Mass Graves at Sobibor – 1st Update

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The recent air photo showing part of the area around the circular "ash mountain" monument at Sobibor:



must be giving poor Gerdes sleepless nights.

That would explain his desperate efforts, on the CODOH thread My email to archeological 'expert' Yoram Haimi, to find a faith-conforming explanation for the greener areas visible on the photograph, which their aspect and all associated evidence (including but not limited to Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigations in 2001 and the related map, mentioned in the original article) show to be mass grave areas.

Gerdes' rationalization attempts only make matters worse for "Revisionism", as we shall see in the following item-by-item commentary to Gerdes’ latest CODOH posts.

Read more!


Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:31 pm:

Well, according to RM, Yoram lied to me about that photo showing all of the alleged 7 graves.

The one lying here, and unsurprisingly so, is Mr. Gerdes. What I wrote in my VNN post # 1147 was the following:

As to Yoram's "yes" to your question whether the air photo



shows all mass graves found had Sobibor, he obviously had other things on his mind and misunderstood you. The air photo doesn't show all mass graves, because it shows only part of the circular monument. As you can see on this plan:



only an air photo that covers the whole of the circular monument and surrounding area can show all mass grave areas.

Yoram Haimi currently has every reason to have other things on his mind, for there has been a death in his family. He must have overlooked the "all" in Gerdes’ petulant e-mail question:

Let me phrase that into a very simple yes or no question:

* Does the photo that you sent me show all the alleged "huge mass graves" allegedly found at Sobibor?

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:31 pm:

Here are some other photos I just found.

http://holocaust-info.dk/sobibor/sobibor_today/image8.htm

http://holocaust-info.dk/sobibor/sobibor_today/image7.htm

http://holocaust-info.dk/sobibor/sobibor_today/image3.htm

http://holocaust-info.dk/sobibor/sobibor_today/image4.htm

http://holocaust-info.dk/sobibor/sobibor_today/image2.htm

These obviously were taken before the concrete top was put over the "huge mass grave" / monument to prevent it from being investigated.

What’s the poet trying to tell us?

The photos that Gerdes points out were taken in July 1999, two years before Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigation in 2001. The first two show the "ash mountain" monument, which according to Yoram Haimi was erected in the 1960s and, as can be seen on the memorial plan:



(and also on Prof. Kola’s map) only covers a part of one of the smaller mass graves at the bottom by the road and a part of the grave that is the "base" of the huge inverted "L".

Or is Gerdes claiming that a concrete cover was placed on top of the "ash mountain"? If so – I’ll clarify this with Yoram Haimi next time I talk to him – the reason would obviously have been to keep the mound from being disturbed by vandals or by curious visitors, rather than Gerdes’ characteristic conspiraloon supposition.

The other three photos taken in July 1999 are captioned as showing mass graves. This could be accurate in what concerns Image 4, which seems to have been taken near the "ash mountain", whereas the other two have been taken inside the wood and thus do not coincide with Prof. Kola’s findings, apart from not showing the lush vegetation pattern that can be made out on the recent air photo. The photographer’s assumption that these two photos show mass grave areas is therefore probably not correct.

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:31 pm:

So I think that does show all of the alleged "huge mass graves," the monument being considered one of them (See Yorams first email to me.)

As to what the July 1999 photos show, see my previous comment. "Yorams first email to me", in which Yoram supposedly stated that he considered the "ash mountain" monument to be one of the mass graves, seems to be Yoram’s response to a question o Gerdes’ quoted in the fellow’s CODOH post of Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:04 pm (emphasis added):

1 - Does the "ash mountain / huge mound of human remains" actually CONTAIN human remains? (And you know for a fact that I'm not talking about the bones in the display cases in the wall of the mound - don't you Yoram?)

Yes or No?

2 - Do you consider the "huge ash mountain / giant mound of human remains / polished monument" to be a "mass grave?"

Yes or No?

Yoram’s answer, quoted in the same post, reads as follows (emphasis added):

Hi Greg

for question number 2 the answer is NO
because this is a memorial monument on the area of the 5 mass grave.

for question number 1 the answer is YES.

Yoram

It doesn’t surprise me at all that Gerdes is dumb enough to tell a lie that can be exposed so easily. He has done that before.

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 8:31 pm

Also note, if you haven't figured it out yet, the few bones in the glass display case ARE NOT from a jew.

Think about it.

Gerdes is referring to this photo of a glass display at the bottom of the "ash mountain" monument, which is featured in the Archives of The Ghetto Fighters House and included in my thread Mass Graves and Dead Bodies:



(GFH caption: "A glass display case containing ashes and bones of victims of the Sobibor extermination camp.")

Poor Gerdes seems to be convinced – on what basis he won’t tell, maybe he has some profound anthropological knowledge he doesn’t want to reveal – that the bones and the half-interred skull visible on this photo are of "Aryan" provenance.

I’d say it speaks volumes for the "CODOH Revisionist Forum" that such a wacko is considered a "valued contributor" there (yes, Gerdes has been awarded that dubious distinction in the meantime).

Gerdes, CODOH post Tue Sep 09, 2008 10:14 pm

I just found this also:

http://maps.pomocnik.com/satellite-maps/?map=4194

BTW, can anyone find a better image than that?

Gee, if a little bit of green means that there are jews buried just under the surface, then just think of how many are bruied in the surrounding woods?

The instructive imbecility of this valued CODOH contributor’s remark aside, this is where Gerdes gloriously shoots himself and "Revisionism" in the foot.

Here’s an enlargement of the satellite photo kindly provided by Gerdes, which essentially shows the forest clearing containing the circular monument and the road thereto:



Green areas in the middle of other green areas don’t tell us much, but greener areas in the middle of a forest clearing, in which the soil mostly looks gray rather than green on a satellite picture, tell us a lot. The satellite photo shows at least four areas with a ground coloration pattern that is distinctly different from the coloration pattern of their surroundings. In the following editing of this enlargement, I have numbered these areas 1 to 4:



These four areas, of which 3 can also be seen, at least partially, on the following edited version of Paul Bauman’s lower-altitude air photo sent to me by Yoram Haimi:



can be easily made out on the memorial map:



and correspond to the areas identified as "Grób" (= "Tomb") 2/2001 (area "1" on the edited satellite photo enlargement), "Grob 6/2001" (area "2"), "Grob 1/2001" (area "3") and the part of the base of the inverted "L" that is not covered by the circular monument (area "4" – I cannot make out the number of this "Grób" because it’s obscured by the black shading signaling grave areas) on Prof. Kola’s map, which I hope to receive the author’s permission to publish.

I thank Mr. Gerdes for this valuable contribution to the deconstruction of his "Revisionist" articles of faith.

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:00 pm:

Well, I think the glass display case was removed when the "ash mountain" got it's anti-investigation cover / makeover.

Photo from 1999:

http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa050899a.htm?p=1

Again, what’s the poet trying to tell us? If the glass display was removed, it is surely not the link provided by Gerdes from which this can be concluded. In the 1999 article by Jennifer Rosenberg under that link, one can read the following:

Encircling the base of the mound is a stone wall which has a glass display set in front that contains a small amount of ashes and bone.

Did Gerdes again forget to read before writing?

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:00 pm:

And look at how thick and green the grass is in that photo - right up to the edge of the walkway!!!

To anyone with a little common sense (of which Gerdes has none), the thick and green grass on Jennifer Rosenberg’s 1999 photo:



suggests that it was taken in the springtime. The summertime ground photo shown in the original article, on the other hand:



shows the surroundings of the walkway, especially on the left side, to be rather dried out (and, if it was taken from the same side, it also shows that the glass display is not there anymore, by the way – even a blind hen like Gerdes finds a grain once in a while). The photo is from a webpage that was last updated on 14 August 2008.

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:00 pm:

And look how green and "lush" (That's RM's favorite word for the slightly greener area in the photo that Yoram sent me.) it is in this photo here:

http://sk-i-ba.w.interia.pl/obozy/pages/Sobibor-kopiec.htm

So much for - "the areas where the green grass is growing is proof of human remians underneath."

Or does the above photo "prove" that there are human remains under every square foot of the camp at the time the photo was taken?

First of all, this 2001 photo that Gerdes makes such a fuss about:



was obviously taken in the springtime, when everything is greener. In the photos of this series, which according to Yoram Haimi were taken during Prof. Kola’s 2001 archaeological investigation, especially on this photo:



one can see that the grass in the area of the memorial was not all that green in the summer of 2001, when Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigation took place.

Second, the photo that Gerdes makes so much of – like the summer photo from Prof. Kola’s archaeological research – is likely to show one of the mass grave areas near the monument, presumably the area numbered "2" in my editing of Paul Bauman’s air photo:



Third, as straw-man toting liar Gerdes well knows, no one claimed that the greener grass growth alone is proof of human remains underneath. See the original article, and also my VNN post # 1097, where I wrote the following:

Now, how do we know that the greener areas are mass graves?

Not just because they are greener, though I doubt you can provide an alternative explanation as to why grass and weeds grow more thickly in some places around the monument than in others.

We also know it because the greener places happen to coincide with the places where Prof. Kola identified the mass graves in 2001.

Care to know how I know this, Mr. Gerdes?

Ask politely and I'll tell you.

And fourth (not that is matters) the "lush" I got from one of Gerdes’ brothers-in-spirit, the one who appropriately calls himself "MrNobody" (see the fellow’s CODOH post of Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:43 pm, quoted in the original article.

Gerdes, CODOH post of Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:00 pm:

Now look again at the areas greened up with Scotts Turf Builder in the photo Yoram sent me.

Recent photo:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Sobibor/Tour01.html

Also notice that some trees have been taken out. So the furrows that can be seen in the photo Yoram sent me were caused by the landscapers. So they created the effect themselves, because it most certainly wasn't there before the landscaping / monument makeover - The whole area had thick green grass - before they created their "mass graves" cognative illusion.

So one wonders, did the few nonjew bones get put under the new cover so they could say - yes, the monument "contains" human remains?

Gerdes, CODOH post of Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:24 am

MrNobody:

"All I see all over the site are Hundreds of years of Cultivation (Crop Sowing), Notice how deep the crop Furrows are, you wouldn't get this from a couple or years use (they wouldn't be discernible)"

Those furrows are very recent MrNobody - but not from crop cultivation at all.

What you see is the makings of a cognitive illusion. They had to plow under all that green grass so they could create an area that looked like there was something under those areas that are slightly greener than the other areas. Of course, just like how they always work, they're right there to explain to the sheeple exactly what they're looking at. Johnny on the spot with the "plausible" explanation.

"Why - what else could it be but physical proof that the Nazis killed 250,000 jews there? How else could it be explained? It MUST mean that there are human remains there."

As already became apparent from his last CODOH post quoted in the original article, Gerdes repudiates the "crop sowing" theory of "MrNobody" in favor of a full-blown conspiracy theory. In addition to manipulative dunging of certain areas (the "greened up with Scotts Turf Builder" – crap) he is now accusing "them" (whoever he means by that) of manipulative landscaping to create the "cognative illusion" (that would be "cognitive", Mr. Gerdes) that some areas in the forest clearing containing the "ash mountain" monument are greener than others. Before greening up some areas with "Scott Turf Builder", if I understand Gerdes correctly, "they" are supposed to have plowed under the fat green grass that, in Gerdes’ dream world, used to cover the forest clearing in summer as in spring. Or then "they" are supposed to have plowed under the grass throughout most of the clearing and kept it only, even dunging it with "Scott Turf Builder", in the areas "they" wanted to present as areas containing mass graves.

Needless to say, this completely baseless conspiracy theory – made all the more ridiculous by the size of the area where the gardening of Gerdes fantasies is supposed to have taken or be taking place – shows that poor Gerdes is hopelessly paranoid.

And his persecution mania, as we shall see in the following, also extends to the core samples from Prof. Kola’s 2001 investigation, which he also cannot explain away other than by spouting lame and empty conspiracy theories.

Gerdes, CODOH post of Wed Sep 10, 2008 12:24 am

Please notice that the core samples allegedly taken at Sobibor have never been analyzed. RM & Yoram are saying that we have to wait for Kolas report - Ha! Yoram could take a core sample and have it analyzed by this Friday.

Why do you think he refuses to do so?

Because the core sample photos are cognitive illusions also. Notice how they have "white stuff" that they are claiming is lime (What else could it be?) that was used to cover the alleged corpses. But please notice that for some strange reason, there were no corpses / human remains under the lime - not an iota. (But sheeple aren't supposed to notice that.)

First of all, it is rather likely that Prof. Kola had these samples analyzed following his investigation in 2001, like he did in regard to core samples collected at Belzec, to certify himself that they contain human remains as their aspect suggests. We won't know this for sure until Prof. Kola publishes a detailed archaeological report on Sobibor, but to bluntly claim that the core samples were not analyzed is nonsense.

Second, it’s not as if Yoram Haimi could simply go to one of the mass grave areas and drill into it. This is a memorial area. As Yoram explained to me, the area of the mass graves is "holy ground" for the Poles, and any core drilling or excavation there requires a special permission (on top of the general permission to do archaeological work at Sobibor) from the competent Polish government entity. Yoram has insisted on carrying out such drilling and excavation, but without an official government permission (which I understand has been applied for), no can do.

Third, the white substance on this core sample:



could be lime (the use of which alone points to presence of mass graves in the area, for what else would lime be put in the soil for, at least in this area?), but it could also be bone ash, an alternative that has also been mentioned to Gerdes.

Fourth, the presence of lime need not mean that there are corpses underneath – it may also be a leftover from the initial time of the camp's operation, when the bodies were still buried rather than burned, which remained behind after the bodies previously buried were removed from the graves in order to be cremated.

Fifth, if there were corpses underneath the lime, they would only show on a core sample if they had been drilled into, and drilling into corpse mass may well be something that Prof. Kola – after the fuss made by religious Jews in connection with his work at Belzec, see the article A Monumental Failure at Belzec, by Avi Weiss – may well have chosen to avoid when doing his subsequent investigation at Sobibor.

And sixth, one cannot but notice Gerdes’ silence about the other two samples shown on this page:





which rather than white lime or bone ash show a light-gray substance suggesting ash of human bone and tissue and (the second sample) a black substance that could be wood ash. For these substances – regarding which, like for the white lime or bone ash in the other sample, he as been asked more than once to provide an alternative explanation – Gerdes apparently does not even have a conspiracy theory at hand.

Gerdes, Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:00 pm

So one wonders, did the few nonjew bones get put under the new cover so they could say - yes, the monument "contains" human remains?

Did you notice how Yoram refused to elaborate any further and stopped answering my emails when I pressed him on this issue? (See email #13 above.)

Whoever has read Gerdes’ petulant interrogatory of Yoram Haimi, which Gerdes had the class of copying (together with Yoram’s answers) onto the CODOH thread My email to archeological 'expert' Yoram Haimi is probably not wondering why Yoram stopped responding to Gerdes, but rather marveling at Yoram’s patience with the fellow (which is exceeded by my own, for sure – but then I have a special reason for being patient, mentioned at the beginning of the original article). Demands as silly as for instance the following, quoted in Gerdes’ CODOH post of Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:04 pm:

Give an exact description (including the amount and location) of the alleged human remains that you say are contained within the "ash mountain / huge mound of human remains / polished monument" of Sobibor.

stand a good chance of being met with silent contempt, in the reasonable world.

Gerdes, Tue Sep 09, 2008 11:00 pm

That was the same mealy-mouthed, obfuscating BS that RM was giving me over on VNN. He continuously said that yes, the monument "contained" human remains, but steadfastly refused to elaborate any further.

I wonder how the heck I could have elaborated any further, having no information about the mound’s contents other than what is suggested from the captions of photographs showing that mound. The "mealy-mouthed, obfuscating BS" that Gerdes refers to is obviously my having frequently reminded him that under the circumstances it’s up to him to provide evidence demonstrating or suggesting that the mound, located at a place where all known evidence shows a great many people to have been reduced to ashes and other partial remains, does not contain human ashes as all related evidence suggests its does, and not the other way round.

Last but not least we have this pious statement of faith:

So now there is no need to do any archeological excavations they say. We have our explanation / answer they say.

Proof of mass murder and all it took was one false news conference with a fraudulent "archeologist (who never did a lick of work at the camp - if he was ever there in the first place.) and a little Turf Builder. Please notice that not one photo of Kola at Sobibor has ever been published and I still can't get an answer as to the dates he was allegedly there.

Go figure.

Not one single body or one single tooth or one single pound of crushed bone has ever been proven to exist at Sobibor.

NOT ONE.

Actually mass murder at Sobibor (and therefore any number of bodies or any amount of teeth, crushed bone or other human remains corresponding to the scale of that mass murder and the body disposal method adopted) was proven long before Prof. Kola’s archaeological investigation in 2001, through documentary and eyewitness evidence including but not limited to that mentioned under point IV in my VNN post # 777, assessed by historians and by West German courts at trials at which none of the defendants denied that Sobibor had been an extermination camp and some even provided detailed descriptions of the procedures at that camp – evidence that, incidentally, neither Prof. Kola (who is unsurprisingly and just as baselessly accused of fraudulence by barking madman Gerdes) nor his Polish government employers could have had any influence on.

What Prof. Kola’s 2001 investigation did so far was to provide further if unnecessary corroboration of the accuracy of the documentary and eyewitness evidence, even though, due to a conflict between Prof. Kola and the government entity that commissioned his work, little of this valuable documentation of the physical evidence has so far been released to the public. When this conflict is overcome and a detailed report about this investigation is published, I expect it to do much to enhance historical knowledge about Sobibor extermination camp, like Prof. Kola’s Belzec report did in regard to that camp. And if it doesn’t silence the conspiracy theories of fanatical cretins like Gerdes, it will at any rate make them look even more ridiculous than they do already.