# I don't understand holocaust denial **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 11, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963 "2017-03-11T23:15:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/321 "2017-04-14T08:37:45Z")
:rolleyes: David Cole is a joke. And as usual with what Chen019 points to, debunked before too. > **[Hollywood conservative unmasked as notorious Holocaust revisionist](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/03/david-stein-cole-holocaust-revisionist)** > > Republican Party Animals operator David Stein says he is really David Cole, and that he still holds controversial views > [@](#): > > To those who knew him, or thought they knew him, he was a cerebral, fun-loving gadfly who hosted boozy gatherings for Hollywood’s political conservatives. David Stein brought right-wing congressmen, celebrities, writers and entertainment industry figures together for shindigs, closed to outsiders, where they could scorn liberals and proclaim their true beliefs. > > Over the past five years Stein’s organisation, Republican Party Animals, drew hundreds to regular events in and around Los Angeles, making him a darling of conservative blogs and talkshows. That he made respected documentaries on the Holocaust added intellectual cachet and Jewish support to Stein’s cocktail of politics, irreverence and rock and roll. > > There was just one problem. Stein was not who he claimed. His real name can be revealed for the first time publicly – a close circle of confidants only found out the truth recently – as David Cole. And under that name he was once a reviled Holocaust revisionist who questioned the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He changed identities in January 1998. > > “That was when David Cole officially expired,” he told the Guardian in an interview this week. "That was the end of Cole. Or so I thought. That was when David Stein was brought into this world. > [@](#): > > Cole agreed to meet the Guardian in order to give his side of the story. He was rueful at being outed and wry about his future. “I don’t expect many people at my birthday party this year,” he said. > > Born in 1968 in Los Angeles to liberal, secular-minded Jewish parents, Cole’s father, Leon, was a doctor who became controversial for introducing Elvis Presley to Demerol. “He was accused of hooking Elvis on drugs, of killing Elvis.” Cole did not go to university – “I wanted to begin working” – but by the 1980s he had become fascinated by political ideology, especially the work of fringe scholars known then as Holocaust revisionists, subsequently renamed denialists. > > He became convinced that on some points they were right and that as a Jew, he would undertake a quixotic quest to “correct” the historical record, **arguing that Auschwitz was not an extermination camp in the manner of Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzac and Chelmno – which he acknowledged were part of a genocidal programme against Polish Jews** ; that the Holocaust ended in 1943, when the Nazis realised they needed Jewish slave labour for factories; and that there was no overarching, genocidal plan, but an evolving, morphing policy which claimed perhaps 4 million, rather than 6 million, Jewish lives. Joel Hayward also basically has gone also into the “never mind” position and refuted their own past work. > **[Joel Hayward](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Hayward)** > > Joel Hayward (born 1964) FRHistS FRSA is a New Zealand-born British scholar, academic and writer. He has been listed in the 2023 and 2024 editions of The World's 500 Most Influential Muslims. He has been the Dean of the Royal Air Force College Cranwell and is now the Chief Executive of the Cambridge Muslim College in the United Kingdom. > He is best known for his published books and articles on strategic and security matters, including the use of air power, his 2003 biography of Horatio Lord Nel... > [@](#): > > The report found that Hayward’s thesis “demonstrates impressive industry and intelligence” and did not “establish dishonesty” on his part, but it was also “seriously flawed”.[53] Subsequent to the issuance of the Working Party’s report, the university apologized to the New Zealand Jewish community, as Hayward also had earlier in the year.[54] Hayward has always repudiated the errors in his thesis, saying that they were the result of inadequate scholarly preparation for such a complex topic, but Holocaust deniers initially cited the thesis as evidence of academic support for their positions.[54] In 2000, Holocaust denier David Irving praised Hayward’s work as a “landmark in the turning of the tide in the favour of historical revisionism”.[11] > > \*\*Despite these issues, Hayward clearly upholds the sound and accepted scholarly assessment of the Holocaust. In 2010 he described it as “one of history’s vilest crimes … involving the organised murder of millions of Jews”[55] and in 2011 he similarly wrote: “The Holocaust of the Jews in the Second World War, one of history’s vilest crimes, involved the organised murder of six million Jews by Germans and others who considered themselves Christians or at least members of the Christian value system.” \*\*[35] ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/322 "2017-04-14T12:37:33Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Given that kind of climate is it really surprising that the only views of historians you’ve heard conform to the official narrative? Maybe read [Hayward’s thesis](http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres8/hay.pdf) and tell me whether you think it raises any genuine questions or not. I was shocked, _shocked_ to find out that [not even Hayward believes what he wrote as a Masters student](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/18/davidcohen). \*"In his work, Mr Hayward argued that far fewer than 6m Jews, perhaps fewer than 1m, perished in concentration camps during the time of Nazi rule across most of Europe. He also said that Hitler could not be held personally responsible for any suffering experienced by European Jews. He has since apologised for the thesis, The Fate of Jews in German Hands: An Historical Inquiry into the Development and Significance of Holocaust Revisionism. In a letter to a national newspaper last month, The New Zealand Jewish Chronicle, Mr Hayward expressed remorse over the “mistakes I made as an inexperienced student”. He was, he said, “inexperienced in the historian’s craft and knew relatively little about the Holocaust and its complex historiography.” "\* ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2017, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/323 "2017-04-14T13:17:37Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Thanks for the correction above. If anything else I’ve said above is incorrect, please point me to it. Others have repeatedly offered cited sources and corrections to your persistent, yet factually incorrect, allegations that the holocaust was something other than what is generally accepted by historians and students of history alike. If you require further refutation and correction of your allegations, I suggest you re-read the entire thread, which is well beyond 300 posts now. And while you’re going through it, if you’d be so kind as to respond to repeated requests for cited refutation of [Himmler’s Posen speeches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posen_speeches#Speech_of_6_October_1943). I encourage you to read the linked information carefully before responding; Especially the section that talks about discredited word play used by practiced Holocaust deniers such as yourself. It would spare us all a lot of time if you avoided resorting to that kind of pointless distraction. Finally, given the extensively cited debunking of your specious claims, I must ask you one more time: **What do you hope to achieve with your counterfactual holocaust denial efforts?** ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/324 "2017-04-15T10:20:43Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > Others have repeatedly offered cited sources and corrections to your persistent, yet factually incorrect, allegations that the holocaust was something other than what is generally accepted by historians and students of history alike. > > If you require further refutation and correction of your allegations, I suggest you re-read the entire thread, which is well beyond 300 posts now. > > And while you’re going through it, if you’d be so kind as to respond to repeated requests for cited refutation of [Himmler’s Posen speeches](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posen_speeches#Speech_of_6_October_1943). > > I encourage you to read the linked information carefully before responding; Especially the section that talks about discredited word play used by practiced Holocaust deniers such as yourself. It would spare us all a lot of time if you avoided resorting to that kind of pointless distraction. > > Finally, given the extensively cited debunking of your specious claims, I must ask you one more time: **What do you hope to achieve with your counterfactual holocaust denial efforts?** If you’re going to say something has been debunked you should be specific. I’m not sure if you’ve read any of my posts, but we’ve already commented on the Posen speeches [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20073031&postcount=193) and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20075475&postcount=201). I’ve answered your question in my post above - I have read the evidence and consider that it shows the use of gas chambers for mass extermination to be a complete fabrication. A large number of Jewish deaths also resulted from the actions of the Einsatzgruppen and their local allies. My focus in the posts above has been about claims regarding what occurred in the camps. The piles of skeletal bodies as seen in the iconic photos from Belsen and elsewhere represented the victims of typhus and starvation, the latter brought on by the bombing of German supply lines. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/325 "2017-04-15T13:09:19Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > If you’re going to say something has been debunked you should be specific. > > I’m not sure if you’ve read any of my posts, but we’ve already commented on the Posen speeches [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20073031&postcount=193) and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20075475&postcount=201). > > I’ve answered your question in my post above - I have read the evidence and consider that it shows the use of gas chambers for mass extermination to be a complete fabrication. > > A large number of Jewish deaths also resulted from the actions of the Einsatzgruppen and their local allies. My focus in the posts above has been about claims regarding what occurred in the camps. > > The piles of skeletal bodies as seen in the iconic photos from Belsen and elsewhere represented the victims of typhus and starvation, the latter brought on by the bombing of German supply lines. I cite the overwhelming evidence in this thread, presented by various participants, which directly contradicts your specious conclusions. ALL your counter-claims that “explain” the holocaust never happened or didn’t happen on the scale that is generally accepted by legitimate historians are FALSE. What you’ve offered as “evidence” for your claims is bullshit semantics and twisted lies by discredited holocaust deniers and revisionists. Allow me to congratulate you; To the extent that you agree and support these racists and liars, you’re in particularly vile company. Now, I will ask you again: **What do you hope to achieve with your counterfactual holocaust denial efforts?** ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/326 "2017-04-15T13:51:19Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > If you’re going to say something has been debunked you should be specific. Oh the irony. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/327 "2017-04-15T15:33:47Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > A large number of Jewish deaths also resulted from the actions of the Einsatzgruppen and their local allies. That’s a rather banal way to describe the pre-planned, premeditated mass murder of 2 million human beings, 1.3 million of them Jews, particularly considering that your only other comment on the Einsatzgruppen “and their local allies” has been to parrot the IHR lie that they were suppressing local resistance. If anything mass murdering 2 million men, women and children tends to cause local resistance. I’ll note for the record that yet again you’ve not even mentioned, much less explained the [Jäger Report](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4ger_Report) and its tallying of the murder of 138,272 people: 136,421 Jews (46,403 men, 55,556 women and 34,464 children), 1,064 communists, 653 mentally disabled, and 134 others in the area of Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus broken down into 112 mass executions at 71 sites and how that fits with the horseshit spewed about suppressing local resistance. Nor have you commented on Heydrich announcing [that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, and gave the order for all male Jews between the ages of 15 and 45 to be shot.[57] On 17 July Heydrich ordered that the Einsatzgruppen were to kill all Jewish Red Army prisoners of war, plus all Red Army prisoners of war from Georgia and Central Asia, as they too might be Jews.[58] Unlike in Germany, where the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 defined as Jewish anyone with at least three Jewish grandparents, the Einsatzgruppen defined as Jewish anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent; in either case, whether or not the person practised the religion was irrelevant.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen#Killings_in_the_Soviet_Union) ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/328 "2017-04-16T10:32:29Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I cite the overwhelming evidence in this thread, presented by various participants, which directly contradicts your specious conclusions. > > ALL your counter-claims that “explain” the holocaust never happened or didn’t happen on the scale that is generally accepted by legitimate historians are FALSE. > > What you’ve offered as “evidence” for your claims is bullshit semantics and twisted lies by discredited holocaust deniers and revisionists. Allow me to congratulate you; To the extent that you agree and support these racists and liars, you’re in particularly vile company. > Now, I will ask you again: **What do you hope to achieve with your counterfactual holocaust denial efforts?** If that’s the case then then pinpoint something I’ve written that is incorrect. As I noted above, I appreciate the correction regarding the comment from Shmuel Krakowski. That kind of comment is useful. Appeals to authority and sweeping statements about “overwhelming evidence” are not. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/329 "2017-04-16T11:40:48Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > If that’s the case then then pinpoint something I’ve written that is incorrect. As I noted above, I appreciate the correction regarding the comment from Shmuel Krakowski. That kind of comment is useful. Appeals to authority and sweeping statements about “overwhelming evidence” are not. Most of what you’ve written is incorrect. The rest is irrelevant. Everything you wrote about the German language with regards to Himmler’s speeches [was laughably incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20073092&postcount=195). Your insistence that piles of starving corpses were victims of typhus is incorrect. Your separation (or denial by use of false phrases like “suppressing local resistance”) of the Einsatzgruppen’s mass killing of women and children (recorded in the Jager report, which you’ve ignored, among other reports) from the Holocaust is incorrect. [Your assertions about Zyklon B are incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20061604&postcount=79). Your repetition of Lagace’s false claims about numbers in the crematoria[is incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20070785&postcount=172). Your repetition of David Cole’s lies about gas chambers [are incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20084374&postcount=230). Your assertions about propaganda [were incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=821342&page=6). Your assertions about the numbers of Jews killed (and your ignorance of the population statistics) [were incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20125684&postcount=303). ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/330 "2017-04-16T12:40:50Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > If that’s the case then then pinpoint something I’ve written that is incorrect. As I noted above, I appreciate the correction regarding the comment from Shmuel Krakowski. That kind of comment is useful. Appeals to authority and sweeping statements about “overwhelming evidence” are not. There are libraries and records in museums around the world, filled with evidence that discredits your specious assertions. I can point you to those resources but I can’t make you visit or want to accept them in lieu of your wrong headed position. For the purposes of this discussion, asked and answered (thanks, iiandyiiii and others): > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Most of what you’ve written is incorrect. The rest is irrelevant. Everything you wrote about the German language with regards to Himmler’s speeches [was laughably incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20073092&postcount=195). Your insistence that piles of starving corpses were victims of typhus is incorrect. Your separation (or denial by use of false phrases like “suppressing local resistance”) of the Einsatzgruppen’s mass killing of women and children (recorded in the Jager report, which you’ve ignored, among other reports) from the Holocaust is incorrect. [Your assertions about Zyklon B are incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20061604&postcount=79). Your repetition of Lagace’s false claims about numbers in the crematoria[is incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20070785&postcount=172). Your repetition of David Cole’s lies about gas chambers [are incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20084374&postcount=230). Your assertions about propaganda [were incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=821342&page=6). Your assertions about the numbers of Jews killed (and your ignorance of the population statistics) [were incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20125684&postcount=303). Now, chen019, kindly answer my question: **What do you hope to achieve with your counterfactual holocaust denial efforts?** ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/331 "2017-04-16T12:53:12Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > If that’s the case then then pinpoint something I’ve written that is incorrect. . How about: - "In terms of the number of jewish prisoners who died in the camps I would go with option a) less than a million - probably around 300,000. "\* ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/332 "2017-04-16T14:33:02Z")
Another question for **Chen019** : what happens to the Jews of Europe? Before the 1930s, there were millions of Jews in Europe. Afterwards, there were virtually none. Where did they go? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/333 "2017-04-19T12:34:59Z")
\*"Newly accessed material from the United Nations – not seen for around 70 years – shows that as early as December 1942, the US, UK and Soviet governments were aware that at least two million Jews had been murdered and a further five million were at risk of being killed, and were preparing charges. Despite this, the Allied Powers did very little to try and rescue or provide sanctuary to those in mortal danger… Mr Plesch said the archive on which he based his research was closed to researchers for 70 years. Those wishing to read the UNWCC archive required the permission not only of the person’s own national government, but the UN Secretary General. Even then, researchers were for several years not permitted to make notes. Former American ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers took the action that made the archive available. Mr Plesch said the new material provided a further “cartload of nails to hammer into the coffins” of Holocaust denial – not that further evidence was required. "\* > **[Secret documents reveal allied forces knew about Holocaust long before they...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/holocaust-allied-forces-knew-before-concentration-camp-discovery-us-uk-soviets-secret-documents-a7688036.html)** > > Archive shows Adolf Hitler was indicted for war crimes in 1944 ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/334 "2017-04-19T13:28:39Z")
I listened to the above linked story on NPR the other day. So, **chen019** , in light of this ‘new’ evidence, I ask again: \*\*What do you hope to achieve with your counterfactual holocaust denial efforts? \*\* Or are we done here?.. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2017, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/335 "2017-04-19T13:56:36Z")
> [@Max\_Torque](#): > > Hell, if you want proof of the numbers killed, just go to Poland and try to find a Jewish person. Before WWII, Poland’s Jewish population was about 3 million. Today? Maybe 20,000. More than 90% of the Jews in Poland died at the hands of the Nazis. Now I would like to throw into that - WITH the help of the people of Poland. The Poles were happy to not just see the Jews get taken away, but actively rounded them up and took their property. Heck some survivors were killed by local Poles when they tried to return to their homes. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/336 "2017-04-20T13:13:13Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Most of what you’ve written is incorrect. The rest is irrelevant. Everything you wrote about the German language with regards to Himmler’s speeches [was laughably incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20073092&postcount=195). Your insistence that piles of starving corpses were victims of typhus is incorrect. Your separation (or denial by use of false phrases like “suppressing local resistance”) of the Einsatzgruppen’s mass killing of women and children (recorded in the Jager report, which you’ve ignored, among other reports) from the Holocaust is incorrect. [Your assertions about Zyklon B are incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20061604&postcount=79). Your repetition of Lagace’s false claims about numbers in the crematoria[is incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20070785&postcount=172). Your repetition of David Cole’s lies about gas chambers [are incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20084374&postcount=230). Your assertions about propaganda [were incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=821342&page=6). Your assertions about the numbers of Jews killed (and your ignorance of the population statistics) [were incorrect](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=20125684&postcount=303). Thanks for this summary. > [@](#): > > Most of what you’ve written is incorrect. The rest is irrelevant. I disagree. The fact that claims at Nuremberg about mass extermination at Buchenwald, Breslin & Dachau were false is significant. It shows eye-witness testimony needs to be treated with caution, especially where it is used to confirm atrocity propaganda that had circulated from early on in the war. It seems significant that the places where the claims were retracted were the camps where Allied medics were able to inspect. Of course, they could not inspect camps in the East because they were under Soviet control. The claims in relation to the camps in Poland or other extermination claims must be treated with caution and require solid evidence to show that they’re not also war propaganda. You also don’t dispute that British Intelligence monitored Auschwitz from 1942-1943 and the causes of death reported were similar to those in camps in Germany. No mention of gas. > [@](#): > > Everything you wrote about the German language with regards to Himmler’s speeches was laughably incorrect. As I said, I was citing the late Robert Wolfe, former chief archivist for captured Nazi documents at the [National Archives](http://www.timesofisrael.com/remembering-robert-wolfe-guardian-of-nazi-era-archives/). > [@](#): > > Your insistence that piles of starving corpses were victims of typhus is incorrect. They certainly weren’t victims of gassing if that’s what you are suggesting. As Dr William Lindsey, researcher at Dow Chemical, explained – deaths due to cyanide or carbon monoxide poisoning leave a cherry red corpse. That is not how the bodies were described, the descriptions given were grey, blue or even green. In other words, they did not die due to cyanide or carbon monoxide poisoning. Further Dr Lindsey inspected the camps and concluded the claims of mass-extermination by gas were technically implausible. There’s also the issue of the likes of Dr Russell Barton, Dr John Gordon & Dr Charles Larson inspecting the camps and finding disease and food shortages were the cause of deaths, not gas. > [@](#): > > Your separation (or denial by use of false phrases like “suppressing local resistance”) of the Einsatzgruppen’s mass killing of women and children (recorded in the Jager report, which you’ve ignored, among other reports) from the Holocaust is incorrect. As I said above, my posts have focused on the gas chamber claims, which I consider to clearly be atrocity propaganda. I’ve agreed above that large numbers were killed, but again these claims suffer from [implausibilities and exaggerations](https://inconvenienthistory.com/6/3/3331). > [@](#): > > Your assertions about Zyklon B are incorrect. The Kracow report is unhelpful to either side as it claimed to only measure the soluble component of the cyanide, around 1% of the total in the brickwork at most. The soluble component is the part which would not be expected to contain a residue of what happened 50 years earlier. They did not even attempt to find any explanation for the high iron cyanide concentration in the walls of the disinfestation chambers and their blotchy-blue surfaces. Although they had sought out an analytical method able to produce the results desired by them, the results of their first series of tests were obviously so disturbing that they decided to suppress them and never published them. These data only became public knowledge through an act of indiscretion in 1991. The Polish scientists therefore rejected the undesired results of their first series of tests and took even more samples, until they finally produced the results that fitted in with their preconception: this time, both the samples from the disinfestation chamber and the alleged ‘gas chambers’ showed cyanide residues on the same order of magnitude. I’m not sure why they decided to overlook the Iron Blue, perhaps the fact that if they got the wrong answer they would have been liable to criminal prosecution in Poland? > [@](#): > > Your repetition of Lagace’s false claims about numbers in the crematoria is incorrect. Is it? You cite a post by Max Torque who writes: - So, rather than requiring 4+ hours as Lagace envisioned, cremations at Auschwitz took 25-30 minutes. Kurt Prüfer, the Topf engineer who built the ovens installed at Auschwitz, wrote that five triple-muffle furnaces (15 ovens) could incinerate 800 bodies in 24 hours, or about 53 per oven per day. \* However, this claim from turns out to be incorrect. Prufer never provided such a figure. The entire 1999 article cited by Max Toque that is cited in support appears riddled with errors. People can read Zimmerman & Mattogno’s reply and make up their own [minds](http://www.vho.org/GB/c/CM/jcz.html). The fastest realistic estimate per hour per muffle given by the Topf Engineers Prufer & Schultze was one body per hour. That rate is based on sufficient fuel being available, but sufficient fuel was not available. It seems that the fuel consumed at Auschwitz-Birkenau is less than 1/10 of what would be necessary to cremate a million bodies. Another issue is that the firebrick of a crematorium wears out. The duration of one cremation chamber was around 3,000 per muffle (which is based on electric, not coke fired which would be lower). The records show that the firebricks were only replaced once in one oven, the second double-muffle oven at Auschwitz I. The \*upper limit \*therefore on the number cremated would be around 150,000? > [@](#): > > Your repetition of David Cole’s lies about gas chambers are incorrect. Cole notes in commenting on the residues differences in terms of Zyklon found in the delousing areas and trace levels in Krema I, II, & III was referencing the cyanide tests that had been undertaken. He discussed them in his [interview with Franciszek Piper, Director of Auschwitz State Museum.](http://www.vho.org/GB/c/DC/gcgvcole.html) > [@](#): > > Your assertions about propaganda were incorrect. I’m not sure you’ve got the right link there? In any case, the use of atrocity propaganda by both sides is not in dispute is it? For example: > [@](#): > > "We know how the Red Army behaved in Poland in 1920 and in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Galicia and Bessarabia only recently. > > We must, therefore, take into account how the Red Army will certainly behave when it overruns Central Europe. > > Experience has shown that the best distraction is atrocity propaganda directed against the enemy…your cooperation is therefore earnestly sought to distract public attention from the doings of the Red Army by your whole-heared support of various charges against the Germans and Japanese which have been and will be put into circulation by the Ministry” > > \*Circular from the British Ministry of Information to the British Broadcasting Corporation and key ministers of the Church of England Edward J. Rozek Allied Wartime Diplomacy pp. 209-210. \* February 12, 1944 issue of The New York Times, “eyewitnesses did in fact” escape these mass executions, and they lived to “precisely describe” the “actual method of mass murder”: > [@](#): > > “A young Polish Jew who escaped from a mass execution in Poland […] repeated a story [told to him by escapees who allegedly saw the electrocution machinery at Belzec…] Jews were forced naked onto a metal platform operated as a hydraulic elevator which lowered them into a huge vat filled with water. They were electrocuted by current through the water.” Since the “evidence” used to prove that Jews were murdered en masse by electrocution devices at Belzec is not really qualitatively different from the “evidence” used to “prove” that Jews were murdered in gas chambers at Belzec; and since the “evidence” for mass murder by electrocution leads to a false conclusion, isn’t it also possible that the “evidence” for mass killings of Jews in gas chambers at Belzec also leads to a false conclusion? > [@](#): > > Your assertions about the numbers of Jews killed (and your ignorance of the population statistics) were incorrect. My comment Wolfgang Sofsky, was who reported that the Red Cross have identified 450,000 concentration camp victims in total who are registered by name. Die Ordnung des Terrors, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 1993, p. 331. As I said, if the International Tracing Service (ITS) of Arolsen, Germany could open up their records and that would help resolve these types of questions. Their last release they gave for certified deaths was in 1993 and that was in relation to 15 German camps, was 296,081. As I noted six million figure seems a very loose number that has become symbolic and was used dozens of time well before WWII. The first instance being at the turn of the 20th century with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at a Zionist conference in 1900 saying that there are 6,000,000 living, bleeding, suffering arguments in favor of Zionism. The studies which reach a figure around the 6 million mark seem to have a number of flaws, such as how they deal with emigration. (eg. [Holocaust Victims: A Statistical Analysis W. Benz and W. N. Sanning – A Comparison](http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/7.pdf)). ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/337 "2017-04-20T14:07:34Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > …The studies which reach a figure around the 6 million mark seem to have a number of flaws, such as how they deal with emigration. (eg. [Holocaust Victims: A Statistical Analysis W. Benz and W. N. Sanning – A Comparison](http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/7.pdf)). More of the same bullshit. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you only cite evidence from known Holocaust deniers like [Germar Rudolf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germar_Rudolf) - a man who was prosecuted and convicted ofr Holocaust denial in Germany and was refused asylum in the US. chen019: **What do you hope to achieve with your continued counterfactual holocaust denial efforts?** ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/338 "2017-04-20T14:35:23Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > The claims in relation to the camps in Poland or other extermination claims must be treated with caution and require solid evidence to show that they’re not also war propaganda. This has been shown many times already, Auschwitz, in particular areas, was an extermination camp and that was demonstrated already. You are just repeating points from lala land. > [@Chen019](#): > > You also don’t dispute that British Intelligence monitored Auschwitz from 1942-1943 and the causes of death reported were similar to those in camps in Germany. No mention of gas. This was also replied too, the evidence here only points to avoidance of what was said many times before. As for virtually all the rest you are also still to this day still regurgitating points from guys like Irving. And half points at that that, that you try to make them to be conclusive when they are just sorry and discredited ones. As the Judge that had to conclude how Irving discredited himself said: [https://www.hdot.org/judge/](https://www.hdot.org/judge/) > [@](#): > > Historians are human: they make mistakes, misread and misconstrue documents and overlook material evidence. I have found that, in numerous respects, Irving has misstated historical evidence; adopted positions which run counter to the weight of the evidence; given credence to unreliable evidence and disregarded or dismissed credible evidence. It appears to me that an analysis of those instances may shed light on the question whether Irving’s misrepresentation of the historical evidence was deliberate. > > 13.141 I have found that most of the Defendants’ historiographical criticisms of Irving set out in section V of this judgement are justified. In the vast majority of those instances the effect of what Irving has written has been to portray Hitler in a favourable light and to divert blame from him onto others. I have held that this is unjustified by the evidence. Examples include Irving’s portrayal of Hitler’s conduct and attitude towards the events of Kristallnacht and the importance attached by Irving to Hitler’s attitude towards the Jewish question as he claims is evidenced by the Schlegelberger note. I have seen no instance where Irving has misinterpreted the evidence or misstated the facts in a manner which is detrimental to Hitler. Irving appears to take every opportunity to exculpate Hitler. The same is true of the broader criticism made by the Defendants’ of Irving’s unwarrantedly favourable depiction of Hitler in regard to his attitude towards the Jews, which criticism I have found in section VI above to be justified. Irving sought in his writings to distance Hitler from the programme of shooting Jews in the East and from the later genocide in the death camps in a manner which the evidence did not warrant. Irving has argued, unjustifiably as I have found, that the evidence indicates that Hitler was unaware of any programme for the extermination of Jews at Auschwitz. In his account of the bombing of Dresden Irving (as I have found in section X1 above) persistently exaggerates the number of casualties, so enabling him to make comparisons between the number of civilians killed in Allied bombing raids with the number of Jews killed in the camps. > > 13.142 In my opinion there is force in the opinion expressed by Evans that all Irving’s historiographical “errors” converge, in the sense that they all tend to exonerate Hitler and to reflect Irving’s partisanship for the Nazi leader. **If indeed they were genuine errors or mistakes, one would not expect to find this consistency.** I accept the Defendants’ contention that this convergence is a cogent reason for supposing that the evidence has been deliberately slanted by Irving. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/339 "2017-04-20T15:14:16Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > I disagree. The fact that claims at Nuremberg about mass extermination at Buchenwald, Breslin & Dachau were false is significant. It shows eye-witness testimony needs to be treated with caution, especially where it is used to confirm atrocity propaganda that had circulated from early on in the war. > > It seems significant that the places where the claims were retracted were the camps where Allied medics were able to inspect. Of course, they could not inspect camps in the East because they were under Soviet control. None of this is significant (whether true or not – and your track record is so pathetic that I’ll automatically assume your claims are false without oodles of cites that don’t come from whackjobs like Irving) when compared to the mountains of other evidence, including Himmler’s own words, the words of other Nazi officials, nigh-countless corroborated witness testimonies, physical remains, and other evidence. > [@](#): > > As I said, I was citing the late Robert Wolfe, former chief archivist for captured Nazi documents at the [National Archives](http://www.timesofisrael.com/remembering-robert-wolfe-guardian-of-nazi-era-archives/). It doesn’t matter who you cited – the claim was laughable and pathetic. It shows the pitiful level of backup that you will claim as support, and it shows your own complete lack of knowledge of the German language. Himmler talked about the need for loyal Germans to steel themselves for the murder of Jewish women and children. _This is an indisputable fact_, and it’s one you offered a ridiculous attempt at a refutation and nothing else. Considering this fact, do you still believe that the Nazis were not trying to kill all the Jews in Europe? Was Himmler alone in this? > [@](#): > > They certainly weren’t victims of gassing if that’s what you are suggesting. As Dr William Lindsey, researcher at Dow Chemical, explained – deaths due to cyanide or carbon monoxide poisoning leave a cherry red corpse. > > That is not how the bodies were described, the descriptions given were grey, blue or even green. In other words, they did not die due to cyanide or carbon monoxide poisoning. > > Further Dr Lindsey inspected the camps and concluded the claims of mass-extermination by gas were technically implausible. No cite for this, and this is a single person. In short, bullshit, without a lot more. A single guy saying something doesn’t mean anything compared to the mountain of other evidence. > [@](#): > > As I said above, my posts have focused on the gas chamber claims, which I consider to clearly be atrocity propaganda. That you accept the propaganda of people like David Duke will come as no surprise to those who have interacted with you on this board. > [@](#): > > The Kracow report is unhelpful to either side as it claimed to only measure the soluble component of the cyanide, around 1% of the total in the brickwork at most. The soluble component is the part which would not be expected to contain a residue of what happened 50 years earlier. They did not even attempt to find any explanation for the high iron cyanide concentration in the walls of the disinfestation chambers and their blotchy-blue surfaces. > > Although they had sought out an analytical method able to produce the results desired by them, the results of their first series of tests were obviously so disturbing that they decided to suppress them and never published them. These data only became public knowledge through an act of indiscretion in 1991. > > The Polish scientists therefore rejected the undesired results of their first series of tests and took even more samples, until they finally produced the results that fitted in with their preconception: this time, both the samples from the disinfestation chamber and the alleged ‘gas chambers’ showed cyanide residues on the same order of magnitude. > > I’m not sure why they decided to overlook the Iron Blue, perhaps the fact that if they got the wrong answer they would have been liable to criminal prosecution in Poland? …says a guy on the internet. Again, nothing compared to the mountain of other evidence, most of which you don’t bother to even try and refute. > [@](#): > > Is it? You cite a post by Max Torque who writes: > > - So, rather than requiring 4+ hours as Lagace envisioned, cremations at Auschwitz took 25-30 minutes. Kurt Prüfer, the Topf engineer who built the ovens installed at Auschwitz, wrote that five triple-muffle furnaces (15 ovens) could incinerate 800 bodies in 24 hours, or about 53 per oven per day. \* > However, this claim from turns out to be incorrect. Prufer never provided such a figure. The entire 1999 article cited by Max Toque that is cited in support appears riddled with errors. People can read Zimmerman & Mattogno’s reply and make up their own [minds](http://www.vho.org/GB/c/CM/jcz.html). > > The fastest realistic estimate per hour per muffle given by the Topf Engineers Prufer & Schultze was one body per hour. That rate is based on sufficient fuel being available, but sufficient fuel was not available. It seems that the fuel consumed at Auschwitz-Birkenau is less than 1/10 of what would be necessary to cremate a million bodies. > > Another issue is that the firebrick of a crematorium wears out. The duration of one cremation chamber was around 3,000 per muffle (which is based on electric, not coke fired which would be lower). The records show that the firebricks were only replaced once in one oven, the second double-muffle oven at Auschwitz I. The \*upper limit \*therefore on the number cremated would be around 150,000? Yes Mattogno, a man with no credentials and no career other than promoting fascism and Holocaust denial. That’s certainly a credible and independent source when compared to _the recorded words of Nazi officials_ (and the mountain of other evidence). Mattogno’s silliness is refuted in detail here. > [@](#): > > Cole notes in commenting on the residues differences in terms of Zyklon found in the delousing areas and trace levels in Krema I, II, & III was referencing the cyanide tests that had been undertaken. He discussed them in his [interview with Franciszek Piper, Director of Auschwitz State Museum.](http://www.vho.org/GB/c/DC/gcgvcole.html) This vho source is so pathetic there’s no point in responding to it. Every cite you’ve posted from it has been very quickly refuted by the actual historians at [phdn.org](http://phdn.org), NIZKOR, and others. > [@](#): > > My comment Wolfgang Sofsky, was who reported that the Red Cross have identified 450,000 concentration camp victims in total who are registered by name. Die Ordnung des Terrors, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt 1993, p. 331. As I said, if the International Tracing Service (ITS) of Arolsen, Germany could open up their records and that would help resolve these types of questions. Their last release they gave for certified deaths was in 1993 and that was in relation to 15 German camps, was 296,081. > > As I noted six million figure seems a very loose number that has become symbolic and was used dozens of time well before WWII. The first instance being at the turn of the 20th century with Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at a Zionist conference in 1900 saying that there are 6,000,000 living, bleeding, suffering arguments in favor of Zionism. > > The studies which reach a figure around the 6 million mark seem to have a number of flaws, such as how they deal with emigration. (eg. [Holocaust Victims: A Statistical Analysis W. Benz and W. N. Sanning – A Comparison](http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/7.pdf)). What happened to all the Jews of Europe? There were millions that disappeared – men, women, and children, like the ones Himmler told his men to steel themselves to exterminate. Where did they go? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/340 "2017-04-20T16:05:58Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > No cite (for the claim by "a Dow chemical researcher who purportedly “inspected the camps” and found it “implausible” that victims were gassed by carbon monoxide because of a lack of cherry-red corpses) Medical/forensic pathology note: carbon monoxide poisoning does not consistently turn the skin of its victims cherry-red - in fact this may be an unusual occurrence. From a letter to the editor of the New England Journal: _“Mevorach and Heyman provided an interesting and timely reminder that cardiac ischemia is an important manifestation of carbon monoxide poisoning. They mention cherry-red discoloration of the skin and mucous membranes as a sign that should suggest this diagnosis. However, in a recent review of 100 confirmed cases, cherry-red discoloration was present in only 1. Therefore, this often-quoted sign is in fact relatively rare, and its absence certainly does not exclude serious carbon monoxide poisoning.”_ [http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199503303321318#t=article](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199503303321318#t=article) The book “Neurologic Aspects of Systemic Disease” calls the “classic” cherry-red discoloration of CO victims “very rare”. > **[Neurologic Aspects of Systemic Disease, Part II](https://books.google.com/books?id=vSmcAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA974&lpg=PA974&dq=is%2Bcherry%2Bred%2Bdiscoloration%2Bin%2Bcarbon%2Bmonoxide%2Bpoisoning%2Brare&source=bl&ots=FA0QX9MLxT&sig=J4taBOifsiYj6biOMVdpNlWOtxU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj84ZWJtLPTAhVm0YMKHfXuCNMQ6AEIQTAE#v=onepage&q=is%20cherry%20red%20discoloration%20in%20carbon%20monoxide%20poisoning%20rare&f=false)** > > Systemic disease involves several parts of the body or the complete system. Neurologic Aspects of Systemic Disease, a two-part volume in the Handbook of Clinical Neurology series, focuses on the specific neurologic aspects of systemic disease. Part 2... While it is amusing to demolish yet another piece of **Chen019** ’s nonsense, no doubt he will continue Gish Galloping more of it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963.md?page=18)