And also the significant numbers of Jews in conquered territory whom the SS Einsatzgruppen murdered even before the extermination camps were built.
I agree the Einsatzgruppen killed a lot of people. But I think the six camps I named were still the biggest issue. From what I can find, those six camps between them accounted for about a third of the total number of people killed in the Holocaust.
The fact that these six camps were officially designated as extermination camps (vernichtungslager) or death camps (todeslager) by the Nazis themselves indicates what their intended purpose was. They were not considered the same as the concentration camps (konzentrationslager) or slave labor camps (arbeitslager) - places like Belsen or Dachau.
You owe me a new laptop.
Do you have a cite for that?
I know the term, but I thought it was from after the war.
Let’s not forget Jasenovac which, while not operated by the Germans, is still part and parcel of the Solution, opened after some prodding by the Nazis, and I believe was in part supported by them (i.e. providing Zyklon B and such, even if the Ustase seemed more interested in more, ah, artisanal methods).
After some searching, what I do find are the terms “Sonderlager” (Special Camp) and “Sonderkommando”(special force).
‘SS-Sonderkommando Treblinka’ , ‘Sonderkommando Belzec der Waffen-SS’ and ‘SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor’ seem to be the official names for the camps.
Any google hits to the use of ‘Sonderlager’ for these three camps only come from revisionist sites.
Dieter Wisliceny (a deputy to Adolf Eichmann) was asked to name the extermination camps, and he identified Auschwitz and Majdanek as such. Then, when asked “How do you classify the camps Mauthausen, Dachau, and Buchenwald?” he replied, “They were normal concentration camps, from the point of view of the department of Eichmann.”
So we have a high level Nazi differentiating between extermination camp (Vernichtungslager) and consentration camps (Konzentrationslager)
Here’s a reference from 1944, admittedly from an American source. But it does show it was a term in use during the war. (The camp referred to as “Maiden” is Majdanek.)
(I’m going back over the old posts and responding to those that I missed.)
Of course, my experiment was flawed but I’m confident a good experiment would yield not as dramatic but similar results. Even if the cremation process worked, which it wouldn’t, the bones and ashes would still be in the grave. The grave could be excavated and the number of bodies buried and then burned could be precisely counted. That’s no way to hide a mass grave. The whole confession is preposterous start to finish.
There are other descriptions of hiding mass graves by exhuming and burning bodies, each preposterous - Wiernik describes digging up the bodies and burning them on grates at Treblinka, and then pulverizing the bones and tossing the bones and ashes into a nearby river. So far so good. However, he notes that women burn more easily than men, so they were put on the bottom and used as kindling. This is absurd.
There was a trial for the perpetrators of the Harvest Festival, and a Nazi confessed to first burying the bodies, and then the next day receiving instructions to exhume them and burn them, so it’s absurd from the get go. His process was to create a ramp down to the bottom of the grave, and put a grate there and cremate some of the bodies, and then to advance the grate to the place where the just burned bodies had been and then repeat the process. The bones and ashes were carted out and the bones pulverized and disposed of. Cremation requires a very hot flame and a hot flame requires lots of O2, thus cremating bodies at the bottom of a 3m grave is preposterous.
In summary, there is not a shred of physical evidence for any of this, and the descriptions of the processes defy physics and common sense.
Confident, eh? Any basis for that other than faith?
At this point, you’ve responded to a mountain of physical evidence with “confidence” that the “real” physical evidence will back you up.
Instead of being “confident”, how about being sure? As in, do a valid experiment or find somebody who has done the experiment.
And you’ll still be wrong.
I cannot find it in the Nuremberg transcript of 3 january 1946.
He does use it in his final affadavit though, of which I can only find an english version.
The part you speak of is in the pre-trial interrogation, apparently.
I can only find this excerpt on the net:
The exerpt starts just a few questions to late to see whether the term is used by Wisliceny or is introduced by the interrogator.
What is clear, however, is the level of secrecy surrounding these camps, even among high-up German personnel.
I need to subscribe for that…
Could you give us a cite?
Gack, you repeatedly say that documented actions (burning, burying) are “preposterous.” What is your source for such a claim? Are you an expert in combustion, cremation, chemistry, physics and human anatomy? Have you ever managed a crematorium?
If not, then your argument is called “personal incredulity” and an argument “from ignorance.” Since we are dedicate to fighting ignorance, your claims don’t carry much weight. None, even.
Which term are you asking for a cite about?
Vernichtungslager
Now Gack goes for denying what happen in Treblinka, indeed there is evidence that burning people in an open pit was not as effective as crematoriums, so what he claims is misleading nonsense as the evidence shows. That bones can remain after being burned in a pit does not help his dumb cause.
Who knows, maybe he’ll next start ranting about the persecution of Ivan Demanjuk.
The only thing that is absurd in that paragraph is your illogical conclusion. Women’s bodies do not have to burn more easily than men, (although they may); Wiernik and his cronies merely have to have believed that women’s bodies burned more easily. Do you have any evidence that they did not hold such a belief?
With as poor a grasp of logic as that, no wonder you are so easily influenced by the anti-Jewish crackpots at IHR.
The cite would be Time Magazine, August 21, 1944.
I think the text he’s talking about is:
Also, there’s this, which isn’t an “official” use of the term, but from the diary of Dr. Johann Kremer. Kremer was an SS doctor at Auschwitz. This is from his Diary of September 2, 1942:
which, translated, is pretty much.
“At 3 o clock, attended a special action outside. In comparison, Dante’s inferno seems almost like a comedy. They don’t call Auschwitz the camp of extermination for nothing!”
Ehrrm… Wiernik was a laborer there. He was a (often cited) witness for the prosecution.