Evidence and Implementation

[Nessie]

The context is the evidence of mass closures of ghettos and transports of people to the AR camps. Remember, I can evidence mass arrivals at the camps and that the camps nearby to the stops did not fill up with Jews, and instead, they also emptied.

You cannot evidence people getting off the trains and going to the camps near to the stops.

The first Warsaw transport of young men went to Bobrysk, several thousand of them. The stops along the way like Skyz Kam had up to 8 thousand workers. Sobibor witnesses mention they went to Skyz Kam on train. Trains do not stop for an hour at a time at any station unless it is for a purpose.
It takes 5 mins to fill a steam train full of water and coal or wood.

The stops were also to fit around scheduled trains, change guards and repair damaged carriages. You posted a description of a transport to Belzec, did you forget already? Cherry-picking transports that went to camps, does not evidence your claim of the AR camp transports dropping people off at camps. The only way you can support your belief, is to ignore a lot of evidence.

[curioussoul]

I'm being intellectually honest here, but I am personally not sure how you can explain away the testimony of all of the perpetrators. I can't imagine why the Nazis would testify against themselves while on trial. I find the counter arguments on this forum to be very interesting and thought provoking, but not compelling. But I'm here engaging in good faith so I'm curious where this will take us.

You're not being intellectually honest at all. Despite being corrected on multiple occasions, you've repeated the lie that there are "hundreds of thousands of witnesses" to the Holocaust, despite the actual number of eye-witnesses numbering barely 20 people. As for perpetrator confessions, I challenge you to name a perpetrator you find most convincing and then explain why that particular testimony is important.

This is factually wrong and I don't want to debate basic facts. There were 200 to 300,000 Jewish survivors of the camps. Many non Jewish prisoners like gay people, Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses who survived. There were thousands of Nazi survivors and tens of thousands of people who left testimony.

If you deny basic facts, there's really no point in having a discussion. I have no clue why you think there were barely 20 eye-witnesses but it's not even close to the truth.

https://apnews.com/article/holocaust-su ... e40e61c013

I'm baffled you still don't get this basic fact: people that lived in and survived Nazi concentration camps were not automatically "Holocaust witnesses". I'll repeat myself once more, the actual number of eyewitnesses to gassings, or to supposed extermination orders coming directly from top German leaders such as Himmler or Hitler, number in the 20's. The number of Jewish Sonderkommando witnesses literally number less than 20. Everyone recognizes this, except you, apparently.

Surely, that's not hard to grasp.

[Nazgul]

The stops were also to fit around scheduled trains, change guards and repair damaged carriages. You posted a description of a transport to Belzec, did you forget already? Cherry-picking transports that went to camps, does not evidence your claim of the AR camp transports dropping people off at camps. The only way you can support your belief, is to ignore a lot of evidence.

What nonsense, there are railway sidings so trains can pass each other. I am talking about fplo not the train to belzec which there is no known fplo. There are plenty of towns and cities, railway stations to stop but the trains stopped at the exact places of Jewish Labour Camps. You have not answered how you differentiate fplo for extermination purposes you purport and the fplo for servicing the labour camps.

[Nessie]

The stops were also to fit around scheduled trains, change guards and repair damaged carriages. You posted a description of a transport to Belzec, did you forget already? Cherry-picking transports that went to camps, does not evidence your claim of the AR camp transports dropping people off at camps. The only way you can support your belief, is to ignore a lot of evidence.

What nonsense, there are railway sidings so trains can pass each other. I am talking about fplo not the train to belzec which there is no known fplo. There are plenty of towns and cities, railway stations to stop but the trains stopped at the exact places of Jewish Labour Camps. You have not answered how you differentiate fplo for extermination purposes you purport and the fplo for servicing the labour camps.

An FPLO that serves a labour camp, will have that labour camp as its destination. Or, there will be evidence people got off transports, to go to the labour camps near to any of the stops the transport made. Got any evidence?

[Nazgul]

An FPLO that serves a labour camp, will have that labour camp as its destination. Or, there will be evidence people got off transports, to go to the labour camps near to any of the stops the transport made. Got any evidence?

What nonsense. Fplo 587 used by Hilberg to attest that Jews went to Treblinka has Treblinka as the final destination as well as all the other labour camps mentioned. The first part of the schedule from Sedziszow to Treblinka serviced 26 Jewish labour camps en route. The only stop which had no camp was Lukow which was a major railway junction, to other labour camps. You have been told many times that Alex Cohen from Sobibor arrived at Skarzysko Kam munitions factory by train which is on that line. This factory produced tnt for bombs with 8000 workers at any time.

Pretending that all the labour camps full of Jews were not serviced by trains is simple mindedness.
Do you think ants carried out the explosives?

[Nessie]

An FPLO that serves a labour camp, will have that labour camp as its destination. Or, there will be evidence people got off transports, to go to the labour camps near to any of the stops the transport made. Got any evidence?

What nonsense. Fplo 587 used by Hilberg to attest that Jews went to Treblinka has Treblinka as the final destination as well as all the other labour camps mentioned. The first part of the schedule from Sedziszow to Treblinka serviced 26 Jewish labour camps en route. The only stop which had no camp was Lukow which was a major railway junction, to other labour camps. You have been told many times that Alex Cohen from Sobibor arrived at Skarzysko Kam munitions factory by train which is on that line. This factory produced tnt for bombs with 8000 workers at any time.

Pretending that all the labour camps full of Jews were not serviced by trains is simple mindedness.
Do you think ants carried out the explosives?

You have no evidence that the TII transports dropped prisoners off en route. There is evidence that contradicts your claim. You just make the same argument, ad nauseam.

[Nazgul]

You have no evidence that the TII transports dropped prisoners off en route. There is evidence that contradicts your claim. You just make the same argument, ad nauseam.

They were not TII transports. That is only in your very limited conception of events. The final destination was Treblinka railway station which shunted wagons to the arbeitslager T1 and two Judenlagers.
Here is Fplo 587; where does it mention a TII, it mentions a Treblinka. TII is the assumption within a mind of very limited cognitive ability. Note the train goes in both directions but normally clockwise via Malkinia. There must have been trains to take the rocks from the T1 quarry. It is likely that those wagons were added to any transport that came via shunting at Treblinka station which had at least 3 railway lines for the purpose.

[Nessie]

There are dozens of local Polish, German and Jewish witnesses to mass arrivals at TII, on transports from the ghettos. Hofle, Korherr, Stroop and Ganzenmuller all recorded mass arrivals.

[ConfusedJew]

I'm baffled you still don't get this basic fact: people that lived in and survived Nazi concentration camps were not automatically "Holocaust witnesses". I'll repeat myself once more, the actual number of eyewitnesses to gassings, or to supposed extermination orders coming directly from top German leaders such as Himmler or Hitler, number in the 20's. The number of Jewish Sonderkommando witnesses literally number less than 20. Everyone recognizes this, except you, apparently.

Surely, that's not hard to grasp.

There were dozens of eyewitnesses to gassings but the better question is how you think dozens of people could independently report the same exact thing and have it be some kind of conspiracy.

If there were 3 people and they all came up with a plan to lie, that would be possible, but not dozens of people who didn't even know each other.

[Archie]

I'm baffled you still don't get this basic fact: people that lived in and survived Nazi concentration camps were not automatically "Holocaust witnesses". I'll repeat myself once more, the actual number of eyewitnesses to gassings, or to supposed extermination orders coming directly from top German leaders such as Himmler or Hitler, number in the 20's. The number of Jewish Sonderkommando witnesses literally number less than 20. Everyone recognizes this, except you, apparently.

Surely, that's not hard to grasp.

There were dozens of eyewitnesses to gassings but the better question is how you think dozens of people could independently report the same exact thing and have it be some kind of conspiracy.

If there were 3 people and they all came up with a plan to lie, that would be possible, but not dozens of people who didn't even know each other.

Gas chamber stories were appearing in the newspapers in 1942. The "Auschwitz story" was publicized in the press in mid-1944. The war-time atrocity stories were generally anonymously sourced and wildly contradictory. Sometimes the Jews were gassed. Sometimes they were steamed to death like lobsters. Sometimes it was a electric floor. Sometimes the gas chamber had a trap door in the floor. And so on. The stories started getting more harmonized in 1945, but the process by which this occurs discredits rather than bolsters the Holocaust story.

1) The stories were "out there" before most of the testimonies were recorded. The vast, vast majority of the testimonies were not recorded until after 1945 with many being from the 1960s or even later.
2) The testimonies are not independent because they were virtually all collected by the Allied war crimes investigators, propaganda/psych warfare units, and the like.

One way we know that the testimonies are contaminated is that they will "corroborate" each other on FALSE details. For example, you see multiple "witnesses" repeating the 4 million number for Auschwitz or claiming absurd cremations capacities. There can be no question in this case that the testimony has been contaminated by the Soviet report on Auschwitz. Countless witnesses claim that they saw huge flames and smoke spewing out of the chimneys at Auschwitz day and night which is not true.

[ConfusedJew]

Gas chamber stories were appearing in the newspapers in 1942. The "Auschwitz story" was publicized in the press in mid-1944. The war-time atrocity stories were generally anonymously sourced and wildly contradictory. Sometimes the Jews were gassed. Sometimes they were steamed to death like lobsters. Sometimes it was an electric floor. Sometimes the gas chamber had a trap door in the floor. And so on. The stories started getting more harmonized in 1945, but the process by which this occurs discredits rather than bolsters the Holocaust story.

Why would you expect that all early reports from war would be completely accurate? It would be like an extreme form of the game telephone. Why would the "harmonization" of the facts discredit the idea of the Holocaust? During any investigation process, as you look deeper, you filter out the inconsistent and inaccurate information to determine what is more reliable. That's why you need to rigorously investigate such things.

1) The stories were "out there" before most of the testimonies were recorded. The vast, vast majority of the testimonies were not recorded until after 1945 with many being from the 1960s or even later.

2) The testimonies are not independent because they were virtually all collected by the Allied war crimes investigators, propaganda/psych warfare units, and the like.

Why is that a problem? This is to be expected and similar to other historical effects like Gulag survivors in the USSR. Eyewitness testimony is not always perfect and memory is not perfect, especially during hugely traumatic events. I'll to investigate the independence of these things later because that's more complicated.

One way we know that the testimonies are contaminated is that they will "corroborate" each other on FALSE details. For example, you see multiple "witnesses" repeating the 4 million number for Auschwitz or claiming absurd cremations capacities. There can be no question in this case that the testimony has been contaminated by the Soviet report on Auschwitz. Countless witnesses claim that they saw huge flames and smoke spewing out of the chimneys at Auschwitz day and night which is not true.

How would any single survivor have any idea what the total casualty account would have been unless the number was small enough that they could count it themselves?

Would you expect the testimonies of all war survivors to be completely reliable?

If certain witnesses make mistakes, exaggerate, or even purely lie, does that mean that everything they say is wrong? If a handful of witnesses make mistakes, does that mean that you have to throw out the entire body of witness testimonies?

This is a meta-question but it's very important because some of the things that you are saying may be true but you are zoomed in on a few details and seem to be missing the whole forest.

[Nessie]

....

Gas chamber stories were appearing in the newspapers in 1942. The "Auschwitz story" was publicized in the press in mid-1944. The war-time atrocity stories were generally anonymously sourced and wildly contradictory. Sometimes the Jews were gassed. Sometimes they were steamed to death like lobsters. Sometimes it was a electric floor. Sometimes the gas chamber had a trap door in the floor. And so on. The stories started getting more harmonized in 1945, but the process by which this occurs discredits rather than bolsters the Holocaust story.

An organised hoax would have a set story from the outset. What you are describing about the early reports, is clearly multiple sources, with no coordination.

The process of harmonisation, is the basic task of investigation and sifting through the evidence and reports, to determine what is rumour and what is corroborated. Rumour is ditched and corroborated evidence is retained.

1) The stories were "out there" before most of the testimonies were recorded. The vast, vast majority of the testimonies were not recorded until after 1945 with many being from the 1960s or even later.
2) The testimonies are not independent because they were virtually all collected by the Allied war crimes investigators, propaganda/psych warfare units, and the like.

Testimonies were also collected by the Poles, Soviets, who I take it you do not regard as independent. It is hard to see who you would accept as independent. What about the German prosecutors who ran death camp staff trials, are they independent? If you cannot say who is independent, then you have clearly set a bar that cannot be crossed. No wonder you end up with zero eyewitnesses from inside the death camps and Kremas, who you believe.

One way we know that the testimonies are contaminated is that they will "corroborate" each other on FALSE details. For example, you see multiple "witnesses" repeating the 4 million number for Auschwitz or claiming absurd cremations capacities. There can be no question in this case that the testimony has been contaminated by the Soviet report on Auschwitz. Countless witnesses claim that they saw huge flames and smoke spewing out of the chimneys at Auschwitz day and night which is not true.

That is not witness contamination, such that it should mean that the entirety of what the witness said is dismissed. You seek excuses to dismiss all the eyewitnesses, your agenda is clear.

If multiple witnesses, who worked at Auschwitz, claim that 4 million died there, then did they get their information from the same source? If witnesses get inaccurate information from the same source, then that just means the source was inaccurate. In any case, 4 million, or 1 million, both are mass deaths, one figure is exaggerated, the other is better evidenced.

The absurd cremation capacities are explained by your incredulity and witnesses generally being poor at estimating sizes. Neither are reasons to dismiss the witness outright, or prove they lied and there were no gassings.

There are enough witnesses to prove that flames and smoke did come from the Krema chimneys. Claims about the duration and volume are to be taken with a pinch of salt, as witnesses sensationalise or exaggerate, neither of which proves lying.

[Archie]

Gas chamber stories were appearing in the newspapers in 1942. The "Auschwitz story" was publicized in the press in mid-1944. The war-time atrocity stories were generally anonymously sourced and wildly contradictory. Sometimes the Jews were gassed. Sometimes they were steamed to death like lobsters. Sometimes it was an electric floor. Sometimes the gas chamber had a trap door in the floor. And so on. The stories started getting more harmonized in 1945, but the process by which this occurs discredits rather than bolsters the Holocaust story.

Why would you expect that all early reports from war would be completely accurate? It would be like an extreme form of the game telephone. Why would the "harmonization" of the facts discredit the idea of the Holocaust? During any investigation process, as you look deeper, you filter out the inconsistent and inaccurate information to determine what is more reliable. That's why you need to rigorously investigate such things.

1) The stories were "out there" before most of the testimonies were recorded. The vast, vast majority of the testimonies were not recorded until after 1945 with many being from the 1960s or even later.

2) The testimonies are not independent because they were virtually all collected by the Allied war crimes investigators, propaganda/psych warfare units, and the like.

Why is that a problem? This is to be expected and similar to other historical effects like Gulag survivors in the USSR. Eyewitness testimony is not always perfect and memory is not perfect, especially during hugely traumatic events. I'll to investigate the independence of these things later because that's more complicated.

One way we know that the testimonies are contaminated is that they will "corroborate" each other on FALSE details. For example, you see multiple "witnesses" repeating the 4 million number for Auschwitz or claiming absurd cremations capacities. There can be no question in this case that the testimony has been contaminated by the Soviet report on Auschwitz. Countless witnesses claim that they saw huge flames and smoke spewing out of the chimneys at Auschwitz day and night which is not true.

How would any single survivor have any idea what the total casualty account would have been unless the number was small enough that they could count it themselves?

Would you expect the testimonies of all war survivors to be completely reliable?

If certain witnesses make mistakes, exaggerate, or even purely lie, does that mean that everything they say is wrong? If a handful of witnesses make mistakes, does that mean that you have to throw out the entire body of witness testimonies?

This is a meta-question but it's very important because some of the things that you are saying may be true but you are zoomed in on a few details and seem to be missing the whole forest.

"Telephone" is your explanation for electric floors and steam chambers and the like?

My explanation, having read and compared countless of these war-time stories, is that this material contains a degree of accurate information about the camps in question but with some sensational atrocity propaganda mixed in. The atrocity tales are akin to the "corpse factory" stories from WWI. The reason the stories aren't consistent is simply because they aren't based in fact.

A key principle of historiography is that the earliest accounts are, all else equal, better and more likely to be accurate than later acccounts, i.e, ideally you want accounts recorded as close in time to the events in question as possible. So in terms of historical value, the earliest versions of the stories are actually extremely important. Now, it is true that first-hand is also more reliable than second-hand which is more reliable than third-hand etc. That is another consideration along with a number of other things. But I think if you study the trajectory from the war-time claims to the early post-war trials to the eventual history books, the trajectory is NOT a favorable one for the Holocaust side.

Re: the 4 million, you have missed my point. It is of course correct that the witnesses would generally not be in a position to know such a number (although the Sonderkommando typically claimed to have seen thousands cremated per day and Vrba claimed to have personally counted/estimated around 1.75M Jews that were killed - yes, he really claimed this). But my question to you would be, if they could not have known such a number yet they give that number in their testimony, where did they get that number from if not from personal experience? The clear answer, the one you obviously don't want to give, is that they got it from the Soviet propaganda. This is exactly the sort of contamination you were arguing was implausible. And I gave the other example about the flaming chimneys since that is something the witnesses all claim to have seen with their own eyes. This is a "corroborated" story that is actually false and that can't be brushed off as hearsay.

[Wahrheitssucher]

One way we know that the testimonies are contaminated is that they will "corroborate" each other on FALSE details. …Countless witnesses claim that they saw huge flames and smoke spewing out of the chimneys at Auschwitz day and night which is not true.

…If certain witnesses make mistakes, exaggerate, or even purely lie, does that mean that everything they say is wrong?

No, it does not. No-one is arguing that. You are arguing against your-own false, strawman.

If a handful of witnesses make mistakes, does that mean that you have to throw out the entire body of witness testimonies?

No, we do not. See above reply.

This is a meta-question but it's very important because some of the things that you are saying may be true but you are zoomed in on a few details and seem to be missing the whole forest.

Salem Witch trials. Do you know about those trials and what they were ‘trying’, CJ?

If so, a Question for you ConfusedJew:
do you believe that there were ‘Witches’ in Salem who did ‘magic’, cast spells upon numerous girls, had signs of the Devil on their bodies, cursed pigs, conversed with and fornicated with the Devil, and wrote their names in blood in his book?
If not, why not?
There were confessions.
Girls did exhibit unusual behaviour.
Pigs did unexpectedly die.
Accused did have moles on their bodies.

Most intelligent, reasonable people don’t NOW believe there were ‘witches’ at Salem. This despite the ‘evidence’, confessions, ‘eye-witness’ testimonies and the then majority consensus agreement that there were.
Do you see the parallels and why this refutes your argument above?
Or would you like further clarification?

[Nessie]

Comparing the Holocaust with the witch trials is a false analogy. The supposed eyewitnesses to witchcraft were making claims that were physically impossible, flying brooms and casting spells. The eyewitnesses to gassings, cremations and mass graves were making claims that are physically possible, since building gas chambers, mass corpse cremation ovens and digging big pits were well within German design and engineering capability.