The Holocaust Thread - The Great Debate Between Affirmers, Revisionists and Deniers

[Forgetful Gynn]

Historical matters are not held to the same scrutiny as a court of law.

Countless court cases have revolved around various historical matters.

If that were the case, you would be incapable of proving any historical event happened to satisfaction.

Any historical event? Like the construction of the Colosseum, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the sinking of the titanic? You really believe that? Some events are difficult to impossible to prove, yes, but not any or all. This case is indeed special because of how much of the history has potentially been erased or re-written. It might indeed be impossible to determine if a concerted extermination program ever existed in germany at this point. Especially since, unlike practically all other historical events, this one is illegal to investigate.

So what are we left to go on? Who do we trust? Do we trust the communists? Do we trust the germans? Do we trust the jews? Which of those have we historically trusted and which of those have most effected the current state of the world and led to the most suffering and death? Even if we take the most exaggerated numbers for what the germans might've done, it's not them. It was the ones who wrote the history, the ones who won the war and the ones who dictated what was right and what was wrong after the fact.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Countless court cases have revolved around various historical matters.

Any historical event? Like the construction of the Colosseum, the extinction of the dinosaurs, the sinking of the titanic? You really believe that? Some events are difficult to impossible to prove, yes, but not any or all. This case is indeed special because of how much of the history has potentially been erased or re-written. It might indeed be impossible to determine if a concerted extermination program ever existed in germany at this point. Especially since, unlike practically all other historical events, this one is illegal to investigate.

Factually untrue, and I have thus far twice outlined how genocide-denial laws do not prevent critical historical investigation of the Holocaust in this very thread.
Saying "any" historical event is an exaggeration, admittedly, but we have more evidence regarding the Holocaust than we do of, say, all of the Crusades, the life of Jesus, or most other events in the Classical Period. And yet, the latter events don't have a massive contingent of people insisting that we need to be "critical" and "keep an open mind" about them not happening, or happening according to a completely contradictory model.

 

[дядя Боря]

I will retract my statement on gulags. I don’t know enough on the topic to comment. If you meant the Holdomor I absolutely believe it was genocide. I don’t think gulags were built for the purpose of genocide only.

The purpose of Gulags is important, more on that later, but in the nutshell, after the coup in 1917, in 1918 first concentration camps were established, by 1920s there were over 100, with the purpose of incarceration as a punishment. The GULAGs mutated in 20s as "labor-correctional" institutions ("Arbeit mecht frei") which will lead to hundreds of camps, close to 500 in total. They were not only self sufficient, but output net positive to Soviet economy as they killed people in process. This included digging canals, timber, gold mining among others. While mortality was extremely high, they have produced net benefit to the economy.

Why are GULAGs relevant? During 1930s Germany was closely allied to the Soviet Union. It was close friendship, so much that kids in the SU were named Adolf. Especially in the military, there were exchanges and training, including officers training. It was mutual benefit, Soviet Union provided space and equipment, Germans brought in their experience. Many of the Nazi luftwaffe high command, including Herman Goering trained in Lipetsk, Russia. Same with many panzer generals, like Guderian, trained in Kama school, Kazan, Russia.

So the training exchange didn't end at military and police. And it is in 30s that Germany started building their concentration camps. In addition to labor in those camps and hoarding Jews, political prisoners of all kinds and other undesirables, Germany also imported assload of people as "workers", initially on voluntary basis, then on as slave labor by literally scooping up people on occupied lands and sending them West to work in factories and camps. Germany was starving for labor and I don't see specific need for them to try to exterminate people for the purpose of extermination. It was extermination as the byproduct of labor that they needed. In fact IBM consulted Nazis on optimizing those processes, i.e. figuring out max output from prisoners based on input to feed and maintain them.

So this is food for thought. I think that concentration camps were primary as slow way of killing by labor. Arbeit mecht frei. When SS cleansed Jews in the East, they simply executed them in mass, locally. There is no point of transporting them far away just kill them somewhere else, just to kill them. I believe it was to squeeze whatever benefit they could as slave labor.

Also, I realize that purpose and agenda may have changed. Context is very important and it probably changed as much as agendas from 30s to 40s, whatever it was. It's good to keep in mind that over 15 year span, there may have been different goals and variables at play.

 

[Forgetful Gynn]

Factually untrue, and I have thus far twice outlined how genocide-denial laws do not prevent critical historical investigation of the Holocaust in this very thread.

You didn't actually say anything about how it prevents proper investigation, you just said that it's against all genocide denial (except white genocide, of course) unless I missed it.

Saying "any" historical event is an exaggeration, admittedly

Good to hear.

but we have more evidence regarding the Holocaust than we do of, say, all of the Crusades, the life of Jesus, or most other events in the Classical Period.

The evidence we have for the things other than the holocaust are far better forms of evidence than just testimony and hearsay. If we only had those for the others, they'd be less widely accepted. We also have evidence for the crusades and jesus from the enemies and the people who had every reason to not mention it if it wasn't real. They were free to do so, unlike in germany at any time after the war.

And yet, the latter events don't have a massive contingent of people insisting that we need to be "critical" and "keep an open mind" about them not happening, or happening according to a completely contradictory model.

Not a lot of people got hit over the head with the existence of jesus christ or the crusades literally every time anything bad happened that involved white people or jews for almost a century now. The massiveness of the contingent is directly proportional to the amount it's pushed on people. Had they a softer hand in those matters, there'd be less people bothered enough to be skeptical about it. See also: the Holodomor. The only people bothered enough to be skeptical of that are communists and other marxists, despite it having a higher death count.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

You didn't actually say anything about how it prevents proper investigation, you just said that it's against all genocide denial (except white genocide, of course) unless I missed it.

Good to hear.

The evidence we have for the things other than the holocaust are far better forms of evidence than just testimony and hearsay. If we only had those for the others, they'd be less widely accepted. We also have evidence for the crusades and jesus from the enemies and the people who had every reason to not mention it if it wasn't real. They were free to do so, unlike in germany at any time after the war.

Not a lot of people got hit over the head with the existence of jesus christ or the crusades literally every time anything bad happened that involved white people or jews for almost a century now. The massiveness of the contingent is directly proportional to the amount it's pushed on people. Had they a softer hand in those matters, there'd be less people bothered enough to be skeptical about it. See also: the Holodomor. The only people bothered enough to be skeptical of that are communists and other marxists, despite it having a higher death count.

1. I did though, and it doesn't. Provided that you back your claims with evidence, you can publish writings showing, for example, that the initial death toll at Auschwitz was greatly exaggerated due to a mixture of motivated reasoning and outright bad math by the Soviets or that Zyklon B was not the most common gassing agent used in the infrequent use of the gas chamber as a weapon of mass death. There is a difference between conducting historical research and saying "My infographic says no Jews died". I don't approve of genocide denial laws anyways (might as well have moon landing denial laws), but misrepresenting them to try and make your argument stronger makes it look like sophistry is your strongest argument. If you want to claim a historical event was faked, offer counterfactual evidence.
2. We have physical evidence for the Holocaust. We have mass graves that have been exhumed and examined. We have the gassing chambers with large quantities of gassing agent residue on the walls. The strongest evidence of Jesus' historicity is second-hand and third-hand accounts from several decades afterwards, with no physical supporting evidence. I say all of this as a Catholic.

 

[Kyria the Great]

Can I just condense most of this thread and say that denial of a horrible event or trying to downplay it makes you an asshole? Granted I am a person who is far more generous and see Holmoldor and Year Zero on the same level as the Holocaust, but I don't think most of you would even be on that level and that is rather sad.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Can I just condense most of this thread and say that denial of a horrible event or trying to downplay it makes you an asshole?

I mean, you can, but assuming that it did in fact happen runs against the point of the thread.

 

[Forgetful Gynn]

1. I did though, and it doesn't.

Then I guess I missed it.

Provided that you back your claims with evidence, you can publish writings showing, for example, that the initial death toll at Auschwitz was greatly exaggerated due to a mixture of motivated reasoning and outright bad math by the Soviets or that Zyklon B was not the most common gassing agent used in the infrequent use of the gas chamber as a weapon of mass death

So you can say that after you have the evidence, but how can you get that evidence when pursuing that hypothesis can easily be interpreted as denial?

There is a difference between conducting historical research and saying "My infographic says no Jews died".

I don't recall posting any infographics, nor have I said anything of the sort. Did you misquote?

I don't approve of genocide denial laws anyways (might as well have moon landing denial laws), but misrepresenting them to try and make your argument stronger makes it look like sophistry is your strongest argument.

Why do they exist for this? Why not laws against denying slavery? Against denying vaccines? Against denying anything that could lead to mass harm or persecutions? Is it easier to determine the truth when the law does not take a stand against one of the possibilities?

We have physical evidence for the Holocaust. We have mass graves that have been exhumed and examined.

By whom? Can anyone do it?

We have the gassing chambers with large quantities of gassing agent residue on the walls.

We have them in the US as well. There was a typhus epidemic and zyklon was used here as well. Why are you denying the existence of the electrocution chambers though? Are you free to pick and choose which methods existed and which didn't?

The strongest evidence of Jesus' historicity is second-hand and third-hand accounts from several decades afterwards, with no physical supporting evidence. I say all of this as a Catholic.

Which was backed up by the Romans, who had every reason to deny he ever existed. The opposite is true here.

Can I just condense most of this thread and say that denial of a horrible event or trying to downplay it makes you an asshole? Granted I am a person who is far more generous and see Holmoldor and Year Zero on the same level as the Holocaust, but I don't think most of you would even be on that level and that is rather sad.

You're the one who wants to believe more people died.

 

[JoyQ]

The purpose of Gulags is important, more on that later, but in the nutshell, after the coup in 1917, in 1918 first concentration camps were established, by 1920s there were over 100, with the purpose of incarceration as a punishment. The GULAGs mutated in 20s as "labor-correctional" institutions ("Arbeit mecht frei") which will lead to hundreds of camps, close to 500 in total. They were not only self sufficient, but output net positive to Soviet economy as they killed people in process. This included digging canals, timber, gold mining among others. While mortality was extremely high, they have produced net benefit to the economy.

Why are GULAGs relevant? During 1930s Germany was closely allied to the Soviet Union. It was close friendship, so much that kids in the SU were named Adolf. Especially in the military, there were exchanges and training, including officers training. It was mutual benefit, Soviet Union provided space and equipment, Germans brought in their experience. Many of the Nazi luftwaffe high command, including Herman Goering trained in Lipetsk, Russia. Same with many panzer generals, like Guderian, trained in Kama school, Kazan, Russia.

So the training exchange didn't end at military and police. And it is in 30s that Germany started building their concentration camps. In addition to labor in those camps and hoarding Jews, political prisoners of all kinds and other undesirables, Germany also imported assload of people as "workers", initially on voluntary basis, then on as slave labor by literally scooping up people on occupied lands and sending them West to work in factories and camps. Germany was starving for labor and I don't see specific need for them to try to exterminate people for the purpose of extermination. It was extermination as the byproduct of labor that they needed. In fact IBM consulted Nazis on optimizing those processes, i.e. figuring out max output from prisoners based on input to feed and maintain them.

So this is food for thought. I think that concentration camps were primary as slow way of killing by labor. Arbeit mecht frei. When SS cleansed Jews in the East, they simply executed them in mass, locally. There is no point of transporting them far away just kill them somewhere else, just to kill them. I believe it was to squeeze whatever benefit they could as slave labor.

Also, I realize that purpose and agenda may have changed. Context is very important and it probably changed as much as agendas from 30s to 40s, whatever it was. It's good to keep in mind that over 15 year span, there may have been different goals and variables at play.

I agree with most of what you said but I do think there is evidence against all those being exterminated locally. If that were the case why were some elderly and children transported to camps by train? They were not suited for labor.

 

[Forgetful Gynn]

I agree with most of what you said but I do think there is evidence against all those being exterminated locally. If that were the case why were some elderly and children transported to camps by train? They were not suited for labor.

Internment. We did the same to japanese children and elderly. Of the 110,000 Japanese Americans detained by the United States government during World War II, 30,000 were children. Had we somehow lost the war, they probably would have suffered a similar fate as the jews did.

 

[Women should die]

Ok /pol/fags. Did the holocaust happen. I really dont want to shift through 22 pages looking for an answer in this awful thread

 

[Lemmingwise]

Ok /pol/fags. Did the holocaust happen. I really dont want to shift through 22 pages looking for an answer in this awful thread

People who don't want to sift through debris will only walk away with shit tier takes anyways.

Some people in the thread believe there's no basis for there having been gas chambers. Three reasons are the frequent lies and changing of stories of those claiming them, lack of evidence and fake gas chambers that are paraded as real ones. There is some deviance where some think there was a plan of extermination and some that don't think there was one.

Some people in the thread believe it happened exactly as the official accounts and that there is room for historical revisionism, but that any claims of not being gas chambers or any claims of the numbers being less than 5 million jews are purely and only motivated by political antisemitism and/or neonazism.

There is no contest on the idea that jews were persecuted. There is some contest on whether there was a plan of extermination. There are some that point to the doublestandards at other genocides and say that this one is exaggerated in importance, considering higher numbers of others and being more recent in history.

Nobody really dared to take on the question of what an accurate death count would look like and there has been no explanation for some of the wildly changing numbers like the auschwitz deaths.

I have strong doubts about there having been gas chambers, so take that into account when you evaluate this post.

Factually untrue, and I have thus far twice outlined how genocide-denial laws do not prevent critical historical investigation of the Holocaust in this very thread.
Saying "any" historical event is an exaggeration, admittedly, but we have more evidence regarding the Holocaust than we do of, say, all of the Crusades, the life of Jesus, or most other events in the Classical Period. And yet, the latter events don't have a massive contingent of people insisting that we need to be "critical" and "keep an open mind" about them not happening, or happening according to a completely contradictory model.

This is the kind of mistake that is easy to make when you look at countries only from afar and don't follow the day to day news articles locally.

There is something called precedence. How many have been prosecuted in various european courts for denying other genocides? How many have been prosecuted for holocaust denial? It's not like there's a shortage of even high profile people who openly deny armenian genocide for example.

If you only focus on the jure and ignore de facto, you don't get a clear picture.

 

[Kyria the Great]

You're the one who wants to believe more people died.

You are incorrect, it wouldn't matter if 50 thousand or 50 million died, that fact that the Holocaust happened is something that cannot be refuted. Then again I am of the same notion that even if only 5 million instead of 10 million died in the Gulag system, it still makes it just as odious and arguing about is rather moot at that point.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

You are incorrect, it wouldn't matter if 50 thousand or 50 million died, that fact that the Holocaust happened is something that cannot be refuted. Then again I am of the same notion that even if only 5 million instead of 10 million died in the Gulag system, it still makes it just as odious and arguing about is rather moot at that point.

Hypothetical: Suppose that somewhere in Eastern Europe (say, Poland or Ukraine,) some KGB vault gets unsealed and incontrovertible proof is revealed that they doctored the evidence of the Holocaust by adding a 0 to the death totals. No elaborate fabrications, no coaching survivors, nothing more complicated than adding a zero to the end of the death tallies. What do you think the reaction would be?

 

[TaimuRadiu]

Ok /pol/fags. Did the holocaust happen. I really dont want to shift through 22 pages looking for an answer in this awful thread

the KiwiFarms professional contrarian consensus is that "it obviously didn't happen but the jews deserved it and it should happen again. who are roma?"

 

[Emperor Julian]

Hypothetical: Suppose that somewhere in Eastern Europe (say, Poland or Ukraine,) some KGB vault gets unsealed and incontrovertible proof is revealed that they doctored the evidence of the Holocaust by adding a 0 to the death totals. No elaborate fabrications, no coaching survivors, nothing more complicated than adding a zero to the end of the death tallies. What do you think the reaction would be?

The logistics required of such an event being true mean I'd probably turn into some weird shack dwelling conspiracy freak as history itself is no longer really provable and I cannot reliably confirm even the most basic details prior to my birth. It's roughly the equivelant of finding out that Phantom time hypothesis was correct. It doesnt just discredit the event it discredits history, to the point I'd wonder if the Soviet union won the cold war and just didnt bother telling anyone.

 

[Lemmingwise]

turning over ostensible allies into Soviet custody despite assurances to the contrary.

Wait, that didn't happen, dit it? Details?

 

[Forgetful Gynn]

You are incorrect, it wouldn't matter if 50 thousand or 50 million died, that fact that the Holocaust happened is something that cannot be refuted.

Mass incarceration happened. A Burnt Offering did not.

The logistics required of such an event being true mean I'd probably turn into some weird shack dwelling conspiracy freak as history itself is no longer really provable and I cannot reliably confirm even the most basic details prior to my birth.

Wait, why would it be impossible? How exactly was the exactly 6 million number reached? What was counted? Census data before and after? And it came to exactly 6,000,000, not one more or less?

 

[Emperor Julian]

Wait, why would it be impossible? How exactly was the exactly 6 million number reached? What was counted? Census data before and after? And it came to exactly 6,000,000, not one more or less?

Shouldnt you know this since you're contesting the event?

also why are pretending that 6 million is the specific number and not just shorthand for the rough estimate? You can't seriously think people think it' s that a flat number?

 

[Forgetful Gynn]

Shouldnt you know this since you're contesting the event?

They chose the number because it had religious importance to them. There is no evidence for it. At most less than 400k died in the camps. Now what do you base your statement on?