Merged General Holocaust denial discussion thread

[Wroclaw]

Of course quite possibly Kruk denounced her to the Gestapo to curry favour and preserve his plum job working for Alfred Rosenberg.

Only a disgusting Nazi pig would write such a thing and not mention that Kruk took that position to be able to preserve much of the library in Vilna.

 

[LemmyCaution]

I am most disappointed as little grey rabbit's link appears defective.

Typing in Herman Kruk, I do not find a match, only a Hersch Kruk but Hersch’s address does not match Herman’s. No one by the name Herman Kruk living in Vilna in May 1942, it would seem? The same for Shmerke Kaczerginski (Katscherginsk/Kacerginski), the well-known writer from the Young Vilna movement – no match. Ditto Avrom Sutzkever, the famous Yiddish poet who lived in Vilna throughout this period. No Salek Dessler, assistant chief of police to Jakub Gens. Whatever is wrong with little grey rabbit's link? Or am I not using it correctly? I typed the name in question into the field for names and then pressed the search bar. Is that how it works? Does anyone know? Curiously, the link seemed to work for Anatol Fried and Jakub Gens . . .

A few questions about the databases which little grey rabbit tells us he's consulted:
- Does the May ‘42 census include the names of those Jews who were alive in Vilna in September ’41 but had died since then, as half the Septermber ’41 Jewish population of Vilna did?
- Are the searchable names at the link kindly provided by the little grey rabbit a complete and faithful listing of all names from the '42 census, without omissions?
- Does this database include the names of Vilna Jews sent outside the ghetto to labor camps?
- Do the Vilna birth records cited contain the lists of refugees, like Kruk, who came to Vilna early in the war from another place?
- Are these databases comprehensive and complete, with all names accounted for and accuracy attested to?

 

[LemmyCaution]

Only a disgusting Nazi pig would write such a thing and not mention that Kruk took that position to be able to preserve much of the library in Vilna.

One of a number of such odious slurs and callously flippant remarks offered by the little grey rabbit in this discussion. Kruk, of course, used the job at the Rosenberg Task Force to salvage historical documents of great value to eastern European Jews and people who care about culture; he used his contacts in the ghetto to assist the Jewish community in many ways, often in opposition to the ghetto leadership, which in his view allowed itself to be used by the Gestapo. Little grey rabbit uses same to make dismissive comments designed to ridicule victims of the Nazis. The rabbit's vilification of Kruk - simply because his journal is so uncomfortable for denial - that he was or would have been in collaboration with the Gestapo would be laughable, were it so malicious.

 

[Wroclaw]

One wonders whether he's ever had a gun to put his head.

 

[tsig]

Just a quick note on this comment. There are a multitude of ways of determining the reliability of an eyewitness statement. But let's say you don't have any preconceived notions about a certain incident. You're an investigator just trying to determine what happened.

In scenario one, you have an eyewitness named Pesye Schloss. Pesye Schloss is standing in front of you and tells you exactly what she saw.

In scenario two, you have an eyewitness named Pesye Schloss. She's dead. Seventeen years ago a diary written by a guy name Kruk was dug up at a former Nazi labor camp. Kruk is also dead but he buried the diary just before he was killed in the hope that one day somebody would find it and read about the horrors inflicted upon the Jewish population by the Germans and Poles and Lithuanians. In this diary, Kruk wrote down a lot of different things that a lot of different people told him about what was happening to the Jews. One of the people Kruk talked to was Pesye Schloss. He wrote down in his own words what Pesye told him and a sentence or two of direct quotes.

You're saying you could be equally confident of the information learned in either of these scenarios?

Once a person is dead we can just discard anything they've written or said?

 

[Dogzilla]

Since Pesye Schloss was never nominated as a gold standard witness, but because of the convergence of evidence surrounding Ponary, this is a spectacularly dishonest strawman. Could you possibly stop being dishonest, or is it too late to expect that from you?

"nominated as a gold standard witness" is a figure of speech. Like, "was named 'Best In Show' at the 2011 Show Me A Credible Holocaust Witness Competition" would be. Saggy asked for one credible eyewitness to the holocaust. Pesye Schloss was named. If she was named because of the convergence of evidence surrounding Ponary, then that is the reason she was named. What is dishonest is saying she wasn't nominated because you had a reason to nominate her.

You're going to need to consider? Why? Have you yet marshalled a single argument against the Jaeger report, Sakowicz's diary, or the other evidence regarding Ponary? No, you have not. Instead, you are utterly fixated on the supposed status of Pesye Schloss's testimony written up in a contemporary diary. Are you seriously that incapable of weighing up several pieces of evidence together?

Reconsider. I'm going to need to reconsider by going back and rereading the Jaeger report and reading these other sources. Did you miss the part about how this isn't my thing? I know about as much about Ponary as most of your team knows about the holocaust in general. I need to get the facts first.

Where do you think they are? At Ponary, outside Vilnius. Marked with a memorial. Excavated in 1944-45 by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission, who discovered ash, bones, human remains, as befits a site that had been worked over by Sonderkommando 1005. The commission found seven empty and three full graves as well as 10 places where open air cremations had taken place. (GARF 7021-94-1, pp.1-8).

You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it, won't you? Marked with a memorial and excavated by the Soviets are pretty standard around here. Are you sure it wasn't Polish peasants looking for gold who worked over the site?

In case you're having difficulty believing that such an operation took place, In November 1943, the KdS Litauen reported that members of the Kaunas criminal police (Lithuanian collaborators) knew about the similar exhumations and cremations at Fort IX, the counterpart site to Ponary: "worum es sich bei den naechtlichen Feuern am Fort 9". They knew that "oben 'Judenknochen' verbrannt... In der Stadt Kauen ist z. Zt das Geruecht verbreitet, dass Litauen an Russland abgegeben werden soll, zu diesem Zwecek wuerden jetzt die Judenreste verbrannt werden". (KdS Litauen, Vermerk, 7.11.1943, LCVA R1399-1-64, pp.49-R).

in December 1943, the KdS Litauen reported that "in den Abendstunden des 25.12.43 brachen 64 im Fort IX eingesetzte Arbeitskraefte des Unternehmens 1005 B aus, ohne dass die Flucht zunaechst bemerkt wurde. Im Zuge der sofort eingeleiteten Fahndungen gelang es bisher, insgesamt 37 der Fluechtlinge wieder zu erfassen, wovon 5 auf der Flucht erschossen wurden" (KdS Litauen, Lagebericht Dezember 1943, LCVA R1399-1-61, p.359)

14 of the escapees managed to reach the Kaunas ghetto, by this time formally a 'Konzentrationslager', and write down an account of 1005. As did Avraham Tory, the major diarist of the Kaunas ghetto, on January 9, 1944 (Tory, Surviving the Holocaust, pp.508-519)

All citations from Christoph Dieckmann, Deutsche Besatzungspolitik in Litauen 1941-1944. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2011, pp.1322-3. All the documents mentioned can be read at USHMM in Washington, DC on microfilm.

I'm looking forward to the metaphysical gyrations that all this evidence will undoubtedly prompt in you.

That will make for some interesting reading about Ponary. But for the moment, how will this reinforce the credibility of Pesye Schloss?

 

[Dogzilla]

What I struggle with is why anyone would think that Schloss's name, however it is spelled, not being in a census carried out 5-6 months after the extermination actions of fall 1941 would prove anything about her existence. Nor have I ever claimed Schloss to be a "great eye-witness" - I have been almost emphatic that Schloss was simply one eyewitness along with other sources for the executions at Ponar. Still, it is nice to see you're reduced to the level of the strawmanning and know-nothingism in which "One Witness" Saggy and Dogzilla specialize. How cheery.

You never claimed Schloss was a great eyewitness? If you are asked to name one credible eyewitness to the holocaust, you're going to name one of the best. Your best eyewitness isn't a great eyewitness?

Pesye Schloss never claimed to be the first person to have survived a mass killing at Ponar; all that we know she related was her observations and experiences at the Ponar killing site. Please try following along and refrain from making things up (as you made up the provenance of Kruk's ghetto diaries, a small sin for which you have yet to fess up). At any rate, your source has some problems - some sources do, of course - unless you know of something on a killing action claiming 4000 lives at Ponar in early April 1942 - I sure don't. In July 1942 there was an action against the elderly, in which IIRC fewer than 100 were killed. In April 1943 the "Kovno action," which your source (the Black Book?) seems to have misdated, was carried out. Since that is more likely than your gloss, Garbel was thus one of the Jews from Vilna taken to the site of the execution of Jews from small communities in the region (I believe that the transports came from Swieciany and Oszmiana) to deal with bodies left as disembarking Jews attempting to flee were shot dead. This would not make Garbel a survivor of Ponar at all but a member of the cleanup detail. The "Kovno action" was treated at length, including the recruitment and work of the 30-member cleanup detail and its command by Martin Weiss, by Kruk, as well as described by Sakowicz; the extermination action is also summarized in Arad. I know you are trying to be flippant about this, but you need to get the facts and main contours of the events right: Garbel was chosen to clean the killing site, he was not a survivor of it. The "Kovno action" was unusual and memorable because of the very successful deception involved, the resistance offered by many of the victims, the fact that its victims were brought to the site by train from outlying communities, and the use of members of Gens's police force to deal with the corpses left behind.

I hate ruining a good laugh at the expense of murdered Jews but it was not the SS who carried out the shootings - and I am not familiar with any reports of the SS men at Ponar that week drinking. According to Sakowicz, the Lithuanian riflemen "shot while they were drunk." Sakowicz's observation meshes with reports from other extermination sites in the east about alcohol consumption during killing actions.

My recollection is that Kruk's wife never reached Vilna after leaving Warsaw in September 1939 and was taken by the Soviets to a labor camp that fall. Another manufactured mystery spoiled by the mundane . . .

What happened to her after she was taken to a labor camp by the Soviets?

 

[Dogzilla]

True or False

Is there any reference to Pesye Schloss outside of this diary? Any evidence that she ever existed?

 

[Border Reiver]

You still haven't indicated why we should disbelieve Ms. Scholss' testimony, given the corroborating evidence.

 

[Dogzilla]

You still haven't indicated why we should disbelieve Ms. Scholss' testimony, given the corroborating evidence.

I never said I didn't believe Ms Schloss' testimony. The corroborating evidence is for the events she described. Not that she existed. That's why I'm asking if there's any evidence that Ms Schloss existed. If there isn't, there isn't much reason to speculate on the credibility of her testimony.

 

[Nick Terry]

I never said I didn't believe Ms Schloss' testimony. The corroborating evidence is for the events she described. Not that she existed. That's why I'm asking if there's any evidence that Ms Schloss existed. If there isn't, there isn't much reason to speculate on the credibility of her testimony.

So let me get this straight; if someone erased your life and all that was left was a diary entry, you'd be happy if some a-hole came along 70 years later and doubted you ever existed?

 

[Wroclaw]

So let me get this straight; if someone erased your life and all that was left was a diary entry, you'd be happy if some a-hole came along 70 years later and doubted you ever existed?

Well, it's comforting to know the Nazis were successful at something besides handing over half of Europe to communists...

 

[Nick Terry]

"nominated as a gold standard witness" is a figure of speech. Like, "was named 'Best In Show' at the 2011 Show Me A Credible Holocaust Witness Competition" would be. Saggy asked for one credible eyewitness to the holocaust. Pesye Schloss was named. If she was named because of the convergence of evidence surrounding Ponary, then that is the reason she was named. What is dishonest is saying she wasn't nominated because you had a reason to nominate her.

Oh yeah: the 'best witness' nonsense is your interpolation. Not even Saggy sank that low. So kindly go stick your trolling where it belongs.

Reconsider. I'm going to need to reconsider by going back and rereading the Jaeger report and reading these other sources. Did you miss the part about how this isn't my thing? I know about as much about Ponary as most of your team knows about the holocaust in general. I need to get the facts first.

For someone who brays so loudly that the Holocaust never happened, you know remarkably little about it. Tell me, other than Arad, do you even actually own a book on the subject? Or did you look up Arad in Google Books too?

You'll forgive me if I don't take your word for it, won't you? Marked with a memorial and excavated by the Soviets are pretty standard around here. Are you sure it wasn't Polish peasants looking for gold who worked over the site?

You don't have to "take my word for it" because I gave you a *********** archival reference. Are you saying that there isn't a report from the Soviet Extraordinary Commission on Ponary, is that it? Or that Dieckmann cited it wrongly? Or that I am citing Dieckmann wrongly?

If not, then I guess we're just back at the pointless goalpost moving stage whereby nothing whatsoever will ever convince you, therefore there is no *********** point continuing this discussion, because your arguments are entirely imbecilic.

I probably have a copy of that report somewhere on my hard drive, in Russian, in a documentary collection. My interest in spoon-feeding you details for you to disbelieve has just sunk to below zero.

That will make for some interesting reading about Ponary. But for the moment, how will this reinforce the credibility of Pesye Schloss?

Since you were the one who brought up mass graves as the 'first' type of evidence you're looking for, once again, kindly shove your trolling where it belongs.

If you cannot work out the stages by which Kaunas is connected to Ponary and thence to Schloss, and if you cannot work out what your own *********** hierarchy of evidence has to say about the relative status of physical evidence, Nazi documents, other documents and eyewitnesses, then God help you.

 

[Nick Terry]

You never claimed Schloss was a great eyewitness? If you are asked to name one credible eyewitness to the holocaust, you're going to name one of the best. Your best eyewitness isn't a great eyewitness?

Instead of asking inane questions, how about using the search function and showing where anyone was speaking about 'great eyewitness' other than you. Or stop misrepresenting the discussion. It's an especially obnoxious habit of yours.

 

[tsig]

I never said I didn't believe Ms Schloss' testimony. The corroborating evidence is for the events she described. Not that she existed. That's why I'm asking if there's any evidence that Ms Schloss existed. If there isn't, there isn't much reason to speculate on the credibility of her testimony.

Contradicted yourself in two sentences.

 

[Dogzilla]

So let me get this straight; if someone erased your life and all that was left was a diary entry, you'd be happy if some a-hole came along 70 years later and doubted you ever existed?

Happy? If I were dead I don't think I'd care much. But if someone really did destroy all the evidence I existed except for a diary entry I would not expect people in the future to assume I existed just because somebody wrote in a diary that they talked to me.

Are you telling me that Pesye Schloss' life was completely erased except for this diary entry? There's no other mention anywhere of her?

 

[Dogzilla]

Contradicted yourself in two sentences.

How is that a contradiction? Hint for carbon-based life forms: Read all the sentences from beginning to end, not just the part you highlighted.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

No, we have an eyewitness....

Thank you Lemmy. You offer a historical scenario, you then state your authorities and this helps those of us simply reading this thread understand what is going on. You are not wasting your time.

 

[LemmyCaution]

You never claimed Schloss was a great eyewitness? If you are asked to name one credible eyewitness to the holocaust, you're going to name one of the best. Your best eyewitness isn't a great eyewitness?

You really don't get it, do you? She was a credible eyewitness. She was not a degenerate liar. Saggy started playing his mindless "name one witness" game, so I named Strawczynski a couple of times, thinking that Treblinka would be a good topic. Not thinking that Strawczynski was a "great eye-witness" but that his testimony would lead to a useful discussion, because of its credibility, and that in the discussion of various sources it would become clear, as it has with Pesye Schloss, that 1) there is no such thing as a single, perfect data point by which to judge all other data points, 2) it would be shown that Schloss and other Ponar witnesses were not liars, degenerate or otherwise, and 3) one reliable, non-degenerately lying witnesses would lead the discussion to other witnesses who also were credible.

So, no, for the umpteenth time, Pesye Schloss was not my "best witness." I don't have a "best witness." I've read a bit about Vilna, so Schloss came to mind. I could have named Sakowicz (except he was Polish), or I could have named a number of people from Nick's list of 200, who are equally as "best" as Schloss. I just happened to name Schloss. I'm glad I did.

What happened to her after she was taken to a labor camp by the Soviets?

Barbara Harshav explains that Kruk tried bringing her to Vilna but she was arrested by the Soviets and taken to a camp; Kruk's brother speculated that Kruk didn't take advantage of chances to leave for the US, even while helping others get out, in hopes of being reunited with his wife. I don't know what course Paula's life took after her removal to Soviet labor camps.

 

[Robrob]

Not that she existed.