General Holocaust Denial Discussion Part II

[A'isha]

So, you don't dispute that open-air cremations of corpses took place at the camps (which raises the question of why the Nazis had to do any open-air cremations, particularly at the high-capacity-crematorium-equipped Auschwitz), you just don't believe that the Nazis burned as many corpses as they actually did during those open-air cremations?

 

[Loss Leader]

Taken together, the sources I have cited come with the imprimatur of the following agencies:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
US Department of Agriculture
US Department of the Interior
US Geological Survey
US Food and Drug Administration
Animal Health Australia
Agriculture and Resource Management Council of Australia and New Zealand

How many of those agencies have published guidelines for reducing the total mass of bodies of people you hate seventy years ago?

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Matthew asked how Eichmann coordinated his account with those of others.

Eichmann "I remember clearly the first time Hoess guided me around the camp..... at the end he took me to a grave where the corpses of gassed Jews lay piled on a strong iron grill. Hoess's men poured some inflammable liquid over them and set them on fire... I can still see that mountain of corpses in front of me."

the general sort of agreement between Eichmann's account and those of others results from the fact that Eichmann read things (imagine that). He probably had some awareness of what was said at Nuremberg,

So.....Eichmann read about Eichmann committing crimes and then confirmed that he committed the crime. And you think this is evidence against the holocaust? Amazing!

 

[CaptainHowdy]

So, you don't dispute that open-air cremations of corpses took place at the camps (which raises the question of why the Nazis had to do any open-air cremations, particularly at the high-capacity-crematorium-equipped Auschwitz), you just don't believe that the Nazis burned as many corpses as they actually did during those open-air cremations?

I think that's been his point all along. I'm a little hazy about what it all means as far as the Holocaust is concerned. If it is impossible to cremate as many bodies as are believed to have been cremated using the methods described by the eyewitnesses, it means the eyewitnesses were wrong. If they were wrong, so what?

 

[Robrob]

So, you don't dispute that open-air cremations of corpses took place at the camps (which raises the question of why the Nazis had to do any open-air cremations, particularly at the high-capacity-crematorium-equipped Auschwitz), you just don't believe that the Nazis burned as many corpses as they actually did during those open-air cremations?

It's Conspiracy Theory 101, argue that the "conventional wisdom" may be sliiiightly inaccurate so therefore - CONSPIRACY!

E.G. Creationism vs. Evolution. Minor flaw or debate about the fossil record means the Earth was created 6,000 years ago in seven literal days.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

How many of those agencies have published guidelines for reducing the total mass of bodies of people you hate seventy years ago?

Does hating somebody change the ability to cremate his body?

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Now, regarding postwar testimony in general, I would say that it must be treated with great caution.

How interesting.

May I ask you to list the top ten eyewitnesses and their quotes, that holocaust deniers have sourced from Jewish or other victims arriving at their resettlement locations in Russia? The aim will be be to apply your logic to these quotes.

You have got at least one eyewitness account from someone arriving at their resettlement destination, don't you? How about an eyewitness quote about the train trip through Russia? No?

How extremely odd. Can you explain why you can't find eyewitnesses that support your claim of resettlement?

 

[000063]

I refuted this spurious argument some time back, but all good things come to those who wait, as Hans has started posting up his commentary on denierbud's silly Auschwitz video at the HC blog.

Connoisseurs of logical fallacies will enjoy Hans' dissection of denierbud's favourite gambit 'if they had done it, they would have done it differently', a fallacy to which several of our denier friends on this very thread also seem to be addicted.

Isn't that also called the "if I ran the zoo" fallacy? Or "Monday Morning Quarterbacking"?

 

[CaptainHowdy]

If they were wrong, so what?

This is question for everybody. Sebastianus has said that it is impossible to cremate all the bodies that were cremated at the death camps using the methods that the eyewitnesses described. He treated us to a deluge of data about burning pigs, cows, and sheep in the UK to support his argument. I hate to say it but, IF he is right about cremating animal carcasses, then he is right about cremation at the death camps.

I've been scouring the internet looking for data that would counter the data he has given us. I've been looking for data about similar sized cremations and similar sized mass graves. Dresden was brought up as evidence that the Nazis were capable to cremating large numbers of corpses. The problem is that if the Nazis were able to completely incinerate 7,000 corpses in only 12 days, it would take 1,200 days to completely incinerate 700,000 corpses. This is assuming that the space that was used for cremating the corpses was the same for Dresden as it was for the death camps. But without factoring that in, the Dresden example supports Sebastianus' argument.

I have not found any data that will counter Sebastianus. It doesn't look like anybody else has either because the only counter arguments come down to it is impossible to compare cremating human corpses with cremating farm animals or more and more eyewitness testimony. Neither of these counter arguments holds any water.

IF Sebastianus is right and it really is impossible to cremate all the bodies the way all the eyewitnesses say it was done, so what? For me, it means that we don't know how all the bodies were cremated. We might not be able to say they were even cremated. We know how many people were killed at the camps but we don't know what happened to their bodies.

I'm OK with that. I don't know how the pyramids were built but I know they were built. Some people have postulated the use of anti-gravitational technology provided by extraterrestrials. I don't think that's it but I can't give you a plausible alternative.

I'm comfortable with saying that I don't know how the Nazis disposed of 700,000 bodies at a death camp. I'm not comfortable with saying that I know exactly how the Nazis disposed of 700,000 bodies at a death camp because eyewitnesses have told us when the description of how it was done wouldn't work.

 

[Loss Leader]

Does hating somebody change the ability to cremate his body?

Yes.

 

[MaxMurx]

To my opinion it is always good to have a real look into evidence instead of just quoting it. In posting # 6336 it is referred to the Theresienstadt commander Rahm's trial and what evidence was presented. I'll give you the 89 pages of orders for the Theresienstadt camp in chronological order (page wise):

1. One accordion for reparature
2. 5 (metric) tons of coffee, 15 tons of corn, 10 tons of marmelade, 20 tons of sugar, 15 tons of margarine, 25 tons of soap, 3.15 tons of washing powder
3. 800 kg (1000 lb) of yeast,
4. 28.000 liters (5500 Gallons) of milk
5. 20 barrels of light oil for heating
6. 4 tons of meat
7. 7 tons of meat
8. 4600 garden flowers, mainly Chrysanthemum and Gladiolous
9. 5 kg (12 lb) binding wire
10. 2500 m "guts"
11. 2.5 kg scrap metal, 1 cooling pump for vehicle engine
12. 10.000 bank account form sheets
13. 8 tons of bread
14. 2000 assorted heels for shoes
15. 500 kg thin wire
16. 10 packages of thin drillers, 100 shoemaker needles, 500 shoe brushes
17. 5200 screws for different kinds of glasses
18. 3000 empty bottles for liquid medicine
19. 9660 metal fittings for shoes
20. 2030 light bulbs
21. 96 large light bulbs
22. 5.4 tons of seeds (cabbage, wheat)
23. 1 ton of horse food
24. 1700 shavers, 1400 packages of tooth paste
25. Payment sheets
26. 52 drillers, different sizes
27. 1800 screws
28. illegible
29. Material for removing paint (Beize)
30. Seeds for 13 different kinds of garden flowers
31. 16 tons of bread
32. 8000 different heels for shoes with nails
33. Rejection order 32
34. Installation material (plumbing)
35. Installation material (electric)
36. Administration sheets for laundry
38. Administration sheets for food distribution
39. installation material (plumbing)
40. dito#
41. dito
42. dito
42. dito
43. 2 tons of chalk
44. 100 boxes of soap, 20 buckets of vegetable cream
45. 6 boards of marmor
46. 100 kg of Thallium
47. 1090 pairs of shoes sent to shoemaker for reparation
48. 20.000 hospital ward cards
49. dito
50. Isoation of a water hose
51. dito
52. Motor vehicle parts
53. ??
54. spare parts for type writer
55. dito
56. dito
57. dito
58. dito
59. 5 plates of tin
60. 231 tons of flour (rye and wheat) 200 kg seeds (peas)
61. 1 kg seeds mulberry
62. 10.000 mulberry trees
63. 1500 packages of vaccines (80 for children) against Typhus, Scarlet Fever, Diphteria
64. 178 packages of fire wood (spruce)
65. 1 railway waggon of fire wood
66. empty
67. 197 packages of fire wood (spruce)
68. empty
69. 507 packages of fire wood (spruce)
70. empty
71. empty
72. empty
73. 4 liters (one Gallon) of India Ink, 4 different colors
74. empty
75. 200 kg Carbide
76. empty
77. 2700 empty banking account forms, different colors
78. empty
79. 15 meters (45 ft.) rubber hose (water)
80. empty
81. 1000m "guts"
82. empty
83. 50 liters of (12 Gallons) Fish aroma "for making fishing bait"
84. empty
85. 25 kg Chemical substance for cleaning of compressor oil
86. empty
87. Mixed Metal parts (plumbing)
88. empty
89. 75 Chrysanthemums (mums), 13 plum trees, 9000 mulberry trees, 50 rose bushes
90. empty

 

[Clayton Moore]

Does hating somebody change the ability to cremate his body?

Yes because when you prove Holocausts "facts" are fabrications you are attempting to disarm the "Holocaust weapon." The weapon works only if the masses are convinced that any questioning of the "Holocaust" is hate of Jewish people.

 

[A'isha]

I have not found any data that will counter Sebastianus. It doesn't look like anybody else has either because the only counter arguments come down to it is impossible to compare cremating human corpses with cremating farm animals or more and more eyewitness testimony. Neither of these counter arguments holds any water.

The denier claims about cremations at camps like Treblinka have been addressed here, specifically

Chapter 8: Burning of the Corpses

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

The "Duration of Cremations" section notes that at Dresden, a single pyre on the grate used could burn 500 corpses, and it took five hours to burn them. The grates at Treblinka were 4-5 times the size of the Dresden grate, meaning that each grate could burn 2000 to 2500 corpses per day, with the same packing/density of corpse layers as that used in Dresden.

If there were two grates of that size, burning one pyre a day lasting five hours each would cremate 790,000 corpses in 158 days (just over five months).

Burning two pyres a day (that is, two 5-hour burns in a day) of 2500 bodies each could cremate 790,000 corpses in 79 days (a little under three months).

Burning bodies round the clock (four 5-hour burns of 2500 bodies each, with a four hour break), two grates of that size could cremate 790,000 corpses in just over a month.

A single Dresden-sized grate running round the clock (four 5-hour burn shifts of 500 corpses each, with four hours off, per day) could cremate 790,000 corpses in 395 days, or a year and one month.

Two Dresden-sized grates running around the clock like that could cremate 790,000 corpses in 198 days, or six and a half months.

In short, if the Germans at Dresden could cremate 7000 people in 12 days by using a single grate burning 500 corpses a day in a burn that lasted 5 hours, they could easily have cremated 790,000 people in seven months at Treblinka.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Sebastianus has said that it is impossible to cremate all the bodies that were cremated at the death camps using the methods that the eyewitnesses described.

No. Sebastianus has said that the fires are impossible according to some eyewitnesses descriptions. It does not mean the eyewitness was giving a technical analysis at the time that could be tested in detail. We also have other people like Eichmann who simply state "Hoess told his men to poured petrol on the bodies" and was satisfied with the result. That we have 2 hectares of human ash at Treblinka and other forensic evidence indicates that the cremations took place.

The first question is could the Nazis have cremated the number of bodies that they did using any method with the resources that they had? Then we can look at eyewitnesses, resources available (petrol, wood, cremation ovens), forensic remains (human ash) and deduce how they probably did undertake the act at each camp.

As for "impossible", I am reminded of the British and French high commands saying it was "impossible" for the Nazis to move panzer divisions through the Ardennes, right up until the time the Germans did it. Sebastianus is suggesting the same sort of theoretical impossibility, yet Justice Lukaszkiewicz saw the 2 hectares of human ash at Treblinka. The Germans did it.

IF he is right about cremating animal carcasses, then he is right about cremation at the death camps.

Do you mean "Right" as in the eyewitnesses descriptions about human cremations are not the same as those of animal carcasses? "Right" as in the Nazis used a different method? or "Right" as in the Nazis couldn't have burned the bodies using wood, petrol, iron railings, cremation muffles, slave workers in the time frame in the various camps?

The problem is that if the Nazis were able to completely incinerate 7,000 corpses in only 12 days, it would take 1,200 days to completely incinerate 700,000 corpses.

Can you give me your citation for that figure. I have flamethrowers being used at Dresden for cremation in some references and photos of Dresden funeral pyres that do not have pits. Let's see what you have, to allow discussion.

 

[Loss Leader]

Yes because when you prove Holocausts "facts" are fabrications you are attempting to disarm the "Holocaust weapon." The weapon works only if the masses are convinced that any questioning of the "Holocaust" is hate of Jewish people.

You've gotten confused. I'm not saying anything about the current hatred of any poster for Jews or how that might dispose a poster to view the evidence. I'm not saying anything about people who currently question the Holocaust at all.

I'm talking only about whether the process of cremation is different if the people being cremated are hated by those doing the burning. I contend that it is. If one is cremating livestock as part of a program to destroy disease in 2001, one must carefully ensure all diseased parts of the animal are destroyed. I believe that if one is burning people he hates to reduce the body mass and overpower the smell seventy years ago, one will do a sloppy job of it.

Absent any respect for the corpses, one has no reason to completely, carefully or efficiently incinerate them - especially when there is so much else that could be done for the war effort. I believe hatred by the Nazis 70 years ago would change everything.

Today's hatred, while unfortunate, is irrelevant to the discussion.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

No. Sebastianus has said that the fires are impossible according to some eyewitnesses descriptions. It does not mean the eyewitness was giving a technical analysis at the time that could be tested in detail. We also have other people like Eichmann who simply state "Hoess told his men to poured petrol on the bodies" and was satisfied with the result. That we have 2 hectares of human ash at Treblinka and other forensic evidence indicates that the cremations took place.

You're falling back on the argument that the eyewitnesses said it happened so it did. The eyewitnesses evidently did not give technical descriptions that could be tested in detail because that would settle this dispute. We are therefore forced to reconstruct the process through incomplete descriptions.

The first question is could the Nazis have cremated the number of bodies that they did using any method with the resources that they had? Then we can look at eyewitnesses, resources available (petrol, wood, cremation ovens), forensic remains (human ash) and deduce how they probably did undertake the act at each camp.

That is an important factor here. Could the Nazis have done it with the resources they had. The fact that there might be a better way to have done it doesn't matter much here. They eyewitnesses all describe methods that would work to cremate bodies. The only question is scale.

As for "impossible", I am reminded of the British and French high commands saying it was "impossible" for the Nazis to move panzer divisions through the Ardennes, right up until the time the Germans did it. Sebastianus is suggesting the same sort of theoretical impossibility, yet Justice Lukaszkiewicz saw the 2 hectares of human ash at Treblinka. The Germans did it.

Two hectares of "human ash" isn't a very specific measurement. The process the eyewitnesses describe for disposing of the bodies wouldn't result in human ash being spread all over the camp. I'm not prepared to say it is impossible for the Nazis to have disposed of all the bodies at the death camps. I have doubts that they disposed of all the bodies the way the eyewitnesses said they did.

Do you mean "Right" as in the eyewitnesses descriptions about human cremations are not the same as those of animal carcasses? "Right" as in the Nazis used a different method? or "Right" as in the Nazis couldn't have burned the bodies using wood, petrol, iron railings, cremation muffles, slave workers in the time frame in the various camps?


Can you give me your citation for that figure. I have flamethrowers being used at Dresden for cremation in some references and photos of Dresden funeral pyres that do not have pits. Let's see what you have, to allow discussion.

I relied on a post by Nick Terry for that figure.

You're cherrypicking one secondary source about one location, whereas there are multiple examples of the construction of pyres to cremate animal carcasses from recent decades, including an example from the self-same FMD epidemic discussed in the HC white paper, in addition to historical examples such as the cremation (yes, cremation) of nearly 7,000 bodies in 12 days at Dresden.

ANTPogo: Thank you for your response. Your reference is technically dense so I need to spend some time reading it. But it looks like it might address the issue more directly.

 

[MaxMurx]

Two questions:

That we have 2 hectares of human ash at Treblinka and other forensic evidence indicates that the cremations took place.

1. What is two hectare of a layer having some micrometers of thickness. Should't that be measured in "cubics"?

As for "impossible", I am reminded of the British and French high commands saying it was "impossible" for the Nazis to move panzer divisions through the Ardennes, right up until the time the Germans did it.

Q2: The impossibility of crossing the Vosges was military thinking of 1940. Today, in 2013, that is possible. Shouldn't the ability to burn such a number of dead bodies compared to the possibilities of 2013? If that is impossible today, it must have been impossible in 1945 and earlier



PS: I don't think that Dresden is comparable to other cremations. The Dresden victims already had been exposed to extreme heat loads and were severely dehydrated. That should facilitate cremations.

 

[A'isha]

PS: I don't think that Dresden is comparable to other cremations. The Dresden victims already had been exposed to extreme heat loads and were severely dehydrated. That should facilitate cremations.

And the Treblinka victims had already been buried and partially decomposed, which also facilitated cremations.

 

[Loss Leader]

And the Treblinka victims had already been buried and partially decomposed, which also facilitated cremations.

I'm pretty sure they were also dehydrated when they died. You don't hear many survivors say, "Those trains were hot, but at least the Nazis were free with the water bottles."

 

[Matthew Ellard]

What is two hectare of a layer having some micrometers of thickness. Should't that be measured in "cubics"?

Can you show me where the micrometers of human ash are in this photo. Is it under the human bones or mixed in with the human bones?