The Kola Study - An Own Goal by Team Holocaust

[Archie]

Which means Belzec had at least 182,700 bodies buried there. That does not even fit with any unevidenced revisionist hypothesis about the function of the camp.

Katyn was a mass grave of only adult males, who were clothed and when exhumed the corpses were decompressed due to being piled on top of each other. They had started to decompose, but not to the extent that they had become one great waxy fat mass.

Belzec was a mass grave of all ages and both sexes, none of whom were clothed, where bodies were compressed and decomposed such that Kola found they had congealed into a waxy fat mass. It would not be unreasonable to double the bodies per square meter to 17.4, so 365,400 buried corpses. That is still off Hofle's total arrivals of 434,508 and the 500,000 generally accepted death toll, but it is still a significant number that revisionists cannot just hand wave away, with their non-history of and hypothesis about the camp.

Dunce cap for you, Nessie.

If we apply 8.7 bodies per square meter to the Kola graves this would be 8.7*5,490 = 47,7663, less than one-tenth of your desired total.

An estimate in the 50,000 range is higher than what most revisionists would estimate for Belzec, but so what? That is by no means an minimum value. Lots of mass graves are less dense than Katyn. This is because the bodies at Katyn were stacked in an efficient, orderly fashion.

I did miss that you talked about m2, not m3. That was because talking about an area, when the discussion is about volumes, is moot and rather misleading. You cannot fit 8.7, let alone 1 corpse, into a square meter, since it is a measurement of area. If you piled 8.7 corpses into a m2, you would add height, so you would have a volume, not an area.

You are resorting to strange calculations that make no sense, to avoid the simplest volume calculation of volume of graves and volume of corpses, proves hundreds of thousands of corpses would fit inside the graves.

Estimating based on area doesn't assume ZERO depth/volume. It assumes unspecified depth and volume. Which is fine if we are just trying to get a ball park figure. There's way more variation in the length and width than in the depth, so area is quite good. Most mass graves are somewhere between 2-5 meters deep. If you have the data, you can account for it in your estimates, but, to repeat myself, it's harder to find depth/volume data for a grave, and in most cases, it's just not going to matter that much, and it certainly isn't going to be a 10X difference.

For the Srebrenica comparison I posted, I presented estimates based on area and volume. The numbers are very similar in magnitude, 17K vs 22K. Accounting for difference in depth is around 29% difference. That's not nothing, but for our purposes here it's just not material.

[Archie]

Another point about the depth. Kola's estimate for the total grave volume works out to an average depth of 3.88 meters. But from the diagrams, this would seem to be the distance from the very bottom to the surface. Which is fine, but we have to keep that in mind in interpreting the grave volume figures.



Generally, you would expect a dirt layer on the top. The proverbial six feet deep would be about two meters. That would cut the effective volume down in half. These really high assumptions of 20+ bodies per cubic meter implicitly assume the graves were stuffed all the way up to the surface with bodies and presumably had only a very thin dirt layer.

[bombsaway]

Another point about the depth. Kola's estimate for the total grave volume works out to an average depth of 3.88 meters. But from the diagrams, this would seem to be the distance from the very bottom to the surface. Which is fine, but we have to keep that in mind in interpreting the grave volume figures.



Generally, you would expect a dirt layer on the top. The proverbial six feet deep would be about two meters. That would cut the effective volume down in half. These really high assumptions of 20+ bodies per cubic meter implicitly assume the graves were stuffed all the way up to the surface with bodies and presumably had only a very thin dirt layer.

Archie I appreciate that you are starting to answer my challenges about revisionist explanations for Kola's study. There's still a lot to cover, I'd say you're 5-10% of the way there but we can come back to this.

I have a few questions for you.

Why is it strange to you that historians use the lower tota? As specified in the Hoefle telegram. We know transports no longer came after it was sent. So why is it wrong to use this total 434,000, over others when assigning death toll to Belzec? The real number could be lower than this, even if German counting was perfect, because not all arrivals were killed, some were transferred out right.

It seems silly to me that you're still using the higher figure in most of your calculations, I can't understand this.

In response to the above

"graves were stuffed all the way up to the surface with bodies"

this is what witness testimonies state

https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot ... ml#_ftn112

The naked corpses were carried on wooden stretchers to pits only a few meters away, measuring 100 x 20 x 12 meters. After a few days the corpses welled up and a short time later they collapsed, so that one could throw a new layer of bodies upon them. Then ten centimeters of sand were spread over the pit, so that only a few heads and arms still rose from it here and there. [110]

The swelling up and down is an interesting, which I wonder if has been covered by revisionists.

This stage is interesting

Stage 4: Black putrefaction - 10 to 20 days after death

The bloated body eventually collapses, leaving a flattened body whose flesh has a creamy consistency. The exposed parts of the body are black in colour and there is a very strong smell of decay.

A large volume of body fluids drain from the body at this stage and seep into the surrounding soil. Other insects and mites feed on this material.

The body bloats until it collapses, with liquid pouring out of it. One could assume if there is sufficient space between bodies, that it would drain down to fill this space.

Is such drainage going to occur over a period of months (Belzec started operating in Spring of 42) in a grave that consists mostly of bodies not dirt?

How much volume loss due to drainage and body flattening? When you have many bodies weighing down on each other and are flattening, how much more space efficiency could be obtained? In addition to the volume loss, bodies flattening are going to occupy a space more efficiency.

Remember you have to be very rigorous about all the kinetics and physics here, if you are saying that the orthodox story (graves held 430k people) is impossible or virtually so due to density constraints.

[Nessie]

....
I did miss that you talked about m2, not m3. That was because talking about an area, when the discussion is about volumes, is moot and rather misleading. You cannot fit 8.7, let alone 1 corpse, into a square meter, since it is a measurement of area. If you piled 8.7 corpses into a m2, you would add height, so you would have a volume, not an area.

You are resorting to strange calculations that make no sense, to avoid the simplest volume calculation of volume of graves and volume of corpses, proves hundreds of thousands of corpses would fit inside the graves.

Estimating based on area doesn't assume ZERO depth/volume. It assumes unspecified depth and volume. Which is fine if we are just trying to get a ball park figure. There's way more variation in the length and width than in the depth, so area is quite good. Most mass graves are somewhere between 2-5 meters deep. If you have the data, you can account for it in your estimates, but, to repeat myself, it's harder to find depth/volume data for a grave, and in most cases, it's just not going to matter that much, and it certainly isn't going to be a 10X difference.

For the Srebrenica comparison I posted, I presented estimates based on area and volume. The numbers are very similar in magnitude, 17K vs 22K. Accounting for difference in depth is around 29% difference. That's not nothing, but for our purposes here it's just not material.

Why use a measurement of area to work out an issue you have about volume? The answer is that you are trying to find excuses to believe that it is ridiculous and impossible for c500,000 people to have been cremated and buried at Belzec. The revisionist MO is to find excuses to disbelieve the evidence and then argue that disbelief is evidence it did not happen.

Kola proved at least 21,000m3 of disturbed ground containing ash, cremated and decomposed remains. No mass grave site for any other mass death elsewhere in history, is that that size, with, not coincidentally, the exception of TII, Sobibor and Chelmno. A volume equivalent to 8.4 Olympic swimming pools, is enough to have buried the corpses, before exhumations and cremations, to return a mix of cremains, ash and earth, piled on top of the corpses too badly decomposed to remove and burn.

[bombsaway]

Basically 33 40 kg bodies can fit in a cubic meter at perfect efficiency.

At 22 bodies per cubic meter, assuming 19k rather than the 21k grave space was used, the 430k number specified in Hoeffle is reached. This is assuming the bodies were placed in the graves instantaneously. But Belzec was operational over 9 months. Given the "flattening" of corpses over time, it seems possible this density (2/3s bodies, 1/3 "air") could be reached with corpses weighing down on each other, conforming as they decompose, even without considering volume loss due to decomposition, effects of quick lime, or bodies being burned in the graves themselves as per Pfannensteil.

Archie's proposition in this thread is that all this is impossible or otherwise preposterous. To do that he has to take all these factors into account, eg the flattening / decomposition rates of a body buried in soil, versus bodies buried in other bodies so to speak. I don't think there's sufficient information here to make a strong judgement on impossibility, but if he wants let's do a deep dive on corpse flattening.

[borjastick]

Basically 33 40 kg bodies can fit in a cubic meter at perfect efficiency.

Bombs

Astonishing. Have you ever looked and a cubic meter?

[Archie]

Basically 33 40 kg bodies can fit in a cubic meter at perfect efficiency.

At 22 bodies per cubic meter, assuming 19k rather than the 21k grave space was used, the 430k number specified in Hoeffle is reached. This is assuming the bodies were placed in the graves instantaneously. But Belzec was operational over 9 months. Given the "flattening" of corpses over time, it seems possible this density (2/3s bodies, 1/3 "air") could be reached with corpses weighing down on each other, conforming as they decompose, even without considering volume loss due to decomposition, effects of quick lime, or bodies being burned in the graves themselves as per Pfannensteil.

Archie's proposition in this thread is that all this is impossible or otherwise preposterous. To do that he has to take all these factors into account, eg the flattening / decomposition rates of a body buried in soil, versus bodies buried in other bodies so to speak. I don't think there's sufficient information here to make a strong judgement on impossibility, but if he wants let's do a deep dive on corpse flattening.

Those numbers don't look right to me.

33*40 = 1,320 kg

A cubic meter of water weights 1,000 kg. The human body has about the same density as water, slightly less. Google says around 985 kg/m^3.

985/40 kg = 24.6 bodies

This would be if humans were rectangular and could be stacked perfectly.

Re: the point about burying bodies all at once vs spread out over time. In practice, I would think that you would tend to get better packing efficiency in former case, not worse. Think about it. Say you have a few thousand dying every week over a period of months. Are you going to throw them in an open pit and leave it open? I very much doubt it. Think of the smell, the wild animals and scavengers that would attract. Most likely you would cover the bodies with dirt. Hence, with the deaths more spread out, you would expect more dirt layers in between layers of bodies, lowering the effective burial volume.

Regarding decomposition effects, you are unsurprisingly assuming these would be huge but have presented no real support for this (only cherry-picked references). It is certainly true there will be some settling of the ground. This is why graves can often be seen from aerial photos. But what exactly are you envisioning here? Say we have a 3-4 meter deep grave. How much are asserting this would have sunk in a few months?

[bombsaway]

Basically 33 40 kg bodies can fit in a cubic meter at perfect efficiency.

Bombs

Astonishing. Have you ever looked and a cubic meter?

I made a mistake in my calculations here, the number is 25 in a cubic meter.

Therefore there would have to be 22/25 or close to 90% packing efficiency for those bodies to fit in the space of 19k cubic meters, which still might be conceivable based on corpses flattening and liquifying over time (this is assuming no volume loss).

But there is volume loss due to evaporation, additional volume loss to fluids seeping into soil, and bodies being burned in the graves. So I think the 2/3s (body to space) ratio could be achieved fairly easily.

The bodies flattening, liquifying, conforming to increase density is something revisionists have to account for if they're going to say the burial was impossible.

[borjastick]

The bodies flattening, liquifying, conforming to increase density is something revisionists have to account for if they're going to say the burial was impossible.

Not at the time of shortly after death and when being buried.

But to help you in your hilarious endeavour here's a list of other handy spaces into which 20-25 dead jews will fit:
The boot of my car
A 1968 Mini Cooper
Four average size suitcases
The cut grass box behind my ride-on tractor mower
My shower cubicle
The space under my double bed
A Tesla Truck rear seat area
At a push my Ninja double drawer air fryer
One of my wife's handbags

[bombsaway]

Re: the point about burying bodies all at once vs spread out over time. In practice, I would think that you would tend to get better packing efficiency in former case, not worse. Think about it. Say you have a few thousand dying every week over a period of months. Are you going to throw them in an open pit and leave it open? I very much doubt it. Think of the smell, the wild animals and scavengers that would attract. Most likely you would cover the bodies with dirt. Hence, with the deaths more spread out, you would expect more dirt layers in between layers of bodies, lowering the effective burial volume.

Corrected my post above actually.

In terms of witness testimony, yeah it suggests the pits were filled pretty quickly, with thin layer of soil on top, so thin, body parts are still sticking out at the tops. Then after a few days the corpses (which are also weighing down on one another) begin to flatten/burst, allowing the overall level to drop and then more bodies can be added. Bodies can also be burnt in the graves, as per Pfannensteil, which reduces overall volume due to moisture loss. Once a certain density is achieved, the grave is sealed.

[bombsaway]

But to help you in your hilarious endeavour here's a list of other handy spaces into which 20-25 dead jews will fit:
The boot of my car
A 1968 Mini Cooper
Four average size suitcases
The cut grass box behind my ride-on tractor mower
My shower cubicle
The space under my double bed
A Tesla Truck rear seat area
At a push my Ninja double drawer air fryer
One of my wife's handbags

You can make a joke of it, but yes, if your wife's handbag had 1 cubic meter of space, you could fit about 25 40kg bodies there at perfect packing efficiency. This is just science, sorry

[borjastick]

But to help you in your hilarious endeavour here's a list of other handy spaces into which 20-25 dead jews will fit:
The boot of my car
A 1968 Mini Cooper
Four average size suitcases
The cut grass box behind my ride-on tractor mower
My shower cubicle
The space under my double bed
A Tesla Truck rear seat area
At a push my Ninja double drawer air fryer
One of my wife's handbags

You can make a joke of it, but yes, if your wife's handbag had 1 cubic meter of space, you could fit about 25 40kg bodies there at perfect packing efficiency. This is just science, sorry

If you think that's science mate you really should double your daily pill routine. You clearly have no idea what a body looks like or a cubic meter.

[Numar Patru]

A local moving company has the following image on its website.

a_cubic_meter_of_furniture.jpg (85.75 KiB) Viewed 144 times

[bombsaway]

A local moving company has the following image on its website.



a_cubic_meter_of_furniture.jpg

Relying on "eyeballing" something is a silly heuristic anyway

Human density (exhaled) is 1020 kg / m 3 , this is measurable

[Archie]

Regarding decomposition effects, you are unsurprisingly assuming these would be huge but have presented no real support for this (only cherry-picked references). It is certainly true there will be some settling of the ground. This is why graves can often be seen from aerial photos. But what exactly are you envisioning here? Say we have a 3-4 meter deep grave. How much are asserting this would have sunk in a few months?

To add to this,

-In accounts of mass graves, I do not recall many descriptions of graves turning into huge craters after a few months. Does this actually happen? My impression is, no. No, it doesn't. I could see there being some settling over time. But for Belzec we would only be talking a few months for most of these graves.

-I knew some people once who had a sink hole open up in their yard. Apparently, the builder had buried construction debris there to save costs (this is usually illegal) and it eventually started to sink. But it happened very slowly. It was not noticed for decades. Organic material would presumably decay faster, but the point is these things don't happen immediately.