quote:Originally posted by ben: a vague mention that doesn't even use the word 'soap'
If you care to read that thread, you'll see that the poster SueDeNimm opened the worm can by writing:
quote:Their gold teeth were extracted for currency, their hair was used for stuffing pillows, their body fat was used to manufacture soap.
Sounds pretty straightforward and clear to me; if you weren't reading closely enough you could have missed it, indeed. I obviously picked on this because in spite of the academics at Yad Vashem accepting that the story is false, it still manages to get to the surface. Of course, matters are not helped by stories like this.
As for the tales of steaming and electrocution, these stories were submitted and accepted at Nuremberg, only to be replaced by the just as believable tale concerning homicidal gas chambers. Of course you haven't heard much about these claims, but if you read the testimonies and the court submissions, they are there - often in full, lurid detail. My point is that these tales are qualitative no different from the ever-changing homicidal gas chamber story, particularly concerning the three 'Reinhard' camps.
Anyway, I have things to do as I have just got back from the continent; I'll no doubt reply to your points in time, I can see no real rush.
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quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: If you care to read that thread, you'll see that the poster SueDeNimm opened the worm can by writing:
Apologies if I missed this - which page was this?
The point, surely of the Haaretz piece is that the experts have been swift to rebut the story. The existence of the gas chambers is well established by testimony, stacks of documentary evidence and the admission of the Nazis themselves; mentioning ridiculous, marginal stories can only be an attempt to muddy the waters and a rather sorry one at that.
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I know what you are saying about the soap story - and yes, it bores me too. But as far as I see it there are two strands to this issue - the academic debate and the matter of public perception. Yes, the soap myth has been cleaned up by the bookworms; however, as SueDeNimm's apparent knowledge of its 'occurrence' proves, it is still floating about.
As for the testimony for the gas chambers, I am more than aware of what has been presented.
- You mention testimony, but then I can argue with some justification that what we are offered is qualitatively no different from the now disused tales that were submitted at Nuremberg.
- You mention documents. Yes, there are documents. But what exactly do they say, and how have they been interpreted? And of the the hundreds of thousands of documents available, isn't is a bit odd how the number of key pieces of documentary evidence - use of euphemistic 'codewords' notwithstanding - is few and far between? The story is a complete mess, moving from stories of pre-planned gas chamber facilities, things saying one thing but really meaning something else, and then onto ad hoc installations and morgue conversions. The documents can be interpreted in any number of ways, but if you offer an interpretation that falls outside the accepted version, then you are instantly dismissed as an anti-semite, a crank, or both.
- Admissions of the Nazis - again, where do we look? Many of these so-called 'admissions' are fatally flawed, yet when needs must they are used time and again, albeit in truncated or cut and pasted form. The Gerstein Report - I'll bang on about this one more time, as it remains in the minds of many Holocaust historians as the only eye-witness account from the Nazi side on the 'Reinhard' camps - is full of holes, misnomers and outright clangers, yet it is still being used. The same for both the postwar confession and autobiography of Auschwitz Commandant Rudolf Hoess, which was even used by the makers of currently-running documentary series on Auschwitz.
Many of the Nazi confessions used today are from low-ranking personnel and others who feel the need to contribute to the story because they feel it is somehow the right thing to do. Take for example the story of British Auschwitz prisoner Charlie Evans - after all, who better to tell the story to British people than one of their own. Now I really don't want to insult this clearly gentle, mild-mannered elderly gentleman but his story, when placed alongside the facts, simply doesn't fit.
Evans claims to have witnessed the arrival of cattle cars, bewildered children, and the sending of these miserable souls to to the 'gas chambers'; he then claims to have seen bodies being taken away from said installations by horse-drawn carts.
This is all extremely odd when we read that British PoWs were taken to the industrial annex camp at Monowitz; Evans was mining coal, yet claimed to witness the trains coming in laden with men, women and children - now as far as I know these trains never went to Monowitz, which was a slave labour complex - but to Birkenau, more than four miles away on the other side of the town of Oswiecim - they were hardly separated by a little fence. Also, I have never heard any story about coal mines sitting 'on the other side of a fence' from the homicidal 'gas chambers'.
While one has no reason to doubt that Charlie Evans might have been severly beaten by the guards during his imprisonment at Auschwitz, there is no logic to his claims. Indeed one can argue with some justification that Mr Evans must have either had really powerful eyesight, is slightly senile, or is simply telling porkies. You might well dismiss this as my picking on one particular easy-target eye-witness, but the fact remains that this man's story is still passed off as truth.
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H1ppychick
We all prisoners, chickee-baby. We all locked in.
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Quick Q for Mr Norton, not really related to the thread discussions above but prompted by them.
How do you reconcile your Conservative beliefs and party affiliation, the current leadership of the Conservative Party and your beliefs regarding high-level Zionist control and vested interest in maintaining or promoting Holocaust statistics and histories that you contend are inaccurate?
I'm not trying to get at you here, I genuinely was wondering whether your party loyalties had been at all affected by having a Jewish Leader?
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I have lost faith in the Conservatives generally, and this has nothing to do with the current leadership. However, I have been more than irritated by Howard's jumping on the 'holocaust' bandwagon, and his statements to that effect. Some of them have been quite absurd, including an interview with the Mail in which he claimed that one of his aunts had been 'taken to the gas chamber twice,' and that 'on one occasion they ran out of gas and so she survived. On the other there was some malfunction.'
That said, he did refuse to sign this country up to the sort of crazy 'holocaust denial' legislation that has been firmly entrenched in Europe, which is something that Bleurgh and his minions would not have done.
ETA:
Seeing as it is related to this issue, it appears that it is not only individuals who run the risk of offending certain whingers, but scenic winter resorts as well. Pathetic, truly pathetic.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You mention testimony, but then I can argue with some justification that what we are offered is qualitatively no different from the now disused tales that were submitted at Nuremberg.
Given that you've decided that the Final Solution was some sort of myth anyway it's natural to expect you to 'argue with' the mass of testimony that doesn't agree with your outlook. Quite frankly, if it's a question of weighing up the accounts of thousands of people who were alive and present at the time under discussion or the tales told by someone born decades afterwards who has 'a problem with Jews' I know which I'm going to find more convincing.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You mention documents. Yes, there are documents. But what exactly do they say, and how have they been interpreted? And of the the hundreds of thousands of documents available, isn't is a bit odd how the number of key pieces of documentary evidence - use of euphemistic 'codewords' notwithstanding - is few and far between? .
Your warped outlook skews the very questions you ask. Between 1939-45 the Jews of Europe - especially Eastern Europe - were killed in huge numbers. This is indisputable. Hunting down, imprisonment, torture and slaughter were all state policy of the Nazis - Hitler prophesied he was going to do this and he pretty much did it... with huge amounts of resource, expertise and effort devoted specifically to the task. This is also indisputable.
If you propose that neither of these things took place there's not a lot of point discussing particular pieces of evidence with you because you're basically just a weirdo conspiracy theorist - not far off the flying saucer artists, freemason junkies, blood-drinking lizard nuts and Master Race enthusiasts.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The documents can be interpreted in any number of ways, but if you offer an interpretation that falls outside the accepted version, then you are instantly dismissed as an anti-semite, a crank, or both.
With good reason. If a memo from one SS official to another (I will edit later to provide a full reference) talks about how, of a group of Serbian Jews, the men have all been shot and the women and children are to be 'processed' using a "delousing van" (the term enclosed in meaningful quote marks) after which process the particular area will have been 'cleared' of Jews, there's really only one interpretation that can be made of that document. To claim that you can interpret it 'any number of ways' is really to admit that you aren't actually interested in interpretation at all - you're dismissing according to prejudice.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'll bang on about this one more time, as it remains in the minds of many Holocaust historians as the only eye-witness account from the Nazi side on the 'Reinhard' camps.
'One more time'? Somehow I doubt that very much. The clue to your approach lies in the fact that you devote so much energy to trying to dismiss Nazi accounts (good grief, personal testimony from wartime contains 'inconsistencies' - shock-horror, whatever next?). To you it's clearly axiomatic that Jewish eyewitnesses can be dismissed out of hand because they're all liars.
There are massive 'inconsistencies' in accounts of the Dresden bombing - to the degree that David Irving proposes figures ranging from 35,000 to 135,000 to 250,000 killed, all based on apparently 'compelling' evidence. Never hear any 'revisionsts' complaining about that one, or crowing about the evidently defective arithmatic of Irving - quite the opposite, in fact. All that being the case, maybe we should be putting the Dresden myth to bed, once and for all - especially after all the browbeating about it in the media in recent weeks etc etc
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Many of the Nazi confessions used today are from low-ranking personnel and others who feel the need to contribute to the story because they feel it is somehow the right thing to do.
Oh right. Still, I suppose that 'gets rid' of a whole pile of other evidence, doesn't it?
Anyone wanting to assess the testimony of Nazis or former Nazis for themselves should check out Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You might well dismiss this as my picking on one particular easy-target eye-witness, but the fact remains that this man's story is still passed off as truth.
Easy targets are your speciality - that and straw men. I suppose more convincing testimony from Jews would simply be written off under your 'no Jews' rule. Laurence Rees's excellent documentary on Auschwitz contained fascinating material from a wide range of eyewitnesses. I doubt anyone who watched it could listen you crank out your nonsense yet again without feeling their stomach turn.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Gerstein [...] the only eye-witness account from the Nazi side on the 'Reinhard' camps
As usual, a little checking up reveals somewhat more than Snorton makes out.
quote:5.4.2.1 The second category of eyewitnesses is comprised of Germans who were stationed at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Twenty-nine such German camp personnel were indicted and brought before German courts in the 1950's and 1960's. They all gave pre-trial depositions. Many claimed that they had had no choice but to carry out the duties that they had been assigned, and many denied that they had committed any harmful or malicious acts beyond routine compliance with their obligatory duties. But none of them denied that the camps were equipped with gas chambers, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. At least 26 of the 29 had prior experience in the so-called "euthanasia" program, in which German mentally- and physically handicapped were gassed in one of six "institutes" or killing centers in Germany.
5.4.2.2 Of these 29 men, Franz Stangl held the highest rank as commandant of first Sobibor and then Treblinka. Outside of judicial proceedings, he also gave extensive testimony in long interviews with the British journalist, Gitta Sereny, that are easily accessible in her book, Into That Darkness. The testimony of Franz Suchomel, a guard at Treblinka, who was interviewed at length on hidden camera by Claude Lanzmann, can be seen and heard in latter's documentary film Shoah. Among the judicial testimonies of the other 27 camp personnel brought to trial in Germany were those of Alfred Schluch, Hermann Gley, Erich Bauer, and Heinrich Matthes.
Snorton claims to have a good understanding of the subject - he's either lying about how ignorant he is or lying about the richness, variety and consistency of the evidence. Take your pick.
A tremendously useful site - and reviewing the Judgement turns up quite a few of the distorting tactics familiar from our own miniature Irving.
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Not entirely relevant, but I read this (somewhat dated) essay yesterday and thought of Rick, especially this part:
quote: Middle-class woman: “Well, no one could call me anti-Semitic, but I do think the way these Jews behave is too absolutely stinking. The way they push their way to the head of queues, and so on. They’re so abominably selfish. I think they’re responsible for a lot of what happens to them.”
quote:Originally posted by My Name Is Joe: this (somewhat dated) essay (February 1945):
quote:There are about 400,000 known Jews in Britain, and in addition some thousands or, at most, scores of thousands of Jewish refugees who have entered the country from 1934 onwards.
quote:Originally posted by ben: Given that you've decided that the Final Solution was some sort of myth anyway it's natural to expect you to 'argue with' the mass of testimony that doesn't agree with your outlook.
In fairness, this 'natural' principle is applied in equal measure by both sides in this debate. If there is an argument to be made, people will usually target the areas that are most at odds with their position.
quote:Quite frankly, if it's a question of weighing up the accounts of thousands of people who were alive and present at the time under discussion or the tales told by someone born decades afterwards who has 'a problem with Jews' I know which I'm going to find more convincing.
This is not a proper argument, Ben. Of course, thousands of people saying one thing will sound far more compelling that a few saying something else. For centuries people believed that the earth was flat.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Your warped outlook skews the very questions you ask. Between 1939-45 the Jews of Europe - especially Eastern Europe - were killed in huge numbers. This is indisputable. Hunting down, imprisonment, torture and slaughter were all state policy of the Nazis - Hitler prophesied he was going to do this and he pretty much did it... with huge amounts of resource, expertise and effort devoted specifically to the task. This is also indisputable.
I have no problem with this statement. 'Hunting down, imprisonment, torture and slaughter' - I have never cast any shred of doubt that these things happened. Likewise with the resources that were employed. My particular focus is and always has been on the aspect of the 'holocaust' story that makes it what it is - the capital-H 'Holocaust' - the story of the homicidal 'gas chambers'.
quote:If you propose that neither of these things took place there's not a lot of point discussing particular pieces of evidence with you because you're basically just a weirdo conspiracy theorist - not far off the flying saucer artists, freemason junkies, blood-drinking lizard nuts and Master Race enthusiasts.
Well as you can see from the above I have proposed otherwise, and unreservedly so.
quote:With good reason. If a memo from one SS official to another (I will edit later to provide a full reference) talks about how, of a group of Serbian Jews, the men have all been shot and the women and children are to be 'processed' using a "delousing van" (the term enclosed in meaningful quote marks) after which process the particular area will have been 'cleared' of Jews, there's really only one interpretation that can be made of that document. To claim that you can interpret it 'any number of ways' is really to admit that you aren't actually interested in interpretation at all - you're dismissing according to prejudice.
The task of any analyst is to study each document aganist a given set of rules and contexts. Fundamental to this analysis are mathematics and logic. In short - if it couldn't happen, then it probably didn't.
In the case above, the first question I would ask is why would one method - shooting - by applied to the men and another method - I assume gassing - be applied to the women and children? It simply doesn't make sense. Anyway, I'll have a look at the document when you post it.
quote:'One more time'? Somehow I doubt that very much.
For the purpose of our current line of discussion, I think I have said all that needs to be said. Unless, of course, we choose to have a specific discussion and appraisal of the evidence for the 'Reinhard' camps, for which this document (PS-1553) is referenced, in part or whole, by most if not all of those who have written about it.
quote:The clue to your approach lies in the fact that you devote so much energy to trying to dismiss Nazi accounts (good grief, personal testimony from wartime contains 'inconsistencies' - shock-horror, whatever next?). To you it's clearly axiomatic that Jewish eyewitnesses can be dismissed out of hand because they're all liars.
Not true. Everything I choose to comment on is based on bringing together the established facts and weighing up each eyewitness account against that. The story of Charlie Evans (referred in my last post) is a case in point; his story sounds compelling enough in the wider context of the 'holocaust' story, but taken by itself and measured up against the facts, it becomes apparent that the story is highly questionable. From this, one could suggest that his memory is simply hazy or that he is - gasp! - a liar.
quote:There are massive 'inconsistencies' in accounts of the Dresden bombing - to the degree that David Irving proposes figures ranging from 35,000 to 135,000 to 250,000 killed, all based on apparently 'compelling' evidence. Never hear any 'revisionsts' complaining about that one, or crowing about the evidently defective arithmatic of Irving - quite the opposite, in fact.
You've never heard 'holocaust' revisionists discuss Dresden because it is not directly related to the 'holocaust' - so you are jabbing at a straw man here. That said, while I do classify the firebombing of Dresden as a war crime, I am of the opinion that Irving's figures are somewhat bloated.
quote:Anyone wanting to assess the testimony of Nazis or former Nazis for themselves should check out Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men.
I have only had a cursory look at this work; it has no relevance to the 'gas chamber' claim, but focuses specifically on the actions carried out the Police Battalion 101.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Easy targets are your speciality - that and straw men. I suppose more convincing testimony from Jews would simply be written off under your 'no Jews' rule.
As I have said many times previously, there two levels to this debate, the academic and the public. It so happens to be that the majority of the 'easy targets' are in the public arena. The same applies to those who target revisionists - the targets are the same: perceived 'anti-Semites', obvious neo-Nazis, long-dead revisionists and the likes of David Irving, who by his own admission isn't even a 'holocaust' historian but little more than a doubting Thomas. There is far more mileage in writing articles on a fairly well-known figure like Irving than getting to grips with the specialist works of the likes of Germar Rudolf, Juergen Graf and Carlo Mattogno.
As for the 'holocaust' academics, they too have decided to target the weak links - they too have found it a lot easier to focus on Irving; as for taking on the specialists from the revisionist school, they'd rather employ the 'non-debate' tactic and throw about the familiar slurs.
quote:Laurence Rees's excellent documentary on Auschwitz contained fascinating material from a wide range of eyewitnesses. I doubt anyone who watched it could listen you crank out your nonsense yet again without feeling their stomach turn.
I agree it was fascinating. And yes, I am sure a lot of people might feel their stomachs turning. But this feeling would have nothing to do with the matter of historical truth, but offended sensibilities.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: In the case above, the first question I would ask is why would one method - shooting - by applied to the men and another method - I assume gassing - be applied to the women and children? It simply doesn't make sense.
If I had to off a lot of people I'd probably machine-gun en masse the ones most likely and most able to resist, then you could take your time and use a more cost-effective method on the women and kids. Also, if there should be any popular resistance to your activities and corpses were found you could maybe explain away the women and children's deaths as the result of a disease, if they were bullet-riddled that story wouldn't wash. Machine-gunned men? You were quelling an uprising or shooting escapees.
EDIT: repetition
[ 16.02.2005, 13:03: Message edited by: Black Mask ]
quote:Originally posted by ben: As usual, a little checking up reveals more than Snorton makes out.
Even some 'holocaust' historians agree with me, though. Of the Gerstein Report, Gerald Reitlinger said that it "...contains the only description of the death camps as seen through the eyes of a German official." (Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (1986), p. 285)
quote:The second category of eyewitnesses is comprised of Germans who were stationed at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Twenty-nine such German camp personnel were indicted and brought before German courts in the 1950's and 1960's. They all gave pre-trial depositions. Many claimed that they had had no choice but to carry out the duties that they had been assigned, and many denied that they had committed any harmful or malicious acts beyond routine compliance with their obligatory duties. But none of them denied that the camps were equipped with gas chambers, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed. At least 26 of the 29 had prior experience in the so-called "euthanasia" program, in which German mentally- and physically handicapped were gassed in one of six "institutes" or killing centers in Germany.
This is all well and good, but it hides the fact that when these men were brought before the courts, the trials were conducted on the established basis the the 'gas chambers' existed. Therefore, the logical tactic of the defence would have been to work within this and try as best they could to minimise the risk of a lengthier sentence. As revisionist William Lindsey has argued,
quote:To deny that Jews had been maliciously killed en masse by Germany in a tribunal whose very existence was based upon the intent to establish without doubt that Jews had been killed was as fatal to the defendant in 1946 as it would have been to an accused medieval heretic who before his inquisitors guaranteed his condemnation on whatever charge by throwing in for the hell of it a denial of the existence of the Trinity and the Divinity of Jesus.
(W. B. Lindsey in The Journal of Historical Review, Vol. 4 No. 3 (Institute for Historical Review, Autumn 1983), p. 265
To dispute the premise of 'gas chambers' would have constituted 'obdurate denial', which would have in turn precluded a reduction in the sentence or a pardon from the start. (cf. J. Graf, The Giant with feet of clay, p.92
quote:Of these 29 men, Franz Stangl held the highest rank as commandant of first Sobibor and then Treblinka. Outside of judicial proceedings, he also gave extensive testimony in long interviews with the British journalist, Gitta Sereny, that are easily accessible in her book, Into That Darkness.
There are no transcripts for the conversations held between Sereny and Stangl; the man died shortly after she had finished the interview, and it would have been very easy to put words into the mouth of a dead man, particularly a Nazi war criminal.
quote:The testimony of Franz Suchomel, a guard at Treblinka, who was interviewed at length on hidden camera by Claude Lanzmann, can be seen and heard in latter's documentary film Shoah. Among the judicial testimonies of the other 27 camp personnel brought to trial in Germany were those of Alfred Schluch, Hermann Gley, Erich Bauer, and Heinrich Matthes.
Suchomel, one of Lanzmann's star witnesses, served up this improbable tale previously unheard of in the history of the Holocaust - the story of Germans dragging the corpses because the Jews "didn't want to":
quote:Suchomel: No one wanted to clean it out [the rotting heaps of corpses]. The Jews preferred to be shot rather than work there. [...] So Wirth went there himself with a few Germans and had long belts rigged up that were wrapped around the dead torsos to pull them. [...] they themselves helped with the cleanup. Lanzmann: Which Germans did that? Suchomel: Some of our guards who were assigned up there. Lanzmann: The Germans themselves? Suchomel: They had to. Lanzmann: They were in command! Suchomel: They were in command, but they were also commanded. Lanzmann: I think the Jews did it. Suchomel: In that case, the Germans had to lend a hand.
What a story! Another 'easy target' though, I guess...
As for Suchomel's interaction with the infamous 'gas chambers', he actually claimed that never actually witnessed a 'gassing'.
Faurisson:
quote:He never talks about having been present at a gassing. He says that on the day of his arrival "just at the moment when we were passing by, they were in the process of opening the doors of the gas chamber ... and the people fell out like sacks of potatoes." Therefore, at most he saw some bodies. Nothing would have justified him in claiming that the place was a gas chamber. He had just arrived. At best he was reporting a guess. Besides, everything that he says implies that in this camp there were some Jews, some bodies, perhaps one or more funeral pyres and, probably, some showers and some disinfection gas chambers. He shows a portion of a plan but only very vaguely. What is this plan? He talks authoritatively about gassings at Auschwitz, where he never set foot. He talks with equal authority about the gassings at Treblinka, but never as an eyewitness. He is like those self-taught persons who show off the results of their reading on a given subject, but are confounded by a simple, direct and precise question. But Lanzmann never asks Suchomel that kind of question.
R. Faurisson, "Shoah: a review" (source: VHO website)
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: To dispute the premise of 'gas chambers' would have constituted 'obdurate denial', which would have in turn precluded a reduction in the sentence or a pardon from the start.
So, what you're saying is that none of these guys had the courage, honour or dignity to tell the truth? They'd paint themselves, their comrades, their entire generation as butchers in order to scrape a pardon or to get a lighter sentence?
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: So, what you're saying is that none of these guys had the courage, honour or dignity to tell the truth? They'd paint themselves, their comrades, their entire generation as butchers in order to scrape a pardon or to get a lighter sentence?
In a word, yes. Those who staffed the concentration camps were not soldiers - indeed many of them were sent to work at these places on account of the fact that they severly lacked soldierly qualities. Courage, honour and dignity could have been found in spades among the ranks of their distant compatriots in the Waffen-SS, but among the goons who spent all their time getting pissed and clubbing imates to death when the mood suited them - no chance.
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quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Courage, honour and dignity could have been found in spades among the ranks of their distant compatriots in the Waffen-SS,
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: In a word, yes.
Okay. So, their are at least two distinct types of soldier operating in Nazi Germany. The Noble SS and the Death-camp Goons. Were the Death-camp Goons actually under anybody's control (you know, officers, administrators, politicians?) or were they coincidentally pursuing a bloody Final Solution that serendipitously mirrored the theoretical schematics proposed by the Nazi elite?
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put it back you pussy. ben wont be able to bash away at this for much longer now t'babby's on it's way. we need to start training up a new and equally valiant troop of denial-deniers.
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quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Of the Gerstein Report, Gerald Reitlinger said that it "...contains the only description of the death camps as seen through the eyes of a German official." (Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945 (1986), p. 285)
The question I posed above was whether you were ignorant of other eyewitness evidence about the Reinhard camps or whether you were being dishonest about it.
A line from a book from twenty years ago doesn't automatically provide you with an alibi for not being honest. First you claim there's 'no other' evidence, then it seems you're actually more than aware that such evidence exists - going through well-rehearsed motions of 'explaining away' one source after another.
It shouldn't need to be pointed out but you're making a total twat of yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: This [ie. evidence provided by camp personnel in post-war trials] is all well and good, but it hides the fact that when these men were brought before the courts, the trials were conducted on the established basis the the 'gas chambers' existed. Therefore, the logical tactic of the defence would have been to work within this and try as best they could to minimise the risk of a lengthier sentence.)
Is this an example of your self-proclaimed 'logic'? Gassing was a lie because the people testifying about it had to lie to hide the fact that it was a lie? Such circular claptrap frees you of making any attempt to weigh up anything like 'evidence', I suppose, but it's doesn't remotely resemble anything that could be described as history - at best, cheap taproom sophistry.
To 'support' your position you quote a revisionist nut. (Not an insult, the 'Institute of Historical Review' is widely recognised as a rabble of revisionist nuts.) If that's the best you can do, I guess you must have given up on being anything other than a mail-order conspiracy nerd.
Aside from anything else, Lindsey's unsubstantiated claim about how denying the holocaust meant 'death' in 1946 is utterly irrelevant, if you re-read the quote above:
quote:The second category of eyewitnesses is comprised of Germans who were stationed at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Twenty-nine such German camp personnel were indicted and brought before German courts in the 1950's and 1960's.
The trials I've read about that took place from the 50's onwards generally resulted in disgracefully lenient sentences - the death penalty was not something these people were afeared of. Your 'logic' is purely circumstantial supposition as opposed to a variety of signed, sworn statements given without coercion.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: There are no transcripts for the conversations held between Sereny and Stangl; the man died shortly after she had finished the interview, and it would have been very easy to put words into the mouth of a dead man, particularly a Nazi war criminal.)
It's a bit rich for you to base arguments on nothing more than unsubstantiated, illogical supposition then demand interview 'transcripts' from a widely-respected journalist and historian such as Sereny.
It isn't standard practice for journalists to publish the notes they make along with or appended to the finished work that results - to make out that not having done so 'proves' that Sereny fabricated the whole thing is more an indictment of your own desperation than of her journalistic integrity.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Suchomel, one of Lanzmann's star witnesses, served up this improbable tale previously unheard of in the history of the Holocaust - the story of Germans dragging the corpses because the Jews "didn't want to" [...] What a story! Another 'easy target' though, I guess....)
Not really - extracted from its context it's hard to assess the circumstances of the fragment you quote, but is it really so inconceivable that Nazi functionaries might have to get their hands dirty from time to time?
Your triumphant 'What a story!' would be far easier to apply to some of the crazy mass delusion/conspiracy of thousands stuff implied by your own position.
Again, that position is undermined rather than strenghtened by resorting to quoting yet another revisionist crackpot (Faurisson) rather than weighing up evidence for yourself then arguing in a convincing way. Such heavy reliance on these cranks would surely not be necessary if you'd ever undertaken anything like the 'personal research' you like to boast about.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: If I had to off a lot of people I'd probably machine-gun en masse the ones most likely and most able to resist, then you could take your time and use a more cost-effective method on the women and kids. Also, if there should be any popular resistance to your activities and corpses were found you could maybe explain away the women and children's deaths as the result of a disease, if they were bullet-riddled that story wouldn't wash. Machine-gunned men? You were quelling an uprising or shooting escapees.
While they seem to have had few qualms about gunning down thousands of Jewish men, the German army found it understandably distressing to have to shoot women and children (perhaps it offended their sense of 'honour', as breathily eulogised by Snorton's websites). As the Final Solution evolved, the mass killing of women and children was increasingly depersonalised - the ultimate expression of which was the gas chamber.
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i read maus, seemed pretty straight forward. there were a load of mice, a lot of them died, the cuties thought they were going to have showers. WRONG.
quote:The question I posed above was whether you were ignorant of other eyewitness evidence about the Reinhard camps or whether you were being dishonest about it. A line from a book from twenty years ago doesn't automatically provide you with an alibi for not being honest. First you claim there's 'no other' evidence, then it seems you're actually more than aware that such evidence exists - going through well-rehearsed motions of 'explaining away' one source after another.
You can believe what you like; Gerstein remains probably the most compelling eye-witness for the 'Reinhard' camps for many, hence the continued use of his testimony in spite of the gaping holes and contradictions. In terms of providing an actual description of the 'gassing' process, I don't think there is any other testimony that goes into such dramatic detail.
quote:Is this an example of your self-proclaimed 'logic'? Gassing was a lie because the people testifying about it had to lie to hide the fact that it was a lie? Such circular claptrap frees you of making any attempt to weigh up anything like 'evidence', I suppose, but it's doesn't remotely resemble anything that could be described as history - at best, cheap taproom sophistry.
The tactic of the defence is logical if you bear in mind that they were essentially show trials, given that the central allegation had been taken as an established and undeniable fact.
quote:To 'support' your position you quote a revisionist nut. (Not an insult, the 'Institute of Historical Review' is widely recognised as a rabble of revisionist nuts.) If that's the best you can do, I guess you must have given up on being anything other than a mail-order conspiracy nerd.
I'd rather not get into a game of tit-for-tat about our respective sources, Ben. You are quick to go along with the idea that the IHR are a 'rabble of revisionist nuts', but the source for your justification is none other than Nizkor - whom I could argue are a bunch of Zionist zealots determined to silence dissent on this topic at any cost. I'd like to think that we could go beyond that and see each others' points as they stand; it is simply no good if you adopt the standard line and ignore every argument offered by revisionists simply because they - and not their arguments - have been at the sharp end of criticism by a specialist watchgroup like Nizkor.
quote:It's a bit rich for you to base arguments on nothing more than unsubstantiated, illogical supposition then demand interview 'transcripts' from a widely-respected journalist and historian such as Sereny.
It isn't standard practice for journalists to publish the notes they make along with or appended to the finished work that results - to make out that not having done so 'proves' that Sereny fabricated the whole thing is more an indictment of your own desperation than of her journalistic integrity.
You would have expected a journalist of Sereny's stature to record the conversations, particularly when interviewing such an important subject such as Franz Stangl. Usually, when conducting a long interview - Sereny spoke to Stangl for around 70 hours - one would be expected to record it, transcribe the recordings and from there generate the material for any published work. I am no legal expert, and it would be interesting to see what those in the profession might think of this - essentially, would such an 'interview' be admissible in a court of law as evidence? Stangl died shortly after he was interviewed by Sereny, and we have no way of proving whether what she wrote is wholly truthful or not.
Lubomyr Prytulak (a 'revisionist nut', you would no doubt suggest) wrote this very reasonable letter to Sereny; I am unsure as to whether he received a reply.
quote:Not really - extracted from its context it's hard to assess the circumstances of the fragment you quote, but is it really so inconceivable that Nazi functionaries might have to get their hands dirty from time to time?
Indeed they did get their hands dirty - but only after the liberation of certain camps when they and local townspeople were ordered to by the British. The argument suggested by Suchomel that Jews would rather have been shot than shift the corpses runs completely at odds with all those heroic tales of the many Sonderkommandos who spent years clearing out the 'gas chambers' simply because they wanted to survive. In any case, don't you find it doubtful that the Germans would let the Jews sit by, sigh 'oh well, let's do it then' and start moving the bodies themselves? Of course not - for according to the standard story, they would have shot the dissenters and brought along a new batch, who would have no doubt carried out the task at double pace. Whichever way you look at it, the story is completely ridiculous.
quote:Again, that position is undermined rather than strenghtened by resorting to quoting yet another revisionist crackpot (Faurisson) rather than weighing up evidence for yourself then arguing in a convincing way. Such heavy reliance on these cranks would surely not be necessary if you'd ever undertaken anything like the 'personal research' you like to boast about.
When I weigh up the stories and reach a given conclusion, I am accusing of aping 'revisionist nuts'. When I offer a quote, I am accused of quoting 'revisionist nuts'. I can't win. I might as well suggest that you are always quoting Zionist zealots and have done with all of this; we could cancel each other out and call it a day. I guess that no revisionist argument could ever be 'convincing' to those who maintain a rigid adherence to the accepted story - to the point where people have jumped through hoops to accommodate some of the more suspect claims and testimonies. I get the distinct feeling that even if you were faced with some document or testimony that suggested Josef Mengele sprouted wings and could fly (like a real 'angel of death'), you'd find some way of arguing that it was something other than ridiculous. The likes of Lipstadt would argue it away by suggesting that it was a valuable 'interpretation' of events that actually happened, much like her approach to the hack Wilkomirski. (Yes, him again).
I can only suppose that you have concluded that Faurisson is a 'crackpot' through your reading the works of the likes of Lipstadt or the skewed reports that can be found on sites like Nizkor. Lipstadt is touted by many as the great crusader against the 'insidious revisionists', but her key work doesn't actually address the arguments; indeed, she suggests that no argument should be had. Instead, she focuses on the individuals themselves, pointing out real (and imagined) relationships that exist between them, and throwing about words like 'nut', 'anti-semite', 'crank' and 'crackpot'. I guess it is fairly simple - someone questions the currently accepted 'gas chamber' story, they are a 'holocaust denier' - which naturally leads to the argument that if they are mad or bad enough to deny the 'holocaust' (whatever that might be) they are 'nuts'.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You can believe what you like; Gerstein remains probably the most compelling eye-witness for the 'Reinhard' camps for many, hence the continued use of his testimony in spite of the gaping holes and contradictions. In terms of providing an actual description of the 'gassing' process, I don't think there is any other testimony that goes into such dramatic detail.
This is pretty much the crux of your approach. When you said Gerstein was the 'only' account from the Nazi side on the Reinhard camps you stated that as though it were a fact. Now we're getting the 'probablies' and 'I don't thinks' it's pretty clear that this was, in fact an opinion. The study of history is completely impossible unless people are explict about what can be established as facts (properly referenced) and where exactly their own interpretations of such evidence begin and end.
It's impossible to tell with you what is fact and what opinion - as demonstrated above, things you advance as facts can, upon examination, turn out to be only a partial account. When pressed on such partiality you come out with a bunch of solipsistic arguments for why you feel able to dismiss whole heaps of evidence out of hand - without even having examined it.
Your statement above pretty much shows why. You've clearly made great sport of 'picking holes' in a document with which you're familiar (you're familiar, at any rate, with the tactics of deniers who have made Gerstein their personal hobby) - the idea that you might be presented with other more convincing, consistent evidence is too much for you to bear. You dismiss it out of hand. This isn't the behaviour of someone who wants to establish the truth - it's the behaviour of someone clinging on to a worldview they want to maintain at all costs.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The tactic of the defence is logical if you bear in mind that they were essentially show trials, given that the central allegation had been taken as an established and undeniable fact.
It's the 'given that' which gives away the instability and tendentiousness of your argument. You're demanding to see 'evidence' that the Final Solution existed while arguing that such evidence must - by its very nature - be fabricated because the Final Solution is a myth... therefore you refuse even to consider it.
This is what Holocaust Deniers call 'debate'.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: You are quick to go along with the idea that the IHR are a 'rabble of revisionist nuts', but the source for your justification is none other than Nizkor - whom I could argue are a bunch of Zionist zealots determined to silence dissent on this topic at any cost.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: I'd like to think that we could go beyond that and see each others' points as they stand; it is simply no good if you adopt the standard line and ignore every argument offered by revisionists simply because
I'm not offering a 'standard line' on anything. I've analysed your tactics and found them deceitful and the best, fullest length scholarly study of a leading denier (ie. Richard Evans's study of how David Irving distorts history) is comprehensive on how perverted an approach even the most 'respecatble' Holocaust deniers take. You seem to be trying to wriggle away from your former hero (too compromised, clearly) but he's still lauded at 'revisionist' conferences worldwide and the more obscure cranks you seem to defer to now have shared a platform with him and other less savoury characters in the past.
It's easy enough for people to check up for themselves on the main pedlars of 'Denial' - you're clearly too far gone, but I'm pretty confident that most people of sound mind would form a pretty poor impression of such characters.
Oh, look...
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Lubomyr Prytulak (a 'revisionist nut', you would no doubt suggest) wrote this very reasonable letter to Sereny; I am unsure as to whether he received a reply.
Why would Sereny waste time replying to mischief-making revisionist? One letter from one side of a correspondence we cannot be sure ever took place is pretty feeble 'evidence' - even for you.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: The argument suggested by Suchomel that Jews would rather have been shot than shift the corpses runs completely at odds with all those heroic tales of the many Sonderkommandos who spent years clearing out the 'gas chambers' simply because they wanted to survive.
But surely you would contend that Sonderkommando testimony was 'false' owing to the fact that they never cleared bodies from gas chambers because gas chambers never existed? So... you're writing off one testimony as 'false' because it doesn't accord with other testimony you believe to be false...
I would invite anyone reading this thread to turn that over in their minds a few times and reflect on the sheer retardedness of the 'argument' here.
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: When I weigh up the stories and reach a given conclusion, I am accusing of aping 'revisionist nuts'. When I offer a quote, I am accused of quoting 'revisionist nuts'. I can't win. I might as well suggest that you are always quoting Zionist zealots and have done with all of this; we could cancel each other out and call it a day.
But you did quote revisionist nuts (Lindsey and Faurisson) - you did so above. I provided links to support my contention that they're nuts and other links to material (primary and secondary) I consider supports what I'm saying about the Final Solution. If you were to accuse me of quoting 'Zionist nuts' all you would succeed in doing is looking stupider than you do already
quote:Originally posted by Samuelnorton: Wilkomirski. (Yes, him again).
Why don't you just add Wikomirski and the claptrap about electrocution/boiling to your signature file - it would save you the effort of typing the words out again and again and again.
Wilkomirski was exposed nearly seven years ago. Your repeated resort to his discredited case implies you're pretty low on explosive new revelations and underlines the point that denial/revisionism is pretty much one instance of regurgitation after another.
Your confected dismay at my 'unwillingness' to debate with you is a novel twist, I suppose, but wholly unjustified. How can anyone debate with a person unable (or unwilling) to make a distiction between fact and opinion, between evidence and interpretation, between interpretation and rejection according to prejudice, between logic and solipsism?
As I stated explicitly on previous occasions, all I want to do is try to expose the workings of your partial and distorted methods. Whether I've succeeded is for others to judge.
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I'm glad ben is here ridiculing Snorton's debating techniques, so we don't have to. I especially enjoyed ben highlighting the idea of Snorton dismissing one testimony as rubbish, because it's contradicted by something else... which he doesn't believe to be true, anyway. I mean - that is, surely, pretty thick?
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