Documents that Don’t Make Sense

[GurtKerstein]

Puzzler:

Another interesting point is why SS Maurer was not sending these Jews from the Reich “cleansing” straight to the “extermination camps” such as Treblinka which was ready for deliveries by July 24, 1942, so should have been in full-production by then; or Sobibor which had apparently begun mass gassing operations by May 1942.

The bigger question is why transport those Jews at all if your intention is to exterminate them? After all, we are told all you need in order to convert a concentration camp into an "extermination camp" is to convert an ordinary room into a gas chamber by knocking off a few holes in the ceiling and using Zyklon B, which was readily available in all camps.

Nick Terry:

On strictly utilitarian grounds, keeping such a population alive went against everything that totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany believed in. 'He who does not work, shall not eat' was a slogan in both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

By this logic the Germans would have exterminated their own elderly, but this is not what is claimed. The more accurate prevailing mood was 'He who can work and does not work, shall not eat', which is not unique to Germany or the Soviets - you'd expect to find that in any country that is fighting a prolonged war for survival. Once again, it is claimed those people were marked for extermination because they were Jewish, first and foremost and those fit for work would be later "exterminated" when the war was over and their labor not needed anymore.

[nickterry]

Puzzler:

Another interesting point is why SS Maurer was not sending these Jews from the Reich “cleansing” straight to the “extermination camps” such as Treblinka which was ready for deliveries by July 24, 1942, so should have been in full-production by then; or Sobibor which had apparently begun mass gassing operations by May 1942.

The bigger question is why transport those Jews at all if your intention is to exterminate them? After all, we are told all you need in order to convert a concentration camp into an "extermination camp" is to convert an ordinary room into a gas chamber by knocking off a few holes in the ceiling and using Zyklon B, which was readily available in all camps.

You missed the part where more than half were selected for labour and sent to Monowitz. So the intention was not 'to exterminate them', but to clear the KZs of the Reich of Jews, and to exploit some while killing others. The 1,500 Jewish inmates were sent from all over the KZ system including from many camps that had no gas chambers at the time.

Nick Terry:

On strictly utilitarian grounds, keeping such a population alive went against everything that totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany believed in. 'He who does not work, shall not eat' was a slogan in both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.

By this logic the Germans would have exterminated their own elderly, but this is not what is claimed. The more accurate prevailing mood was 'He who can work and does not work, shall not eat', which is not unique to Germany or the Soviets - you'd expect to find that in any country that is fighting a prolonged war for survival. Once again, it is claimed those people were marked for extermination because they were Jewish, first and foremost and those fit for work would be later "exterminated" when the war was over and their labor not needed anymore.

In actual fact Nazi rhetoric was so ageist and social Darwinist that the elderly feared going to the doctor and refused injections because of what they had heard about the euthanasia program; HJ members routinely insulted the elderly as 'cemetery vegetables', as an SD report on this phenomenon written in 1944 observed. This has been written up by Goetz Aly in one of his essay collections.

The application of ultra-utilitarian logic was determined by racial ideology; the Nazis were willing to euthanise mentally handicapped and psychiatric patients, but despite the rumours did not intend to create a Logan's Run type society where the elderly were bumped off. They were willing to withdraw rations from 100s of 1000s of Russian civilians incapable of work in 1943 irrespective of any other considerations, but realised that applying the same measure to Poles would cause an insurgency so they continued to feed dependents of key workers. Jews were entirely at the mercy of the Nazis, so the utilitarian logic could be applied most ruthlessly to them; they were a captive population forced to live in ghettos or camps.

It is correct that the Nazis intended to eliminate all Jews after the war; it says so quite clearly in the Wannsee protocol. But the point which is not being appreciated in this discussion is that the Wannsee protocol, and all other parallel statements or directives relating to Nazi Jewish policy in 1942 when the Final Solution began, clearly indicate a policy of selection; the fit would be put to work, the unfit are either not discussed or marked out for 'resettlement', 'Sonderbehandlung' or death.

Revisionists like Mattogno, Butz, Boisdefeu, Aynat, Faurisson, Graf and many others claim that the deported Jews were not killed but 'resettled'. The evidence clearly shows that the deportees who were not spared, were largely unfit for work. Able bodied Jews were held back from deportation, or selected for labour on the ramp at Auschwitz. Some of those who were killed (or who were 'resettled', according to revisionists) could have worked, but the proportion would have been very low indeed.

Given the prevailing Nazi attitude towards inferior races, applied especially to Russians, that 'he who does not work, shall not eat', and given the fact that the 'east' did not have enough food to feed its native population due to heavy German requisitioning for the armed forces, so that cities like Kiev and Kharkov partially starved to death, while 2.5 million Soviet POWs also died of starvation, then we can be fairly sure that had the Nazis carried out a genuine 'resettlement' of a largely unfit mass of Jews - 2.5 million of them - to Russia, that they too would have starved to death as well. A Soviet prisoner of war was a valuable labourer, and from 1942 also a potential military recruit. A Jew was not even a human being, according to countless pieces of Nazi propaganda circulating in public during the war. If they could not work, then what was the point of keeping them alive? Easier and more efficient to kill them.

[GurtKerstein]

If they could not work, then what was the point of keeping them alive? Easier and more efficient to kill them.

Long post but you mostly resort to rhetoric about euthanasia programs and nazi ideologies, which are not the issue. The question is, why are there 50,000 inmates at Birkenau, most of which are designated as "unfit for labor"? Why were they not "gassed on arrival"? Why are there hospitals and infirmaries in so called "extermination camps"? Why is Bergen Belsen designated as a camp for those unfit for labor and yet does not have gas chambers? Why waste scarce medical supplies on sick inmates who by your definition are unfit for work and marked for extermination anyway?

These are very basic questions that fly in the face of the Holocaust narrative and I am still waiting to hear an answer from an exterminationist.

p.s. Most historians agree already that Wansee does not discuss an extermination of the Jews, so I don't know what you meant by "eliminate".

[nickterry]

If they could not work, then what was the point of keeping them alive? Easier and more efficient to kill them.

Long post but you mostly resort to rhetoric about euthanasia programs and nazi ideologies, which are not the issue. The question is, why are there 50,000 inmates at Birkenau, most of which are designated as "unfit for labor"? Why were they not "gassed on arrival"? Why are there hospitals and infirmaries in so called "extermination camps"? Why is Bergen Belsen designated as a camp for those unfit for labor and yet does not have gas chambers? Why waste scarce medical supplies on sick inmates who by your definition are unfit for work and marked for extermination anyway?

These are very basic questions that fly in the face of the Holocaust narrative and I am still waiting to hear an answer from an exterminationist.

p.s. Most historians agree already that Wansee does not discuss an extermination of the Jews, so I don't know what you meant by "eliminate".

To start from the back end, you would be wrong that most historians think Wannsee does not discuss extermination; what is left out is any discussion of specific methods, and any discussion of the fate of the unfit. Those who are deemed fit for work were to be sent 'roadbuilding to the east' and as the survivors would be the potential seedgerm of a Jewish biological revival, would be 'correspondingly treated'. Reitlinger correctly said that the German language loses all meaning if this is not to be understood as meaning the killing of the survivors from those fit for work at the end of the war.

You don't seem very keen to confront the problem of the unfit deportees who revisionism says were 'resettled' whereas the historical evidence says they were killed. I have yet to receive an answer from any revisionist concerning the logic of 'resettling' more than 2 million Jews who are unfit for work and then wasting resources which were practically unavailable - in particular food, which was in greatly short supply in the occupied Soviet Union - to keep them alive. It makes neither ideological nor economic sense, from a Nazi perspective.

And no, it's not rhetoric to discuss euthanasia. The phenomenon is part of the wider relationship between ideology and economics within Nazism. There was a clear racial hierarchy within National Socialist ideology, with Germans on top, Poles below, Russians next and finally Jews. The Nazis were ruthlessly utilitarian towards the mentally ill, in such a way that they stirred up fears among elderly Aryan Germans that they would be next. The Nazis treated Poles and Russians with even more utilitarian logic, returning Ostarbeiter back to their home territories with no means of support, and in many cases dumping them in the wrong place, later in the war Ostarbeiter who developed chronic illnesses were killed with lethal injections at euthanasia institutes like Hadamar, where their bodies were exhumed after the war. The place of Jews at the very bottom of the racial hierarchy is not in reasonable dispute. That personnel assigned to the euthanasia program were reassigned to Aktion Reinhard fits perfectly with all of this.

Your questions regarding the camps are not that difficult. Auschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration camp in which there was an extermination site, it was not an 'extermination camp' pure and simple as with Treblinka. A-B had a dual purpose. One was to serve as the labour reservoir to support SS construction projects (including simply expanding the camp) and industrial firms in the SS interest zone. The other was to serve as a site for killing Jews. The two purposes were harmonised by selection, which meant that the deportees would either be killed or employed in the same camp complex, Auschwitz, instead of needing to select them at one place and transport them on somewhere else. Jewish prisoners arrived first in large numbers without being selected, but these transports were of young able bodied men and women from Slovakia, who greatly increased the workforce assigned to expand the camp. At the same time, Polish Jews who had been selected at the point of departure were brought to Birkenau to be killed without being selected. From July 1942, the two streams converged, and we get selection.

Once past selection, then a Jewish inmate had a certain chance. In all respects, they were treated somewhat worse than Polishprisoners, but until March 1943, the camp staff conducted selections of both Jews and non-Jews inside the camp, regularly culling the weaker inmates. In the prisoner hospitals, sick inmates judged unlikely to recover quickly were killed with lethal injections until the spring of 1943, when that practice was stopped by the camp chief medical officer, Eduard Wirths. The SS also regularly cleaned out entire barrack blocks of all inmates during epidemics and sent them to the gas chambers; and conducted roll-call selections to reduce the numbers. Also in the spring of 1943, non-Jewish prisoners stopped being selected for the gas chambers once inside the camp. Jewish prisoners continued to be so selected.

From the spring of 1943 also, there was an increased emphasis on providing better healthcare to maintain some of the labour power of the inmates, including Jewish inmates, since the previous 9 months had seen a 100%+ turnover in the prisoner population. That was not efficient from the perspective of maintaining an industrial workforce or the camp construction workforce. Moreover, at this time, the camp was depleted of some of its Polish prisoners who were transferred to camps in Germany like Mauthausen. So Jews rose up the camp hierarchy and were employed as skilled workers or could become junior functionaries. The hospitals were there to provide medical care for those who were likely to recover. Those who were not likely to recover, among the Jewish inmates, were selected for the gas chambers. The 'grace period' was a matter of weeks. Some survivors were hidden inside the hospitals by friends, and were lucky, but many, many more were not.

The improvements were at the behest of the WVHA in Berlin and were noticeable in every KZ; the death-rates decline in 1943 for 'natural causes' compared to 1942. In the first half of 1944, they got better still, but then worsened when the system became overloaded in the last year of the war.

The low rate of employment among the camp population has several causes; firstly, conditions were so awful that a very high percentage were sick. In November-December 1943, about 25% of the women's camp were registered as sick. On December 12, there were 9,324 female prisoners registered as sick, and the next day, 7,418; in between the total population of the women's camp decreased correspondingly, which confirms from documents the fact reported by witnesses that the SS selected more than 2,000 women for the gas chambers. These were all Jewish women. Probably a third to a half of the sick who were not selected were likely Jewish women deemed likely to recover, the other half to two thirds were non-Jewish women.

Secondly, prisoners spent a considerable time in quarantine after arrival, sometimes several months. There were also quarantines for specific blocks inside the camp, which in 1943 did not automatically mean the entire block being sent to the gas chamber, as had happened in 1942. Thirdly, the gypsy camp was not required to work at all. Fourth, there were other special groups such as the Theresienstadt family camp which were also exempted from work for propaganda reasons. Fifth, non-Jewish prisoner transports often included children - nearly 1000 Belorussian children were deported as part of 'partisan families', and then some were selected for Germanisation. All these groups would have taken away from the deployable labour force.

Finally, from late 1943 and early 1944 onwards, Auschwitz also served as a labour reservoir, so it took in more people than it could employ, and then dispatched the excess to other camps. It served this function both in relation to Monowitz and other sub-camps in Silesia, and for other KZs.

Thus, to take a surviving labour report for the men's camp, of 18,355 male prisoners in Birkenau (Auschwitz II) on Hitler's birthday in 1944, only 7422 were employed. 4759 were not fit for work; of whom 1478 were in the Theresienstadt family camp. There were 3314 in quarantine; and 2860 in the gypsy camp, who could not be employed. There were about 100 adolescents and children, all Poles and Belorussians, Adding the special categories together, about 7,500 prisoners couldn't be employed, about 3000 were sick and nearly 7,500 were employed.

Your question about Belsen relates to a different phase of the camp system. In the last six months of the war, Belsen was designated as a Sterbelager where unfit inmates were to be more or less dumped without much ceremony. Other camp complexes had sub-camps with the same function, eg the Natzweiler camp complex, whose sub-camps continued to be administered as Kl Natzweiler even after the main camp was liberated, designated a sub-camp where prisoners judged too weak to work were transferred, and there was a very high death rate there in that phase. There was no general policy of killing unfit Jews after October-November 1944, once the selections at Auschwitz stopped. Some camps, particularly Mauthausen and Ravensbrueck, did carry out local selections for gas chambers that already existed or were improvised for the purpose, but this was not a general policy. Ravensbrueck also instituted a 'dumping ground' in its camp complex, picking the sub-camp of Uckermarck for the purpose, so it pursued both methods. At the same time, in 1945 there were pressures building to suspend all killings, prompted by negotiations with the Red Cross, and thus a very schizophrenic policy emerged, but this should be no surprise as the entire Third Reich was collapsing.

Having answered your questions, I would welcome it if you responded to my point about the logic of preserving unfit Jews by the millions for long periods - not merely 10s of 1000s for a few weeks or months, but 2.5 million Jews who started vanishing in December 1941 and had to be kept alive until 1944 or so, in order to survive Nazi occupation.

[GurtKerstein]

To start from the back end, you would be wrong that most historians think Wannsee does not discuss extermination; what is left out is any discussion of specific methods, and any discussion of the fate of the unfit. Those who are deemed fit for work were to be sent 'roadbuilding to the east' and as the survivors would be the potential seedgerm of a Jewish biological revival, would be 'correspondingly treated'.

It probably belongs in another thread and it has been discussed here but I would like to see where Wansee mentions extermination of the Jews. Jewish biological revival? I thought the goal was extermination, not improving the Jewish genes by means of selection. Also, you are contradicting yourself from only one post ago when you said "It is correct that the Nazis intended to eliminate all Jews after the war".

Yes, you answered most of my questions using that special school of thought known as Holocaust logic using the same convoluted explanations that most Holocaust "historians" espouse.

In the prisoner hospitals, sick inmates judged unlikely to recover quickly were killed with lethal injections until the spring of 1943, when that practice was stopped by the camp chief medical officer, Eduard Wirths. The SS also regularly cleaned out entire barrack blocks of all inmates during epidemics and sent them to the gas chambers; and conducted roll-call selections to reduce the numbers.

Nobody denies that such was the practice with mortally ill inmates. The question is why was that practice stopped? It makes perfect sense according to you.

Secondly, prisoners spent a considerable time in quarantine after arrival, sometimes several months. There were also quarantines for specific blocks inside the camp, which in 1943 did not automatically mean the entire block being sent to the gas chamber, as had happened in 1942.

Once again, a life saving measure in an extermination camp. Go figure.

At the same time, in 1945 there were pressures building to suspend all killings, prompted by negotiations with the Red Cross, and thus a very schizophrenic policy emerged, but this should be no surprise as the entire Third Reich was collapsing.

Suspend killings? I thought the first thing a mass murderer would do in order to hide all traces of his genocide, such as is claimed he has done meticulously, would be to exterminate the remaining witnesses, especially if he sees his defeat coming. Why instead evacuate them? Any explanation or is it Holocaust logic again?

Some camps, particularly Mauthausen and Ravensbrueck, did carry out local selections for gas chambers that already existed or were improvised for the purpose, but this was not a general policy.

I guess we have to add two more camps to the list of "camps with gas chambers that nobody has ever seen and no evidence remains".

uschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration camp in which there was an extermination site

Some genius must have thought of this concept for a "super secret extermination" - a camp that both holds inmates and has gas chambers in plain view of the inmates yet expected it to remain a top secret. Now, if you say it was not such a big secret, then how come not a single document, photo or communication is left mentioning gassings?

I will say it again: Auschwitz as an extermination site is an absurd. Only a moron would pick Auschwitz as a site for a "super secret extermination program".

I would welcome it if you responded to my point about the logic of preserving unfit Jews by the millions for long periods - not merely 10s of 1000s for a few weeks or months, but 2.5 million Jews who started vanishing in December 1941 and had to be kept alive until 1944 or so, in order to survive Nazi occupation.

The same question could be applied to Japanese interned at American camps. By your logic, the Americans should have exterminated those Japs. Why keep them alive for years? They only cost money. But the simple answer to your question is that there was no extermination program. When the Jews were sent to those concentration camps the Germans did not know how long the war would last and unless there was a clear order from Hitler to exterminate Jews, no camp commander or official would have taken such an enormous decision by his own initiative. No document, communication or order were ever found discussing gassings or extermination - that is a consensus among historians. The physical and circumstantial evidence does not support those claims. Regarding the 2.5 million "vanishing Jews", I would like to see your sources. Do not forget that what took place during the war was what we call today "ethnic cleansing". The Germans did it to the Jews and Poles and the Poles and Soviets did it to the Germans later. A large number of Jews fled as refugees or were evacuated eastward when the Germans were advancing, so the number of Jews under German rule is likely overestimated by traditional historians. Not all Jews under German rule were sent to concentration camps but that is a subject for another thread.

[nickterry]

To start from the back end, you would be wrong that most historians think Wannsee does not discuss extermination; what is left out is any discussion of specific methods, and any discussion of the fate of the unfit. Those who are deemed fit for work were to be sent 'roadbuilding to the east' and as the survivors would be the potential seedgerm of a Jewish biological revival, would be 'correspondingly treated'.

It probably belongs in another thread and it has been discussed here but I would like to see where Wansee mentions extermination of the Jews. Jewish biological revival? I thought the goal was extermination, not improving the Jewish genes by means of selection. Also, you are contradicting yourself from only one post ago when you said "It is correct that the Nazis intended to eliminate all Jews after the war"

No, because I stated that the policy was not 100% instantaneous extermination, as so many revisionists and many non-revisionists imply.

As for Wannsee:

Under proper guidance, in the course of the final solution the Jews are to be allocated for appropriate labor in the East. Able-bodied Jews, separated according to sex, will be taken in large work columns to these areas for work on roads, in the course of which action doubtless a large portion will be eliminated by natural causes.
The possible final remnant will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history.)

http://www.historyguide.org/Europe/wannsee.html

Der allfällig endlich verbleibende Restbestand wird, da es sich bei diesem zweifellos um den widerstandsfähigsten Teil handelt, entsprechend behandelt werden müssen, da dieser, eine natürliche Auslese darstellend, bei Freilassung als Keimzelle eines neuen jüdischen Aufbaues anzusprechen ist. (Siehe die Erfahrung der Geschichte.)

http://www.ghwk.de/deut/protdt.htm

The above excerpt is as I paraphrased it; there is no discussion of the fate of the non-able bodied, and the expectation is that a large portion of the able bodied will be eliminated by natural causes; the remnant then has to be 'treated accordingly' to prevent a Jewish revival.

Note: utter silence on the fate of the unfit; who given that children are not deemed arbeitsfaehig would be just as much a potential seed of a Jewish revival, so....

Yes, you answered most of my questions using that special school of thought known as Holocaust logic using the same convoluted explanations that most Holocaust "historians" espouse.

In the prisoner hospitals, sick inmates judged unlikely to recover quickly were killed with lethal injections until the spring of 1943, when that practice was stopped by the camp chief medical officer, Eduard Wirths. The SS also regularly cleaned out entire barrack blocks of all inmates during epidemics and sent them to the gas chambers; and conducted roll-call selections to reduce the numbers.

Nobody denies that such was the practice with mortally ill inmates. The question is why was that practice stopped? It makes perfect sense according to you.

Before you bombard me with questions easily answered from standard works, can you tell me precisely what mainstream works you have read on the KZs and Auschwitz. The suspension of lethal injections was stopped by a combination of an order from Berlin which no longer required the murder of KZ inmates under Aktion 14 f 13, which was usually carried out in T4 institutes (and long after 'civilian' euthanasia had stopped sending patients to T4 institues), and the local decision not to persist with the specific practice peculiar to Auschwitz of killing sick inmates with phenol injections. Wirths, to put it bluntly, had a bit of a conscience.

GK

Secondly, prisoners spent a considerable time in quarantine after arrival, sometimes several months. There were also quarantines for specific blocks inside the camp, which in 1943 did not automatically mean the entire block being sent to the gas chamber, as had happened in 1942.

Once again, a life saving measure in an extermination camp. Go figure.

Yet Auschwitz was both a concentration/labour camp and an extermination site. So no contradiction; measures to try and preserve life (which failed considerably given that even the revisionist author Mattogno accepts a death toll of 130,000 at Auschwitz, more than any other ordinary KZ) applied to the labour camp function not the extermination site function.

GK

At the same time, in 1945 there were pressures building to suspend all killings, prompted by negotiations with the Red Cross, and thus a very schizophrenic policy emerged, but this should be no surprise as the entire Third Reich was collapsing.

Suspend killings? I thought the first thing a mass murderer would do in order to hide all traces of his genocide, such as is claimed he has done meticulously, would be to exterminate the remaining witnesses, especially if he sees his defeat coming. Why instead evacuate them? Any explanation or is it Holocaust logic again?

Yet we are told constantly by revisionists that all ordinary Auschwitz inmates, who never saw anything directly, don't count as witnesses. Is that revisionist logic at work? Seriously, drop the sneering and let's discuss this openly.

You assume that the exclusive purpose of Auschwitz was extermination. It was not; the camp was a dual purpose site. Already by October 1944, at least 100,000 prisoners had been transferred from Auschwitz to work in other concentration camps, taking with them what they knew from hearsay or from glimpses of the inner workings of the crematoria. So there is nothing distinctive about the final evacuation of Auschwitz. Those witnesses who had special insight into the killing process, the Sonderkommandos, were to be killed - as happened to a small number who were executed in Mauthausen - but in the confusion of the evacuation, the majority blended in with the ordinary inmates, who were not slated for elimination as 'bearers of secrets', since they were needed as labourers, according to the priorities of the regime at the time.

The Nazis could not possibly hope to achieve total secrecy, and indeed did not; the Polish resistance and the local population knew all about the camp (but because they did not have direct eyeball access, their knowledge was not crystal clear). So did police escorts for the transports, railwaymen and of course the SS guards. If the Nazis were to kill everyone who knew, then in the absence of any witnesses, this would be just as probative of genocide as if they had not killed all the witnesses, since there would be literally no one surviving from a particular camp. Think it through.

GK

Some camps, particularly Mauthausen and Ravensbrueck, did carry out local selections for gas chambers that already existed or were improvised for the purpose, but this was not a general policy.

I guess we have to add two more camps to the list of "camps with gas chambers that nobody has ever seen and no evidence remains".

Or you can read about them and realise that the gas chamber in Mauthausen survives, with only limited dismantling done at the end of the war. Ravensbrueck's improvised chamber was entirely destroyed, but the 5000 or so victims are just as missing and just as dead as if the building had survived. As for Stutthoff...

GK

uschwitz-Birkenau was a concentration camp in which there was an extermination site

Some genius must have thought of this concept for a "super secret extermination" - a camp that both holds inmates and has gas chambers in plain view of the inmates yet expected it to remain a top secret. Now, if you say it was not such a big secret, then how come not a single document, photo or communication is left mentioning gassings?

I will say it again: Auschwitz as an extermination site is an absurd. Only a moron would pick Auschwitz as a site for a "super secret extermination program".

The Nazis were not morons, and they recognised that their aims required compromises. You cannot keep anything a 'super secret', especially not an extermination program. Despite the best efforts of the SS, people escaped from even the pure extermination camps, and the smoke from the burning could be smelt 10-15km away near Belzec and Treblinka.

I'm sorry to say, by the way, that your demand for a 'single document, photo or communication mentioning gassings' can easily be met. Not only are there the hard to explain documents relating to the crematoria, but there is one contemporary German document explicitly and unequivocally mentioning the gassing of Jews at Auschwitz, and others which refer to their 'destruction' in contrast to the 'slow death' desired for certain categories of Poles. It was discovered by a sometime revisionist, Charles Provan, and has since been used by a recent biographer of Hoess, Ian Baxter.

Your assumption that the Nazis aspired to 100% secrecy is really as flawed as the assumption that they were carrying out 100% instantaneous extermination. Neither was practicable, and the chief source of the contradiction was the need for prisoner labourers. It was logistically efficient to place the extermination site in a camp complex which would employ those deportees not selected for extermination. Clearly, this benefit overrode the consideration for secrecy.

But next time a nation state decides to plan a genocide in the middle of a total war, I am sure they can ask you for advice on how to plan it. Of course, in the intervening time, we also found several states committing genocides, sometimes with instruments as primitive as machetes, and the perpetrators all got caught. Indeed, most criminals try to cover up their crimes, and fail. Just ask Amanda Knox.

GK

I would welcome it if you responded to my point about the logic of preserving unfit Jews by the millions for long periods - not merely 10s of 1000s for a few weeks or months, but 2.5 million Jews who started vanishing in December 1941 and had to be kept alive until 1944 or so, in order to survive Nazi occupation.

The same question could be applied to Japanese interned at American camps. By your logic, the Americans should have exterminated those Japs. Why keep them alive for years? They only cost money.

The USA in WWII was a rich, prosperous country that did not suffer from food shortages. Sorry, apples and oranges.

But the simple answer to your question is that there was no extermination program.

I'm sorry, this is no answer to my query.

When the Jews were sent to those concentration camps the Germans did not know how long the war would last and unless there was a clear order from Hitler to exterminate Jews, no camp commander or official would have taken such an enormous decision by his own initiative. No document, communication or order were ever found discussing gassings or extermination - that is a consensus among historians. The physical and circumstantial evidence does not support those claims. Regarding the 2.5 million "vanishing Jews", I would like to see your sources. Do not forget that what took place during the war was what we call today "ethnic cleansing". The Germans did it to the Jews and Poles and the Poles and Soviets did it to the Germans later. A large number of Jews fled as refugees or were evacuated eastward when the Germans were advancing, so the number of Jews under German rule is likely overestimated by traditional historians. Not all Jews under German rule were sent to concentration camps but that is a subject for another thread

This also is no answer to my query. Of course, you want to postpone the issue of considering the logic of why the Nazis would keep 2.5 million Jewish 'resettlers' alive by asking for sources on the deportations. Unless you are completely unreasonable, you will accept that there is copious evidence which is detailed in numerous studies and which can be found summarised on the internet on many sites. It is a fact that 75,000 Jews were deported from France, all the name lists survive, the dates of departure are known, their departure was witnessed and so on. The evidence is similar for all other countries from which Jews were deported. In some cases, no name lists, but other statistical material, and corroborated by yet more sources such as the Korherr report, or for the Hungarian deportations, a series of telegrams from the German representative in Hungary, Veesenmeyer, as well as Hungarian Gendarmerie reports counting the trains passing over the border. 437,000 Hungarian Jews were deported, and since 25% of them were selected for labour, a great many survive. At least 5000 testimonies were given in 1945 describing the deportations. The deportations are fact, like it or not.

The question I asked, which you should answer as a hypothetical if you wish, is about the more than 2 million Jews who vanished after being last traced arriving at supposed death camps, which revisionists have been calling transit camps for more than 30 years now, ever since Butz published 'The Hoax of the Twentieth Century'. If they were resettled into a territory suffering from a food shortage bad enough to kill off large numbers of the native population from starvation, do you honestly think that the Nazis would have succeeded in keeping them alive in large numbers? Or even tried?

Next: if the Nazis had resettled these deportees into the 'east', as claimed by many revisionists such as Mattogno, Butz and Faurisson, do you not think that the resulting series of 20-40 equivalents of Belsen would have made for even better atrocity propaganda for the advancing Soviets than a story about gas chambers?

[GurtKerstein]

Nickterry:

Thanks for the thoughtful elaborate response. Once again, it's down to physical evidence. You seem to be one of those who still believe the Mauthausen and Stutthof gas chamber myth. Have you ever seen those 'gas chambers'? David Cole actually examined these alleged 'gas chambers' and posted a few questions about them that demonstrate that they could not be used for homicidal gassings and were certainly not designed as such. Can you try to answer those?

http://www.codoh.com/gcgv/gc46-origi.html

[Greg Gerdes]

nickterry

I'm sorry to say, by the way, that your demand for a 'single document, photo or communication mentioning gassings' can easily be met.

That's what you said about providing the name of just one jew, with proof, who died in a "gas chamber."


If it's so easy nick, then why don't you provide it?

[Pappy Yokum]

Assuming there is a problem with the dates on the translation, but the document is otherwise accurately translated and from October of 1942, then it makes sense to me.

Also assuming the Wannsee Protocol is relatively accurate and authentic from January 1942, this order is in perfect agreement with that and the Korherr reports to Himmler from March 1943. The report from that time used statistics from the end of 1942.

The WP says Jews could no longer emigrate and were to be evacuated to the east unless they needed to stay in their current employment or met other criteria - like being elderly. The areas under German control were to be swept from west to east and Jews were to evacuated and resettled outside Germany.

This order is part of that program. Jews in prison camps inside Germany were to be sent east to prison camps in occupied Poland during this period. Auschwitz and Lublin were camps outside the Reich. After the war, Korherr wrote a letter, I forget who to, it might have been a newspaper or magazine, stating he was told the Jews he listed in his report as having been deported in 1942 were resettled in the Lublin area.

Saying there were Jews in camps in Germany at the end of the war is not a contradiction to this order. This was the Nazi policy at the time, but that changed as of early 1944. Among the IMT documents is an order to prepare for a large influx of prisoners. Another is a plea for clothing for the incoming prisoners noting that Auschwitz had processed tons of scrap textiles the last couple of years and could the camps get resources to support this jump in camp population. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, particularly from Hungary, were sent back west again as labor. Their labor was needed because Germany was losing the war and more men were being drafted for military service.

Roughly the time-line of Nazi policy toward the Jews was from 1933-1940 Jews were encouraged to emigrate. This is the period of the Transfer Agreement cited earlier. This is mentioned in the WP. It says rich Jews were tapped to pay for the emigration of poor Jews. 1940-1941 there was exploration of possible resettlement of Jews to former French possessions like Madagascar. With the invasion of Soviet Russia, 1942-43 Jews were evacuated East. In 1944 Jews were sent back west again as labor, particularly Hungarian Jews. 1945: Germany surrenders and tens of millions of people have been and will be displaced.

I hope this helps put the document in question into context.

[Kiwichap]

Pappy Yokum : Roughly the time-line of Nazi policy toward the Jews was from 1933-1940 Jews were encouraged to emigrate. This is the period of the Transfer Agreement..

The Report: The Mufti and the Holocaust cites:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/17089176.html

By August 1940, however, the situation had radically changed. The outbreak of the war had brought the Haavara Agreement to an end. Even while it was still at least formally in effect, moreover, the Germans had already been quietly providing financial and material support to the mufti-led “Arab Revolt” in Palestine from 1936 to 1939.

Even while it was still at least formally in effect, .. So, what is going on here? Is the Transfer over or not? What's up with the word 'formally'?

The evidence, ie, Jews on the move, can be shown throughout the war.

Aliya during World War II and its aftermath
1939-1948

During World War II, the aliya effort focused on rescuing Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe. Some olim entered the country on visas issued under the "White Paper" quota; the majority came as illegal immigrants. This immigration, called Aliya Bet, arrived by land and by sea, from Europe and the Middle East, in contravention of the Mandatory Government's orders.

The loss of contact with European countries, the hazards of maritime travel under wartime conditions, and the difficulty in obtaining vessels for transport of illegal immigrants placed severe constraints on Aliya Bet. Several boatloads of immigrants who managed to reach Palestine were sent back by British authorities upholding the quota system. Many lost their lives at sea or in the Nazi inferno in Europe.

During the years 1944-1948, the Jews in Eastern Europe sought to leave that continent by any means. Emissaries from the yishuv, Jewish partisans and Zionist youth movements cooperated in establishing the Beriha (escape) organization, which helped nearly 200,000 Jews leave Europe. The majority settled in Palestine.
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Centenary+of+Zionism/Aliya+and+Absorption.htm

[Pappy Yokum]

Pappy Yokum : Roughly the time-line of Nazi policy toward the Jews was from 1933-1940 Jews were encouraged to emigrate. This is the period of the Transfer Agreement..

The Report: The Mufti and the Holocaust cites:
http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/17089176.html

By August 1940, however, the situation had radically changed. The outbreak of the war had brought the Haavara Agreement to an end. Even while it was still at least formally in effect, moreover, the Germans had already been quietly providing financial and material support to the mufti-led “Arab Revolt” in Palestine from 1936 to 1939.

Even while it was still at least formally in effect, .. So, what is going on here? Is the Transfer over or not? What's up with the word 'formally'?

The evidence, ie, Jews on the move, can be shown throughout the war.

I agree that Jews were on the move and being moved throughout the war, but the Haavara Agreement was set up to do two things. The first goal was to get Jews to leave Germany. The second goal was to get around the trade boycott of German manufactures. This was done by preventing the Jews from moving cash out of the country. They, instead, could purchase German-made products and take those with them. These were the goals of the Nazi government. The other side of the agreement was the Jews were to go to Palestine for the future establishment of a Jewish state. The agreement was bankrolled by the Warburg family and Jewish organizations. Jews were not all that interested in living in Palestine, but they were given little choice. On a voluntary basis, Zionism was a failure, so compelling the Jews in that direction became a basis for cooperation between Zionism and Nazi Germany. Both the Nazis and the Zionists wanted Palestine out from under of British control.

Since Palestine was part of British empire, and England put a stop to Jewish immigration, and since the British navy controlled the Atlantic Ocean, and the Mediterranean Sea, that avenue for Jewish emigration became closed after the Britain declared war in 1939. In 1940, France surrendered, but also Germany lost the air war and sea war against Britain. This made sending Jews overseas impractical. It may be the Haavara Agreement still existed on paper but it was over as a way to get large numbers of Jews out of the country. The Warburgs were also forced to relinquish control of their Hamburg bank to an Aryan. They handed the bank over to someone they believed would be their Sabbat goy. That was in 1938. After the war, there was a prolonged fight by the Warburgs to get control of their bank back. And they got it.

When the Soviet controlled part of Europe was invaded in the summer of 1941, the Soviets deported millions of people east ahead of Wehrmacht. The large depopulated areas were seen by the Nazis as an opportunity get the Jews out of Germany at least until the war was over. The solution was not exactly their first choice, but they had few options at the time if their goal was to rid Germany of the Jews.

At the beginning of 1942 the policy became to evacuate the Jews east first into occupied Poland, which made Hans Frank complain. Later the Jews were to be deported farther east. By the middle of 1943 there were Jewish ghettos set up in cities like Minsk and north into the Baltic states.

The memo to send Jews in the prison camps east to Lublin, and Auschwitz in Silesia dates from the early phase of the resettlement program when Jews were being sent Poland until they could be sent into Russia in 1943.

[GurtKerstein]

So where is Nick Terry? He almost wrote a book here but disappeared when I mentioned physical evidence. I guess physical evidence is anathema to exterminationists. Nick Terry is an "orthodox" Holocaustian who seems to believe that even Mauthausen and Stutthof housed gas chambers, yet he apparently hasn't even taken a look at them because one look at these 'gas chambers' is enough for anyone to see that they could not possibly be used to gas people. David Cole's questions are still waiting to be answered.

[Kiwichap]

GurtKerstein, I thought Nick Terry was doing quite well. Talk about promoting holocaust lite! That's where a Jew can claim holo reparations because some kid bumped him while he was reading his newspaper on the train. That's the new holocaust.

Hey Nick. Where have all the fables gone huh? - long time ago.

I think Nick Terry, like most artful dodgers, knows the game is up. His references to the heart of the hoax are rather less than Lipstadts. Nick is more inclined to suggest that Jews were holocausted because they were squashed onto trains and buses, rather than squashed into gas chambers.

Does anyone anywhere believe the scam anymore? The President of Iran said it was a scam. The response to him was whinging, whining and nail biting. They can only grumble impotent hateful anti-antisemitic slurs. Yet never a word about the issue or their own unjust abominable behaviour. Current events form future trends. The holo scam is going DOWN Down down.

So Jews were moving everywhere, transferred from camp to camp. Packed in like sardines now and again.

My guess is most Jews would be trying to dodge the sonder-commando selection, from taking them to Palestine. Jews didn't want to go to Palestine; Jews still don't. We all know that shi**y little place is a hole-in-the-wall for Jews to run to; but only when they gotta run and hide!

It seems to me Nick Terrry is trying to bring some respect into holocaustianity. He needs to know how far he can waffle on and dilute the fable without looking like a dork to both sides.

I don't think it's possible to water-down the fable, while still hoping to keep the spell binding. We know the fable-makers have ditched whole chapters of the scam (soap) when it became too slippery to hang on to. I bet they would dearly love to ditch the gas chamber fable also. Who wants to go up against science and common sense?

Surely the scam-artists are losing heart. The new fables are just too ridiculous and laughable to pick up the ball and run with it. Living with wolves. ha ha. Who wants to flog a patently dead horse? Lets get back to reality. Lets have justice, along with the expected apologies, hangings, and compensation!