Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[LemmyCaution]

We do not have eye-witness testimony from Peyse Schloss because with the best will in the world we only have a hear-say version of her account. Which makes her account reliant on how reliable a source is Kruk's diary.

No, we have an eyewitness, whose account was taken down by Kruk. If you want to challenge Kruk, as you did months ago (when you put him in Kovno and then re-writing his diary after the war, when he was dead) and as you do below, fine, but, if one accepts Kruk's basic reliability, then Schloss is an eyewitness, just one you don't like.

Reading this:

I leave the reliability of the Kruk diary up to the individual reader to judge, but it would be fair to say that the well balanced, intelligent historian would judge this as rather unreliable.

Nice try. But you are trying to confuse readers by mixing up apples and oranges. Kruk hid the Vilna portion of his diary, that which covered the events of September 1941, in April 1943 in a large bunker in Vilna as liquidation the ghetto became imminent. The portion that you refer to, composed after he was sent from Vilna to Estonian work camps, including Lagedi, covered events following his removal from the ghetto.

I leave the reliability, not to mention the honesty, of LGR up to the individual reader to judge, but it would be fair to say that (1) anyone who intentionally tries to cast doubt on manuscripts sitting in a bunker in Vilna by touting different manuscripts being composed in Klooga and Lagedi, without drawing the distinction, is less than trustworthy and (2) contrary to LGR's advice and implication, historians have used Kruk's diaries and do not see a problem with them.

Errr, no. This is an account of a deportation. Could this be a deportation ending in execution in Ponary? It might, it might also be a deportation to Disney World. Just within the material contained in the Oyneg Shabes there is nothing to pick between these two versions.

The flippancy regarding deportations exhibited by LGR aside, no, this is not simply the account of a deportation according to Kassow. Again, LGR is dishonest with sources, this time with Kassow. What infuriates me is that now I have to type out some of what Kassow included on pp285-286 about the article in Neged Hazarem in October 1941, all to set straight another obvious and blatant untruth from LGR. This is the passage from Neged Hazarem quoted by Kassow: "In the last three months the Jewish population of Vilna has dropped from seventy thousand - the number during the Soviet occupation - to thirty-five thousand. Only a few Jews succeed in escaping from the city. The small ghetto has been almost completely destroyed by mass killing. The Jewish population is terrified and depressed. All are convinced that death is near, and all they can do is wait for their turn." According to Kassow, the newspaper was uncertain about the news and prefaced the article with a note "explaining that a comrade had arrived from Vilna on October 16 and that Neged Hazarem was relaying his account . . ."

I leave the reliability, not to mention the honesty, of LGR up to the individual reader to judge, but it would be fair to say that in this case he has intentionally ignored and distorted what Kassow wrote, as it was clearly not about a deportation at all, certainly not to Disney, and in fact specifically referenced "mass killing"; as he so often does, LGR here made up a false scenario to cast unfounded doubt on the multiple accounts of mass murder at Ponar.

However, it would be mysterious indeed if Kruk was writing in his Diary about horrendous killings in Ponary from eyewitnesses and yet this account was not transmitted by underground courier to Warsaw.

It would be inexplicable......if it were true.

There is no mystery. Kassow, for one, describes how in 1941 underground couriers made their way from Vilna to Warsaw with news of the killings in Vilna. pp285, 455 And, in a portion of the post which LGR quoted but ignored mentioning, Kassow also detailed the report which Aryeh Wilner, who came from Vilna to Warsaw, gave the Oyneg Shabes, also in October 1941, on testimony of a woman who'd survived Ponar and the events there.

 

[Nick Terry]

Everything you've said about Pesye Schloss' testimony makes it sound like it's hearsay evidence. That doesn't mean it's bad evidence. It doesn't mean it's unreliable or weak or worthless. But, except for a few sentences in which Kruk quotes Schloss verbatim (if that is indeed what Kruk does. I'm not sure but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt), it is Kruk's testimony of what Schloss said. That's hearsay.

For the moment, I'm not interested in whether or not Pesye Schloss's testimony is true and whether or not the events she describes happened. I'm just surprised you would offer this as an example of a credible Jewish eyewitness to the holocaust.

Pretty sure that LemmyCaution and others including me have been over why Pesye Schloss was offered in the first place. Could you perhaps get over your 'surprise' and understand the reasons why her testimony was pointed to?

Hearsay is a legal term; if you're going to try and apply it to history then you should of course realise that Kruk's diary is not "a witness", it is a contemporary document quoting an eyewitness (in this case). Pesye Schloss's testimony could only be entered into evidence in a court by submitting Kruk's diary as documentary evidence. Kruk himself had died in 1944 so would not have been around to give any kind of court testimony about the diary entry or elaborate on his discussion with Schloss, although that would be perfectly acceptable practice, since the status of the evidence is that it's actually a document.

Schloss's testimony is not hearsay even when transposed and quoted in Kruk's diary. The quoted part certainly is not. Kruk spoke to Schloss face to face; he did not speak to someone else who spoke to Schloss. The latter would be very firmly hearsay, and that is something that recurs a lot in diaries - I heard from so and so that this has happened, and they pass on an indirect account, which helps us understand how news spreads. Kruk's diary contains, for example, hearsay about Treblinka.

Kruk's diary is no different to a newspaper article quoting an eyewitness at length. We would not generally deny such an eyewitness quoted in a newspaper article the status of witness. There is no reason to deny Schloss that status, either.

Do you really believe that Pesye Schloss is one of the better examples of a credible eyewitness?

Again, I think that LemmyCaution and others including myself have explained that we are not playing this silly game. For the record (again), since the Ponary executions are so well documented in many other sources, and have additional testimonies, then Pesye Schloss is a highly credible witness.

 

[Nick Terry]

There is no mystery. Kassow, for one, describes how in 1941 underground couriers made their way from Vilna to Warsaw with news of the killings in Vilna. p285 And, in a portion of the post which LGR quoted but ignored mentioning, Kassow also detailed the report which Aryeh Wilner, who came from Vilna to Warsaw, gave the Oyneg Shabes, also in October 1941, on testimony of a woman who'd survived Ponar and the events there.

Indeed, Oyneg Shabes received at least nine reports from Vilna in 1941 and early 1942, which have been published in Polish and in facsimile (mix of languages) in Andrzej Zbikowski (ed.), Archiwum Ringelbuma: Konspiracyjne Archiwum Getta Warszawy, vol. 3: Relacje z Kresów (Warsaw: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny IN-B, 2000), pp.315-499.

 

[LemmyCaution]

. . . except for a few sentences in which Kruk quotes Schloss verbatim (if that is indeed what Kruk does. I'm not sure but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt), it is Kruk's testimony of what Schloss said. That's hearsay.

It is big of you to give Kruk the benefit of the doubt, when you haven't even read his book. Again, Schloss was an eyewitness, Kruk was not. Simple. As has been noted before, if you have a problem with Kruk, let's hear it. And please spare us the made-up silliness that LGR is trying to feed us.

For the moment, I'm not interested in whether or not Pesye Schloss's testimony is true and whether or not the events she describes happened. I'm just surprised you would offer this as an example of a credible Jewish eyewitness to the holocaust.

Why? Her credility is established by other reports which mesh with the one she gave Kruk. Are you arguing that her account, as recorded by Kruk, is not credible? If so, why? Because it is brief? Because someone else, other than she herself, wrote it down and summarized it? I once witnessed a bad car accident. The officer on the scene asked me what I saw. He took down notes, not verbatim, of about a half dozen lines. Was I not a witness? Was what I told the officer not credible?

It is remarkable that we have a contemporary diary kept by Kruk in Vilna with accounts from witnesses of the killings at Ponar the first week in September 1941 which meshes well with independent sources such as other diaries, an account written by a Polish eyewitness at Ponar, an official German report, trial testimony, and independently written memoirs. The sole importance of the reference I made to Schloss as an eyewitness is her place in the pattern of evidence in favor of the Ponar massacre. This is what you have to deal with. LGR is making up falsehoods to get out of the jam you're in. You, on the other hand, cannot even see the problem. Perhaps this is because of your lack of familiarity with historical works. I don't know. But these meshing sources create a very bad problem for denail of Ponar, and they are why LGR, who sees this, has long been making up various falsehoods about them, misdating them, claiming tampering, for which he cannot adduce one iota of positive evidence, and misquoting and misrepresenting.

Do you really believe that Pesye Schloss is one of the better examples of a credible eyewitness?

I have never given this question a moment's thought, as it isn't relevant. I told you that Schloss came to mind because of the web of evidence in which her account sits. I think her account, as recorded in Kruk, is credible. Credible enough to (1) rubbish the lie that all Jewish witnesses were liars and (2) help, along with other sources, establish what happened at Ponar in the Great Provocation action, for which you profess a lack of interest.

 

[LemmyCaution]

Do you really believe that Pesye Schloss is one of the better examples of a credible eyewitness?

Are you really going to continue to ignore Sakowicz and the other sources?

 

[abaddon]

Which is why I added the qualifiers "well-balanced" and "intelligent"

You don't need to be a genius that when the last diary entry is about telling people where you are going to be bury said document in a remote labour camp in Estonia and two days later the Red Army say they dig it up, we are dealing with a document that is more than a little "contaminated."

Or at least I think most intelligent people would agree that it has a decided whiff about it.

"well-balanced" and "intelligent"

I LOLled.

 

[LemmyCaution]

"well-balanced" and "intelligent"

I LOLled.

I wonder if you have to be a genius to imply that Kruk was able to "contaminate" a manuscript hidden in Vilna was he was in Estonia.

By the way, Kruk was murdered in the Nazi liquidation of Lagedi the day before the Red Army arrived at the camp; the Red Army most certainly didn't find the portion of Kruk's manuscript under discussion at Lagedi, because, as noted, it was back in Vilna.

What I wonder is why Little Grey Rabbit is fictionalizing this history, without so much as a reference to, for example, the Harshavs.

 

[Wroclaw]

"well-balanced" and "intelligent"

I LOLled.

He's the Fox News of negationism.

 

[Clayton Moore]

The wild goose chase of Holohoax blather.

Notice how LemmyCaution introduces something new in his posts.
A fork of distraction.


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7755122&postcount=7401
LemmyCaution

There is no mystery. Kassow, for one, describes how in 1941 underground couriers made their way from Vilna to Warsaw with news of the killings in Vilna. pp285, 455 And, in a portion of the post which LGR quoted but ignored mentioning, Kassow also detailed the report which Aryeh Wilner, who came from Vilna to Warsaw, gave the Oyneg Shabes, also in October 1941, on testimony of a woman who'd survived Ponar and the events there.


http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7755157&postcount=7405
LemmyCaution

Originally Posted by Dogzilla View Post

Do you really believe that Pesye Schloss is one of the better examples of a credible eyewitness?

Are you really going to continue to ignore Sakowicz and the other sources?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7755370&postcount=7407
LemmyCaution

I wonder if you have to be a genius to imply that Kruk was able to "contaminate" a manuscript hidden in Vilna was he was in Estonia.

By the way, Kruk was murdered in the Nazi liquidation of Lagedi the day before the Red Army arrived at the camp; the Red Army most certainly didn't find the portion of Kruk's manuscript under discussion at Lagedi, because, as noted, it was back in Vilna.

What I wonder is why Little Grey Rabbit is fictionalizing this history, without so much as a reference to, for example, the Harshavs.

 

[Wroclaw]

Clayton clearly has a problem with LC refusing to discuss a single witness at a time.

Tant pis pour lui.

 

[LemmyCaution]

Clayton clearly has a problem with LC refusing to discuss a single witness at a time.

Tant pis pour lui.

Indeed. No fork of distraction - just a couple references that show LGR as the dissembler he is. Both of these, Kassow and the Harshavs, are in fact answers to 2 fabrications introduced by LGR - so Clayton Moore's whining is doubly misguided. And also I've repeated a question about an independent source which sheds light on Pesye Schloss's testimony. I don't think that history is Clayton Moore's forte.

 

[Dogzilla]

Pretty sure that LemmyCaution and others including me have been over why Pesye Schloss was offered in the first place. Could you perhaps get over your 'surprise' and understand the reasons why her testimony was pointed to?

Hearsay is a legal term; if you're going to try and apply it to history then you should of course realise that Kruk's diary is not "a witness", it is a contemporary document quoting an eyewitness (in this case). Pesye Schloss's testimony could only be entered into evidence in a court by submitting Kruk's diary as documentary evidence. Kruk himself had died in 1944 so would not have been around to give any kind of court testimony about the diary entry or elaborate on his discussion with Schloss, although that would be perfectly acceptable practice, since the status of the evidence is that it's actually a document.

Schloss's testimony is not hearsay even when transposed and quoted in Kruk's diary. The quoted part certainly is not. Kruk spoke to Schloss face to face; he did not speak to someone else who spoke to Schloss. The latter would be very firmly hearsay, and that is something that recurs a lot in diaries - I heard from so and so that this has happened, and they pass on an indirect account, which helps us understand how news spreads. Kruk's diary contains, for example, hearsay about Treblinka.

Kruk's diary is no different to a newspaper article quoting an eyewitness at length. We would not generally deny such an eyewitness quoted in a newspaper article the status of witness. There is no reason to deny Schloss that status, either.



Again, I think that LemmyCaution and others including myself have explained that we are not playing this silly game. For the record (again), since the Ponary executions are so well documented in many other sources, and have additional testimonies, then Pesye Schloss is a highly credible witness.

The quoted parts in Kruk's diary are not hearsay. But the parts of Pesye Schloss' testimony that Kruk summarizes are. I would not deny that an eyewitness who was quoted at length in a newspaper article was an eyewitness. I would not deny that the parts that were quoted formed an eyewitness statement. But an article that quoted a few sentences from an eyewitness and summarized everything else the eyewitness said would not carry the same weight as a complete verbatim quote.

If Pesye Schloss is considered a credible witness it is only because what she is reported to have said is verified by other sources. But if all the other sources were of a similar pedigree--statements given to a man who was recording the persecution Jews suffered during the two tragic years of the Vilna Ghetto and a subsequent year in death camps in Estonia in a diary which he managed to bury just hours before he and other camp inmates were shot to death but was dug up a few days later when the Russians liberated the camp and first published seventeen years after that, I don't think you'd be able to give much credence to the events she reported.

If this is the highest quality eyewitness statement to the events, I think Saggy has made his point. Since it has the Nick Terry seal of approval we can move on.

As far as the credibility of the event itself, tens of thousands of people getting shot into huge pits in the forest would leave evidence. If that evidence isn't there it doesn't matter how credible any eyewitness statements might be.

 

[LemmyCaution]

The quoted parts in Kruk's diary are not hearsay. But the parts of Pesye Schloss' testimony that Kruk summarizes are.

No, the non-verbatim parts are simply a summary of an eyewitness account, more or less precise, depending, and, frankly we don't know how precise based on only the passage in Kruk itself, do we? But Pesye Schloss was an eyewitness nonetheless, and her testimony is as subject to the vagaries of recording as was mine to the fine law officer investigating a traffic accident who summarized my account of it. Did I transmogrify from eyewitness to . . . something else . . . simply because the officer summarized what I told him? You could challenge the officer's notes, in any event, in court, whether verbatim (were they really?) or summarized. In court, you'd need me to testify one way or the other.

I would not deny that an eyewitness who was quoted at length in a newspaper article was an eyewitness. I would not deny that the parts that were quoted formed an eyewitness statement. But an article that quoted a few sentences from an eyewitness and summarized everything else the eyewitness said would not carry the same weight as a complete verbatim quote.

Carrying the same weight is the issue, suddenly? Before it was whether Schloss was an eyewitness. Of course, there are factors, many of them in fact, that make a witness's testimony more or less reliable. I've already explained factors in favor of Schloss' reliability. You need to stop with silly words you think sound important - like "quoted at length." What does that mean or add? At how much length? In this case, you always have to go back to Kruk, as he took down Schloss's testimony, so, if your problem is with Kruk, as I said before, go after him. You can already see the muck LGR has made for himself trying to do so - and his muddle is even worse than appears, by the way.

If Pesye Schloss is considered a credible witness it is only because what she is reported to have said is verified by other sources.

And how else would you judge a witness's reliability, a witness you don't know? Because of conformance to other witnesses and documents? Or because of conformance to your prior assumptions, biases, and wishes?

But if all the other sources were of a similar pedigree--statements given to a man who was recording the persecution Jews suffered during the two tragic years of the Vilna Ghetto

If you bothered to look into this, or pay attention, you would already be able to cite the various statements and sources for this incident - and would know that they are independent and are not identical in nature or origin. Why do you think I keep referring you to Sakowicz and Jaeger? If you scroll up - I am not typing it out again - you will see that there is more. Some that was given to people in Warsaw, by couriers. Some in memoirs. Some in court testimony. Yet, out of willful ignorance, you reduce all of it to one person - Kruk. You simply don't know what you are talking about with your "But ifs" - and it is easy enough to find out about the evidence for the Great Provocation massacre instead of speculating wrongheadedly about it. For your own reasons, you choose not to be interested enough to find out but that doesn't stop you from making up inane "But ifs."

and a subsequent year in death camps in Estonia in a diary which he managed to bury just hours before he and other camp inmates were shot to death but was dug up a few days later when the Russians liberated the camp and first published seventeen years after that, I don't think you'd be able to give much credence to the events she reported.

The section of Kruk's diary dealing with the action about which Schloss testified - I've already pointed this out twice - was never in Estonia, much less taken by the Russians. Get that: this material was never, not once, in Estonia. It was not buried in Estonia. It was not discovered by Soviet troops in Estonia. Because it was 600km south, in Vilna. I have an idea. Explain to us why you think this manuscript was in Estonia? Give us your source.

If this is the highest quality eyewitness statement to the events, I think Saggy has made his point.

Saggy's point was that all Jewish eyewitnesses were degenerate liars, and since, even by your admission and by your standards, Pesye Schloss cannot be shown to be a liar, let alone degenerate, you are mistaken. By your standards, she gave testimony that meshed with other testimony - not enough of it for you, but some. The weight of all this indicates, even by your dubious way of looking at it, that Schloss didn't lie to Kruk - and there hasn't been one speck of evidence brought out showing where or how she lied. By the standards historians normally use, of course, her testimony is in fact credible. The very opposite to what you claim.

Since it has the Nick Terry seal of approval we can move on.

Indeed. This is turning out very badly for Saggy and you. You have failed to advance the one-witness game, you have also shown your ignorance of the basic history as well as your apparently congenital inability to discuss more than one source at a time, let alone patterns of sources and large events. Moving on is the best you can salvage.

As far as the credibility of the event itself, tens of thousands of people getting shot into huge pits in the forest would leave evidence. If that evidence isn't there it doesn't matter how credible any eyewitness statements might be.

Ah, and what are we talking about? We are talking about evidence left by this shooting, aren't we? And here's some more: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2010/10/mass-graves-and-dead-bodies.html

You really need to find a new interest. Or rather non-interest. You aren't doing very well at even the basics on this.

 

[Nick Terry]

Indeed. This is turning out very bad for Saggy and you. You have failed the advance the one-witness game, you have also shown your ignorance of the basic history as well as your apparently congenital inability to discuss more than one source at a time, let alone patterns of sources and large events.

Dogzilla could of course disprove the bolded statement by identifying various important pieces of evidence for a site of his choosing, no doubt given his obsession, Treblinka. What pieces of evidence are actually critical in forming the consensus view that the site saw extermination? The answer is clearly not, 'none'. Nor is the answer 'just witnesses'.

Y'see, there's a wee problem with the standard denier modus operandi, which is that unlike deniers, sane people actually consider more than one piece of evidence before arriving at a conclusion. In some cases they even consider hundreds of pieces of evidence. Perhaps deniers never made jigsaws when they were kids, who knows. But pretending that a single piece of the jigsaw is the equal of the whole is a whopping great big strawman.

So, Dogzilla. Give it your best shot. Nominate what you think are the important pieces of evidence for whichever site you choose. There will probably be quite a few, for a big camp it will naturally be well into double figures just for a basic conclusion. Let's see which ones you omit or forget about, or don't know about. Sort of like Ker-Plunk! but in reverse.

Alternatively, you can nominate the pieces of evidence which are considered to form the basis of the consensus that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews. Up to you. Either way, it would be instructive for you and everyone else to put yourself in other people's shoes and try to comprehend why we disagree with you. If you don't, then you're just going to litter the next 7200 posts of the thread with yet more strawmen.

 

[LemmyCaution]

Dogzilla says "But if" all the testimony stemmed from Kruk's record of it, given to a persecuted and biased man, then . . .

Well, Nick and I have pointed out that the testimony doesn't nearly all come from Kruk (but Kruk was a pivotal recorder of Vilna's fate) and is in fact varied, but Dogzilla has ignored our gentle prods and urges that he look into the wider evidence.

So, even though Dogzilla has said he isn't interested, other readers may want to know that not only Kruk interviewed the survivors of the shootings at Ponar the first week in September 1941. For example, Dr. Abrasha Weinrib interviewed Yudis Trojak, whose testimony Kruk also recorded along with that of Pesye Schloss. Dr. Weinrib had treated Trojak for the injuries she received at Ponar, probably in the hospital where Kruk interviewed her, and was impressed by what she told him. He knew Abba Kovner, a youth activist who was then living outside the ghetto, and asked Kovner to talk to the 11 year old. Kovner did so and made a diary notation about his talk with her - and his talks with other survivor-escapees, including a teacher named Tema Katz.

About a month after this, Kruk also interviewed Tema Katz, and - Dogzilla will be glad to know - recorded testimony from her "at length" and in her own words concerning the shootings. This testimony is in Kruk's journal, pp257-260

At Eichmann's trial, another doctor, Dr. Mark Dworjecki, testified about meeting a distraught woman named Sonia the first week of September in Vilna - and that this woman related to him how she'd been taken, with her children, from the part of the city being cleared of Jews, first to Lukiszki prison, then to Ponar, where she survived and escaped the shootings. The woman, testified Dworjecki, showed him a wound that he concluded was from a bullet.

The evidence goes beyond testimonies and information passed from person to person: For example, at the pits, left behind after the attempted clean-up operation carried out by the Germans in 1943-1944, there was discovered, according to a postwar Soviet report, a "huge amount of burnt human bones scattered on the surface of the whole area of the camp, unburnt bodies of executed people."

Of course, this post is not addressed to Dogzilla, who simply cannot handle multiple sources, is not interested, and hasn't been paying attention.

 

[LemmyCaution]

Dogzilla could of course disprove the bolded statement by identifying various important pieces of evidence for a site of his choosing, no doubt given his obsession, Treblinka. What pieces of evidence are actually critical in forming the consensus view that the site saw extermination? The answer is clearly not, 'none'. Nor is the answer 'just witnesses'.

Y'see, there's a wee problem with the standard denier modus operandi, which is that unlike deniers, sane people actually consider more than one piece of evidence before arriving at a conclusion. In some cases they even consider hundreds of pieces of evidence. Perhaps deniers never made jigsaws when they were kids, who knows. But pretending that a single piece of the jigsaw is the equal of the whole is a whopping great big strawman.

So, Dogzilla. Give it your best shot. Nominate what you think are the important pieces of evidence for whichever site you choose. There will probably be quite a few, for a big camp it will naturally be well into double figures just for a basic conclusion. Let's see which ones you omit or forget about, or don't know about. Sort of like Ker-Plunk! but in reverse.

Alternatively, you can nominate the pieces of evidence which are considered to form the basis of the consensus that Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jews. Up to you. Either way, it would be instructive for you and everyone else to put yourself in other people's shoes and try to comprehend why we disagree with you. If you don't, then you're just going to litter the next 7200 posts of the thread with yet more strawmen.

Well, yes, this exercise and discussion would be interesting. But you are asking this of someone who pulled out of his . . . memory? imagination? chum named LRG? . . . the misinformation that Kruk's diary for September 1941 was buried at Lagedi in Estonia and discovered a couple days later by soldiers of the Red Army. Without so much as either a citation or a moment's reflection. Or consideration of the source. I wouldn't expect much, Nick.

 

[little grey rabbit]

Indeed, Oyneg Shabes received at least nine reports from Vilna in 1941 and early 1942, which have been published in Polish and in facsimile (mix of languages) in Andrzej Zbikowski (ed.), Archiwum Ringelbuma: Konspiracyjne Archiwum Getta Warszawy, vol. 3: Relacje z Kresów (Warsaw: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny IN-B, 2000), pp.315-499.

Right but Oyneg Shabes itself is a motley collection allegedly dug up at various times in post war Warsaw.

Given what we know about the highly instrumental view that Jewish elites have of history and given we also have the mystery of how a minor tribe in one of the more peripheral water-deprived areas of the middle east currently find themselves dominating the financial, legal and media commanding heights of the US and elsewhere, the cautious historian treats such material with appropriate caution.

Why did the very clear and supposedly multiple eyewitnessed accounts of Ponar that were apparently available to Kruk on 4 September not appear clearly and unambiguously in the underground press of Warsaw and why was this not relayed to the outside world.

We have the contradiction between the supposedly clear defined account available to Kruk and the fact the first mention of Ponary in the unambiguously datable account in the public sphere - a newspaper account in June 1942 had the events of Ponary taking place in May 1942?

Now as Dr Terry is almost certainly aware, during these events of early September the EG reports have nothing more to say about EK 3 than this:
Von dem Einsatzgruppe A liegt keine Meldungen vor
So if EK 3 was slaughtering thousands of Jews at Ponary they were not supplying any reports to Berlin about it.

There is however, one exception. On September 4
Einsatzkommando 3 meldet aus Wilna staerkeres Auftreten polnischer Sabotageversuche und Vorkommen regelrechter militaerischer Uebungen polnischer Zivilisten in schwach besetzten Landgebieten.

Seit 28.8.41 arbeitet ausserdem ein feindlicher Kurzwellensender in Wilna, der bisher ncht entdeckt werden konnst

So not only was the main concern of EK-3 of this period was Polish resistance, this Polish resistance had the use of a short wave radio broadcaster in which they could have broadcast any massacres they wished to!

Ahhhh, you might say, everybody knows how anti-semitic Poles were, they were probably rubbing their hands with glee as the Germans killed Jews. Well not at Wilna they weren't.

"..Poles have organized so called Help to Jews, which states that every Pole is obliged to hide one Jew. Generally, close cooperation between Poles and Jews is evident". (Taetigkeits – und Lagebericht Nr. 5 der Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in der UdSSR (Berichtszeit vom 15.-30.9.1941

So we are still left with the mystery that the only of unambiguously datable account of Ponary that appeared before 1944 dated the events to May 1942. Despite the traffic of underground couriers and the presence of a short-wave radio communication of the resistance in Wilna.


One assumes that somewhere deep within classified files of the UK there exists monitoring reports of what this radio was broadcasting. They will not ever be released because the material won't support the version of history that has been constructed post 1944

 

[Nick Terry]

Well, yes, this exercise and discussion would be interesting. But you are asking this of someone who pulled out of his . . . memory? imagination? chum named LRG? . . . the misinformation that Kruk's diary for September 1941 was buried at Lagedi in Estonia and discovered a couple days later by soldiers of the Red Army. Without so much as either a citation or a moment's reflection. Or consideration of the source. I wouldn't expect much, Nick.

On Vilno, no, I wouldn't. But on Treblinka? Dogzilla supposedly knows about Treblinka. So he should be able to identify which pieces of evidence lead to the formation of the historical consensus that it was an extermination camp. If he cannot, and is content only to blether about just-one-witness or mass graves, then we're in strawman territory. Oh yeah: use of the word 'like' may also result in the erection of more scarecrows.

 

[LemmyCaution]

On Vilno, no, I wouldn't. But on Treblinka? Dogzilla supposedly knows about Treblinka. So he should be able to identify which pieces of evidence lead to the formation of the historical consensus that it was an extermination camp. If he cannot, and is content only to blether about just-one-witness or mass graves, then we're in strawman territory. Oh yeah: use of the word 'like' may also result in the erection of more scarecrows.

And now we have LGR, fresh from lying about Kruk's diary, weighing in on his big Why Not? Why wasn't there coverage of Ponar in the Warsaw underground press immediately and forthwith? He discounts everything in the Oyneg Shabes archive because it was "itself is a motley collection allegedly dug up at various times in post war Warsaw." This enables him to ignore both Henryk Grabowski and Aryeh Wilner, as well as the underground newspaper article cited in Kassow. Underlying all this is the hindsight assumption that in fall 1941 it was apparent that Jews everywhere in the East were in jeopardy - this being at a time of relative calm in Warsaw, before Chelmno had "opened," before the AR camps began operating, before the Lublin action which so upset the Warsaw ghetto, before even Jews in Vilna recognized their true peril and before Abba Kovner had declared "Ponar means death." The fact is, despite all this, that word did reach Warsaw - it was recorded and kept in the OS archive - rendering moot LGR's big Why Not? Even so, he wonders, why the alarm in spring 1942 in Warsaw? Has LGR not read anything of the chronology of events in the east - or does he think others (well, Saggy, Clayton, Dogzilla, of course they haven't) have not?

 

[little grey rabbit]

Perhaps Mr Caution would be interested in what the Israelische Wochenblatt of Switzerland was saying regarding conditions in Wilna at this point?

On the 19th of September some very bad news was received:

Die aelteste und beruehmte Mapu-Bibliothek in Kowno, die groesste in Litauen, wurde offentlich verbrannt, ebenso wurde der groesste Teil der Straschun Bibliotek in Wilna ein Raub der Flammen. Die nicht verbrannten Buecher wurden nach Frankfurt an das dortige Forschungs-Institut geschickt.

Books, Mr Caution, books!

On the 26 September we have the following:

Mit Litauen ist es moeglich, durch das Rote Kreuz zu korrespondieren. In Bialystock, Kowno und Wilna wurden juedische Geiseln als Garantie dafuer verhaftet, dass von juedischer Seite keine Sabotageakte vorkommen.

And yet still no word of Ponary!

30 Jan. 1942. The Swiss Jewish community received more bad news from Wilna, which the Wochenblatt hastened to share with their readers

Litauen und das Wilnagebiet scheinen von der Epidemie am staerksten betroffen zu sein, wobei auch die ueberfuellten und abgesperrten juedischen Quartiere weitere Krankheitszentrum sind.

Typhus, Mr Caution, typhus

In February we have more mentions of Typhus and then reports of around 600 000 Jews have been evacuated behind Soviet lines.

Then 15 May 1942

15 Mai
Im Ostland

naemlcih Litauen, Lettland, Etland und Weissrussland, sind ausser fuer die deutschen Soldaten keine Verbingungen irgendwelcher Art vorhanden, auch nicht mit dem nahen Schweden. In Wilna, Kowno und Riga wurde praktisch die gesamte juedische Bevoelkerung konzentriert. In Kowno wurde ihr der Stadtteil Slobodka, der aermste und elendeste, als Wohnviertel zugewiesen. In Wilna gab es anfangs zwei Gebiete, das beim Dominikaner Quartier und das andere bei der deutschen Gasse, in die den Juden zugeteilt wurden. Nachher mussen alle in den Distrikt von Bakscht umziehen, Wilna hatte frueher 70 000 Juden, jetzt duerften noch etwas 40000 da sein. Von den verschwundenen 30 000 fehlen alle Spuren.

Potentially Ponary compatiable. It is perhaps against this background that our famous first mention of Ponary appeared dating it to May 1942