Marijampol, Latvia - another alleged mass grave debunked

[offline Hannover]

Roberto says:

The notion that only physical evidence counts, and this only if it has been thoroughly investigated by the means of forensic archaeology and anthropology, flies in the face of the rules and principles of criminal investigation and historical research.

No strawmen please, no one said "only", please cease.

However, for one to claim that there was an enormous mass murder (which goes without saying would be of a highly physical nature) and then claim to know where the human remains supposedly are, but yet not produce this physical evidence flies against all standards of jurisprudence which say that claimed physical evidence must be presented.
Marijampole is such an example; no human remains comensurate with the alleged crime can, or have been shown.

Then Roberto says:

... namely on eyewitness depositions ...

Will Roberto please give us the specific 'eyewitness' testimony concerning the allegations about Marijampole?

- Hannover

[offline Sailor]

Dr. Merkevicius wrote to Roberto:

[…]People were kiled and burried in a big dich.[…]

What sort of ditch did Dr. Merkevicius find?

Rural European country roads have on the sides drainage ditches for the purpose to drain run-off from the road from rain and snow melt. These ditches are at the most 3 ft deep and between 4 to 6 ft wide, with the ditch edges sloped at about 45°. How many dead bodies would fit into a 2 yd long ditch of such crossection, assuming 1 ft dirt cover? I don't think more than 3 bodies, if the upper part of the ditch is still required to function as a drainage ditch.

I don't think that Dr. Merkevicius found anything. He could at least have taken a photography, but to my knowledge he didn't. He probably attempted to play a pc game in line with Lithuania's willingness to make Holocaust denial illegal and to join the EU.

fge

[offlineroberto]

These posts are getting a little too long for my taste. Maybe we could break it up a little?

As you wish.

This is what Dr. Merkevicius wrote to you:

"[…]People were kiled and burried in a big dich. But after finding the exact place, my work was over. I don't know how much people were kiled and how big the mass grave territory.
Best regards,sincerely yours
Algimantas Merkevicius"

I find this rather strange, to say the least.

I don’t. The objective was limited to finding the correct location for placing a monument.

Why on earth did he not check or was told not to check, the size of the mass grave, which is relatively easy to do by testing the compactness of the soil with a metal probe? The depth of the mass grave could be estimated from the initial excavation, which then in turn would allows us to get some idea of how many were burried there?

By such means you may be able to establish the depth, but how do you establish the length and width without a great deal of digging?

As to why this was not done, one of the possible reasons was the limited objective of the excavations, see above, which would make it seem unnecessary to spend more time and taxpayer’s money (I don’t think Dr. Merkevicius and his team worked for free) on more thorough excavations. Maybe respect for the religious feelings of Jews was also a consideration. It seems that there was much protest from the Jewish religious community about the disturbance of the dead due to the excavations at Belzec in 1997/98, see e.g. the article by Rabbi Avi Weiss under

http://www.hir.org/amcha/belzec.html

Was this maybe a political decision? The Lithuanians were apparently involved in pronoms, was there fear of opening a can of worms?

I also wouldn’t dismiss this possibility. In a country whose inhabitants actively took part not only in pogroms but in the systematic slaughter perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen, digging up the remains of thousands of murdered Jews might be somewhat unpopular and have unwanted political repercussions.

In any case, if any of us could obtain further information from Dr. Merkevicius or the Marijampole Municipality, this would surely beat speculation. Dr. Merkevicius’ e-mail address can be found on the internet.

[offlineroberto]

Dr. Merkevicius wrote to Roberto:

[…]People were kiled and burried in a big dich.[…]

What sort of ditch did Dr. Merkevicius find?

Rural European country roads have on the sides drainage ditches for the purpose to drain run-off from the road from rain and snow melt. These ditches are at the most 3 ft deep and between 4 to 6 ft wide, with the ditch edges sloped at about 45°. How many dead bodies would fit into a 2 yd long ditch of such crossection, assuming 1 ft dirt cover? I don't think more than 3 bodies, if the upper part of the ditch is still required to function as a drainage ditch.

Why the assumption that Dr. Merkevicius was referring to a drainage ditch? The archaeologist’s English is not the best, and he may have used the word “ditch”, which he misspelled, simply as a synonym for “pit”, as an expression for a huge hole in the ground into which the bodies had been dumped. Drawing conclusions from the use of a given term by someone who obviously doesn’t master the English language too well is a rather moot exercise, in my opinion.

I don't think that Dr. Merkevicius found anything.

That statement is tantamount to accusing Dr. Merkevicius of having lied to me. The man being a professional archaeologist of note, I would be very careful with such unsubstantiated accusations, if I were you.

He could at least have taken a photography, but to my knowledge he didn't.

Whence is this knowledge of yours derived? According to what both Dr. Merkevicius and the Marijampole Municipality told me, there is a report on the results of the excavation kept at Marijampole Municipality. This was the message I received on 20.05.2003 from Mayor Vidmantas Brazys:

Dear Roberto Muehlenkamp,

I would like to inform you, that in the Internet page of Marijampole Municipality, on line presentation of "Places to visit" under item 10 contains the following passage: "In the valley of the Sesupe river 5090 Jewish and people of other nationalities were killed in 1941 by Nazi forces." This fact is confirmed by the documents.
In 1970 the cemetery were included into the list of Culture Monuments. The area, where is thought were graves, is planted with olive trees and placed the monument.
Because the exact location of the graves was not known, in 1996 were done archaeological excavations and the place of fusillade was found (about 50 m to the west from registered graves).
Doctor of Archaeology Science of Vilnius University Mr Algimantas Merkevicius did archaeological excavations. All the documents of excavation keep Chief Specialist of Architecture and Urbanity Division of Marijampole Municipality Mr Gedeminas Kuncaitis.[my emphasis]
Facts in the article of Germar Rudolf are primary and not final results of archaeological excavations.

Sincerely,

Mayor Vidmantas Brazys

He probably attempted to play a pc game in line with Lithuania's willingness to make Holocaust denial illegal and to join the EU.

Another unsubstantiated assumption, also rather unlikely considering that the excavations were conducted eight years before Lithuania joined the EU, obviously upon the Marijampole Municipality’s local initiative alone.

As you again mentioned Lithuanian hate speech legislation and the supposed connection between this legislation and the country’s joining the EU, I would be interested to know where you heard or read about this.

[offline Sailor]

By such means you may be able to establish the depth, but how do you establish the length and width without a great deal of digging?

It is not necessary to do any digging in order to check the approximate extent of the grave site.

What you do is take a thin sharp pointed metal rod, maybe 10mm in diameter, and poke into the soil and "feel" the resistance while poking in. This is also done to check whether a new freeway was compacted sufficiently before the black top is applied.

We saw this also done on TV when they found mass graves in Russia, and attempted to check the physical dimensions.
The concept is, that soil fill is much looser than undisturbed virgin soil, and therefore easier to "poke" or penetrate.

What do you mean by "authenticated"?

Does a document have to be authenticated to be authentic?

The document has to be conforming to fact and therefore worthy of belief and not counterfeit or copied.

I don’t think that requires authentication. But I’m open to being shown a rule of evidence according to which it does.

Does it?

Yes, bar evidence or at least strong indications that it does not. Is there any such evidence? Are there any such indications?

The Jäger-report stated that Jäger together with a group of eight to ten SS-men roamed the land and took out about 140,000 Jews.

This seems to be an exaggeration if I have ever seen one.

If I would say, that I have a report which states that 8 to 10 Israelis took out 140,000 Palestinians, or 8 to 10 Americans killed Rambo-style 140,000 Vietnames, nobody would believe this exaggeration either, unless at least the major mass graves can be shown.

Show us at least the major mass graves:
Wilna 21,169
Eysisky 3,446
Kaisiadorys 1,911
Kauen 23,203
Mariampole 5,328
Panevezys 8,837
Svenciany 3,726
Ukmerge 6,356

To install a monument in Marijampole which lists 5000 victims, and then refer to the Jäger-report as proof for this, and then turn around that the monument proves the Jäger-report, seems to me somewhat illogical.

But the fact is that the Lithuanian Jewish population was practically decimated. The question is: How and by whom?

fge

A little doggerel for Roberto, to put a smile on his face:

Ein dummer, brauner Naziknecht
hat eigentlich... kein Lebensrecht!
Hier stimmen viele mit mir ein:
neutralisiert das NAZI-Schwein!
Auch jene Brut, genannt Faschisten
die sollte man gleich mit ausmisten!
Die Guten wären endlich froh..
brächt' man sie nach Guantanamo!
Der Hohmann Martin...das wär' famos
heiratet zur Strafe Lea Rosh....
Vielleicht sagt auch der Henryk Broder..
"ertränkt den Lumpen in der Oder!"
Möglicherweise schmunzelt Spiegel:
gerechte Strafe......gar nicht übel!
Am besten wärs.. doch das ist schwer...
es gäbe keine Deutschen mehr!
Dann würd die Welt so friedlich sein:
an jedem Tag' gäb's Sonnenschein!
Auch die Konflikte dieser Welt...
die würden sofort eingestellt!
Auch seh' man wie die Zionisten
voll Inbrunst dann die Palis küssten.
Der Bush schenkt dann Bin Laden Schinken
Pearle wird im Iraköl ertrinken
auch Rumsfeld trifft sich mit Saddam
und Wolfowitz stöhnt nur "Salam"
Moral:
Die Aussicht darauf ist recht mies:
wir kommen nicht ins Paradies
Und schuld daran ist jedem klar:
dass wieder es der NAZI war!
Wer jetzt nicht unserer Meinung ist
entlarvt sich sofort als Faschist.
An dieser Stelle hör ich auf..
nun schlagt mal wieder kräftig drauf!

Rolf Decker

(It cannot be translated. It is about the Nazis and Germans who are responsible for all the evil in this world, including the present Irak mess and the tortures)

Enjoy!

[offline Scott]

The exaggerations resulted from the fact that the Soviets took the wrong approach in calculating the death toll, considering only the theoretical throughput of the crematoria and the testimonies of eyewitnesses (as any criminal investigator and historian knows, eyewitnesses are not necessarily good at estimating figures).

The only theoretical approach the Soviets used was to strongarm Prüfer into making fantastic statments in order to validate the bogus and absurd claims of the lie-witnesses, or those who notoriously misguesstimated the figures.

If there is a scientific/technical "theoretical output" for the crematoria, let's see it.

Accusations were made against individuals who had acted on behalf of a dictatorial and criminal regime.

Nazi Germany was far less dictatorial than most regimes in the world, and in the history of the world. Even Democracy-Capitalist regimes have totalitarian aspects and practices, especially in wartime.

As far as this being a "criminal regime," well, that was no more than the propaganda assertion of the benevolent Allies at the Nuremberg trials, which was a fiat made on account of them unconditionally winning the war.

There are no laws forbidding research or correction (historiography is subject to constant revision as previously unknown evidence is discovered, as a matter of fact). Some countries, however (including but not limited to Germany) enforce laws which punish the approval, belittling or negation against evidence (a.k.a. denial) of proven crimes of the Nazi regime, if voiced in public in such a way as to threaten the public order by inciting the defamation of and/or violence against minorities. I don't approve of such laws, but we shouldn't make them into more than what they are.

Sure, you won't get into trouble if your research does not challenge in any fundamental way the Moral Certainty of the Nuremberg trials. If the conclusions of one's research is kosher then there won't be any problems at all. And sometimes, in the European tradition, one must assure the proper authorities of one's fitness to even look through the proverbial telescope before one gets permission to look. Archive browsing usually requires credentials and vouchsafement from trusted academics. Even in the U.S., with its traditions of free and non-academic access to public records, the subject is taboo--and critics have an uphill battle on their hands.

Nobody other than the Marijampole Municipality was interested in the outcome, and their interest was only to find the correct place to set up a monument, i.e. the place where the victims were buried.

I find that hard to believe. A discovery of a massgrave of ca. 5,000 bodies would be big news in the United States. Of course the news-weasels are going to want to have something to show for it or no story...

- that the Jaeger Report is an elaborate forgery;

Could be done easily with the right typewriter, ink and paper.

By that reasoning, just about any document ever produced could be a forgery. Without at least an indication of manipulation, this is but another unsubstantiated assumption.

And the ease of the forgery makes it probability infinitely more likely, especially where the repository source and its discoverers are highly suspect and would have a strong motive to lie. Basically it comes from the Soviets and it should be authenticated insofar as possible or it should be considered extremely suspect by historiographers. In court it would simply be hearsay and not admissible as evidence. A political trial would probably try to get some mileage out of it, however.

But there is no evidence that these alleged 'mass graves victims' did not survive.

Well, if there were evidence that they did survive, you would have a point. The absence of evidence to survival is one of your problems. The other is the convergence of eyewitness, documentary and physical evidence to the inescapable conclusion that they were killed.

There is evidence that anyone ever went missing? Is there a master list of names and a trail of breadcrumbs leading to the massgrave? The massgrave with only two bodies in it...

I don't think that Dr. Merkevicius found anything.

That statement is tantamount to accusing Dr. Merkevicius of having lied to me. The man being a professional archaeologist of note, I would be very careful with such unsubstantiated accusations, if I were you.

He need not have lied. If his job was only to find the location of the "massgrave," and he did so with the necessary blindfolds on, he would have found nothing with which to have to lie about in the future.

[Moderator3]

This topic has strayed much too far afield of the original post about the alleged mass grave at Marijampole. It's really a cut & dried issue, either there is a mass grave for the world to see or there is not. Obfuscations and digressions are not appreciated from either side. Personal attacks embedded within certain posts do no help either.
M3

[offlineroberto]

It's really a cut & dried issue, either there is a mass grave for the world to see or there is not.

The moderator seems to labor under the conviction that a mass grave is only "there" if and to the extent that it has been thoroughly exposed "for the world to see".

Such thorough exposure being the exception rather than the rule in regard to any large scale mass murder or other historical event or phenomenon – not only the Nazi genocide of the Jews of Europe and other Nazi crimes –, making the (often very difficult, if not impossible) investigation of physical traces at the killing and burial sites the sole or primary measure of finding historical facts would mostly rule out historical research and documentation of events past.

The following example – one out of many that could be adduced – may illustrate this:

The symbol of Soviet repression in Poland between September 1939 and June 1941 was the place where in the spring of 1940 more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were murdered in a mass execution: Katyn near Smolensk.

This name is furthermore inseparably linked to the tragic fate of ca. 15,000 Polish officers and policemen who in April and May 1940 were, in violation of all norms of international law, murdered by the NKVD (Soviet Ministry of the Interior).

This happened at three sites: the already mentioned Katyn, Miednoye near Tver and Piatichatki near Kharkov.

Katyn became known to the public in the spring of 1943; for the revelation of the two other extermination sites by Moscow as well as an official acknowledgment of guilt from the Russian side it was necessary to wait until the beginning of the 1990s.

At Katyn a thorough excavation and forensic investigation of the mass graves and the dead bodies found therein was carried out at the behest of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. No such investigation, however, was ever carried out at either Miednoye near Tver and Piatichatki near Kharkov, where the bulk of the murdered Polish POWs were buried. These mass graves were never opened.

Does this mean the mass graves at Miednoye near Tver and Piatichatki near Kharkov don’t exist, and that the death toll of Soviet mass executions of Polish prisoners of war must be reduced to the ca. 4,000 dead found at Katyn?

[offline Hannover]

Roberto asks:

Does this mean the mass graves at Miednoye near Tver and Piatichatki near Kharkov don’t exist, and that the death toll of Soviet mass executions of Polish prisoners of war must be reduced to the ca. 4,000 dead found at Katyn?

If there is no mass grave as alleged, then yes, there was no mass murder. Simple. If someone claims a mass grave site, but the site does not yield what is alleged, then obviously the alleged crime did not occur as alleged. Obviously the allegations are wrong.

Marijampole has been researched and the alleged thousands of bodies have not been shown to exist. The Marijampole story is a fraud and there's nothing short of showing the alleged thousands of bodies that will change that.

- Hannover