No, I read Neander's summary of Neander's analysis of Irene Zisblatt's story. He says she is an authentic survivor of Auschwitz and the holocaust.
That is his conclusion. He also says, and you are leaving this out, that she fictionalized about her story. So he does not defend Zisblatt.
She has an interesting and instructive story to tell--a story of endless humiliations, extreme suffering, and survival against all odds. It's a story that hundreds of survivors could tell. It's a story that should be told. But it's a story that should be told without exaggerations and implausibilities so it is in accordance with historically established facts. It would be then be a really true story. Not just a true story. But a really true story.
He criticized her for telling a false story, instead of her real story. So he does not defend Zisblatt.
You say he's taking her to task...ripping her a new one...putting her through the meat grinder by calling her exaggerations and untruths not worth telling.
That is not what I said. I said that Neander did not defend Zisblatt and that he was very effective in showing why her story is not to be believed. Please show me where I said what you claim I did. I also informed you that Neander's style is judicious - and that goes for Holocaust atrocities as well as people who tell atrocious lies.
What do you mean by saying that lies aren't worth telling? Are lies sometimes worth telling?
I said that Neander concluded that Zisblatt's story was not worth telling because it was filled with lies. You have matters backwards, as you usually manage to get them.
The problem that you and Neander have with her story is that it's fine except she tells some stories that are so implausible that they might not be believed even in a cultural milieu conditioned to genuflect in front of all survivors and believe any nonsense that comes out of their mouths. You believe that if she would just stick to the "established facts" there wouldn't be any problems.
No, the problem with Zisblatt's story is that it is not true. Therefore, it is not fine, on any level. Someone's else story, a reliable witness, would be fine - not Zisblatt's. Zisblatt is not to be trusted, and her lying helps no one - it does not help anyone understand the history, it harms her as an individual, it harms people who do tell the truth.
Have you read anything else by Neander, by the way?
Is your brain so lacking in critical thinking skills that you can't see that when you have a person who has already gone on record with as many impossible fantasies as Zisblatt has, she simply cannot be trusted?
Since I think, from reading Neander's critique, that Zisblatt cannot be trusted, I am not sure what your point is. You seem all worked up - so worked up that you cannot think properly.
If she dropped the story about how she saved her diamonds while in Auschwitz, dropped the story about being pushed out of the gas chamber and hiding under the eves, dropped the story about being thrown over the fence into the open boxcar, dropped the story about almost being skinned by Ilse Koch, dropped the story about Mengele tattoo removal experiments (which worked so well she doesn't have any evidence of ever having a tattoo), and dropped the story about the eye color injections, would you believe she saw a women beaten to death at roll call because other survivors have said they saw women beaten to death at roll call? Just because something happened to other prisoners doesn't mean it happened to Irene.
Your hypothetical makes no sense. Zisblatt is clearly a dissembler - so, no, I would not trust anything she says. Even if it matched other testimony, without a great deal of other proof. I would assume that Zisblatt is simply echoing things she has gotten in ways other than through her own direct experience. Because of her record as being unreliable. If Zisblatt dropped all the points you say, she wouldn't be Zisblatt.
I realize that Team holocaust doesn't concern itself with accuracy about the holocaust as long as it sounds bad.
This is demonstrably false - and is really slanderous. Neander is perhaps best known, in fact, for debunking something that sounds really bad about the Nazis - the soap myth - and he debunked it precisely because it isn't true. Neander is scrupulous and very careful in his work and in his judgments.
You are making, by the way, absolutely, stunningly appalling comments based on your irritation and frustration about your epic failures, I assume. You show no signs of familiarity with Neader's work - yet you don't hesitate to vilify him as someone who doesn't care about accuracy.
What Neander did and what you are doing is called giving her a pass. An appropriate response to Irene Zisblatt would be greeting her public appearances with the same enthusiasm that David Irving receives.
If you think calling someone's supposedly true life's story fiction, and then proving it false, is giving that person a pass, then go with that explanation. I don't think any rational human being would agree with you.