General Holocaust Denial Discussion Part II

[Matthew Ellard]

You're falling back on the argument that the eyewitnesses said it happened so it did.

No I'm not, as there is neither an eyewitness for every cremation nor did eyewitnesses give technical explanations for what they saw. I somehow doubt Sonderkommando walked around with tape measures and surveying equipment. I am saying that we should look at all the evidence, forensic, documentary and otherwise and then in conjunction with all the evidence deduce how they probably cremated the evidence to hide their crimes at each camp.

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.

Well it sort of does. If we have knowledge of all the alternative methods, then this allows interpretation of eyewitness statements of what they may have done. It also allow an estimate for parts of the process that are missing from eyewitness statements. They used flamethrowers to ignite some of the Dresden cremation pyres. Were there flame throwers at Treblinka? What do the eyewitnesses say about lighting Treblinka cremation pyres? What alternative methods exist that should be considered?

Two hectares of "human ash" isn't a very specific measurement.

No, but the photos that accompanied the text were to be viewed as further evidence, as they were intended to be. That's why they took photos.

The process the eyewitnesses describe for disposing of the bodies wouldn't result in human ash being spread all over the camp.

I don't know about that. However for Treblinka, the locals started digging and using explosives to search for "Jewish gold" after it was abandoned. This spread around the ashes in graves.
http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com.au/2008/03/gold-rush-in-treblinka.html

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

"historical examples such as the cremation (yes, cremation) of nearly 7,000 bodies in 12 days at Dresden." This quote doesn't suggest that the Dresden authorities were cremating at maximum capacity on 30 meter roasters, does it?

 

[Sebastianus]

As for the idea that the Germans only needed to do a sloppy job of cremation, I suggest looking at this series of images. Note how intact the pig's body is after the initial attempt of cremation. For an example for a mass cremation, look at this image. A sloppy job of cremation leaves intact bodies.

Nor were the UK FMD cremations all that thorough. Consider this image of the ashes from a UK FMD cremation, and note the uncremated hoof in the foreground. In fact, the literature is clear that open air mass cremation is never as thorough as other cremation methods. This is part of all open air mass cremations, not just the German experience.

It's worth noting that mass cremation is expensive. If it were possible to reduce resource usage by doing a sloppy job of it, people would be doing it. But this is not the case. According to Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review, 5% of the carcasses in Taiwan's 1997 FMD epidemic were cremated, but this cremation cost 41.4% of all body disposal expenses in that epidemic.

With truly large scale mass cremation, the situation is even worse, as one runs into the problem of fuel inflation. Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review notes that during the 2001 UK FMD epidemic

DEFRA purchased coal and wooden railway sleepers needed for pyres at prices five to ten times higher than normal.

Clearly there was an enormous incentive to reduce fuel requirements, and if the holocaust story is correct this should have been easy to do - by orders of magnitude. But the British were unable to do this. If holocaust cremation claims are really possible, then why has everyone (US, UK, Australia, Taiwan, France, Canada...) been wasting large amounts of money on burning bodies when it could be done drastically more efficiently? Fuel would have been even more scarce than usual during wartime. If the mass cremations alleged at Belzec and Treblinka really took place, this should have shown up in massive fuel inflation. Where is the evidence of this? Holocaust cremation claims are rather like the claim that the Third Reich had a truck that could drive 3,000 miles in one hour on one gallon of gas while hauling a 100 ton load. If this were really possible, then why can't anyone else attain anywhere near this level of performance?

As for the fantasies about Dresden, I can only repeat what I have already said: an account of the Dresden cremations based on claims in the secondary literature cannot be used to overturn the facts about mass cremation derived from well documented experience. If ANTPogo's imagined cremations were really possible in the fashion he claims, then why is it that in every well documented instance of mass cremation, the time, space, and fuel requirements are orders of magnitudes higher than he imagines to be necessary?

To the question of why open air cremation was necessary at Auschwitz in light of its substantial crematories, that's easy. They were out of service. This is not an unusual problem, and is discussed in texts on body disposal in the aftermath of mass fatality events - crematory ovens are frequently in need of repairs. The details of exactly which ovens were in service on which days are sometimes difficult to ascertain, but even exterminationists concede that some of the ovens were out of service; for further details on this problem see Auschwitz: the case for sanity, chapter 8.8.1.

Finally, I note that ANTPogo has attempted to beg off from an analysis of cremation by referencing Muehlenkamp's essay. I have already refuted a number of Muehlenkamp's arguments here, and no-one has been able to reply. The fact is, Muehlenkamp is simply incompetent in a grand scale; it is one of the signs of the bankruptcy of the holocaust story that he is the best they can manage. Thoroughly documenting Muehlenkamp's errors is beyond the scope of a forum post, and in any case Carlo Mattogno has already replied on this score, in a work that should be published sometime soon. But just for fun, let's look at a single example of Muehlenkamp's incompetence. In his table 8.39 he announces (to the alert reader's considerable surprise) that 76 kg of wood has the same energy content as 18 kg of wood. He then goes on to assert the same thing in table 8.40, and then tells the astonished reader that 50 kg of wood has the same energy content as 12 kg of wood three times (tables 8.41, 8.42, and 8.43). The poor guy just couldn't get his units right.

ANTPogo (following Muehlenkamp) argues that decomposition would make bodies easier to incinerate. This stands in direct opposition to the experience of the Epynt cremations, where the bodies that were buried and then exhumed and burned were harder to incinerate. This is one of the reasons Muehlenkamp has to try and argue that Epynt was mismanaged (Nick Terry's arguments along these lines are simply copied from Muehlenkamp). Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review also includes another example showing that decomposition hinders rather than helping cremation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, North Carolina attempted to incinerate the carcasses of the animals killed in the flooding, but it took some time until it was able to get to most of the bodies, with the result that in addition to difficulties caused by waterlogging,

The advanced state of decay of some carcasses also inhibited efficient incineration.

In short, the truth is exactly the opposite of what Muehlenkamp and ANTPogo assert. This is just another example of how supporters of holocaust cremation claims rely on analysis that is based not on the actual facts about mass cremation, but on wishful thinking and fantasy.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Consider this image of the ashes from a UK FMD cremation, and note the uncremated hoof in the foreground. In fact, the literature is clear that open air mass cremation is never as thorough as other cremation methods. .

Consider the photo below of the ashes from Treblinka cremations, and note the uncremated bones in the foreground. In fact, the literature is clear (as well as the Treblinka eyewitnesses) that they couldn't get all the body parts out to cremate them.

 

[MaxMurx]

Sorry, I cannot enlarge the image. The structure in the foreground neither is a human skull nor a human pelvis. Another structure only remotely resembling that structure does not exist in the human skeleton. All other bones are parts of limbs. No skulls, no ribs, no pelvis. Isn't that a typical kitchen dump?

 

[A'isha]

As for the idea that the Germans only needed to do a sloppy job of cremation, I suggest looking at this series of images. Note how intact the pig's body is after the initial attempt of cremation. For an example for a mass cremation, look at this image. A sloppy job of cremation leaves intact bodies.

See Matthew Ellard's post above.

It's worth noting that mass cremation is expensive. If it were possible to reduce resource usage by doing a sloppy job of it, people would be doing it. But this is not the case. According to Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review, 5% of the carcasses in Taiwan's 1997 FMD epidemic were cremated, but this cremation cost 41.4% of all body disposal expenses in that epidemic.

With truly large scale mass cremation, the situation is even worse, as one runs into the problem of fuel inflation. Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review notes that during the 2001 UK FMD epidemic

You are leaving out why Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review says the cremations it describes are so expensive: factors that the Nazis quite simply did not have to deal with. The "indirect costs" it talks about were utterly irrelevant to the extermination program the Nazis were carrying out, and even direct costs like that described in the cherrypicked quote were not anything that affected them. For instance, in the UK FMD epidemic that your quote refers to, Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review

Because many small local firms were fearful of becoming involved with the crisis, there existed shortages of goods and services and, thus, increased costs. Work with infected carcasses was also considered hazardous causing contracting firms to charge premium rates.

[...]

In dealing with all expenses, DEFRA often found itself in a weak position for negotiating contracts and fee rates. This position forced the department to pay higher prices for almost all goods and services.

[...]

Many contracts, amounting to millions of pounds, were agreed to in a few hours instead of the normal period of several weeks. The procurement of supplies and services was highly expensive and the Government did not have a strong negotiating position.

None of those things are applicable to the Holocaust cremations carried out by the Nazis (especially the effects of "the Government not hav[ing] a strong negotiating position" - the last thing the Nazi government had to deal with, particularly the SS during wartime, was worries about a lack of a strong negotiating position!).

So, the costs and problems of mass cremations as described in Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review are irrelevant when discussing the mass cremations carried out by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

As for the fantasies about Dresden, I can only repeat what I have already said: an account of the Dresden cremations based on claims in the secondary literature cannot be used to overturn the facts about mass cremation derived from well documented experience. If ANTPogo's imagined cremations were really possible in the fashion he claims, then why is it that in every well documented instance of mass cremation, the time, space, and fuel requirements are orders of magnitudes higher than he imagines to be necessary?

Because, as noted above, the "documented mass cremations" you're using as a basis for comparison were complicated by factors that were not an issue for the Holocaust cremations.

This is not an unusual problem, and is discussed in texts on body disposal in the aftermath of mass fatality events - crematory ovens are frequently in need of repairs.

Hmm...what "mass fatality event" was Auschwitz experiencing, I wonder?

Thoroughly documenting Muehlenkamp's errors is beyond the scope of a forum post, and in any case Carlo Mattogno has already replied on this score, in a work that should be published sometime soon.

I hope so. It's sure to be as laughably shoddy as everything else he's ever written.

But just for fun, let's look at a single example of Muehlenkamp's incompetence. In his table 8.39 he announces (to the alert reader's considerable surprise) that 76 kg of wood has the same energy content as 18 kg of wood. He then goes on to assert the same thing in table 8.40, and then tells the astonished reader that 50 kg of wood has the same energy content as 12 kg of wood three times (tables 8.41, 8.42, and 8.43). The poor guy just couldn't get his units right.

The tables are comparing the weight of the flammables used in the cremations (including the actual burnable material called wood, which can have different energy values depending on the type of wood, whether its fresh/green wood or dry wood, and so on) to a wood equivalent value that is used for the purposes of calculating ash residue post-cremation.

He provides much more detailed calculations about that here and here.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, North Carolina attempted to incinerate the carcasses of the animals killed in the flooding, but it took some time until it was able to get to most of the bodies, with the result that in addition to difficulties caused by waterlogging,

Yes, I'm not surprised at all that the carcasses of animals killed by flooding during a hurricane would be waterlogged and thus harder to burn.

Which hurricane caused flooding that killed and waterlogged the corpses of inmates at Treblinka?

In short, the truth is exactly the opposite of what Muehlenkamp and ANTPogo assert. This is just another example of how supporters of holocaust cremation claims rely on analysis that is based not on the actual facts about mass cremation, but on wishful thinking and fantasy.

In short, nope.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

Sorry, I cannot enlarge the image. The structure in the foreground neither is a human skull nor a human pelvis. Another structure only remotely resembling that structure does not exist in the human skeleton. All other bones are parts of limbs. No skulls, no ribs, no pelvis. Isn't that a typical kitchen dump?

Try the next photo in the series. Do you have skulls in your kitchen dump?

 

[Sebastianus]

See Matthew Ellard's post above.

What relevant argument does it make? To be relevant, it must supply an argument to support the idea that mass cremation at Treblinka, Belzec, or Auschwitz could have taken place with radically less fuel, and in radically less time and space, than is required in the documented literature on carcass incineration.

If you imagine that there is some kind of argument here from pictures of bones, you are sorely mistaken. The quantity of human remains shown in the pictures is totally incompatible with the idea that the cremation of 800,000 bodies was seriously incomplete.

Nor does the presence of bones imply that the cremation could have taken place with less fuel than normal - see this video for a close up look at the bones present in the aftermath of a pyre cremation.

You are leaving out why Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review says the cremations it describes are so expensive: factors that the Nazis quite simply did not have to deal with. The "indirect costs" it talks about were utterly irrelevant to the extermination program the Nazis were carrying out, and even direct costs like that described in the cherrypicked quote were not anything that affected them.

Your quotes focus on exactly the factors I didn't refer to in connection with the 2001 UK FMD epidemic. They speak in particular to issues concerned labor costs and other factors which I did not point to - in connection with the UK FMD epidemic, I addressed fuel costs. It is true that fuel costs could have been brought down by price controls, but price controls do nothing to eliminate shortages, which would have been rendered truly extreme by a project of mass cremation like that at Treblinka, where as I have shown 1,500,000 kg of dry wood per day would have been required to run the cremations.

There's another problem here as well: where is the documentation for the fuel deliveries? Shouldn't some companies remember the time when the Germans came by and demanded hundreds and hundreds of thousands of kilograms of dry wood per day?

And then there's the point where the testimonies claim that the wood used for cremation was actually gathered by the inmates - who would have been entirely unable to supply the requisite amount of fuel, to say nothing of the unsuitability of green wood for mass cremation. (Some related problems are considered in this article.)

Hmm...what "mass fatality event" was Auschwitz experiencing, I wonder?

There is no question that the mortality at Auschwitz was often quite considerable, due to typhus and other factors. Either you are knowingly engaging in irrelevant snark, or you have never bothered to read (to understand, not to browse the contents and then dismiss out of hand) revisionist writings on this matter.

The tables are comparing the weight of the flammables used in the cremations (including the actual burnable material called wood, which can have different energy values depending on the type of wood, whether its fresh/green wood or dry wood, and so on) to a wood equivalent value that is used for the purposes of calculating ash residue post-cremation.

You entirely missed the point. The comparisons in consideration are indeed comparing dry wood to dry wood, and they are in error in exactly the way I indicated: 50 kg and 12 kg being listed as having the same energy content, for example. As I hinted, this particular error is the result of Muehlenkamp's inability to keep his units straight; the reason he's off by a factor of just over 4 (18 rather than 76, and 12 rather than 50) is that he confused kilojoules and kilocalories (1 kcal = 4.184 kJ).

The fact that you did not know this shows that you are relying on an analysis you haven't actually bothered to read with any care. That's not very skeptical of you, is it?

Yes, I'm not surprised at all that the carcasses of animals killed by flooding during a hurricane would be waterlogged and thus harder to burn.

Which hurricane caused flooding that killed and waterlogged the corpses of inmates at Treblinka?

My post made it clear that the difficulties from decay were in addition to the difficulties caused by waterlogging, but ANTPogo still missed the point. Just to drive it home, let's quote the full context from Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review:

Air curtain incineration was used to dispose of cattle, swine, and some poultry carcasses, but this technology was utilized under less than ideal conditions. Obtaining dry wood for fuel and the abundance of waterlogged carcasses inhibited the efficiency of this disposal technology. The advanced state of decay of some carcasses also inhibited efficient incineration.

As the text makes clear, the decay of some of the carcasses was a problem in addition to the problems caused by the flooding.

I should add that there has been no effective response to the example of Epynt, where bodies were first buried, then exhumed and cremated - exactly as supposedly happened at Belzec and Treblinka - and they also found that decomposed bodies were harder to burn, not easier.

 

[catsmate]

The witnesses agree on the piling and layering of bodies; you are not then entitled either historically or in any other mode of analysis to disregard this point and substitute a scenario involving animal carcasses that were not piled or layered. Many of the available photos from pyres in Britain during the 2001 FMD outbreak show livestock placed on their backs with legs poking through the flames into the air.

By contrast, the photographs of the Dresden pyres before complete incineration show stacked, piled human corpses.

This may be a little off topic but it pertains to the idea of human corpses fueling their own incineration.
In a discussion of alleged spontaneous human combustion (this thread) I looked at a case, an elderly man in Oklahoma who died earlier this year, whose body was ignited by a cigarette after his death. Without external fuel or accelerant or any intervention, less than 18kg of material remained of the corpse. With assistance I see no reason why cumbustion could not be more complete.

 

[A'isha]

What relevant argument does it make? To be relevant, it must supply an argument to support the idea that mass cremation at Treblinka, Belzec, or Auschwitz could have taken place with radically less fuel, and in radically less time and space, than is required in the documented literature on carcass incineration.

No, it directly addresses your assertion that the Nazis could not have done an imperfect job of cremation at the death camps because an imperfect job of cremation would have left intact pieces of bodies.

This is entirely separate from your invalid comparison of Nazi mass cremations with the mass carcass incinerations documented by Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review.

Your quotes focus on exactly the factors I didn't refer to in connection with the 2001 UK FMD epidemic.

Yes, I know you didn't refer to those factors. That is, in fact, the glaring flaw in your argument, because Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review does refer to those factors, which is why you cannot use its description and estimation of mass cremation costs as a basis for comparison for the Nazis mass cremations.

It is true that fuel costs could have been brought down by price controls, but price controls do nothing to eliminate shortages, which would have been rendered truly extreme by a project of mass cremation like that at Treblinka, where as I have shown 1,500,000 kg of dry wood per day would have been required to run the cremations.

And this is entirely your assertion, unsupported by your citation to Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review.

There is no question that the mortality at Auschwitz was often quite considerable, due to typhus and other factors. Either you are knowingly engaging in irrelevant snark, or you have never bothered to read (to understand, not to browse the contents and then dismiss out of hand) revisionist writings on this matter.

It's entirely relevant snark, thank you. I am well aware of the denier nonsense arguments about Auschwitz.

This thread has 161 pages, and it's not even the first thread we've had on the subject of Holocaust denial. Do you think these arguments you're using haven't been brought up here before?

You entirely missed the point. The comparisons in consideration are indeed comparing dry wood to dry wood, and they are in error in exactly the way I indicated: 50 kg and 12 kg being listed as having the same energy content, for example. As I hinted, this particular error is the result of Muehlenkamp's inability to keep his units straight; the reason he's off by a factor of just over 4 (18 rather than 76, and 12 rather than 50) is that he confused kilojoules and kilocalories (1 kcal = 4.184 kJ).

The fact that you did not know this shows that you are relying on an analysis you haven't actually bothered to read with any care. That's not very skeptical of you, is it?

No, I was pointing out that your criticism of Muhlenkamp is a red herring, since the numbers you're focusing on are his wood equivalent calculations for the purposes of determining ash residue, not the weight of combustion materials actually used, and his earlier work about Belzec shows that his conclusions are indeed correct, and Mattogno is full of crap.

My post made it clear that the difficulties from decay were in addition to the difficulties caused by waterlogging, but ANTPogo still missed the point. Just to drive it home, let's quote the full context from Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review:



As the text makes clear, the decay of some of the carcasses was a problem in addition to the problems caused by the flooding.

This is also directly addressed in the links I provided: there are different stages of decay which have different effects of cremation efficiency.

In other words, waterlogged carcasses burned within a few weeks of the death of the animal are not at all like dry corpses of people buried for months and then burned.

I should add that there has been no effective response to the example of Epynt, where bodies were first buried, then exhumed and cremated - exactly as supposedly happened at Belzec and Treblinka - and they also found that decomposed bodies were harder to burn, not easier.

Yes, there has indeed been an effective response. You have provided zero actual critique of that response, nor showed why it's in any way incorrect.

 

[MaxMurx]

Puffball Mushrooms

Because my image was not published I repeat my question in words:

My question about the image containing limbs, human or not, was answered with another image containing round shaped grouped objects, allegedly human skulls.

The second image neither is a part of the first one nor a high resolution cut out from the first one. On the other hand people are expected to assume that bot pictures are connected to each other.
That leads to the questions:

1. If those grouped ball shaped objects can be so called "puffball mushrooms", growing in groups and children use to play football with
2. why the human remains, assumed that those are human remains, were sorted, by whom and why.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

There is no question that the mortality at Auschwitz was often quite considerable, due to typhus and other factors. Either you are knowingly engaging in irrelevant snark, or you have never bothered to read (to understand, not to browse the contents and then dismiss out of hand) revisionist writings on this matter.

You don't need to read revisionist writings to know that typhus was a problem in the Nazi death camps. Anybody who knows what happened to Anne Frank knows about typhus.

 

[MaxMurx]

I add some more question which relate to the minimum requirements for photographic documentation of atrocities used as evidence:

Where were those pictures taken?
When were those pictures taken?
By whom were those pictures taken?
Were those pictures taken by a neutral party not related to the accuser or the alleged perpetrator?
What kind of dead bodies are shown on these pictures (e.g. combatants, killed camp inmates, dug up cemetries)?

Personal questions of interest: Which was the time frame between the alleged murder and the images being taken? Where those remains the remains of humans cremated or of those not having been cremated? If not creamted: what explains the total decay and absence of any hair or clothing residuals? If cremated: Is "white" the normal color of cremation residuals?

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Forgive me for my laziness

Is Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review available in pdf format on the web? I tried googling it and found the first chapter and a copy of a 'draft report'. Is there a final report that I should be looking at?

Also, where in that report will I find citations for the amount of fuel that is needed to cremate farm animals and how long the process takes? This discussion of cost considerations or environmental impacts, etc. isn't something that is important for comparison purposes. The Nazis could find a way around expense or objections from the local population and many other issues that we might confront today. But if it takes X amount of fuel to burn Y pounds of animal carcasses in Z amount of time today, it took X, Y and Z for the Nazis to do it as well. That is where valid comparisons can be made.

 

[Loss Leader]

But if it takes X amount of fuel to burn Y pounds of animal carcasses in Z amount of time today, it took X, Y and Z for the Nazis to do it as well.

I don't believe the Nazis were burning animal carcasses. I believe they were burning human beings whom they had murdered.

 

[A'isha]

Is Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review available in pdf format on the web? I tried googling it and found the first chapter and a copy of a 'draft report'. Is there a final report that I should be looking at?

http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/662

You can find the complete report there, broken into individual pdfs for each chapter.

Also, where in that report will I find citations for the amount of fuel that is needed to cremate farm animals and how long the process takes?

Chapter 2: Incineration, pages 8-10

http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/662/Chapter2.pdf?sequence=17

Note that these are modern government agency guidelines for animal carcass disposal. The Nazi cremation of the corpses of human beings they murdered was, of course, not subject to any of those guidelines, and the studies cited by Muhlenkamp in my links above are a much better guide to those cremations than this 2004 report is.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

I add some more question which relate to the minimum requirements for photographic documentation of atrocities used as evidence:

Where were those pictures taken?
When were those pictures taken?
By whom were those pictures taken?
Were those pictures taken by a neutral party not related to the accuser or the alleged perpetrator?
What kind of dead bodies are shown on these pictures (e.g. combatants, killed camp inmates, dug up cemetries)?

Personal questions of interest: Which was the time frame between the alleged murder and the images being taken? Where those remains the remains of humans cremated or of those not having been cremated? If not creamted: what explains the total decay and absence of any hair or clothing residuals? If cremated: Is "white" the normal color of cremation residuals?

Both of those pictures look like they were taken at the same place. The first picture clearly shows bones but the second picture doesn't clearly show skulls.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

I don't believe the Nazis were burning animal carcasses. I believe they were burning human beings whom they had murdered.

Yes but there are similarities between the bodies of human beings and the bodies of some farm animals, notably pigs, that make meaningful comparisons as far as cremation goes possible. We can't replicate a death camp cremation experimentally using thousands of human bodies so we need to get as close as we can with what we have.

 

[Loss Leader]

Yes but there are similarities between the bodies of human beings and the bodies of some farm animals, notably pigs, that make meaningful comparisons as far as cremation goes possible. We can't replicate a death camp cremation experimentally using thousands of human bodies so we need to get as close as we can with what we have.

Why?

We aren't forensically reenacting whether Booth could have caused the injury to Abraham Lincoln. We haven't attempted to see just how many students Dylan and Eric could have really killed at Columbine. Mythbusters hasn't done an episode on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

So, why exactly are we trying to burn pigs to see how much they look like Jews?

 

[CaptainHowdy]

http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/662

You can find the complete report there, broken into individual pdfs for each chapter.



Chapter 2: Incineration, pages 8-10

http://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/662/Chapter2.pdf?sequence=17

Note that these are modern government agency guidelines for animal carcass disposal. The Nazi cremation of the corpses of human beings they murdered was, of course, not subject to any of those guidelines, and the studies cited by Muhlenkamp in my links above are a much better guide to those cremations than this 2004 report is.

Naturally, I wouldn't rely on the information in one single report. Fortunately, there are a number of different reports from the USA and the UK that address various methods and requirements for disposing of large amounts of carcasses. Looking at the instruction manual for running a crematory might provide useful information as would investigating modern Hindu funeral practices. Burning one body at a time is different than burning thousands at a time but both involve combustion of bodies so some insights might be had.

There would also be regulations and government mandates associated with running a crematorium or disposing of animal carcasses that have no relevance to a discussion of Nazi body disposal. But the chemistry and physics and biology behind burning bodies today will be the same as it was back when the Nazis were doing it.

One thing I need to keep reminding myself is that the Nazis could run as sloppy a cremation as they wanted to run. They had no respect for the bodies they were burning. They didn't need to worry about destroying the bodies so completely that all pathogens and disease vectors were also destroyed. They didn't care about any environmental damage that they caused in the process. However, historians agree that the Nazis were rather successful at obliterating evidence of their crimes. Eyewitnesses have testified to the efforts expended to remove all traces of the gassings and burnings that took place in the death camps. So even though the Nazis couldn't eliminate all traces neither did they leave behind hundreds of thousands of corpses. Whatever is required to dispose of hundreds of thousands of corpses is what the Nazis did.

 

[Clayton Moore]

As for the idea that the Germans only needed to do a sloppy job of cremation, I suggest looking at this series of images. Note how intact the pig's body is after the initial attempt of cremation. For an example for a mass cremation, look at this image. A sloppy job of cremation leaves intact bodies.

Nor were the UK FMD cremations all that thorough. Consider this image of the ashes from a UK FMD cremation, and note the uncremated hoof in the foreground. In fact, the literature is clear that open air mass cremation is never as thorough as other cremation methods. This is part of all open air mass cremations, not just the German experience.

It's worth noting that mass cremation is expensive. If it were possible to reduce resource usage by doing a sloppy job of it, people would be doing it. But this is not the case. According to Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review, 5% of the carcasses in Taiwan's 1997 FMD epidemic were cremated, but this cremation cost 41.4% of all body disposal expenses in that epidemic.

With truly large scale mass cremation, the situation is even worse, as one runs into the problem of fuel inflation. Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review notes that during the 2001 UK FMD epidemic



Clearly there was an enormous incentive to reduce fuel requirements, and if the holocaust story is correct this should have been easy to do - by orders of magnitude. But the British were unable to do this. If holocaust cremation claims are really possible, then why has everyone (US, UK, Australia, Taiwan, France, Canada...) been wasting large amounts of money on burning bodies when it could be done drastically more efficiently? Fuel would have been even more scarce than usual during wartime. If the mass cremations alleged at Belzec and Treblinka really took place, this should have shown up in massive fuel inflation. Where is the evidence of this? Holocaust cremation claims are rather like the claim that the Third Reich had a truck that could drive 3,000 miles in one hour on one gallon of gas while hauling a 100 ton load. If this were really possible, then why can't anyone else attain anywhere near this level of performance?

As for the fantasies about Dresden, I can only repeat what I have already said: an account of the Dresden cremations based on claims in the secondary literature cannot be used to overturn the facts about mass cremation derived from well documented experience. If ANTPogo's imagined cremations were really possible in the fashion he claims, then why is it that in every well documented instance of mass cremation, the time, space, and fuel requirements are orders of magnitudes higher than he imagines to be necessary?

To the question of why open air cremation was necessary at Auschwitz in light of its substantial crematories, that's easy. They were out of service. This is not an unusual problem, and is discussed in texts on body disposal in the aftermath of mass fatality events - crematory ovens are frequently in need of repairs. The details of exactly which ovens were in service on which days are sometimes difficult to ascertain, but even exterminationists concede that some of the ovens were out of service; for further details on this problem see Auschwitz: the case for sanity, chapter 8.8.1.

Finally, I note that ANTPogo has attempted to beg off from an analysis of cremation by referencing Muehlenkamp's essay. I have already refuted a number of Muehlenkamp's arguments here, and no-one has been able to reply. The fact is, Muehlenkamp is simply incompetent in a grand scale; it is one of the signs of the bankruptcy of the holocaust story that he is the best they can manage. Thoroughly documenting Muehlenkamp's errors is beyond the scope of a forum post, and in any case Carlo Mattogno has already replied on this score, in a work that should be published sometime soon. But just for fun, let's look at a single example of Muehlenkamp's incompetence. In his table 8.39 he announces (to the alert reader's considerable surprise) that 76 kg of wood has the same energy content as 18 kg of wood. He then goes on to assert the same thing in table 8.40, and then tells the astonished reader that 50 kg of wood has the same energy content as 12 kg of wood three times (tables 8.41, 8.42, and 8.43). The poor guy just couldn't get his units right.

ANTPogo (following Muehlenkamp) argues that decomposition would make bodies easier to incinerate. This stands in direct opposition to the experience of the Epynt cremations, where the bodies that were buried and then exhumed and burned were harder to incinerate. This is one of the reasons Muehlenkamp has to try and argue that Epynt was mismanaged (Nick Terry's arguments along these lines are simply copied from Muehlenkamp). Carcass Disposal: a comprehensive review also includes another example showing that decomposition hinders rather than helping cremation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd, North Carolina attempted to incinerate the carcasses of the animals killed in the flooding, but it took some time until it was able to get to most of the bodies, with the result that in addition to difficulties caused by waterlogging,



In short, the truth is exactly the opposite of what Muehlenkamp and ANTPogo assert. This is just another example of how supporters of holocaust cremation claims rely on analysis that is based not on the actual facts about mass cremation, but on wishful thinking and fantasy.

The Holocaust is top heavy with one fabrication, one round about solution, one expensive solution after another.

We are told to believe the German High Command, while losing the war, authorized fuel for 100s of thousands of cremations and for picking up people and gassing them in vans.