"Soviet reports are irrelevant" - only primary sources matter (Wrong)

[Nessie]

Revisionists can inexpertly nitpick over the witness testimony, sometimes finding legitimate faults and sometimes finding fault where there is none, but they cannot counter the level of corroboration and the lack of alternative testimony.

Instead of just discussing evidence as a forum member, you constantly place yourself as an opponent. You have created a fasle dichotomy trying to claim a non existent moral highground between yourself and "revisonists".

There is alternative testimony from people such as Pierre Berg a camp Kapo at the selection ramps who saw nothing on any of his shifts that remotely fits into the narrative people like yourself try and promulgate. You then say he was not in the Kremas. Why should he be, when the people he processed went, like he did to their own administration protocols and barracks.

From Berg's biography on Amazon;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Pierre- ... abled=true

" The title of my memoir is Scheisshaus Luck because it was shithouse luck that I survived.
I escaped a selection to Birkenau's gas chambers because I did a good job washing my blockelster's shirts."

Now, you quote his words from when he worked on the selections. Berg's evidence is hearsay about the gassings. You claim his circumstantial evidence about the selection process does not "remotely fit" with other evidence. I have asked you before to provide details and you refused to do so. I am asking you again.

[Nazgul]

" The title of my memoir is Scheisshaus Luck because it was shithouse luck that I survived.
I escaped a selection to Birkenau's gas chambers because I did a good job washing my blockelster's shirts."

Berg was not a Jew so would not go to any gas chamber; he was incarcerated for using an illegal radio. However, he did get sick and expected to be euthanized. The little quote above is not in that book. Read the book and please do not use worthless quotes. Why would you think a minor criminal offence would warrant a death penalty by gassing at Birkenau for a non Jew?

From the quote you used lets examine this.

I am a gentile. I want the skinheads, the neo-Nazis, the Holocaust deniers to come to me and say that the Holocaust is just Jewish propaganda. I think my shithouse luck put me here to help put a cork in the bile they spew.

Very soon there will be no Holocaust survivors left. We will all be in our graves and I fear then our stories will be overshadowed by the Holocaust experts' musings and ruminations.

How can a gentile consider themselves a part of a Jewish Holocaust. This is the ravings of an old man not the young dude who wrote his memoir. He was a criminal not a holocaust survivor.

[Nessie]

" The title of my memoir is Scheisshaus Luck because it was shithouse luck that I survived.
I escaped a selection to Birkenau's gas chambers because I did a good job washing my blockelster's shirts."

Berg was not a Jew so would not go to any gas chamber; he was incarcerated for using an illegal radio. However, he did get sick and expected to be euthanized. The little quote above is not in that book. Read the book and please do not use worthless quotes. Why would you think a minor criminal offence would warrant a death penalty by gassing at Birkenau for a non Jew?

From the quote you used lets examine this.

I am a gentile. I want the skinheads, the neo-Nazis, the Holocaust deniers to come to me and say that the Holocaust is just Jewish propaganda. I think my shithouse luck put me here to help put a cork in the bile they spew.

Very soon there will be no Holocaust survivors left. We will all be in our graves and I fear then our stories will be overshadowed by the Holocaust experts' musings and ruminations.

How can a gentile consider themselves a part of a Jewish Holocaust. This is the ravings of an old man not the young dude who wrote his memoir. He was a criminal not a holocaust survivor.

You claimed "Pierre Berg a camp Kapo at the selection ramps who saw nothing on any of his shifts that remotely fits into the narrative people like yourself try and promulgate. You then say he was not in the Kremas. Why should he be, when the people he processed went, like he did to their own administration protocols and barracks."

Quote and page number from his book, where he states he was at selections and no one went to the Kremas.

[Nazgul]

Quote and page number from his book, where he states he was at selections and no one went to the Kremas.

Read it. If you have not read it don't comment, until you do.

[Nessie]

Quote and page number from his book, where he states he was at selections and no one went to the Kremas.

Read it. If you have not read it don't comment, until you do.

Your claim, you prove it. Otherwise, I have caught you out again.

[Nazgul]

You seem to have missed in my post where I said Soviet practices were in fact relevant if you could show a conection to Holocaust evidence being tampered with by them. But all you're doing is arguing for a possibility of something. You're not showing if A then B, you're showing if A then maybe B. It's quite obvious that the Soviets theoretically could have tampered with the primary evidence for the Holocaust like they did for with Katyn. But it's also obvious that the Soviets fabricating a Katyn narrative does not preclude the Nazis from killing millions of Jews.

These are some facts:

• The Soviet Extraordinary Commission employed about 7 million or so people to collect data regarding Nazi War Crimes.

• They were in collusion with the Polish Extraordinary Commission (A Soviet Vassal), who performed identical function, with several million staff.

• A huge amount of documentation that should have survived the war, such as the details of Jewish Labour Camps, including the workings of the Schmelt and Todt organizations, including train schedules (Die Fahrplananordnung ) have gone missing, except for a few that appear incriminating at first glance.

This is circumstantial evidence of skulduggery.

[Nessie]

...
These are some facts:

• The Soviet Extraordinary Commission employed about 7 million or so people to collect data regarding Nazi War Crimes.

...

Let us check your facts, since you refuse to link to sources.

https://encyclopaedia-gsr.eu/lemma/extr ... on-en-1-0/

"By December 1945, Shvernik informed Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (1878–1953) that seven million people had assembled 54 000 official reports and 250 000 eyewitness testimonies"

That is 130 people per report and 28 per eyewitness. That seems like a hell of a lot of people producing not a lot of work, which is, I suppose, characteristic of the Soviets!

However, from the same source;

"In Zhytomyr [Russian: Zhitomir] oblast, Ukraine, for instance, the site of one of 98 regional and special auxiliary commissions created over the course of the war, as many as 5 000 people reportedly participated in investigating violent violent crimes. In contrast, no more than 14 employees ever worked in the central ChGK’s archival department; they were responsible for somehow assimilating all the documentation that flooded into Moscow. As a result, the ChG constituted an undertaking that Stalinist officials never fully managed to control."

Typically Soviet then. Disorganised with a likely exaggerated number of 7 million people involved and in fact, the administration was only 14 people. That is more evidence to prove the Soviets could and did not run such an enormous hoax as the mass murder of 5-6 million people.

"The most well-known manipulation was the report of the Katyn Commission, in which the murder of thousands of Polish officers near Smolensk by the Soviet NKVD in 1940 was deliberately reinterpreted as a crime committed by the German occupiers after June 1941. The USSR insisted on this version until nearly the end of its existence, with Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev (1931–2022) acknowledging Soviet responsibility only in 1990."

Why do you suddenly trust the same Soviets who tried and failed to fake the Katyn Massacre? Furthermore, there is evidence that instead of publicising the persecution of the Jews by the Nazis, the Soviets hid it;

"The results were summarised by the central commission and prepared for publication, without shying away from serious manipulations in order to achieve the desired propaganda effect. The ethnic identity of the victims was sometimes removed. Murdered Jews and Roma, who had been labelled as such by local commissions, became 'peaceful Soviet citizens'."

The Soviets were concealing the identity of Jews, and referred to them as Soviets, which is the opposite of what they would do, if they were running a hoax to murder millions of Jews. Instead, they were determined to portray Soviets as the major victims of the Nazis.

[Nazgul]

The Soviets were concealing the identity of Jews, and referred to them as Soviets, which is the opposite of what they would do, if they were running a hoax to murder millions of Jews. Instead, they were determined to portray Soviets as the major victims of the Nazis.

Those are your words not mine. I am pointing out that millions of people were employed to find evidence of Nazi war crimes. It is also true that much of the material to disprove those claims has also gone missing. It seems a prima facie case is presented strongly suggesting altered history in those times.

When I grew up, exploring, there were remains of old steam train boilers strewn around the place. Train schedules from nearby railway stations were thrown into those old boilers, thousands of them were found in our youthful explorations. Sure a different country, but thousands if not millions of documents, which might suggest the true reality of the situation of those times, WWII Poland, have strangely gone missing, except for a few. Nothing found at Bad Arolsen.

[Nessie]

The Soviets were concealing the identity of Jews, and referred to them as Soviets, which is the opposite of what they would do, if they were running a hoax to murder millions of Jews. Instead, they were determined to portray Soviets as the major victims of the Nazis.

Those are your words not mine. I am pointing out that millions of people were employed to find evidence of Nazi war crimes.

Where is your evidence they were employed?

Why did it take an average of 130 people to produce each report and 28 people to take each witness statement? Those figures, plus the employment of only 14 archivists, make the 7 million claim look extremely suspect!

It is also true that much of the material to disprove those claims has also gone missing. It seems a prima facie case is presented strongly suggesting altered history in those times.

The evidence I have shown you is that the Soviets were responsible for a failed hoax at Katyn and they actively hid the Jewishness (and Roma background) of victims, presenting them as Soviets.

When I grew up, exploring, there were remains of old steam train boilers strewn around the place. Train schedules from nearby railway stations were thrown into those old boilers, thousands of them were found in our youthful explorations. Sure a different country, but thousands if not millions of documents, which might suggest the true reality of the situation of those times, WWII Poland, have strangely gone missing, except for a few. Nothing found at Bad Arolsen.

You have not been to Bad Arolsen or searched any archive. Fact is that Soviets not only were not capable of organising a hoax on the scale alleged, they actually did little to publicise the Holocaust, and actively reduced the number of Jewish and Roma victims.

[Nazgul]

You have not been to Bad Arolsen or searched any archive.

You have no idea where I have been. The whole archive is online.

Fact is that Soviets not only were not capable of organising a hoax on the scale alleged, they actually did little to publicise the Holocaust, and actively reduced the number of Jewish and Roma victims.

I never said on this forum that the Soviets hoaxed. I said that many important documents (most) have gone missing and that about 11 million Soviet and Polish people participated (employed: "to make use of") in locating such evidence. That is a lot of people and one hell of a lot of documentation gone missing.

[Nessie]

You have not been to Bad Arolsen or searched any archive.

You have no idea where I have been. The whole archive is online.

Fact is that Soviets not only were not capable of organising a hoax on the scale alleged, they actually did little to publicise the Holocaust, and actively reduced the number of Jewish and Roma victims.

I never said on this forum that the Soviets hoaxed. I said that many important documents (most) have gone missing and that about 11 million Soviet and Polish people participated (employed: "to make use of") in locating such evidence. That is a lot of people and one hell of a lot of documentation gone missing.

It is a suspiciously large number of people. You are now suggesting it is up from 130 people to produce each report to 204 and from 28 people to take each witness statement to 44, with only 14 archivists. That makes your increase from 7 to 11 million even more ridiculous and unlikely.

As for documentation going missing, when transports never took place, they would obviously produce no documents. There is no evidence of regular mass transports from the AR camps to the east into formerly Soviet territory. The only evidence is of occasional transports south or west to labour camps within the General Government area.

[Nazgul]

It is a suspiciously large number of people. You are now suggesting it is up from 130 people to produce each report to 204 and from 28 people to take each witness statement to 44, with only 14 archivists. That makes your increase from 7 to 11 million even more ridiculous and unlikely.

As for documentation going missing, when transports never took place, they would obviously produce no documents. There is no evidence of regular mass transports from the AR camps to the east into formerly Soviet territory. The only evidence is of occasional transports south or west to labour camps within the General Government area.

There were 32 reports. There were 32 thousand regular Soviet staff using up to 7 million people to collect the data, as well as the support from Secret Police. The Polish organization and helpers must be added to this; the two organizations were really one, including their helpers. Every train had a plethora of documentation. I am not talking about the Nessie obsession with AR camps, but the missing documents, not just transports but the records of all labour camps. It is more than strange that all have gone missing, all that is left are testimony of a the few remaining souls that inhabited those forgetten places; their vivid recollations of living in Bobruysk, Ukraine and many other camps with no names. They remember, but the supporting documentation has vanished into thin air.

[Nessie]

It is a suspiciously large number of people. You are now suggesting it is up from 130 people to produce each report to 204 and from 28 people to take each witness statement to 44, with only 14 archivists. That makes your increase from 7 to 11 million even more ridiculous and unlikely.

As for documentation going missing, when transports never took place, they would obviously produce no documents. There is no evidence of regular mass transports from the AR camps to the east into formerly Soviet territory. The only evidence is of occasional transports south or west to labour camps within the General Government area.

There were 32 reports. There were 32 thousand regular Soviet staff using up to 7 million people to collect the data, as well as the support from Secret Police. The Polish organization and helpers must be added to this; the two organizations were really one, including their helpers.

That means according to you, for each one of those "32 reports" there was an average of 1000 "regular Soviet staff" using 218,750 "people to collect the data" and many more if you add in the Secret Police and Polish. But you ignore that there were only 14 archivists.

Every train had a plethora of documentation.

Transports that never happened, resulted in no documentation.

I am not talking about the obsession with AR camps, but the missing documents, not just transports but the records of all labour camps. It is more than strange that all have gone missing, all that is left are the few remaining souls that inhabited those forgetten places; their vivid recollations of living in Bobruysk, Ukraine and many other camps with no names. They remember, but the supporting documentation has vanished into thin air.

It is not strange that there are no records of mass transports for resettlement in the east and former Soviet territory, since there is not only no evidence that happened, there is plenty of evidence it did not happen. The Einsatzgruppen and senior Nazis in the east were sending back reports about the decreasing Jewish population in the east, and their work to make in Jew free.

Why is suspect that documentation has disappeared for camps such as Bobruysk, when the Nazis responsible were trying to evidence taking responsibility?

https://training.ehri-project.eu/small- ... ther-camps

"At the beginning of the 1970s, in order to collect testimony about crimes committed in a forest camp (Waldlager), the prosecutor from the city of Hamburg appealed for help to the Israeli police unit responsible for the investigation of Nazi crimes. The Nazis had established this camp near the city of Bobruysk in Belarus. This appeal by the prosecutor was related to an investigation that was underway in regard to SS Obersturmbannführer Rudolf Pannier, who had been commandant of the Waldlager from June 1943."

As for the main source of evidence, it came from the Nazis themselves;

"Most of the testimonies relating to the Jewish camp were created by the objects of the post-war criminal investigation themselves, a small group of low-ranking SS men who tried to conceal the roles they had played - either by assumed amnesia or by denial of responsibility. Under interrogation, they tended to reply, “I didn't know, I didn't see, I had no connection with this matter." Nevertheless, much of the information about what took place in the camp comes from them (for file numbers, please refer to the list of sources under Zentrale Stelle below)."

[Archie]

Nessie,

According to the calculations of the ChGK, around 32,000 public representatives took part in determining the facts about Nazi war crimes, and more than 7 million Soviet citizens directly collected and prepared documents for the ChGK, which in turn read through more than 54,000 statements and more than 250,000 protocols of witness interrogations and declarations of Nazi crimes, as well as approximately 4 million documents on the damage caused by the Nazis. The documentary evidence collected in the framework of the ChGK and the 27 published “Reports” were widely used in diplomatic notes of the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs and at the various Allied peace conferences of the war years.

Citation: Marina Sorokina, "People and Procedures: Toward a History of the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in the USSR," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, 4 (Fall 2005): 1–35 (quote from pg 5)

And just to further underscore the points I made earlier, only a very tiny number of these witness statements were ever published. Not only will they skew thing by coming in with predetermined conclusions about gas chambers etc they also presumably highlighted only those testimonies most in line with their narratives.

[bombsaway]

You seem to have missed in my post where I said Soviet practices were in fact relevant if you could show a conection to Holocaust evidence being tampered with by them. But all you're doing is arguing for a possibility of something. You're not showing if A then B, you're showing if A then maybe B. It's quite obvious that the Soviets theoretically could have tampered with the primary evidence for the Holocaust like they did for with Katyn. But it's also obvious that the Soviets fabricating a Katyn narrative does not preclude the Nazis from killing millions of Jews.

These are some facts:

• The Soviet Extraordinary Commission employed about 7 million or so people to collect data regarding Nazi War Crimes.

• They were in collusion with the Polish Extraordinary Commission (A Soviet Vassal), who performed identical function, with several million staff.

• A huge amount of documentation that should have survived the war, such as the details of Jewish Labour Camps, including the workings of the Schmelt and Todt organizations, including train schedules (Die Fahrplananordnung ) have gone missing, except for a few that appear incriminating at first glance.

This is circumstantial evidence of skulduggery.

I would say that the Soviet statement ("32,000 public representatives took part in determining the facts about Nazi war crimes, and more than 7 million Soviet citizens directly collected and prepared documents for the ChGK,") about those involved in the Extraordinary Commission are by the same token circumstantial evidence of 'no Holocaust conspiracy', because if there was a conspiracy, why would you want to draw attention to it?

The fact that they weren't able to cover up their Katyn fabrications is also circumstantial evidence of 'no Holocaust conspiracy' because it shows they weren't good at suppressing conspiracies and the Holocaust conspiracy would have been orders of magnitude larger in all likelihood, and therefore harder to cover up.

So if you're playing the circumstantial evidence game, it truly goes both ways and I'd say the arguments against, are even stronger. But this is the problem with relying solely on circumstantial evidence.

Some of your circumstantial evidence seems questionable

Re PEC, I don't know about it, provide citation they employed a significant portion of the Polish population

Re Jewish labor camps, provide citation for this. We know volume 6 is coming out, https://www.ushmm.org/research/publicat ... ps-ghettos , Nick can probably speak to this in more detail.