Revisionism's flawed methodology

[Nessie]

Here are the reasons why revisionism, or Holocaust Denial, is wrong. Its methodology, the reasoning it uses to reach a conclusion, is flawed on many levels.

1 - It cannot produce a contemporaneously evidenced, chronological, conclusive history of what happened. There are claims as to what happened, such as the AR camps were transit camps, property sorting centres, hygiene stations, or customs posts, or that the A-B Krema Liechenkellers were used for delousing clothing, showering people, to store corpses or used as air raid shelters. But, no evidence is provided to prove any of the various claims actually happened. When revisionists cannot agree on the purpose of camps and Kremas, and come up with widely varying purposes, they should realise that they are unable to produce a recognisable, believable history.

2 - It relies on obviously logically flawed arguments to claim all the witnesses lied. Just because there is an opinion that a witness is not believable, does not therefore prove they lied. Credibility and truthfulness are not the same. A credible person can be a total liar and vice versa. Belief is affected by bias, agendas, politics. When someone does not want to believe, they will come up with excuses to not believe. The argument from incredulity, as applied to the witnesses, is widely used and relied upon, despite it being a logical fallacy. Just because a revisionist cannot work out, or believe that mass pyres, as described by witnesses, would work, does not therefore mean it is proven there were no mass pyres.

3 - It is ignorant about witness behaviour and memory. When revisionists explain why they do not believe the witnesses, and notably, it is all of them, as not one person who worked inside an AR camp, Chelmno or A-B Krema is believed, they fail to take into account the studies of witnesses and memory, that explain why they say what they did. Witnesses make mistakes, memory fails, they are poor at estimating time, size and dimensions, repeat hearsay as if they saw what happened, are influenced by others, are inconsistent when asked to repeat testimony, the flaws in their evidence are well known and widely studied. Revisionists use all those issue to claim that proves all the witnesses lied, which is wrong, as the multiple studies prove.

4 - It is ignorant of and constantly lies about the evidence for gassings. Revisionists have to be constantly corrected and reminded about the evidence. A few revisionists have a good knowledge of the evidence, but none have the detail that historians do. A favourite is the revisionist claim that no mass graves have been traced at the AR camp or Chelmno. They suggest the ground at those sites is largely undisturbed, whereas the archaeological and forensic evidence proves that the Nazis did a lot of digging and burying of cremated and other human remains. Rather than repeat the deception that historians do not have evidence, revisionists would do better to accept there is evidence, which they do not believe.

5 - It acts as if they are experts who can peer-review experts, when they have no relevant training. An example of that is all the critiquing of the archaeological and forensic evidence for mass graves. No revisionist has any relevant training. They cannot find any archaeologist or forensic scientist who is prepared to support their claims.

6 - It does not consider the scale and impossibility of the hoax they claim. For all revisionism claims historians have no evidence, it is they who have no evidence that millions of Jews were still alive in Nazi captivity in 1944-5, were liberated in 1945 and then a hoax involving all the European governments (no matter their politics), universities and media, along with war crimes investigators, archivists and the millions of supposed survivors, has been perpetrated. Revisionists primarily suggest Jews and/or the Soviets ran the hoax. But, with so much anti-Semitism someone would have found evidence to blow the hoax. Also, it was the Polish, not the Soviets, who initially reported mass killings were taking place. The Soviets were not interested in Jewish suffering, they were the prime victims of the Nazis. There were no histories or memorials, and little publicity from the Soviets of the Holocaust. It was the Germans, West, East and unified, along with the Polish and Americans who ran the vast majority of the war crime trials of those who were directly involved in the killings. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, countries such as Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine have continued to admit to the role of their citizens and wartime officials in the killing of their Jewish populations. If it was a Soviet hoax, why would they do that? It would be in their new independent government's interests to blow the hoax and clear their national name.

7 - It has clear bias and agendas. Revisionist are right wing, conspiracy theorists who, with few exceptions, express anti-Semitic and racist views. They are ripe for believing and falling for the Holocaust Denial hoax.

[Archie]

I can't respond to the entirety of this very muddled post at this moment.

But a big flaw here is assuming there is a single "revisionist methodology." The reality is that revisionists have a number of different approaches (historical, scientific, demographic, etc) and you are not engaging with any of them.

And are you really going to play dumb and pretend there aren't flaws in the traditional Holocaust historiography? Go see what Pressac says about it. Spoiler: he gives a very negative assessment.

Eta: Here are a couple of quotes from Pressac from his 1995 interview with Igounet.

One is dismayed by the imbecilic explanations advanced in this business which, while spectacular, are minor points in the history of the camps. And when one studies the homicidal gassings which were practiced, in camp after camp there emerges an accumulation of silly things, each more stupid and dim-witted than the ones before it, which proves the pitiful level of science in concentration camp studies, based exclusively these days on the "sacrosanct" testimonies.

However, Reitlinger noted that the survivors had a tendency to exaggerate, the better to render comprehensible the despair of their lives in the camps, and that the figures advanced had to be drastically reduced. Whereas Reitlinger recognized that he could not explain certain episodes that contradicted what he thought was a systematic extermination planned in advance by the Nazis, Hilberg passed on these awkward details. Hilberg’s two less nuanced books carried the day and became classics of the genre, to the point that they eclipsed those of Reitlinger completely. Currently, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, one can buy ALL the books published on this subject EXCEPT those of Reitlinger! Rassinier attacked the work of Hilberg, but without success for lack of new documents or files. At the beginning of 1970, an American electrical engineer, Arthur R. Butz, was revolted by Hilberg’s argument which he saw as a gross fraud, so much so that he considered what is known as the “genocide of six million Jews” to be “The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century”, which became the title of his book of refutation, published in 1976. No more than Reitlinger, an artist and collector, or Hilberg, a political scientist, is Butz a historian. But he brought a scientific knowledge and spirit which the
traditional historians do not have, their background being literary. In addition, I think the recent “conversion” of the celebrated English historian David Irving to revisionism is also due to the excesses of the genocidal thesis shown by Hilberg.

In the interview, Pressac is scathing toward the mainstream ("pitiful level of science" etc) and surprisingly favorable toward revisionists like Butz and Mattogno. He made similar comments in his 1989 book, calling the traditional scholarship "bankrupt."

[borjastick]

It's a case of hear me, listen to me, believe me with the holocaustians like Nessie and the other believers who have never questioned anything in their lives. Have they even asked which came first, the chicken or the egg?

So much, and I mean a huge percentage of the holocaust story is based on what people heard or thought they heard, what others told them and what others think they saw and heard and we, according to those who must be obeyed should simply nod in agreement but we don't, we start with logic and practicalities and science and forensics and modern techniques, the like of which were not around when the holocaust happened.

They then usually do as is the case with this post by Himself demand that if we cannot prove where they went it is 100% proof that they were deaded and in the manner they wish us to believe. This is the work of children or numbskulls. The responsibility is not on us to do the Eric (Hunt) and agree that as we cannot show where they went, individually, in groups or en masse then they must have all been killed. It is preposterous. The same is being said to this day in israel/Gaza when claims of 30,000+++ dead Palestinians slaughtered by those ever so lovely israelis are disputed by er israel because the records are slim and no bodies have been counted or double counted.

The reality of all this is simple. jews love telling stories, they always have done. Stories like 'we are the chosen ones'. 'God gave us this land'. They also lie as we know in cases like the ashkenazis claiming to be historically connected to the holy land and real jews when we know they are not, they are 12th century converts.

Believers like the poster here are also pathologically opposed to seeing an historical event again with fresh eyes and allowing for technological advances and the truth naturally coming out over time. They will not bend or give an inch. Why? because any deviation from the 6m dead and gas chamber routine would fatally flaw them and their claims over the land we now call israel. They would be exposed as the shysters they really are. They always see zero evidence of their claims as complete evidence of their claims.

There's nothing flawed with the methodology which requires hard, verifiable evidence for claims such as those outrageous ones in the holocaust. I for one would be as shocked and as horrified as anyone alive today if I was to find that gas chambers and mass industrialized murder had taken place in these camps. But the evidence not only isn't there to support such claims, it does quite the opposite.

[Nessie]

I can't respond to the entirety of this very muddled post at this moment.

But a big flaw here is assuming there is a single "revisionist methodology." The reality is that revisionists have a number of different approaches (historical, scientific, demographic, etc) and you are not engaging with any of them.

I present 7 flaws in revisionist methodology, keeping each explanation short and simple, dealing with different approaches revisionists use. I concentrate on the historic for the obvious reason that we are dealing with history.

And are you really going to play dumb and pretend there aren't flaws in the traditional Holocaust historiography? Go see what Pressac says about it. Spoiler: he gives a very negative assessment.

Eta: Here are a couple of quotes from Pressac from his 1995 interview with Igounet.

One is dismayed by the imbecilic explanations advanced in this business which, while spectacular, are minor points in the history of the camps. And when one studies the homicidal gassings which were practiced, in camp after camp there emerges an accumulation of silly things, each more stupid and dim-witted than the ones before it, which proves the pitiful level of science in concentration camp studies, based exclusively these days on the "sacrosanct" testimonies.

However, Reitlinger noted that the survivors had a tendency to exaggerate, the better to render comprehensible the despair of their lives in the camps, and that the figures advanced had to be drastically reduced. Whereas Reitlinger recognized that he could not explain certain episodes that contradicted what he thought was a systematic extermination planned in advance by the Nazis, Hilberg passed on these awkward details. Hilberg’s two less nuanced books carried the day and became classics of the genre, to the point that they eclipsed those of Reitlinger completely. Currently, at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, one can buy ALL the books published on this subject EXCEPT those of Reitlinger! Rassinier attacked the work of Hilberg, but without success for lack of new documents or files. At the beginning of 1970, an American electrical engineer, Arthur R. Butz, was revolted by Hilberg’s argument which he saw as a gross fraud, so much so that he considered what is known as the “genocide of six million Jews” to be “The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century”, which became the title of his book of refutation, published in 1976. No more than Reitlinger, an artist and collector, or Hilberg, a political scientist, is Butz a historian. But he brought a scientific knowledge and spirit which the
traditional historians do not have, their background being literary. In addition, I think the recent “conversion” of the celebrated English historian David Irving to revisionism is also due to the excesses of the genocidal thesis shown by Hilberg.

In the interview, Pressac is scathing toward the mainstream ("pitiful level of science" etc) and surprisingly favorable toward revisionists like Butz and Mattogno. He made similar comments in his 1989 book, calling the traditional scholarship "bankrupt."

Rather than defend revisionist methodology, you attack how history is investigated. The Holocaust is investigated in the same way any history is, by gathering evidence from contemporaneous sources. The supposed scientific flaw raised, both acknowledges and misses the point that history is not science. Historians are not investigating how the gas chambers worked at A-B. Instead, they gather evidence to establish if the claims that gas chambers were used to kill people are true or not. That is achieved by collating witness, documentary, physical and circumstantial evidence from the period in time that the gas chambers were alleged to have operated. It cannot be achieved by working out how the gas chambers functioned. A scientist, who gives an opinion on the functionality of gas chambers, is not evidencing whether they were constructed and used. Even if the scientist, for example Germar Rudolf, states that in their opinion, the gas chambers as described, and from other evidence, could not have functioned, that is their opinion, it is not evidence of fact. A historian (indeed anyone) faced with a choice over an opinion and what is evidenced to have taken place, should go with the evidence. The evidential and logical conclusion is that Rudolf's incredulity about the functioning of the gas chambers is wrong, and the Topf & Sons engineers did, as they claimed, design functioning homicidal gas chambers. Modifying an existing design so that a room could be used as a gas chamber, was well within German design and engineering capabilities in the 1940s.

Pressac's initial approach was also to assess the functionality of gas chambers, based on the evidence available. His initial scepticism changed as he saw the volume of evidence, from witnesses, documents etc that homicidal gassings did in fact take place. I think that he realised the logical flaw in the argument made by revisionists, that since they could not believe a gas chamber could work as described, therefore all the witnesses lied. The evidence, as it should, trumped his opinion.

Butz fails to produce evidence of his claims as to what was happening inside the Kremas II to V in 1943-4. In a thread on another forum, I said;

"Chapter 8 "Remarks". Butz states;

"However, our task here is precisely to bury the legend, and the only way to do that is by considering the story that has been advanced, and this amounts to analyzing the case put forward by Reitlinger and Hilberg. The only practical way of exposing the hoax is by considering the claims that have been put forward by the extermination mythologists."

Butz is wrong. He is ignoring that normally, with history, when events are disputed, evidence of what did happen is provided. There would now be two competing versions, each evidenced by witnesses, documents etc. Butz version is to dispute the evidence, which then leaves a gaping hole of nothingness, a claim that there were no mass gassings, but not what took place instead. No witnesses, documents etc that show an alternate version."

His work is a non-history, where he raises his doubts, as if that is evidence to prove no gassings. Revisionists have been copying his flawed arguments ever since.

[Archie]

Nessie has strung together a lot of nonsense that would take hours to rebut point by point. And it is especially a waste of time since many of these arguments do not even really reflect the mainstream side at all. Why bother responding to someone who says a bunch of stuff nobody else would endorse?

1 - It cannot produce a contemporaneously evidenced, chronological, conclusive history of what happened. There are claims as to what happened, such as the AR camps were transit camps, property sorting centres, hygiene stations, or customs posts, or that the A-B Krema Liechenkellers were used for delousing clothing, showering people, to store corpses or used as air raid shelters. But, no evidence is provided to prove any of the various claims actually happened. When revisionists cannot agree on the purpose of camps and Kremas, and come up with widely varying purposes, they should realise that they are unable to produce a recognisable, believable history.

If we have a shower room, the Bayesian prior is that people took showers in it. Unless you have 24/7 surveillance footage, it obviously isn't possible to know or prove exactly what happened every second of every day in a particular room. Such indeterminacy doesn't mean we can't reject preposterous or extraordinary claims with reasonably high confidence.

Suppose I accuse you, Nessie, of having a "rape dungeon" in your basement. And then I say you have to prove "what really happened" in your basement and if you can't do it to my satisfaction then you're guilty. Most people would not be able to prove "what happened" in every particular because things are often not documented to such an extent.

Say we are debating Santa Claus. We can debunk Santa Claus using science, logic, and history. You could try to go further and try to prove who bought all the presents, but this is not necessary. And often the information needed to go further is not available.

In general terms, what you are saying is that if there is some claim X, we cannot reject X, no matter how absurd, if the alternative hypotheses would have any indeterminacy or uncertainty. Uncertainty in history is normal.

[Archie]

2 - It relies on obviously logically flawed arguments to claim all the witnesses lied. Just because there is an opinion that a witness is not believable, does not therefore prove they lied. Credibility and truthfulness are not the same. A credible person can be a total liar and vice versa. Belief is affected by bias, agendas, politics. When someone does not want to believe, they will come up with excuses to not believe. The argument from incredulity, as applied to the witnesses, is widely used and relied upon, despite it being a logical fallacy. Just because a revisionist cannot work out, or believe that mass pyres, as described by witnesses, would work, does not therefore mean it is proven there were no mass pyres.

Can you quote for me where a revisionist has said that "all the witnesses lied"? About everything? Some things? All of your arguments are so imprecise and poorly defined.

Revisionists have argued for example that the gas chambers at Majdanek, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, etc are mythical. By implication, this would mean the witnesses claiming gas chambers are incorrect, not necessarily lying in all cases. Some could be confused, etc.

Anytime you say X is false it implies that "all" the people saying X are wrong. Not an argument.

I've debunked your arguments about witness credibility not being important in prior discussions.

"Just because a revisionist cannot work out, or believe that mass pyres, as described by witnesses, would work, does not therefore mean it is proven there were no mass pyres."

If NOBODY on the planet can work it out because the math doesn't work then that is indeed a very good reason to think it did not happen.

"Just because you can't work out how Santa Claus goes to so many houses doesn't mean it can't happen." Actually it does.

[Nessie]

Nessie has strung together a lot of nonsense that would take hours to rebut point by point. And it is especially a waste of time since many of these arguments do not even really reflect the mainstream side at all. Why bother responding to someone who says a bunch of stuff nobody else would endorse?

1 - It cannot produce a contemporaneously evidenced, chronological, conclusive history of what happened. There are claims as to what happened, such as the AR camps were transit camps, property sorting centres, hygiene stations, or customs posts, or that the A-B Krema Liechenkellers were used for delousing clothing, showering people, to store corpses or used as air raid shelters. But, no evidence is provided to prove any of the various claims actually happened. When revisionists cannot agree on the purpose of camps and Kremas, and come up with widely varying purposes, they should realise that they are unable to produce a recognisable, believable history.

If we have a shower room, the Bayesian prior is that people took showers in it. Unless you have 24/7 surveillance footage, it obviously isn't possible to know or prove exactly what happened every second of every day in a particular room. Such indeterminacy doesn't mean we can't reject preposterous or extraordinary claims with reasonably high confidence.

Suppose I accuse you, Nessie, of having a "rape dungeon" in your basement. And then I say you have to prove "what really happened" in your basement and if you can't do it to my satisfaction then you're guilty. Most people would not be able to prove "what happened" in every particular because things are often not documented to such an extent.

Say we are debating Santa Claus. We can debunk Santa Claus using science, logic, and history. You could try to go further and try to prove who bought all the presents, but this is not necessary. And often the information needed to go further is not available.

In general terms, what you are saying is that if there is some claim X, we cannot reject X, no matter how absurd, if the alternative hypotheses would have any indeterminacy or uncertainty. Uncertainty in history is normal.

You are proving my point that revisionists cannot produce an evidenced history of what happened. Instead, they try to argue their case.

Regarding your "Bayesian prior", Mattogno suggested that since shower fittings were recorded in an inventory for a Krema, that is evidence showering likely took place. However, there is corrobroating evidence, not just for the Kremas, that gas chambers were made to look like showers, as part of the deception to get people to cooperate and strip. No revisionist can produce any witness or other evidence to prove that mass showering did in fact take place.

As for your "rape dungeon" analogy, I will change that to to an allegation that the British were gassing German internees on the Isle of Man during the war. I can prove that did not happen, by evidencing the survival of the Germans sent there and statements from them that do not reference any disappearences, rumours of gassing, or seeing gassings take place. I would be able to evidence the actual purpose of any building/room that was alleged to have been used for gassings. Revisionists cannot do that with the A-B Kremas or bunker gas chambers.

The Santa Claus argument you make, is similar to the retort I hve often received, about a boy cycling to the moon. Science can indeed prove it is impossible for Santa to cover the world in one night delivering presents from a sleigh, and that a boy cannot defy gravity and peddle his bike to the moon. Germans modifying a room inside an crematorium by fitting gas tight doors, holes in the roof, a mesh column and improved ventilation, is well within their design and engineering capabilities. Just because revisionists are unhappy with the witness descriptions and documents about those modifications, does not therefore prove no gas chambers. Science does not help your argument like you think it does.

[Nazgul]

Revisionist are right wing, conspiracy theorists who, with few exceptions, express anti-Semitic and racist views. They are ripe for believing and falling for the Holocaust Denial hoax.

Verbal tropes that have little meaning exept in the skull of this true believer. This individual categorizes anyone who disagrees with his rather limited world view as a "denier". Even when discussing evidence he demands evidence then repeatedly spirals out of control, reversing the burden of proof.

The above quote is a fine example of his over generalizations, which echo in a very hollow space.

Just because revisionists are unhappy with the witness descriptions and documents about those modifications, does not therefore prove no gas chambers. Science does not help your argument like you think it does.

If something cannot be replicated then it probably never happened, such is science. This was the case with "cold fusion" it is also the case with the mass cremations as described by the likes of Wiernik and others.

[fireofice]

As for your "rape dungeon" analogy, I will change that to to an allegation that the British were gassing German internees on the Isle of Man during the war. I can prove that did not happen, by evidencing the survival of the Germans sent there and statements from them that do not reference any disappearences, rumours of gassing, or seeing gassings take place. I would be able to evidence the actual purpose of any building/room that was alleged to have been used for gassings. Revisionists cannot do that with the A-B Kremas or bunker gas chambers.

So we just have to accept whatever witnesses say and that's that? We can't cross examine them? So if you get accused of rape we just have to accept it? That's completely insane. Even in courts, we can cross examine witnesses and we're dealing with a lower standard than courts here (trust me if we used court standards, your side would be screwed). We know people say false things. Your attitude is very dangerous.

This is Nessie:

Feminist #MeToo Rally

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Feminist #MeToo Rally

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[Nessie]

2 - It relies on obviously logically flawed arguments to claim all the witnesses lied. Just because there is an opinion that a witness is not believable, does not therefore prove they lied. Credibility and truthfulness are not the same. A credible person can be a total liar and vice versa. Belief is affected by bias, agendas, politics. When someone does not want to believe, they will come up with excuses to not believe. The argument from incredulity, as applied to the witnesses, is widely used and relied upon, despite it being a logical fallacy. Just because a revisionist cannot work out, or believe that mass pyres, as described by witnesses, would work, does not therefore mean it is proven there were no mass pyres.

Can you quote for me where a revisionist has said that "all the witnesses lied"? About everything? Some things? All of your arguments are so imprecise and poorly defined.

I kept the OP simple, as a start to the debate, which is best dealt with in detail, in parts.

According to revisionism, every single witness who say that they saw (that is seen with their own eyes, not rumours they heard about) gassings, lied. "Liewitnesses" is a descriptive I have seen a lot.

Revisionists have argued for example that the gas chambers at Majdanek, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, etc are mythical. By implication, this would mean the witnesses claiming gas chambers are incorrect, not necessarily lying in all cases. Some could be confused, etc.

It is hard to see how a person who worked at a gas chambers could be confused about its purpose. No one who worked inside the Kremas would confuse a Leichenkeller that was being used for gassings, for one that was actually being used as a bomb shelter, a use suggested by Arthur Butz.

Anytime you say X is false it implies that "all" the people saying X are wrong. Not an argument.

It is the revisionist argument about the gas chambers. Some also say the same about mass shootings such as at Babi Yar, claiming no such shootings took place, so by default, all the witnesses who say they saw shootings, are lying.

I've debunked your arguments about witness credibility not being important in prior discussions.

No you have not. Maybe we can have another topic on that, as you have missed the issue that credibility and truthfulness are different. Just because someone is not credible, for example, because they are prone to exaggeration and use of emotive descriptions, does not therefore mean they are lying.

"Just because a revisionist cannot work out, or believe that mass pyres, as described by witnesses, would work, does not therefore mean it is proven there were no mass pyres."

If NOBODY on the planet can work it out because the math doesn't work then that is indeed a very good reason to think it did not happen.

"Just because you can't work out how Santa Claus goes to so many houses doesn't mean it can't happen." Actually it does.

Nobody on the planet has tried to exhume and cremate thousands of naked, decomposing corpses on pyres. There are near equivalents, such as the pyres at Dresden, but the corpses were clothed and had barely started to decompose. I can believe the witness descriptions, since what they describe works in the same way a BBQ, or fire trench works. They will easily set fire to flesh, fat and bone if not properly tended. Keep the wood separate from the corpses and it burns to embers, which is the hottest form of wood fire, that can get to over 1000 degrees centigrade, which has a ready supply of oxygen getting in under the corpses on the grate, will set corpses on fire. We know that because of cremation figures. That many of the corpses had been buried, had started to decompose, releasing liquids and gas under pressure from the corpses above, will affect how they burn. But any sort of flesh, bone and certainly fat, will burn at those sorts of temperatures.

The logical fallacy of argument from incredulity applies to corpses on pyres and not Santa, because the pyres are well within the realms of what is possible, based on examples of other pyres and what will set a corpse alight, whereas the claims about Santa are physically impossible to achieve. You are using a second logical fallacy of false comparison, as you are comparing what is possible, with what is not.

[Nessie]

As for your "rape dungeon" analogy, I will change that to to an allegation that the British were gassing German internees on the Isle of Man during the war. I can prove that did not happen, by evidencing the survival of the Germans sent there and statements from them that do not reference any disappearences, rumours of gassing, or seeing gassings take place. I would be able to evidence the actual purpose of any building/room that was alleged to have been used for gassings. Revisionists cannot do that with the A-B Kremas or bunker gas chambers.

So we just have to accept whatever witnesses say and that's that?

No. Their truthfulness needs to be established and the method used by lawyers, the police, historians and journalists is corroboration. Does evidence independent of the witness support, or contradict, their claim? If there is evidence to support, the witness is corroborated and their truthfulness established. But, beware, that is not the case in all instances. Two witness can agree to cooperate and corroborate about something they are lying about. That is why, when Nazis and Jews, who would not cooperate, corroborate each other, their truthfulness is established. Better again, to have other evidence, such as documents, that corroborate the witnesses.

We can't cross examine them? So if you get accused of rape we just have to accept it? That's completely insane. Even in courts, we can cross examine witnesses and we're dealing with a lower standard than courts here (trust me if we used court standards, your side would be screwed). We know people say false things. Your attitude is very dangerous...

The reason why the Jewish witnesses who gave evidence against the Nazis tried for their roles in the mass murders, were rarely subject to cross-examination to establish their truthfulness, was that the Nazis on trial had admitted to the mass murders. A defence lawyer cannot call a witness a liar in court, when their client admits to the crime alleged. An example where Jewish witnesses were cross-examined and accused of being liars, was the trial of John Demjanjuk. He denied being at Sobibor and witnesses who claimed to be able to identify him as being "Ivan the Terrible" were accused of lying. The defence could do that, because their client denied the crime he was accused of.

Your rape analogy is false, as that is not how witnesses and accused have been dealt with. If you used "court standards" you need to take into account that your client has admitted to the crime they have been accused of, so you cannot claim the witnesses to the criminal act are lying. If your client admits to having sex with the complainer, but insists the sex was consensual, you cannot accuse the complainer of lying that sex happened. The Nazi admitted the gassings happened and used defences such as they acted under coercion, which worked for the Belzec camp staff trial and most of the Nazis accused were acquitted, or that they were not directly responsible for the deaths and that at the time, what they were doing was not illegal.

[Nazgul]

Nobody on the planet has tried to exhume and cremate thousands of naked, decomposing corpses on pyres.

This just based on witnesses. no hard evidence, just he said, she said without hard corroborating evidence. In most courts of the world this is not accepted ; no conviction. We will not discuss Nurenberg here.

[Archie]

No. Their truthfulness needs to be established and the method used by lawyers, the police, historians and journalists is corroboration. Does evidence independent of the witness support, or contradict, their claim? If there is evidence to support, the witness is corroborated and their truthfulness established. But, beware, that is not the case in all instances. Two witness can agree to cooperate and corroborate about something they are lying about. That is why, when Nazis and Jews, who would not cooperate, corroborate each other, their truthfulness is established. Better again, to have other evidence, such as documents, that corroborate the witnesses.

Revisionists use corroboration all the time. And guess what? When we fact check what the witnesses claim against hard evidence, the witnesses fail on many points. For example, Hoess "confessed" to exterminating 3 million people at Auschwitz. that figure is totally impossible. He claims he visited Treblinka before the camp existed. And so on.

Revisionists use corroboration. It is the mainstream that fails to fact check things. What they do is harmonization. They take a bunch of contradictory stories and try their best to create a semi-coherent story out of it.

Revisionists also consider credibility of witnesses and this is perfectly normal. Your claim that credibility of witnesses does not matter is utterly absurd and at odds with all established standards of practice in law and history. If we know that a witness is lying about A, B, and C, then generally speaking we probably don't want to take their word for it on E, F, and G. This is just common sense, Nessie. If a witness has been shown to unreliable, that matters. This is so obvious you shouldn't need to have it explained to you.

[Archie]

The logical fallacy of argument from incredulity applies to corpses on pyres and not Santa, because the pyres are well within the realms of what is possible, based on examples of other pyres and what will set a corpse alight, whereas the claims about Santa are physically impossible to achieve. You are using a second logical fallacy of false comparison, as you are comparing what is possible, with what is not.

Nessie, you need to do better than this if you want to post here. Your arguments are too generic. The purpose of this forum is to debate the evidence. You're not doing that. You're just making one sweeping assertion after another. "Burning corpses on pyres is possible. Therefore 1.5M people were burned on pyres at the AR camps." Nobody claims that burning corpses is impossible. But you aren't claiming a few bodies. You are claiming millions of bodies were burned. You are trying to settle the forensic problems without doing any calculations or science, and you are trying to settle the witness critique issues without analyzing any testimony. Unacceptable. All you do is invoke overly broad rules/overly vague arguments that you made up and cite these over and over as grounds to dismiss revisionist conclusions out of hand.

The Santa example is extreme, but there's no reason we can't use similar techniques and reasoning (e.g., basic arithmetic) to analyze and reject other claims, whether they are outright impossible or merely wildly implausible. That something is conceivably possible does not mean it's true.. If you tell me that you are 8 feet tall, that is not strictly impossible. There are humans who have been that tall. But it is exceedingly rare. The probability that you would be lying would be vastly greater than the probability that you are really 8 feet tall. So it is rational and justified to reject the claim and to only revise that conclusion once we are presented with sufficient evidence to the contrary.

[Nessie]

No. Their truthfulness needs to be established and the method used by lawyers, the police, historians and journalists is corroboration. Does evidence independent of the witness support, or contradict, their claim? If there is evidence to support, the witness is corroborated and their truthfulness established. But, beware, that is not the case in all instances. Two witness can agree to cooperate and corroborate about something they are lying about. That is why, when Nazis and Jews, who would not cooperate, corroborate each other, their truthfulness is established. Better again, to have other evidence, such as documents, that corroborate the witnesses.

Revisionists use corroboration all the time. And guess what? When we fact check what the witnesses claim against hard evidence, the witnesses fail on many points. For example, Hoess "confessed" to exterminating 3 million people at Auschwitz. that figure is totally impossible. He claims he visited Treblinka before the camp existed. And so on.

They are not examples of corroboration. They are examples of my point 3, that revisionists fail to take into account the studies that explain witness behaviour, recall, estimations and memory. Hoess overestimated how many died and got the dates wrong as to when he visited the camp. That is to be expected, as studies have proved we are not great at estimating numbers and fitting events into time. If you were asked when you had visited certain places in the past, would you get them all correct? Tests show that you would likely get some wrong.

Revisionists use corroboration.

Hoess is corroborated by every single Nazi and all the Jews forced to work inside the Kremas, along with the documents found at the camp construction office, the testimony of the Topf & Sons engineers and the circumstantial evidence of mass arrivals, selections and all the people, whose record of existence ends inside the camp. Revisionists do not provide a corroborated, evidenced, chronological history of the Kremas. They cannot provide one single witness, let alone corroboration for that witness to prove the various suggested uses of the Kremas in 1943 to 1944, corpse storage, delousing, mass showering and air raid shelters.

It is the mainstream that fails to fact check things. What they do is harmonization. They take a bunch of contradictory stories and try their best to create a semi-coherent story out of it.

None of the witnesses who worked at the A-B Kremas contradict each other. They all describe undressing, gassings and cremations. Their accounts vary, but that is to be expected, as the studies of witness behaviour and memory show.

Revisionists also consider credibility of witnesses and this is perfectly normal. Your claim that credibility of witnesses does not matter is utterly absurd and at odds with all established standards of practice in law and history. If we know that a witness is lying about A, B, and C, then generally speaking we probably don't want to take their word for it on E, F, and G. This is just common sense, Nessie. If a witness has been shown to unreliable, that matters. This is so obvious you shouldn't need to have it explained to you.

I do not claim that credibility does not matter. Unreliable witnesses are not as trustworthy as reliable ones. My point is that truthfulness is most important and that should be assessed neutrally, using evidence, not by opinion on credibility. When you say a witness is lying about A, B and C, I usually disagree, because of the studies that prove the witness is likely making mistakes of recollection. So, Hoess did not lie about the death toll or when he visited Treblinka, he overestimated or exaggerated the death toll and misremembered when he visited the camp. We can still take is word for it on E, F and G. Revisionist flawed methodology for assessing witnesses, continually fails to prove lying.