voice>

 

[Nessie]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8374702&postcount=2533

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8375579&postcount=2549

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8378993&postcount=2587

If you want the truth search this thread and the thread it was split from using the advanced option.

User Name: Clayton Moore

That is nothing like giant proof, it is only nibbling away at the edges.

My attitude towards the Holocaust is that revisionism/denial have raised some important issues and that orthodox history does not have good enough answers. I do not think that revisionism/denial will ever provide reliable answers to their own questions as they are biased and some of their techniques are frankly appalling. I think banning revisionism/denial is wrong as that makes the orthodox side lazy as it can hide behind the law and it has not gone with the times making it clear to the public that many claims about the Holocaust were grossly exaggerated ones from immediately after the war, now found to be wrong. Examples of that are the view that all camps had homicidal gas chambers and the numbers who dies at Auschwitz.

I think that independent, full, detailed modern forensic examinations are needed of the T4 gas chambers, Action Reinhard camps and Krema II. I also think that public education now about the Holocaust needs to be more accurate about gas chambers and numbers killed.

 

[TSR]

That is nothing like giant proof, it is only nibbling away at the edges.

My attitude towards the Holocaust is that revisionism/denial have raised some important issues

Such as ... ?

and that orthodox history does not have good enough answers.

With all due respect -- no one ever has all the answers to all of the details of *any* historical event.

I do not think that revisionism/denial will ever provide reliable answers to their own questions as they are biased and some of their techniques are frankly appalling.

Only some? Which of their techniques are not? And can you provide an example of a relevant question posed by a denier?

I think banning revisionism/denial is wrong as that makes the orthodox side lazy as it can hide behind the law

Can you define "the orthodox side" and offer us examples of any individual fitting that definition who has "hidden behind the law"?

and it has not gone with the times making it clear to the public that many claims about the Holocaust were grossly exaggerated ones from immediately after the war, now found to be wrong. Examples of that are the view that all camps had homicidal gas chambers

Which historian or researcher has endorsed this idea?

and the numbers who dies at Auschwitz.

You mean the mistaken ones whose fatal flaw has pretty much always been known in the West and so has never had any effect on the historicity of the Holocaust?

I think that independent, full, detailed modern forensic examinations are needed of the T4 gas chambers, Action Reinhard camps and Krema II.

Because? What relevant detail would this provide which is not already known by other means?

I also think that public education now about the Holocaust needs to be more accurate about gas chambers and numbers killed.

Can you cite the actual textbooks involved?

 

[LemmyCaution]

That is nothing like giant proof, it is only nibbling away at the edges.

My attitude towards the Holocaust is that revisionism/denial have raised some important issues and that orthodox history does not have good enough answers. . . . Examples of that are the view that all camps had homicidal gas chambers and the numbers who dies at Auschwitz.

I know you think this, Nessie. But it would be interesting for you to summarize key points - what you call "some important issues" - of the historiography that were challenged and revised - and show how it was revisionism/denial that drove the development of the historiography. We have, for example, recently seen that Martin Broszat, responding to a popular article in 1960, sent a correction letter, based on his research, pointing out that extermination camps and gas chambers for large murder operations were not in camps like Dachau but at Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec, and Birkenau. This was the history developing as historians develop it. Yet a denier we both know trumpets this somehow as part of a narrative of a triumph for revisionism!

Recently in this thread, ANTPogo, Nick Terry, and I have shown how Wolf Gruner's book on the Rosenstrasse protest revised understanding of that event and how the same author's book on forced labor changed thinking on that topic - and I cited here and elsewhere Daniel Blatman's reconceptualization of the death marches. None of this has a thing to do with revisionism: what is happening with these truly important "revisions" is that scholars work with previous understanding, archives, and conceptual models, and through the course of their work reach and support new conclusions. I cannot think of a single case of a revisionist doing anything approaching this.

I would find it interesting to see what you think was rethought and improved in Holocaust historiography as a result of revisionist/denier arguments - and to look at that against the rethinking and improvement done by scholars as part of what they do. And I mean laying it out, point by point, looking at what historians have written when and how that has developed - and not conflating scholarship with popular misunderstanding.

 

[Nessie]

TSR, Lemmy I have a lot of work to do now. Bear with me and I will respond over a series of replies.

By way of further explanation I cam into this subject via The Sceptic Forum which I joined for reasons other than an interest in the Holocaust. I am a modern historian to degree level and work in the legal system so evidence has always been important. I read a thread on 'name one Jew gassed in a gas chamber' and was very surprised the question was being asked and horrified that it was not being easily answered. My degree had nothing on the WWII itself and my knowledge on the Holocaust was a general TV series like World at War, mentions elsewhere in books and visits to the Imperial War Museum and Anne Franks House.

I felt then and still do now that the general public are very ignorant of the Holocaust and for example are certain that there were homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz (I am not) which were used to kill millions of Jews (the numbers are far less).

To use legal terms I did thing that homicidal gas chambers killing millions were evidenced beyond all reasonable doubt. I now think that there are only evidenced to the lower level of balance of probabilities.

 

[LemmyCaution]

TSR, Lemmy I have a lot of work to do now. Bear with me. . . .

No worries, Nessie. I am actually a patient sort, when people aren't making grandiose claims and trolling, so take the time you need to do your research and thinking . . . you know where I'll be.

 

[TSR]

TSR, Lemmy I have a lot of work to do now. Bear with me and I will respond over a series of replies.

As Lemmy says, we'll be here.

By way of further explanation I cam into this subject via The Sceptic Forum which I joined for reasons other than an interest in the Holocaust. I am a modern historian to degree level and work in the legal system so evidence has always been important. I read a thread on 'name one Jew gassed in a gas chamber' and was very surprised the question was being asked and horrified that it was not being easily answered.

If you had studied any modern genocide, you would find this "name one Jew" is the kind of special pleading which deniers apply only to the Holocaust.

Can you name one specific Armenian killed by, say a death march as opposed to one of the masscres during the Great Calamity? That should be just as easy to answer.

Can you name a single Ukranian who starved to death during the Holodomor? Just as easy.

Do you see where I am going with this?

My degree had nothing on the WWII itself and my knowledge on the Holocaust was a general TV series like World at War, mentions elsewhere in books and visits to the Imperial War Museum and Anne Franks House.

What *was* your degree in, then, and from where? Because most programs of which I am aware require an overview of history at the 100 and 200 level, and such an overview would certainly have *mentioned* WWII.

I felt then and still do now that the general public are very ignorant of the Holocaust and for example are certain that there were homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz (I am not) which were used to kill millions of Jews (the numbers are far less).

What are your reasons for your doubts, and by what methodologies have you figured your numbers?

To use legal terms I did thing that homicidal gas chambers killing millions were evidenced beyond all reasonable doubt. I now think that there are only evidenced to the lower level of balance of probabilities.

Well, if you were actually an historian, you would know that for historians "beyond all reasonable doubt" is the wrong standard, and the Holocaust has been proven to that level in the appropriate setting -- courts of law.

 

[uke2se]

I felt then and still do now that the general public are very ignorant of the Holocaust and for example are certain that there were homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz (I am not) which were used to kill millions of Jews (the numbers are far less).

Actually, you reveal here that you are more ignorant than the general public about this issue, as it is certain there were gas chambers at Auschwitz.

To use legal terms I did thing that homicidal gas chambers killing millions were evidenced beyond all reasonable doubt. I now think that there are only evidenced to the lower level of balance of probabilities.

You thought right before. Why did you fall down the rabbit hole?

 

[LemmyCaution]

Well, if you were actually an historian, you would know that for historians "beyond all reasonable doubt" is the wrong standard, and the Holocaust has been proven to that level in the appropriate setting -- courts of law.

True enough . . . And at the same time, although I doubt many things, I do not doubt that nearly one million Jews were murdered at Auschwitz, mostly by lethal gassing, and nearly three million Jews were murdered in extermination camps by the Nazis. Having a so-called open mind about this, given the amount of evidence available, isn't really being open minded: it is simply not being aware, being in denial, or having an agenda.

 

[Dogzilla]

Hi everybody! Did you miss me? I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks so I've got a lot of catching up to do. I'm actually still traveling but I'll be back at home again in a few days. I've spent the better part of this week in Washington DC where I had the opportunity to visit the USHMM. It's been a long time since I've been there. Not much has changed. It's still high on the emotion laden multimedia content and low on actual historical artifacts. There seems to be more of this "Nazi persecution of homosexuals" thing than there was last time I was there. Not terribly surprising. It wasn't all that long ago that "Nazi persecution of homosexuals" would've sounded like "Nazi persecution of pedophiles" sounds today. Everybody wants to be a victim these days. I was eve's dropping when a US soldier on a guided tour said "That sure is a lot of bodies" while standing in front of that lame gas chamber diorama. The fresh faced tour guide responded by saying that the gas chambers worked twenty four hours a day. He didn't say twenty four hours a day EVERY day so he wasn't really spewing disinformation. Except that no historian says the gas chambers worked twenty four hours a day on ANY day. But who cares if a tour guide is wrong? Nobody goes to the USHMM to learn what historians say about the holocaust anyway.

So the permanent exhibit is still the waste of space it has always been. But the special exhibit on Nazi propaganda is actually very interesting. For one thing, it's an actual exhibit of historical artifacts like a regular museum. One might get the idea that Nazi propaganda techniques were unique to the Nazis but that's a small price to pay for a collection of some pretty cool posters. If you're in DC you should try to check it out. You don't need a ticket to get in like you do with the permanent exhibit.

But this is something funny I never noticed before. Go to google maps and get a street level view of the USHMM from the 14th Street side. Then spin around to see the USDA building right across the street and zoom in. Do you notice any particular pattern in the design on the building? Here's a closeup of the pattern I'm talking about. Is that hilarious or what?

 

[Clayton Moore]

Do you have any proof? Evidence? Links?

You're kidding?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_films#1940s

Contents

Narrative films
1.1 1940s
1.2 1950s
1.3 1960s
1.4 1970s
1.5 1980s
1.6 1990s
1.7 2000s
1.8 2010s
Documentary films
2.1 1940s
2.2 1950s
2.3 1960s
2.4 1970s
2.5 1980s
2.6 1990s
2.7 2000s documentary
2.8 2010s documentary

 

[TSR]

You're kidding?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Holocaust_films#1940s

So your thesis is that anytime a movie is made about a particular topic, it is further proof of fraud and that the producers, writers and directors of said film are knowing participants in that fraud?

So using your "logic" this is evidence of an even more massive fraud, and there never has been a city called New York City on the eastern seaboard.

Is that also your new theory about 9/11 -- not only no planes, but no city in which they could be crashed?

 

[Nessie]

My first post here resulted in some questions by TSR which I want to answer. So starting last as a point was recently made which I want to pick up on.

Nessie - I also think that public education now about the Holocaust needs to be more accurate about gas chambers and numbers killed.

TSR - Can you cite the actual textbooks involved?

I was not just talking about text books, but public education in general and here is an example

..... The fresh faced tour guide responded by saying that the gas chambers worked twenty four hours a day. He didn't say twenty four hours a day EVERY day so he wasn't really spewing disinformation. Except that no historian says the gas chambers worked twenty four hours a day on ANY day. But who cares if a tour guide is wrong? Nobody goes to the USHMM to learn what historians say about the holocaust anyway.

.......

I have relatives who have been to Auschwitz and speaking to them they report similar claims of Kremas working day and night as if they functioned perfectly as a conveyor belt of death with thousands queuing for their deaths at a time. But again no historian claims 24/7 operations.

Then there is the questionable captioning of images on the internet, where so many photos are labelled '...... on their way to the gas chambers' or 'queuing for selection'

http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/tag/gas-chamber/

and here at Birkenau it is supposedly possible to decide from an ariel photo that some people are also on their way the gas chambers.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_auschwitz/air_photographs03.html

but we have no idea who they are and where they are going.

As for numbers and gas chambers specifically here is an example of a popular source which is inaccurate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chamber

where under Nazi Germany it states "Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,000 people at once." and "The gas chambers were dismantled or destroyed[18] when Soviet troops got close, except at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Majdanek" but it is recognised the chamber at Dachau was not used and does an historian know a 2000 capacity gas chamber?

Then in terms of over all numbers the best know figure is 6 million Jews were killed.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Jews_were_killed_in_the_Holocaust

But we know that has been the subject of study and has been revised

http://socioecohistory.wordpress.co...number-of-holocaust-dead-drop-to-2-8-million/

Certainly my relatives after their visit to Auschwitz were unaware the number of deaths there have been revised down and down again, something I think most are still unaware of.

 

[uke2se]

My first post here resulted in some questions by TSR which I want to answer. So starting last as a point was recently made which I want to pick up on.

Nessie - I also think that public education now about the Holocaust needs to be more accurate about gas chambers and numbers killed.

TSR - Can you cite the actual textbooks involved?

I was not just talking about text books, but public education in general and here is an example



I have relatives who have been to Auschwitz and speaking to them they report similar claims of Kremas working day and night as if they functioned perfectly as a conveyor belt of death with thousands queuing for their deaths at a time. But again no historian claims 24/7 operations.

Then there is the questionable captioning of images on the internet, where so many photos are labelled '...... on their way to the gas chambers' or 'queuing for selection'

http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/tag/gas-chamber/

and here at Birkenau it is supposedly possible to decide from an ariel photo that some people are also on their way the gas chambers.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_auschwitz/air_photographs03.html

but we have no idea who they are and where they are going.

As for numbers and gas chambers specifically here is an example of a popular source which is inaccurate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chamber

where under Nazi Germany it states "Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,000 people at once." and "The gas chambers were dismantled or destroyed[18] when Soviet troops got close, except at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Majdanek" but it is recognised the chamber at Dachau was not used and does an historian know a 2000 capacity gas chamber?

Then in terms of over all numbers the best know figure is 6 million Jews were killed.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Jews_were_killed_in_the_Holocaust

But we know that has been the subject of study and has been revised

http://socioecohistory.wordpress.co...number-of-holocaust-dead-drop-to-2-8-million/

Certainly my relatives after their visit to Auschwitz were unaware the number of deaths there have been revised down and down again, something I think most are still unaware of.

And you think it is vital to the public interest to understand that "only" 5.3 million Jews died in the holocaust as opposed to 6 million.... why exactly? Do you feel the discrepancy gives someone unduly influence over people's minds?

 

[Aulus Agerius]

@ Lemmy; you're welcome to make free with the log thing

@ TSR; you've contributed plenty around here; there's nothing quite like seeing a questionable argument exposed for what it really is...

@ Nessie; while the general public are quite ignorant about pretty much of history, denial does not do anything to cure that ignorance. It may encourage deeper historical enquiry but so many denier arguments are superficial. It is worth considering why the holocaust considered important; why it is taught in schools. It isn't for the detail. It is for the importance to our understanding of people, society and government. It is for the fact that a relatively sophisticated culture went from being one of the most progressive constitutional democracies in Europe to a dictatorship which deliberately murdered millions of civilians, within a little more than 2 decades. It is for what it says about destructive nature of prejudice: victims of the holocaust were murdered not for what they did but for who they were. It is for what it says about the willingness of people to participate it terrible crimes because they are told to.

None of the deniers have cast doubt on any of these things.

 

[TSR]

My first post here resulted in some questions by TSR which I want to answer. So starting last as a point was recently made which I want to pick up on.

Nessie - I also think that public education now about the Holocaust needs to be more accurate about gas chambers and numbers killed.

TSR - Can you cite the actual textbooks involved?

I was not just talking about text books, but public education in general and here is an example

Seriously? You're going to cite DZ's unsupported word on what it was told?

I have relatives who have been to Auschwitz and speaking to them they report similar claims of Kremas working day and night as if they functioned perfectly as a conveyor belt of death with thousands queuing for their deaths at a time. But again no historian claims 24/7 operations.

And no historian claims George Washington chopped down that cherry tree, and no one was around to quote him saying "I cannot tell a lie" even if he had.

And yet the story exists.

Then there is the questionable captioning of images on the internet, where so many photos are labelled '...... on their way to the gas chambers' or 'queuing for selection'

http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/tag/gas-chamber/

and here at Birkenau it is supposedly possible to decide from an ariel photo that some people are also on their way the gas chambers.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_auschwitz/air_photographs03.html

but we have no idea who they are and where they are going.

As for numbers and gas chambers specifically here is an example of a popular source which is inaccurate

Ah, so it is popular *perception* that you decry. Why did you spell it "education", then?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_chamber

where under Nazi Germany it states "Some stationary gas chambers could kill 2,000 people at once." and "The gas chambers were dismantled or destroyed[18] when Soviet troops got close, except at Dachau, Sachsenhausen, and Majdanek" but it is recognised the chamber at Dachau was not used and does an historian know a 2000 capacity gas chamber?

*Probably* was not used, which does not change the fact that its design could only have had one purpose.

And Donald Niewyk, apparently, since he is cited as the source for that (you know, if you click the little numbers is square brackets, it takes you to a footnote with this information).

I have not read his book, so cannot tell you to which gas chamber he referred, or even if that citation is accurate.

Then in terms of over all numbers the best know figure is 6 million Jews were killed.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_Jews_were_killed_in_the_Holocaust

But we know that has been the subject of study and has been revised

http://socioecohistory.wordpress.co...number-of-holocaust-dead-drop-to-2-8-million/

Certainly my relatives after their visit to Auschwitz were unaware the number of deaths there have been revised down and down again, something I think most are still unaware of.

Well, since the information is out there, what more do you expect to be done about public perception?

Just like it is unlikely in the extreme that Romulus and Remus were suckled by a wolf, and yet Rome still stands -- with a statue depicting exactly that, no less.