# Questions about Hitler and Nazi Germany's attempted extermination of Europe's Jews **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 18, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168 "2013-09-18T19:02:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/181 "2013-09-20T00:57:37Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > You are wrong. This is not controversial. You haven’t been right on a single point this entire thread. You’ve got no perspective on what is controversial. ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/182 "2013-09-20T00:58:44Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > So you admit that you’ve done little to no objective research of your own (aside of the chicken burning), nor do you subscribe to the widely accepted historical evidence when it is put forward. Additionally, you insist on drawing your conclusions by relying entirely upon the revisionist community for your “facts” on the subject. > > Why do you think it is that you are so easily and willingly (mis)lead? When I started looking into the subject one of the first books I bought was Hilberg’s "The Destruction of the European Jews’. Of course I read both sides. Perhaps you should give it a try. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/183 "2013-09-20T01:03:22Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > The reasons for starting with the photos have been stated and are valid for my purposes. However, we’ve been there, done that. Time to move on. > > Just as an aside, let’s deal with the 12 million figure, which is 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews. Where did the 5 million figure come from? Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstant tells us here … > > [http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ReportersNotebook/conversations/topics/5556](http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ReportersNotebook/conversations/topics/5556) > > _"When Israeli historians Yehuda Bauer and Yisrael Gutman challenged Wiesenthal on this point, he admitted that he had invented the figure of eleven million victims in order to stimulate interest in the Holocaust among non-Jews. He chose five million because it was almost, but not quite, as large as six million. When Elie Wiesel asked Wiesenthal who these supposed five million victims were, Wiesenthal exploded and accused him of suffering from “Judeocentrism.”_ > > Let’s proceed. The murder weapon, the gas chambers. > > Background, this is not controversial. The Nazis fought typhus int he camps throughout the war. Typhus is spread by lice. The Nazis had the prisoners take frequent showers (you can use amazon’s look inside the book to see that E. Wiesel mentions taking a shower six times in his short book ‘Night’, explicity for the purpose of disinfection), shaved their heads, and used a commercial insecticide, Zykon-B, which came in small tins containing pellets, to disinfect buildings and in closed chambers with special equipment to disinfect clothing. There is a building at Auschiwtz contain the fumigation rooms where clothes were disinfected, it is still standing. > > Onward - the holocaust in the camps is now claimed to have happened in only six camps, Auschwitz, Majdanek, and four Rheinhard camps that were razed before the end of the war, Sobibor, Treblinka, Chelmo, and ? (can’t remember right now). At both Auschwitz and Majdanek visitors to the camps are shown a gas chamber, one at Auschwitz, one at Majdanek. > > Let’s look at the doors in the Auschwitz gas chamber … > > [http://www.historiography-project.com/misc/doors.html](http://www.historiography-project.com/misc/doors.html) > > Again, draw your own conclusions. The gas chamber has regular unsealed wooden office doors, one with a plate glass window. This strikes me as highly unlikely. > > There is more. You may be familiar with the method of using shower heads to pump the gas into the gas chamber. This was documented in the British movie on Dachau linked in my first post, but it was abandoned shortly after the war. Now the claimed method is that Zyklon pellets, the same used for disinfection, were tossed into the gas chamber from holes in the roof. The gas chamber at Auschwitz has holes in the roof with chutes for tossing in pellets. However, they were added by the Soviets/Poles after the war, as is revealed in this interview with the director of the Auschwitz museum, Fritz Piper … > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ItUTx9QQAo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ItUTx9QQAo) > > This is a must see video for anyone interested in the holocaust. > > We could proceed to the gas chamber at Majdanek but I think we’ve covered enough ground, so I’ll omit that. Like if all of what you have spewed here was not debunked already. First, the door you are pointing out was not a door used in the gas chamber proper, it was a later addition to the same building used originally as the test building, Krematorium I, the other buildings and doors were more up to the “standards” you demand there. [http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-04.html](http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/auschwitz/auschwitz-faq-04.html) > [@](#): > > Cole maintains that I first time admitted the allegedly unknown fact the Nazis adapted the crematorium in question in which the gas chamber were located for air-raid shelter, the fact allegedly unknown even for Museum guides. It is un truth. See enclosed copies of pages from the books which constitute the fundamental reading for Auschwitz guides. In book by T-an Sehn “Concentrat Camp Ogwiqcim-Brzezinka (Auschwitz-Birkenau) Warsaw 1957, You may read on the page 152-” In May 1944 the old Crematorium I in the base camp was adapted for use as an air raid shelter. > > The Fact is also confirmed in the book by Jean Claude Pressac "Auschwitz: Technique and operation of the gas chambers, published by The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989 515 Madison Avenue. On the page 157 you may read: “With part of the building converted to an air raid shelter, this is the state in which the SS abandoned Krematorium I in January 1945.” Repeating what Pressac had written I told what was the nature of the adaptation works carried out by the Nazis and what one had to do to remove those changes in order to regain the previous appearance. > > They are all " Piper’s revelations. In spite of the fact that such secondary restoration works had to be done, there is an undisputable reality that the gas chamber in question is housed in the same builldin which has been existed from prewar times till now. Regarding the Typhus and other items that you spewed: > **[BBC - History - World Wars: Denying the Holocaust](https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/genocide/deniers_01.shtml)** > > Deborah Lipstadt eattempts to cover up the truth of the Holocaust. > [@](#): > > In February 1943 Auschwitz camp building authorities complained to Topf, the company that built the crematoria equipment, that they needed ventilation blowers ‘most urgently’. Why the urgency, if this was an air-raid shelter, morgue, or delousing chamber? > > Deniers hypothesise that the urgency was a result of official fears that the camp would be hit with a typhus epidemic, which would cause a tremendous spike in the death toll. Without the proper ventilation system, the crematoria would not be able to operate. > > Deniers try to bolster their argument about the typhus by pointing to documents which show that at this point in time the planned monthly incineration rate of Auschwitz had been boosted to 120,000 bodies. Deniers claim this was because of the typhus epidemic. However, the camp’s projected population was 150,000. For the deniers’ explanation to make sense, in one month an epidemic would have to kill four-fifths of Auschwitz’s population and the Germans would have to repopulate the camp with 120,000 people. This claim exceeded the absolute worst case epidemiological scenario. > > On 6 March 1943, one of the civilian employees working on the construction of Crematorium 2 referred to the air extraction system of ‘Auskleidekeller [undressing cellar] 2’. No normal morgue could require an undressing room, particularly one that was 50 yards long. In that same month, there were at least four additional references to Auskleidekeller. It is telling that civilians who, according to the deniers, were in Birkenau to work on underground morgues, repeatedly referred not to morgues but to the ventilation of the ‘undressing cellars’. > > In the same letter the employee asked about preheating the areas that would be used as the gas chamber. If these were morgues they should be cooled, not preheated. Heating a gas chamber, on the other hand, would speed the gassing process by more quickly vaporising the gas from the Zyklon B. > > A letter dated 31 March 1943, regarding Crematorium 3, spoke of it as having a Gastür, a gas door. Deniers argue that this could mean many things. But the inventory attached to the handover documents for the crematorium states that it had a Gasdichtetür, a ‘gas-tight door’. One might argue about the meaning of Gastür, but it is hard to squabble over a gas-tight door. > > Deniers have said for years that physical evidence is lacking because they have seen no holes in the roof of the Birkenau gas chamber where the Zyklon was poured in. (In some of the gas chambers the Zyklon B was poured in through the roof, while in others it was thrown in through the windows.) The roof was dynamited at war’s end, and today lies broken in pieces, but three of the four original holes were positively identified in a recent paper. Their location in the concrete matches with eyewitness testimony, aerial photos from 1944, and a ground photo from 1943. The physical evidence shows unmistakably that the Zyklon holes were cast into the concrete when the building was constructed. > > There is much additional evidence affirming Auschwitz/Birkenau’s role as a killing centre. There is no reputable evidence that affirms the deniers’ claims. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/184 "2013-09-20T01:05:10Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > You are wrong. This is not controversial. Seriously? " Holocaust denial asserts that the doors of the “alleged” gas chambers were much too weak to withstand the pressure of people trying to escape death from inside the chambers. Since none of the Kremas remained in their original state (Bunker I & II and Kremas II,III,IV and V destroyed, and Krema I modified) there is no physical evidence as to how the doors of the extermination gas chambers looked like. However, a door which probably belonged to an extermination gas chamber was discovered in the camp’s building yard; it is massive, and reinforced with iron bars. Furthermore, the small peephole is protected from the inside with a strong metal grid, probably installed so the victims would not break the glass in the peephole. Those making this claim present pictures of doors for the delousing chambers, which were not fortified, presumably on the assumption that viewers are too inept to notice the switch" From here: [http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/denial/answers.txt](http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/denial/answers.txt) ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/185 "2013-09-20T01:08:18Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Why do you not trust places like the United States Holocaust History Museum? > > Why do you give credence to places like the Institute for Historical Review over “official” places? This is a good question. There are diametrically opposing narratives of what happened. When I saw how different they were I came to the inevitable conclusion that someone was consistently lying. I went for some time in a state of uncertainty. Finally I found what is to me a touchstone, the doors to the Auschwitz gas chamber. That said, I do not uncritically accept anything that IHR says, or automatically reject anything that USHMM says. They agree on many points, as I noted, for example, the death records in the German camps. When the accounts differ then you have to look for corroboration, logic, other sources, etc. There are some things you simply cannot figure out. And, some things that you have to accept that are seem inconsistent with your overall perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/186 "2013-09-20T01:15:24Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Seriously? > > " Holocaust denial asserts that the doors of the “alleged” gas chambers > were much too weak to withstand the pressure of people trying to > escape death from inside the chambers. > > Since none of the Kremas remained in their original state (Bunker I & > II and Kremas II,III,IV and V destroyed, and Krema I modified) there > is no physical evidence as to how the doors of the extermination gas > chambers looked like. However, a door which probably belonged to an > extermination gas chamber was discovered in the camp’s building yard; > it is massive, and reinforced with iron bars. Furthermore, the small > peephole is protected from the inside with a strong metal grid, > probably installed so the victims would not break the glass in the > peephole. > > Those making this claim present pictures of doors for the delousing > chambers, which were not fortified, presumably on the assumption that > viewers are too inept to notice the switch" > > From here: > [http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/denial/answers.txt](http://www.shamash.org/holocaust/denial/answers.txt) For 50 years the Auschwitz gas chamber was presented as being in its found state, that is, just as it was when the Soviets liberated the camp. You can verify this by watching the David Cole interview with F. Piper linked earlier. Cole, wearing a yarmulke, was given a guided tour by one of the Auschwitz guides which he video taped, so you can see exactly how the gas chamber was presented for 50 years. When the video Cole made, including the interview with the Museum director, revealed to the world that the gas chamber was actually a reconstruction built by the Soviets after the end of the war, the museum and the establishment had to scramble, now there is a plaque at some out of the way spot indicating that the gas chamber is a reconstruction, and the authorities have come up with all sorts of pretzel logic trying to explain the deception. Your link falls in that category. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/187 "2013-09-20T01:22:21Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > This is a good question. There are diametrically opposing narratives of what happened. When I saw how different they were I came to the inevitable conclusion that someone was consistently lying. I went for some time in a state of uncertainty. Finally I found what is to me a touchstone, the doors to the Auschwitz gas chamber. And the holocaust denier sources lied to you, what a surprise. > [@Gack](#): > > That said, I do not uncritically accept anything that IHR says, or automatically reject anything that USHMM says. They agree on many points, as I noted, for example, the death records in the German camps. When the accounts differ then you have to look for corroboration, logic, other sources, etc. There are some things you simply cannot figure out. And, some things that you have to accept that are seem inconsistent with your overall perspective. Oh, one can figure it out all right, the typhus excuse is really silly, genocide was the order in camps like Auschwitz. > **[Holocaust Encyclopedia](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/en)** > > The Holocaust was the state-sponsored systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. Start learning today. > [@](#): > > Auschwitz-Birkenau also contained the facilities for a killing center. It played a central role in the German plan to kill the Jews of Europe. During the summer and autumn of 1941, Zyklon B gas was introduced into the German concentration camp system as a means for murder. At Auschwitz I, in September, the SS first tested Zyklon B as an instrument of mass murder. The “success” of these experiments led to the adoption of Zyklon B for all the gas chambers at the Auschwitz complex. Near Birkenau, the SS initially converted two farmhouses for use as gas chambers. “Provisional” gas chamber I went into operation in January 1942 and was later dismantled. Provisional gas chamber II operated from June 1942 through the fall of 1944. The SS judged these facilities to be inadequate for the scale of gassing they planned at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Four large crematorium buildings were constructed between March and June 1943. Each had three components: a disrobing area, a large gas chamber, and crematorium ovens. The SS continued gassing operations at Auschwitz-Birkenau until November 1944. > > DEPORTATIONS TO AUSCHWITZ > > Trains arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau frequently with transports of Jews from virtually every country in Europe occupied by or allied to Germany. These transports arrived from 1942 to the end of summer 1944. The breakdown of deportations from individual countries, given in approximate figures, is: Hungary: 426,000; Poland: 300,000; France: 69,000; Netherlands: 60,000; Greece: 55,000; Bohemia and Moravia: 46,000; Slovakia: 27,000; Belgium: 25,000; Yugoslavia: 10,000; Italy: 7,500; Norway: 690; other (including concentration camps): 34,000. > > With the deportations from Hungary, the role of Auschwitz-Birkenau as an instrument in the German plan to murder the Jews of Europe achieved its highest effectiveness. Between late April and early July 1944, approximately 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported, around 426,000 of them to Auschwitz. The SS sent approximately 320,000 of them directly to the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau and deployed approximately 110,000 at forced labor in the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. The SS authorities transferred many of these Hungarian Jewish forced laborers within weeks of their arrival in Auschwitz to other concentration camps in Germany and Austria. > > In total, approximately 1.1 million Jews were deported to Auschwitz. SS and police authorities deported approximately 200,000 other victims to Auschwitz, including 140,000-150,000 non-Jewish Poles, 23,000 Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war, and 25,000 others (Soviet civilians, Lithuanians, Czechs, French, Yugoslavs, Germans, Austrians, and Italians). > > New arrivals at Auschwitz-Birkenau underwent selection. The SS staff determined the majority to be unfit for forced labor and sent them immediately to the gas chambers, which were disguised as shower installations to mislead the victims. The belongings of those gassed were confiscated and sorted in the “Kanada” (Canada) warehouse for shipment back to Germany. Canada symbolized wealth to the prisoners. > > At least 960,000 Jews were killed in Auschwitz. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma (Gypsies), and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war; and 10,000-15,000 members of other nationalities (Soviet civilians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Germans, and Austrians). ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/188 "2013-09-20T01:24:06Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > For 50 years the Auschwitz gas chamber was presented as being in its found state, that is, just as it was when the Soviets liberated the camp. You can verify this by watching the David Cole interview with F. Piper linked earlier. Cole, wearing a yarmulke, was given a guided tour by one of the Auschwitz guides which he video taped, so you can see exactly how the gas chamber was presented for 50 years. When the video Cole made, including the interview with the Museum director, revealed to the world that the gas chamber was actually a reconstruction built by the Soviets after the end of the war, the museum and the establishment had to scramble, now there is a plaque at some out of the way spot indicating that the gas chamber is a reconstruction, and the authorities have come up with all sorts of pretzel logic trying to explain the deception. Your link falls in that category. David Cole was wrong as pointed before, you are not really trying. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/189 "2013-09-20T01:25:32Z")
**Gack** , why do you think you know better than historians whose factual knowledge of the subject and research skills exceed yours? Do you think your Google searching and junior high physics experiments will uncover some great truth they have either incompetently or intentionally overlooked? Are there other historical events you doubt, and if not why not? ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/190 "2013-09-20T01:31:42Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > David Cole was wrong as pointed before, you are not really trying. OK, I’m trying harder … Robert Jan Van Pelt is one of the foremost holocaust experts, On page 363 of their book “Auschwitz 1270 to the Present,” Van Pelt and Dwork state the following, regarding the gas chamber reconstruction: _“When Auschwitz was transformed into a museum after the war, the decision was taken to concentrate the history of the whole complex into one of its component parts. The infamous crematoria where the mass murders had taken place lay in ruins in Birkenau, two miles away. The committee felt that a crematorium was required at the end of the memorial journey, and crematorium I was reconstructed to speak for the history of the incinerators at Birkenau. This program of usurpation was rather detailed. A chimney, the ultimate symbol of Birkenau, was re-created; four hatched openings in the roof, as if for pouring Zyklon B into the gas chamber below, were installed, and two of the three furnaces were rebuilt using original parts. There are no signs to explain these restitutions, they were not marked at the time, and the guides remain silent about it when they take visitors through this building that is presumed by the tourist to be the place where it happened.”_ ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/191 "2013-09-20T01:47:10Z")
AND? You are only remarking on what it was indeed the case, Cole was wrong. “and crematorium I was reconstructed to speak for the history of the incinerators at Birkenau” Just as what the Polish Museum member reported. All the other items were reported to exist in the other more “up to date” crematoriums, this has been just like a noob researcher that goes to Plymouth Rock and because there \*\*are \*\*a lot of doubts on the recreated location and rock that it was claimed to had been used by the pilgrims, that leads the noob reporter to claim that therefore all the pilgrims never existed. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/192 "2013-09-20T01:56:24Z")
> [@Battle\_Pope](#): > > This story about Holocaust survivors putting their stories into an online exhibition just popped up today on the Australian ABC news site. > > [http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-20/holocaust-survivors-put-memories-online/4970490](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-20/holocaust-survivors-put-memories-online/4970490) I’m wondering if Gack’s real life identity is an Aussie by the name of Brian Souter. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/193 "2013-09-20T01:58:50Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > For 50 years the Auschwitz gas chamber was presented as being in its found state, that is, just as it was when the Soviets liberated the camp. You can verify this by watching the David Cole interview with F. Piper linked earlier. Cole, wearing a yarmulke, was given a guided tour by one of the Auschwitz guides which he video taped, so you can see exactly how the gas chamber was presented for 50 years. When the video Cole made, including the interview with the Museum director, revealed to the world that the gas chamber was actually a reconstruction built by the Soviets after the end of the war, the museum and the establishment had to scramble, now there is a plaque at some out of the way spot indicating that the gas chamber is a reconstruction, and the authorities have come up with all sorts of pretzel logic trying to explain the deception. Your link falls in that category. Question: The Soviets recreated the gas chamber and then it was presented as “Real” to any and everyone who visited. Two generations later, new guides who couldn’t possibly have known about that have to come up with an explanation because what they thought they could trust was wrong. How is this “proving” that someone was orchestrating a fraud? Do you know how much information made it past the iron curtain? Little to nothing that wasn’t official prior to the early 1980s when the “curtain” became more like a screen. And the stuff that did was the clandestine things that governments wanted to know (how many bombs, how many launch sites, etc) and NOT whether Auschwitz’s gas chamber was a genuine recreation or not. An analogue: If you are told your entire life that this is green: 🙂 and this is yellow: :rolleyes: When someone finally tells you that your colors are messed up in your head, your reaction isn’t “Oh, thanks!” it’s “What in the hell are you talking about?” and it takes a bit and some research to figure out that you were told the wrong things. > [@Gack](#): > > On page 363 of their book “Auschwitz 1270 to the Present,” Van Pelt and Dwork state the following, regarding the gas chamber reconstruction: > > “When Auschwitz was transformed into a museum after the war, the decision was taken to concentrate the history of the whole complex into one of its component parts. The infamous crematoria where the mass murders had taken place lay in ruins in Birkenau, two miles away. The committee felt that a crematorium was required at the end of the memorial journey, and crematorium I was reconstructed to speak for the history of the incinerators at Birkenau. This program of usurpation was rather detailed. A chimney, the ultimate symbol of Birkenau, was re-created; four hatched openings in the roof, as if for pouring Zyklon B into the gas chamber below, were installed, and two of the three furnaces were rebuilt using original parts. There are no signs to explain these restitutions, they were not marked at the time, and the guides remain silent about it when they take visitors through this building that is presumed by the tourist to be the place where it happened.” And this book was published in 1996, well after the forgery had been widely known and was included in a book of history on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/194 "2013-09-20T02:02:12Z")
It’s interesting that Gack seems to believe that it’s quite reasonable to believe that US foreign policy is controlled evil Zionists, that the US attacked Iraq because because Israel asked it to, and that Mossad was responsible for 911 but doesn’t seem to think its reasonable to believe in the Holocaust. Such beliefs seem logically inconsistent or perhaps sinisterly consistent. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/195 "2013-09-20T02:05:06Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > It’s interesting that Gack seems to believe that it’s quite reasonable to believe that US foreign policy is controlled evil Zionists, that the US attacked Iraq because because Israel asked it to, and that Mossad was responsible for 911 but doesn’t seem to think its reasonable to believe in the Holocaust. > > Such beliefs seem logically inconsistent or perhaps sinisterly consistent. I’d still like to know what gain would come from a deception of this magnitude. I mean, it’s not like we instated “Give Every Jew You See All Your Money Week” or anything. I mean, this would have been a tremendous amount of resources expended just to say that six million Jews died and then leave it at that. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/196 "2013-09-20T02:08:12Z")
This thread is incredibly depressing. ☹ That is all. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/197 "2013-09-20T02:09:53Z")
And or course I’m being generous to Cole, but what other cases full of conspiracy theorists have told me, is that **the CTs never go back to correct the bad information they pushed before**. So as it is not very likely, I have to say it, after all the information that is available out there and the time that it has passed to make those corrections, one has to declare that Cole **is happy** to continue to mislead others. What David Cole pushed was “utter garbage” as one of the members at the James Randhi forum said. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/198 "2013-09-20T02:33:55Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > This thread is incredibly depressing. ☹ > > That is all. I find it positive myself - Gack’s claims are nonsense and being picked apart. If the response was _supportive_ for Gack, I’d have to reconsider my participation on this message board. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/199 "2013-09-20T02:33:55Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > I’d still like to know what gain would come from a deception of this magnitude. I mean, it’s not like we instated “Give Every Jew You See All Your Money Week” or anything. I mean, this would have been a tremendous amount of resources expended just to say that six million Jews died and then leave it at that. I won’t speak for Gack but most I’ve heard claim that the Holocaust was a hoax to justify the creation of Israel and to justify the carving up of Germany. ---
**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:** [September 20, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/200 "2013-09-20T02:38:42Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > And or course I’m being generous to Cole, but what other cases full of conspiracy theorists have told me, is that **the CTs never go back to correct the bad information they pushed before**. Gack’s doing this now. As far as I know he hasn’t revisited his “Bodies cannot be cremated as described” statement, instead going off on a tangent about chicken and lighter fluid. He can back off on _that_, but leaves the original claim uncorrected, to no doubt be recited (and re-cited) word-for-word in some future discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=11)