Several points have come up, none of which constitutes a serious objection to my arguments. I will deal with them in turn.
ANTPogo says that I should look to Muehlenkamp's references for empirical evidence that decomposed corpses burn more easily than fresh corpses. ANTPogo is bluffing. None of Muehlenkamp's sources offers any such evidence. Muehlenkamp does cite some sources with reference to water loss of decomposing corpses, and although the picture of decomposition that Muehlenkamp paints is seriously in error, it is true that decomposing corpses lose water. One might argue on theoretical grounds that this water loss would make them easier to burn - but this is not empirical evidence, just a theoretical argument. Against this theoretical argument, one can oppose another one, which points out that during decomposition the energetic components of the body decay into less energetic components, the flammable components into less flammable components; one could argue that therefore decomposed corpses are more difficult to burn. The question of which of these arguments is correct can only be answered
empirically, and as I have shown all the available empirical evidence points to decomposed corpses being more difficult to burn. If ANTPogo can point to empirical evidence to the contrary than let him do so.
Similarly, regarding ANTPogo's contention that the decay at the Reinhardt camps was of a character particularly suited for easy combustion, I challenge him to provide the evidence for this claim.
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Regarding what Nessie has written about cremations in India, CaptainHowdy has already indicated the problems of this line of argument. The reason the alleged cremations at camps like Belzec and Treblinka were not possible is the tight confines in which they had to take place. If it were contended that the Germans cremated a million bodies across the entirety of eastern Europe, then the particular arguments I have made would not apply, at least not in the particular form in which I have made them. But the alleged cremations at the Reinhardt camps took place under very tight restrictions in terms of time, space, and fuel; for this reason they could not have occurred as alleged. To say that they would have been possible if they were spread out over an entire subcontinent is really no argument at all.
The Indian example does bring another point to mind: where did all the wood come from? In India, entire forests are cut down to supply wood for cremation. Where were the forests that were cut down to fuel the alleged cremations at Belzec and Treblinka? Certainly the Soviets, who were always very interested in giving detailed descriptions of alleged German atrocities, never documented the felling of large forests to fuel the cremations. Nor are there photos of huge deforested areas where trees were felled to fuel the alleged cremations.
Nor do the aerial photos of Treblinka support the idea of deforestation on the scale which would have been necessary to fuel the alleged cremations.
Now, with respect to Auschwitz, Nessie states that "1.25 million were killed at Auschwitz over a roughly a 3 1/2 year period would average out at around 360 a day". First of all, the math is badly wrong: 1.25 million over 3.5 years is just under 1000 dead per day, not 360. Second of all, the alleged killings at Auschwitz did not proceed at anything like a constant rate. I have addressed specifically the great surge in killing which allegedly took place in 1944, when the killings allegedly reached 10,000 per day, with some sources claiming even higher figures.
Let's take the
aerial photo of May 31 as an example. As Carlo Mattogno explains in his book
Auschwitz: Open Air Incinerations (chapter 9), over 184,000 Hungarian Jews arrived at Auschwitz between May 17 and May 31, 1944. Orthodox holocaust history has it that the large majority of these were gassed. That means that over the 15 day period leading up to May 31, some 8,000-10,000 Jews were gassed per day. Now, on the aerial photo of May 31 we see only an insignificant plume of smoke, coming from a very small region. We do not see huge piles of bodies, or huge pyres, or anything that indicates a body disposal operation on the scale alleged. The massive task of body disposal could not have been averaged out over time as Nessie supposes, because it had plainly been essentially completed when on May 31.
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Concerning Matthew's requests for testimonies, I will point to
the same source as EtienneSC did (see chapter 7). Also of interest are the following three articles by Thomas Kues:
http://inconvenienthistory.com/arch.../evidence_for_the_presence_of_gassed_jews.php
http://inconvenienthistory.com/arch...vidence_for_the_presence_of_gassed_jews_2.php
http://inconvenienthistory.com/arch...ce_for_the_presence_of_gassed_jews_part_3.php
Matthew's attempt to insinuate that I am applying a double standard towards witness testimony fails, because I have not argued that witness testimony for resettlement proves that mass extermination at Treblinka or Belzec did not take place. Rather, my argument is similar to that made by Sherlock Holmes
when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth
The extermination story for Treblinka or Belzec is not possible, because it involves impossible feats of body disposal. Therefore it did not occur. Therefore the vast majority of the deportees to the Reinhardt camps must have continued on to other destinations. The questions of precisely what these destinations were, and of what their ultimate fates were, are not directly addressed by this line of argument. Witness testimony regarding resettlement helps to fill some of the gaps, but I am well aware that its accuracy cannot be taken for granted. Such testimonies constitute a argument quite different from my arguments concerning cremation, and critiques of them cannot refute my arguments concerning cremation, which have a technical character and are not at all dependent on such testimony.
Finally, as Matthew mentioned Caroline Sturdy-Colls' research at Treblinka, I should point out that her publications to date contain no information about her actual findings. Perhaps next year something of substance will appear. For the moment, the most we have to go on comes from some material that appeared in the media coverage of early 2012, which is discussed
here by Thomas Kues. See also chapter 8.2.5 of the just released MGK book linked above. For more on the archaeology of mass graves, see chapter 11; for the archaeology of the gas chambers see chapter 8.2.2 through 8.2.4. Of course, it would be better to start at the beginning, with the material on archaeology in the initial books by MGK on the Reinhardt camps (these books are available from the
holocaust handbooks website), and then proceed with the debate that followed.
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Border Reiver suggests that Herbert Floss' personnel file should allow us to verify that his area of expertise was cremation. While I can't claim detailed knowledge on this point, I doubt that any such verification is possible. Certainly no such evidence is cited in the standard references on the subject, e.g. Arad's book. Nor does Floss' name appear anywhere in the known German literature on cremation, so he can hardly be considered a leading expert. I suspect that the only evidence to Floss' alleged cremation expertise is of testimonial character. But this really doesn't matter, because the statements on the resource requirements for mass cremation which I have made come from the
expert literature on that subject. If Floss was an expert, then it follows that he probably could have replicated the achievements of other experts in mass cremation, which is precisely my argument. There is no reason that at Treblinka or Belzec cremation should have been miraculously easier than in all well documented cases of mass incineration.
Another point concerning Floss: Matthew Ellard quoted two paragraphs which he claims are from Heinrich Matthes' statements, but only the first paragraph is actually from Matthes. The second is from another unrelated source. When Matthew cut-and-pasted this passage from the wikipedia article for Herbert Floss, he failed to notice that the sources were different. This clearly illustrates the fact that he has no actual knowledge of this subject beyond what he can cut-and-paste from readily available internet sources.
In any event, I have already addressed Matthes' testimony concerning cremation, so there is nothing new here.
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One final point: nearly all posters here seem unable to correctly paraphrase my arguments. When they find my arguments inconvenient, they prefer to respond to arguments which roughly resemble mine, but have been altered in such a way as to make them much weaker. It has become to tiresome for me to respond to all such statements, but I do need to point out that such a practise of altering ones opponents' arguments can never succeed in refuting anything. In fact, it rather resembles the kind of arguments one hears from creationists, who finding it inconvenient to respond to the actual position of evolutionary biology, prefer to attack strawmen of their own construction (along the lines of "so you think the eye just appeared out of nowhere by chance? That's absurd."). Needless to say, such misrepresentations of the arguments of evolutionary biologists do not refute evolutionary biology. Nor are my arguments refuted when posters here misrepresent them.
