# The holocaust is a hoax .... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 23, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204 "2008-10-23T13:45:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/281 "2008-10-24T00:29:47Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > There’s been a lot of evasion and insult in this thread… You got that right. For example, you’ve consistently evaded the question, “Where’d all the Jews go?” and your refusal to answer is pretty insulting. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/282 "2008-10-24T00:32:45Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > I just had my ignorance fought in a holocaust deniers thread. What an odd turn of events. Thread winner! Ok Allan, I’ll participate. Answer me this, and please no links or obscurities. In your opinion, as you understand it, what was the motive of the people who created the hoax? They must have known it was a huge undertaking, and if they were caught it would play very badly for them, so why the hoax? Why not just play up the truth about the disease/starvation/overwork of the camps? What possible reward was worth inventing a horrorshow and risking being found out that couldn’t be achieved by exagerating the truth? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/283 "2008-10-24T00:35:01Z")
Kids. maybe just once we should allow an OP like this to just drift down to the bottom with no replies until it floats away like an oily gas-filled turd drifting its way toward the sewer where it can find appropriate companionship. It seems unlikely Mr Gurfinkle will suddenly come to realize the error of his ways. ya, I realize I just bumped it but only to make a suggestion to the crowd… ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/284 "2008-10-24T00:36:56Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Irony of ironies, originally, they were just planning to stage a play about it. But they sold 500 percent ownership of the play, and then had to conduct the genocide for real to cover their tracks. “You can’t succeed on Broadway if you don’t have any Jews!” [/spamelot reference] I’ve been to Dachau as a teenager. I saw the ovens and the barracks and the lampshades and the photos. I have never forgotten it. Long may it stand so that we do not forget. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/285 "2008-10-24T00:38:40Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > If I cannon convince you that these ‘gas chambers’ are hoaxes, then I cannot convince you of anything. Finally, you have stated something that is inarguably true. > [@](#): > > The ‘eyewitness testimony’ is the best evidence of a hoax. However, you must actually look at it. I’ve heard it, read it and looked at it. Nitpicking one book does not invalidate what millions of people have testified to. How could it? > [@](#): > > Weisel’s book “Night” is also a good subject for discussion as more are familiar with it. You only have to read this with a 1% critical eye to know its lies. Note that Weisel didn’t mention in his entire book any gas chambers. Also, you can use the amazon search inside the book feature to see that he describes taking a shower on six separate occasions, expressly for the purpose of disinfection. NO THOUGHT OF BEING GASSED. Weisel is a great denier witness. I don’t think Weisel would agree. I’ve read Night and I remember noticing what you said - he didn’t talk about gas chambers. Of course, Weisel survived and never saw the inside of one. The argument you’re making is stupid: you’re claiming Weisel’s book exposes the Holocaust as a hoax because he doesn’t discuss gas chambers when he does discuss so many other features of the Holocaust, including the ethnic cleansing, the brutality, the genocidal conditions, the disregard for human life and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/286 "2008-10-24T00:45:05Z")
To have pulled off such a hoax, the Jews would have had to have MASSIVE assistance from non-Jews as well. Who were these Gentiles who helped fake the evidence, and what did they get in return? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/287 "2008-10-24T00:48:17Z")
**Allan Gurfinkle** I can’t speak on behalf of all Jews. So the following represents only me. I forgive you. I understand the Holocaust can be so horrible and overwhelming that the only response is to deny it. One day, you’ll be able to face the truth. Until then, I understand why you do what you do. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/288 "2008-10-24T00:52:04Z")
Saying that Wiesel never saw the showers, thus they didn’t exist, is basically like saying “My uncle was in Angola prison and never saw death row, so there’s not one”. (If your uncle was a car thief or drug dealer, chances are he was never sent to death row for an errand.) Any way, to have pulled off such a hoax, the Jews would have had to have MASSIVE assistance from non-Jews as well. Who were these Gentiles who helped fake the evidence, and what did they get in return? Another straightforward question that you haven’t answered: Assume gas chambers aren’t an issue at all, do you believe that Jews were killed en masse in forests by German soldiers on orders from superiors and buried in mass graves? For that matter do you admit that Kristallnacht happened or that Jews lost their property? How about T4 in which non-Jews were euthanized for retardation or “bad genes”? Do you deny that Hitler preached repeatedly for 20 years the need to racially purify Europe or that he blamed everything that happened in WW2 on the Jews on the last day of his life in writing with his signature? Why was Rudolph Höss brought to trial and hanged? Or Amon Goeth or Ernst Rahm or others whose only “crime” was running an interrment camp? ---
**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:** [October 24, 2008, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/289 "2008-10-24T00:53:56Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > This is from the USHMM … > > “Between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities.” > > [http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143](http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143) > > We’ve had a look at the ‘specially designed gassing facility’ at Auschwitz and Majdanek . How absurd can it get. Is part of this observed absurdity the windows? My earlier questions have yet to be answered. Even if some tour guide thought he was showing the original structures (or knew he wasn’t but didn’t make a point of explaining this), I somehow fail to see the relevance to what was actually happening in Auschwitz during the war. Anyway, what exactly about the quote are you disputing? The mass deportations, or that millions were gassed? If the first is true but not the second, where did the millions go? > [@](#): > > You need to understand that the USHMM statement is a grotesque, degenerate lie. These lies are commonplace in the holocaust story. These are monstrous slanders against the Nazis, and by generalization, white Christian European society. They have been used for fifty years to blackmail the world. Okay. You can assume that I don’t care about _why_ anyone would have created a hoax on this scale. I care only about _how_ they did it. What’s your evidence? > [@](#): > > I expect the Zionists to scream the loudest of course, produce the most virulent ridicule, insult, evasion, obfuscation, etc., and the posts to this thread have not been surprising. It is a matter of religious or revealed truth to them. I am dismayed by their tactics which demean themselves in my view. Based on what you’ve read of my posts, am I a Zionist? I like to know if I’m being lumped into a group. > [@](#): > > Just let me add, if you are not a Zionist, simply read my posts for what they are, try to take them seriously, see if you can understand the weight of my argument before trying to dream up a harebrained objection. If you do this, and treat the subject with an open mind, you will shortly be in for a big surprise. Let’s assume I’m not a Zionist, because I think I raised a non-harebrained objection to the “gas chamber windows” statement. To summarize: 1. It is not difficult to construct a “glass” window that can easily resist the efforts of people who are succumbing to poison gas, or even perfectly healthy people who have only their bare hands. Either make it thick (one inch will do easily, or if it can’t, I invite you to explain) or use an acrylic window. 2. If the glass windows are in buildings on the Auschwitz site that were actually constructed after the war, then how does that prove or disprove anything at all? Regarding the David Cole video, the text introduction on your linked webpage includes: > [@](#): > > Since the end of World War II we have been told repeatedly that many of these camps served a darker purpose: the genocide of six million Jews and the execution of five million non-Jews through the use of homicidal gas chambers in what is now commonly known as the “Holocaust.” The largest number of people are said to have been murdered at Auschwitz. If this is what Cole is trying to disprove, he’s wasting his time: most victims of the Holocaust were not gassed. Auschwitz represents an industrial approach to mass murder, but I understand more victims died in mass shootings in various locales as the Germans expanded Eastward. That a significant number may have died of disease in no way exonerates the Germans, since they were responsible for herding Jews and others into crowded ghettos and camps in the first place. And I’m afraid that accusing us of slandering Nazis isn’t a very potent claim. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/290 "2008-10-24T00:56:32Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > So, from my perspective, there is no sense discussing anything else until the hoax gas chambers are fully acknowledged and explored. So, tell me then, why did the Nazis purchase their Zyklon B expressly without the chemical irritant/warning odor if they didn’t have any intention to use it on people? Where the lice catching on? And how did the cyanide traces get all over the walls of those rooms if there hadn’t been any gassings? Of course, I don’t actually expect any response to my post… ---
**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:** [October 24, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/291 "2008-10-24T00:58:30Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > Weisel’s book “Night” is also a good subject for discussion as more are familiar with it. You only have to read this with a 1% critical eye to know its lies. Note that Weisel didn’t mention in his entire book any gas chambers. Also, you can use the amazon search inside the book feature to see that he describes taking a shower on six separate occasions, expressly for the purpose of disinfection. NO THOUGHT OF BEING GASSED. Weisel is a great denier witness. So what were the lies, again? I read “Night” 20 years ago in high school, so I didn’t have a critical eye back then. If the book is full of lies, why don’t you list some of them? It’s odd that you somehow believe that since concentration camp prisoners sometimes actually took real showers that proves that the gassings never took place. ---
**Author:** ![SharkB8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/977dab/32.png) [@SharkB8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SharkB8)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/292 "2008-10-24T00:58:35Z")
This is why I never leave GQ. ---
**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:** [October 24, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/293 "2008-10-24T00:58:57Z")
Ah, he doesn’t hate Jews, he just hates _Zionists_. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/294 "2008-10-24T01:09:21Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > These lies are commonplace in the holocaust story. These are monstrous slanders against the Nazis, and by generalization, white Christian European society. They have been used for fifty years to blackmail the world. [http://www.vho.org/GB/c/DC/gcgvcole.html](http://www.vho.org/GB/c/DC/gcgvcole.html) During World War 2, the United States placed about 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry in internment camps. The last of them weren’t released until March 1946. [The death toll in the 11 camps totaled 1,862.](http://usswashington.com/worldwar2plus55/dl26ap42.htm) That’s about 1.7%. Do I understand correctly that you’re arguing Nazi sanitation practices were so poor that MILLIONS of Europeans died of typhus and other diseases while the U.S. could keep the mortality rate in its camps below 2%? So if the Nazis weren’t deliberately trying to kill their captives, they were really, really, really bad at houskeeping. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/295 "2008-10-24T01:10:41Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > These are monstrous slanders against the Nazis, and by generalization, white Christian European society. They have been used for fifty years to blackmail the world. You know, most of white Christian European society was also brutalized by the Nazis. Even if you take the Jews and the Holocaust out of the picture entirely, the Nazis still established a brutally repressive dictatorship in Germany and then invaded its neighbors, plundered their economies, and engaged in forced relocations, massacres, and slavery of the conquered peoples. The Nazis, along with the Soviet Communists, were the greatest enemies of white Christian Europe in the 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/296 "2008-10-24T01:11:16Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > They were placed in concentration camps as part of the Nazi program to transfer all Jews out of Europe. There is no question about this, and it is fully documented with Nazi documents. It is also well known to the keepers of the Bad Arolsen archives. SIXTY MILLION NAZI DOCUMENTS that have been kept secret to this day. Just for s&gs, I looked up Bad Arolsen. **Allan** is quite correct when he says there’s a huge archive of Nazi documents there. It seems the city hosts the [International Tracing Service](http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/archives/index.html). According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Tracing_Service), the ITS is > [@](#): > > an organization dedicated to finding missing persons, typically lost to family and friends as a result of war or political unrest during World War II. According to its own site, > [@](#): > > The ITS archive holds 26,000 metres of various types of records. The alphabetically and phonetically arranged Central Name Index contains over 50 million reference cards for over 17.5 million people and is the key to the documents and correspondence files. The archives have been available for research since [November 2007](http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/faq/index.html#c402), a step that required the agreement of 11 different countries. I suppose that deniers haven’t caught up with the news lately, since this happened not-quite-a-year ago. From my brief perusal of the site, it appears that prior to that, you had to be a survivor and also had to submit a request that they would then research. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/297 "2008-10-24T01:17:40Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > So, from my perspective, there is no sense discussing anything else until the hoax gas chambers are fully acknowledged and explored. From my perspective you don’t want to debate the questions that have been repeatedly asked of you and ignored. Do you realize how lame it is to suggest that a chemical the US uses to execute people in the gas chamber is nothing more than a pesticide and that the Germans used it to fumigate the clothes of the Jews. Why would a regular part of German society suddenly need to be deloused? Were there gas chambers all over Germany to serve the clothing hygene needs of the voters of the third Reich? Why did they need to fumigate the clothes of the Jews if they were given prison outfits? Were all those pictures the allies took lies too? Is there some condition that prevents you from answering questions instead of harping on the idea that the gas was used to delouse clothing that would have been discarded? At least throw us a bone here. Were the Germans having the clothing of the Jews dry cleaned for their trip away from the Fatherland? You still haven’t answered the question of where they all went. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/298 "2008-10-24T01:20:08Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > That a significant number may have died of disease in no way exonerates the Germans, since they were responsible for herding Jews and others into crowded ghettos and camps in the first place. Indeed; that was the plan all along: > [@](#): > > [Wannsee Protocol, January 20, 1942](http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/wannsee.asp): > > …Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes. > > The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)… ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/299 "2008-10-24T01:38:31Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > A short proof that the holocaust , that is, that millions were killed in gas chambers, is a hoax, follows. > > For the crime of murder we need a body and a weapon. > > The US sent teams of forensic pathologists into the camps immediately after the war. The team was led by Dr. Charles Larson. Larson did not find a single body showing signs of gas poisoning. None have been found by anyone at any time. > > [http://www.codoh.com/info/infoihr/ihr5liberate.html](http://www.codoh.com/info/infoihr/ihr5liberate.html) > > There were six alleged ‘extermination camps’ (soon to be 5 I think as Majdanek will be removed from the list). Four were razed before the end of the war. Two are still standing, Auschwitz and Majdanek. Both have visitors tours that culminate in hoax gas chambers. How do we know the gas chambers are hoaxes? They have unbarred glass windows, among other things. See for yourself at > > Auschwitz > [http://www.historiography-project.org/misc/doors.html](http://www.historiography-project.org/misc/doors.html) > > Majdanek > [http://www.historiography-project.org/weblog/2007/10/window-in-the-majdanek-gas-cha.html](http://www.historiography-project.org/weblog/2007/10/window-in-the-majdanek-gas-cha.html) > > The Auschwitz hoax gas chamber is a room in a crematorium. The Majdanek hoax gas chamber is a delousing room where Zyklon, pellets producing cyanide gas, was used to kill lice in clothes to prevent typhus. These delousing ‘gas chambers’, whose purpose was to save lives, were the inspiration for the ‘homicidal gas chambers’ of the holocaust lies. > > Thousands died of typhus in the camps, particularly at the western camps that had received a huge influx of prisoners from the eastern camps at the end of the war. Pictures of these typhus victims are presented as evidence of the holocaust. Many of the photos were taken a Belsen, not a death camp, at the end of the war. For pictures of Belsen at the end of the war that will never appear in the media see… > > [Survivors](http://www.bergenbelsen.co.uk/pages/Database/SurvivorsPhotos.asp?index=0) In all seriousness, dude. Do you understand that this is not how it works? You can’t prove something did NOT happen. It’s a logical truism. Your task, if you want to convince anyone, is to DISPROVE all the evidence there is that PROVES the holocaust. Again, in all seriousness: all you’re doing is cherrypicking a handful of examples of things that you feel that you can argue against, but you’re leaving undebated millions of other pieces of evidence that prove, without needing the support of the ones you’ve cherrypicked, completely conclusively. THAT’S how it works, dude. As long as there is ONE item that proves that something DID happen, there’s nothing you can do to prove it didn’t. Sorry, but reality has a logical bias. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2008, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/300 "2008-10-24T01:43:21Z")
Let us all bear in mind that in this day and age Holocaust denial is Mostly Harmless, however much the deniers might wish otherwise. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204.md?page=16)