Merged: General Holocaust denial discussion Part IV

[Jeffk 1970]

Originally Posted by ShamelessGit

But it would take a while, and I don’t have the patience for it.

Then why did you bother to come here? Is raising a ruckus worth it?

[Matthew Ellard]

Originally Posted by ShamelessGit

... Either people like David Irving, David Cole, or Fred Leuchter were lying,...

You really need to keep up with the times.

David Cole recants
"I would like to state for the record that there is no question in my mind that during the Holocaust of Europe's Jews during World War II, the Nazis employed gas chambers in an attempt to commit genocide against the Jews. At camps in both Eastern and Western Europe, Jews were murdered in gas chambers which employed such poison gases as Zyklon B and carbon monoxide (in the Auschwitz camp, for example, the gas chambers used Zyklon B). The evidence for this is overwhelming and unmistakable.
http://wildernesschristianity.net/in..._04h_Cole.html

David Irving recants
"Irving says he was never a denier, though there seems copious evidence that he was. Now he believes at least four million and possibly six million Jewish people died....."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life...957df5434469ed

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by Matthew Ellard

You really need to keep up with the times.

David Cole recants

Indeed, and also other oft-quoted deniers like Eric Hunt. I have yet to see any denier deal with David Cole's rather sharp criticisms of denial in his piece Unicornville and the Holocaust Deniers. Perhaps ShamelessGit will be the first to do so . . .

[Nessie]

Originally Posted by ShamelessGit

.....

I will prove by contradiction that the official Holocaust story is false.

......

I prefer proof by use of evidence. Got any?

I can prove by evidence from witnesses, documents etc that the British did not gas any German, Austrian or Italian they had interred in camps on the Isle of Man during WWII.

Let me see you prove by evidence from witnesses, documents etc that the Nazis did not gas any Jewish person they had imprisoned in camps in Poland.

Deniers arrogantly think that their opinion and their so called logic can be used in lieu of evidence. Fact is, it cannot.

[LemmyCaution]

ShamelessGit,

One reason Eric Hunt abandoned denial is a very simple problem he could not solve. He stated it like this in 2014:

Quote:

I would like to form a team to get as much new information about where did the Warsaw Jews go from July 22nd - September 21st 1942, specifically individuals talking about being transited during this time period ANYWHERE and surviving.

This is one of the perceived holes in the Revisionist case and if we can help plug it up more than has been done by Mattogno, Graf, Kues, it will do a great service to our cause. In fact if we could get enough information it'd be all over for the Treblinka hoax.

Hunt got not a single taker, removed the webpage with his plea, and eventually came to agree that the Nazis killed 100s of 1000s of Jews in gas chambers at Treblinka.

Can you solve the problem Hunt sketched out? I can. So can Eric Hunt now.

best, LC

[beachnut]

Rule Two -

Originally Posted by ShamelessGit

I didn't know ...

Forecasting the future based on the past. Maybe you could have won the million dollar challenge. There will be proof to come.

Rule One -

Originally Posted by ShamelessGit

I didn't put a whole lot of effort into it, ...

Cause and effect.

Claim: Hitler came up with the idea of holocausting 6 million Jews

Originally Posted by ShamelessGit

Claim: Hitler came up with the idea of holocausting 6 million Jews ...

Got a source for this observation based on rule one and two.
How could your hero Hitler come up with anything but love for Jews. Gee whiz the Führer loved Jews. In his super book Mein Kampf he mentions the root word jew 513 times; he must love jews. No wonder Einstein left Germany, he could not stand that much love. With 513 mentions of jew, why is his book not called "Why I love Jews more than life Itself"?

Can't wait for more insight based on rule one, and lots of rule two.

[Hans]

A side discussion of the holocaust, Jews, Germans, concentration camps, etc has branched out in the History sub forum in a thread about Finland's independence from Russia for 100 years.

Thread title: Finland celebrates 100 years independence today

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...=325395&page=4

I would suggest that some of the experts here might want to drop by and add in their expertise.

[Nessie]

That is just a debate about what counts as the Holocaust, with one poster (ddt) calling another (Vixen) a denier because he disagrees with the others definition. But the usual, standard, common definition of the Holocaust is the murder of the Jews. Those with more knowledge of who was gassed and shot includes Roma and other groups also despised by the Nazis.

I do not think that the Holocaust commonly refers to everyone killed by the Nazis during WWII. I also think that it should not be used as the term for all deaths.

There is a difference between war casualties and those targeted in a genocide.

[Nessie]

I have now been de facto banned from RODOH.

The final straw has been taking every opportunity possible to turn the debate back on the deniers and ask then to evidence their belief millions were transported back out of the AR camps and were later liberated from camps at the end of the war.

Then the Black Rabbit of Inle made a return and posted this in a thread which was trying to claim various Nazis denied that there was an operation to murder Jews. It is from an interview of Himmler in captivity in 1945;

Quote:

"I asked Himmler to tell us the number of Jews still alive in the camps, and he listed the following figures:
Theresienstadt 25,000
Rawensbruck 20,000
Mauthausen 20 to 30,000
in addition to smaller numbers in several other camps. Also he claimed that in the camps captured by the Allies, the following number of Jews were left
Auschwitz 150,000
Bergen-Belsen 50,000
Buchenwald 6,000
It seemed to me that his claims were false, and certainly, with respect to Auschwitz, greatly exaggerated.

If denialism was true, those numbers should have been significantly higher and covering far more camps. Himmler is in effect admitting few Jews survived and he goes on;

Quote:

"In Hungary, Himmler claimed to have left 450,000 Jews "So what were the thanks for this?", he said sanctimoniously, The Jews shot at our troops in Budapest". I objected: If there were 450,000 Jews left of the original 850,000, it means that 400,000 Jews were deported to an unknown destiny. The Jews left in Hungary could not know what fate the Germans had in mind for them, and that was the reason for this kind of reaction." Himmler pushed such arguments aside, apparently he appropriated the well-known verse of LaFontaine "This animal is very bad, when attacked, it defends itself" to his own purpose."

He is admitting the Hungarian Jews taken to Birkenau were not expected to live. Pointing out to the deniers that even Himmler was admitting few Jews were liberated appears to have been the final straw.

[teamMerkel]

Hey guys. : )
I don't even know how to begin this post, haha....well, I'll try. English is not my first language so bear with me.
I was never deeply interested in history and besides watching documentaries or listening to some Dan Carlin podcast from time to time, I spent no time reading or studying any kind of historical events.

Some years back I stumbled upon one of those videos where some guy shows you newspapers from the early 20th century with the "6 Million Jews" articles. I thought it was weird, and did some internet research and I guess you guys know where that leads you: Holocaust deniers, their blogs, their websites, their videos, their books.
I never considered myself a denier but I have to admit that I became fascinated with Holocaust denial. Could the gas chambers really be a lie? That would be so unbelievably twisted. I have to say that I wanted it to be true (the gas chambers being a lie) and that at times I was not honest to myself. Because I wanted the deniers to be right, my view was biased.

With all that said, I'm still a skeptic. You can't choose to believe or to not believe something and while I strongly believe that millions of Jews were obviously persecuted, interned, enslaved, tortured and murdered by the Nazis, there are still moments when I doubt that millions of people were gassed with Zyklon B.
I'm just honest, I can't help it and I hope you don't mock me for that.

I'd like to point out some things that I find weird. And maybe some of you can answer a few of my questions as it seems that many of you know a lot more about history than I do.
Those are mostly naive questions of a skeptic that doesn't know better.


1) I read some of the transcripts of the Nürnberg trials (I'm german so I might use some german words at times) and Rudolf Hoess confessed that "at least 2.500.000" people were gassed at Auschwitz while 500.000 died of disease and starvation.
How does he come up with this number? He said Eichmann told him, but how can you be off by almost 1,5 million?

2) There is a short clip on youtube called "Auschwitz-Prozeß Krakau 1948" documenting the Auschwitz trial and stating that "alltogether almost 300.000 people from different nations died at Auschwitz".
How is it possible that, in 1948, they came to the conclusion that "only" 300.000 people died at Auschwitz? Also, they don't mention gas chambers.
I looked for a transcript for that trial but couldn't find one. Does anyone have more information?

3) Auschwitz Death Books. I read that many people in those books were either very old (over 70) or very young (under 10). Yet I don't know if I can trust the source. Does anyone know if this is true? How is that possible when the official story is that every child and every old person not suitable for work was gassed on arrival? Is there an online version of the death books?

4) I'm currently reading the book of Shlomo Venezia about his time working in the Sonderkommando. I was under the impression that the men working the Sonderkommando were usually killed after some time to get rid of witnesses. Is that true? Well, he describes that, before the evacuation they were sent to their barrack and specifically told to stay there by the SS. They never said that before, so Shlomo got suspicious and they escaped, posing as regular prisoners being evacuated. The SS would then ask "Who worked at the Sonderkommando?" many times during the evacuation.
So they were really that sloppy with their SoKo prisoners? Just leaving them at the barracks unguarded? And why did the SS not come up with the idea to look up their tattoo? Surely, they must have known which prisoners worked in the Sonderkommando?

5) Why were all these people evacuated anyway? (Same goes for Anne Frank) I was under the impression that the Nazis somehow wanted to exterminate the Jews. Why did they, in times of war, being overran by the Soviets lead so many prisoners westward? Why didn't they let them starve, freeze to death, why didn't they shoot them?

6) How is it that the Nazis could cremate 3 dead bodies in 30 minutes while it takes modern crematoria between 70 and 90 minutes to cremate one body? I know these questions sound super naive, but stuff like that doesn't make sense to me. Why don't these guys today just save time and energy and use the advanced technique the Nazis used?

7) What do you guys think deniers believe? Do you think they secretly believe in gas chambers yet somehow spend so much time trying to debunk them because they want to whitewash Hitler and the 3rd Reich?

That's it for now, thx for reading/answering : )

[Hans]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

deleted

I have to ask if you are so interested in the subject why didn't you just look up the extensive material of the various subjects? Taking one at random, the cremations, there is lots of information on that subject - how come you couldn't find it?

[Cosmic Yak]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

7) What do you guys think deniers believe? Do you think they secretly believe in gas chambers yet somehow spend so much time trying to debunk them because they want to whitewash Hitler and the 3rd Reich?

If you'd read any of the previous posts in this thread, you would have found that our resident deniers seem to be motivated by anti-semitism, pure and simple. This leads them to assume that the "Evil Jews" must be lying about everything, and that, by extension, the Holocaust is a hoax. To what extent they actually sympathise with the Nazis is unclear, but there is a fair amount of neo-Nazi propaganda in their posts that gives at least the suspicion that they are indeed pro-Nazi.
This would also explain why they stick to their denial despite every claim being soundly debunked. Skepticism is evidence-based, and denial is more faith/ ideology-based, which is why facts alone cannot shake it.

[teamMerkel]

Originally Posted by Hans

I have to ask if you are so interested in the subject why didn't you just look up the extensive material of the various subjects? Taking one at random, the cremations, there is lots of information on that subject - how come you couldn't find it?

There is no extensive material that I'm aware of, dealing with my questions.
The Holocaust controversies blog has some interesting entries, but I can't remember reading about those specific topics.
(Maybe number 5 is somewhat stupid and not asked in absolute honesty)

I'm dead honest here, if you know of some logical explanation that I can look up somewhere why cremations nowadays take 2 or 3 times as long as 70 years ago, could you please provide me with a link? Or maybe I'm wrong and cremations today don't take 70-90 minutes. I just looked up a couple of crematoria and they had those numbers.

Originally Posted by Cosmic Yak

If you'd read any of the previous posts in this thread, you would have found that our resident deniers seem to be motivated by anti-semitism, pure and simple. This leads them to assume that the "Evil Jews" must be lying about everything, and that, by extension, the Holocaust is a hoax. To what extent they actually sympathise with the Nazis is unclear, but there is a fair amount of neo-Nazi propaganda in their posts that gives at least the suspicion that they are indeed pro-Nazi.
This would also explain why they stick to their denial despite every claim being soundly debunked. Skepticism is evidence-based, and denial is more faith/ ideology-based, which is why facts alone cannot shake it.

Sure, internet deniers often come off as trolls, Jew-haters and Nazis. Agree 100%.
I was thinking about guys like Germar Rudolf who spent over 25 years trying to disprove the Holocaust. And I was wondering if he really believes that gas chambers in Auschwitz are a lie. If he is a normal human, he must have doubts about his truth too, right? But then, 25 years of writing, reading, researching, sitting in jail would be for nothing.
So I agree with you, denial is faith/ideology based. It has to be this way (gas chambers and mass murder with Zyklon B are a lie), there is no other option and all research has to reach the same conclusion.

On the other hand, people who believe in the official narrative seem to follow an ideology too. Their truth is set in stone so there is no way that reality can diverge from that truth.
Back in the day people seemed to believe that people were gassed in Dachau. I would guess that, if you had questioned that at some point of time, you would have been called a denier.
Which can't lead us to the conclusion that there were no gassings in Auschwitz, obviously.

One thing that bothers me the most is that people go to jail for saying what they believe. Whatever their motives are, be they Nazis, Antisemites or truly convinced that the official Holocaust story is a lie.
Someone in this thread stated that Haverbeck should have been sent to jail for 5 years and I couldn't disagree more. I don't get that opinion, it doesn't make any sense to me, from a logical perspective.
There is a guy in my town who stands in the city centre on most days, waving the Sovjet flag and trying to convince people that communism is the best **** ever.
Would he be waving the Nazi flag repeatedly, he'd go to jail.
Yet in the Sowjet Union, people were killed by the thousands when Hitler was not even close to coming to power and they still killed people by the thousands when Hitler was dead.
Glorifying one regime that killed millions, no problem, glorifying the other, jail time. Don't get me wrong, I don't think you should glorify either but I'm absolutely convinced that you should be able to state your opinion, however stupid or evil it is.

[Pacal]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

Hey guys. : )
I don't even know how to begin this post, haha....well, I'll try. English is not my first language so bear with me.
I was never deeply interested in history and besides watching documentaries or listening to some Dan Carlin podcast from time to time, I spent no time reading or studying any kind of historical events.

Some years back I stumbled upon one of those videos where some guy shows you newspapers from the early 20th century with the "6 Million Jews" articles. I thought it was weird, and did some internet research and I guess you guys know where that leads you: Holocaust deniers, their blogs, their websites, their videos, their books.
I never considered myself a denier but I have to admit that I became fascinated with Holocaust denial. Could the gas chambers really be a lie? That would be so unbelievably twisted. I have to say that I wanted it to be true (the gas chambers being a lie) and that at times I was not honest to myself. Because I wanted the deniers to be right, my view was biased.

With all that said, I'm still a skeptic. You can't choose to believe or to not believe something and while I strongly believe that millions of Jews were obviously persecuted, interned, enslaved, tortured and murdered by the Nazis, there are still moments when I doubt that millions of people were gassed with Zyklon B.

First of all it is doubtful that millions were gassed with Zyclon B and I doubt any serious Holocaust historian, (Deniers by definition are not serious anything.), would say so. The great majority of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust were killed by bullets, starvation and gassed by stuff like carbon monoxide. The number of Jews killed by Zyklon B is almost certainly less than 2 million but probably over a million. The total of Jews slaughtered in the holocaust is still somewhere between 5.5-6.5 million.

Quote:

I'm just honest, I can't help it and I hope you don't mock me for that.

I'd like to point out some things that I find weird. And maybe some of you can answer a few of my questions as it seems that many of you know a lot more about history than I do.
Those are mostly naive questions of a skeptic that doesn't know better.


1) I read some of the transcripts of the Nürnberg trials (I'm german so I might use some german words at times) and Rudolf Hoess confessed that "at least 2.500.000" people were gassed at Auschwitz while 500.000 died of disease and starvation.
How does he come up with this number? He said Eichmann told him, but how can you be off by almost 1,5 million?

It appears that Hoess, just like Eichmann, exaggerated his "accomplishment". If you read Hoess truly sick memoir it is clear that he took a perverse pride in his "accomplishment" and thus exaggerated it. Eichmann's postwar talks with his fellow former Nazis in Argentina also display a perverse pride in his "accomplishment" and sadness that he didn't complete his "task". I.e., that some people escaped him.

Quote:

2) There is a short clip on youtube called "Auschwitz-Prozeß Krakau 1948" documenting the Auschwitz trial and stating that "alltogether almost 300.000 people from different nations died at Auschwitz".

How is it possible that, in 1948, they came to the conclusion that "only" 300.000 people died at Auschwitz? Also, they don't mention gas chambers.
I looked for a transcript for that trial but couldn't find one. Does anyone have more information?

If it's the trial I'm thinking of the 300,000 dead refer to those who were shot, starved and worked to death in the labour camp at Auschwitz and does not refer to those sent to be gassed at the nearby death camp of Birkenau, which is often included in what people describe has Auschwitz.

Quote:

3) Auschwitz Death Books. I read that many people in those books were either very old (over 70) or very young (under 10). Yet I don't know if I can trust the source. Does anyone know if this is true? How is that possible when the official story is that every child and every old person not suitable for work was gassed on arrival? Is there an online version of the death books?

Only a few of the older or younger people escaped being murdered as a result of the selection process. Mainly those with useful skills or those for medical experimental purposes. Virtually none of the Jewish survivors of Auschwitz were very young or very old. However the camp also contained a large number of non Jews, sent there has hostages, forced labour etc. In fact a large number of Gypsies were held there in a "Family" camp in complete families. (Most of them were eventually murdered.)

Quote:

4) I'm currently reading the book of Shlomo Venezia about his time working in the Sonderkommando. I was under the impression that the men working the Sonderkommando were usually killed after some time to get rid of witnesses. Is that true? Well, he describes that, before the evacuation they were sent to their barrack and specifically told to stay there by the SS. They never said that before, so Shlomo got suspicious and they escaped, posing as regular prisoners being evacuated. The SS would then ask "Who worked at the Sonderkommando?" many times during the evacuation.
So they were really that sloppy with their SoKo prisoners? Just leaving them at the barracks unguarded? And why did the SS not come up with the idea to look up their tattoo? Surely, they must have known which prisoners worked in the Sonderkommando?

The number of survivors of the Sonderkommando's was pathetic. It was routine to murder them and then replace them. Frankly in the last few weeks before the Russians came in late January 1945 things were utterly chaotic in Auschwitz. In fact there were orders to kill all those prisoners who couldn't be marched out. Despite this thousands of very sick but alive prisoners were left for the Russians. Those who were marched out died by thousands from exhaustion, being shot etc.

Shlomo Venezia explanation of his survival rings true to me at least.

Quote:

5) Why were all these people evacuated anyway? (Same goes for Anne Frank) I was under the impression that the Nazis somehow wanted to exterminate the Jews. Why did they, in times of war, being overran by the Soviets lead so many prisoners westward? Why didn't they let them starve, freeze to death, why didn't they shoot them?

Well first of all the Nazis did in fact allow prisoners to starve to death, die of disease, worked them to death, shot them and gassed them. Anne Frank for example died of starvation in Belsen. At least 1.5 million Jews were shot by Einsatzgruppen. Jews routinely starved to death in the ghettos set up by the Nazis. However the Nazis wanted a more "scientific", "rational" way of killing people. Shooting by bullets was too hard on the would be murderers, so gassing was considered a less traumatic, for the killers, way of murdering people. I should also point out, that working a cross purposes to the aim of mass murder was the desire to get some use of the able bodied prisoners by working them to death.

But the goal was in the end to kill.

Quote:

6) How is it that the Nazis could cremate 3 dead bodies in 30 minutes while it takes modern crematoria between 70 and 90 minutes to cremate one body? I know these questions sound super naive, but stuff like that doesn't make sense to me. Why don't these guys today just save time and energy and use the advanced technique the Nazis used?

Modern day crematoria generally burn one body at a time and seek to reduce the body to complete ash. Are you seriously suggesting that if you put two bodies in the same crematoria it would take 140-180 minutes to burn them to ash? That is like saying that with a conventional oven if it takes 30 minutes to bake one cake it would take 60 minutes to bake two cakes. Further since the Nazis weren't interested in burning bodies to complete ash it would of course take less time. Human fat burns so a pile of human bodies burning would generate a lot of heat and accelerate the burning process. Since, I hope!, modern day crematoria aren't interested in mass burning of piles of dead humans I suspect they would have little to learn from Nazis techniques of burning the bodies of murdered men, women and children.

Quote:

7) What do you guys think deniers believe? Do you think they secretly believe in gas chambers yet somehow spend so much time trying to debunk them because they want to whitewash Hitler and the 3rd Reich?

That's it for now, thx for reading/answering : )

If you have been truly reading denier blogs and watching denier youtube videos then you would be well aware that the great majority of deniers are anti-semites of a truly repellent variety. And in fact many while denying that the Holocaust happened, say they wish it had happened

Frankly your post reminds me a little too much of the "Just asking questions" gambit.

[Loss Leader]

Originally Posted by Pacal

First of all ...

Thank you for the detailed and informative post. Saved me an hour of research.

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

there are still moments when I doubt that millions of people were gassed with Zyklon B.

You are right to doubt this, because only deniers claim such a thing. Roughly put, scholars conclude that

* about 900,000 Jews perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau, most but not all from Zyklon B gassing
* about 150,000-175,000 Jews were killed using carbon monoxide in gas vans at Chelmno in the Warthegau
* about 59,000 Jews perished at Majdanek, fewer than 20,000 of them from CO in fixed gas chambers (possibly a few 1000s of these from Zyklon B)
* about 1,400,000 Jews were murdered in gas chambers using CO from engine exhaust in three Einsatz Reinhard camps (Treblinka, Sobibor, Belize)

That is a total of less than 2,500,000 Jews killed in gas chambers, of them fewer than 900,000 from Zyklon B.

* 1,500,000 Jews were slaughtered in open-air shootings (and some 1000s gassed by CO in mobile vans) in the occupied USSR
* about 2,100,000 Jews perished in the Transnistria and a variety of camps - from privation and other indirect means
* about 800,000 Jews died in ghettos from privation, beatings and shootings, etc

That gives a total of Jewish deaths of somewhat more than 5,100,000. Some estimates have about 5,500,000 or more Jews dying. The proportions are about the same as I’ve given here.

As to your individual points 1-7, these are very common denier objections, which have been looked at in depth. I don’t want to reply offhandedly, so I will come back and post later, with links to where others have answered.

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by Loss Leader

Thank you for the detailed and informative post. Saved me an hour of research.

ditto, I will instead of reinventing Pacal's wheel, annotate Pacal's post with some links and references, taking teamMerkel at his/her word that more sources and in-depth reading are desirable

[Hans]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

There is no extensive material that I'm aware of, dealing with my questions.

Hahahahahaa

Well you see there is this thing called the internet & google and you use key words....lol

.....oh yeah the classic 'playing dumb and just asking questions routine'.....okay have fun but I'm not playing.

I'll just sit back and watch as your real position becomes very clear as others pick up your challenge.

[LemmyCaution]

Here are some quick thoughts/riffing on Pacal's post . . .

Originally Posted by Pacal

It appears that Hoess, just like Eichmann, exaggerated his "accomplishment". If you read Hoess truly sick memoir it is clear that he took a perverse pride in his "accomplishment" and thus exaggerated it. Eichmann's postwar talks with his fellow former Nazis in Argentina also display a perverse pride in his "accomplishment" and sadness that he didn't complete his "task". I.e., that some people escaped him.

Reflections on Höss's two differing estimates of the Jewish death toll at Auschwitz are found in the links below (I am sure there are many more such discussions but let's start with these):

Axis History Forum starting here

Nizkor FAQ’s on Höss

Roberto Muehlenkamp at the Rodoh forum

Originally Posted by Pacal

If it's the trial I'm thinking of the 300,000 dead refer to those who were shot, starved and worked to death in the labour camp at Auschwitz and does not refer to those sent to be gassed at the nearby death camp of Birkenau, which is often included in what people describe has Auschwitz.

I don't think a lot has been written about this. Revisionist Michael Mills has told David Irving about this trial that

Quote:

The 300,000 figure most probably refers to the number of registered prisoners who died. [Gerald] Reitlinger quoted a similar figure in his 1953 book The Final Solution; as I recall, he wrote that something like 400,000 persons were registered as prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and of these some 300,000 were recorded as having died.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/History/Mills060899.html

Here is some background on the death books: https://www.hdot.org/debunking-denial/ab2-death-books/, differentiating between registered prisoners and unregistered prisoners. And here is additional information on the registration process and death books: http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopi...=26581#p503377

IIRC in Höss's Polish trial he was charged with a much higher number of deaths - I'd have to check but millions for sure.

Originally Posted by Pacal

The number of survivors of the Sonderkommando's was pathetic. It was routine to murder them and then replace them. Frankly in the last few weeks before the Russians came in late January 1945 things were utterly chaotic in Auschwitz. In fact there were orders to kill all those prisoners who couldn't be marched out. Despite this thousands of very sick but alive prisoners were left for the Russians. Those who were marched out died by thousands from exhaustion, being shot etc.

Shlomo Venezia explanation of his survival rings true to me at least.

Recently, I had the good fortune to attend a talk by Gideon Greif, an Israeli scholar whose work focuses on the Birkenau Sonderkommando. I posted my notes on his talk at another forum (SSF). Here are some excerpts that are pertinent to this point:

Quote:

* Greif estimates that 80-100 SK members survived, that by 1986 when his research began 31 remained alive - Greif attributed the survival of the 80-100 to laxness and negligence by Camp SS as the Germans faced the advance of the Red Army - I believe that he said it was on the night of 16-17 January in block 16 that the survivors decided to slip away from their barrack and "mingle" (I didn't get to ask about SS pursuit of survivors within Birkenau or to other camps); because they were well fed and in good physical condition, virtually all those SK members who departed Birkenau on the death marches survived the marches

* SK members were all male, aged 15-1/2 to 42 years old; aside from some Poles, mostly early on - and the 20 or so Russians from Majdanek - they were Jews; non-Jews were overrepresented among the functionaries - Grief called out the roles of Vorarbeiter, Kapo, Oberkapo (for a long time, before being shot, Jakob Kaminsky was Oberkapo)

* SK members survived at Birkenau from 1 hour to 2-1/2 years; from time to time groups of 300-400 were removed from the squad and shot (on a single occasion gassed) and replaced with new members selected from incoming transports

The periodic liquidations of some members of the Sonderkommando which Greif has identified were seen by some contemporary witnesses as complete liquidations: they were not complete, regular killings. Strzelecki's book, The Evacuation, Dismantling and Liberation of KL Auschwitz, confirms what Greif said in his talk about the chaos and breakdown of order in the camp which enabled Sonderkommando members to escape (by joining to death march).

Originally Posted by Pacal

Well first of all the Nazis did in fact allow prisoners to starve to death, die of disease, worked them to death, shot them and gassed them. Anne Frank for example died of starvation in Belsen. At least 1.5 million Jews were shot by Einsatzgruppen. Jews routinely starved to death in the ghettos set up by the Nazis. However the Nazis wanted a more "scientific", "rational" way of killing people. Shooting by bullets was too hard on the would be murderers, so gassing was considered a less traumatic, for the killers, way of murdering people. I should also point out, that working a cross purposes to the aim of mass murder was the desire to get some use of the able bodied prisoners by working them to death.

But the goal was in the end to kill.)

Specifically on the 1944-1945 evacuations of Auschwitz, Majdanek and other KLs, it should be noted that German labor policy, due in part to wartime military requirements which depleted the German workforce, changed in the course of the war; by war's end, the labor situation was so desperate that the Nazis were moving Jews back to factories in Germany to fill workforce shortages, as well as locating factories in KLs. As the KL system came apart, the Nazis tried to preserve labor - the process was neither organized nor efficient; it was, in fact, as chaotic as one would expect as Germany was losing the war. Also, Himmler, trying to curry favor with the Allies and save his own neck, had terminated the Final Solution and specifically the gassing program at Birkenau in fall 1944. Without this background, the evacuations don't make sense, indeed. A good book on this is Daniel Blatman, The Death Marches: The Final Phase of Nazi Genocide. The killing didn't stop but the systematic extermination of the Jews was no longer underway by winter 1944-1945.

There is truly a massive quantity of research and writing on the main issues of the Holocaust. Here is a handy list of typical questions deniers raise, with short answers, from Sergey Romanov at HC: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogsp...t-popular.html

[Hans]

Originally Posted by LemmyCaution

There is truly a massive quantity of research and writing on the main issues of the Holocaust. Here is a handy list of typical questions deniers raise, with short answers, from Sergey Romanov at HC: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogsp...t-popular.html

Excellent response and resources

I especially like the 'typical questions'.

Quote:

1. Revision of the Auschwitz plaque.
2. Detached Krema I chimney?
3. Flimsy gas chamber door with a window?
4. Leuchter's report.
5. Alleged lies by the British government.
6. The First Holocaust canard.
7. Auschwitz swimming pool, hospital etc.
8. Arbeit macht frei.
9. The World Almanac canard.
10. The Red Cross stats canard.
11. The Red Cross inspected the death camps?
12. Gas chambers not mentioned in the memoirs of Churchill, Eisenhower, de Gaulle?
13. Elie Wiesel did not mention gas chambers?
14. Elie Wiesel an impostor?
15. More Wiesel stuff.
16. Auschwitz decodes.
17. Survivors did not see or hear about gas chambers?
18. Anne Frank diary.
19. Rassinier denied Auschwitz gas chambers. Or was that Thies Christophersen?
20. The Larson canard.
21. Fake, unreliable or mistaken witnesses.
22. Scratched gas chamber walls?
23. Dachau gas chamber.
24. Survivor Lieberman and the Auschwitz ovens.
25. The Lachout document.
26. Fake Holocaust photos?
27. Science debunks Holocaust?
28. No Britannica mention of gas chambers?
29. Dr. Listojewski? Simon Wiesenthal's quote?
30. Small children and people unfit for work in Auschwitz?
31. Jews lie about the Holocaust?
32. Predetermined death toll?
33. Hilberg and famous witnesses shown to be liars, impostors during the Zündel trial?
34. Schindler's list a tale of fiction?
35. Bruno Baum admitted that false propaganda was created in Auschwitz?
36. Changing camp death tolls?
37. Death camps found only by the Soviets?
38. Rick debunks the Holocaust?

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by LemmyCaution

. . . three Einsatz Reinhard camps (Treblinka, Sobibor, Belize) . . .

Just noticed that I (spellcheck?) got Belize messed up in this! Belzec!!!

[LemmyCaution]

To the above issue of "millions of people were gassed with Zyklon B," Desbois (in his new book In Broad Daylight: The Secret Procedures behind the Holocaust by Bullets), pp viii, 257 states the Jewish death toll at the hands of various Nazi units in the occupied USSR as 2.2 million, broken down as follows:

* Ukraine 1.6 million (source: Kruglov, The Losses Suffered by Ukrainian Jews in 1941-1945, p 360)
* Belarus at least 0.5 million (source: Arad, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union, p 798)
* Russia 120,000 (source: Altman, Opfer des Hasses, p 348)

80% of the victims died by shooting, according to Father Desbois.

[Nick Terry]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

5) Why were all these people evacuated anyway? (Same goes for Anne Frank) I was under the impression that the Nazis somehow wanted to exterminate the Jews. Why did they, in times of war, being overran by the Soviets lead so many prisoners westward? Why didn't they let them starve, freeze to death, why didn't they shoot them?

Because the Final Solution was suspended at the end of October 1944, which is when gassings ceased at Birkenau.

There were 700,000 prisoners in the concentration camp system in January 1945, several hundred thousand were Jewish forced labourers, whose value increased as the war went on, contradicting the earlier goal of extermination. Nazi Germany had lost most of its empire so there were no substitutes for Jews. Only two years earlier, the Nazis tried to clear out all remaining German Jews employed in forced labour from Germany proper; after May 1944 they had to reverse this policy in a U-turn because of the course of the war. This didn't stop them from killing hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews deemed unfit for work in May-July 1944, but it did mean over 100,000 Hungarian Jews were selected for forced labour after arrival at Auschwitz to be shipped all over, or used in the Auschwitz complex - there were other contingents who were 'luckier' than Jews in 1942, but basically, things changed significantly after the so-called 'Hungarian Action' in the late spring of 1944.

So the existing labour force in the Auschwitz camp complex, ditto the Stutthof camp complex, was valuable enough to evacuate westwards in January 1945, a procedure that still cost thousands of lives on death marches and decimated the surviving inmate population.

There weren't really sufficient SS forces available to kill off the remaining camp inmates if that had been a policy, but killings of prisoners to prevent them from falling into enemy hands happened in a number of locations, e.g. Klooga, a prison near Lodz in '45, Sonnenburg prison at the same time, Lieberose sub-camp of Sachsenhausen, and the Treblinka I labour camp in July 1944. Thousands died that way, but low hundreds of thousands died during or after evacuations.

[Nessie]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

.....
I was thinking about guys like Germar Rudolf who spent over 25 years trying to disprove the Holocaust. And I was wondering if he really believes that gas chambers in Auschwitz are a lie. If he is a normal human, he must have doubts about his truth too, right? But then, 25 years of writing, reading, researching, sitting in jail would be for nothing.
.....

Those who have an academic background, yet support denial claims, are the hardest to understand. Rudolf is a scientist, he has a degree, he should know what is needed to prove something did or did not take place, but he fails in two really basic ways.

1 - he wants his cake and to eat it. He concludes that gassing as described was impossible, whilst acknowledging that the witnesses give limited information, varying descriptions and like most witnesses are not reliable. The only truly reliable witness is a trained observer who is asked to record some event at a distance without stress or distraction. A scientist should know that. Students are trained to set up experiments, watch and record what took place using detailed accurate notes. Those at Birkenau were under immense stress and were not keeping precise records, checking and verifying as they went.

Rudolf then admits there is limited information from other sources on exactly how the gassing was done, how many were gassed each time and how long it took. It is not as if any Nazi kept records of each gassing, how long it took to clean the chamber etc. There are no photos of inside the kremas.

If the information Rudolf working from is not reliable and has details missing, how can his conclusion be guaranteed to be accurate? It cannot. It is a best guess at most, which is not science, let alone what you would expect from someone who has a degree qualification and is setting out to find proof. It is the logical fallacy of arguments from ignorance and incredulity.

We also know that is a definite fact if you lock people in a room and introduce Zyklon B, they will die. No one was allowed in the delousing chambers when clothes were being fumigated. It is also a fact those rooms could be reused time and time again, by airing them, removing the clothes, filling them up and delousing again. We also know that the kremas could cremate large numbers of bodies. So it is not an absolute physical impossibility for there to have been gassings and cremations in the Birkenau kremas.

2 - he does nothing to verify or follow up on his conclusion. If he is correct and there were no mass gassings at Birkenau, then there MUST HAVE BEEN mass transports back out of the camp, in particular when the c440,000 Hungarian Jews arrived over a few months in 1944. But there is no evidence of that, from Nazis, Hungarians, others who were prisoners at the camps, from transport records, Polish railway workers doing the transporting, arrivals at other camps, evidence of accommodation or Hungarians returning home or elsewhere after the war. But there is NO EVIDENCE of that happening, at all, from any source.

That alone shows no matter what Rudolph thinks about the impossibility of gassings, gassings is what took place. If, after elimination, the only possible is something that looks improbable, then it is not as improbable at it appears.

[teamMerkel]

Thanks a lot Pacal, Lemmy and Nick for the detailed answers.

Regarding 1), the Axis History Forum link helped and explained a lot.

What struck me as weird (reading the conversation between Hoess and Dr. Kauffmann in Nuernberg) was the fact that Hoess would on one hand admit to having killed 2,5 million people in gas chambers while on the other hand he stated that mistreatment and torture was not common and the exception. Staff that did actually mistreat prisoners was allegedly sanctioned and discharged.

Anyway, your explanations for 3, 4 and 5 make perfect sense, thanks.

Regarding the crematoria, I was not suggesting that it would take twice the time for two bodies, Pacal. All I was saying is that I find it weird that Topf&Soehne was capable of building ovens that could burn a body within 30 minutes while present time crematoria apparently take 70-90 minutes.
And why would they not have been interested to burn the bodies to complete ash? Did they have a bone mill in Auschwitz?

Hans, I don't mind you thinking whatever you want about me. I can't find any explanations for this specific question (regarding the cremation), maybe it comes off as insincere but I'm really wondering about details like that. I'm not playing dumb either, I'm genuinely interested in getting answers and erasing my doubts. I don't want to be a denier at all but you can't chose to have doubts about something or not.
I also have no "real position", absolutely not and I can assure you of that. I tried as honestly as I can to describe my doubts and concerns.

Regarding the 300,000 figure, I still don't get it and the explanation that it was referring to Auschwitz I and not Birkenau is incorrect, imho.
At least 3 defendants (I was just randomly checking if all defendants were working at Auschwitz I), Erich Mussfeldt, Maria Mandl and Fritz Buntrock were in Birkenau. At least two of them are said to have selected people for the gas chambers, Mussfeldt even worked under Moll who was supervising the Sonderkommando.
I can't find any transcripts for this trial and apparently there are none in english. (there seem to be very little info on that particular trial overall)
How do you think is it possible that they came up with that number? Were they not aware of the Nuernberg trials and what really happend? Surely, it must have been obvious until 1947 that at least one million people were killed, most of them with Zyklon B.
An easy explanation would be that the broadcast was just wrong, they left something out or made a mistake translating the information.

[teamMerkel]

Nessie, good point regarding the disappearing of the hungarian Jews. A good question to ask someone like Rudolf.
Another question I would love to ask a denier is, why does he think the Nazis dismantled the crematoria in late 44. (I'm remembering this correctly, right?)
Like, why would they do this if they had nothing to hide? Makes absolutely no sense to me.

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

Regarding the 300,000 figure, I still don't get it and the explanation that it was referring to Auschwitz I and not Birkenau is incorrect, imho.

As above, I agree, I think it is rather a matter of recorded deaths of registered prisoners vs deaths of unregistered prisoners, not a case of the Auschwitz Stammlager vs Birkenau.

One reason I think that the reference, if the film clip has it accurately, to 300,000 is to registered prisoner deaths is that the Polish authorities were using different total death figures for Auschwitz in other instances around this time, e.g., as I mentioned in Höss's case. They surely knew the Nuremberg estimates. I am merely speculating . . . someone more knowledgeable about the various Auschwitz trials ... please weigh in!

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

I can't find any transcripts for this trial and apparently there are none in english. (there seem to be very little info on that particular trial overall)

As it took place in Poland in '47, I doubt that transcripts are readily available if they exist at all.

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

N. . . Another question I would love to ask a denier is, why does he think the Nazis dismantled the crematoria in late 44. (I'm remembering this correctly, right?)
Like, why would they do this if they had nothing to hide? Makes absolutely no sense to me.

You remember correctly. In December 1944 prisoners from the camp were brought to the Krema areas to assist in dismantling the Kremas, beginning with Krema III. On 15 January 70 prisoners who had been in the Sonderkommando, now making up Detail 104 B (Krema demolition detail), continued working at dismantling the Kremas, taking salvaged equipment to the railway siding from where it was shipped out to Gross Rosen. Demolition work included dynamiting the Krema and gas chamber buildings. A squad of Sonderkommando members, about 30 in number, was also assigned burning corpses in Krema V. On 18 January prisoners were marched out of Auschwitz, the demolition work not completed as the Red Army approached the camp. On 20 January the SS had a group of inmates bring dynamite to Kremas II and III; an SS unit under SS-Unterscharführer Herschel dynamited the structures. Another SS unit blew up Krema V on 26 January. The final evacuation transport left Auschwitz on 27 January 1945.

[Loss Leader]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

Hans, I don't mind you thinking whatever you want about me. I can't find any explanations for this specific question (regarding the cremation), maybe it comes off as insincere but I'm really wondering about details like that.

Except that you've already received detailed answers. There should be no reason for you to wonder.

Modern cremation standards are designed specifically to render the remains inert and safe for humans. This has been done with great care, for example, with livestock believed to be infected with mad cow disease. Aditionallty, cremation laws are designed to preserve the integrity of each individual. Bodies are never cremated together and the chamber must be cleaned between each use. That's so family can be sure they have their loved ones' ashes and nothing else.

The Nazis just didn't care about any of this. They didn't care about rendering the remains inert. They certainly didn't care about mixing remains. With no health standards, these things go much more quickly.

There are plenty of documents about this at, for example, the Nizkor Project.

[LemmyCaution]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

. . . Regarding the crematoria. . . And why would they not have been interested to burn the bodies to complete ash? Did they have a bone mill in Auschwitz?

More from Gideon Greif, based on his interviews of Sonderkommando members: there were "six stations" in the Kremas with Sonderkommado crews at each: undressing room, gas chamber, "dentists" (those searching the corpses for valuables), cremation ovens, bone crushers, team hauling ashes to Vistula and Sola rivers; Greif said that although SK members worked in teams, basically all SKs ended up working on all teams and doing all parts of the work at some point.

Some background on the disposal of bones and ashes at Birkenau: There were of course 4 crematoria at Birkenau for the incineration of corpses - as well as open pits for corpse burning when the capacity was required. Initially, the bodies of those gassed in the so-called little white and little red houses were buried nearby; starting fall 1942, following a visit by Himmler that summer and with assistance from Blobel, the camp SS began to exhume and cremate the corpses of these victims, burning over 100,000 corpses by the end of November. The work was executed by Sonderkommano members and the ashes were distributed into the Sola and Vistula rivers - “dropped into the river current at various points so that they would not accumulate.” (Bunker 2 - the little white house - was pressed back into service, and renamed Bunker 5, during May 1944 for the Hungarian action and new cremation pits dug at that time. For the Hungarian action, several pits were also dug near Crematoria 5, under Möll’s direction, for open-air burning to help with the large volume of dead during 1944; the famous open-pit cremation photo taken by Sonderkommando members - David Szmulewski and Stanislaw Jankowski - was from this area.) In the crematoria, quantities of bone remained after cremation. This material was collected and ground using mallets and special mortars (sledgehammers and a steel plate for the bone that was in Möll’s Crematoria 5 cremation pits). The ash/bone remains were stored temporarily in pits near each crematorium, later to be removed and discarded in various ways (ash remaining in these pits was covered over before evacuation of the camp): “buried in pits, dumped into the waters of the Sola and Vistula rivers and the fish ponds near the Birkenau camp, used to fill in low ground and marches, and spread as fertilizer on the farms belonging to the camp. . . . [H]uman remains were also used in building and repairing the roads in camp, for making walkways near the houses where the staff lived, and as insulating material in various camp buildings.” According to Höss, the intent was to disperse the evidence. Some crushed bone was sold to “Strem,” a company that delivered the remains to the Rendziny factory for use in fertilizer production. Fat from the corpses burnt in the open air was used to feed the fire in the corpse burning pits (this process was also credited to Möll). A small number of corpses was provided to SS doctors for experimentation. In fall 1944, in the vicinity of the bunkers, the “ashes were removed from the pits and the whole site was levelled.” Nevertheless, in 1965 a geological study of the area was conducted, and 303 bore holes dug - “Human ashes, bones and hair were found in 42 of the holes.”

(Summarized from Chapter XII in Auschwitz: 1940-1945, vol. II, published by the Auschwitz Museum; data provided by Höss and taken from WVHA reports is provided on pp 416-418, addressing quantities and the disposition of hair and dental metals. Also pp 134-175, Vol. III; Strzelecki, The Evacuation, Dismantling, and Liberation of KL Auschwitz,, pp 51-57, 111-118, 229-232; Pressac, Auschwitz: The Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers, pp 165, 179-180, 253, 389, 420, 422-424; Dwork & van Pelt, Auschwitz, pp 313-353)

[Pacal]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

Regarding the crematoria, I was not suggesting that it would take twice the time for two bodies, Pacal. All I was saying is that I find it weird that Topf&Soehne was capable of building ovens that could burn a body within 30 minutes while present time crematoria apparently take 70-90 minutes.

And why would they not have been interested to burn the bodies to complete ash? Did they have a bone mill in Auschwitz?

Firstly the people running the death camp at Auschwitz were not interested in reducing human bodies to complete ash. They were interested in reducing the bodies to a form that could be easily disposed of. The result is that if you go to Auschwitz today you can still find along with heaps of ash in fields bits and pieces of human bone. A relative of mine who visited Auschwitz in the early 1990s, was freaked out when she found the soil in places was impregnated with ash along with many bits of bone.

Secondly since modern day Crematoria are only interested in burning one body at a time I doubt that a facility that was burning people en-mass would have much to teach them.

Thirdly the usual time given for burning the bodies at Auschwitz was the time it took to burn the body, ( According to witnesses c. 20 minutes.), so that the remains fell through the grill. Actually the remains continued to be "cooked" in the ash channels of the furnaces for a further 20 minutes.

Fourthly the temperatures in the Auschwitz crematoria were higher than the usual c. 569 Celsius used in modern day crematoria.

Fifthly It takes time to heat up a crematoria of any kind so that the first cremation of the day takes longer than subsequent unless you allow the crematoria to cool off.

Sixth the Auschwitz crematoria was frequently operating 24 hours a day so that it was probably much more "efficient" than modern Crematoria.

Seventh My comment about twice the time for two bodies was not just aimed at what I thought was your misunderstanding but to point out that even assuming c. 70 minutes to burn a body that still means that you can burn two bodies in 70 minutes. And if the facility can burn 10 bodies at a time in 70 minutes that means at least 200 bodies in 24 hours. And since how fast bodies burn depends on all sorts of factors including, body fat, temperature of the crematoria etc., I suspect each crematoria could burn well over 500 bodies in 24 hours.

To repeat since modern day Crematoria are only interested in burning one body at a time. I rather suspect the ruthless efficiencies of large scale burning at Auschwitz and other places does not interest them.

I now have to take a shower. Revisting this topic is simply revolting.

[Hans]

Originally Posted by Pacal

Secondly since modern day Crematoria are only interested in burning one body at a time I doubt that a facility that was burning people en-mass would have much to teach them.

One additional factoid, modern ones often, if not always, put the body in a coffin or other container, something the Nazis of course did not do.

[Loss Leader]

I don't know why I bother posting in this thread. You guys are much better than I am at saying facts.

[Nessie]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

.....Another question I would love to ask a denier is, why does he think the Nazis dismantled the crematoria in late 44. (I'm remembering this correctly, right?)
Like, why would they do this if they had nothing to hide? Makes absolutely no sense to me.

That point is worth expanding. Deniers often like to pretend the Holocaust is on trial, they are the defence and all they need to do is show reasonable doubt, the Nazis are innocent and crucially, they do not need to prove innocence. That way they can excuse themselves from dealing with the problem of no evidence of mass survival.

But, when determining guilt, motive, opportunity, ability and guilty conduct after the crime is all part of the evidencing.

When the Nazis razed certain camps to the ground and even buried the buildings, that has to cause reasonable suspicion. When those camps were the AR camps where they are reported to have had gas chambers, that is even more suspicious. When the kremas at Birkenau were either demolished or blown up, that is also suspect.

Those involved in the running of the AR camps had to sign a confidentiality agreement;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman...ainst_humanity

A prisoner at TII, Yankel Wiernik reported in his memoires published in 1945, that after the discovery of mass graves of Polish soldiers at Katyn, the Nazis had realised they would need to make body counts at their mass graves impossible. So at camps like TII which had no crematoriums, the graves were exhumed, the bodies cremated and the remains were buried. Birkenau already and crematoriums, so body disposal was by that means anyway.

Buried buildings and large areas of cremated remains that had not been marked in any way is suspect. That each site also had a guard housed there and the sites were planted over (lupins at TII) is clearly a cover up.

Very few documents survive relating to the AR camps, those which do are not from the camps themselves, but are documents referencing them, such as transport records showing people being taken to the camps. If they were just delousing centres or transit camps, why destroy the records? Those records would be worth their weight in gold to accused Nazis, as they would disprove the claims that the camps were death camps. In the end, no Nazi ever claimed the AR camps were transit/delosuing camps. That does not stop deniers from making those claims!

All of that is guilty conduct after the crime, where it can be inferred that they are the actions of a guilty person trying to cover up the extent of their crime.

[Nessie]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

Nessie, good point regarding the disappearing of the hungarian Jews. A good question to ask someone like Rudolf.
...

It is THE question. It is the reason why some deniers have realised they are wrong and agreed there was a Holocaust involving the numbers claimed. If they are correct, then people who arrived at certain places, must have then left in mass transports and arrived somewhere else. Where is the evidence that happened? The specific Holocaust incidents I tend to concentrate on are;

1 -the 34,313 Dutch Jews sent from Westerbork in the Netherlands to Sobibor between March and July 1943. Only 18 are reported to have survived. Where are the rest?

https://www.sobiborinterviews.nl/en/...e-overlevenden

2 - the 33,771 Jews who gathered at Babi Yar in Kiev, after an order to appear there on the 29th September 1941 and whom were recorded as shot by the Einsatzgruppen in their OSR 101. If they were not shot, where were they taken?

http://www.holocaustresearchproject....z/babiyar.html

3 - the arrival of around 430,000 Hungarian Jews at Birkenau between May and July 1944. Their arrival was well documented (the famous photos of selections) and those registered to work were mainly taken out of the camp to elsewhere in the Auschwitz camp complex (see paragraph 8 onwards below)

http://konfliktuskutato.hu/index.php...tid=36:english

If deniers are correct, then around 430,000 people were transported back out of the camp, taken elsewhere and accommodated. But Auschwitz-Birkenau itself I am sure had a maximum population of around 50,000. Where could take that amount of people in such as short space of time?

In 1945, whilst in prison awaiting trial, Himmler was interviewed by a Norbert Masur and was asked about the camps on liberation and in particular about the Hungarian Jews;

"I asked Himmler to tell us the number of Jews still alive in the camps, and he listed the following figures: Theresienstadt 25,000, Rawensbruck 20,000, Mauthausen 20 to 30,000, in addition to smaller numbers in several other camps. Also he claimed that in the camps captured by the Allies, the following number of Jews were left Auschwitz 150,000. Bergen-Belsen 50,000, Buchenwald 6,000, It seemed to me that his claims were false, and certainly, with respect to Auschwitz, greatly exaggerated.
In Hungary, Himmler claimed to have left 450,000 Jews "So what were the thanks for this?", he said sanctimoniously, The Jews shot at our troops in Budapest". I objected: If there were 450,000 Jews left of the original 850,000, it means that 400,000 Jews were deported to an unknown destiny. The Jews left in Hungary could not know what fate the Germans had in mind for them, and that was the reason for this kind of reaction." Himmler pushed such arguments aside, apparently he appropriated the well-known verse of LaFontaine "This animal is very bad, when attacked, it defends itself" to his own purpose."

So yes, Rudolf and the rest need to explain, where is the evidence all those people left the camps and other places and were resettled till liberation? If they cannot produce the evidence, what does that mean?

[teamMerkel]

Originally Posted by Loss Leader

Except that you've already received detailed answers. There should be no reason for you to wonder.

Well, no I haven't at the time I was writing the bit you responded to. There was one answer (which is not "answers") and it could, at least in my opinion, not be described as "detailed".

Originally Posted by LemmyCaution

More from Gideon Greif....

Thanks, great source, gonna look into his work in the future.

Originally Posted by Pacal

Fourthly the temperatures in the Auschwitz crematoria were higher than the usual c. 569 Celsius used in modern day crematoria.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Everything regarding the cremation makes a lot more sense to me now.
Your fourth point, however, doesn't make any sense, that's not a big deal though.
Modern crematoria use temperatures between 800 and 1200 degrees Celsius. That's at least what 3 random german crematoria that I looked up state.

Originally Posted by Nessie

A prisoner at TII, Yankel Wiernik reported in his memoires published in 1945...

Nessie, thanks for your contribution. I agree with a lot of what you said, especially concerning all the missing Jews from Hungary that disappeared in Auschwitz.
I don't want to get into Treblinka here, but in my opinion Yankel Wiernik is full of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Treblinka didn't exist or no one was murdered there. But "A Year in Treblinka" is full of exxagerations if not flat out lies.

Quoting from chapter 7:
"One of the Germans, a man named Sepp, was a vile and savage beast, who took special delight in torturing children. When he pushed women around and they begged him to stop because they had children with them, he would frequently snatch a child from the woman's arms and either tear the child in half or grab it by the legs, smash its head against a wall and throw the body away. Such incidents were by no means isolated. Tragic scenes of this kind occurred all the time."
Tearing children in half, yeah right.

"The number of transports grew daily, and there were periods when as many as 30,000 people were gassed in one day..."
Ok, but considering all his exaggerations, I don't buy it.

Chapter 9:
"The gangsters are standing near the ashes, shaking with satanic laughter. Their faces radiate a truly satanic satisfaction. They toasted the scene with brandy and with the choicest liqueurs, ate, caroused and had a great time warming themselves by the fire."

"The hangmen stood warming themselves by the fire, drinking, eating and singing."
Really?

"Gradually, the fire began to die down, leaving only ashes which went to fertilize the silent soil."
Weird, I wasn't under the impression that an open air cremation of 3,000 bodies would leave only ashes.

Again, I'm not saying Treblinka or every word in Wierniks book is a lie. I just don't trust people who are full of it. And Wiernik clearly was.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the detailed answers and contributions. Most questions were sorted out, which is great.

[LemmyCaution]

I think that Wiernik wrote in a literary style and may have had ambitions as a writer (native Polish speakers I know have told me that passages of his book are extremely well written, even lyrical), he quite often used figurative language, which is different to being full of it. Recall, too, that for this figurative prose you seem to be quoting from an English translation. (Note: Before being taken to Treblinka, Wiernik had been a employee and friend of Stefan Krzywoszewski, a Polish newspaper editor, theater director and well known writer; it was to Krzywoszewski that Wiernik originally brought his Treblinka story after his escape and before writing his mss.)

In regards to the children, there are so many testimonies from camps and from the killing fields, which parallel Wiernik's, about extreme cruelty on the part of perpetrators, crushing skulls, throwing children into ravines, etc, that I am not bothered by what Wiernik says - it aligns with many other testimonies. Right now I'm reading Father Desbois' new book on the mass shootings in the occupied east; for example, among other instances, he quotes from the testimony of Gregory, given to the Yahad-In Unum team, where Gregory says that at Kondrachov "The children were simply thrown into the quarry. They took them by the feet and threw them to the bottom." And from the testimony of Lydia (Khemelnitsky region, Ukraine), who told investigators that "There were some mothers who had babies in blankets in their arms. The were told to put them down around the ditch; they did it. That's when Dioma, the policeman [Demiane Podnevitch, a Ukrainian in service of the Germans], came. He kicked all the babies down into the ditch; they were alive." And so on.

On Wiernik's use of language and stylistic issues, here and here are posts I made in another forum a couple years ago. The context for the notes is the well-known passage in which Wiernik writes about the gas chambers and the fate of those crammed into them.

Like Nessie, I find Wiernik a credible, useful source, corroborated on key points by other testimonies. You dismiss Nessie's citation of Wiernik on the exhumation and burning of corpses at Treblinka whilst writing "I'm not saying Treblinka or every word in Wierniks book is a lie. I just don't trust people who are full of it. And Wiernik clearly was." Yet there are other sources on the exhumation and burning of corpses by the Nazis in the east, including at Treblinka. E.g., Samuel Rajzman:

Quote:

As soon as we came to Treblinka, we could smell the stench of tens of thousands of corpses. When I arrived, the Germans weren’t cremating the corpses; they were burying them, tens of thousands of people in ditches. They later figured that burying the victims was not such a good idea, because someday those ditches would be dug up and what had gone on there would become known. So they made these fires with grates and they brought steam shovels. They dug the dead out of the ditches and loaded them on the fire, where they burned 24 hours a day. The Germans poured oil on the corpses and oil underneath, and the fire burned continuously.

Donat, The Death Camp Treblinka, p 232 - Why should one disbelieve Wiernik on this corroborated point because some details aren't expressed as you might express them?

[LemmyCaution]

Let me add one more example of how children were treated during murder actions, also from Desbois' book where he quotes from the well-known deposition of a German Hermann Graebe, a manager stationed in the east, concerning the action in Sdoblunov on 13 October 1942. During this action a German perpetrator named Wacker pulled an old woman and her child out of a house: "Wacker grabbed the child by the legs, swung him around several times and then hit his head against the doorpost. It sounded like an exploding tire. When the child was dead, the inhabitants of the house came out without any resistance, completely resigned. I heard how Wacker said to his comrades: 'It's the best method, we just have to understand this.'"

There are different ways of conveying the horror of such actions; there is IMO nothing wrong with how Wiernik chose to express his horror in what you quoted above.

[Nessie]

Originally Posted by teamMerkel

.....
Nessie, thanks for your contribution. I agree with a lot of what you said, especially concerning all the missing Jews from Hungary that disappeared in Auschwitz.
I don't want to get into Treblinka here, but in my opinion Yankel Wiernik is full of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Treblinka didn't exist or no one was murdered there. But "A Year in Treblinka" is full of exxagerations if not flat out lies.

Quoting from chapter 7:
"One of the Germans, a man named Sepp, was a vile and savage beast, who took special delight in torturing children. When he pushed women around and they begged him to stop because they had children with them, he would frequently snatch a child from the woman's arms and either tear the child in half or grab it by the legs, smash its head against a wall and throw the body away. Such incidents were by no means isolated. Tragic scenes of this kind occurred all the time."
Tearing children in half, yeah right.

"The number of transports grew daily, and there were periods when as many as 30,000 people were gassed in one day..."
Ok, but considering all his exaggerations, I don't buy it.

Chapter 9:
"The gangsters are standing near the ashes, shaking with satanic laughter. Their faces radiate a truly satanic satisfaction. They toasted the scene with brandy and with the choicest liqueurs, ate, caroused and had a great time warming themselves by the fire."

"The hangmen stood warming themselves by the fire, drinking, eating and singing."
Really?

"Gradually, the fire began to die down, leaving only ashes which went to fertilize the silent soil."
Weird, I wasn't under the impression that an open air cremation of 3,000 bodies would leave only ashes.

Again, I'm not saying Treblinka or every word in Wierniks book is a lie. I just don't trust people who are full of it. And Wiernik clearly was.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the detailed answers and contributions. Most questions were sorted out, which is great.

Bear in mind, back in 1945, many people were war weary, propaganda cautious and not inclined to believe the stories about mass gassings. In effect, the early Holocaust reports had to compete with all the othere atrocities and horros of the war.

Wiernik was not writing copy for a news paper report, or an account to published in a hsitorical journal. He was writing his memoires, possibly as part of his recovery from PSD.

Wiernik's style is repeated again and again with recollections of the camps. They are all people reliving painful, traumatic events. If you read German Nazi recollections, they have a far more matter of fact, blase style where they are almost disconnecting themselves from what they saw. That is what I would expect from victim and perpetrator.

The denier tactic of trying to wrote off all witnesses as liars because some did lie, or exaggerate, or failed to differentiate between what they saw and what they heard about, is dishonest. No other investigatory discipline treats witnesses that way. The police, historians, journalists. They check what witnesses say and accept errors, exaggerations and even lies are not reasons to dismiss all testimony.

[LemmyCaution]

On the issue of what Wiernik said in his book about the incineration of corpses at Treblinka, consider additional corroborating evidence, from Arad's BST:

Quote:

Yechiel Reichman, a member of the “burning group,” writes:

Quote:

The SS “expert” on body burning ordered us to put women, particularly fat women, on the first layer on the grill, face down. The second layer could consist of whatever was brought—men, women, or children—and so on, layer on top of layer.... Then the “expert” ordered us to lay dry branches under the grill and to light them. Within a few minutes the fire would take so it was difficult to approach the crematorium from as far as 50 meters away.... The work was extremely difficult. The stench was awful. Liquid excretions from the corpses squirted all over the prisoner-workers. The SS man operating the excavator often dumped the corpses directly onto the prisoners working nearby, wounding them seriously. . . .

Arad, p 175

Quote:

A prisoner at “Treblinka I” described what he saw:

Quote:

The spring winds brought with them the smell of burning bodies from the nearby extermination camp. We breathed in the stench of smoldering corpses We heard the clatter of the excavators for days and nights on end…. At night we gazed at skies red from the flames. Sometimes you could also see tongues of flame rising into the night…

Arad, p 177

Quote:

SS Oberscharführer Heinrich Matthes, the commander of the “extermination area” in Treblinka, testified:

Quote:

At that time SS Oberscharführer or Hauptscharführer [Herbert] Floss, who, as I assume, was previously in another extermination camp, arrived. He was in charge of the arrangements for cremating the corpses. The cremation took place in such a way that railway lines and concrete blocks were placed together. The corpses were piled on these rails. Brushwood was put under the rails. The wood was doused with petrol. In that way not only the newly accumulated corpses were cremated, but also those taken out from the graves.

Arad, p 174

Bryant - in Eyewitness to Genocide, p 79 - covers the corpse burning, naming the specialist (Herbert Floss), as did SS-man Matthes (Wiernik's "Tadellos"), sent to Treblinka from Sobibór to correct and oversee the process, which involved the large fire pits with grates and a quota system. Bryant cites the 1961 interrogation, for the Eichmann trial, of Eliasz Rosenberg. Rosenberg testified at the 1965 Düsseldorf trial that SS-man Munzberger had once led a mother and her child to the cremation grill, where he shot them before having their bodies burned (Bryant, p 216). Also, Glazar testified at the same trial about the corpse-incineration that took place during the winter of 1943 (Bryant, p 106); Wiernik testified about Matthes' role in the cremation process (Bryant, p 84).

In his book on Sobibór, Jules Schelvis summarizes the cremation processes used at Einsatz Reinhard camps, first quoting the 1961 testimony of SS-man Heinrich Gley about the exhumation/cremation process, using pyres, at Bełżec (pp 99-100). Then, Schelvis describes the Sobibór process (p 112) citing testimonies of SS-men Ittner and Bauer, Ukrainian guard Danilstjenko, and Piwonski, a railway employee from the nearby village of Zlobek. Schelvis also discusses specialist Herbert Floss's stint at Sobibór.

Were these accounts ginned up, coordinated, and "full of it" - or, perhaps, these different witnesses were describing something that occurred, each from his own vantage point and in his own manner?