Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
Please elaborate on what this "digging around" of yours constituted. I have a funny feeling the name "David Irving" is gonna come up.
I haven't even read any David Irving yet. I've looked mainly at Nizkor (plus associated rabbit holes) for the pro side and at VHO/IHR/CODOH (plus associated rabbit holes) for the con side. Of course that's only scratching the surface of this humungous timesink.
Some responses to some of your points:-
The vans/buses were an early experiment, whereby the engine exhaust was piped into the sealed vehicle, which was driven around into those inside died. It was slow and inefficient, so they went back to mass shootings for the time being. The proven existence of these vans in no way indicates the gas chambers were fake.
I never said they did.
The lack of evidence for gas chambers is what indicates that the gas chambers were fake.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
But there were no gas chambers or evidence of genocidal mass execution at the camps liberated by the Allies...
The camps in the west were not operated as extermination camps. The death camps designed to carry out the Final Solution were understandably established in the East, close to the population to be exterminated.
Yet the curious thing is that initially the Allies
did claim that the Western camps were death camps too. Initially, the narrative was that ALL all the camps were both work camps and death camps and that almost all of them had gas chambers. That was scaled back to "oops, it was just the Eastern camps" only relatively recently.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
... there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz; the "gas chamber" and "crematorium" there are a post-war Soviet constructions based around the shower facilities - straightforward propaganda.
This assertion is completely untenable in the face of extensive and corroborating evidence from multiple sources, including: official reports; eyewitness accounts of both guards and prisoners; numerous physical structures; blueprints. cf.
http://www.deathcamps.org/gas_chambers/ ... hwitz.html
That the Soviets 're-created' a gas chamber for tourists in the wrong building, does not negate this mountain of evidence.
"Wrong building" in relation to what correct building? Re. official reports: there is no unambiguous documentary evidence of any extermination order re. gas chamber genocide (not like there is for the mass shootings). Re. eyewitness accounts of guards: the Höss testimony, which is the key guard testimony (it's even quoted in the article you link)
looks like it was extracted under torture. Re. eyewitness accounts of prisoners: many of those have fallen apart down the years. A lot of it seems to be hearsay, particularly the recurring theme of people being taken away to be executed. One interesting example: a survivor guest on the Montel Williams show that had David Cole and Mark Weber making the revisionist case in the mid 90s, claimed his brother had been taken away and executed, he was really sure of it. He was later joyously reunited with his brother on a return appearance on the Williams show; and his brother had thought
he had been taken away and executed! Someone had seen the show and noticed the guy on telly had the same name as a survivor
he knew, and wondered if they were related ...
But one important thing that I mentioned that I'd like to reiterate at this point, relative to the question of eyewitness testimony, is that there is
also eyewitness testimony from survivors that
does not corroborate the gas chambers narrative - eyewitness testimony that corroborates that Auschwitz was in fact precisely
what it said on the gates, a work camp. As good Bayesians, shouldn't we take that into account? Or were those eyewitnesses the wrong, self-hating kinds of Jews? ;)
In relation to this point you say "Auschwitz and other KZ had ancillary work camps where conditions were better and the probability of survival was higher." But
the whole vast multiplex was a work camp, that's what the barracks were there for, natch, to house workers. Now the orthodox narrative has it that some prisoners were worked
then gassed, but that's what the contrary testimony contradicts.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
You seem to be claiming that, if the gas chambers were either not real, or only in limited use, then the nazis could not have murdered 6 million jews. Yet you've acknowledged that in just a few months, they were able to shoot 300,000 (which, as I've shown, easily reached half a million), and you acknowledge another million or more via starvation, exhaustion, and disease. The nazis most certainly did use gas chambers,
but they didn't need them.
They did unless you can provide evidence of 6 million shot in mass executions.
At any rate, the traditional Holocaust narrative I grew up with when I had my eyes glued to
The World At War on the telly as a kid, drinking in Sir Laurence Olivier's gravitas-laden intonements, had the gas chambers as the
distinguishing feature of a mass genocide perpetrated deliberately and with insectile precision by the Nazis. If it turns out they just kinda-sorta used gas chambers a bit, on a few occasions (like they seem to have done for the purposes of eugenics just before the war), that's quite a climb-down.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
Another curious side-light is that a lethal dose of Zyklon B produces a cyanotic appearance in the deceased, and nowhere is that reported in any of the eyewitness testimony
So do you accept the eyewitness reports, which confirm
the existence and regular use of gas chambers, or not?
Eh? I'm saying rather that the absence of that kind of detail seems to cast doubt on the eyewitness testimony.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
Zyklon B's active agent is hydrogen cyanide, which had been widely and safely used as a pesticide and fumigant for 60 years in a variety of locations, from orchards to ship's holds, without the need for "carefully insulated electronics." Nevertheless, inhaling it is fatal, so all that is required is to: 1) prevent the victim from escaping, and; 2) provide a modicum of protection for the killers. Since the gas is heavier than air, and the canisters were dropped through the ceiling, this was easily achieved.
Obviously you don't need that degree of care with de-lousing doses of the stuff. But I think it's reasonable to suppose that you would if you were using the stuff in lethal doses, since the gas is hyper-flammable.
Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Wed Feb 07, 2018 11:59 am
It's also quite insane that there is now a supposedly historical event that people can go to jail in some countries for doubting, and it beggars belief that many rationalists and public figures can just let that go without comment or complaint.
If you want to seriously approach this topic -- and be taken seriously -- instead of repeating easily debunked denialist sniping, do some hard number-crunching. You can start with the Krakow Ghetto. in 1941, 68,000 Jews lived in Krakow. The nazis relocated all but 15,000, the latter confined to the Ghetto, which was liquidated in early 1943. You have the figures in reports of the Sonderkommando that conducted the liquidation -- numbers killed on the spot, numbers send to KZ. The names of all 68,000 Krakow jews are available to you. Go track them down.
Sure, I'd be happy to. But your response doesn't address my point. Isn't it quite mad - and not a little bit suspicious - that questioning this one historical event should be criminalized?