when statements and assertions are not supported by hard evidence and where attempts to unearth hard evidence lead in a circle back to the starting point — particularly when everyone is quoting everyone else — then we must reject the story as spurious
(The Wikipedia entry for Jacob Schiff finds that the quote and most of what is written in the above article is attributed to Anthony Sutton of the Hoover Institute)
It's strange that the complete converse is applied as the standard of evidence for the holocaust.
The holocaust doesn't lose credibility as more 'survivors' go on record with eyewitness accounts of human skin lampshades, Jew hair mattresses or RIF soap.
According Michael Shermer they become additional 'data points' added to a huge pile, the enormity of which precludes the need for physical evidence.