Are the Holocaust Revisionists right?

Great Debates
81

Not quite sure wtf you are going on about.

I am gathering that you’d suggest that we consistently take people who are “questioning” whether or not the Holocaust actually occurred (or if there at least really was a concerted effort to exterminate various groups of people, or if at least it isn’t a bit exaggerated and that maybe only a small fraction of those claimed to have been murdered were, whatever variant of it you want) at their word - they are only intellectually curious and are becoming convinced on the strength of the evidence that the Holocaust is a bit of a fake.

Is that an accurate understanding of your snark?

82

I have no problem with anybody accepting the conventional wisdom and teachings about the Holocaust; no cow should be sacred. I questioned it myself, and researched it and found out “Oh yeah… it happened”.

But something I’m curious about- a lot of revisionists and deniers claim that “it wasn’t anywhere near 6 million Jews”. Let us assume for the sake of argument that this was proven to be true or at least possible, that instead of 6 (or 5.85) million the number was closer to 5 million.

Let’s even say it was 3 million (Note: I’m not saying it was 3 million- the lowest estimate I’ve ever read by by a reputable historian or researchers was well over 5 million, and that’s not taking into account several things [those who died after liberation from malnutrition/disease/etc. endured in the camps, for example]- but for the sake of argument, let’s say it was 3 million).

Honest and non-rhetorical question: If it turned out that it was three million Jews who were deliberately murdered by the Nazis, would it be less horrifying that six million?

To me it wouldn’t be. Three million- that’s still more people than live in Manhattan and the Bronx combined, something that requires a deliberate effort to achieve. There is absolutely no reason to doubt the conditions of the camps: there’s mountains of photographic, filmed, and first-hand evidence, there’s the testimony of survivors and former guards all the way up to Eichmann himself, there’s the testimony of Hermann Göring and other Nazi defendants at Nuremberg who didn’t even try to deny it took place but just sought to distance themselves from it, etc… The number is almost unimportant: if it was 1 million, or even just 500,000, rather than the generally accepted 6 million (a number that when you add to the quality of lives destroyed and people who died years later from disease or even suicide brought about by the Holocaust would probably be too small) to me it’s no less horrifying.

When you think that there are just under 7 billion people on earth today or that there are more than 300 million people in America the number 6 million doesn’t sound so big. However when you think about walking through Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island (or some other major metropolitan area) and finding every subway and every street and every home and every business empty it becomes a bit more visceral.

83

Well read the whole thread then: you might “the fuck” realise. I’ve posted very plainly.

Snark is leaping to conclusions about a poster’s characteristics and motivation without evidence.

And no it is not what I would suggest, you are “gathering” a strawman. You made a specific comment about the OP which is not justified by evidence. I called you out. You are now trying to interpret what I said more widely so you can vague out and avoid facing the fact that you are leaping to conclusions about the OP that you can’t support.

The guy has been posting since 2007. Do a quick search: until a few days ago he had never posted on this subject. He responded to a thread someone else started, wondering about a video he had seen. Argent Towers immediately jumps on him snarling and spitting about revisionism being “his [ie the OP’s]movement” and invites him to start an OP about the subject which, at AT’s suggestion he does. His posts since then have shown an open mind, and understandable frustration at the unthinking, bloody minded, stereotyping, lynch mob response that has seen instant assumptions about his motivation and beliefs. Any faith the OP places in the videos he’s seen is no doubt misguided, and he could be David Irving for all I know, but he deserves a chance, not to be attack mobbed in this way.

84

I’m not all that familiar with the holocaust denial claims, but from what I gather, at least some of it is “THEY SAY SIX MILLION JEWS WERE KILLED BY POISON GAS, BUT EVERYONE KNOWS THE ACTUAL NUMBER IS FAR LOWER !!11!”

Is that the gist of their argument? They somehow think that if most Jews died from gunshots, disease, or starvation, that this is not as bad as being gassed?

On the page that tomndebb linked to (http://www.holocaust-history.org/~rjg/deaths.shtml ), it notes that about 5.4 M Poles were killed, about 50% were Jews. I assume that most of the Jews killed died in concentration camps, but what about the other 2.7 M? Were they killed by war operations like bombing, or were they put in camps as well? Did the Nazis put non-Jew, non-homosexual, non-handicapped Poles in concentration camps?

85

I made that very point in the thread The holocaust is a hoax … just about a year ago. The original poster would do well to read that (locked) thread.

Additionally, I pointed out back then that, while Zyklon-B is indeed an insecticide, it is far more efficient at killing people than lice. Killing lice with Zyklon-B requires up to 72 hours in a closed environment containing a concentration of up to 16,000 parts per million in the air; human beings will die after 15 minutes of exposure to a concentration of 300 ppm.

86

You don’t have to read the whole thread; you can just read the post that you posted in response to. I don’t give a damn about this particular poster. I do not care to read his posting history. I made no specific comment about the OP. At all. I asked a question asking about what is the best response to that sort of comment. Benefit of the doubt is one possible choice. I have a hard time giving that I admit, but I have not piled on this particular op. If you got a beef with other posters postings that’s between you and them. If you have a comment addressing what I actually said then make it. Otherwise you are snarking and poorly at that.

87

Yes. In fact the concentration camps were started (by Göring and the Luftwaffe) specifically for Communists, not Jews. They were also specifically started for people who were suspected of being an enemy of the state but without proof; under Göring’s law, the arrested had to be informed within 48 hours of the reason for their arrest, but they did not have the right to legal counsel or even a trial. Essentially the concentration camps began when the standards for which people could be arrested were so lowered that there was no longer enough space in all of the prisons of Germany, Austria, and their occupied lands.

The Star of David (actually two yellow triangles) worn by the Jews and the pink triangle worn by homosexuals are the two most famous badges today, but there were many others.

Just a very few:

They were amazingly detailed: there were particular badges for Jews who were also communists, or homosexuals who were also biracial, or- you name it. These things were amazingly bureaucratic.

There was a major difference between concentration camps and death camps. Neither were fun or even humanely run places, but a concentration camp was essentially a big prison camp. Death was common due to disease (when you cram 200 people into one room without running water or ventilation disease spreads quickly), malnutrition, overwork, and shootings/executions, but the primary purpose was to house prisoners (often for use as slave labor in the war effort), not to kill them. The death camps- Bierkenau (the sister camp that adjoined Auschwitz), Sobibor, Treblinka, and others- were either specifically built for or evolved into places where large numbers of people could be killed and their bodies disposed of as quickly as possible. These were “the showers” (where the nozzles were not even connected to plumbing) and incinerators and crematoriums (into which- especially by the end of the war- many prisoners were thrown while still alive, sometimes as punishment and sometimes as expedience). When trains arrived at Auschwitz-Bierkenau those who seemed healthy enough to work for the war effort, twins, perhaps “special cases” (those who had once been in the German military or celebrities or who had some kind of friend) would be sent to Auschwitz, where your odds of survival were slim but they did exist. The rest- the old, children, the weak, the sick, the handicapped, etc.- were automatically sent to Bierkenau, where the only people who had any chance of surviving the night were the Sonderkommando (inmates who went through the clothing of/shaved the heads of/removed and ‘processed’ the remains of the arrivees who were sent there).

There are MOUNTAINS of testimony as to the exact running of the concentration camps and death camps from former guards, officers, and attorneys. The Nazis themselves damned near documented it in triplicate or better. To date I am not aware of one Jew who was imprisoned by the Nazis who has ever come forward and said “Ah, the concentration camps weren’t so bad, the stuff about the showers and the ovens… pffft, made up”, and with as many hundreds of thousands of survivors of the camps who are still alive today there is absolutely no humanly conceivable way the story wouldn’t have broken many many many times.

88

Not routinely, but it did happen. In one account it was the punishment for a Sonderkommando who told the woman whose head he was shaving what was about to happen to her- for him it was punishment. In the final days of the camps when they were desperately trying to kill as many as possible before the Allies arrived, they threw in some people alive, especially children, though it was a disaster because even the Sonderkammando and kapos would not cooperate except at gunpoint, and sometimes not then.

The original method of gas poisoning involved driving the prisoners around in a large van with a tube feeding the carbon monoxide into the closed truck. It took a long time and was extremely messy and often some prisoners had to be shot. It was Rudolph Hoess who noticed Zyklon B, which really was as deniers love to mention an insecticide. One of Hoess’s men inhaled some when he entered a barracks that had just been deloused and he passed out, causing Hoess to wonder “if only a little bit could knock out a soldier in excellent health, what could a lot do?” And thus the experiments.

One of the proofs of it being used in showers is the massive rise in manufacture of the product between 1941 (when it was only used for insecticide purposes) and 1943 (when it began to be used daily at Bierkenau).

89

Which part of the latter statement is not a specific comment about the OP? You have leapt to a conclusion about what he is “like”, and you specifically say so, current attempts at revisionist history on your part notwithstanding.

90

And what praytell did I say about our poster other than that he was one of those people questioning the veracity of the Holocaust and asking whether or not it is falsified in part or whole? Is that a conclusion about what he is “like”? I do indeed acknowledge that I have a hard time believing that people, like him, who are questioning thusly, “are really just a innocently unaware of the reality of the facts as they make out”, but that is a long shot from your claim that I have made a specific claim about this particular poster.

You do have the reading comprehension to understand that “like” is a generalizing term referring to the act of questioning whether or not the Holocaust occurred?

In short your post is full of shit. And if you’d like to continue this please bring it to the Pit. Here I can only comment on the post not, well, I have to stop there.

My question remains, your snarky crappy aside notwithstanding: how do we in general respond to people who like this poster are questioning whether or not the Holocaust occured or if was really not so bad as “they” make out? Do we presume that they are innocents asking questions based on intellectual curiosity (at least if they tell us so)? Or what? If you want to discuss that fine. If not I can’t stop you. Mock you, sure, stop you, no.

91

A board search under “Holocaust denial” will turn up a bunch of threads, some asking what the point is of trying to overturn well-established and documented history on the subject.

Most of us understand that Holocaust denial (not questions about particular minutiae, but rejection of major parts or all of Holocaust history) is a manifestation of anti-Semitic hatred. David Irving and the other major players in this “field” have provided ample evidence of their bigotry.

Still, there are people who are poorly acquainted with the history of the Holocaust. They don’t understand that denial is a tool of those who see the Holocaust as a huge stumbling block in their efforts to re-establish vigorous anti-Semitism. I’ve seen the argument that some Americans (and others) are disturbed when Holocaust deniers are dismissed as bigots - it offends their sense of “fair play” and they think “why not hear the other side of the story?”, as if there is one.

So, tiresome as it is to keep refuting this crap with solid, sober rebuttals, it has to be done, along with exposing the bigots for what they are. Most people won’t be fooled by their nonsense, but if the same lies keep being repeated without challenge, eventually there’s the risk of a substantial minority being taken in.

92

You might want to reconsider this position. My guess is that the younger a person is*, the less genuine information that person will have regarding any particular event in the 20th century–and maybe before. They were not around when the information was news, with daily reports, instead of history and they are, typically in the U.S., going to have been given the most shallow description of events in what passes for History classes in high school. Unless they take a specific course in mid-20th century history in college, the historical survey they get regarding world history will wind up with a few pages devoted to decades of events in which the Holocaust was merely one, (if a very large one). In those courses, there will be a passing reference to “Auschwitz” and the name Belsen may not even appear. There will be no references to the Einsatzgruppen and no mention of events such as the one at Babi Yar.

When one more crackpot essay or book gets published giving (invented or distorted) facts and figures, few folks have the background to recognize that they are actually invented or distorted.

I would say that the way to respond to claims of Deniers is to simply insist that they provide support for their claims so that we can run down the sources of their misinformation, debunk them, then provide accurate information. Then, if they persist in holding to their claims in the face of evidence, we can treat them like any other CT proponent.

  • A person does not have to be young, of course, to have simply missed the information as it was revealed. Lots of folks never read anything–or read only the sports or fashion sections of the paper–and with the growth of TV, even reading those sections has declained dramatically.
93

Surprised this was not answered yet (unless I missed it):

94

Tom, a reasonable enough point, and I’ll put you in the “benefit of the doubt” camp. I may indeed be so biased by both age and background that it is hard for me to believe that others may be honestly ignorant of the facts … but then we do live in a country in which a fair percentage of people doubt evolution, so perhaps I underestimate the degree of honest ignorance out there.

Certainly people who express “doubts” (like our op does) include those who are hateful, and those who are trolls, but perhaps not all. (I have no opinion about our op … honestly.)

Do we handle all, in the absence of conclusive proof to the contrary, as innocents? And how long before those with little personal knowledge start to assume that the truth must be somewhere in the middle between the horrific truth and the horrific lies?

95

Speaking of “before”: Would you award the same benefit of the doubt to someone who posted “Is History Wrong About Slavery in the U.S. South?” and wanted serious consideration given to opinions that slavery was largely a benevolent and necessary institution?

And if not, why not? True, there’s somewhat more attention in history classes to slavery and public remembrances are common, but the level of awareness is not massively greater compared to awareness of the Holocaust, a far more recent event with living witnesses. Yet I have difficulty recalling many people on this board who’ve shared their “insights” on slavery revisionism as compared to Holocaust denial.

Both sets of views are contemptible and bigoted, yet one seems at least a bit more persistent and less automatically repugnant in the public view.

I think we need to consider why that is, and what the consequences are.

96

We might also want to check the context.

If a person makes claims about how “the Holocaust has been used for building sympathy for specifically 6 million Jews when we know very well that repeating a death toll for one group of religious people is boarder-line Zionist”

And that we believe that the Nazis were evil so that “[we can] believe that a force can be completely evil so that military action can easily be justified (and also for Jewish sympathy to allow Israel invade so much of Palestine with US support).”

And that “[t]his would mean that the holocaust was used as ammunition not only to help leverage the UN to give Israel permission to claim more of ‘their rightful’ land, but to invent the modern usage of the word “Nazi” to justify good against evil in whatever context we like.”

It’s not then beyond the pale to assume that the person’s explicitly stated political considerations somehow play into their claims. Now, while the OP may not and may simply be repeating the claims some others have made, there is certainly a non-zero percentage of Deniers who make those claims and who do so in the context of claiming a Jewish/Zionist conspiracy/propaganda offensive that invented/distorted/uses the Holocaust to control/deceive/justify certain events and-or people.

97

Finn:
Holocaust deniers are fools and most of them probably anti-Semites, but do you not think that perhaps it would be in Israel’s best interest if its existence was decoupled from the Holocaust? In for instance something like: Israel didn’t come into existence because of the previous Holocaust but exists to prevent the next. Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi deny the Holocaust because they falsely believe it was the reason Israel was created. Then Israel could say, “well they are of course idiots, but what has that got to do with us?” and the murders during WW-II wouldn’t become a political issue to be manipulated for other ends.

98

Holocaust revisionism is predicated at least in part on the misunderstanding of the role that the Holocaust played in the formation of the state of Israel: basically that “the West”, riddled with guilt over the Holocaust, created Israel to atone for it. Thus Jew haters and anti-Zionists alike are under the illusion that somehow convincing enough people in the West that the Holocaust didn’t happen, would cut the feet out from under the Israeli state.

This misunderstanding is not, repeat not, one actually held by most (or indeed many) actual Israelis. The creation of the state of Israel was, in point of historical fact, the result of military actions in the '48 war. The West was, at the time, largely ambivalent - indeed the British who actually held the Mandate were actively hostile. The main source of weaponry for the Israelis at this time was the Czechs, then under Communist control.

The primary impact of the Holocaust on Israel was two-fold: first, it added resolve to the Jews both in Israel and elsewhere to support the whole statehood project; and second, it motivated large numbers of now stateless Jewish survivors & refugees to make their way to Israel.

99

As Malthus points out, it is already ‘decoupled’ to a degree. Israel didn’t come into existence because of the Holocaust (in fact, it was proto-Israel’s commitment to its own military defense that swayed the non-aligned powers). But its continued existence does tie into preventing future holocausts, pogroms, etc…

100

Incidentally, to directly answer the OP’s query - yes, many Holocaust revisionists are right…far Right to be exact.

At that extremity, however, it’s difficult to tell far Right from far Left.