Friday, August 18, 2006

The Saddest Attempt at Holocaust Denial I've Ever Seen

On January 8, 2006, Eric Hufschmid posted this Web page:

http://www.erichufschmid.net/Conspiracies12.htm

It contained this challenge:

You prove that the Holocaust is true

The American government has a collection of thousands of photos going back to the 1800's. I looked through every photo of the Nazi camps that I could find, but I could not find a single photo of a gas chamber for killing people. And the only ovens I could find were tiny.

Is there another archive that has photos of the Spielberg-style ovens and gas chambers? Or is it possible that the government never bothered to put those photos on the Internet?

If you believe the official Holocaust story, then you prove that it really happened as the government claims. Show us the photos, and explain the contradictory aspects of the prison camps, such as why the Nazis went to so much trouble to protect the prisoners from lice and typhus.

I looked through the evidence, and it looks like a big hoax. Show me where I'm making mistakes.


In response, I posted this page:

http://andrew.mathis.net/hufschmid.html

on which I answered several of the challenges. The notable answers were these:

Read more!

(1) On the issue of Hufschmid saying he "could not find a single photo of a gas chamber for killing people, I provided two photographs, both from the Majdanek camp.

(2) I answered Hufschmid's charge that the crematory ovens at Auschwitz-Birkenau were "ordinary funeral home ovens" and gave the relevant information on how they operated based on the document on these ovens from their produce, Topf und Söhne.

(3) In response to Hufschmid's challenge of "Show me where I'm making mistakes," I offered Bischoff's memo which used the word Vergasungskeller (gassing cellar), showed him, using several canonical studies of the Holocaust, that there is no "enforced death toll," the verdict against SS-Untersturmführer Max Täubner, which mentions a central governmental plan to kill the Jews of Europe, and, finally, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's speech in October 1943 in occupied Poznan, Poland, in which he speaks specifically of the "extermination of the Jews."

Hufschmid never responded to my challenge to answer these issues directly. Instead, I discovered on August 17, 2006, that he had posted this Web page on July 16:

http://www.erichufschmid.net/StopNaziCoverup.html

He begins by asking, "Why are we hiding evidence of Nazi crimes?"

The answer, of course, is that we aren't. What Hufschmid is doing is ignoring the evidence presented to him on my first Web page responding to him. He doesn't even try to disprove what I've presented him with. He simply repeats the same lie that there is little evidence to be found to support the normative history of the Holocaust.

Then follow a series of rhetorical questions and statements. I'll address the relevant ones:

(2) "Why is some evidence of the Nazi death camps still hidden from us?"

I'm not aware of any evidence that is being withheld. Hufschmid is being intentionally vague and, in fact, lying when he says that this is the case.

(3) "For example, there are lots of photos of gas chambers."

Really? Hadn't Hufschmid stated on his earlier Web page that there weren't "lots of photos" of gas chambers? He's correct on this point, by the way, but – again – he's not being honest.

(4) "We are told that the blue stains are proof that human beings were killed in this room by cyanide."

No, that's not what I said. I said that the stains were proof that the rooms that are agreed upon by historians to have been gas chambers show these stains as proof of repeated exposures to cyanide gas.

(5) "Actually, photos do not prove the blue stains are from cyanide!"

If Hufschmid knew even the first thing about the physical chemistry of the Holocaust, he'd know that this is exactly what the photos prove.

The word for hydrocyanic acid (the active ingredient in Zyklon-B) in German is Blausäure, i.e., "blue acid." Hydrocyanic acid is also known as "prussic acid." This is because cyanide is used to create a compound known colloquially as "Prussian blue," which Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary defines as "any one of several complex double cyanides of ferrous and ferric iron; specifically, a dark blue amorphous substance having a coppery luster, obtained by adding a solution of potassium ferrocyanide (yellow prussiate of potash) to a ferric salt. It is used in dyeing, in ink, etc."

(6) "However, even after 60 years, nobody is allowed to take samples [from the walls of the gas chambers]!"

Actually, this is patently false, and Hufschmid is either ignorant or lying. The Institute for Forensic Research Krakow was allowed to take samples not once but twice, producing two reports in the 1990s. But there was an examination of samples done in 1945 but another group in Krakow.

The reason that samples are generally not allowed to be taken from Auschwitz-Birkenau is that it is a largely intact historical site of great value, and since the studies carried out by the Polish-based organizations all found cyanide residue on the walls of buildings said by eyewitnesses (both Sonderkommando and perpetrators) to be gas chambers. Thus the point has been proved, and the Polish government, which oversees the site, sees no reason to prove it again or for people with questionable motives (both Leuchter and Remer were on the defense teams of National Socialists when they collected their samples) to be allowed to take samples.

(7) "More shocking, many Europeans have been arrested for advocating an investigation of the Holocaust, or for disagreeing with the official story."

I actually asked Hufschmid on the phone on August 17 whether he could provide a single name of a person who was serving any time under a charge of "advocating an investigation of the Holocaust." He couldn't provide one. That's because there aren't any. No one is in jail in eleven European countries that have criminalized Holocaust denial has a person in jail charged with "advocating an investigation." In fact, you can even disagree with the official story and not go to jail. In almost every country that has such a law, you have to publish or speak in public – not simply disagree, and the prosecutors have to be able to prove that you are trying to incite hatred against Jews. (Notably, Poland also has a law against denying the crimes of the communists who ruled that country from 1945 to 1989, but no one ever mentions that.)

(8) "Likewise, we are fools if we waste our time arguing about the Holocaust when we only have a few crummy photographs."

But that was not all I provided.

(9) "Furthermore, we must be able to take core samples at the alleged sites of the mass graves in order to find out if there really are millions of bodies in the ground."

Off the top of my head, I know that this has been done at Belzec, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Again, Hufschmid shows his ignorance of the facts.

(10) "The Jews helped Hitler and the Nazi party get control of Germany."

This is patently ridiculous, not to mention incredibly difficult to prove. The NSDAP was able to form a government in January 1933, and Hitler was appointed the chancellor as a consequence. This was the result of a democratic election. Unless Hufschmid can demonstrate that a minority that made up less than 1 percent of the German population in January 1933, then he is lying.

(11) "The Jews instigated both world wars."

I don't see how, and I've already addressed arguments from Hufschmid and Daryl Bradford Smith about this at great, great length.

(12) "The Jews created anti-Semitism in Germany to drive Jews out of Europe and into Palestine, and to unify Jews, and to bring pity to Jews."

Zionism was actually fairly unpopular in Germany in 1933. The vast majority of Jews that had settled in Palestine by 1933 had come from Poland the former Russian Empire.

(13) "Jews don't have funerals?"

Again, we see Hufschmid's ignorance. It is Jewish belief that once a body is buried, you do not disturb it. This is beside the point that probably half of the Jews murdered by the Nazis left no remains.

(14) "Many of the Jews are said to be buried in big pits, rather than incinerated."

Actually, this is not true, and anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Holocaust historiography knows this. Intact mass graves are pretty rare.

(15) "How about all the Jews that were turned into soap and lampshades?"

Not even normative historians believe these things. This is a red herring from Hufschmid.

(16) "The Holocaust should be considered a hoax until the Jews prove otherwise. The burden of proof is on them, not me or you."

And we have proven it countless times, as have countless non-Jews. Hufschmid's focus on "the Jews" throughout this entire piece belies a very serious prejudice, one noted by Dylan Avery and the other makers of Loose Change when they discussed the matter of the "9/11 Truth Movement" a few months ago. I have no interest in this bullshit, but click here if you want to hear Hufschmid exposed for the Jew-hater he is.

Finally, please note that at this writing (August 18), Hufschmid has refused to debate these points, even on entirely neutral territory.

18 comments:

  1. For the benefit of folks who need to catch up with the program... precisely who is Eric Hufschmid, and how did he get from the womb to spouting such bizarre stuff?

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  2. Eric Hufschmid wrote a book called Painful Questions in the aftermath of 9/11, blaming Israel for the attacks. He was one of the first guys to write such a book, and so he got his 15 minutes, etc., but when better books came out and when, in particular, Loose Change came out and people began to see that Hufschmid was a Jew-hater above all, he got jealous and went off the deep end. Or deeper, as the case may be.

    By the way, he also doesn't believe that Apollo XI landed on the moon.

    He's a moonbat.

    Oh and here's a picture of this dashing man.

    Wonder why he couldn't get into conspiracy theories? Because the Jews prevented him from getting laid, apparenly.

    a.m.

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  3. BTW, Andrew, you can always reinforce your point about Vergasungskeller with this document, which mentions a blower no. 450 for Gaskeller. We know from other documents that this blower was needed for LK1. Unlike with Vergasungskeller, there is no wiggle room for deniers whatsoever.

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  4. Wow. That's a freakin' slam dunk. How come I've never seen that before?

    a.m.

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  5. Hufschmid's a professional conspiracy theory nutbar. Check out his flyers for a conspiracy theory party sometime. That said, there are a lot of Holocaust Deniers and anti-Semites in the 9-11 Denial Movement. Check out Rick Rajter sometime or SPINE (Scientific Professionals Investigating Nine-Eleven)--check out item #6 on their FAQ.

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  6. Hey Pat,

    thanks for tracking back the link. I really appreciate what you've done with your blog to debunk the nutsos in *your* neck of the CT woods.

    If you think there are any other overlaps with 9/11 Denial and other conspiracy theories, we'd appreciate the heads-up.

    The more conspiracies they believe in, the stupider they look to the rest of the world.

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  7. (15) "How about all the Jews that were turned into soap and lampshades?"

    Not even normative historians believe these things. This is a red herring from Hufschmid



    How can the soap and lampshades be a red herring from me? These stories comes from the Jews

    Therefore, if the stories are a lie, the Jews have to accept responsibility for the lie.

    And we should ask, what else about the Holocaust did the Jews lie about?

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  8. You have not shown that any stories are lies, degenerate.

    You have not shown that all Jews spread these stories, and thus you have not shown that all Jews should take responsibility for them.

    I suggest you kill yourself.

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  9. Wow, Eric. Was that, like, the best you could do?

    Eek.

    a.m.

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  10. By the way, we should probably comment on lampshades and soap.

    These were propaganda pieces from WWI that got circulated during WWII also. The Jews that circulated these stories weren't *lying*, Eric. They believed what they were saying. The Allies who spread them probably knew they were lying, however.

    So "the Jews" weren't lying, Eric.

    What is it about you and "the Jews," anyway?

    Read this article for more info about yourself.

    a.m.

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  11. Makes me think the guy is just a Jew-hater looking for a hobby horse upon which to mount his theories, and he found one in 9/11. But where is he from, and what was or is his day job?

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  12. He's from California (go figure) and he's in software, AFAIK.

    a.m.

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  13. He's from California (go figure) and he's in software, AFAIK.


    Well, California explains the lunacy, and software explains the computers.

    I have to remind myself that California elected both Ronald Reagan AND Jerry Brown as governors.

    Why people devote themselves to these idiotic causes of hatred often puzzles me...but the satire on neo-Nazi oragnizations on Nick Terry's web page explains it.

    I guess Eric Hufschmid got pushed down the stairs in middle school and his backpack hurled after him a few dozen times.

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  14. Excellent work on this site but I find the endless presentation of historical evidence, when used in an effort to rebuke revisionist rhetoric, a profitless endeavor! It is certainly educational to anyone who is receptive but worthless to those who have predetermined to ignore it. Horse...water?

    Instead of taking the defensive against Holocaust deniers, who have always been impervious to facts, regardless of their validity, why not simply hold them to one, simple standard?

    "It doesn't matter what you believe. The only thing that matters is what you can prove!"

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  15. This comment will contain internet-slang, for which I apologize in advance.

    Very lulzy slamming of a seriously deranged anti-Semitic moonbat. As Orac theorized: conspiracy-theorists can't just stay with one subject.

    TL;DR version of this (most excellent) post should be: Eric Hufschmid is talking out of his proverbial arse.

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  16. How do you lot feel today,7 years later and all the good things Jews have done in that time....

    Has anyone found a jew-killing gas chamber yet?

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  17. Andrew, this is an excellent, thorough, and thought-out post. Brava! My favorite book of all time, "The World Must Know," by Michael Berenbaum, shows PLENTY of pictures that will give enough proof to the biggest nut job out there like Hufschmid! As much as you know about this topic, I'm guessing you have already read though. :)

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