Archie wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 1:08 am
SanityCheck wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2024 10:57 pm
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.