# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/61 "2017-03-12T18:28:35Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > For most of my adult life the Americans won WW2 and liberated Europe on D-Day. As recently as Steven Spielberg that was still the dominating cultural inference. D-Day did not liberate Europe, it began to but it did not happen on that day all alone, nor did WWII end on D-Day nor begin on it. Nor were Americans the only guys standing on the beaches at Normandy. Don’t use hollywood as your history teacher, they are movies, American movies, so of course they are going to tell the American part of the story, same as i would expect a British or Canadian movie to tell there part. I was going to type a big wall of text but instead i will suggest to go read some actual history books, there are very many good ones written in various countries and most available in english translation. Spielberg is not a History Teacher, he is a story teller. > [@](#): > > A little keen skepticism on any subject where the loudest voices - or survivors, in this case - write the history doesn’t hurt. Especially when the victim narrative essentially built a nation state. Exactly what is it you are saying here? The loudest voices writing these facts, well you may be in for a shock, because they aren’t the Jewish survivor. The loudest most damning voices are the self incriminating ones, the rest is character testimony. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/62 "2017-03-12T19:38:16Z")
> [@TGWATY](#): > > Thanks to everyone who has replied. This has been very informative. Imagine having grown up an orphan because your parents were brutally murdered. Your whole life, your cousin insinuates that either they weren’t really murdered, they died through their own carelessness, or they simply abandoned you as unlovable. She also insinuates that certain aspects of your orphan state, like a moderate life insurance payment you received, or the fact that your grandparents are a little extra attentive to you on your birthday–are grossly unfair and might even be the reason you drove your parents away. Don’t you kinda wanna punch her in the face every time she asks an “innocent question”? Are you really comforted by her theory that the crime scene photos of your parent’s murder were faked? ---
**Author:** ![chaika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chaika/32/405_2.png) [@chaika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaika)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/63 "2017-03-12T20:24:33Z")
The OP consists of some extremely tortured logic. For instance: > [@TGWATY](#): > > The first thing I don’t get is the hostile reaction to so-called holocaust denial. Suppose someone said, "Hey, everyone! I have evidence that it wasn’t 6,000,000 jews that died. It was only 600,000. Someone slipped in an extra 0 by mistake. " One quite understandable response to that would be “Whew! What a relief! We’re so glad that 5.4 million Jews did NOT die.” Another is, “Would that it were true. But unfortunately it is only wishful thinking. Unfortunately.” The response “How dare you suggest that less jews died!” is just weird. Never mind sending people to jail for it. That hypothetical scenario relies on the notion that Holocaust deniers actually have evidence for their outlandish claims. Of course they do not. The Holocaust has been exhaustively studied for decades, the facts are not in any doubt at all. To imagine a bizarre situation in which evidence magically reveals that the Holocaust did not happen, or affected drastically fewer people, takes us so far away from reality that it becomes utterly meaningless. Where has that information been lurking all these years? Surely no one with an ounce of historical awareness would take such claims seriously. It makes perfect sense to consider the source and look to the motivations of the deniers. Of course any ordinary person would view such attempts at historical revisionism with skepticism. And hostility. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/64 "2017-03-12T20:49:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > In that episode (“Stolen Tears”), the denier wasn’t a young guy, though. He was played by Norman Lloyd, who was in his late sixties at the time. > > A trivial point, to be sure, but this is exactly the kind of insignificant inconsistency that deniers (and conspiracy-theory-loving whackadoodles in general) love to jump on. I don’t really want to get sidetracked by discussing _Quincy_, but there was a young guy who starts out as a denier, and later accepts the Holocaust-- in the beginning, he has painted a swastika on Martin Balsam’s business door front, but we don’t know it was him until the end. Anyway, Norman Lloyd’s character is a completely separate character. > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > An uncle of mine was OSS, based in London and under the command of John Ford, the legendary Hollywood director. My uncle was good with cameras and had even serviced a lot of the movie cameras in Hollywood in the 1930s. Ford’s OSS unit in London worked with photography. I know my uncle sometimes was even on some of the flights that flew out to map the German lines. > > My uncle was one of the first in the world to see the Holocaust pictures. He had zero tolerance for Holocaust deniers. The father of my aunt was IN Auschwitz, and two of her brothers died there-- her sister was in Bergen-Belsen. You know, we have so much testimony from Jews, and we have photography, and on top of that, we have every gentile soldier and person like you uncle who can testify to what they saw with their own eyes. But more than that-- we have the admission of the German nation. Which incidentally has apologized and made some reparations. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/65 "2017-03-12T21:11:09Z")
> [@chaika](#): > > The OP consists of some extremely tortured logic. For instance: > > That hypothetical scenario relies on the notion that Holocaust deniers actually have evidence for their outlandish claims. Of course they do not. The Holocaust has been exhaustively studied for decades, the facts are not in any doubt at all. To imagine a bizarre situation in which evidence magically reveals that the Holocaust did not happen, or affected drastically fewer people, takes us so far away from reality that it becomes utterly meaningless. Where has that information been lurking all these years? Surely no one with an ounce of historical awareness would take such claims seriously. It makes perfect sense to consider the source and look to the motivations of the deniers. Of course any ordinary person would view such attempts at historical revisionism with skepticism. And hostility. There is precious little data period. It comes with the territory. The Soviets in particular had basically no idea how many of their civilians died - Google offers a spread, yes a spread, of 13 million civilians. There is no way to know how many Germans died, or gypsies, or homosexuals, etc, etc. To quote Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > estimates of total deaths ranging from 50 million to more than 80 million It’s some ballpark. Since computerisation it’s been a little easier to collate data and various countries have updated their estimates - China, for example, now uses a figure of 20 million. But somehow, in all that utter chaos and destruction, we have had a pretty exact number for 60 years for a class of civilians drawn somewhat randomly from across Europe and facing a number of possible scenarios. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/66 "2017-03-12T21:11:32Z")
I think part of it is some countries trying to hide their involvement. Thats why they put all the blame on Germany or Hitler himself. Truth is many countries like France, Holland, Belgium and especially eastern countries like Poland willingly rounded up Jews and sent them away. Even worse, when some survivors came back, they killed them rather than giving up their new stolen property. Today in modern Poland it must be interesting when kids ask grandpa how they were suddenly able to afford such a big house. But then the US firm IBM made the computers that helped organize the holocaust and many americans were also anti-semite so the US is also not blameless. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/67 "2017-03-12T21:35:59Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > But then the US firm IBM made the computers that helped organize the holocaust and many americans were also anti-semite so the US is also not blameless. Cite for the claim about IBM? IBM’s first computer was the Mark I, co-developed with Harvard in 1944 near the end of the war as a one-off for the use of the US Navy. What IBM computers – or computers from any Allied country – were allegedly involved in the holocaust? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/68 "2017-03-12T21:45:10Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Cite for the claim about IBM? IBM’s first computer was the Mark I, co-developed with Harvard in 1944 near the end of the war as a one-off for the use of the US Navy. What IBM computers – or computers from any Allied country – were allegedly involved in the holocaust? Well, even before the advent what we’d see as an early computer, IBM manufactured various machines for rapid counting and sorting of data, though using this to blame IBM (or the United States) for the Holocaust is a bizarre leap. You may as well blame the person who invented railroads or bullets. ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/69 "2017-03-12T21:47:48Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Cite for the claim about IBM? IBM’s first computer was the Mark I, co-developed with Harvard in 1944 near the end of the war as a one-off for the use of the US Navy. What IBM computers – or computers from any Allied country – were allegedly involved in the holocaust? I’ve been looking into IBM’s involvement for the last 15 minutes, since reading Mr. Redneck’s post. The technology seems to have been punch card. The important book was IBM and the Holocaust. It apparently was well researched, and won legitimate awards. There are, of course, disputes and counter-claims. The Wikipedia article is [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust). ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/70 "2017-03-12T21:55:12Z")
> [@up\_the\_junction](#): > > But somehow, in all that utter chaos and destruction, we have had a pretty exact number for 60 years for a class of civilians drawn somewhat randomly from across Europe and facing a number of possible scenarios. Between 5 and 6 million for the number of Jews killed is not a ‘pretty exact’ figure. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/71 "2017-03-12T21:58:13Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Between 5 and 6 million for the number of Jews killed is not a ‘pretty exact’ figure. Possibly a better descriptor would be “a pretty _consistent_ number”, with independent estimates in the ballpark of ~5.5 million. Seems like a fairly minor thing to nitpick. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/72 "2017-03-12T22:33:52Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > I’ve been looking into IBM’s involvement for the last 15 minutes, since reading Mr. Redneck’s post. The technology seems to have been punch card. The important book was IBM and the Holocaust. It apparently was well researched, and won legitimate awards. There are, of course, disputes and counter-claims. > > The Wikipedia article is [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust). Thanks for that. So it wasn’t a “computer”, but indeed punch card technology was central to census tabulation and was the main technology introduced by IBM when it was still the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. From what I’m seeing here and from my limited knowledge of the pertinent history, IBM’s alleged complicity is questionable and, to say the least, extremely controversial. After reading Erik Larson’s [_In the Garden of Beasts_](http://eriklarsonbooks.com/the-books/in-the-garden-of-beasts/), I was struck by the American government’s amicable relationship with Hitler during most of the 30s (and indeed, that of most of the Allied powers). It’s easy to sit in armchair judgment of alleged Nazi collaboration while losing sight of the political climate and perspective of the times. The Larson book talks about how the evil potential of the Nazi regime only gradually dawned on the then US ambassador to Germany William Dodd, even as his own impetuous daughter, impressed with the pomp and trappings of the regime, was carrying on affair with none other than Rudolf Diels, at that time the head of the Gestapo. Meanwhile back home, US Under Secretary of State William Phillips was one of the most virulent anti-Semites around. I suppose if there’s a moral here, it’s that history is complicated. ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/73 "2017-03-12T22:34:31Z")
Yep, that’s a better choice of word. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/74 "2017-03-12T23:09:26Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > An uncle of mine was OSS, based in London and under the command of John Ford, the legendary Hollywood director. My uncle was good with cameras and had even serviced a lot of the movie cameras in Hollywood in the 1930s. Ford’s OSS unit in London worked with photography. I know my uncle sometimes was even on some of the flights that flew out to map the German lines. > > My uncle was one of the first in the world to see the Holocaust pictures. He had zero tolerance for Holocaust deniers. The thing is that pathology evidence never identified cases of death due to gas? People who die from carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning leave a cherry red corpse. That is not how they are described. The alternative explantion is that the pictures are of people who died of typhus & starvation. That fits with British Intelligence intercepts from 1942 onwards, Red Cross Reports. Remember similar war propaganda was used in WWI. From looking at the topic, the revisionists raise a number of points such as the following: 1. It was initially claimed that people were killed by gassing in Germany (along with claims about skin being used for lampshades & other atrocities). 2. Paul Rassinier, an inmate at Buchenwald, pointed out that wasn’t correct. 3. Dr Charles Larson, US Pathologist, noted that there were no cases of deaths by gas in Germany. Larson couldn’t inspect the camps in Poland as they were under Soviet Control. 4. From 1960 onwards it has been accepted that the claim about gassing in Germany was false (similarly claims about skin being used for lampshades have also been accepted as completely false). 5. British Intelligence intercepted German communications from 1942 onwards. They noted that in relation to Auschwitz there were never any references to gas. There was however references to death due to typhus outbreaks - which was also a major problem in WWI (3 million died from typhus) and in Germany during WWII. 6. Over 3000 children were safely born in the camp. No deaths. 7. During the week prisoners of war were employed at labour camps but on Sunday allowed to play football. Games would take place on a field outside the camp with armed German guards watching. The Red Cross provided the teams with four sets of shirts - English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh. Ron Jones was held in E715: > [@](#): > > "‘There was the humiliation and the lack of food but on the whole life wasn’t too bad.’ > ‘The Germans, contrary to what a lot of people think, were pretty good to us on the whole.’ 1. There was a camp cinema - where every week different, mainly cultural and non-political films were shown. 2. There was also a swimming pool which inmates could use. 3. The Jerusalem Post reported on the following: > [@](#): > > The Chorale (from Beethoven’s Ninth Sympthony) was…performed by a Jewish children’s choir at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943…I was a member of that choir…I remember my first engagement with culture, with history, and with music - in the camp… Jerusalem Post, 25 Jan 1995, p 7 1. Maria van Herwaarden was in Auschwitz-Birkenau from December 1942 to January 1945. In her time there she saw no evidence of mass murder. People did however die from disease. 2. The admissions from German officiers, such as Auschwitz Commander Hoess, were extracted after days of torture. US Judge van Roden wrote an article about this ‘American Atrocities in Germany’. See also, R. Butler, Legions of Death, Hamlyn, (London, 1983), p.237. 3. The Red Cross inspection team visited Auschwitz and other camps during the war. This is what the Red Cross did note: > [@](#): > > “In the chaotic condition of Germany after the invasion during the final months of the war, the camps received no food supplies at all and starvation claimed an increasing number of victims. Itself alarmed by this situation, the German Government at last informed the ICRC on February 1st, 1945. Relief could henceforth be distributed by the ICRC, and one delegate was authorized to stay in each camp.” (Vol. III, p.83). 1. People who have died from cyanide or carbon monoxide poisoning leave pink or cherry-red corpse. That doesn’t match the descriptions. 2. Chemical tests of the areas where the homicidal gas chambers are claimed to be reveal low levels. In contrast, there IS, significant cynanide residue in the delousing rooms (clothes were deloused to stop the outbreak of typhus). Given the extent the official version has changed and the above inconsistencies it’s not surprising their is a degree of skeptism? ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/75 "2017-03-12T23:12:53Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > You know, we have so much testimony from Jews, and we have photography, and on top of that, we have every gentile soldier and person like you uncle who can testify to what they saw with their own eyes. Sadly, my uncle died a few years ago. But he was interviewed once by the History Channel for part of a program, so his testimony is out there. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/76 "2017-03-12T23:30:18Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > The thing is that pathology evidence never identified cases of death due to gas? People who die from carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning leave a cherry red corpse. That is not how they are described. The alternative explantion is that the pictures are of people who died of typhus & starvation. That fits with British Intelligence intercepts from 1942 onwards, Red Cross Reports. [So now, this is typhus?](http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/photos/images/EG2.jpg) I never knew that typhus was so large one could see it with out a microscope [Yes i can see how these people died of natural causes](http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/photos/images/EG3.jpg) [Oh yes, it is right here on the medical reports](http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/photos/images/Furn_cap.jpg) ---
**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:** [March 12, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/77 "2017-03-12T23:37:28Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > The thing is that pathology evidence never identified cases of death due to gas? People who die from carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning leave a cherry red corpse. That is not how they are described. The alternative explantion is that the pictures are of people who died of typhus & starvation. That fits with British Intelligence intercepts from 1942 onwards, Red Cross Reports. [Snipped more holocaust denial crap] > [@Chen019](#): > > Given the extent the official version has changed and the above inconsistencies it’s not surprising their is a degree of skeptism? Only surprising for the ones that do not bother to see if the points hold under just some scrutiny. > **[Is there any validity in this Holocaust denial argument?](https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-validity-in-this-Holocaust-denial-argument)** > > Answer (1 of 3): Of course the gassings happened. The evidence is overwhelming, so much so it is shocking how often this very question is repeated on Quora, a site that presumably intelligent and educated people come to. > > Someone posts this question... Is there any validity in this Holocaust denial argument? > [@](#): > > By: Roberto Muehlenkamp > > You mean Friedrich Berg’s “bodies would have been cherry-red” - argument? > > Utter nonsense, like everything coming from that fellow. > > The photo that Berg makes a fuss about is Fig. 10.9.2 in section 10.9 “Deaths on Board” of the Textbook of Marine Medicine, written by Claas Buschmann, which can be read under [Wayback Machine](https://web.archive.org/web/2012)… It shows a fatal victim of carbon monoxide poisoning in the state of livor mortis, a condition that occurs after death as “the blood sinks down into the dependent parts of the body – the formerly circulating blood volume is pulled downward by gravity”. > > Livor mortis, as Buschmann explains and shows on hand of photographs, is “usually bluish-violet due to the deoxygenated blood”, but “bright red in cases of carbon monoxide or hydrocyanide poisoning”. Both forms of discoloration are quite conspicuous, as you will see when running a Google search on images of livor mortis (livor mortis - Pesquisa Google). So Berg might as well argue that witnesses describing corpses of people who had died from causes other than carbon monoxide or hydrocyanide poisoning (e.g. concentration camp inmates who had died from “natural” causes) were lying because they failed to mention a bluish-violet discoloration of the corpses. Such argument would be just as silly as the argument he is making. > > As concerns victims of homicidal gassing, it should further be taken into account that, according to Buschmann, livor mortis “appears as patches in the head and neck region 30 minutes after death; it becomes confluent after 1 – 4 hours and reaches its maximum after 3 – 16 hours”. This means that 3 to 16 hours are likely to pass before a victim of fatal carbon monoxide or hydrocyanide poisoning, when turned so as to make visible its dependent parts, will look like what one sees in Fig. 10.9.2. > > By that time, given the pace of body disposal at the extermination camps Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka according to eyewitness testimonies, the victims would already be in the burial pits or on the cremation rosters, so there’s no reason why any witness involved in taking the bodies to these places should have noticed a particular discoloration of the bodies, even if > > a) such witness was not too concerned with other aspects of the gruesome process to pay special attention to the corpses’ discoloration, > > b) the victims had actually died of carbon monoxide poisoning (from the carbon monoxide in the gasoline motor exhaust fumes used for gassing at these places) rather than of suffocation due to oxygen deprivation (as the exhaust fumes displaced the little oxygen they had at their disposal after being packed like sardines into a gas chamber), and > > c) the victims, despite their weakened and probably anemic state due to the malnutrition that was prevalent in the Polish ghettos where most of the victims came from, actually developed bright red livor mortis after death. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2017, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/78 "2017-03-12T23:45:12Z")
[quote=“Weisshund, post:76, topic:781963”] > [@Chen019](#): > > The thing is that pathology evidence never identified cases of death due to gas? People who die from carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning leave a cherry red corpse. That is not how they are described. The alternative explantion is that the pictures are of people who died of typhus & starvation. That fits with British Intelligence intercepts from 1942 onwards, Red Cross Reports. > > So now, this is typhus? Yes, you’ll recall that Anne Frank died of typhus. it also killed around 3 million in WWI. Epidemics were a major problem in camps. The reason for delousing chambers using zyklon was to kill lice which spread disease such as typhus. That is what the British Intelligence decrypts of German comms from 1942 onwards also revealed. There are also various orders to REDUCE the death rates due to disease. As noted above, bedding and clothing were placed in delousing chambers. These still have high levels of cyanide residue. The levels of cyanide in samples from the alleged gas chambers for people have negligible levels. Again, the same claims were made in relation to German camps. However, there were US physicians who found deaths were due to typhus and disease not gas. Dr. John E. Gordon, Russell Barton, Dr Charles Larson, for example. They couldn’t inspect camps in Poland as they were under Soviet control. ---
**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:** [March 13, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/79 "2017-03-13T00:15:28Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Yes, you’ll recall that Anne Frank died of typhus. it also killed around 3 million in WWI. Epidemics were a major problem in camps. The reason for delousing chambers using zyklon was to kill lice which spread disease such as typhus. That is what the British Intelligence decrypts of German comms from 1942 onwards also revealed. There are also various orders to REDUCE the death rates due to disease. As noted above, bedding and clothing were placed in delousing chambers. These still have high levels of cyanide residue. The levels of cyanide in samples from the alleged gas chambers for people have negligible levels. Willie Wonka: “Wait a minute! Strike that, reverse it”. > **[A Study of the Cyanide Compounds Content in the Walls of the Gas Chambers in...](https://phdn.org/archives/holocaust-history.org/auschwitz/chemistry/iffr/report.shtml)** > > a forensic study of the ruins of the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Birkenau that utterly refutes the Leuchter Report. > [@](#): > > The present study shows that in spite of the passage of a considerable period of time (over 45 years) in the walls of the facilities which once were in contact with hydrogen cyanide the vestigial amounts of the combinations of this constituent of Zyklon B have been preserved. This is also true of the ruins of the former gas chambers. The cyanide compounds occur in the building materials only locally, in the places where the conditions arose for their formation and persistence for such a long time. In his reasoning Leuchter (2) claims that the vestigial amounts of cyanide combinations detected by him in the materials from the chamber ruins are residues left after fumigations carried out in the Camp “once, long ago”(Item 14.004 of the Report). This is refuted by the negative results of the examination of the control samples from living quarters, which are said to have been subjected to a single gassing, and the fact that in the period of fumigation of the Camp in connection with a typhoid epidemic in mid-1942 there were still no crematoria in the Birkenau Camp. The first crematorium (Crematorium II) was put to use as late as 15 March 1943 and the others several months later. As for the decrypted British Intelligence “evidence”. What is you cite? ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963/80 "2017-03-13T00:21:08Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > I’ve been looking into IBM’s involvement for the last 15 minutes, since reading Mr. Redneck’s post. The technology seems to have been punch card. The important book was IBM and the Holocaust. It apparently was well researched, and won legitimate awards. There are, of course, disputes and counter-claims. > > The Wikipedia article is [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust). Search isn’t throwing up any of the threads, but one of Edwin Black’s researchers on _IBM and the Holocaust_ was a Doper and he did discuss the issues on the boards. Independently of that, I have to say that I wasn’t entirely convinced by all of Black’s case when I read it, but it’s absolutely an important book and utterly worth reading. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-understand-holocaust-denial/781963.md?page=5)