General Holocaust Denial Discussion Part II

[TSR]

One solution would be to go into Wikipedia, a top of the list source for general information and make sure it is accurate.

Quite frankly, I don't care you are even thinking about my personal happiness.

Please, be my guest -- you *do* know anyone can edit Wiki's right?

Let us know what inaccuracies you find, hmmmn?

I'm sorry, the only reason you have asserted for the need to make changes was your own level of discomfort. Was there another?

 

[TSR]

You are missing my point. If you want to raise the Declaration of Independence as an example, I would say there is another example of where, by making sure the schools and easily accessible sources of information have got it right, people will become less ignorant.

And your evidence that schools *aren't* "getting it right" is ... ?

If you feel an "easily accessible source of information" has it wrong, by all means contact the author to point it out

You seem to have an issue with getting more accurate information into the public domain. Why?

No, I just dispute your so-far unsupported assertion that the available sources are inaccurate.

Well, other than the available denier sources, whose inaccuracies you have yet to complain about needing correction.

Once again: name one "more accurate" relevant fact that has been researched and first published by a denier.

 

[Nessie]

Or one could post in a forum dedicated to clarifying these issues? Or, like Nick Terry and others, they could write books and articles? Get serious, Nessie, there are many, many ways people can deal with what you're raising - and, in fact, you don't even know if any of us have edited Wikipedia articles, worked with museums, or done other things to promote understanding of the Holocaust, do you? Nor is it reasonable for you to suggest that we should be Wikipedia monitors . . . Given that historical myths about all kinds of topics are pervasive, to think a few people posting here and elsewhere could change that - and to hold us responsible for what proliferates around us, is grossly off base. It is hard to understand your issues on this topic.

I feel more strongly about this issue than you do. That does not mean I am at fault somehow. What exactly is wrong with saying that I have found some basic information about the Holocaust is of a poor standard?

The reason why I feel more strongly than you do about this issue is because I am angry at the way the Holocaust was portrayed to me by the likes of The World At War or Anne Franks museum. Until I joined the Sceptic Forum I thought that you could easily name millions of Jews gassed, that there was a clear Hitler Order, that Wannsee was the source of The Final Solution, that all camps had homicidal gas chambers, that 6 million Jews were killed.

 

[TSR]

Is there a general agreement that 2000 people at a time were gassed at Krema II? Or that that was even possible, because the capacity of the lift and ovens does not match the supposed capacity of the gas chamber.

... once again demonstrating your ignorance of the subject, since it has long if not always been known that more could be killed than disposed of in a given amount of time.

So your point is ... ?

 

[Nessie]

... once again demonstrating your ignorance of the subject, since it has long if not always been known that more could be killed than disposed of in a given amount of time.

So your point is ... ?

That basic information about the Holocaust as perceived by the general public is of a poor standard.

That I am being criticised for that I find odd.

 

[Multivac]

You're kidding?


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

Contents

No, I'm not kidding. It should be clear from my previous posts that I am certain the holocaust happened, and am trying to understand why you, and a few other posters, deny that it happened.

Your link is simply a list of films about the holocaust, or that mention the holocaust. What do you believe this proves?

 

[Nessie]

And your evidence that schools *aren't* "getting it right" is ... ?

If you feel an "easily accessible source of information" has it wrong, by all means contact the author to point it out

No, I just dispute your so-far unsupported assertion that the available sources are inaccurate.

Well, other than the available denier sources, whose inaccuracies you have yet to complain about needing correction.

Once again: name one "more accurate" relevant fact that has been researched and first published by a denier.

Do you have anything other than an attack mode? You agree that many historical events have myths, inaccuracies and general ignorance about them and then have a go at me for commenting on the same being the case for the Holocaust and my reasons for being unhappy at that.

I have already linked to and referred to what I would regard as inaccurate sources, see post 2677.

I have already said that revisionism/denial is not going to give us the correct answers, see post 2687. But it still has a place challenging conventional wisdom so I would say the report by Friedrich Berg about the use of diesel engines is an example of a relevant fact researched and published by a denier.

 

[Multivac]

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.

Does it really matter whether the number is 6 million, or 5 million?

Is the exact number necessary?

Would you agree that the nazis systematically killed huge numbers of jews, gypsies, homosexual and the mentally ill? Would you agree that the number killed is on the order of several million?

 

[LemmyCaution]

If you feel an "easily accessible source of information" has it wrong, by all means contact the author to point it out

This reminds me that I found one section of Longerich's recent Himmler biography to have serious editing problems - wrote the publisher - and never heard back! Grrrrr.

 

[Bluespaceoddity]

That basic information about the Holocaust as perceived by the general public is of a poor standard.

That I am being criticised for that I find odd.

That is an odd reply to the question you were asked.

You are being criticised for conflating popular perception with scholarly work.
You are being criticized for not checking sources before you claim they are inaccurate and you are being criticized for wanting change information before demonstrating that it is inaccurate.

"The gas chambers could kill far more people than the crematoria could burn. Hence whenever the gas chambers were running at full capacity, the Sondercommando were iforced to burn the excess bodies in open pits at the edge of the camp"
Same page. Same book. Were you unable to access it via the Amazon page?

Can you say with absolute certainty that the number given by the authors was for each individual Krema and not for the Kremas with underground gas chambers combined?

Was the link you posted above your only source or have you checked somewhere else what the capacity of these gas chambers was?

 

[TSR]

http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/leuchter/leuchter-faq-08.html

"as is demonstrated by the following calculation for a single Krema, number II:

One gas chamber, about 210 square meters (2220 square feet) in area, easily accommodated a few hundred people, who were crammed into it. (See Section 2.16)"

Nor was II the largest of the four.

You *did* see where Nieuwyk wrote "the largest", didn't you?

 

[LemmyCaution]

I feel more strongly about this issue than you do. That does not mean I am at fault somehow. What exactly is wrong with saying that I have found some basic information about the Holocaust is of a poor standard?

Nothing. It is. But what is wrong is making something of it that it's not. As noted, are you jumping up and down because stupid myths about Chaco Canyon and the Anasazi abound? And you seem to assume that historians don't have an interest in accuracy and don't make an effort to get matters right. That's just plain wrong.

The reason why I feel more strongly than you do about this issue is because I am angry at the way the Holocaust was portrayed to me by the likes of The World At War or Anne Franks museum.

No, that's not the reason you're angry. I myself, having read a lot of history, and having seen a lot of popularizations of history, also was exposed to simple and not very good explanations of the Holocaust by well meaning people, just like I was in the case of the Anasazi. I'm not angry because I put all this in context - and because I've read enough to understand what's wrong with the popularizations and even a bit about why they aren't that good in some case. You're angry, I think, because you have a limited view of the discipline of history and of the scholarship for the Holocaust. You will disagree, but that's my opinion having read a lot of your posts, that you need to read and see more.

Until I joined the Sceptic Forum I thought that you could easily name millions of Jews gassed, that there was a clear Hitler Order, that Wannsee was the source of The Final Solution, that all camps had homicidal gas chambers, that 6 million Jews were killed.

Again, that's your problem, not a problem with "Holocaust orthodoxy." I didn't need to join the Skeptic Society Forum or any other forum to know that, for example, there wasn't a written Hitler order for the final solution, because years ago I'd read Peter Longerich's excellent book The Unwritten Order. Sorry to say that your unfamiliarity with the basic literature is not a compelling reason for you to be angry about your erroneous understanding gained lord knows how.

 

[TSR]

I feel more strongly about this issue than you do. That does not mean I am at fault somehow. What exactly is wrong with saying that I have found some basic information about the Holocaust is of a poor standard?

Because you have not found it so.

You have found *public perception* of it to be poor, but have yet to explain why the Holocaust should be different in this regard.

The reason why I feel more strongly than you do about this issue is because I am angry at the way the Holocaust was portrayed to me by the likes of The World At War or Anne Franks museum. Until I joined the Sceptic Forum I thought that you could easily name millions of Jews gassed, that there was a clear Hitler Order, that Wannsee was the source of The Final Solution, that all camps had homicidal gas chambers, that 6 million Jews were killed.

Well, if you depend on a bad memory of what mass media report about history, you should not be surprized to continue your ignorance.

Also since neither of your sources say any such thing, why don't you stop tap dancing and tell us what the *real* problem is, and what your solution to it would be?

Why have you ducked my question about the Great Calamity and Holodomor? Can you name millions of Armenians or Ukrainians? You clearly know nothing of how Hitler governed Germany, had not read the Protocol, done any study of the different camps or the death tolls.

So, in that state of ignorance, and since correct information was available if you bothered to look, what more are you expecting?

You would not have read even Wiki then: because you *thought* you knew, and didn't even know that you didn't know.

 

[TSR]

That basic information about the Holocaust as perceived by the general public is of a poor standard.

That I am being criticised for that I find odd.

You are being criticized for singling out the Holocaust and holding it to a difference standard than any other historical event.

The public, in general, does not care about history and so does not bother finding out the facts.

Of *any* historical event.

 

[Nessie]

Does it really matter whether the number is 6 million, or 5 million?

Is the exact number necessary?

Would you agree that the nazis systematically killed huge numbers of jews, gypsies, homosexual and the mentally ill? Would you agree that the number killed is on the order of several million?

I think it does matter how accurate the numbers are and yes I say the Nazis systematically murdered millions of Jews, gypsies etc.

 

[LemmyCaution]

You are being criticized for singling out the Holocaust and holding it to a difference standard than any other historical event.

The public, in general, does not care about history and so does not bother finding out the facts.

Of *any* historical event.

True story: Making my way up the stairs to enter the Chicago Museum, I looked across at the Shedd Aquarium and noticed a massive line, snaking across a large plaza, hundreds and hundreds of people stacked up in the queue. I asked my wife why that should be so. Before she could answer, two women walked by and we overhead one of them say, almost as though she'd heard my question but obviously having been asked the same thing, "Because no one can stand history and everyone loves fish." That about sums it up.

 

[TSR]

Do you have anything other than an attack mode?

You come here and don't expect to be challenged?

That's not how it works.

If that makes you "unhappy" or "angry" -- there's the door.

You agree that many historical events have myths, inaccuracies and general ignorance about them and then have a go at me for commenting on the same being the case for the Holocaust

But given that many do, why do you single out the Holocaust for a higher than normal standard?

And this is the first time you have acknowledged that the Holocaust is not special in this regard.


So why should it be special in the other?

and my reasons for being unhappy at that.

Your "reasons" have so far been shown to be concocted from a profound ignorance and lack of comprehension of the information you have been given.

And once again: no one cares if you are unhappy.

I have already linked to and referred to what I would regard as inaccurate sources, see post 2677.

No, you took a known liar at his word, cited a blog, distorted what could possibly be known about a photo and exposed a profound ingnorance of the layout of Birkenau, and then sneered at a reference to a source of which you hadn't even bother to get the name.

I have already said that revisionism/denial is not going to give us the correct answers, see post 2687. But it still has a place challenging conventional wisdom so I would say the report by Friedrich Berg about the use of diesel engines is an example of a relevant fact researched and published by a denier.

Of course, that "fact" is incorrect, and deals only with a peripheral issue to begin with, so I'm afraid you're going to have to try again...

 

[TSR]

I think it does matter how accurate the numbers are < snip >

What level of accuracy do you require, and can you cite any other genocide meeting that level?

Two follow ups: *why* does it matter, given your answer to the above, and why do we care what you, from the depths of your demonstrated ignorance, "think"?

 

[Nessie]

That is an odd reply to the question you were asked.

You are being criticised for conflating popular perception with scholarly work.
You are being criticized for not checking sources before you claim they are inaccurate and you are being criticized for wanting change information before demonstrating that it is inaccurate.

"The gas chambers could kill far more people than the crematoria could burn. Hence whenever the gas chambers were running at full capacity, the Sondercommando were iforced to burn the excess bodies in open pits at the edge of the camp"
Same page. Same book. Were you unable to access it via the Amazon page?

Can you say with absolute certainty that the number given by the authors was for each individual Krema and not for the Kremas with underground gas chambers combined?

Was the link you posted above your only source or have you checked somewhere else what the capacity of these gas chambers was?

I have not conflated popular perception with scholarly work. Show me where I have criticised any scholarly work. I have only been referring to popular sources designed for general public consumption.

Please direct me to a source which shows a Krema could physically have held 2000 in its gas chamber.

 

[Nessie]

You are being criticized for singling out the Holocaust and holding it to a difference standard than any other historical event.

The public, in general, does not care about history and so does not bother finding out the facts.

Of *any* historical event.

Not true. This is a thread about the Holocaust and so I have only mentioned the Holocaust, which is perfectly reasonable. You are making a false assumption I have singled out the Holocaust and held it to a different standard.