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Topic
#3524
There exists no forensic evidence from an impartial/disinterested source that a single person was executed in a gas chamber in any of the internment camps of the Third Reich [conditions outlined]
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The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
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After 1 vote and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...
Kritikal
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- 5
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- Multiple criterions
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Contender / Con
6
1553
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Description
***debate recreated with amended character limit (was 10,000, now 30,000) after both contenders posted round 1 arguments. descriptions, title, debate settings and round 1 arguments copied from original as-is, apart from this note***
I am looking for irrefutable science-based evidence OF a gas-chamber death in any of the internment (AKA concentration) camps in the Third Reich during WW2. The evidence must be proven to have originated before the camp was captured and removed from German control. Please note conditions in the short description. Additionally: the evidence must be absolute (i.e. it cannot be 'possible' evidence of a gas-chamber death), it must be directed (i.e. not reversed, like "this proves that zero gas-chamber deaths is impossible), and it must be forensically sound.
The most irrefutable and solid forensic evidence I know of is a tear mark (e.g. when you tear a piece of paper, it is virtually impossible for any other tear to appear the same way under a microscope) -- this is far more reliable than bite marks, fingerprints, and it is more (not much more) reliable than DNA marker matching.
I hope it will be hard to find the evidence I ask for. But prove me wrong and present it to me! I hope I have outlined all the exclusions, but please allow me some leeway if I have not precisely specified the conditions.
Look at it this way: if you had that one piece of evidence, and nothing else, and the whole world believed there were zero gas-chamber deaths in the camps, could you turn the tables and convince 80% of the world that there was at least one death in a gas chamber at the camps?
***please note: I am not advocating hatred of any kind against any person or group of people, and I am exhibiting no political or racial opinion with regard to either my question/challenge or the context thereof - I understand the sensitive nature of the context so please can we keep this about the objective evidence and keep emotions out of this discussion***
Thank you and good luck!
Round 1
Pro
#1
Good day to you, Kritikal.
Okay so I am new to this site and I see now the short description I wrote detailing the evidence conditions is not visible on the main page, so I am posting it here for reference:
---
evidence that is not forensic/impartial here: eye/earwitness accounts; hear-say (e.g. news articles, rumours, stories from relatives or others; films; documentary programmes and articles); readily subject to bias and hear-say origins (e.g.: photos; government-issued statements, reports, logs, identity cards, death certs; encyclopedias; memorial publications.); used in unorthodox courtroom proceedings (e.g.: evidence presented at either the Nuremberg Trials or the Soviet equiv.)
---
I see in the comments on this debate that there is a consensus that I should not be specifying conditions for the acceptability of evidence -- please note it is simply part of my debate question and I am not running a court of law here.
In courts of law often convictions are made based on eyewitness statements alone; personally I believe this practice should be stopped for more serious cases such as murder and some instances of rape.
I want to make it clear that I do not want to have a debate to determine the validity of a particular historical claim; rather, I want to be proven wrong in MY belief that there exists no piece of irrefutable forensic evidence proving said claim to be true.
I noticed some comments about the 'carte blanche' I seem to be giving myself here - let me respond - the reason I asked for you to allow me leeway in my conditions is that it is a large-scale historical case covering many types of accusation and crime - there is likely some type of evidence that is not forensic, irrefutable and impartial, that I have neglected to include - I trust you will honour this request after accepting the challenge. But please do suggest to me any evidence you consider.
So let me give examples of forensic evidence from an impartial source that I would find difficult to argue with:
- a series of autopsy reports of bodies exhumed by any disinterested party (OR by any disconnected parties if the autopsy reports show both conflicts and matches, where the matches are relevant to what we intend to ascertain) showing that at least one person was killed or died by gas in any of the camps
- a soil sample taken by a scientific study that was investigating something other than gas-chamber deaths (e.g. sampling for radiation levels in soil, other environmental-contamination studies) that lead to the discovery of human remains later determined with forensic science to have been killed or died from gas in any of the camps or just outside them
- rubble, equipment or bodies found in and around the camps after the war by disinterested* persons that lead to the discovery of human remains, which were then validated, as containing proof that such person was killed there by gas, by a disinterested third party using such forensic examination procedures as Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) and electron microscopy, and such forensic disciplines as toxicology and pathology
* in the comments I saw the word disinterested echoed from my initial long description; I must clarify here that I speak British English and did not realise the word differed in meaning between British English and American English; so by 'disinterested' I mean (quoting Cambridge dictionary): 'having no personal involvement or receiving no personal advantage, and therefore free to act fairly' (generally I mean that there is no financial interest) -- I do not mean disillusioned, apathetic, or uninterested.
One final note: it is possible to find evidence of accidental gas deaths (e.g. a soldier drops a gas canister and dies from it) but I trust you understand that is not exactly what I am looking for here; it is difficult to determine intent via forensic investigation, only that something happened regardless of the existence of intent; so please in any case do suggest evidence where you believe it to be result of an accident or where you cannot be sure of the intent or cause.
I wish you a good day ahead and I look forward to your response!
-fivesix
Con
#2
1N---AT: EV Standards
Pro presented several new standards for evidence that were not included in the description. For example, photos which are by definition a forensic tool, and even any evidence that was ever presented at the nuremberg trials. Voters should not buy that this evidence should be excluded. Pro has not met an adequate burden of proof to explain why these items and others should be excluded within this round as no warrant is given.
For example, Pro says that Photos are subject to bias, but there is no explanation and the same is true with other new standards.
Quite simply, if I can show that evidence meets the four given parameters it will be counted, and Pro must show an explicit reason why evidence fails under these reasons to discard it.
Further attempts to change these standards should be considered as in round abuse by voters. This would move the goal post, allowing Pro to win at the expense of the quality and fairness of debate.
1N---Framing
Definitions:
In the description pro only lays out four requirements for the evidence:
- The evidence originate from before the camp fell out of Nazi hands.
- It must be absolute
- It must be directed
- It must be forensically sound
1 does not even have to be considered as all evidence originates from an event, and as such the evidence was created at the same exact time the event took place.
4 includes all forensics, as the OED defines it: “scientific tests or techniques used in connection with the detection of crime.” [1]
Finally, if any disputes do come up about the meaning of the resolution we should look at it in context. Words are conceptual skeletons for meanings that arise solely from context — but we have to pick the right word in the right context:
Conceptual skeletons exist on different levels of abstraction along different conceptual dimensions. Take the following sentence as an example: "The Vice President is the spare tire on the automobile of government." How do we understand what it means? If you were told, "See our government as an automobile" without any prior motivation, you might come up with any number of correspondences: the two things being mapped are so different, it is almost inevitable that the mapping will involve functional aspects. your store of conceptual skeletons representing parts of automobiles when the particular sentence is examined, the mapping gets forced in one respect-but it is not an awkward way you already have a conceptual skeleton for the Vice President, among many others, which says, "replacement for a certain disabled part of government" . But suppose, for the sake of contrast, that you had retrieved another conceptual skeleton for "spare tire"-say, one describing its physical aspects. Among other things, it might say that a spare tire is "round and inflated", not the right way to go.
BOP:
BoP is never explicitly defined, so by default we share a joint burden of proof. This means that Pro also has to prove that it is unlikely this evidence exists, and in doing so prove the resolution. If Pro can not prove that there is at least a greater than 50% chance that no such evidence exists all ballots should be cast for Neg on presumption.
Also consider that Pro effectually has a greater BoP because the resolution is absolute saying: “There exists no forensic evidence.” If any evidence at all is more than 50% likely to exist, I win this debate by default. The quality of evidence does not matter, all that matters is that it is likely to exist.
1N---Evidence
I feel that this round will be more about if this evidence meets the standards, rather than if it is real. So I will simply list a few instances where forensic evidence can be found.
First there is a residue known as Prussian Blue, “a dark blue pigment produced by oxidation of ferrous ferrocyanide salts.” This residue comes from Zyklon B. It covers the walls of the former gas chambers, and it has been found in the hair of those murdered as well. [2]
Next is the demographic shift. This one is very simple, demography can prove that Jews were murdered. For example, In Poland 90% of Jews were killed. [3]
“A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies.” [4]
Regardless of the methods used within any given study, one could take the number of deaths within those studies and combine them to prove that at least one person died in a gas chamber. This is because, even if those studies are not scientific in nature themselves, by performing a meta-analysis it is possible to get a result that is considered scientific in nature. As such, any results obtained by a meta-analysis are forensic evidence. Such studies have been performed on the survivors of the holocaust, and the evidence exists to draw conclusions about the dead as well. [5]
Round 2
Pro
#3
1N---AT: EV Standards
Con is free to present any of the evidence types I have noted as exclusions. I prefer sound evidence that does not need to fit around the stipulations, rather evidence that may stand on its own merit in spite of my stipulations. Even if it does not fit my list, I am happy to see it and challenge it, but here I want Con to know it will be much harder to defend non-forensic evidence in this matter due to:
1) the lack (and in my opinion absence) of extant forensic evidence even after 70+ years
2) the speculative nature of the documentary and physical evidence presented at Nuremberg and at the current camp museums (see this article[8] that challenges many counter-claims using only documentary, witness, hear-say and speculative reasoning as evidence -- e.g. shrunken heads were found; shrunken heads did not have any links to S. American souvenir trade; shrunken heads were chemically proven to have human tissue in them: evidence of atrocity -- the link between the last part of that chain and the other parts thereof is not proven (i.e. because one finds a severed finger does not prove that the finger was severed by any particular person or even if it was severed intentionally))
I explained in round one that the new information I added there was not visible in my description due to my belief that the short description field would show up in the debate when created. I trust Con will forgive this of me and I am willing to allow leeway on this in terms of rounds. Voters please keep in mind the disadvantage to Con due to this lapse of my preparedness.
As Con has raised objections to some particulars of my exclusion list having no explanation as to why they are in said list, I will now outline some of them with examples. The standards for evidence I originally presented will remain the same thus should not be considered as round abuse by voters as I am not changing anything I have stated to my advantage.
Photos are subject to bias (via what is photographed and what is not), physical manipulation (both subject and photo), and improper/deceitful captioning and presentation, with aim to psychological manipulation. Photos, as documentary evidence, may be used to support forensic evidence, but alone they are next to worthless in judicial procedure as they are so readily falsified, recreated and manipulated and may even be presented, in such a way, by the opponent to show such readiness to alteration, discrediting the person initially presenting them as evidence and, consequently, diminishing the integrity of other documentary evidence presented.
See examples [6],[7]. The reliability of any of these sources is irrelevant, considering that if one simply switched any of the photo captions around so a reverse view was presented the argument that they are readily manipulated stands; it is not possible to know (not think - know) which photo presents reality, even if supported by other photos (they may be manipulated as well).
Same applies to video (multiple photos/sec) which from this era is more likely to be staged or contextually removed than physically manipulated/edited. Example: staged liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet filmmakers[11] by their own admission shot after the actual liberation; I argue what material evidence this presents, considering that we know it does not show the event in question.
Eyewitness statements: decrease in reliability with time (that is one of the reasons there are statutes of limitations, apart from capital crimes for which eyewitness statements are most of the time not sufficient to create a unanimous guilty verdict) and are contradictory of one another, especially with regard to alleged gas killing in Third Reich camps. E.g. I argue that these statements are no different in evidentiary value from those in videos easily found on popular video-sharing sites: [12]
Physical evidence, where connection with the alleged crime is presumptive or consequential (i.e. non-forensic), does not prove a crime happened in any particular way or that a crime even happened. Example of what is not proven by presentation of a baseball bat with blood on it in a case of aggravated battery:
1) the blood is human
2) the blood is from the victim
3) the bat caused the death of the victim or even that it caused exsanguination leading to death (roughly 2 litres of blood loss from trauma will cause exsanguination, and 2 litres of blood on a bat would coat it and then some)
4) the bat was wielded by the accused
5) the bat was wielded by anybody at the time of the attack on the victim
6) the bat was in existence at the time of the attack on the victim
7) the blood came from an attack
Presentation of such physical evidence creates presumptive links between the crime and the accused. If such evidence is to be admitted to a court of law it must be open to cross-examination by the opponent. Evidence must be challenged to remove any presumptive links and reduce prejudice in the jury.
Physical evidence like this must be corroborated with forensic evidence that reduces doubt below what a reasonable person would have before. Corroboration via other forms of non-forensic evidence strengthens the case of the prosecution but it cannot remove all doubt and is not likely to remove most doubt in a reasonable person without the presence of prejudice. Some simple suppositions like the ones I have given above can be used to increase doubt, and that is what I aim to do with any evidence given that is not forensically sound.
Hear-say: a quick guide is here: [13] along with exceptions on the left menu
Speculative (i.e. presumptive): mostly relates to witness statements (where the witness did not actually witness the event and was told about it or led to believe it happened by a third party) or improperly used to corroborate physical evidence. "- The witness does not have first-hand knowledge of the fact she is testifying to. - This could be what someone else thought or why someone did something. It could also include what would have happened had x occurred."[14] -- I am happy to challenge any speculative evidence Con can present but I reinforce the non-forensic nature of this evidence type and remind Con it is readily objectionable.
Government-issued documents: despite the ease of forgery, I would ask what any document actually proves.
Example: a document showing an execution order does not prove that the order went ahead. Invoices for chemicals do not show that those chemicals were used in any particular way, nor that they were even received or even returned to the supplier. This I hope illustrates the types of speculative links that were formed about documents such as these from this war's period, even during the war, when messages were kept as succinct as possible to reduce the enemy's advantage if they managed to capture any documents.
I argue that documents alone, or even with confessions, prove nothing other than that the document exists and that the accused confesses to its existence and/or having written it or seen it. We must demand more, for example an objective link. Example of [documentary evidence, handwriting analysis, and eyewitness statements] not being enough for prosecutors to go to trial but a decades-old fingerprint on a document tipping the scales: [15] (transcript from 'Forensic Files') [16] (increment last digit in url for more docs of the case) -- remember as well that in this case the charge was not for murder but for illegal entry into the United States, and even with this non-capital offense the agencies involved wanted a forensic link.
I want to make a special note about documentary evidence and explain further why I do not trust it to be reliable in this situation. In Nuremberg, documents were corroborated with other documents by matching signatures on these documents to prove they were genuine. I ask: does this prove genuinity? Even handwriting analysis on these documents: what does it prove?
Speaking for all of the above: let us look at some criminal cases where there is an absence or misuse of forensic evidence and the case is thrown out or overturned because of that. Note, similar to the case of Trifa above, some of these cases are not even for murder.
- woman drugged and raped in doctor's surgery by doctor, DNA tests prove he didn't do it, until seven years later he is charged for the sexual assault of his daughter and for some reason they can't pull any more blood from his arm. [17],[18](#8) -- this is a case where prejudice affected the judgement of the police prior to even taking DNA tests
- man charged and convicted of arson of his parents' home and the murder of his parents. case later overturned when the source of the fire was forensically proven to be caused by a slow-burning cigarette ignition of a rare underfloor material.[19] -- investigators suspected him mainly because he filed for the house insurance claim so quickly after the fire. this case is important because his prosecution involved forensic evidence (forensic arson investigation) which was later proven to be faulty in itself
- similar to above, where a homeowner was convicted of arson and murder of her son, with the case later overturned by forensic fire investigation trumping forensic arson investigation (but I'd call it presumption here)[20] -- important to note that the prosecution's case relied on speculation but still succeeded (i.e. there was no possibility the fire was random or accidental so she must have set it intentionally)
- man convicted of murder, DNA database matches another perpetrator to the crime instead, original conviction upheld, on further appeal it is uncovered that the expert witness had falsified his credentials, new expert witness from Netherlands flown in and presents the case independently with newly brought DNA matching on materials not originally presented as evidence, exonerating the original convict after 13 years[21] -- this shows the importance of having conclusive and irrefutable hard forensic evidence without the need to rely on testimony, especially that of expert witnesses (e.g. industry experts and doctors)
1N---Framing
Con argues that we should not consider that the evidence originates in the camps before they were removed from German control, due to Con's presumption that all evidence originates from an event and as such that evidence was created at the same exact time the event took place.
I seek to reinforce my original requirement for evidence to be forensic and not documentary or hear-say or eyewitness or any other type.
Support 1: I present this article[9] to show multiple discrepancies in weather data and claimed dates of videos/photos, in addition to explanations/captions of videos not correlating with what they actually show upon analysis (e.g. video says truck is carrying deceased victims of murder, but it actually carries German POWs)
Support 2: I present video[10] of a testimony of a camp survivor, one taken in 1995 and one taken in 1998; note the statements are different and contradictory in and of one event; therefore neither of these evidences can be known to originate in the camp prior to it being removed from German control, as if one of them cannot be true without the other and they happened at the same time then one of them removes the evidential validity of the other, and if both of them are true we cannot know when they happened as dates are not specified; if the evidential validity of one of these clips is removed (i.e. if it is a fabrication) then the date of its origin is the date the video was made, unless the person speaking can tell us the date it was created in her mind.
With regard to disputes concerning the meaning of the resolution: Con has explained this very well, and I agree this should be considered, although I have considered the preciseness of my challenge-text diction and syntax; I ask that from now on Con point out any ambiguity in this challenge text so I may clarify it for Con and voters.
BOP
I am new to debating - please forgive my omission of this BoP requirement. With it in mind that the debate has already begun, I concede to this 50/50 BoP, however I do not agree with Con's statement 'If any evidence at all is more than 50% likely to exist, I win this debate by default.'
Evidence exists; otherwise it is not evidence. Evidence is not likely or unlikely to be in existence because if it is, say, 60% likely to exist, it does not exist until it is determined to exist. Things that exist have 100% likelihood of existing, not 40% or 60%.
My argument is that it does not exist (0%). Con contends that the evidence exists (100%). I ask here for Con to uphold this basis or propose an amendment.
I argue it is more difficult to carry a burden of proof for the non-existence of evidence, so I think 50/50 is fair considering the scale of the gas deaths and the likelihood of finding evidence at multiple intact sites in Europe in the last 70+ years. All I can do is challenge anything you present to me, or dispute the integrity of extant published evidence to show patterns of deception that would cast doubt over any similar evidence presented or any thereof presented by similar sources.
1N---Evidence
Before I tackle the first piece of evidence one, I implore Con to not use weighted wording such as 'those murdered' without objective reason. I object to this on the grounds of assumption of facts not in evidence. Con can simply say 'bodies' or 'corpses' instead. I understand why Con may inadvertently use these terms because they are in the linked items, but I ask Con to please keep this debate as neutral as we can in terms of emotional weight. I understand that it is commonly understood that people were murdered in the events linked; however I want to keep this about gas deaths only and I am refuting the popular claims of gas deaths in the camps through my challenge.
I will both refute this evidence with scientific facts and use its shortcomings to illustrate why such evidence sources cannot reliably prove gas deaths. Voters please note: I accept that I had introduced my objections to these evidence types only in round 1. So I fully accept the evidence given and will object to it on its merit rather than its quality thereof.
[2] is a newspaper article and is, as I will hopefully show, not impartial enough to be relied upon as evidence. The non-scientific, non-impartial nature of the document is overt in the title alone, with use of the subjective, loaded word 'evil', creating immediate bias in the reader; this word could readily be replaced with the word 'Love', for example, to create a different impression ("Evidence of Love"); or it could be removed entirely to avoid making an impression ("Evidence").
[2] paraphrases other articles and sources without providing references/citations at the foot of the document. (please note that several of my own links do not have these sources, but I am not presenting these links as evidence, rather examples of what I am arguing; and I will look for other resources if Con requires me to) what I am trying to say here is that we do not know where to look for more information on what they are saying.
my objections and counter-arguments:
a) the source claims hair was shaved from internees either
i) entering the camp (cyanide found in that hair doesn't prove anything)
ii) immediately after exiting the gas chambers (hair does not grow after death; and even if hair did grow after death it takes several days for chemicals in the root of a hair to be in the portion of hair outside the body (dermis (where hair starts growing) + epidermis (top layer of skin) have a combined thickness of roughly 3mm-5.5mm[22] and average hair growth rate is ~10.6mm per month[23] meaning it would take between 8.5 and 15.7 days for chemicals sequestered in hair to be in hair outside the body) -- so any shaved hair would not show such chemicals: effectively this means that if cyanide was found in the shaved hair (as opposed to on it) the person growing the hair was not killed by cyanide) -- see section 4 page 5 for why hair toxicology on recently deceased persons is not going to show anything of importance regarding cause of death[24]
b) they do not state where the hair shipment came from (no known chain of custody of evidence)
c) there is no referenced forensic analysis of the hair samples (it's a statement)
d) cyanide found 'on' hair or 'in' hair can be readily explained -- Zyklon B was used to de-louse clothing, bedsheets, furniture, railway cars and even hair, presumably if the internee chose not to have their hair shaved. Lice were a problem in these camps due to the import of internees from a range of origins; application of Zyklon B was as a crude way of tackling this problem, along with regular group showers and quarantine procedures. Shaved hair was also used as raw material in the war effort, and it would make sense to me that shaved hair used for anything where lice would interfere with the outcome would be disinfected first, e.g. by Zyklon B.
e) the article claims Prussian Blue was found on the walls of the gas chambers. I argue that Prussian Blue was found on the walls of de-lousing chambers, not gas chambers. Nonetheless, the colour of a wall is not evidence of a gas-chamber death. Even if Zyklon B was used maliciously in a chamber, can Con show that the death of even one person can be proven by residue left on a wall? I ask Con to prove that any internee was even in the same room as that where the blue residue is today.
f) the article does not mention the possibility of innocent explanations such as de-lousing (one-sided and conclusive)
g) the article speaks matter-of-factly about what happened, not theoretically or even presumably (decided)
h) the article speculates on the manner of death when it has no way of knowing it; I suppose subjective bias in whomever wrote it
Please see this article showing one of the de-lousing chambers at Dachau, which was immediately after the war presented as a gas chamber used to kill internees:[25] -- this includes an eyewitness statement of a gas chamber at Birkenau and an explanation of how the de-lousing chambers can be used as a basis for fictitious eyewitness testimony. See this video on how evidence that was once purported as evidence of mass murder is later denied by the Holocaust Museum amongst other historical and memorial entities:[26] -- with this I hope I have shown the temporal nature and corruptability of newspaper hear-say evidence.
This video (graphic) shows 'Footage of Dachau Nazi Concentration Camp victims and gas chambers.' - I implore Con to examine this video and ask if any of those clips show anything other than victims of disease being quarantined, removed, buried, cremated, or any other innocent explanation. There is one clip of a hand turning a wheel: it is added to create speculation/causation, along with other clips, arguably not even from the camps, and the video description aforementioned.
Re. [3]: forensic demography (which I do not consider this source to be) is fundamentally incapable of being evidence of gas deaths, or even homicide, regardless of what the study finds. A drop in population does not mean people were murdered; and it does not even mean people died (perhaps they migrated; perhaps numbers are wrong; perhaps numbers are falsified). It is an indicator of such things but as long as there are other possibilities it cannot on its own prove any deaths happened, moreso any gas deaths. If Con disagrees please explain why so and show how this evidence relates to my challenge text.
Furthermore I dispute the reliability of the published figures in this source. I present sources of merit I argue is equal to that of the disputed source (American Jewish Comittee via World Almanac), from various years prior to and after the dates in the source:[27]
See also this statistical analysis showing the possibility that the numbers were fabricated, using pre-war and post-war figures to apply a trendline (the wording in the article is very biased, so please consider the material itself and the references given) [28] -- here is a counter-argument, language also very biased [29]
To support my claim of unreliability on the given source, I argue it is indeed inaccurate at least and refutable at best.
It states "The two most reliable sources for Holocaust data are the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. Though this is the best information available, it is based on estimates and cannot take into the unknown number of victims whose bodies were never recovered or for whom there were no records."
I ask:
1) for what reason are the two named sources the most reliable sources for Holocaust data?
2) how can one make an estimate from other estimates and present it as reliable information?
3) what is meant by 'best information available'?
4) if the information cannot take into account unknown numbers, how may it include or exclude them if the numbers are not known?
5) does an 'unknown number of victims' mean the victims are imaginary? how does one know they are victims, people, even, if the number thereof is admittedly unknown. they could just as easily have never existed, if they are indeed people, or victims, at all.
The rampant ambiguity of numbers dead is fine and acceptable in a time of war; however it is the way in which the numbers are presented that draws shadows of doubt on their reliability. The word 'estimated' here is generous when compared with other sources:
See item number 136 showing a newspaper clipping from January 1939 where John Perez, secretary of Rome Popular Front, states "Does Mr X really believe that if Hitler gains control of Spain with the help of Franco, that life in Spain will be any different than it is today in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia where 6,000,000 Jews have been murdered ..." [30] I encourage Con and voters to flick through this book and examine all instances on record where numbers are arbitrarily published in newspaper articles as if they are truths. If this book seems questionable in reliability, despite that in itself it questions reliability of other sources, I encourage you to examine records held by the US Library of Congress, which I trust we can agree is a reasonably unadulterated source of archive material, by using the search term "six million Jews" and setting the date range as far back as you wish: [31]
To summarise my argument on demographic statistics, the wide-ranging discrepancies prove the unreliability of any publications made by any one source in particular; I argue we must form our knowledge in this matter via aggregation of published numbers; on these grounds I seek to discount any particular source of demographic information as non-forensic, unless it can be corroborated with other numbers from the same time period and that all sources mentioned can show, independently of one another, how their numbers were arrived at, considering:
1. the lack of accounting on human remains (e.g. many bodies were reportedly mass-cremated on large pyres, so how is it possible to know or even estimate how many were cremated unless somebody was watching and counting or unless there was some document hinting at the number -- even if this document existed for every instance of mass-cremation, how could it be known before the end of the war to civilians?)
2. the alleged German destruction of records
3. the seeming impossibility of even the Red Cross to know how many refugees and internees existed in Europe in the war years [32]
4. the altering of published death tolls at particular sites [33] with only estimates and speculation (including speculation based on 'decoded' intercepts from the Wannsee Conference, later debunked by a top Holocaust historian [34]) as to where else the missing number died or if they were even deceased or alive in the first place.
5. the unpublished or otherwise unknown numbers of non-Jewish victims when compared with those of Jewish victims, with no explanations as to how the latter figures are more accurate, presentable, or reliable
Re. [1]: agree; no contest to definition
Re. [5]: no mention of 'gas' in whole text. I argue irrelevance and seek to discount the source.
I argue that if Con seeks to form a meta-analysis and use it as forensic evidence, that evidence did not exist prior to the camps being removed from German control and is as such not in line with the agreed conditions. Still I will listen to it if Con is convinced of its validity and reliability upon the events, so long as it shows directly that gas deaths occurred and removes all reasonable doubt as to their occurrence.
Finally, I argue that if Con seeks to form a meta-analysis in lieu of traditional forensic evidence there is, as I propose, no extant forensic evidence, and I ask that voters remember that just as readily could a counter meta-analysis be formed by identifying inconsistencies between the sources of the proposed meta-analysis and supporting those inconsistencies with disparities between the proposed meta-analysis and scientific reason.
Sources
[9]https://michael-mannheimer.net/2021/10/21/die-kz-luege-des-alfred-hitchcock-falsche-haeftlinge-falsches-wetter-falsche-leichen-falsche-seuche/ (in German - use in-browser translation)
[10]https://vimeo.com/726777549 (login required - mature content)
[12]https://worldtruthvideos.website/watch/what-was-life-really-like-at-auschwitz_tpaQ2XB251b25ed.html
[27]https://codoh.com/library/document/how-many-jews-were-eliminated-by-the-nazis/en/ (see the section 'Examples of Varying Estimates' around the middle of the article)
Con
#4
2N---AT: EV Standards
Photos
Pro presented two examples (6,7), that show how photos of the time period can be manipulated. Both examples focus on soviet photoshopping, and there are a few key differences between the Soviet photos and the photos taken at the NAZI death camps. There was a political motive behind these photos, and they explicitly served as wartime propaganda. These photos that were edited at the time were discovered to be edited which is how these examples exist in the first place, photoshop was simply not that good at the time and modern techniques can easily reveal photoshop. [35] Because of this the examples actually prove my point, if photos were edited at the end of WW11 we would be able to tell. Furthermore, consider the way this issue is handled in a courtroom. The side presenting photographic evidence does not have to prove it is valid, but the other side has to challenge it on the grounds that a specific photograph has been doctored. Pro should have BoP to disprove photographic evidence.
Physical evidence
Physical evidence, where connection with the alleged crime is presumptive or consequential (i.e. non-forensic), does not prove a crime happened in any particular way or that a crime even happened.
I agree that it does not prove anything, but I do not need to “prove” anything. I have to show evidence as per the resolution. The difference is: “Proof is a fact that demonstrates something to be real or true. Evidence is information that might lead one to believe something to be real or true. Proof is final and conclusive. Evidence is tentative.”
Physical evidence like this must be corroborated with forensic evidence
Refer to my definition in R1, forensic evidence is any evidence gathered from scientific methods. This would include simply observation for example, physical evidence is forensic evidence and more evidence arises from forensics when applied to physical objects.
Admission of presumptive evidence
Con says presumptive evidence can only be admitted if opened up to cross-ex, and because we are in a debate round he is explicitly allowed to challenge any evidence.
2N---Framing
Origin of evidence
Again, it does not matter that evidence was discovered after it left NAZI hands because the origin of the evidence itself was always within the timeframe of NAZI control. Pro’s support one does not apply here as it deals with the type and quality of evidence, but has nothing to do with timeframe. Support two is testimony which is not forensic evidence, and in no way deals with timeframe.
Use contextual definitions
Flow this through as it was not disputed.
BOP
We should not have to prove that something exists 100%/0% because this is impossible. I could simply concede to this and the evidence might not exist because we live in a simulation, so I would just win on that. This level of proof is an unreasonable standard, so we should decide based on what evidence is more/less likely to exist.
2N---Evidence
weighted wording
This debate is not about if the holocaust took place, it is about the evidence of the murders. It would do more harm than good to minimize the impact of the holocaust, and we should both be using weighted words. It is a fact that the holocaust occured and I belive that we both agree on this, it is the evidence that is disputed.
Prussian Blue
Pro questions the validity of my source here, but the evidence is not the newspaper article. The Newyorker receives a factual reporting score of high from media bias fact check [37]. The article does reference the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Cracow, but it does not link to it because this is an article that was written in print edition in the 90’s. It was never common practice to have a bibliography at the bottom of a newspaper. Now we just link to sources, but this did not use to be a thing for obvious reasons. If Pro wants to question the validity of evidence, do not simply let him cast doubt on the validity of the source, force him to show evidence that it does not exist or that the actual evidence is biased, or alternatively that my source for finding the evidence (not the evidence itself) is so non-credible that the source is more likely to be lying (i.e. the onion or InfoWars).
- 1. Yes, shaven hair before the gas chambers proves nothing.
A. 2. Rate of hair growth
We are not supposed to assume that the gas was somehow now part of their DNA and part of the chemical composition of hair. Rather, when it is in the hair it is simply in the mix of the hair, not embedded within individual hairs.
B. Where evidence came from.
This is not relevant to any of the four standards, and has nothing to do with whether evidence is forensic.
It was gathered by polish officials, then given to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Cracow. [38]
C. No referenced forensic evidence
The Institute of Forensic Medicine in Cracow performed chemical tests. [38]
D. Alternate explanations
The levels in hair would have been too high, but this is also irrelevant as it only applies to the hair gathered before executions. We can cross references Pro’s A.1 here.
E. Location
Pro can say that it was found on de-lousing chambers, but this is simply untrue. It was found in gas chambers, whether they were used to mureder anyone or not, we know that they existed. These buildings are where the residue was found.
F. Bias
The article is allowed to be biased against NAZIs. It is a fact that the holocaust took place, this debate is about if this evidence is forensic in nature. In fact, the holocaust is a legally accepted fact that can be accepted in the courtroom without any evidence whatsoever. [39] Any valid source will be “biased” against NAZIs.
Another reason the article is already decided is because of conclusions drawn up based on forensic evidence such as the chemical tests, and presumably the author was influenced by other forensic evidence such as demographic shift.
de-lousing chambers at Dachau:
This one example does not prove that there were never any gas chambers, we know that there were. This proves that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, which we already know, the entire reason we know that this testimony was wrong in the first place, is because it is possible to tell the difference between a gas chamber and other structures. Finally, this is not what the debate is about. We are not debating if people died in a gas chamber, we are debating if the evidence that proved they did is forensic so this entire point is irrelevant.
Demographic shift
Pro says that this can not prove that a single person died in the gas chamber, but it is very strong evidence. The standard in the resolution is evidence, not proof. We are not debating if the gas chambers exist, we are debating if the evidence they left behind is forensic.
To reiterate.
- The gas chambers were used to murder Jews
- The murders left behind a shift in demography which is evidence
- This evidence is forensic
The only thing up for question in this debate is 3, not 1 or 2.
Questioning the exact numbers or the validity of the source does not matter. They might be slightly off, but there were many Jews who were murdered which everyone should accept on the grounds that the holocaust happend. Again, the debate is not about holocaust denial it is about the evidence. Therefore, any estimate of deaths from a source that Pro would consider forensic also proves this point. I also want to point out that the resolution simply asks for forensic evidence, not good forensic evidence. Whether my source has the perfect numbers or not, it still uses forensic methods and as such produces forensic evidence.
Pro “seeks to discount” the source because it is not specific to gas deaths. The argument here is not that this proves that gas deaths happened, it is that this is evidence that the gas deaths left behind that also happens to be forensic.
[35]https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2012/three-ways-to-spot-if-an-image-has-been-manipulated/
[38] Ibid. 2
Round 3
Pro
#5
3N---AT: EV Standards
Good morning!
Con has not presented any further evidence in this round. I expected to be able to challenge more evidence, but this cannot be done; instead I will:
- seek to show, via forensic evidence I present, that no person died in such gas chambers because, as I aim to show, no functional gas chambers, in the contextually understood definition thereof (execution chambers), existed. -- by this I mean to further refute and nullify the forensic evidence presented by Con in R1 and defended by Con in R2 as being evidence of gas-chamber deaths. (this main argument will continue into R4 and R5)
- point out that Con is attempting to change the agreed-upon premise of the debate from [forensic evidence exists from an impartial/disinterested source that a single person was killed by gas in any of the camps ...] to [forensic evidence may or may not exist; Y happened because we know X happened; nothing needs to be proven; only evidence must be presented]. if there is any doubt, refer to the title wording.
- point out Con's aversion to consideration of the primary reasons for which forensic evidence is gathered and presented, and similarly the attempts by Con, merely by statement and refute, to classify documentary evidence as forensic evidence after I have outlined the differences between them and shown how the former can readily be manipulated.
- state that much of my argument in R2 has not been addressed by Con so I will assume there is no contention thereto and, similarly, no acceptance thereof.
Everything in the EV Standards section I presented was to typify and exemplify the various types of evidence and show why they are not as reliable in determining truth as forensic evidence is. However I will respond here to say: what I intended to show (by the photographs part) is the readiness of the doctoring and misrepresentation of photographs: the subject of the photograph does not matter for this to be shown.
Con states "there are a few key differences between the Soviet photos and the photos taken at the NAZI death camps". I advise Con that all the camps still holding the death/extermination-camp label today were liberated by the Soviets. I ask Con to list or outline these differences rather than stating that there are differences, especially if they are key.
I agree that it [non-forensic physical evidence] does not prove anything, but I do not need to “prove” anything. I have to show evidence as per the resolution. The difference is: “Proof is a fact that demonstrates something to be real or true. Evidence is information that might lead one to believe something to be real or true. Proof is final and conclusive. Evidence is tentative.”
While that I can agree on, Con is not being asked to show evidence. Con is being asked to show evidence that a single person was executed in a gas chamber in the German-controlled camps during WW2. The evidence already presented, as I hope I have shown, is not evidence of this - i.e. it does not evidence gas deaths; it evidences:
- (with the human-remains excavations) human remains were found at the site of a former camp. hair was presented from elsewhere. cyanide was found on the hair. I have shown another explanation for this evidence; my explanation is speculation based on pre-war epidemiology; Cons explanation is speculation based on the post-war presentation of documentary and eyewitness evidence. In any case the type of death is not shown to be determined as homicide; it could be suicide, natural, accidental, starvation, disease; if Con wants to show homicide happened, and specifically by gas, more evidence is required. Take this article for examples of scientific reasoning that can show if gas deaths occurred [40] and see heading 7.3.5 for a solid theory on why Zyklon B use for execution is unlikely and even carbon monoxide can be shown to be far superior in effectiveness, speed, availability, and cost.
- (with the demographic shift) numbers are published, sourcing other numbers, with neither of these three sources detailing or even outlining how the numbers were arrived at other than to name the sources. A table shows the geographical breakdown of the number, but it is not shown how it was arrived at, only where it comes from. I would ask Con to show to me how the numbers were arrived at by either referenced source, however I would warn Con that unless the sources can show how homicide was determined, for every death they count, the published numbers, as I showed in R2 with my reasoning, do not prove homicides, poison-gas inhalation being a method thereof.
Physical evidence like this must be corroborated with forensic evidenceRefer to my definition in R1, forensic evidence is any evidence gathered from scientific methods. This would include simply observation for example, physical evidence is forensic evidence and more evidence arises from forensics when applied to physical objects.
I don't know what Con means by 'observation' here so I ask for what I asked for in the first instance: forensic evidence that gas-chamber deaths occurred in the camps. Con: present to me anything you have; rather than arguing with me about what forensic evidence is supposed to be, give me some. Are there any films showing this happening, for example? Even ones suspected to be staged? I challenge Con to find one and reference it; it must show at least one person entering the room alive and coming out deceased after the durations given by eyewitnesses (~5mins to ~45mins). If Con cannot present any further evidence then I ask why Con is now attempting to redefine the meaning thereof to include 'observation', unless it means to peer-review the evidence presented in R1.
Admission of presumptive evidencePro says presumptive evidence can only be admitted if opened up to cross-ex, and because we are in a debate round he is explicitly allowed to challenge any evidence.
If Con wants to use presumptive evidence, I will show via analogy how weak it is; it is a waste of our time. Show me something real and something scientifically objective and neutral.
3N---Framing
Origin of evidenceAgain, it does not matter that evidence was discovered after it left NAZI hands because the origin of the evidence itself was always within the timeframe of NAZI control. Pro’s support one does not apply here as it deals with the type and quality of evidence, but has nothing to do with timeframe. Support two is testimony which is not forensic evidence, and in no way deals with timeframe.
Please read carefully my argument. To elaborate on support 1: published weather data is not consistent with the weather visible in the photographic evidence on the date it is shown by its creator to have been captured. That means all of the videos are created on a date different to the date they say they are, or (and this is key) they could have been. For support 2: please read it again because the timeframe argument is there.
BOPWe should not have to prove that something exists 100%/0% because this is impossible. I could simply concede to this and the evidence might not exist because we live in a simulation, so I would just win on that. This level of proof is an unreasonable standard, so we should decide based on what evidence is more/less likely to exist.
My debate premise is that there is no evidence, not that evidence is more likely not to exist than to exist; I believe Con has an advantage in this regard, considering that
- presumption of innocence is difficult to retain due to the sensitive nature of the context and the potential for ad-hominem responses to the arguments others have made in this arena of discussion [41], along with verbal and physical violence directed at those that have expressed an opinion [42], the justification for such attacks being ad-hominem in all cases I have seen.
- so much evidence does exist, hence my many conditions for exclusion, which have so far not been avoided by Con; but I reiterate: I am happy to consider any forensic evidence and argue over its reliability in being capable of showing that gas executions happened in the camps.
if it is impossible to prove something exists 100%/0% in a simulation, it is also impossible to prove it is 50%, 60%, 40%, 85%, 5% likely to exist. By Con's own conviction, it cannot be proven to exist or not, so how may we gauge likelihood? I suggest we focus instead on how likely or not the given evidence shows that gas executions occurred, with:
100% likely: refutes every other possibility via the known natural rules of our world (e.g.: what goes up must come down (on Earth); the suspect was in Spain when the murder was in Japan; )
75% likely: to the exclusion of most other feasible explanations (i.e. Con can show to voters that the evidenced explanation they have given would stand, alone, against most other feasible explanations, all of which must be shown, either by Con or by Pro)
50% likely: as likely as one other feasible explanation
25% likely: to the exclusion of only vague or contradictory explanations that would not stand, alone, against at least one other feasible explanation that cannot be concluded upon without relying on existing published evidence
0% likely: physically and scientifically beyond the realm of the natural rules of our world (e.g. light does not bend in a vacuum (as far as we know, with our current understanding of science))
Can we agree on this?
3N---Evidence
weighted wordingThis debate is not about if the holocaust took place, it is about the evidence of the murders. It would do more harm than good to minimize the impact of the holocaust, and we should both be using weighted words. It is a fact that the holocaust occured and I belive that we both agree on this, it is the evidence that is disputed.
this debate is not about evidence of 'the murders' - it is about evidence 'that' executions took place by gas in the camps. Take a look at this search query, which will bring up all mentions of the word 'autopsy' used in the extensive Nuremberg tribunals.[43] Perhaps we could consider the possibility if an autopsy report can be found that shows a determination of death by inhalation of hydrogen cyanide. That so many claims regarding gas chambers are supported by the theory that 'the evidence was destroyed by the Germans' is precisely why it is so difficult for me to prove that zero gas deaths happened; first I must challenge the presented evidence; then I must somehow show it was not destroyed; I ask Con and voters: if we do not have (and have not had for 70+ years) forensic evidence showing homicide by gas then how can we assume it to be true? Eyewitness reports? Confessions? Drawings? Documents? Is this all we need to prosecute genocide and further marginalise the groups of victims?
Use of the word 'murder' is simply assuming facts not in evidence. I ask Con to prove to me the intent leading to every one of 'the murders' Con is referring to so we can know intent existed, and cause of death and manner of death is determinable, for every one of them and that therefore none of them were accidental deaths, natural deaths, deaths by disease, suicides, or manslaughter: using weighted wording like this is only presenting a pattern of assumption and generalisation which degrades every claim Con makes where causation is speculative and not proven, e.g. (quote from Con) "It is a fact that the holocaust occured and I believe that we both agree on this, it is the evidence that is disputed." -- perhaps there is a conviction within Con that merely stating something as having happened a certain way is enough to proceed with an argument -- when did we stop asking why/how/where/when/who? If forensic evidence already exists, would people still be asking these questions? If forensic evidence already exists, would asking these questions be punishable by imprisonment in 20 countries?
Con is presenting their presumptions as general assumptions, which leads me to reconsider the strength of Con's own conviction: if one is convinced of one's own argument, one does not need the approval of consensus to validate its ability to stand on its own so that a consensus may be formed from it; the reason it is harmful to our debate is that nothing new ends up being learned from discussion as the conclusions are assumptions drawn from extant presumptions. The word 'holocaust' has a range of meanings and interpretations (some examples: [45]); Con cannot know which of those meanings applies to whomever is reading; so for the benefit of the debate, I suggest we drop these terms and stay objective in our diction.
de-lousing chambers at Dachau:This one example does not prove that there were never any gas chambers, we know that there were. This proves that eyewitness testimony is unreliable, which we already know, the entire reason we know that this testimony was wrong in the first place, is because it is possible to tell the difference between a gas chamber and other structures. Finally, this is not what the debate is about. We are not debating if people died in a gas chamber, we are debating if the evidence that proved they did is forensic so this entire point is irrelevant.
Regarding Con's arguments relating to the newspaper article showing the excavation of human remains: I stand 100% behind my R2 contention and request that Con re-read it, because I have tackled all points made by Con in R2, including how the finding cannot show gas executions and that the source shows pre-existing bias and how it expands upon that bias to frame the facts it is presenting to create bias in the reader as well.
One quick query again re. the chemical tests: do they show homicide? How about a chemical test on human remains in situ, not hair from an indeterminable body; this hair could be from a barbershop in the local town, sold to the camp industry for onward processing; it could be from people that died by disease; it could all be from heads of those entering the camp, as a measure to prevent the spread of typhus-carrying lice. The chemical tests are presented alongside hear-say, rumour-mill subtext of atrocity and are naturally considered to be proof of systematic murder; the tests must be taken out of context and once that is done it is clear they don't prove a thing on their own.
From the article: "In May, 1945, just days after the German capitulation, Polish officials dispatched ten pounds of human hair found at Auschwitz to the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Cracow. Following a series of chemical tests, Jan Robel, the head of the institute, confirmed, in his final report, “the presence of traces of cyanide, particularly the poisonous compound bearing the name Zyklon.” Such findings served as evidence in trials against Nazi war criminals"
Let's take a look at the tribunal documents to see how this evidence was used to prove homicide, and to show how the tribunals weren't interested in dispensing justice as reasonable law-abiding persons understand it to be.
I have been looking for half an hour using words such as 'human hair' to search the Avalon archives of the Nuremberg tribunal (Con's article doesn't tell me where to go and find the presentation of the evidence in trials) and the closest reference I can find is [44] where it states:
"The second phase of Action Reinhardt which I have mentioned is the confiscation of personal property. This involved the murder and corpse desecration of countless Jews. Every watch, every gold fountain pen, every pair of shoes represented a dead man, woman, or child. It is literally impossible to comprehend the enormity of the crimes committed in Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, and the rest. To assist the Tribunal in that regard, we shall exhibit a motion picture which shows the warehouses of those death camps full of clothes, shoes, spectacles, and bales of human hair. The WVHA accounted for and controlled the disposition of those proceeds of mass murder."
The tribunal goes on to detail the items, how they were alleged to have been procured, and where they were shipped and what they would be used for. I can't find mention of Jan Robel, the name of the head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Cracow. Please, Con, if you want to continue with trying to show that this evidence is of gas-chamber executions, I need to see how. Cyanide on hair doesn't prove murder.
Please see this revealing article about the Katyn-Smolensk massacre and specifically the involvement of Jan Robel [46] (invited by Germany as part of a 12-person team of independent forensic examiners from across Europe to investigate the massacre site (which we now know was a result of NKVD genocide), later arrested and imprisoned by the Soviets in 1941, so it is safe to assume Robel was fearful for his life and would say anything the Soviets wanted him to say during the war-crime trials even five years later).
And this article, while simply an unreferenced summary, is interesting to me because it mirrors many of my own held beliefs about the atrocities alleged to have been performed by the Germans on the Eastern front. Many elements of Soviet activity resonate:
- censorship of the crime and its documents
- making investigation or discussion penal
- allowing specific statements (e.g. "you can say this happened, but only if you say it happened on or after this particular date") while suppressing others
- responding to legitimate discoveries (e.g. children finding graves) with whitewashing and arrests rather than investigation of such discoveries
- killing or imprisoning those who attempt to raise public awareness of the crime
Does the above sound familiar with regard to certain post-WW2 histories?
What I have argued regarding de-lousing chambers does not prove that there were never any gas chambers; what it does show is that de-lousing chambers existed and at least one was initially presented to the public as a gas chamber, which reduces the legitimacy of any subsequent claim of gas-chamber discovery. For example, camp blueprints labelled some rooms as 'gaskammer', which literally translates to English as 'gas chamber', or, at that time, the hyphenated compound word 'gas-chamber', which is found in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1933, p699[47] with definition:
"an apparatus used in microscopy for..studying the action of different gases on structures or organisms"
Con has stated "we know that there were [gas chambers in existence]" -- again this assumes facts not in evidence. Show me how we know there were gas chambers. Con also states "we already know [eyewitness testimony is unreliable]" yet what evidence exists showing the existence of gas chambers other than eyewitness testimony and documents, articles, books and drawings based on such testimony? The German high-command confessions? Whether true or false, they are eyewitness testimony.
Again Con is attempting to change the initial challenge text. We are not debating if the evidence Con is presenting is forensic. We are arguing about that now, but we should be debating whether the evidence exists or doesn't exist, and the easiest way for Con to debate that is to present evidence and test its soundness by opening it to challenge by Pro. I have challenged Con to present forensic evidence; that it is seemingly so difficult to present evidence that can stand on its own, alongside that Con has not presented any further evidence in R2 despite the opportunity, reinforces the strength of my contention to the existence of any forensic evidence that can irrefutably show that anyone was killed by gas in any of the camps under German control during WW2.
Demographic shiftPro says that this can not prove that a single person died in the gas chamber, but it is very strong evidence. The standard in the resolution is evidence, not proof. We are not debating if the gas chambers exist, we are debating if the evidence they left behind is forensic.To reiterate.The gas chambers were used to murder JewsThe murders left behind a shift in demography which is evidenceThis evidence is forensicThe only thing up for question in this debate is 3, not 1 or 2.
Stating that evidence is 'very strong' is not required if the evidence is indeed very strong and can show that in and of itself. I have already challenged this evidence and shown its weaknesses and that it can't be relied upon for cases of this charge.
I believe there is confusion here and I am going to try to resolve it so we can move forward.
I think Con believes I have 'asked for evidence' for, seemingly, nothing in particular.
I am making it clear again by pasting the paragraph from the description of the debate:
"I am looking for irrefutable science-based evidence OF a gas-chamber death in any of the internment (AKA concentration) camps in the Third Reich during WW2. The evidence must be proven to have originated before the camp was captured and removed from German control. Please note conditions in the short description. Additionally: the evidence must be absolute (i.e. it cannot be 'possible' evidence of a gas-chamber death), it must be directed (i.e. not reversed, like "this proves that zero gas-chamber deaths is impossible), and it must be forensically sound."
Con seeks to subvert the gas-chamber element of the requirement by linking together the three points made:
- The gas chambers were used to murder Jews
- The murders left behind a shift in demography which is evidence
- This evidence is forensic
This is a great example of speculation, and I will show that by reversing it:
- There is no forensic evidence of a gas-chamber death in any of the camps under German control during WW2
- The consensus is nonetheless that there were gas-chamber murders in these camps
- Forensic science is therefore not required to prove homicide
I am not saying explicitly that gas-chamber deaths did not happen; however I am arguing that there is no forensic evidence of them happening; and I, personally, cannot believe they happened without the forensic evidence to show they happened; in lieu of this I would settle for logistical feasibility.
Questioning the exact numbers or the validity of the source does not matter. They might be slightly off, but there were many Jews who were murdered which everyone should accept on the grounds that the holocaust happend. Again, the debate is not about holocaust denial it is about the evidence. Therefore, any estimate of deaths from a source that Pro would consider forensic also proves this point. I also want to point out that the resolution simply asks for forensic evidence, not good forensic evidence. Whether my source has the perfect numbers or not, it still uses forensic methods and as such produces forensic evidence.
Questioning the exact numbers or the validity of the source does not matter? In short, does Con mean to say that the number should, even roughly, be accepted as evidence? I have already shown in R1 how those numbers cannot be relied upon, but none of those arguments have properly been challenged by Con. Con's weak argument, along the lines of 'the numbers are more or less correct; but it doesn't matter because X' could be attributed to the number of clouds visible to Con in the sky and it doesn't matter if it's correct because it will be nighttime soon and we won't be able to see them. Accepting those numbers without asking how they were arrived at does matter, considering that Con is presenting a demographic shift as evidence that gas deaths happened. Nevertheless even if the numbers were precise and exact and defensible on critical analysis they do not and cannot show cause of death. Population changes, without further study evidenced, cannot show anything but the numbers; and consider please that there is no alternative reason for the shift proposed, despite no reasoning being presented for arriving at the numbers; we are simply asked to believe it to be true; similarly Con would have us accept what they say without question: 'there were many Jews who were murdered which everyone should accept on the grounds that the holocaust happened' sounds like the final statement of a judge in a courtroom just before the sentence is read. I will counter that statement with one similarly formed: 'science has already disproved the existence of execution chambers. everybody should accept this because modern science is formed via consensus by disinterested parties prior to its being used to provide evidence in individual cases and so is more reliable than other foundations for evidence such as theory, memory, deceit, and existence.'
Proven at Nuremberg: 11,000-12,000 Poles murdered at Katyn by German SS [48]
Stated at Nuremberg: "PROSOROVSKI: All shootings [~5000 civilian/POW corpses exhumed and examined forensically during and after the war and all over the territory of the 1946 Soviet Union, including Katyn] were carried out by one and the same method, namely, a shot in the nape of the neck, at point-blank range. The exit hole was usually on the forehead or in the face."
1989: German SS absolved of Katyn massacre by Polish government and Russian TASS [49]
Is it possible that if the Soviets blamed the Germans for Katyn they could just as easily have blamed the Germans for all the murders they committed? Or even one of them? 100 of them? 1000 of them? 3 million of them? Why stop at 11,000?
Where is the science behind the conviction of the Germans for both these homicides in the East and the homicides in the camps? How about some forensic metallurgy on bullets/casings/shrapnel, or bone fragmentation pattern analysis, so we can better determine the patterns of murder in the East and what ammunition was prevalent in these murders? How about some actual science here and not people like Dr. Prosorovski who for some unexplained reason felt qualified to posit the perpetrators of death alongside the causes of death?
massive discrepancies in legal procedure should be re-examined so that, to the best of our abilities, we do not allow them to happen again. Where is the apology for Katyn from the governments of France, USA, Britain, Russia and Poland for the wrongful conviction of Germany in 1946 with regard to this crime? The apology is in the wind, I suppose. Why? Because "well, they deserved it." and "they were war criminals" and "the Nazis were evil" -- i.e. prejudice that survives to this day in the wake of perjury and sham trials that have targeted the defeated of the war to, in my opinion, hide the perpetrators' own war crimes from public eyes. Imagine if 3 million murders attributed to the Germans (which actually should be 2,989,000 after the Katyn revelation) were not actually attributable to the Germans and instead were either attributable to any party or attributable to the Soviets? Where is the investigation into this massive possibility?
Pro “seeks to discount” the source because it is not specific to gas deaths. The argument here is not that this proves that gas deaths happened, it is that this is evidence that the gas deaths left behind that also happens to be forensic.
Once more, Con assumes facts not in evidence; Con uses the words 'the gas deaths left behind' when it has not been shown by this evidence that deaths occurred via gas. The document does not even contain the word 'gas'. It has no relevance to this discussion. I have asked Con to show how it relates to the challenge but I can't see any reason other than as to provide an example of a meta-analysis.
Sources
Con
#6
3N---Framing
First I want to respond to Pro’s point that I am changing the premise of the debate from: “[forensic evidence exists from an impartial/disinterested source that a single person was killed by gas in any of the camps ...] to [forensic evidence may or may not exist; Y happened because we know X happened; nothing needs to be proven; only evidence must be presented]”
The claim I am making here is actually quite different from what Pro says because my point is not that forensic evidence may or may not exist, my claim is that forensic evidence most certainly does exist. The subject of this debate was never if the holocaust happend, and the topic is not even asking if a single person died in the gas chambers. Instead, the resolution asks if the evidence itself is forensic or not.
ORIGIN OF EVIDENCE
Again, looking at a specific piece of evidence that is flawed in no way proves the general point. All evidence of the holocaust was discovered after it took place, but the key is that it was generated during the holocaust. For videos specifically, if Pro can show that they were not created during the timeframe then they do not meet that requirement so we should not consider it.
BOP
I’m bored of debating on BoP, so I will accept that I have to prove that evidence is almost certainly forensic in nature and does exist.
3N---AT: EV Standards
PHOTOS
First, Pro asks for the key differences between the original soviet photos that were doctored and the photos from the concentration camp. In the 2N, I pointed out wartime political motivations as the key differences.
But, I also give an argument here that says this only proves my point because if we could tell that the original photos were doctored, we could tell if the photos from the concentration camps were as well. [35] This point was dropped, and this is now an explicit example of forensic evidence for the gas chambers.
HUMAN REMAINS
The presented evidence here does meet the standards. Pro says that there could be alternate explanations, but as I pointed out last round you should not accept this argument for two reasons.
- The levels of cyanide found in hair were too high to be anything but deadly.
- Pro’s point about shaven hair proves that alternate explanations are irrelevant because they only apply to this hair, not hair at the time of death.
Next it is said that my evidence is based on speculative (non-forensic) evidence, but this is simply not true. My evidence here is based on CHEMICAL TESTS from The Institute of FORENSIC Medicine.
Finally, Pro says that it is unlikely that gas deaths occured. This point is completely irrelevant because we know that they did, again we are not debating about if this happened, but about the quality of evidence it created.
DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT
Pro says that every source should be able to trace every single death back to poison gas, and otherwise it is not forensic. Yet, this is the entire point of a meta-analysis. It puts slightly flawed numbers into the most scientifically accurate form.
OBSERVATION
“Observation is essential in science. Scientists use observation to collect and record data, which enables them to construct and then test hypotheses and theories. Scientists observe in many ways – with their own senses or with tools such as microscopes, scanners or transmitters to extend their vision or hearing.”[50]
3N---Evidence
WEIGHTED WORDING
Refer back to my point that we are not debating holocaust denial, but the quality of evidence.
Also Pro presents no reason why this is a voting issue, so we do not really need to consider it.
DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT
Pro says I seek to subvert the requirement for gas chambers via speculation. This is not true, because we know that the gas chambers were used in the holocaust, this is not speculation, but a fact the same as saying the sky is blue. Infact, it is literally legally accepted as a fact. [39] From here we can observe the demographic shift, which is forensic in nature, and determine that evidence for the gas chamber deaths are indeed forensic without any assumptions.
Pro tries to reverse it, but starts out with a false premise saying that there is no forensic evidence. And then says the consensus is that there was murder, so forensic evidence is not required to prove homicide. If there was no forensic evidence and homicide was proven however, this would actually be objectively true.
META-ANALYSIS
I am dropping this.
.
PHOTOS
Pro presented evidence of photos, and I have been able to show how these are forensic. And, I have also shown that they are legitimate because we would be able to tell if they were not with modern technology which is why we know that some soviet photos were doctored in the first place. [35]
Round 4
Pro
#7
Once again Con has failed to present any forensic evidence that a single person was executed by gas in any of the camps.
I hoped Con could allay my convictions in this matter. Con's R3 response:
- doesn't address most of my arguments and is ignorant of the remainder
- repeats Con's R2 arguments that I dealt with in R3
- disrespects the ethos of debate and resembles a response by a spokesperson of a corporation involved in alleged wrongdoing
I can barely respond to Con's R3; there is nothing new to discuss, save for reminding Con yet again that all of Con's presented evidence does not show gas-chamber executions. Con repeatedly states that all they must do is show that evidence is forensic. The problem stands: the evidence shown, even if we agree it to be forensic, does not show gas-chamber executions; i.e. I have already shown how it does not, and I will summarise that again, without requiring an alternative hypothesis:
- demography: can't show death or even cause of death;
- excavation of human remains (plus a chemical study on those remains): can't determine the cause of death (only a coroner can)
Con is unable to present any convincing evidence to refute the claim in my challenge: that's the essence of this debate so far. If Con was able to do this they would not have to resort to the linking of an article[39], to support Con's arguments, which shows
“A judge, an American judge, stood up and said ‘Yes, the Holocaust is not subject to dispute,’” Mermelstein recounted via email. “That moment stands out in my mind. Now and forever after, the judicial notice stands.”
This case in summary:
- institute of historical review (IHR) challenges anybody for $50k to evidence slaughter of prisoners
- Mermelstein presents a document showing he was in a camp (not showing slaughter of prisoners)
- IHR refuses to pay because nobody has evidenced gas-chamber deaths
- Mermelstein sues for breach of contract and argues that the gas-chamber deaths are an established fact
- judge awards Mermelstein the prize plus damages and costs
What has been proven by this case? That this court prioritised historical testament over forensic scrutiny: that's all. It does not prove that gas-chamber executions happened; it merely 'upholds' the extant understanding that gas-chamber executions happened, without adding anything new to the discussion, because there is, as I argue, nothing new to be added, considering that, as I argue with my challenge, these executions by gas cannot assuredly have happened due to the absence of forensic evidence showing them to have happened.
The judge in this case is effectively evidencing gas-chamber deaths by stating that they happened. Woeful. How Con can even bring this up as a support to their rehashed presentation of evidence is beyond me, but I am happy to use the basis of court cases to show Con and voters that no forensic evidence exists for gas-chamber executions in the camps. That can be seen in 3a below.
To add to that, here is a Japanese judge stating "The court cannot decide whether gas chambers existed."[40] -- so, Con, can you allege why the judge you cited has greater or more reliable knowledge of gas chambers than does the judge I cited? And how is that knowledge formed? Do they know something secret that my judge doesn't know? This is why we need forensic evidence (and, no, not evidence reliant on intrinsic understandings such as 'the gas chambers existed').
And here's a German, who was a judge in West Germany for 20 years after the war, and who was stationed at Auschwitz in 1944 as an anti-aircraft serviceman, and who wrote a book 'Der Auschwitz Mythos' ('The Auschwitz Myth') which has been banned in Germany - solely because it is illegal there to question the wartime narrative on persecution and alleged extermination - speaking about the persecution of Germans after the war and the seeming inability of them as a people to openly deny the allegations laid upon them since 1945 regarding genocide by gassing and other means during WW2.[41] So, explain, Con, how this man has any less credibility than the judge you presented to me, considering that this judge was actually in a position to witness, with his own eyes, the alleged gas-chamber executions, as they were allegedly happening into 1944, when your judge was not? And considering that this man would risk his career and a prison sentence by publishing a book detailing the corruption in the West German judicial system after the war and regarding the topic at hand, when your judge risked nothing by his decree but a pat on the back? Who dares wins? Not this time, I suppose.
Con may flatly attest that gas chambers existed and gas-chamber executions happened therefore the evidence Con has presented is evidence of gas-chamber executions. As Con refuses to even attempt to prove the existence of gas-chamber deaths with forensic evidence, and instead relies on
- bodies with no coroner's report or visible signs of poisoning, alongside hair that didn't even come from those bodies, without considering my proposed reasons for the state of those bodies and hair
- published population figures with no forensic deduction used to form them, ignoring, without reason, any other published figure, any aggregation of figures, and any statistical deduction
- a U.S. judge decreeing, via that's just the way it is; deal with it pseudo-logic, that gas chambers existed, therefore gas chambers existed for the purpose of extermination
I will use the remainder of my R4 to begin outlining and detailing the primary reasons for which I believe execution-gas chambers did not exist in any of the camps under German control in the Third Reich during WW2, in the effort to show that:
- there were no executions by gas chamber in the camps
- due to 1): there is and was never any forensic evidence of executions by gas in the camps
1. the initial publication of gas chambers that were later discredited or diminished massively in scope by court judgement, research publications, or inability to maintain the quantities given
a) Dachau - initial claims of gas chamber published by the US army. Numbers as high as 272,000 were claimed by prisoners to have been gassed. Today: gas chamber admitted to be a 'potential gas chamber' (it was really a de-lousing chamber, and that is hinted at if one looks at the original warning label on the door, reading, in German: "Caution! Gas! Life danger! Do not open!" -- so even the camp museum cannot bear telling the full truth of this camp). Even Simon Wiesenthal admitted twice in newspapers that both Dachau and Buchenwald had no exterminations by gas[42]. This medical examiner[43] claimed the story of the gas chamber as the method of death for 'very few' (what that means we cannot know) of the bodies he examined; and now we know the chamber never functioned as a gas chamber we know this expert testimony to be fabricated. Still, this is presented as an execution chamber by some, including this 'historical society'[44]
b) Auschwitz-Birkenau - numbers ranging from 450k to 9 million over time, with the initial number being 4 million and originating in a Soviet commission report just after liberation[45], with the figure sitting on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum today at "approximately 1 million"[46] -- with even an admission that the museum cannot know those figures to be correct, and their noting "Beginning in 1943, as it became clear that they would lose the war, the Germans and their Axis partners destroyed much of the existing documentation. They also destroyed physical evidence of mass murder." as if a lack of evidence is evidence at all, especially when the alleged destruction thereof is not proven. They note "Only one comprehensive statistical study conducted on behalf of SS chief Heinrich Himmler survived the war. ..." but fail to cite it or even name it. Where is it?
The fluctuating nature of the death toll is proof that we need something concrete to establish the figure beyond question. Despite that this could be done simply by lobbying the Soviets to release the camp records that they hold under classification to this day, why was it not done by camp liberators immediately after the war or by the museum staff in all the decades thereafter? Why did they not order a more extensive study to make more accurate the published number in order to honour the deceased and give them a proper memory? Is it because the number is actually unknown and was never known, so by investigating further the number's shortcomings may further be publicised? If the number is unknown, how can it be more than zero if not a guess?
On top of all of this, we still, in 2022, have not determined that the cause of death for even one of these persons was poisoning by gas. And where did the other 2.5-3 million victims die? It has never been shown. Did they even exist, then? What massive disrespect it is to drop a death toll by so much and not bother to look into the real fate of these victims. If nothing else, the alteration of this figure is evidence of Soviet falsehood of attributing 2.5-3 million murders to the 'evil' of the Germans.
c) Treblinka - there is no evidence left at this camp to show the Germans were even there, certainly no evidence of a gas chamber. See this document[47] or this book[48] for an outline of the lack of evidence of extermination at Treblinka, or this video series starting here[49] detailing the inconsistencies of the historical record of Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec and why the claimed figures of 750,000 to 3,000,000 people murdered cannot be true due to:
- nothing but eyewitness testimony to show it
- conflicting eyewitness testimony and documentary evidence which may or may not have been forensically proven (but certainly could have been if authorities wanted to do it via fingerprints) in the form of postcards sent to the Warsaw Ghetto from internees that had arrived at Treblinka and been transferred elsewhere, challenging the eyewitness accounts of mass murder and contradicting the claims by historians that Treblinka was a 'pure extermination' camp.
- the inability to show homicide over other deaths for all 750,000 to 3,000,000 persons alleged to have been murdered
- the failure of the Polish government to put to bed once and for all the dilemma by simply applying rule of law to order autopsies on all human remains that have been discovered at these camps by archaeologists. It is a crime to tamper with human remains, scatter ashes without government permission, excavate bodies, and otherwise disturb resting places. It is also the duty of a police service of any known country to treat the location of all discovered human remains as a crime scene until a coroner has legally declared the death and documented the suspected cause of death, thereafter being elaborated upon, if homicide/unknown/undetermined, via autopsy.
d) Bergen-Belsen - one of the most severe typhus outbreaks due to massive overcrowding as result of evacuating Eastern camps where internees there actually chose to come with the Germans to another camp rather than be left to the whims of the Soviets (this type of movement in the late stages of the war is called the 'death march' in modern propaganda, and it really is propaganda, because nobody was executed by German forces at Bergen-Belsen like it is said; indeed ~14,000 died of typhus after the British liberated it.) See heading 3 in [78], especially the mis-captioning and framing of initial press pictures of typhus victims to insinuate German murders and provide a basis for assumption of facts not in evidence. See heading 3.7 for the following, which is now discredited propaganda, a random figure fabricated and used at Nuremberg:
"In 1945 the Associated Press news agency reported: "In Lueneburg, Germany, a Jewish physician, testifying at the trial of 45 men and women for war crimes at the Belsen and Oswiecim [Auschwitz] concentration camps, said that 80,000 Jews, representing the entire ghetto of Lodz, Poland, had been gassed or burned to death in one night at the Belsen camp.""
"80,000 gassed or burned to death in one night" -- Alongside the logistical near-impossibility of this undertaking, the camp was at bursting point at 50,000. (80,000 prisoners is approximately the seated capacity of the stadium 'Estadio Monumental "U"' in Lima, Peru, which is the 20th largest stadium in the world[50] -- firstly, can one fathom the logistics of gassing/burning to death all of the people in that stadium in one night (not even day, just the night, according to the testifying physician) -- secondly, can one picture all of the people in a stadium of that size just standing around, waiting to be murdered as they see others being murdered in a crowded camp? Would they not, say, respond to their natural human instinctive drive to panic and try to run, like in the Hillsborough Disaster, where, incidentally, nobody was murdered?[51]) Con defends such arbitrary published figures as such: "the numbers might be slightly off" -- if one must guess what the number is, or might be or could be or might not be, then the number could be anything, including zero, as with all the other number sources in all the newspapers I presented as clippings in R2 [30], which, like most of my other sources, is left unchallenged by Con.
in his closing address to the Nuremberg Tribunal (July 26, 1946), chief British prosecutor Sir Hartley Shawcross said that "more than six million" Jews were killed by the Germans, and that "[…] murder [was] conducted like some mass production industry in the gas chambers and the ovens of Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Majdanek and Oranienburg."[79]
either: this prosecutor was wrong, misled by the prosecution, based his verdicts on lies, or was simply flat-out lying; or all of the camps both he and I listed were in another world entirely. in any case: a simple forensic study commissioned for all of these camps in 1946 would have shown that the gas chambers did not exist as execution chambers (rather de-lousing chambers) at some of them (the ones (at least one) we know never had any) and, in my opinion, all of them; but even if some were proven to have no gas chamber, the convictions that relied upon the existence thereof should rightly have been thrown out, with those testifying regarding the existence of said chambers tried for perjury: the fact that these studies, which could be done in days, were not ordered, when we know today that they would have clarified the matter, and that the accused were sentenced in lieu of forensic evidence that could have been acquired to:
- cement the charges against them
- potentially exonerate them
proves, via objective logic alone, that this prosecutor, and the tribunal he was chief prosecutor of, was either:
- bought/bent or otherwise corrupted
- blackmailed or otherwise forced to present a predetermined ruling as judicial decision
- judicially biased/neglectful (along with the three other judges, who could have but did not object to the rulings and the closing address thereafter)
2. the over-riding reliance on eyewitnesses, with absence of forensic evidence to substantiate their testimony, alongside the fact of both allegations and admissions of post-war coerced confessions, torture and police brutality, which would not have been required were there forensic reports to support the testimony (i.e. a confession isn't usually needed when you have forensic evidence)[52] -- and I will note here that the gas-chamber-extermination allegations are based solely on eyewitness testimony, including confessions; any documentary evidence presented for such allegations required speculation and said statements to support it (e.g. a blueprint of a camp is shown, then an eyewitness points out what they thought was the gas chamber, then another eyewitness says it was used for extermination).
A reasonably concise explanation of the main camps alleged to have had gas killings[53], showing how the rumours of systematic execution began during the war and were adopted by the victors of the war thereafter (this is gone into in more detail starting on page 8 of this book[54])
The truth is that gas-chamber rumours had begun during the war and underwent a Chinese whisper process, resulting in many wild claims of execution methods such as:
- electrocution conveyor
- steam chamber
- lethal injection
- machine that held the head and forced a bolt through the brain quickly
This piece shows where the initial reports of extermination originated, showing detail that could not have been known at the time, and showing detail that has since been admitted or shown to be impossible[55]
3. Ernst Zündel trial
Raul Hilberg, when asked if there exists any forensic report showing existence of the gas chambers, says
"I am at a loss"[56]
This, along with the other questions asked of the 36-year Holocaust historian, is enough to support my argument that no forensic evidence exists - if such evidence did exist, Hilberg would have no reason not to admit to it here or have it already admitted into the court evidence, if only to disprove the theories of the WW2 revisionist Ernst Zündel in this heavily publicised trial in 1985 - instead what we are left with is what we already had: no forensic evidence. And please consider Hilberg is most definitely not disinterested in the historical facets of this case, considering that his career and livelihood depend upon it being as he had claimed for 36 years of research to be; he refused to be a witness at the second trial of Zündel in 1988, and this is evidenced in a letter to the prosecutor, which was court-ordered to be unprotected and revealed, where he states that he feared:
"... every attempt to entrap me by pointing out any seeming contradiction, however trivial the subject might be, between my earlier testimony and an answer that I might give in 1988."
He was afraid of being caught in one of many lies in his books; if he had told the truth in those books he would not need to be concerned about contradicting himself, if he was, as he claims to be, a historian and not a writer of fiction. A 36-year expert of holocaust histories was afraid of contradicting himself on a "literally legally accepted fact" -- how revealing this is, considering that he is the author of the 'bible' of holocaust history, The Destruction of the European Jews (1961), which has been cited thousands of times in history publications.
4. theory on inconsistencies with reality
a) "death marches" were the alleged forced marches of people from camps back into Germany at the end of the war. Why bother with this? Why not shoot the people instead? why not throw them over a cliff edge? why not strangulate them, stab them, burn them, run them over with a tank or other vehicle, or any of many other faster methods of execution? Why waste time and energy making sure people in a column, not bound by cuffs, may I add, didn't try to flee? Why bring them back to Germany rather than leaving them for the advancing enemy?
b) the reasons given for the alleged extermination orders mostly centre around the theory that Adolf Hitler despised Jews. If one reads into the history, especially the interwar period, one finds many contradictions to this theory, such as:
- Hitler working with Zionists to help migrate the German Jews to Madagascar (A.K.A. "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question")[57]
- Hitler knowing and trusting Jews, e.g. his personal physician[58], his highest-ranking member of the Luftwaffe until his death in 1941[59], and approx. 150,000 servicemen including generals, admirals, and one field marshal -- note that 'full Jews' as specified in the Nuremberg Racial Laws of 1935 were allowed to participate in the armed forces but they could only advance in rank with the approval of Hitler or Goering -- also note that the Law of Return re. emigration to Israel requires that one grandparent is Jewish, meaning even 'quarter Jews' in the Third Reich armed forces are eligible to emigrate to Israel as Jews. This article[60] shows some of the background of the Nuremberg Laws, alongside listing some examples of German Jews in the armed forces, but toward the end it falls to theorising and ridiculousness, with claims that Hitler planned to 'exterminate' all types of Jew once the war was won; I don't see how this author can even believe that idea, after having written all he did before it: it's mere hear-say speculation and to my knowledge there is not even a document to support that theory.
- the seeming need to prove that Hitler despised Jews, even 70+ years after his death -- examine this article[61], namely how it is framed with speculation as to Hitler exterminating Jews, prompting us to question the real friendship exhibited in the image, which is quite simple when one ignores the unnecessary mentions of genocide.
c) the movement of prisoners away from 'death camps' to regular concentration camps (e.g. Treblinka to Majdanek; Auschwitz to Treblinka; Sobibor to Bergen-Belsen) -- why would this happen, if these camps were indeed built solely to execute prisoners? Why bother carting anybody away from these camps unnecessarily? Why waste coal in locomotives? Why not take the prisoners off the cars and have them stand in a line, or in a field, or sitting on the ground, while they await execution?
d) the existence of doctors, dentists[62], psychiatrists, clergy, teachers and midwives[63] in camp complexes such as Auschwitz-Birkenau -- why bother, if the camps were there to systematically murder people? Consider ridiculous stories made for profit, such as this widely[64] disseminated fictional tale of a midwife delivering babies who were instantly killed or kidnapped unless she smuggled them out (apparently she witnessed 3000 babies being taken away, when any rational woman forced to do this would rather have her own life taken than be a part of it) -- and she notes the mothers were gassed after giving birth: well, I wonder how this baby and mother[65] survived the camp, then? A well-researched book on the medical facilities, working conditions and selection processes of Auschwitz-Birkenau and subcamps:[66]
e) the very basis of the story of systematic extermination by gas is unbelievable to most rational persons (I hope we can agree on this without my needing to show it) as we see or hear comments such as "it is unfathomable" or "I can't believe human beings would do this; they are monsters." or "what the Nazis did was beyond comprehension." -- I would ask of every person that does believe the story to answer me this: if it is unbelievable, what, then, makes you believe it?
5. lack of Allied/Soviet intervention in alleged genocide
a) British codebreaker Sir Harry Hinsley at MI5 stating categorically that there were no messages between Auschwitz and camp command about gassings (this was before the Germans learned their code had been broken by the British)
"The returns from Auschwitz, the largest of the camps with 20,000 prisoners, mentioned illness as the main cause of death, but included references to shootings and hangings. There were no references in the decrypts to gassing." [Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, Cambridge, 1979 - 84, 3 vols., vol. ii, appendix, page 673.]
Still, this is not evidence, because it's more a 'lack' of evidence; however it should be noted that many claims made regarding the alleged genocide centre on a 'lack' of evidence, e.g. Hitler's alleged 'verbal order to exterminate the Jews' (and other groups too, presumably?)
b) ability of Allies to conduct aerial surveillance during the war but seeming inability[67] to detect any:
- mass cremations
- mass burials
- mass exhumations and subsequent cremations
c) ability of prisoners to send/receive letters and postcards twice monthly from the camps - which were of course checked by the camp staff for contraband information, as with all prison letters, and additionally they may have been censored or prevented from being dispatched - but, still, could not a few hidden messages escape the camp detailing the ongoing atrocity? why bother letting the prisoners send anything if they were to be executed? The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum alleges here[68] that gassings began at Auschwitz on 03 September 1941, continuing through to November 25 1944, and that over one million people were gassed during that time. Here are some postcards sent from Auschwitz:
- 10/01/1942[69]
- 16/05/1942[70]
- 28/09/1942[71]
- 19/01/1943[72]
- May/June 1943[73]
- 06/04/1944[74]
- 18/08/1944[75]
This is just a handful that I found. You can find more by going to [76] and clicking the icon to the left of the search button - this loads the 'search by image' widget, where you can enter any of the above urls. Why not just search for 'Auschwitz postcard', I hear you ask? Well, you can see for yourself that this kind of search is censored. Try it here (I have even made the word 'postcard' more important than 'Auschwitz' but we see no postcards at all)[77]. Now, ask yourself: why don't you see any postcards? Surely that is what you searched for; and certainly these documents are of interest to those trying to trace the paths their family members have taken; but the problem is that the datestamps on these postcards do not agree with the gassing story; it does create wonder in me as to who is responsible for censoring this search term, that I know why notwithstanding.
[79] International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal (henceforth IMT "blue series"), 42 vols., Nuremberg 1947-1949; here: vol. 19, p. 434.
Round 5
Pro
#9
(continued from R4)
6. the inadvertant self-incrimination via claimed feasibilities of gas-chamber existence by prominent sources of camp histories:
a) Auschwitz Museum attempts to discredit the infamous science-based Leuchter Report[80] by contending that the maximum number of bodies capable of fitting into a functional gas chamber there was much higher than what is stated in said report; the museum states that bodies were instead tightly packed in, up to a thousand at a time; but we can know from basic chemistry and physics of the claimed murder weapon, Zyklon B, that both free space between bodies and warm, circulating air were required for the pellets to release enough gas to kill a human being.[see bottom of p.28 of [80]] Leuchter is a solid example of a disinterested source presenting science-based studies and having his life ruined via loss of his career prospects, threats against his person, family, home and freedoms, and his findings being 'refuted' ad hominem and by acute extrapolation. After the publication of Leuchter's reports, the Auschwitz Museum commissioned a study and report by the Institute of Forensic Research (Instytut Ekspertyz Sadowych) of Krakow; unfortunately for the museum, the Institute's report corroborated[81] most of Leuchter's findings, in particular those of cyanide traces and lack thereof. After this, the museum made some sly changes to their facility, including changing the signage wording[82], removing signage, and sealing areas off from the public; still, they have this aggressive anti-reason literature displayed on their website without any proper scientific argument: if there were gas chambers at Auchwitz, at the very least they would display a journal-cited, scientific response. Leuchter has easily shown that there were no gas chambers; they could just as easily show that there were gas chambers, but instead they resort to name-calling and generalising, and, as I have shown, failure to understand the basics of the chemical nature of the alleged murder weapon they display to museum visitors, misleading them. To this day many media outlets attempt to disparage Leuchter's initial report by cherry-picking its several errors, then extrapolating them into an allegation that Leuchter intended to 'prove the Holocaust didn't happen', which of course is not what he went there to do; indeed Ernst Zündel, who commissioned Leuchter's report, interviewed him before the trip to ensure that he showed no bias toward a lack of proof of homicidal gas chambers. If researching Leuchter today, one will see all sorts of comments about his lack of professional expertise, his 'ludicrous' claims, and all sorts of arguments not refuting the central finding of his report: the buildings located at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, even those demolished, could not and would not function as homicidal gas chambers; even so, Leuchter is one of several people who have gone to sites such as Auschwitz with the aim of proving the official narrative of homicidal gas chambers, and of course failing to do so, because most likely there were none.
b) there are parallel scratch marks inside the alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz. there is even a star of David scratched into the wall. It is claimed by the museum guides that these marks were made by the fingernails of people dying in the gas chamber. Fingernails cannot make such marks on concrete; it is impossible; i.e. the differences in hardness[83 (concrete is roughly 5-6 Mohs)] will force the fingernail to be ground to dust or break off from the finger; I implore you to find some concrete and try it yourself. These marks are scientifically impossible to have been created by fingernails yet they are presented as such. This is a simple example of planted evidence that cannot stand up to scientific scrutiny and is being used to intentionally enforce an emotional response to support the story of gas-chamber executions. The museum guides still tell people this despite David Cole in 1992[84] exposing the gas chamber at Auschwitz as a recontruction from eyewitness statements -- i.e. they are impossible scratch marks on an impossible wall.
c) one of the few survivors of Treblinka (and I mention him because we don't have any real physical evidence from Treblinka, only a handful of witnesses describing things), a barber named Abraham Bomba, told us in this video[85], that he would be ordered to clean the gas-chamber floor between executions. He states that he heard the bodies hit the floor, then he waited five minutes, then when he went in, to clean, all the bodies were gone. Amazing. I hope the guards received Iron Crosses for their gallantry in entering a gas chamber not yet ventilated and somehow breaking free of their physical human limitations by generating from within themselves, by sheer force of determination to get the job done as quickly as possible, the superhuman strength needed to haul hundreds of corpses out of there and into the furnaces in minutes, only to have no time to pat each other on the back before the next load of victims were 'ushered in' to the still unventilated gas chamber (but of course Bomba had to come in to clean it first).
Another video by him, strangely containing more detail than the first one, despite that he is older, is featured on the USHMM website[86] -- strangely this time the story seems more logical.
d) 11 eyewitnesses at Treblinka (out of the 67 survivors) testified that John Demjanjuk[87] was a now-presumably fictional person named by these witnesses as 'Ivan the Terrible', a guard who performed such horrible acts as:
- smashing babies' heads against the wall to crush them
- bayoneting pregnant women who stood in line awaiting haircuts
- randomly shooting prisoners and clubbing them to death
The Israeli Supreme Court exonerated Demjanjuk due to the incredibility of the eyewitness testimony. Well done to that court for standing up to such absurdity and applying the rule of law, something that didn't happen in most of the Allied and Soviet war-crime trials.
Please also see the case of Thies Christophersen on [88] then take a trip over to Youtube, where you may expect to find something about him - but you won't, because it's censored, because he is one of many former prisoners who told the truth -- why else censor him, if such videos exist still on Youtube detailing now-disproven absurdities such as human soap[89]? Here is a brief article by Christophersen: [90]
7. the clamouring of museum authorities for any evidence at all that supports the story in theory, no matter how weak
Consider the photos shown in this article [91] alongside the text: "Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust victims Yad Vashem described Errera’s pictures as the “only four [to] depict the actual process of mass killing perpetrated at the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau”." -- well:
- one picture is of trees, so we take it down to three
- the other forest picture shows no killing; the only discernible elements in it are: trees; two nude women; one non-nude or partially nude woman; several other nondescript figures; one perimeter-fence post; part of the electrified fence; one square sign found beside the fence; grass. no gas chambers; no 'actual process of mass killing'; I could argue that these women were taking an outdoor bath and were shaking the water off them after getting out of it.
- the other two pictures show, from inside a doorway, something on fire, presumably belongings or even corpses, with clothed people - it is not clear who they are, but some flat caps can be seen, like those worn by Sonderkommandos - walking around and moving the objects on the ground from place to place. where is the 'actual process of mass killing perpetrated at the gas chambers' in these two photos?
8. Refusal of states, media publications, historians and even scientists to waver on published narratives and demand, or support the demand of, technical reasoning for allegations of genocide and forensic science to support that:
a) La Monde, 21 February 1979 (signed by 34 French historians)
"It is not necessary to ask how, technically, such a mass murder was possible. It was possible technically since it took place. That is the necessary point of departure for any historical inquiry on this subject. It is our function simply to recall that truth: There is not, there cannot be, any debate about the existence of the gas chambers."
Unfortunately for these 34 historians, whose livelihoods undoubtedly depended on the existence of homicidal gas chambers in Third Reich camps, there is a debate about the existence of such chambers: and that is because there is no forensic science proving that they ever existed as homicidal instruments. If forensic science could disprove this, there is no need to make such ridiculous, self-serving claims as:
"It was possible technically since it took place."
We might as well argue:
"The Sun exists because it at one point may or may not have existed and it currently does exist."
The frustrating lack of desire to investigate these histories in an objective manner demonstrates an inability to apply objectivity to them (i.e. no forensic evidence exists to support them), otherwise these historians would be clamouring all over any scientific study presented, ready to include it in their work - but only if it did not entirely refute their previous publications: a true cowardice hence exists within and amongst these scholars: they cannot be trusted to address the general discrepancies in the stories upon which their careers are founded.
b) See this scientific publication[92] alleging 'even higher kill rates' than those already published. I admit: it's an in-depth study, with in-depth speculation and theory, but it is based on flawed interpretations of statistics, and of wartimes documents, such as one from the 1942 writings of Kurt Gerstein, stating "Führer ordered all action speeded up!", which has somehow become, via speculation, an 'order to speed up killings' despite that it could just as easily be an order to speed up production of wartime supplies and equipment, or any other action for that matter. It is ridiculous hop-scotch scholarship like this that allows for in-depth theory of genocide to exist: it is lazy; it is not conclusive; it is theory. Should theory prove anything? Can theory prove anything? Conversely: can theory refute theory? We need science; and it needs to be hard.
9. the forensic evidence showing death by gas that has not been collected to this day yet can still be collected:
- autopsies showing cyanide/cyanine (or elevated hydrogen or potassium) sequestered in teeth or bone/marrow of the mandible, ribcage or sternum
- elevated cyanine compounds found in soil above the water table and adjacent to mass graves
- metallurgy of the walls of the crematoria furnaces/ovens and their chimney stacks to detect elevated levels of hydrogen, potassium or cyanine that have been protected from environmental degradation by layers of soot applied with each cremation cycle
It is common to see scholars and scientists go to these sites and look for the wrong things (i.e. not the things I list above) seemingly in an effort to 'debunk' specific claims by revisionists. Take this article[93] for example, where the author uses plenty of conjecture and presumption to arrive at the conclusion that genocide by gas is proven by holes in a roof potentially being there before the Germans left the camp; quite simply this is ludicrous, but it is a good example of how desperate the mainstream historians are for any evidence that could uphold their narrative.
These pseudo-scientific studies often fail to convince the revisionists, those people responsible for objectively demolishing the unfathomable Soviet claims of "2 million gassed" [94 @ 20:15] at Lublin-Majdanek to the point where the Lublin-Majdanek camp museum has repeatedly been forced to change its signs to eventually rest at 78000 [Ibid. 21:58], a number 3.9% of the original claim yet still almost double the revisionist estimate of 42200, which is based on thousands of hours of research and investigation[95].
Considering that these people helped the camp to make more accurate their claims:
- Where is the public gratitude for this work?
- Why is the study responsible for these amendments banned on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (to name a few), effectively making it unavailable to the majority of the West?
- Where is the explanation for the inaccurate estimates over the currently published estimate of 78000?
- Why did the museum change the word 'died' to 'killed' after reducing the number to 78000 without showing how many 'died'?
- Where is the evidence that 78000 were killed?
- Where is the corresponding study showing the 78000 determination?
- Why did it take revisionists, not holocaust historians and scholars, to make this happen?
- Why should we trust any Soviet death-estimate figure after this?
If there was forensic evidence, or a desire to look for and capture such evidence now, if it exists, little of this number-changing would be needed. I argue that there were no homicidal gas chambers in any of the camps; therefore I argue that there exists no forensic evidence of such chambers and as result of homicide by gas inhalation.
In the Lublin-Majdanek camps, Soviet scientists made a study in 1944, concluding that the disinfestation chambers there were used for the extermination of human beings. At a glance[Ibid. p.124] and to most laymen, this may be reliable enough; but when we examine it closely we see what they did, in summary:
- determined Zyklon B and Carbon Monoxide (CO) existed in cans and canisters respectively
- determined that hermetically sealable rooms existed
- determined that equipment existed outside and inside these rooms and could be used to filter and pump gas around and out of the rooms
If one continues to [Ibid. p.126] one can see references to documentary evidence showing plans and cost estimates for these rooms being de-lousing facilities. Still, none of this shows homicide by gas; and, considering the lack of integrity in these Soviet reports, e.g.:
- Katyn Forest Massacre where they blamed the Germans and all the while had a document in their archives (exposed after the fall of the Soviet Union) showing that they committed the atrocity
- Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they produced a report in the 1940s showing 4 million had been gassed, when even the museum today cannot admit to anything higher than 1.1 million
I in this case put more trust in Polish construction-plan documents ahead of Soviet reports, no matter how scientifically presented.
10. The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, the site of the most alleged murders by gas, was well equipped and self-sustaining, as I have outlined previously. However, many consumables not produced on site were needed daily/weekly to feed workers and staff - e.g. dough for bread; eggs; meat; milk. These consumables were delivered daily by local grocers as part of contracts they had with the camps. Considering that letter mail was not censored or checked from civilians in Germany to the outside world, how come none of these grocers (or any other deliverer of consumables) alerted the world, even anonymously, to this atrocity of gassing and cremating people 24/7? It could be smelled for miles, according to many of the internee statements, so the grocers would have noticed it as they drove up the road and into the camp. How come not one of the staff members working in the camps thought to themselves, "I can't just allow this to keep happening" and alerted an outside source to this genocide as it was being perpetrated? It's ridiculous to think that everybody stayed silent until it was over (then long afterward).
11. The first reports of gas executions in the camps came a little late; indeed they did not begin as executions by gas.
See here the first known published claim of gas genocide at Auschwitz[96] Note: the figure given is 5,000,000, which is almost five times the maximum acceptable number given today by the museum (1,100,000).
So the first claim of gas genocide at Auschwitz came a mind-boggling 75 days after the day of liberation.
If gas-chambers actually existed there for homicidal purposes of 1,100,000+ persons, it would be front-page news within at the very most a week, even considering the restrictions imposed on the media by the Soviets. It would not take over 10 weeks to be a news story, considering that 7,000 prisoners remained (voluntarily, I might add) in the camp when it was liberated and over 60,000 prisoners[97] went with the Germans westward when the camp was evacuated.
67,000 persons + word of mouth + scale of alleged genocide = it gets into a newspaper within a week, maximally two - not 10.
Here is the article in full; I have emboldened the most revealing parts of this blatant lie, i.e. the first known published allegation of gas genocide at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 75 days after camp liberation:
Hungarian Claims 5 Million Jews Were Gassed And Cremated by Nazis at 'Murder Factory'(The Associated Press, in a note to editors accompanying the following dispatch, stated that the 5,000,000 figure was spelled out and repeated, indicating beyond doubt that it was the figure given the correspondent. However, estimates given the World Almanac by the American Jewish Committee in 1939 showed there were only 8,939,608 Jews in Europe and 15,688,259 in the world at that time.)By THOBURN WIANT, Associated Press War Correspondent.NEAR ERFURT, Germany, April 11.—Dr. Bela Fabian, president of the dissolved Hungarian Independent Democratic party, said in an interview today that 5,000,000 Jews had been gassed and cremated at a murder factory at Auschwitz, in Upper Silesia.Dr. Fabina said he was taken to Auschwitz 10 months ago with 500,000 other Hungarian Jews and that 400,000 were gassed and eremated in the first two months and that only 1,000 remained alive. With Lt. Theodore Gutman of Los Angeles and Sergt. Siegmund Fuld, New York City, acting as translators, Dr. Fabian told a story so horrible as to be almost unbelievable. Dr. Fabian said he could speak English, but that he was so unnerved by the ordeal of his detention that he preferred to give the interview in German. He said the 5,000,000 murdered at Auschwitz included Jews from Belgium, Holland, France, Poland, Russia, Hungary and Greece.Dr. Fabian said he spent four months at Auschwitz and then was moved last October 26 to Oranienburg near Berlin because the Germans feared the Russians would overrun the murder plant. After two weeks at Oranienburg, Dr. Fabian was shifted to Ohrdruf, south of Gotha, where he remained until he was liberated by the Americans.Three others liberated from the concentration camp were Heinz Meyer. 22, a Hungarian violinist; Desider Kohlmann, 34 year old Bratislavan, and Sam Ezratty, 28-year-old Greek medical student.They said it was a miracle that Dr. Fabian survived.All Jews over 50 were automatically gassed and cremated, but the Germans believed Dr. Fabian when he insisted he was only 46.Dr. Fabian, who asked that his friend, Representative Bloom, Democrat, of New York be notified of his safety, explained that his party of approximately 60,000 members was dissolved by the Hungarian government at the insistence of the Germans three years ago.An author as well as a politician —he wrote “Six Horses and 40 Men” and “1,000 Men Without a Woman”—Dr. Fabian said the Auschwitz butchery was run by an officer who, with a dramatic flourish of a hand, would order entire groups or partsof groups gassed or cremated without questioning or examining any of them.
I trust I don't need to explain at length the ridiculousness I have highlighted. Amazing that a 50+-year-old politician/author somehow proved useful enough to the camp to avoid being gassed and cremated for four whole months before being transferred to two other camps instead of simply being gassed/cremated on the spot by the Germans, following the dramatic flourishes of their commandant's hand, who was desperately trying to destroy all evidence of the atrocities at the camp prior to the Soviets arriving. Just outstanding, Dr. Fabian - well done.
If you'd like to be entertained more by Fabian's dramatic fiction storytelling, see this article from 1951 where he claims the Soviets are now trying to do what the Germans did by exterminating the Eastern European Jewry via "gas chambers operating at a slower speed": [98]
So this is the first mention in newspapers I can find of the gassings at Auschwitz. Is there one earlier? It's doubtful, considering the forenote by The Associated Press, a top global news bulletin agency at the time, wherein they make clear the reader knows the number of victims is correct, and that it has been checked and checked again, as if it has shocked them and was not already known to them or anybody else. How silly they were to include this note, for they then leave judgement of their integrity in the hands of Dr. Fabian, one of the most obvious liars I have seen involved in this whole story, who drops random numbers all over the place, not showing even on the most basic level how he could have known those numbers. It seems convenient to dismiss persons in his story by claiming they were gassed and cremated, but I suppose he neglected to even consider the logistical impossibilities thereof, those very ones that, when exposed, forced the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum to drop their death-toll claims by ~2.5 million some decades later.
[Please forgive my lying strategy above; I wanted to show how this news was presented at least twice as 'news'; indeed the above was not the first published claim of gas genocide at Auschwitz (but everything else is truthfully presented)].
See here, again, the first published claim of gas extermination at Auschwitz-Birkenau, coming in at the start of July, 1944[99]
As with the claim of gas genocide above, the Associated Press gives the dispatch, however without a forenote; but we can assume this information is new (as in 'news') by its diction:
1,715,000 Reported Killed in Nazi Drive To Wipe Out JewsBy the Associated Press.NEW YORK. July 3.—A Geneva dispatch to the New York Times today aaid 1,715,000 Jews had been put to death by the Germans in Upper Silesian ‘extermination camps’ at Auschwitz and Birkenau in two years ended April 15. 1944.The report was attributed to information reaching the International Church Movement Ecumenical Refugee Commission of Geneva and the Fluchtlingshilfe of Zurich.Victims were said to have come from these countries: Poland, 900,000; the Netherlands, 100,000; Greece, 45,000; France, 150,000; Belgium, 50.000;Germany, 60,000; Yugoslavia, Italy and Norway, 50,000; Bohemia, Moravia and Austria, 30.000; Slovakia, 30.000; and foreign Jews from Polish concentration camps, 300.000.Yet another 120.000 Jews from Hungary were said to have been killed or died en route to Upper Silesia. The Ecumenical Commission report said the Hungarian Jews were subject to “malicious, fiendish, inhuman brutality.”The Times story reported that many were worked to death.Execution halls at Auschwitz and Birkenau were said to be fake bathing establishments, capable of dispatching 2,000 to 8,000 Jews daily.“Prisoners were led into cells and ordered to strip for bathing,” The Times dispatch said, "then cyanide gas was said to have been released,causing death in three to five minutes. The bodies are burned in crematories that hold eight to 10 at a time. At Birkenau there are about50 such furnaces. They were opened March 12, 1943, by a large party of Nazi chiefs who witnessed the ‘disposal of 8,000 Jews from 9 a.m. until7.30 p.m.,’ according to the report.”
Based on what we understand about the story today, this dispatch makes sense, apart from the inflated number of deaths; and it is curious that only Jews are mentioned here. There are further issues if one dives deeper into the report behind this story[100] and it may come as a surprise that even at the heavily biased Nuremberg Tribunals this report was not allowed into evidence due to its containing too many contradictions. So here we have a news story alleging almost two million murders, based on a contradictory report from two escaped prisoners: why should it be given a minute of attention once one knows the origin?
Consider that at the Nuremberg Tribunals there were witnesses testifying to murders of people who were sitting, alive, in the courtroom, with the judge's knowledge; yet this report was not allowed to be admitted: clearly it was a self-defeating embarrassment to those railroading the accused.
12. Refusal to investigate properly and link together survivors of camps after the war and the dropping of the iron curtain
This man[101] [102] was re-united with his brother, after both of them had settled with the assumption that they were both murdered, four decades later, after one of them appeared on a talk show where Mark Weber and David Cole presented their opinions to public scathing. Weber and Cole did not receive any expression of gratitude from the brothers, and instead the family spoke of the reunion as a miracle, conveniently ignoring the fact that it was made possible by Montel Williams bringing two revisionists into the spotlight for one show.
It is a disgrace on our world that reunions like this one, although not the main goal of revisionism but a pleasant bonus, have been prevented by the perpetration of the myth of the gas-chamber executions, the opaqueness of other historical "fact" of the period, and the resultantly obligatory suppression of truth-seeking journalism and study. Families that believe their loved ones were killed in such a horrible manner will go to their death believing this; and all it would take to find out the truth is the truth itself.
Sources
Sources
Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:
The debate is about resolving the question of if any evidence exists that is consistent with the criteria given by pro in the description of the debate. con correctly points out that he is arguing that evidence exists and not whether the holocaust has sufficient enough evidence to be proven true. Pro does ask for irrefutable evidence, but it is too high and unfair of a burden, since every piece of evidence for everything is refutable, so I am ignoring this trap. Con gave evidence that met the criteria listed such as scientific evidence of hair analysis. I would urge pro in the future to stick with the topic. If you wanted to debate that the holocaust has insufficient evidence to support concluding it is real, debate that. This debate is about if a single piece of evidence exists and it does. However con did forfeit some rounds so loses conduct points
I think it's way too big a topic for even 10 max-size debates - but I do have another idea related to this and I will post it soon. Cheers
You're welcome. I think you should retry the debate but put tho Holocaust on trial. If the Subject was that, you would have won
Thanks for voting. I thought the time would lapse with no votes.
it is so true that there have been laws put in place to arrest people if they even think about denying how true it is.
Chilling testimony from an Auschwitz inmate forced to help the Nazi murder squads has finally been deciphered, thanks to painstaking detective work and digital imaging.
On scraps of notepaper Marcel Nadjari, a Greek Jew, described how thousands of Jews were herded into the gas chambers daily. He saw them "packed in like sardines".
Definitely will vote on this one eventually. Glad to see a based topic like this.
thanks, no worries.
sorry Kritikal, missed one citation and reference: https://dissolve.com/video/Footage-Dachau-Nazi-Concentration-Camp-victims-gas-royalty-free-stock-video-footage/001-D378-13-973
for "This video (graphic) shows 'Footage of Dachau Nazi Concentration Camp victims ..."
oh yes, I see what you mean now. I will keep that in mind for future titles. thank you
Hi, sorry this is just a recreation to change the character limit, both Kritikal and I agreed to do the change and keep everything as-is, I will post my r2 within 2 days to keep with the original round time limits
I suggest changing the topic to "...source that ANYONE was executed in a gas chamber..." if you ever want to debate this topic again.
Again, this is too easy for a kritik. Obviously it isn't a single person, it's millions of people that died within gas chambers. They simply won't just open one for killing one person.