Holocaust Deniers

Tony EH

marcsignal wrote: »

I know where your coming from there Kama. You see when people like Irving come here to give a talk, and there are groups of activists screaming from the rooftops trying to prevent him from doing so, that automatically gets me more interested. Not so much in what he has to say, but why are these people so determined to shut him up?

In fact I absolutely resent being told by the looney left, or anyone else, who I can or cannot listen to regarding this matter, and that would make me want to attend just to spite them, as a matter of principle, and to exercise my right to attend if i wanted to.

However I have to reiterate that I do find Irvings motives 'suspect'. I simply want the chance to decide that for myself, on the basis of what he 'claims'

It's interesting to read about the millitant opposition Norman Finkelstein has had to put up with too, in his quest to get rightful financial restitution for his own parents, from large Jewish organisations in the US.

I remember seeing the Cole Auschwitz video years ago and I have to say I found it very interesting. But most interesting of all was Piper's admittance that the "gas chamber" shown at the end of the tour was in fact a re-construction. This had never been said before by the museum or the holocaust establishment at large and the Auschwitz museum had for years passed the building off as the genuine article. Shortly after the museum had to erect signs clearly stating that the building was, in fact, a "re-construction".

People, of course, are free to take what they want from Cole's piece (or are they?), but I find it reprehensible that the guy was subject to beatings and indeed threats on his life, which resulted in the hasty and uncomfortable retraction of his former position.

That, is far more disturbing and dangerous than any amount of holocaust denial that may or may not exist in the world.

Kama

The irony is quite bitter if you read Cole - Monstrous Traitor, the JDL release that accompanied the reward and picture; composed of nothing but references to him as a 'snake' and 'vermin' to be 'cleansed' and 'eradicated'.

One less David Cole ... will have removed a dangerous parasitic, disease-ridden bacteria from infecting society.

I'll admit to being more than slightly disturbed by his treatment; vigilante persecution for ones views, and the apparent lack of interest in defending him asking awkward questions by any institutions or people of society. This, to me, seems the trajectory slogans like 'no free speech for Nazis' embrarks upon, and I myself regard it as completely unacceptable.

The question for me is not whether it could produce or amplify hate (possibly), or is hate speech (it's clearly not, though he is abrasive), or his motive, but what is the factual truth, insofar as we can determine it. And quite strictly, if it cannot be openly questioned, then it is not tenable to have confidence in it. Censorship of history is in this sense self-undermining in an open society.

More disturbingly, if one were to publicly support him, rather than in the anonymity of a forum, what do you think the media/public response would be? I presume it would not be measured, balanced, and foster a rational debate. Holocaust revisionists are usually represented as nutjobs, but if beatings and threats are the treatment you would receive, you'll hardly find good historians sticking their careers and families over the parapet. No wonder Ahmenijad has a field day with Holocaust conferences, if this case is any representation of our 'Western values', or rather their specific limits in application.


Found some other things by Cole, if anyone's interested: here and here

Interesting reading:

Various Jewish and "anti- revisionist" journalists and
activists on the "left" have claimed that I am in fact a NAZI agent,
involved in a grand scheme to "deny" history and, I suppose, help
Nazis in some way (these conspiracy theories are rarely fleshed out
beyond the initial charge of being an "agent" of some kind). I
despise ideological dogma with a passion, and I've long held that if
you're hated by extremists of all stripes and from all corners, then
you must be doing something right. So I actually came to take these
attacks as being unwitting compliments.

or

There's no shame in changing an opinion. Okay,
granted - it's not the best strategy if you feel you're in a "war"
against real or imagined "enemies," where the ends justify the means in
the great battle to smash the evil ones. Frankly, I think this
describes the mindset of BOTH the neo-Nazis who see themselves fighting
the "Jewish conspiracy," AND the many anti-revisionists who see
themselves as "saving the world" from the "great Nazi conspiracy."

I can't help liking the guy...

marcsignal

Post #61 is a great post Tony EH

I noticed similar things at flea markets in Munich. Sometimes practically the entire contents of a recently deceased widows house will turn up on a stall, in terms of old family photos, letters from sons serving at the front (some of which I bought and posted on the ww2 forum) and the odd medal or bayonet etc. The photos were in plastic sleeves, and anywhere the swastika turned up, there was a little white sticker covering it. In fact a good friend of mine there has some original ss memoribilia from the period that would land him in the clink.

I fully understand why the whole nazi period casts a long shadow in Germany, and many older Germans I've met are mortified at how Adolf hoodwinked them, but driving it underground is largely counter productive imo. I did find 1 museum in Munich city centre with uniforms, posters, flags and other regalia from the period which was interesting. There was an admission fee, which was passed on to a Holocaust trust.

Call it morbid, but I find the period interesting, and tbh very spooky in many many ways, but it happened, and there's nothing anyone can do to change that. I think educating people about it is more important, to prevent it being repeated. Removing this 'taboo' status it seems to have, can only serve to enable the Germans to face up to it with pragmatic honesty, instead of the huge guilt complex they have hanging over them, and admit that they made a gross error supporting the Hitler regime, and although millions of people did die, hopefully the survivors on all sides, will live, learn and move on.

dresden8

My problem with this whole issue is that they're not controlling what the likes of nutjobs like David Irving are saying.

The real problem is that they're controlling what I hear and read.

I don't like that.

yidkid

It should be a criminal offence here. I mean it is in Germany and I find it quite offensive seeing as many of my own family was murdered in the holocaust.

bonkey

brianthebard wrote: »

My argument is illegality to deny holocausts, not dispute their nature. Tricky definitonal issues can and have been overcome in the past, I see no reason why humanity might suddenly lose its capacity to verbalise.

But that's just the problem, isn't it. Making something illegal will not result in a loss of "verbalisation", but rather will drive it underground and/or cause a more insidious approach to be taken where people go out of their way to skirt the limits of legality in a "long game" of changing perception.

Neo-Nazism, for example, is illegal in much of Western Europe, but that doesn't mean there are no neo-nazis. Rather, it ensures that there is never the opportunity to let both parties engage in a face-to-face, so that their lies and bigotry can be directly exposed.

You end up in a situation that when someone is exposed to neo-nazi diatribe, it is done so in the absence of a counter-point. Rather, they get to portray themselves as the unfairly oppressed as well as having a free reign with what they say.

The same is true for Holocaust Denial, or any other such issue. Illegalising it doesn't cause that section of humanity to "lose its capacity to verbalise". It allows its proponents to have a free voice - albeit in a more limited environment. It allows them to protray themselves as the victim of a so-called enlightened society who wishes to dictate what ideas are and are not allowed even to be discussed. The trade-off for limiting the reach of such people is that we give them a far, far more potent platform for their attempts to influence or convince others....and both deny ourselves the ability to respond in any sort of an open forum and give them the ammunition to undermine any response we may make as being some sort of "official line".

I'm with Kama. Let them speak in public, so that they can be publically confronted.

Kama

Shalom aleichem Yidkid. I'm sorry if any of this seems offensive to you or anyone else reading, its certainly not the intent of me or any other poster here. I realise it's an offensive subject, which is why I'm proud that this thread has been civil and rooted in compassion.

Our concerns (I believe) have been focused on the damage which many of us believe censorship does, either to the memory of the Shoah or to other crimes aginst humanity, by the politicization of history. I believe Holocaust denial laws to be counter-productive in preventing anti-Semitism (as in the German example), for the exact reasons stated by Bonkey below, and others before:

'they get to portray themselves as the unfairly oppressed as well as having a free reign with what they say'

driving the discussion underground, and feeding the accusations of neo-Nazi groups. I would have stridently opposed the German proposal to extend Denial laws across the EU, for these reasons, and due to a faith in the power of free speech and open argument to demonstrate truth. Censorship laws instead lead towards islands of prejudice, where those who agree with each other need never leave, or meet those from another land.

As anyone who has ever suffered trauma knows, remembering is a painful effort. But If history is our collective human memory, flawed and messy as it is, the censorship of 'Denial' laws perversely leads to the opposite of its intent: Never to Forget. If we cannot remember, and question our memory, we have already forgotten.

marcsignal

bonkey wrote: »

I'm with Kama. Let them speak in public, so that they can be publically confronted.

Exactly, that's my take on it too. It removes any false pretence of marterdom they claim to have, and makes it much easier for people to make their own decisions/judgements about their real intentions, which in turn, is more likely to expose the existance of any hidden agenda they may have.

dresden8 wrote: »

My problem with this whole issue is that they're not controlling what the likes of nutjobs like David Irving are saying.

I say give him enough rope, he's sure to hang himself with it when he trips himself up, if he can't conclusively prove his claims. He also seems to forget, that the Nazis were not convicted on the basis of witness testimony alone, but their own paper trail, and there's enough Holocaust archive footage filmed by the Nazis themselves to stop any denier dead in their tracks.

I'd personally like to hear him try to explain some of these things away.

dresden8 wrote: »

The real problem is that they're controlling what I hear and read.

I don't like that.

Fully agree with you there, that's largely my problem with the issue too. I want to be able to judge these things for myself, on the basis of what I've already learned, and what's generally accepted to be fact.

Kama wrote: »

Shalom aleichem Yidkid. I'm sorry if any of this seems offensive to you or anyone else reading, its certainly not the intent of me or any other poster here. I realise it's an offensive subject, which is why I'm proud that this thread has been civil and rooted in compassion.

+1 Kama, in fact I think any Jewish contributions to this thread are hugely valuable, and important. I think most non Jews don't fully understand how the period fits into the psyche of ordinary Jews today, particularlly the young. Any Jewish insight in that respect is bound to be helpful to others interested in, or learning about/studying the period.

Interesting link to a C4 Documentary on the subject Here, with good contributions from Peter Novick, Gulie Ne'eman Arad, and Professor Norman Finkelstein . It may be available somewhere on the web?

marcsignal

*late bump Feb 2nd*

For posters in Ireland, The movie/docudrama 'Conspiracy' will be shown on TV3 on Sunday Feb 8th next @ 1 AM (saturday night/sunday).

It's about the Wansee Conference, and gives excellent insight into how the Holocaust was planned.
The movie was made in close conjunction with facts about the conference, outlined in a set of secret minutes from that meeting, found after the war.

They belonged to a Nazi official called Martin Luther who attended. It is well worth the watch, and a must for anyone who has any doubts about what Heydrichs and Eichmanns intentions were.

Serenity Now!

marcsignal wrote: »

*late bump Feb 2nd*

For posters in Ireland, The movie/docudrama 'Conspiracy' will be shown on TV3 on Sunday Feb 8th next @ 1 AM (saturday night/sunday).

It's about the Wansee Conference, and gives excellent insight into how the Holocaust was planned.
The movie was made in close conjunction with facts about the conference, outlined in a set of secret minutes from that meeting, found after the war.

They belonged to a Nazi official called Martin Luther who attended. It is well worth the watch, and a must for anyone who has any doubts about what Heydrichs and Eichmanns intentions were.

Have it on DVD. Its a BBC/HBO co-production. It was utterly sick (though the casting was a little strange: Branagh, Tucci and Firth?).

Rudolph Hoess' (commandant at Auschwitz) published memoirs also a sick insight into the minds of the perpetrators of this.

the_syco

ejmaztec wrote: »

I've read on some "websites" that there were more Jews living in Europe at the end of the war, than there were at the beginning.

Most likely because as they were allowed to be Jewish. By this I mean before and during the War, to be Jewish was to be discriminated against. Once the Germans were defeated, they could once again show their true colours, and not hide away under false pretences to escape death, of them and their families.

=-=

Either way, I just want to read the little book that Israel doesn't seem to want to show the world. The little book that got so many imprisoned for their part of the mass Genocide.

=-=

The winners write the victory. The losers can never prove that they didn't do the indefensible, as they are the losers, and thus lack any credibility. We know that Nazi Germany has killed many many people, but only from their own records. State bodies have been known to "massage" the figures to ensure they get a good budget for the years to come. I say this, not to discredit those who died, but to ask: is the number correct? Yes, they mass murdered, yes, they used gas as means to mass murder quickly, but I still find it odd that we believe their numbers.

It's like looking at a report, and only telling us the bits that looked nice.

Tony EH

marcsignal wrote: »

*late bump Feb 2nd*

For posters in Ireland, The movie/docudrama 'Conspiracy' will be shown on TV3 on Sunday Feb 8th next @ 1 AM (saturday night/sunday).

It's about the Wansee Conference, and gives excellent insight into how the Holocaust was planned.
The movie was made in close conjunction with facts about the conference, outlined in a set of secret minutes from that meeting, found after the war.

They belonged to a Nazi official called Martin Luther who attended. It is well worth the watch, and a must for anyone who has any doubts about what Heydrichs and Eichmanns intentions were.

An awful lot has been made out of the Wannsee Conference and Protocol, but I certainly don't see it as a blueprint for the holocaust. The closest it gets to a plan for extermination is suggesting that forced labour can be allowed to "expire" when it's at its useful end and "Instead of emigration, the Führer has now given his approval for a new kind of solution, the evacuation of the Jews to the East." Neither of which is explicit enough to hang such a series of murderous events on.

Of course, the conversation is supposed to be in code. But then, who gets to "decypher" the "code" and is there really a "code" in the first place. The Wansee Protocol may in fact be just as it reads. Callous indifference to the death of labourers and the evacuation of Jews to the East.

The National Socialists weren't ones to shy away from explicit language, such as used in the KommisarBehfel or the KommandoBehfel and I feel they wouldn't have held back on saying what they meant.

Another question hanging over it, is it authenticity as a primary document. The minutes that were found were a re-write (16 of 30) of an "original" document which were all ordered destroyed. One is therefore naturally forced to wonder what, if any, items were added or subtracted from the source?

If you're interested though, the German "Die Wannseekonferenz" is a far superior production than "Conspiracy" and well worth picking up. The English speaking version tends to fall into some of the usual nazi stereotyping. The German version I found to be very straightforward and dry in that German way, such as "Downfall" or "Stalingrad".


Tony

marcsignal

Tony EH wrote: »

If you're interested though, the German "Die Wannseekonferenz" is a far superior production than "Conspiracy" and well worth picking up.

Thanks, I must check that one out.

My interest in the whole thing was reignited with Norman Finkelstiens revelations in the book 'The Holocaust Industry'. He doesn't dispute the number of deaths, but exposes discrepancies with the amount of survivors.

He claims that the organisations claiming compensation from the Swiss and German banks, are said to have falsified the amount of survivors alive today, in order to claim more money on their behalf. For example, they counted people who managed to leave Germany, some of them with all, or most, of their money etc, before the war started, as Holocaust survivors. This started me raising eyebrows.

There was also some contention about the Gas Chamber in Dachau too. I've been there many times, and the layout is very odd, and a bit difficult to explain without drawing a map. It is claimed it was never used to kill people, but to disinfect prison uniforms. The layout would seem to back that up, and it's also very small for what you'd expect to carry out large scale gassings in.

Here's a pic I took inside. Its only about 10M sq and ventilation would have been a serious problem afterwards because the doors open out to the working part of the crematorium area.

Serenity Now!

Tony EH wrote: »

Of course, the conversation is supposed to be in code. But then, who gets to "decypher" the "code" and is there really a "code" in the first place. The Wansee Protocol may in fact be just as it reads. Callous indifference to the death of labourers and the evacuation of Jews to the East

Not according to Eichmann's own testimony, for a start.

The Holocaust didn't commence in 1942 with the exterminations at camps. It started with the dehumanisation and gradual exclusion of Jews from Reich society in Germany in 1933 and then subsequently its 'annexed' territories and its occupied territories via actions of the einsatzguppene and then of course, the industrialised "less-traumatic" method in the camp system for the majority of the perpatrators.

On the subject of denial of the Holocaust, there are people soil-testing at Treblinka's site, for example, finding no evidence of bodies then there are people doing the same and finding the opposite. The same with the denial of Zyklon B being used at Auschwitz. The same with figures and tallies of those murdered. One 'proves' one thing and another proves another. People who want to see the subject in a certain way will pick and choose which 'evidence' suits their means.

When the last survivors have passed on, the deniers out there will do their best to debunk even the most basic facts. The motivation of their actions would be the worrying factor, in my opinion. Holocaust Denial and slamming the use of the Shoah as a guilt trinket are two different things.

I also notice from reading through the thread someone who is posting here has the username, which amongst other things, is that of a famous SS brigade that was based in the Balkans and took part in mass killings. Shame really.

My gran survived because she fled while pregnant (with my mother) and a sister and her daughters in tow. All this as the rest of her family and her husband's were either killed or shipped away to their deaths. We don't use this to justify anything or earn anything. In fact, its not even talked about. If it hasn't affected you or your family in any way, I don't expect anyone to actually understand why the likes of Irving must be allowed to speak and be shown up to be the pro-agendic spiters that they are.

I'm currently reading Niall Ferguson's War of the World. He explains very well the wave of Jew hating from the end of the 19th century (in Russia, the USSR, Germany, Poland, Romania etc) through to the second world war. Give it a read. Its a good'un.

Nodin

Serenity Now! wrote: »

also notice from reading through the thread someone who is posting here has the username, which amongst other things, is that of a famous SS brigade that was based in the Balkans and took part in mass killings. Shame really.

The name can also mean Japanese scythes, turkish daggers, "sensulality" , a fish dish, Krishna........In addition, that unit never saw action under that name, being incorporated with another in 1944.

Serenity Now!

Nodin wrote: »

The name can also mean Japanese scythes, turkish daggers, "sensulality" , a fish dish, Krishna........In addition, that unit never saw action under that name, being incorporated with another in 1944.

I said 'amongst other things' didn't I? Didn't have to look it up either. was formed with partisans and Germans willing to fight the Allies in the region. I'm sure the people they killed were worried about the name of their unit at the time and where they trained.

Nodin

Serenity Now! wrote: »

I said 'amongst other things' didn't I? .

...which was made rather superflous by the addition of "shame really" at the end, clearly indicating which meaning you'd taken from it. Until same individual starts coming out with posts clearly indicating they have a certain 'bent', it would have been better not to mention it at all.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

Didn't have to look it up either. was formed with partisans and Germans willing to fight the Allies in the region. I'm sure the people they killed were worried about the name of their unit at the time and where they trained.

They might not have, but that doesn't excuse inaccuracy now.

marcsignal

Serenity Now! wrote: »

Not according to Eichmann's own testimony, for a start.

Yeah, I have a recorded documentary called 'I met Adolf Eichmann' from a few years back. In it there are long clips from his trial where he describes, in the witness box, seeing things in the east pertaining to mass killings/shootings, before the Auschwitz camp had been completed. There was also a recorded interview he gave to a pro Nazi organisation in the 50's, where he went into some detail about denying he was an anti Semite, but that he was 'politically' against the Jews. He also admitted, that he personally organised the forced march of concentration camp prisoners from the east, back to the German borders, after the Allies had bombed the train lines. He openly admitted that he did this out of spite.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

The Holocaust didn't commence in 1942 with the exterminations at camps. It started with the dehumanisation and gradual exclusion of Jews from Reich society in Germany in 1933 and then subsequently its 'annexed' territories and its occupied territories via actions of the einsatzguppene and then of course, the industrialised "less-traumatic" method in the camp system for the majority of the perpatrators..

The thing for me that makes the gassing accusations 'feasible' is the fact that the Nazis killed the disabled with gas under the T4 Programme earlier. This was stopped in 1940 under Hitlers orders, because of public unease and objections from the Clergy. These events are indisputable, the evidence is there in memmorials in places like Aplerbeck and Hadamar. They were carried out by SS Doctors and the information/stats made available to Eichmann for Wansee.

Hitler disliked dealing with State matters, generally, and left things like that to others, who were largely left to their own devices as long as the job was done. I recall a quote from the documentary series 'The Nazis, A Warning from History' where he told SS men like "Arthur Greiser" and "Albert Foster" Gauliters in the General Government and East Prussia, to Germanise their areas, and that he would 'Ask no questions about their methods'. So for me it's certainly believable he afforded Heydrich the same free hand in dealing with the Final Solution.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

On the subject of denial of the Holocaust, there are people soil-testing at Treblinka's site, for example, finding no evidence of bodies then there are people doing the same and finding the opposite. The same with the denial of Zyklon B being used at Auschwitz. The same with figures and tallies of those murdered. One 'proves' one thing and another proves another. People who want to see the subject in a certain way will pick and choose which 'evidence' suits their means.

I think the numbers problem begins with the Soviet assertion that 4 million died in Auschwitz. It was something that came out of the Cold War. Americas staunchest ally in Europe during the Cold War was West Germany, and the West German Government, apart from some window dressing, was largely made up of former Nazis. Many former Nazis also still held prominent positions in the Legal and Medical Professions. The Russians, understandably, hated the Germans, and were possibly upping these figures to incriminate the Americans by the back door, by accusing them of now being friendly with mass murderers.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

When the last survivors have passed on, the deniers out there will do their best to debunk even the most basic facts. The motivation of their actions would be the worrying factor, in my opinion. Holocaust Denial and slamming the use of the Shoah as a guilt trinket are two different things.

Another possible can of worms here though, is whether the 6 million figure (some of which was made up of the 4 million Soviet figure for Auschwitz) was genuinely believed to be bona fide by Jewish groups, particularlly in the US, or was any possible discrepancy quietly ignored? for whatever reason.
This is where I feel any revised figures could cause problems, politically.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

I also notice from reading through the thread someone who is posting here has the username, which amongst other things, is that of a famous SS brigade that was based in the Balkans and took part in mass killings. Shame really.

You must mean Kama ? (Mountain Division of the SS Kama, Croat No. 2). I dunno Serenity Now! I'm guessing it's probably just coincidence, and more likely to be related to pleasure, sensual gratification, sexual fulfillment, pleasure of the senses, desire, eros, the aesthetic enjoyment of life in Sanskrit. I'd be happy enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but correct me if i'm wrong Kama

Serenity Now! wrote: »

My gran survived because she fled while pregnant (with my mother) and a sister and her daughters in tow. All this as the rest of her family and her husband's were either killed or shipped away to their deaths. We don't use this to justify anything or earn anything. In fact, its not even talked about. If it hasn't affected you or your family in any way, I don't expect anyone to actually understand why the likes of Irving must be allowed to speak and be shown up to be the pro-agendic spiters that they are.

That must be just an unreal thing to have in your family history. I've heard some other similar stories from people who, as a result, have no Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, or Cousins. Incomprensible for me, and very very sad tbh.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

I'm currently reading Niall Ferguson's War of the World. He explains very well the wave of Jew hating from the end of the 19th century (in Russia, the USSR, Germany, Poland, Romania etc) through to the second world war. Give it a read. Its a good'un.

I must get a copy of that. I saw one good C4 Documentary on Anti Semetism in the UK last year. It was described as the worlds 'oldest hatred'

Serenity Now!

marcsignal wrote: »

The thing for me that makes the gassing accusations 'feasible' is the fact that the Nazis killed the disabled with gas under the T4 Programme earlier. This was stopped in 1940 under Hitlers orders, because of public unease and objections from the Clergy. These events are indisputable, the evidence is there in memmorials in places like Aplerbeck and Hadamar. They were carried out by SS Doctors and the information/stats made available to Eichmann for Wansee.

Hitler disliked dealing with State matters, generally, and left things like that to others, who were largely left to their own devices as long as the job was done. I recall a quote from the documentary series 'The Nazis, A Warning from History' where he told SS men like "Arthur Greiser" and "Albert Foster" Gauliters in the General Government and East Prussia, to Germanise their areas, and that he would 'Ask no questions about their methods'. So for me it's certainly believable he afforded Heydrich the same free hand in dealing with the Final Solution

In the Auschwitz series also by Lawrence Rees, the interviews with the former SS officer, Oskar Groening (?) are a sick insight into what happened at a camp.

marcsignal wrote: »

Another possible can of worms here though, is whether the 6 million figure (some of which was made up of the 4 million Soviet figure for Auschwitz) was genuinely believed to be bona fide by Jewish groups, particularlly in the US, or was any possible discrepancy quietly ignored? for whatever reason.
This is where I feel any revised figures could cause problems, politically

Figures summed up by any Jewish groups are dismissed by skeptics for their own reasons.
Skeptics' figures are dismissed by those who want nothing to do with them.
Again, people choose what suits them.

marcsignal wrote: »

I think the numbers problem begins with the Soviet assertion that 4 million died in Auschwitz. It was something that came out of the Cold War. Americas staunchest ally in Europe during the Cold War was West Germany, and the West German Government, apart from some window dressing, was largely made up of former Nazis. Many former Nazis also still held prominent positions in the Legal and Medical Professions. The Russians, understandably, hated the Germans, and were possibly upping these figures to incriminate the Americans by the back door, by accusing them of now being friendly with mass murderers

The accepted figure for the death toll at the Auschwitz camps is supposed to be around 1.5million isn't it?
There's no definite figure for the final death toll of Jews either at the hands of death squads, dying in ghettoes, overworked or starved in slave labour or being exterminated at camps. The skeptics' attempts at performing their own 'roll-call' of survivors gets backed up, when challenged, by accusations of lies, conspiracies...etc
I don't mind the skeptics who have a problem with Jews. They make me feel superior and how I'd love to show them that the family is alive, well and growing. May all those people's neighbours be everyone they irrationally hate.

marcsignal wrote: »

You must mean Kama ? (Mountain Division of the SS Kama, Croat No. 2). I dunno Serenity Now! I'm guessing it's probably just coincidence, and more likely to be related to pleasure, sensual gratification, sexual fulfillment, pleasure of the senses, desire, eros, the aesthetic enjoyment of life in Sanskrit. I'd be happy enough to give him the benefit of the doubt, but correct me if i'm wrong Kama

Maybe it is a coincidence. In a thread about the Holocaust, don't expect it to go unnoticed though.

marcsignal wrote: »

I must get a copy of that. I saw one good C4 Documentary on Anti Semetism in the UK last year. It was described as the worlds 'oldest hatred'

I have Claude Lanzmann's documentary 'Shoah' on DVD which is basically 10 hrs of interviews with witnesses all connected with Treblinka. These witnesses are from all areas such as former SS, Polish locals, local antisemites, survivors (political, Roma and Jewish) and their families.

If you ever meet a survivor, I'll bet you your house, you won't be able to take your eyes off their number if you get a glance at it and you'll wonder what they remember, went through and who they lost.

marcsignal

Serenity Now! wrote: »

In the Auschwitz series also by Lawrence Rees, the interviews with the former SS officer, Oskar Groening (?) are a sick insight into what happened at a camp..

Saw that, excellent series, very poignant. I thought the part where Oskar Groening addresses the deniers about the killings, in the last episode, was very significant, he confirmed much of what is believed to be fact about the gassings. I can't see why he would make that up. He didn't sound like an apologist, he was openly frank, and the narattor didn't do him any favours in parts.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

The accepted figure for the death toll at the Auschwitz camps is supposed to be around 1.5million isn't it? .

I believe so, I think Raul Hilberg confirms this now, but the Soviets did claim a 4 million figure at some point, at least up until the late 80's I'm sure.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

I don't mind the skeptics who have a problem with Jews. They make me feel superior and how I'd love to show them that the family is alive, well and growing. May all those people's neighbours be everyone they irrationally hate..

fair play, good philosophy.

Serenity Now! wrote: »

Maybe it is a coincidence. In a thread about the Holocaust, don't expect it to go unnoticed though..

just dont read too much into my sig , kickoutthejams had a similar one with an american soldier on it for the ww2 forum too, i just thought i'd have one with the sausage eating bosch

Serenity Now! wrote: »

If you ever meet a survivor, I'll bet you your house, you won't be able to take your eyes off their number if you get a glance at it and you'll wonder what they remember, went through and who they lost.

I only ever saw one once, on a resident in the former Jewish retirement home in Rathmines in the 90's, when i was doing contract work there, and your right, I was frozen in my tracks. Indescribable feeling.

Kama

I also notice from reading through the thread someone who is posting here has the username, which amongst other things, is that of a famous SS brigade that was based in the Balkans and took part in mass killings. Shame really.

Lordy, that's the first time I'd heard that connection. And yes Marc, from the Sanskrit. Shame really, that a coincidence between my handle and a units name is seized upon as evidence of motive. As you say, people choose what suits them .

However, as a counter-factual, even if my motive was as you attempted to imply, it would make precisely no difference to any argument I might make. Ad hominem doesn't cut it (especially if you don't know the person) it's an unhelpful approach, and laughable as it might sound in the context, can we try not to Godwin the thread?

marcsignal

Kama wrote: »

And yes Marc, from the Sanskrit.

I thought so

Here's a rare photo of Tommy Coopers Grandfather in the SS Handschar Division in 1941.

apparently he disappeared justlikethat at the end of the war

Serenity Now!

Kama wrote: »

Lordy, that's the first time I'd heard that connection. And yes Marc, from the Sanskrit. Shame really, that a coincidence between my handle and a units name is seized upon as evidence of motive. As you say, people choose what suits them .

However, as a counter-factual, even if my motive was as you attempted to imply, it would make precisely no difference to any argument I might make. Ad hominem doesn't cut it (especially if you don't know the person) it's an unhelpful approach, and laughable as it might sound in the context, can we try not to Godwin the thread?

Nothing is "seized upon". I noticed it and as I said later on, don't expect something like that not to be remarked upon in a thread about the Holocaust. Apologies if you took it personally.

Regarding your second paragraph, what you describe does affect debate on the subject. It is not ad-hominem. Discussing the subject with a jew-hater (its occurence, death toll, methods etc) means it can only go one-way even if countering with credible argument. As you acknowledge, what suits whomever.

Tony EH

marcsignal wrote: »

Thanks, I must check that one out.

My interest in the whole thing was reignited with Norman Finkelstiens revelations in the book 'The Holocaust Industry'. He doesn't dispute the number of deaths, but exposes discrepancies with the amount of survivors.

He claims that the organisations claiming compensation from the Swiss and German banks, are said to have falsified the amount of survivors alive today, in order to claim more money on their behalf. For example, they counted people who managed to leave Germany, some of them with all, or most, of their money etc, before the war started, as Holocaust survivors. This started me raising eyebrows.

There was also some contention about the Gas Chamber in Dachau too. I've been there many times, and the layout is very odd, and a bit difficult to explain without drawing a map. It is claimed it was never used to kill people, but to disinfect prison uniforms. The layout would seem to back that up, and it's also very small for what you'd expect to carry out large scale gassings in.

Here's a pic I took inside. Its only about 10M sq and ventilation would have been a serious problem afterwards because the doors open out to the working part of the crematorium area.

Oh, I've no doubt at all that Finkelstein is correct in his assertions. His mother's quote; "If all these people survived Hitler, then who did Hitler kill?" is entirely correct.

The problem for the business is that as the years go by, their alledged Raisond'etre (ie holocaust suvivors) dwindle, so they must look elsewhere for their excuse for existing. Personally, I believe this is where the so-called "fight" against the ubiquitious "holocaust denier" comes in quite handy for these special interest groups. If you to believe some, you'd think the world was full of people who "denied" the holocaust. That is, of course, patently absurd.

Finkelstein enevitably paid for his heresy and fell foul of the likes of the ADL and JDL, who launch a concerted effort against him personally. He lost his position at the University where he was teaching and has had to put up with the most appaling attacks, including being called a "holocaust denier" and an "anti-Semite".

As far as the "gas chamber" at Dachau is concerned, the only reason that some consider it to be a homicidal gas chamber is because the Americans stated it was such after the war. They later retracted that and said that it was going to built as a homicidal gas chamber, but was "never used". i think when one looks at the gas chamber in Dachau, it is quite clearly a disinfection chamber, used for delousing clothes. In fact, such delousing chambers were common in many instalations (such as large hospitals) throughout Europe at the time, both before and just after the war and Zyklon B was used in them to combat Typhus.

I have no problem if people want to say it's "homicidal gas chamber", but frankly the actual proof just isn't there to support that.

the_syco

Which is more costly? Bullets shooting each person, or gassing them?
Which is quicker? Bullets going through a family at a time, or gassing a room of them at once.

Also, added to that, the soldiers whose task was to kill the Jews: some got sick of it.

I'll try to dig up the documentary that I saw this in.

Tony EH

Serenity Now! wrote: »

Not according to Eichmann's own testimony, for a start.

The Holocaust didn't commence in 1942 with the exterminations at camps. It started with the dehumanisation and gradual exclusion of Jews from Reich society in Germany in 1933 and then subsequently its 'annexed' territories and its occupied territories via actions of the einsatzguppene and then of course, the industrialised "less-traumatic" method in the camp system for the majority of the perpatrators.

On the subject of denial of the Holocaust, there are people soil-testing at Treblinka's site, for example, finding no evidence of bodies then there are people doing the same and finding the opposite. The same with the denial of Zyklon B being used at Auschwitz. The same with figures and tallies of those murdered. One 'proves' one thing and another proves another. People who want to see the subject in a certain way will pick and choose which 'evidence' suits their means.

When the last survivors have passed on, the deniers out there will do their best to debunk even the most basic facts. The motivation of their actions would be the worrying factor, in my opinion. Holocaust Denial and slamming the use of the Shoah as a guilt trinket are two different things.

I also notice from reading through the thread someone who is posting here has the username, which amongst other things, is that of a famous SS brigade that was based in the Balkans and took part in mass killings. Shame really.

My gran survived because she fled while pregnant (with my mother) and a sister and her daughters in tow. All this as the rest of her family and her husband's were either killed or shipped away to their deaths. We don't use this to justify anything or earn anything. In fact, its not even talked about. If it hasn't affected you or your family in any way, I don't expect anyone to actually understand why the likes of Irving must be allowed to speak and be shown up to be the pro-agendic spiters that they are.

I'm currently reading Niall Ferguson's War of the World. He explains very well the wave of Jew hating from the end of the 19th century (in Russia, the USSR, Germany, Poland, Romania etc) through to the second world war. Give it a read. Its a good'un.

I'd be very wary of anything used from Eichmann's testimony, purely from the fact that man was fighting for his very existence in Israel. It's not a leap of faith to conclude that the man may have indeed said anything at all to save his neck and god alone knows what was put in front of him as an incentive.

Of course, people are free to believe what they want to believe and that includes what the want the start date of the holocaust to be. Myself, I am with Henry Kissinger on this when he says that "Sure, it was difficult in the 30's...but it was no holocaust." For me, the repression of Jews and others turns into the "holocaust" during the war, when the Einsatzgruppen were tasked with shooting undesirables, when they weren't engaged in the primary task which was information gathering and dissemination.

But, there is no doubt, as the war dragged on; the situation for the targets of the nazis became worse and worse.

As far as your Gran's ordeal is concerned, she and the family are certainly not alone is their reticence regarding discussing the war. Most people (on all sides) who came through the war tended not to talk about it. In fact, it can be difficult to get some to open up about it today.



But re: Irving, one should be careful with how they view his right to speak as one day, the restrictions they seek to impose on him, many indeed be turned on them. But, as I've said before, compared to some views I've heard regarding the Second World War, Irving's opinions are relatively harmless and some of his questions like what Hitler actually sanctioned or knew about the holocaust should be asked and delved into IMO.


I haven't read Fergusion's book, but I did watch the documentary of the same name on Channel 4 a few years ago and found it to be ok. Fergusion, I find to be a very "average" historian though. One who'll never rock the boat or ask anything too uncomfortable, although he did raise a number of interesting points about the Einsaztgruppen and the men involved within the organisation, basically saying that he believed the majority of the men doing the shooting done so from a sense of "self-preservation". I.E. shooting unarmed people was safer than being at the front, as unarmed people don't shoot back.

Tony EH

marcsignal wrote: »

Another possible can of worms here though, is whether the 6 million figure (some of which was made up of the 4 million Soviet figure for Auschwitz) was genuinely believed to be bona fide by Jewish groups, particularlly in the US, or was any possible discrepancy quietly ignored? for whatever reason.
This is where I feel any revised figures could cause problems, politically.

This has always been a sticking point with a lot of people, but the attacks one would suffer if the holy grail of 6 million were to be questioned, doubted or merely disbelieved, is so viscious, that few tend to go near it lest they lose their livelyhoods.

Of course, when the Auschwitz museum eventually changed the 4 million plaque to 1.1 million, most Jewish groups and "establishment" historians said that they never really believed the 4 million figure in the first place and therefore the 6 million figure still stands and, subsequently, is still "heresy" to deny it.

Strangely enough, Martin Gilbert (an "establishment" historian if ever there was one), wrote of the 4 million figure in his book "Auschwitz and the Allies". So, clearly, there were some who did believe the inflated figure.

youcrazyjesus!

As someone has pointed out, even the most ardent neo-Nazi wouldn't deny that Jews suffered discrimination and a large number of them died at the hands of Nazis and their henchmen in Europe. So it begs the question, where does Holocaust denial begin?

I have no reason to doubt the mountain of evidence that suggests 11 or 12 million people died in a genocide in Europe, a minimum of 5.6 million of the victims being Jews. And the revision downards of the numbers killed in light of new evidence to the present 5.6 million + figure is an indication that the number is based on sound academic study. My problem with the Holocaust "industry" has been written about by Finkelstein and others. Some people say the campaign against the Jews was unprecedented and deserves special recognition, I agree on the latter part but what about the Armenians of 30 years earlier? Do they get a capitalisation too? The aHolocaust maybe. It's a nonsense. I wouldn't get to bogged down on capitalisations or names but I think it's a symptom of the status of certain victims being elevated to being more important than others, that the status of Jewish victims should be elevated above even the 5 or 6 million non-Jewish victims of the same genocide is wrong in my opinion. 20 million Soviet citizens died, millions of Germans (yes German civilians died too), homosexuals, Communists, the people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (war crimes that certain people should have swung for in my opinion) people with mental problems or physical problems, the victims of Dresden (Winston Churchill himself referred to it as a terror attack).

Every single victim deserves recognition, there is no hierarchy of suffering in my opinion and I believe it is the objective of a certain strain of right-wing opinion to create just that, often cynically exploiting the memory of the victims, who no doubt would have understood with perfect clarity what real injustice feels like.

But, back to my question, where does denial begin? 5 million? 4 million? 2 million? 500,000? Nobody denies that at least several hundred thousand Jews were killed by Nazis. Granted, they might not agree it was a systematic campaign of extermination or that the Jews were particularly targetted over other groups of people. But I think the point still stands.

It's absolute nonsense to suggest a court or a law can suggest a person is guilty of a crime for forming his or her own opinion on a particular statistic or a version of history. I would be strongly against bringing it in anywhere else. It also does not follow that somebody who has an opinion that differs from the well established academic consensus is guilty of anti-Semitism and promoting Nazism. That notion runs contrary to natural justice. 95% of them probably are but it's not the point.

The unfortunate thing now is that in Germany and Austria, in the post-war years those laws were rightly thought to be necessary and removing them, even thought it would be right to remove them now, would send the wrong message, completely. So I agree they have to stay. Although prosecution services would perhaps use their discretion and decline to jail these people. If nothing else it would deprive some Neo-Nazis of publicity.

Nodin

Tony EH wrote: »

Oh, I've no doubt at all that Finkelstein is correct in his assertions. His mother's quote; "If all these people survived Hitler, then who did Hitler kill?" is entirely correct.

Thats taking the quote out of context really. His mother survived Hitler, in that she survived the camps. It doesn't refer to survivors, or seek to deny the gas chambers.

Kama

Apologies if you took it personally.

Nah I don't, I has a fairly thick skin anyway, and I learned something, always good. Point isn't personal offence anyways, it's the proposal of an tenuous insinuation, guilt-by-association, and what that does to a debate.

This is precisely why I generally consider motive to be irrelevant; once we take the position that argument is secondary to the fact that 'I am a jew-hater', the reflex and equal reaction comes into play; I can disregard the truth-value of anything you say because you are an A, B, or C, inserting category of choice. Which ain't healthy, imho, putting it mildly.

Regarding your second paragraph, what you describe does affect debate on the subject. It is not ad-hominem. Discussing the subject with a jew-hater (its occurence, death toll, methods etc) means it can only go one-way even if countering with credible argument.

Yep, it means they lose. If you present credible argument, and they appear clearly biased, you generally win in the end. And tbh, I don't go with 'what suits whatever'; a postmodern collapse of incommunicable discourses is exactly what open discussion can overcome. That information can be presented selectively doesn't mean we should, and the benefit of open discussion is we can be called on that selectivity. It's not perfect, and it's messy, but the alternative is (imho) clearly worse.

On questioning numbers, there seems to be a degree of doublethink or cognitive dissonance, insofar as academically the figures were adjusted downward, but the 'public' figure remains. It's an unpalatable topic left alone, lest contamination or questioning of motives (as with Finkelstein or Cole) arise. Again, there's a tempting tautology: if they question, then they must be jew-haters, and we know they are jew-haters because they question. At this point reason collapses.

Reducing or increasing the numbers to my mind neither subtracts or adds to the revulsion or horror, which lies (to me) in the application of rational-scientific bureaucracy and technique to the annihilation of people, and the dehumanization and instrumentalization inherent in this, a trend which imo has in not in any way disappeared.

Similarly, Bauman writes in Modernity and the Holocaust of the paucity of scholarship on the Holocaust in reference to the German character: they killed Jews because they were anti-semitic, and we know they were anti-semitic because they killed Jews. Yet we know from psychological experiments like Zimbardo and Milgram that the true horror is not that there are evil people somewhere that do these things, but that the 'inner Eichmann' is always there, and in an appropriate situation will perform horrific acts: Zimbardo testified at the trials for Abu Ghraib on this basis, that the problem is not 'bad people', but arise in any person placed in situations where the unethical becomes rational. Rather than an essential character of monstrosity, an odious racist, rabid and irrational, the monstrous is produced, rationally, scientifically.

As Hannah Arendt wrote, the true horror of evil is its banality, its everyman nature, that the most disturbing feature of the Nazis was that they 'were, and still are, terrifyingly normal'. Stalking the convenient demon of Nazis, locating 'evil' as 'Other', allows us to studiously ignore a latent threat within us all; our capacity to participate in, actively or passively, as executioner or bystander, the 'nightmare of history'.

To me, this appears (psychologically) to be denial of the Holocaust: 'our continuous inability to come to terms with the meaning of the Holocaust, our inability to call the bluff of the murderous hoax, our willingness to go on playing the game of history with the loaded dice of reason so understood that it shrugs the clamours of morality as irrelevant or loony, our consent to the authority of cost-effective calculus as an argument against ethical commandments - all these bear an eloquent evidence to the corruption the Holocaust exposed, but did little, it appears, to discredit.' (Bauman)

This is what I hear in Albrights 'the price was worth it', or the pundits debating the acceptable level of torture, and all such justifications of purportedly-necessary murder and suffering: the short-circuit of the ethical by a rationalised efficiency...and the accompanying silence...