You think that pointing out that "holy water" is in fact sewage from a blocked drain is the same thing as claiming that the systematic murder of 6 million people never happened?
Let's clear something up here. We will never know the truth.
Evidence was burned, paperwork destroyed, the 'responsible' people were trialled in private and executed, propaganda was all over the place, facts are omitted for political gain and people needed to save face. The official story needed to be promoted.
The people who deny the holocaust do not deny, but question whether or not the official story is 100% accurate or not.
However to have any political force disallow questioning the official story is not an acceptable situation. It undermines free speech and it purveys an unacceptable duality of reality and fiction.
Wars are always recorded in the eyes of the victors and are closed from future investigation (a bad situation).
Not quite - that's what your history teacher taught you.
There's evidence that an undetermined but quite large number of people sadly died in concentration camps during the second world war. The number, race and cause of death was not entirely determined and is not possible to determine any more. That's all the facts on the table - there are no more concrete facts at all believe it or not (find me a citation which is credible to prove otherwise!).
This is extrapolated into millions of Jewish people were killed in concentration camps which is the "official story" by the victors. The story came before evidence and evidence was destroyed before the story could be verified.
The main issue is that historical revisionism is used to piece together events so we can learn about the past.
When the label and respective charge of "holocaust denial" is placed one something, it is a closed subject where revisionism is no longer allowed.
It's an enforced dark age.
It should always be open for discussion and research. Perhaps one day some clarity will be found? Perhaps more can be brought to justice, perhaps more names could be cleared.
It's not closed, so don't close it is what I'm saying.
Is it really relevant if it was 6 million or 2 million or less. Regardless of the numbers it was mankind at its worst. Not the singular act of depravity, not the only act of genocide, but it does not need to be so to be condemned. I think there are better things to do than nitpick on the numbers.
At least the allied forces had the foresight to document the concentration camps. My first reaction to it when I was reading about it was, go on fight the war, cover more ground, why are you pausing over this "PR exercise".
But then they (Churchill et al) were right, I was wrong, clearly I am not made up for this kind of stuff.
The typical response. The burden of proof is on the inclusive case.
Were you there? If not, all you have is stories passed down built on propaganda. I don't disbelieve, but i expect evidence. I've been to Auschwitz btw - have you?
I dint get the moon landings point. They did happen.
There is in fact a mountain of evidence for the holocaust, much more than for most historical events. As much or more than evidence for the number of soldiers from various armies that died. Accuracy is not as good because estimates are consolidated from lots of sources. But the ballpark figure and the overall picture is very certain, mostly because of the huge number of different sources of information. For example:
A lot of the evidence is comparing population numbers before & after the war. here we have:
national census data,
synagogue or community records.
For example, in my grandmother's village they know (and documented) pretty much who lived there before. Who survived. Who died. And to a large extent, how. There is lots of speculation to make up the total of course: if someone died in the getto from nutrion related disease, does that count? Suicide? If 30% of the people just are unaccounted for how many do you assume survived and weren't found, died some other way or were gassed? In that case though, that number is around 30% and that is not atypical for local communities.
There are various other evidence sources as well: Nazi records (remarkably good), trial evidence from tens of thousands of witnesses in dozens of jurisdictions, guards, inmates, train drivers, local populations.
From that sort of evidence you can piece together how many people were gassed. For example you know from guards, inmates, locals etc roughly how many people came in a day during different periods. You corroborate that with evidence about how many bodies were disposed of. Stuff like that. This kind of counting is going to undercount significantly relative to the former kind of counting (before & after numbers) because it doesn't account for lots of other causes of death or disappearance, but thats expected.
None of it amounts to perfect accounting. If in Holland 150,000 people identified in a 1941 and 35,000 can be accounted for in immigration to Israel, the US & in the 1950 Dutch census, you have a good idea about how many died. We also know from Nazi records how many were deemed half & quarter Jews (as well as corroborate Dutch census numbers to Nazi records). Put it together and we can estimate a range of "missing persons". You have problems like the US not recording religion or Israel not recording place of residence in 1941 (maybe they were born in Belgium and eventually emigrated from France). Double counting, not counting. Part Jews that didn't identify in census data in 1941 also didn't identify later on so are hard to track. People changed their declared identities. Some assumed new identities altogether. Some immigrated to places that aren't recorded. Assumptions are made about these things. Maybe 150000 were murdered, maybe 75,000.
The real estimate is a range: 3-7 million.
As for the taboo. Thats a problem and its bad for finding truth. Mostly its a problem that Orwell put his finger on. "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." Basically, "denial" is a mostly Fascist phenomenon, at least in Europe.
That's some good information. Thank you. This is quality discussion.
The irony of the concept of denial is that those (like myself) who choose not to form an opinion yet are lumped on with the denying group. This very concept itself is a form of fascism / authoritarianism.
Bringing Orwell back into the discussion, this is a form of doublethink i.e. holding two contradictory ideas:
1. Fascism is bad.
2. We'll use fascist tenets to promote that fascism is bad.
You come off as more then withholding judgement opinion. You come off as challenging the general consensus opinion, including the academic one.
I'm going to give you the benefit of doubt and assume that you are in fact reacting to what you see as a censorship of discussion by tabooing the whole subject. My point with the Orwell quote is that in most cases of European "denial," it was being promoted almost exclusively by Nazi/Fascist sympathizers. Hence the labeling and stigmatization of "holocaust deniers," which incidentally was initiated mostly by the Germans of the 1950s, disgusted by the sins of their fathers.
In the 1960s Palestinians adopted a skeptical-conspiracy "denial" that was part of their conflict with Zionism. IE the holocaust myth was fabricated as an excuse for Zionist colonialism. The current chairman of the PA, for example wrote his doctoral thesis on the subject. Over about 20 years this simultaneously percolated into what has become semi-religious beliefs in the Muslim world on one hand and backed away from by its original proponents as their evidence was strongly and insistently refuted in academia. The aforementioned chairman, for example, no longer promotes these ideas. In the instances that it has merged with religion it has also adopted various medieval anti-jewish mythology and/or 19th century Czarist propaganda. Various Muslim brotherhood affiliates streams, for example, believe in the Czarist "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" document.
This is why I noted European denial separately. A lot of the modern leftist skeptics are influenced by this wave (rather than the earlier fascist one).
I am literally just withholding judgement. The opinion only needs to be challenged if it feels threatened. I do not wish to challenge it personally but would passively accept more information as it becomes available.
Genuine thanks for the notes - very interesting and a good read.
Actually the burden of evidence is on you. I know it's inconvenient, especially as you have little that you can cite, but they, them's the breaks.
Have you really been to Auschwitz? I don't believe you. I think you may have been near Auschwitz, or perhaps you're read about it. Prove that you've been there. Then explain how it's even vaguely relevant. At this point, I'll tell you I've been to more than one concentration camp, but that doesn't mean anything.
Oh, I just assumed that you didn't believe the moon landings happened. And it's amusing that you're pretending to not understand the point.
You've demonstrated my point entirely. I have been there but I cannot prove it. The idea that going there doesn't prove anything as well is valid.
So it's not possible to draw a conclusion, which is my point. So rather than be a "denier", I simply lack a conclusion and do not take the official one on faith.
What thesis one purports is inconsequential to the freedom of ideas. It stands on its merit or it doesn't. No need for bureaucratic intervention. Down with the idea police.
Also a load of stuff inherited from the EU which is very restrictive.
Unfortunately for us, the intent of the laws was good but when you take a look at how the laws are applied, they are usually used via interpretation to silence and detain people with an opinion, be it valid or not.
It's free speech for all (including the bad stuff), or no speech at all. The latter is all too common.
