Seems to me that Saggy presented facts and you ignored them.
No, Saggy paraded his ignorance. He showed he doesn't know what historians or witnesses say.
Saggy quoted this from Strawczynski: “At first they wanted to persuade us with nice words. An important person from Lublin came to the camp, gathered us together and spoke to us. We were told that a 'Jewish city' was being established and that the Jews would be granted full autonomy there, and if we would work with dedication and earn their trust we would receive leadership positions in the Jewish city." He claims that this contradicts what he calls "the holohoax." I will show below that it doesn't.
But first let's observe that Saggy "forgot" the context for this passage. The context isn't arrival in the camp nor is it when camp guards "led them [victims] from the train to the gas chamber," as Saggy claims, distorting the passage. No, what Saggy quoted was about a calming speech given to Jews already working in the camp in support roles. These Jews had been selected for labor on arrival, and Strawczynski was one of them. Strawczynski's text continues -- with a bit Saggy also "forgot" -- "When these kind words failed, the Germans began to threaten." Details of threats, punishments, and abuse follow, including description of a public hanging to intimidate the camp's inmate workers.
Now it is fine for Saggy to lie or make things up if it makes him feel good. But he did not present any facts. The facts are as follows:
Jules Schelvis in his description of Sobibor, another AR camp, provides a good example of what the history books (Saggy's "holohoax") say about camp arrivals and how the Germans handled them. They mixed threats and reassurance, shock and calming, to confuse and make docile the transported Jews. Paraphrasing the "welcome" words of SS Oberschrfuhrer Hermann Michel in his speeches to Sobibor deportee, here is what Schelvis wrote: 'In wartime, we must all work. You will be taken to a place where you will prosper. Children and elderly will not have to work, but will still be well fed. . . . The conditions under which you have traveled, with so many of you in each wagon, make it desirable that hygiene precautions are taken.That is why you will shortly have to undress and shower. Your clothes and luggage will be guarded. . . ." This, not what Saggy wrote, is what historians say about how victims were handle; they say that violence, threats, and deception were all part of the Nazis' repertoire.
In Birkenau things were similar. According to Abraham Dragon, a surviving member of the Sonderkommando there, "As soon as they [the victims] reached the crematorium yard, an SS man climbed on a chair, gave a short speech, and told the people that they were going to the showers and then they would be sent to work. So they had to remember the number of the hook where they'd hang their clothing. The people believed him."
As for Treblinka, much the same, with the Germans using different means to reassure the victims because, as Strawczynski wrote, if the victims had sensed their fate, especially before the Treblinka process was refined, "they might disperse, try to hide, or, even worse, try to organize resistance."
Wiernik was deported to Treblinka from Warsaw, 23 August 1942, and was at first chosen as corpse handler. He also testified to the reassurances given victims: "We were faced with what was termed 'resettlement' . . ."
Abraham Krzepicki was also deported to Treblinka from Warsaw, in his case on 25 August 1942. According to Krzepicki, his arrival went like this: "'Attention, people from Warsaw!' the signs read in huge letters, followed by detailed instructions for people who supposedly had arrived at a regular labor camp. They were to hand in their clothes to be deloused and disinfected. Our money and our other belongings would be returned to us later on. . . . A little later, an SS man came over to us and delivered a speech. He spoke very cold-bloodedly but here and there his oration was interspersed with humor. 'Have no fear!' he repeated every minute, 'Nothing will happen to you. The dead bodies lying here, he told us, arrived in that condition. They died in the train from suffocation. It’s nobody’s fault. Everyone will be treated well here. Everyone will be employed at his own trade or occupation, tailors in the tailor workshops; cabinetmakers in the furniture shop, shoemakers as shoemakers. Everyone will get work and bread.' Some people began to call off their occupations. When they went up to the German, he laughed at them in a friendly way, felt their muscles and patted them on the back. 'Ja, ja, that’s good! You’re strong, that’s what we need.' Some people began to applaud the German. Most of the Jews who heard this sweet talk did indeed feel better and started to believe that they really were in a labor camp. 'Sit quietly, in order'--the German gently urged them and people sat up straight in their places, like children in a classroom."
Another Jew transported to Treblinka, Richard Glazar, later recalled in his book Trap with a Green Fence, "'To another ghetto in the east' is what was written on the transport documents." Glazar described how the women were separated from the men ostensbily for disinfection, and wrote of "An SS man telling arriving Jews that '. . . you'll work over there, and if you do a good job you can get to be a foreman or a Kapo. Come on, over to your workplace, now!'"
Of course, these witnesses arrived in the camp a few months before Strawczynski, who was transported to Treblinka from Czestochowa in October 1942.
Since what Saggy calls the "holohoax" was constructed in part using the above testimonies, the history of the death camps maintains what is described in these testimonies, not the ignorant and silly claim of Saggy, who is aware of neither the testimonies nor the historical analysis. Once again it is apparent that our intrepid Revs haven't read what they would revise and feel free to make up whatever they feel helps their case. Clayton calls this foolish make-believe the facts; it should be clear that Saggy and Clayton don't know what they're talking about. The fact is that Holocaust historians explain that the Nazis used persuasion to calm and reassure the Jews when they arrived at the death camps, before killing them in the gas chambers, and at various times to help maintain deception and thus order. Strawczynski directly supports what historians explain.
