History of the Holocaust

Hmm you seem to lack the ability to understand how academia works, James

Meanwhile, from another source:

http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/index.html

Thats a good one.

http://en.auschwitz.org.pl/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=678&Itemid=68

That needs a login and may need a subscription

I'm surprised that something that is so often talked about and used as an example is only apparently accessible for discussion through its critics, who are of course not permitted to express an opinion about it.

 

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Can anyone help me to find online the "Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross on its Activities during the Second World War and Inter Arma Caritas" ?

I could not find it on the ICRC website and it appears to have numerous independent reports by neutral independent authorities on the status of the camps and the involvement of the Germans.

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/6ayg86

Has anyone reviewed it?

I was commenting on your choice of recommendations.

 

From the ICRC link:

Fascinating. They could be discussing Gaza.

 

I don't see why so much attention need be paid to questioning details of the Holocaust. How many people spend time seriously questioning details about the Spanish Inquisition, or the Crusades, or Japan's WW2 crimes in China? I don't know whether you're looking to outright question the fundamental nature of the Holocaust SAM, but I know there are many folks out there who do. I don't think any reasonable person out there would argue that the Palestinians should pay the price for the Holocaust, nor do I think Israel claims this as an excuse for their suffering. Hence I can't see why folks like Ahmadinejad would need to call the Holocaust a lie, when its truth or fiction would have no bearing on Israel's right to exist or lack thereof in the Middle East.

 

I think its because no one has banned discussion of the others.

You're free to discuss other topics that interest you, I have a fascination for the forbidden.

And don't worry, I have no underlying motive to disrespect those who suffered or diminish what they went through.

I'll post in good faith, I promise.

Who knows, you may be able to use this thread to answer all those questions to others who want to know, since I will be careful to distinguish between fact and opinion. If I cannot answer a question I won't make any guesses.

Let me know if you think I overstep any limits and I will modify it.

 

I like your answer, I have no personal problem with your line of questioning and don't intend to step in even if I thought it went too far, James R is already keeping careful watch as is. That's a good point about the Holocaust, the fact that clutching it too tightly as a sacred truth will only lead to increased skepticism- anyone making a claim with solid evidence to support their claim should not feel like they have something to hide. I feel such is the plight of the Jewish people in many respects- they fear those with a hateful agenda, yet the more they try to avoid dealing with such people, the more suspicion it arouses. As another example, wealthy Jews make an easy target for those of lesser privilege in society, yet when the majority who acquired their wealth through legitimate means scoff at those who question this wealth, it only feeds into the stereotypes. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

That may be true in some parts of the world, its not true in all.

And people like James are bad for the Jews.

They tend to reinforce the stereotypes through their actions.

Its not lost on people when conversations about Jews are treated differently, which makes them separate from others

 

Well I think there are a few factors at play here. Firstly there is an excessive interest in Holocaust, some of it fed by genuine curiosity, some of it fed by a desire to see it placed above other tragedies in importance, and some because of a desire to deny it or drastically downplay it. Then on the other side of the story we have the mods trying hard to return this place to a level of civilized, rational dialogue instead of the flame pit it's becoming, which feeds back into the resentment, and we have a bit of a cycle going on.

I respect what both SAM and James R are saying in this thread, if you can manage to keep it civil then I think there's plentiful room for a good healthy discussion here. The reason I went a bit off topic asking about researching sacred truths like the Quran (and implicitly I also had the Bible and other religious texts in mind when asking), is only because the discussion suddenly reminded me of a comment Penner and Teller once made on their excellent "Bullshit" TV series. They pointed out that most people, at least in the west, will spend more time investigating and challenging the claims of a used car salesman than they will the claims of a religious authority. Would be a good point for discussion under another topic, maybe I'll start one later.

 

Thanks.

I'm not going to do this lightly so it won't happen all at once, since I want to be careful about the sources and opinons I use and it will take some time to figure out which ones are most objective apart from the obvious ones. I will also post all my sources and where possible scan them for verification if they are not available online.

 

Maybe try here:
http://college.usc.edu/vhi/

 

A great portion of the holocaust figures which we scholastically consult today are derived from the "estimates" of postwar Nuremberg trials. I quote "estimates" because they can hardly be considered as such; most of the major figures which exist today are based on Soviet inventions, exaggerations, and torture "confessions". Here are three cardinal facts about the holocaust which go against its popular narrative: there were no mass-extermination gas chambers; the "six million" figure is based on postwar Soviet fabrications regarding the Auschwitz death toll, which has since been reduced multiple times; inmates died mostly of typhus and starvation (shortage of food due in part to Allied destruction of German supply lines during the end of the war).

I recommend the Institute for Historical Review for further information and sources.

 

Thanks that looks like a great resource.

 

There were gas chambers, and dying of starvation or disease in that context was still murder.

Once a leading voice in the international movement to deny the Holocaust and vindicate Hitler and the Nazi regime, the Institute for Historical Review has been in decline for several years. It has been unable to convene a major international conference or publish its Holocaust-denying Journal of Historical Review since 2002. Currently its activities have been limited to hosting minor extremist gatherings -- usually featuring a speech by IHR director Mark Weber and occasionally another Holocaust denier such as David Irving -- and operating its Web site and its e-mail list. Weber is also a supporter of embattled Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. IHR's most significant recent activity was a conference it conducted together with the neo-Nazi National Alliance in Sacramento, California, in April 2004. (source) ​

 

Indeed. Starvation is not usually voluntary nor as was implied in Gitmo, undertaken to harass the persecutors. Typhus can be deliberately employed as a biological agent and I have read the book on Medical Ward Buchenwald and visited the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. so I am not completely ignorant on the matter.

I have also read speculations on the role of the US Psyche Corps in comandeering the filming of the camps, which was later used in the trials, where many of the props used in the films were not presented for independent enquiry [human skin lampshade, shrunken heads etc]. Since we have no verifiable evidence either way those will not be addressed, simply mentioned in the context in which they were found and used without speculation.

In the aim of full disclosure, I am also aware that Eisenhower never mentioned any gas chambers. Regardless of the suspicions on that account, I prefer to look at it from a personal vantage point. If I were going to a POW camp, would I be looking for a gas chamber that was used to kill people?

Not without a priori knowledge that such was happening. So, I shall avoid such dubious retroactive speculations based on what Eisenhower or anyone else should have seen and what they might have known or might have wished to keep mum about.

Perhaps I may not be able to answer any of the questions posed, but I will make an attempt to present what histography is available. I will also refrain from addressing the Nuremberg trials here.

Is that fair?

 

I have already addressed the gas chamber speculation, I have yet to look at any sources for the figures of the victims but a brief perusal of existing sources assures me that the number is between 5 and 7 million for Jews and may be 12 million for all Nazi victims. As someone with epidemiologic training, I am aware of the difficulties in population statistics and the wide variety of interpretations that are deduced by the differences in confidence intervals [see The Lancet study on the Iraq war victims, for example] but anyone who has worked in the field knows that these are the best possible methods we have to arrive at crude estimates.

Now add to that the knowledge that those who were destined for the gas chambers or exterminiation, if you prefer it, were not registered at all and its evident that one cannot go solely by the reports from the camps or the records given by the Nazis.

Moreover, evidence that the German Red Cross was also infiltrated by the SS and the activities of the SS in attempting to cover up and destroy evidence of their crimes and we are in deep shit where documentary evidence is concerned.

Inspite of all these EXTREME limitations or perhaps because of it, we need to err on the side of caution so as not to deny a single sufferer their due recognition.

Can we keep this in mind as we proceed?

Think of this not as a debate on the Holocaust, but a pilgrimage of it.

And because I think visuals matter, just remember we are recreating the journey of these people:

http://images.google.co.in/images?h...=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=holocaust victims&spell=1

These are REAL PEOPLE, and they deserve consideration regardless of how their descendants turned out.

 

Good luck on your journey, some of us grew up with it.

 

Now allow me to address it: there were no gas chambers. Fred Leuchter, the first man to carry out a forensic investigation of the "gas chambers" at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek concluded from his findings that there was no evidence of hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, or any other lethal gas residue in the alleged "execution sites". In addition, Leuchter noted the facilities themselves were not capable of being utilized for gassing purposes. Leuchter wrote in his report:

"... the author finds no evidence that any of the facilities normally alleged to be execution gas chambers were ever used as such and finds, further, that because of the design and fabrication of these facilities, they could not have been utilized for execution gas chambers."

Zyklon B, the proposed lethal gas used in the "gas chambers", was not found in the "execution sites" investigated by Leuchter. This is especially suspicious because the iron-containing cyanide compound from the Zyklon B is very stable, and should have been easily detected in the investigation if it was truly there. Leuchter's findings were subsequently confirmed in an official report by the Krakow Forensic Institute.

Another interesting aspect of the alleged "gas chambers" is postwar reconstructions. The alleged "gas chamber" at Auschwitz, which has drawn tens of thousands of tourists annually for decades, was found to be a postwar Soviet reconstruction, similar to the alleged "gas chamber" at Dachau. The Soviets, by their Marxist origins, were well-versed in rewriting history; one could say they were experts in these dirty affairs. Add to these gas chamber reconstructions the Soviet inventions, exaggerations, and torture "confessions", and you have on your hands a fable that is hard to swallow.

Finally, there is the infamous Höss confession. Rudolf Höss, the first commandant of Auschwitz, "confessed" that Adolf Eichmann told him "at least two and a half million victims were executed and exterminated there by gassing and burning," and that "at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total dead of about three million". Years after the war, British military intelligence sergeant Bernard Clarke described how Höss's "confession" was forced out of him through torture by his (Clarke) and five other British soldiers' hands. Höss privately said of his confession:

"Certainly, I signed a statement that I killed two and half million Jews. I could just as well have said that it was five million Jews. There are certain methods by which any confession can be obtained, whether it is true or not."

Your numbers are inaccurate. The estimate "between five and seven million Jews" is based on the Nuremberg trial figure of four million Auschwitz victims. Today, any reputable historian or scholar would laugh in your face if you said there were four million Auschwitz victims. In 1989, Israeli holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer stated the four million figure for Auschwitz was grossly inflated, and the actual figure was more along the lines of one million. The plaque outside of Auschwitz dropped from four million victims in 1990 and was replaced by a plaque in 1995 which declared one and a half million victims. According to various historians and scholars (Gerald Reitlinger, Jean-Claude Pressac, Fritjof Meyer), the Auschwitz death toll could be as low as 700,000, 630,000, or 500,000 (Jews and non-Jews). In 1945, Auschwitz estimates alone were as high as an unfeasible eight million; it is interesting to note how these figures continue to drop as more evidence is unearthed.

What makes the "between five and seven million Jews" estimation - six million for short - so curious is that it has never changed to suit continuously changing concentration camp death tolls. It is also important to note that Auschwitz-Birkenau is considered one of, if not the most deadly concentration camps of the Second World War; because its figures have undergone significant reductions, one would expect similar from the total estimates. Instead, they have remained unchanged, and have become somewhat of a cult phenomenon; as Norman Finkelstein, whose father is a survivor of both the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz, would say, "the Holocaust Industry". The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, by Norman Finkelstein, is a very informative book regarding the critically important differences between the holocaust and the Holocaust. I am sure you have heard of it.

Finally, as I have already said, most of the inmates in the concentration camps died from typhus and starvation. Typhus was a very common wartime killer in those days, especially considering the close quarter circumstances of the inmates. During the First World War, typhus was responsible for the deaths of three million Russians alone; this does not take into account all of the Serbs, Austrians, Poles, and so on, who also faced the epidemic. The starvation factor is quite simple: near the end of the war, German supplies were running low, and German supply lines were destroyed by the Allied forces. Unfortunately, these things tend to happen when a large number of people are encamped in a small area: the results are a high number of deaths in a short amount of time.

The hotly-contested questions regarding many of the major and controversial aspects of the holocaust in the opening post are much more likely to draw debate than "pilgrimage".