# 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:** 8
**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 23, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/141 "2008-10-23T16:45:04Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > I have demonstrated that the only two gas chambers that are now in existence and accessible are hoaxes. They aren’t hoaxes. They’re reconstructions, and everybody admits they’re reconstructions. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/142 "2008-10-23T16:46:17Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > Hey … I gotta go have lunch ! Darn, so close. :rolleyes: > [@Fish](#): > > To add to **Bayard** ’s question, if the object were deportation, _why were the concentration camps so far away from airports and coastal cities?_ They didn’t want the Jews to get wet and shrink as they dried? ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/143 "2008-10-23T16:48:24Z")
I think you’re thinking of Shrinky Dinks. You can tell because Shrinky Dinks don’t use Zyklon-B. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Gay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@Enola\_Gay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Gay)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/144 "2008-10-23T16:54:32Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > I have demonstrated that there are no bodies showing signs of gas poisoning that have been found, and not for lack of trying. So here, where we would expect evidence, there is none. > > I have demonstrated that the only two gas chambers that are now in existence and accessible are hoaxes. Consider the implications of this. The holocaust authorities are lying. When I investigate the holocaust, I always came back to this irrefutable fact. > > The other ‘evidence’ is the pictures of the dead and dying. I have shown that these deaths were due to typhus and not the deliberate actions of the Nazis. > > “Anne and Margot Frank died during a typhus epidemic that swept through Bergen-Belsen from February to April 1945, killing an estimated 35,000 people.” > > . Okay let me see if I completely understand your position: You don’t deny that the Nazis rounded up all the Jews and packed them into concentration camps. However, it is your belief that these people did not die in gas chambers, but rather they died of natural causes, such as starvation and typhus. Is this accurate? But even if you were correct, which you are not, wouldn’t locking innocent people up under such deplorable conditions that they starved to death or died of communicable diseases also be a horrific form of genocide? Or is it your belief that these kind misunderstood Nazis were unaware that their camp guests were dying by the millions? Please clarify your position. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/145 "2008-10-23T17:02:05Z")
I may have missed it, but I didn’t see your response to my request for what kind and level of evidence you need. I will assume from your reference to “the correspondence of the Belsen commandant, Joseph Kramer” that you will accept official Nazi documents as sufficient evidence. Accordingly, suppose I can produce a cite wherein the option of deliberately starving and working to death the Jews of Europe is announced as a goal. Would that suffice? Thanks in advance. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/146 "2008-10-23T17:02:49Z")
Y’know, Allan, you might be surprised to find that most people here would probably agree that holocaust denial should be protected as free speech. I say this in anticipation of you using the opposite assumption as a straw man or an excuse for whining about being a victim of suppression. I can’t do much searching in those areas here at work, but there must be autopsy reports on at least a representative sample of the Jews and others who were gassed (and/or shot, bludgeoned, or what have you). I don’t know offhand if the forensic medicine of 1945 would accurately pin a particular gas as cause of death, though. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/147 "2008-10-23T17:03:01Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > If they didn’t die, where’d they go? Answer: To another planet. They left behind a message saying “So long and thanks for all the gefilte fish” but it got lost in the post. I’m also now picturing a scene in which several thousand Jews are at a drunken frat party and one of them goes “Hey…hey guys…you know what we should do? Let’s get our phone numbers _tattooed on our arms_! Hilarious!” ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/148 "2008-10-23T17:07:25Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I’m also now picturing a scene in which several thousand Jews are at a drunken frat party… …standing on a pile of money, no doubt… ---
**Author:** ![Stanislaus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stanislaus/32/3391_2.png) [@Stanislaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stanislaus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/149 "2008-10-23T17:08:02Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > Excuse me for not providing the link, but the correspondence of the Belsen commandant, Joseph Kramer, can be seen on the net … it begins … > > "IT has been my intention for a long time past to seek an interview with you in order to describe the present conditions here. As service conditions make this impossible I sho uld like to submit a written report on the impossible state of affairs and ask for your support. > > You informed me by telegram of February 23, 1945, that I was to receive 2,500 female detainees as a first consignment from Ravensbrück. I have assured accommodation for this number. The reception of further consignments is impossible, not only from the point of view of accommodation due to lack of space, but particularly on account of the feeding question. > > … and continues". > > The Nazis did everything in their power to prevent the catastrophe at Belsen.. 1. This memo was clearly written after Feb 1945. Your original cite referred to a typhus epidemic in Feb-Apr 1942. When Kramer says it’s been “his intention for a long time past to seek an interview” he is in danger of seriously understating the case. Clearly, he’d been building up to asking for an interview for three whole years. What a full in-tray the man must have had, that he couldn’t sooner give this intention full expression. 2. This memo was clearly written after Feb 1945. Is it possible that a Nazi concentration camp commander’s desire to document his long-standing concern for the Jews starving to death right before his eyes might be motivated less by humanitarianism and more by a sense of self-preservation, given the location and rate of progress of Allied forces at that time? 3. One man writing a memo which was clearly ignored by his superiors does not, under any circumstances, qualify as “the Nazis doing everything in their power”. 4. Even if the Nazis, having rounded up the Jews and forced them into concentration camps, found that they were powerless to stop them dying so enthusiastically, this still does not absolve them of blame. Two options they clearly didn’t explore were a) letting them out and b) not forcibly imprisoning them in the first place. ---
**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 23, 2008, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/150 "2008-10-23T17:08:04Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > The Nazis did everything in their power to prevent the catastrophe at Belsen. Yeah. Everything. Except, of course, _not putting them into concentration camps under inhuman conditions in the first place._ :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/151 "2008-10-23T17:13:32Z")
Taking for granted for the sake of the argument that the gas chambers never happened, 1. Who came up with this elaborate hoax that they did? 2. How have they kept such control over Jewish/Pole/Gypsies/Soviets/others who survived the camps and EVEN GERMAN VETERANS who worked at the camps, the Soviets and American and British and French allies who liberated the camps and SAW the dead bodies stacked in piles… millions of people who have scattered all over the world in the last 63+ years, have kept up the same story? That’s pretty amazing that there haven’t been more leaks. 3. Why? Isn’t it a rather dangerous thing to concoct when it’s so easily disproven? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/152 "2008-10-23T17:17:47Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Taking for granted for the sake of the argument that the gas chambers never happened, > > 1. Who came up with this elaborate hoax that they did? > > 2. How have they kept such control over Jewish/Pole/Gypsies/Soviets/others who survived the camps and EVEN GERMAN VETERANS who worked at the camps, who have scattered all over the world in the last 63+ years, have kept up the same story? That’s pretty amazing that there haven’t been more leaks. > > 3. Why? He’s been asked those questions numerous times already and studiously avoids answering them. He’s cherry picking a few items of supposed “proof” the Holocaust did not happen while denying the 800 pound gorilla of evidence that is not merely in the room with him but sitting in his lap. I’ll give him credit for good behavior in engaging in the debate here but it’s obvious he’s got nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/153 "2008-10-23T17:17:53Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Yeah. Everything. Except, of course, _not putting them into concentration camps under inhuman conditions in the first place._ :rolleyes: You just try not putting millions of people in concentration camps! It’s a lot of work to avoid doing something like that. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/154 "2008-10-23T17:21:53Z")
I have debated whether to post in this thread. But, when push comes to shove I have to post. My father has a numbered tattoo on his forearm. My mother has a badly-healed break in her forearm from her work in a slave-driven factory. My mother was one of 12 children. Four walked away from Auschwitz. My father was one of eight. Three walked away. None of their parents survived. Some of their family died of illness, starvation, injury. Many were summarily executed. They were witness to the destruction of their own families. My mother was 16 when her ghetto was liquidated and went to the camps. The children were in line to be killed. A guard “liked her looks” and she was pulled to other line, and as such, survived. She watched her younger siblings walk into a gas chamber and not come out. My mother and father’s home town was a bustling lively Jewish center before the war. My mother, in particular had a large extended family. There are no Jews left in her town. A few came to America. A few to Israel. A few to France. No one is left back in Poland. I know that people like the OP are deluded, misguided and have their own reasons for believing what they do. But they scare the hell out of me. My parents are not going to be here much longer. They are some of the last. It makes me scared to my core what will happen when the buildings crumble and eye- witness survivors are gone. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/155 "2008-10-23T17:28:32Z")
> [@Allan\_Gurfinkle](#): > > Thank you. > > I do not argue that something did or did not happen. I do prove that crucial evidence that has been presented for the holocaust is an obvious hoax. I’m not sure if it’s the title being _The holocaust is a hoax_… or the first line in your OP being, “A short proof that the holocaust , that is, that millions were killed in gas chambers, is a hoax, follows.” But you can see where we might think you are now back peddling. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/156 "2008-10-23T17:29:03Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > It makes me scared to my core what will happen when the buildings crumble and eye- witness survivors are gone. What will happen? [We will forgive, but never forget.](http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/4430/) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/157 "2008-10-23T17:30:32Z")
There’s always [this](http://shoah.rice.edu/), **Ivory**. Never fear…we won’t forget. On edit… **Shodan** is quicker than I am!! ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/158 "2008-10-23T17:30:51Z")
Who cares about this troll? We’ll never convince him otherwise so let him live in his fairyland all he wants and just pray he doesn’t have kids. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/159 "2008-10-23T17:33:01Z")
Because he’s a nice break from the myriad US presidential election threads. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 23, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204/160 "2008-10-23T17:33:48Z")
> [@Gangster\_Octopus](#): > > Who cares about this troll? We’ll never convince him otherwise so let him live in his fairyland all he wants and just pray he doesn’t have kids. Can’t call anyone a troll in GD, but as there are people that get joy out of riling up the public, there are those that get joy out of antagonizing someone so wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-holocaust-is-a-hoax/469204.md?page=9)