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General Holocaust Denial Discussion Part II

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How many countries that are in possession of holocaust-related archives do?

Why is holocaust denial so dangerous that any country needs to ban it?

Why do historians need the force of law to educate the public about the truth of the holocaust?

Why is six million Jews not being exterminated so offensive to some people?

What exactly is the price of tea in China?

Are you capable of answering the question or not?
How many countries don't have denial laws?
If you don't know just admit you don't know.
But don't try to pretend it is irrelevant to a point you made.
 
Legislation usually does not coerce people in to acting in ways that they do not want to act. It coerces them into not acting in ways that they do. That said, it's funny how some people are unable to grasp how a country's laws influence it's citizen's behavior. I guess Lemmycaution would look at the openly gay behavior you might see in West Hollywood or San Francisco and compare it to the openly gay behavior you see in Tehran and conclude that because Iranian law forbidding homosexuality doesn't mandate heterosexual behavior, it's obvious that there simply are no gay people in Iran.

Another strange post from a member who seems increasingly frustrated and less and less coherent as his frustration grows.

My post said that the
works [of German scholars] are produced of their own volition and represent their interest, their research, and the fruits of international dialogue. Is Mondial alleging that Germany somehow coerces scholars into performing scholarly tasks in support of something they do not actually support? Such a claim would be certifiable, but if he is not making such a claim, his post offers not a whit of insight into why German scholars and others in Germany, rather than reject the Holocaust, work positively to understand and explicate the accomplishments of the Third Reich in this arena.
In other words, I wrote that it would be certifiable to think that German legislation was responsible for the outpouring of scholarship on the Holocaust in Germany. Then, for an obscure reason only he knows, Dogzilla decides he needs to convince me that to think that German legislation was responsible for the outpouring of scholarship on the Holocaust in Germany would be certifiable. The very thing I wrote!

So let me try to make the point again:

- Some of the foremost scholars of the Holocaust are Germans.
- German anti-HD legislation has no role to play in the works produced by German scholars adding to the historical literature on the Holocaust.
- That being the case, I wonder how Mondial would explain the outpouring of this German literature - would he use a certifiable explanation or does he have another explanation?
 
As JREF reader I must protest Mr. Berg's suggestion here. We were promised right here on JREF not too long ago by a poster who spoke for all of them -but is sadly no longer with us- that Holocaust deniers would be satisfied if someone would just go to Treblinka to conduct a non-invasive survey to show that the soil had been disturbed, since the last ice age. This poster was adamant that digging would not be required to settle it.

Mr Berg was dreadful throughout the radio show - send in Polish workers with shovels? Totally unresponsive to Roberto's points about mass graves. Trying to reply to Roberto's discussion of graves at the AR camps, Berg goes off on a man he calls Father Dess Boyz. "Why don't you go to Sobibor with a shovel and dig up some bodies?" And then throwing in crap like "If he [the body] is wearing a uniform . . ." Wow.

And the ad hominems . . . "That is typical of you, Mr Muehlenkamp." Roberto's comment about Berg being rather hysterical was, I thought, rather restrained. And followed by an attempt, cut off by Ms Spingola, to be factual about the mass graves.
 
In the radio debate between Roberto and Berg, Berg called for Roberto to get a spade and start digging and on that I agree.

Remember what Roberto's response was: he explained the local prohibitions, he explained the religious sensitivities, and he said he would love to have archaeological digs at mass killing sites. Which is not fully in his power. I really am at a loss as to what your point about this is. You really need to read Roberto's material at HC.

To straighten Berg out, in American archaeology, there is a debate about digs at American Indian sites, for precisely the same reasons that there is concern about digs where Jews are buried, out of respect for victims and for religious traditions. Berg was trying to mislead with his intimation that Jewish grave sites are the only ones in the world about which there are such concerns. Roberto was clear that he has nothing to hide and supports further investigation of mass graves. What it appears here is that Berg is trying to set up a reason to dismiss a priori Sturdy Colls noninvasive studies at Treblinka.

Nessie, you will really have to explain why you find Berg and deniers to have a point on this matter. What it seems like, ungrounded as you are in the scholarship, just as you report having "fallen for" superficial popularizations, you are now attracted to dishonest headlines from Berg and others.
 
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Nessie,

Frankly, Berg's reductionist argument - peppered with bad tangents and silly anecdotes (Zelda!) and fictional "Jewish cemeteries" and wild conspiracy theories and inane hypotheticals - that the only way to be serious about investigating the Holocaust is by digging is hardly an advance in thinking about the genocide. In fact, it is pretty much an admission that revisionism has no arguments - and that he is therefore trying run around the evidence that does exist and fire a wild, hopeful shot that people will believe in forensic fundamentalism - no wonder he has to fire off a preemptive strike in the case of Sturdy Colls, he is worried that his last hope will turn out like all the other key arguments of deniers.

Archeological fundamentalism is the fallback position and last gasp of a floundering movement out of ideas and arguments. Your falling for this is rather strange. What is missing that makes "dig baby dig" so critical in your estimation? Where have historians and others, like Mr Muehlenkamp, come up short on this score?

As to the radio debate, Berg's performance, in general, was made up of his typically embarrassing, rambling, emotional Stundie level witterings. Dreadful and deeply unserious.

LC
 
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Responding to 000063

Originally Posted by Nessie View Post
Nessie - One solution would be to go into Wikipedia, a top of the list source for general information...
000063 - ahahahaha

Good one.

Originally Posted by Nessie View Post
Nessie - 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.

You seem to have an issue with getting more accurate information into the public domain. Why?
000063 - Lead a horse to water, etc. It's not like the truth is hard to find. Most people simply don't care.


Originally Posted by Nessie View Post
Nessie - You really are pathetic.
000063 - And the claws come out.


So I think better public education and more accurate information at the places the general public goes to for their information is a good idea. You think it is laughable and a waste of time. Here come those terrible claws of mine, I think that is a pathetic response.

I just not get this, give up, its not worth the bother attitude.
 
......

So let me try to make the point again:

- Some of the foremost scholars of the Holocaust are Germans.
- German anti-HD legislation has no role to play in the works produced by German scholars adding to the historical literature on the Holocaust.

........

How can that be? If it is unlawful for the historian to say there was no homicidal gas chamber at Krema II and they then come across and archive which casts real doubt on it being used as a gas chamber, how can they then publish that or write about it?
 
Legislation usually does not coerce people in to acting in ways that they do not want to act. It coerces them into not acting in ways that they do. That said, it's funny how some people are unable to grasp how a country's laws influence it's citizen's behavior. I guess Lemmycaution would look at the openly gay behavior you might see in West Hollywood or San Francisco and compare it to the openly gay behavior you see in Tehran and conclude that because Iranian law forbidding homosexuality doesn't mandate heterosexual behavior, it's obvious that there simply are no gay people in Iran.

Which has what relevance, specifically, to Lemmy's post? I note that you don't actually answer the question.

If you asked a person if the Germans made bars of soap or lampshades from the bodies of Jewish people an overwhelming majority would say yes. The evil Holocaust lies have been thoroughly imprinted into Western society.

Yes, just like the evil lies about George Washington and the cherry tree.

No, wait, people getting facts wrong and making up stories != conspiracy. In fact, that's just called being human. You never did answer why the mainstream Holocaust stories happen to support each other without any sort of central coordinating authority.

Not to mention the fact that you are still dodging questions of why the threats wouldn't have worked on the Jews, and even then only the civvies, not the POWs.

So I think better public education and more accurate information at the places the general public goes to for their information is a good idea. You think it is laughable and a waste of time. Here come those terrible claws of mine, I think that is a pathetic response.

I just not get this, give up, its not worth the bother attitude.

No, I think it's laughable you think Wikipedia is a good source of information. Most colleges specifically ban its use as a primary reference. As they should. Of course, this is easily dodged by just citing the source WP uses instead of WP itself and hoping your marker never checks.

I mean, hypothetically.

Cough.

How can that be? If it is unlawful for the historian to say there was no homicidal gas chamber at Krema II and they then come across and archive which casts real doubt on it being used as a gas chamber, how can they then publish that or write about it?

There's a difference between "outright denial" and "revision of facts".
 
00006, you have made a mistake since what I have said is that Wikipedia is a common source for the public to go to and it contains inaccuracies. I have not said it is a good source of information, I have criticised it. Then you insinuate I use to to trace other sources, but you will find no example of that.

Regarding the difference between outright denial and revision of facts, you still have not answered my question of what happens if a German historian finds something which if published it could result in them being charged with breaking denial laws?

EDIT - sorry, that should be 000063.
 
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Regarding the difference between outright denial and revision of facts, you still have not answered my question of what happens if a German historian finds something which if published it could result in them being charged with breaking denial laws?

How, exactly, would this happen, given the wording of the law?

You *have* actually read the law in question, haven't you?
 
How can that be? If it is unlawful for the historian to say there was no homicidal gas chamber at Krema II and they then come across and archive which casts real doubt on it being used as a gas chamber, how can they then publish that or write about it?

The point that is laughable is to think that a generation of scholars would produce well-researched, well-argued works explicating the Holocaust under the pressure of anti-HD laws. The German historians are producing these works because of their research and their conclusions, not under duress nor because of limitations and circumscription.
 
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00006, you have made a mistake since what I have said is that Wikipedia is a common source for the public to go to and it contains inaccuracies. I have not said it is a good source of information, I have criticised it. Then you insinuate I use to to trace other sources, but you will find no example of that.

Regarding the difference between outright denial and revision of facts, you still have not answered my question of what happens if a German historian finds something which if published it could result in them being charged with breaking denial laws?

Is there a case of a German historian being prosecuted for challenging a canonical work on the Holocaust? Is there a defined canon? What are the cases in which the law has been used?
 
The point that is laughable is to think that a generation of scholars would produce well-researched, well-argued works explicating the Holocaust under the pressure of anti-HD laws. The German historians are producing these works because of their research and their conclusions, not under duress nor because of limitations and circumscription.

I understand that and it is not what I am asking. What happens if historical research comes into conflict with denial laws?
 
Is there a case of a German historian being prosecuted for challenging a canonical work on the Holocaust? Is there a defined canon? What are the cases in which the law has been used?

Dunno, thats why I asked as well.
 
Dunno, thats why I asked as well.

I know of German historians challenging established interpretations of the genocide and in fact the Third Reich period - but not of any historians being prosecuted for doing so as part of proper research and writing on the period. That is why I asked also! The wording of the law, concerning public incitement by means of denying or belittling crimes of the Nazis - much as I do not agree with such legislation - seems to make it unlikely that a historian reinterpreting forced labor or extermination data or evidence for gas chambers would fall under its provisions. . . . It would seem that we have no cases of serious historians, German or otherwise, denying and belittling in a fundamental way the crimes of the National Socialists, given the state of the field.
 
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