# 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:** 2
**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:** [September 18, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/21 "2013-09-18T22:05:51Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > First I want to review the evidence. Starting with photographic evidence, then physical evidence, documentary evidence, and testimony. Why not make it a collaborative effort. You can present the photographic evidence that you are aware of. Then we’ll proceed to the physical evidence, etc. Then we’ll do our best to come up with a number or at least a range of numbers. I think we should proceed carefully. > > Now, let’s look at photographic evidence from Yad Vashem. See this extraordinary photograph > > [http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/album\_auschwitz/photo\_34.asp](http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/album_auschwitz/photo_34.asp) > > The caption - “Jews who were classified as “not fit for work” waiting in a grove outside Crematorium IV before they were to be gassed.” > > Again, draw your own conclusions. What conclusion are we supposed to draw from that photograph? What conclusion do you draw? You are being cryptic for no apparent reason. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/22 "2013-09-18T22:07:00Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > No one who died in the camps did anything to deserve it. Most of the people who died in the war, many more civilians than soldiers, did not do anything to deserve it. What did the people in Hiroshima do to deserve it? Etc. Why was she even there? **Gack?** **Capt** ---
**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:** [September 18, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/23 "2013-09-18T22:07:07Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > Suggestion - go with the best challenges you have, and leave the mocking aside. Already done. I linked to a refutation of the false claims of the IHR in post #14. ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/24 "2013-09-18T22:07:37Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > What conclusion are we supposed to draw from that photograph? What conclusion do you draw? > > You are being cryptic for no apparent reason. There is a reason. I want you to try to think CRITICALLY, not let me supply the critical thinking for you. I will at a later time, tomorrow, tell you exactly what conclusions I draw from the Oprah show and the Yad Vashem photo. ---
**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:** [September 18, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/25 "2013-09-18T22:08:33Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > There is a reason. I want you to try to think, not let me supply the thinking for you. Now you’re just being condescending and obnoxious. I’m thinking, and I’ve thought about it a lot. You have provided no new information. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/26 "2013-09-18T22:11:09Z")
Oh joy. Another holocaust denier. One that thinks they are being clever by laying traps. _yawn_ ---
**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:** [September 18, 2013, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/27 "2013-09-18T22:13:21Z")
If you provided any actual new information, **Gack** , you might actually spark some thinking. But you’ve provided nothing that either was not already widely known or has not already been debunked. Now you’re just trying cryptic games, which is pathetic and obnoxious. ---
**Author:** ![Gack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecccb3/32.png) [@Gack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gack)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/28 "2013-09-18T22:14:06Z")
> [@Mr.Miskatonic](#): > > Oh joy. Another holocaust denier. One that thinks they are being clever by laying traps. _yawn_ Suggesting that you think critically is not laying a trap. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/29 "2013-09-18T22:16:49Z")
What happened to the Jews of Eastern Europe? They were herded into the camps, and they didn’t come out. Oh, they died of disease? Yeah, lots of them did. They died of starvation? Yeah, lots of them did. Not everyone was gassed, lots of people were shot, or simply dropped dead. So that happened. Why did the Nazis herd all the Jews into camps, where they would eventually all die for various reasons? Not that Holocaust-denial-lite should come as any surprise, given the things our friend here has said before. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_Kirk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@Capt\_Kirk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_Kirk)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/30 "2013-09-18T22:19:19Z")
**Gack** What praytell is the purpose of this list? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WannseeList.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WannseeList.jpg) **Capt** ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/31 "2013-09-18T22:20:07Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > Suggesting that you think critically is not laying a trap. You’re right in that you are not setting a trap - in the same way standing on top of a land mine you placed yourself is not setting a trap. What you present is not a suggestion for critical thinking. It is mush of very selective snippets that don’t show the picture as a whole. This is a tactic of creationists, conspiracy cranks, and others who think they are being clever. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/32 "2013-09-18T22:25:24Z")
I went to the wiki article/page “The Holocaust”. It mentions that some of these estimates of numbers of people that died included only those where paperwork of some kind exists. In other words, if there was no documentation of the death, it didn’t get counted in some of these surveys (especially since if they tried, it would only be an educated guess). It means the numbers are conservatively low-balled. This I didn’t really know or consider before. Humans suck. > **[The Holocaust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust)** > > The Holocaust (/ˈhɒləkɔːst/ ⓘ), known in Hebrew as the Shoah (שואה), was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population. The murders were carried out primarily through mass shootings and poison gas in extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, and Chełmno in occupied Poland.... > [@wiki](#): > > Hilberg’s estimate of 5.1 million, in the third edition of The Destruction of the European Jews, includes over 800,000 who died from “ghettoization and general privation”; 1,400,000 killed in open-air shootings; and up to 2,900,000 who perished in camps. Hilberg estimates the death toll of Jews in Poland as up to 3,000,000. Hilberg’s numbers are generally considered to be a conservative estimate, as they typically include only those deaths for which records are available, avoiding statistical adjustment. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/33 "2013-09-18T22:47:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Views like **Gack’s** should be challenged (and indeed, mocked . . . (Link removed… Um… Is that an invalid edit of a quoted post?) I’m of mixed minds about the mockage. It helps reinforce the sense of certainty among those who already know the truth, but it produces a martyr complex in those who believe the untruth. It seems valid in “slam dunk” cases like the Holocaust. (Creationism, a few others.) But it’s too easily generalized and used in cases where there can be valid differences of opinion. It’s tricky… I have a pen-pal who is a Holocaust Doubter – because the Germans are such nice people! He’s visited them, and they’re happy and joyous and have Oktoberfests and arts and music and make good cars. He just doesn’t see them as capable of such massive organized evil. It’s an amusing exercise in naivete, but it’s also tremendously shallow. I guess the Americans you see at a Fourth of July parade prove that we couldn’t have practiced genocide against the native Americans. Problem is…we aren’t all good people. There are monsters lurking in any large population. The Nazis figured out a way to put those monsters in power. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/34 "2013-09-18T22:56:58Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > (We can debate numbers later, let’s just agree that we’re discussing some sort of moral framework and not just an apologia for anti-Semitism) So a “no” then on the whole moral framework thing? Oh, to be sure, it’s “no” misspelled “just use critical thinking, sheeple”, but a “no” all the same. ---
**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 18, 2013, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/35 "2013-09-18T22:58:48Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Posting to subscribe. Checking in later. No need to post and expose yourself. Just click on Thread Tools and subscribe. ---
**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 18, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/36 "2013-09-18T23:01:54Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > Suggesting that you think critically is not laying a trap. So anyone who doesn’t agree with you isn’t thinking critically? ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/37 "2013-09-18T23:02:54Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-19-holocaust-papers\_x.htm](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-11-19-holocaust-papers_x.htm) > > Draw your own conclusions. Your own link contains the following quote: “I saw with my own eyes how thousands of Jews were gassed daily and thrown by the hundreds into pits where Jews were burning,” he said. “I saw how little children were killed with sticks and thrown into the fire,” he continued. Blood flowed in gutters, and “Jews were thrown in and died there”; more were taken off trucks and cast alive into the flames… The two pages of testimony, in a file randomly plucked off a shelf, are among millions of documents held by the International Tracing Service, or ITS, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross. I don’t think you are leading us to the conclusion you think you are… ---
**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:** [September 18, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/38 "2013-09-18T23:11:19Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > Suggesting that you think critically is not laying a trap. I have a suggestion… ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/39 "2013-09-18T23:16:03Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > No need to post and expose yourself. Just click on Thread Tools and subscribe. Thanks for clearing up my ignorance, I didn’t know I could do that. Still, I kinda like the “I’ll be back!” bit 😉 ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168/40 "2013-09-18T23:23:28Z")
> [@Gack](#): > > Suggestion - go with the best challenges you have, and leave the mocking aside. Nah. Mocking is all you deserve or warrant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-about-hitler-and-nazi-germanys-attempted-extermination-of-europes-jews/669168.md?page=3)