"Direct" vs "indirect" arguments and evidence

[Callafangers]

The Reinhard camps appear to be the weak spot, one reason being because there aren't clear-cut documents referencing gassing as there are for Auschwitz and Chelmno, but they're bracketed by the other camps and the wider east with numerous mass shootings through to the Caucasus, and tied in to the rest of the history in various ways.

How are AR camps the "weak spot" when the physical evidence is allegedly right underneath the ground there? It's a "weak spot" by choice of those in power. All of this could be resolved with a proper excavation. Who is preventing one (rhetorical question, don't bother)?

[bombsaway]

The Reinhard camps appear to be the weak spot, one reason being because there aren't clear-cut documents referencing gassing as there are for Auschwitz and Chelmno, but they're bracketed by the other camps and the wider east with numerous mass shootings through to the Caucasus, and tied in to the rest of the history in various ways.

How are AR camps the "weak spot" when the physical evidence is allegedly right underneath the ground there? It's a "weak spot" by choice of those in power. All of this could be resolved with a proper excavation. Who is preventing one (rhetorical question, don't bother)?

I would imagine Sanity is referring to the documentary case only.

[Archie]

One problem here is the discussion especially from the 'revisionist' side keeps slipping to the Reinhard camps only, as in your post above which mentioned BST and did not mention Auschwitz, Chelmno, the other KZs, T4 or the mass shootings.

If you haven't noticed by now, I am definitely not a "camp" specialist guy. I tend to look at broader themes.

It's funny you say revisionists are too focused on AR because traditionally the complaint was that revisionists focus too much on Auschwitz.

The reason I mentioned Treblinka in that instance was because that is the most dramatic example of where we should absolutely expect the physical proof to be right there in the ground. At Auschwitz it's claimed that most of the bodies were burned immediately so it's not quite as good an example for the point I was making.

[bombsaway]

Who Controls the Evidence?

"The evidence" doesn't exist in a vacuum. Especially with something like testimonies, most of the ones that are available exist because somebody collected them for a purpose. Understanding that context and selection bias is essential and this point is never addressed on your side. At all. The effort that went into the Nuremberg prosecution and other trials is huge and it dwarfs the cumulative efforts and resources of revisionists many times over. And since then I think it's fair to say that by the time a revisionist gets to see something, an army of Jewish scholars etc have probably picked it over several times. There has possibly been some suppression of documents. The Germans could have destroyed some documents and obviously would done so selectively. And the Allies might have had some incentive to suppress or at the very least not publicize inconvenient documents.

Out of curiosity, would your belief about the Holocaust change if it was made clear to you somehow that there was no "control of evidence", that no one was suppressing documents and witnesses, that perpetrators who confessed did so under no extrajudicial pressure (the trials were conducted "fairly" in terms of how law conventionally operated in liberal democracies), that individual witnesses were not instructed or incentivized to lie, that documents weren't fabricated, that the archeologists who studied the sites weren't told to lie, etc

[Callafangers]

Out of curiosity, would your belief about the Holocaust change if it was made clear to you somehow that there was no "control of evidence",

But there necessarily was, as is the nature of victorious powers gaining complete and full control over the lands they conquer. From former Senator Robert Taft:

The trial of the vanquished by the victors cannot be impartial no matter how it is hedged about with the forms of justice.

that no one was suppressing documents and witnesses,

Not even the East German trials?

that perpetrators who confessed did so under no extrajudicial pressure (the trials were conducted "fairly" in terms of how law conventionally operated in liberal democracies),

As in, having their families under the police/military control and administration of an enemy power that is proven, in some cases, to have threatened the families of these alleged 'perpetrators'?

that individual witnesses were not instructed or incentivized to lie,

Then why are their stories so inconsistent? Why did some 'deny the Holocaust'? Also, see last above.

that documents weren't fabricated

But some documents were definitely fabricated (the Katyn report alone had 100 signatures from false witnesses, all lying about events they claim occured which did not).

that the archeologists who studied the sites weren't told to lie, etc

Revisionists, from what I have seen, are generally far more charitable in interpreting archaeological reports and findings precisely because these are ostensibly more independent than other sources/efforts (and the value of physical evidence, overall). But even if these archaeologists are unanimously honest and well-intentioned, biases (driven by decades of mendacious/defamatory propaganda) will persist in terms of what they expect to find or otherwise deem relevant, which can skew methodology or focus areas, omissions, etc. within their reports.

[bombsaway]

But there necessarily was,

Try to imagine being wrong about this. It might be an interesting exercise for you. On my end I can imagine being wrong and it turns out whatever you've said about control of evidence is correct. I would deeply question the mainstream view if I knew there was concerted effort to fabricate documents, coerce and instruct witnesses, suppress documents and other witnesses. Honestly I would become a revisionist, because it doesn't make sense that there would be a need to fabricate evidence if a crime of this magnitude really did happen.

I wonder if you guys would go the other way.

[Callafangers]

But there necessarily was,

Try to imagine being wrong about this. It might be an interesting exercise for you. On my end I can imagine being wrong and it turns out whatever you've said about control of evidence is correct. I would deeply question the mainstream view if I knew there was concerted effort to fabricate documents, coerce and instruct witnesses, suppress documents and other witnesses. Honestly I would become a revisionist, because it doesn't make sense that there would be a need to fabricate evidence if a crime of this magnitude really did happen.

I wonder if you guys would go the other way.

bombsaway, do you know what "necessarily" means? The Allies (and their Jews) did, in fact, indisputably have control over Germany, German people, former German-held locations, etc. This is not even remotely in question by anyone.

So if you're asking for a playful thought experiment that runs completely contrary to reality, please explain your reasoning.

[bombsaway]

But there necessarily was,

Try to imagine being wrong about this. It might be an interesting exercise for you. On my end I can imagine being wrong and it turns out whatever you've said about control of evidence is correct. I would deeply question the mainstream view if I knew there was concerted effort to fabricate documents, coerce and instruct witnesses, suppress documents and other witnesses. Honestly I would become a revisionist, because it doesn't make sense that there would be a need to fabricate evidence if a crime of this magnitude really did happen.

I wonder if you guys would go the other way.

bombsaway, do you know what "necessarily" means? The Allies (and their Jews) did, in fact, indisputably have control over Germany, German people, former German-held locations, etc. This is not even remotely in question by anyone.

So if you're asking for a playful thought experiment that runs completely contrary to reality, please explain your reasoning.

The "necessarily" was in reference to control of evidence, as in some kind manipulation. I would agree that it is necessarily true they did the capacity to manipulate, what I am saying is that it isn't necessarily true that they actually did manipulate evidence in the ways I specified in my original post

suppressing documents and witnesses
witnesses were instructed or incentivized to lie
documents fabricated
archeologists instructed to lie

in reference to the Holocaust (Katyn was not the Holocaust, so that's a separate issue)

So this is the basis of my hypothetical, and note again how easy it was for me to answer the converse, and accept your view.

[SanityCheck]

The Reinhard camps appear to be the weak spot, one reason being because there aren't clear-cut documents referencing gassing as there are for Auschwitz and Chelmno, but they're bracketed by the other camps and the wider east with numerous mass shootings through to the Caucasus, and tied in to the rest of the history in various ways.

How are AR camps the "weak spot" when the physical evidence is allegedly right underneath the ground there? It's a "weak spot" by choice of those in power. All of this could be resolved with a proper excavation. Who is preventing one (rhetorical question, don't bother)?

I would imagine Sanity is referring to the documentary case only.

Correct.

[SanityCheck]

One problem here is the discussion especially from the 'revisionist' side keeps slipping to the Reinhard camps only, as in your post above which mentioned BST and did not mention Auschwitz, Chelmno, the other KZs, T4 or the mass shootings.

If you haven't noticed by now, I am definitely not a "camp" specialist guy. I tend to look at broader themes.

It's funny you say revisionists are too focused on AR because traditionally the complaint was that revisionists focus too much on Auschwitz.

The reason I mentioned Treblinka in that instance was because that is the most dramatic example of where we should absolutely expect the physical proof to be right there in the ground. At Auschwitz it's claimed that most of the bodies were burned immediately so it's not quite as good an example for the point I was making.

Up to about twenty years ago, 'revisionists' did indeed focus mainly on Auschwitz, there was a larger research community with more authors writing on it, then Irving vs Lipstadt happened and the old IHR community disintegrated or this coincided with some taking a back seat.

Then Mattogno et al focused more extensively on the Reinhard camps, and this struck a chord. There is a further irony in that Mattogno continued to publish mostly on Auschwitz, it's just that his recent Auschwitz books have not stimulated much further discussion or had a really big influence from what I have seen. There are now probably too many of them (also with a lot of repetition between volumes), so it becomes a big job to digest all of the material and arguments, reducing their appeal compared to the usually slimmer volumes on the Reinhard camps, which also have their video cribs, etc. I think this also applies to some anti-deniers (you likely can guess who I am thinking of).

Rudolf, Dalton and the other remaining authors, as well as lengthy precedent, have tended to isolate the camps from each other and from the surrounding themes - the regions, deportations, shootings and yes, trials/investigations. Or there is a bit of a grab bag of claims which come from all over.

There have certainly been exceptions to this observation, I doubt I would have replied to you as much if you'd not displayed more curiosity across themes.

As for Auschwitz crematoria vs Treblinka as a crime scene, it's true that the set up at Auschwitz with ash disposal into the river negates the possibility of surveying the site and quantifying anything from the remains. There were extensive burials in Birkenau until autumn 1942, by Hoess's account around 107,000 corpses, including 'natural' deaths of Birkenau prisoners and the Soviet POWs, as well as the first victims in summer 1942 of the 'Bunkers'. Then these bodies were exhumed and cremation became continuous, either in the open air or in the new crematoria from March 1943 onwards. While they defaulted back to open air cremation at peak times, the crematoria could cope with the scale for the rest of the time, even if only two were operational.

Treblinka as a crime scene was heavily compromised in 1944-45 by the grave-robbing. While that brought human remains to the surface, it made it harder to be very clear in 1945 on the dimensions of the former grave areas. The 1945 investigation dug deep and the graves evidently had much depth; the area of worst ash brought to the surface was reported as very large - many hectares. The photos from 1945 plus earlier sources should confirm to reasonable people that there had been mass graves there and that there had been mass cremation. But to have identified anything which could determine scale 'conclusively' I think this was not so possible.

One problem for 'revisionists' is the legacy of Richard Krege's GPR scans which overstated the lack of disturbance of the ground and fuelled a 'no mass graves' line even if Krege himself was not being brought into the fold or touted more generally. The non-appearance of that 'report' remains a big problem. Critics were noting that the published GPR scans, if they were really from Krege and from Treblinka, did in fact show ground disturbances. Krege also had the bad luck of touting his argument at a time when the Reinhard camps were beginning to be investigated archaeologically using new methods, bore probes and GPR.

But Treblinka as a site has further problems from a conventional perspective as well as for 'revisionist' claims, due to the location of the memorials opened in 1964. The timing of this meant that the Polish authorities were likely entirely innocent of the potential for Holocaust denial in the future - Rassinier was about it at this time, and his grasp of Poland was pretty poor, he confused Trzebinia with Treblinka in one book. So they did not realise they would be preventing the kind of survey effort Kola did for Belzec in the 1990s, before a memorial was layered over the former grave areas.

So I don't think one can draw very firm conclusions, whereas this seems more realistic for Belzec and Sobibor based on recent archaeology. Although it's quite probable that the grave shapes and capacities at Belzec have been underestimated a little, this is a matter of degree. Even with the problematic memorial stones getting in the way at Treblinka, the 1940s investigation and photos plus recent archaeology/GPR have identified enough mass graves and evidence of mass cremation to refute the 'no mass graves' line. But it's the pattern across the camps (BCST) which is more impressive.

If Treblinka was truly anomalous in not having enough space or fuel for the pyres or whatever variable is emphasised, then this would be very odd, and in this case it would be a lot easier and more convincing to find evidence of 'resettlement' or onward transit or siphoning off of workers for camps on the way. But this hasn't been forthcoming, thus the impasse and merry-go-round.