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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
I'm not ready to deny it quite yet, but I do doubt a lot of it.
My number one reason for doubting it is that it's a story that doesn't make sense.
Most if not all the official eyewitnesses (there might be others, feel free to correct me) were those heard at the Nuremberg trails, and many of them were either second hand witnesses or they gave statements that have for the most part been proven, at least partially, wrong in later years.
Method. Why go to the trouble of transporting millions of people thousands of miles, then stuff them in gas chambers before you kill them, then spend a lot of energy dragging dead bodies out again before burning them. Why not just shoot them on the spot?
Documentation. I've seen a lot of documents from WW2 but never one ordering or depicting this grand final solution. Supposedly the nazis destroyed every last bit of evidence at the end of the war, or in the cases where they didn't it all went by some sort of implied code or unofficial orders. Really? The germans with their order muss sein mentality left such a massive military and logistical operation in the realms of the unofficial and improvised?
Logistics. Not only is gas chambers a highly expensive and inefficient way to kill people, but the capacity of the camps simply couldn't handle the suggested tens of thousands of victims a day. Not only do you need to force a large group of people inside a gas chamber, people who I suspect quickly would catch on to what was going on in those "showers" and put up massive resistance, you also need to wait until all the gas has cleared then remove heavy, stiff and toxic bodies from the chambers, supposedly clammed 4 or 5 each on a square meter. Again, why not just dig a shallow grave, line the people up, shoot them on the spot then set fire to it?
The number of victims. The amount of victims have been revised numerous times, both officially and unofficially, but the total always stays at 6 million? Could it have something to do with the Jewish religious texts saying that 6 million has to be sacrificed before they can return to the promised land? And how does the strange choice of word Holocaust, meaning "burn sacrifice", fit into all of this?
Irregularities. Why does most of the Jews die on the eastern front? Shouldn't it be easier to track down people in the more modernized and pacified western territories? Yet we see that more than 50% of the Jews in France survive the war. Why do the soldiers discovering the camps find so many people alive? What's the reasoning for keeping anything alive in a death camp? Why do so many prisoners survive years and years in these supposed death camps? Why did the soviets supposedly destroy all of these gas chambers when they occupied the territories, leaving us today with mere reconstructions? What went on in the heads of the crazy commanders who decided to dig up thousands upon thousands of bodies that they had previously buried on the eastern front, so that they could burn them and hide the evidence? All the while the soviets are making constant advances and military resources are obviously needed elsewhere. Why are the locks on the doors of the chambers placed on the inside?
If you ask me there are way too many odd happenings for me to take this story at face value. I'm not going to propose to know what actually happened, but here is a story that to me makes a lot more sense:
Hitler serves in WW1. Distinguishes himself in combat and is later recruited by German intelligence to infiltrate political parties. Ends up joining and leading the party instead. Tries to stage a coup, fails and is imprisoned for a whole year for this treasonous act. Somebody high up was obviously looking out for him. Supposedly dictates Mein Kampf while in prison to a fellow inmate who happens to be a Jesuit priest. Here his plans and hatred for the jews are laid out in full. Gets out and soon acquires enough funding from various business interests to employ an entire army of subjects ready to intimidate and propagandize in the name of national socialism. After cracking a lot of heads and removing a lot of problems he and his comrades rise to power with a minority vote in the Reichstag.
Communism and Jews are laid out as the main appeal to the population. The Jews for both personal and practical reasons. They are an easy target, and with their relative wealth a profitable target. A lot of bolsheviks are also jews so it fits nicely in with their plans for expansion in the east. As the years goes by the Jews are being more and more discriminated against, until finally around 1943 they are transported from the ghettos to various slave camps in the east. As a result of the indoctrination of the german people Jews are treated like animals and a great many die as the result of haphazard actions by bored and traumatized soldiers. On top of that you have all the deaths due to starvation, disease and exhaustion. It is war, after all.
The war ends and the allies puts a handful suspects on a sham trial in Nuremberg while they secretly smuggle up to a 100.000 nazis with help from the Vatican (home of the Jesuits, interestingly enough) back to America so they can aid in military, technological, social and political matters. The most famous probably being Werner von Braun who before he designed the rocket that brought Armstrong and Apollo to the moon constructed V2 rockets in Germany using slave labor.
The Jews, now awarded their own sovereign nation by the Allies, enjoys the benefits of billions upon billions in yearly reparations (how much does the gypsies receive? and why does America feel the need to keep donating all those billions?) and access to cutting edge technology. And if anyone should feel the need to criticize them, say in their discrimination and segregation of the Palestinians, the Holocaust card is promptly brought up and we all retire our opinions in shame. In a way the Holocaust was the best thing that ever happened for them, at least the idea that it happened.
That's it for now I guess. Flame away.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
You're assuming they gassed them all. Most jews were simply put in a concentration camp and made to work. Most starved or collapsed.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
A Very Super Market
You're assuming they gassed them all. Most jews were simply put in a concentration camp and made to work. Most starved or collapsed.
I'm not assuming that, but most of the world certainly seems to do so.
I have no problem with the starvation and collapse explanation, but that hardly constitutes a genocide.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
I have no problem with with the starvation and collapse explanation, but that hardly constitutes a genocide.
Yes, it does. The aim of the Nazis was to work them to death, if they could not murder them outright. Holocaust denial is patently ridiculous. People took part in that, one of the worst crimes against humanity perpetrated in the whole of history, and admitted it. The sheer weight of evidence is irrefutable. How people can find any way to deny the Holocaust is beyond me, as the amount of evidence that it happened and that it was one of the most evil examples of industrial murder the world has ever seen is massive.
Most of your claims could easily be refuted by reading any mainstream history of the Holocaust by a professor of history or by someone who was a victim of the evil that was the Holocaust.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
There's a ton wrong with this and it deserves a fully-sourced rebuttal but I'm going to bed soon so I'll pick out parts I can hit quickly, which are mostly the speculation and conspiracy theory parts. Furthermore, you didn't actually cite anything backing up your assertions, most of which is flat-out wrong. But anyway, flame on.
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Most if not all the official eyewitnesses (there might be others, feel free to correct me) were those heard at the Nuremberg trails, and many of them were either second hand witnesses or they gave statements that have for the most part been proven, at least partially, wrong in later years.
I don't really know where the idea that there are "official" eyewitnesses - there were plenty of surviving eyewitnesses and I believe only a fraction actually testified at the Nuremberg trials.
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Method. Why go to the trouble of transporting millions of people thousands of miles, then stuff them in gas chambers before you kill them, then spend a lot of energy dragging dead bodies out again before burning them. Why not just shoot them on the spot?
Bullets cost money and executioner psychological damage. The Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front tried that approach (and racked up impressive numbers) but was still inefficient and caused the shooters to off themselves (or drink themselves into a stupor). Furthermore, many were not transported thousands of miles - the majority of the Jews (and non-Jewish victims) were in Poland and Russia, and the death camps were all in Russia. This was also convenient because it helped hide the camps from the German people, or at least provide more deniability.
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The number of victims. The amount of victims have been revised numerous times, both officially and unofficially, but the total always stays at 6 million? Could it have something to do with the Jewish religious texts saying that 6 million has to be sacrificed before they can return to the promised land? And how does the strange choice of word Holocaust, meaning "burn sacrifice", fit into all of this?
The total doesn't stay at 6 million. There were (roughly) 6 million Jews killed and (roughly) 6 million non-Jews killed. No one actually believes there was exactly 6,000,000 Jews killed to fulfill some magic quota - and it furthermore ignores the rest of the deaths in the German extermination campaigns. You're essentially creating a strawman, because no one has said what you are saying people said.
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Irregularities. Why does most of the Jews die on the eastern front? Shouldn't it be easier to track down people in the more modernized and pacified western territories? Yet we see that more than 50% of the Jews in France survive the war. Why do the soldiers discovering the camps find so many people alive? What's the reasoning for keeping anything alive in a death camp? Why do so many prisoners survive years and years in these supposed death camps? Why did the soviets supposedly destroy all of these gas chambers when they occupied the territories, leaving us today with mere reconstructions? What went on in the heads of the crazy commanders who decided to dig up thousands upon thousands of bodies that they had previously buried on the eastern front, so that they could burn them and hide the evidence? All the while the soviets are making constant advances and military resources are obviously needed elsewhere. Why are the locks on the doors of the chambers placed on the inside?
This has a lot of stuff in it, not all of which I'll get to right now.
1. Most of the Jews died on the Eastern Front because that's where the majority of them were, in a nutshell. The Germans were also simply more brutal on that front, and the locals somewhat more willing to assist the Germans in their efforts.
2. People found alive may have a) not been at an actual death camp, and only have been at a concentration camp, or b) had simply not been killed yet. You don't kill people instantly.
3. Again, there were lots of different camps, but not all of them were death camps. Some were work camps, and some were concentration camps.
4. Skipping the Soviet bit, why would the Germans want their crimes to be discovered?
5. The Nazis placed a very high value on their "purification" operations. That's part of how they were defeated, even if it was only a small part.
6. Let's see your source on the locks bit.
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they secretly smuggle up to a 100.000 nazis
Source?
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The Jews, now awarded their own sovereign nation by the Allies, enjoys the benefits of billions upon billions in yearly reparations (how much does the gypsies receive? and why does America feel the need to keep donating all those billions?)
The United States is not paying reparations for anything because we did not take part in the Holocaust. The aid the United States may have some roots in sympathy for the plight of the Jews in WW2 but is now primarily political as they are seen as a key ally and have a healthy lobby in Congress.
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and access to cutting edge technology.
Which is a more recent development, and also in return for the advanced technology they develop and build. When the state of Israel was founded, it wasn't the Israelis with the cutting edge technology, and they truly were the underdogs.
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And if anyone should feel the need to criticize them, say in their discrimination and segregation of the Palestinians, the Holocaust card is promptly brought up and we all retire our opinions in shame. In a way the Holocaust was the best thing that ever happened for them, at least the idea that it happened.
And this is just whining. Now maybe someone was foolish enough to say "the Holocaust means Israel can't be criticized" but I'd wager someone disagreed with you and your feelings were hurt. Man up, and come up with better arguments that don't conflate Jews with the state of Israel.
Also, epic gravedig batman.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
Evil_Maniac From Mars
Yes, it does. The aim of the Nazis was to work them to death, if they could not murder them outright. Holocaust denial is patently ridiculous. People took part in that, one of the worst crimes against humanity perpetrated in the whole of history, and admitted it. The sheer weight of evidence is irrefutable. How people can find any way to deny the Holocaust is beyond me, as the amount of evidence that it happened and that it was one of the most evil examples of industrial murder the world has ever seen is massive.
Most of your claims could easily be refuted by reading any mainstream history of the Holocaust by a professor of history or by someone who was a victim of the evil that was the Holocaust.
My claims are those of mainstream history, and from what I've gathered there doesn't seem to be much consensus on what and how it went down, apart from that "it happened". I've simply pointed out the parts that doesn't make any sense to me. Something obviously went down, but everywhere I go I've yet to see any hard evidence that the nazis planned to exterminate the Jewish race as a whole. Every book or discussion usually boils down to "the nazis didn't like Jews, a lot of them died, so that must be what they had in mind".
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
My claims are those of mainstream history
They most certainly are not, and the rest of your post is wrong as well. There is a consensus on what the Nazis meant to do and how they wanted to go about it. Have you heard of something called the Wansee Conference? Your questions are either factually incorrect or have been addressed elsewhere, in real history.
The truth is that the Holocaust happened, six million or so Jews died as well as other groups the Nazis targeted, it was a terrible crime, and it was part of the Nazi desire to wipe out the Jewish race. A crime so horrendous it is difficult for us to conceive of it here, today, in the west.
The conspiracy theories surrounding it, like the ones you are making use of, are absolute rubbish.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
Alexander the Pretty Good
I don't really know where the idea that there are "official" eyewitnesses - there were plenty of surviving eyewitnesses and I believe only a fraction actually testified at the Nuremberg trials.
As in official and legal testimony, and I only mention it because a lot of it, both from victims and nazis, has later been proven to be false. From the top of my head I can think of the 4 million or so people claimed to have been killed in Auschwitz, and assembly lines electrocuting people to death.
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Bullets cost money and executioner psychological damage. The Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front tried that approach (and racked up impressive numbers) but was still inefficient and caused the shooters to off themselves (or drink themselves into a stupor). Furthermore, many were not transported thousands of miles - the majority of the Jews (and non-Jewish victims) were in Poland and Russia, and the death camps were all in Russia. This was also convenient because it helped hide the camps from the German people, or at least provide more deniability.
Gas doesn't cost money? Gassing people and the handling of it all doesn't cause psychological damage? It's also convenient in that western historians didn't receive access to it for 50 years.
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The total doesn't stay at 6 million. There were (roughly) 6 million Jews killed and (roughly) 6 million non-Jews killed. No one actually believes there was exactly 6,000,000 Jews killed to fulfill some magic quota - and it furthermore ignores the rest of the deaths in the German extermination campaigns. You're essentially creating a strawman, because no one has said what you are saying people said.
I'm fully aware that historians operate with an array of different numbers, yet 6 million is considered the "official" number for some reason. I'm simply curios to why this number is chosen when historians present so many different numbers depending on what sources they go by. To me the immediate explanation seem to be that there is in fact a magic quota that needs to be filled.
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This has a lot of stuff in it, not all of which I'll get to right now.
1. Most of the Jews died on the Eastern Front because that's where the majority of them were, in a nutshell. The Germans were also simply more brutal on that front, and the locals somewhat more willing to assist the Germans in their efforts.
I'm sorry, I forgot to clarify. I meant numbers as in percentages of the population.
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2. People found alive may have a) not been at an actual death camp, and only have been at a concentration camp, or b) had simply not been killed yet. You don't kill people instantly.
3. Again, there were lots of different camps, but not all of them were death camps. Some were work camps, and some were concentration camps.
Again I am confused. What are the criteria for who and when gets killed? Where is the distinction made between a concentration camp and a death camp? What is the reasoning behind it all?
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4. Skipping the Soviet bit, why would the Germans want their crimes to be discovered?
Why would they spend so many resources on something obviously too massive to be hidden?
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5. The Nazis placed a very high value on their "purification" operations. That's part of how they were defeated, even if it was only a small part.
Maybe, but to me it sounds more like the wishful thinking of somebody looking for something they can't find.
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6. Let's see your source on the locks bit.
I heard it from somebody who had visited the camps. Of course, that person may have been a neo-nazi with an agenda, so if you got evidence to the contrary I'll be more than happy to see it.
Operation Paperclip, The Rat Line and Licio Gelli are keywords. The number may be exaggerated, I'm not an expert.
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The United States is not paying reparations for anything because we did not take part in the Holocaust. The aid the United States may have some roots in sympathy for the plight of the Jews in WW2 but is now primarily political as they are seen as a key ally and have a healthy lobby in Congress.
An arrangement made possible and justified only by the Holocaust.
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Which is a more recent development, and also in return for the advanced technology they develop and build. When the state of Israel was founded, it wasn't the Israelis with the cutting edge technology, and they truly were the underdogs.
Define recent. Far as I know they've possessed nuclear weapons for quite some time. Either way I think we can agree that they have gained benefits many other allies have not, especially considering the age, size and nature of the nation.
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And this is just whining. Now maybe someone was foolish enough to say "the Holocaust means Israel can't be criticized" but I'd wager someone disagreed with you and your feelings were hurt. Man up, and come up with better arguments that don't conflate Jews with the state of Israel.
Are you really going to deny that there is a certain paradigm when it comes to criticizing Jews and the state of Israel? Especially considering their former status in the world? It may not mean a whole lot in the grand context of things, but it's certainly a profitable situation for the state of Israel, both economically and politically. There is definitely motive for a lot of things.
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Also, epic gravedig batman.
:laugh4: Don't I know. Even the alternative history communities ostracized me for it.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
Evil_Maniac From Mars
They most certainly are not, and the rest of your post is wrong as well. There is a consensus on what the Nazis meant to do and how they wanted to go about it. Have you heard of something called the Wansee Conference? Your questions are either factually incorrect or have been addressed elsewhere, in real history.
I have heard of the Wansee Conference, yes. The only evidence I see of an extermination plan there is certain phrases that have been interpreted to mean mass murder and extermination, but I certainly haven't seen any direct evidence or specific statements about it.
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The truth is that the Holocaust happened, six million or so Jews died as well as other groups the Nazis targeted, it was a terrible crime, and it was part of the Nazi desire to wipe out the Jewish race. A crime so horrendous it is difficult for us to conceive of it here, today, in the west.
I don't intend to appear disrespectful, but repeating empty phrases is more nazi like than anything.
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Most of the conspiracy theories surrounding it, like the ones you are making use of, are absolute rubbish.
Just most? :laugh4:
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
I have heard of the Wansee Conference, yes. The only evidence I see of an extermination plan there is certain phrases that have been interpreted to mean mass murder and extermination, but I certainly haven't seen any direct evidence or specific statements about it.
Then you obviously haven't looked.
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I don't intend to appear disrespectful, but repeating empty phrases is more nazi like than anything.
Sorry, but you're repeating exactly the same neo-Nazi :daisy: that we've all been absolutely sick of hearing for decades. It's not factual and any proper history will tell you that. The people involved owned up. The Nazis owned up to doing it. The historical evidence saying that the Holocaust happened in the manner and scale that is commonly accepted as happening in is overwhelming.
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Just most? :laugh4:
Meant to say "all", was writing two things at once and a sentence from somewhere else got cobbled together in my mind.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
It's easy to get caught up in inconsistency's when you are looking for them with a mind determined, most deniars are out to prove something and wrap these inconsistency's around it and it makes for a good story but the evidence is so overwhelming. I must admit that a few years ago I discovered the greatest hoax in human history after a bored afternoon of browsing, I guess I wanted it to not have happened, that was comforting as I couldn't understand how anyone could do such a thing. Those in doubt should watch 'Shoah', it's a fascinating series of interviews, cured me forever.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
Evil_Maniac From Mars
Then you obviously haven't looked.
Then you might be so kind to show me the obvious.
Either way, from what I've gathered the participants at the Wannsee Conference neither had the rank or authority to issue this supposed order, and modern historians put little to no weight on it's significance. You even have Yehuda Bauer, Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, calling it a "silly story".
And how does such a scenario fit in with this subsequent chain of events?
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On January 25, 1942, five days after the Wannsee Conference SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler wrote a letter to Concentration Camp Inspector Richard Glücks: “Be prepared to accept 100,000 male and up to 50,000 female Jews in the concentration camps over the next few weeks. Great economic tasks will arise for the concentration camps in the next few weeks.”
On April 30, 1942, Oswald Pohl, Leader of SS-WVHA,32 stated in a report to Himmler: “The war has brought about a visible change in the structure of the concentration camps and their tasks with regards to the utilization of inmates. The increase in the number of inmates on the grounds of security, educational, or preventive measures alone is no longer one of the primary purposes. The chief emphasis has shifted to the economic aspect. The mobilization of inmate labor first for military purposes (increased armaments) and later for peaceful tasks is increasingly shifting to the foreground. Based on recognition of this fact necessary measures result which demand a gradual transfer of the concentration camps from their early one-sided political form into an organization reflecting their economic tasks.”
On August 21, 1942, Martin Luther, a Foreign Ministry Official, stated in a memorandum that the number of Jews transported to the east was insufficient to cover the requirements for manpower. The extremely high mortality rates in the camps, due chiefly to diseases, but also to poor nourishment and clothing, naturally influenced the economic efficiency of the camps in a highly negative way.
On December 28, 1942, Concentration Camp Inspector Richard Glücks sent the following instructions in a circular letter to the commandants of 19 concentration camps: “The first camp doctors must strive with all means available to them to ensure that the mortality figures in the individual camps are to be considerably reduced. […] The camp doctors must supervise the nourishment of the inmates more than in the past, and submit suggestions for improvement in conformity with the administrations. Such measures must exist, not merely on paper, but must rather be regularly controlled by the camp doctors. […] The Reichsführer SS has ordered that the mortality must be reduced at all costs.”
These instructions had concrete results: within eight months the mortality in the concentration camps fell by almost 80%.
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Sorry, but you're repeating exactly the same neo-Nazi :daisy: that we've all been absolutely sick of hearing for decades. It's not factual and any proper history will tell you that. The people involved owned up. The Nazis owned up to doing it. The historical evidence saying that the Holocaust happened in the manner and scale that is commonly accepted as happening in is overwhelming.
Sorry, but I've read enough history to know that consensuses and "proper" history is not proof of anything in itself, especially when it comes to war. In other words, I hear it but I don't see it.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
It is well known that concentration-camps were labour-camps first, but it weren't just the strong that got transported, they all were. What happened to the rest.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
You even have Yehuda Bauer, Professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, calling it a "silly story".
Interesting - the popular single quote that is often used by holocaust/genocide deniers (of cause without providing any context), because it apparently adds a lot of credibility if a respected (Jewish!) historian makes a remark that can be conveniently quoted on the usual supect websites (which are usually not "mainstream" sites and where you can also find some of the other stuff that you quote).
You are of course aware that bauer leaves little to no doubt that the holocaust was a planned and organized genocide?
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Most if not all the official eyewitnesses (there might be others, feel free to correct me) were those heard at the Nuremberg trails, and many of them were either second hand witnesses or they gave statements that have for the most part been proven, at least partially, wrong in later years.
There are lots of eyewitnesses, including people from my family, who were neither jew nor communist and who got deported.
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Method. Why go to the trouble of transporting millions of people thousands of miles, then stuff them in gas chambers before you kill them, then spend a lot of energy dragging dead bodies out again before burning them. Why not just shoot them on the spot?
Much more efficient than killing them on the spot actually. And slightly less expensive.
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Documentation. I've seen a lot of documents from WW2 but never one ordering or depicting this grand final solution. Supposedly the nazis destroyed every last bit of evidence at the end of the war, or in the cases where they didn't it all went by some sort of implied code or unofficial orders. Really? The germans with their order muss sein mentality left such a massive military and logistical operation in the realms of the unofficial and improvised?
The nazis certainly weren't to much concerned with written orders. There's only a few recorded orders given by Hitler. Not because those have been destroyed, but because Hitler rarely wrote down detailled orders. Most of the time, he simply gave oral confirmations, and let his sidekicks plan the details. There's a whole chapter about that in Ian Kershaw's The Nazi Dictatorship.
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The number of victims. The amount of victims have been revised numerous times, both officially and unofficially, but the total always stays at 6 million? Could it have something to do with the Jewish religious texts saying that 6 million has to be sacrificed before they can return to the promised land? And how does the strange choice of word Holocaust, meaning "burn sacrifice", fit into all of this?
Number of victims has never been revised. It ranges from 9 to 12 millions, including probably around 6 millions of jews. Books written on the topic in the 60's use these numbers, and so do books written in the 2000's.
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Irregularities. Why does most of the Jews die on the eastern front? Shouldn't it be easier to track down people in the more modernized and pacified western territories? Yet we see that more than 50% of the Jews in France survive the war. Why do the soldiers discovering the camps find so many people alive? What's the reasoning for keeping anything alive in a death camp? Why do so many prisoners survive years and years in these supposed death camps? Why did the soviets supposedly destroy all of these gas chambers when they occupied the territories, leaving us today with mere reconstructions? What went on in the heads of the crazy commanders who decided to dig up thousands upon thousands of bodies that they had previously buried on the eastern front, so that they could burn them and hide the evidence? All the while the soviets are making constant advances and military resources are obviously needed elsewhere. Why are the locks on the doors of the chambers placed on the inside?
First question: several answers. First, the east was directly administrated by the Reich. Nazis administrators were obviously quite zealot in the hunt for jews. Second, in France for example, or in Italy, jews were more often then not completely assimilated, and thus often benefited from help from their neighbours, friends, or even from the authorities.
Second question: I don't know? Maybe you might want to ask a survivor, or to read a book written by one of them? It's not as if you couldn't find them easily at your local library.
Third question: the soviet certainly didn't destroy all the camps they found. Where did you get this idea? Even if it were true, what about the camps discovered by the western allies? Are those fake too? Are the videos shot after their discovery fakes?
Edit: All this seems like typical neo-nazi revisionnist propaganda, under the disguise of "we have to discuss official history". Sure go ahead, but since you haven't brought up any source for your claims, I'm just going to call your arguments rubbish.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Iakovos Kambanellis is a celebrated Greek author, poet and lyricist. He is also one of the survivors of the Mauthausen concentration camp, and his book "Mauthausen" is the story of the events he went through during his stay as an inmate and as the head of the commitee responsible for administration and return of the Greek inmates after the liberation.
The book is published in English too: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/5729551 - no second hand witnesses and accounts in there i'm afraid; if anything, these first hand accounts are even more terrifying than the statistics themselves, because they turn the impersonal numbers of the murders into personal events; events that could have happened to you and me.
The bestiality and sheer evil of the Nazis is chilling to the point of being unbelievable, as in the story of the camp director that was forcing his young boy to shoot the inmates that were working around their house as care-takers and helpers (gardeners, builders etc) in order to "make the Furher proud", despite its reluctance and protests.
Much of this thread is just making talk really as far as i am concerned.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
Most if not all the official eyewitnesses (there might be others, feel free to correct me) were those heard at the Nuremberg trails, and many of them were either second hand witnesses or they gave statements that have for the most part been proven, at least partially, wrong in later years.
Official eyewitnesses? :inquisitive: There's witnesses in the form of victims that got liberated, survivors that escaped the camp, guards running the camps, commanders of the camps, spies both among the victims and the guards. The number of vitnesses aren't exactly limited to a few.
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
Method. Why go to the trouble of transporting millions of people thousands of miles, then stuff them in gas chambers before you kill them, then spend a lot of energy dragging dead bodies out again before burning them. Why not just shoot them on the spot?
Killing on spot means no slave labour, massive popularity drop (if you're in an area were you care about that) and the concentration camp system was already in place since before the war. Also unburned human corpses rot and creates gases, so you can't bury them in numbers without getting moving hills (an observed phenomena during early WWII, when the nazis were figuring out the methods). Burning corpses is also quite hard.
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
Documentation. I've seen a lot of documents from WW2 but never one ordering or depicting this grand final solution. Supposedly the nazis destroyed every last bit of evidence at the end of the war, or in the cases where they didn't it all went by some sort of implied code or unofficial orders. Really? The germans with their order muss sein mentality left such a massive military and logistical operation in the realms of the unofficial and improvised?
There's plenty of documentation, but the higher up kept it mostly mouthly. But to take the executions in Riga until 1 feb 1942 for example (from Einzatsgruppen):
There's still plenty of written evidence to be found
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
Logistics. Not only is gas chambers a highly expensive and inefficient way to kill people, but the capacity of the camps simply couldn't handle the suggested tens of thousands of victims a day. Not only do you need to force a large group of people inside a gas chamber, people who I suspect quickly would catch on to what was going on in those "showers" and put up massive resistance, you also need to wait until all the gas has cleared then remove heavy, stiff and toxic bodies from the chambers, supposedly clammed 4 or 5 each on a square meter. Again, why not just dig a shallow grave, line the people up, shoot them on the spot then set fire to it?
Rather the opposite actually, keeps the deaths and more importantly the body removal efficient in a limited area. The whole treatment in the death camp were similar to to the work camps and gas leave no blood. Lining people up at a ditch filled with blood, might be a hint on that you should resist. They even treated the Jews differently from which region they came from, to prevent them from catching on.
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
Why do the soldiers discovering the camps find so many people alive? What's the reasoning for keeping anything alive in a death camp? Why do so many prisoners survive years and years in these supposed death camps?
Because some of the camps were running to the end. There were plenty of mass executions of the final prisoners. About the death ratio on the real death camps that wasn't also working camps and were closed before the war ended (aka working as intended) the death ratio is a bit higher. The total confirmed survivors from the death camps Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka and Belzec after the war is 82, almost entirely survivors from the uprisings in Sobibor and Treblinka (over a thousand managed to escape).
Survival was also heavily depending on your proffesions. Being almost unreplaceable and you could survive years even in the worse camps (as long as they didn't close and executed all the remaining survivors).
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
Why did the soviets supposedly destroy all of these gas chambers when they occupied the territories, leaving us today with mere reconstructions?
Not going through all of the camps but many were destroyed before the soviets arrived.
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
What went on in the heads of the crazy commanders who decided to dig up thousands upon thousands of bodies that they had previously buried on the eastern front, so that they could burn them and hide the evidence? All the while the soviets are making constant advances and military resources are obviously needed elsewhere. Why are the locks on the doors of the chambers placed on the inside?
You just comitted genocide of a population. You might rationalise it, but you're quite stupid if you think others will agree with you. With heavy propaganda you might be able to quiet the rumours, but bodies are harder to simply dismiss.
Edit: Might add that the source I've been using is Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience by Gitta Sereny
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Dear dear Polluxlm it is good to question History.
So first, question your sources…
Hint: Who, when, why, in what aim.
“My number one reason for doubting it is that it's a story that doesn't make sense”. Yea. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to exterminate until the last day, it doesn’t make sense to divert train, lorries and administration to deport and kill non-dangerous civilian populations. But it happened.
So the fact that a story doesn’t make sense is not enough to dismiss it as not true.
It doesn’t make sense to a young father 20 years old to save his 1 month old baby as if he fails he would have no baby and die, as if he wait he just have to make one (which will take around 10 month with luck). However, it what human being does.
Main thing: THE NAZI NEVER DENIED DOING IT. These cowards just refused to say they, as individual, were responsible for it. It was Hitler, Himmler, or others dead people, not them
“Most if not all the official eyewitnesses”: Do I hear a strange sound here? What do you mean as “official”. That these witnesses were PAID to do so? Or they can’t be trusted?
If so, I will question your impartiality as you are obviously biased…
“Method. Why go to the trouble of transporting millions of people thousands of miles, then stuff them in gas chambers before you kill them, then spend a lot of energy dragging dead bodies out again before burning them. Why not just shoot them on the spot?” Ah… Again, intellectual construction built by holocaust deniers who never try to big mass graves themselves. Probably never did a hole of human size either… It take ages…
Then you have decomposition gazes from bodies, survivors escaping and going to tell the tales… Bones left to be rediscovered….
No. Better to built special camps, far for big centres, build barracks as you can pretend it is camps, built and organised convoys as in Treblinka where the time to kill and destroy corps is the same than to refuel the train, avoid panic and revolt in disguising the chambers as showers, avoid people to think and to have contact with others, to get organised, much much efficient that badly organised field killings
“Documentation” It is because to do real research. There is plenty of documentation, in all museums in Europe. In Russia, you still have the remains…
“Supposedly the nazis destroyed every last bit of evidence at the end of the war, or in the cases where they didn't it all went by some sort of implied code or unofficial orders.” Where did you find this? All the paper work, forms, the design of the gas-chambers or the mobile lorry-gas-chambers was kept and are available today for researchers…
“The germans with their order muss sein mentality left such a massive military and logistical operation in the realms of the unofficial and improvised?”
That is because Nazi were in fact rubbish in organisation, logistic and generally speaking, at conducting a efficient war…
The Nazi efficiency is just a myth built after war, but doesn’t resist analyse…
From 1933 to 1943, they lead Germany to one of the most powerful country in Europe to a pile of rubbish and ruins, losing on all fronts…
“Logistics. Not only is gas chambers a highly expensive and inefficient way to kill people, but the capacity of the camps simply couldn't handle the suggested tens of thousands of victims a day.” Er, where did you get this idea of the inefficiency of gas chambers and cost?
Gas is quite good in killing people as every winter shows, and do you know the cost of a bullet? One is one pack of cigarette? Plus avoid blood everywhere, the bodies are easy to collect, no messing around, and no bloody SMELL.
Again, this an affirmation made by holocaust deniers without any logistic or common sense… It look right but it is just rubbish.
“Not only do you need to force a large group of people inside a gas chamber, people who I suspect quickly would catch on to what was going on in those "showers" and put up massive resistance, you also need to wait until all the gas has cleared then remove heavy, stiff and toxic bodies from the chambers, supposedly clammed 4 or 5 each on a square meter. Again, why not just dig a shallow grave, line the people up, shoot them on the spot then set fire to it?”
Yeap. So you have people downloaded from train where they were left without water during days, couldn’t rest, with others dying around them, not knowing what expected them. You let them going out, with armed guars and dogs, shouting and yelling in an obscure language, guards using brutality and violence without hesitation. The only way to escape is to go where they want you to go. They still think the guards are human beings. They can’t think that normal human being will just kill others human being without reasons, on massive scale…
And you had guys, coming in white dress, telling you that you will have a shower, please leave your names on your suitcases, follow me, get underdressed, please, then close doors, then done…
Massive resistance? To do so you have to accept that monsters have human appearances, that humans are monsters… And perhaps, if the people would have seen machine guns has you suggest, they would have run every where, and you would have needed more troops to control the crowd…
And a body in 90 % water. You don't set fire to a body.
“The number of victims.” It is an estimate, and probably underestimated anyway. It takes only the RECORDER victims, not the randomly executed, or the ones who never made the travel, or the ones who were not recorded…
“Holocaust” Created after the war, to try to qualify something that never happened before at this level of organisation…
“Irregularities” All your alleged irregularities are in fact false, based on nothing real, you do know that… Do you? Or do you just put what you read on Holocaust Deniers sites?
Now, why does your story make more sense? Why did you choose 1943 as the date of the deportation / extermination…
Did you really read what you wrote: bored and demoralized soldiers.
Sham trial: Make me questioning you questions…
Why the Communist Stalin and the anti-Communist Churchill would have agree on a common story to serve what purpose?
They didn’t attack Germany in 1939 and 1941. Germany clearly started a war of aggression…
So I don’t see why they would have to built something against Germany
I will cut short:
Either you are a genuine guy, but you ask the wrong questions, either you just are a holocaust deniers so all proofs of the world won’t convince you…
We have more proofs of this genocide that we have proofs of Azincourt or Waterloo.
It you want physical evidences, go to visit the Struthoff, Alsace, France, gas chambers are still there.
And if you think all the camps were built in Eastern and Western Europe by the Former allies, you will have to gave me the proofs of it, as orders, builders and invoices, and the reason why they should do it…
Because we have them, thanks to Albert Speer, for the Nazi Reich, and all the documentation gathered for Nuremberg trial.
And the buildings, the sites are still there. There are still survivors…
There is still memory…
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
The Nazis murdered upwards of 17,000,000 people. 6,000,000 were Jews. There were several groups targeted for extermination but the Jews held a special place in their hate filled minds.
There is more than ample proof of the systematic killing of Jews and others. Those who would deny it or obfuscate the facts have a political agenda they serve.
Those they have convinced that it never took place are only pawns or dupes of some very wicked people.
The Nazis were meticulous in their documentation. They never denied that it happened.
It is not just about the suffering of Jews. It could have been anyone of any group and that is the lesson we should all take from it.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
To waste one's time, or not to - that is the question.
Today, I choose not to.
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In nearly 40 years of holocaust research, I have never given more than a few seconds thought regarding Holocaust Denial.
"But is that wise?"
Up to now I thought so, what would be the point, of spending any substantial amount of precious time on debating with Holocaust Deniers, given the abundance of evidence available, ranging from films, photographs, eyewitness testimony, documents and admissions from those who took part in one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind.
Thanks to the internet, the Deniers have had priceless opportunities to speedily put forward their views, and this in turn has led to a number of websites, countering their views, and thus a cottage industry of sorts has grown up.
Visiting some of these sites one is struck by the enormous amount of wasted effort, both in terms of arguing with Deniers, who will never change their particular view, unless some “ultimate proof” is provided, and the Deniers spending their time, peddling their seemingly senseless viewpoints, happy to be engaged in ‘debate.’
In addition, those self proclaimed “Debunkers” of revisionist theories are in many ways no different than the Deniers themselves. Most are only seeking a conflict or debate to engage in, and debunking revisionism affords them some sort of “moral high ground” to do it from.
Clearly, a view could be formed that the “ultimate proof” has already been provided, but the Deniers choose not to believe it. And no matter what – the Deniers views are unlikely to change and does the world doesn’t really need “Noble-Debunkers” to keep the rest of us safe from such idiotic theories or treatises.
So in essence, debating the number of victims at Belzec and Sobibor death camps at length, the type of engine used at Treblinka to gas hundreds and thousands of innocent Jewish men, women and children, the true nature of deportations East - was it six million murdered or 8 million, what does all this effort achieve?
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Dear polluxlm:
i am a close friend with Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, and i highly suggest you read her book History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving.
its is excellent and if you still have questions i suggest you send her an email.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
polluxlm
As in official and legal testimony, and I only mention it because a lot of it, both from victims and nazis, has later been proven to be false. From the top of my head I can think of the 4 million or so people claimed to have been killed in Auschwitz, and assembly lines electrocuting people to death.
So two wrong accounts out of thousands discounts the whole affair?
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Gas doesn't cost money? Gassing people and the handling of it all doesn't cause psychological damage? It's also convenient in that western historians didn't receive access to it for 50 years.
Less money, and less psychological damage. Also, "convenient"?
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I'm fully aware that historians operate with an array of different numbers, yet 6 million is considered the "official" number for some reason. I'm simply curios to why this number is chosen when historians present so many different numbers depending on what sources they go by. To me the immediate explanation seem to be that there is in fact a magic quota that needs to be filled.
Stop putting official in scare quotes. There is no official exact number because it is impossible to come up with an exact count, and furthermore the generally accepted amount is double your magic number.
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I'm sorry, I forgot to clarify. I meant numbers as in percentages of the population.
Part of the reason more Jews were killed percentage-wise on the Eastern front was that they were less assimilated into the local culture. While in France it might be more difficult to find out if someone was Jewish, out in Poland you could round up everyone in a village knowing they were mostly Jewish. And as I said, the Eastern Front was far more brutal and more calculated in exterminating the undermensch.
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Again I am confused. What are the criteria for who and when gets killed? Where is the distinction made between a concentration camp and a death camp? What is the reasoning behind it all?
The distinctions are primarily between work camps, where people were forced to make war materials for the Germans, and death camps, where they were sent simply to die. The reasoning - why not get some work out of your slaves before you finish them off?
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Why would they spend so many resources on something obviously too massive to be hidden?
Well some people seem to buy that it never happened so...
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Maybe, but to me it sounds more like the wishful thinking of somebody looking for something they can't find.
What? The Nazis frequently put their ideology before efficiency. If they had rallied the Poles and Ukrainians against the Soviets they could have at least saved resources on the occupations there. Instead they essentially enslaved those populations, forcing them into the arms of Stalin. All because they thought Slavs were lesser people.
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An arrangement made possible and justified only by the Holocaust.
Define recent. Far as I know they've possessed nuclear weapons for quite some time. Either way I think we can agree that they have gained benefits many other allies have not, especially considering the age, size and nature of the nation.
Are you really going to deny that there is a certain paradigm when it comes to criticizing Jews and the state of Israel? Especially considering their former status in the world? It may not mean a whole lot in the grand context of things, but it's certainly a profitable situation for the state of Israel, both economically and politically. There is definitely motive for a lot of things.
Even if you think Israel is shamelessly exploiting the Holocaust (which I think is at best a gross exaggeration) that doesn't change that the Holocaust happened. Millions of people didn't up and vanish.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
No it can't be denied.
The article Louis' quoted sums up my thoughts pretty well :bow:
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Another fun-fact, Holocaust Deniers in the vast majority, dislike jews.
Which always begs the question, why do they deny and not celebrate it?
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
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Originally Posted by
Beskar
Another fun-fact, Holocaust Deniers in the vast majority, dislike jews.
Which always begs the question, why do they deny and not celebrate it?
because obviously if they did celebrate it everyone would realize that they are evil people, which they dont want obviously.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Can the holocaust be denied?
No.
CR
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
can it be denied no, is it also a useful tool to gain leverage that is played 'up' to gain political advantage, of course. its called realism.
small nation
unpopular
lots of enemies
few friends
i can't blame israel for doing this, i'd do it too in there position. fill yur boots.
i say this a supporter of israel (and not because i need them for the end of the world).
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
No, you can't deny that it happened, and if you are quibbling about the numbers (6, 7 or 8 million) those numbers are all enormous and absolutely unacceptable.
This is similar to the phenomenon of some people still denying that the Imperial army did anything wrong during WWII (number killed 3-10 million), despite vast amounts of evidence to the contrary - including from some participants. The Nanking Massacre, comfort women, biological and chemical experimentation on humans and their use in warfare, torture, forced labour, aggression, massacres - no, didn't happen according to some people. Japanese war crimes
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Holocaust denial makes me want to throw up, and holocaust deniars make me lose faith in humanity.
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Re: can the holocaust be denied?
Denying the Holocaust is like asserting that the killing fields of Cambodia are just overcrowded cementaries; is like asserting that Vietnam just happens to give birth to an abnormally large number of babies with serious disfigurements as opposed to having had an large portion of the adult population exposed to Agent Orange & similar; that My Lai never happened; that 9/11 was really an ‘inside job’; that Abu Ghraib is ‘traditionally’ a ‘tough place’ and not a big torture chamber...
... Also: in keeping with Louis' rhetorical question (to waste or not to waste time) ...
I choose to waste some of my time pointing out that mass deportations and concentration camps (sensu strictu) were in fact nothing new. These practices were purportedly a major reason for the USA to declare war upon Spain in 1898: Spain used these means (deportation and concentration camps) to quell rebellions on Cuba. Similarly consider the Soviet gulags. So your assertion of ‘method’ being illogical/nonsensical does not quite hold up in the context of the time.
Note: these concentration camps were in intention not at all like the ‘canonical’ later versions of Auschwitz and Sobibor -- which have also been termed ‘destruction camps’. That should point out what makes the Holocaust so uniquely horrible and what it means/implies to deny that: relativism has its limits.
