Archie talks about the differences between how historians and revisionists assess witnesses;
https://www.codohforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=23094#p23094
Let me make a point here that I did not make in the OP but which I think is quite important. All failed gas chamber witnesses are contrary witnesses. Assuming they were really there.
There are various ways a witness can fail. One is that they lied and they were never there. Another is that they were there, but the descriptions they provide are so poor as to be useless in determining what took place. Or, they are so enthusiastic about telling their version of events, that it gets embellished, exaggerated and they are all over the place in terms of chronology or hearsay. The latter two are still witnesses, just not very good ones.
The Jewish witnesses to what happened inside the death camps, invariably fall into the latter group, they make poor witnesses. The best witnesses are the SS camp staff, whose more moderated, matter of fact testimony provides the clearest picture of what took place, albeit, there is often some reticence from them, as they tried to minimise their responsibility and involvement. They tend to hold back on the details.
Abraham Kzrepicki (e.g.) - In his account, he describes the interior tiles of the gas chamber. If he was there and he saw that interior, then his failure to describe everything else even remotely correctly cannot be satisfactorily explained.
Cannot be satisfactorily explained, with reference to what? Your opinion? Studies of witnesses, memory and recall? The answer is your opinion. Archie, is your biased opinion a more reliable and credible determinant than all the studies on witnesses? Is it more reliable than the corroboration method used by historians, journalists and criminal investigators?
-X was happening
-Witness was there while X was happening
-It is not possible for someone who was there to have failed to observe X
-Yet witness fails to recount X to any reasonable degree of accuracy
Please produce evidence, from studies of witnesses, that proves someone who was there will be able to recall what took place accurately.
You need to take into account that witnesses recall both the primary event and details. For example, do they describe the same process as other witnesses? Using TII, do they describe trains arriving, people being ordered to undress and hand over their property, being killed inside chambers and the corpses being buried and/or cremated? Is there consistency with the primary event? Then, the details, how do they vary and why? Did a witness only work in one part of the camp? How long were they there for? How good is their recall in general?
When a witness gives evidence at a criminal trial, if their recall is all over the place, making it impossible to get an accurate version of events from them, then they fail as a witness because their evidence is too unreliable to prove what took place, based on the standard of proven beyond all reasonable doubt. That standard is lowered for civil cases, where the standard is on the balance of probabilities. Historians have a standard that is civil, rather than criminal. Revisionists prefer the criminal standard, as it helps their aim of finding witness to be too incredible to believe. When they find a witness whose credibility is strong, which is pretty much all the SS camp staff, they have to switch to alleging they were subject to duress to make false confessions, with no evidence of such.
The only potential explanations are:
1) The witness was not actually there
2) The witness was there but gave an incompetent description (this will naturally lead into a debate over what are reasonable vs unreasonable errors)
3) The witness was there but much of their story is fantasy
Holocaust defenders must attempt to rehabilitate their witnesses by arguing case 2. A few especially bad witnesses could perhaps be sacrificed as case 1 but that option must be used sparingly. Holocaust defenders can never entertain case 3 as a possibility because if the witness was there and saw true horrors that actually occurred, there would be no reason to resort to fantasy.
All case 3 witnesses are contrary witnesses.
Historians, those who know how to investigate and gather evidence, start by establishing if there is evidence to prove the witness was where he said he was. For TII that was done by witnesses naming others they saw and from their provision of information that only someone who was there would know. There are also potential documentary records that prove the named person was on a transport to the camp.
They then move on to establishing corroboration. It is expected that the witnesses will be far more accurate about the primary event, than the details. For example, the witnesses all agree they saw a train crash or a bank robbery. Our memory of the big picture is better than the details. We all remember being at school, the details of what we saw there fade faster.
In the case of TII, 100% of the witnesses agree on the primary events. Many, including Krzepicki, only saw part of what took place, but what he recalls still fits in with the other witnesses. As for the details, his testimony is similar to other Sonderkommando evidence. He is emotive, mixing hearsay with what he saw. He was in the camp for the shortest time of any witness and he was there prior to the exhumation of the graves. He did work at the gas chambers, so much of his description will be based on hearsay, which explains why it may not fit with other descriptions of how they operated.
Archie's aim is baised, he wants to find fault so he can dismiss any witness who states what he does not believe. Historians use a standard methodology for checking and verifying all witnesses, that is shared by other investigators and is backed by studies about witnesses.
Sanity Check - "Thus, currently revisionists can console themselves by affirming their incredulity..."
